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I blew it.
You rightly hold SoylentNews to a high standard and I let you down when I merged three different political stories into a single story.
Rushing to get out the door to get to work, seeing the story queue running out, having seen the interest in the UK elections in our IRC channel, having heard much on the radio concerning former FBI Director Comey's testimony, seeing a story appear on a likely nomination for that vacated FBI post, and aware of the guideline on only one Politics story per day — I made a hurried decision to merge all three stories together.
The community rightly pointed out the shortcomings in that decision. Rest assured I won't make THAT decision again!
In retrospect, it would have been much better if I released two separate stories — one with the UK Election vote, and another with a merge of the FBI-related stories with, say, a 12-hour spacing between them.
It is a privilege to volunteer for this site, one that I do not take lightly. I let down the community — you deserve better. Trust that I have taken this lesson to heart and will strive to do better going forwards.
--martyb
[n1: There will be a UK election story coming in the next day or so, when more details are available. The majority of the coverage so far is speculation and reports of agreements have been retracted.]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @09:07PM (8 children)
So here we have a shining example of (what some perceive to be) a mistake and a lesson learned. No fuss, no muss, just "Wow ... we'll do better next time."
If only our politicians - perhaps even those mentioned in the three combined stories - were so quick to recognize (possible) mistakes and were so open to take corrective action.
As punishment I suggest Marty B be sent to Washing D.C. and lecture all of those selfish, useless posers on how things can and should be done.
(Score: 2, Informative) by fustakrakich on Sunday June 11 2017, @09:40PM (4 children)
As punishment I suggest Marty B be sent to Washing D.C. to serve in the senate as an actual senator. Lecturing to psychopaths will get you nowhere. I'm disappointed. I thought everybody knew that by now. Don't bother 'lecturing' these people. You have to vote them out. It's the only way.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Sunday June 11 2017, @09:43PM (3 children)
Oh, and Washing D.C. [sic]...
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @12:51AM (2 children)
I took that as a Freudian slip. "Washing D.C." is what we need to do.
(and I first typed "Freudian slop"; caught in an infinite loop...)
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday June 12 2017, @05:56PM (1 child)
First, you need to drain the swamp, don't you?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by darnkitten on Tuesday June 13 2017, @07:05PM
We did--but we replaced it with Washington, D.C..
(Score: 1) by Empyrean on Monday June 12 2017, @01:20AM
Oh the politicians do say such things, but they almost never mean it. I suspect, however, that martyb really means what he says and will stand by it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @07:04AM
Wait, wait, I think I know the correct response to a news outlet admitting to a mistake. Ahem... * inhale *
FAKE NEWS!
* grin *
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Wootery on Monday June 12 2017, @10:00AM
In politics they have a word for the honesty and intellectual maturity to admit a mistake: "weakness".
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by VLM on Sunday June 11 2017, @09:07PM (1 child)
On the other hand, there were three stories but the comments will be indistinguishable "Trump Derangement Syndrome" victimposting combined with a bit of humor.
I mean, for any random comment in three stories couldn't it appear in the other two almost unchanged? Colo had something insightful on that topic in the original comments.
A large fraction of the readers don't understand UK election procedure or politics, Comey was pretty much a joke why is even being covered at all other than acute TDS, theres not much to say about the nominee that I know of, so all we gonna get is "my religion gives me good boy points for being holier than thou against those who are less progressive" and people making fun of them or just telling jokes.
Also I'll be the jerk who points out there isn't really any story to save the rest of you some time. In which case bundling a bunch of nothing together might rise to the level of being a story. Sorta.
The Comey thing is a weird psyop trying to convince people there are witches in Salem, errr I mean hackers in Russia, err I mean Russian hackers in our voting machines, ah its just to make bad appearing press. Someone at the DNC told the media this will be the strategy, probably the same idiot who advised Hillary, LOL, and I'm sure it'll backfire similar manner. With a side dish of maybe Trump asked if Flynn was off the hook because if he wasn't, a simple presidential pardon would fix that witch hunt rather permanently. There really isn't anything behind all the hot air at all.
The UK election thing seems to boil down to nothing? I'm not an expert and political types can talk up nothing into anything, but superficially in the long run its gonna be the same people doing the same thing as predicted, right? Its kind of like covering "groundhog day" in the USA.
The nominee for new FBI top cop is too new to say much of anything about the whole topic AFAIK. Has anything "interesting" been released over the weekend? AFAIK, "no". Meaning it really is currently a boring story.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @09:42PM
"On the other hand, there were three stories but the comments will be indistinguishable"
Yes, thanks to partisan posters like yourself, who can't comprehend someone with a different opinion. Funny that one of the worst offenders with Hillary/Obama/Comey derangement syndrome pointing this out.
(Score: 3, Informative) by PiMuNu on Sunday June 11 2017, @09:12PM (9 children)
I submitted the thing about the UK elections - I was surprised no one else had as it has been quite a big thing in the UK. I was a bit cheesed off that it got lumped in with the FBI stuff, but figured it was just a bad judgement. No problem. Thanks for the apology.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by VLM on Sunday June 11 2017, @09:27PM (8 children)
Whats up with that? Over here in the colonies the coverage has been limited and weird so more data would be more interesting.
So ... she called elections because she figured her position was deteriorating over time so naturally you call early to get the least deterioration. AFAIK.
Then they lost simple majority but are still in power and unlike in the colonies you'll just make some alliance deal... right? Isn't that what usually happens?
Some folks seem to be blaming her for the bad results, but she was the one who called for the election to begin with because the position was deteriorating, so obviously she did the right thing at the right time the right way, people are just whining that they don't like reality, so she's the bad girl, but in reality its not her fault. Sort of a Trump Derrangement Syndrome but in the UK with someone else.
What we're hearing in the colonies is that mostly a lot of nothing is going to change, right or wrong? Whereas if her party had somehow lost even worse, then things could have been interesting, but no its gonna be establishment as planned all the way with some minor differences.
Coverage has been very ... muted. Much like once it became apparent the Comey wasn't going to result in the impeachment of Trump, he hit the memory hole and is almost already forgotten in the mass media. Sessions is the next victim of the witch hunt, apparently.
(Score: 2) by n1 on Sunday June 11 2017, @09:53PM
As i said in my editor's note... There will be a proper UK election story soon, there has been a lot of coverage in the online editorial form, but very little in the way of actual confirmed details of the results... What was confirmed, the 'confidence and supply deal' with the DUP was retracted. The DUP has demonstrated they currently have the leverage... They are a small fraction of the vote and a local party, relative to national government... But they have the power to make or break the Tory government... They may remember what happened to the LibDems, when they entered a deal with the Tories in 2010. They did what they were told for the most part, and lost a lot of their voter base in 2015. The DUP have very narrow interests as a political movement and nothing to lose, the PM and conservative party is in a very different situation. Even the right leaning media in the UK have published many op-eds saying May should stand down, credibility damaged... so much for strong and stable.
We know how many people voted for who, but due to a lack of majority it's increased an already politically strained situation. As with the election campaign itself, and public positions on brexit policy... The current government, lead by PM May has decided to just not talk about it and just sticking to 'we'll do the right thing for the country' type rhetoric without giving any specifics.
There will probably be some announcements on Monday, or not.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by wisnoskij on Sunday June 11 2017, @09:58PM (3 children)
Been following it fairly closely.
May inherited the leadership from Cameron when he was disappointed with the Brexit Referendum result.
May and her party, the conservatives*, had a decent majority. *Think old school Republican's
At this point Corbyn, the leader of the Labour* party, was (quite literally) a laughing stock. *The only major opponent to the Conservatives and analogous to the Democrats.
May calls for an election.
Everyone knows the Conservatives are a shoe in.
"if you are not voting for Labour or the Conservatives, you are throwing your vote away"
Their biggest supporters go completely low energy and don't really feel it is worth putting effort into the campaign.
Labour campaigns like crazy.
No one really wants a woman in charge.
Racism and xenophobia is on the rise, becoming a major voting block and the Conservatives have a history as the most pro-immigration party in UK politics. Major anti-immigration groups endorse Corbyn because of his antisemitism and because anyone is better than the conservatives on immigration policy.
Basically. The Conservatives were so set against Brexit that leader of the country stepped down and refused to do his job when the country voted against him and his parties stance. That should of been a big warning sign that the people really were not big supporters Conservative policies.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by PartTimeZombie on Monday June 12 2017, @12:17AM
No, Cameron resigned because he nailed his colours to the mast of Remain, and lost. Prime Ministers are selected by their Party, they are not voted for directly. Cameron had lost the confidence of his Party.
Wow, not even nearly.
No, Theresa May, Cameron's replacement takes over the campaign completely, her strategy is to be the face of the Tories nationally and base the whole thing on her offer of "Strong, Stable Leadership" and her ability to negotiate Brexit. No-one is buying that.
True, they also promise to remove the hugely unpopular University fees, which will make everyone better off. Corbyn is also surprisingly relaxed and natural and comes across as a potential leader for the first time.
Bullshit
Both main parties are pro immigration, (at least their policies are). In truth the Brexit Tories are pretty racist and were mostly the ones pushing for the leave vote so that they can get rid of the free labour movement part of the EU agreement.
So set against Brexit that the bloke that will probably wind up the next PM is... Boris Johnston, the guy who ran the whole Brexit campaign. No-one is more pro-Brexit that Boris, and he is in the Conservative cabinet.
I'm glad you've been following the UK elections, but you seem to have misunderstood most of it.
(Score: 4, Informative) by theluggage on Monday June 12 2017, @09:40AM (1 child)
Well, by US standards, politically speaking, the Republicans are a tad right-wing by Conservative standards, the Democrats are roughly equivalent to the center-left portion of the Conservatives and the other parties are what Mom and Pop warned you about in the 1950s. By UK standards, the Republicans are more like the DUP (except bigger... and the name "republicans" would be a problem).
Labour also have the problem that they're the main party for both the acadamic/progressive/socialist vote (the Liberal Democrat party being a busted flush) and the traditional working-class vote (who actually tend to be somewhat small-c conservative).
No. I'm not saying that antisemetism and anti-immigration don't exist in UK politics (and I'm not defending either), but they are not connected (well, except maybe one of the UKIP's poster choices, but that's another story...) The Labour Party are typically pro-immigration, anti-racism but the left is also, traditionally, pro-Palestinian, which gets them into trouble whenever someone oversteps the line on discussing the middle east and re-discovers Godwin's Law by comparing Israel to the Nazis (see: Ken Livingstone).
Labour usually support immigration (on ideological grounds) as do Conservatives (because its good for business) but it has recently been the main dog-whistle for the Brexiteers (whether or not they believe their own propaganda) who have drummed up anti-immigration sentiment amongst both Conservative and Labour voters. Of course, although all the economists seem to agree that immigration is great for business, it might help if some of the proceeds of that went to building and staffing schools, hospitals, affordable housing etc. to support the extra population.
No, the problem is that both major parties are split on Brexit. The hard-right minority of the conservative party want it so they can get rid of all those pesky workers rights so they can turn the country into a low-wage tax haven and hand pork to their own businesses. The hard-left minority in the Labour party want out so that they can get rid of all the pesky enforced free-market competition stuff and take state control of industry.
Cameron went into the 2015 election expecting a second hung parliament. He promised a Brexit referendum mainly to ward off the UKIP threat but also to try and heal the rifts in his own party - assuming "remain" would win easily. Turns out he was wrong about the hung parliament (in 2015) and wrong about "remain" winning. Looks like the days of the Tories thinking that they can call the results of an election are definitely coming to a middle...
Meanwhile, Corbyn is pretty obviously lukewarm on Brexit and was heavily criticised for not doing more in the referendum campaign. In any case, one of the upsets of the referendum was the number of labour-voting areas that voted to leave (guess what: traditional working-class voters aren't actually that progressive!) with immigration being one of the key "doorstep issues".
The problem is, now, the tories are still riddled with a mixture of rabid Brexiteers and rabid Remainers and can't afford to call any vote that won't satisfy both. Don't expect to see too many government defeats, but any bill that actually gets presented to parliament will be heavily watered down to ensure that the issue doesn't arise.
(Score: 2) by wisnoskij on Monday June 12 2017, @02:51PM
The Left-right dichotomy is completely worthless, especially now, in defining American politics. The two parties have the exact same policies but with different target audiences.
It is particularly ridiculous now since the Republicans just elected a hard core liberal democrat to president, and the only serious democratic candidates were anti-gay marriage. One small government pro-wall candidate who objected to the government legislating marriage and the other a war hungry career politician who spent her entire career stating that marriage is between a man and a woman.
The only notable difference is in their audiences. The Republican's campaign for low to middle income Americans. The Democrats specialize in Academia, Big Business, and Minorities. This is often simplified into the Urban-Rural divide. Something that mirrors UK politics.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @11:35PM (2 children)
> Coverage has been very ... muted.
Gee, I wonder where you get your international news? Plenty of UK election coverage on my local NPR outlet (NE USA), and even more after midnight when that FM station switches over to the BBC World Service. I often play this BBC news on the clock radio sleep timer when going to sleep, something about the British accent lets me doze off pretty quickly.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @01:56AM
Plenty of UK election coverage on my local NPR outlet
Pacifica Radio in SoCal for the previous week (and more). [archive.li] (orig; Will age rapidly) [kpfk.org]
Scroll to Friday June 9 and the 2 hosts (Brad and Suzi) who made the effort to type in some comments show evidence of their coverage.
Other hosts (though they didn't supply a blurb specifically for the audio archive) were covering the story as well.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday June 12 2017, @11:54AM
muted in a relative sense.
news.google.com shows exactly one story about the current UK situation on the right side "Britain's PM May to face her party amid post-election tumult - Reuters Staff"
Meanwhile there's about two dozen Trump Derangement Syndrome rants, two Apple posts one about WWDC last week review and something about foxxxcon, and the PR election and other rando news. Apparently the CEO of GE is retiring, etc.
The UK situation sounds more interesting than "UK's Channel 4 to Tell 'Trump: An American Story' - Variety - 35 minutes ago" I mean, seriously, we're getting more coverage over here of UK coverage of our own politics than we get coverage from the UK of UK politics.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @09:15PM (2 children)
That's a man's admission, not a boy's...
MartyB, you're all right, you are... it takes guts to do this. You did and you learned from it.
Please continue your contributions, they are valued!
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Monday June 12 2017, @05:14AM
I completely concur. Of course, there is also the minor matter of the requisite accompanying penalty [youtube.com].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @05:36AM
Agreed. It's good to change behavior but it takes balls to admit you were wrong. Thanks for all your work martyb!
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @09:17PM (1 child)
Kill yourself now.
(Score: 2) by Kell on Sunday June 11 2017, @11:34PM
Says the boy who never made a mistake, ever.
Scientists ask questions. Engineers solve problems.
(Score: 3, Funny) by wisnoskij on Sunday June 11 2017, @09:24PM
His Words: "Brexit is coming."
(Score: 3, Interesting) by frojack on Sunday June 11 2017, @09:26PM (4 children)
Amid all this hoopla, Puerto Rico is voting today (Sunday 6/11/17) on whether to seek full statehood.
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/06/11/532482957/puerto-rico-votes-on-statehood-though-congress-will-make-final-call [npr.org]
You would think, with all the press, they would be trying to get Statehood with Mexico. But no, the majority is still expected to vote to seek Statehood in the United States.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Sunday June 11 2017, @09:33PM (3 children)
Hoping to federalize $120B of P.R. debt, well, hope all you want its free...
Also for practical political reasons the R controlled congress is not going to admit a left leaning new state.
I'm not seeing them admitted any time soon.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @10:53PM (1 child)
Yeah, a Republican controlled administration is never going to admit them. They should have applied to join the EU who would have welcomed them with open arms, had Goldman Sachs cook the books, put them on the Euro and finally have placed them in exactly the same debt servitude bankers have destroyed Greece with.
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday June 11 2017, @11:26PM
Agreed, if you're going to open your borders to packs of wild animals, then you might as well admit those wild animals who have decent music and rum and love bikes and guns.
That being said, we should be the ones offering to pay other nations to take Puerto Rico from us.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday June 12 2017, @04:46AM
Seems most voters realize that and just stayed home. [nola.com]
Still, of those that cared enough to vote, 500,000 vs 14,000 (97%) is pretty strong results. (I've given up attributing any validity to vote boycotts. Screw em!).
With the natural resources the place should be a tourist haven. With the amount of farmland, they should be able to supply the lions share of their own food. They get very little aid from the US government compared to States, but they pay no federal taxes.
If they were a state (population 3,679,220) they would be right in the middle of state populations, bigger than 22 existing states, which means they would be entitled to 5 seats in the house an 2 in the senate.
And yes, that's probably why this isn't going to get any attention in Washington.
The US has avoided any extensive military deployment there (even though the main harbor would make a good naval base), fearing stirring up an indigenous anti-us rabble. In fact the US has closed several Army Reserve bases they used to have.
The place has been mismanaged for 100 years (both by themselves and by the US). Like every ex-Spanish colony they have hopeless governments.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Sunday June 11 2017, @09:51PM (3 children)
... you'll be first up against the wall.
But seriously - I thought the merged stories were appropriate, and did not agree with all of your flamers.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @09:56PM
Well now we know MDC is a UEL. United Empire Loyalist. Relocate to Canada while your Queen has a few years of life still in her.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @10:18PM
Probably because you are too connected to US space?
The two stories are different by implications.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Monday June 12 2017, @06:32PM
But seriously - I thought the merged stories were appropriate, and did not agree with all of your flamers.
Namespace Pollution: If you use the word "conservative" in a political thread about UK and US politics at the same time, what do you actually mean?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday June 11 2017, @10:19PM
No hard feelings either.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @10:37PM (5 children)
I had no idea.
Should we avoid posting political stories?
I submitted the mathamatical modeling of gerrymandering story because the queue was almost dry and put it into Politics instead of just Science, but I didn't know it was going to eat at some quota. Don't we have the nexus so people can avoid Politics if they wish?
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @10:56PM (2 children)
This bullshit apology story just ate the Politics quota for today?
If martyb weren't a complete utter disingenuous cunt, he would have put this shit under Meta where it belongs. What a fucking cunt.
(Score: 4, Informative) by n1 on Sunday June 11 2017, @11:02PM (1 child)
I decided to leave it in Politics.
The reason for this is... If you have Politics unchecked in your preferences, then you would not have seen the original story anyway so it's irrelevant to your use of the site. If you're an AC then it doesn't matter either, as you can't set preferences.
I could have put it in both Politics and Meta. I am a cunt, martyb is an honorable gentleman.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Monday June 12 2017, @06:33PM
I am a cunt, martyb is an honorable gentleman.
Hmmm...is that a UK cunt, or a US one?
(Score: 2) by n1 on Sunday June 11 2017, @10:56PM
There is no hard limit, but we do try to maintain a focus on technology and science. In my opinion there is such a wide intersection where politics meets science and technology. Your submitted story is a good example of this.
We should have some focus on political stories that actually have some wider relevance and importance, not some super localized or hyper-partisan issue that's going for point scoring. This is all very subjective, but we just don't want a situation where every other story mentions some divisive politician or controversial but marginal policy proposal... When it's important yes, but this is not the place for every utterance from the figureheads of political factions.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday June 11 2017, @11:12PM
Theoretically, although ACs can't turn it off without logging in AFAIK.
It is more of an informal rule than anything. It was also recommended that Politics nexus stories be slotted in between two regularly-spaced stories to prevent a gap for users that turn off the nexus. In general I would recommend submitting science, tech, astronomy, software, techonomics, business, etc. over what could easily be another cancerous political story. However, the gerrymandering story you submitted is one of the better political stories. And many stories that don't get the nexus applied can still have political elements and could easily spark a Politics-sized flamefest.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Gaaark on Sunday June 11 2017, @11:21PM (1 child)
Keep up the good work Marty and everyone else.
Yeah, I know... ass-hat will come along now and say something unkind.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @03:35AM
One "Oh shit" wipes out a thousand Attaboys.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2, Insightful) by woodcruft on Monday June 12 2017, @12:03AM (1 child)
Although it's appreciated.
I guess the audience for this site is largely from IT but it doesn't mean we have no interest in other matters and on occasion you get times when a pile of say important political events happen, like recently.
In the past year we have seen a number of seismic political events that are going to impact not just us but our children and grandchildren. It would be negligent if you editors didn't let us have our say.
As for the rule "that only one political story can be posted per day"....rules are there to be broken.
:wq!
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @12:58AM
I 2nd this. MartyB, you contribute so much to this website, and through it, us, that I can only thank you for posting what you feel is important. As always I have the power to skim past it; but I'd rather it be there in the 1st place, giving me that option.
Thank you!
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @03:52AM
I don't see what all the fuss was about. It's an interesting thought, and I'm glad martyb tried it--lumping the political stories of the day into one. I'm not convinced it's wrong. There is a real dilemma we have here, of scope and identity. I expect some difficulty as we figure it out.
More importantly though, thanks a million for running soylent, martyb and whoever/everyone else is doing it. I think it's awesome. And thanks for trying something different, keep it up
--Fock
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday June 12 2017, @10:42AM
Don't sweat it, martyb. You work hard for the community.
Folks who criticized it could mix their feedback with pitching in a bit. Many hands make for light work, but also in an all volunteer effort like this it separates productive feedback from deleterious carping.
Or they could ignore the Politics posts or not invest emotionally in them.
Washington DC delenda est.