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On average, how many stories do you submit to Soylentnews each month?
| 72% | 148 votes |
| 13% | 27 votes |
| 3% | 7 votes |
| 0% | 0 votes |
| 3% | 8 votes |
| 0% | 2 votes |
| 1% | 4 votes |
| 3% | 7 votes |
[ Voting Booth | Other Polls | Back Home ]
- Don't complain about lack of options. You've got to pick a few when you do multiple choice. Those are the breaks.
- Feel free to suggest poll ideas if you're feeling creative. I'd strongly suggest reading the past polls first.
- This whole thing is wildly inaccurate. Rounding errors, ballot stuffers, dynamic IPs, firewalls. If you're using these numbers to do anything important, you're insane.
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On average, how many stories do you submit to Soylentnews each month?
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Can anyone remember when the times were not hard, and money not scarce?
(Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Friday June 17 2016, @05:10PM
I suspect the results of this poll can be generated with a few well-crafted database queries.
I suspect you want people to explain why they submit as many stories as they do.
I am mostly anti-social and don't really troll news sites myself.
My one story submission was the result of lurking on several IRC networks (which I don't normally do).
(Score: 2) by n1 on Friday June 17 2016, @05:26PM
The real purpose is devious and more nefarious than you could ever imagine...
But no, we're crap at making polls that don't involve and this one dropped into the submissions queue this morning, it's still there to be seen. [soylentnews.org] And sure, it's nice to have that discussion every so often about why we do or do not submit stories to this fine website...
(Score: 1) by shanen on Sunday June 19 2016, @04:17AM
I'd give you the mod points, but I also want to comment and that isn't allowed on the source (slashdot). I wanted to comment that I visited Soylent News on the recommendation that it had a better model for journalism.
My initial observations said not so much. My longer term observations say absolutely not so much.
In between I tried to suggest a better model. Well, at least an alternative model. Can't say it's better without trying it out, but I'm quite unable to see how it could be worse.
Anyway, wasn't able to detect any interest in change. I persisted a bit, but you know the joke. (That also killed my interest, even including such trivia as the local moderation rules.)
So why am I still here?
Definitely not for the stories, which are almost always delayed dupes of the parent website.
I bookmarked Soylent News in a list that sometimes gets opened and haven't been sufficiently motivated to delete it yet.
#1 Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice{5} ≠ (Beer^4 | Speech) and your negative mods prove you are a narrow prick.
(Score: 1, Troll) by Gaaark on Sunday June 19 2016, @01:09PM
So: get motivated.
Or stop whining.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 1) by shanen on Sunday June 19 2016, @07:56PM
Excellent example of a whiny little burp. Congrats, Gaaark.
Perhaps you could strain yourself and suggest something more constructive. Or give a hint as to what sort of motivation to do precisely what.
No, let me predict you'll just fart another little whine.
My suggestion was an alternative financial model to support better journalism. Must have been a good idea, since it apparently needs to be rammed down someone's throat. My real problem is that I've never been much of a throat rammer, eh?
#1 Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice{5} ≠ (Beer^4 | Speech) and your negative mods prove you are a narrow prick.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Sunday June 19 2016, @08:50PM
Or, show us your journalism skills, perhaps?
You come on here, say 'you should do this'. No other help?
No contributions to our story queue?
No financial contribution?
Just 'you should do this'?
Fart all you want, or get off the pot.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0, Troll) by shanen on Tuesday June 21 2016, @02:01AM
Well, look what I stirred up under this rock. It's a Gaark.
Oh, you didn't mean yellow journalism skills? Fooled me again.
Actually, since 2000 I've been a professional technical editor helping other people publish papers. Also writing and referring for many years before that.
Soylent News? I would not recommend to ANY of my authors (and some of them have rather poor writing skills in English) that they consider such a venue as this, even if they just wanted to practice their English writing.
Too feeble, too non-constructive, and most importantly, too few readers.
Thanks to such valuable contributors as the Gaark, no doubt.
Now on the financial contribution side, I certainly could, but NOT on the basis of the existing financial model as I understand it.
Considering the evidence to date, I'm obviously an idiot to hope that Soylent News could be improved. Of course I can sustain my idiocy by regarding Gaark as a wandering idiot rather than as a spokesman for anything or an entity that deserves as many keystrokes as I've already wasted in this "conversation".
#1 Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice{5} ≠ (Beer^4 | Speech) and your negative mods prove you are a narrow prick.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Tuesday June 21 2016, @10:59AM
Sigh.
Again, i hear 'Since 2000 i can haz cheezeburgerblah, blah, blah, but i haven't the skills to contribute a single thing except for 'wah, no one will listen to me'.
Troll, why not show us these amazing skills. Contribute something.
All i see is sadness: i have nothing to contribute, so i'll hang around and try to troll people and cry.
If SN is such a sad place, why not just go away and cry at slashdot: maybe they'll see your amazing whine skills and hire you there.
Contribute something useful (or do you not really have skills?).
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0, Troll) by shanen on Wednesday June 22 2016, @10:21AM
Okay, troll, you got me. I wasted the time and looked over your track record, Gaark.
You are in no position to cast any stones for having accomplished anything that can be detected here. It's possible you contributed something useful or constructive somewhere and I just couldn't find it. Maybe I'm just an expert at finding crap.
#1 Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice{5} ≠ (Beer^4 | Speech) and your negative mods prove you are a narrow prick.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Gaaark on Wednesday June 22 2016, @05:03PM
Ha...
You took the time to look at my 'crap', but haven't found the time to delete your bookmark?
"Do... or do not. There is no try!"
You took the time to look at my 'crap', but haven't found the time to contribute anything with these 'skillz' you supposedly have!?!?!
"Do... or do not. There is no try!"
Yup. I have crap.
Yup.
Yup.
Yup.
My 'crap' submissions vs. your...... uh....... uh...... uh............uh....... uh...... uh........
Contribute something. Shit, contribute ANYTHING!!!
"Do... or do not. There is no try!"
Maybe you're just crap!
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 1) by shanen on Thursday June 23 2016, @01:17AM
Thanks for submission of additional garbage, but it doesn't meet our present requirements.
Censorship, too? Now I need to ask if you've ever heard of Voltaire?
#1 Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice{5} ≠ (Beer^4 | Speech) and your negative mods prove you are a narrow prick.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Thursday June 23 2016, @10:25AM
Well, i guess i can't 'goad' you into submitting something.
It was nice 'conversing' with you.
If you do ever submit something, it will be nice to see. :)
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 1) by shanen on Thursday June 23 2016, @11:03PM
Boring.
#1 Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice{5} ≠ (Beer^4 | Speech) and your negative mods prove you are a narrow prick.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Sunday July 03 2016, @08:15PM
Actually, you were pretty boring. Other than impotent whining about how we obviously fail to meet your high standards, you've produced nothing constructive whatsoever. My interest was somewhat piqued when you started going on about journalism models.... but then did nothing to further explain it.
Let's be clear here; You've only contributed complaints. Yes, that's actually pretty boring when it's not paired with any actual insight, extra information, ideas, constructive criticism, scrambled egg recipes, etc.
There is a saying I've grown quite fond of (need to paraphrase it):
You seem to operate under the belief that you are a journalistic professional with vast skills. I find it very sad that your skills can only be used to lodge vague complaints that have no constructive value whatsoever.
Stop threatening us with deleting the bookmark, and find the courage to just let go of us. Likewise, we will find the courage to do without your "mad skillz" :)
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 1) by shanen on Sunday July 03 2016, @09:06PM
Buried somewhere in that load of ad hominem BS was a relevant question. Do you [edIII--such a pompous handle] even know what it was?
Unfortunately, I cannot provide any convenient answer that might fit inside your pointy little head. Notwithstanding that, I really do hope for the success of Soylent News, but it's nothing personal. Obviously. I just accidentally added a journal entry that addresses that topic pretty directly, though it was certainly NOT a byproduct of Soylent News. I wouldn't want you to get the misleading impression that you motivated something positive or constructive.
Oh yeah, what was the relevant question? "Who am I?" I am certainly not a journalist, though I have done a lot of work, both donated and as a paid professional, that is related to journalism. Most of that was in technical areas, and I suppose I could continue, but certainly see no reason to do it on behalf of the 17 readers of Soylent News.
My list of personal identities has always been somewhat confusing, Multiple degrees and four completed majors, though I often feel I leaned more in the areas where I didn't actually get any official paper. Philosophy is on the list, but I don't think I could claim "philosopher" as my primary identity, even with some qualification such as "skeptic" or "Socratic". Always been a hobby and I've only published a few bits that might be partly classified as philosophical... Until I retired (quite recently), it was easy to focus on my various professional identities. As I was reviewing some of my papers, I realized that I had worked in three different startups, though I had basically forgotten about the first two. I knew there had to be SOME good reason I wouldn't invest in my own executive capacities, not withstanding one apparently counterexample...
Perhaps I'm primarily an observer. I enjoy noticing solutions that are intuitively obvious to the most casual observer. Even that contains a problem, because most people do NOT take it literally, but jump to the idiomatic interpretation. Think carefully, and you'll realize something about why people are so blind and narrow-minded. You [edIII] must be an extremely narrow expert, eh?
#1 Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice{5} ≠ (Beer^4 | Speech) and your negative mods prove you are a narrow prick.
(Score: 1) by shanen on Sunday July 03 2016, @09:10PM
Got to run, but just wasted some time trying to fix that obvious typo, which amusingly is the word "Obviously" that should be something like "Quite coincidentally" or even "Serendipitously".
#1 Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice{5} ≠ (Beer^4 | Speech) and your negative mods prove you are a narrow prick.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by LoRdTAW on Wednesday June 22 2016, @05:18PM
Jesus. You're one crappy troll. "This site is teh suck... wouldn't recommend it... wont read it, etc." Yet here you are bitching and posting. What's the matter still butthurt because your shitty story entry wasn't accepted [soylentnews.org]?
Don't project your life's shortcomings on the SN collective.
(Score: 1) by shanen on Thursday June 23 2016, @01:14AM
I think the funny part is that we are actually in agreement on most things. It just looks to me like you're too stupid (especially the Gaark) to see that.
We agree that journalism is sick. We agree that Soylent News was supposed to help.
We disagree that Soylent News is making any constructive progress. What would it take to wake you up?
I really feel like I'm talking to some good-natured, well-intentions fools, so let's try a little quiz: Do you even know what samizdat is?
#1 Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice{5} ≠ (Beer^4 | Speech) and your negative mods prove you are a narrow prick.
(Score: 2) by Kell on Thursday June 23 2016, @04:51AM
Do you even know what samizdat is?
Which samizdat do you refer to? The underground publishing movement itself, or the Linux book by Kenneth Brown?
Scientists ask questions. Engineers solve problems.
(Score: 1) by shanen on Thursday June 23 2016, @07:03AM
Hmmm... The question was not intended as a trick question, but it also wasn't directed at you, so I should have been more explicit there... Now you've gone and given it away? Anyway, my access to English books is limited here, and I'm not familiar with that one, though I'm reasonably sure it must refer to the original usage, so knowledge of the Linux book would take precedence? (I still haven't found a good forward-looking search engine to pre-track references.) Anyway, as is usually the case, I've managed to drag myself off on a tangent, though I do think Russian history is relevant to the main topic.
The question I posed is whether or not Soylent News will ever amount to a hill of beans. A constructive answer would be growth stats or some metric of growing journalistic influence. Apparently all I've done is make some people highly defensive--but when I looked a bit more deeply, it was pretty obvious why. Taking those people as examples (or at least as self-proclaimed spokesmen), they have excellent reasons to be so defensive I really would be gladdened to see some evidence you (collectively in the form of Soylent News) were making some progress towards solving the problems, on the theory we could agree what the problems are.
Perhaps the key problem is proud and aggressive ignorance? Largely through the Internet, we really do have the capacity to be much more informed and to act more rationally and even democratically. Instead, many people simply stuff their eyes and ears with whatever garbage they prefer, then vote that way and are sincerely surprised when reality begs to differ. It doesn't matter how much time you want to spend, the Web can stuff you 24/7. (The polite buzzword is personalization, but I predicted it many years ago under the label of "pandering to the users".)
I am NOT certain that better economic models can solve the problem, but it is clear to me that much of the journalistic aspect of the problem is economic. The RoI for abusing "the system" remains overwhelming...
Another secondary aspect, but as regards the ad hominem argumentation, it's rather hard for me to pretend I actually care that much about any of it. In theory, you're supposed to show sincerity with strong emotion, but I came out of the flame wars with jm even before he became a hotshot lawyer and coined his famous law. I always wear asbestos underwear. I think I'm sincere, but the emotional writing? Not so much.
#1 Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice{5} ≠ (Beer^4 | Speech) and your negative mods prove you are a narrow prick.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Kell on Sunday June 26 2016, @01:09PM
Do we really have to make "progress", though? Can't we just be like-minded people (or at least people who share some broad interests and perspectives in common), who happen to want a news aggregator and comments forum that is largely independent of commercial interests? I'm not convinced that the growth-at-all-costs model that a lot of other spheres subscribe to.
Why not just enjoy our comfortable evolutionary niche? As long as we are self-sufficient and serving our identified demographic, who cares about how big the readership is?
Scientists ask questions. Engineers solve problems.
(Score: 1) by shanen on Sunday June 26 2016, @07:21PM
Hmm... My initial reaction was that I want to absolutely agree with you, but then I thought about it a bit more... Growth for growth's own sake is bad, perhaps even absolutely bad. Look at cancer.
However, upon reflection, you have to consider change. It's going to happen. Either you change forward and grow, you make "progress", or you change backward and ultimately die. My position is that we supposedly wise human beings can sometimes pick the economic models that drive the change processes. I favor democratic models over corporate cancer models.
Now about that "like-minded people" thing... The more I think about it the more it bothers me. It usually changes into "close-minded people", which I think can be downright dangerous in a "news aggregator". Reminds me of rightwing talk radio.
I prefer to keep my mind more open. It often hurts when new ideas are stuffed into my punkin head, but it's usually worth it. Take yesterday's new programming environment, for example? That was a headbanging and a half... But I believe and hope the next parts will be worth it.
It's okay if you want to be in such a like-minded group, but I think it would be better, potentially much better, if the Soylent News website let you do that while also allowing other people do do other things. In my case, I'd prefer to be able to easily find like-minded people who were (and probably still are) thinking about my current interests, but most of the time I would not need to bother them, but just find and read what they've already written. If they had already solved whatever problem I was working on, then my work (or play) would be done, and that's great. However, if not, then I would like to be able to reach out to them and get help (or let other people reach out to me for help) by describing why my problem was different from what they'd described and by asking how their solutions might be modified or adapted to my newer situation.
With the financial model I suggested, people like you would be able to donate to support new features and the operating costs for the parts of Solvent News that supported what you wanted to do, while I would be able to donate for the kinds of features I prefer to use. In many places our interests might overlap and we might choose to donate for the same projects, but it absolutely should not be done on a cancerous "growth-at-all-costs" basis.
That's why I suggested organizing it as a "charity share brokerage". You are not investing in the hope of profits. You are donating to pay the costs of features you want to use, and your only rewards are in the use of those features and in knowing that other people are also enjoying the use of the features you supported. Maybe some people will feel some motivation in appearing on the donors' page for that project, and such people are likely to pass those URLs around (which could be seen as a kind of advertising, I suppose), but mostly people will just enjoy themselves without having to worry about exactly who paid for exactly what.
#1 Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice{5} ≠ (Beer^4 | Speech) and your negative mods prove you are a narrow prick.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 27 2016, @02:26PM
I think when the parent said "like-minded" s/he meant similar interests not an echo-chamber.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 22 2016, @05:09PM
No wonder your wife comes to my place when she tells you she's shopping. She shopping alright. Sperm shopping.
(Score: 2) by cmn32480 on Tuesday June 21 2016, @10:47AM
Commenting and moderating on the same discussion are allowed here.
"It's a dog eat dog world, and I'm wearing Milkbone underwear" - Norm Peterson
(Score: 1) by shanen on Tuesday June 21 2016, @08:42PM
Thanks for that point of clarification, but so far I haven't seen anything calling for positive moderation and I don't have enough karma to give any of the stupid comments the negative mods they deserve. In many cases, as shown by the local evidence of the Gaark, RICHLY deserve.
Let me clarify that I don't want to be a journalist, though I'd like to support better journalism. Yeah, I suppose I do have a few things to say, and I even hoped I've managed to scrape a bit of wisdom out of the thousands of books that I've read over the decades, but writing is pretty hard work. If you want to write down to the level where someone like the Gaark can understand it, the work can be excruciatingly difficult. My natural register is scientific conferences, which wasn't a problem since that's what they paid me for (until I retired)?
My basic position is that good journalists should get paid for their efforts. It's a virtuous circle: You pay them for writing well and then they will write more and better, attracting more readers who will help them earn even more money, etc. That is the kind of economic model I think Soylent News should be thinking about, and if my specific proposal or suggestions didn't meet the local requirements, then it would be nice to see a better idea rather than mindless dribble from little Gaarks.
#1 Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice{5} ≠ (Beer^4 | Speech) and your negative mods prove you are a narrow prick.
(Score: 1) by shanen on Tuesday June 21 2016, @08:47PM
Having said that, I certainly could have written a report on the amusing events of the Sony shareholder's meeting, including the ruckus last Friday. Today's big plan is to attend the meeting of another company, though I haven't decided which one yet. Today's options are boring or super-boring...
(Also, there's the pain of the Japanese. You haven't died until you've sat through two hours of financial explanations in Japanese.)
P.S. I suppose I should ask about why my karma is going down, but the sad fact is that Soylent News has so little credibility in my eyes that I am way less than indifferent to your silly games.
#1 Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice{5} ≠ (Beer^4 | Speech) and your negative mods prove you are a narrow prick.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by archfeld on Friday June 17 2016, @06:52PM
It is not easy to gather doc or look for decent cites to submit a story that is worth transmitting. What time I have is allotted to things and I squeeze in time to comment and try and logically support those comments.
For the NSA : Explosives, guns, assassination, conspiracy, primers, detonators, initiators, main charge, nuclear charge
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bob_super on Wednesday June 22 2016, @01:20AM
Seconded, as illustrated by my 4 or 5 stories vs >2100 comments.
In my busy days, I have a lot more 5-minute chunks to read and comment than I have to format stories in the proper exact way I think people would like to read them.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Tork on Wednesday June 22 2016, @10:48PM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 17 2016, @07:28PM
Submissions take me at least 20 minutes to put together so I usually only submit when the submission queue is running dry. This happens more often than I'd like but I want this site to survive and I've been too broke to subscribe.
I also encourage others to steal any of the links I posted here for "Slow News Day Submissions". The Diogenes of Sinope story seemed to be appreciated by the community much more than I expected.
https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?threshold=0&highlightthresh=-1&mode=nested&commentsort=0&op=Change&sid=13551&cid=345869&pid=345869 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Saturday June 18 2016, @01:40AM
I feel your pain. If I want a good submission, I want it to look good, it takes a few minutes to submit it.
On the other hand - join IRC. Take advantage of the bots. You can push a story into the queue just by typing - #submit http://copypastedurl [copypastedurl] The submission is a barebones thing, you don't get to make any observations, comments, nor editorials. But, the story goes into the queue, and it may or may not be published. (Unless of course, the bot is acting out - MrPlow is apparently prejudiced against Russian sites, and Exec has his moments.)
Also - this blockquote trick saves a lot of time. http://www.w3schools.com/tags/tag_blockquote.asp [w3schools.com] Just don't forget to also paste the URL for the story outside of the blockquote. (That is, paste the URL before or after the blockquote, then paste it into the appropriate spot inside of the blockquote.) No need to switch back and forth between two tabs a half dozen times to copy/paste relevant bits of the story with this.
(Score: 2) by martyb on Wednesday June 29 2016, @03:29PM
If you find an interesting story, please submit it! If you feel you lack time to write it up as well as you'd like, please lead off the submission with something like:
(The wording itself is purely up to you, of course.)
Speaking only for myself — but I've witnessed his among the rest of the editors here — I try to take as light a hand to editing as possible. There is a "feel" for the stories on this site that we try to maintain. That said, you may have noticed that some of our regular submitters have a unique style, and I try to let that come through.
Some of our community want their submissions to be posted exactly as submitted; sorry, it's not your personal site and editors will edit. On the flip side, there are some who really don't much care about the wording — they just found something 'cool" that they want to share. When looking at a submission, it's hard to know how much leeway the submitter is happy with, so a light hand takes precedence.
So, just let us know if you don't mind our taking a heavy hand to the editing and that will make both your and our lives easier.
tl;dr Submit what you find interesting, let us know in the submission if you don't mind heavy editing, and we will all benefit.
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday June 29 2016, @04:00PM
Thanks - it never crossed my mind to do something like that. Makes sense to me!
(Score: 2) by edIII on Sunday July 03 2016, @08:24PM
For the record, I've found you to be a quite decent editor. I've got no problem taking you up on that offer, and I think I may have already left a comment to the editor once.
My issue is not the cleaning up, and posting of it. I just spent about 8-10 minutes looking over the article I just submitted, and then trying to find the best way to present it. No real issue there. The issue I have is just finding stories that aren't dupes (which I failed with my last attempt). Every single story I come across, that isn't also here, I attempt to submit.
I guess it's hard to be a frequent submitter when SN is literally 90% of your source for news.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by martyb on Monday July 04 2016, @03:35AM
Thank you. I do try. Some days are better than others. (I find that I most often come up short when I edit well into the night (it's nearly midnight as I write this), but that seems to be the main time that I have time available to commit to this site.)
And yes, I think I have seen an editorial note from you in the past. It's always helpful to know where the submitter is coming from.
Yes, writing stories is hard work -- I truly appreciate the effort that you put into it. Who among us, when in school was actually excited when given a writing assignment? Certainly not me! And yet, here I am editing and occasionally writing stories, of my own choosing!
That's the nicest complement I've received in a very long time! That just made my day AND week! Thank YOU!
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Friday June 17 2016, @08:44PM
I put 4-5, but my memory sucks anymore and haven't bothered to look up my stats.
I guess, 4-5 for the last 6 months? maybe?
before that, i sucked.
I kind of go when i get the chance.... will submit nothing, then 3 in one day (sometimes at work, naughty naughty).
I have started looking at things i read as 'would this be interesting to Soylers'.
At least i can say that my submission rate is definitely up, lately.
Stats WOULD be cool to look at! (nudge nudge, wink wink.... eh, does she?)
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by Appalbarry on Friday June 17 2016, @10:57PM
I'm inclined to post story ideas that are based on local stuff that would not get wide coverage elsewhere.
Or, to be honest, stories that border on trolling, but which I suspect most people would find entertaining.
I love absurd stories that bring out the incredibly earnest people who want to EXPLAIN stuff.
I also like stories that have a How-to or advice element - people asking about or solving personal tech issues. There's a lot to be learned from this community.
These days I ignore anything to do with USian politics.
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Friday June 17 2016, @11:12PM
I generally live outside the news cycle as I spend most of my free time at https://arxiv.org/list/cs/recent [arxiv.org] and company.
When I think I have something worth submitting, I fail to find the hook for it. Like, the other day I was reading https://arxiv.org/abs/1606.04036 [arxiv.org] and thought it's worthy of a rant on reinventing linux and how the marketing talk is becoming indistinguishable from the technical talk... But as I was writing the submission, I realized I wasn't writing a submission, I was writing a comment. And a mediocre rant comment on an essay no one will read at that...
As it stands, I'm a commenter. Submitters link the text, I read and comment. Alas, I'm boring and outdated. And it's terminal I'm afraid.
compiling...
(Score: 4, Insightful) by takyon on Saturday June 18 2016, @12:22AM
It's at 2 votes more, aka the maximum logically allowed.
If I didn't submit, y'all would die.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Osamabobama on Saturday June 18 2016, @03:13AM
I thought that the last option was leaking personal information that was presumed to be anonymized. But perhaps those two poll respondents don't care... (whoever they are)
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Sunday June 19 2016, @01:13PM
Yes, i have to say, good job Takyon.
My thanks.
Someday, i might match your output (maybe when i finally hit 65, or more probably when i get to 'Freedom 95'.)
:)
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday June 22 2016, @05:34PM
Well, according to these result you and Phoenix are 4 people, total. So us peons can breath a sigh of relief at our poor performance!
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Saturday June 18 2016, @04:31PM
Face it, the stories that are appropriate here I get from either here or That Other Site. Once in a while Fark or Dr Lowe has something, but, well...
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 2) by richtopia on Sunday June 19 2016, @10:29PM
Similarly, SN is pretty much my only news source. I'll read the big headlines in international news, but I rarely feel compelled to bring those articles to the SN community.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 18 2016, @06:46PM
When I tried to submit my choice all I got was "This resource is no longer valid. Please return to the beginning and try again.". AC no JS.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 19 2016, @06:50AM
1 per month.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 19 2016, @06:58AM
Less than 1 per month.
(Score: 2) by Marand on Monday June 20 2016, @02:24AM
I don't submit often, but it's not "never" either. Requires a few things to all happen:
1. I find an interesting story, article, etc. someplace that isn't SN
2. It's not in the submission queue*
3. I have time to write a summary
4. Someone doesn't submit the same thing before I get done.*
That means my submission count is lower than it could be, just because most of the time it's already been covered, or I think it might be covered already. Doesn't help that I don't really follow a lot of places outside of SN and a handful of programming language communities, either.
While the topic's relevant, I want to bring up one problem I have with the submission process. See, when I'm checking the submission list (#2 and #4) I can't be sure that what I want to submit isn't in the queue already. I can check the submissions, but there's a short list of "pending stories" that might overlap with what I'm submitting, but I can't be sure until they go live. So, with a submission, I can check if the other submission seems better or equivalent and can decide if it's worth writing my own, but with the pending, I just have to make a blind guess of "I think this is covering the same thing? Maybe? No idea if it's shit, but whatever" and move on.
I could check the pending submission goes live, but by then the moment has passed. Maybe I'll link to a different source or add some extra input as a comment, but it's too late to improve the summary quality.
(Score: 2) by JeanCroix on Tuesday June 21 2016, @02:47PM
(Score: 2) by CoolHand on Tuesday June 21 2016, @07:16PM
Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job-Douglas Adams
(Score: 2) by JeanCroix on Tuesday June 21 2016, @09:29PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 22 2016, @05:18PM
How about if the pending submissions page (for example) would also list the rejected stories for a month or so?
I've had subs rejected and it burns.
(Score: 2) by CoolHand on Wednesday June 22 2016, @08:00PM
Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job-Douglas Adams
(Score: 2) by martyb on Thursday June 23 2016, @04:54AM
Actually, there is now a field whereby an editor can send a message to a registered user for why a story was not accepted. IIRC, the message is sent to the user in much the same way that they would receive notice of a reply to a comment they posted (NOTE: message would be sent web-only... not by e-mail.)
As for submitting a duplicate story... we are aware that it happens. There are a few cases.
1.) If, when looking over the submission queue for a story, an editor sees multiple submissions on the same topic, there is a way to merge those together into a single story and each submitter gets credit for the submission.
2.) In another case, an editor sees a submission and recognizes it pertains to the same subject as another submission that is now in the story queue, but has not yet made it to the front page, the editor can manually cut-and-paste the new submission into the pending story. It's a bit time-consuming and error-prone, but we do attempt to do this whenever possible. We are aware of how much effort goes into submitting a story, as we've generally submitted quite a few ourselves, especially when the submission queue runs low. Whenever possible, I personally want to ensure that the effort is recognized inasmuch as is possible.
3.) That leaves a submission that is a dupe of a story that has already hit the main page, and jere there are two cases:
3.A.) If it was submitted by an AC (or a bot), then we just delete it from the submission queue.
3.B.) If it was submitted by a user under their nickname, then the editor adds a note to the submission with the reason, updates the story so that reason is saved with the submission, reloads the submission, puts the message to the submitter in the message field, sends that, and finally deletes the submission from the submission queue. (There may be a quicker/easier set of steps, but I've found those to work and not result in loss of information/documentation.)
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 2) by CoolHand on Thursday June 23 2016, @01:17PM
Thanks, martyb... I guess I'm behind the times there.. I better figure out that new field before I reject any stories!
Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job-Douglas Adams
(Score: 2) by martyb on Thursday June 23 2016, @01:40PM
It kind of got slip-streamed into the UI relatively recently. There was some chatter on IRC about it, but we obviously did not do a good enough job of communicating the update to all of the editors... Ooops! Please accept my apology.
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 2) by n1 on Wednesday June 22 2016, @05:59PM
I had a look at your user profile and saw the submission in question.
According to our internal note on the story, the editors at the time decided it was a dupe of https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=15/07/04/186226 [soylentnews.org]
We now have a field to write a reason for rejection on the editors side, someone else can probably elaborate on what it does or is intended to do as far as notifying the submitter.
(Score: 2) by JeanCroix on Wednesday June 22 2016, @10:27PM
(Score: 2) by GlennC on Tuesday June 21 2016, @07:10PM
I've submitted some stories, but not many. If you were to average it out, it would be much less than 1, but still not zero. So I voted 1.
Sorry folks...the world is bigger and more varied than you want it to be. Deal with it.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday June 21 2016, @08:08PM
Follow up poll idea:
How many posts do you think you make? Answer what you think, before checking your actual stats.
(Score: 2) by GungnirSniper on Friday June 24 2016, @03:13AM
As others have mentioned, submitting a good HughPickens-level summary is difficult, or at least time-consuming. It's probably why sites like Fark and Reddit only need a line and a link. Maybe we could benefit from that, along with the automatic story paragraph picker thingamajig y'all are working on. A Firehose might also help alleviate the load on the editors so they can write further. This is particularly true with breaking news.
We should consider being a broader site that just the old "news for nerds, stuff that matters" tagline. It is clear the controversial stuff in the news, civil rights, the election, and social issues are all getting more comments than the typical "Cloudfoo hires Redfoo to promote service" or whatever. So maybe we started as a clone of the green site, but we seem to be turning into a pre-Eternal-September Usenet.
Tips for better submissions to help our site grow. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by darnkitten on Friday June 24 2016, @06:32AM
I usually only get on the site once a week, for maybe an hour or two.
It usually tends to be at a time when the interesting end/beginning-of-the-week news stories have already run, so unless there is a rare new/breaking story that is either local or is in my fairly narrow professional domain, I probably won't see it until it is no longer relevant to the SN community at large.