SoylentNews

Frequently Asked Questions ... Was your question not answered? Get on IRC and pester the relevant person: Who's Who?

WE HAVE A FIRST POST

From the site: I know its been a long wait, but we've been steadily moving towards launch. With luck, you're reading this on the main index of the site, which means we've gone, and haven't gone mad in the process. Now that we're here, we hope to have made the wait worth it, but we depend on everyone in the community. To make this site a success, we depend on each and every single user even if its just from passing word of mouth. Remember, every single user can submit stories, moderate, and contribute to discussions all at the same time, and that's what makes us unique. May I be the first to welcome you to your new home.

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Site Announcements

Feb 11, 2014 8:01PM EST: Status

Yeah, yeah... we're working on it.

We're starting to get overlords that manage various features. An overlord is responsible for granting access - it's intended to be a no work position, so that it can be held for long periods without requiring much time.

So for example, Applesmasher is the overlord of forums. He grants access to people and recovers access when people leave, but he doesn't have to do any work himself (although he can if he wants). He ensures that the people with access are reliable.

So if you need a forum for your group, ask the overlord of forums. If you want a set of wiki pages, ask the overlord of the wiki, and so on.

The current overlords have agreed to hold the position until Mar 1, at which time we will choose overlords via some formal process. (And the current overlords might ask to continue.)

The current overlords can be contacted here:

art@SoylentNews.org

editors@SoylentNews.org

forums@SoylentNews.org

wiki@SoylentNews.org

chat@SoylentNews.org

There will be more to come. This is temporary to get us going - the community can change the structure later, but for now things seem to naturally separate into these areas of interest.

Feb 11, 2014 3:01PM EST: Status

We have a working system, and two people fixing the CSS (sadly, none for sphinx). As far as I can tell, we're trying to get the high-bandwidth aspects of the site running: Varnish, MySQL configuration options, and such. We want the system to be able to withstand a tsunami of visitors 10 meters high.

The system team has been working around the clock to get things running, and I mean that literally. I have to as-much-as order people to break off at night and go to bed. They *really* want to see this thing work. Send them some love in chat if you can.

Note that these are not "deadlines", nor do I particularly care if we miss them: We're reporting when we "predict" things will be ready. The first 90% of the project is done, now we're working on the remaining 90%.

Stand by for launch...

P.S. - Check out the logo

Feb 11, 2014 12:01PM EST: Need some sphinx help

We still need sphinx (search engine) expertise, so if you are familiar with this package, please E-mail me:

If you want to send the project lead a message: John (at) SoylentNews (dot) org

---

The Slashcott is getting attention

A selection of Slashcott/Beta comments from around the web.......

• http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/02/slashdots-new-interface-could-kill-what-keeps-slashdot-relevant/ <=== Nice article by Ars
• http://spallshurgenson.blogspot.com/2014/02/tragedy-of-commons-redesigning-social.html <=== A good summary of the situation
• https://community.republicwireless.com/thread/23151 <== "How not to treat your community"
• http://www.tidbitsfortechs.com/2014/02/biting-hand-feeds-less-boycotting-slashdot-org-1-week
• http://community.spiceworks.com/topic/442346-trouble-at-slashdot
• http://www.tuicool.com/articles/bmUvMj
• http://www.fark.com/comments/8133044/Since-when-was-Slashdot-a-Fark-Beta-site-Since-Dice-started-redirecting-25-of-its-users-to-a-failed-site-redesign

Check out the look and feel of the new site!

---

To everyone involved... THANK YOU!

We are building a news site alternative to Slashdot. We have started only a few days ago, and this wiki is a temporary measure so that volunteers can coordinate and others can see what's happening.

The idea is to build a news aggregation site that delivers what's important - better articles, less fluff, and all the functionality you expect from the moderation system. We are still looking for volunteers so stop by the boards and the IRC and let us know you want to help!

• The proposed business model is here
  
• Some business planning is here
  
• A statement of functionality (turn into a requirements document?)--- FeatureList

Get Involved

Hop in to IRC! - IRC: ##altslashdot on chat.freenode.net (Webchat, we are growing in strength!)

Register on the forums - http://forums.SoylentNews.org

• Go to forums.SoylentNews.org and register a user
• Read this post if you are having problems. (Thanks MrGuy)
• Add yourself to whichever groups you are interested in
• For tech issues with the forum software, please Email Joel: soylent (at) finite (dot) ms

Slashcott Organized boycott of the Dice-owned Slashdot pages

• Show your support for the "Get rid of Beta" crowd by avoiding Slashdot during the week of February 10-17

Tell Somebody A friend, a colleague, any major news source....

• Do what you can to get the word out

Contact: If you want to send the project lead a message: John (at) SoylentNews (dot) org

Status

Check out the FAQ

• Forums are available at forums.SoylentNews.org

The forums have four user groups: Code, Content, Style, and System.

• We upgraded the hosting by two tiers
• The System team is working on installing SlashCode. They are busting their collective tails to get this site up for us. Hopefylly, soon!
• Probably won't be non-profit, see business model.
• We won't poach from Slashdot. This includes articles and logos, also "style" to a reasonable extent.

Mailing list update Messages are here

Site Name

We have a temporary name!

Thanks go out to everyone who made suggestions - some of them were absolutely brilliant! For example, it hadn't occurred to me to choose a name based on a non-English word, or a palindrome, or a puzzle. Many of the entries were quite clever. (Adies, it took me more than a day to figure yours out. Bravo!)

I won't post the runners up because squatters might take the names before we hold the real contest. We'll figure out a way to prevent this somehow - at worst case we can choose judges and do it privately.

Jerry had the winning entry.

The temp name is: SoylentNews with the tagline: SoylentNews is people!

Does this rock? It hits the trifecta of website goodness:

• Descriptive in a way that mundanes will understand (compare "Photoshop" with "GIMP", "Internet Explorer" with "Firefox", and "MediaPlayer" with "VLC")

• It's part of Nerd culture, a pun, and slightly twisted

• It's suggestive of being community driven

• Possible Trademark issues

• It is attached to some movie about eating corpses and implies "News fresh as processed corpses" (??)

This will be a hard act to beat. Start thinking up names for the contest, or throw your weight behind this one. The contest will be held soon after we open the doors.

(And it was poutine (from IRC) who suggested we use a temporary name. Others may also have suggested it, but it was his post that I noticed. Be sure to thank him if you see him on IRC.)

ToDo

Slashcode Todo list

• Install SlashCode on the production site
• Get some people to help with the site
• Run a contest for a better name New name discussion
• Incorporate
• Consult a lawyer
• How to handle Advertising (necessary evil) - Opt Out, Limited, Typical(box with ads in the top-right corner)?

Why can't we have an advertising cookie with things we are in the market for? I.e. if I'm in the market for a computer, I see computer-related ads. If I opt out, then I don't see any ads. An interest-centric (not user centric) cookie. <==+1 Insightful

OK, this is brilliant and adds agency to a necessary evil, should seriously consider trying something like this.

• Improved Mod/Meta-Mod/Story-Selection system to minimize required editor input
• Provide a voting system to decide which articles hit the main page (Mod point related?)
• Find and submit some stories

List of Discussion Pages

• NewName
• MailingListUpdates
• Finances -- which model would allow to minimise and/or distribute hosting costs
• Business
• Moderation -- how/if to enhance; was it so bad it was the primary reason for the diaspora?
• FeatureList -- discussion of required/desired characteristics
• Submission guidelines
• Content
• Style
• Migration of users from Slashdot -- how to handle Nicks and UIDs
• Licensing
• WhosWho -- points of contact in different project areas
• Spreading the word

Noteworthy Comments

• Grabbed the Domain Names: AltSlashdot.org, Soylentnews.org
• Other potential website solutions

Bruce Perens (created "technocrat.net") is aware of Soylentnews.org and is considering contributing (Relaunch ?? stay tuned)

/. user 'dotancohen' registered the domain "slashdotan" and is looking to build a new Slashdot (He is willing to coordinate and has cloud experience)

Add info on Pipedot...pipedot.org by 'Bryan'

User somenickname (1270442) has registered bangslashdot.(org|net|com)

Usenet was also suggested as an alternative 'comp.misc is the new Slashdot'

• Scrapping content from old Slashdot suggestion made. benefits/drawbacks ? Overall I think this is a thumbs down

Content is easier to "find"

Moral/Legal objections were brought up (Even if it was initially "our" content)

We should build our own brand

Pointless to scrap, since it is the comments that draw people in

Editors should be in multiple timezones to cleanup/improve/multi-source submissions for presentation to the main page

• Initial code build will be from Slashcode... Available (Git?), Old:(5 years) Workable:(maybe)
• Alternate choices for code base: Wiki, Discourse, Usenet
• Non-profit vs For-profit discussion should go here ( Business )

Debian style project organization ?

Community driven projects need strong leadership or they tend to flounder

• Codebase

Code should be in the public domain

Allow the entire website (Stories+Comments+Code)? to be created as a Creative commons work - codebase also available ?

AGPL

• Keep the former Slashdot community together

Comment History

Comments

• Do this as a non-profit, user-run organization please. From what you write it looks like you want replace the regime, not giving the users the control over the website. Why should we trust you not to sell the website to a DICE-like company after it becomes successful? I applaud your efforts to change things, but I really believe that a Debian Project like institution that is both non-commercial and controlled/run by the community has a much higher chance of securing the goals we fight for right now in the long-term. --141.84.69.20 03:20, 6 February 2014 (MST)

• From Hacker News on Slashdot: 'When you have the same group of minds selecting the content that gets seen, over the course of years, the users eventually get burnt out seeing the same type of stuff, chosen by the same people over and over again. The content becomes stale even if its fresh <--- A really good point

IRC

General Slashdot Discussion: Come on IRC channel #slashdot at irc.slashnet.org. Or use the web client: http://www.slashnet.org/webclient

SoylentNews Discussion: Head to IRC channel ##AltSlashdot on irc.freenode.net, Web client is here: https://webchat.freenode.net/

Stories from former Slashdot users

Confessions of an Ex-Slashdot Beta User

Banned from Slashdot

Dice is killing Slashdot

An interesting Idea

Check this out while it's still available. feedback appreciated

• http://slashdot.org/submission/3324011/a-modest-proposal-re-beta-vs-classic?utm_source=rss1.0&utm_medium=feed&sbsrc=firehose