SoylentNews (SN) Will Turn 10 This Winter, Improving Relations Despite Many Past Difficulties (Including Microsoft AstroTurfing)
SoylentNews (SN) is typically on top of the important "news for geeks"
THE site known to many of us as SN says "SoylentNews is people" (the motto). Unlike Slashdot, it didn't become some greedy corporation trying to push Microsoft ads and whitewashing of Bill Gates (yes, Slashdot actually did that after it had been sold!). SN uses Slash, the software that made Slashdot one of the Web's hottest sites 2+ decades ago.
Over the past couple of months I've watched closely the #governance channel of SoylentNews (in IRC), seeing that for nearly a year already there was infighting, and one might say very major disputes, resulting in almost a complete shutdown (this was celebrated by Microsoft staff over at Slashdot*) of the whole site, not too long after major data loss and partial recovery. Even the SoylentNews IRC network took quite some time to come back online after various issues, some technical in nature and some social ('people issues').
I've been trying to wrap my head around what motivated various resignations and false alarms, maybe even alarmism about the future of the site. "janrinok" wrote a lot about these issues (in his SN journal, SN comments, even IRC) and it looks like the site will be OK. They now have weekly meetings (with some exceptions) and they try to calm things down.
SN is a good site which has historically been supportive of us. We wish SN a positive, long future. Next year the site turns 10. β
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* "ElizabethGreene" is not only AstroTurfing for her master/employer Microsoft over at Slashdot; she began doing the same in SoylentNews, antagonising the community there and defending Microsoft from Microsoft critics.
