Join our Folding@Home team:
Main F@H site
Our team page
Support us: Subscribe Here
and buy SoylentNews Swag
We always have a place for talented people, visit the Get Involved section on the wiki to see how you can make SoylentNews better.
Earlier today, we ran an article detailing that Oracle released 270 critical security updates for many of its products, including MySQL cluster which we use here to provide high uptime and reliability for SoylentNews. Needless to say, it was time to upgrade both NDB backends, and the four MySQLd frontends. While the upgrade did not go completely smoothly due to the fact that MySQL strict mode got enabled, and broke the site briefly, our total downtime was less than five minutes or so. Right now, we had to do a full flush and purge of all caches, which means the site is running a bit larky until they can repopulate but I'm pleased to announce we're up to date and secure!
ndb_mgm> show Cluster Configuration --------------------- [ndbd(NDB)] 2 node(s) id=2 @redacted (mysql-5.7.17 ndb-7.5.5, Nodegroup: 0) id=3 @redacted (mysql-5.7.17 ndb-7.5.5, Nodegroup: 0, *) [ndb_mgmd(MGM)] 2 node(s) id=101 @redacted (mysql-5.7.17 ndb-7.5.5) id=102 @redacted (mysql-5.7.17 ndb-7.5.5) [mysqld(API)] 4 node(s) id=11 @redacted (mysql-5.7.17 ndb-7.5.5) id=12 @redacted (mysql-5.7.17 ndb-7.5.5) id=13 @redacted (mysql-5.7.17 ndb-7.5.5) id=14 @redacted (mysql-5.7.17 ndb-7.5.5)
If you notice any unusual breakages or slowdowns, please let me know in the comments. Otherwise, keep calm and carry on!
~ NCommander
A couple months ago we ran a story asking the SoylentNews community for volunteers to help with editing and the community did not let us down; we received a full dozen inquiries! You've probably noticed a few new names art the top of the stories and quite frankly, their contributions made it possible for the staff to survive the holiday season — many, many thanks!
If, for whatever reason, you did not want to be an Editor, but still wish to contribute, there are many other areas:
There are many rewards for contributing. Just to be a part of such a diverse and knowledgeable team is indescribable. I have learned so much from some amazingly helpful people. So join up as an editor, submit stories and comments, moderate, or help the site to keep running.
Lastly, spread the word. Share a link to the main page, to a particular story, or even to a single comment.
--martyb
Hi Guys, Soylent's Editors do a lot behind the scenes to keep the community going. As a gift idea for them this year, please consider submitting lots of stories over the next two days to get the queue nice and full. Then they'll be able to schedule in their appearance on the home page ahead of time and take Christmas (or Hanukkah) off to spend time with their friends and families.
If you've never submitted a story before, here are guidelines for composing a story submission. You submit it here.
My own method is to find tech/science articles from SN's RSS-bot or a dozen other sources like the BBC or sciencenews.org, grab the title, and a couple of paragraphs that communicate the gist. Often I'll add a quip, question, or note of my own, but that's up to your personal taste. It's easy and takes under 5 minutes per story.
Thanks for reading, and have a happy holiday!
[Ed Note: The week between Christmas and New Years is always slow for submissions and time is a precious commodity for all of us. The more subs in the queue, the further out we can get the story queue, and the more time we have to spend with our loved ones. Any help you can give would be appreciated!]
Hopefully you will have noticed a number of new editors that have appeared to help keep this site running. They have been active for over a week but you might not have noticed them if you have been enjoying the Thanksgiving Day holiday, or just spending money during Black Friday (which seems to last longer each year!)
Snow, Charon, FatPhil, Fnord666, and GreatOutdoors have completed their training and are busy making their contributions to the team, and there are several more volunteers who will begin training in the near future. I hope that you will welcome them and keep them busy by providing more and varied submissions for them to battle with. They have already significantly reduced the strain on the editorial team and we are all breathing a collective sigh of relief back here. Thank you for volunteering guys!
I will put this to you, the community, in a very straight, simple (hopefully understandable) way.
The editorial staff is a small, hardworking group. There are currently about 5 of us that are actively pushing stories out on a regular basis, and we need help.
We humbly come to you, the community, to solicit for a volunteer or two. We will provide all the necessary training, at a cost of just 3 easy payments of $999.99US, or entirely free if you apply before 1 Apr 2099.
For that pittance, you can expect to learn:
In all seriousness, we all are busy and have lives. So do you, and we get that, but for this community to continue to thrive, we need a little fresh blood on the editorial staff. Some of us have been at this since the site went live almost 3 years ago (janrinok and martyb have posted over 3000 articles EACH). To put it in perspective, the site has only run about 14,500. Some of us came on almost a year later, but like any organization, there has been attrition, and we need to replenish.
We are starting to see some of the tell-tale signs of burnout, and to avoid that, we need your help.
If you are interested, please feel free to reach out in the comments below, via email ([nick] at soylentnews dot org), or hit us on IRC. If we aren't there (we all LOOK like we are logged in all the time due to the bouncer, but we may not actually be there), /join #editorial and leave a message — we will get back to you.
Remember, it isn't all doom and gloom! Working on staff, you will be on a team with a fantastic group of REALLY smart (myself excluded) people. I can honestly say I have made some really good friends from this experience, and I've even gotten to meet one of the guys in meat space. It is something that I am truly glad I took advantage of when the opportunity came around.
Thanks for listening, and with a little luck, we will see one or two of you pretty soon.
Live Long and Prosper,
-cmn32480
[TMB Note: Seriously. You really don't want me having to pick stories.]
[Update: see this comment below if you've expressed interest in volunteering.