Slashdot Mirror
Self-Adaptive Websites
Masem sent in a link to a NYTimes story (free blah blah required. Why is the Times so lame that they don't realize that hundreds of people are registered with my address?) on self adaptive websites. It talks about us, Everything2 (which IMHO is among the best examples of the genre out there, but since I helped create it, I'm biased ;) and of course the recently announced (and Slashcode Based) suck/feed Slashclone, Plastic. I found at least one
mistake, but besides that, its not a bad piece, although it probably isn't saying anything that a regular Slashdot reader doesn't know already.
no.
...phil
...phil
"For a list of the ways which technology has failed to improve our quality of life, press 3."
And Busta Rhymes as "Mista Rhymes".
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
How do you know that the Times is not an adaptive
web site? Perhaps reporters get a performance
rating on whether the article is clicked,
and clicked through the last page.
They're not redistributing anything GPLed, so what they do doesn't conflict with the terms of the license.
Furthermore, since they aren't taking advantage of the extra rights that GPL gives them (redistribution), they have no reason to agree to the license contract at all. So even if they were somehow in violation of the terms of that license, it wouldn't matter because the terms wouldn't apply anyway. They could fall back to the uses/restrictions that are granted by copyright law.
OTOH, I've read somewhere that RMS is working on a new version of GPL that will cover public performances. It should be interesting to see what right(s) he adds to the license (that people would not otherwise have) in order to get people to accept the license.
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As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
This is the so called ASP Loophole.
Hopefully this will in fact be fixed in version 3.0 of the GPL.
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The real Webmaven is user ID 27463. I don't rate an imposter, because my ID is such a lame-ass high number.
Rob, not to be offensive... could you wathc for mistakes on your own site first...
Well, there's the big "Site Based on Slash" gif/link at the bottom of the front page...
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"It's tough to be bilingual when you get hit in the head."
I think they will contribute the patches once they have the site happily running. See this comment on Slashcode.com.
"It is more complicated than you think" (The Eighth Networking Truth from RFC 1925)
Moderation is the reward on /.. Though I didn't bother to read the whole story to find out what they were referring to, I am sure they didn't mean moderation.
As ESR stated in his famous little essay (which I'm not going to link to out of spite) the majority of the work done in the community is done for Ego-Gratification. What is more ego gratifiing than a bunch of your peers (or moderators, they're better than the rest of us:) telling us that out comment was good/funny/on-topic?
If it wasn't a reward then there wouldn't be people karma-whoring, and there wouldn't be people who resent that other people get it and protest (trolls?).
Devil Ducky
Devil Ducky
MY peers would get out of jury duty.
Everything used to be a heck of a lot better. Less intimidation by the "editors" and "gods" to newbies, more latitude given to what people can post, more help.
Somewhere, either egos got bigger, or they were pushed to do more "pruning", and now it's a bunch of volunteers being allowed to run rampant over the place, and in fact, encouraged by one of the people running the place (not Nate, he's cool, but one Fuhrer Bones).
It's not as bad at all as you make it out to be... but it's not nearly as good of a place as it used to be.
I would love to see someone else do something with the Everything software, it seems like it has a lot of potential uses.
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"You know your god is man-made when he hates all the same people you do."
Surely, they've honored the GPL and made their source modifications public.
Have they given you a modified (or unmodified for that matter) slashcode binary but refuse to give you the source?
For those who haven't seen Plastic, it's at least worth a visit to see the new moderations. I think we need more posts with a (Score:0, Bullshit).
:(
Too bad Plastic requires your date of birth and zip code...
Walt
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Klactovedestene!
I spent three years as a suit at this small media and electronics conglomerate, so I thought I had an idea of how to talk the talk and walk the walk when it came to the big dinero. I still don't entirely understand it - I managed to explain the cost-benefit analysis to their assistants, but they just wouldn't hear it.
That was why I made that semi-joke about an OReilly panel on talking to suits - even when you know the lingo, it doesn't always work. I'd hope that a bunch of smart geeks would have enough ware stories to at least tell others the traps....
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Klactovedestene!
This eliminates ratings points as "currency" thereby opening up the ratings game to everyone while providing people with a better experience, taylored to their tastes.
For example, if you like Jon Katz, why should you be tormented by hate messages targeting Jon Katz? You know John Katz has his detractors and you don't need to be reinformed of this continually.
Likewise, if you hate Jon Katz you may not be part of the Slashdot Kabal who gets vended moderation points, but you still don't want to be subjected to his smarmy prose postures, so, why should you see any reference to the guy on after you would have down rate any message or article making reference to him?
Advertising revenue should be enough compensation for a business -- unnecessary and destructive are the perks of foisting the tastes of an elite Kabal, even if only through the distribution of moderation poinuts from that Kabal.
Seastead this.
Plastic is pretty obviously a Slashclone, but I can not find mention of Slashcode anywhere on their site.
Um, how about the large prominent "site based on SLASH" gif that is in the lower right corner of several pages; check their registration page. Clicking on the gif takes you to slashcode.org.
[
As more sites go this way, non tecnical issues and non technical disscusions will move away from slashdot. Posts will move back to topic and the quality of moderators will impove. Cool.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
"...a NYTimes story (free blah blah required."
Hmm, interesting word choice. What other ways can it be used?
As registration:
Cop: You ran the red. I need to see your license and proof of blah blah.
Driver: huh?? wtf you talking about?
Cop: Step out of the car please.
As money:
Walter Cronkite: "And today, chickenpotpie.com's IPO was a record opening, up 200 blah blah's! And that's the way it is...."
Sorry, this wasn't funny. I'll shut up now.
Some of these ideas are inspiring and, in turn, being adapted to, the peer-review system that has driven university work for many decades now. Exciting examples in my field include the Suda On Line, a collaborative effort to translate a huge Byzantine encyclopedia of antiquity and the De Imperibus Romanis website. SOL is fantastically cool: some of the world's greatest Greek historians are chipping away at their corner of the problem, and their contributions are reviewed like everyone else's.
<SHAMELESS-SELF-PROMOTION>
My favorite self-adaptive site is definitely Ubersite, but since I created it, I'm also biased ;)
</SHAMELESS-SELF-PROMOTION>
A choice of masters is not freedom
Like what, making sure it has Linux, Microsoft, CueCat and/or MPAA/RIAA in the subject line? I'm curious what the writer imagines this "test of suitability" to be?
There is much cruelty in the universe, John.
Yeah, we seem to have the tour map.
From the article: After passing an initial test of suitability, administered by a Slashdot editor ...
Bah, silly New York Times! There's no suitability test for stories on this site!!!
If it ain't broke, it doesn't have enough features yet.
By that logic so is every other site in the world running Linux or Apache or any other bit of code that is under the GPL. But the simple fact of the matte is you are not starting any application when you go to a website get it. By going to a website you do not start Apache, slashcode, or any other bit of code. It is already running and you are using it. By your logic everytime I type a command into a linux box it would have to give me a copyright notice before it ran my command. That is just silly man. This is well within the spirit of the GPL.
Cypherpunks: Civil Liberty Through Complex Mathematics. Those who live by the sword die by the arrow.
No this is not the ASP loophole. This is a Perl Script(A *big Perl Script)running on a webserver and kicking out html and taking some input. You are not getting a copy of the code or a binary in any normal defination of the term. You have to really stretch the defination of use to get from this to the ASP loophole. The ASP loophole is based on the very simple idea of using an application in the very normal sense of that word. Launching the app, doing something, closing it down. To try to apply that logic to Perl code that creates html and to claim that the html is a derived product (as opposed to the output it clearly is) is just stupid, IMO.
Cypherpunks: Civil Liberty Through Complex Mathematics. Those who live by the sword die by the arrow.
The Vines is an example of an emerging class of what are called self-organizing Web sites.
/. has been here since '97. and that second quote comes from the cheif editor of plastic.com. too bad a site running your own code doesn't give you credit for getting it right a few years ago.
The Web in 1996 didn't need to organize itself
emerging class?
I think that it is. The WWW is all about the democracy of information -- anyone can publish anywhere, and be read by anyone. Its size has made it more difficult to find new information, but self-adaptive sites and search engines take it one level further: democratic editing, where other users and web-based publishers vote on and link to the most useful information.
I think we're starting to get off topic here... but if the 'ONLY incentive' you have is growing your karma, then AFAIC you're here for the wrong reasons. Intelligent debate on websites has fallen by the wayside now that everyone and their 'ghetto-speaking' cousin has internet access, but at least the drivel is hidden from me while I'm here. This is more valuable to me personally than just about any other feature available on the web. It may not be a perfect system, but its a hell of a lot better than anything else available.
From hell's heart I fstab at /dev/hdc
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Half the problem being that your comment IS interesting, and that the majority opinion seem to be that /. sucks (sux) anyway.
/. really needs is a Hobbsian 'altruistic moderator' who just gets rid of the obviously 'empty' comments. That would do for me.
Yet every so often I actually learn something round here, and every so often I post a comment not in the hope of getting karma but in the hope that some one will come back with an inteligent debate/
What I think
They could even have a check box 'see really vacant comments' that the 3ll37 ones could check and have underground fun amoungst themselves...
Plastic is pretty obviously a Slashclone, but I can not find mention of Slashcode, GPL, OSDN or any source code modifications anywhere on their site.
(I love all the 'first new Web site in the Automatic Media network shtick')
Surely, they've honored the GPL and made their source modifications public. I can't find them, though. Surely Feed Magazine didn't put it up without modifying even a single line. This is possible, I guess.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
Although I'm not sure why they shouldn't provide the content *they* paid for on *their* terms, you can get in without registering here
What irony? There is room for both types of sites. The world would be an awful place if Slashdot-type sites were the only way you could get news. For one thing, Slashdot would have a lot less stuff to point to. And think of how many "stories" have been posted on Slashdot that turned out to be partially or completely wrong (all the false alarms of Mozilla milestone releases, for example, or confusing a denial of certiorari with a "Supreme Court ruling"). The major news media is (rightly) criticized when their reporting is off, like when they erroneously called the Florida election early. For sites like Slashdot, mistakes like that are par for the course. That doesn't make Slashdot bad, but it proves we need both kinds of sites.
The article also mentions Themestream, a site which has earned me a good bit of money (and enabled me to make a couple hundred buck donation to help keep Nausicaa.net going). Too bad it's now only paying two cents per hit...
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Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
Of course, top management, which included typical old-media folks like Michael Berman (the man who brought us George magazine along with the late John-John), insisted on paying a consulting firm millions of dollars instead.
So I showed them what it could do. I brought in my old Sony VAIO Superslim laptop, a creaky old machine with all of 32 MB of RAM and a 200MHz Pentium (I'd wiped the drive and installed SuSE after one too many lock-ups by WinDoze). Mind you, the "executive assistants" had better machines. Of course, it ran Slash like a champ.
That convinced them enough to buy a modest Linux server, but they still went to Vancouver on a boondoggle to talk to a consulting firm (see the scathing article by Will Leitch in Ironminds for more on that - thank the goddess Will didn't see fit to mention me by name :-) which they then decided wasn't worth the time. So they staff up, but still don't deploy.... They wanted to look at Oracle and Vignette.... which would have done most of what Slash and a CVS server would do at a hundred times the cost (no, not infinite - I'm counting staff time to install Slash and CVS :-)
Go figure. Maybe I should propose a panel at the O'Reilly convention on the cluelessness of management, except of course it would be preaching to the choir.....
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Klactovedestene!
I would ever see the day when Hemos would be called Mr. Bates by someone. That was just plain scary. Other than that although wrong in a couple of details (I have seen some things *far* below 0 it was a pretty good introduction. Also why is it that /. won't put this link on the front page?
Cypherpunks: Civil Liberty Through Complex Mathematics. Those who live by the sword die by the arrow.
http://partners.nytimes.com/2001/01/18/technology/ 18SELF.html?pagewanted=all
Regarding the topic, though, is this truly the way the web is going to become, with semi-intelligent linking, bringing relevant topics to the forefront and allowing the irrelevant to wither in obscurity? If so, this is a mixed blessing. It's good, because obviously you can search for something rather quickly, getting what you need and getting outta there. However, it's also bad because those little sidetracks most searching takes you on can lead you to other topics that you've never heard of that are interesting in their own right.
Marxism is the opiate of dumbasses
I also note that having a high rating does NOT automatically admit one into the (supposedly) sacred realm of Moderator-hood. My Karma hasn't dipped below 47 in at least 6 months, but I've never been a moderator (with this account).
I was on a two month hiatus (internet access down while company moved, then idiot provider couldn't hook us back up) and during that I time I notice that meta-moderation has apparently gone away, too.
And while we're on the topic: Karma Kaps are just wrong. The ONLY incentive I used to have (as FascDot) was an ever growing (IIRC I was above 600) karma. Now that it's practically impossible to lose a +2 bonus and it's long been actually impossible to rise above the noise around here, I've found myself at Kuro5hin more and more (despite the stupid name and incomprehensible "sections" layout).
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MailOne
Non-meta-modded "Overrated" mods are killing Slashdot
(Hey Ryan! Here's your proof!)
We NEED to find a way to port slashcode to my office.
Cube warriors are assigned karma points based on how funny their spamed e-mail jokes really are. When a cube warrior has a high enough karma they are given moderator points that they can use to rate up and down a management decision.
Let's take a look at what might happen.
Boss: "I think we need to start doing more useless time reporting."
Random Cube Warrior: "I'm afraid I'm going to have to moderate you down sir."
Boss: "Let's use a Linux based Webserver."
Random Cube Warrior: "Great idea sir! I give you a +1"
Random Troll: "But I can't use Linux"
Random Cube Warrior: "Shut up troll. Flamebait."
Yes yes this could work!!!! Who's with me?
Dissenter
Dissenter
"There is no knowledge that is not power."
[Forewarning: It has been a while since I looked over the slash code.]
I beleive the article has it wrong. Anyone with a positive karma has just as good a chance to moderate as someone with a 537 karma. The entire Slashdot community continues to choose their "community leaders," rather than a self-selecting group of elite overlords with a +1 ability.
What you also fail to mention is the "protest" contingent. These are people that post somewhat informative posts in order to get a positive karma. They are then able to moderate and meta-moderate. But since the believe that the moderation system sucks, they moderate incorrectly (and mainly meta-moderate incorrectly, since there are no checks on that). Using the system to corrupt the system.
I do believe that Slashdot has a serious problem with people simply copying-and-pasting the original article, and then getting a (5, Informative) instead of a (-1, Redundant).
I believe that minority voices are often moderated down. A pro-MS, anti-Linux argument, even if 100% correct, will often be moderated down to join the Hot Grits comments.
Yes, Slashdot is self-adaptive, but to a certain pro-Linux community. As a Mac user myself, it is always distressing to see a *factually incorrect* anti-Apple comment get moderated up. Yes, meta-moderation should take care of this, but that is entirely dependant upon the meta-moderator seeing the mistake.
Would a "self-adaptive" community be better served by people knowledgable in the field in question moderating? If someone knows a lot about Gnome, but not a lot about BSD, would it not be better to limit him/her to moderating Gnome and related articles?
I sent in a request that any meta-moderation with more than say 7 "Unfairs" would be flagged for CmdrTaco (or other) to look at... That is most probably a "Rebel" trying to disrupt the system...
As with any GPL project, I suppose that the Slasdot-type communities are a work in progress...
[I am downloading the Slash code right now to check on moderation selection, as well as punishment/reward for good/bad moderation]
- (c) 2018 Hank Zimmerman
So the NY Times has enough sense to realize that self-adaptive sites are good, and therefore writes up a nice little story about it, but then posts this information on a site that is as far from that model as one can get?
Somehow that amuses me...
Slashdot members who receive high ratings also earn special privileges: their posts start out at a higher rating than usual, and they are more likely to be chosen as a moderator in the future.
"This last privilege is a brilliant example of metafeedback at work," said Steven Johnson, the author of the forthcoming book "Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software" (Scribner, 2001) and a vice president of Automatic Media, Plastic.com's parent company.
"It's the ratings snake devouring its own tail," Mr. Johnson said. "Moderators rate posts, and those ratings are used to select future moderators." The most impressive aspect of the Slashdot system, Mr. Johnson said, is that it not only encourages high quality in submissions to the site, but it also sets up an environment where community leaders can naturally rise to the top.
I quote a passage I think is interesting, highlighting the most dubious part.
I think what's happened here is that people have gone "Oh goodie, we've got to right about the 'Online Community', and try to fit their conclusions to what's out there".
What really happens is:
(a) Comedians become moderators (funny posts do well)
(b) Those who post crap stolen off the linked site become moderators (informative)
(c) Those who conform to the majority opinion do well (insightful)
(d) Trolls thrive
High quality is not encouraged - in fact those who become moderators are those:
(a) with nothing (like myself) better to do than to post their opinions (which won't change a jot) to a website
(b) do so so much that they become moderators