StaffPolicy

SoylentNews Policy - DRAFT

Notes - Usage of 'he, his' etc. Any usage of the words he or his must be assumed to apply equally to members of either sex i.e. can be replaced with 'she, her' as appropriate.

Introduction

Welcome!

We incorporated SoylentNews PBC on July 4th 2014. It's run by the Board of Directors comprised of a few of our staff that handle all the legal and business items. The rest of the operation is completely in the hands of the community of volunteers and staff (of which you are now a part). Along with the benefits of an email address, no subscription fees to our main site soylentnews.org - see below (-janrinok)], comes the responsibility to uphold what this organization stands for.

SoylentNews Mission

We will be the best site for independent, not-for-profit journalism on the internet, where ideas can be presented and free discussion can take place without external needs overshadowing the community.

Except as required by law, no one will be banned or have their comments deleted due to stating a fact or opinion, no matter how unpopular or repugnant it is. We will not ban or silence a user for merely stating an opinion.

The right of our community to criticize, make suggestions, and help us improve our site will be respected. No staff or team leader will ever be above criticism.

We recognize that mistakes will be made, as we are all human. It is both the right and privilege of others to correct us when needed.

If serious errors are made, we promise to revert them and fix the problems.

Non-Discrimination Statement

SoylentNews shall not discriminate by gender, ability, religion, creed, race or belief; all are welcome to join the site and contribute either as members of the community or by serving as staff.

Staff

Lots of the work being done on SoylentNews is done by informal volunteers (story-submissions, suggestions, artwork, bug-hunting, etc.). Since you've been granted privileges on one or more of our systems, you are now considered part of the staff. In order to keep this project moving in the direction outlined in our [manifesto/vision], this document has been created to guide our actions.

Organization

The Board

The Board of Directors has the legal, financial and governance responsibility for the Corporation. With a goal of conducting meetings that are effective and efficient, meetings are run according to the guidelines stated in Board Meetings - Rules of Order.

Meetings

Most board meetings are open to anyone to attend, and usually conducted on IRC. Though all are welcome and we encourage opinions and discussion, only board members can vote; furthermore, at the discretion of the board, meetings may be moderated (using IRC voice modes).

All board meetings and staff meetings should be announced with at least one (1) week advanced notice. Though it is sometimes pertinent for the board to make decisions in a non-public forum with less notice, every effort will be made to hold public meetings and announce meetings in advance to the following:

• the staff mailing list
• the "sitenews" box on the soylentnews.org main page
• appended to the "topic" on on any staff IRC channels including #staff.

Management Group

The day-to-day management of the site is conducted below Board level by the Management Group.

The staff comprises of various Teams, each with a specific function or range of functions. Each Team is led by a Team Leader (TL) and, together, the TLs are known as the Management Group (MG). The MG has shared responsibility for the routine operation of the site and for providing guidance through each Team Leader to all staff to ensure that they are contributing in a coordinated manner to the maintenance, support, and production of a high quality site.

Current TLs, and therefore the members of the MG, are shown in the wiki on page WhosWho

Due to the volunteer nature of this project, and the global, always-on effort that SoylentNews entails, sometimes TLs may not be available to make decisions or offer guidance. If every effort has been made to contact a TL and they are unavailable, staff members should check with other staff, and refer to this document and other policies of SoylentNews (privacy policy, team documentation), and use their best judgement to uphold the principles outlined therein.

Team Leaders

TLs are in charge of guiding their teams. Some responsibilities rest comfortably within a single team, but other responsibilities e.g. security, combating SPAM, rogue comments in discussions etc, require the cooperation and coordination of 2 or more teams. TLs are responsible for deciding how the cooperation and coordination will take place, but the actual execution can be carried out by team members i.e. this responsibility does not place an undue additional burden upon TLs but permits the task to be carried out between appropriate members of the staff.

Team Policy Documents

Each Team has its own Policy Document to provide guidance for the day-to-day running of that team. The team documents can be found here:

• Editorial Team: Editorial Policy
• IRC Team: IRC Policy
• Development Team: Perl Coding Guidelines

Further SoylentNews Policy

As a member of staff, it's our mission to uphold the principles outlined in the user-facing policy. Please read through those documents as well.