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from the i-am-so-fucking-sick-of-this-drama dept.
Update: 10 March 2014 20:20 UTC. Follow here for the latest.
Update: 10 March 2014 19:10 UTC.
At this point Barrabas reports he is exchanging email with the buyer but refuses to say anything. Until we hear from them, we have to hope for the best but plan for the worst. If this link goes down, please go to the linode site where we will regroup. We will use that link as a fallback if necessary.
Update: 10 March 2014 18:30 UTC.
Barrabas reports in IRC he has received funds for the site and has sold the domain name. The terms of this sale, as well as its buyer, have not been disclosed. We await additional information. If you have information on this, please contact us at admin @ soylentnews . org
Update: 10 March 2014 16:30 UTC.
Due to NCommander's personal involvement with the situation he is recusing himself from negotiations. I (Mattie_p) am currently working with the staff to figure out how to address this incident. We have posted a poll which is available and should show up shortly on the front page.
Original text:
We've been held hostage by John:
Working with NCommander
Am I The Bad Guy
Right now, I can't write a coherent response properly (I'm writing this from a Mac Store right now as some sort of response was necessary). Despite John's offer, we never used the Linode's he purchased for hosting slash, and the two services (forums and wiki) that were hosted on them were migrated. I had hoped that this would have been a private issue between me and John, to be handed by email with a proper agreement, but the site itself is now at risk.
Right now, I'm organizing a response with out staff now, but I won't be home for several hours so MrBluze is currently handling the crisis. He can hand off to mattie_p when he returns, or myself when I have proper net access again. John's offer does not reflect myself or any of the staff here, nor does he have what he says he has. The web server, dev server (fusion forge), and database were always hosted on Linode's on my personal account. John DID have access to the Linode account which was revoked when he left staff, but to my knowledge never had the root password or shell accounts on any of the boxes. That access was revoked. It is possible he has a copy of the database, I do not know for sure. He does not at this moment have access to any of the hardware powering the site. He does however control the DNS register and can possibly yank the site from under us. If that happens, I can send a mass email to every user account to inform them of what happened, and where we are now. We supposedly have until Friday until John drops everything in the trash unless someone pays him $2000 USD. As per the posts, I was willing to pay him, but I had some issue with the expenses as written (my emails are genuine, as is the email I received from John), but I'm currently in Asia, and have no practical way to send him a check until I return to the continental United States on Sunday; I informed John of this on IRC originally.
We're currently in scramble mode to try and organize a new name, and getting migrated as soon as possible. I was serious when I said I was done with the drama but it appears John isn't. I'm personally sorry to have to inflict this on the community, and if you wish to leave us, I shall not blame you in the slightest.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Marneus68 on Monday March 10 2014, @07:51AM
I'm really not a fan of all this drama. I took the time to read the previous entry on the subject and was kinda happy that this could be the last of it's kind, leaving the drama behind and going forward, but this seems to be going on.
I really can't wait for everyone involved to put all this behind and give the site itself some well-deserved attention. Sites like pipedot made a quick progress and are now fully functional and pretty, the same can barely be said about SoylentNews. (I know pretty isn't important for most people around here, but come on, just look at those icons)
I know that the size of the community moving here and all the people ready to help mush have made it a hell to organize but come on, this is getting ridiculous. Besides, halting the publication of new stories just for that message to stay on top... Even if I can see why it's important, it feels weird to see that on a news site.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @07:56AM
"I'm really not a fan of all this drama"
This is why I'm thankful for mailing lists, which generally weed out the noise.
With forums anyone and their monkey can register and cause problems. Forums are notorious for drama among mods and others in power.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @08:09AM
pipedot? sounds lame. very lame.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Marneus68 on Monday March 10 2014, @08:22AM
The name sucks but it works and it's actually readable. The comment system isn't a mess.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Geotti on Monday March 10 2014, @08:30AM
I kind'a like the name.
(Score: 2) by Daniel Dvorkin on Monday March 10 2014, @10:08AM
Pipedot's a good site and I'd like to see it get more traffic. I'd also like to see Soylent continue. There is, or ought to be, plenty of room for both.
Pipedot [pipedot.org]:Soylent [dev.soylentnews.org]::BSD:Linux
(Score: 1) by SleazyRidr on Monday March 10 2014, @10:44AM
Pipedot is really cool. The display is really smooth and nice. The comments work quite well. Ideally I'd like to see /., this site and pipedot all continue to provide a richer tapestry of information but if that's not a possibility I'm glad there are still options.
(Score: 1) by zafiro17 on Monday March 10 2014, @06:40PM
Totally agree - there's no reason why the Soylent crowd has to be so threatened by and antagonistic to Pipedot. Under the best of circumstances they would both continue to exist and provide interesting articles and discussion. The fact that so many Soybeans are threatened by an alternative to their narcissistic little world says a lot about Soy.
Oh crap - a totally working site with a great look that renders well on a small screen and isn't a total morass of petty squabbles and bickering. Why would anybody want that? I'll continue to post here, where the only story with any comments on it right now is the one about the Soylent death spiral.
Good one, gents.
Soylent, Pipedot, Usenet's comp.misc. An embarrassment of riches.
(Score: 1) by tempest on Monday March 10 2014, @10:19AM
Drama never "just stops" if the people involved are still living. If it were so easy to fix things, there wouldn't have been drama in the first place. It takes time for these things to shake out, especially when many people are involved.