Story 2014-08-27 2QM4 The experiment with feeding Soylent articles: your comments!

The experiment with feeding Soylent articles: your comments!

by
in ask on (#2QM4)
Well, unless you were holed up with Dick Cheney in the underground security bunker, you probably noticed Pipedot flipped the switch on a new feature that feeds articles from other sites. The idea is, as I understand it, anyone running Pipecode can eventually have a whole series of these feeds, and automatically populate their site with articles.

That led to a rash of new articles here, all of the Soylent comments, and a bit of anger over at Soylent despite NCommander having generously and magnanimously offered the feed of articles to Pipedot.

Nonetheless, this mirthful article suggestion poked up in the Pipe today:
Pipedot caught willfully plagiarizing Soylent News! As noted on https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?sid=3587&cid=85807 and https://pipedot.org/story/2014-08-26/database-to-track-suspicious-memes-on-twitter and in particular, https://pipedot.org/comment/1409062920_n1_soylent_news_org , the majority of content being posted on pipedot.org is taken without permission from soylentnews.org

Given that the copyright of comments on soylentnews.org is not transferred from the people that posted them, this ongoing action constitutes wilful, mass copyright infringement.

You are hereby given notice on behalf of John Doe and Jane Doe * 4,000 under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act 1998, as amended, Section 512(c)(3)(A) that:- ...
Glad nerds haven't lost their sense of humor. So, what did you think of the feature? Your comments here about the feed, the pipe, and the future direction of Pipedot.
Reply 58 comments

Alright then, I'll start (Score: 5, Insightful)

by zafiro17@pipedot.org on 2014-08-27 13:32 (#2QMB)

A couple of thoughts from one of your volunteer editors:
  1. Our current poll shows most of us also read Soylentnews. That's good news - we should be sister sites, not competition, and it's my preference to avoid duplicate content. That's sometimes impossible but I have noticed any article that has also been submitted to Soyent gets no comments, so maybe we should avoid multiple submissions.
  2. Pipedot flipped the switch on the Soy feed after (A) the pipe had been dry for a whole week, and (B) I was too busy with my day job and a database project to be able to provide content. If no one submits articles here there aren't going to be any to read. Thanks to the handful of you who do provide content.
  3. I noticed the soy feed instantly killed discussion at Pipedot. Because you could comment on the article over at Soylent and have them replicate here, that's what everyone - including yours truly - did. It seems with the Soy feed turned on, Pipedot became nothing more than an alternative GUI to Soylent (like a reader). That makes Pipedot not very useful, particularly because you could read but not comment on articles, or if you did comment, they wouldn't be replicated back.
In general, I like having both Soy and Pipe, and i like it that they're separate. That allows both groups to develop their own personalities and focus, and it allows everyone to see how the differences in moderation etc. lead to different characters of site. I don't see these two sites as competition, as I contribute to both. But I would like to see them diverge a bit, and that will probably happen over time.

Re: Alright then, I'll start (Score: 4, Interesting)

by vanderhoth@pipedot.org on 2014-08-27 13:42 (#2QMD)

I have to say I already see them diverging. SN, IMHO, is much more general news it includes a lot of politics and general interest articles. |. is definitely more tech focused, and I like it that way. Problem being, there isn't really much opinion involved with straight up tech news so there's not really all that much to say about it. The few pieces I see on |. that do have some opinion involved are also posted to SN, which has a lot more off the deep end people to argue with... http://xkcd.com/386/

Re: Alright then, I'll start (Score: 5, Insightful)

by hapnstance@pipedot.org on 2014-08-27 14:09 (#2QN2)

I have to agree. And I prefer them to be divergent. I left /. because I didn't like what they were doing to the site. I left SN because I found only about 10% of the content interesting. I found |. and thought I had finally found a place to my liking: something as close to the old, old /. as I could get. And now |. is becoming a reader for SN. This is not what I am looking for and if the trend continues in the wrong direction then, alas, I will have to start my search again. I really want a site that honestly is "news for nerds" and "stuff that matters" and not all of the other junk we get on SN (including the "off the deep end" comments). Please turn off the feed.

Re: Alright then, I'll start (Score: 4, Insightful)

by moveonover@pipedot.org on 2014-08-27 14:22 (#2QNE)

I absolutely agree. For Soylent content, I'll go to Soylent. I was hoping Pipedot would remain lower-volume, higher-quality and tech-focused.
If 95% of the content on Pipedot is coming from Soylent, then 95% of the reason for Pipedot to exist is gone.

Re: Alright then, I'll start (Score: 4, Informative)

by skarjak@pipedot.org on 2014-08-27 17:05 (#2QS3)

Completely agree. I took very much the same path as you (although I started reading slashdot again after I was disapointed with Soylent. They haven't imposed the beta interface on me yet so I'm cool with it). It seems like the members more interested in drama made the switch to soylent (which we should have seen coming, to be honest), and so a lot of the topics are about subjects that people can discuss with little qualification and create drama about.

I instantly noticed the significant drop in comment quality on pipedot when you flipped that switch. Please don't turn it back on.... I'd rather not see content on pipedot for a few days than to let the soylent news stuff in.

Re: Alright then, I'll start (Score: 3, Interesting)

by reziac@pipedot.org on 2014-08-31 00:56 (#2RXG)

I've noticed the soy drama too :(

I like having all three sites each as their own thing. If a story gets duplicated, probably best to have each site's individual take on it, rather than a straight-up duplicate.

Re: Alright then, I'll start (Score: 2, Informative)

by Anonymous Coward on 2014-08-27 15:01 (#2QPH)

In regard to your point about NCommander giving pipedot permission to run SN content. The rest of the SN staff had no idea this was the case, and when it was originally brought up yesterday, it wasn't clarified.

When statements by NCommander had been found it still wasn't exactly clear that it would also include sharing of the communities comments, not just stories submitted. At the moment it's a bit tricky, as you can reply to an SN comment on this site, and the relevant SN user would have no idea about it. Also, at first the attribution and linking back to SN wasn't as clear as it perhaps should have been.

Personally, I don't have a problem with an arrangement like this (depending on terms), but it took the SN staff (and the community in general) by surprise.

---
n1
Editoral Team
SoylentNews.org
[These are my views and are not necessarily representative of all the SoylentNews.org staff.]

Re: Alright then, I'll start (Score: 1, Interesting)

by joshuajon@pipedot.org on 2014-08-27 16:17 (#2QR3)

I'm glad to see this experiment over. I think it was a major blunder on the part of NCommander to not give this a great deal of public discussion before allowing it to proceed.

Re: Alright then, I'll start (Score: 5, Informative)

by mrcoolbp@pipedot.org on 2014-08-27 23:37 (#2QZ1)

I'd like to clarify a few things here:
  • There was no anger on the part of the SoylentNews team that this happened
  • We were mostly surprised by a huge server load (took up half the CPU's capacity on the initial scrape) and finding out about this via user comments on IRC
  • NCommander said this in a post here on pipedot:
If we ever manage to get an API for our database coded, I don't think the staff (or I) would have any issue if you spooled in our articles directly (obviously, we have to get a license on new content hammered out before you could do that, but that's on our TODO).
(emphasis mine)
  • There's no hard feelings anywhere, we just would have liked to know what was happening ahead of time
  • Bryan's always been a great guy and remains one in our books

Re: Alright then, I'll start (Score: 1)

by computermachine@pipedot.org on 2014-08-27 23:44 (#2QZ2)

I noticed the soy feed instantly killed discussion at Pipedot.
Yes, that was my first thought too when I first came to the site and noticed all the new articles and comments.

I think Pipedot is great, and even though I think feeding articles and comments from other sites is cool in principle, I believe this was the wrong way of doing it. As you mentioned, Pipedot became a reader to SN and not much else. Considering that the comment systems aren't integrated (and that might be tough to fix with SN since it doesn't even run Pipecode), and that every article from SN was duplicated on Pipedot, instead of a select few, it really made no sense.

Warning? (Score: 2, Insightful)

by vanderhoth@pipedot.org on 2014-08-27 13:34 (#2QMC)

I noticed it because I read both after about the third article I started noticing the comments on the stories were also the same. I kind of like the idea that if I wanted to make my own personal news aggregate I could have it point to different sites, but it's probably not a great idea... I don't remember reading the experiment was going to take place, sorry if it was noted somewhere, it would probably be prudent to make it well known if something like that is going to take place in the future and not before hand you have the proper permissions.

I like it! (Score: 1)

by engblom@pipedot.org on 2014-08-27 13:45 (#2QMK)

I definitely like it! I hope this will lead to two way cooperation so soylent would also get the comments here.

Re: I like it! (Score: 2, Interesting)

by engblom@pipedot.org on 2014-08-27 13:53 (#2QMP)

I wanted to add that even if two-way communication would not be possible, I like this feature as it brings more sites into one. People like me, mostly lurking and seldom commenting do not need two-way communication.

Bit of a shock (Score: 4, Funny)

by hyper@pipedot.org on 2014-08-27 13:49 (#2QMN)

I hadn't checked PD in a couple of days due to hectic schedule and found.. a WHOLE PAGE of articles. Didn't even realise it was SN.. until I hit the article about pipedot cannibalising SN :P

bwhahahahahaha

Good one Brian. Funniest event so far this year.

Still, I'd like to be able to filter out SN articles via the GUI, an option box on the front page to hide/show news from SN perhaps? Pipedot has a different feel and while the two are aligned they are not the same.

Re: Bit of a shock (Score: 2, Insightful)

by seriously@pipedot.org on 2014-08-27 14:12 (#2QN3)

Still, I'd like to be able to filter out SN articles via the GUI, an option box on the front page to hide/show news from SN perhaps? Pipedot has a different feel and while the two are aligned they are not the same.
I agree 100% on this, besides I thought that this is what the feed is for ?

Also I got a bit lost at the huge amount of articles, so I think this was a bit over the top. Would it be possible to only import the most significant SN posts (possibly pre-selected by the editors) to remain, as vanderhoth put it, "more tech focused" ?

Anyway, kudos for at least testing this and moving forward with new ideas :-)

What would it take to get more submitted articles here? (Score: 2, Interesting)

by zafiro17@pipedot.org on 2014-08-27 13:56 (#2QMQ)

I think we need to focus on how to get get content on Pipedot. Maybe feedstreams like the Soyfeed (I love that word!) are one approach, but there may be others? This isn't my site and I'm not doing the coding, but just to get the party started, what about things like:
  • submit articles by email, using some kind of protocol (first paragraph is the title, second is the intro, third is the link or something). Spam wouldn't be too much of a problem because all articles have to go through an editor anyway
  • what about some easy way to go from an RSS reader to a submittal form, like Android's awesome "share via" system that allows you to build various bridges. Or does this mean getting someone to develop an app or equivalent, which would be a totally different and maybe cumbersome coding effort? (but cool/awesome nonetheless)?

Re: What would it take to get more submitted articles here? (Score: 1)

by seriously@pipedot.org on 2014-08-27 14:05 (#2QN1)

I wouldn't mind reading more articles every day of the same quality as the one-a-day pipedot one, on the other hand don't forget quantity != quality

As for submissions, I'm unfortunately more of a "late" reader: whenever I see something interesting on one of my favorite tech sites, it's already been posted here or at SN :-/

I'll happily submit the day I'm first on the ball though ;-)

Re: What would it take to get more submitted articles here? (Score: 1, Insightful)

by Anonymous Coward on 2014-08-27 14:49 (#2QP7)

I'm actually worried that the flood of SN articles mirrored here would take away from your own community. I too see |. as a sister site to SN; and I'd like to see you succeed; not just duplicate what we're doing on SN.

So I think there may be a good way to do it - but scraping everything probably isnt the way to go.

... but i do want to congratulate you on the job that script was doing..

-Blackmoore

Re: What would it take to get more submitted articles here? (Score: 1)

by zafiro17@pipedot.org on 2014-08-27 15:45 (#2QQJ)

Furthermore, congrats to the Soylent team - the site is looking and getting better every day. You have had some good articles and some good conversations going on there recently.

I also have seen Soylent is struggling with the "not enough articles being submitted and too many of them are off topic or not good" problem too. That's the problem with community-run sites: you need a community and you need them to participate. If Pipedot - or Soylent, for that matter - consists of a bunch of news junkies who come to read but not write, your site is dead in the water.

Re: What would it take to get more submitted articles here? (Score: 1)

by rocks@pipedot.org on 2014-08-27 20:26 (#2QW9)

I'm really keen on Pipedot being a success, with success defined as a place to learn from interesting news and the experience of community members. It's starting to get there sometimes, but it's also discouraging to see a story pass by with few or no comments. I get that tech stories sometimes don't need a lot of discussion, but maybe there is a way to rate stories as being of interest even when we have nothing to add. Psychologically, perceived approval from peers probably factors in on ones motivation to contribute, even if that seems a little co-dependent.Also, I'm a lurker by preference, but until pipedot is rolling we all need to get out of the lurker's comfort zone as much as possible. Cheers...

Re: What would it take to get more submitted articles here? (Score: 4, Insightful)

by zafiro17@pipedot.org on 2014-08-27 20:57 (#2QWP)

Smart point. As volunteer editor, I can guarantee you when an article goes up and doesn't generate any discussion, I think, "hmm, shouldn't post more articles like this." If you haven't seen any astronomy articles here recently, that's why: none of the previous astronomy articles generated any talk. And what's the point of posting articles if they don't generate some feedback?

Perhaps articles can have a thumbs up/down button when posted so people can send feedback to submitters even if they don't care to comment on them? Not posting for our health here: probably all of us also has a day job.

Re: What would it take to get more submitted articles here? (Score: 3, Insightful)

by seriously@pipedot.org on 2014-08-27 21:46 (#2QXB)

oh, that's why :-(

sorry, I felt dumb to just post "I liked that article" without any kind of extra insight. Indeed a way to share appreciation would certainly help :-)

Re: What would it take to get more submitted articles here? (Score: 1)

by zafiro17@pipedot.org on 2014-08-27 22:33 (#2QY2)

Awright then, now that I know, look for some more astro stuff. I like those subjects too.

Re: What would it take to get more submitted articles here? (Score: 1)

by hyper@pipedot.org on 2014-08-27 22:55 (#2QYC)

Thanks. I like reading about topics outside my personal sphere of knowledge, however my preference is not to comment unless warrented.A rating and meta feedback system for articles sounds good. Perhaps we can prefix comments with "meta" to flag a response... or everyone could just post saying how much they like or dislike the article...

Re: What would it take to get more submitted articles here? (Score: 1, Interesting)

by Anonymous Coward on 2014-08-28 08:13 (#2R3J)

I like the 'I'll post what I'm interested in' technique a lot more than 'I'll post what the masses seem to like'. I've learned a lot of interesting things that way, and it feels like you end up with higher quality material.

I really like the editorial style on pipedot, and I think a lot of it comes down to that attitude. The site isn't designed by committee, one guy just went and added features that he wanted. The editorial staff aren't constantly trying for general appeal, they're just posting what they like.

Re: What would it take to get more submitted articles here? (Score: 2, Insightful)

by zafiro17@pipedot.org on 2014-08-28 16:51 (#2R9D)

That's kind of what is happening now. Have a look at the history of the feed and note that 80-90% of the articles were submitted and then posted by me. The site currently represents - for better or worse - my interests.

That's a problem, actually. It would be great to have people posting other stuff. In the meantime, hope you guys like astronomy, security, BSD, Bodhilinux, and openSUSE, because that's what you're going to get: ;)

Re: What would it take to get more submitted articles here? (Score: 2, Interesting)

by nightsky30@pipedot.org on 2014-08-28 11:45 (#2R5D)

I like astronomy as well :D Maybe people like the article or subject, but they don't feel competent enough to post discussion on it. Maybe an article rating system would be nice, but isn't that how the articles get published to begin with? People thumbs up what they want published from the pipe?

Re: What would it take to get more submitted articles here? (Score: 2, Interesting)

by codersean@pipedot.org on 2014-08-28 04:11 (#2R0W)

I like the astronomy stuff I just don't comment much, a thumbs up or thumbs down button to indicate that would be useful for me.

Re: What would it take to get more submitted articles here? (Score: 2, Insightful)

by lhsi@pipedot.org on 2014-08-28 07:41 (#2R3B)

How about allowing moderation of articles? So you can see some recent ones and say "oh, that one is marked as insightful, I'll go and read it".

Re: What would it take to get more submitted articles here? (Score: 1, Informative)

by Anonymous Coward on 2014-08-28 14:09 (#2R6T)

Just to chime in with what seems to be a significant revelation from this experiment. We don't comment often, but enjoy many articles and other's comments on subjects familiar and unfamiliar to us. Editors need some kind of gauge to let them know what we like and don't like, but they only have a small pool of comments to guide them. Some other metric we can supply... e.g. the suggested Like/Dislike input... even from ACers like me could go a long way to steering the editors towards stuff we want.

Re: What would it take to get more submitted articles here? (Score: 2, Interesting)

by zafiro17@pipedot.org on 2014-08-28 16:59 (#2R9E)

I think I'll also ask Bryan - HEY, I just did! - for some kind of dashboard where editors, or maybe everyone, can see how many articles were clicked on or something like that. Most CMSes provide some kind of similar functionality already.

Re: What would it take to get more submitted articles here? (Score: 0)

by Anonymous Coward on 2014-08-29 04:16 (#2RHQ)

Get piwik
It is google analytics without google

Re: What would it take to get more submitted articles here? (Score: 2, Informative)

by lhsi@pipedot.org on 2014-08-28 07:38 (#2R3A)

I submit a lot of stories to SN, and occasionally submit the same ones here to see whether the discussion is different, but often forget to do the last "copy over to |." bit. I don't particularly object to anyone from |. publishing a story I submitted on SN (either after it appears on the main page or while it is in the submissions queue), but an earlier comment indicated that you would want different stories anyway.

Re: What would it take to get more submitted articles here? (Score: 1)

by zafiro17@pipedot.org on 2014-08-28 10:22 (#2R4P)

Yeah, thanks for all the stuff you've already submitted to the pipe. I unfortunately don't have the time to go visit Soylent and hand scrape your articles to this site. I barely have time to submit what I already have put into the queue.

How about doing us all a service... (Score: 1)

by fadrian@pipedot.org on 2014-08-27 15:38 (#2QQ2)

... and scrape Slashdot instead. Then we don't have to include that beta-infested site in our RSS feeds any more.<P>I know, you'd get your ass sued off by Dice. Frankly, Pipedot needs to survive on its own merits and user base. Besides, scraping sites doesn't cut it, because you can always just subscribe to an RSS feed of the original site - there's no value add. Aggregation without further processing is valueless. If you want to scrape, at least filter for salience to your community - that adds value.

Re: How about doing us all a service... (Score: 1)

by skarjak@pipedot.org on 2014-08-27 17:09 (#2QS4)

In slashdot's defence, while there was much outcry about the beta, you're still not forced into it. I'm rocking classic slashdot without any issues.

Re: How about doing us all a service... (Score: 1)

by hyper@pipedot.org on 2014-08-27 23:04 (#2QYN)

I still have slashdot in my rss feed. Sometimes they have articles of interest. My rss feed is on my pipedot feeds page, of course :)

My two cents (Score: 3, Insightful)

by rocks@pipedot.org on 2014-08-27 16:06 (#2QQV)

I liked seeing stories and comments, but when I realized it was a soylent feed with both stories and comments, I was no longer clear on how to contribute to pipedot. For example, I didn't want to comment because clearly the discussion wasn't integrated. I also lost interest in submitting stories or rating stories in the pipe because the soylent feed was already numerous enough. On the other hand, I've definitely reduced the number of stories I was submitting to pipedot because it was hit or miss whether a story got any uptake and without comments the default interpretation is that the story did not interest the community.I have no easy solutions for this, but one cross-pollination idea is for one story a week to publish across a set of sister sites where the communities can discuss a topic together?

Re: My two cents (Score: 2, Insightful)

by nightsky30@pipedot.org on 2014-08-27 18:30 (#2QTR)

I don't mind the article stream. It makes it easier to deal with cross posts from users that belong to both communities, but "piping" the comments over and disintegrating the discussion is not so good. Can't we just have the articles without the comments?

Re: My two cents (Score: 4, Interesting)

by rocks@pipedot.org on 2014-08-27 20:14 (#2QVZ)

Articles without the comments seems like a simple strategy that is easy to do. I'd further send the articles to the pipe first, so they still need up voting to make it onto pipedot front page. Also, any scraped article should have a lead in that links back to the original story and discussion on the source feed. Should be easy to automate the back link in code. That way we get stories and additional discussion here but a direct link back to the source discussion if interested. Also, if there are like ten feed stories in the pipe and none are up voted in a twelve hour cycle, there could be a timer that pushes stories to the front page to keep content turning over on pipedot. Just thinking out loud here.

profile settings (Score: 1)

by carguy@pipedot.org on 2014-08-27 18:14 (#2QT5)

Just checked my |. settings and found a check box item:
[ ] Show posts from SoylentNews
When did that appear?

Also, the comments seem to alternate (randomly?) between blue and green bar backgrounds--what's the logic behind this?

Re: profile settings (Score: 3, Informative)

by nightsky30@pipedot.org on 2014-08-27 18:32 (#2QTS)

I see blue and grey bars. The blue bars signify new comments since you last viewed the article.

I don't think I'm color blind. I've been tested before.

Re: profile settings (Score: 1)

by bryan@pipedot.org on 2014-08-27 18:36 (#2QTT)

the comments seem to alternate (randomly?) between blue and green bar backgrounds--what's the logic behind this?
For more information on the "history" colors: http://pipedot.org/story/2014-05-13/read-it

Re: profile settings (Score: 1)

by carguy@pipedot.org on 2014-08-27 19:49 (#2QVR)

Right -- gray background for the subject. Happened to be using an aging flat screen, maybe it's starting to fade to green...
Thanks for the color history link.

Meta - Articles about the state of pipedot (Score: 3, Informative)

by hyper@pipedot.org on 2014-08-27 23:00 (#2QYM)

I really like this type of article. Allows for the community to weigh in, feed back, vent and get involved in how pipedot in faring. I see the email discussions but cannot reply. Sorry. Gave up on mailing lists years ago. Please, keep it up. We like being involved. Mod parent up! :-)

Re: Meta - Articles about the state of pipedot (Score: 2, Informative)

by stove@pipedot.org on 2014-08-28 07:54 (#2R3F)

Meta articles are also a quick measure on the size and involvement of the community. Seeing weeks of articles with only a few comments each makes you wonder if anybody is reading them at all. But Pipedot is a topic we all have a stake in, so you get a better indication of how many people are happy to comment.

Re: Meta - Articles about the state of pipedot (Score: 2, Informative)

by hyper@pipedot.org on 2014-08-28 08:34 (#2R3Y)

It is quite surprising to see people pop up out of the woodwork to discuss pipedot itself. I suspect |. has a loyal viewership which is a good start for exanding the community.

Re: Meta - Articles about the state of pipedot (Score: 2, Interesting)

by scotch@pipedot.org on 2014-08-28 09:26 (#2R44)

I'm usually a lurker but regular reader of |. Thanks for this article letting us lurker to show ourselves ;)
I did try SN but left as it was becoming junk info like /. I was glad |. seemed focused in news for nerds. I agree that most technical news do no need comments so a feed-back of the interest of the article itself would be appreciated.
For instance I was really enjoying the weekly review of a gnu/linux distro ;)
Maybe "ask pipedot" questions (technically related of course) would be of interrest as those are by essence technical discussions :P For instance "when not to upgrade some part of a working architecture?" or "how to upgrade a live set of linux servers when spare ressources are rare or none?"

Re: Meta - Articles about the state of pipedot (Score: 3, Informative)

by seriously@pipedot.org on 2014-08-28 09:36 (#2R49)

For instance I was really enjoying the weekly review of a gnu/linux distro ;)
+1 on that :-)

Re: Meta - Articles about the state of pipedot (Score: 2, Interesting)

by zafiro17@pipedot.org on 2014-08-28 10:30 (#2R4V)

OK, glad to hear it! The last few ones had few if any comments and I was thinking no one is reading this stuff. Seems like some way of people indicating if they liked or did not like a story is useful as it shows interest in a subject even if no one comments.

That said, the value of this site over an RSS reader of your choosing is the commentary. If you like the articles about distros, you could just as easily subscribe to Distrowatch's RSS feed and be done with it. The idea of posting it here is to elicit commentary and opinion from our readers. If no one bothers to comment, what's the point? You could simply replace this site with a few RSS feeds and save everyone else the trouble.

This place only works if the articles lead to interesting and informative discussion, and beyond that every reader should make an effort to get the word out to friends and colleagues so the place grows. Link to articles at other places where possible - readers aren't going to find us just by luck. I'm in the habit of linking recently posted articles to Google+ because I don't/won't use Facebook (I'm https://plus.google.com/100052614455936939751/posts at G+ if you're interested), and hope others can do the same on places like Reddit and 4chan and techdirt and so on.

Re: Meta - Articles about the state of pipedot (Score: 1)

by hyper@pipedot.org on 2014-08-28 11:00 (#2R52)

+1If Friday Distro goes I will miss it

Well, it reminded me of Pipedot :-) (Score: 1, Interesting)

by Anonymous Coward on 2014-08-28 09:59 (#2R4D)

I had completely forgotten about Pipedot, until I saw comments on Soylent about this Pipedot mirroring.

Since apparently in the mean time you fixed the AC posting issues (it's a long time since I was here last, so probably you fixed them a long time ago ;-)), I might be here more frequently now.

What you still don't seem to have is a parent link, though ;-)

Confused but optimistic (Score: 2, Interesting)

by kwerle@pipedot.org on 2014-08-28 16:04 (#2R8B)

I'm confused - is it still on?

I'd love to get the good tech articles from soy. Then I could finally toss that feed (and its huge noise/volume ratio) off my rss list.

Wrong Way - Don't Mirror Comments! (Score: 0)

by Anonymous Coward on 2014-09-04 00:30 (#2S17)

As the AC who pleaded again and again and again for Pipedot to freely "repurpose" content from both Soylent and Slash (with little to no agreement) I have to say:

1. Sorry I missed the experiment, and

2. You're doing it wrong. Why the devil did you bring foreign COMMENTS in too?

The whole point was to have a decent feed of article content that WE could comment on here, at a site that doesn't still look and function like complete crap (sorry Soylent, it's just true) or one that alienated its users.

Mirroring the original comments entirely defeats and misses the point. Bring good topic starters in (automatically or with very light editing), not other sites' discussions.