SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
I've long wanted SoylentNews to have much more in terms of content, and user participation. Many discussion sites such as reddit allow users to create their own independent communities-within-communities and as of the rehash upgrade, we've finally laid down most of the fundamental ground work for us to do the same. Right now, we have two nexuses, Meta, and Breaking News, and plans to add more. As one can see, by browsing these nexuses directly, you can see the intended communities-within-communities effect we want to generate. Right now, users can configure their home page to exclude or include nexuses they are directly interested in.
To clarify, rolling out community nexuses will not impact the main page; the intent of this upgrade is to allow more niche topics to have their own place of discussion and allow users to customize their home page as they see fit. For instance, if we have a nexus about Minecraft, you could elect to have those posts show up on the main page. To prevent us from falling into pitfalls experienced by other sites, I want to make sure we get the dialog going on this now and have a firm plan to hit the ground running. Our community defines this site and without that we are nothing, so we both want to make sure we do this right and provide opportunities to give back.
Overall, here's what I want to discuss
- Avoiding Community Fragmentation
- Community Governance
- Monetization and Revenue Sharing
- In Closing
Check past the fold for more information.
Avoiding Community Fragmentation
Every time the topic of expanding SoylentNews comes up, there's a fear that we may fragment what is already a very small community. While I understand where these concerns are coming from, I'm not sure that fear is justified. My thought here is that if you're reading SoylentNews for the articles and community, being able to stay on SN to read more niche topics would keep you here. For example, I'm a fairly avid Dwarf Fortress fan, but I can't discuss the game here; as such, I either post on /r/dwarffortress or on Bay12 about it. A Dwarf Fortress community on SoylentNews would allow me to discuss one of my favorite games here instead.
The intent is to keep the main page of SoylentNews as it is right now; a source of general news and information; the editors will remain in control of what is (or isn't) posting to SN front page. I don't want to move to a reddit (or firehose) style voting system for articles since I feel that would: lower the quality of content here, cause unpopular information to get buried, and wreck what IMHO has been a rather good system thus far. Individual nexuses may decide to use different criteria for their information, but said content would be limited to that nexus. Or in other words, this would be a purely additive change, not a revolutionary one.
Community Governance
Another thing we've promised since near the start is involving the community on major decisions and policies that this site would take. As such, it's been a relatively informal system with an article going up, feedback collected, and then acted on. I feel that if we're going to expand the site, a more formal framework of governance needs to be established — acting as a checks-and-balances system for the entire site. The fact of the matter is the original Slashcott, or reddit's current self-destruction process could have been averted had the community had a proper say in governance and other actions. For example, Wikimedia, the Ubuntu Project, Debian, and the Apache Foundation all have an elected set of users that act as community advocates.
Having community governance in effect is supposed to act as a circuit breaker — to prevent the staff from acting against the wishes of the community. We have a proven track record of being forefront in both listening to and acting on community concerns, but the entire system is dependent on the goodwill of the staff. People change as time goes on and it's possible that if we're here in ten years, none of the current staff and developers will still be here. Lest us forget that the green site was a haven for many of us until Dice took over. For SoylentNews to survive indefinitely, we need to have a system in place to make sure that the goodwill of the staff isn't the only thing keeping us from going into the abyss.
The problem is: where we do we define this line? Too much debate would cause everything on SN to grind to a halt; too little would prevent governance from being effective.
Furthermore, I'm concerned that a traditional-style community council would be ineffective. I struggle to remember any case where such a system really acted as true force of power in any organization I've been involved in. As such, I would like to think that we may want to mimic national conventions system from Article V of the US Constitution. Specifically, if X number of users (where X is a large percentage of the community), or nexus admins (acting as representatives of their community) across the site form and sign a petition, we could set up a convention to allow the community to overrule the staff and reform the site as necessary. Such a system would give the staff a relatively free hand in day-to-day operations, while acting as an effective circuit breaker to allow the collective force of the community to come to bear if it's ever necessary. This system can be directly incorporated into the bylaws, giving it legal power to enforce its demands, and not some wishy-washy system that can be ignored. I'd like to hear suggestions and feedback from the community on how best to proceed on establishing a system that allows the community to have significant power if it ever should need it.
Monetization and Revenue Sharing
I know this is going to be a touchy subject, so I want to clarify that nothing is set in stone. The simple fact of the matter though is that SoylentNews PBC requires money. As of right now, we can cover our server hosting costs with revenue coming in from subscriptions. This is a very good place to be, but I'd like to do better. I've made no secret that I'd love to get to the point that, long term, SN can do independent journalism, or at least have part or full time staff dedicated to improving the site. In the shorter term, I'd like to have the resources to form a parent not-for-profit to oversee the site, and the mission objectives as laid out by the manifesto, and even perhaps pursue 501(c)(3) status.
For those who don't remember, when I discussed incorporation originally, we hit a major snag that SN follows such an unusual business model, combined with the fact that most not-for-profit corporations deal with things like parks or fire departments. While it is certainly possible to form a not-for-profit that covers SN, it would require a lawyer to determine the specifics, in addition with the usual costs of forming a business. With that in mind, SoylentNews PBC (our legal overlord), simply doesn't have the resources to do that. Forming the non-profit and making sure checks-and-balances are directly incorporated into the bye-laws would make sure the site would never be at risk of a buyout, regardless of who is leading the site, and a cornerstone in fulfilling our promise to the community.
Furthermore, there's the moral aspect to consider. It's a simple fact that without the community, we wouldn't be here, or as successful as we have been. As such, if we end up monetizing community nexuses, at least part of those funds should go to those who volunteer their time and effort here, both the staff and the overseers of a nexus.
I've got a couple of ideas that I'd like to bounce off the community to see what the general feelings are. This is broken into two parts: monetization ideas, and revenue sharing.
Monetization Ideas
Require Payment To Create A Nexus
This was the most obvious idea I had when I started drafting this novel. Pay a bit, and create your own community. I'm not really a huge fan of this idea, because it means that someone has to pay to create a place to discuss things, and my gut is telling me that this would go against our mission statements, even if on paper it seems completely reasonable to me. There is perhaps a middle ground that we could limit nexus creation to subscribers. Overall, I'm very much on the fence for this idea though.
Offer A Premium Tier
As a second option, we could allow nexuses to get additional functionality, such as the ability to fully re-theme their section of the site, have nexuses-within-nexuses, provide subscriber features to all users within a nexus, or provide general file and image hosting. I'm largely open to ideas on both what we could offer, and how much it could cost.
Other Ideas
Beyond these two, I've also considered the possibility of allowing community nexuses to run their own advertising, or selling hosted independent rehash instances for a turnkey website. I'm not sure either of these are good ideas (though hosted instances may be useful as a side business), which is why I didn't write about them in length. I'm of course always open to good ideas from the community on the subject
Revenue Sharing
I've said it before, and I will say it again, but this site is nothing without its community. If we're successful in increasing our revenue, then part of that money should be given back to that community, either in the form of free subscriptions or nexus upgrades, or as cold hard cash. Any of the editors here can tell you that building a community of any sort is a massive job and very time consuming. The admins of community nexuses will have to face the same challenges and time commitments that the editorial team current does. As of right now, subscriptions cover our hosting and legal costs, but not much more. If I could, I would give every person who has volunteered their time and effort a paycheck, but that's simply not feasible. What we can do, however, is set a small portion of incoming revenue aside for re-investment.
Once community nexuses are live, subscribers (or those re-upping a subscription) will be able to set a nexuses that gets part of those funds (the default will be the nexuses the user is currently browsing), and the option to "leave a tip" so to speak. Most of that money will go into the general fund to pay for the site or to build a legal war chest, but the tip will be set aside, and placed in a fund for that community. That fund can be used by admins of a given nexus to give their users free subscriptions, buy the premium tier, or other site related functions. We can also create the possibility of "cashing out" so to speak, though that will require discussions with our CPA and lawyer. I realize that this is unlikely to ever generate a significant amount of money, but it may allow for a local gathering with free beer or something. Specifics (and legalities) have to be hashed out, but I would love to hear the communities thoughts on this.
In Closing
Its been a wild 1.5 years, and this site has grown far beyond my initial expectations. While I can't say what the future holds, I want to make sure we have the ability to cement our future in a more permanent fashion, and not fall victim to the same pitfalls that destroyed (or are destroying) sites like Slashdot, digg, or reddit. Its possible this is all a bad idea, and I'm depending on everyone to get your feedback and to readjust things.
On one final note, a few users keep asking us about warrant canaries. I've never done one of these before, but I'm hoping that this will help assure those who are concerned that we've been warranted or something:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1
SoylentNews PBC has never received any requests for law enforcement, or
has diverged any user information as required by a court of law or similar.
Headlines of July 5th as of writing:
The Climate One Year On: Exit Carbon Tax, Enter Brown Coal
Contact Temporarily Lost With New Horizons
NVIDIA Shows a Realistic HairWorks 1.1 Demo with 500K Fluttering Hairs
President/CEO
Michael "NCommander" Casadevall
Signed with:
pub 4096R/D2247639 2011-05-12 [expires: 2016-06-09]
Key fingerprint = 37F0 1189 3BAE 3611 C45B 8E15 733E 1A42 D224 7639
uid Michael Casadevall <mcasadevall@ubuntu.com>
uid Michael Casadevall <mcasadevall@debian.org>
uid Michael Casadevall <mcasadevall@kubuntu.org>
uid Michael Casadevall <mcasadevall@soylentnews.org>
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If anyone wishes to build a chain of trust to my GPG key to verify this message, I'm based in western New York, and available for key signing parties.
~ NCommander 
(Score: 5, Insightful) by MrGuy on Monday July 06 2015, @03:21PM
Why?
That's not rhetorical. I'm honestly curious. There's no rationale stated other than "other sites do it too." And I can see a lot of reasons why this is a bad idea - (see any news article about reddit of recent vintage for an object lesson).
Again, why?
Do you think people will want to pull their conversations out of their current homes in established homes and bring them here? What's the rationale why they'd want to do that? The reason (I suspect) you discuss Dwarf Fortress on Reddit is that a LOT of OTHER people on Reddit like to talk about Dwarf Fortress. Are you going to have your conversation in two places? Or have it here, even though there's likely a much smaller community of like-minded people?
This feels like a solution in search of a problem. I like SoylentNews because I like SoylentNews. Not because I want it to be the front-end to every meaningful discussion I want to have on the internet.
And there's the problem. If the main reason you're doing it is because YOU want to do it - not because the users want it, or there's demand for it, or there's a reasonable justification, then you're scratching a personal itch.
It's your site. Do with it what you will. Just realize many of us are here because we felt that running a community by fiat was a bad idea.
If you have a reason for this other than "because I felt like it," well, happy to have that conversation. If nothing else, some rationale about WHY you think this is a good idea would be appreciated.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Monday July 06 2015, @03:29PM
This feels like a pretty level-headed take on the subject.
Subreddits work because people just know you can go to reddit and find or (rarely) create a subreddit for any old subject.
And that, in turn, works because the founders of reddit did a ton of work to create a false, then real image for the site as exactly that sort of hub. They talked about how in the early stages of the site they'd sock a dozen accounts to make discussions seem more active, or dig up any sort of material to post to keep the site active.
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Tuesday July 07 2015, @10:18PM
We already act as a type of hub though for a large swatch of stores. I actually believe we ran a dwarf fortress article on the main page on a slow news day. If I didn't want to use reddit, USENET works great for finding forums for basically any topic (or otherwise taking a trip to alt.config and getting a group made). What we offer is our threading system, article management systems, and moderation system. Furthermore, I'd like to expand the site functionality wise to include NNTP support, and we offer the chance for users to author their own plugins and get them installed on production if they pass code review.
Still always moving
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Wednesday July 08 2015, @02:39AM
I won't tell the owner of the site not to be optimistic about its future. Please, try and achieve something, and leave naysayers like me in the dust.
It'll be fun dust either way.
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Wednesday July 08 2015, @03:57AM
Appreciated. I know some people will dislike change whatever, and I admit that this was something as a hard sell to the community because the specific benefit wasn't obvious. Its fully possible I sink a ton of time into this, and nothing comes of it which would be depressing, but what can you do but try?
Still always moving
(Score: 4, Insightful) by takyon on Monday July 06 2015, @03:44PM
The nexus feature gives the opportunity to let users submit/publish more niche content, content that wouldn't normally make it to the front page. It also allows better filtering of stories for users.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 06 2015, @03:46PM
What doesn't make it to the front page?
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday July 06 2015, @03:57PM
Actually just about everything that hits the submission queue makes it to the front page.
I think if we had a "dwarf fortress" nexus, to use NCommander's frequent example, posts to the Dwarf Fortress nexus would not make it to the main page automatically, unless an editor also added the "Main Page" nexus to the story (you can have multiple, just like topics). Then users could use filtering options to either promote all "Dwarf Fortress" stories to their personalized homepage, or filter out anything with the "Dwarf Fortress" nexus attached (even if it had "main page").
In the end, nexus is kind of like topics, except there are more features available and we expect that users will apply for nexus-specific editor privileges so they can post narrower content.
Something I can think of that reaches the front page now but might be better for a nexus is open source version history. We have random stories like "TAILS Linux 1.4.1 is out" which are sometimes main page worthy, but we could shove them in a code-related nexus, promote some major releases to the main page, and even use a bot to submit new version releases of big projects. If there were 5 such stories a week, you probably don't want them all on the main page, but some users might choose to glance at it or comment on it routinely.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by tynin on Monday July 06 2015, @04:32PM
Even scripting / programming language specific nexus's. That way everyone can see what a hack I am with both Bash and Python! Sometimes you got to fake it till you make it!
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday July 06 2015, @05:05PM
If you want a Bash/Python nexus where you can post code tutorials and news, I don't see why it can't happen.
I just wonder about:
1. nexus inactivity after the fun ends or nexus "owners" leave
2. nexus options cluttering dropdowns and other selection mechanisms for submitting and editing stories
I guess if we don't approve a very niche nexus, there's always the user's journal to post that stuff.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday July 06 2015, @07:51PM
To your list I would add
3. Nexus hive-mind setting in (as it has in Reddit) where the Nexus becomes a clique of name calling bashers
4. huge nightmare to manage and ends up attracting nothing but ACs flaming each other
5. drawing a huge crowd of narrow interest trolls unwilling to support the site in any meaningful way
In short, the more focused a Nexus was, the more likely it is to be abused.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Tuesday July 07 2015, @10:11PM
Good points here. We need to have a way that's lined out where the staff can intervene. For instance, if a nexus is essentially abandoned, I don't think many would complain if we added an admin to it. But how to handle a misbehaving admin. This requires quite a bit of thought.
Still always moving
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday July 08 2015, @12:56AM
Maybe have an option to sort the nexus dropdown by last post date. So if there are 50 nexii and one doesn't get a post since August 2015, it will appear near the bottom of the list.
The chance of misbehavior will depend on how open the system is and how many admins appear. At our current scale of less than 6000 registered users, it won't matter much and we can chide or ban as necessary while easily spotting the wrongdoing. Scale up to Slashdot or really make it super easy to start a nexus, then we could see standards drop. Remember, one of the points of the Reddit protest(s) was that "harassment" was loosely defined. So there should be clear rules or it should be made clear from the beginning that the staff can nuke a nexus for the smallest of reasons.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 5, Interesting) by zocalo on Monday July 06 2015, @04:13PM
This is probably what I'd be more likely to use it for, especially if I can set a "preference" for each nexus individually. It ideally needs to be a three-way switch though; I wouldn't necessarily want to exclude all stories on a given nexus only to have something major slip through the net because a topic of no general interest to me is set to "ignore". Perhaps the following three preferences for the main page:
Always show on main page (appears no matter what)
Only show if on main page (the default)
Never show on main page (have to specifically visit the nexus page page to view the story)
Something akin to the "rolled up" stories on the other site as an additional option might be nice to have as well.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Tuesday July 07 2015, @09:24AM
It also allows better filtering of stories for users
The biggest problem for SN at the moment is that readers come for comments more than stories and many stories don't have enough comments to be interesting. Making it easier to avoid seeing stories seems like the opposite of a solution here.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Tuesday July 07 2015, @10:13PM
A lot of people dislike meta stories, they just want news. We want to let people have a site the way they want it. If they want raw tech and science, and fuck the rest, they'll be able to. If they want a more broad experience, they can get that too.
Still always moving
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 06 2015, @03:49PM
I'm not sure that adding a site capability necessarily forces its users to use said capability.
I say go for it,
Also cool about a canary. Good luck.
(Score: 2) by WizardFusion on Monday July 06 2015, @03:52PM
I agree with this, while I see the need to splinter the site into different communities, it could easily be done with the current topics we have now: News, Software, Business, etc.
That said, it does sort of kill most of your ideas for getting in revenue. :(
I like your idea of Community Governance, and if you are looking for volunteers, I will be happy to help out if needed.
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Tuesday July 07 2015, @10:22PM
I think a major point is we should probably migrate most of the current topics into nexuses to increase the users ability to filter them, and make everything more consistent.
Still always moving
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday July 09 2015, @12:29PM
I'm for this. It would make things much more configurable for users and not really significantly difficult to administer.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 06 2015, @04:40PM
People keep complaining that this site has too much non-"news for nerds" stories while others like the broad subject range that falls under "SoylentNews is People".
Nexuses would address this problem better than the current topic-based sorting of stories. Why? The topic sorting does not allow as much wiggle-room of cross-posting "bigger" stories "Android 6 Released" to the main page and nexus while posting nexus-specific "small" stories "Android 6.0.1.2 Released".
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday July 06 2015, @04:43PM
a LOT of OTHER people on Reddit like to talk about Dwarf Fortress. Are you going to have your conversation in two places?
Something interesting to think about, rather than interest communities, might be something like categorizations.
Think of nexii named "lets have a political debate", interviews and reviews, "official or unofficial ask SN", "lets make fun of clickbait and bad popular science", "something obscure you've never heard of", "people who hang out here would think this is cool", "breaking news". I'm sure 5 minutes would produce a better list of names for the same general ideas.
That MIGHT be a better nexus organization than a more detailed topic oriented aspect like the DF example. The detailed topic oriented thing like /r/dwarffortress has already been done to death on other systems, like reddit. I'm struggling to think of a categorization scheme on another site, other than I guess Fark with its "Florida" tag.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by frojack on Monday July 06 2015, @07:42PM
Do you think people will want to pull their conversations out of their current homes in established homes and bring them here?
That reads like you are not among those of us who are refugees from that green site.
But your user number suggests you probably are.
Did we not mostly arrive here under such conditions?
Might there not be some focused sites that end up being the exclusive domain of a clique of jerks?
Maybe significant numbers of enthusiasts just want to get away from site where the first response to any post is a spew of name calling.
Admittedly there doesn't seem to be a big demand for nexuses (horrible name by the way). But maybe _gewg needs a place where he can echo all his liberal postings day-in, and day-out, and hang out with like minded folks. Or maybe we would be discussing Linux distro installations, if there was a place dedicated to that without flooding the main page with linux stroies and boring the bulk of Soylentils to tears.
It seems to me that we all done a good job in submitting stories that are likely to draw wide interest. Do some of us NOT submit because our field of interest isn't as eclectic, and we'd rather avoid rejection?
(You have to do a pretty bad job at submitting to get rejected. I've had exactly two stories rejected, and each time because someone else had submitted a better or earlier story on the same topic).
My worry is how do you expect to find editors to handle submissions that are in narrowly focused nexuses without them becoming advocates for specific positions. Our editors are already overworked.
Undomesticated Equines couldn't tow me through the dust via a fibrous binding to a Dwarf Fortress post.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 06 2015, @09:30PM
I self-censor my submissions because this site needs comments to survive. I only try to submit stories that can generate enough interest with the general community to get participation. Many science stories get less than 15 comments because there either is not much to discuss or it is too field-specific.
I've had submissions about SCOTUS cases that were rejected even with a limited number of stories in the queue. The editors make their own judgement calls and I trust them to keep this site alive.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 07 2015, @03:45AM
I would like to get a reason for submission rejections, so I can improve in the future.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Tuesday July 07 2015, @09:14AM
This is in the pipeline.
(Score: 4, Informative) by janrinok on Tuesday July 07 2015, @09:12AM
Please, keep submitting your science stories - do not confuse the number of comments with the level of interest in the topic. Many science stories provide us with hard facts and solid research; often this means that there is not much to say other than 'well done' to the original researchers. However, lots of us - myself included - enjoy being kept up-to-date by the science stories that do get printed.
There is a reason that there is a gradual shift to stories that are non-technical, and that is that people are not submitting as many science stories. Your (misguided?) self-censorship is actually part of the problem and not the solution. Are you making submissions to garner kudos on this site, or are your stories enhanced by your own interest or even expertise in the subject matter? If the latter, then your stories are perhaps more valuable than some trivial story that collects hundreds of comments, the majority of which provide no insight into the discussion.
This is an area where the use of a Science nexus would provide us with accurate data as to the level of interest shown in the various topics. Currently, all we have are page hits which, while useful in some ways, do not provide any measure of the quality of the comments.
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Wednesday July 08 2015, @03:58AM
As a note, the page hit counter admins can see is not accurate. It only counts logged in users, and a single AC when the cache is refreshed.
Still always moving
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 06 2015, @11:41PM
maybe _gewg needs a place where he can echo all his liberal postings
s/liberal/anarcho-communist
ISTM that if we charted each Soylentil's political position, those dots would cluster closer to my there's-more-than-enough-to-go-around/let's-work-together position than around the law-of-the-jungle/every-man-for-himself position.
...and when there isn't agreement, it makes for some of the most spirited discussions.
.
The point about editors already being stretched is interesting.
Wouldn't each nexus have its own founder(s)/editor(s)?
maxwell demon gave this tangent some thought below.
.
My thinking on this expansion is that there aren't enough Soylentils yet to justify it.
At this point, it has the smell of something desperate that Dice Holdings might do.
(I like the comment by Francis below.)
.
The post above by WizardFusion is the closest yet to my thinking.
There should be some rethinking of the current categories available on the Submission page.
A small amount of effort there could yield significant results for folks who want stuff pre-filtered.
shortscreen riffs a bit on this below.
FatPhil below him mentions tags (an idea I like).
The biggest shortcoming that exists in the dropdown list notion is when a topic suits -multiple- categories.
takyon also mentioned above how dropdown lists can get too bloated/cumbersome.
-- gewg_
(Score: 2) by frojack on Tuesday July 07 2015, @12:29AM
My thinking on this expansion is that there aren't enough Soylentils yet to justify it.
At this point, it has the smell of something desperate that Dice Holdings might do.
On the smell, we agree. but I doubt NCommander is anything like Dice.
If this is a mechanism to generate revenue, even by corporate sponsorship or advertising, I'd rather see a clear proposal to go that route than spreading the same pound of butter thinner. I doubt giving you your own playground would pay any bills. Nor would discussions of
But giving some popular Gaming company or Distro their own nexus as a discussion area might bring in a little money, especially i it allowed them to demonstrate a hands off approach. Oh, and I do sort of worry about fiefdoms forming and dog being wagged by tail if Nexuses have their own editors.
But hey, thanks for taking my jabs in the good natured way I intended them, and also submitting stories about a wide variety of subjects, not JUST the areas I tease you about.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.