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I found this by going to Linux Weekly News and looking through the archives for the week that 2.2.0 came out. Hope this helps.

Here are some other responses to said report:

http://lwn.net/1999/features/MindCraft1.0.phtml -- Linux Weekly News
http://www.linux-hw.com/~eric/mindcraft.html -- Linux Hardware Solutions

-Ben

Here are some other responses to said report:

http://lwn.net/1999/features/MindCraft1.0.phtml -- Linux Weekly News
http://www.linux-hw.com/~eric/mindcraft.html -- Linux Hardware Solutions

-Ben

• The Linux Documentation Project has everything from mini-HOWTOs on single specific issues to books.
• The GNU website has pointers to documentation guidelines and a list of projects.
• I saw announcement of a kernel documentation mailing list on (urrr..) Linux Weekly News some time ago. kernel-doc? Hosted in Europe somewhere. (Helpful, no?)
• GNU also has a proof-readers' mailing list, where potential proof-readers lurk and people with documentation needing checking send calls for 'I've got this, can people get back to me on it?' or 'I write in this language, can someone check my English?'
• Loads of websites for projects seem to have contacts for feedback. Even if nothing's said about documenting, those are a good start. A lot of them have documentation - but of course each new release means someone has to update the lot - or at least check it!

As someone who relies heavily on HOWTOs and man pages and so on, I have to say: pick one! And good luck and thanks in advance :)

Hopefully this will find both Rob and the other moderators.

The Moderator's Dilemma is that, as moderators, we are unable to discuss aspects of the moderation system without also violating the rules under which we are allowed to moderate. I've been thinking all evening of whether I want to post this under my own ID or as an AC, and I'm taking the Coward's way out for now, but I'm not happy about it.

The other two alternatives are for the moderators to post under their /. login (and lose their moderator status as we've seen), or for Rob to set up a private chat area for moderators to discuss issues. I really dislike the second suggestion -- it turns moderation into some sort of a star chamber. For the 75k - 407 of you who aren't moderators, realize that those of us who are don't know who the other mods are (other than Taco & Co.) either.

Of all the possible problems with the system (and I've been bumping up many of the posts pointing out issues as I find them), the most pernicious one is that a person aquires two moderator IDs and creates a cabal for themselves. A bot programmed to be reasonable and interesting might be able to pull this off. For an example of what bots can do, start here and follow the links.

It's not clear to me why Rob is insisting on moderator anonymity. This isn't a job I asked for, though it is somewhat interesting. I don't spend as much time on Slashdot as I had in the past, partly because of the AC issue, partly because there are alternate sites (LinuxToday, LWN, the revived RedHat, and SVLUG to name a few), and, well, I've got a real paying job.

There's also the fact that /. discussions are very short lived -- once off the front page, a day at most, they're effectively dead. It makes meaningful discussion very difficult. Despite the flameage, it is possible to carry on a real discussion for days or weeks in Usenet or mailing lists. This just isn't possible with the current /. setup, and contributes IMO to the fractured, opinionated, rash, nature of many posts here. It's not that there aren't pearls, it's just very hard to cultivate them.

I'm past the age where I'd score a lot of points bragging about my /. moderator status. Most of the people I know don't know what /. is. It's not going to impress my clients or my girlfriend, and Mom & Dad never understand all this computer junk anyway. If it's the threat of being mailbombed, well, my address has been posted here anyway, and if I wanted to disable its display, I could.

Why do I think moderators ought to be able to identify themselves?

1. Accountability. As a moderator, I'm making decisions that reflect how Slashdot appears. I think the fact that I am doing so should be public knowledge. Maybe not my phone and street address, but at least my /. login. Barring this, if I want to mention I am a moderator, I don't see why I shoud be barred from doing so. Frankly, the fact that I cannot do so makes me question the whole system.

2. Feedback. As moderators we get to see both sides of the system. FWIW, it's a set of radio buttons, (-)(0)(+)(++), and an article ID, next to each post. There's a 'Moderate' button at the bottom of the page. I'd like to be able to discuss what is good or bad about the system, and I don't particularly think this ought to be a private conversation between myself and Rob. I think that dropping Roy's status was inappropriate for what were some legitimate, well reasoned, and real issues with the moderation system. This is my protest vote, as a fellow moderator.

3. I can't quit. There's no 'I resign' button on the user accounts screen (where the basic "you're a moderator" info is). I suppose Rob would be able to deactivate me (there's a pleasent thought) if I sent an email request -- which would promptly get lost with the 500 other messages he gets daily.... I'm not criticising Rob, I'm just saying he gets a lot of mail. My other alternative is to say, "My user id is xxx and I'm a moderator", and hope that the Taco is feeling mean that day.

4. Living in fear. I've sent email to the wrong person, left my resume in the printer (or worse: copier <g>), had that girl sent the cutest reply back to me...and everyone else on the distribution list, shot my mouth (fingers) off in USENET and other fora. I've done a lot of things I've regretted. Cruising through this page, scoring and commenting, I've had to weigh very carefully what I've said for fear of losing my status. While it's possible to log out and post AC, you have to remember to do so, and as an AC, there is no credibility or authentication. I've already seen one challenge "how do we know you're a Moderator". It's a Catch-22. I really don't like living this way. It cramps my style.

With that off my chest, the system looks pretty good. I set prefs low (you can edit the threshhold value directly in the URL to some rediculous value). In this first forum, there are only 9 posts with negative values, the lowest is -2 (my threshhold is -10000). Searching for "(Score:-" will turn up all "underwater" posts. There are two possibly relevent posts which are thwacked, two gibberish posts, three '...sucks', and the rest are way off topic (taxes, skiing ??). It's working OK.

It would be nice to have a way of quickly reviewing negative posts. A 'max score' filter would do this. Several non-moderators have requested this as well. It would be a useful feature.

The highest ranked post has a score of 6. It's recommending an NNTP server. I've got my own arguments in favor of this as well. The second most favorably scored post calls into question the whole moderation concept. This is also healthy -- the system is not only tolerating criticism, it considers it important.

There's a real issue surrounding controversial posts. These would have low aggregate scores, but a large number of moderators. I would like to see a secondary moderation attribute on posts indicating the number of times a post has been moderated.

WRT losing threads under thwacked posts (I refer to positive scores as "bumps" and negatives as "thwacks" or "drops"), this tends to happen if you read in flat mode. If you are reading threaded, you'll tend to see threads beneath posts, and if you open threads in a new window (my MO), you'll get all posts at your default threshhold underneath.

I'm spending my points really quickly. Down to 2 left. All but one were bumps. I don't know if I ought to have more points to grant or if I should be more sparing in how I rate stuff, I'll have to see how this plays out and how quickly points refresh.

The concept behind moderation, and on the selecting of moderators, is good. It's a lot like Google. Though the definition is circular -- good sites are sites that good sites point to -- good posters are posters that good posters like -- it bootstraps well. I think it also avoids cliquishness. You just won't get one mindset. This is one of the better systems I've seen. It's not perfect but it's a damned good start. I think it's got everything in it it needs to be great.

The moderator guidelines are posted. (Rob: is this the same page Mods see -- I think it is but I can't check right now without logging in, which I can't do until I finish this post. Another Catch-22. Mods and Plebes should see the exact same guidelines -- the rules should be open).

Note among other things the math: there are four points granted per post (one point to each of 400 moderators per 100 posts). Your average article will see four votes cast if all points are spent. This is unlikely at best.

Signed, Anonymous Moderator :-(

More important, some months ago some guy posted an url here. There was some sceenshots showing off Qt with a Next theme, surely looked awesome. Maybe someone remember the url, I don't??

I didn't, either, but AltaVista Is Your Friend; I eventually found this Linux Weekly News page, which said, near the bottom:

The beta version of Qt 2.0 has been announced. An anonymous source provided us with this screenshot of a partial port of KDE to Qt 2.0. It demonstrates one of Qt's new styles, the "platinum" look, meant to appeal to MacIntosh aficionados. In addition, a screenshot of the Qt "metal" demo (Qt widgets) is also available.

More important, some months ago some guy posted an url here. There was some sceenshots showing off Qt with a Next theme, surely looked awesome. Maybe someone remember the url, I don't??

I didn't, either, but AltaVista Is Your Friend; I eventually found this Linux Weekly News page, which said, near the bottom:

The beta version of Qt 2.0 has been announced. An anonymous source provided us with this screenshot of a partial port of KDE to Qt 2.0. It demonstrates one of Qt's new styles, the "platinum" look, meant to appeal to MacIntosh aficionados. In addition, a screenshot of the Qt "metal" demo (Qt widgets) is also available.

More important, some months ago some guy posted an url here. There was some sceenshots showing off Qt with a Next theme, surely looked awesome. Maybe someone remember the url, I don't??

I didn't, either, but AltaVista Is Your Friend; I eventually found this Linux Weekly News page, which said, near the bottom:

The beta version of Qt 2.0 has been announced. An anonymous source provided us with this screenshot of a partial port of KDE to Qt 2.0. It demonstrates one of Qt's new styles, the "platinum" look, meant to appeal to MacIntosh aficionados. In addition, a screenshot of the Qt "metal" demo (Qt widgets) is also available.

Why do we even bother posting articles by this Berst character? It amazes me that he has any credibility in technical circles at all. LWN.net has a hilarious series of Berst quotes on their 1998 Year in Review. Berst goes from saying that Linux has zero chance, to saying it has a minor chance as a niche player, to admitting that Linux could become a "serious challenger to Windows NT", all within the space of eight months.

What can you say? He's a tech columnist, for ZDNet no less (i.e. Microsoft's little bitch, if I may use the vernacular). Tech columnists can't be expected to have a clue, or the foresight of a gnat.

Programmers, who work in a profession where always looking ahead and learning the new skills that will be hot a year or five down the road is a necessity, shouldn't even bother reading the trash.

IT managers, on the other hand, read the stuff because they need confirmation that the conventional corporate wisdom of the moment is correct. Tech columnists at outfits like ZDNet are paid to write soothing and comforting messages for managers-- they are in the business of therapy, not journalism.

~k.lee

had info on this last week. Bugtraq had a number of posts about it; check out the archives. And the article on LWN, about the guy posting the 'sploit. Lots of different info on bugtraq.

as broad gauged support of its hardware as it seemed to be implied by an earlier article posted in /. Check out Linux Weekly News.

I suggest being a bit more circumspect in our Wonderment and Damning of each new Advance .

It all could all be much less than it seems - be certain this will be a long haul fight.

Can I get a witness from the congregation?

Thank God that some one besides the Free Software Foundation is picking up the torch to explain the (IMHO) major differences between OSI and Free Software.

I, too, thought that the OSI was a "good thing". That is until folks like Digital Creations are starting to twist free software in to purely a profit making endeavor. They happen to be the first blatant example, but not the last, I am afraid. (See my letter to the editor for Feb 11, 1999 issue of Linux Weekly News for further explaination.

I share in Bruce Parens belief that

The Open Source certification mark has already been abused in ways I find unconscionable and that I will not abide.

To be honest, my opinion is that market share is less important with Open Source Software than it is with commercial software. The current situation, where Linux greatly outnumbers FreeBSD users, is fine with me, since FreeBSD has enough momentum and Linux emulation support for it to be fine for what I do. And, since Linux (and FreeBSD) are both growing, the longer term trend is good, too.

See:
LWN 10/1/1998, 10/8/1998, and 10/15/1998 for some discussion of the episodes referenced here.

jon

See:
LWN 10/1/1998, 10/8/1998, and 10/15/1998 for some discussion of the episodes referenced here.

jon

See:
LWN 10/1/1998, 10/8/1998, and 10/15/1998 for some discussion of the episodes referenced here.

jon

This is unlikely to get fixed for 2.2.0. See The ISDN code is old from Linux Weekly News.

If there won't be ISDN support in 2.2.0 because Linus refuses to include the lately sent-in patch file, this kernel version won't be quite useful here in highly-using-ISDN-Germany... :-(

Regards, Jochen