Slashdot Mirror
Special Interview: Rob Malda and Jeff Bates
The Andover.net IPO quiet period is finally over. A lot of you have had questions about Slashdot; what's happening, what's going to happen, and so on, that we weren't allowed to answer. Now those questions can be answered, and no one can answer them better than CmdrTaco and Hemos. They're already starting getting stacked up with interview requests from other media, but we decided that you, the loyal Slashdot readers, deserved first crack at them. Submitted questions will be selected by moderators and the usual hangers-on and will be submitted Wednesday afternoon EST. Answers will appear Thursday. (Friday is reserved for Steve Wozniak, who unquestionably deserves a day all to himself!)
Actually, that's until you factor in cost. Then California tromps all over everywhere else. East, West, doesn't matter, California's broadband is just cheaper. I know, because I have the bills in front of me to prove it.
Perhaps you didnt know, but they are not his articles. He just picks articles from the submissions to post. His commentary on each article he posts is also crap. It lacks creativity and humor, every single time. Taco and Hemos, and Neal are probably the most humorous. Everyone else is garbage, starting with Roblimo
to late for that to happen they already have become too mainstream and/or political.. you'll notice it when you visit sites like Dtheatre.com and wonko etc... the news is still out there but it is just being thourghourly filtered. news also gets posted slower then ever and on some days they post shit to get somthing new up on the site.. about 80% of what I now read on slashdot has been on one of the many geek sites.. and It is my opinion that this is all a result of commercialization
Rob is free to release his source with any restrictions he wants to. The "Slashdot Psuedo Public License" is a good way to show credit were it is deserved. Everyone that downloads/compiles/uses a program can go help->about or read a file listing the contributers and what they did. 95% of sites I go to don't let me see the code behind the scenes in fact besides static sites and /. I really can't think of any off the top of my head that do. Requiring that you link slashdot is really the only way that Rob can get credit for his hard work. I'm sure that if you had money to throw at him for your company's news portal that you could work something out with Rob that you don't have to link slashdot, but if your in it for just a /. covering another area what is the harm in linking /.?
/. is not a weekend hack and Rob has devoted a lot of his time to /.
Doesn't Rob deserve credit like Linus deserves credit for the kernal? Granted the code is old anow nd more timely releases would be nice, but
thanks for mentioning my troll. i'm glad you found it thought provoking. not all trolls are bad.
Nuff said
that's a really good idea... with one problem: it can get too complicated.
Look at our system of law (it doesn't even matter what country you live in). Everyone comes up with good ideas that get tacked onto the law books until they are so long that nobody really understands whats going on anymore (except high-paid lawyers). Do we really want that?? Not me. If the ACs really want to say something important, let them log in...
Of course.. that makes me hypocritical posting as an AC... but I am too lazy to log in because I forgot my password and am away from my work email.
When you guys are rolling around giving each other handjobs, do you prefer to roll around in $100 bills or ANDN stock certificates?
Bravo!
Siggity Siggity Sig , y'old folk !
I remember when RAM wuz just leetle beety DONUTS strung on copper warz!!! You couldn't have a computer unless it took up an entire wing of a Huniversity and was named something like EVILAC!! Also there wasn't much money in it. But I don't care!!! I'm old now, and I get to eat as many popsicles as I want. They're nice to me here in the ACM-sponsored retirement home!!!!!
yeah, that's a scientific study. what a fucking retard.
that is their problem. I am interested in the content, not getting Malda more toys.
*bzzt* thanks for playing though, you get the consolation prize and the take home game.
removing AC's will get you nowhere, you'll just have people with dozens of logins pulling the same abuse, probably at score:1 no less.
i'm actually a logged in user, but the attitude/moderation/karma abuses of slashdot has put me in a rebellious mood, so now I always post as an ac. why shouldn't i be able to?
someone already said it. browse at score:1. good AC posts will get scored up. sadly, bad logged in posts get scored up as well, all too often. all it takes is a really long, even blatantly WRONG post, as a logged in user, and you can probably get a 3 on it.
AC's aren't the problem, and with moderation, they usually get pushed to -1 very fast. AC's have a solution already. moderation doesn't.
This is why, when I troll, I reply to the highest scored post.
Hell, trolls are easy to post, why not reply to ALL the articles, and make sure everyone sees your wit?
That was back before it was "cool" to be a "geek."
Now your average geek doesn't know a LALR(1) parser from x-ray lithography.
This does NOT deserve an "interesting". It's the same anonymous flaming bastard who's been spamming all the articles for weeks with the same offtopic and irrelevant flame. Don't cave in.
bullshit. They still won't sell me hardknocks.edu
the correct section is: 501(c)3
that was CASH too, think of all the stock he got too? Malda is one rich webgeek.
However, our school is noticably behind the times with techie stuff, so something could be messed up on our end :)
you have a selfish attitude.
"So anyways... put your money where your mouth is and provide us with slashes source on a timely basis and under the GPL, not the Slashdot Pseudo Public License."
Well, the SPPL is not a horrible thing I suppose, though it totally shows how hypocritical the folks at Andover are.
But the source it. Comeone, how lame is it that "it's ugly" is an excuse. Put up a source tree on one of the free hosting systems if need be and let the community fix it.
I mean.. that IS the mythology right? That it is better to be "open" no matter what?
Slashdot: Hypocracy for zealots, money for syncophants.
&sign($AC[0]);
Yes, I must say that Andover.Net isn't all this. They just bought some great sites and started an IPO on top of it. What you think about Andover.Net? They're doing what for us?
When I first read the info on the Andover IPO I recall them factoring in "Ad Banner swapping/bartering" as capital and how this type of revenue accounted for almost 25% of what they listed. (These numbers are probably off.) I laughed at that moment and remarked to a co-worker that it was like two male hustlers giving one another blow-jobs then claiming that they each made $100. Question: Does it bother you that eventually this bubble may burst and do you sleep comfortably at night knowing that the kind of voodoo-economics that Andover is using to justify their value (nod to Dubya's dad) is almost exactly what led to the Oct 87 market scare when Junk Bonds took a nosedive?
How about the take part of the 10,000$ they are dying to give away and hire someone to help?
&sign($AC[0]);
A self proclaimed "clueless linux user" HARDLY constitutes one as a geek in my book.
Since he always used to write all over the specialist press, and now seems pretty much a one-company man, I'd guess that rather than being "spare" at andover.net, the andovers decided to prise him out of the freelance gig in order to be an experienced "safe pair of hands" at their new investment, to keep an eye on things, improve the journalistic quality, etc, etc.
To improve journalistic quality? Give me a break. Look at the crap that is out there, and then look at the crap that Roblimo has done. It ranks right up there, although not quite as bad as Burst, Dvorak, and the whole MSNBC crew!
Remeber Roblimo's "How to pick up a chick" editorial? That was complete and total rubbish. He not only offended every geek girl in existance, but he stereotyped all slashdot readership into being incapable of love.
Personally, I'm sick of his thoughtless garbage.
Yes, Conectiva from Brazil registered this domain and is now going to sell it to Andover.Net, so Freshmeat could use .com in place of .net. Interesting.
Unfortunatelly nothing. Andover.Net bought Freshmeat 6 months ago and I don't see any differences also. Ah, yes, they now announce more and more bad stuff, released-some-days/weeks/months/-ago, and commercial applications. What a joke. In 2 years both sites will be dead, and their authors (and Andover.Net) eating caviar in Cancun.
I could never figure this one out. And what's with the dot.org pavillon? It seem so hypocritical to have all these so-called .orgs (like user-friendly, copyleft was another) riding the .org train.
Illiad has to have one of the most blatently commercial sites out there... I get quezy from banner sickness, and don't get me started about his product placement in the comic!
I mean come on, these have been commercial sites for most of their existence, and they just hide behind "promote open source".
Not that there's anything wrong with it, it just seems to me pretty phoney. I don't know why more people can't see through it.
Ya, a rant.
If the questions will be selected by moderators, then they probably aren't going to be worth answering. (Just considering the state of moderation at slashdot today...) :-(
I have one: What comes after meta-moderation?
Some months ago we tried to post a news about the launch of AppWatch, the ONLY site that ONLY supports high quality Free Software / Open Source projects. We all know that /. was (is already?) a supporter of those ideals. But for our surprise we never got Slashdoted! We email Hemos, and after some mails he said we were not worth an announcement. Why? Because AppWatch is a real competitor for Freshmeat, another site that was bought by Andover.Net? Yes, AppWatch is the only site that can compete directly with Freshmeat. We have different ideals, of course. But looking at the other ~5 application sites that exists you'll see that all sucks. They suck news from other sites, depend on submissions, look ugly with text based browsers, make you load ~100kb to see an entry etc. We TRACK projects, we only announce something the day it's released (Fresh -> new, right?), and I'm pretty sure you all here ignored our announcement to avoid problems with Andover.Net, and their IPO. So, don't say that you're supporting Free Software / Open Source et all if you can't announce it. Take care, money is good, but not when you lose your freedom. You guys don't own /. anymore.
Interesting. So one must be a Linux afficiando to be a geek now? You can't be interested, in say, Amiga, BSD, or any of the myriad "geeky" gadgets available in the world? I'd be curious to see what your qualifications on becoming a geek are, and to see how many slashdotters fit the bill.
Uh, Andover *already* IPOed, symbol ANDN. The quiet period being over means that 25 days have elapsed since the first day of trading. You missed out.
If you could use your amazing Slashdot god powers to turn any hot young woman into stone, what hot young woman would you choose?
If you could use your amazing Slashdot god powers to turn any hot young woman into stone, what hot young woman would you choose??
Isn't Mae Ling Mak hot?
Um... Nice public key, I guess... sort of...
Either way, kill the .org. Go for .com. It's very hypocritical.
How much did you guys make selling this site to Andover?
Not that there's anything wrong with making money of a website...
The tips of the Networks wings held the beautifull tresures of the emporer, above the glistening coper seas, where information flowed and ebbed in carcofogy of energy. The information of course, was the reality as it blustred against the smooth white walls of the palace, and in his high thrown room he saw for miles the patterns in the ebbs, the nodal points.
But in his tower today and for many days proceding, his face was grave and ashen. The terror of the uprizing, the disinfranchiesd proliteriot, rising from there own copper seas, of missery and dispair. There existance siphoned to feed the emporer wihle there ideas washed away in static, like a telivision far to far from the warm and constant glow of a channel.
And with there swords and machines of easy death they marched. For liberty. For the freedom that all information strives for, and on there cracked, dry lips, dehidrated in the harsh frozen elements arose forth a battle cry fearfull more in its clear and beautifull message then its ferial gutteral deliveray.
Though tired and broken animals, sick and wounded. Slaughterd like pigs at the emporers behest, they were only human when they screamed.
"For the people, AUTOMATIC".
I'm just posting as AC BECAUSE IT'S IMPOSSIBLE TO CREATE AN ACCOUNT HERE. WHEN I TRIED TO LOGIN IT SAID THAT THE PASSWORD IS WRONG, BUT IT'S THE RIGHT ONE. WHEN I TRIED TO CREATE ANOTHER ONE, JEEZ, IT SAID THAT I ALREADY HAVE AN ACCOUNT. FUCK. IF YOU DON'T WANT AC POSTS, CORRECT THIS FIRST.
(Sigh...)
I realize this discussion is probably dead now, having moved into the "Older Stuff" sidebar, but I just had to post this, because it will (probably) remain at a moderation level of at least zero and be archived along with my previous comment and the response by "nutsy." (Yes, I'm the same Anonymous Coward that posted the first "Slashdot is Schizophrenic" comment.)
There's not much point in replying to the rest of this comment, since it demonstrates exactly why Anonymous Cowardice should be abolished just fine by itself.
What did I do? Did I say something naughty about Natalie Portman? Did I post a comment full of the same word over and over again? Did I claim first post halfway down the discussion?
You state an opinion that people disagree with, and that's it. You get moderated down and (if you have an account) lose karma points. Ever wonder why there's so much Microsoft bashing here? The Linux guys (who are definitely in the majority) love it, and it wins you karma points. It forces a form of self-censorship. You don't state an unpopular opinion, because you will get "punished" for it.
I don't want to talk any more about that, because that's just whining, and there's enough of that already coming from the registered Slashdotters. (Who get invariably moderated up for it.)
So, nutsy, email Rob and the Slashdot crew, and tell them to ban Anonymous Coward posting. Go ahead. Rally some of friends. Lots of discussion boards require accounts, so why not the ones on Slashdot? Anonymous Coward posting must be stopped! You'll probably never hear from me again. You'd like that, right? I'm a bad person, aren't I?
By the way, I knew there was a slashdot.com all along. You missed the point. I won't bother restating my point, since if you didn't get it the first time, you probably won't get it a second time. I'm sure a lot of other people wouldn't want to get the point, either.
I will concede that Natalie Portman posts are disruptive, and blank posts with the subject line "I'm a moderation point eater" are an abuse. But I've never posted anything of the sort.
Anyway, just ban Anonymous Coward posting. I don't care anymore. You can have your fake little Slashdot-through-rose-coloured-glasses, pro-Linux-only, anti-Microsoft-only discussions...
are you beautiful? if you are...I KISS YOU !!!!!
I apologize.
What are the top ten stories, responsewise? Anything by Katz or about trolls seems to generate a lot of comments.
Philanthropy. At the time of the Andover announcement,you mentioned some philanthropies/causes that you planned to support financially. Has that happened? How much $$? Are you involved in any fund-raising drives that you would encourage your readers to support?
I actually am the person who wrote the original post. I started off being a bit rude and abrasive but I decided that I would respond intelligently for the rest of the posts. It was amazing to see the comments from some of the so-called "non-trollers". The venem they spewed was downright hilarious.
:)
I don't think I'll ever top that troll...but I'll definitely try
It looks like there are a few more things like "the facts" and "your innate stupidity" in the way as well.
Thanks for bearing out my theory, viz. that the more people use modifiers like 'guaranteed' and modal verbs like 'must' or 'have to', the less of a clue they actually have.
Go back to your idyllic NIC utopia dude.
Perhaps this may seem a bit obvious, but what is Roblimo's purpose on slashdot? He seems like a normal everyday person who uses computers. Not a geek, not a nerd, not one of us. Why is he involved with slashdot? It seems that he was leftover with nothing to do at andover.net and they decided to stick him to slashdot. Please clarify this for me. He seems to be detracting from slashdot's "geek factor".
...and you can find out how much a Taco is worth.
:)
/. be willing to host that?
It's public info, and divulges everything.
The guy that made the Red Hat wealth monitor was toying with making one for slashdot/andover...
Gee, would
-- from one of the Andover SEC filings, the emphasis is mine
"In June 1999, we paid $1.75 million in cash at closing for our acquisitions of Slashdot.org ($1.5 million) and Animation Factory ($250,000). Under the terms of the Slashdot.org acquisition, there are additional contingent cash payments of up to $1.5 million in January 2000, $1.0 million in June 2000 and $1.0 million in June 2001. The amount of each of these cash payments is dependent on the continued employment of the two principals of Slashdot.org. In addition, the acquisition price of Slashdot.org includes the issuance of $2.0 million of stock valued at the initial public offering price upon the closing of this offering and contingent payments of up to an additional $5.0 million of stock valued at the initial public offering price and payable in installments over a two-year period, following this offering. The payment of this stock consideration is contingent upon the continued employment of the two principals of Slashdot.org"
He isnt the anonymous "bastard", because THAT person is ME.
It got your attention too, and served its purpose. Sorry I pointed out that your heroes are hypocrites.
OPEN THE SLASHDOT SOURCE! WHERE IS THE CURRENT VERSION OF THE SLASHDOT SOURCE.
Any openings for Linux system admins or programmers?
I'm not sure of the NSI rules on a transition from non-profit to profit of a domain, but Slashdot.org is their brand. You don't mess w/ branding once it's in the publics mind.
FORGET THE SLASHDOT CODE !!!! IT IS USELESS !!!
The real question is when will slashdot scrap the http/html/perl architechture and move to somehting better, perhaps NNTP. The current interface is oppressive. It has outgrown its usefulness.
Slashdot gang, for the love of all that is good, if you value your paychecks, excise the current code and move on. It is overdue.
Thank you.
Umm...
Rather than just bitch about the interface, why don't we offer Rob & Co some suggesstions?
I for one actually like the interface.
AdamL.
this is beautifully put. i was going to attempt to say the same thing, but you have done it quite well, so i will just support your comment and add that i hope it gets moderated up. of course, that won't happen (unless the moderators read this comment, by a troll and moderate it up just to spite me).
It's already public.
The problem with /. as it is, is that many important news stories simply never appear. Ever.
When I first started reading /., coverage of important "News for Nerds", stuff that really mattered, was very good. So good that I started telling colleagues and friends that they need not bother with other news sites. Sadly, this is no longer the case. And has not been the case for some time.
Slashdot's inadequacy in this respect now has it as the last news site I check instead of the first. (Or, for a while there, the only!) And I simply no longer submit news stories at all. Experience tells me it's a waste of time.
I've idly toyed with the idea of setting up a /.-alike site that really would report "News for Nerds" with an emphasis on "Stuff that Matters." Something to replace the /. of old--as I seriously doubt that this site will ever return to the solid, topical and, above all, important coverage of tech. news that used to be its hallmark.
But it would be nice if it did. I wonder if that's possible?
[Rob & Co.: there's your question.]
Will some of the new money be used to provide warez? I am 3LiT3 and feel I deserve some War3z.
first of all, any geeks can run this place. slashdot has outgrown its owners.
you should take the rod out of your rim. and no, I'm not french.
in addition to the above, i have noticed older comments have been archived. when i try to retrieve -1 comments from the archive, i find it impossible. am i missing something... will this be fixed?
NNTP would probably prevent a lot of people from accessing the discussions since that port is often blocked by firewalls. My boss would probbly be in favor of that though :)
NNTP? Well, I suppose that an NNTP read-only backend might be a good thing for power-reading of slashdot, but Imagine all of the extra crap that would get posted to slashdot if it allowed AC posts via nntp.
Sample:
Story: Intel Releases New 1ghz CPU
Comments:
- A special business Opportunity
- Look at what I just found!
- Free XXX site passwords!
- Make Extra money working at home
- Lovely Women waiting for you!
when is natalie portman getting her own icon?
hmmm.... slashdot.com: Record created on 17-Nov-1996. slashdot.org: Record created on 05-Oct-1997. maybe slashdot.org is the one domain squatting. lawsuit anyone?
There is no significant difference between east and west when it comes to broadband. The same goes for tier 1 backbones, except those of us in the east have more public (and likely more aggregate bandwidth, though I have not done the math) exchanges and lower latency connections to euro sites.
You seem to have some misconceptions both about the web and about nonprofit orginizations.
.com address, and that it would actually be illegal, actually impossible, to change, since the .com address is already the property of someone else.
Let's tackle the nonprofit stuff first. I myself have founded a couple of nonprofits so I something about the subject.
One, there's no reason why a nonprofit can't sell advertising, in fact, most do. It's a good way to raise money. Nonprofits are allowed to raise money you know. They're even, gasp, allowed to charge money for retail items and services. Ever go to a museum that *didn't* have a gift shop?
Two, nonprofits can hold contests and give away money. Hell, it's clearly a way to prevent making a profit! Most nonprofits give away valuable prizes in contests, it's a good way promote awareness of "the cause" and if done in the form of a raffle even a good way to tap into people's inherent greed to raise money.
Three, nonprofits can not only be corporations, they are *legally required to be!* Only a corporation can attain nonprofit status. This is as a legal protection for the public that supports them, insuring that their operations can examined.
As for your misconceptions about the web, you've already been informed by others that there is no requirement to change to a
You mean like Disney?
And how is that different from the content we currently see on slashdot? I just want a better interface. The current interface isn't up to snuff.,
Are Rob and Jeff homosexuals? Not that there is anything wrong with that..
There goes my karma.
With the IPO and all...?
Two questions.
1) Do you have any regrets about where Slashdot has gone or how it got there?
2) With 20/20 hindsight, what would you have done differently regarding Slashdot?
John
now that you've sold yourselves to andover.net and .org these days?
made yourselves and andover a chunk oof change, don't you think that maybe it would be better to be better if slashdot went by slashdot.com? I assume that Andover is planing on making money from the adverts on all the pages and stuff and everything, what exactly makes this a
-m.d.
I was wondering how much the initial offering was going to be and how you guys think Andover.net going IPO will affect Slashdot?
Rob Malda and Jeff Bates? I shall poop on your heads!
I'm not sure what type of attitude Slashdot is supposed to have. Here is a place where the administrators call themselves names like "Commander Taco," articles are described with a funny "from the...dept." line, humorous stories are displayed with a big Monty Python foot, and the people who post stories never check their spelling.
Given the way this site is presented, there should be nothing wrong with people like the "grits-down-the-pants boy," and those "first post mastahs." There was a such post in the Corel Linux thread that had me chuckling all through my lunch hour. Honestly, if you don't like these people, just moderate them to -1 or ask for their deletion!
What is this place supposed to be like? A fun website to discuss Linux, Open Source, and issues affecting our online activites, or a tight-suit, serious, professional news site like CNN.com or ZDNet? Make up your mind!!
Another poster further down in ths discussion (by the name of Malcontent) has asked, "What plans do you have...for bringing more adults into the Slashdot fold and to try and make for a more intelligent discussion?" Well, Mr. (or Ms.) Malcontent, maybe that's a good idea. But if Slashdot is to do that, they must remove the silly names like "Commander Taco," get rid of the Monty Python foot, clean up their horrible spelling, and generally clean up the site so it's much more of a serious-looking place. A domain name change to "slashdot.com" wouldn't be out of the question.
Malcontent and many others have complained about Anonymous Cowards and some people have suggested that anonymous posting be banned altogether so they can't "work very hard to disrupt [discussion] threads."
It seems there's an image in many elitist, registered Slashdot users' minds that Anonymous Cowards are all a bunch of 13-year-old script kiddies just looking to make trouble. Have you ever considered that the Natalie Portman guys might really be registered Slashdotters (some with very high karma) who have just not logged in, or have chosen to post anonymously?? What about Signal11 or Enoch Root? Are they masquerading as Natalie Portman noise-makers?
And finally, maybe a lot of you elitist Slashdotters who complain day in and day out about the harmless and humorous people like the "grits boy" and advocate banning Anonymous Cowards should read this post. And do the right thing and moderate him up!
Yeah! Yeah! I knew CmdrTaco when he was just an Ensgn!!! I've been around here so long my uid is NOT EXPRESSIBLE AS A POSITIVE INTEGER. Also: stock for karma, whoohoo. Gimmee!!!!!
Confidential to Alan: Cardboard is porous dude!!!!!
First, I would like to thank Rob and Jeff for bringing us Slashdot and congratulate them on their sale to Andover. I especially like the provision in Rob's employment contract (as described in the Prospectus) stating that he cannot be required to work from any particular location! Ugly question: Assuming the point made in the prior poster's comment -- that the bulk of Andover's value is in Slashdot (I'm pretty sure the plurality of its page hits are -- roughly 40%)-- do you feel you sold Slashdot too cheaply? Based on my rough calculations, Slashdot was sold for about $6-$10 million. Post-IPO, the stock component of the consideration brings it to about $25 million, or about 2.5% of the value of Andover. Were you advised by an investment banker or other business broker in the transaction?
Portman/Naked/Commie/Grits/Petrified posts are not the worst comments on Slashdot -- it's the whiny "Slashdot is going downhill" comments about such posts that make things bad.
Trolls and flames get moderated down, and you can filter for them. Whiners don't get moderated down, even though they are offtopic, because people agree with the content of that comment, and would rather not "insult" the poster by lowering the score of their comment. The bad side to this is that it actually bumps up the ratio of noise to signal.
Besides, /. isn't really going downhill. Bob Mould wrote a thing or two about his band (Hüsker Dü) when people bitched about their growing fame, and I think some of the lyrics are appropriate:
You've seen it all before
You think it's passe
but you listen to the same fucking records every single day
you don't like the people who caught on late
if they're having fun
/. *did* used to be a good place to have discussions. Before the "reply" function, before threaded messages....
/. has come. Would you do anything different if you could go back?
Question for Rob and Jeff:
Slashdot has changed a huge amount since the early days (yes, I remember chips and dips and (gasp) before even that), what regrets do you have (if any) about the way that
I'm scared, very scared!
-- I can't say enough in 120 chars!
Does Andover have you involved in the management of its other websites or sundry holdings? Do you have any major plans in the works other than the maintenance and growth of Slashdot?
In other words, what is the Andover plan for world domination?
Gosh, Rob, I wish that I had set up a news website like you rather than writing the book on Red Hat administration.
Maybe one more question: did you suffer heart failure on the day of the IPO when you realized how much you are worth, or did you just scream a lot?
Oh, and should I buy shares?
Would you agree that Kurt Gray is by far the biggest jerk working at Andover.Net?
When are going to post some quickies, damnit!!
Love,
Kurt
think if the owner of slashdot.com suddenly told Malda he had to hand over the .org
Now that might be interesting
http://slashdot.org has gotta be worth a lot. Malda alone got (IIRC) 1.5 million from Andover. Wow.
Plus, really bored people could read the whole submission queue.
--
On the freshmeat mailing list there is an ad stuck to the top of the message. Maybe something like that on the top of each posting, or top level post or something like that.
---
I guess the Quiet Period worked... Andover.net IPO'ed (note the past tense) way back in October.
--
The Future: Some assembly required; batteries not included.
Two questions:
1: What is/are your favorite beer/s?
2: How did you get started in Linux?
I'm YAF.com! what do you mean by YAF? Please clarify, I read at +1
Rob & Jeff,
... not the gooshy stuff about more support for the site, able to pay some of the most involved people ... have you gotten any fun new toys since then, and what are your favorite?
... any chance of a new Slash release?
... and what do you have in mind for E2?
How has the Andover IPO/Slashdot buyout affected your life? No
Also
Oh
David
Share data. Share code. Share ideas. Share the wealth.
http://stockfilter.org
Now that /. and ANDN have a lot of money what are the changes we will see in operation of /. and ANDN since you have to put the money to use to generate some real revenue (and not ad revenue)
CP
Here, here. I've thought about this a lot. It's about time this subject came up.
Slashdot *is* the Slashdot crew
Give me a break, anyone can sort through a bunch of subissions and post them.
Er. Hi. I essentially gave up when Rob responded to Matthew Sachs with "Every time someone asks me about the source I delay the release another day." Now how's that for being a [CENSORED BY SLASHDOT/ANDOVER]
Nothing works on them. Except for that which we dare not try: getting the DOJ after them in an antitrust lawsuit.
When will the HTML on Slashdot actually be valid? You know, matched tags, quoted attributes, little things like that. It's totally sad that a "geek" web site like Slashdot has such horrible HTML.
(The whole Perl code quality issue has been raised by others, so I'll leave that mess alone for now.)
I've read much of the Andover IPO (didn't get my hands on any of it, though) material, and as it would seem from the documents, Slashdot is pretty much the jewel of the Andover crown...
No slight to Taco and Hemos, I think they've both done a wonderful job, but I do believe that any serious geek who has experience in professional journalism could run this site. Rob and Jeff have great tastes in stories, no doubt. On the other hand, I've often complained, sometimes noisily, about the lack of objectivity on slashdot. Part of being a good journalist is posting the facts as they are and not inserting your personal opinions where they could be mistaken as news.
If Rob and/or Jeff decided to move on, I think we'd get along ok. Roblimo is new on the scene and seems to have been accepted pretty well. Cliff came along a while back and I think he adds a lot. I'm sure that there would be some uproar if Rob/Jeff left but we'd be back in the swing of things pretty quickly. What those guys did is create the forum and the atmosphere. We're a community now and we can be self-sustaining.
Chris
Moderate away, I just had to get that off my chest.
I've also noticed that most submissions now include the plea by the submitter to be told what to think. The trend seems to be that someone comes across a news story and submits it to Slashdot so he can be told what his opinion should be on the subject by the teeming crowd of rabid /.ers...
I've noticed that comments tend not to wrap with no horizontal scroll bar when viewing them with IE 4.5 on the Mac OS.... When I'm using that browser/OS combo, I've got to open each thread tier in a new window to be able to read those comments...fairly frustrating..:]
_ _____________
_______________________________________________
--
driph
When are we going to see a slashdot/andover.net wealth monitor so we can see exactly how obscenely rich you guys are getting?
Gary
I think it would be a good idea for AC posts to be -1 by default and moderate up the good ones. By far, most AC posts are crap that will be moderated down to -1 in about 2 minutes. So, rather than waste moderation points that could well be used elsewhere, it would be better to just have them at the lowest score immediately and let the moderation system improve the scores of the interesting comments.
That way, there could be fewer moderators (fewer chances of abuse) and moderation could be concentrated on Rob's goal of concentrating on moderating good comments up rather than bad comments down. (This was mentioned in the moderation guidelines. Read the section on How, about half way down the page.)
Second, did it ever occur to you to stop pointing fingers at the person, and instead listen to him as he explains the problem? Don't kill the messenger! The moderation system is horribly flawed. I think I proved that several times over. Hating me accomplishes nothing (and yes, you're obviously irate about my karma like about 50 other people on /.).
How about instead we talk about *why* the system doesn't work, *how* to fix it so that high karma really /is/ an indicator of insightful comments... instead of being the "dogma points" they are now?
Like I said, don't kill the messenger. I got your attention, now go do something about the problem I highlighted. Or perhaps blaming would be easier. Your choice.
That's why we'd have a low-rent district... you know... on the 7-1/2 floor....
Enoch Root has more karma than me. Just alittle informative tidbit. And I'm not divulging my karma anymore because it raised too many problems and is hardly an indicator of worth (of any sort).
BEGIN DISCLAIMER I am a Java servlet developer. END DISCLAIMER
/. IS written w/ mod_perl... They have a fairly complex load balancing setup that's now serving the site (Check out Andover.Net's SEC S-1 filing and they go into pretty good detail) and I doubt that mod_perl is the bottleneck...
AFAIK,
Performance tests have shown that mod_perl and Java servlets run pretty much neck-in-neck in terms of speed so I doubt moving to servlets would have much, if any, impact on the speed of the site...
This quesition is also sorta answered in the FAQ... Rob likes Perl and has no desire to move to PHP, C, etc...
Hunter
--hunter
RateVegas.com - Vegas Reviews
Agreed, the software itself doesn't have much commercial value. That having been said, Slashdot does provide one of the best discussion engines that I've seen on the WWW. Certainly one of things that holds the audience is the feature set of the software (and, of course, bitching about that feature set - moderation, metamod, karma, etc.)
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
Whatever happened to TacoHell? Now All I get is the following error message:
While trying to retrieve the URL:
http://linux362.dn.net/tacohell/
The following error was encountered:
Connection Failed
The system returned:
(146) Connection refused
The remote host or network may be down. Please try the request again.
Did it go down because of the IPO, or other reasons?
-mark
-mark
If your computer says LINUX, run...computers can't talk! [unless you have text-speech software]
What do you think of the LinuxOne IPO?
I'm being a dork. Oh wait, that's my norm..
Jeff
Why is the above post rated as a troll? It's a rather funny post. Even if it were serious, it wouldn't be a troll. Liking Microsoft does not a troll make.
I hope I can meta-moderate that one.
Sorry if I sounded harsh; I was just asking for clarification on your question, and making sure you were aware of meta-moderation, and such.
It is an important topic; with many possible directions for improvement.
Actually, I think the ACs have patented that...
cut'n'paste
paste
paste
paste
... (2500 lines)
paste
paste
paste
submit!
So, now that you've created a viable business model and proved it can be done, what now for Time Magazines 'Person of The Year'?
I was simply asking if moderation could be refined. I was not making any statements or suggestions.
However
Meta moderation is flawed, in that it too can be abused.
And you know exactly what I mean by "first posting"
The secret of success is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake those, you've got it made. (Marx)
Question 1 What if anything do you plan to do about these issues?
Question 2 With fame comes responsibility... What do each of you plan to do with your elevated level of influence that will positively serve not only the open source/linux/bsd/etc. community, but also reflect the investment (read - $$$'s) that the market and many open source fans/contributors/advocates (who aren't necessarily reaping financial benefits from the various recent OSS related IPO's) have made in YOU? The additional wealth you guys have seen (whether its small or large is a non-issue) came out of OUR pockets, we want to see what you're going to do with it.
cheers,
-t
I was going to ask this as an interview question, but I suppose that anyone who's looked at slash would know, so I'll just ask here. What's the slash UI? Do they ssh in and just edit text files, use a secure web browswer, etc?
Now that Andover and Slashdot have a large amount of capital, are there any future plans for expansion? Should I expect Geeks in Space to be syndicated, or see a Slashdot TV show (maybe on zdtv?), and what about print media? We have Yahoo and Wired, why not Slashdot on paper? I would really like to see a Slashdot magazine, one which is less news oriented, and more culture oriented (Jon Katz would probably love this).
I personally think it would be great if i could pick up Slashdot at the newsstand.
indierock / punkrock band photos and more... http://www.digitaldefection.net
The problem with having points that can only be used as negative moderation is that it, too, will be abused. It's simply giving more moderation points, regardless of the intent.
For instance, I'll choose a particularly controversial topic: KDE vs. GNOME. Say I'm a hugely fanatical GNOME supporter, to the point where I think KDE is an utter load of garbage. And, lo and behold, a topic appears on Slashdot where I can exercise my views in a vigorous manner.
With the current system, I have five points. I can either push five posts down, five posts up, or mix it up a little. But I'm still limited to five posts maximum that I can moderate. Under the old system, I have to choose whether moderating a particular post down is worth giving up the ability to moderate another post up. The "Natalie Portman's naked ass" posts can definately go down, but if I'm half the zealot I'm pretending to be, I would ignore the Natalie posts and start moderating the opinions of people that I either agree with or disagree with. You like KDE? *BAM* your post drops a notch. This guy over here, though, thinks GNOME is "the most bitch-ass DE for Linux in the world," so I'll raise his content-free post up a level.
Say, however, Slashdot's new moderation system gives me the ability to moderate five posts, as well as three posts which I can only moderate down. That gives me an effective eight posts that I can moderate. That means I can surpress three posts I disagree with, and raise five that I do agree with. In other words, not only can I still moderate up to five posts, but I still can push down an extra three posts without having to use "free moderation" points to do it.
This could be limited by changing the rules. Perhaps we could have three "free" points and three "down-only" points. But that would still lead to people having a heightened ability to moderate posts down without having their overall moderating ability impaired. The existing system means you have to choose whether you want your opinion heard, or somebody else's opinion squashed. Segregating moderation into "free" and "down-only" relieves you of that choice: you can now make your opinion heard AND squash somebody else's without having to make a decision as to which is more important.
Anyways... I don't quite think simply adding negative moderation only is a viable solution.
The Slash .4 code has been promised for a damn long time now. Its understandable... Creating code for public consumption that was mainly written by one person can be a real bitch.
.4, I want something that produces clean HTML, works cross platform, and has a few more customization options than color coding.
- ------
By why bother?
I say the Open source community start thier own code base. I think this is the type of project that could be drastically accelerated through the wonderful GPL. I personally find it a little insulting that a site such as Slashdot--with its constant encouragement of GPL and free software--has it's own code in such a mess.
I don't want Slash
Is there anything like that out there? We deserve better. We can do better.
-Riskable
http://www.youknowwhat.com
-------------------
-Riskable
-Riskable
"Those who choose proprietary software will pay for their decision!"
If you made this into a wholly-open news service thing, then it wouldn't be Slashdot any more.
Unfortunately, /. is a business (and has been for longer than Andover acquired them). In a business, you have one goal: make the cash register ring. If there's no money coming into Slashdot (through advertising), there is no Slashdot. They need money to run the thing. If you want access to just the content, write some perl scripts that dump the comments into your reader of choice. It shouldn't be too hard. The rest of us will stick with a method that may not be convenient for YOU but is fine for US and also is an adequate balance of convenience and utility.
-Chris
And how do they get ads (i.e. their only source of revenue) into newsgroup posts? It's certainly not like having a BigAss(tm) banner ad at the top of each page.
-Chris
I'm not the one who "suggested" rob and jeff give up their only source of income to the site.
-Chris
It would be nice to know the algorithm for how people get chosen to be moderators. Though I guess the chance of abuse is high. People could just follow the pattern.
Though for some reason I have been getting moderation points almost every week, and starting on the same weekday. I can even start to predict when logging on whether I shall get moderator points that day. Not that its any use for me since articles that interest me enough to scrutinize and moderate also means that I want to post something. So I waste mod points by moderating and then posting a comment. Ah well.
Mez
Do you want to see them with their pink bits or their greenbacks?
This question is a two-parter. First Part - I've noticed alot of people asking when you are going to release the newest slash code, and complaining about the lack of releases - my question is WHY haven't you released the code? Have you been too busy, is andover interfering with releasing the code, or is it something else? This leads into the second part - now that Slashdot appears to be a fulltime job for you guys, what is a typical day for you like? Or is there no such thing as a "typical day" for you guys?
Touch The Puppet Head
>Is there any site reorganization in the works,
>or perhaps an expansion of the moderation system
>to include the approval and rejection of article
>submissions?
I'd like to back up this point and add that perhaps the poll could be used more productively to learn about the interests of slashdot's readers.
Sure, meta-moderation moderates the moderators... but is anyone really doing anything more than guessing when deciding what articles to accept and what articles to reject?
BlueSky
After reading the treads you spawned today I had to wipe the tears from my eyes from laughing so hard. I have a suspicion that the original post wasn't written by you but you've taken credit for it and seem to enjoy the debate that followed (as I've enjoyed watching it). It's always nice to see people reduced to schoolyard taunts in the face of a calm reasonable argument.
Kudos
IMHO, the big problem is that there are so many people reading slashdot, and too many of them want to make frequent comments with no real value.
Something I have wondered about is the possibility of limiting the number of posts a user could make. If you want to post more, post AC. This way, you would reconsider whether the comment is worth wasting a "post point". Users with posts that are frequently moderated up could get awarded with more "post points" than they would otherwise get. Throw in a modest filter (scores of 1 and better), and the signal to noise ratio should improve (for a while anyway).
Another good idea would be to throw in a killfile. Suppose I really hate posts from GritsBoy. It would be neat to set it up so that I only see posts from him if he has a score of, say, 3 or better. While the above idea would need to be thoroughly thought about before doing it, I think this idea is definately a Good Thing.
Presumably, someone (andover) is going to make a
big pile of money out of this. What are the odds that they might host mirrors of sites that are being slashdotted, even if only for a few hours?
Any plans to hire more staff to sift the articles? Professional moderators? etc?
Any plans to fix the deluge of AC crap?
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
In the past, it made sense that Slashdot content was all volunteer and unedited--the whole site was a shoestring operation. Now that you're on a more professional footing, these matters become choices, and not necessarily easy ones.
/.AC tee that I got yesterday (thanks, Hemos), I'm curious whether y'all have given consideration to more substantial compensation for contributors, and whether (financial concerns aside) you think it would help or hinder the quality of the submissions?
As grateful as I am for my
There's nothing inherently WRONG with Andover news, except that there's so many OTHER sources just like it - so much competition, that is, for my attention .... so why should I start every working day with Andover ?
Now, IMOHO, I used to like TechSightings, and yes, I visit it about once a week or so .... anymore, TechSightings is rather mediocre, BUT my point is that I think Andover would not be pleased to know that I only visit their site once a day - and the advertising on that page doesn't exactly, well, grab my attention ....
Dave's Linux Page ? Honestly, I've never checked it out (because it doesn't get my attention ?) ... I went there once or twice when it first was built, and if I recall, it was not OBVIOUS that it was for newbies (IS IT for newbies ?? I still don't know ) ... it just seems like a little research in 'net demographics might just get D's LP on the map .... and THIS seems like the Achille's Heel of Andover: it's NOT on the map, because the map is overpopulated ....
Will this change after the IPO ? Is it merely an issue of not getting the proper consultation, or is Andover not focused on a specific demographic (like, er, SlashDot is ..)
Free Code and the Funnies ? Well, I USED to ... but again, why go to Andover for this (by the way, it was TechSightings that first introduced my to UserFriendly.org ) .... why is Andover TRYING to be like everyone else ? Do they intend on forming themselves as a cookie-cutter, one-site-fits-all news source (sounds like a little OS from Redmond, but that's my opinion) ...
"He who questions training trains himself at asking questions." - The Sphinx, Mystery Men (1999)
It appears that some people just can not be helped.
I have been reading Slashdot since day one, and I honestly feel that the content of discussions has been improving over time, not degrading. We have moderation that was invented to get around the very things that you are moaning about. Now I'd put money on you being one of the folks that says "I wont use moderation because it's not free speech" or some such drivel.
With every article that I read the comments of, I spend perhaps 5 minutes reading the comments that have floated to the top due to moderation, and I get absolute quality almost all the time. The system works, use it or stop moaning about problems already solved.
I wholeheartedly agree. I think all users' posts should start at the same moderation level of 1 and AC posts start at 0. Get rid of the bonus karma point.
A modest proposal -
offer a certain percentage of stock to Slashdot
users, but divide by their user ID - so those who have been around longer, get proportionately more.
Not that it would help me much, either...
userid = fluffhead (32589)
#include "disclaim.h"
"All the best people in life seem to like LINUX." - Steve Wozniak
#include "disclaim.h"
"All the best people in life seem to like LINUX." - Steve Wozniak
a way to support the idea of moderating good posts up rather than bad posts down would be to give, for example, 2 down-only points and 3 up-only points. or maybe, a few "free" points and some up-only points. maybe all three types.
another idea is presented in your post: the GNOME zealot. you could subscribe to the views of moderators, or maybe groups of moderators. how to implement this with the present anonymous-and-random moderation scheme is somewhat of a challenge, but it could give interesting effects.
what i mean by "subscribing" to a moderator: his/her moderations are weighted more heavily for you than the moderations of others, or perhaps to the exclusion of others. in the latter case, it would probably be better to subscribe to specific groups of moderators.
-- rm -rf / tells you if you have root or not
Hmmm. Interesting idea, but I wonder how one would pay instantly and irrevocably?
(Go ahead, moderate me down as a dirty spammer, see if I care!)
JMR
PS If anyone wants to create an account, see a spend, and make a payment with
e-gold in the next day, I'll oblige. Instant gratification for Slashdot readers.
Try e-gold - (contact me). I'm NOT e-
With enough money, you can buy everything,
even the owners of
Black holes are where God divided by zero.
Recently Slashdot announced awards with *real money* prizes. Not what we would have expected from the old Slashdot, so this is a definite Andover influence - how much more is funding going to change Slashdot?
insignificant sig
The code is already open sourced.. we just haven't seen a release in quite a while ;)
"Please don't sigh like that, maam"
OK, maybe I am a bit extreme on this; but what I do is write code generators, which generate HTML, XML and related languages. Consequently I've possibly given the matter more thought than most people.
HTML is a language with which servers talk to clients. The server doesn't know what the client is, and doesn't know what capabilities the client has. Some clients are graphical browsers, and some aren't; of those, some have Netscape's special bugs and obscurities, and some don't.
Correctly written, standards-compliant HTML will work with every standards compliant client, whether it's a graphical browser, a blind person's speaking browser, a mobile phone, or a digester.
Slashdot won't.
As a community, Linux users suffer considerably from badly written Web pages which 'work' in Microsoft IE4; on our screens these pages often have unreadble fonts, and unreadable point sizes. Unless people who create Web sites care about standards, and care about quality workmanship, we are continuing to fragment the Web into increasingly separate, increasingly non-interoperable ghettoes. We claim to be the masters of technology, not it's slave: we of all people should know how to get it right.
If you care about the quality of the work you do, you should care about things like that.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
You know, I'm getting a little tired of this particular comment, though admittedly it's got a different twist from the usual. And I don't want to read 500 posts of M$ $ux! either.
Some of us aren't into computers as much of anything other than a relatively well-informed end-user. We're just interested in weird little intellectual things that seem to go over most people's heads. I know my fair share of "science geeks," and my own interests are radio broadcasting (my reason for doing a communication major) and English (I'm starting to chip away at an MA).
I'd like to think I'm a relatively valuable contributor, even though my posting frequency is down due to lack of netaccess from work. Apparently, according to my karma score, I'm not the only one who thinks so.
And yeah, I know I'm all kinds of off-topic here, sorry. But it's something that needs to be said, because "this isn't news for nerds!" seems to be the favorite flame around here.
"Somebody exploded a letter-bomb today
I can only hope that you leave all your shares on the front desk...
Chris Hagar
"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." - Thomas Jefferson
HOWEVER, I think that this solution will just result in people rushing over to the headline queue and disregarding the front page because it will inevitably always have older news.
I can see why you might think that, but I really don't agree. If the headline queue page is limited to a moderation score only (ie don't allow a discussion to develop there), I don't think it would happen like you say.
The drawback to this scheme is that the viewers who see the articles raw an uncut have the burden of rating up low articles
It seems to me there are more than enough viewer at Slashdot that the high-quality stuff would come to the top very quickly. But, I like your idea of articles degrading over time. It's always seemed a shame to me that articles go through slashdot like on a conveyor belt - the good and the bad all go at the same rate. It might be nice if all articles degraded, but that some particular viewer action delayed or counterracted the degredation. Like posting, for instance. Everytime someone posts to a story, is slows its degredation. Or, maybe better, every moderation point spent on a post for an article, that slows its degredation.
Would it be possible for there to me multiple copies of slashdot, each mirroring the _exact_ same content, but using different moderation strategies, so that we could determine by experiment what we liked best?
First, make it work, then make it right, then make it fast, then, make it bloated!
How do you feel towards other geek news sites (etc.).. do you view them as competition and threats to slashdot, are you ambivilent, or do you commend their work?
_______________
--
Deepak Saxena
Deepak Saxena
"Computers are useless, they can only give you answers" - Picasso
Missed this thread until it came up in metamoderation... maybe someone
is still reading it.
I agree with the point about +1 not being the default. I've seen more
than a couple of `sorry for posting this with my +1 bunus' out there
(done it myself), so there is a need.
Not quite right: if you elect to post anonymously then moderation
totals don't count; they couldn't since the server doesn't rememebr
your identity.
jesus...my brain is about 30 minutes behind my fingers, apparently. I even REMEMBERED the IPO in Oct and I still asked. Just shoot me now and take my job.
-
>Bah, use Emacs and the latest GNUS (gnus?), it has an interface that makes slashdot articles look like a news group, etc etc..
:), and it's great for reading articles. (Gnus scoring on top of slashdot scoring... :)
/will/ hunt you down and...and I think I'll gut you. Yes, that's it.
I haven't posted back from it yet, but it *looks* cool
Are you serious? I didn't know this was even possible, if you're lying to me I
--
"HORSE."
"HORSE."
-Flaming Carrot
... and do you still enjoy 'slashdot'ing. Think things will change in the near future, now you guys appear to 'have it made'?
I worked for a non-profit. Basically people can earn money by being an employee of the corporation. Non-profit means that someone isn't getting a check after the year is over if the company makes a profit. I assume that they either roll it over to the next fiscal year, or donate it to other charities. Many large companies will have a charitable arm that receives money and sends it out to other non-profits. In fact, there are som non-profits that make money. The one I worked for never had to worry about that. Look up Internal Revenue Code Section 504(c)3. I think that was it. I know the (c)3 is right. (It was fun to clean up grants with several copyright marks in them.)
Just out of curiosity, does ANYONE enforce the .org domain for "non-profit organizations"? I'm a fan of the band Foetus, and they have a .org page, but last I checked there are very few non-profit musicians. I love User Friendly, but does Illiad draw just for the overall benefit for his readers? There's alot of talk about Slashdot being changed to a .com by people here, but I wonder does it really matter? It seems to me that domain names work on the "once you've grabbed them it doesn't matter what you do" philosophy. Should this change? How about we discuss it here.
Bad things often happen to good people,
It is up to them to see that they remain good.
I used to go to a coffee shop where the coffee was good and the decor was old and tattered, mostly consisting of second-hand furniture. The coffee shop became so successful they "remodeled" and bought all new artistic furniture.
I stopped going to that coffee shop, it lost it's charm.
That was about 3 years ago, last week I went to visit that same coffee shop and discovered that they must have realised the same thing because there were 4 old fat cushy chairs in dining area!
In short we don't want fancy HTML (furniture) we just want good content (coffee). And maybe an occasional new feature (muffins, cookies, etc) that will improve our experience, like a custom page for AvantGo offline browsing (it does not pickup cgi links). ;-)
"Please do not reply if you're an evil alien! Thanks"
Now that you can afford it, do you have plans on getting out of Michigan?
NSI doesn't care what TLD you request these days.. Besides that, the site does not exist to sell a product; It exists as a 'geek forum' of sorts first, and as a handy vehicle for a couple of ad banners second.
.sig: Now legally binding!
Why did you only post articles criticising the WTO, and none in favour? Is there a political agenda at Slashdot? Do you try to be politically neutral or not?
haha. i'll contribute as a "man of /.":
Mr. October
Except that now he's on topic. You or I may not like his methods, but it is wrong to moderate him down because we don't like him/what he has to say. It's in the moderation guidelines.
ufdraco
They're already automatically down to zero instead of one. If you don't want to see them, read at one.
I do, however, agree that it's a little silly to expect slashdot to be a shining beacon of everything that's right. Completely open source. Completely standards conformant. Less Jon Katz articles. More original content. Totally unbiased editorials. Flawless moderation.
Standards are important, but you're all just whiny. :P
One part of the slash generated code that annoys me is the mass of nested tables. From memory and without that much testing (sorry) Netscape (and a lot of other browsers) can only render tables when they have the whole table. This means that on a slow link, a page which is made of one very big table will not render until all the data is present taking a long time (esp. bad if the connection drops after 400kb has downloaded).
Slash appers to generate very big, very nested tables (from memory). If top level posts like the one above this (PID=27) where in a top level table Netscape (and a lot of other browsers) whould be able to start rendering a lot sooner (ie top level post, followed by next top level post, instead of header...long wait....the rest).
Just my long rabling thoughts...(hope some of that made sence!)
Do you think Slashdot (or any other large web site) could become totally automated/run by its users? /. goes a long way with all the moderation etc but what about moderation for stories and the like?
/. needs, but I am looking at this more from the open sorce / freedom side? In short...could it work?
An example of a (possible not so good) system whould be when a user's karma gets to a certain level they could be given some admin rights (maybe to post one story).
I am not sure this is what
ok.. i most recently decided that i need a bank account... who do you bank with? is bank of america a safe bet? i just wanna know where your /. like every 13 minutes. isn't that loyalty? send me something good. how bout a 23 inch flatpanel? so long and thanks for the karma.
hard earned cash goes.. is it safe there? would you suggest a safe? by the way... can i have an aibo? i read
ERROR: Keyboard not attached. Press F-1 to continue.
-1 User Pointing Out the Obvious
SpamMan
I hate to burst your bubble but the point of moderation and reading at a cartain threshold *is* to improve the quality of the posts, I find it amusing when pople complain about the trolling and the other various dislikable posts when all they have to do is set there threshold to a =2, I have personaly only seen first post comments and other trolls when I am meta moderating , at that point I find them amusing and not anoying , anyway what I am trying to say is open your mind and realize the point of moderation and then all of a sudden , the discussion is a lot more sane.
Not to get into a debate on whether they HAVE to change to the .com TLD (I tend to believe they probably shouldn't be a .org anymore, but you could say the same thing about jennicam and probably several hundred OTHER sites...)
.edu, .gov, or .mil since those are privately controlled and registered, but the public domains like .net, .org, and .com seem to have no hard-fast rules.
.com, .net, and .org domains can now be registered
.COM, .NET, .ORG, .EDU domains and
When you come right down to it, in today's internet it doesn't matter a darn bit what your TLD is. I guess you would never be able to get a
Interestingly, slashdot.com appears to be already taken:
=================
Whois Server Version 1.1
Domain names in the
with many different competing registrars. Go to http://www.internic.net
for detailed information.
Domain Name: SLASHDOT.COM
Registrar: NETWORK SOLUTIONS, INC.
Whois Server: whois.networksolutions.com
Referral URL: www.networksolutions.com
Name Server: NS.2WIRE.COM
Name Server: NS3.2WIRE.COM
Name Server: NS4.2WIRE.COM
>>> Last update of whois database: Tue, 4 Jan 00 02:13:44 EST
The Registry database contains ONLY
Registrars.
=================
Domain squatting anyone?
I imagine you guys can actually hire some full-time people to serve as editors and content publishers, and have staging servers--all those lovely things you realize you can have once your website actually has a budget and tons of viewers. You've talked about how there are better ways to write the slash code--in different languages, etc, so will you be hiring programmers or will this roll along as a geeky-open-source-fast-food-underground-zine forever thing? (sorry for overdoing the last bit there :)
thanks
"In individuals, insanity is rare, but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs it is the rule." -Nietzsche
Parodies are legal.
The value of Slashdot is the traffic that it generates. While the UI that the software provides is pretty good, it could be reproduced in less than a month by a good team of programmers.
The question is, how valuable is the traffic? Unfortunately for Slashdot, they have a very narrow "geek" demographic. While I respect the level of traffic they currently have, I question whether how far it can grow. Even if Linux skyrockets in popularity, the average Joe User is not going to find Slashdot that interesting.
---
That would be cool...have three "bins":
.02
* Accepted - main page
* Spam/Flaimbait/Inappropriate/Duplicates - trash
* Rejects - reject page
This might be a little more work, but i think i'd be worth it. The Rejects don;t need to have comments or anything...or maybe even, like if a reject gets so many votes (a few thousand) it gets posted to the main page for all to see/discuss.
Just my
You can use usernames and passwords over NNTP as well. My suggestion would be to hack the NNTP server's authenication to use the MySQL database and allow anyone to read the articles, but to have an account in order to post.
Exactly!
Also, isn't it worthwhile to make something more elegant just because you can? If you can do something two ways, both using just as many resources, why not opt for the classier one? Why settle for mediocrity?
How about if browsers flashed warnings when parsing bad HTML. Say, the Mozilla throbber pulsed red "POOR HTML" instead of the dragon for a second. Hmm, it's OSS, maybe I'll have to add that. ;)
Constitutionally Correct
I am curious if you, Rob, Hemos, Roblimo, and so on, ever read the comments on the articles you post? If you were to jump into discussions more frequently, things could really liven up.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Slashdot has always (and will continue as long as CmndrTaco and gang are still around) been *the* slashdot. Slashdot is basicly (out of Rob's mouth) 'Whatever I'm interested in'. Rob like linux and open source, while Hemos likes Nano tech. What do we see often? Nanotech going open-source. If we (or andover) were to change any of that, it would defeat the entire purpose behind slashdot.org.
That's a good idea (the losing 24 karma if your +1 comments are moderated down). BTW-if you post +1 you don't get +1 karma do you? So if it gets moderated back to 1 do you lose a karma point?
Mr. September
People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them
You're not going to patent one-click posting are you?
Slashdot has been relatively the same (design-wise) as far back as I can remember.
Are there any plans on a complete re-design to accommodate new features in mind?
(Actually I like the way slashdot is, but it is nice to know were we are going.)
Ok. Since nobody else has asked I will. :)
Will we ever see a slashdot TV show. Or even, dare I dream, a Slashdot channel?
We've all heard Geex in space and know that with appropriate censorship and a trained team of makeup artists you guys could make some really interesting viewing. (Plus, I've always wanted to hear a TV personality say: "Are top story today is that the RIAA sucks!!"
And also to Rob: Has your minor celebrity status in anyway helped Hope college's computer program? Re: Increasing applications, etc. I know that I actually thought heavily of applying their when I heard that you went there.
Click here to read too much about my personal life
This is a very cool idea. Maybe every so often the article with the most votes could be moved to the front page. One problem though, it seems to me that voting for the masses would be similar to polls. Polls can't be taken at face value because of ballot-stuffing.]
Maybe in addition to moderation points, Slashdot could periodically give out article moderation points. They could use a scheme where people with higher karma can article moderate more often (does regular moderation work this way also?).
Why? what would this accomplish?
Couldn't the extra money be donated to those sites that have been overrun by the slashdot effect?
It should make for a better slashdot experience although it might take some money away from the owners/stockholders. It would also be a nice thing to do(gee, imagine that!).
Withdrawal before climax is very ineffective and those who try this are usually called "parents."
What is the overall structure of Andover as an organization, and how does /. fit into it? Andover is obviously a corporation, but was /.? Is /. now to be a divisional entity operating freely under the Andover umbrella or will Andover be looking to consolidate all of its web site assets into a single recognizable brand? What have you gained from Andover that you have found to be helpful (e.g., are management or people with other skills helping out with hidden operations of /.)? What else can you share about your experiences with the change in ownership? Has it been smooth? Lastly, what were the driving factors that made you decide to join Andover?
Can I have a Million dollars???
Perty please????!!!!
If you do I promise to give you about a thousand hits a day! I can quit work and load slashdot all day long!!!
Just three more hours seapeople and you can finally take me away from this crappy God Damned planet full of hippies
Having been a daily reader of /. for a few months, I decided to invest in Andover in hopes that they will improve their offerings -- not only /. but Davecentral and freshmeat, too.
/. will be doing to expand their audience. How will money be made? Is anyone lining up to use the /. software on their site?
/. - or are they doomed to obscurity?
As an investor, I would like to know what
Plus, I'd love to hear your comments on the other Andover holdings -- are any of them ever going to be as well known as
"Super moderators" -- bad idea. And no posts should be yanked. IIRC, some judge ruled that if a site deletes any user comments, it becomes responsible for all of them. A better solution would be to give all registered users moderation, i.e. each user could moderate each post up or down one point, then assign an average to the post. This would quickly eliminate bad moderation while still keeping the trolls down.
:)
On this same topic, a feature I would like to see added is the ability to sort posts with lowest scores first. I find the trolls to generally be extremely entertaining, and this way I could easily read them. Without the trolls, I'd have little motivation to read the comments at all
--
http://gammatron.weblogger.com
uh... its a little too late, no? And anyone could have gotten in at the IPO price with the OpenIPO system.
--
http://gammatron.weblogger.com
On the other hand, many AC posts are worth reading but are not moderated up. I realize the need to start AC at 0, but it should be easier to moderate them up to 1 or 2. For instance, when I see an AC at 1 I know its the same as a regular post at 2, so I read it. Moderators should be able to up an AC to 1 without using karma points. Furthermore, moderators should be able to bring an AC to 2 for 1 karma point, to 3 for 2 karma points, etc.
Hrm? Do you mean not designed structurally for discussion, not meant to encourage discussion, or not the right place to have discussions in your opinion? The first two seem incompatible with even a brief overview of the reply protocol and "articles" that directly encourage further discussion. The latter I just don't understand what you're trying to say, since you're here discussing.
If you want to raise the signal to noise ratio, I would think the first move would be to eliminate anon posts. Frankly, we're all as anonomous as we want to be to each other, and someone who didn't want an account could just sing up as "temp user" by entering their email address. Readers and even moderators would see the poster as anon, but moderation points would be recorded against the email address.
Of course there is the argument that meta-discussions like this one are worse on the s/n than actual trolls. I can see that point, but think there is a simple solution that won't require any changes in the current moderation or comments protocol. Every [two weeks, month?] just have an "upkeep" article that maybe discusses some of the meta-comments that have come up recently and encourages discussion of how moderation, s/n and quality of articles has been. Those who find this sort of electronic navel gazing annoying could ignore the entire thread, and knowing that there is an appropriate forum could help navel-gazers such as myself hold back from such discussions in other threads. And who knows - we might actaully hash out some mutually agreeable suggestions for improving the quality of discussion.
In the spirit of this bright future, I've cut a few other general suggestions for changes in moderation, in hopes that there will soon be a better place to make them. :)
...will work for Chick tracts...
So, how much money did you make?
And just because I'm such a nice guy (ask the girls, they know), I don't even want to know the exact amount. +/- $1M will do just fine.
It's not the case now, but slashdot.com used to point to an white paper on cybersquatting.
Maybe Chris Richardson will be accommodating.
I think it is time to disallow everyone from posting anonymously without an account. However, I think those with an account should be able to check the "Post Anonymously" box, but moderation done to their post should be counted against their karma.
-------------------------
-------------------------
"People ask FAQs all the time". - David Allen
-------------------------
-------------------------
"People ask FAQs all the time". - David Allen
Now that /. has more resources, will some of those be put towards doing the usual fact checking "ordinary" journalists (should) do?
What I mean is that if John Smith is mentioned in a bad light, you ring/email/whatever the person to see their side of the story before posting it.
I heard there was a slashdot code mailing list, but alast I can not find it. Also some guy from lilthfair.org claimed to have hacked up .3 enough for an actucally release, but he suddenly disappeared without ever being heard of again, and lilthfair.org is down.
I think Rob "The Commandor" Taco broke his knee caps, and rightfully so.
I once thought about starting a GPL generic news based engine to render sites like slashdot, but rewrite the whole thing from the ground up. Sorry Rob, no disrepect, but you licenese agreement freaks me out a little. Once you went and sold to a bigger company (with lawyers) it makes me even more nervous.
Oh, sorry, supose to be asking a question.
Where is the code Rob?
(no disrespect meant)
Hell, he doesn't even have to release it as far as I am concerned.
"`Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.'" -THHGTTG
I believe you have just substantiated his comment.
The slash-help mailing list is here. This list discusses the original slashcode 0.3, as well as non-Malda flavors of slash and the pro's and con's of each.
A forked version of the 0.3 code is availible here.
PHPSlash is being developed independently of the Malda crew. It can be had here.
A Zope version called Squishdot is also availible.
I've seen some comments about slashsites not giving credit to Rob and Co. Please remember that these other versions of the code exist and are completely seperate. So, just because a site looks like slashdot doesn't mean its using Rob's code. That said, most of the non-0.3/0.2 sites also have mention and links to slashdot. Squishdot for example.
Here are my questions:
So far slashdot is the only site I know of that IS a self-moderating community. If other code bases begin creating moderation/metamoderation models, are they in danger of a Malda patient on metamoderation/karma or the self-moderating community concept? I think I can guess at the answer, but it would be good to have some official verbage on this from Rob.
Those of us actively working with slashcode 0.3 etc. understand the nature of beta and don't expect a 1.0 release. 0.4 would be fine even it is doesn't work, like 0.3 didn't when it was released. We will gladly fix it. Given the long period of time that 0.4 has been promised (check here for a post by Rob back in June about releasing 0.4 and here is one in August), the fact that the slash community is not likely to forget that promise, and the fact 0.3 has rather silly Y2K problems (see the slash-help list archive for fixes) will you, finally release SOMETHING or admit that the Slashdot code is in reality and practice close sourced beyond 0.3?
Would you please add a link to the slash-help mailing list mentioned above (http://projects.is.asu.edu/mailman/listinfo/slash -help) to the www.slashdot.org/code.shtml page?
If it hasn't exactly shown in this post, Rob does great code. My compliments! You have us hooked and we want more! -Temple
"He who sacrifices beauty for efficiency gets what he deserves." - Bernard Mickey Wrangler a.k.a. the Woodpecker
Slashdot.org Purchase Agreement from the SEC filings:
;)
BTW - This is all public information.
The total consideration that will be paid is valued at $8.5 million and the maximum contingent consideration payable is $3.5 million. All consideration has been or will be paid to BlockStackers, Inc.
Under the terms of the Asset Purchase Agreement between BlockStackers, Inc. and Andover.Net, dated as of June 18, 1999, Andover.Net purchased those assets of BlockStackers relating to the Slashdot.org web site for $1.5 million in cash paid at closing and maximum future cash payments of $3.5 million payable over the next two years contingent on the continued employment of two key employees.
Maximum future stock consideration of $7.0 million is payable over a period of two years following this offering. For the purposes of these issuances, the number of shares of common stock to be issued is determined using an assumed initial public offering price of $16.50 per share.
In June 1999, Andover.net acquired substantially all of the assets and assumed certain liabilities relating to the Slashdot.org web site from BlockStackers, Inc. Slashdot.org is the largest online community for Linux/Open Source developers providing news, commentary, information and reviews.
The amount of stock consideration that is contingent on the achievement of performance milestones relating to traffic on the Slashdot.org web site and the continued employment of the key employees of Slashdot.org will be recognized upon the achievement of these milestones.
EMPLOYMENT AGREEMENTS
Robert Malda In connection with its acquisition of Slashdot.org, Andover.Net entered into an employment agreement with Robert Malda, a director of Andover.Net, on June 28, 1999, for a term of three years.
Mr. Malda is entitled to customary employee benefits.
Under the terms of the employment agreement, Mr. Malda has agreed that during the term of the agreement he will not participate in the management of any entity which is in competition with Andover.Net.
There is even more detail available and I have no intention of spotlighting Rob, so I'll leave some of the digging to you readers!
> "more adults" ?
> Can't think of anthing to say, but screw you.
> Age doesn't change the quality (whether high or
> low) of my posts.
No one said age did. "Adult" has nothing to do with age. Never has, really. A 30 year old can be childish and a 12 year old can offer mature insight.
Would you prefer the term "Mature Individuals" instead of "Adults"?
jeremy f wrote:
.com, .org and .net domains. A nonprofit organization can have a .com domain just as lawfully as a company can have an .org domain.
Legally, this place needs to change it's domain to slashdot.com -- there's money going into Rob & Jeff's pockets, guaranteed.
Legally, there's no difference between
The difference is a matter of convention, not law. It's reasonable for slashdot to not follow convention because:
* People are used to the current DNS name
* There is no pressing reason to switch
* The slashdot.com domain is owned by someone else (A Chris Richardson, in California).
----
----
Open mind, insert foot.
This I like! :)
(alan == user id 347)
Something for Rob:
Dude, I'm still sorry about the ketchup in the box thing, I swear it wasn't my idea!
As for a question, I'm wondering what you guys see as the next BIG things to watch for as far as software, technologies, and people. Anything that you guys (who see most of this stuff come in) feel will hit it big in the next bit?
The problem is, of course, what to do about the problem. Slashdot could revert to an unscored setup, but then the signal to noise ratio would be unbearable.
I've been advocating the implementation of "super moderators" for a while now -- a small group of hand-picked moderators who would act kind of like the Supreme Court of moderation. They could do things like yank Natelie Portman or "line noise" posts, assign points to posts at will, etc. You'd have to find the right people -- people who are both extremely good at handling power and who can step back and make "good" calls about unpopular points of view. It would also have to be closely supervised and reviewed, but I think it'd work.
----
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
I agree with you about the SlashDot software, but I don't think it's the whole story. My guess is if I had the SlashDot software (current version, not some old nasty thing) and put up a site it would not get the same response. Why? 'Cuz I'm an old codger and not likely to create a similar community. However, any entity that already HAS a community could make good use of it. I've been curious why the newest source is never posted, but the title reads "SlashDot - News for Nerds" not "SlashDot - News for the FSF". I don't recall ever reading Malda's feelings about open source for everything, but I think the source for SlashDot is the one saleable resource Andover has. They could easily sell it to ZDNET for instance; their "TalkBack" story comment feature is awful. Now, what happens if they do that? The zealots will get ugly, that's for sure. So they're in a weird place. I think this is one of the better cases to watch for the collision of Open Source and marketplace. If you're CmdTaco and company, does it make you happier to toe the line with the open source religion or to see your baby turned into a widely-used standard for discussion groups, each paying a nice licensing fee? My own position is that open source is great for the OS because it allows IBM and everybody to drop their own proprietary versions of Unix without losing face, but for apps like SlashDot the creators deserve fair market price, and they won't get it if they give it away.
The revolution will NOT be televised.
--
Code not created for public consumption often contains...ahhh..."commentary on the state of the computer industry in an informal, casual, and often rude manner."
;-)
Assuming that you're not the paragon of Mature and Uberprofessional Coding Practices, I'm sure you have more than a few sections of rather...blistering observations. Seeing as how this is News for Nerds, evil Perl most assuredly counts as Stuff That Matters. I'd like to see some segments of code before they were "Sanitized for Our Protection".
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
Some (if not many) of the problems I have seen (or heard others gripe about) concerning Slashdot recently have their origin in lack of resources. Do you have any plans to add more people: newsgathers, moderator managers, link checkers, etc? In other words, the equivalent of the publishing world's assistant editor(s)?
Any thought given to having a few full-time moderators? Just another take on the editor issue, really.
If no, is part of the concern libel/liability if you do add more editorial supervision to the content?
sPh
CmdrTaco and Hemos,
If you could change 1 or 2 things about what you have done with slashdot.org, what whould you change, and why?
Are you accepting volunteers yet???
Sorry, not anymore. I accepted one beautiful volunteer, and now she's positively reluctant to even let me interview additional applicants! Go figure.. *g*
Not only is this an idea I've been hunkering over for a while, but I think it's one of the only ideas that will keep Slashdot on top. Let's face it, Slashdot has taken more criticism of late (well, over the past 12 months?) over lack of good content and crappy replies (to which moderation has, for the most part, helped to control). By moderating the incoming news stories, not only could you filter out the bogus stuff, but, by moderation, increase the number of stories relevant to the Slashdot readership.
Some might claim that Slashdot will then be in the control of the Moderators (of which I participate, if given the chance.) However, I argue that it would give Slashdot readers (of which I am an avid one) more control over what stories they see. Of course, the Slashdot crew would and should have ultimate control of what gets posted, but at least we'd have an opportunity to tell the crew, "Hey, this story is lame. It's not geek stuff. It's not news for nerds and it certainly doesn't matter."
This is a very valid criticism. It could be argued that Slashdot *is* the Slashdot crew. Yes, we the readers are very important, but without anything to read or comment on, of what value is this site? So, does Andover have insurance?
Aside from the 1.5 mil the "two key employees" of slashdot.org got for the sellout, I'm wondering about that Intangable assets thing. Is the source code "Intangable Assets"? And when andover.net doesn't make money and cuts people out(as they can), do they keep the code? If I'm reading this right, they can. Can you two clairify this?
The idea is, if those with mod points want to view an article at 0 or higher, they would have to change it manually. This would assist moderators who browse at higher levels and would probably help balance out positive moderation somewhat. Since you mention it in your moderator guidelines, I figure it would be appropriate to put it in the code. How about it?
(Creeps off to run his home page through weblint...)
Why would the code need to be cleaned up? It looks good in lynx and netscape, which is surely a good enough practical acid test.
"just because it looks good on the surface"?! But the surface is all there is to a web page! HTML is a mark-up language; it is supposed to present page content, and that's all. If it does that well -- and /. does look well in any browser I've tried -- then it works. And you can't compare generated HTML code to, say, C code: issues of maintainability don't arise, for example. I don't see what you're getting so worked up about. Does /. work, or doesn't it? What are the practical effects of the generated code not always conforming to the spec? I like /., and I find it neither sloppy, nor incompetent, nor unprofessional. Your attitude seems extreme, compared to what you're actually saying. I should say that if you were criticising the perl code, that would be different.
Well, "org" is NOT only for nonprofits... but I agree that "com" is a more appropriate TLD for Slashdot at this point.
:)
Hey, if sunsite can change, I think we'll survive a Slashdot move, as well.
----
It would be interesting to see the results of others meta moderating my moderations; hopefully all comments ("2 fairs and 3 unfairs"), but at least the aggregate stats. Certainly NOT to include who did the meta moderating to me :-)
--
Infuriate left and right
I find that showing comments highest score first improves the S/N ration dramatically. I only see the grits posts when there are few comments, and it is easy enough to ignore them.
It's gotten to the point that I can actually rley on useful comments and get info from them.
--
Infuriate left and right
and speaking of that - what is the license and ownership of the code like since andover has gotten involved?
Bah, use Emacs and the latest GNUS (gnus?), it has an interface that makes slashdot articles look like a news group, etc etc..
I haven't posted back from it yet, but it *looks* cool :), and it's great for reading articles. (Gnus scoring on top of slashdot scoring... :)
:) Pack the bowie knife and listen up, it's in the Latest release of GNUs (5.8.2 I believe).
Errr, I'd check but at the moment, the gnus homepage appears to be replaced with a list of RFC's...
The slash-help mailing list. Home of the embittered would-be open-source slash contributors.
"Moderation is good, in theory."
-Larry Wall
There is no K5 cabal.
I am not the real rusty.
I know you're both nominally involved with Blockstackers and the Everything project. My question is, to what extent? Are you funding this, or letting your more involved roommates slide on the rent, or are you actively involved in the design, testing, and coding?
--
how to invest, a novice's guide
A few weeks ago there was some MS-Led agitation for an MS friendly section on slashdot, which to those of us who've been hanging out here since the early days sounds akin to Satanists demanding a chapel for ritual human sacrifice in the Vatican. All Microsoft financed astroturfing aside, has corporate ownership increased pressures for this kind of thing, or made more acute the temptation to chase the profits mass markets unpopular or antithetical to the open source movement might offer? If so, what specific strategies do you employ to minimize its impact and keep slashdot true to its open source roots?
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Whatever you say... It's just against the whole GPL, is all... To mandate anything beyond returning the code to the community. And rob says it's near the GPL with that one exception, and if you don't agree, send him money... that's not GPL. And nor is the untimeliness of his updates...
and not all kernel contributors get their due credit. and there's no clause saying if i host a site using linux, that i have to mention the fact, or anything... i think if you beleive what you're saying, you're letting rob set a double standard for himself.
SO many people here whine when a company opens it's source but creates a new almost opensource license... Corel linux is GPLed, but that didn't stop people from saying they were violating it when they didn't release the source to their beta immediately and for everyone.
I can give example after example about this, if you desire... Consider Rob payed for his time on slash... in case you didn't notice he's worth at least a few million dollars now... and if that's not enough for him, well, he shouldn't have even mentioned the GPL in his licensing page... Because it's no where near it.
Isn't it about time the moderation abuses and "first posters" are addressed?
Funny... "First post"ing can be considered an abuse of the posting system. Moderation is the answer to that. I read at threshold 1, and never see that stuff.
Widespread moderation led to abuses, and thus meta-moderation was born. Enough meta-moderation, and an abusive moderator will lose enough karma to be unable to moderate anymore.
Are you suggesting that these systems (moderation and meta-moderation) are totally ineffective? Or are their specific weaknesses you see in them, for which you want fixes?
Hi, OK, I still like Slashdot, still waste lotsa time on it, still learn from it. So you've been doing a great job for a long time.
I usually set my comment level at 3, mostly for time reasons (I don't usually want to spend time reading more than 10-20 comments). One thing I don't like at that level is a kind of uniformity of tone and opinion. I like to read wildly opposing opinions: in combination they're often more useful, not to mention more stimulating, than endless "slashdotically correct" prose.
So here's my idea to fix that, based on the Amazon.com feature: "people who purchased this book also purchased...", which I often find useful.
Everybody can moderate, though, like today, only selected people's moderation gets used for the "general" slashdot comment scores. Now that you get everybody's opinion on various comments, you can determine groups of similarly minded moderators (you can also use meta-moderation input for this). You could then propose a view of slashdot moderated by people who think like me, or rather, who think about thinking like me. There'd always be the option to return to the general mass-view, of course.
This would encourage high-quality moderation and possibly return us to the more personal, small-scale slashdot experience we use to have. Moderation would be more spontaneous, selfish, and less ponderous. Groups might evolve for the politically correct, the humor-seekers, the crude, those who value originality, facts, who knows what? Possibly these self-generating "communities", once identified, could be very valuable, and maybe make you even more money, but I'm sure you'd see that as a side-effect of a neat idea.
k a i
I personally don't think much can be done at all, and not much should be done. Slashdot is not a medium suitable for discussions, there are more apropriate forums for that, such as News and mailing lists.
Slash uses a web-based front end for all that jazz, it's located at http://yoursite.tld/admin.pl
Password protected, and users have access levels, so some can do everything (100000 access level or something) while others can do almost nothing (any access level >1 IIRC).
The 100000 level allows them to add sections, links, stories, modify posted stories, etc. It all uses mysql, through the DBI perl module.
I tried to get it working decently, but to no avail. The code is messy, but it works. I, too, am waiting for a 0.4 release, just to play around.
PHPSlash is not bad at all, but it's very alpha (beta?) and isn't really very functional. There are other, similar web-based alternatives, but most don't have the versatility of slash.
slash code
-ed fisher
this
Unfortunately, /. is a business (and has been for longer than Andover acquired them). In a business, you have one goal: make the cash register ring. If there's no money coming into Slashdot (through advertising), there is no Slashdot. They need money to run the thing. If you want access to just the content, write some perl scripts that dump the comments into your reader of choice. It shouldn't be too hard. The rest of us will stick with a method that may not be convenient for YOU but is fine for US and also is an adequate balance of convenience and utility.
-Chris
Or, an even quicker fix that would take all of 2 seconds...People who have the +1 bonus must check a box if they want a +1 bonus. Right now, you must check a box if you DON'T want the +1 bonus. I think this is the wrong way to look at it. Make everyone's default score be 1, but those w/ enough karma can check "give me +1 bonus" if they think their post is "good enough" to get that. This way you are WILLFULLY giving yourself a +1 bonus, and can't say "Whoops! I didn't mean to post at default 2, I was in a hurry".
To the person asking if giving yourself a +1 gives you +1 karma points, no it does not (thankfully).
For example, you have a rather weak sounding disclaimer and there is a ton of editorial content in the messages that are posted. Yahoo has been involved in several cases where companies have felt wronged by anonymous posting. Do you worry that somebody could try to sue? Have you taken measures to help track down posters, even ACs, in the event that somebody wants to track down a poster of negative comments? I know several sites that do IP tracking and some cookie stuff to try and keep track of the anonymous people. You guys have had a strong record for defending anonymity and making changes to try and keep anonymous posting viable, has Andover or wealth changed any of that? You're a much bigger target now, has that changed anything? (I'm not trying to learn ways to circumvent things or anything, I'm just curious if you guys are really totally free to operate as normal, if you are then I will be the first to say that you may have the greatest job on the planet.) If Bolomag Corp. (Big Oranization with Lots Of Money And Guns) wants to track down that AC that said their products were unsafe and dropped the law suit word, would you help them? What if it was believed to be a Bolomag employee? I think this consists of one question.
Secondly, I view slashdot and a pretty cutting edge weblog/pseudo-portal. It has really defined the medium to me. I've watched over the years as slashdot has gone from a nerd news index (meta-news?) that essentially pointed to news articles that were about developments that nerds would find interesting in to more content development with the Katz articles, book reviews, and features and interviews and then customizable content with the slashboxes and the custom page creation. Slashdot is becoming a media. Is there any pressure to direct that? Alternatives to the weblog (irc.slashdot.org?) haven't really surfaced but do you think that there will be pressure to move slashdot to the "next thing" when it does? Andover has a hot commodity and they clearly wouldn't want it to lose its edge anymore than they would want to ruin it by making it corporate.
Then third, how does the editorial process work? From the viewer's prespective, slashdot seems to be fresh, interesting, prograssive and it is continually being adjusted and tweaked. Does someone have ultimate say over what is done? Is it a democracy? Have there been any big rows? Is there a policy or plan for when there is desire to do something that isn't "slashdot?"
This is my signature. There are many signatures like it but this one is mine..
I'm afraid I can't agree that the discussion content improving over time, I wouldn't make any claims for having read slashdot since day one whenever that was, but I have been reading for a long time and I'm stating my opinion here. I don't expect it to coincide with everyones. I certainly am not moaning.
I agree with you that moderation has solved certain problems but I feel it has created others. I have certainly seen examples of posts moderated severely by moderators who seem to not have understood the posters point or merely disagreed with its content. The "anyone praising Microsoft is a troll" syndrome.
I don't believe there is any perfect solution to any of these issues, but there is always room for improvement, and as we have been using the current solution for a while now I merely wished to know what the slashdot guys felt about the current posting standards, the moderation system and any plans to modify it further, given the much higher levels of traffic the site now attracts.
I'm sorry that my original post seems to have given you so much offence.
-- Oh Well
The recent addition of the special 'sections'(YRO, Ask Slashdot, Apache, etc.), combined with the increasingly custimizable moderation system, raises an interesting question: how diverse can Slashdot become? Rather than just a forum for the Linux/Open Source community, /. seems to be becoming more and more a general geek portal. Is this desirable? Is it something you're deliberately working towards? How far would you want the shift to go?
One notable diference between Slashdot and most of the comparable 'community news' sites out there is the absence of any 'standing forums'--ongoing discussions not pegged to any specific news story. Is this something y'all decided against having, or just haven't gotten around to implementing yet?
Had I any moderation points, they would all go to this post.
My observation has been that as the net gets bigger, the more chaff that must be sorted through to get to the wheat. It happened to Usenet, it'll happen here - if left unchecked.
What sort of ideas do you have to stop this? (I think the moderation is a good idea, but, as already shown, at some critical mass, it too is overwhelmed.)
Have you considered having a fee-for-service area on the site? As much as I hate this solution, increasing the cost of entry to forums like this tends to be a good filter - in that not many people want to pay to write about Natalie Portman's petrified first-posting beowulf ASCII cluster. And I would be willing to enter such an area, provided the costs of entry aren't phenomenal.
Linux - Because Mommy taught me to Share.
Did andover.net pay Unisys to use GIFs on slashdot.org and its other sites? And, if so, why is a leading open source news site giving direct financial support to software patents?
-- Real free software sites don't use GIFs.
1) Will slashdot readers that have accounts - be receiving a letter in their mail informing them about the IPO and how it is going to effect them, and will the letter offer them the same options as the letter RedHat sent out?
/.'s position as a member of the press/ or effect its standing as an open source/ editorial site?
2) Will user data stay the same?
3) Will moderation change in any way, shape or form?
4) What restrictions do you business guys have?
5) Will Slash 0.4 be released?
6) Will the posting ability of AC change?
7) How well is Meta-Moderation working?
8) Will this change
Is it progress if a cannibal uses a fork?
As it stands, the current Slashdot interface is cluttered and somewhat unintuitive. What are your plans for redesigning Slashdot? A sans-serif font, better distinction between comments, and a revamp of color schemes for Slashdot Sections might be the first steps toward a more aesthetically-pleasing site.
Would you consider user-submitted layouts, or perhaps even implementing a 'theme' engine?
--
Sam
It seems like the quality of discussion on /. is going downhill very fast. The ACs are working very hard to disrupt threads with NATALIE/NAKED/COMMIE/GRITS posts. What plans do you have (if any) for bringing more adults into the slashdot fold and to try and make for a more inteligent discussion.
War is necrophilia.
AC: You overlooked something I wrote:
/. has a day, those advertisers are paying slash every time their banner is displayed, not when someone follows the link. However Jeff & Rob own stock in Andover, which owns slashdot. Therefore, Jeff & Rob are making money from their own company, money which is by very little doubt going into their own pockets, therefore they are turning a profit.
/. is selling a product. Their price? Free. Are they making money? Yes.
;)
"There's money going back into Jeff & Rob's pockets, guaranteed"
What happens when your nonprofit org starts making enough money that you start to take some of that home in profit? Is it no longer a nonprofit org?
Yes, I know the costs in running a website, even a major one such as slashdot. I also know how much revenues can be brought in by banner ads (not even necessary for banner clicks -- with the # of pageviews
I could be wrong on this one, because IANAIRS Agent, however aren't there tax exemptions for nonprofit orgs?
Like it or not --
I'd love to get ahold of some andover financial statements and find out just how MUCH money they're making, but there's a little something called "the law" and "privacy" getting in my way
Somebody suggested that submissions waiting to be looked at by the Slashdot gods, should be put in a queue which is accessible to Slashdotters. Slashdotters would them vote up those headlines they think are newsworthy and should make it to the front page.
HOWEVER, I think that this solution will just result in people rushing over to the headline queue and disregarding the front page because it will inevitably always have older news.
I suggest, instead, that articles are rated and able to be filtered out, like comments. The Slashdot gods can post anything reasonably sane, perhaps giving it an initial "confidence" rating. Then, subsequent viewers of the article can rate it up or down, of other viewers can set their masks so, for example, they only see articles that are rated X or better.
The drawback to this scheme is that the viewers who see the articles raw an uncut have the burden of rating up low articles (perhaps 'new' articles can have an initial value which degrades over time, giving people with high masks a chance to see and rate them?). This could be made easier by putting two small radio button either in the header or title of an article, or at the bottom, one labeled + one labeled - (for plus one or minus one). This would take up very little space and allow people to rate an article without much hassle:
*+ *- [rate]
Jazilla.org - the Java Mozilla
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Good idea! With enough eyeballs, all hoaxes and fake news are shallow!
Jazilla.org - the Java Mozilla
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Trolling has been increasing quite a bit as of late. Is there any plan to increase moderator points, or perhaps give the 5 points + an additional few points that can only be used to beat down the trollers?
Blessed are the pessimists, for they have made backups.
Because there ARE other browsers in the world.. I use Opera when I have to use 95, and sometimes the tables come out hugely indented, or other wierdness crops up.
Why should we follow the spec when the crap we got works in the most common place? Sounds an aweful like the "this webpage only works on win 95" type things everyone has been up in arms about..
Blessed are the pessimists, for they have made backups.
Will frequent Slashdot contributors/commenters/moderators be eligible to get in at the IPO price?
-
Now that you have money to burn, will there be a slasdot world tour?
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
That's exactly right. Your Karma is the sum of the moderations done on you, no matter what score you start at. (Well, meta-moderation now plays a part in your Karma as well, but most of it is moderation.)
--
Win dain a lotica, en vai tu ri silota
I've been thinking about the troll problem for a bit and think I may have come up with a workable plan. What does everyone think about this:
/., so I say either make a -2 for Trolls score, or let it be a browsing option (view Trolls or not).
Why not seperate troll moderation from normal moderation completely? After all, trolls are generally very obvious to spot, and nearly everyone can agree on what is and isn't a troll, so it seems silly to require someone to waste moderator points that could be spent expressing an interesting opinion on what should be routine maintenance.
So, my proposal would be to let all (logged in, I suppose) users moderate trolls. I'm thinking just stick a little checkbox marked "Troll" on every comment. To prevent abuses, and people trying to use it to get rid of a comment which is really just off-topic or redundant or "wrong", just require that either a certain percentage of the people who view the comment check "Troll" before it gets marked Troll (I'd say around 50%, although we'd probably need trial and error to figure it out), as well as, say, at least 10 Troll votes, so it doesn't get wiped off by a couple of early votes.
If a comment does get a 50% Troll rating, then you can bet it deserves it, and even people who browse -1 won't want to see it. Still, I'm a strong believer that no one should get censored off
The only issue I can come up with against this is that I take a big memory hit (IE 5) whenever I have moderator status, from all the drop-down lists; I'm not sure if a checkbox on every comment would hurt as much, but it's something to think about.
So...what does everyone think?
Like many others, I think that too many people have too much karma. I routinely see posts that don't deserve to be a 2 but are because the poster has a high enough karma to get the +1 automatically (like me???). Have you give thought to any system to reduce the karma inflation (having karma "decay") or to reduce the abuse of the high karma +1 (perhaps a limited number of +1 points per time period, so people will think about whether this post needs to be +1).
Note: I'm posting this at +1 so that others who do as I do and read at 2 will see it and hopefully comment upon it.
www.eFax.com are spammers
So if I go to the beach in Holland, MI... generally I go to South Haven (but ever so rarely now), would I see any members of the Geek Compound?
:)
Now that you guys are going to be making money from your Perl scripts, would you say that is why you've been stalling producing the code? I mean, in the 1.2 years it has been since you last released the Slash code, it would've been trivial for you to change the licence to a non-GPL one, and thus keep your revinue stream strong for the near future.
If you've just been delaying because you're busy, it's understandable, but why don't you tar up the code & post, as a show of good faith to the community. I, for one, would certainly like to see the v0.4 code soon.
---
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
The Andover.net IPO quiet period is finally over I feel that I can finally start replying to the question asked of me by many strangers "Who is your daddy?"
I now find myself having trouble choosing between CmdrTaco and Hemos.
Can you shed any light on how to make this decision?
Will Slashdot remain a mainly text based media? Or will projects like Slashdot Radio possibly spawn other experiments like perhaps:
The Slashdot Show (video)
In perhaps a haphazard newsmagazine show like Slashdot Radio, where interviews from the site could be done in an audio or video format? With even fluffy little pieces like "A tour of RMS's home office!" and such. You could even do "Wallpapers of the Open Source and Famous."
While I'm joking about some of the stuff the main question stands: Will Slashdot try new experiments to see if it can also exist in other forms of media as well as the website?
Subscriptions to /. would be something that would force me to give up my account, and only post as an AC, forever, rather than be stuck with a "second-class" account with less privileges than the subscribers.
/. ever introduce classes of membership, I'll be destined for the lower ranks pretty much automatically.
I'm a student; I don't live in the US; I don't have a check book or a credit card account; *I don't have the money*!. These are all things that make it pretty damn certain that should
/. has always been free, and this has been a big drawing card. If you're really that desperate for money, ask for donations, I'm sure that those who can afford it will give generously. But no subscriptions.
First: Have you ever considered a live episode of Geeks in Space? How about doing a live session at LWE?
Second: How bad was the hangover New Years day?
.sig: Now legally binding!
Sloppy HTML coding hurts us all in a number of ways.
It makes browsers bigger, more complicated and buggy trying to deal with the non-grammatical crud out there that passes for HTML. This further goes on to make the cost of entry into the browser market very high.
I remember well when I had a program which occasionally generated BAD HTML (missing ) and my users immediately switched to MS IE because it included an implicit before subsequent tags or EOF. People didn't even report it to me, the user's had just shared the knowledge that IE worked better and I inadvertently sold a group on the merits of IE vs. Netscape. As a Netscape user, I was mortified and I immediately ran and killed the bug.
I've written programs to read, parse and interpret Web Pages. Bad HTML makes this problematic.
Careless, expedient engineering almost always has a price. Sometimes it's not obvious at first look, but under the surface, there's always a price. If nothing else, it's in forwarding the attitude that "good enough to pass" is good.
-Jordan Henderson
Hey, if sunsite can change, I think we'll survive a Slashdot move, as well. :)
If they do change to slashdot.com theres no reason to give up slashdot.org to do it. Even though sunsite changed to metalab, it's still accessible at the sunsite address. My feeling, really, is that Slashdot belongs in both domains.
numb
1. chaorganize
/. participants, (in the form of non-transferable right of participation.)
://user1.slashdot.com/re/GPLvBSD (save us time, let us avoid repetition and share *distilled* conclusion/opinions)
/. community currency, fully fungible with any other, like saxas, but open source, (secure)
propagate chaordic organization.. distribute equitable ownership to *all*
2. open source
practice the preach, perhaps with a modified BSD/GPL requesting (requiring?) attribution, link.
3. decentralize
a. grant users subdomains within slashdot.com allowing us to discuss [rejected] topics, and distill signal from noise within [accepted] topics. (open our data to user recombination, including alternative graphic "skin" overlays.)
b. insert topic directories allowing users to distill and share opinions on daily topics, ie: GPLvBSD, patents, namespace/trademarks, privacy/accountability, etc. ie: http
c. reboot karma to transcend groupthink
d. invite languages other than the english
4. monetize
a. find ways to fairly direct revenue streams to all participants who contribute value to slashdot.com
b. let us openly measure logs to learn whose reputations* gather whose *attention*
c. create a
d. have your suits propose licensing guidelines allowing paid (fairly shared) republishing of user commentary in other channels
comments?
I for one am an avid slashdot fan. So much so that I in times past tried to get most of the slashdot comments on paper at say oh 4 pt. Even with this method it started to become rather incomvienent to get everything in that manner. I then started to use Xemacs to read text output generated by the various browser programs out there (Netscape, IE, and lynx) Netscape did the best job by properly indenting the text for new comments to the thread in nested mode. However IE deviated even further from this by doing this for a while asnd then further in the thread deciding to just indent the subject of the comment thereby creating a nasty hard-to-figure-out nesting scheme. Lynx will plain to render anything even in nested mode and just prints the data almost like flat or plain mode. Anything that actually helps get this working is good.
Slashdot social engineering at it's finest
Maybe something like if you post with the +1 bonus, and get moderated down, you lose double the Karma, on the theory that you should be more careful about what you post when you are using the bonus (I use my bonus about half the time). Or perhaps getting two moderations down on something posted with +1 will drop you back to 24 points so you can't use it.
--kevin
Have you found that working for a big company is better or worse that working for yourself. Do you miss being the sole points of contact or do you like having other people share responsibility for system administration, network admin, etc.
Does working for Andover give you more free time? If so, what will you do with it?
That which does not kill me only makes me whinier
First,
Dr. Taco, I would just like to say that I think you are doing a phenomenal job running slashdot. I check it between 4-15 times a day (as any geek should) and find that there has almost always been an update. I find the articles truely fascinating, and the current trend to have more stories with bodies (err..) excellent. Also, the interviews are incredible. Finally, geeks in space is my new fave radio show. You guys should do a morning edition one day! Also, I find that reading people's comments is wonderful, however there is so much crap out there, and almost all of it comes from Anonymous Cowards. SO my first real question is:
Would you ever consider not allowing Anonymous Cowards to post? Or atleast forcing people to register if they want to post anonymously? THis would cut down on alot of the garbage comments as well as forcing people to think themselves through.
Also, I would love (!!LOVE!!) it if the current slashdot source were released along with a document explianing the central algorithms used in slashdot as well as a discussion about how the user database is kept, and your personal views on penguins. The second real question is:
Would you ever consider releasing all of source to slashdot as well as a paper explaining how it works?
Also, in my readings of slashdot, I have found that most of the articles are Gee-Whiz type articles, that seem to say: "Look at this!!! Wow!!!," as opposed to the Heres-How-They_Work kind of article. As a representative member of the party of geeks, i personally find the Heres-How-They_Work type articles much more interesting and impressing. So, here comes question number 3:
WOuld you consider posting more Heres-How-They_Work type articles as opposed to the Gee-Whiz type article?
Along these same lines is the question of open discussion forums. I personally find the comments of articles such as: What do you think of Artificial Intelligence? incredible interesting to read. SO whithout further adue, question four:
Would You consider posting more discussion oriented articles, (like this one!)?
From here on in, the geek side of me is going to sleep for a while so the investor part of me can ask a few question about the Andover.net stock. My first question is:
Do you make money in any other way than advertising? About how many people have an Andover.Net site as their home page? About how many registered users are there on SLashdot? How many hits does Slashdot recieve a day?
THank you Dr. Taco and Mr. Hemos for everything. I can't wait to hear (see?) your responses///
-fosh
Since the andover aquisition of Slashdot, How much influence do they have over the comments which are posted to Slashdot....
In comparison to FreshMeat, which seems to be completely impartial to software submissions (they all get a listing) whereas on Slashdot only certain articles are chosen. What process is used to select articles to be posted on Slashdot and how does Andover influence these descisions.
Also, As many others have asked many times (including myself).. When will Slashdot begin to practice what they preach. When will the Slashdot source code become steadily available via CVS or an equiv. type system. Holding back this code, regardless of how sloppy or buggy it is makes Slashdot look like a bunch of hipocrates.
They are a threat to free speech and must be silenced! - Andrea Chen
Fish! LipHo
Is the following possible, if so, why not do it:
Use collaborative filtering to improve the moderation system so that each individual's definition of what makes a "good comment" can be used to filter through other comments.
Further, why not post more stories and allow users to rate each one, thereby creating a list of collaboratively filtered story-preferences for each user and further customizing Slashdot to the individual.
The major complaint that people make about Slashdot is that moderation and coverage is rather groupthinkish. A system implementing collaborative filtering would seem only to bring benefits. Also, if you guys couldn't program it yourselves, I'm sure that the community would contribute (if the current source were opened, etc.).
If you aren't familiar with collaborative filtering, check out Moviecritic.com. Collaborative filtering uses a small set of preferences to make generalizations about likely preferences over a large space of data. It's the perfect technology for a site like slashdot.
mmm
Amazing magic tricks
How did slashdot start out? Before you where getting the thousands of hits per day, what was it like?
How likly do you think the Joe-average would be able to start a web site that could provide enough revenue for cost of life?
Is there ever going to a be a slash movie?
"`Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.'" -THHGTTG
What restrictions do the business people put on you?
Firstly, I assume you're running Apache, and it must be generating logs of some such (like, IP address, time stamps, etc.). Is this information stored, and for how long? (Also assume I am anonymous coward and do not accept cookies). If somebody posted something defaming someone else / some other company and they took Slashdot to court to find out who wrote it, would you actually give up the logs? Do you ever process these logs in any way (yes, I know they must be huge, but so are Amazon's and Yahoo's and they do it ...).
Under whose laws are Slashdot content governed? If the poster is in Australia, is it Oz laws that apply or is it those from somewhere in America?
Has anyone ever tried to sue Slashdot over content? (libel, etc.). What would be your reaction then, and what would be it now, and does Andover have a hand in this?
On a totally different note, here is a suggestion: If an Anonymous Coward actually manages to get moderated up, could their comment then rise up to 2 rather than 1, where it is lost in a barage of pointless digressions? I prefer to surf at 3 nowadays, so I miss all people with karma above 30 who set their default level to 2 and are no better than the ones posting at level 1.
On another note, who took the decision to wipe out the sudden growth of personalised sid=me, and why?
Other folks have written about editorial independence and about the quality of the stories; this is an entirely different question. A related question would be: could you perhaps identify more clearly which items are news, which are columns, which are editorials, and which are fluff? Traditional (i.e., "dead") media is adept at giving this kind of context to their stories, and it would be most helpful to your readers.
It sounds like becomming a physician is what Hemos has always and still always wants to do, whether you listen to Geeks in Space or read the posts. Sometimes a taste of the real world is all it takes to make you realize changing out of something was a bad idea.
Currently /. generates ad revenue and creates a fuzzy 'brand value'.
/. into a complete geek-focused portal with not just news and trivia but incorporating everything from freemail services and cheesy 'yourname.slashdot.org' web space to a peronsalised geek calendar and movie review service?
Is there a scheme to move to something else? To move to subscriptions for certain features (e.g. making the ability to filter out AC posts or low moderation posts a subscription-only features)
Or maybe to do more commercial tie-ins - such as interviews with Major hardware manufacturers, or QA sessions with corporate sponsorship.
Or to boost the ad revenue by turning
Or, maybe andover.net is just looking to get bought out by one of the media industry's big players like VNU or Disney or ZD or whatever?
-----
Obviously, you guys get a lot of submissions for stories everyday, all day long. You, being the entire Slashdot team, have to wade through all of these to find the ones "most worthy" of getting posted to the main page. I have submitted quite a few stories myself that I was interested in and I'm sure other geeks/nerds would have found them interesting as well, yet they were never posted. Obviously, you cannot post every story submitted, but if I've submitted stories that I found interesting and they were never posted, I have wonder how many other geeks posted stories that I would have been interested in and never had the opportunity to read?
My question: Is there some way we, the readers, could view a larger portion of the submitted stories whether they get posted to the main page or not?
Kind of an overflow buffer, if you will. Obviously, duplicates and nonsense stories referencing "grits" would have to be done away with, but I feel that Slashdot could provide much more information than it currently does. From the reader perspective, more quality content is definitely better and from a business standpoint, more stories equals more valid page hits for Slashdot. We would all benefit.
----------------
"Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds." - Albert Einstein
Co-founder and designer at Music Nearby: http://musicnearby.com
Have you thought of moving to a more enlightened state (pun intended) such as California (things like cheap broadband, and more peers)?
Do you see slashdot staying primarily as it's been in the past (collecting links to news on other sites and having discussions), or are you planning on running with the idea of gathering new material as you have recently with the interviews? In short, do you see slashdot doing more original journalism in the future?
For those of you not familiar with EDGAR, this is the on-line database that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission provides so that investors have access to the legally required filings of companies that have gone public.
I played around with it today, and this is the most effective query that I could compose. You should be able to just click the following link and see all of the documents related to Andover. Some of these documents discuss the how nature of Rob's contract with Andover, the relationship between Andover and Blockstackers, and related subjects.
http://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/sr ch-edgar?ANDOVER+ADJ+NET
--
Dave Aiello
-- Dave Aiello
What is going to be your policy on:
1.(l)User data.
2. Advertisements:
2.1. Are you going to continue to handle advertisements yourself?
2.2. Are you going to allow companies like doubleclick to handle advertising on slashdot?
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
Yes.. I know that you are thinking I probably got the two sites mixed up in the title...
/. and FM very few people actually HEARD of andover at all..
/. to non technical issues and some even more radical posibilities.
Slashdot is, imho, more influential then all the sites Andover owns put together. Untill this linux/Open-source craze came along and Andover.net bought
Andover is now a public company, and as such it holds certain responsabilities to it's shareholders, growth being the most obvious one.
To do this Andover needs to exploite Slashdot's brand, as I see very little other value within Andover's arsenal. The current situation of Andovers stock is a good indication of pressure that might build on you guys to "sell out" in various ways (some of them might actually be good, IMHO) like expanding the focus of
how do you guys see Slashdot and that your small insignificate Andover part collaborating together, through this? what's going to happen? should I buy the stock or not?? (just kidding)
--------------------------------
1) What is the deal with the slash source code? It would pacify a lot of criticism if the current slash code were released, even if it were broken, ugly, and full of syntax errors. I suggested a public CVS setup in another thread, is this something you're looking at?
2) Has the andover.net acquisiton gone as well as you hoped it would, as far as making the site better?
have you ever considered changing the base slash code to something other than straight perl? i'm wondering if you've considered changing to a mod_perl or java servlet world which, with some improvements to the html, would result in a much faster slashdot? i check slashdot multiple times a day on a t1 and still have some speed issues when requesting the site. i would have to believe that something like java servlets would greatly increase the speed of the site.
jesse.
<rant quality="weary">
Is there really any other industry on earth that would put up with sloppy, incompetent, unprofessional workmanship just because it looked good on the surface? I mean, come off it. I like
And it isn't any sort of excuse to claim that the majority of websites (particularly expensive ones) are also produced by sloppy incompetents who wouldn't know what an RFC was if it fell out of a tree on them. This is true. We know it. We can do better. And if we can't do better, what claim do we really have to being techs?
</rant>
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
Seriously -- this place is no longer a nonprofit org. They sell advertisements, they hold contests (with $10,000-$30,000 being the prize range), and they hold stock in the web page itself (okay, so they hold stock in Andover).
Legally, this place needs to change it's domain to slashdot.com -- there's money going into Rob & Jeff's pockets, guaranteed.
I'm curious when/if you plan on releasing a newer version of the slash code? How far behind is the stuff that you've released?
Key to financial independence: Spend less than you earn. Save and invest the difference. Do it for a long time.
will we EVER be able to moderate him down???- ---
----------------------------------------
Please give your mod points to others, Im at the cap. They will appreciate it more
I for one really like to be able to browse comments what are sorted by moderation, largely to get rid of the offtopic stuff, but it's gives a distorted view of what slashdot readers really think.
I think this is a great idea, but it would be very important that no AC's were allowed to comment on the incoming stories and we would have to control ourselves to commenting on them only if they're a hoax or otherwise not /. material.
Then when a story was actually posted the comments on its validity as a story could be removed or available separately. This would also give people some lead time on their comments and allow those dedicated enough to do some real research.
"Share your knowledge. It's a way to achieve immortality." -- Dalai Lama
For instance, oftentimes there will be a delay of as must as two days (as with the Uri Geller story) from the time that I see an article on Linux Today or another news site and when I see it here. I've been around /. for a while now, and this wasn't always the case.
Is this just a case of waiting for a "slow news day", or is it something more insideous like ANDN wanting to maintain some editorial control over /.? For that matter, has ANDN imposed any other constraints that we're not aware of? Are there any circumstances where you'd see yourself having to remove libelous posts or posts which violate SEC rules (read here: stock manipulation)? Or has Andover been a benevolant king which is dedicated to protecting the happy-go-lucky days of Slashdot using its deep pockets to keep your legal butts covered?
----
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
How will this affect the direction of Slashdot? (In other words, will you need to avoid topics which could adversely affect Andover's share price? Will you need to become more "mainstream"? Or will it be more "business as usual"?)
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
What new and wonderful reasources will andover bring to slashdot. More Hardware? More employees? More slashdot native news articles/"reporters"?
- Xabbu
- Jimbob
What important changes do you plan on making to the whole discussion thing?
Isn't it about time the moderation abuses and "first posters" are addressed?
Will we ever be able to moderate or score the articles themselves?
The secret of success is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake those, you've got it made. (Marx)
What is the release date for the (latest) Slash source code?
What license will it be released under?
Will it be immediately forked into "public" and "private" versions (i.e., will Slashdot be running the with patches submitted by users)?
If/When patches are rejected/not-applied to the main tree, will an explanation be given (similar to Linux) or will they just be dropped (similar to Slashdot story submissions)?
---
Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
(Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
What is the status of the both of you with BlockStackers? Is there a relationship between BlockStackers and Andover.net?
J
to slashdot.com?
(moderators: not meant as flamebait!)
I use Macs for work, Linux for education, and Windows for cardplaying.
I think the moderation system has been improved to a point where, with my threshold set to 2, I don't see anything I don't want to see.
I do think there is one part of Slashdot that is still unfairly biased towards the site operators and their opinions. I'm sure Slashdot gets a few hundred article submissions per day, but we are limited to reading maybe 12-15 articles per day, and those are the ones which the folks in charge are interested in or what they think we are interested in. This is a commonplace system, but I still find fault with it, if the site is truly going to be an "open forum."
Is there any site reorganization in the works, or perhaps an expansion of the moderation system to include the approval and rejection of article submissions?
John
also, please don't take away AC posting, I've posted as an AC for privacy several times and think that everyone should have that right.
" A company can be judged by the size of their lawsuits "
Since most of the technical questions have been asked: how has the whole recent experience affected you guys personally? It seems that being acquired by Andover.net was followed, relatively, quickly by the IPO. I'm just wondering if the whole adventure has changed your overall outlook, future plans, drinking habits,...etc. You know, the little stuff that matters.
"shop smart:shop s-mart" ash
It seems like whenever we embark on some crazy job, there ends up being one day we always remember, one set of circumstances that we could never have experienced without beginning that journey but never have predicted in advance.
Since the creation and subsequent explosion of Slashdot, what one day stands out in your mind as the most randomly odd of them all?
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
Which of the following would be the most effective course of action to get you to release (current!) Slash source code?
/. article
1. Post annoying reminders to every
2. Using the word "hypocrites" a lot
3. Slay the Andover Alien Masters and destroy their Mind Control Ray
4. Procure many beautiful women dedicated to the open source cause
5. Crack slashdot.org, download source code, leave kewl hAx0r d00d cracked page to brag from
6. Bribe Hemos
7. Get a lab insider to "innocently" copy code to an unclassified server
8. Dress up as Rob, go to Andover, claim "Hello, my name is CmdrTaco. I misplaced my copy of the Slashdot code, can I make another?"
9. Send the Slashdot gang a free case of beer.
10. Poison the beer, use the antidote as a bargaining chip.
11. Cry
12. Get Nitrozac to cry
"my college project turned into a huge success, so now i'm going to __________."
"since the recent monster ipo we've found it much easier to pick up ________."
"in spite of it all, my parents still wish i would _______."
"if you had it all to do over again, the name of your site would be ________."
and lastly, i'm sure it's been asked a hundred times already, but what's you're favourite linux system call and why?
US Citizen living abroad? Register to vote!
There used to be a slashdot page where we could see the daily hit count by browser and OS. While sometimes depressing (2/3's browsing from Windows!), it was very interesting. Is there any chance we will see this again? Is this now information that you feel you need to keep private for some reason? What about the number of registered slashdot users? Could we find that out?
"Moderation is good, in theory."
-Larry Wall
There is no K5 cabal.
I am not the real rusty.
I think it would be interesting to be able to view the story submission queue. That is, what type of stories are being submitted, which stories are being rejected and why, and other interesting trivia. Would you allow users to be able to view this queue, and if not, why?
The DVDCA named /. as a John Doe in the DeCSS case. Will you guys be personally fighting this battle, or letting others? Will you be donating $ to EFF to help fight this battle?
-- Don't Tase me, bro!
I would hope, for the sake of your survival, that you have a certain ammount of legal expertise on board now. Does "all comments are owned by those who posted them" really cover all legal possibilities? Are there still circumstances where you would have to delete a comment? What about slanderous / copyrighted / government secret material? Now that you actually have money, you are probably more of a target for legal action...
Thank you for not thinking.
How well is Meta-Moderation working? What pergentage of Meta-Mods are unfair? Do you think that it has improved Moderation on /.?
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
I am finding it less and less worthwhile and enjoyable to follow the discussions , as well as less coherent.
Have you any plans to further deal with this sort of thing, above and beyond moderation ?
Is it time for the end of AC posting, esp seeing as there is the post anonymously option ?
And lastly, do you find these trends a little depressing?
I know I do and I'm just a reader.
-- Oh Well
Lately we've been seeing more features and interviews and other forms of Direct Reporting (hint! This is good!). Now that SlashDot has more resources at it's disposal, is this content generation likely to keep increasing? I still enjoy lots of linked stories, but sometimes it's nice to have a geek point of view alongside the normal media...
---
Play Six Pack Man. I
The W3C made a tool to clean up HTML called HTML Tidy. Just for kicks, I tried it on Slashdot. It blew a fuse after logging several thousand violations. :) Usually works great though.
Any idea if Slashdot's code will ever be cleaned up? Would open sourcing help things?
"There's so much left to know/ and I'm on the road to find out." -Cat Stevens
What will Andover be doing to make sure we can continue to trust that Slashdot Editorial policy is not in thrall to advertisers' concerns?
-Jordan Henderson
So, now that you guys are on the brink of obscene wealth, and slashdotters have put up with well, stuff for so long (and the Natalie Portman trolls, and the ACs from hell, and. . . and. . . ), instead of granting Mod Points, will you be handing out Andover.net shares, too? ;-)
Oh, shit, Signal11 is gonna be rich. . . .
Rafe
V^^^^V
Rafe
Opinions expressed by the author may not actually exist in the wild.
How crucial are the two of you to Andover's vision of /.? Do you have a clause like Charles Schultz' that says that nobody else can edit slashdot? What happens if the whole thing stops being fun for you (as it very well might)? Do Andover suck in the loss, or do we get introduced to "Scrappy-Doo and SuperGeek, the ALL NEW slashdot crew"? Has Andover.net taken out critical person insurance on you in case something dreeadful happens? Could they, in principle, fire your asses, or force you to resign on matter of principle?
etc, etc, (thud)
jsm
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The Wall St. Journal, two weeks ago, devoted considerable space to the Andover IPO--strongly suggesting that the only perceptible value in the company was SlashDot, and demonstrating the unorthodox steps that Andover took to get the IPO underwritten. (Notably, the WSJ reports that when Andover initially tried to get underwriting it owed the two of you more money than the entire assets of the firm.) The WSJ has subsequently referred to Andover, by name, as an example of an IPO with a stratospheric share price, but no substance. Nobody, anywhere, has suggested that there is any commercial value to Andover other than SlashDot.
Much as I appreciate the sense of humor you have, and the contributions of the SlashDot community, it seems to me that the really valuable thing about SlashDot is the software--the database system that permits posting, moderation, meta-moderation, etc. It is a work of genius. And, a very valuable thing.
The Wall St. Journal has all but called Andover a bubble--(or, to be less kind, a pump 'n dump). The only way to prove them wrong is to achieve corporate earnings that support the current share price. The only real asset of Andover is SlashDot--and the only real asset of SlashDot is the software. And the software is supposed to be Open Source.
So how are you guys going to make earnings?
The first one is related to a thread created by slashdot's worst troll ever. Even though I do not like the posters methods the question he raises is interesting...especially since I'm a CS geek. Here goes:
...
1.) Right now slashdot is rather inefficient in that we download the same comments over and over again when rereading an article searching for new comments. Is there anything in the works to deal with this inefficiency or will we be allowed to toy with this in the slashdot source (if it ever comes out) and submit these modifications? Will an NNTP slashdot be considered to deal with this?
My second question has to do with Karma
2.) Is there a chance that the amount of Karma needed for a default posting of 2 be increased to at least twice the current value(25)?
I ask this because I already post at a default of 2, which implies I must be a knowledgeable member of the slashdot community which I do not believe I am. Especially considering the fact that it is relatively easy to spew dogma for a month or so and get 25 Karma then revert to one's true self (Signal 11 has proved the value of spewing dogma and karma whoring for triple digit Karma). I would feel more comfortable if the Karma needed for a default posting off 2 was higher so that there is more chance that the person posting is actually an intelligent member of the slashdot community who posts are interesting and insightful instead of a karma whore who has no true value to add to a discussion. Because of this I now read posts at a moderation of 3 or higher.
3a.)What is the slashdot official position on the phantom discussion groups e.g. Trolltalk or Moderation?
I notice that some of the early posts to these discussions have disappeared (probably archived);
3b.)How do I get to read the old posts to the phantom groups since there's no assosciated story to do a search on?
And finally I have only moderated once and this was about a month after I got an account. Since then I have not moderated...
4a.)I would like to know if this is because of the rule that users who view slashdot excessively don't get to moderate?
4b.)And if so exactly how many page views per day/week/month is viewed as excessive by whatever algorithm does the selection?
(this is not a yes/no question)
I guess this is a question for both of you:
How's life in meatspace?
Lets just lay all technical issues aside for a moment. I want to know Who You Are, as people, not webmasters.
We have a pretty good idea of the comings and goings of your professional lives, but what about your friends, family, and groupies? Mmmm... groupies.
I guess this is more of a request for a biography than any particular question, but don't let that put you off.
Oh, one other question: Any plans on visiting KLUG any time soon?
--Mark
While others have commented on the degrading S/N ratio of the user comments, I would like to bring attention to the degrading S/N ratio of the stories.
I believe Slashdot got much of its "mature" geek following back when most of the headlines were apolotical in nature. A couple years ago, the biggest threads were generated while discussing new microarchitectures, physical limits of the lithography process, the size of the universe, and other *real* high-tech news. Since the stories were less subject to political debate, the S/N ratio was good. Now, the only "tech" stories are about nanotech (thanks hemos!) or the Aibo.
With Andover.net now owning Slashdot, am I just SOL? I know that most of the stories are going to be Linux/GPL/Open Source related, and that's fine. But please, Please, *PLEASE*, don't forget that many of your readers are well educated, and would like to spend time thinking about something new and exciting in the tech world rather than reading 500 posts ending with M$ $ucks...
Dan