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Dev.SN ♥ developers

posted by LaminatorX on Thursday February 20 2014, @04:45PM   Printer-friendly
from the I'm-so-meta-even-this-acronym dept.

jcd writes:

"I'm rather excited to get going with Soylent and to watch it grow. Nay, help it grow. I have lurked in /. for more than a decade (note: I'm not the same username over there, I know, how sneaky), and always wished I could have been involved with the beginning. So this is a great opportunity, and I joined as soon as I saw what Soylent was doing. Not to mention the fact that I felt right at home with the old style. It's very comfortable.

So here's a question for everyone. Are we going to be the same as slashdot? A clone that focuses as entirely as possible on tech related news? Or will we branch out to other topics? I'm interested to see either way. I posted a comment to this effect in one of our two existing polls, and it may be a community-wide assumption, but I do think it merits a discussion."

 
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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by oodaloop on Thursday February 20 2014, @05:02PM

    by oodaloop (1982) <jkaminoffNO@SPAMzoho.com> on Thursday February 20 2014, @05:02PM (#3694)

    I'd like to see some user generated forums/fora for discussion of any topic, not just on a particular news item. For instance, I am attempting to root a particular Android phone and am looking for feedback from people who have done it before, links to site explaining how to do it, etc. Or I want to talk about developing an app, or investing in Google, or any other topic not in the headlines at the moment. And FFS, can we get a rich text editor option for posting comments already?

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    Many Bothans died to bring you this comment.
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  • (Score: 1) by mcgrew on Thursday February 20 2014, @05:15PM

    by mcgrew (701) on Thursday February 20 2014, @05:15PM (#3709) Homepage Journal

    What do you think this submission was? Or am I misunderstanding you?

    --
    Free Nobots! [mcgrewbooks.com]
    • (Score: 1) by oodaloop on Thursday February 20 2014, @05:27PM

      by oodaloop (1982) <jkaminoffNO@SPAMzoho.com> on Thursday February 20 2014, @05:27PM (#3728)

      This "article" was on the front page for me, and aside from submitting an article, I don't see a way for me to just start a new conversation about something. I'll admit I haven't perused the whole site yet. But I was imagining a forum section where anyone can start a new discussion on any topic without anyone having to approve it. Years ago, I used to engage in discussions about creationism/ID vs evolution on yahoo boards and before that on salon.tabletalk. They lasted years with no rules for what was ontopic. I haven't found a good place to engage like that in years.

      --
      Many Bothans died to bring you this comment.
      • (Score: 1) by kebes on Thursday February 20 2014, @05:47PM

        by kebes (1505) on Thursday February 20 2014, @05:47PM (#3751)
        As others have pointed out [dev.soylentnews.org], having discussion zones outside of the Soylent News front-page posts might actually draw attention away from the main articles. Because SN is young at present, we don't realistically have a community big enough to sustain too many concurrent discussion venues. So, my personal opinion would be to put as much emphasis on making the main discussion features more robust (e.g. being able to load a parent or child comment inline, rather than refreshing the whole page), and have other discussion venues (IRC, forums, even journals) only be seriously developed later on.
      • (Score: 4, Insightful) by mcgrew on Thursday February 20 2014, @11:25PM

        by mcgrew (701) on Thursday February 20 2014, @11:25PM (#4038) Homepage Journal

        That's what journals are for. I see you've never read mine, I just posted one Tuesday, you might be amused by it.

        There weren't a lot of journalers at slashdot. The diaries are what attracted me to K5 back in the day before it started sucking, and went back to slashdot when I discovered they had journals. But whatever you want to discuss, put it in your journal. Sometimes folks click on your "journals" link. But you can discuss anything you want.

        My book started as a slashdot comment someone posted [slashdot.org] in a front page story, I hastily penned a journal [slashdot.org] and linked it as a response. More time travel stories followed.

        Use your journal! It's listed on the sidebar. You'd be surprised who's reading.

        --
        Free Nobots! [mcgrewbooks.com]
        • (Score: 1) by pixeldyne on Friday February 21 2014, @05:26AM

          by pixeldyne (2637) on Friday February 21 2014, @05:26AM (#4181)

          Damn you! I went to see what your book was about and before I knew it I'm on chapter 7 and feel the urge to finish it tonight (otherwise I wont sleep). I've had plans for tonight...

          • (Score: 2) by mcgrew on Friday February 21 2014, @11:39AM

            by mcgrew (701) on Friday February 21 2014, @11:39AM (#4366) Homepage Journal

            Wow, thanks. Glad you're enjoying it. Slow down, though -- I just posted chapter 32 this morning (see my journal, it's a Soylent exclusive until tomorrow), 33 won't be posted until Tuesday (everyone else gets it Wednesday) and the last four chapters next Saturday. From the timestamp of your comment I'm guessing you're in Australia or New Zealand?

            I got a similar comment from someone at slashdot I emailed an abridged version of The Paxil Diaries to. He'd planned on reading a chapter a night and before he realized how late it had gotten he'd finished it. That one will be in print shortly.

            I wish someone would tell me how much I suck, I'm getting a swelled head.

            Please tell everyone about it, and thanks again for reading!

            --
            Free Nobots! [mcgrewbooks.com]
        • (Score: 3, Interesting) by TheRaven on Friday February 21 2014, @05:51AM

          by TheRaven (270) on Friday February 21 2014, @05:51AM (#4195) Journal
          The one thing I'd really like to see changed from the original Slashcode is removing the comment time limit from journals. I can understand that having all of the stories as potentially mutable can impose a lot of load on the db, but I quite often see a journal entry that's a few months (or more) old and it's quite frustrating not to be able to post in it. It's also a bit odd that moderation works as normal in journals - I had someone post a comment in my journal that someone else modded off-topic. I've no idea who would do that or why.
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          sudo mod me up
          • (Score: 2) by mcgrew on Friday February 21 2014, @11:19AM

            by mcgrew (701) on Friday February 21 2014, @11:19AM (#4352) Homepage Journal

            Amen to that! Also, the time limit when responding to people responding to you from "messages". However, I think they have a little more work before they can start implimenting that; there are a couple of bad bugs I've run across.

            One is journals. When I click it, it tells me I have no friends, even though I friended two people the day before yesterday. This despite the fact that when I click "friends" they both show up.

            There's a sidebar listing "amigos". Uh, what is that link? I click it and it says I have no friends. Huh?

            They need to change one of the "journals" links in the sidebar, too. Last night I ran across a page that lists all users with journals, but now I can't find it. It should be in the sidebar, user journals shouldn't be hidden! Perhaps a link "new journals" listing journals posted in the last 49 hours.

            Also, unicode... but I'm sure that's going to be a big job and I'm not holding my breath.

            --
            Free Nobots! [mcgrewbooks.com]
  • (Score: 2, Informative) by randmcnatt on Thursday February 20 2014, @05:22PM

    by randmcnatt (671) on Thursday February 20 2014, @05:22PM (#3720) Homepage
    There are are already topic categories for 'Answers' [dev.soylentnews.org], for anyone who wants some pithy information or help with a (hopefully) relevant problem, and '/dev/random' [dev.soylentnews.org]for 'everything else". You are responding to a non-news article yourself.
    --
    The Wright brothers were not the first to fly: they were the first to land.
  • (Score: 1) by Haktar on Thursday February 20 2014, @05:55PM

    by Haktar (1354) on Thursday February 20 2014, @05:55PM (#3758)

    The Journal system technically allows you to create a new discussion whenever you want. To get what you suggest one would only have to change how visible these journals are. I don't think there is currently a way to see all recently created journal entries, something like that might just be enough.

    • (Score: 2, Informative) by fleg on Friday February 21 2014, @12:02AM

      by fleg (128) on Friday February 21 2014, @12:02AM (#4064)

      go to your homepage from the link up there on the left under 'You'.
      scroll down to customize slashboxes.
      tick 'Most Recent Journal Entries'