#editorial | Logs for 2015-03-17
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[00:39:02] <Phoenix666> alright, i processed the Ebola and Oracle Cloud Security submissions on dev. The Ebola came up green after hitting Save, while the Oracle one came up yellow the way it's supposed to
[00:39:37] <Phoenix666> perhaps the field for 'status' got incremented earlier today when dev was acting up?
[00:45:02] <paulej72> Phoenix666: you need two diffenet eds to edit the article to have to go greeen, if you keep editing your own article it will stay yellow
[00:45:05] <n1> the ebola story had already been signed off by bytram
[00:45:16] <Phoenix666> ah, ok
[00:45:44] <n1> if you go back on the story, top right under "story info"
[00:45:48] <n1> it will tell you who edited it and when
[00:46:20] <paulej72> and if it and NCommander artilce it will have about 20 edits
[00:46:42] * NCommander glares
[00:46:52] <paulej72> lol
[00:47:25] <NCommander> Well
[00:47:31] <NCommander> Having looked into the "brains" of search
[00:47:33] <paulej72> they are so long it takes that many edits to find all of the “errors"
[00:47:36] <NCommander> I now know why its so fucing braindead
[00:47:45] <n1> Phoenix666, there's no actual 'content' presented with the oracle story
[00:47:57] <paulej72> it was written by slash devs :)
[00:48:28] <Phoenix666> OK, so pull out some more info
[00:48:44] <n1> if you want to work on a submission that bare like that
[00:48:52] <n1> we reserve the right to add some more information to it
[00:49:04] <n1> usually in the form of a blockquote from another source, or even the original source
[00:49:09] <n1> just to actually give some meat to the summary
[00:49:22] <NCommander> Oh
[00:49:23] <NCommander> ew
[00:49:32] <Phoenix666> makes sense
[00:49:36] <NCommander> I just figured out how the slashdot guys made this work
[00:49:38] * NCommander pukes
[00:49:50] <NCommander> # If you are using a replicated slave to search on, which we
[00:49:50] <NCommander> # recommend, you need only perform these ALTERs on the slave.
[00:49:50] <NCommander> # Replication from an InnoDB master to a MyISAM slave works.
[00:50:02] <NCommander> That's wrong in so many ways
[00:51:35] <paulej72> lol
[00:57:29] <Phoenix666> zorch! 500 error on dev after trying to re-login when hitting Preview failed. also, pepto-bismol theme reverted to maroon/brown
[01:00:23] <n1> i think they're playing with dev
[01:00:54] <n1> i just got a 500 too
[01:02:36] <Phoenix666> the machines were displeased with the anti-robot rally story i was working on
[01:06:11] <n1> lol
[01:06:26] <paulej72> NCommander: is setting up sphinx search on dev
[01:08:08] <paulej72> working fine for me :)
[01:09:24] <mrcoolbp> Phoenix666: 'nother good reason to edit in notepad or similar, I do that often when doing lots of editing
[01:09:53] <Phoenix666> good tip!
[01:10:17] <mrcoolbp> Phoenix666: is it working now?
[01:15:05] <n1> Phoenix666
[01:15:59] <Phoenix666> mrcoolbp: strange, it seemed to be but now it's doing the same thing again--losing my logged-in status and kicking me out of pepto
[01:16:23] <n1> same, i just got another 500
[01:17:16] <Phoenix666> it feels like it's losing the session variables
[01:17:26] <n1> Phoenix666: for your 'TV' submission on prod, in the blockquote, instead of making two blockquotes, put "[...]" before the second part of it.
[01:17:45] <Phoenix666> got it
[01:17:49] <mrcoolbp> Phoenix666, n1: try clearing your cache and logging back in, they were messing with oit
[01:17:54] <n1> if you see submissions that are just selective copy pastes from TFA, do the same
[01:18:02] <Phoenix666> ok
[01:18:04] <paulej72> make a note with NCommander as he changed the database back end and there might be some bigger issue
[01:18:17] <NCommander> We may change it back, but at least we'll be able to go full InnoDB across the board
[01:18:37] <n1> i didnt lose any prefs, just got logged out
[01:20:02] <paulej72> getting looged out is slashes way of saying you did something mostly wrong, but not catestrophic
[01:21:50] <paulej72> [Tue Mar 17 01:21:13 2015] [error] /admin.pl:Slash::DB::Utility:/srv/soylentnews.org/perl/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.20.1/Slash/DB/Utility.pm:1023:virtuser='slash' -- hostinfo='Localhost via UNIX socket' -- Incorrect integer value: '' for column 'last_fhid' at row 1 -- UPDATE sessions SET lasttime = NOW(), last_action = 'editing', last_fhid = '', last_sid = NULL, last_subid = '', lasttitle = 'Anti-Robot Rally at SXSW' WHERE uid='552' ;; W
[01:21:52] <paulej72> was called by:Slash::DB::MySQL:/srv/soylentnews.org/perl/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.20.1/Slash/DB/MySQL.pm:2681
[01:22:42] <Phoenix666> it's mostly working, but it's losing the Topic upon clicking Preview. I hit Save anyway...
[01:23:48] <n1> i didnt do anything wrong
[01:23:56] <n1> unless you're not supposed to sit on the main page and hit refresh... :/
[01:24:35] <n1> the logout was after the second 500 error i saw, but not the first
[01:27:06] <Phoenix666> yeah, the Topic's not showing after Preview so it feels like a session variable issue (if these are being carried that way before final commit to DB)
[01:27:59] -!- cmn32480 [cmn32480!~47b333c9@sgfa-78-576-46-396.bltmmd.fios.verizon.net] has joined #editorial
[01:28:52] <n1> dev is really not liking this right now
[01:28:59] <n1> hi cmn32480
[01:31:18] <cmn32480> hey n1
[01:31:26] <cmn32480> what'd you do to break dev?
[01:34:46] <Phoenix666> every time i see the pink the chalky taste of pepto rises in my gorge. it is an excellent psycho-signal that you're in editor mode
[01:34:49] <n1> whatever it was, bytram told me to do it.
[01:36:06] <mrcoolbp> paulej72, NCommander: please don't kill the dev DB, buncha Editor recruit test stories in there right now awaiting approval from LamX
[01:36:14] <NCommander> mrcoolbp, dev is up
[01:36:36] <mrcoolbp> yes, just don't want to bounce the DB or whatever you call it
[01:36:37] <NCommander> Phoenix666, that's a bug with the MP2 upgrade I haven't squished yet
[01:36:43] <mrcoolbp> NCommander: yes, just don't want to bounce the DB or whatever you call it
[01:36:44] <NCommander> mrcoolbp, unavoidable at the moment :(
[01:36:48] <mrcoolbp> = (
[01:36:56] <mrcoolbp> NCommander: any way to preserve those stories?
[01:37:07] <NCommander> I'll try to keep downtime to a minium but there are issues with posting to Nexuses on dev right now
[01:37:26] <mrcoolbp> NCommander: I meant don't kill their stories is all. downtime is fine, it's dev after all
[01:37:45] <n1> just kicked me out again
[01:38:14] <mrcoolbp> = (
[01:38:19] <n1> is whatever you're doing on dev going to be the reason why we cant add topics to stories on there at the moment?
[01:38:21] <NCommander> mrcoolbp, I'm not going to kill the database, that was a one time migration
[01:38:29] <NCommander> n1, yeah, its a MP2 bug I haven't killed yet
[01:38:31] <n1> part of the nexus problem?
[01:38:34] <n1> k
[01:38:36] <mrcoolbp> NCommander: sweet, thx
[01:38:58] <mrcoolbp> NCommander: we happily await nexuses
[01:39:33] <mrcoolbp> Phoenix666, cmn32480: please bear with us during these downtimes, it's for the greater good.
[01:39:54] <NCommander> Normally dev isn't this unstable
[01:40:06] <NCommander> But this is going to be IMHO, the largest site update every
[01:40:06] <mrcoolbp> ^
[01:40:08] <NCommander> *ever
[01:40:30] <NCommander> I can try to kill the nexus bug now though
[01:40:57] <mrcoolbp> NCommander: all in good time, but that would be a worthwhile project
[01:41:14] <NCommander> mrcoolbp, I don't want to break your recruits by breaking the site :)
[01:41:32] <mrcoolbp> NCommander: i'm envisioning people being able to submit stories to meta asking us questions and increasing the dialouge between "us" and them
[01:41:51] <mrcoolbp> NCommander: currently people don't have a place to discuss meta
[01:41:59] <mrcoolbp> we need a "forum" for that
[01:42:07] <n1> we do need a meta place
[01:42:11] <cmn32480> Mrcoolbp: no worries. NCommander has our full confidence.
[01:42:23] <mrcoolbp> sweet
[01:42:23] <cmn32480> That and a couple bucks will get him a cup of coffee.
[01:43:28] <mrcoolbp> cmn32480: put your money where your mouth is, I bought him a nice bowl of pho for lunch and pizza too = )
[01:43:38] <NCommander> I would love to get this site to the point where it could pay a few of us a paycheck w/o compromising our values
[01:44:14] <cmn32480> I could send my Dunkin Donuts card number....
[01:46:26] <mrcoolbp> it's a start
[01:46:56] <cmn32480> It's 12345
[01:46:58] <mrcoolbp> NCommander: got this in the email today: "Hi! I (think I) understand who you are and what you are trying to do, also you bring both entertainment and value in the moments I spend on your website. Much as I would like to see you thrive on reputation and donations alone though, there's money to be made in ads, and I would trust you to publish reasonable quality ones so hereby pledge to keep
[01:46:59] <mrcoolbp> Adblock off if you decide to do so."
[01:47:21] <mrcoolbp> cmn32480: That's the same combo on my luggage!!!
[01:47:29] <NCommander> and the root password on the database!
[01:48:01] <cmn32480> Damnit! Now we have to wipe the logs. What's the password to do that?
[01:48:12] <mrcoolbp> 12346
[01:48:20] <cmn32480> oooooo tricky!
[01:48:29] * mrcoolbp saw: "*****"
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[04:27:05] <mrcoolbp> .voice Phoenix666
[04:27:05] -!- mode/#editorial [+v Phoenix666] by SkyNet
[04:27:17] <mrcoolbp> .voice FatPhil
[04:27:17] -!- mode/#editorial [+v FatPhil] by SkyNet
[05:53:10] <juggs> Do I see new eds in need of cloaks and grouping?
[11:08:03] <CoolHand> juggs: I'm supposed to be a new ed once LamX shows up and gives his stamp of approval
[12:55:51] <Phoenix666> i wouldn't mind ads if they were for things that are interesting to nerds/geeks. Sparkfun, Allied Electronics, Scientific equipment, and so forth
[12:56:52] <Phoenix666> it could be an Ask Soylent opportunity to get a statistical sampling of the kinds of stuff they wouldn't mind, and then work with Google's Dart or somesuch to reach out to advertisers in those categories
[12:57:07] <n1> can't endorse ads.
[12:57:13] <n1> my personal opinion
[12:57:23] <Phoenix666> for example i get stuff from Micro Center and don't mind them
[12:57:47] <Phoenix666> adblock helps users screen it out, though
[12:58:01] <Phoenix666> and if we had a flag in preferences
[12:58:20] <Phoenix666> then SN could charge a higher CPM because the viewers would be pre-screened
[12:59:28] <n1> im just not down with it in general, i doubt the return would be worth the ethical minefield.
[12:59:46] <n1> and i quite like having one place on the internet where there is no ads.
[12:59:53] <n1> or one place in life in general
[13:02:04] <Phoenix666> i see that. i guess the question is, how much of a gap is there between site costs and income?
[13:02:28] <Phoenix666> if we can't keep things going, then we all lose or get into a free rider problem
[13:04:58] <n1> the easier, more obvious and more options there is for subscriptions the better the income will be
[13:05:37] <Phoenix666> or maybe we should approach it Public Radio-style, with fundraising drives annually or semi-annually
[13:05:54] <Phoenix666> that's a model that Americans are at least familiar with
[13:06:21] <n1> well, the response we got from reminding people about subscriptions was very good
[13:06:32] <n1> so i think something along those lines would be far better
[13:06:46] <n1> but i really dont have time to talk about this now sadly
[13:06:56] <Phoenix666> no problem!
[13:06:59] <n1> got to go and try and earn a living myself
[13:07:04] <Phoenix666> :)
[13:07:14] <n1> kind of stressing out about meeting today thats going to make or break my year at the moment
[13:07:23] <Phoenix666> yikes. good luck!
[13:07:39] <n1> thanks
[13:08:37] <n1> laters
[13:08:47] <Phoenix666> later!
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[14:19:58] <janrinok> hi eds
[16:36:45] janrinok is now known as janrinok|afk
[17:31:54] <Phoenix666> i've been submitting articles today as proxies for editorial practice. any tips or feedback?
[18:44:23] -!- nick [nick!~nick@Soylent/Staff/Editor/n1] has joined #editorial
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[18:46:24] <janrinok|afk> hi nick
[18:46:33] janrinok|afk is now known as janrinok
[18:46:55] <janrinok> Phoenix666: you still here?
[18:56:10] -!- nick has quit [Ping timeout: 258 seconds]
[18:56:36] <Phoenix666> sorry, picking kids up from school. what's up?
[18:56:48] -!- nick [nick!~nick@37.48.xr.xy] has joined #editorial
[18:56:56] <janrinok> nothing - i was very late in getting back to you :)
[18:57:48] nick is now known as SoyGuest92165
[18:57:57] <Phoenix666> i've been submitting stories to practice since practice submissions on dev felt like they were getting a little thin
[18:58:47] <Phoenix666> do they look alright, or are there any places for improvement?
[18:58:53] <janrinok> I've noticed ;) They seem find, I can't release them all today, we have to share out the stories between submitters, but they are all acceptable.
[18:59:36] <janrinok> Some of them could be padded a little, but I would rather have a short, accurate story than a load of drivel, so I have no complaints.
[19:00:47] <janrinok> One problem, I cannot find any date for the article about IE being killed on the site that you passed in the link. It is their problem not yours.
[19:01:15] <janrinok> But you refer to Yesterday in you story, and if it doesn't go out for another 24 hours that will be meaningless
[19:01:39] <Phoenix666> Got it...I was trying to be concise, elicit comment, but not editorialize
[19:02:07] <Phoenix666> OK, date check
[19:02:33] <janrinok> fine - I'm entirely happy with that. But as a tip, if you refer to Mon 16 rather the yesterday, it will save you time when it comes to editing.
[19:02:43] <Phoenix666> ok
[19:03:15] <janrinok> but what you have done is not wrong - you will have to edit this yourself from lots of stories in the future
[19:03:23] <Phoenix666> guess that's an issue given the perennial gripe that other sites beat us to the punch
[19:04:48] <janrinok> I don't worry about what other sites do or not. And I rather have an interesting story that is a day or two late, than a current piece of rubbish.
[19:05:58] <janrinok> I'd say your stories are all good - I've not done a full edit of them all, but they are all acceptable. And bonus points for working at it while dev is unusable :)
[19:06:06] <Phoenix666> agreed
[19:06:08] <Phoenix666> :)
[19:06:41] <janrinok> Any questions from you other than the one's you've just asked?
[19:06:43] <Phoenix666> well, let me know if/when i'm ready to be released into the wild.
[19:06:59] <Phoenix666> nah, i think the conversation was to cover merging later
[19:07:03] <janrinok> That is for LamX to decide
[19:07:23] <Phoenix666> ok. i'll stick to keeping the submission pipeline full for now
[19:07:47] <janrinok> yeah, there is no rush to discuss merging - and it is almost an anticlimax when we do. One or two gotchas, but it is not difficult
[19:08:32] <janrinok> One thing you could try is suggesting a 'dept' for each of your future stories.
[19:09:01] <Phoenix666> In submitting an article, or in evaluating a submission?
[19:09:59] <janrinok> just put you suggestion on a single line at the top of your submissions and suggest the dept name with an obvious comment to attract the ed's attention so that he doesn't waste time duplicating your work
[19:10:19] <Phoenix666> got it
[19:10:32] <janrinok> Anontechie, gewg_ and others often provide a good dept
[19:10:36] <Phoenix666> k
[19:11:01] <Phoenix666> should i skew submissions toward the weekends, or does it not matter since you guys space them out anyway?
[19:11:15] <janrinok> and if you have just read and written up a story, you are more likely to think of something appropriate than an editor who is trying to get a number of stories processed
[19:11:23] <Phoenix666> k
[19:12:06] <janrinok> Ideally, we would like to start the weekend with enough good stories to fill both days.
[19:12:39] <Phoenix666> is there a rule of thumb to determine what is a 'low' number of submissions (and needing filling) vs. a 'high' number of submissions?
[19:12:50] <janrinok> so that would be around 20 acceptable stories. But we will need more because some will be dupes, some will be inappropriate or unwanted etc
[19:13:05] <Phoenix666> great, got it
[19:13:11] <janrinok> well the posting rate that we used to use is this:
[19:13:27] <janrinok> >20 stories, 1 story per hour
[19:13:43] <janrinok> 10-20 stories, 1 story every 90 mins
[19:14:06] <janrinok> <10 stories, every 2-3 hours and start writing our own!
[19:14:12] <Phoenix666> ok, so there's built-in elasticity
[19:14:56] <janrinok> but we are trying something different at the moment. we are trying to keep tomorrow's stories already in the story queue so that nobody _has_ to be working against the clock.
[19:15:24] <Phoenix666> i think it was nick who said the tech/non-tech mix was 90% to 10%. thoughts on heavy tech vs light?
[19:15:31] <janrinok> it is about 1 story every 2 hours or so, but we are prepared to move things around in the queue if something timely or BREAKING happens
[19:15:38] <Phoenix666> right
[19:16:37] <SoyGuest92165> it's all very subjective really
[19:16:43] SoyGuest92165 is now known as nick
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[19:16:49] <janrinok> Looking at the sub list gives the appearance of 18 subs, but 2 of those are polls, and one is tagged not for release but I don't want to go into details on this chan
[19:17:32] <janrinok> there are 2 Microsoft stories so I would elect to merge them, but another editor might not
[19:18:03] <janrinok> one or two of the remaining stories are a bit poor, but will do if we run out.
[19:18:55] <janrinok> We often have good submissions up until Friday morning USA time. Many do not submit during Friday because they might not see their own story over the weekend. It is a bit of a pride thing I think.
[19:20:20] <janrinok> people were suggesting that we should reduce the number of stories 'overnight' - but overnight where? Until recently we had 2 european eds catering for the US audience. We have to think of the other anglophone regions too
[19:20:46] <Phoenix666> also the language of tech internationally is english. just is
[19:20:58] <Phoenix666> so we're talking about people everywhere
[19:21:10] <Phoenix666> i had one thought about weekends
[19:21:15] <janrinok> but from 0001 to 0800 UTC we do often space the stories a little more than we would otherwise do
[19:21:24] <Phoenix666> k
[19:22:03] <Phoenix666> i read SN everyday myself, but more leisurely on the weekends the way i might have read the Sunday NYT in a bygone age
[19:22:13] <Phoenix666> so i think there's an audience there
[19:22:21] <janrinok> since my Calling All Editors story - which was caused by me being unable to maintain the pace that n1 and I were then doing, the submissions have picked up and we have you guys aboard
[19:22:43] <nick> we do sometimes hold stories for the weekend
[19:22:49] <Phoenix666> i do tend to have more time to do DIY/Maker projects on Sat & Sun
[19:22:50] <nick> with that kind of thing in mind
[19:23:17] <janrinok> The audience at weekends can be a bit different. The discussions tend to become a little broader, sometimes political, and we have an influx of trolls.
[19:23:58] <Phoenix666> i note that there are several regular contributors who have deeper, say, electronics know-how than I have and often give great tips in non-DIY contexts
[19:24:04] <janrinok> but we can never please everyone with every story - just take it on the chin.
[19:24:19] <Phoenix666> sure
[19:24:22] <janrinok> We do try to spread both topics and submitters where we can
[19:24:57] <Phoenix666> i'm wondering if some DIY/instructables style stories would have any resonance with that crowd on the weekends
[19:25:14] <janrinok> but I have 5 from yourself and 3 from anontechie so there will be a few stories from each of you in the next 24 hours or so
[19:26:15] <janrinok> I would think so, but you never know until you try it what kind of reception you will get. And be prepared for your story to be taken apart or simply become a trolling ground at the weekends, moreso than during the week.
[19:26:54] <Phoenix666> i'm fine with attempts failing--kind of goes with the territory when you're an entrepreneur :)
[19:27:05] <janrinok> It can be a bit demoralizing (from personal experience!) to have worked hard on a story and have it wasted
[19:27:41] <Phoenix666> i've been building a startup for several years that's currently in the Valley of Death. a story rejection is small potatoes haha
[19:27:51] <janrinok> lol!
[19:28:10] <Phoenix666> just happy to help out how & where i can
[19:28:12] <Phoenix666> no worries
[19:28:21] <janrinok> and it's appreciated too
[19:28:56] <janrinok> nick: how did your day go?
[19:30:09] <nick> Phoenix666++
[19:30:09] <Bender> karma - phoenix666: 3
[19:30:18] <nick> it went well
[19:30:20] <nick> thanks
[19:30:28] <janrinok> good - you going to be rich and famous?
[19:30:32] <nick> lol
[19:30:43] <nick> well it has even more potential than i thought
[19:30:45] <nick> so you never know
[19:30:59] <janrinok> best of luck with that. If you do, remember me!
[19:31:35] <janrinok> I don't want money - just say 'I know janrinok' every now and then and leave people confused...
[19:31:43] <nick> haha
[19:31:50] <nick> that they would
[19:32:56] <nick> hopefully things go well enough i eventually have more time to spend working on SN
[19:33:23] <janrinok> Phoenix666: a link in your Europe has World's Fastest Mobile Internet story is dead - it points to soylentnews and not the article source
[19:33:23] <Phoenix666> nick: fingers crossed
[19:33:43] <Phoenix666> ok
[19:33:45] <nick> thanks Phoenix666
[19:34:01] <janrinok> you look after your business nick - this is only for fun
[19:34:51] <nick> it's nice to have something to be 'passionate' about, dont have that with the work really.
[19:35:13] <janrinok> Phoenix666: I think the link marked 'OpenSignal' should be the same as 'new study'
[19:35:33] <janrinok> but you do get some pleasure from your job don't you?
[19:37:01] <nick> some parts of it, but it's less and less really, due to the type of industry it is
[19:37:11] <janrinok> I can understand that
[19:37:17] <Phoenix666> that link's beyond my fixing now, right? it's in an editor's hands now: opensignal.com
[19:37:24] <Phoenix666> nick: which industry are you in?
[19:37:35] <janrinok> Phoenix666: Yep, I think I can work it out :)
[19:38:11] <nick> electronic and physical security systems and related things
[19:38:34] <Phoenix666> that seems like a good place to be in these days
[19:38:36] <janrinok> Phoenix666: ProTip, when you've finished editing, test all your links again. I often make a mess of one ;)
[19:38:47] <Phoenix666> got it
[19:39:35] <nick> working on some other things, but thats where the main bulk of my work is
[19:39:52] <nick> trying to keep in mind that just because ive always done it doesn't mean i should always have to
[19:40:44] <Phoenix666> yeah you have to roll with the punches. i despise advertising but after the dot-bomb that's all there was in NYC
[19:40:52] <Phoenix666> and i did learn some interesting things
[19:42:25] <nick> i keep my sanity by not comforming to industry expectations, i dont play the game, i'm not a sales person
[19:42:34] <nick> the right people appreciate that
[19:43:49] <Phoenix666> figuring out what your niche is big
[19:43:55] <nick> there are lots of markets out there, and there is a way to do all of them right
[19:44:09] <nick> but a lot of the competition doesn't play fair
[19:44:47] <Phoenix666> yeah, building clientele is important to get around that
[19:45:18] <nick> its a long slow road sometimes
[19:45:25] <Phoenix666> yes, yes it is
[19:45:37] <nick> from what you said before, it sounds like you know how it goes
[19:46:10] <Phoenix666> i've been a consultant for the greater part of my career. i hated insider politics so i avoided it by being a perennial freelancer
[19:46:28] <Phoenix666> trouble is it's a lot of freakin' work to find the next gig while you're still working on today's
[19:47:05] <Phoenix666> i finally figured out the sweetspot for me was as a firefighter--come in when a project's fucked and all the insiders are losing their shit and playing hot potato
[19:47:26] <Phoenix666> then i could let my inner orc slave master out and charge triple and it worked
[19:48:04] <Phoenix666> but after a while flogging idiots into submission gets old and you want to build something for the long term
[19:48:10] <Phoenix666> :)
[19:48:16] <nick> right
[19:48:40] <nick> i do understand, had a similar role when i had a normal job in the end.
[19:48:53] <nick> didnt get to charge triple but got all the time i needed.
[19:49:12] <Phoenix666> flexibility can be more valuable than high rates
[19:49:27] <nick> yeah
[19:51:04] <nick> the employment environment has changed a lot recently
[19:51:12] <nick> feel like i was ahead of the curve with it in some ways
[19:52:22] <Phoenix666> from afar it has seemed pretty topsy turvy there, too. not too long ago Ireland was begging people here to go work there. now, crickets...
[19:52:46] <nick> heh, very true
[19:53:04] <nick> have had a long rant about that previously in this channel, some months ago lol
[19:53:22] <nick> the 'celtic tiger'
[19:54:09] <Phoenix666> but i guess if any of us really wanted job security we should have all become COBOL programmers, right?
[19:58:09] <nick> you first
[20:01:00] <Phoenix666> alas, i found perl first and fell in love
[20:01:52] <janrinok> and you haven't joined the devs?
[20:04:18] <Phoenix666> i have started to, but kids want you to play with them, feed them, etc :)
[20:04:32] <Phoenix666> i do intend to work on twitter-like features for the site, though
[20:05:17] <Phoenix666> like i said, i'll help out whereever and however i can do the most good
[20:05:39] <Phoenix666> it sounded like you guys in editorial needed the help more, so i jumped in here
[20:05:59] <janrinok> and as I said before, _we_ appreciate it!
[20:06:27] <Phoenix666> happy to do it
[20:06:33] <nick> :)
[20:06:45] <janrinok> If things hadn't changed, I reckon I had about 2 weeks left before I walked, or at least stopped editing
[20:07:02] <janrinok> I can now see light at the end of the tunnel
[20:08:28] <Phoenix666> calvary's here. riding flea-bitten mules and missing limbs, but here
[20:09:41] <janrinok> I'm in pretty poor shape myself, so flea-bites and missing limbs frighten me not!
[20:13:00] <Phoenix666> so i've been modding posters i haven't seen much yet to engage them a bit more. any sense of what site growth is like, so we can establish a baseline to measure modifications against?
[20:13:51] <Phoenix666> or is this the wrong channel to raise that?
[20:14:31] <janrinok> well, it's not something that _we_ do, but there are others who can pull stats out with relative ease.
[20:15:25] <janrinok> The is the option on the main site to extract stats but, either I don't understand how to use it properly, or it is fairly limited in its usefullness
[20:16:39] <janrinok> we have a steady growth but it is difficult to assess how many are actually live accounts, and of course we have a very large AC community, of which the majority are contributing members
[20:17:13] <janrinok> !id
[20:17:23] <Phoenix666> anecdotally it seems like more tech-heavy articles draw more comments, but it would be interesting to see stats to help editorial
[20:17:50] <janrinok> nope - either it doesn't work on this chan or I'm using it wrong - normally the latter...
[20:18:36] <janrinok> I prefer tech but our manifesto says we should balance it 70%/30% so that is what I try to do, submissions permitting of course
[20:19:07] <nick> i think it's only certain types of tech articles
[20:19:18] <nick> pure science ones do not usually get many comments
[20:19:41] <janrinok> yes, I'd agree with that.
[20:20:33] <janrinok> we have a small but enthusiastic space/astronomy following but they don't usually garner many comments. We do have some very highly qualified people in our community though!
[20:22:53] <Phoenix666> i have found myself wondering what the 'nerd' boundary is in the news for nerds. the story about the scrolling paper desk got me thinking about it
[20:23:09] <nick> its different for every person
[20:23:13] <Phoenix666> it felt ok to me, because even though it's low tech, it is still technical
[20:23:22] <Phoenix666> clever is clever
[20:23:30] <janrinok> I actually like that - but it got some bad comments. Takes all sorts I suppose
[20:23:46] <nick> it did actually generate good comments, but yeah
[20:24:03] <nick> i had my doubts, but some people forget they dont have to care about every story
[20:24:13] <Phoenix666> i saw a story a while back elsewhere about how the neanderthal tools were actually better than cro-magnon ones because they were more ergonomic
[20:24:39] <Phoenix666> but i didn't submit it because i didn't think others here would have the same interest in flintknapping i have
[20:25:12] <janrinok> it is not a major interest on this site - but that doesn't mean it is not newsworthy
[20:25:32] <nick> i would have read it
[20:25:43] <janrinok> me too!
[20:25:51] <Phoenix666> yeah, there's lots of stuff like that. low tech, but technically clever
[20:26:07] <Phoenix666> bushcraft has lots like that
[20:26:15] * janrinok wonders is there is a hidden community of flintknappers lurking within....
[20:26:35] <janrinok> almost time for me to go...
[20:26:54] <Phoenix666> me too, actually. munchikins are starting to complain about not having food
[20:28:03] <nick> take care guys
[20:28:07] <Phoenix666> i'll drift back in around 9EST. later!
[20:28:14] <janrinok> well, I'll let you go feed them then - they never get over it
[20:28:21] <Phoenix666> :)
[20:28:26] -!- Phoenix666 has quit [Quit: Leaving]
[20:29:10] <janrinok> nick: if you have time could you do a quick 2nd ed on tomorrows batch please?
[20:29:27] <nick> i will do
[20:29:44] <janrinok> take care, mate, and congrats on today's news again
[20:29:50] <nick> but otherwise i'll be lurking, mentally exhausted right now
[20:29:55] <nick> thanks
[20:30:04] <janrinok> np bye
[20:30:06] <nick> have a good evening, laters
[20:30:11] -!- janrinok has quit [Quit: leaving]