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Greetings, Soylentils. First of all, I want to thank you, the community, for the outpouring of support during these past few weeks. The participation has been amazing, and I'd like to personally thank each and every one of you for your help in a successful launch so far. Unfortunately, I can't thank every one of you individually. As of this writing, there are over 3500 registered users!
Now, we promised to be transparent, and we intend to deliver. Our first (and right now, only) all-hands staff meeting is at 1800 UTC on 2 March, and will be held on our IRC channels.
The staff will be holding the meeting on #Staff at irc.dev.soylentnews.org. Only staff will be able to log into and speak on that channel. However, our IRC folks will be re-broadcasting this on the public channel, #Soylent. If you aren't familiar with IRC, please review Landon's recent post (we have a web client available as well). Many of our staff members will be monitoring both channels, and we will try to have the opportunity for questions. Conducting this meeting will be one of many learning experiences for us, so feel free to pipe up and say your piece.
Items on the agenda include a vision statement from our founder, an overview of staff organization from me(draft available here), general status update from each group, as well as proposals for future development. You may notice some missing names in the org chart. Please contact us at suggestions @ soylentnews dot. org if you are interested in volunteering or working here.
As always, thanks for being a part of this great community!
~mattie_p, general manager
(Score: 4, Informative) by martyb on Sunday March 02 2014, @12:51PM
Disclaimer: what is expressed here is solely my own viewpoint from my own observations. I am NOT speaking in any official capacity. What follow are *my* thoughts and obervations, in no particular order.
I know I've only seen a small part of what is "behind the curtain" and the more I see, the more I am absolutely astounded at they tremendous efforts that have been, and continue to be, expended to build this site into what you see now
Personally, I'd like to see all in-house developed content accessible locally.
I think what we are witnessing is partly an intersection between several competing factors.
Several people are running themselves ragged just trying to get the code base knocked into shape and there's just not enough time to implement everything that they'd like to see here. Meanwhile, they are also trying to do this on top of a day job, family needs, and the like.
Others are trying to use this still-developing site to bring salient stories to us.
Still others are working hard at the infrastructure (hardware and services) which are required to host this discussion sytem.
We're looking at a work in progress. We're still in the alpha stage of getting the site to run stably.
There are some competing thoughts on what is wanted for this site. Can't please all the people all the time, but I can see a tremendous effort in place to provide a top-notch tool to the community.
IRC provides real-time many-many communications. It's a very useful tool for those who are trying to get the site into shape. Hosting IRC in house saves us from being beholden to the continued benevolence of an external entity.
As for youtube? I don't care much for it, personally. Then again, I like my text. I can skim a 1 hour video's transcript in 5-10 minutes and remember more of it that way. But, I also recognize that not everyone shares my view. I suspect (most) others share my view, but I commend them for being willing to try something new. If it fails (and I suspect it will) then it will be dropped.
The time of the meeting is a challenge for many. I understand that. There are folks from around the world working hard to make this site the best it can be. Some of them have expressed that they would like to attend, but cannot because of the time.
As I understand it, this is an effort to step back, take inventory, see where we stand, where we are going, solicit feedback, and try to keep things on track.
I cannot speak for the developers/staff/etc. but my understanding is that this is an interim step for communicating with the community. I fully expect there will be many more opportunities to come.
So, please, come to the meeting and help us make this the best site it can be.