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posted by janrinok on Wednesday January 31 2024, @03:48PM   Printer-friendly
from the moving-forward dept.

We are running very short of time for creating a new site. We have one member of staff who has already volunteered for a post on the Board; other staff are already busy with their existing roles. We are looking for an additional 2 community members who wish to serve on a temporary Board so that we can create a new company and purchase the data, domains and other assets from the current site. But perhaps I should explain a little further....

The Board should, as a minimum, consist of 3 people, A Chairman, a Secretary and the site's Accountant. These people will be named at the creation of the new company and will each assume one of those formal roles. There are implications to this. Firstly, the company data is not publicised widely but we can make no guarantee that it will always remain hidden from public view, either by a change in US law or by, for example, the action of an hacker. Therefore, any volunteers must be prepared to waive his/her anonymity although as things stand it should never actually be compromised. Secondly, this is a temporary post. The latest draft of Bylaws is a very good starting point but it has become apparent that they are not perfect. There will be changes required to the Bylaws and, when they have been changed and accepted by the Community, all posts on the Board must be filled by people who have been elected by the community. You could, of course, stand for election at that time if you so wish.

Currently, we are only looking at putting names to roles so that we can create a company. Your experience and skill level are not the most important aspects. We will employ an professional accountant to produce the annual formal account reporting and it will not simply be left to our own 'Accountant'. Rather, the role is one of providing checks and balances for any expenditure and the management of the site's accounting records.

How long the 'temporary' role will last is not something that we can currently forecast. But I would estimate it to be weeks or months rather than a long term responsibility.

I think any sensible person would agree that we cannot simply pass control of the site and finances to unknown people so we must limit applications from those who have held an account for at least 6 months and have contributed to the site. The staff will treat all applications as sensitive data and we will only refer to individuals by their user name in any discussions or at subsequent meetings. We will, of course, need to know your true identity and contact details for the creation of the new company.

This is a chance for us to move the site to a new start and to ensure that we can provide continuity of stories each day for everyone to enjoy. We will all be involved - Board, staff and community - in producing new policy documents that are a reasonable balance between discussions and freedom of speech. We are almost at our 10th birthday. Many people did not expect us to reach our 1st birthday. I would like to see the site looking forward to many more birthdays to come.

We can only achieve this with your help. The are approximately 250 unique accounts, excluding ACs, active on the site each week although not all commenting in stories. We are only looking for 2 volunteers.

If you wish to volunteer please send your email giving your username to admin@soylentnews.org with the word "volunteer" in the subject. All emails will be treated in the strictest confidence. Time is of the essence so please don't delay in contacting us should you wish to volunteer.

UPDATE: 31 Jan 2004: We have the volunteers that we need to create a new company, many thanks to them for stepping forward. However, if you feel that you have something to offer and you wish to volunteer also then please do so.

There is still some preparatory work to be done but I am doing that as quickly as I am able within my current time limitations.

Another point worth noting which may, or may not, be related is that the number of active accounts has gone over the 300 mark for the first time in many months. There are probably many more who are lurking or posting solely as AC.

janrinok

 
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  • (Score: 1, Touché) by khallow on Monday January 29 2024, @01:34AM (6 children)

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday January 29 2024, @01:34AM (#1342224) Journal

    This place has turned into a slightly less insane Gab. "Free speech uber alles" without some kind of check doesn't work, for the simple reason that it becomes a matter of who can spend the most time posting the fastest, and fanatics are a lot more likely to do so.

    Two questions: why the need for the check? And in what kind of conversation does posting the fastest matter?

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  • (Score: 0, Flamebait) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday January 29 2024, @01:59AM (5 children)

    by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Monday January 29 2024, @01:59AM (#1342227) Journal

    1) Because with no checks at all we'd end up crapflooded with spam and disinformation. The signal-to-noise ratio goes down the shitter.
    2) "Flooding the zone," Hallow. Don't pretend you don't understand this. You're one of the problems on this site, due to your complete lack of humanity and inability to view reality as anything but a series of amoral transactions.

    --
    I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
    • (Score: 1, Touché) by khallow on Monday January 29 2024, @02:24AM (4 children)

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday January 29 2024, @02:24AM (#1342232) Journal

      1) Because with no checks at all we'd end up crapflooded with spam and disinformation. The signal-to-noise ratio goes down the shitter.

      Notable spammers have been effectively dealt with and the spammer journals placidly do their thing without bugging us. Disinformation gets attacked rather aggressively when it rears up. It's not perfect, but nobody else does it perfectly. Are those really the checks you miss?

      2) "Flooding the zone," Hallow. Don't pretend you don't understand this. You're one of the problems on this site, due to your complete lack of humanity and inability to view reality as anything but a series of amoral transactions.

      Uh huh. When I talked [soylentnews.org] about my humanity and personal morality, you then pigeon-holed it as "of a consequentialist bent" and have since acted as if that never happened.

      • (Score: 1, Troll) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday January 30 2024, @02:32AM (3 children)

        by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Tuesday January 30 2024, @02:32AM (#1342340) Journal

        Your problem is hypocrisy: you consistently fail to live up to your professed moral standards, and worse, you will not be swayed or change your behavior when it's pointed out to you how and why you fail. I'm also a consequentialist (everyone is, since all three moral systems reduce down to one another), but I put what little money I have where my mouth is.

        You? You are a walking exemplar of evil, defined as "treating people as things and things as people" or, more accurately, "treating people as means and things as ends." This is the root of all evil. "Love of money is the root of all evil" is only a specific case. Your post history speaks for itself. My suspicion is that you are genetically a psychopath and simply do not have some of the neural machinery necessary to function socially.

        --
        I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
        • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday January 30 2024, @12:54PM (2 children)

          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday January 30 2024, @12:54PM (#1342385) Journal

          Your problem is hypocrisy: you consistently fail to live up to your professed moral standards, and worse, you will not be swayed or change your behavior when it's pointed out to you how and why you fail. I'm also a consequentialist (everyone is, since all three moral systems reduce down to one another), but I put what little money I have where my mouth is.

          The pointing out has to be sane first. Here's a couple of examples.

          pulling a claim [soylentnews.org] out your ass that libertarians believe something contradictory:

          the assumption that "business" and "government" are two quantitatively different things, and never, ever, in any way, ever overlap

          Blaming my alleged "libertarian buddies" [soylentnews.org] for the infectiousness of covid:

          You, and all your "libertarian" buddies, are part of the reason this crisis has gotten so bad so fast and will continue to get worse until it hits its own, as of yet unknown, breaking point.

          One can't show hypocrisy when one can't get it even remotely right in the first place. It's an exercise in futility.

          You? You are a walking exemplar of evil, defined as "treating people as things and things as people" or, more accurately, "treating people as means and things as ends." This is the root of all evil. "Love of money is the root of all evil" is only a specific case. Your post history speaks for itself. My suspicion is that you are genetically a psychopath and simply do not have some of the neural machinery necessary to function socially.

          I don't do what is alleged above. It's merely your fabrication. And once again, you speak nebulously of the "post history" without mentioning a single post from that alleged history. My bet is that the rational person could search the tens of thousands of my posts without finding a single serious example of your allegation above.

          Finally, psychoanalysis is a terrible way to analyze mere disagreement. Critical thinking has much better tools for doing that.

          • (Score: 1, Offtopic) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday January 31 2024, @01:57AM (1 child)

            by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Wednesday January 31 2024, @01:57AM (#1342467) Journal

            Why do I need to point out specific turds to note that your entire post history is shit? We all know what you are by now. I know you won't ever change, and it's not my intention to try to get you to change. This is all for anyone unfortunate enough to come across your posts without knowing what kidney of critter you are.

            --
            I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
            • (Score: 0, Offtopic) by khallow on Wednesday January 31 2024, @01:15PM

              by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday January 31 2024, @01:15PM (#1342502) Journal

              Why do I need to point out specific turds to note that your entire post history is shit?

              At this point, you haven't shown any of it is shit despite having had many years to do so. One of the linked arguments I presented above is from four years ago - you didn't show anything then either. If merely insisting something were true worked on SN, then we'd have many conflicting conspiracy theories going off at the same time.

              We all know what you are by now. I know you won't ever change, and it's not my intention to try to get you to change. This is all for anyone unfortunate enough to come across your posts without knowing what kidney of critter you are.

              You need to warn "anyone" who already knows what I am and thus, need no warning? That's called "cognitive dissonance".