Slashdot Mirror

Last minute reminder that your chance to throw virtual pies or virtual beers at my head is today at 6pm (My time:EST) on irc.slashdot.org in #Forum. I'll answer questions about Slashdot or whatever people are interested in. It'll be fun. Next note that I made a significant change to the comments display system last night. This change isn't necessarily permanent, and is definately open to alteration. Some of you have noticed and emailed already about it. Click the link below to read my description and explanation. I'm going to give it a few days, and put it to a poll. Ok, first lets get our terms straight. The old comment display code is called Latch Key Kid mode (LKKM) and the new code is called Un-wed Mother Mode (UWMM). Those names will change to something appropriate later *grin*. Also, when I say a "Full" comment, I mean the full text, and when I say a "Header" comment, I mean the single line that you normally see in a thread list.

Ok, first how LKKM. This basically displays all siblings and full mode, and all descendants as headers. This is how things have worked here so far. The positive side is that it makes reading all comments at the same depth very easy. The downside (and this is a doozy) is that when the conversations get long, this page can swell to 300k or more. A several minute download on a modem connection. This takes readers longer than it should, and ties httpd forks up excessively.

The new UWMM is slightly different. When you click on a comment, rather then displaying the siblings, it displays the comment you clicked on, and its descendant. Children are displayed in full mode, descendants are displayed as headers. Links from the Mother comment are provided to the Mother's siblings. This means smaller pages, but for discussions that exceed 100 comments, its leaps and bounds quicker to download.

So thats the gist. This is all up for debate. Many of you will hate change (if there is one thing I've learned running Slashdot, its that there is a group of people for whom any change is evil, and I'm satan for implementing it) and I hope you'll just give it a chance. I'm open to suggestions on how we can clean it up or tweak it. I'll keep tweaking things until we get it right. And then we'll put it to a poll. So hang in there.

So no flames. No bitching. Lets see how this works and resolve the issues with it. I want this new mode to work if at all possible because it will solve many of our performance issues for both clients and the server.

Also note that there are many things on my TODO list right now, including NNTP back ends, Mirroring, Squid Chaching, limiting comment pages to X comments at a time with next and previous links, DNS Round Robinning etc etc etc. I appreciate everyone suggesting these ideas, and many of them will be implemented as I have time or new hardware when it is required. But please understand that hundreds of people have suggested each of these (and dozens of other good) ideas before. So lets deal with this issue now, and those later, please? thanks

Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda

So Jon Katz wrote up a pretty nifty write up of Slashdot. Check it out if you're interested. Its a pretty glowing piece, so everyone pat yourself on the back and then go about your lives as usual. Speaking of Slashdot, just a quick reminder that we've got that IRC forum tomorrow on SlashNET at 6pm eastern. It's your chance to request features that are probably already on my TODO list but I won't have time to write until after graduation or complain about AC posting or cookies and whatnot. Wesley Crusher questions will get you /ignore'd *grin*.

Talon on SlashNET told me that ESR has posted Halloween III on his site. This apparently MSs response to HI and HII, and has been posted along with ESRs commentary on it. Definately worth checking out.

The Opers on SlashNET (the Slashdot IRC network:irc.slashdot.org), desperate for something productive to do, have been planning to run regular forums for awhile now. For some reason, they've decided that the first victi.. err, guest, to be me. Presumably nobody more interesting was available. So I'll be online on Saturday at 6pm Eastern (who am I kidding? I'm normally online, but this time its official) to answer any questions folks have about Slashdot. This is all you ACs chance to insult me in realtime instead of in the comments section! And the rest of you can ask real questions about moderation, scoring, why cookies don't work, or whatever else comes up. You can get some help connecting over at the SlashNET Homepage. Hopefully next time we'll get someone interesting.

Ben Burdick (weez) writes "SlashNET's second forum was a success. A log of the night conversing with the Stampede Linux developers can be found here "

Ben Burdick (weez) writes "SlashNET's second forum was a success. A log of the night conversing with the Stampede Linux developers can be found here "

Ben Burdick (weez) writes "SlashNET's second forum was a success. A log of the night conversing with the Stampede Linux developers can be found here "

Ben Burdick (weez) writes "SlashNET will be conducting a forum with the developers of Stampede Linux on Saturday at 10 p.m EST. The forum will be held in #TheVoid. "

Ben Burdick (weez) wrote in to tell us that SlashNET had its first forum last night. It was an impromptu discussion with several members of the freedows project with a lengthy Q & A session. Check out Weez's SlashNET home page for the complete log

Taking a break from the 20 page paper of doom (draft IX, due friday) to post a handful of things worth noting. Vincent Janelle is trying to round up a group of people to unofficially redesign linux.org. Direct questions to him if you're interested. Weez asked me to call out for applicants for a few server openings on SlashNET. Contact him for details. Pez sent us A story about Quantum Modems. It's worth a read for anyone seeking a laugh (and if you, like me are writing a paper, you may need one) Finally Mike Molloy wrote in to give us a link to The Acronym Database which tracks 53,000 acronyms. Guess I should go see if I can't submit TMS and TCWWW^TM quick a minute *grin*.

weez writes "SlashNET has moved to a custom version ircd, dubbed "aurora" which is a hack maintained by novalogic. With the upbringing of our new ircd, has come network services, i.e: Chanserv (lets users register channels and maintain many settings for them) Nickserv (lets users register their nicknames and set settings for them) and Memoserv (lets users send "memos" to offline users who have their nick registered.) We hope the enjoys enjoy our new additions, keep chatting =) also, my e-mail has changed, you can no longer reach me at "weez@nectar.fsck.org" but instead at weez@shutdown.org. come join the fun at irc.slashdot.org! "

weez writes "SlashNET has moved to a custom version ircd, dubbed "aurora" which is a hack maintained by novalogic. With the upbringing of our new ircd, has come network services, i.e: Chanserv (lets users register channels and maintain many settings for them) Nickserv (lets users register their nicknames and set settings for them) and Memoserv (lets users send "memos" to offline users who have their nick registered.) We hope the enjoys enjoy our new additions, keep chatting =) also, my e-mail has changed, you can no longer reach me at "weez@nectar.fsck.org" but instead at weez@shutdown.org. come join the fun at irc.slashdot.org! "

weez writes "SlashNET has moved to a custom version ircd, dubbed "aurora" which is a hack maintained by novalogic. With the upbringing of our new ircd, has come network services, i.e: Chanserv (lets users register channels and maintain many settings for them) Nickserv (lets users register their nicknames and set settings for them) and Memoserv (lets users send "memos" to offline users who have their nick registered.) We hope the enjoys enjoy our new additions, keep chatting =) also, my e-mail has changed, you can no longer reach me at "weez@nectar.fsck.org" but instead at weez@shutdown.org. come join the fun at irc.slashdot.org! "