Historic:MainSiteFAQPage

Obsolete Page

This page is obsolete and only retained for archival purposes.

This is for review purposes only. This page is an html document that will be integrated into slash. Feel free to make edits, please bold them (by using ''' surrounding the text, i.e. '''this text would be bold''') so I can easily integrate improvements back into the html doc. mrcoolbp (talk) 16:17, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

FAQ

What is this site?

This is a community-driven news and discussion site, where you can submit interesting stories, and everyone can comment on them.

Where did it come from?

We had become dissatisfied with existing 'news for nerds' solutions but contrary to other project forks, we couldn't just change 'open' to 'libre'." In the spirit of Open Source, we set out to make a community-centric news site rather than just complain about corporate overlords. We forked a rather old public release of Slash, the code that runs Slashdot, and proceeded to modernize and improve upon it.

Who runs it?

It is currently managed by a small group of volunteers who maintain and operate the site. There are plans underway to replace this ad-hoc structure with a proper not-for-profit legal entity.

How can I get involved?

The simplest way to help the site is by submitting quality stories and leaving interesting comments. Without these, the site has little to offer the community. If you'd like to become more directly involved, visit the team pages and contact a team directly. Beyond that, hop on to our IRC channels and get to know the staff and learn about what needs doing. Volunteering is how this site was brought about, and there is likely something that meshes with your talents.

Can anyone submit a story?

Yes, of course anyone can submit a story. Please read the submission guidelines to increase the quality of your submission and subsequently improve its chances of being accepted.

Can I submit a story anonymously?

Yes.

Do you only want tech news?

We aim for around 70% technology and science stories with the remainder being a mix of content with general interest to our community. suggested for removal -NCommander

Why didn't you post my story?

This is a tough one.

We get many submissions every day. Our editors constantly go through these submissions, and try to select the most interesting, timely, and relevant items to post. There are probably as many reasons for stories to get rejected as there are stories, but here are some of the more common ones:

Badly worded or incorrect submissions Broken or missing URLs Confusing or hysterical sounding writeup It might be an old story It might just be a busy day and we've already posted enough stories Someone already submitted your story Your story just might not be interesting Although the editing team works hard to clean up some of the messier and incomplete submissions (we get many with just a link or two and no summary), editors do not wish to put words in the mouth of the submitter. If the article is interesting but the summary is terribly written, it puts the editors in a difficult position, we may choose to reject it in this case rather than writing up a whole new summary. In other cases we may add significantly to the summary, though we try to indicate when we do that to avoid confusion.

Why is your grammar/spelling so bad?

We attempt to catch most of the spelling and grammar mistakes by having an additional editor sign off on each story, but with our limited resources that doesn't always happen, and certainly things do sometimes slip through. Feel free to point it out, we may even make corrections depending on the case.

Why hasn't my story been accepted or rejected yet?

Usually stories are examined within a few hours of their submission. Sometimes, however, it might take longer before it closes. Usually with things that aren't time dependent...there may be some delay there. So be patient.

My story submission was "accepted"; how come I never saw it?

Usually it's because you just need to be patient. Many stories are accepted, but not posted for a few hours (for a variety of reasons: to give existing stories some time to be read and commented on, or to have a second author give a second opinion on some detail).

I submitted that a month ago!

A lot of times, we don't use a particular story on a particular day, but at some later point, someone else submits it, and it ends up getting used. We have many people from across the globe working together to post things on here. What one of us finds stupid, the others might find interesting. Or it just might be the rest of the stuff that's going on that day. There are a variety of factors: the personality of the post, the quality of the submission, or even the quantity of stories already posted when your submission entered the queue.

Where do I submit corrections or updates to previous stories?

The best way to submit followups is just as if you were submitting any other news item: please use the web submission form (rather than email). However, if your story ties closely to a specific story that's already run (for instance, if you have an update about a situation which has changed since the last time it was mentioned), please include a link to the previous story to which you're referring, rather than merely alluding to it.

I don't wish to log in because my tinfoil hat is very comfy, what am I missing?

Logged in users have a variety of benefits on SoylentNews that are unavailable to users who don't bother logging in. Among these benefits are:

The ability to save user preferences from visit to visit. Your own Journal in which to share your innermost feelings. The ability to define Friends & Foes to aid in reading discussions. A chance to participate in the Moderation System. Posting in Discussions at Score:1 instead of Score:0 means twice as many people will see your comments.

Why is someone else's User Name appearing on my User Page's Menu?

This is not a bug. This is a feature! That name is the last user page (besides your own ;) that you have visited. This is useful when you want to hop around between your user info, and someone else's: to compare friends and foes for example. Your account has not been hacked, this is totally by design.

How do I submit bugs?

The bugs are tracked on github. You'll need a github account to submit a new bug. You can also email admin@soylentnews.org and we can submit one on your behalf. Either way, please include as much relevant detail as you can (i.e. UID, time, browser and version, OS, error message, and screenshots).

Why can't I log into the Wiki?

The wiki uses a separate account system from the main page, you'll need to create separate accounts on each site.

Oh God, NCommander's Posts Are So Long, HOW DO WE GET RID OF HIS KEYBOARD?

Early on the staff actually tried nuking NCommander's keyboard from orbit; this proved ineffective due to NCommander's brain/computer interface he had implanted back in 2007.

I have a question that is not answered in this FAQ. What should I do?

Email your questions to admin@soylentnews.org. We will get you an answer, and if it's a question we've seen before, we'll consider adding it to the FAQ.