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

Give me some targetted marketing

[CyberKnet]

Give me some nice, tasty preferences in that misc section to tell you what type of ads I'd like to see.

Much like slashboxes, in that none selected will show you the default selection, and some selected will show only those type. Also show the default selection if none of the selected types are showing at that given moment.

I would be very receptive to setting those preferences. I think most other folk around here would too.

Re:Some contradiction here?

[NMerriam]

There's no contradiction whatsoever -- you have every right to post an an AC, and taco has repeatedly stated that people will always be able to post as AC.

That said, anyone reading will immediately consider anonymous information to be less valid than that which is attributed. In some cases, the inherent value of the information itself will overcome that initial doubtfulness.

But to suggest that /. is somehow making ACs "unacceptable" is simply incorrect. they're letting the individual readers decide whether or not they (as an individual) want to read the Ac or not. He also made pretty clear that he's taking it beyond AC into the realm of other attributes, like modding as "funny". This seems like just another way to let the readers decide what they come to /. for.

there are days when i browse at -1 to laugh at the asinine AC stuff, there are days when i browse at +2 because I don't have much time to spend. There are days where I'm annoyed that the three top rated posts are all "funny" rather than informative or directly on-topic. there are days when I'm not bothered by it at all.

I personally think that Taco is doing as well as could be expected at trying to make everyone happy, which of course he can't. But he can give us more and more options so we can make OURSELVES happy.

That said, the suggested large ads are a PITA, and after being on /. since nearly the beginning I think those will do more to drive off the readership than AC postings ever did.

I suggest that they'd probably do better selling karma than ad space!

But please don't...

[The Bungi]

One thing that absolutely pisses me off about the CNet and ZDNet ads is that they make the browser unusable and choppy untill you scroll them away. Don't put those there. Use simple images or light-weight animated GIFs.

Use PayPal. You have a solid, reliable reader base of what, half a million users? Create a yearly "pledge" drive similar to NPR stations. Get 1/10th of people to give you $5-50 bucks and you're all set. If you can't even get that, then the "community" doesn't deserve web sites like this.

Ads will kill readership, period. It's sad, but true. And because of the fact that you've given away the code, there are tons of options out there that will fill the void (for a while at least).

Re:Please inact a subscription service!

[mmontour]

I think that users should be able to "pay" for their subscription fees with Karma points instead of cash (or some combination thereof). E.g. each Karma point could be worth 1/10 of the monthly fee.

Most of the value of slashdot is in the user comments, and I think it is only fair to give a "free ride" to those who contribute the most highly rated content.

Also, people who were bored with sitting at the +50 cap would have a way to reduce their Karma other than resorting to a week-long trolling spree. :-)

Donations?

[theNeophile]

Has anyone thought about setting up some donation system? I'm sure a lot of people would choose to give more money to eliminate large annoying banners for everyone then they would just for themselfs. Or if there already is a donation system in place draw more attention to it (I don't know of one, and if people don't know of it they can't donate). Without of course being annoying about it, IMO sites begging for donations on every page is as annoying as ads. Then again, maybe I'm just overestimating peoples generosity.

Re:Donations?

[zerocool^]

I also thought of another reason a donation system would be a good idea...

If you have a donation drive like twice a year, like a telethon, only the crippled kids are the servers, and the old guys tapdancing are rob and jeff, i think it would go over great. Why? Because with a donation system, you're not REQUIRED to pay. You can slack and not pay. But since its voluntary, i think you'll get more generous response. Only people who want to pay for it will pay for it, but they'll pay for themselves and others on principle. AND they'll kind of have this inner satisfaction that they are helping save slashdot. If its not the monthy bill, instead a donation, it makes it seem so much more noble, and even the geeks here can appreciate that.

In general though, if it has to be a subscription, i won't pay it if its month to month. I want to pay once a year, like $50 or whatever. Get it all out of the way at once, so i only bitch about it once, and then forget it for the other 11 1/2 months.

Also, if i'm required to pay for it, i want to make sure i can be logged in at all times. It's been happening lately that i can't log in, i try and it just redirects me to the home page, and then i have no ability to change the threashold on the comments.

But, see? I've just proved my point. People who pay a fee that are required to pay it are in a position to make demands, they want higher quality service and more privilages. People that donate, they just feel content that they've helped keep it alive.

For instance: If we were required to pay for the Jerry Lewis telethon, if it was required for citizenship, then we'd all start to wonder where the hell the cure was for these kids was, even if we only paid $2 a year. Since its a donation basis, we just go and pay our $10, and say "i'm helping out, and that feels good. Poor kids."

subscription is the fastest way to get a demanding and critical audience that actually has the power they threaten they have.

~z

Here's a concept: mod the ads

[mikosullivan]

There are several threads here pointing out that ads aren't necessarily all bad, and that if they're on topic they might be even less bad.

So here's an idea: mod the ads. Users may voluntarily mod the ads based on how much they think the ads provide any value-add to life.

Re:Here's a concept: mod the ads

[Sludge]

I think this is a smart idea. In the more corporate world, when I sign up for things, they give me the option to "value-add" my name to mailing lists, and to receieve "product notifications".

In this pessimistic anti-marketing community, perhaps it could be done well to reverse this, and instead of saying what you like, say what you hate. Mod DOWN the bad stories.

As an aside, I would pay for Slashdot if they hired a lawyer to give legal commentary on relevant stories. I'm not pretending to have a business model where this would work. However, it would be far more educational and enlightening if a comment about SomeBadCompany's lawyers taking candy from a baby could have a few quotes from relevant law.

And no, I'm not even American. But, I still think it would be interesting.

collaborative filtering

[rnd()]

Why not use collaborative filtering in tandem with traditional moderation?

With collaborative filtering, each slashdotter would view posts that were moderated up by other slashdotters who had similar preferences in the past.

There was a great site called moviecritic.com (which unfortunately has since been shut down due to budget limitations) that used collaborative filtering to recommend movies. I found it incredibly useful, and discovered some great movies that I never would have watched otherwise.

With collaborative filtering, stories could also be 'recommended' without forcing the user to rule out entire categories of stories. The beauty of collaborative filtering is that it does not assume anything a priori other than the fact that if two individuals have shared common preferences in the past, they are likely to agree again in the future.

Traditional moderation could be accomplished simply by tallying the votes that each post received.

mmm

p.s. I'd be glad to help build this functionality into slashcode if there is sufficient interest.

Slashdot's Missed Opportunities

[arbours]

Slash had/has a great opportunity to take advantage of all the geeks consistently coming here.

With a captive audience, why didn't you guys write an auction service, like ebay, or a classifed ad section, for a fee. You have a community of people, you are well known, take advantage of it. You have scalability experience. Over the last 3 years you could have really built something. And ebay has proven this to be the best way to make $$ over the internet.

I doubt ads anymore will help you - good luck. you remind me of netscape. they had millions of people going to their home page daily, and only belatedly realized they could create a portal service like Yahoo. They blew it, and finally died. They would still be huge today if they had woken up.

alex

Subscriptions should add value

[Carnage4Life]

Some people will hate me for what I'm about to say but liek CmdrTaco said, I'd like Slashdot to be here in four years. So here goes:

Subscriptions that eliminate banner ads do not add much value for the purchaser especially in a technically savvy crowd like Slashdot where users that know how to install and configure JunkBuster to get rid of ads abound. For subscriptions to be valuable source of revenue then the people who subscribe must get a considerable amount more than the people who don't to make it worth it. Suggestions I can think of right of the bat

1. Subscribers can get an @slashdot.org email address or web page with no dynamic content.
   
2. Subscribers get better comment filtering functionality (e.g. I want to only see posts that have been moderated up even if it's from 0 to +1).
   
3. Subscribers automatically get the +1 posting bonus without having to get up to 25 karma.
   
4. Subscribers can get alerts if people respond to their posts.
   
5. Subscribers can see what the new comments have been made to a story since the last time they read it (kuro5hin has this functionality)
   
6. Only subscribers can customize their front page.
   
7. Only subscribers can post comments.
   
8. Only subscribers can submit stories.
   

A lot of the ideas are probably unworkable but they are put there to give an idea as to the kind of things that people are more likely to pay for than not.
All of these may seem distasteful but considering that VA Linux probably doesn't have much longer to go I think the Slashdot folks need to take a long hard look at how they're going to keep financing the site if they still want it to exist in four or five years.

Flame Away.

How Much Bandwidth Stylesheets Can Save You...

[John_Booty]

Bitching about bandwidth costs? Then please look into stylesheets; you could easily save 35% in bandwidth costs. As the above poster noted, stylesheets are the way to go.

I love Slashdot, and I'm willing to pay for it because I know it costs money to run a website and ads aren't cutting it these days. However, they're basically throwing away the bandwidth they would like us to pay for. The HTML produced by Slash is crap, frankly.

I used HTML Tidy to automatically convert the page to stylesheets as opposed to old-fasioned obsolete HTML formatting tags. The old version of the page was ~230K. The new version of the page, using stylesheets, was ~160K. That's a ~43% bandwith savings, right there, with little effort. If you include images, there's still a 35% reduction in bandwidth.

Also, have the Slash crew explored Apache's on-the-fly zip compression abilities (it's a separate module, I don't know the name)? It eats CPU power, obviously, but HTML can be compressed by 90% or more when zipped. The cost of more web boxen would be more than paid for by the bandwidth savings, I'd wager... especially if Slashdot is getting free hosting from it's parent company.

Bottom line: I'll pay for Slashdot's content, but not for lazy Slashdot coding. If you want us to pay for bandwidth, show us you're using it as efficiently as possible. Because you're not right now. You're like a guy begging for food with a sandwich sticking out of his pocket... I just DON'T wanna hear it. And yes, I know there's other costs associated with running the website besides bandwidth, and the ad market is shit right now.

Learn from Google

[mal0rd]

Instead of making slashdot less attractive by putting tons of bandwidth hogging, annoying, internet congesting, unwitty, untargeted, etc banner ads, use text ads. Google serves many more people a day then /., and I'm sure that they have more costs, but they don't need banner ads. In fact I have seen reports that Google is the most succesful search engine in terms of money making.

I love text ads. I click on ads on Google more than any other website because they are targeted and easy on my eyes. Banners with cycling images make you wait to see what the ad is for.

I'm not sure what the costs of slashdot are that are increasing, but I'm sure that there are effective ways to reduce them. Is it the server load? If you use technologies that are more efficent or pass the processing onto the client ( like XML, XSLT, and CSS ) then it would be less cost to you. Also using text ads would decrease load.

On another note: I think that a better, more streamlined, ad free slashdot would be worth a few cents a day. I suggest if you move to a pay system (which I would love) then use a micropay system. Something like $0.03 per page load. It is the fairest way to go, and would encourage people to start reading slashdot because there wouldn't be a commitment.

Re:How much?

[dkh]

The difference is that I pay one reasonable (relatively) fee per month for 50 or so channels.

This is more akin to subscribing to a magazine. I used to subscribe to a lot of magazines. Then I discovered that I actually didn't have the time to get $30 or so of value from each one, instead I was simply skimming most of them. The result was that I greatly reduced the number that I subscribe too.

The same will be true of web sites. If they think the competition was bad before, wait until users have to start making choices about what web sites they have time to get real value from.

Note though, my first post didn't say I wasn't willing to pay for a _reasonable_ subscription and in my opinion that is now more then a few dollars a year to make up for my ad viewing.

My choice here is even easier then the magazines however as I can filter the ads from my end if they aren't reasonable in their pricing.

Re:Some contradiction here?

[TGK]

As one of those Linux wanabes and a fairly recent addition to the slashdot community (1 year or so) I'd like to concur and respectfully disagree. I concur insofar as the statement that there is a groupthink mentality growing on slashdot which is dangerous to the vitality of the readerbase and is slowly changing the character of the site for the worse.

I disagree in the assumption that all new users and linux wanabes are responsible for this. I for example try to keep my posts restricted to my personal areas of expertese (spelling not being one of those areas) and pure speculation. I don't post on the future trends in the open source movement because I simply don't know shit about them. I'm intersted to see what others have to say though... and I think I've learned alot from Slashdot in my year or so here.

Now into that speculation. I've noted that Slashdot tends to be straying from what many consider its origional purpose to be. Most of the reader base sees this site as dedicated first and foremost to news about Linux, high tecnology, and science. Nonetheless, we've branched out. Articles on personal liberties (many of which really don't belong to "your rights online") and poltical developments grace these pages.

Perhaps, other niche groups need their own slashdot? I've seen a few uses of the slashcode in various poorly frequented news sights, but nothing of the scope that Slashdot has.

As a history buff myself, I'd be curious to see the reaction a site like, oh, say Pastdot would get :-)

Point being, I think a lot of the AC posts and trolls we see here are a result of two things. 10 year olds with to much time on their hands, and people looking to discuss issues who really aren't part of this "community" or clique if you prefer. Perhaps /. has simply gotten to ideocentric to accecpt deviants anymore. Perhaps I'm just rambeling.

The AC Solution

[nebby]

In response to all the bitching about ACs, how about setting up two things:

1) Make it so you can post anonymously, but must be logged in. Ie, (like on half-empty) your karma is still affected and there is still an internal link to your post with your account, but nobody knows who you are.

2) Make it so there's an interface in slashcode to contact anonymous individuals (perhaps anonymously as well? :)) .. slashdot would be a third party. Since they wouldn't have an email address displayed when posting anonymous, this would allow a user to send them a private message.

This way ACs who are posting crap will eventually bottom out in karma and post at -1 and have the potential to be flamed on the /. private message system (which is better than nothing, I'd guess.)

Contridiction?

[pgpckt]

First, it is said:

"I don't like it any more then many of you, so if you log in, there is an option to disable it."

Then:

"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"

If you COULD have said no, and you HATED the changes, why did you say YES?

Use popup when moderating

[Kraft]

Seeing everything from modding ads to new payments schemes has been discussed today, I will add my tiny suggestion for improving slashdot.

When I am a moderator, I find the pull-down mod system terrible. I like modding, but I don't want to spend all day on it. What sux is this: I view a story, see a good post and change the pull-down to "interesting". However, I don't want to go aaaaall the way down to click "moderate", because it takes 2-3 seconds of my life for the page to reload - and then I can't find where I got in the text. So I keep reading, just in case I spot another mod worthy post. If I see a sub-thread which isn't expanded, I can't go in there, cuz then the uncached page would forget the post I wanted to mod when I go back. Too often I end up going on a mod rampage, and just mod down trolls, but I would really prefer just to immidiatly vote for a post I saw, without getting disrupted.

Any solutions? You bet! If you check out half-empty, the solution chosen there is simply a small button or link for every vote option. Click on any of them and a little window opens in the background, which handles the modding. It's beautifully simple and solves all the problems mentioned here. It even stimulates modding.