SoylentNews.org Temporarily Offline?
SoylentNews.org (including li694-22.members.linode.com) is offline at the moment. The site currently returns the following:
Error 503 Service UnavailableThere has been a lot of drama going on with SoylentNews lately. The nominal founder, Barrabas, wanted to create a for-profit business, but the majority of volunteers wanted to avoid the potential for another sell-out which lead to the Slashcott in the first place. Due to conflicts with those volunteers, Barrabas has sold the domain to a new and unknown owner. If a deal between the mystery domain owner and NCommander and his volunteer 'Overlords' cannot be reached, the Site Formerly Known as SoylentNews can be found on the default Linode address.
Service Unavailable
Guru Meditation:
XID: 1060599780
Varnish cache server
I disagree. John had Business in mind, which I have no issue with, but it's not what the community wanted and ultimately would end in the community being treated as consumers to advertise to (as was the case with the other site that shall not be named). So on one hand he was toting the site as being "for the community", but then wanting to turn it into a profitable business venture on the other hand. I think the site is in much better hands with NCommander who was actually the one that got the slashcode working, and probably one of the very few people involved that will be able to maintain, update and add enhancements to it. The best people to run the site are the ones whos ideas and views align with the community not the people that want to make money at the communities expense.
I did read NCommanders post and it didn't come of as vindictive to me. To me it was him stating what happened and his reasoning for doing what he was doing. He's a technical person and as such his post lacked the political bullshit and dancing around you'd expect from a non-technical person, which is how I prefer my info. Give me the facts and relevant information and let me decide what's relevant. There were IRC logs and form posts to back up everything he said as factual. If you're trying to foster a community orientated site and you expect the community to be actively involved then you have to make sure the community has the information required to form opinions and make decisions.
But, again I do feel bad for John and appreciate his efforts. He did a decent job ad-hock organizing us in order to get something up and running and I think he does diverse to get something for his efforts.