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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."
(Score: 3, Insightful) by sootman on Thursday February 20 2014, @08:49PM
I wrote a journal entry [slashdot.org] in 2008 (!) called "How to make Slashdot better" and it was...
- Check for dupes.
- Editors: fix grammar & spelling.
- Link to original sources, not some guy's blog that says "check this out" and links to the NYT.
- My favorite, so I'll include it here in its entirety: "Don't editorialize too much in the submission. And for the love of God, quit adding dopey questions to the end of submissions: anything from 'What do you think?' to that hated old standby, 'Is this the end of Microsoft/Windows/Office/Linux/Apple/SCO/America?' This is a discussion site. People who come here know this. We don't need a third-grade-style prompt to get the discussion going. All that does is generate two hundred posts of 'No, Zonk, you're an idiot' (along with the inevitable and useless 'yes/no/maybe' tags) and take away from the real discussion."
- Do some fact checking. Check to see if this is five-year-old news that some random guy just now discovered. Check to see if it's a hoax, or an out-of-date item that has since been debunked/refuted/disproved. Read the article and see if the submission is even accurate.
- Be aware that not everyone knows everything. This site does have a certain audience with some things in common, so we don't need a link to clarify what _Linux_ is, but many other things could use some clarification, especially new and/or uncommon acronyms. Speaking of acronyms, follow the old rule: say what they mean the first time they appear. Just because it didn't occur to the submitter to spell it out until he had written it three times, doesn't mean you have to do the same. Remember: edit!