Slashdot Updates

It's been a long time since I posted an update about Slashdot but a few recent changes warrant me doing it. You should see the OSDN Navbar atop the page now. I don't like it any more then many of you, so if you log in, there is an option to disable it. (Click the 'X', or look in Preferences:Misc) A few more notes follow including the lowdown on subscriptions, formkey bugs, and AC filters.

The formkey bug that was wreaking havoc all weekend was fixed. It was a mistake in seeding rand that was causing a small percentage of users to have problems posting. It wasn't a conspiracy designed to thwart anyone, just you. Man it was a pain in the ass. But it was squashed on Sunday (thank god).

Anonymous Coward filtering is now in place. It's not exactly finished, but it'll do for now. Essentially there is now a user preference that sets all AC posts to -1. This has been a very common user request for some time, so turn it on if you like. It's currently off by default. It's only a baby step: eventually there will be more fine-tuned controls for anonymous posts, as well as comment types. For Example: I'd personally like to assign a -2 penalty on any comment rated 'funny' because most of them frankly just aren't funny at all. But humor is far too subjective to say that the moderation is unfair. Anyway, now everyone can decide for themselves. That should happen in the next few weeks.

Last up, I'm gonna talk a little about advertisements and subscriptions. Slashdot continues to grow: our traffic has increased by like 10% in the last few months, and simply selling the banner ads you see on top of each page isn't going to be enough to keep us afloat if we keep growing. And selling banner ads in 2001 is an awful lot harder then it was in 1999.

The change will be a different ad size on the article page. Currently we have the standard banner size on top of all pages, but soon the article pages will instead have those huge square things that you see on CNet or ZD. I know this will be unpopular with many people, myself included, but when we make the switch, we will also have some sort of subscription system where you can pay a fee to disable them honestly. (No I don't know how much yet!)

Just to shut down the conspiracy theorists, nobody is forcing us to make these changes: The navbar. The new ad formats. The subscription system. I could just say 'No' to changes like these. But Slashdot is now four years old ... and I want it to still be here four years from now. I hope you can understand the expensive reality associated with making this site happen every day for a quarter of a million readers.

Now flame me if you feel it necessary. Get it out of your system.

Comments

Re:Some contradiction here?

[Surak]

Most slashdotters are advocates about retaining their privacy and personal information. Yet when it comes to other peoples privacy, ie Anonymous Cowards, it's just unacceptable.

How is this about privacy? The *only* piece of personal information you are *required* to give slashdot is a real e-mail address, which is required for validation purposes and for subscribing to the headline poster. (A few other things like messages were added with Banjo!)

The address you give them doesn't even have to be your main address anyway. You could (any many people do) give them a hotmail address or whatever.

Your posts can always get linked back to your IP address, AC or no AC, there's no way around that short of an anonymizer and there aren't too many of those around either. Besides anonymizers can't be trusted anyway.

So if you're so worried about privacy, disconnect your computer from the Internet, get your phone shut off, and move into microbus and go traveling around the country, even then you wouldn't have complete privacy.

Re:Why this is a good change

[Roblimo]

"But then maybe it's just a mad conspiracy theory."

In a way it is a conspiracy. NewsForge exists in large part because of advertiser demand for a "serious" Linux and Open Source news site that would appeal to people who have the power to sign purchase orders, combined with endless reader email asking us to turn Slashdot into more of a news site.

But everyone at OSDN *likes* Slashdot in all its anarchic glory. I've liked it longer than 99% of all current Slashdot users (note my UID), and I don't ever want to see its content change because of corporate pressure.

Hence NewsForge. Think of NewsForge as a trick to get our bosses to leave Slashdot alone instead of trying to turn it into something it was never meant to be.

- Robin "Roblimo" Miller
Editor in Chief, OSDN