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Soapbox 4
By apsmith, Section News Posted on Thu Apr 15, 2004 at 11:04:55 AM PST
Hi, everybody; welcome to "The Soapbox". Think of this posting as a permanent "letter to the editor" page, the watercooler we can all gather around from time to time and just chat. It's recommended that you click on the "+Hotlist" tag in the upper right of this article, visible to members; this will create a Hotlist right-column box you can monitor for future newly-posted comments. This the place to come to get the latest updates, news and gossip about ongoing changes to the SciScoop site. This "Soapbox" posting is also to give you a place you can leave the editors a piece of your mind on whatever subject you want. [editor's note, by apsmith]This was getting big (and lost) - I've updated Ricky's copy slightly and left links for the previous editions below. The Soapbox: May 2003 The Soapbox: June - Dec 2003 The Soapbox: Jan - Apr 2004 The Soapbox: Apr - Jul 2004 The Soapbox: Jul - Oct 2004 The Soapbox: Jan - Apr 2004 Update [2004-4-15 16:30:26 by rickyjames]: Yep, time to update. Remember, Soapbox is the official letter-to-the-editor page; you can always find it by clicking on SOAPBOX in the navigation links of the SciScoop header even as this post slides down and off the front page. Just a reminder: If you've got the previous (Jan-April 2004) Soapbox still in your Hotlist, go to that page and click the -Hotlist tab in the upper right corner to de-list the previous Soapbox page from your Hotlist box.

Soapbox 4 | 85 comments (85 topical, 0 hidden)

Suggestions (5.00 / 1) (#3)
by jdoe on Thu Apr 15, 2004 at 06:45:17 PM PST

I believe the following questions should be answered for every artice (yes/no/maybe):

Does the subject of the story fit the site? I.e. if has anything to do with science.
Is the factual basis sound?
Is the writing legible?

If at least one answer is 'yes', and others 'maybe', the story should be posted. I am not sure how to formulate a question, but verbatum copies of news releases without links to the original should be thrown out too.

As for the posting threshold, what's the default action? Suppose the story stays in the queue for a long while, say at modlevel 3, like the one about the Super Bum. What happens to it? If it's posted anyways, then the threshold makes no difference. What's the dump threshold? Does it exist?

Maybe it would be a good idea to make a special section for various crackpot theories since they get posted anyways ("Cosmology breakthrough", "Oh my! A blackhole is going to eat Earth" etc.). Moderation queue is not going to be effective against them because rating is work, as opposed to just reading, which is entertainment.

And by the way, those frequent link posts by rickyjames, where one post has a couple dosen links IMHO are just noise. If I see such a thing in the queue I would mod it down by answering No the the question #3. But they don't go through the queue :-)

"Just noise" by gypsysoul, 04/16/2004 03:42:43 AM PST (none / 0)

This is discussion by jdoe, 04/16/2004 06:23:36 PM PST (none / 0)

Thanks for the enlightenment. by gypsysoul, 04/17/2004 06:55:25 AM PST (none / 0)

The Creation Of A Community (5.00 / 1) (#4)
by rickyjames on Thu Apr 15, 2004 at 11:54:44 PM PST

Well, let me climb on a sopabox and have a say for a moment - yeah, right, like I don't all of the time anyway. Here lately there's been a lot of discussion about self-promotion via article writing and the such. The reason SciScoop is presented as a Scoop site instead of by some other more closed and static framework is to allow participation and community-building by others. In fact, participation and community-building is to me is a PRIMARY GOAL of SciScoop.

Now I write the majority of stories here, but the majority of the stories I write DON'T GENERATE COMMENTS AND DON'T SEEM TO BE BUILDING A COMMUNITY except as a bunch of passive readers. It seems to be the off-the-wall self-promotion articles and the upswell of comments they generate that is the real community builder around here. So I'm not all that worried about quality of article submission (yet- maybe I should be) because I'm thrilled somebody is bothering to submit AT ALL.

I'm not sure what my point is, except that SciScoop still is far from where I'd like it to be - a pure Science oriented Slashdot, with lots of people submitting so many great articles some of them have to get turned down and each one generating hundreds of comments from hundreds of readers. We've got the readers - SciScoop gets seen by 1000-3000 people a day, each and every day. What we don't have are large numbers of submitters, or posters.

I dunno. I like to think my editorial sense of picking article topics is pretty good, that the overall ongoing content of SciScoop is interesting. But maybe I am picking articles that just don't lend themselves to discussion - how can I expect a ton of comments on, say, protein crystallization just because I think that's a geeky sexy topic? So if you'd like to see a shift in article focus that's more friendly to talk about, let me know...

The key to growing is to shake things up and get more people into the mix. That's why last week I extended "superuser" status to apsmith and Sweetwind, two of this site's staunchest supporters and longest members. SciScoop isn't "my" site - I want it to be "our" site. It's got to mutate and change and grow into something it isn't now and isn't what we expect. So - anybody can submit articles, and comments, and I hope you all do. Plus, now SciScoop has doubled the number of people from Drog and I who can alter its fundamental DNA and change its foundations, and I've encouraged them to do so if the mood to do so comes over them. So don't be surprised if you drop in one day and see a new lime-and-purple color scheme or something new being tried in the left or right columns. That's called growth, and evolution.

Enjoy reading this SciScoop story? Here's a thousand more.

community feeling by janra, 04/16/2004 10:24:15 AM PST (5.00 / 2)

Well said by jdoe, 04/16/2004 06:59:15 PM PST (none / 0)

Readers come here for news, not debate by Sylvia Engdahl, 04/16/2004 04:44:13 PM PST (5.00 / 1)

Please speak for yourself by jdoe, 04/17/2004 02:40:33 AM PST (none / 0)

I was offering opinion, not voting! by Sylvia Engdahl, 04/17/2004 12:28:55 PM PST (3.50 / 2)

passive vs. active readers by janra, 04/18/2004 05:14:19 PM PST (5.00 / 2)

One more thing by jdoe, 04/19/2004 02:22:52 AM PST (none / 0)

OK, here is my opinion by jdoe, 04/19/2004 03:12:20 AM PST (none / 0)

Maybe you should not post so many stories by jdoe, 04/16/2004 04:05:52 AM PST (4.00 / 2)

Number of stories by Sweetwind, 04/16/2004 06:38:07 AM PST (5.00 / 1)

A few points by jdoe, 04/16/2004 06:54:01 PM PST (none / 0)

the more stories, the better by J n, 04/16/2004 06:29:53 AM PST (2.50 / 2)

lime and purple by apsmith, 04/16/2004 02:48:06 AM PST (none / 0)

Thanks, ap! by gypsysoul, 04/16/2004 03:27:02 AM PST (none / 0)
And, Sweetwind, by gypsysoul, 04/16/2004 07:53:35 AM PST (none / 0)

Self-promotion, and other posting suggestions (4.00 / 1) (#1)
by apsmith on Thu Apr 15, 2004 at 11:02:16 AM PST

We've had some comments about this lately - what are your opinions as to guidelines for what we should be approving here? There are a few of us with "editor" permissions, but other stories are community-selected. Should all stories be written specifically for sciscoop, not posted elsewhere? Should they ideally have a lot of links? Be well-formatted, with good English? What would you like to see here?

There are also some 'scoop' parameters that should perhaps be changed. The posting threshold right now is 4 approvals - is that too low? What's a good number? We seem to be reaching that threshold in a matter of hours now, so would doubling it be appropriate?

Join us at the National Space Society and help open space to everyone!

My criteria... by Sweetwind, 04/17/2004 04:04:21 AM PST (5.00 / 1)

Original content by gypsysoul, 04/17/2004 09:36:55 AM PST (none / 0)

posting threshold by janra, 04/15/2004 06:15:17 PM PST (none / 0)

No show_threshold by Drog, 04/16/2004 02:16:37 AM PST (none / 0)

not surprising by janra, 04/16/2004 08:08:16 AM PST (none / 0)

A suggestion for rickyjames (none / 0) (#26)
by jdoe on Mon Apr 19, 2004 at 02:26:19 AM PST

Consider making a page like this. Make a prominent link to it from the front page or, better, from every page.

RDF Down? (none / 0) (#28)
by pythor on Mon May 03, 2004 at 12:17:08 AM PST

I follow SciScoop through the Slahbox on /., and the articles haven't changed since 4/29... I see newer articles on the home page. Is this a Sciscoop problem?

Aurgh by rickyjames, 05/03/2004 03:11:00 AM PST (none / 0)

Question by pythor, 05/04/2004 10:47:55 AM PST (none / 0)

I manually run the cron... by Drog, 05/04/2004 03:05:43 PM PST (none / 0)

Reposting Oil peak article (none / 0) (#32)
by apsmith on Fri May 14, 2004 at 02:33:34 AM PST

Given the continued tightening of world oil supplies (and the increases people are seeing at the pump too) this seemed the right thing to do. Criticism of the way I reposted it is welcome though!

Join us at the National Space Society and help open space to everyone!

HTML markup (none / 0) (#33)
by jdoe on Wed May 19, 2004 at 02:35:36 AM PST

Please add <sub> and <sup> to the list of allowed tags

on a science-oriented site by janra, 05/19/2004 07:53:43 AM PST (none / 0)

How did you do it? by apsmith, 05/19/2004 03:06:29 PM PST (none / 0)

in a block by janra, 05/20/2004 05:46:11 AM PST (none / 0)

Yes, somebody just added them by jdoe, 05/19/2004 05:11:46 PM PST (none / 0)

Reader Leakage (none / 0) (#38)
by rickyjames on Tue May 25, 2004 at 02:59:05 AM PST

Just thought I'd share some statistics that I personally find a little disheartening. Something is happening here on SciScoop - we're losing readers.

The following are the page hit counts from the FastPage counter in the upper right corner of a SciScoop page:

Apr 05 - Apr 11 : 21,607 pagehits

Apr 12 - Apr 18 : 24,864 pagehits

Apr 19 - Apr 25 : 24,335 pagehits

Apr 26 - May 02 : 17,403 pagehits

May 03 - May 09 : 19,141 pagehits

May 10 - May 15 : 15,520 pagehits

May 17 - May 23 : 08,198 pagehits

So far our hits for this week look like they're headed for new lows. Our pagehits for Mon May 24 were 1013 vs. 1724 the week before and a healthy average of around 3500 per Monday in April.

For the record, we swithced over to true moderation on April 21 and most of my stories since then have been taking press releases and adding links to them, mainly because of increased time pressures at work and home. Questions:

Is this even anything to be worried about, even tho I think it is?

Has the quality of the site significantly deteriorated with my major emphasis on press release stories over the pass few weeks?

Anybody got any comments / ideas / suggestions?

Enjoy reading this SciScoop story? Here's a thousand more.

Some possible reasons ares: by Drog, 05/25/2004 04:03:11 AM PST (none / 0)

An anecdote... by pythor, 05/25/2004 11:21:15 AM PST (none / 0)

Regarding our RDF feed... by Drog, 05/25/2004 03:06:29 PM PST (none / 0)

re: scifitoday.com by janra, 05/25/2004 05:48:40 PM PST (none / 0)

More stats? by jdoe, 05/25/2004 06:11:16 AM PST (none / 0)
I've been busy by apsmith, 05/25/2004 04:42:02 PM PST (none / 0)
Google News? by SEWilco, 07/12/2004 09:17:19 PM PST (none / 0)

Help!!! I'm Caught In A Time Warp!!! (none / 0) (#45)
by rickyjames on Wed May 26, 2004 at 10:08:52 PM PST

Well, in case everybody's wondering where I've vanished to lately, I'm asymptotically approaching some kind of time warp. My time sense is all screwed up because of fatigue over the past few days, and it's gonna get worse.

At work, I've somehow become the main book-boss that's gotten called in literally from the sidelines to edit a very important 150 page document that's supposed to be delivered to General Kadish next Tues. This thing is a GMD system safety overview written by a committee of engineers with too much access to the cut-and-paste function of a word processor. Your imagination is not capable of comprehending the disjointed horror.

Right now I'm in the middle of pulling an all-nighter trying to get the front third of this mess put into some kind of logical flow and order after getting kudos on what I did on pages 45 thru 80. One of the original authors may never forgive me, but the government guy from the project office here in Huntsville that's ordered this little clusterf...um, exercise was pleased to say the least. He's the one that's gotta deliver this thing to Gen. K next week and I think he's still a tad nervous at this point.

I'm mainly pulling the all-nighter because I've only got until midnight Thursday to provide any input at all. After that, I leave the working-late-and-over-Memorial-Day-weekend cheerful troops behind and go to Birmingham early Friday morning to do the stepson-rehersal-dinner-wedding-party thing over 36 action-packed hours on Friday and Saturday. My role is mainly trying to keep my wife sane, which may be harder than editing the SAR I'm working on now.

THEN on Sunday morning we all wake up in Birmingham and take off for a week at Gatlinburg in the Great Smokies followed by a jaunt over to Ashville to see the Biltmore House, something I've never visited even though my grandfather was born in wooden shack in nearby Leicester, where I've visited distant and now-forgotten relatives many times as a child. This is a two-car road trip with my wife's relatives from North Dakota. To say they have interesting love-hate dynamics as a family is an understatement. Before the World Trade Center towers fell, we all went to see Allison graduate from West Point and then toured New York City. My wife and her bro got in a loud, spirited tug-of-war on the bus over the map. That sucker ripped in half and you could have heard a pin drop. Nothing like that will happen THIS time, will it? Nah.

Anyway, we get back home Saturday Nite June 5. Boy, am I gonna need a vacation by then.

But I digress. I ain't doin' no SciScoop stories til June 6. Sorry. If y'all'd like to put some up, it'd be much appreciated. May I suggest putting links into various press releases and calling it a submitted SciSCoop story?

If anybody's still here reading at this site when I get back, I'll pitch in trying to address the possible reader leaks that have been discussed. Thanks for the input, gang.

Have a great Memorial Day weekend, gang. Don't forget why we're celebrating.

Enjoy reading this SciScoop story? Here's a thousand more.

Have a good vacation Ricky! by apsmith, 05/28/2004 03:06:29 AM PST (none / 0)

Try the diaries? (none / 0) (#47)
by apsmith on Mon Jun 07, 2004 at 05:14:40 AM PST

If I might suggest - Ricky's political stories are fun, but obviously a little too controversial for the front page. Some people have been trying the diaries here - you can get to them from the "Section" listing - see mtigges recent entry for instance: http://sciscoop.com/story/2004/6/3/21298/26622.

Join us at the National Space Society and help open space to everyone!

Agreed by mtigges, 06/10/2004 08:03:20 AM PST (none / 0)

Thanks by rickyjames, 06/10/2004 08:53:37 AM PST (none / 0)
RDFs can't be updated by janra, 06/11/2004 04:28:46 AM PST (none / 0)

story editing (none / 0) (#51)
by janra on Fri Jun 11, 2004 at 08:48:57 AM PST

Question for users and admins alike - what do you think of enabling Scoop's "edit queue" feature?

The feature adds a second "mode" to the current voting queue. A story in the voting queue (the one we're familiar with) is one where the author cannot edit, and users can vote; a story in the edit queue is one where the author can edit, and users cannot vote.

It has its advantages and disadvantages, as seen in this thread.
--
Discuss the art and craft of writing

my feeling should be clear, by mtigges, 06/11/2004 11:09:35 AM PST (none / 0)

New Server (none / 0) (#53)
by apsmith on Fri Jun 25, 2004 at 10:19:36 AM PST

If you hadn't noticed - the move is thanks to janra - "cron" is fixed so the RDF file is being regularly updated, and Stats are working now too! I believe this is an upgraded version of the scoop software, but janra could give more details on that.

Join us at the National Space Society and help open space to everyone!

It is an upgrade too by janra, 06/25/2004 01:27:14 PM PST (none / 0)

Actually, there was a problem with the DNS by jdoe, 06/26/2004 06:57:17 PM PST (none / 0)
Middle of the night by jdoe, 06/26/2004 07:00:46 PM PST (none / 0)

well, true :-) by janra, 06/26/2004 09:21:27 PM PST (none / 0)

Bug? by mtigges, 06/27/2004 05:38:31 AM PST (none / 0)

oops by janra, 06/27/2004 12:16:14 PM PST (none / 0)

like site, more informed than me is why i come, ca (none / 0) (#55)
by Anonymous on Fri Jun 25, 2004 at 02:50:46 PM PST

n't comment on what I don't know/understand but continue to read to be informed. Do not know why you want comments just to have comments? some of the ones I see on onther site just look like telephone conv between teens, nothing much to say only few and far between inform. Rather see stories. Been to slash dot and didn't see any thing I wanted to comment on but did set new question--will use same question here----There have been continuing discoveries of impact craters on land and just imagine how many lie waiting to be discovered in the sea bed so is there any program to record and plot meteorite paths and the impact effect in a global presentation. Should be fantastic in effect and would like to see a site like this.

Serenity now! (none / 0) (#61)
by mtigges on Mon Jun 28, 2004 at 04:37:28 AM PST

I hate to be a party pooper, but that omnipresent Serenity box is causing me the opposite of serenity. I usually spend my time here between the 'new comments' and 'moderate submissions' links. But now that this serenity box is cluttering up the right column I have to actually scroll to get the link. Most annoying. Is that too much whining?

Nah by rickyjames, 06/28/2004 05:17:08 AM PST (none / 0)

Thanks by mtigges, 06/28/2004 06:29:09 AM PST (none / 0)

Okay, I've been mostly out of pocket (none / 0) (#64)
by gypsysoul on Wed Jul 07, 2004 at 01:02:51 PM PST

or, rather, computer range, for the past 2 weeks.
When did SS begin showing who else is online??
That's cool! If you tell me it happened months ago, I'll up my meds a notch :-).

Right now, jxliv7, Chronosphere, and 18 AHs are sampling the offerings.

And BTW, I really miss Sweetwind.

last week by janra, 07/07/2004 01:43:27 PM PST (none / 0)

LOL... Thanks, Janra, by gypsysoul, 07/07/2004 01:57:10 PM PST (none / 0)

is it working? (none / 0) (#67)
by mtigges on Fri Jul 09, 2004 at 06:26:14 AM PST

A couple of months ago I posted a diary entry titled "It's working." I think I might have been incorrect in my presumption. Today is the first day that I can remember that I haven't had new material to read here.

Ricky spends a great deal of time creating excellent content for this site, but he shouldn't be alone. Arthur contributes great stories. I do my best to help, but I lack his and most other peoples writing talent. How can we encourage fresh submitters? Or am I alone in wishing that there were more?

Is it the case that most stories get voted to the front page because they are all excellent? I suspect that it is at least partly (if not mostly) due to the fact that there just isn't anything else to vote to the front page. Quite frankly my recent story about the results of the LASP UVIS instrument should've been a diary entry or a section story at best. We've only had a small handful of stories that have been rejected. I don't think that's a good thing. That may sound weird, but I'd rather see the group of posted stories be so excellent that it becomes necessary to reject a few good ones.

Who's with me? And if you are, any suggestions on encouraging more submissions?

Well - by rickyjames, 07/09/2004 06:34:46 AM PST (none / 0)
Writing a story... by J n, 07/09/2004 07:37:34 AM PST (none / 0)

trust gypsysoul by apsmith, 07/09/2004 07:47:25 AM PST (none / 0)

Hey! Watch It! by rickyjames, 07/09/2004 07:52:29 AM PST (none / 0)

Excuse me, but by gypsysoul, 07/09/2004 08:21:13 AM PST (5.00 / 1)

don't worry about it... by mtigges, 07/09/2004 07:52:21 AM PST (none / 0)

She's A She by rickyjames, 07/09/2004 07:56:31 AM PST (none / 0)

Aw, gee, by gypsysoul, 07/09/2004 08:54:28 AM PST (none / 0)

I understand what you are saying, by gypsysoul, 07/09/2004 08:16:33 AM PST (none / 0)

Great, but by mtigges, 07/09/2004 08:26:45 AM PST (none / 0)

Well, Mr. Tigges, (or Dr., speaking of by gypsysoul, 07/09/2004 08:44:15 AM PST (none / 0)

Sounds great by mtigges, 07/09/2004 09:10:18 AM PST (none / 0)

If only I could... by gypsysoul, 07/09/2004 04:51:36 PM PST (none / 0)

oops! by J n, 07/09/2004 09:30:41 AM PST (none / 0)
editorial comments by janra, 07/09/2004 10:44:35 AM PST (none / 0)

Submit it anyway by janra, 07/09/2004 10:34:58 AM PST (none / 0)

This Edition of Soapbox Is Closed (none / 0) (#84)
by rickyjames on Sun Jul 11, 2004 at 06:11:22 AM PST

OK, we're going to close this edition of Soapbox - this happens occasionally to keep it from getting too long. You want to do a few things to keep up with us:

Go to the top of this very page and click the -Hotlist link
Click on SOAPBOX on the main menu bar to get to the new Soapbox
Click on the +Hotlist link on the new Soapbox page.

See you there! Keep writing and let's all stick together!

Enjoy reading this SciScoop story? Here's a thousand more.

Soapbox 4 | 85 comments (85 topical, 0 hidden)

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