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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 John DID have access to the Linode account which was revoked when he left staff, but to my knowledge never had the root password or shell accounts on any of the boxes. That access was revoked.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, Insightful) by weeds on Monday March 10 2014, @10:41AM
1. Remove all the posts about the fight, the breakup, the divorce, and the custody battle. It makes you both look terrible and makes the whole community look bad. And don't post any more.
This is not an example of transapency. It is an example of trial by media. It is divisive and destructive.
2. It doesn't matter that this is the internet age... Public airing of internal grievances is a failed strategy, period. No corporation would allow this sort of non-sense to happen especially during a start up period.
3. Leave the site alone! No changes nowhere, no how. Leave it alone. What we need now is momentum and this isn't it.
4. You want $2K? You have my email. Send me the contact info and I'll send you _each_ $2K.
5. My requirement for my $4K? - Shut up!
Get the strategic plan going! [dev.soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by nobbis on Monday March 10 2014, @10:46AM
perfect
It's easy to look up when your mind's in the gutter
(Score: 1) by goodie on Monday March 10 2014, @10:52AM
DON'T remove these posts. I think that they are extremely informative and should be a reminder of what can go wrong in this type of endeavor. With time it will be burried under the new, informative, and interesting news and comments everybody puts on SN. But removing this is nothing short of censoring it in my opinion. People need to see this. The community does not "look bad" because of it. A few people do. But those who care about SN will move past this quickly. It's part of the community's history now. I for one think that it's good to keep this to remind us of what we've been through.
(Score: 2) by weeds on Monday March 10 2014, @11:11AM
A worthy counterpoint, but right now it looks pretty bad to anyone looking at it. We want to be attracting new, contributing members. This kind of static isn't going to do that.
The business of SoylentNews is building a community. Everything that is done should be directed toward that goal. This is why a vision and mission matter. This is what should have been done from the start. When you have a vision, a mission, know your business and what your specialty is, you make decisions based on those elements of your strategic plan. (see my blog) Not on the issues of the moment. We should consider ourselves in the business of building a community. In my opinion, this custody battle with all of it's back and forth does not contribute to building a community. The details for anyone who wants to see them are memorialized elsewhere. I might consider leaving it to the blogs, but never in a news post and never stop posting news to just have your news posted.
Get the strategic plan going! [dev.soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by goodie on Monday March 10 2014, @11:51AM
The blog sounds like a much better idea indeed!
(Score: 1) by timbim on Monday March 10 2014, @04:04PM
1. Looking terrible is your opinion about the situation. Not mine or other peoples. And lots of people think this is a good thing.
2. You're comparing this organization to a modern corporation? Really? I don't want this place run like the evil corps of today. Do you see the dot org?
3/4/5. Your money dose not buy you power. This is not politics. Go back to Fox News.
(Score: 2) by weeds on Monday March 10 2014, @05:02PM
1. Looking terrible is my opinion. I think that is what this dialog is. Or am I supposed to post thoughts about your opinion or somehow divine the thoughts of the community?
2.
because, of course, we all know that every corporation is evil and everything they do is also evil. Well, not every corporation is evil. My corporation makes money and does everything we can to keep our customers happy and provide a good service. There are plenty of lessons to be learned from successful businesses. :)
3/4/5. I was making a point about how trivial this dispute was. I did not ask for control or power, in fact I only asked for one small favor. Trivia on the scale of "buying power."
By the way, money does buy power. Have you not noticed how our elected officials vote? (I am note supporting it, I think it's the single biggest thing wrong with our government. - PACS, SUPERPACS, etc.) Also, if you buy stock, if you own a company, if you sit on a board, you have power. That's how it works i the real world. This is politics, corporate politics. Fox News Sucks. (at least we can agree on that
Get the strategic plan going! [dev.soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Tuesday March 11 2014, @04:48AM
sudo mod me up