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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 John DID have access to the Linode account which was revoked when he left staff, but to my knowledge never had the root password or shell accounts on any of the boxes. That access was revoked.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: 1) by goodie on Monday March 10 2014, @09:03AM
I am no expert in this but has SN built so much brand loyalty that we can't just move somehwere else? I am certain that in a metter of hours/days we would have all found a new home :).
But either way we need to fix the business side of things pronto people or this sort of shit will just keep on happening.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @09:15AM
The other bitch in this bitchfight is still here pulling strings, so we have to convince him.
Barrabas is an asshat for sure, but NCommander has dirty hands too. Both of them need to get the fuck over themselves.
(Score: 5, Informative) by nobbis on Monday March 10 2014, @09:21AM
in case the DNS goes, bookmark this
http://li694-22.members.linode.com/ [linode.com]
It's easy to look up when your mind's in the gutter
(Score: 2) by nitehawk214 on Monday March 10 2014, @10:59AM
What brand loyalty? You mean the brand loyalty that Slashdot generated over the last 15 years? That when they changed their brand we moved to a placed that replicated the old experience. (for better or worse)
I am sure the majority of people here will be happy to jump to any site that can reproduce the classic experience without all the bullshit.
However, I am starting to believe that the bullshit seems to be built in and cannot be avoided.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 1) by goodie on Monday March 10 2014, @11:47AM
Ok, "brand loyalty" was a bad term. I meant it more the way you describe how this site reproduces the old style of the other site.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by VanessaE on Monday March 10 2014, @12:56PM
(Score: 2, Insightful) by VanessaE on Monday March 10 2014, @12:59PM
Actually, I think you just defined "brand loyalty" quite nicely. It doesn't have to mean "We'll stick with you until the end of time, regardless of what you do".
Brand loyalty is a two-way street: "We'll stick with and support you as a {business, website, etc.} as long as you genuinely stick with and treat your {customers, users, etc.} with all proper respect and appreciation, and don't do anything purposely illegal, unethical, etc."
Anything that just means staying there... just because... is *blind* loyalty or just plain old inertia.
In Slashdot's 15 years, they've changed their face multiple times, but most of the time we were happy with it because we had options to stick to the old ways. Then came Dice Holdings, and all hell broke loose. John and co. essentially said "fuck this! ENOUGH!" and Soylent news was born. The rest of us agreed, and that's why there are some 4000 accounts here and 1/3 of Slashdot's traffic level, in less than a month's time.
Would we all still be at Slashdot if Dice hadn't screwed it up? Probably. We'd still be complaining about how the moderation system sucks, how there needs to be this or that other poll option, or how there are too many of one type of story or another, but we wouldn't be irritated enough to leave because we generally liked Slashdot. THAT is brand loyalty.
We don't like Slashdot anymore because Dice has repeatedly violated their side of that two-way deal.
(reposted, properly-formatted this time. sorry about that.)