Announcing Slashdot Subscriptions

For some time now we have been developing a unique subscription system that we hope will make our users and advertisers happy. Please hit the link below to read an explanation about how the system works, and why it works that way. Also you will learn what a subscription will give you, and what our future plans are for it.Update: 03/01 16:38 GMT by Hemos : A lot of people are asking about the only Paypal option. In answer to everyone: Yes, we are aware of the problems with PayPal.. And, yes, we're currently working on other solutions - read the full copy below, as Rob already states that.

To understand why the system works like it does, you need to first understand that Slashdot is about to start accepting new ad formats. The large ads that you see on many other sites are coming here. We really don't have an option: these are what advertisers want, and if we don't provide them, we won't be around much longer. But we want to give you an option to see Slashdot without these ads. Second, you need to understand that Slashdot readers fall into a variety of types, and charging the same flat fee just isn't possible.

Slashdot subscriptions will essentially let you buy a thousand pages to be viewed without banner ads. And you will have some flexibility to decide what types of pages (Comments, Articles, The Homepage) you want ads removed from, and what types of pages you just want to see the ads.

The rates are currently set at $5 per 1000 pages. To put this into perspective, $20 (typical magazine subscription) will be enough pages for 82% of our readers to view Slashdot without ads for a year. Another 15% will need to spend $5 a month to accomplish the same thing. 3% of our readers would need to spend more than $5 a month- but they could choose to see ads on comments and in almost every case, still pay around $5 a month. (As an aside, it's also worth noting that more than half of all comment posters fall into this 3%)

We realize that this system is more complex, but Slashdot has a third of a million readers per day with different reading habits, and this is the best way to accomodate everyone fairly.

Currently we only accept payment via paypal. It was simply easy and fast. We intend to offer other options as time permits and readers request.

Eventually we intend to offer additional features to subscribers. Exactly what those plums are remains to be decided: Access to the rejected submissions bin? A 'Gold Star' in your comments header? Karma? (I think that would be hilarious) We really don't know. We'll decide and implement what makes sense as we have time to do it.

We are doing our best to learn from the mistakes made by other sites that have started charging for subscriptions. We won't create subscriber only features that cost more to maintain than they generate. But we do need support from you if we are to continue. So anyway, here's that link again if you forgot it ;)

Comments

I've already my "subscription" system

[anpe]

It's called junkbuster

Post alternative sites below

[cvd6262]

Hey, let's get a list of places we can move going.

Re:Post alternative sites below

[enkidu55]

Oh well, you couldn't blame them. Everybody succumbs to the succubus of greed from time to time. Sucks bad for the people in india who may only make 5 dollars a month. Have to blow the whole thing just to read slashdot without ads.

Re:Post alternative sites below

[Lord Omlette]

We have:

Half Empty, aka .5e, land of the pot heads. Actually most of the people on the site are pretty cool, they're just too damn small. If you've ever seen people like BonzoEsc, Uruk, Krellis, or Nebby modded up on a comment here at /., then you know what type of people hang out at .5e.

Kuro5hin, land of the pretentious fucks. It'll probably come down to having to pay money just to avoid hanging out with these losers.

BBC News, what I believe is the most objective western news site. The problem is that there's no discussion system even worth wasting time with.

I'm going to sign up just for access to the rejected submissions bin. That's where the real news for nerds lies.

Re:Post alternative sites below

[TedCheshireAcad]

The usual spots for me...
Newsforge.org
theregister.co.uk
securityf ocus.com
ibm.com/developer
codingstyle.com

Re:Post alternative sites below

[fleener]

Exactly. For every piece of information being sold, there is someone in the world willing to give it to you for free. You just have to find that person.

About 3/4ths of the slashdot articles that interest me I have already seen on blogs 1-7 days earlier. Some of this is due to the review period of submitted links, and part of it is that sometimes a link is submitted multiple times before it is accepted. Regardless, if slashdot closed tomorrow, I would still get my nerd news from other sources. What's special about slashdot is that I can post comments and get modded down. If slashdot dies, blame it on the people who still want information to be free. We will always exist in small groups and keep the information flowing.

Re:Post alternative sites below

[kraf]

I think linuxhardware.org is nice, we could use more comments over there !

Re:Post alternative sites below

[Anonymous Coward]

usenet

Re:Post alternative sites below

[Anonymous Coward]

You can visit Barra Punto, it's spanish, so translate through the fish:

Eric Raymond says that I patch of kernel is in crisis; that the enormous amount of patches that send the developers saturates Linus, which causes that there are patches that remain outside without no good apparent reason. In order to solve it proposes it that Torvalds begins to delegate of one more a more efficient way.

More coherant than most of what Taco posts

Re:Post alternative sites below

[Anonymous Coward]

I've heard that PacDemon.Org is a real cool site.

Re:Post alternative sites below

[AFCArchvile]

I moved to http://www.shacknews.com/ because it suits me better. I'm not too much into Linux (tried RedHat 6.2 and had a bad experience overall; I'll download the ISO for a new distro sometime), and I'm more into gaming. Also, the messageboard on the Shack has a pace midway in between that of Slashdot and a chat room. Also, there's no karma, so there's no karma whoring (but yes, there is trolling sometimes).

Re:Post alternative sites below

[md_doc]

That almost makes sense. You visit slashdot all the time and you see ads. You never considered leaving before but and now that they are going to allow you to subscribe so you do not have to see ads you say lets go somewhere else that forces me to see ads.

Wow you have a brain or something don't you? They give us choice so lets leave? Did your mom drop you too many times as a baby?

Re:Post alternative sites below

[bonzoesc]

Sweet merciful crap, I'm famous.

I actually spend most of my time at The Awful Forums, which are now $9.95/account. The admission fee is very useful for keeping the signal/noise ratio high, although not as high as .5e. It seems that trolls and retards don't like having to pay $10 to get their login back after they get banned for being an idiot.

Re:Post alternative sites below

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps if you read the article, you'd notice that they'll be adding new types of ads. It wouldn't surprise me if we started seeing popups/unders also.
Not just the normal slashdot banner on top ad.

Wow, for a UID, I'm surprised I have to say this, but


RTMFA!!

Re:Post alternative sites below

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a site at Genxius that is just starting and offers content for everyone, Linux, Windows, Mac, FREE BSD, anything and everything. Plus it's a hobby site of mine so I don't ever plan on charging, I do it for the love of computers, technology and just being a geek. I envite anyone to stop by and send some suggestions and start submitting stories, reviews, etc. The site also offers a complete slew of forums for your intellectual pleasures.

The only thing I pay for out of pocket is hosting fee's and thats pretty cheap !

I wish Slashdot the best of luck in pulling this off, I don't want to see slashdot go the way of f'ed company.

Re:Post alternative sites below

[Anonymous Coward]

What is/are blogs?

Re:Post alternative sites below

[kill-hup]

Can I toss in a plug for Kill-HUP.com?

;)

Re:Post alternative sites below

[Squirrel Killer]

For every piece of information being sold, there is someone in the world willing to give it to you for free.

You do realize, of course, that /. is willing to give you that same information for free too. So you have to download an ad with that info, big whoop.

-sk

Re:Post alternative sites below

[revscat]

Or you could up and fucking PAY for something. Wow. There's a novel idea. Instead of having the world hand you news for nerds on a silver platter, you actually recognize the time and effor that Rob, et. al., have put into this beast and give em some fucking MONEY in appreciation.

"But competition! Free! Information! BLAH!" Spoiled rotten little turds. You'll leech all day, but as soon as somebody wants compensation for what they've done, then they've sold out or some such nonsense. It's like you don't think people *deserve* to be paid for their work if it's online.

Christ. What is it with the internet, man? People have just no sense of common courtesy. /. is worth 20 bucks a year. That's *nothing*, man. And they've been free for like 4 years now? Come ON.

Losers. I do not understand the libertarian/socialist dichotomy that is so prevalent among this community. Either it has value and is therefore worth paying for, or it doesn't. Even though free alternatives are available that doesn't make it any less heinous to ditch /. just because the management has to pay the bills.

- Rev.

Re:Post alternative sites below

[interiot]

News For Nerds

newslinx.com -- acummulated tech news from The Register, Wired, Salon, MSNBC, etc.

Stuff that matters

overlawyered.com -- daily examples of our over-the-top legal system

politechbot.com -- similar, though with more of a slant towards free speech, less sensational stuff

None support disussion, but all update several times a day.

Re:Post alternative sites below

[Sc00ter]

You could all try SlashDuh. It's free. Sure, it's not kickin, but it's also fairly new.. get the people that are submitting articles here to submit them there and it'll be right on track.. Plus we're not as picky, and we tend to check our grammar and spelling.

Re:Post alternative sites below

[md_doc]

Someone needs to read but it seems as though it is you. "The large ads that you see on many other sites are coming here." they say nothing about pop unders or anything like that which would make no sense at all because the subscription is based on cpm and if they start making each page have 2 ads (the banner and a pop under) then that would be using 2 impressions per page which is something they are not going to do.

Re:Post alternative sites below

[Owen Lynn]

http://www.fark.com

Re:Post alternative sites below

[Mark Round]

Everything Unix - it's new, but it looks like it could be a real winner. It's from the same bloke who does the "Everything Solaris/Linux/Mac" sites - Michael Holve.

-Mark

Re:Post alternative sites below

[Anonymous Coward]

Cracked View has seemed semi-nifty so far. Only been checking it out for a couple days though. Not really that tech-centered though it seems, though they'll probably post those types of stories if people submit 'em.

Re:Post alternative sites below

[Mark Round]

Forgot the URL.
http://everythingunix.org

-Mark

Re:Post alternative sites below

[Syberghost]

I do not understand the libertarian/socialist dichotomy that is so prevalent among this community.

How the hell did you come up with conflating libertarianism with socialism?

They're diametrically opposed. Libertarians think Slashdot should be able to charge whatever the hell it's owners want, and that anybody who doesn't like it is free to fuck off. Socialists would think Slashdot should be funded by the government and freely distributed to the masses.

Re:Post alternative sites below

[staked]

heh. thanks for the www.crackedview.com plug. I've been helping out there for awhile now, and it's a fun bunch.

Re:Post alternative sites below

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah right, the headquarters of the gun-toting flag-waving stupid-as-shit whitethrash americans, as a replacement for slashdot.
Heh-heh, nice one beavis.

Re:Post alternative sites below

[Hnice]

"You'll leech all day, but as soon as somebody wants compensation for what they've done, then they've sold out or some such nonsense. "

This is a strawman. In fact, it is entirely possible to believe that someone is doing the right thing, the sensible thing, the necessary thing by charging for their services, and still not want to pay for it. You clearly don't make room for this possibility -- which, i'm sure, covers a lot of people.

"It's like you don't think people *deserve* to be paid for their work if it's online."

Again, you're beating up on something that doesn't exist -- the idea that my desire not to pay must come from a sense of betrayal, and not from (the much more likely spot) my wallet. Maybe (and this isn't me, necessarily) i love /., but i'm broke. Are my alternatives, under your plan, to either get a second job, or qualify as a whiny, thankless bitch? Where's the none-of-the-above that says 'go to kuro5hin' or something?

You don't know me. You don't know why I may or may not leave. But you're wrong if you think that "it costs X amount and i'm not willing to pay that" isn't a (the?) fundamental driver in decisions like these, and once you accept that it is, accusations like the ones that you throw around have no place in the discussion. sure, people whine! they have a right to! but you characterize non-payers as whiners, when, in fact, the only (potentially) accurate characterization would run the other way, with whiners being non-payers (although i'm certain that the evidence will not bear this out, either).

Re:Post alternative sites below

[Uller-RM]

Blogs = shorthand for weblogs = people's journals online. Either their own sites, or a communal system like LiveJournal that allows people to collate the most recent entries by their friends into a single site and link together webs/communities of people by interest.

Re:Post alternative sites below

[Syberghost]

Ooops. Just realized there's two ways to interpret your use of "dichotomy", and damned if I didn't pick the less-likely one...

Re:Post alternative sites below

[fleener]

The big deal, for me, is that big ads detract too much from the page content. When ads get to the point where I cannot ignore them, I abandon the web site harboring the ads.

So far I've stopped reading Wired.com and the NYT because of incredibly intrusive advertising. I got tired of Wired's ads dropping down over the article text. The NYT sent me packing with a single offensive ad - it filled the screen with a fake story rotated counter-clockwise 90 degrees for 5 seconds before disappearing.

Plus, if a site's design is poor and my window width is set to around 600 pixels, those "big ads" often overlap body text - making articles impossible to read. Bottom line is that I am predisposed toward hating Slashdot once these ads appear.

When the annoyance level gets too much, I will abandon slashdot rather than give it money to stop annoying me. Asking, or even pleading, for support is one thing. Wanting people to pay you to stop being annoyed is another.

Re:Post alternative sites below

[sid_vicious]

Fort Knox's website.

Re:Post alternative sites below

[fleener]

A blog, or web log, is a site (usually) run by an individual that lists links to other web sites. The blog is usually updated on a daily basis. The links are often to news articles and are selected because the blog owner finds them interesting. There are thousands of blogs today. The trick is finding a blog owner who has the same interests that you do.

A blog will have a brief description of each link, and often include commentary from the blog owner.

Read this article, How weblogs influence a billion Google searches a week that I found on one of my favorite blogs, WebWord.com.

Re:Post alternative sites below

[Blue Aardvark House]

I author on several sites, but the best for general-purpose reading is Slackers Guild.

Not much traffic yet, but I'm fairly lenient with upmods.

If you're a travel buff, there's always the site in my sig.

Re:Post alternative sites below

[Anonymous Coward]

Do I get paid for my insightful comments, too? Actually, I read /. for the comments, not for the stories (for the stories that interest me, I usually know about them before they are posted on /.).

Re:Post alternative sites below

[ackthpt]

I like The Reg, too, even have their vulture sticker on my truck, but it's no substitute. Their headlines are pretty corny, too, like the 'from the dropping-a-few-bucks-in-the-guitar-case dept.' bits.

For the money, I'll still do /., as long as it has value. The RSA posts have been very helpful at work, as we're gearing up for their imperial storm troopers.

Re:Post alternative sites below

[Anonymous Coward]

But everyone knows the shack is a website for meating up with like minded homosexuals like klerck.

Plus they banned me. :(

Re:Post alternative sites below

[fleener]

Blogs will replace sites like Slashdot when Slashdot goes to a subscription model. There are still plenty of individuals willing to provide information for free. There always will be.

I won't pay for Slashdot because I can find the same articles by browsing a handful of other sites. I would pay for a unique and useful service. I would pay for Google if need be because it is above and beyond better than the rest of its competitors.

Re:Post alternative sites below

[jkusters]

They're diametrically opposed. Libertarians think Slashdot should be able to charge whatever the hell it's owners want, and that anybody who doesn't like it is free to fuck off. Socialists would think Slashdot should be funded by the government and freely distributed to the masses.

Thus the use of the word "dichotomy." Look it up.

--JOhn.

Re:Post alternative sites below

[Anonymous Coward]

Please don't post while you're stupid. The subscription system is being rationalized by the argument that subscribers will be spared the newly announced annoying, ridiculous adds, not the targeted and for the most part useful and unoffensive ads we've seen here in the past. (the argument reads that) for some reason the new brand of trash advertsing is all advertisers will pay for. I for one am deeply insulted by this rationalization for a subscription system. If I find slashdot useful and the only way to support to keep it going, or to access what I find useful is to subscribe I will subscribe. If i find slashdot offensive I will not visit; the two are not in any way linked. Balancing of the threat of anoyance with the concept of subscription offends me, so i don't think I'll subscribe. If the changes annoy me I won't visit. It saddens me that I'll have to leave this behind, but the world changes. I do wonder in what other corner of the world I will find people who have managed to survive doing what they feel is right instead of doing what they feel is least wrong. For a while it was slashdot. I guess everything that gets popular has to sell out to the man eventually. see ya later slashdot. it's been real.

Re:Post alternative sites below

[Squirrel Killer]

The big deal, for me, is that big ads detract too much from the page content.

And, that is the $64,000 question. Will /.'s new ads end up being too distracting. If they're like this page, with the ad well sectioned off, I don't think they'll be a major problem. If they're like the ads you describe, well then /. will have violated the first rule of selling ads, Don't let your advertisers piss off your viewers enough to make them non-viewer. Of course, we haven't heard any details about the new ads, other than that they're coming, so who knows how annoying they'll be.

-sk

Re:Post alternative sites below

[Anonymous Coward]

NewsGeek is a pretty nice site. Although not a slashdot, it does offer some cool/funny offtopic posts as well as your up to date news. I spend way too much time there as they usually post around 50 links a day. There's no write up for articles which I think makes it better. It gets less repetitive that way. Long live /. though.

Re:Post alternative sites below

[Tackhead]

> So far I've stopped reading Wired.com and the NYT because of incredibly intrusive advertising. I got tired of Wired's ads dropping down over the article text. The NYT sent me packing with a single offensive ad - it filled the screen with a fake story rotated counter-clockwise 90 degrees for 5 seconds before disappearing.

Dude, you need to disable Flash and Javascript.

I had no idea NYTimes and Wired had gotten that bad. (Then again, I disabled Flash two years ago and have surfed with Javashit off since the first piece of bad Javashit started consistently crashing Netscape 3. I haven't missed either. But thanks for saving me the 5 minutes it would take to turn 'em on and conclude that I'm still better off without 'em.)

Re:Post alternative sites below

[cduffy]

I'd hope the (serious) libertarians and the socialists are two separate groups. Anyhow, there's no obligation for a libertarian to pay for some service unless they decide that they want to (just as there's no obligation for the service provider to offer it for free unless they want to). Courtesy has nothing to do with it. Heck, value isn't the determining factor either -- my laptop computer may have a great deal of value; that doesn't mean that I'll pay $2000 for it if I can get a used one that does what I need for $900. Similarly, just because /. is valuable doesn't imply any obligation to choose it over free alternatives.

There's nothing heinous about ditching /. (or any service) because the price increases such that competitive services are now cheaper -- the ability of the public to vote with their wallets is a cornerstone of libertarian philosophy. As for the socialists... well, I'm not one, so they can just fsck off. :)

Re:Post alternative sites below

[Anonymous Coward]

For every piece of information being sold, there is someone in the world willing to give it to you for free.

Paying for information in any form is immoral it corrupts the integrity of the information. Contributions, advertisers, subscription fees all fall into the big nebulus bag of immorality and corruption.

PS: My prediction is that in the next twenty years, we will see 20% + unemployment in the United States and an overall 40% drop in IT positions. Any of you who are still employed should, expect a minimum 50% cut in you your salary...paying people for work is wrong, evil and corrupt. The people who post other peoples work for free are the only true heroes of our age.

Re:Post alternative sites below

[phyxeld]

Blogs will replace sites like Slashdot when Slashdot goes to a subscription model.

Slashdot IS a blog. It even won a bloggie. You must mean small time independant blogs. But if one of them grew big enough to replace slashdot, it, too, would have to somehow pay the bills, and would probably adopt some sort of bussiness model you don't like (ads and/or subscriptions).

I would pay for Google
Well, google isn't (and won't be any time soon) asking you to pay. So, how about you set your slashdot homepage prefs so you get a little google slashbox at the top of your /. homepage, and then pay $5 for a /. subscription, and make believe you're paying for google. Sound good?

Re:Post alternative sites below

[fleener]

Slashdot does not fit my definition of a blog because it is maintained by a community of users. It isn't one person's list of interesting stuff. It's a juried presentation. And the fact that Slashdot received a meaningless award, is, uh, meaningless.

But that's beside the point. I said nothing about a single blog replacing Slashdot. I read several blogs and get from them more content than Slashdot provides. The small independent blogs will always be a threat to the large sites that try to aggregate news from a group of users. If small blogs get big and turn into what they once despised, well, other small blogs will arrive to take up the slack.

I'll pay for Google because it does something useful that no one else has done. Slashdot is no longer unique. It's still struggling with that reality.

Re:Post alternative sites below

[danny256]

The usual spots for me...
(and sorry about this)
www.microsoft.com
www.riaa.com
www.linuxsucks.com
www.freeporn.com/animals/farm/horses_and_pigs/inde x.html

Re:Post alternative sites below

[Anonymous Coward]

Why did you stop reading wired.com? Their ad's aren't that annoying. Especially if you view via the correct URL. (http://www.wired.com/news/nc_index.html)

Re:Post alternative sites below

[fleener]

I dunno, having an advertisement drop down over the first few sentences of an article -- even if done only for a few seconds -- is enough to send me packing.

Re:Post alternative sites below

[dTd]

GNU-friends.org

Re:Post alternative sites below

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds right to me.

Re:Post alternative sites below

[SomeOtherGuy]

Well said. If someone says something I can relate to, and it gets posted on a blog that is only read by 6 people, and uses 100K of bandwith....That does not make the words mean less to me. Like I said in a post above -- we can use google to filter out the quality stories. (I do like slashdot for the comments on occasion...But in the long run the content is where it is at)

Re:Post alternative sites below

[Anonymous Coward]

lol! I try the first one (newslinx) and two HUGEASS ads are there. hmm..........?

Death of Slashdot, story at 11:00

[hobit]

To understand why the system works like it does, you need to first understand that Slashdot
is about to start accepting new ad formats. The large ads that you see on many other sites
are coming here.

Put me down as the first to predict the death of slashdot.

Re:Death of Slashdot, story at 11:00

[sunking2]

When they do go under will I get the amount of my subscription that I haven't used yet back? I'd probably get about $4.95 back.

Hooray!

[October_30th]

Hooray!

I got Windows XP Pro installed on my laptop and the Slashdot subscriptions are a fact.

What a wonderful day!

Perhaps we need to subsidize the Internet...

[dudeX]

If I have to start paying money for every quality website I want to visit, then I might as well just hang out on IRC or other weblogs to find out interesting info and news.

I am already paying for three web sites. I say the people of the US should have their taxes fund the Internet backbones and ISP so that we can maintain somewhat free web access for everyone.

Re:Perhaps we need to subsidize the Internet...

[Anonymous Coward]

So we should pay for your traffic through our networks? Uhm, no. You can pay for your own traffic.

Re:Perhaps we need to subsidize the Internet...

[Anonymous Coward]

Cripes, man... go buy/build your own frigging Internet. The U.S. taxpayer *already* funded the start of the Internet. it doesn't exist to pay for your sorry self.

Re:Perhaps we need to subsidize the Internet...

[rm-r]

Damn right, they fund the highway, why not the information super-highway?

As the British found when they introduced the world's first easy to use and cheap postal service easy cheap communication is the biggest kick up the ass you can give an economy.

And no I don't think I will be subscribing, might have done a year or two ago (ironically enough when you didn't need it) but the quality of this site has dropped a lot recently, and no I'm not happy about that

Re:Perhaps we need to subsidize the Internet...

[dudeX]

>>it doesn't exist to pay for your sorry self.

Its for everyone benefit, not just me. Or would you like to see the day where you pay 500 dollars for basic support of a website a year in addition to the 750 dollars a year you already pay for broadband?

If the US pays the military 1.6 trillion dollars a year, why not add an additional billion dollars for Internet services?

Though I do see a problem with congestion though...

Re:Perhaps we need to subsidize the Internet...

[jmccay]

I know I won't like it if I have to pay for every site I visit. Imagine paying for every site you visit, and paying for the sites from a search engine the takes payments for placement! So essentially, you pay to to garbage in those cases.
As far as slashdot subscriptions, I will hold out and see what happens.

Re:Perhaps we need to subsidize the Internet...

[Anonymous Coward]

you already do - or do you think 'your' network gets to choose which traffic it carries?

Re:Perhaps we need to subsidize the Internet...

[Anonymous Coward]

how about you go get a job and buy your damn internet.

Oh no.

[MartinG]

Slashdot to offer a subscription service.
Imminent Death of the Net Predicted. Film at 11.

Here's an idea

[SuiteSisterMary]

Just sell low UIDs. That'll raise you lots of money. Seriously, though, go nuts. Just don't be surprised when every signature links to instructions on using webwasher/adbuster/and so on to block out each and every comment. Or when somebody writes a perl script to grab slashdot every hour, parse out all the ads, and post it somewhere else, like freeslashdot.org or something.

Re:Here's an idea

[a.out]

Suppose someone writes some nice perl script. Are the millions going to use it? No.

Some yes. Millions no.

Is this going to change my reading habits? Probably Not.

This a good way for the /. crew to keep their heads above water just incase LNUX decides to give them the boot.

Re:Here's an idea

[bofkentucky]

yeah, but what if they've been $rtbl'ed, those accounts are worthless, unless they are selling "refurbished accounts" with a 30 day warranty.

Re:Here's an idea

[mwalker]

Suppose someone writes some nice perl script. Are the millions going to use it? No.

Read the FAQ. Using a script against Slashdot in a combative manner is considered abuse and is punishable by a permanent IP or subnet ban against reading anything.

If people start using scripts to remove ads, they better be really careful about it.

Re:Here's an idea

[Joseph Vigneau]

Many of the low UIDs are currently assigned :^).
It will be interesting to see the new format, though, hopefully it won't be too obtrusive. I refuse to set up a PayPal account, though..

Re:Here's an idea

[plague3106]

Or when somebody writes a perl script to grab slashdot every hour, parse out all the ads, and post it somewhere else, like freeslashdot.org or something.

Actually that would be illegal.

Re:Here's an idea

[Jesse Duke]

"I refuse to set up a PayPal [nopaypal.com] account"

You are a wise man. I just *finally* managed to close mine without losing the $100-so in it. Taco, arrange for a decent method of payment and I'll pay. Otherwise, sorry it's Junkbuster time.

Re:Here's an idea

[DevEiant]

So... how low is low? And what's the street value of a UID, say, lower than 1000? Kidding!

Re:Here's an idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Or when somebody writes a perl script to grab slashdot every hour, parse out all the ads, and post it somewhere else, like freeslashdot.org

But then the maintainers of freeslashdot.org will have the same problem that slashdot has of paying for bandwidth, server hosting, etc.

Re:Here's an idea

[einhverfr]

Just sell low UIDs.

How much for UID of 0?

Being root on /. would be fun....

Re:Here's an idea

[Mordac]

Damn, thats what I was going to say :(

Re:Here's an idea

[Tony Shepps]

Someone offered to blow me for mine! But I didn't take them up on it.

Re:Here's an idea

[davidu]

205 is *pretty* low I guess...

*GRIN*

-davidu

Re:Here's an idea

[lblack]

Basing a business plan around the stupidity of your audience, after all, never fails.

Re:Here's an idea

[jlv]

Darn. I has a about 1000 uid and lost the password to it, so I started a new one. Had I known they'd be worth something some day...

Re:Here's an idea

[ergo98]

Stupidity? I'd say "low motivation to overcome it" would be a much better statement. Most people simply couldn't care less and aren't going to bother will filtering or other countermeasures. Equating that with stupidity is ridiculous.

I could get into the pay parking garage for free by having a helicopter airlift me in and out, but just because it CAN be done doesn't mean that I'll do it.

Re:Here's an idea

[Score Whore]

Look around. Nobody here cares if it's illegal. I mean for fucks sake, how many times has Taco posted about how "computers have changed the way content is distributed and the recording/television/movie industry has to learn to deal with it." It would be funny as hell to see a large group of people get together to dupe slashdot content elsewhere.

Re:Here's an idea

[Alan]

Well, a nice site that filters out not only the ads but also the cruft from the comments is http://alterslash.org

Re:Here's an idea

[FatRatBastard]

Has anyone ever eBayed a slashdot UID before? I wonder what a 7000s level UID would fetch :)

N.

(who's only registered after lurking /. for six months.... DOH!!!!)

Re:Here's an idea

[infinitey]

Looking for a sysadmin in Mississauga/West Toronto? Contact me!

Dammit! My adbuster didn't block your sig! What should I do???

Re:Here's an idea

[lblack]

Build another strawman. Filtering ads costs nothing, and takes about 2 minutes to do.

Please compare apples to apples, your oranges aren't welcome here.

Re:Here's an idea

[cavemanf16]

Heh - Ok, so maybe I'll just use my God given script - my eyeballs.

Re:Here's an idea

[Rupert]

Yes. It was in the 3-digit range, and had over 100 karma points.

Re:Here's an idea

[dmd]

Just sell low UIDs. That'll raise you lots of money.

If someone is dumb enough to payy money for my low UID, I'll sure as hell sell it.

Hey, it's not only low, it's nifty, too!

Re:Here's an idea

[fwankypoo]

Most people simply couldn't care less and aren't going to bother

Finally! Someone who correctly knows how to use that phrase!

Re:Here's an idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Are larger ads going to help? How much does slushdot get for displaying ads versus click-thru purchases, and what % of hits results in such a transaction? I know plenty of websites that have gone under when the advertisers got tired of waiting for those click-thru purchases to happen.

Re:Here's an idea

[Anonymous Coward]

ab initio, a /. UID has a value of approx. $50*(5-log(UID)). In reality, it's a matter of supply and demand.

Re:Here's an idea

[Jeremy Erwin]

The big problem with low UIDs is that they are already taken. Negative UIDs, perhaps?

Re:Here's an idea

[mazeone]

low /. uids, don't make you leet, after all, RADKade1 has one in the double digits I think...

Re:Here's an idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Many of the low UIDs are currently assigned :^).

Seems like mine will likely be up for grabs soon if these ads become as annoying as I expect. For clarity: I'm user 509 posting as an AC because I don't want to undo my moderations.

I read /. at work (mostly for work related purposes, even). It is plain inconceivable that I can get the company to pay for this and I definitely will not pay something they should.

Re:Here's an idea

[Tim Doran]

Wow... worth a thought.

What should I set the reserve at? ;)

Re:Here's an idea

[maelstrom]

Are 3 digit UID's really worth money? Thats funny. :)

Re:Here's an idea

[RAD Kade 1]

I may not be leet, but I sure am sexy. ;P

Re:Here's an idea

[warpSpeed]

A Three digit UID might even get you a marrige proposal...

Re:Here's an idea

[moonboy]

Now taking bids on #2512 w/ 49 Karma points.

:-)

Re:Here's an idea

[autocracy]

Yes folks, that was INFORMATIVE!

Re:Here's an idea

[wren]

My relatively low UID is taken, but I'll sell for a price :)

Not via PayPal, however. I've only ever used that despicable service once. The only good thing I can say is that it was easy to cancel my account.

Re:Here's an idea

[ergo98]

Actually my comment was more regarding whether it is "stupid" to not care about ads, etc: I find such elitism tiring and flawed.

In any case it absolutely "costs" to filter ads because it deprives them of income, or it undermines the entire advertising industry for the internet (which has the long term affect of depriving them of income). If a movie theater is half-full does it "cost them nothing" for you to sneak in? Sure it does if you think in a selfish "me-alone" mentality, but then why can't everyone sneak in based upon that same theory. As a whole does it "cost nothing"?

Re:Here's an idea

[Paradise Pete]

The other way ("I could care less") isn't wrong, it's sarcastic.

Re:Here's an idea

[garcia]

I have a 6000 level ID. I didn't even know it was a big deal until this year when someone mentioned something about me being here for song long that I should know better...

I'll sell it to you. Put a dollar sign in front of it and there's the starting bid. If everyone seems to be interested in them, they must be worth money :)

Re:Here's an idea

[motardo]

you have a great UID :)

i don't have the money to buy it though :P

Re:Here's an idea

[Casca]

Yeah, I'm pretty happy with mine too.

Re:Here's an idea

[alexandre]

Me too =D

Re:Here's an idea

[lblack]

It costs them; in your helicopter example, it cost the person doing the sneaking. Unless the parking garage was subsidising it, which isn't the impression that I received.

Let us say that people wish to have no ads displayed. I do not think it is unreasonable to suggest that this applies to the majority of Slashdot users.

Slashdot is, here, gambling that the majority of Slashdot users will:

1) Pay a site that consists of content that they and their peers create for the privilege of not having that site bombard them with ads.

2) Accept the advertisements, because it is unethical to do otherwise.

3) Accept the advertisements, because they are incapable of doing otherwise.

Considering the general disdain for banner advertisements in general, I think that their strategy has to be based on #3 and #1, both of which require some measure of stupidity or nobility (to be fair) on the part of the user.

I am an admittedly minor draw to Slashdot (I don't post much). Nonetheless, I do provide content. Now, I am required to pay Slashdot for the privilege of my providing content that will make more people read more stories, threby increasing advertising impressions, thereby increasing Slashdots profits.

This is an attempt to graft a revenue stream onto an aspect of a business that should not have one. Slashdot is one of the public faces of the Open Source movement, and this made it a valuable asset to Andover/VA. Some revenue could be generated with relatively unobtrusive banner ads. Now, Slashdot is being changed from an asset in terms of community interaction and into a revenue stream. It is being done in a pretty hackish manner.

If Slashdot couldn't pay their server bills, and they were not controlled by VA/Andover, would you expect this measure have come into place? I would have anticipated a donation box, and a plea on the front page. And I think that, hey, people would've donated to it. Enough to keep the servers up.

This could kill Slashdot. It didn't kill Salon, because Salon is a content creator. Slashdot is a content disseminator. This is what seems to have been missed -- I, and 2999 other people create the content, here.

And if the pages don't render readably through Junkbuster or Proxomitron with the ads removed, I'm going to be leaving. How many of those 2999 others are going to do the same?

Dunno. Maybe it'll just be me. It's still a .00001% (I don't post much! Lay off!) detraction from the networth of Slashdot.

I know I'm a prick and whatnot, but I do care about Slashdot a lot. I care about Sourceforge, too, and would willingly pay into it. I would have willingly paid into Slashdot, too, but these big ads will create a barrier-of-entry for new community members. Slashdot is setting itself up for a death in a few years, unless the people that buy now continue to do so for the remainder of their natural lives. If you, when you started visiting sites like Slashdot, had had the choice between one with no big ads, and one with massive ads flying at you and the possibility of paying for their obstruction, which would you have chosen?

See what I mean? People aren't going to choose Slashdot, anymore. It's not even just about the existing userbase, it's about the future userbase and the strength of the community in general.

This sucks, man. I don't care about burning Karma right now, but watching Slashdot die is a little bit painful to me. I cannot honestly understand how this site will continue to exist, because I can't make the business plan work out for longer than 5 year period -- unless that's just how long LNUX needs to hit profitability and start subsidising Slashdot. But, I can't even make that side of the plan work out.

This seems like someone is grabbing at the last straw. And piling it on is a-gonna break the Slashdot Camel's back.

Too bad.

leem

Re:Here's an idea

[sydb]

I think mazeone must be RADKade1's dorm mate or something, and he has another account with mod points.

Re:Here's an idea

[sydb]

Whoever bought it was a sucker, karma is capped at 50 as you well know.

Unless this was pre-cap, in which case low UIDs would have been common at the time and hence worth less. When was the cap introduced?

Am I thinking too hard about this?

Re:Here's an idea

[Col. Panic]

Just sell low UIDs

How about selling names instead? How much to be "Signal 11"?

Re:Here's an idea

[Palin Majere]

If I recall correctly, the karma cap was instituted as hard cap on increases only. Which meant that if you had 100 karma points prior to the cap, you had a 50-point "buffer" that you could lose points out of, but not increase.

I wonder if any of those ancient UIDs is still sporting above-the-cap karma. I know I'm sure not. :) Which is kinda weird, being considered a slashdot "old-timer"...

Re:Here's an idea

[__aawsxp7741]

Yes folks, that was INTERESTING!

Re:Here's an idea

[Yarn]

I seem to remember the guy was selling it with several hundred karma. However, when word got out it began to 'tick down' as the time to the deadline approached.

Re:Here's an idea

[brandon]

UID's are cool, but having an easy to remember name, is also worth something. :-) (Including getting many e-mails of people thinking it's their account!

Re:Here's an idea

[XO]

OK, sir, this is just stupid. Really.

You went to great lengths to write a well-written reply, that's just plain stupid. Sorry to say that. I really don't mean to be a troll. Let me rephrase that. This is stupid, In My Opinion.

We are talking about -two- different revenue streams here to generate income to keep things running. Tell you what: It costs VA/Andover to operate Slashdot. There are banner ads here, and no one really cares all that much, that I know of. The advertisers that pay VA/Andover to host these banners on slashdot want bigger banners, so they can continue to maintain the income stream that they have had from the banners.

They are also talking about making a subscription service to supplement the lost income from NOT displaying banners.

OK, I know this is a really simple outlook, but just to throw out some numbers (and this is by NO MEANS WHATSOEVER real, or even close), say for every ad viewed, the company sponsoring that ad paid slashdot/va/andover $0.01 to serve that ad up. Now you go and remove all the advertising content from it, yet use up your share of slashdot's bandwidth - You're a liability, not generating your $0.01 per view. You're costing slashdot/va/andover, with no generated income to replace that. You're not part of the solution - you're part of the problem.

THIS is the purpose of the subscription system - surely slashdot could have just decided "ok, let's put in the larger ads that all the advertisers want", and kept their revenue stream the same. However, they are allowing you the CHOICE of replacing their revenue stream from advertisers, by a revenue stream from yourself.

It costs money to run a web-site.

You are NOT required to pay Slashdot.
"This is an attempt to graft a revenue stream onto an aspect of a business that should not have one."

Let me guess - you've never run a business? When you're in business, your purpose is to have POSITIVE incoming cashflow. You don't pay to do something solely because people like it, and you won't see any benefit from doing it!

"Some revenue could be generated with relatively unobtrusive banner ads"... hello? There's been a banner ad at the top of slashdot for the 3 or 4 years that I've been reading it! The people who are paying this income for slashdot are telling them that they want larger ads, to maintain the same amount of income (or perhaps even an increase)

My experience is that people generally ignore banner ads. I ignore the banner ad on EVERYTHING unless it GETS RIGHT THE FUCK UP IN MY FACE AND SAYS "READ ME YOU FUCKING BITCH!" in neon pastel colors on neon pastel backgrounds. That's why the ad companies want larger ads. People will learn to ignore those too. Advertising on sites is certainly not createing a barrier-of-entry for other places on the 'net.

"People aren't going to choose Slashdot, anymore."? OK, so what are my other choices?

This is not about adding a revenue stream to something that doesn't have one now - it's about maintaining the existing revenue stream that is being threatened.

Or did you not bother to read anything in the original message?

Re:Here's an idea

[Simeon2000]

I had no idea low UID's could fetch a great price ;)

Re:Here's an idea

[Mr.Intel]

You mean like Alterslash?

Re:Here's an idea

[autocracy]

Yup, it sure was :)
The moderators really are on crack!

Re:Here's an idea

[plague3106]

Thats kind of a sweeping statement. I'm sure there are people that do care if its legal or not, and respect it. In fact, i'm willing to bet most do respect copyright, BUT, don't like having their rights of fair use being taken away. Where and how one watches a DVD, making a backup of it, and copyright actually stifling new works. but maybe i'm too optimistic.

Re:Here's an idea

[plague3106]

Actually no, that seems to fall under 'derivitive work.' (Forgive my spelling, its been a long day). If they took it verbatum (or almost verbatum), there's a problem. But that site seems to be a summary of /. which i'm willing to bet is allowed. If i wanted to, i could write my own movie reviews and publish them. Usualy movie reviews would be summaries of the films they review.

Re:Here's an idea

[Pathwalker]

Wish I'd thought about that - I would have gotten up earlier and picked up a couple of two digit ones. I probably only missed by 10 minutes or so...

How sad...

[42forty-two42]

Now I'll have to run slashdot through a perl proxy to filter these...

Re:How sad...

[42forty-two42]

Oh, and don't worry. It'll me open-source. I'll put it in my journal, just to add insult to injury ;)

Re:How sad...

[dthable]

Or borrowing the Perl TMTOWTDI, you could also use any number of Ad Filters out on the market. I personally like the Freedom Privacy client [freedom.net].

Re:How sad...

[42forty-two42]

TMTOWTDI? This goes in Ask Slashdot: What's the Worst Acronym You've Ever Heard?.

Re:How sad...

[liquidsin]

You could always keep it on sourceforge, just for the whole irony thing. "How to steal money from OSDN. Hosted by the good folk at...um...OSDN..."

Re:How sad...

[42forty-two42]

Host on sf, post on /., I like that...

Re:How sad...

[Anonymous Coward]

"You could always keep it on sourceforge, just for the whole irony thing. "How to steal money from OSDN. Hosted by the good folk at...um...OSDN..."

Ya you could put it next to the project "How to make big profits by selling users their own comments back to themselves with SlashCode".

SlashCode is hosted on SourceForge right?

Subsciption or financing a wedding...

[BMonger]

Whatever... all the money is going straight to the wedding pot. Don't let Taco fool you. He just wants to have a good wedding...

Re:Subsciption or financing a wedding...

[Rogerborg]

• Don't let Taco fool you. He just wants to have a good wedding

Do subscribers get:

• Invites?
• Preferrential seating?
• Dances with the bride?
• Anything else (ahem) with the bride?

Re:Subsciption or financing a wedding...

[TheGratefulNet]

wedding pot

you mean you had to get her stoned in order to marry you?

desparate times, I guess.

Re:Subsciption or financing a wedding...

[ackthpt]

Um, isn't the bride's father supposed to foot most of the bill? He's probably the one who thought of it.

Re:Subsciption or financing a wedding...

[Taliban Lecher]

Whatever... all the money is going straight to the wedding pot.

Sure about that? Lets ask the bride to confirm. Otherwise I suspect it is going to the bachelor party...

Re:Subsciption or financing a wedding...

[Rupert]

Droit de segnieur?

User #1 goes first either way.

Re:Subsciption or financing a wedding...

[Indras]

Not the wedding, the wedding present.

Currently, the cheapest Segway up on the Amazon.com auction block is 102,300.00.

At $5 a month for a third of a million readers, that should pay off his and his wife's Segways in around two weeks!

Re:Subsciption or financing a wedding...

[exodus2]

come on this was funny. Its a play on words, it should not be modded down

Re:Subsciption or financing a wedding...

[megalomang]

No kidding. That was a good pun. Mod it UP.

Re:Subsciption or financing a wedding...

[SilentChris]

Considering he's only going to get about $100 or so, it'll probably make the honeymoon a little more interesting.

Re:Subsciption or financing a wedding...

[Mr.Intel]

Anything else (ahem) with the bride?

For five bucks, I wouldn't expect too much with the bride...

Re:Subsciption or financing a wedding...

[Rogerborg]

• For five bucks, I wouldn't expect too much with the bride...

Picture a quarter-of-a-million-guys-on-one-gal bukkake.... ;-)

First Post

[The Variable Man]

Will you be charging extra for first posts?

Re:First Post

[SweetAndSourJesus]

I think that would be great. Pluck down your $20 for FP, then head off to the pub. Make everyone wait to post their comments.

Seriously, folks, it's not like the VC flows freely these days, and sadly, the advertisers do have a big influence. Be glad /. lasted this long on that one banner ad. I'm sure /. management has figured out about how many people will leave because of the ads, and you're really not changing anything with your "I'm leaving!" posts. They know you're leaving, so long.

My only hope is that we won't get those goddamned big flash ads. Anything but that.

Mod me down, for I am a troll.

Thanks, but no thanks...

[horsie]

I'll stick to the ads... as long as there are no pop-ups, pop-unders and anything that pops... and especially NO X-10 ADS!!! :)

Re:Thanks, but no thanks...

[horsie]

Then again, you can always threaten us with X-10 ads...

Re:Thanks, but no thanks...

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate them too. I have (had) been an X-10 fan going back to pre-net days. Now I would have to overcome my aversion to the ads to buy any more product.

Re:Thanks, but no thanks...

[ferat]

Not that that matters to me much. I've gotten so sick of javascript pop-ups I've just changed mozilla's security settings so it outright denies permission for any javascript popup anywhere.

Sure, it's annoying on those sites that use pop-ups for things like viewing the full size graphic from a thumbnail, or for info text (like tvguide.com), but compared to aggrivation of going to some site and getting 10 pop-under windows, it's worth it.

Re:Thanks, but no thanks...

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with this writer. No pop whatever ads. Please keep the ads on the page.

Thanks,

Re:Thanks, but no thanks...

[jonathan_ingram]

If there are X-10 ad, or pop-unders of any sort, I won't be subscribing. I'll be leaving.

Re:Thanks, but no thanks...

[mbourgon]

Interesting... how much revenue will they get for allowing X-10 ads vs revenue lost due to people leaving in droves? Almost sounds like it's in slashdot's interests to make it _almost_ annoying enough to leave. Tough balancing act.

But, WTF, it's $5. As someone said, "Libertarians, put your money where your mouth is". Okie-doke.

Re:Thanks, but no thanks...

[michael_cain]

Ditto.

I've got the bandwidth, so as long as they continue to serve up relatively clean HTML that renders nicely with JavaScript turned off, I don't mind getting a larger ad image. I've learned to ignore the current banners, I'm sure I can learn to ignore the bigger ones.

As soon as you let the advertisers ruin your formatting and make it hard to read, I'm out of here...

Micropayment

[DeathB]

People have been saying forever that someone was going to do a site with some form of a micropayment system. It's interesting to see /. taking the lead here. I really have to wonder though, how many people are bothered by the ads on /. ? Quite a few of the people here read through a junkbuster proxy of one form or another, so such things never even appear. Hopefully there isn't an effort to push people in the way of paying (more annoying ads, etc). Because that would be truly unfortunate.

Best of luck to you, but I really don't expect to see that you will have much for sales.

Re:Micropayment

[JudasBlue]

Yeah, except this isn't the micropayment model. I really don't have a problem with Slash starting to accept more serious ads. As Taco points out, and any of us who have to deal with it know, this is what advertisers want. And, actually, if Slash keeps the same general type of ads, I find that most of the ads here are for things I like. And ads for services I use somehow bother me less than ads for NEW ONLINE CASINO!

But this isn't the micropayment model. The micropayment would have them keeping accounts and charging some decimal dust every time we hit a page.

Instead they are taking the money in chunks. As Taco correctly states, that is the subscription model, a different yet similar beast.

Best of luck to them making loot. Slash is a good thing and I am the last person who has a problem with them getting some treasure.

Re:Micropayment

[DeathB]

Even in a current day micropayment system you need to take the money in chunks. This is due to the fact that there is overhead for each transaction, and expecially with things like credit cards. Unless a user is billed in certain minimum chunks, the overhead dominates the actual payment. In a full-blown micropayment system, you'd probably give some chunk of money to one place, and they'd give it to sites, a few fractions at a time. In this case the fraction is always $0.005/page, rounding up to the nearest $5.00

Re:Micropayment

[rapid prototype]

micropayment could be okay, i would rather it be like any other subscription, you pay a monthly fee, get the information, you can read the same page over and over again if you want. limiting how many times i can hit reload? try limiting how many times i can read the newspaper, after i buy it.

-rp

Re:Micropayment

[Anonymous Coward]

This is just the start of the micropayment model. First you offer the service for free and let the people build it (build a community). Then you ask for a small voluntary fee (kindof test, to see how many people are willing to pay how much). When enough people are paying (say 70%), you can switch to a mandatory payment (kicking the other 30%, but 70% might be enough). If your community is large enough (larger than a certain "critical mass") poeple will not abandon the service so easily because it has some value (say, many good comments).
You don't need 100% acceptance for micropayment, you just need so much people to accept that you are better off than before. Those that quit are probably the expensive bandwidth hogs that you don't want anyway.

This is nothing new. It's standard business "boot strap" practice. Just look around, e.g. MS used it when they introduced mandatory registration.

Re:Micropayment

[Anonymous Coward]

Most micropayment systems have been proposed to reimburse someone for their creativity, such as cartoonists. While there is no doubt that there is work in screening information and providing a forum, the core information can be found freely elsewhere.

Is their presentation and forums really worth it? IMO, no, but then again, it's just my opinion.

It's interesting /. has devolved to this point, a point the article posters have, in the past, been critical off. They've often cited in the very articles about how annoying pop up ads, click through ads, and larger ads have been, and promoted other software to get around ad and ad trackers. Now, they've resorted to using it. Sorta hypocrtical.

Re:Micropayment

[mshiltonj]

...how many people are bothered by the ads on /. ?

I imagine slashdot ads would be highly targeted, since it has such a well-defined demographic. I'm actually interested in seeing what sponsors they have.

Will slashdot run ads for MSDN, .NET, or MSCE certification?

ads and such

[mrbill]

Heck, I've gotten enough enjoyment and such from reading Slashdot over the past few years, thats its worth it to me. Just paid my $20.

Re:ads and such

[ackthpt]

Agreed. It's worth it, but that's not a hint to raise the sub. rate ;)

I should pop over and see how the LNUX stock is doing, it's probably doubled by now.

Oh, and how about a meter on this thing so I can see how fast I'm going through my 1K pages?

Re:ads and such

[ptrourke]

Another hidden bennie of subscription - Instant Karma! Just say you've paid and you get an "Insightful"

Seriously, now, folks, put your money where your mouth is. If people should be willing to pay you for doing open source work, you should be willing to pay /. for providing open source news.

Re:ads and such

[lemonhed]

The whole point of Open Source is to be free. If they want to commercialize SlashDot and make it a pay system, then thye should get rid of the OSDN label and get rid of the .ORG domain name.

Then they would be a commercial site and charge for it. I just dont think its fair for someone to speak highly on the virtues of open source development but then charge for access to information regarding the open source development.

I would be happier if they charged for a printed publication or access to a "members only" section, but charging for the front page is not within the goals of open source.

Re:ads and such

[Indras]

I couldn't help but subscribe already. I realize PayPal has its problems, but I have a bit o' cash just sitting there in my count accruing interest from a recent sale. It's almost too convenient just to enter my e-mail address and password and hit "Pay." Voila, a few microseconds later, I have a slashdot home page minus ads. Awesome.

Re:ads and such

[bojengis]

I would love for a way to customize my ads. I would be willing to take part in surveys so that I wouldn't have to see X-10 and punch the monkey ads. After all, if /. has given me so much new knowledge, we can both win with ads customized for me.

Re:ads and such

[Anonymous Coward]

Open Source does not necessarily mean free of cost. Everything "costs" something-- time, money. /. is free-as-in-speech, but that doesn't immediately equate to free-as-in-beer. Your comment about charging for information is also invalid since you are paying for removing the ads, not reading the news content.

It wouldn't hurt my feelings if the "everything-should-be-free-as-in-beer" crowd left /. anyway. They are what used to be known as "leeches" when people still followed the rules of Netiquette.

Re:ads and such

[Anonymous Coward]

numbskull. you dont pay to view slashdot, you pay not to view ads. you don't like options, eh?

Re:ads and such

[cduffy]

If people should be willing to pay you for doing open source work, you should be willing to pay /. for providing open source news.

That's a fallacy. People pay me to do open source work because it's profitable for them -- all the alternatives cost more, or would require longer to implement, or whatever. I would pay /. for open source news if it met the same standard -- that is, if it gave me more benefit than the closest alternative, and more benefit than the money itself would provide if I kept it. It doesn't (the marginal utility compared to NewsForge, LWN and company is insufficient to merit parting with the price difference), so I don't pay -- and there's no discongruity between that and my use of open source as a means of making money writing good software.

Re:ads and such

[Xerithane]

I would be much more apt to pay for a subscription if Taco let go of his control. I took mild entertainment in the whole slashdot-conspiracy until I got my mod privledges revoked because I modded up an insightful comment insightful. Fuck that.

If they want my money, they can give me back my mod privledges. I won't use them, but there is no way in hell i'm going to pay for a site that does that to it's members. Moderation needs to be fixed first, then I'll pay. I already click on banner ads, probably 2x-3x more than most people do (At least once a day) so they're getting money from me that way.

Re:ads and such

[curunir]

Total Agreement. I just sent then $25. I could really care less how many "ad free" pages this gets me. I've easily gotten $25 worth of service out of /. in the 3 years I've been reading it.

I don't have a gripe with /. asking for money...they give us a quality product (well, if it was spell checked ;) and they deserve compensation. My only gripe is that they did it under the threat of advertising. I would have liked to have seen some sort of call for donations first. If they had posted a thread, "Keep /. Add Free!" with a link to a paypal donation, I would have probably given more. I would like to have seen how many loyal /.'ers would have paid money to keep the site add free for everyone. My guess is that quite a few would have done so. They could have always implemented this ad scheme afterwards.

A large portion of the /. community is part of the open source community. By definition, we give a large part of our time and energy away freely because we see the value in having quality resources be freely available. I think it shows a big lack of faith that /. doesn't believe that we would give our money freely as well.

So, Taco, please give us loyal /.ers the chance to show that we truly enjoy /. instead of showing how much we dislike advertisments.

Re:ads and such

[GrammarPhone]

"I should pop over and see how the LNUX stock is doing, it's probably doubled by now."

LNUX stock is up 4 cents today to a whopping $1.79.

Even if Slashdot somehow got a million users to sign up at $100 apiece, it wouldn't help the stock price, because the rest of VA/OSDN's failed business model would eat through that cash like a fat chick at an overturned Schwan's truck.

Slashdot barely has a salable product. Saddle it with the rest of the baggage that falls under the LNUX umbrella, and Wall Street ain't interested.

Re:ads and such

[nettdata]

Just paid my $20.

I wonder if /.would be willing to post some results of how much is being paid? I know it's pretty personal information, but it would be interesting to see some stats...

registered users get first post rights?

[Anonymous Coward]

registered users get first post rights?

Re:registered users get first post rights?

[tcr]

This could be pricey for the fp'ers who keep reloading the homepage... ;-)

PayPal?

[the phantom]

I have no problem with a subscription based /. (so long as it can still be got for free). I would pay $5 to see ad-free /. I might even pay more. We'll see how long 1000 pages lasts. However, I do not like doing business with PayPal. Please, ditch PayPal and give me an alternative!

Re:PayPal?

[T.i.m]

I don't pay because I dont Like that the rates are set in USD...

That argument is about as good as the one you had.

I gues everyone will figure out a reason why they shouldn't pay...

Re:PayPal?

[Dr. Smeegee]

I concour. Please set up a visa/mc/discover option. PayPal gives me gas.

Re:PayPal?

[aallan]

However, I do not like doing business with PayPal. Please, ditch PayPal and give me an alternative!

Ditto. I'd probably be willing to sign up for an ad free slashdot, but not if you're using PayPal.

Al.

Re:PayPal?

[the phantom]

Again, I will pay. Have have paid for several "ad-free" sites in the last months. There are other sites that I will pay for. But for the sake of the gods, I will not use PayPal. I don't trust them to deliver my money. I don't really trust them to maintain my privacy. I have had a hell of a time trying to get in touch with anyone there to answer questions I have. I bear a great deal of amnity towards PayPal. I would much rather send cash, taped to the back of a post-card.

Re:PayPal?

[Vairon]

Paypal is a VISA/MC/DISCOVER option.

Re:PayPal?

[CmdrTaco]

As mentioned in the article, and on the subscription page, we will support other payment methods. Paypal was just quick and easy, and we knew a lot of readers use it anyway.

Re:PayPal?

[compwiz3688]

New poll?

What would you like to use to pay for your ad-free /.?
1. PayPal
2. Visa
3. Master Card
4. [etc,etc]
5. CowboyNeal!!
6. CowboyNeal's credit cards

Re:PayPal?

[david614]

I concur with this. Doesn't anyone in the Slashdot hierarchy read their own site's copy on Paypal?

I will subscribe as soon as you get a different payment mechanism enabled.

Paypal is way too fraud-prone. Read http://www.paypalsucks.org if you want an example of what I am talking about.

D

Re:PayPal?

[Matey-O]

But what about the hundreds of thousands of happy PayPal Customers?

Present company included. I've had _no_ qualms or problems with 'em. Just because a vocal minority has, doesn't mean they're evil incarnate. It means they're handling a TON of transactions, having dissatisfied customers as a result is GUARANTEED.

Re:PayPal?

[the phantom]

Taco,

My other question is then: Do you want to deal with PayPal? Did you actually read the article that was on /. a few days ago? Have you seen the way that PayPal abuses customers, especcially those with large accounts?

I would hate to see /. and /. readers get gyped out of a great deal of money because PayPal is corrupt. They are not FDIC insured, and if something should happen, you have little recourse.

I egarly anticipate other means of paying. However, I think you should seriously reconsider starting a relationship with PayPal. Just my two cents.

zander

Re:PayPal?

[Taliban Lecher]

It means they're handling a TON of transactions, having dissatisfied customers as a result is GUARANTEED.

As for me it is about the HOW they were dissatisfying. And now dont tell me they had to do THAT!

Re:PayPal?

[CmdrTaco]

I personally have been using Paypal for eBay and such for some time. As I said, we're going to offer other options because we know it is a problem for many people. But we also know that millions of net users have Paypal accounts and don't have a problem with them.

Re:PayPal?

[Krellis]

dyndns.org has been accepting PayPal for the donations that keep our service running for years, and never had a problem. We've processed hundreds of thousands of dollars through PayPal, and accept more each day, and we've never had a single problem like those described on PayPalWarning.com and other sites. Those problems account for a tiny fraction of all PayPal users, and PayPal is actually improving service to big customers like us, because of these problems - people are getting scared off, and they're trying to keep the big players from running away, too. They'd be very stupid to kill OSDN's account, and they know it.

Re:PayPal?

[quinto2000]

I think you mean enmity (or animosity?), not amnity (which is not a word) or amity (which means friendship).

However, I haven't had any of the problems you describe with Pay Pal. Half of the anti-PayPal webpages I see are paid for by their competitors. They offer a useful service, and have a large customer base. The few people who do have problems are just a vocal percentage made larger by their number.

Re:PayPal?

[Anonymous Coward]

Can I send vials of LSD as payment?

Re:PayPal?

[n3r0.m4dski11z]

why dont you have your own credit card system. id trust giving slashdot my credit card more than paypal.

Re:PayPal?

[drsoran]

Again, I will pay. Have have paid for several "ad-free" sites in the last months. There are other sites that I will pay for. But for the sake of the gods, I will not use PayPal. I don't trust them to deliver my money.

See, the problem I have with paying for Internet web sites is that it becomes quickly unmanageable from an end-user perspective. Get 5 or 6 different web sits all charging different rates, different ways to pay, different people to pay, etc. I have enough of that in the "real" world between utilities, phones, car payments, house payments, etc., etc. What we need is something like Microsoft's Passport service where sites interested in subscription services could band together. Register and pay ONE place, one monthly fee and select the sites from there you want your money to allow you to access depending on how many sites your "subscription" level allows. Hmm, why do I have this awful feeling I'm writing some dot-com disaster's business plan?

Re:PayPal?

[the phantom]

Correct. Pardon my speling. EMNITY was the word I was thinking of.

Re:PayPal?

[CmdrTaco]

Did you read what I wrote in that article? Yes, we will accept credit cards directly. Paypal was just first becuase it was quick and easy to do. I also hope to get ThinkGeek to be able to accept payment for Slashdot Subscriptions too, just 'cuz I think it'd be fun ;)

Re:PayPal?

[Sodium Attack]

Millions of net users also have Microsoft products and don't have a problem with them. I think it's safe to say that there are significant differences between the average /. reader and the average net user.

(It makes little difference to me personally--as long as /. stays away from pop-ups, pop-unders, pop-afters, etc., I'll just view the ads.)

Re:PayPal?

[quinto2000]

ENMITY is surely what you meant. Actually, animosity would have been a better choice. I see that m-w lists the two as synonyms, but using enmity (with the root word enemy) implies that there is a possibility of mutual, personal hatred. I doubt that you really meant to personify PayPal to that extent. Animosity is just as strong a feeling, but doesn't imply the possibility of reciprocity.

It would be nice if Slashdot had an integrated spelling and grammar checker. Maybe that's a feature people would find worth paying a subscription for? Especially if editors were forced to use it :)

Re:PayPal?

[the phantom]

Perhaps it is just paranoia, but I am sure that PayPal hates me ^_^

Also, never having actually looked up either word in the dictionary, I had always assumed that "emnity" and "animosity" had the same root, thus "amnity", which is not a word. But, ultimatly, I consider PayPal an enemy, and emnity has a greater aesthetic (please, don't bash my spelling on that one) appeal than animosity. It fit the metre of the line.

Re:PayPal?

[DrSkwid]

no credit card = no PayPal

I use nochex becuase I can use my UK debit card and I'm not allowed a credit card

http://www.nochex.com

just a heads up :)

What's wrong with worldpay anyhow?

I probably would pay if I could pay!

Re:PayPal?

[Saib0t]

Paypal was just quick and easy, and we knew a lot of readers use it anyway.

They're spying on us, people, how else could he know our money spending habits?

(Note to Troll-Button-Happy-Moderators: yes, this is a joke)

Re:PayPal?

[quinto2000]

"Animosity" has the root "animus," which has to do roughly with a living spirit. In modern usage, it means a strong antipathetic feeling -- with the emphasis on the feeling, and the passion of that feeling. Enmity is a good word choice too, if what you really meant was the personal relationship between yourself and PayPal. I assumed that your emphasis was on the feeling. Sorry if I was wrong.

I'm not trying to bash your spelling, but do you purposefully misspell enmity? It comes from eNeMy, with the n before the m, so enmity has the same letter order.

Don't worry, your grammar is much better than most slashdotarians, and probably better than mine when I'm not in an overly pedantic mood. Just one more reason that this grammar service would be a boon to the overly anal yet lazy like myself.

Re:PayPal?

[Pope Slackman]

I don't really get all the uproar about PayPal, seems to me it's just the latest boycott bandwagon the sheeple are jumping on.

I've also done a crapload of PayPal transactions and never had a single problem with any of them.
Most of the "problems" seem to stem from people using their PayPal account as a bank account,
rather than just as a way to exchange money without resorting to snail-mail, credit processing, or wire transfers.

C-X C-S

Re:PayPal?

[Dr. Awktagon]

Yeah, PayPal is great, I've NEVER had a problem since I signed up (the day they went live) and I use it every week at least.

But, I have a question, how do you tie the PayPal payment to the slashdot account? I have different email address on PayPal and slashdot. Should I sync them up or can I put a note in the comments "this is for Dr. Awktagon" or what should I do?

Re:PayPal?

[the phantom]

Akh!!! And I was actually paying attention to the spelling! Oh, hell, blame it on dyslexia :) (47 and 74 are, in fact, the same number and, therefore, equal) Also, don't worry about bashing my spelling. I don't take myself that seriously. Now, repeat 1000 times:

enmity
enmity
enmity
enmity
enmity
...

Re:PayPal?

[CmdrTaco]

Just follow the link and it takes care of it.

Re:PayPal?

[slick_rick]

Hey Taco, dosen't work on the latest Mozilla release(Build 2002020415). I get no paypal logo at all. Sucks to 'cause I would gladly pay, even through (ugh) Paypal.

Re:PayPal?

[Hooky1963]

I'm with phantom, give me the online CC option and I'll sign up as well.

Slashdot is definately worth a few dollars of my income, even though I like the ads (only site where I do).

Cheers.

Re:PayPal?

[Darren Winsper]

For a start, Paypal don't accept Switch. Since I only have a Switch card (Which is a debit card BTW), even if I wanted to subscribe I couldn't. To be honest, I'd sooner subscribe to Transgaming than Slashdot, but once again they don't take Switch.

Re:PayPal?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure. Just like every slashdot poster who has ever tried to justify not paying for anything,

"I'd pay if only they would..."

Makes you feel better, doesn't it!

Re:PayPal?

[ChadN]

You would trust the site that keeps your password stored on the site in plaintext, and had a break-in which compromised all the passwords? You are more trusting than I...

Re:PayPal?

[zsmooth]

Nice logic. Does knowing that millions of people who don't wear seatbelts aren't killed in horrible car crashes mean you don't wear yours either?

Re:PayPal?

[ibbey]

But, I have a question, how do you tie the PayPal payment to the slashdot account? I have different email address on PayPal and slashdot. Should I sync them up or can I put a note in the comments "this is for Dr. Awktagon" or what should I do?

Just be logged in when you click on the "subscribe" page (presumably, it will make you if you aren't already). The rest is automatic.

Re:PayPal?

[Rakarra]

There's a big difference in the required security for a list of credit card numbers, and a list of passwords for essentially-worthless slashdot accounts.

Re:PayPal?

[ignorant_newbie]

Hah! this is priceless. Taco complaining that someone doesn't read the article before posting?

from someone who's never seen /. before, i could understand this, but my understanding is that taco has been on the staff for a while..

information wants you to encrypt it and then loose yuor gpg key

Re:PayPal?

[jbn-o]

Given how they do business, you don't need to have experienced problems with PayPal to have a valid complaint about PayPal. PayPal is a pyramid scheme. Your credit card protections are gone for the second leg (PayPal->recipient) leg of every PayPal transaction. Ethical businesspeople do not encourage customers to enter pyramid schemes or lose credit card protection when doing business with a credit card.

If you don't understand the implications of these shortcomings, the history of pyramid schemes suggests it will only be a matter of time until you are forced to learn the hard way.

Re:PayPal?

[eclectro]

You know, it's really great that paypal can take care of their "big" customers such as yourself and OSDN.

But what about the countless "small" customers such as myself - is it "screw them - they don't matter anyway??" I think it is.

Slashdot using paypal is a great excuse to not subscribe, especially when their are half a dozen other alternatives out there.

Slashdot should have taken a stand on this, especially when abuse by paypal is so blatant.

Re:PayPal?

[Adrian Lopez]

How do you know that only a tiny fraction of PayPal users have experienced problems with their service? Have you compared the number of PayPal users who have experienced problems to the number of paypal users who haven't experienced problems? That's the only way to know for sure. It's certainly possible that people experiencing problems with PayPal are in the minority, but not all minorities are insignificant.

Re:PayPal?

[Skapare]

Millions of net users have Microsoft Windows and don't have a problem with it. So why not make /. based on VBscript and ActiveX and other Windows specific stuff. Go look at the /. logs (for CmdrTaco) and see the stats for yourself.

Of course you do say PayPal was just the first choice because it was quick. Then you defend it for the same reason used by many sites to totally exclude minority groups (BSD and Linux users) from their sites. Now I know /. would not really exclude BSD and Linux. So please, stick to the defense of PayPal strictly in terms of how quickly it was to set up, and commit to other methods. Some others, like BidPay, are oriented to just auctions, but maybe a nice long talk with their CEO can make him realize there really is a market for micropayments to web sites ... and sell him some ads to be viewed by those who don't pay up.

BTW, I've never lost any money on PayPal in the past. Like some people have suggested to everyone ... I read the terms of service ... so now I've made sure I never will lose any money on PayPal in the future.

Re:PayPal?

[dattaway]

Perhaps team with ThinkGeek in a promotion: buy $200 worth of gadgets and get a complimentary year's subscription? Sounds like a great partnership and great opportunities for the nerdy consumer.

Re:PayPal?

[John Miles]

PayPal is a pyramid scheme

Something tells me you don't have a clue what that term means.

Call it a hunch.

Re:PayPal?

[RGRistroph]

Hi Tim.

I'm one of the people that used paypal to donate to dyndns.org.

I will never use paypal again, because they suddenly sent me an email giving me 1 day to provide a bank account link or have my account put into a pseudo-frozen state that would accept payments but not let me send money out. I had about $200 in the account, because a roommate who was moving paid off his last month's rent that way, not by my choice. I'd been slowly frittering it away on ebay purchases and donations to places like you and the freenetproject.

I escaped with my cash because I had a friend with lower standards than I would had succumbed to them and linked the account, and I immediately sent the money to him and he paid me back. Since then all my ebay transactions as well as donations to sdf.lonestar.org have been money orders.

That's not the point.

The point is, as a volunteer run service operating of off user donations, you cannot afford to associate yourself with paypal type shit. I'm not talking about just using the service; it is possible that without the easy method of payment that paypal offers, you might not exist, because it would be too troublesome to donate money. The point is, you are (fairly or unfairly) held to a higher standard because of your donation/volunteer status. Look at what happens to places like the Red Cross, UNICEF, etc whenever one of the once-a-decade scandals about how much their executives are paid comes out. People expect a business to be in it for the money; when you advertise what seems to be a more pure, more benevolent status, people react strongly to discovering that they are deceived.

I expect to donate more money to dyndns.org later this year, by check. But if you shill for people of paypal's caliber, I'll go back to having my machine mail the IP address to a yahoo account, or use a different service. If you want to depend on people's donations, you have to have a high level of respectability and trust. I think you should avoid associating with paypal more than is necessary for the survival of the system, associating with them doesn't help the mission to which you have obviously dovoted a good deal of time and pain.

You run the risk of sounding like you are saying "Hey look how paypal avoids me because I represent so much business ! They only steal from small pissants ! Now all you small guys just sign up with paypal so you can give me money."

Please don't go around talking about paypal more than you need to, especially not in high-traffic, high profile places like slashdot. Potential users of dyndns are going to see that, and back off donating, leaving more of a burden on users who are left.

Re:PayPal?

[CmdrTaco]

I really want to get ThinkGeek involved with the Slashdot subscriptions. Buy $X worth of stuff, get a Slashdot Subscription free... or else if you subscribe, you get a dollar back as a TG gift certificate. I don't know what the numbers would be, but I'd love to do it.

Re:PayPal?

[mosch]

As a dissatisfied customer, I dare you to get a useful response from their webform. I challenge you to get their customer service phone number (there's no such thing). I challenge you to free up very large sums of money, seized illegally, without cause. Oh WAIT, you CAN'T. Because they're not run like a real company, everything either goes well, or you get fucked anally.

My problem with paypal isn't that I had a problem, it's that despite long, patient efforts, I couldn't get them resolved. I couldn't get my money back. I can't send MY MONEY to anybody else.

As far as I'm concerned, paypal executives deserve jailtime for theft.

Re:PayPal?

[500Hats]

to add another email address (& link it to your PayPal account), login to your PayPal account with your primary email, and then go to the Profile area. you can add multiple email addresses to your heart's content. (& thanks for your support! :) regards,

Re:PayPal?

[KaizerWill]

well, knowing that there is a minority of car fatalities caused by seatbelts each year makes the question a lot more interesting

Slashdot is Dying.

[LunchLady]

I think the world will be a better place when this shit can of a website is dead.
When does the hardware get auctioned off? I'm going to install windows 2000 on everything I can!

Re:Slashdot is Dying.

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you implying that they don't use Windows 2000 and SQL 2000?

Another tick on /.'s doomsday clock.

Sounds like ZDNet

[Anonymous Coward]

I personally dont mind ads. If it keeps the internet free (or content sites like slashdot) I dont mind. The only ads that bug the living shit out of me are the ones on ESPN that popup and block what you are reading but are embedded in the page. As long as you dont have those I'll keep reading.

Re:Sounds like ZDNet

[Anonymous Coward]

I know what you mean... Embedded ads are cool, but be damned if im gonna put up with the snicker type ad's lycos runs!! Im not sure is ESPN is the same, but if it is.. yeah :P screw that.

Re:Sounds like ZDNet

[mattsucks]

What about allowing us to choose the types of ads we want blocked when we subscribe? ie for my $5 I want to let all the simple banner ads through, they don't bug me that much, but I want to block ALL popups or in-page ads over 1/8 page. Maybe more variables at the higher subscriptions levels. Just a thought....

Khm...

[Anonymous Coward]

> Eventually we intend to offer additional features to subscribers.

How about quality ?

Rejected submissions

[melquiades]

Access to the rejected submissions bin?

Yes, please -- with the opportunity to moderate or rank them, so the most interesting rejected submissions float to the top.

If a story gets a very positive ranking, maybe the editorial staff can give it a second thought. And if it goes the way of the troll, nobody is the worse for it.

Re:Rejected submissions

[raffe]

Access to the rejected submissions bin? Yes please.
Take a look at the other site. Works very well!!!!!

Re:Rejected submissions

[DecoDragon]

Okay, this is a me too posting that will likely never be read, but for what it's worth I'd look in the bin once in a while, and it'd be nice to have the option.

Karma

[cansecofan22]

I think you should reward the people that have high karma by droping the rates, say someone with above a 30 gets $1 off the $5 rate, 40+ gets $2 and if you are maxed out at 50 you should have it for $3 off. That way you can reward the people that really use your site and are not just trolls.

Just My $.02

Re:Karma

[gorgon]

Rewarding people with high karma with lower rates would be insane. I can't imagine how bad the karma whoring wouls get. There are enough trolls palying the oscillating karma game already, let's not give them another reason to play.

Re:Karma

[dstone]

If this happens with monetary incentives, many people will DEFINITELY pull the old Karma-whoring tricks like a single user using multiple freely registered accounts to alternate posting and modding each other until one of those accounts hits the Karma discount level. There are other techniques. Smart people, these /. readers; they'll rise to the challenge.

Re:Karma

[ArticulateArne]

Of course, this would start to give genuine, commercial value to the practice of "karma whoring." Scary.

Re:Karma

[incast]

it's a free country... those who "troll" should have access to the same fees as those who don't (although that line is so blurry taht I don't want to touch it). Price discrimination, last I checked, was still illegal.

Re:Karma

[Skim123]

I think you should reward the people that have high karma by droping the rates, say someone with above a 30 gets $1 off the $5 rate, 40+ gets $2 and if you are maxed out at 50 you should have it for $3 off. That way you can reward the people that really use your site and are not just trolls

This makes the term "Karma whoring" a lot more precise, no?

Re:Karma

[Kallahar]

Excellent idea, only problem I see is that the people most likely to pay are also the most likely to have good posts. But then again those are the people you want to keep happy :)

Re:Karma

[Dr. Smeegee]

Excellent point. Those with high Karma (by definition) are the users who add the most value to slashdot.

Perhaps a bucks worth of adlessness could be appended to a users account for every karma point, or a maximum level of points over time.

Re:Karma

[Dixie_Flatline]

To modify your idea somewhat...

Maybe we should actually use Karma for something. If you're a good poster, you're supplying content to the site. You're like an unpaid writer.

Well, that's not entirely true. Right now, you get paid in Karma. So, let people spend this currently useless resource. If you've got 50 karma, you can spend it for discounts. That way, you have to keep contributing to get a discount.

Unfortunately, the karma whoring would be rampant.

Re:Karma

[b-side.org]

what do i get for having 113? (on an old and well-preserved account..)

Re:Karma

[Derkec]

Free country yes, but as an owner of a website I have the right to give away access to it, or ban individuals who cause me trouble. At least I should.

Re:Karma

[Anonymous Coward]

Just My $.02

Don't you mean 'Just My 4 pages'?

Re:Karma

[Pandora's Vox]

wouldn't this encourage karma whoring to an excessive degree?

Re:Karma

[Shivetya]

Not a fair method.

You can almost guarantee getting nuked if you accidently state something in favor of MS, Republicans, Big Business, the RIAA, and whatnot. Even if the point is valid there are far to many people who use their moderator access to remove dissenting views.

Considering the costs they presented, let alone the fact it will still be free but with ads, no discounts are needed. (well maybe a buck or two if we kick in with wedding gifts.... )

Re:Karma

[Xerion]

Karma for sale on Ebay.

10 Karma for $1, buy 50 get 10 free!

Re:Karma

[liquidsin]

yeah, but nobody expects the trolls to pay for it in the first place. so all you're doing is reducing revenue from your one sure source.

Re:Karma

[realkiwi]

I have never understood a thing about karma (much like in real life...)

I had some then it went away. I don't know why and I don't much care...

Re:Karma

[Rupert]

This really isn't true. I frequently see (in meta-mod) posts like "W2K is stable, I run it at work with these applications" modded up, whereas posts like "W2K is stable, Linux sucks ass" and "Linux r00lz, W2K sucks ass" are modded down.

When karma whoring becomes big business, the Karma Johns will have to be more selective.

Re:Karma

[incast]

as an offerer of a good or service, you don't. Imagine on the front page of the New York Times: "$0.65 for those who buy everday; $1.65 otherwise," or, "$0.65 for visible minorities; $1.65 otherwise."

Re:Karma

[smack_attack]

ha

Re:Karma

[Rogerborg]

• are enough trolls palying the oscillating karma game already

Wow, your momma said exactly the same thing last night while I was assraping her!

(Hmm, if I point out that I'm burning karma to reenforce the posters's point, would that stop the negative mods and defeat the purpose, which is to, er, burn karma to reenforce the poster's point? Let's find out!)

Re:Karma

[Rogerborg]

• If you're a good poster, you're supplying content to the site. You're like an unpaid writer

What site are you talking about? This is Slashdot, where Jon Katz gets paid to troll!

This isn't a flippant comment: all of the posts that I've made that attracted a dozen or more replies (e.g. are valuable content) have also attracted a slew of mod points, and most ended up as net negatives. Controversy, not popularity or whoring, brings the most eyeballs (and advertising revenue) to Slashdot.

Re:Karma

[daoine]

While in theory it's a good idea -- you've also got one of the major flaws in your sig:
If you don't like it, ignore it. All negative mods are meta-moderated 'unfair'. ALL OF THEM.
If the majority of people M2 this way, people aiming for the 'karma discount' aren't going to moderate negatively, even if they feel as such, because their karma will ultimately be hurt by M2.
Furthermore, anyone feeling like knocking down someone with something positive to say could do so by M2ing the positives unfair.
While both of these are a little extreme, I think it makes the point that the system generally works ok now BECAUSE karma has no real value. People moderate and meta moderate to either contribute to the group, or be an obnoxious pain in the ass, but overall - no real love is lost. Putting a price tag on the damage done just opens up a can of worms...

Re:Karma

[ackthpt]

Karma's too easy to get as it is. If you didn't get karma for Funny that might be another matter, but what you are suggesting is as a contributing poster you get a discount. Well, that's pretty much a minefield and for $5 it can be dodged, heck, I probably made $5 while I was sitting here typing.

Re:Karma

[Phroggy]

hey, I only do it for the money.

Re:Karma

[DrCode]

How about rewarding people who write (or document or test) Free software?

Re:Karma

[linzeal]

If people are seriously working themselves (and us over in the process) for a measly few bucks than they are probably are real whores anyways and Commander Taco should get their phone numbers so he can pimp them out for money.

Re:Karma

[FortKnox]

What about changing that idea around?

Free 100 pages to a person for submitting an article?

Submitted news is the livelihood of slashdot, and it helps out some of us that have submitted a lot of published articles.

Re:Karma

[FortKnox]

Whoops... I meant free 100 pages for submitting a published article.

Hope I didn't confuse.

Re:Karma

[Bouncings]

Oh, great, money for karma. Why not trade it too? On a market, called "KarmaDaq" -- I could resell karma. Karma pimp?

This karmakrap has gone far enough. No buying karma, dammit.

Re:Karma

[subgeek]

actually magazine and newspaper subscriptions are cheaper than the newstand price. thus those who buy everyday (all at once by subscribing) do pay less than those who buy otherwise (occasionally at newstands).

although i think linking karma and prices at all is a bad idea, there are ways it can be legal. those with low karma are not an ethnic group. systems could be devised that worked around a singling out of any specific group. it would probably work better to reward rather than punish. high karma posters are compensated for there "contributive work" to slashdot. that's just one example.

the introduction of a karma/money economic is still a bad, bad idea, though

Re:Karma

[gorgon]

Well, rewarding published stories with pages would just lead to more whining from people who didn't get there {earlier|more correct|grammatically proper} version of the story published version of a story. It doesn't seem like its worth the trouble. Karma is plenty of an award for submitting stories.

Re:Karma

[smoothie99]

>> That way you can reward the people that really use your site and are not just trolls.

Also making the people who (like me) just read the headlines have to pay more. I don't usually even read the discussion postings. The guys who post a lot cause WAY more of a bandwidth drain then I do, since they obsessively cruise the forums.

Also I understand that some genius is going to make the comment "well, uhhhh, you're uhhhh, posting now! har har har you are a hypocrite!". I do tend to read what people have to say when it comes to the service itself.

How about a headlines-only service? That way it's not much of a drain on bandwidth, and you could charge like half for it or something.

Re:Karma

[bonzoesc]

Actually, from what I understand, real whores make enough money to pass $20/year off to CmdrTaco.

Re:Karma

[Sodium Attack]

if you are maxed out at 50 you should have it for $3 off [the $5 base]

Sounds good to me. As CmdrTaco notes, over half of all posters would need to pay this much per month to view /. ad-free, so this represents, let's say, a $36 per year savings to such users.

I'll sell you my karma-capped account for $20.

Re:Karma

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me know whan that's going to happen; I'll troll off the extra 20 before it goes into effect.

~~~

Re:Karma

[cduffy]

You can almost guarantee getting nuked if you accidently state something in favor of MS, Republicans, Big Business, the RIAA, and whatnot.

As a Libertarian, I frequently post in favor of big business (not that I like them particularly, but because I like big government less), and have yet to be modded down for it.

At least, I think so. Unless that's what attracted the asshole who (all at once) spent his 5 mod points on calling my posts (in several different articles) 'overrated'.

Re:Karma

[cascadefx]

Then you should make the karma discount only apply for karma granted from other subscribers. That way a person could have multiple accounts and do what you describe, but would have to pay for each account... making it a moot point anyway... or at least a profitable one for /.

Re:Karma

[mrmud]

Uh.. how about us people that don't troll and don't really care to try to get our karma up? We just kinda sit on the side lines and watch the rest of you.

Re:Karma

[Winged Cat]

1. What, and high-karma accounts can't be auctioned off as it is? ^_-
   
2. Karma whoring involves posting and not being a blatant troll. Only a small percent of Slashdot's readers manage to do that (much more because most prefer to lurk, vs. not being a troll). If commercial value encourage more people to do so, then why not?

Re:Karma

[dillon_rinker]

Let's flip this on its head...paying customers should have no karma cap.

Re:Karma

[Malc]

Getting karma really isn't very hard. It seems to me, the more you post, the more karma you get, no matter what your posting attitude is like. I don't remember when this account last went below a karma of 47 (heh: prompt the -ve moderation!), although I don't go trolling or being nasty. I tried an experiment about a year ago for a short time with an account I created for the purpose. I deliberately trolled and and baited people. The karma was up and down - below zero a couple of times, but it was easy to get it back up again.

So no, I don't think karma is a good metric for determining subscription rates.

Also, if somebody were to post a comment that somebody else didn't like, no matter how valid and fair the comment was, that other person could abuse their moderation points at a later date and take away somebody's subscription discount. And no, I don't believe meta moderation is always going to protect against that kind of thing.

Re:Karma

[Coombez]

I noticed that most replies to this comment mentioning 'Karma Whoring' got modded up. So I thought I'd try to whore some karma by posting my own completely irrelavent reply also mentioning 'Karma Whoring' (twice even :)

Re:Karma

[KDENCE]

This sucks, I would have to pay more than anyone else!

Re:Karma

[BlackSol]

look at the XML
and add it to your page. Same diff?

Re:Karma

[Electrum]

"$0.65 for those who buy everday; $1.65 otherwise,"

Last I knew, they had this, have always had this, and will continue to have this. Since when do you pay news stand price to have the paper or a magazine delivered to your door every day / week / month?

Re:Karma

[BlackSol]

Actually let them Karma whore.

In order to karma whore they have to either: cause alot of page impressions
or
use their paid for pages from their subscription

So if the discount is less than the cost/page then it doesn't make sense to karma whore.

Also as long as you can never get to a $0 transaction its still a + cash sale for slashdot.

Re:Karma

[j7953]

Well, it might cause moderators to be more careful about not modding karma whore posts up, because they know the poster gets ad-free pageviews for it.

Re:Karma

[LegendLength]

A better solution might be to allow paying members to donate 'credits' to posters if they feel it was a worthy post. On a different system than karma.

Re:Karma

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that how it works?! Damn, all this time I've been posting as an AC I could have been whoring the right way!!

Re:Karma

[Derkec]

Not only is it cheaper to buy it everyday, they'll also deliver it to your house. You're right on the visible minorities issue, but that's another matter entirely.

Paypal. What about us foreign readers!

[October_30th]

Currently we only accept payment via paypal

Which is a nice way to prevent subscription by all us foreign readers/contributors. Thank you very much.

Besides Paypal sucks.

Disappointing..

[sudog]

The subscription model is permeating everywhere. It's sad, and disappointing to have to choose to pay a small fee for the hundreds of websites I visit (and fork out literally hundreds upon hundreds of dollars) or to have to sit here and view large obnoxious ads.

Gee, I wonder what I'll do?

Let's try browsing with graphics turned off. *click* Ahh.. better.

Re:Disappointing..

[drDugan]

technology will eliminate this possibility soon too -- I do it all the time, but it's not too hard to stop sending stuff to clients that don't view your ads.

Re:Disappointing..

[Mattcelt]

Doesn't matter. Just b/c the ads are downloaded, doesn't mean they have to be displayed...

'Where there's a system, there's a way around it.' -Indica

It's a hand-over-hand thing. Someone always comes out with a way to trump the other guy, who then turns around and trumps it right back.

I think my incentive to not view ads is every bit as motivating as a company's incentive to get me to view them.

Re:Disappointing..

[sudog]

Unless you *require* human interaction in the process by making something complicated solvable only by some bit of information contained in the ad itself, you'll never be able to force me to look at graphics I don't want or need to view.

Not only that, but if the webpage won't even display unless I download the graphic, then--hello proxy! Proxy my friend and compatriot. Proxy does the download, and replaces it with an image of a nude woman. Ad gone, pleasant graphic remains, and the only thing I'm out is the bandwidth in downloading the image to fool the server into thinking I'm "looking" at their ad.

Big deal.

Re:Disappointing..

[cascadefx]

I agree in some sense. But I am willing to subscribe to /. for a measely $5... I will be subscribing soon. I could care less about the ads. As it is, /. is one of the few sites that I don't filter at the moment. I even click through some ads that look interesting... at least they are somewhat targeted.

I think they should implement a micro-ad policy as well. The average user buying the smaller banner type ads for whatever purpose for a small payment (heck, the bigger players don't want those ads anymore, might as well release them to the people).

Might this be an opportunity in the making? Instead of paying $1-5 here and there... pay a central authority for access to affiliated sites. I know this has shades of Passport (which I don't support), but it could be great. Pay $5 to OSDN and get access to every OSDN site (I bet they are all going to try out similar policies in the future), not just Slashdot (Linux.com, Newsforge.com, Freshmeat.net). Or pay $3 to NewsFactor Network for access to all of its affiliated sites like OS Opinion and so forth. It should cut down on some of the payments. Then each affiliate would get its cut based on unique page views or some other metric.

I guess I am saying that a network TV or Radio model might work a little better here.

I could be completely off base... but if not and hiring personnel from OSDN, NewsFactor, or some other "web network" are reading, I am willing to entertain consulting or full-time position opportunities =^) .

Re:Disappointing..

[EvilStein]

Here's the problem with the idea of "Oh, it's just a measley $5...":
When you suddenly have ALL of your favourite websites saying "Hey, it's just $5! That's so cheap!" it sounds cheap to them, but to you, the reader, it's not. Next thing you know you're paying $20...$40..$60 per month to read websites that used to be free. It adds up really quick.

What's next? people pirating web content that they're paying for? Cutting/pasting Salon articles and putting them on their own website? People already do this with porn sites, why not text as well?

Re:Disappointing..

[julez]

That's why I started using Lynx again.

Metered pricing vs. flat rate

[2Flower]

I'm not sure about this -- not that I refuse to pay, since I understand the web won't survive on a free-for-all basis forever. What I don't like is the fact that you pay for a number of pageviews, not for a period of time or some other flat rate.

Flat rate pricing has two advantages: simplicity, and comfort. It's simple to say 'Okay, no ads for a year for $x.' No need to count the pages you visit, or wonder if reloads count, or if changing the threshold settings to go from 500 posts to 15 is going to count as an add-free counter item.

Comfort, because I hate nervously watching a meter deplete and trying to optimize my web viewing habits in order to make sure I don't run out. When you say 82% of folks are covered... don't forget that this site caters to the hardcore sorts that participate the most and are likely to fall into the 18% that have to worry. I've never counted my page views, so I can't even tell if I fit that 18%.

And all things considered, I'd rather browse with javascript off and image loading off than worry about depleting my ad-free views. It's less hassle. Which means less profit for you, but that's free market in action... maybe when you add those value-added feature you're thinking about we'll be getting somewhere.

Re:Metered pricing vs. flat rate

[tomblackwell]

You can't make money selling a metered resource at a flat rate. Hence, the dot-com crash.

Re:Metered pricing vs. flat rate

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree, it has to be a flat rate or I'm just not interested.

When Slashdot originally brought up the idea of a subscription I thought to myself that it would be one of the few sites to get money from me. I read it often and get a lot out of it so I don't have any problem parting with cash. But as soon as there's a meter attached I feel like I'm on the clock, that there's a price to following just one more comment or reading a questionable story.

A flat rate of $20/year would be fine (even more than that), but anything metered I'm just not interested in. If the large ads begin to annoy me I'll visit less or work around them.

Re:Metered pricing vs. flat rate

[Anonymous Coward]

Tell this to local phone companies, or ISPs.

I'm not saying it's not harder, but you're clearly wrong.

Re:Metered pricing vs. flat rate

[Omnifarious]

Umm, the dot com crash happened because the 'flat rate' was generally '0', not because they had a flat rate for a metered resource. Sorry to *ahem* burst your bubble.

Re:Metered pricing vs. flat rate

[CmdrTaco]

I'd like to do a flat rate, but we have a tiny percentage of users that load thousands of pages a week.

This system works well for 82% of Slashdot readers- for them the cost is the same as a typical magazine.

Re:Metered pricing vs. flat rate

[mikeee]

Wonder if I'm one of them? I really don't know.

But are those users a serious extra expense, or is your fixed overhead so high it doesn't matter? I would have thought salaries, not bandwidth, was the bulk of the cost of slashdot...?

Re:Metered pricing vs. flat rate

[Cro Magnon]

I have no idea how many pages I view. I don't like keeping track of how many pages I view. It's not the big deal-killer, but it is a factor.

Re:Metered pricing vs. flat rate

[Dephex Twin]

I'd like to do a flat rate, but we have a tiny percentage of users that load thousands of pages a week.

Yes, but those people will still be there whether you have a flat rate or a per-use rate. If it is expensive for those people to pay per 1000 pages, they will do the no-subscription route.

Plus, now that you'll be getting payments from lots of people for the site, you can afford the minority doing this.

The comfort and convenience of a flat-rate service *far* exceeds getting those few obsessed pay loaders to *possibly* pay extra money (if they do decide to pay).

mark

Re:Metered pricing vs. flat rate

[aallan]

I'd like to do a flat rate, but we have a tiny percentage of users that load thousands of pages a week.

But my guess would be that the tiny percentage are the people that are actually posting real content (as opposed to crud which is immediately modded down as trolling). Isn't it a bad idea to change the people providing the content more than the rest who are just sponging off them?

Never having counted my page views I haven't a clue which category I fall into, I'll wait for the ads and see how horrendous I find them, and then I might pay, so long as I don't have to use PayPal.

Al.

Re:Metered pricing vs. flat rate

[FooKuff]

Why not? Simply add up the cost to provide the whole metered service, divide by the number of people who will pay for the service, add in your 12% for a return on your assets/investment, and there you go.

And yes, that's simplifying it, but it's not fookin' rocket science.

While I haven't studied the dot-coms intensely, I suspect most of the "crash" is related to them having overvalued stocks and the fact that most of them generated little in the way of actual sales (advertising or otherwise) revenue. That and the fact that most dot-coms seemed to have little in the way of products, true value-adds in the service category, and no real effective way to place advertizing (to draw in ad revenues). I don't see selling a "metered service" as the hard part here.

Re:Metered pricing vs. flat rate

[CmdrTaco]

To put it in perspective, the 3% of readers who read Slashdot the most load 25 times the pages as normal users.

Re:Metered pricing vs. flat rate

[CmdrTaco]

Bingo!

Re:Metered pricing vs. flat rate

[agrounds]

I know for a fact that I fit into that 18%, and possibly the 3%. Between my wife and I, who both use my UID, we live on this website. Constant updating, reading damn near all the posts of +2 or higher that don't involve Jon Katz, etc. Shit, we even use the slashboxes as our link section to the world, since you have every site I read regularly in a slashbox. I really think you should consider a flat fee option, even if it is higher than the paypal metered option, for straight unmetered monthly access. I know that my UID must hit /. at least 100 times a day... Please consider a monthly unmetered rate as a viable alternative to supplement the metered access. I'll gladly fork over some cash if I can continue my current use of /.

Re:Metered pricing vs. flat rate

[tomblackwell]

"Why not? Simply add up the cost to provide the whole metered service, divide by the number of people who will pay for the service, add in your 12% for a return on your assets/investment, and there you go."

You can't add up the cost to provide the whole metered service. The only way you could possibly do this is to limit the number of page views because upstream bandwidth providers charge Slashdot a certain amount per page view (without limit). There is no "total cost" unless it is somehow limited. Once we do that, you end up paying so many dollars for so many pageviews. Which is exactly what they are proposing.

Re:Metered pricing vs. flat rate

[CmdrTaco]

Yeah this is kinda a problem. Subscribers at least get that data, but we don't bother tracking it for everyone. You could subscribe and see how fast you chew through the thousand pages... also you can to choose you page types. So if you just hide banner ads on article.pl... well you get the idea.

Re:Metered pricing vs. flat rate

[CmdrTaco]

Frankly we doubt that 3% will really pay us at all. Notice the venom posted in this discussion: this comes largely from that very 3%. Its ironic that those who profess to hate us the most also load the most pages ;)

Re:Metered pricing vs. flat rate

[erasmus_]

So basically, "subscribe in order to see if a subscription would make sense for you." Right? I'm required to not cache pages for several web applications I work with, and this means every back page is a reload. Just as an estimate, I bet I go through at least a hundred pages a day by that logic, from reading and replying to comments, MetaModerating and seeing context, responding to posts, participating in polls, and so on.

I think a 1000 seems like a really low number to me, and I know this will make me afraid to click on any pages I'm not sure I need if I subscribe.

Re:Metered pricing vs. flat rate

[CmdrTaco]

Here's the thing tho. It sounds like you want to subscribe. Put in $5, and set Slashdot to display ads on comments & the index. You'll still have the big ads on articles suppressed (and any other benefits of subscribing) and it'll take awhile to chew through those pages.

We don't expect everyone to subscribe. And we know that most people won't subscribe to suppress ads. We just want to give people the ability to pay if they want to, and to give them something in return.

Re:Metered pricing vs. flat rate

[mikeee]

No doubt. My point was just that if 80% of your costs are more-or-less unrelated to page views (userid tracking, etc) those users only cost you 6X as much as a normal user. Maybe less, it's sticky math.

You have to distinguish between actual profit (which is fuzzy) and marginal profit.

Suppose you have a fixed overhead of $500k/year, and a billion pages views a year by a hundred thousand users that cost you another $500k.

A flat rate of $10/year, or a per-page rate of .1 cent, will break-even overall.

However, for any given user (consider a new one, but it doesn't really matter), you break even incrementally at an average of $5, or .05 cent per page. You come out ahead at .06 per page. Very similar economics to software.

And psychologically, people prefer flat-rate pricing, even when it's obviously more expensive.

I guess my point is that at a fixed rate, the heavy users will end up paying for a disproportionate share of overhead. Maybe some kind of volume discount as a happy middle ground between flat and per-page rate?

Re:Metered pricing vs. flat rate

[Dammital]

Ticket books went the way of the dinosaur 20 years ago at the Disney theme parks. One flat (expensive) fee at the gate, and all the rides you want.

The Rat made a killing.

Re:Metered pricing vs. flat rate

[the phantom]

Just out of curiosity, is there any compilation of statistics any where? What does the user curve look like? Is it normal? Is it somehow skewed? What do the bottom 3% of users look like? What is the mean number of page loads per user?

Maybe most peolpe don't much care, but I would like to see a statistical analysis of /. reading habit, perhaps in the faq or in a story. It might be interesting.

Re:Metered pricing vs. flat rate

[Hadlock]

could you release some more statistics related to what percentage of users do x number of page views?

putting a one liner in the user's info page telling them where they stand in relationship to average page views per week/year would be not only helpful in deciding on a payment plan, but interesting also.

some more details about page views would be helpful. are userinfo, journal, and story submission pages metered?

one last thing, i'd pay an extra $10/year to be able to read all the story submissions in the que; i'm sure there's a ton of stuff i'm missing out on

Re:Metered pricing vs. flat rate

[Dammital]

we have a tiny percentage of users that load thousands of pages a week

I sit at my desk at work, and probably punch -reload- a couple hundred times over the course of the week, at idle moments.

That behavior is sure gonna change in a hurry.

Re:Metered pricing vs. flat rate

[CmdrTaco]

If you load 100 pages a day, then as I said before, you are in the 3% of users for whom the subscription is not ideal. Its really targetted at the other 97% of readers who read less then 30 pages a day.

I'm sorry we don't have a system in place to tell you your activity in advance, but those realtime updates are DB hogs and we don't do them for everyone.

Re:Metered pricing vs. flat rate

[jgerman]

I agree, but don't attribute as the only cause. The primary cause was that peopel who shouldn't have been in business were because of the almost nonexistent startup costs. In the same way that certain programming languages that are optimized for "ease of usr" allow people to start programming who really shouldn't be.

Re:Metered pricing vs. flat rate

[tomblackwell]

There are a limited number of rides at disney. The cost of the resources that they are selling (access to rides) is, practically speaking, limited. Note that they do not provide unlimited hotdogs or pop or Cadillacs or bandwidth with the price of admission, because these have a per-unit cost that prevents them from doing so.

If you owned a buffet, and a NFL football team showed up after you opened and ate all of your food and demanded more, what would you do? You'd kick them out. Flat rate, "unlimited" offers are always limited (somehow) for this reason. They don't crow about it, but it's true. If you go searching for web space, some companies will proudly tell you that they provide unlimited bandwidth. They don't. Once your usage hits a certain level, they kick you out, or charge you more. That's just the way it is. People pay their rent by selling stuff. People don't pay their rent for long by buying stuff at a certain price per unit and then selling it on an unlimited basis.

Re:Metered pricing vs. flat rate

[morgus morphus]

I've had to consider the same for a site that I'm working on, an online game where some users get several thousand page views each day.

Aside from the obvious tweaks to reduce bandwidth costs, that is compressing pages (implies a fairly high CPU hit but probaly not as bad if you're using perl in the first place), and finding a cheaper supplier of bandwidth, it wasn't very hard to work out that while we may loose money on some users, everything will work out just fine on average.

And of course those users are probably the very ones you don't want to drive away from your site as they may be some of the best contributors.

Re:Metered pricing vs. flat rate

[CmdrTaco]

We figure that people are going to subscribe on the honor system anyway, so this just doesn't really matter. Users who really don't want ads will run Junkbuster.

Re:Metered pricing vs. flat rate

[tester13]

Since when?

I pay for my cable bill at a flat rate
I pay for my Newspaper sub at a flat rate
I pay for my local phone at a flat rate

None of these companies are making money?

Re:Metered pricing vs. flat rate

[renehollan]

You know, it would be nice if the view meter was put in place before subscriptions went into effect, so people could have a better idea of theyr viewing habits. Honestly, I really don't know how many pages I view in a day/week/month.

Also, I'd think that one of the attractions of this site is user-participation and dialog. Perhaps +5 posts should gain some small number of free views. Heck, any non-negative posts should get at least 1 or 2 free views.

Re:Metered pricing vs. flat rate

[jgerman]

You been here four hour, you go home now you not come back.

The above reference may be too obscure for anyone to recognize, but heh I may be suprised.

Re:Metered pricing vs. flat rate

[CmdrTaco]

82% read 10 or fewer pages a day. 15% read 30 or less. 3% read more than 30 a day.

We don't track it per user and don't plan to, so we won't be putting that info in your user info page. Sorry, the DB just can't handle that load.

Currently pages that are not index/comments/article are shown ad-free provided you are a subscriber and have ads suppressed on at least one of the three page types. Those pages aren't counted.

The queue thing is quite possible someday.

Re:Metered pricing vs. flat rate

[Anonymous Coward]

When Slashdot originally brought up the idea of a subscription I thought to myself that it would be one of the few sites to get money from me. I read it often and get a lot out of it so I don't have any problem parting with cash.

No problem, then. Pay.

Don't worry about the "clock", just filter ads as usual. The first 1000 pageloads, you get no ad. The next 1000 pageloads, you get a 1x1 invisible image where an ad would have been.

There. You're still supporting Slashdot, and you're still not seeing ads, and there's no ticking clock to make you nervous. You win.

Re:Metered pricing vs. flat rate

[BattyMan]

To put it in perspective, the 3% of readers who read Slashdot the most load 25 times the pages as normal users.

And these are half your posters. NOT the crowd you want to see go away, especially if lots of those paeges are previews of their posts......

Re:Metered pricing vs. flat rate

[FooKuff]

It is not limited in theory maybe, but in practice Slashdot traffic is going to be fairly predictable (except on days like 2001-09-11). Everyday Slashdot gets x number of page views. Because the traffic levels and overall growth/decline patterns are likely to be stable, forecasting future page view levels should not be overly difficult.

That is, until you throw monkey-wrenches into the pattern that fook it all up, like suddenly charging for a previously free service. That's where some market research would be handy. In this case: Slashdot asks 1000 random users to fill out a survey and among the questions are some related to subscriptions and pricing. Then based on those users' habits (obtained from the logs) and their answers, assumptions can be drawn about the level of subscription that would be obtained at various price points. Presumably the price points which allow for the greatest maximization of profit would be chosen for the first roll-out.

And in a way, rolling out pricing the way they are achieves some of this. They will quickly get data on how much people are willing to pay and in what amounts.

Re:Metered pricing vs. flat rate

[Dephex Twin]

Frankly we doubt that 3% will really pay us at all.

Well, then please don't rule out a flat-rate model.

Here's why a pay-per-view model doesn't work in the Slashdot world: those people whom the model is trying to limit are people who won't pay. This would be fine if Slashdot was not public. Those people wouldn't pay, you'd make less money, but your costs would be less too. Since that isn't the case for Slashdot, you'll have less income because of people who don't like the pay-per-view, but you'll still have the same cost as you have now!

mark

Re:Metered pricing vs. flat rate

[Tuzanor]

You may want to put the "meter" on the main page for paying users (if its not already like that). That way we can see just how much we've got left so we can plan ahead to reload our money.

As for me paying, I'll do it when (1) I can do it without using paypal and (2) after a month or 2 when its matured and the kinks are woven out...unless these new pig ads that are coming are REALLY annoying. We'll see.

Re:Metered pricing vs. flat rate

[CmdrTaco]

No doubt. But we're not doing anything that makes them "Go Away". We're just provided ad-free pages to those who want it. We're not punishing people who choose not to subscribe... well, they will see the new ad format, but thats just an inevitable part of trying to survive in the post hype net.

Re:Metered pricing vs. flat rate

[Dammital]

Note that they do not provide unlimited hotdogs or pop or Cadillacs...

Right, those are material assets with a capital cost that can only be sold once.

... or bandwidth with the price of admission

Indeed they do "give" away the bandwidth (e.g. the wait in lines, the seat in the auditorium). These are operating costs, and are fixed -- whether the stands are half full, the show goes on.

Disney did really well when they ditched the ride metering and hiked the admission price. And the customers were happier. Is there a lesson here? Maybe.

Re:Metered pricing vs. flat rate

[tomblackwell]

Don't get all metaphorical on me.

By bandwidth, I meant bandwidth. It is sold with a certain price per gigabyte. They can't give it away without limits. I was being somewhat sarcastic, since very few members of their target audience come to Disney looking for bandwidth.

Seats in the auditorium are limited, and have an upper limit as to cost. It is feasible to price access to this resource on a flat-rate basis.

Re:Metered pricing vs. flat rate

[Anonymous Coward]

But are pants available at a flat rate, or pay-per-use?

Re:Metered pricing vs. flat rate

[rfsayre]

can you make money with posters slandering advertisers that appear next to their posts?

Re:Metered pricing vs. flat rate

[Winged Cat]

What the other poster said, but more simply: you do have a "total cost", historically, and the odds are that your total cost per month over the next few months will be similar. So, use that as your total cost, padded a bit for safety margin and profit.

Re:Metered pricing vs. flat rate

[lblack]

You've just equalled "Those who profess to hate us the most" with "those who provide us with free content". Pause a moment, and wonder if those 3% are "those who actually care". Then, wonder if maybe their ranting against you would, in a kinder environment, have taken the form of suggestions for improvement. You can only suggest something so many times and be ignored / discarded before you start getting all jiggy with it.

You're running a site where 3% of your users provide content to the other 97%. You've just said that you doubt the 3% will ever pay. Do you think they're going to not pay, and continue to provide you with free content? Particularly taking into account the "venom posted in this discussion"?

Taco, you're running a magazine of sorts. 75% of your writers and researchers are screaming their heads off at you, and your response is that you doubt they'll pay you at all. You should probably be wondering who, exactly, is going to pay you at all if those 3% leave.

It's strange that of the 3% who make this site worth visitng, probably 20% of them are no longer allowed to moderate, and 75% of them are yelling at you right now, and you're so blase about the entire affair. Aren't you just a little bit worried? Particularly if your ads are large enough to screw page formatting and make everything ugly when filtered by proxomitron or junkbuster, those 3% might not be around for much longer.

I respect what you've done with this place (aside from $rtbl'ing me and a couple thousand others), and I know this decision is driven by your advertisers, and your corporate parent, but I can't believe that what I'm saying here passed under your radar. I assume these concerns were raised, addressed, and resolved -- so tell me, what was the resolution?

I'm worried Slashdot is going to die. Assure me that this is not the case, that these new measures are not going to cause all of your unpaid content providers to scatter on the wind.

-l

Re:Metered pricing vs. flat rate

[ryantate]

You can't make money selling a metered resource at a flat rate. Hence, the dot-com crash.

Ya, that's hy AOL never turned a profit and went out of business ... remember them?

Seriously, wasn't the problem more like "you can't make money giving away a resource for free?" Or, "you can't make money selling something no one wants to buy."

Do you really think AOL would be around right now if they had stuck with per-minute pricing? Also, note that Consumer Reports and WSJ both make money online with flat-rate pricing.

Re:Metered pricing vs. flat rate

[aiken_d]

What? I've got to disagree here, for two reasons:

1) If slashdot is anything like my company, network bandwidth, while significant, is a small percentage of overhead. Things like salaries do not increase with pageviews. While metrics and pageviews are certainly important to /., I can't believe that their costs would double if pageviews did. I know that my overall operating costs go up about 10% with doubled pageviews.

2) The dot coms didn't crash because they were "selling metered resources at a flat rate." They crashed, largely, because they were operating in the "lose money on every customer, make it up in volume" business model. Some were in metered resources, some weren't. If your aphorism was true, golf clubs wouldn't exist, amusement parks wouldn't offer season passes, and we'd pay by the hour for software usage. Er.

That said, I'm going to go ahead and pay their $5/month. But I think it's a real mistake for a community site to implement a pricing model that discourages pageviews, and which penalizes its most active members. But, hey, I applaud the market experiment. If I find it's costing me too much, I'll just use the site less.

Cheers
-b

Re:Metered pricing vs. flat rate

[Soko]

Bingo!- ? Bingo....Hmmmmm....

Karma Bingo! Yet another revenue stream for OSDN... ;-)

Soko

Re:Metered pricing vs. flat rate

[5KVGhost]

I believe you are missing the point. If I understand you correctly, that 3% includes the largest and most frequent contributors. Their postings to the message boards are likley a large part the reason why the other 97% of visitor are here.

They're also the ones who are likely to take greatest offense to the new advertising, either on general principles or simply because they see so much more of it because they're here more often.

The incentive offered for subscribing is to remove the ads. But by charging the most frequently contributing users more to achieve the same effect you're creating a disincentive for participation among the population you need the most. If you want to keep them around it follows that they should be the ones most lightly touched by your new subscription scheme, but the reverse is currently true.

Consider aborting this plan and go to a flat rate, or at least offer it an option.

Re:Metered pricing vs. flat rate

[po_boy]

Ah, the sounds of a Chinese all-you-can-eat buffet.

Re:Metered pricing vs. flat rate

[Hatter]

I'm sure tons of people are wondering what category they fall into in your break down of the readers. Since you apparently have access to the data, would there be a way to give each user a (maybe approximate) count of how many pages they use in a month/week/whatever? Something on users.pl maybe?

Re:Metered pricing vs. flat rate

[NutscrapeSucks]

Why not provide a reward for providing content? Something like 500 'free' pageviews for each net positive moderation or story submission. (Although that could be abused, it's just ads.)

Re:Metered pricing vs. flat rate

[mekkab]

Eat some vegetable! It's good for you!!! You no come here anymore!

Somebody set us up the bomb! (oh wait, sorry...)

Re:Metered pricing vs. flat rate

[jdavidb]

Rob, I have 50 karma and have never been asked to moderate. I love this site, but I'm very confused. Some people talk like they moderate every day. On use Perl; I get to moderate once a week. (Ask Pudge about me.)

Everything seems to be set up all right on this end. I've clicked "willing to moderate." How often do people usually get to moderate? Is it just that there's so many valid moderators that it's going to take forever and I should just be patient? Or is there something stopping me from moderating?

If you look into this, find there's a problem, fix it, and email me, I'll pay up immediately!

Re:Metered pricing vs. flat rate

[arn@lesto]

Who decided that the value of an ad-free Slashdot was equivalent to that of a typical magazine?

There is a general failure in all of the new entertainment ventures. They forget that people have a real or imagined budget for their entertainment:

• Spending $20 here means that something else will lose $20. A decision to buy a new magazine means I'll drop one of the other ones I used to pay for.
• It's not just money, it is also time. I have a limited amount of time for entertainment. Time I spend watching a DVD is time I don't spend watching cable TV.

People don't like metered services. It's too complicated and unpredictable. It doesn't allow the easy comparison of two services. Look at the failure of metered bandwidth ISPs.

While you may be putting a price on the value of advertising, because you are counting page views you are encouraging a mental model of pricing the content. The content comes from us and we'll start wanting something in return for moderating and posting. If people that are active and valuable contributors start to feel that they are being used they will go elsewhere where they feel that they are not being used. There will always be places on the web where people can post their opinions for free.

By ignoring economics, human psychology and history, Slashdot will become another lesson on how-not-to-make-it-pay.

Re:Metered pricing vs. flat rate

[bruckie]

You can't make money selling a metered resource at a flat rate.

Er... you mean like AOL's $23.95/month internet service? Or perhaps the newly-unveiled AT&T Unlimited Plan? Or local telephone service in the U.S.?

Re:Metered pricing vs. flat rate

[jdavidb]

Now how in the world is my other comment offtopic? I just don't want to pay if there's something messed up in my account, and I'm starting to suspect there is.

Part of what always made slashdot fun was thinking I'd get to moderate some day. If my account's hung by some technical glitch, I don't want to pay until I know it's fixed.

Re:Metered pricing vs. flat rate

[edhall]

Just my opinion, as someone who's been here a while: It isn't the frequent posters that make Slashdot worth reading to me. They're a bunch of fast-typing know-it-alls who could be replaced by AI programs for all I care. It's the folks who wait until a particular subject comes up that they actually have something to say about, something that their experience or education makes especially relevent to them -- and, frequently, to us. The sad thing is that the hyper-posters usually get there first, and are the ones who get all the mod points before the moderators get tired of scrolling or move on to the next topic.

So I'm happy that the hyper-posters will start to "pay" for the privilege of publishing their mildly-original but ultimately vacuous screeds.

-Ed

Re:Metered pricing vs. flat rate

[deadtreerus]

I will pay $20/year for this site to remain like it is. The economics breaks down for me very simple.I get to read about a wide variety of subjects in a timely and presorted wheat from chaff manner.I get the unbiased opinion of a large variety of generally intelligent and hip geeks. I get to read uncensored information unlike any other filtered media outlet. I get a true sense of what freedom really is (in the first admendment sense). I get real timely and sometimes well thought out criticism if my posts are stupid. I can actually learn about what my peers are thinking without getting shot at. In short I can get to the heart of understanding human nature. Naww... I still want a free subscription cause I named my s*&t a$$ cat Slashdot. Flame me or blame me, but I'm too big fer ya to tame me.

Re:Metered pricing vs. flat rate

[Cy Guy]

Genius, If I had mod points they would be yours.

I lost most of my respect for /. when I was hit by the hard karma cap, well finally I see a real reason for karma to exist. Since the content that people are paying for is provided in large part by this 3% why not 'pay' them for their work. Every karma point earned could be worth 10/20/50 page views, whatever number works out to fairly compensate this cream of the crop for providing this quality content. You could also provide 5 page views for every mod point expended, and for each round of metamoderation performed.

Since the tracking systems for karma, moderation, and M2 are already in place, I see the implementation of such a method of karmic payment as being relatively trivial. Certainly worth the affort instead of pissing off your unpaid staff by turing them into paying staff.

Re:Metered pricing vs. flat rate

[RedWizzard]

Frankly we doubt that 3% will really pay us at all.

You're probably right. But isn't that an argument for flat rate pricing? Since the people that you want to have pay more aren't going to why have metered pricing at all?

Re:Metered pricing vs. flat rate

[Anonymous Coward]

You make the magazine analogy, but it's not a magazine.

You're charging to see content which volunteers posted. Seeya.

Re:Metered pricing vs. flat rate

[slashdot.org]

Hi Rob,

Unfortunately, I'm a little late to this thread, but I hope you'll read it.

I would like to start off by saying that I'm not overly enthusiastic about your plans to make /. a subscription based site.

I would also have to add, that bigger adds are not an option for me:- I'm in fact very depressed about where the good ole internet is heading with this advertising crapola.

Even though I have no real objection against paying you for your site, the fact that you can't tell me exactly how much I'm going to have to pay bothers me.

What I would like to ask you though is, what kind of alternatives have you considered?

Why have you not asked the /. community what type of alternatives _they_ think may work.

I would like to bring up for discussion some alternatives myself:

To get back to the advertising: the advertisement industry is going totally nuts trying to come up with 'something' that works. Be it pop-ups, pop-under, dhtml on top of content, whatever,- I perceive it exactly the same as a person walking up to me in the street with a 10 by 10 feet billboard that starts yelling in my face, whilst keeping me from moving on.

Today they want you to put up bigger ads, tomorrow it's pop-ups, the day after we can't find your site behind all the ads. This basically makes subscription the only option.

What I suggest is that you come up with some creative alternatives. I mean, look at Google,- they have come up with a non-annoying way of allowing companies to advertise. (You really should read up on how their advertising works). Why couldn't this work for /. as well? Advertisements that are 'linked' to a certain subject are a 1000 times less annoying and an equal amount more effective. Since I'm already interested in the subject, it may actually be useful to have some links companies that want to sell their stuff dearly. To become a sponsor should be as easy as it is over @ Google.

An other thing that comes to mind is sponsored submissions. Hey, if AMD comes out with a new CPU, they may as well pay you to announce it. As special header color or something could indicate that it was sponsored.

I was also thinking about something like "paid for 'Ask Slashdot'". This could be very helpful for companies that want industry feedback. For example, our company has a product that is designed for In-Flight Entertainment. But we could consider bringing this product to the general market. It would be interesting though to get some feedback (like, 'that's waaay to expensive' or 'but it's missing an xyz port!'). This would have the side-effect of acknowledging that people that post comments add value to your site.

There could be entirely sponsored sections, like 'what's up with Intel', basically a glorified portal to Intel press releases, but targeted for the /. audience, so using the same /. approach, just with Intel specific news.

I guess what I'm saying is, instead of the 'in yer face' approach that seems to dominate the internet, why not take a more co-operative approach. I understand that you want to remain un-biased, and it should always be clear to readers when something is placed because of sponsoring. But I think that could be communicated easily.

The interesting thing is that these kind of scenarios could be implemented in parallel with subscription system. The good thing about that is that you will have instant feedback on how the readers appreciate either one. So instead of following the masses, lead them again! :-)

Good luck!

Re:Metered pricing vs. flat rate

[slashdot.org]

Btw. an other issue that I have not seen mentioned (but then again, you don't expect me to read 1700 comments right?) is the fact that I read /. from a multitude of computers.

There's at least 4 here in my house that I use, and then when I go into the office there's a bunch there.

I've already surrendered to the fact that if I post from any of those other machines, it will have to be AC (I'm sorry, but I can't remember all my 326 passwords), but with the subscription system, how are you intending to handle that? (again, a move toward a more agressive ad system will probably mean I won't read from other machines)

I'm sincerely worried that issues like these may reduce the reader base, and as others have pointed out, I too do consider the comments a valuable part of /.

Re:Metered pricing vs. flat rate

[swoopx]

Since when? The key is obviously offering the flat rate at a cost higher then the average usage. I'd rather (and would) pay 20$ a year for a flat rate then have to pay 5 dollars for 1,000 page views. I don't want the headache of deciding whether or not its worth reading the comments from a certain news post. I want to be able to hit reload without knowing that I will be charged every time I do. I'd rather pay for it all at once and be done with it. Why not include an option for a flat rate, maybe a gold member option that comes with a slashdot.org emailing forwarding address? All at a higher cost of course.

Re:Metered pricing vs. flat rate

[RandomPeon]

Sure you can.

All-you-can-eat restaraunts, consumer-grade bandwith suppliers, and a lot of other folks do it and turn a profit. The first trick is to make sure that your flat rate exceeds the cost of the product consumed by the average user.

The other trick is to make sure your product has a pretty good diminishing return even for the most demanding people so you don't attract too many heavy users. I might eat more than my $8 worth of food at a buffet, but it will be very difficult for me to eat 2-3 times that amount. And I would need to be constantly using lots of bandwith to push my ISP out of the marginal profit range.

The advanatages of flat-rate pricing are obvious too: more appealing to consumers, higher profit margins since consumers are less efficient (econ theory-wise) than the provider, and a simpler payment process. It's just less of a hassle. The problem is that pricing these things, especially in a market with monopolistic competition (weblogs) is hard. You won't make anything if you charge nothing or $1,000. There's some optimal point where the supply and demand curve intersect, but this isn't an econ class, so the only way to find it is trial and error. And on the web, you can't just charge what everybody else charges, because they're not selling the exact same product to the exact same people. (ISPs are near-perfect susbstitutes for each other, that's why they all charge about the same amount.)

And it doesn't work if some people don't see the marginal utility of consuming more as negative - trolls, people who post 2000 comments, unemployed people who just read /. all day. You can only eat so much or consume so much bandwith surfing, but you can reload Slashdot a million times if you think it never gets old.

In the early 90s, I used AOL (please don't laugh) when they charged by the minute for acess to their glorified BBS and usenet. It just isn't fun to think about paying more a minute of leisure (or another page view), this is why almost entertainment is provided on a flat rate basis. I have a fast pipe and find the ads to be useful, but it would be annoying to think, "Look at that story and I'll use another pageview, and I've only got five left."

Re:Metered pricing vs. flat rate

[snol]

dude it's $0.005 per pageview; I think you'll probably get over your headaches.

Re:Metered pricing vs. flat rate

[Compuser]

Those who don't understand usenet are bound to
reinvent it poorly...

Re:Metered pricing vs. flat rate

[Xerithane]

Except for the fact that Taco has banned a lot of mod prilvedges (Including mine) for participating in the Troll thread that raised very valid points.

Well fuck me for trying to help Slashdot when it needs it. I've been at the karma cap for years. I have been reading slashdot before user ids. And this is the thanks I get.

Yeah, I'm really going to pay for a subscription. I stopped clicking on banner adverts as well, I like the site and the idea behind it -- but Taco attacked me for no good reason, so I say fuck him and his subscription model. However, I don't believe Taco is slashdot. That's why I'm still here.

Re:Metered pricing vs. flat rate

[Cyno]

For me the comments are the only valuable part of slashdot. Without them I might as well just browse the web. There are many alternatives to slashdot that provide more relevent and less commercial information with intelligent commentary. The only reason I still read slashdot is to get the opinions of so many people. With a subscription system /. will probably lose about half their posts, I've already thought about not returning because of the time limits placed on posts. They seem to be less user friendly and more $$ hungry. And this, to me, feels like a huge push by VA Software, who don't understand Linux or Open Source, clearly, by the way they change their business model, to make more money. Is it all about money? Why don't you ask members to contribute and work with your community instead of against it? I could go on and continue my rant, but its just a waste of time. Oh well, hope it works out for you.

Re:Metered pricing vs. flat rate

[Beautyon]

Certainly, meta moderation is worth a page for each meta mod. Im sure people feel that they have to get something back for doing it. Once you start having to pay for something, it ceases to be a game. Karma will take on an actual monetary value, and this will make the resentment towards the system grow by orders of magnitude for the "quirks" of the system.

Karma as currency now thats an idea....letting people buy and sell Karma...hmmmmm

As for different ways to pay, Kagi seems to be a cool service, because you can pay with, believe it or not, cash, from anwhere in the world, in any currency.

Wether or not you can automate subscriptions with it, I do not know, and obviously this would be a factor, since there will be many subscriptions to manage.

No one seems to have noticed/mentioned that fine grained stats have been collected on individual Slashdot usage over the years. What a picture that would be to look at!

Re:Metered pricing vs. flat rate

[Sloppy]

All-you-can-eat restaraunts, consumer-grade bandwith suppliers, and a lot of other folks do it and turn a profit. The first trick is to make sure that your flat rate exceeds the cost of the product consumed by the average user.

Good grief. People were complaining that Slashdot wants to charge us. Now people are suggesting that Slashdot should rip us off by overcharging.

Re:Metered pricing vs. flat rate

[Sloppy]

Karma as currency now thats an idea....letting people buy and sell Karma...hmmmmm

Didn't you read the Slashdot story on July 16th 2003 (darn, I don't have the link to the story handy), where Slashdot cracked down on people who were selling karma on eBay?

Re:Metered pricing vs. flat rate

[Sloppy]

If I understand you correctly, that 3% includes the largest and most frequent contributors. Their postings to the message boards are likley a large part the reason why the other 97% of visitor are here.

They're also the ones who are likely to take greatest offense to the new advertising, either on general principles or simply because they see so much more of it because they're here more often.

I suspect that 3% isn't going to see any of the offensive ads, whether they pay or not.

People who hate ads, took steps to address that problem, long ago.

Re:Metered pricing vs. flat rate

[kvar]

Sure you can. Tons of companies do it succesully. Local phone bills, AOL, cable, etc. Certainly there is a tendency for people to see that their costs are affected by usage, and decide that revenues should come in the same way. And that frequently is the easiest thing to do when developing a business model, but it can cause customers undue mental anguish (when they have to constantly monitor their usage), and is frequently much more costly from a billing perspective. Andrew Odlyzko (formerly of ATT) has a fascinating paper on this, which also comments a lot on communications technologies. Long but good.

Re:Metered pricing vs. flat rate

[LoseNotLooseGuy]

it wasn't very hard to work out that while we may loose money on some users, everything will work out just fine on average.

If you are intending to run your site in the black, I would hope that you would not volutarily let loose or release money on some of your users. Of course, it is possible that you would involuntarily spend more money on some users than you earn back from them. I believe the word you were looking for is lose.

Congratulations! You have been participant #41 in my campaign to rid Slashdot of this error.

Re:Metered pricing vs. flat rate

[5KVGhost]

Well, yeah. In which case it doesn't make much sense to attempt to recoup the costs associated with those users with offers of ad-free browsing.

Re:Metered pricing vs. flat rate

[-tji]

So, why architect for a statistically insignificant group of people who obsessively re-load slashdot?

I agree that the per page load model would in reality work well for most people. But the perception, and effect on usage is another matter.

Even if the cost is trivial, the thought is still in my mind that every time I view slashdot, it's taking a piece of that allotment away.

So, maybe I check Slashdot less often because it costs me something. Or, maybe I don't check back on stories & reply to other posts, etc. I think that subtle psychological effect could be damaging.

I think there are several other options that would work better:

- Flat Rate. Forget about the compulsive reloaders. It doesn't effect enough to matter.

- Flat Rate, with caps. $5 for 6 months, with a cap at 3,000 page views per month.

- Transitional pricing. Flat rate with the ability to track your page views per day. Users can decide for themselves that page view pricing is cheaper for their usage.

Re:Metered pricing vs. flat rate

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah, and when I make long-distance calls, I'm providing the phone company with content, they should let me make calls for free! And while I'm at it, I ought to call up my hosting service and demand they host my webpage for free since I provide the internet with content. And how come I've never received a royalty check for any of my letters to the newspaper editorial page? You know why none of these things is going to happen? Because I benefit a lot more than they do from each of these transactions, just like the 3% of slashdot that loves to view billions and billions of comments every day, but doesn't want to pay for that privelige. You think just because slashdot has been more free than most media outlets that you are now *entitled* to unlimited posting and viewing forever? Don't you realize that thousands of slashdot readers browse at 3 or above just to throttle back on the flood of comments that comes through here every day? Yeah, I know that you 3%ers "who really care" think that all this "content" fosters some kind of "community" at slashdot. But you know what, people who live in real communities have to pay to keep those places running, if not through fees or taxes then through other means. The internet may seem to be made purely of ideas, but the servers and sysadmins do exist in the real world, and they ain't free. At least show a little gratitude.

Re:Metered pricing vs. flat rate

[Anonymous Coward]

looser

Re:Metered pricing vs. flat rate

[Anonymous Coward]

What are you so mad about? All people are saying here is that Rob ought to show some more respect for his readers. They have invested a lot of time and work in this project, and if that brings more people here, that *does* help to pay the bills. Even setting aside the money issue, shouldn't Rob "show some gratitude" towards all these contributors who help make slashdot a success?

Let the Flames Begin

[erasmus_]

I can already see thousands of "free everything" advocates typing angrily away at their keyboards. Running a popular site costs money, and most sites are realizing that ads are not supported. I have come to accept subscriptions as a normal part of better sites these days, although I only actually subscribe to a few of them. As useful as Slashdot is, it'll probably be well worth the while.

Also keep in mind that unlike many subscription sites, Slashdot is not talking about premium content for major articles (like Salon or IGN), only little bonuses for subscribers, which is fair enough. I'll wait until the ads actually start appearing to make up my mind, but let's not flame Slashdot for coming in line with the almost defacto practice that today's Internet economy demands.

Re:Let the Flames Begin

[Disoculated]

I can already see thousands of people who think they're rational typing desperately away at their keyboard in an attempt to stem flames that aren't coming. Sheesh. You're preaching about fire and dousing yourself with gasoline.

Everybody knows that sites cost money, and most people are more than willing to be inconvenienced in some way. If it's handled reasonably, it'll be fine. If it's not, people will leave.

Re:Let the Flames Begin

[BasharTeg]

Hmm, we seem to have Slashdotted this site. I've setup a mirror here

Re:Let the Flames Begin

[jdavidb]

Okay, now that's the most interesting .sig I've seen in a while.

Pay

[FigBugDeux]

If I pay, will you remove the permament -1 posting bonus that is on my accuont, even though my karma is 14?

Re:Pay

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't have a -1 posting bonus. Or are you refering to a different account?

PayPal???

[liquidsin]

I wasted thirty precious minutes of my life trying to jump through hoops for them so I could sign up with a Canadian credit card. At the time I was trying to sign up for a PayPal acct. to purchase webhosting. In the end I found a host that didn't require me to pay with fucking paypal. Get the idea?

Re:PayPal???

[Malc]

I have a US credit card, but at a Canadian address. I still had to wait for my credit card statement to come through before I could get my international account verified. I only wanted to make a quick one-off payment, but they made me wait, and now they're spamming me even though I set my preferences not to mail me. I want to cancel my account so that they don't spam me, but they don't make that process very obvious. I don't want to be a permanent PayPal customer, or have an account with them. I object to them on many scores. I guess I dislike ads less than I dislike PayPal.

Re:PayPal???

[Krellis]

Account cancelleation can be found in the "Profile" tab, listed as "Close Account". It's not that hard to find, if you really want to, rather than just trying to find an excuse to bitch about PayPal.

Re:PayPal???

[Malc]

Hmmm, I guess I managed to overlook that the first time I poked around. So now my account is closed and I better not get anymore spam from them. I'm still going bitch about them though as I really don't like them and I want to discourage other people from using them. I want them to go out of business, or take on their responsibilities and accept that they're a bank, and provide proper consumer protection.

Yup, I know

[smoondog]

We all knew it had to be coming. The question is, what would have worked better: 1) Building a volunteer subscription system and toting is features. 'OR' 2) Just opening a pay-pal account and asking for donations. It worked for laid off tod. Oh yeah, but he wasn't publically traded...

-Sean

Re:Yup, I know

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi performance servers cost money, a p2p infrastructure doesn't.

This will be very awkward

[Prop]

I can see paying X dollars to surf without ads. A simple flat rate.

But of I have to start thinking "should I hit reload and waste a page view", it will make using Slashdot very awkward.

Time to install junkbuster

Re:This will be very awkward

[eostrom]

That reload will cost you half a penny. I say go ahead and splurge.

Re:This will be very awkward

[rabidcow]

If you do waste that page view, the worst that'll happen is that near the end of the year you'll get ads on one more page.

If that's your one barrier, go ahead and install junkbuster for that one page and pay for the rest.

Re:This will be very awkward

[gmhowell]

Forget junkbuster. Get yourself a good hosts file. Check out TechnoLust's recent journal entry for a discussion on hosts files. Not only are they available for free, they don't add another system resource/daemon.

Re:This will be very awkward

[juju2112]

If you install Junkbuster, don't forget to install this version version, which has support for HTTPv1.1. Otherwise it will completely foul up Galeon and Mozilla.

Re:This will be very awkward

[Derkec]

I think many of us will start trapping ourselves with the should I waste a page view problem. Here's what I would say, you pay $5 per thousand. Over the course of a few days, you might waste 20 if you're sloppy. You're out a dime. Not worth the worry. Also, that might be a goal of theirs. To limit their bandwidth costs.

Re:This will be very awkward

[pjrc]

Thanks. I was wondering why Mozilla wasn't working with Junkbuster.

With 0.9.7's ability to shut off the truely annoying javascript features and disable animation, Junkbuster hasn't been quite as essential.

Still, I'm going to update my Junkbuster tonight. Thanks for the tip. I really appreciate it.

Re:This will be very awkward

[asackett]

You can keep your old junkbuster and just tell Mozilla to use HTTP/1.0, if you'd like. Just click the trail:

Edit -> Preferences -> Debug -> Networking

and put 1.0 into the HTTP Version text widget. Restart the browser, and you're done.

Re:This will be very awkward

[QuoteMstr]

Yeah, but they can't block by regexp, which is a problem for many sites that serve images from the same servers they serve ads from. Not to mention that a hosts file can't serve up a transparen 1x1 GIF instead of the ad. Hosts files will just make the browser display a broken link images.

Slashdot charges for what exactly.

[Craka]

Okay various News services charge for *CONTENT* what exactly is Slashdot charging for? *Links to OTHERS content*. Am I the only one that finds this a little perverse? Slashdot survives on it's users to submit links, and others to create the content.

So, what we have here is this paradoxal existence: Charge the people that keep your site running and full of content.

Am I the only one that has a problem with this?

Re:Slashdot charges for what exactly.

[erasmus_]

Slashdot is essentially a portal with a strong community of knowledgeable supporters. In asking what value it contributes, let's ask why you are here? Obviously you found some value in coming here, and so do the rest of us. Slashdot filters out interesting stories and allows us access to a great base of commentators (some not so great :). This is of value to many people, some of which already seem to be willing to pay for it.

I do however see the point of letting high karma people off a little easier, and making non-contributors pay for just reading, which is what I think you're pointing out is a problem. At the same time though, people who participate like Slashdot the most and are most likely to pay, don't you think?

Re:Slashdot charges for what exactly.

[GypC]

But the servers and pipes cost $$$. They have little choice.

Re:Slashdot charges for what exactly.

[Dikarika]

Yeah, I agree.

We submit stories linked to other people's content and Slashdot makes the profit. They may go through all the posts and place up what they call newsworthy, but is that worth a subscription? I can go to community run sites (see my sig for one on gaming, not my website...) and get the same effect. When its community run, I get to chose, not some "editor". I will not be subscribing.

Re:Slashdot charges for what exactly.

[Craka]

Right, but it costs more to send the ads then the text. So it'll cost them more to send the bigger ads. Which means when you pay, They'll be getting your money and saving on bandwidth costs.

Why don't they just sell t-shirts or something, I'd rather pay $25 for a t-shirt than this, as at least with this I get a t-shirt and not just stiffed.

Re:Slashdot charges for what exactly.

[Derkec]

No, Slashdot charges for the privilage to read Slashdot without nasty banner ads. Since you are posting here, you obviously see that Slashdot provides some value and you read it. If you think it has very little value and ads are too much hassle then you can leave. I suspect though that you'll either view these adds are pay a couple dollars so you don't have to see them.

Re:Slashdot charges for what exactly.

[IamTheRealMike]

No - other news organisations "charge" for links to other peoples content too.

At the simplest level for instance your daily newspaper charges you for the priviledge of reading many stories, not all of which will have come from their own journalists. Much of the news content we take for granted today comes from organisations like Reuters, the Press Association etc which resell content. You could get that content for free theoretically, but you don't, because the value of having all those stories collected together, with added "features" like images, editorials, comments sections outweighs having to go to Reuters, the PA etc to get your news yourself every day.

If I had a credit card I'd pay ;) But I'm not old enough yet. Oh well, maybe next year.

Re:Slashdot charges for what exactly.

[Anonymous Coward]

A BMW has great value to me, but it's not quite worth the extra $20Gs over a basic Dodge Neon. The $.25 estimated cost a day for me given my /. viewing habits is far more than I want to spend.

Simply, if the ads are annoying, I won't be visiting any longer. I'll surf elsewhere. And I'll contribute my time and input elsewhere.

How long before someone carefully screens through /., filters out the crap, enhances it on their own with some research, and simply publishes a condensed version in print form and make some cash off of it? Probably not long.

Re:Slashdot charges for what exactly.

[erasmus_]

How long before someone carefully screens through /., filters out the crap, enhances it on their own with some research, and simply publishes a condensed version in print form and make some cash off of it? Probably not long.

I've heard several people echo this sentiment. How would this work exactly and who the heck would buy it? How would you filter false posts from the true? Online, we pretty much accept that a +5 Insightful post might be blatantly wrong, because moderators can make mistakes. But that's ok, b/c we're used to it. In the print world, even editorials are subject to a higher standard of veracity, I think. For someone to publish it would mean assuming responsibility, and I don't see that happening.

Not to mention that this would not exactly sell like hotcakes - how many letter pages do you read in the magazines that you subscribe? Most of the time I tend to ignore opinions of readers in the print world, and skip directly to the people who should know what they're talking about, the authors of the articles. Although the community model may work for some small publications, I cannot see a large scale republication about comments about what (by that time) would be old news, achieving any popularity. Call me a cynic.

Re:Slashdot charges for what exactly.

[Kickstart70]

I agree, and even more so...if this is going to be the case, perhaps ./ should be paying $$ to the people who submit stories. After all, every other media outlet type pays its writers and creative staff for their work.

Or perhaps we could tkae this further...if your submission gets posted, then $5 is credited to your account. The more you participate, the more you help ./, and the more you help yourself. Sounds like a win-win to me.

Kickstart

sites that had costly features?

[Anonymous Coward]

What sites introduced features that cost more to add than maintain, I'm genuinely curious!

join slashdot!

[theCURE]

All you have to fill out is

1. your home address
2. social security number
3. major credit card number
4. DOB and mothers maiden name

This is just for ad purposes we promise. You don't want us to go away do you???

Re:join slashdot!

[Anonymous Coward]

They have no grounds to ask for your SSN, and unless they can prove legitiment use, you could probobly sue them if they don't give you an account with out it.

PayPal only..?

[antis0c]

After reading about how much PayPal sucks on Slashdot, I don't think I'll be paying for any kind of subscription until there is another option available. PayPal isn't FDIC insured, isn't a real bank, and is being investigated and sued by various states and organizations.. I think I'll wait before handing over my credit card information to a potentially untrustworthy company.

As for the Subscriptions, well, I hope things work out, this could be really good for Slashdot, or really bad. I biggest concern is since I've read that only a small percent of Slashdot readers post and read articles, that means the majority only uses Slashdot as a proxy for news. If the banner ads start to annoy them, they'll start going straight to the new source.. Oh well, only time will tell, Good luck Slashdot team.

Re:PayPal only..?

[Kallahar]

First, for $5 what are you worried about? Even if PayPal bilks you, you can put a hold on your credit card...

Second, I disagree, slashdot pulls stories from all over the web. There are MANY times that I see a news item here first simply because it isn't big enough to be mentioned elsewhere. Sure, I could check each site individually but I don't have time for that...

Re:PayPal only..?

[gmhowell]

VA is a big company. Didn't they used to take CC orders for machines? Why not hook that e-commerce box up to the slash boxen?

Duh!

Good business practice?

[Krusher55]

"(As an aside, it's also worth noting that more than half of all comment posters fall into this 3%)"

Yeah, that is good business practice. Screw you most loyal customers most.

Re:Good business practice?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Loyalty" just means you take up the most bandwidth.

Re:Good business practice?

[Krusher55]

True but rewarding loyal customers with discounted 'bulk' purchases is a good thing. Maybe offer a $5 per month subscription for unlimited page views, or offer the ability to purchase 5000 page views at a lower per page rate. Or, maybe reward those who post (quality) comments. There are lots of things you can do to reward loyalty (customer loyalty is an important ingrediant for successful businesses).

Had to happen

[GrokSoup]

Sort of ironic that Slashdot, the bastion of free software, is being forced to go pay. While the mode is interesting -- paying for pages make a certain amount of sense -- I still wonder whether anyone will pay. Some may pay once, just in a kind of middle-finger to large-format advertisers, but I bet most will suck it up and go back to free eventually. Will that hurt Slashdot's economics? You tell us.

Re:Had to happen

[JudasBlue]

"...Slashdot, the bastion of free software..."

To point out the obvious, free as in speech.

(yeah, whoring for karma...)

In lieu of paying you guys...

[EricKrout.com]

I have a serious proposal. Rob, Hemos, Tim, Michael -- read this.

In lieu of paying you guys five bucks a week for life ($5/week * 52 weeks/year * 70 more years/lifetime = a shitload of money), I have a proposal: I'll be Slashdot's spelling and grammar guy, aka Executive Editor. Never again will there be a comment busting on CmdrTaco's confusing AM/PM or spelling "receive" incorrectly. Hell, if I could even avoid those huge annoying Flash(tm) ads by spellchecking the trolls' posts, I'd do it!

;-)

stop lyin'

[Anonymous Coward]

We have all seen the VA Software annual and quarterly reports.

Slashdot is in fact profitable, very profitable.

So don't give us these lies.

What you mean is Slashdot won't be able to pay Larry Augustins ridiculous CEO salary without mega ads.

Granted Slashdot was the ONLY profitable part of VA.

So yes VA is losing money like crazy.

But Slashdot itself is plenty profitable, to the tune of several mil.

So stop with the lies.

Oh and pathetic mod, go look it up on the stock site of your choice before you mod this down.

Don't worry, the Slashdot staff will mod it down anyways, so save your karma for a butt sex comment or something.

Re:stop lyin'

[Kickstart70]

If I had points, I'd mod this up...not because I believe it without proof, but because if the allegations are true, we should know and be able to make our decisions based on that.

Kickstart

Possible Repercussions

[dlek]

Subscriptions are fine, I can face reality, but I have one request: please don't let subscriptions affect posting in any way. If there's anything humanity's learned in the past century, it's that having money doesn't make you smarter. So getting +1 or a gold star on your post just cos you hate ads or love Slashdot enough doesn't make your views more worthwhile, and I don't think I'd stick around in a place where ideas aren't judged purely on their content.

I think what might come of this is a tighter ship splintering off into smaller, private Slashdot sites. For example, not to slag all the people who put thought into their posts, but a private Slashdot just including my friends and others by introduction would be great for me--less traffic, so I could actually read all the posts, and less noise, so I would bother.

Just a few random thoughts... I appreciate what Slashdot has been and hope it doesn't lose its shine.

Re:Possible Repercussions

[Anonymous Coward]

Not only posts.... what if subscriptions start affecting what content is available, like salon.com

I like reading slashdot as much as the next guy, but i don't think i'll be alone in wanting to find another tech site to lounge around on, if this place turns into another salon.com

Re:Possible Repercussions

[JMZero]

And what happens when a "User" moderates the comment of someone who has paid? / has humorous little moderation scandals now and again. What happens when the people involved have paid? "Yeah, I'm bitchslapped so I can't post - but I don't have to see ads".

Nothing major, but will Jamie and Michael of the sudden feel like "User" moderators have to be accountable?

Again note: I'm not being terribly serious - I just think it'll be a funny little wrinkle..

.

Re:Possible Repercussions

[dlek]

Yeah, I agree. Ad dollars on television influence to some degree the programming, is this inevitable on Slashdot as well?

I'm curious to know more about what your comment on salon.com--how has content been affected? I read Salon regularly but all I've noticed is it seems to be more political commentary than it used to be, and seems less cutting-edge.

Re:Possible Repercussions

[jonabbey]

Of course, this begs the question as to whether Taco/OSDN will have to start restricting the RDF feeds and/or content scrapers so that people can't suck the editorial content from Slashdot to feed such a site.

Re:Possible Repercussions

[gmhowell]

Making our communities smaller and more accessible. It can be a good thing. For example, I would rather talk to the guy two houses down than the guy a half mile away, even though we are technically in the same neighborhood (meatspace).

And there is a phpnuke site where I am spending more time. People are /. malcontents, but someone had the resources to setup a site, and is willing to bounce out trollers and crapflooders and etc. I won't post it here, but the guy who runs it posts more than I (as michael pointed out, he posts a fair bit) so if you are interested, you've already been there.

The danger is homogenization and balkanization. If we separate too much, we lose sight of the whole. There is also the danger of not enough dissent to make discussions interesting.

Re:Possible Repercussions

[Aarchon]

"Subscriptions are fine, I can face reality, but I have one request: please don't let subscriptions affect posting in any way. If there's anything humanity's learned in the past century, it's that having money doesn't make you smarter. So getting +1 or a gold star on your post just cos you hate ads or love Slashdot enough doesn't make your views more worthwhile, and I don't think I'd stick around in a place where ideas aren't judged purely on their content." Sort of like paying Yahoo to have your site placed higher in search results! :-)

Why bother?

[Xpilot]

What's the point of this? There's only one banner ad at the top, which is non-intrusive and I don't really notice it. Heck, I even like to see some of the cool stuff at thinkgeek once in a while (although I never buy anything). I don't know how much money you'll get from this.

Re:Why bother?

[Anonymous Coward]

Earth to Xpilot.

If you actually read the article, you would see that *more*, and *bigger* ads are coming.

which is sort of the point.

Re:Why bother?

[armb]

> There's only one banner ad at the top

What part of "Slashdot is about to start accepting new ad formats. The large ads that you see on many other sites are coming here." didn't you understand?

Re:Why bother?

[Blackwulf]

What's the point of this? There's only one banner ad at the top, which is non-intrusive and I don't really notice it. Heck, I even like to see some of the cool stuff at thinkgeek once in a while (although I never buy anything). I don't know how much money you'll get from this.

According to the article you didn't read (even though it's at the top of the story)...

To understand why the system works like it does, you need to first understand that Slashdot is about to start accepting new ad formats. The large ads that you see on many other sites are coming here. We really don't have an option: these are what advertisers want, and if we don't provide them, we won't be around much longer.

That means we'll start getting the huge ads you see on Wired or Salon or whatever. They want to give us an option to never see them.

Re:Why bother?

[erasmus_]

I don't think you read the actual post perhaps? They're going to start having larger, more obtrusive ads. I'm sure you'll start to notice it when they do.

This took forever to come up, I think this topic is causing Slashdot to be Slashdotted.

Re:Why bother?

[Wiwi Jumbo]

"you need to first understand that Slashdot is about to start accepting new ad formats. The large ads that you see on many other sites are coming here. We really don't have an option: these are what advertisers want, and if we don't provide them, we won't be around much longer."

Re:Why bother?

[erasmus_]

And of course after 4 minutes of loading, my post is now redundant. Doh! Sorry :)

Re:Why bother?

[Anonymous Coward]

That means we'll start getting the huge ads you see on Wired or Salon or whatever. They want to give us an option to never see them.

Seems like they could have just posted a link to junkbusters or similar. Would have been less effort all round.

What defines a page?

[Stoutlimb]

Each unique web page served to me? Or each slashdot story I click on, and all threads then suddenly are included in this page? If every time I hit "refresh" the counter goes down again, I'm going to be in sent to the poorhouse!

Re:What defines a page?

[Azog]

Every time you hit refresh, Slashdot pays for the server & network bandwidth to send that to you.

It's only fair that you pay for the bandwidth you use. You can easily reduce your number of page views... just wait until the story has been up for a while, and then read it and all the (filtered) comments on it just once.

I like the proposed plan. Slashdot pays per gig of bandwidth, so the only fair billing scheme is one that considers bandwidth used. I think I'll probably sign up, but I'll wait until there's an alternative to PayPal.
.

Re:What defines a page?

[imgaming.com]

If $5USD is going to send you to the poorhouse, this dot-com crash has hurt more people than I thought!

I am probably not gonna chip out the money right away, but seriously, if I was gonna do this, what the hell is $5??? You tip that much if you eat out twice a week!

I like ads

[Reality Master 101]

Let me just put out a vote that I don't mind big ads. I'm not a freeloader, and don't expect a free ride to pay for something as expensive as Slashdot.

And yes, if you use Junkbuster, you are a freeloader.

Re:I like ads

[YaRness]

are you a free loader if you change channels during commercials?

or don't read the ads on the bus/subway/billboards?

or don't click on the ads? or move your window up so the ad is off the screen? or just ignore them?

are you a freeloader if you use lynx, or don't download images?

to me, it's like with the credit card companies: i don't pay finance charges, but i'm damn glad for the people that do (especially the retards that only make minimum payments) because they support the service for me. until they start doing something to keep me from using their service, i assume they have no problem with "freeloaders".

so save your freeloaders bullshit for 5 years down the road when 1337 d00ds have to steal CC numbers or passwords to get on so they can troll the latest jon katz story, or only read posts from some underground mirror of slashdot built by a subscriber. freeloading is still the de facto standard here, and on the internet in general, for a little while longer.

Re:I like ads

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting side note to your comment. A major credit card company, I believe VISA, tried to sue a man because he always paid his card off in full each month, so they made no money off of him in interest. Their lawsuit was thrown out, as there's no clause that says you have to let interest acumulate and what not. I thought it was kinda funny.

Re:I like ads

[YaRness]

i've heard similar tales, where some couple who paid off their balance in full for X years finally got dropped because they never made them any money.

i can't find evidence to support either, but neither can i find a clear reference to the story being just an urban legend.

Sorry Taco.

[KupekKupoppo]

Your baby went corporate, and became a whore. Now she's been around the block, and nobody's going to shell out cash when they know she puts out for free.

I'll go bathe now.

Re:Sorry Taco.

[PigleT]

Indeed. There's still junkbuster, anyway... Or for those of us with Galeon, `right-click / block images from'... which already works wonders on images.slashdot.org and theregister.co.uk.... ;)
In fact, why not set up a local version of the slash code and suck the news RDF down yourself?

Isn't there some philosophical difference between "hey, pay us to get this many readers" and making the readers pay??

Re:Sorry Taco.

[esarjeant]

You know, after all these years my bookmark still has me going to http://slashdot.org.

This is so inappropriate now, I think I need to start going maybe to http://slashdot.com or perhaps slashdot.biz?

btw, fix your lame redirect on slashdot.com; you are *NOT* an organization any longer -- you are a commercial entity hence the .com.

Reasonable

[darketernal]

I agree that many FINE sites like /. are falling into tough times because there are so many religious readers.

Just please..PLEASE for the LOVE OF GOD...If I don't subscribe immediately...PLEASE DON'T PUT THOSE ******* BONZI BUDDY ADS there...or the ORBITZ ads...those TREE LOOT ads...My brain is already disintegrating. ;)

Question. If you use a text browser, how will the ads be any good? There's only so much you can put in an alt tag.

A few questions

[mwalker]

Questions:

Considering the number of articles posted here about PayPal fraud, will you accept any payment other than PayPal? Will you accept cash in the mail to ensure anonymity for the paranoid?

The rates are currently set at $5 per 1000 pages.

When we encounter the lameness filter trying to paste code into a comment, does that count as a page view?

Eventually we intend to offer additional features to subscribers. Exactly what those plums are remains to be decided: Access to the rejected submissions bin? A 'Gold Star' in your comments header? Karma?

May I reccommend the ability to pay to Disable Modbombing?

Good luck guys...

The new /. subscription service

[diatonic]

The new slashdot subscription service:

Each month they publish a mens magaizine with comprimising photos of cowboyneal, and steamy letters of nerd love.

Great bathroom reading material.

It's called kuro5hin.org

[Skim123]

You should check out kuro5hin.org. It is a site where the users post the stories to a queue, and the community votes them to be shown on the site or not. Also, since the overall traffic is lower, the quality of postings/discussions is much higher than at /.

I still like reading /., though, b/c it's more news for nerds while k5, while it has it's technology and nerd news, also has a lot of political and social discussions. Oh yeah, and k5 also has subscriptions before /. did, but "subscribing" does nothing for you, really, since even if you don't subscribe you don't see any ads. (Although when k5 showed OSDN ads in the past, subscribing hid these banners...)

Re:It's called kuro5hin.org

[Tuzanor]

K5 is very different to Slashdot. If you are looking for tech news, then k5 is NOT the place to go. Most of k5 is just philisophical bullshit or copies of recent posts to other news sites. k5 is a great idia in theory, but all the stories are the same repetetive crap.

Re:It's called kuro5hin.org

[irix]

the quality of postings/discussions is much higher than at /.

Are you on crack? See my previous rant about K5. The quality of postings over there are just horrible. For example, see the current front-page story about female curcumcision. Technology and culture from the trenches my ass.

I have a 3-digit K5 uid, but I am done with that place. I simply don't have the time to go through the submissions bin and give a -1 to all of the crap that is constantly in there.

Re:It's called kuro5hin.org

[Skim123]

As opposed to /., which has had the same repetitive crap for much longer

And at least at k5 you get to vote on what repetitive crap you wish to see, as opposed to here, where you are subjected to the crap choosings of Rob et al. :-)

Re:It's called kuro5hin.org

[Skim123]

The quality of postings over there [at kuro5hin.org] are just horrible. For example, see the current front-page story about female curcumcision. Technology and culture from the trenches my ass

I don't think they're all crap. I agree that there are not many stories that focus on technology (i.e., news for nerds), and, yes, many are on political agendas that I disagree with, but I still think there good stories there, better comments, and far fewer trolls than here on /.

Also, as I said, I still do come to /. b/c I can't get the news for nerds over at k5, unfortuneately.

Re:It's called kuro5hin.org

[Cro Magnon]

K5 has a very different look and feel than /.

K5 pros: fewer trolls, posters seem fairly intellegent.

K5 cons: boring stories, heavy political, repetitious, posters less humorous than /.

Re:It's called kuro5hin.org

[jspaleta]

Also, since the overall traffic is lower, the quality of postings/discussions is much higher than at /.

Logic fault....
if you tell people to ditch slashdot to go to kuro5hin...then you increase the overall traffic to kuro5hin...thus lowering the quality of postings on kuro5hin.

By telling us to check out kuro5hin you just peed in yer own pool.

You'd think you want to encourage people to stay on slashdot.....

-jef

Re:It's called kuro5hin.org

[ConceptJunkie]

Actually, I always suspected 90% of /. readers were below average, sort of an anti-Lake Webegone.

;)

Re:It's called kuro5hin.org

[ethereal]

It depends. There are some really good technical articles on k5 sometimes. The big problem is that since few articles on k5 get even 100 posts, you don't get as much of the give-and-take that /. gives you. A technical article isn't very useful to me if the discussion that follows doesn't tap into the knowledge of many other people who are also qualified to talk about the same technical issues. There are some smart people on k5, don't get me wrong, but there isn't the tremendous breadth of experience that /. seems to have. /. got the much-vaunted "first mover" advantage in the techie discussion forum category, leaving k5, ars technica (God I hate forums where users can have their own little icon, title, spinning gold stars, etc. - that stuff's just garish and ugly), and other fine technical sites in the dust just because they don't get the same amount of readership.

What would be ideal for me would be to see some of the site dynamics of k5, especially more user control of the story submission queue, combined with the high readership and diverse experiences of /. As it is, I just check both, but read different articles and in different ways on each.

Re:It's called kuro5hin.org

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree. And I've noticed that /. is becoming more and more like them as far as its political bent. In particular after 911, there have been more and more "privacy" and left-leaning/libertarian tripe on this site. I like /. for intersting technology and science news. In no way do I care for its biased, pseudo-intellectual, techno-trendy politics.

Re:It's called kuro5hin.org

[Refrag]

I definately agree. I used to frequent K5, but stopped long ago (I moved from /. to K5, back to /. at a higher threshold). This is why my .sig over there is "Kuro5hin: ...and culture, from the trenches".

I do think Scoop is a better content engine than Slashcode, tho.

Re:It's called kuro5hin.org

[gmhowell]

Checked out your earlier post regarding K5.

Have you paid for /. yet? Time to put money where mouth is.

Re:It's called kuro5hin.org

[jonathan_ingram]

The content on k5 is *completely* determined by the users. If there is stuff you'd rather see there, then subscribe, get a few of your friends to subscribe, and start posting the sort of articles that *you* want.

I'd love to see more technical/IT articles on k5, just like you.

Re:It's called kuro5hin.org

[Bobby Orr]

Actually, I always suspected 90% of /. readers were below average, sort of an anti-Lake Webegone.

Hey -- Thanx for laugh! You put an amused smile on my face. :-)

Re:It's called kuro5hin.org

[irix]

I just registered for a paypal account, so when I get my next CC statement I can confirm and then /. some money (I don't live in the US). Or they'll implement a direct CC system first and I'll pay using that.

Like many other posters, I am not thrilled about the metered access and the lack of definite "extras" for subscribers. That being said, I am willing to spend $5 to see how the system works and help support /.

Re:It's called kuro5hin.org

[gmhowell]

Fair enough. A lotta people on /. talk the talk, but don't walk the walk.

Re:It's called kuro5hin.org

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a 3-digit K5 uid,

How do you know?

Re:It's called kuro5hin.org

[Banjonardo]

I have a 3-digit K5 uid,

How do you know?

Whoops, my bad, posted anonymously. Please answer here.

Re:It's called kuro5hin.org

[irix]

If you look a comment you posted (e.g. In your comment history) and hover over the link to your nick, you'll see something like:

http://www.kuro5hin.org/user/uid:635

AFAIK that is the only way to see it.

And what do I see when I am over there checking that? A front-page article on how to deal with the supposed deluge of people leaving slashdot. Yeah, riiight.What a bunch of self-important losers.

Missed it by that much...

[Vinson Massif]

This announcement should have been held off for another 31 days. While the ./ sub announcement is serious, the ensuing hilarity from posting this on April 1st would have been priceless.

Re:Missed it by that much...

[erasmus_]

Hahah, you made double-take on my calendar. "Today is the first, did I really fall for it?" What a relief, not April. Although perhaps it'd be nicer if it was, based on the topic.

oh well

[Anonymous Coward]

First windrivers , now /.

hmmm i don't seem to visit windrivers any more

just how anoying are these ads going to be?

with the stories getting sucky and very oftopic/advertisey
duno gues i'll have to see how it goes...I know
I wont be paying!

I can't blame Taco and Rob but still...

[SkyLeach]

why can't it just be free? Look at the simple facts here: we came to /. because it provided a service: information. The information was free, but took a lot of time to assimilate. This made the /. service valuable in a time-saving kind of way. It wasn't built for profit, so it was popular.

Now people are trying to make money off of it. It's not going to happen. Don't kill the site just because you want to make money off of something you should never have payed million(s) for until you had a business model that worked. It's your fault. Don't look at us, the innocent readers.

This will kill /. and we (the readers and supporters) will simply move on. It will eventually catch up to kuro4hin.org too. It's not slashdot.org anymore it's slashdot.com.

Game over, this is just the drama after the final action scene.

Why so much hostility to this?

[daviddennis]

The people who run Slashdot are human, just like us, and need money, just like us. It does cost big bucks to put something like this together, and make sure it runs reliably. (I'm sure some long-time users are going to laugh at me for claiming that it does, but - well - it has been for some months now, and they obviously spent a lot doing it).

And I think the subscription model is actually fair - what it looks like they are doing is, effectively, telling us to run our own personal ads on Slashdot - that is, we're buying their unsold ad inventory and using it to remove ads..

Here's an idea: Subscribers could be allowed to create their own main page out of the accepted and rejected submissions, so they could run their own weblog within Slashdot with their own submissions always approved. Might be a nice ego boost.

Anyway, I certainly want to see Slashdot continue; I'm surprised at all the negative comments. You want to get paid, I want to get paid, and surely Rob et al likewise want to get paid.

It's just how the world goes 'round. It was artfully concealed for a long time ... but it's still how the world goes round.

D

Re:Why so much hostility to this?

[shomon2]

This is about the first line of your message, about being human and needing money like us. I don't disagree, but it started me thinking about the issues that come up in the transition of the web from free to fee.

Do I pay money to make someone rich? For a large faceless company's growth? (which in this case might be VA, but I'm trying to be theoretical) Can't we post a financial proposal detailing where the money is going, which we then approve and direct money towards as we see fit?

Sounds open source to me... :)

This is what a lot of charities do - people want them as transparent as possible so they know it's mostly going to the purpose. The regular business world can have nothing to do with a good site surviving or with it's workers and their families having stability and happiness.

But maybe that's the way this kind of thing is going: a semi non profit sector where payment is seen like a semi-voluntary thing for a good cause...

Ale

Re:Why so much hostility to this?

[Anonymous Coward]

We are all hackers and nerds fuck that bullshit ad stuff
Nobody is going to look at them anyway! Ala ad busting etc..
Slashdot sorry but your history if you implement the ads
I like the idea about about freeslashdot.org without all the bullshit ads.

Re:Why so much hostility to this?

[Anonymous Coward]

I can tell you why, and this isn't a flame or troll, just the trut as I see it.

Slashdot is made up of mostly leftright, and OSS advocates and zelots who believe everything should be free on the internet, and in programs. So the idea of paying for a service that caters to that group is a little hard for them to swallow. The argument of "They need money like the rest of us" also goes for OSS projects, but people rarely donate to them and take what they do for granted, or as a mater of principal.

I'm all for leftright, and OSS projects, but not when it causes those who drive the movements to sacrafice the project at some point do to lack of funds and support (as in coders, not nice e-mails thanking them), or for the projects to suffer in quality. Bandwith and time is expensive, help them out how ever you can for services rendered. At least Slashdot isn't turning into a pay site, they are trying to make this work for everyone, even the poor highschool and college kids with no money to spare. So bear with them, and help if you can, or we may see Slashdot dissapear, and I'm sorry, but a man can not live off of Memepool and Macslash alone.

Re:Why so much hostility to this?

[daviddennis]

If something serves people well, and if donations in some way serve customers well, if nothing else in making them feel good about what they've done, then I don't see any problem giving money to what I certainly hope will be a profit-making entity.

My main problem right now is that I don't see much value-added from eliminating ads. I occasionally like the ads, since I can find out about some useful products or services from them.

I believe that as of last year Rob made $90k off Slashdot. That's a little less than I make, and I'd say it's a fair price for what he does.

I do think Slashdot has a lot of people with no money but a lot of time on their hands, and those people are never going to pay, no matter what their philosophy. I know; I have been one of them in the past.

But bear in mind that none of this is going to prevent people from using Slashdot for free.

D

Re:Why so much hostility to this?

[gmhowell]

No, the 'people' who run this are corporate drones of VA. Just because Larry and Rob at one time pretended to support open source, Open Source, free and Free software, doesn't mean that they aren't greedy, evil, and stupid. (Of course, accepting ads doesn't mean they ARE greedy, evil, and stupid).

My biggest problem with this is that everyone sucks Rob's dick about what he has done and how much he has given. First, Rob already got paid for the work he did when he sold out. Second, he does not seem to have done as much since then. Certainly his editing skills have not improved. And there are more duplicate stories lately than I ever remember.

But most important is that the people who *truly* make /. what it is have been ignored and sidelined, yet again. Those people are the readers. Even if JK, CT, michael, and everyone else posted and wrote each and every single front page article, that in no way compares to the number of comments written by people like you and I. WE are the content providers on /., and we get nothing for that. I'm not asking for money. Or ad-free viewings. I'm not even asking for myself.

I'm asking for Rob and the gang to once, just once, say "you readers are a great bunch of people. You've made /. what it is today. Without it, we'd be no better than any of the portal sites."

But we won't get it. Because they still think and act as if they are the ones who made /. what it is.

Re:Why so much hostility to this?

[otopico]

yes, the kids at /. need money, but many of us have jobs that pay us to provide that money.

just because a certain job is rewarding, it doesnt mean it can support you. eventually you have to decide to either stop doing it, because you can't get cash for rent, or continue, but change the beast so it can generate more resonable income.

like a few people i know, i have been forced to leave rewarding jobs because they didnt pay enough. /. charging for ad free space ( and ad space) isnt the happy free for all we are all comfortable with, but its not the end either.

if the increase in ads and the extra cash from the ad free keep OSDN into enough cash to keep /. and crew around great. why bitch about it?

i probaby wont pay. depending on the type of ads, i may proxy them off, or even stop coming to /. alltogether. i dont know. what i do know is that a lot of people are acting like its the end of the world, it isnt, its just a change.

and really, as long as they ARE NOT SELLING KARMA EVER (subtle isnt it), the 1000 pages/$5 isnt even that much cash. i'm unemployed and can still afford that.

stop trying to make /. into an example of the evil world creeping into our precious internet. without the evil world, we would still be on irc and no one would know the joys of dsl.

Re:Why so much hostility to this?

[daviddennis]

For what it's worth, I just paid. Not like $5 is going to kill me or anything.

I would have preferred a flat fee, though. It does bug me a little that they're effectively charging me to post.

The ad-free experience is actually very nice. Better than I'd thought. And if I miss the ads, I can always post a message, where they appear.

D

Re:Why so much hostility to this?

[jesser]

the number of comments written by people like you and I

What were you saying about editing skills?

Re:Why so much hostility to this?

[gmhowell]

/. doesn't pay my mortgage, so why should I do their (or my) editing?

Re:Why so much hostility to this?

[scorppete]

I have seen the subscription model coming to /. for a while and see no problem. Since I've started reading this site, I've learned a LOT about computers, operating systems, legal issues re digital matters and much, much more. Information posted has helped with my transition to Linux, which I appreciate daily, been useful to answer questions about BeOS, **ix and even answered a lot of issues with Windows. The **AA issues make more sense and of course the links to Science, Anime and many other topics too numerous to mention. Honestly, I'm amazed that a price like 5 DOLLARS which is about the price of a 6 of Jolt is generating venomous comments. Speaking for myself and only myself and not looking for flames, feel free if you need to, I'll be subscribing as soon as there's an alternative to PayPal. Much better that small cost than to see /. go away or offering less content than is currently available.
My hat's off for continued success of this site as I think it would be sorely missed were it to disappear.

Wait

[Anonymous Coward]

No we can pay to talk about open source software / issues?

HA HA.

March 1st? Shouldn't this be April 1st?

[Shaper of Myths]

Funny, I though April Fools was still a month away...

Seriously though, I haven't seen an ad on slashdot in two years thanks to filters (and I'm sure almost everyone who reads /. is in the same boat). Paying for it would be ridiculous, especially since most of the stories are posted by us, the users, anyway.

Regardless, I would never pay to join a club that would have me as a member...

One problem that I see...

[thesolo]

...is that under this model, those who contribute to slashdot the most, and make the site what it is, are forced to pay the most.

I think there should possibly be a "positive-discussion" discount, where if you post modded-up comments, you get more allowed page views. After all, you are helping the /. community.

I see the need for the system, I know you guys need to stay open, and I do understand that people like myself use up a lot of bandwidth on here, but I personally would really like to see some sort of reward for positively contributing to the site.

Re:One problem that I see...

[Sloppy]

those who contribute to slashdot the most, and make the site what it is, are forced to pay the most.

Two points:

1. You aren't "forced" to do anything. You can completely ignore this, not subscribe, and face no direct consequences.
2. Those who contribute the most, are also costing the servers the most.

Re:One problem that I see...

[Anonymous Coward]

no one is forcing you to pay anything.

Re:One problem that I see...

[e-gold]

I like the idea of more views if you post things that get modded up, but that's not controversial (and that makes zero money for Rob, who now is getting married, if that means anything). I like my (controversial) idea of selling moderator points, but it provokes a flamewar every time I mention it...There are times I'd pay to moderate a comment up (or down) and I don't think most folks have the money or time to abuse it if it's implemented properly (big if, I know).
JMR

PS Needless to say, their "payment options" so far could use some widening, IMO...

Re:One problem that I see...

[SirSlud]

Rewarding for 'good behaviour' removes the social meaning behind the behaviour. People will karma-whore like you've never seen, if it means getting credit towards subscriptions, etc.

You'd end up with a self-affirming group of posters who only post ideas thatare supported by the active moderatorship's ideology, which does a disservice to any attempt at objective discourse.

Re:One problem that I see...

[Anonymous Coward]

lmao.
that would simply encourage moderator corruption!
furthermore the moderator process isn't exactly accountable afaict.

Re:One problem that I see...

[seven89]

thesolo writes:

One problem that I see... ...is that under this model, those who contribute to slashdot the most, and make the site what it is, are forced to pay the most.

Perhaps this is one of those "problems" that ceases to be a "problem" the moment we stop thinking of it as a "problem."

What are the rewards of posting? First, there is the fun of saying, "Here, world, is what I think about ...whatever...," and having my words read by possibly thousands of other people. Then there is the possibility of getting an interesting e-mail or response. Plus, with every post, I get a little bit of Free Advertising!! for my web site. And with all of that, there is still the possibility of getting modded up! All those benefits have nothing to do with paying or not paying for traffic.

I am a bit dismayed by all the negativity I've read so far on this issue. I don't think of the $5 as a fee, I think of it as a cultural investment. The movement from advertiser supported sites to sites that are at least part supported by users is healthy. /., even with all its faults, is worthy of having a broad base of popular financial support.

a reason to pay

[spacefem]

I agree. I think the world need to change it's attitude about paying for online content/software, you don't pay because you can't steal it or they force you to or you get a whole lot more by putting money into it, you pay because you support people who do cool smart things, like Slashdot. Sort of a "put your money where your mouth is" deal.

IMHO Slashdot deserves a little cash, all. Face it. Open Source doesn't have a whole lot of alliances these days, we need to make the ones we have strong.

Re:a reason to pay

[Penrod Pooch]

What the fuck has /. to do with open source? I see loads of propeitary crap beeing hyped here. And if anyone makes a comment about it and say to use free software instead he'll be modded as -1 troll within seconds.

Re:a reason to pay

[cduffy]

Open Source doesn't have a whole lot of alliances these days, we need to make the ones we have strong.

Huh?

The true friends of OSS are the folks and companies who write and fund the code (though the latter group may do it not out of friendship but because it's profitable, I count them "friends" nonetheless -- just potentially fickle ones). Slashdot is just a discussion forum. It contributes no code, no design for code, persuedes few who aren't already part of the community... it's fun, sure, but I'd hardly say it's necessary for the open source (or free software) community to survive, or even particularly useful towards that goal.

I pay for some web content -- see goats, for instance. If I choose not to pay for some service, however (ie. removal of ads from /.), that's my choice; I'd rather not be portrayed as unsuportive of OSS (despite the code I write) because of it.

Re: a reason to pay

[elemental23]

Slashdot is just a discussion forum. It contributes no code...

You're right of course, they sure don't contribute open source code.

For what it's worth, I'll probably pitch in my $20 or so.

Re: a reason to pay

[cduffy]

Granted, but you're not urging me to buy Slashcode, or a support package for the same. You're urging me to buy adless access to slashdot -- something with little marginal utility over LWN, Newsforge or its other contemporaries. Slashcode is a separate enterprise, and I don't use it; If I'm going to spend money on OSS, it'll be sending a pizza to Andy (of Samba) or or a beer to Michiel Ronsse to say thanks for JiTI86 or buying pizza for my LUG (again). The folks of Slashdot... well, "they have their reward".

Re:a reason to pay

[GrammarPhone]

...you pay because you support people who do cool smart things...

I would append that to say, "who do cool smart things well." Taco and crew do a marvelously crappy and unprofessional job running this site. Which was fine when it was a hobby site, but if they want to make money at it, they'd better get their act together.

As soon as Taco starts spell-checking his posts, and maybe occasionally uses the word "than" instead of "then" in every freakin' sentence, I'll subscribe.

And don't dismiss me as a cheapskate - I subscribe to Salon, because they provide exclusive, original content that's well-written and worth reading. /. provides rehashed links from other blogs held together with very poor editorial skills.

Am I also paying for accountability?

[Multiple Sanchez]

What kind of customer support will slashdot offer? What happens when there's a DOS attack or a slashbug and I can't access the site when I need it? With traditional publications, I have someone's ear to chew when the periodical isn't delivered as promised. What kind of assurances can slashdot give me that I'll get something for my money?

Re:Am I also paying for accountability?

[JanneM]

You don't pay for availability. You pay for not seeing ads when you don't want them. If the site is down, you won't see /., but your page count won't go down either.

/Janne

Re:Am I also paying for accountability?

[Multiple Sanchez]

I would compare that to my newspaper not being delivered! It's great that I'm paying for no ads, but I would be dismayed to also be paying for no content.

Re:Am I also paying for accountability?

[Anonymous Coward]

Great point! But, unfortunately, just like every other software company, you are guaranteed nothing.

Re:Am I also paying for accountability?

[Sancho]

But you're PAYING for the newspaper!

Re:Am I also paying for accountability?

[sehryan]

When you pay for a magazine, you are paying for not only the content, but the physical media as well. 12 issues for $12 or something. So if you don't get an issue, you are now paying $12 for 11 issues. So there is a reason to bitch.

With this system, you are paying $5 for 1000 pages. So if you have 400 pages left and slashdot goes down for the weekend, when they come back up you still have 400 pages left. You aren't out anything at all. And since they were down anyway, you haven't missed any content either.

And by the way, I don't think there is ever a time when someone needs slashdot.

Re:Am I also paying for accountability?

[rainwater]

Yes, but if you don't read the newspaper you still have to pay for it. Not here. You only pay for what you see.

page views

[BryceH]

you must know how many pages users view. why not put that number in the _Your Info_ section on the _User Info_ page so that people can make informed decisions.

Re:page views

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe he said Q-tip, not cue-tip.

I don't like this ...

[NWT]

Slashdot subscriptions will essentially let you buy a thousand pages to be viewed without banner ads.

Come on ... this is rather silly, i wouldn't pay for banner-free pages.

Why does Slashdot do this? Does Taco need more money for the fourthcoming wedding oder does OSDN want more money?

That's nice. Hope you don't love slashdot...

[inaneboy]

Consider that if we all used an effective ad blocker, that'd be the end of adverts as an effective means of funding this site. And that'd mean we all pay, or byebye slash dot.

Or don't you realize that bandwidth doesnt grow on trees.

Re:That's nice. Hope you don't love slashdot...

[anpe]

OK, OK, I'll write a "click the banners" perl script too, so they can buy some bandwidth.

Re:That's nice. Hope you don't love slashdot...

[Diamon]

Actually as long as the ad image is still pulled across and just not displayed, the advertisers shouldn't know any different. Unless /. goes to click through. *shudder*

Re:That's nice. Hope you don't love slashdot...

[Anonymous Coward]

Realize where the true value lies at Slashdot. Its not with the web address, servers and storage but with the community that it has spawned. Slashdot itself is a commodity. If the community as a whole or in part decided to move itself to another site, your $20 investment would be worthless.

Re:That's nice. Hope you don't love slashdot...

[Syberghost]

Read what he said again; if we ALL used ad blocking.

If so, advertising on Slashdot wouldn't result in any increased sales, and there'd be zero click-thru (which they do measure, BTW), so people would stop advertising here.

Re:That's nice. Hope you don't love slashdot...

[Ozx]

If you want to look at ads be my guest, but if you think I'll have moral qualms with neutering their obnoxious and ineffective business strategy, you're mistaken... If I had a TiVo or a ReplayTV, I'd neuter those, too...
Advertising has become absolutely absurd on the 'net, to the point where every site pops up twenty pages that pop up another twenty pages, each using images of Windows dialogs in hopes of confusing the user into clicking them... Wtf?

If Slashdot wants to go all-subscription and thinks that's going to work, I hope you enjoy using it along with the other 40 people... I'm sorry, but Slashdot made the mistake of trying to move from a community-commented Chips and Dips to a business with no viable strategy for making wealth... They have almost zero value-added repackaging of other peoples' content... With the exception of movie/book reviews (which I find banal), Katz (who everyone despises), and these forums (dime a dozen) Slashdot is nothing more than links to various other news sources that provide their services for free... I'm sorry, but I have no desire to give Slashdot even a penny for the service of slashdotting, without permission, Doug's Shootout... Or to allow them to profit off of organizations like Reuters that actually pay employees to go out and write articles in exchange for money...

Rob Malda got to get in on that destroy-the-pentions-of-the-near-elderly dotbomb explosion, and I'm supposed to continue to pay for his life in exchange for the right to make no editorial decisions, sift through 9000 pages of trolls, and see articles I've already read because I'm not so lazy as to rely on Rob Malda to provide the world's news to me? No thanks. When Slashdot contains as much unique content as a real magazine, I'll consider looking at its obnoxious ads, or pay it $20 a year...

Re:That's nice. Hope you don't love slashdot...

[jgerman]

It doesn't matter either way, if we don't click they don't get results either. Impressions for performance like they used to be. So ad blocking or not, if I'm not going to click, I'm not going to clik whether I see the ad or not. So I might as well not see the ads. I'd like to know what advertisers are going to target the /. crowd. A good portion of the banners here are allready well targetted (I will view and sometimes click the current banners), but going to larger ads to try and force clicks on a (arguably) more tech saavy user base, I smell disaster.

Re:That's nice. Hope you don't love slashdot...

[susano_otter]

If that's how you feel, why are you even here?

Re:That's nice. Hope you don't love slashdot...

[Sc00ter]

I worked for an online advertising place. They usually don't do click-thru.. they do number of impressions (or views). Click-thru pays shit. They're trying to market online ads like billboards.. you can't really measure click-thru on billboards, but it's the impression, or exposure that they're looking for.

Sure, if they got NO clickthrus it would be odd, but sales, and stats are done mostly by impressions.

Re:That's nice. Hope you don't love slashdot...

[TheGreenLantern]

Well, see you later then. I'm sure they'll enjoy your incredible insights over at Adequecy.

Re:That's nice. Hope you don't love slashdot...

[RazzleFrog]

This really is a great comment. It reminds me of back when I used to use CuSeeMe. When it was popular there were lots of people and reflectors. Then Mplayer came along and a lot of the CuSeeMe community left. CuSeeMe became a ghost town. After Mplayer went games only everybody split between Paltalk and SeeSaw. Online communities are very fickle. All it takes is for something better (cheaper, easier, faster) to come along and there will be a mass exodus.

Re:That's nice. Hope you don't love slashdot...

[Ozx]

How incredibly insightful... Your assertion is that because Slashdot is not worth paying for directly, or viewing obnoxious ad content, that it is wholely without value... Methinks you should exercise whatever level reading capabilities you obtained in your educational persuits to note that I stated Slashdot has little added value, not none... This value is sufficient for me to exchange my value (story submission, posts) from which they will generate revenue from those people that value Slashdot enough to pay directly or offer ads... Let me know when the moderators take their Slashdot fan-boy hats off and correct the score of your post... Truly amazing...

Re:That's nice. Hope you don't love slashdot...

[Ozx]

Did your mommy help you find adequacy? Maybe she should have explained to you that it doesn't even try to be a news source, so how you decide it's similar to Slashdot is amazing... Perhaps what you really mean is Kuro5hin, but perhaps the language-equipped members of your clique have yet to introduce you to all of the hackneyed slash clones...

Re:That's nice. Hope you don't love slashdot...

[flez]

So you'll "donate" your time to code around the ads, but you can't pay $5 to get rid of them completely?

Your time must not be worth much.

Re:That's nice. Hope you don't love slashdot...

[Anonymous Coward]

Still won't pay the twenty bucks for IGN Insider?

Re:That's nice. Hope you don't love slashdot...

[RatFink100]

"Methinks you should exercise whatever level reading capabilities you obtained in your educational persuits"

LOL

Re:That's nice. Hope you don't love slashdot...

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a replayTV and if I start a show 10 minutes late, I can skip through all the commercials for a 30 minute show. There is no reason to watch a show when it is "officially" on any more. Must see tv could be Saturday morning if I wanted, I don't see commercials any more. Also, they say bandwidth doesn't grow on trees, but we have to pay for our bandwidth. I pay $40 now for a cable modem, should I then have to pay for each site I go to?

Re:That's nice. Hope you don't love slashdot...

[herk]

That looks like "trying-to-sound-educated" speak to me. When cornered, trying to breakdown someone's very legitemate point by attacking their intelligence with so many bs phrases doesn't always work.

Re:That's nice. Hope you don't love slashdot...

[susano_otter]

So let me see if I understand this:

You can't find anything good in Slashdot (instead, you provide a rather comprehensive catalog of its faults), but hey, it's free, so you'll condescend to stick around.

What I'm wondering is why you're not over at K5, or Salon, or one of the other free sites that doesn't have all the negative elements you've identified here?

I mean, you seem to be making a pretty solid argument for abandoning Slashdot right now in favor of something better. Hell, you almost have me convinced, and I'm pretty much a blue-sky Slashdot optomist. But you'll lose your credibility pretty soon here if you don't fuck off to some other free site.

Or are you trying, in some sort of curmudgeonly, misanthropic way, to say that Slashdot is the best free site of its kind, and there's no other place you'd rather be?

Re:That's nice. Hope you don't love slashdot...

[Score Whore]

Maybe he's kind of smart, so writing this code may take him, say, 5 minutes. So his time is worth $1/min. It's not brain surgeon value of time, but it's sure better than burger flipper. And when it comes down to it, it's a one time cost instead of a recurring cost.

Re:That's nice. Hope you don't love slashdot...

[Lemmy Caution]

Maybe he enjoys the banter on the topics at hand. That's what Slashdot has to offer: as a clipping service, it is unreliable, often late, incomplete, and usually without a lot of depth. As a place to chat about news stories with a geek slant, and often get more background in the process, it's fun.

And things being fun are not correlated with how much one is willing to pay for them. I enjoy playing frisbee in the park. A lot. I go often to the park to play frisbee - I could do it for hours. But the fact that I do it for hours doesn't translate into my willingness to pay, say, a dollar an hour for the "right" to play frisbee, or a willingness to "pay" for my frisbee rights by playing in a field lined with billboards if I can help it.

I frankly think I have every right to block ads if they become to invasive (I don't block Slashdot banner ads, because 1. they often are for products that are at least interesting and 2. they aren't invasive), just as I have a right to browse with a text-browser, a browser that kills pop-ups or doesn't enable them, or to use a braille- or voice- browser if I'm blind. Slashdot's - or anyone's - business model is *not my responsibility.*

Incidentally, I *did* pay for a premier service at Salon because I wanted the added content, not to get rid of the ads. I am very much *not* interested in a rate-based fee based on how many pages I load - this way lies madness.

Re:That's nice. Hope you don't love slashdot...

[Ozx]

You're right, look how you just failed... I'm sorry for you...

Re:That's nice. Hope you don't love slashdot...

[TheGreenLantern]

I'm curious what Bablefish filter you run "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters" through where it comes out "We are the most important, accurate, and not to mention important news site on the Internet ever".

I'm also curious at what you really expect Slashdot to do at this point? The place is being crushed under the weight of it's own popularity. Seriously, what would you have them do to stay afloat besides subscription services/larger banner ads?

Re:That's nice. Hope you don't love slashdot...

[JPriest]

herk waz 0wn3d

Re:That's nice. Hope you don't love slashdot...

[RatFink100]

Do you understand the paradox of your reply? - it's priceless!

Re:That's nice. Hope you don't love slashdot...

[herk]

Heyuk Heyuk.

Re:That's nice. Hope you don't love slashdot...

[Ozx]

I don't care that they have subscriptions or banner ads... In fact, that's great, let them have them... My point was entirely that it's not embodying all evil to filter out Slashdot's ads... I said why I do not find sufficient value in Slashdot to look at ads or to subscribe...
If Slashdot starts making its own content, then perhaps I'll find enough value in it to subscribe myself...
However there're many people that have made comments to the effect that "If you use junkbuster you will destroy Slashdot and that makes you evil!" I didn't destroy Slashdot, its controllers did by trying to extend it into something it's not, without having any idea how to do that... Slashdot could have _always_ had an optional subscription system, and if Slashdot wanted to _provide_ something, people would have given them money when it wasn't as desperate a situation... But clearly none of the people that run Slashdot think they have any reason to try and earn a living... They want to make Slash open source, put it on a few computers, and let us sit here and argue them to wealth...

Re:That's nice. Hope you don't love slashdot...

[Anonymous Coward]

I read /. because it's an available news source. I read TIME magazine although I find their reporting at the 4th grade level, but I want to know what the stupid commoners are doing and what they are going to do to fuq up and get in my way. People do things also because it's a necessity, not a pleasure factor.

Probably like everyone else here, I get my news from numerous sources, not all internet based. Making it MORE annoying simply would drive me away from it.

See TV. TV channel programmers think that since you watch anyways, you must like it. So they expand their ad time length. What happened? People turned off the tube, complained, PVRs took off, people taped shows and fast shuttled through them, they buy the DVDs, etc. I turned away from MSNBC because they got annoying with baseless commentary, but I still watched Hardball. Watching Hardball didn't mean I liked ALL of MSNBC. When Hardball then started running also on CNBC, I don't think I've watched MSNBC except for channel surfing.

Maybe I'll tune in to see what Katz is up to. But most likely, I'll wait for a viable, less annoying, and free (as in cost) alternative. I used to spend HOURS reading /. articles and comments and clicked through ads, nowdays I'm down to 15 minutes because the content quality just has gone downhill. Most likely, I'll just write scripts to download and strip the ad content away, even if it is click through (easy) and read it that way, much like a PVR might write the shows to a drive, but while watching it later, you can just fast foward through it all.

Re:That's nice. Hope you don't love slashdot...

[kz45]

Also, they say bandwidth doesn't grow on trees, but we have to pay for our bandwidth. I pay $40 now for a cable modem, should I then have to pay for each site I go to?

You obviouly have no concept of bandwidth, or seem to think slashdot runs off of a cable modem. (if they did, I couldn't see a reason for a subscription based service). Unfortunately, bandwidth right now costs a shitload of money. (especially on a dedicated line high-speed line).

I would imagine the parent company of slashdot is paying in upwards of $10,000 per month to run slashdot. The ads obviously don't cover it. (like advertising on a p2p app. Since the community is filled with 90% leechers, the revenue just isn't there).

Re:That's nice. Hope you don't love slashdot...

[Anonymous Coward]

One does not follow the other. I for one, love writing code, and often take the time to do something just for the fun of it.

Re:That's nice. Hope you don't love slashdot...

[danielrose]

You can't find anything good in Slashdot (instead, you provide a rather comprehensive catalog of its faults), but hey, it's free, so you'll condescend to stick around.
Wrong. He can find things of enough value to stick around so long as the ads are not too intrusive. He cannot find good enough content to justify looking at large, crappy ads, or paying $5 per month.

Have a nice day.

Re:That's nice. Hope you don't love slashdot...

[Anonymous Coward]

All $5 gets you is no ads for 1000 pages. A bit of code gets you no ads for potentially longer than that, and coding is a source of entertainment all by itself (well, for some of us :)

Re:That's nice. Hope you don't love slashdot...

[CmdrPinkTaco]

While I was trying to decide if this post was a troll or just someone who hadn't had their morning cup of coffe, I came up with a thought. Since this person is so upset about slashdot and their lack of value, what about a "pay-per-post" system. Have a system set up where a user can buy impressions in the form of posts instead of page views. This would effectively weed out a lot of the crap flooders, and (at least in theory) raise the signal to noise ratio. I think that it would also force people to think before they post. I don't know, it's just a thought - not a well formed one at that. I can see some problems with this the mose obvious being the /. crowd is naturally going to scream "consumerist bastard, you want to shut out those who have no money!!!!" It is a comprimise, there has to be some barrier of entry, and money is a common barrier between most of the people of the world.

Re:That's nice. Hope you don't love slashdot...

[Chester Abecrombe]

*cough*Kuro5hin*cough*

Re:That's nice. Hope you don't love slashdot...

[susano_otter]

Maybe he enjoys the banter on the topics at hand.

Maybe he does. I know I do. But he doesn't say that, either originally or in response to my question ("Why are you still here?"). He says nothing positive at all, and what he says specifically about the discussion forum is that it is a "dime a dozen" service--i.e., it's nothing special, and he could get just as good elsewhere.

And things being fun are not correlated with how much one is willing to pay for them. I enjoy playing frisbee in the park.

You don't see me asking you why you play frisbee in the park, do you? You've made it clear that you find value in the activity. It was this lack of clear motivation in the parent post that prompted me to ask for, well... clarification.

On a different note, I'll not dispute your "right" to block ads; we should all keep in mind, however, that crippling Slashdot's only source of revenue is a great way to kill something we like--assuming, of course, that we do actually like it.

Re:That's nice. Hope you don't love slashdot...

[susano_otter]

Obviously, he has some reason to be here. My question is "what is that reason?". He gives a lot of good reasons for him not to be here, and mentions not one redeeming quality. My curiosity was piqued, and I responded accordingly.

What value does Slashdot add, that outweighs the catalog of faults he lists? I'm still waiting to find out.

Re:That's nice. Hope you don't love slashdot...

[zeno_2]

Yea, I dont ever buy shit from a banner ad at all, and I doubt I ever will click on a banner ad, mainly because I see them as a tool of satan =P Ok they aren't that bad, but they get really annoying at times. (especially when a whole group of sites use one ad server, and the pages take forever becuase the ad server is bogging down).

In any case, I probably wont pay any money to not see ads, but I wont be clicking them either. Im sorry if thats evil, but if I want to buy something, I go to who I trust and buy from them, that company I buy from may use banner ads, but I still wont 'click' on one to buy something.

Re:That's nice. Hope you don't love slashdot...

[Keith Mickunas]

If Kuro5hin tries to sustain what /. does, they'll probably end up with bigger adds or subscriptions.

Bandwidth and server space isn't free, nor is it even cheap. Lots of people come here daily, and many actually like it, unlike a bunch of whiners that complain about every little change, or lack there of, just because it isn't the way they'd do it.

Is this place perfect? No. But the only place that will be perfect to a person is one that is run by them. I don't have the time or resources to do something similar, and this one does pretty damn good in providing me with what I want.

Rob and Jeff have put a lot into this site, and they are justified in trying to make some money off it. If you don't like it, go elsewhere.

Re:That's nice. Hope you don't love slashdot...

[jjsjeff]

I'm willing to bet that anyone that would go to the trouble to block /. ads won't be buying anything from the advertisers anyways. It shouldn't matter.

-Jeff

Re:That's nice. Hope you don't love slashdot...

[Anonymous Coward]

Truly amazing...

So amazing that you can't finish any of your sentences with a single period?

Re:That's nice. Hope you don't love slashdot...

[TheGreenLantern]

Well I have to say I find that more than attitude more than just a little irresponsible. If you don't find that Slashdot has enough value to pay for directly, then fine. Truth be told, I'm probably with you on that, don't think I'll be subscribing.

But if your going to then turn around and junkbuster the ads, and still actively view and participate in discussions, I find that very hypocritical. Your opinion of the way Slashdot has handled it's business affairs is immaterial. It's like refusing to pay taxes because the government is corrupt, but still making use of government-funded services like roads and a police force. Either put up with the ads (which is you paying for Slashdot indirectly), or just don't visit Slashdot.

Re:That's nice. Hope you don't love slashdot...

[Anonymous Coward]

The main thing I remember about CuSeeMe was that you could log on and instantly see as many close up shots of shots of masturbation as you could handle.

Oh those were the days :)

Re:That's nice. Hope you don't love slashdot...

[Ozx]

Invested in some reading glasses...
I will do precisely what I say, junk buster the ads, not subscribe, and provide value through my contributions (posts, submissions)...

If you think that's hypocritical, give me your address and I'll have Amazon send you a dictionary...

Re:That's nice. Hope you don't love slashdot...

[Anonymous Coward]

Mozilla has a nice feature to stop those annoying animated GIF ads (about 100% of them are that way these days) and the fucking popups. I'm glad I started using it. I don't have a problem with small, well-placed ads like at the top of slashdot currently, but the ones that flash like a god damn banshee make me think I'm going to have an epileptic seizure.

Re:That's nice. Hope you don't love slashdot...

[The Psyko]

thank you, a sane comment. Someone mod this up!

Re:That's nice. Hope you don't love slashdot...

[Anonymous Coward]

OK, I'll block the ads for ALL sites I visit, not just slashdot. Now I must worry that all of these sites will run out of advertising revenue, and move towards a subscription based service, or shut down due to lack of money to pay for bandwidth.

So what... I don't really need 300K of graphics design to tell me that "Osama bin Laden" hasn't been found yet. I don't really care that the page I just loaded isn't "pretty". Style has triumphed over substance in today's WWW.

And, by the way, I'm really not here. I hardly ever post to Slashdot, and this is the first time I've read it in months. There is nothing of value here. Even this post, despite the time I put in on it, is worthless.

Re:That's nice. Hope you don't love slashdot...

[TheGreenLantern]

provide value through my contributions...

Yeah, cause all your contributions have been so incredibly valuable already.

I suggest you go download Slashcode or Scoop and open up your own blog, where there are no banner ads whatsoever, no one will ever have to pay a subscription, and life is perfect. Two years later you might have more of an appreciation for what Taco and company have accomplished here.

The web ain't free anymore, and no matter how much people like you will cry and scream about it, it's a fact of life. Places like Slashdot can't stay afloat unless they're being paid by users, or being paid by advertisers. Advertisers expect people to look at their ads, so if your blocking, your doing Slashdot a disservice, period.

Re:That's nice. Hope you don't love slashdot...

[jcast]

Better yet, charge maybe $5 for a +1 bonus (in addition to any +1 bonus from excess karma). That way, the same people will be weeded out, but those who don't have money can earn their +1 bonus in other ways (early posts, karma whoring, the odd intelligent post, etc.)

Just a thought.

Re:That's nice. Hope you don't love slashdot...

[zeno_2]

Yea, I remember some I think they were from IGN, it would like put this HUGE car that drives across my screen (realize this ad is covering EVERYTHING, as in its on top of all my browsers and everything). I think this ad was for a toyota car or something like that, but man was that annoying.

I don't really mind the banner ads as much, only when its obvious that the adserver is bogged down (ign.com did this for a while, where all the ign sites would use one adserver, and it would make it unbearable to wait for it to load up). Me not minding them and me using them to buy stuff are 2 different things though. Sure, ive seen some slick ads when reading slashdot, but if I see something that im interested in, i'll usually try to find something like it available locally, if I can't find it, i usually never buy it from an online store. (I did buy the DVDCCA shirt that had DeCSS on it from thinkgeek I think, but it was not because of any ad I saw.).

Its getting so bad that all of our local theaters show ads during the movie previews.. Usually they are sprite ads, or jeep ads, and they are just as annoying as a popup ad on a page.

Ah well, i'll see how it goes with this ad stuff, I might cough up some money if its annoying, it seems like hush money to me at that point, but its not much, and slashdot is a great site..

Zeno

Re:That's nice. Hope you don't love slashdot...

[Ozx]

ROFL, it sure is a shame all of my good trolls are beyond what you can find...

Don't worry thinking isn't a challenge forever... Eventually you too will be a literate and cognatively advanced enough to understand my textual expressions...

Ahh, sweet junkbuster... How I love you... Have fun looking at ads and paying for Slashdot...

Re:That's nice. Hope you don't love slashdot...

[Jemima Fei]

I can assure you that Ozx is correct. Neither women nor communist asians should be permitted to voice themselves on Slashdot's forums.

Yes, you too can't be in Mensa.

Re:That's nice. Hope you don't love slashdot...

[TheGreenLantern]

I'm curious: is it your need for attention or your need to feel intellectually superior that makes you troll Slashdot?

Re:That's nice. Hope you don't love slashdot...

[Ozx]

You never cease to amaze me with your ability to be so incredibly naive as to find the obvious to be an insightful observation...

Re:That's nice. Hope you don't love slashdot...

[Ozx]

It's the overwhelmingly funny responses by stupid people that my dozens of accounts accumulate that keeps me coming to Slashdot... I've been reading Slashdot forever, have an account with a low uid, and even saw the site before Rob opened it publicly... But does that interest me? No, Slashdot is stupid, Rob is a wanker, and their site's only purpose for me is amusement... Amusement people such as yourself provide for me, because you're so insecure you feel the need to respond to each and every one of my words... It's even more amusing when the person is absolutely incapable of reading, very much reasoning... Thanks for the much needed humor!

Re:That's nice. Hope you don't love slashdot...

[Mr.Intel]

The web ain't free anymore

While I agree with most of what you say about the impending subscription system and the hypocrisy of those who would block ads and still contribute, I must say that there will always be those who try to freeload off the web. As long as people can connect, there will be those who will go above and beyond obtuse to get free information/pr0n/music/w4r3z/whatever. I forsee /. actually making some money off this system, but they probably won't get more than 5% of their subscribers to pay and of the 95% who don't, I bet 50% block the ads. I do now.

Places like Slashdot can't stay afloat unless they're being paid by users, or being paid by advertisers

True. As had been said, bandwidth aint cheap, but I am and I won't pay for something unless it's really worth it. As it stands now, I wouldn't pay for much on /. Even if that means I never post again, that would be OK by me. Reading would be enough to get what I come for.

Re:That's nice. Hope you don't love slashdot...

[Anonymous Coward]

Subscriptions shouldn't get you the right to read, they should get you the right to _post_. Simultaneously make money and eliminate trolls by ensuring posts are only made by people who really care about the site. As the poster above mentioned, it's the community that counts and this model does nothing to protect it but rather just creates more crap to sift through looking for intelligent comments. Not many people would pay $5 just to make a bad clustering/winblows joke but I would gladly pay to be a member of a community where I could be sure that all discussions/responses to my comments would be well thought out/insightful.

Re:That's nice. Hope you don't love slashdot...

[Shimmer]

> But if your going to then turn around and junkbuster the ads, and still actively view
> and participate in discussions, I find that very hypocritical.

So... what is the weather like on your planet?

No one is obligated to view advertisements. Have you been so brainwashed by corporate culture that you've lost all perspective?

Let's consider the implications of your claim that it is hypocritical to block ads. Do you also feel obligated to read each ad? Ignoring an ad could be considered hypocritical, you know. Do you feel obligated to click through? Someone might find you hypocritical otherwise. When you tape something on TV, do you carefully watch the ads during playback? To do other wise would be "very hypocritical", don't you think?

-- Brian

Re:That's nice. Hope you don't love slashdot...

[TheGreenLantern]

Your very welcome! Perhaps you'd like to have a discussion on the benefits Microsoft could have to Open Source software?

Re:That's nice. Hope you don't love slashdot...

[Ozx]

Nahh, that whole Open Source thing is just too hackneyed a troll topic for today...

Re:That's nice. Hope you don't love slashdot...

[leviramsey]

Yeah, Kuro5hin has been planning to do exactly what Slashdot is doing. See this page for more info, but they've gone live with a subscription system.

I actually have no problem with the buy-moderation scheme. Say Slashdot sells 50 posts with an additional +1 for $5, prepaid. So some schmuck gets to post crap at an initial value of +2 (+3 if he's already go the +1 for karma). Guess what, initial scorings are not static. If it's crap at +2, moderators will knock it down to a level where it belongs. And if someone wants to buy a +2 on everything, they can pay $15 for 50 posts at either +3/+4.

One other idea that I could see working, in a similar vein, is elimination of the karma cap for paying subscribers. At 75 karma, you'd qualify to post at 3. At 175 points, you'd qualify for 4. And at 375 karma points, you could place your own posts at 5 to start (but be moderated down and lose karma for overbidding... that's why I rarely use my post at 2 priveleges).

Maybe as another tack, the user prefs could be adjusted to ignore these automatic moderations (including the +1 bonus).

Re:That's nice. Hope you don't love slashdot...

[TheGreenLantern]

Well, "The Web ain't free" is of course a gross generalization, but pretty accurate in the context of this discussion I think. Even a simple, low traffic hobby site is gonna cost you some bucks, unless you go with a "sponsored" site like Geocities or something.

I'm with you in that I probably won't be paying anything for Slashdot, but personally I've never really understood the loathing hatred of banner ads. They don't add that much more to page load, even on dial-up, and one wheel-scroll down and I'm past it. Pop-ups/unders and side banners are of course slightly more annoying, but not something I can't live with.

Re:That's nice. Hope you don't love slashdot...

[TheGreenLantern]

I wasn't trying to suggest anyone is "obligated" to viewing advertisements. Obviously even catching a glimpse of any advertisement would automatically transform you into a corporate drone, and strip away your precious self-proclaimed title of Underground Renegade Freedom Fighter Against Corporate Machinos. Please allow me to play a Rage Against the Machine MP3 in your honor as penance.

Jesus, why is it so evil just to ignore the ads? Do you go through a newspaper or a magazine before you read it and rip out every ad, just in case your free will is somehow subjegated to Corporate Greed? Do you refuse to watch any TV "live" just because you can't stand the thought of wasting 30 seconds of your life?

Yeah, I know, "I do it because I can". Well yay for you I guess.

Re:That's nice. Hope you don't love slashdot...

[mgv]

Maybe he's kind of smart, so writing this code may take him, say, 5 minutes. So his time is worth $1/min.

Well, I hope that he didn't spend too many dollars writing his post then. Would have cost him a few dollars in time just to write about what he wasn't going to pay for.

Michael

Re:That's nice. Hope you don't love slashdot...

[Skwirl]

>Yeah, Kuro5hin has been planning to do exactly what
>Slashdot is doing.

Except Kuro5hin is introducing classified-style text ads, which is a heck of a lot less annoying than "large what-the-advertisers-want" ads, and probably a better business model.

Only baboons are impressed by larger ads, so Slashdot's advertisers won't be much more successful with larger ads and Slashdot will lose aesthetically minded readers. This means the advertisers will eventually realize larger ads aren't working and will seek more beneficial advertising elsewhere. Meanwhile, K5, with their more grassroots and less obnoxious advertising scheme, will be quietly taking over the Universe. Unless Google beats them to it.

Re:That's nice. Hope you don't love slashdot...

[Jerry]

Well said!

Maybe subscriptions will eliminate the AC trash posters, script kiddies, racists, pedophiles and posters like the 'goat.sex' idiot.

Re:That's nice. Hope you don't love slashdot...

[Florian Weimer]

Bandwidth and server space isn't free, nor is it even cheap.

True, that's why you have to design your service that it scales well without wasting too much of your bandwidth. Think of Usenet, for example.

Re:That's nice. Hope you don't love slashdot...

[digitalunity]

Hah, not likely. Those goatsex trollers will still be here. Their not going anywhere. On a side note, I don't think Jeff and the gang are going to end up making money off of this subscription deal. First of all, they're only editors; they don't own slashdot anymore. OSDN does. If there is $$$ to be made, it's for OSDN.

So, for the editors, this is just another pain in the ass. Something that will prevent some users from seeing their hard work. I sincerely hope that the users are willing to give up a mickey d's happymeal once or twice a year to view slashdot ad-free.

Re:That's nice. Hope you don't love slashdot...

[Anonymous Coward]

Bandwidth and server space isn't free, nor is it even cheap. Lots of people come here daily, and many actually like it, unlike a bunch of whiners that complain about every little change, or lack there of, just because it isn't the way they'd do it.

Yes and no. Bandwidth and server space are not free, but a peer-to-peer solution could be designed, and would be as much in the spirit of the community.

Re:That's nice. Hope you don't love slashdot...

[DarkZero]

Have you ever tried to read something on a site that has a constantly flashing banner ad fitted in right next to the text? It's like the optical version of trying to listen to the radio while someone is firing off an air horn in your ear every half second. Not only does it stop you from enjoying or even seeing the content you're listening to, but it also makes your eyes hurt.

This is why people hate banner ads. The main reason, at least, with "It makes the site look like crap" and "No, thanks, I don't feel like paying three bucks a minute for Tiffany's Tittie Cam" coming in second and third.

Re:That's nice. Hope you don't love slashdot...

[DarkZero]

Do you go through a newspaper or a magazine before you read it and rip out every ad, just in case your free will is somehow subjegated to Corporate Greed?

I don't know about him, but I do that all the time. I'm sick of magazines that have four to six consecutive pages of ads sandwiched right into the middle of articles (Time Magazine). I also tear them out of Electronic Gaming monthly, because they're so desperate for advertising dollars that there are two pages of ads between every single page story, in addition to tons of light cardboard advertisements and fold-out advertisements that unfold if you hold the magazine the wrong way.

I don't tear them out because I'm afraid of corporate control. I tear them out because they're damned annoying, as are most websites that use similarly invasive and annoying ads.

Re:That's nice. Hope you don't love slashdot...

[MadAhab]

You're absolutely right. I used junkbuster for a while, until I realized I just don't care. I'm big enough to make my own decisions about things, and if people want to try to convince me to try out what they've got, fine, just as long as I have the right to ignore them. If they do the panhandler-in-your-face thing, the only piece of my business they'll get is my foot in their backside.

Frankly, I don't mind if ./ puts up larger ads. I won't pay not to see them. I would pay for karma, though, once or twice, just so I could burn it up with flamebait. The crapflooders and trolls get too much attention. Well-aimed flames don't get enough.

Fuck you very much for your time.

Re:That's nice. Hope you don't love slashdot...

[drik00]

this comment is a bit deeply nested, but it seems everyone is missing the point...these people that pay to put advertisements on popular webpages on the premise that someone will see and remember the product/service name...NOT so that someone will click on it and buy whatever they may be peddling.

I dont care how many adverts are on a page, personally, its the "ADVERTISING business, not the SALES business"...these people are just concerned with getting the name/reputation out there, its as simple as that. Dont overthink it and assume that they only make money off of people following an advert and buying the product, these companies make money off of the advertisements themselves. If they can tell their clients that their products' advertisements were hit by 250,000 ppl a day at slashdot.org, then thats pretty good, thats the extent of their job.

As long as /. doesnt do pop-ups, i can handle the ads.

Re:That's nice. Hope you don't love slashdot...

[Anonymous Coward]

I worked for an online advertising agency in thier anti-fraud section.

Any 5-minute perl script will be caught. You'll do something that is obvious fraud. (No, I'm not going to tell you what)

If anything, you might cause Slashdot's advertisers to drop Slashdot because of high fraud numbers.

Re:That's nice. Hope you don't love slashdot...

[Drake42]

You made me laugh out loud. If I hadn't already posted, I'd mod you up. Excellent research and response. Bravo!

Re:That's nice. Hope you don't love slashdot...

[RazzleFrog]

That was definitely out there but there were plenty of "tame" reflectors also. The best part of CuSeeMe was that most of the quality reflectors didn't allow lurking so you had to show your video to participate.

Re:That's nice. Hope you don't love slashdot...

[Com2Kid]

Hmm, what if we start FINING the trolls instead, eh?

Seriously now, anybody who posts a friggin premade troll or a goatse link gets fined $5.

Okay so implementing it might be a bit hard, but, hmm.

If they don't pay up we hunt them down and cut off their balls? Yah, that'd work as insentive. :)

Re:That's nice. Hope you don't love slashdot...

[Shimmer]

Oh please. Nice work there demolishing that straw man. I especially liked the part where I'm a Freedom Fighter. Do I also get all the good looking chicks?

For the record, I agree with you -- it is not evil to just ignore the ads. Truth be told, when I watch live TV, I enjoy the commercials as much as the next guy. (Sadly, they're usually better than whatever show I'm watching.)

Now it's your turn to admit that there's also nothing evil (or hypocritical) about blocking ads.

Or maybe you'd prefer another ad hominem go at me?

-- Brian

Re:That's nice. Hope you don't love slashdot...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Do you refuse to watch any TV "live" just because you can't stand the thought of wasting 30 seconds of your life?"

Yes! i refuse to watch any TV because of the ads, WTF should i watch something that pisses me off?

Freedom of choice!

Re:That's nice. Hope you don't love slashdot...

[Anonymous Coward]

I object! I love X10!

Wait, has X10 taken over slashdot! Oh yes, great!

Re:That's nice. Hope you don't love slashdot...

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe he has a thing against the ad companies in the first place, so he may feel that the value of writing those few lines of code (no matter how long it takes) is worth more than the $5.

Re:That's nice. Hope you don't love slashdot...

[schmink182]

"...mainly because I see [banner ads] as a tool of satan..."

Strange, I always loved banner ads. The way I see them, they don't matter if you don't pay attention to them, and they let you look at websites for free. Sounds pretty great to me.
Oh well, I guess everyone can have an opinion.

Re:That's nice. Hope you don't love slashdot...

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't mind the ads per se (at least not too much), but tracking users would send me away -- NOT make me pay to avoid them. If these will be served by doubleclick/imgis/24-7... then goodbye Slashdot. If the ad images are local to Slashdot and user information is not provided to the advertisers (other than the number of viewers), then I won't object. We do need to know EXACTLY what information the advertisers (or any intermediaries) will get. If this information is not forthcoming then again -- goodbye Slashdot. In fact, if I knew that the advertisers etc. got NO user information, I might even buy their products and/or services. Currently I BOYCOTT products from advertisers served by tracking entities such as Doubleclick, as do many others I know.

Re:That's nice. Hope you don't love slashdot...

[Shanep]

As long as /. doesnt do pop-ups, i can handle the ads.

I've just started using Opera for Linux (TP2), it has a "don't accept pop-ups" feature that actually seems to be working.

Browsing on my PII-300 is so quick too.

Re:That's nice. Hope you don't love slashdot...

[ilsundalX]

I kinda agree... (although my knowledge on bandwith costs, etc. is limited) I personally have a small problem with ad companies in the fact that, yes they help sites cover their bandwith cost, but i would like to know how much ads globally take up bandwith... for the average net user its kinda a catch-22. For example my service provider charges me for bandwith above the "allowed useage". Now so far I never hit the 4GB they allow me but as time goes on I see more and more ads on the net and I hear more and more about the rising cost of bandwith sooner or later ads will be the problem themselves, not for the sites but for the average user... (not to mention the time spent d/ling them for the poor guy thats still using a 28.8kpbs in europe where they pay for every minute on the line). So although writing the code may save us our 5$ now, the way I see it, ultimately you'll wind up paying for it in the long run...

Re:That's nice. Hope you don't love slashdot...

[zeno_2]

I guess I can say they are my favorite kind of advertising on the web besides no advertising.. Not saying i like it, its just the least obtrusive form of ads there is, but they still are annoying

Does this change the viewer demographic for ads?

[ArticulateArne]

My question is, if people start subscribing, would this potentially make ad space on the pages less desirable for the advertisers? Those who subscribe will be those who care enough to spend the money, who have the money to spend (not that $5 is going to kill anybody), and who bother to spend it. If a lot of people subscribe, will the advertisers be left showing ads to people who can't / don't want to spend money? Or are the advertisers going for raw product-recognition building? It would be interesting to see the click-through and purchasing statistics before and after subscriptions, and see what impact it has on the actual effectiveness of the ads.

What's my motivation?

[Otter]

Look, I understand the realities of business and if I need to pay to read Slashdot, I'll pay to read Slashdot.

But it's not clear what motivation this plan is meant to appeal to. Get rid of banners? What do I care? I, and probably most readers, simply filter them out mentally unless they're so unbelievably annoying (X10, Shoot The Monkey) that I stop reading the site. Loading time might be an issue for some sites, but for loading even a moderate Slashdot page, the extra time to load a banner is insignificant noise relative to however trolls have mangaed to screw up the rendering that day. I was on a 28k modem connection at home until recently and banners were a non-issue. And the people who really hate them already block them, although I bet the number who really do that is even smaller than the number who actually bothered to write in about the Microsoft settlement.

If the plan is to get readers to support the site out of altruism they should say that. (Or at least realize it.) But if Rob and Jeff are really trying to provide added value for the price, they need to come up with something better to offer. Or take away something from the free side.

Re:What's my motivation?

[IIOIOOIOO]

Why are people so easily driven away from websites by the tyrannical X10 ads? Seriously, any time you are looking at an X10 banner, you are only 4 clicks away from banishing them permanently from your experience. Simply click through to their page, hop to the faq, click the link to the "make these stop showing up page", and click OK. It says 30 days, but you can change the HTTP Get parm value to any number of days you want (the message doesn't change, but I've tested it.) I'll even give you THIS pre modified shortcut!

Kuro5hin anyone?

[Codex The Sloth]

You might want to check out Kuro5hin although you'll have to do with "Linux 2.4.2.2... release" and "First Post"

And what's the deal with Slashdot only allowing a "select" # of articles / day. What difference does it make? If alot of stuff happens, shouldn't you have more stories anyway?

Additional Feature

[CrackElf]

I think that paying users should have the ability to mod stories. That way we could mod out katz entirely.

I think I'll wait

[alnapp]

Thanks for the oppourtunity to subscribe early, but I think I'll wait to find out just how annoying these ads are.

(Thinks are 1000ads more annoying than a couple less beers)

Erm, guys?

[Maran]

So, you're using pay pal for charging? Is this hypocrisy, or just stupidity?

Also, how big are these "large ads"? On my 19" monitors (home and work), the current ads are nice and easy to ignore. How much larger are the new ones?

Maran

paid

[spottedkangaroo]

I paid... just so I could see how it worked. It's neat. I think the amount should be quite a bit lower... then I'd likely buy it over and over. $5 is just too much for something ya don't need at all. How 'bout a dollar?

Fine, but let's make the content a bit better

[iridium]

Subscriptions are fine, but if you are going to charge for your content would you please invest a little more time in -editing- what is posted. I'm not going to pay for a site that is filled with typos, editorial comments and out of date articles.

Rather than just saying "pay to get rid of the ads", why not offer "a better /. with your support".

I wouldn't pay for a print magazine that is as poorly edited as this site.

Put your money where your mouth is.

[Matey-O]

Okay guys. If you're really the libertarian, open source, _fair_use_ folks you claim to be, then make Slashdot the most wildly successful, profitable, FOR FEE site on the net.

You can't tell me you life hasn't been changed (for better or worse) by these guys. $5 a month is a _pittance_. You can't buy LUNCH for $5.

_MY_ 'checks in the mail'

Re:Put your money where your mouth is.

[_Stryker]

That's all well and good, except it is us, the users, who actually provide the content of the site. Without the users, there would be no stories submitted, there would be no comments, there would be no Slashdot.

With that in mind, why should the users, particularly those that contribute to discussions, have to pay?

Re:Put your money where your mouth is.

[cybrthng]

This isn't $5.00 per month, this is $5.00 per thousand page views.

All you are doing is effectively raising there "Cost per Thousand" add numbers, boosting there bottom line. Your subsizing the add revenue by paying for it youserlf and boosting slashdots revenues.

Heck, even when i pay for a magazine, it has adds, but those adds are targeted. For example i subscripe to plane and pilot, the magazine would suck without adds because i like seeing what is new, but i still pay for the magazine becasuse the content is great, the resource is great and i'm not limited by what i can do with that magazine. I can give it away, read it for years, it doesn't vanish or expire unless i burn it.

All slashdot is doing now is subsidizing add revenue and making you pay for a site that ultimately relies on you to survive. I don't see this as a win win for anyone but slashdot boostin the bottom line.

I'm sorry, but not once did it say "were doing this for an overall boost in value to you, our customers" but instead slashdot repeats many times "we figured the best way to satisfy you and our advertisers was to scew you and make you pay a CPM rate now".

oh joy.

Re:Put your money where your mouth is.

[Matey-O]

'With that in mind, why should the users, particularly those that contribute to discussions, have to pay?'

Because you're paying for the ACCESS to the conversation that occurs here. Yeah, we're the contributors, but Slashdot is the facilitator. And the cost of that facilitation is non-zero.

Re:Put your money where your mouth is.

[hyphz]

The point is that the conversation could move to another faciliator.

For example: addgroup Alt.slashdot. Indicate moderation changes and similar by posting signal messages. Get some open source news clients and knock up custom versions that respect the signal messages when producing the threadview. Use GnuPG signing and trustweb to authenticate the people posting these. Make the news clients capable of parsing pages pulled off Google Groups in the absence of an NNTP server. Even though all the checking will be client side that doesn't matter - a spammer could hack their own client but that won't help if everyone else is using trusted ones.

But, you also have to see the other side of the coin. SlashDot cannot pay for the ISP in positive contributions. And one of the old problems with internet commerce is that you get MORE costs as you get more customers. Viewing stuff costs money for bandwidth. Posting contributions, no matter how positive, costs money for bandwidth and storage.

Re:Put your money where your mouth is.

[chocolatetrumpet]

then watch /. turn into microsoft as users leave by the 10000's, and /. starts DOSing major news hubs to force them back...

Re:Put your money where your mouth is.

[Sodium Attack]

If you're really the libertarian, open source, _fair_use_ folks you claim to be

That's some nice baiting, but I suspect that you know as well as I do that 90% of /.ers claiming to be libertarian are no such thing. Sure, they think government should keep their hands off private matters--until they see someone engaging in an activity they don't like and can't stop on their own, and then they want government regulation up the wazoo.

Re:Put your money where your mouth is.

[melatonin]

You can't buy LUNCH for $5.

The thing is, I just did, because I don't live in the USA. USD 5 is a lot of money, and fits lunch nicely.

That's one of the problems for subscription sites, if you have to subscribe to many of them (or even a few per month), and you're not earning USD, it adds up very, very quickly. And you never get the best exchange rates on your credit card :(

Re:Put your money where your mouth is.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not true, a value meal at Arbys, Wendys, or McDonalds can all be gotten for less than 5 dollars in the US

Re:Put your money where your mouth is.

[cduffy]

How does being a Libertarian, open source, fair use guy entail paying for Slashdot?

Certainly it entails not stealing slashdot, but I'm not doing that -- I'm continuing to take advantage of a free service that Malda & co (for whatever their internal reasons) choose to offer to the public. If I filter the ads client-side (and don't re-publish a filtered version), I'm exercising my property rights (they give away the bits for free, a copy of them, but not a license to redistribute, is now my property). If Malda & co decide to restrict /. to paying buyers only, they're free to do that; at that time I'll decide whether the service is worth the price.

And by the way, I can buy lunch for $5. A good lunch, even. If you can't, consider moving to somewhere with a lower cost of living.

Re:Put your money where your mouth is.

[pr0vidence]

Amen to that!

One Thousand ad-less pages for $5 is like nothing. That's about half a cent per ad-free page. Not a big deal.

I have seen a lot of complaints about "hitting refresh and loosing another page view" Big deal! Unless you sit there all day hitting refresh over and over waiting for the next article to show up so you can get the oh-so-important "first post", One Thousand pages should last you months. I check /. 3-4 times a day, and I sent them my $5 without a second thought. You know, I almost forgot what it was like to view a web page without ads. It's incredible!

Re:Put your money where your mouth is.

[Rinikusu]

Actually, $5 buys me a lot:

20 packs of Ramen noodles (food for a week or so, and the preservatives will save on embalming costs when I croak from high blood pressure)

or

Ramen, eggs, and bread (eating more varied, but less, but that's also food for a week)

or

hell, I could buy a lot of beans and greens for $5.

Does everyone eat at Wendy's every day or something? Am I missing the boat?

At this moment, I'm floating $50k in debt from car loans, student loans, and credit cards, and $25k/year in salary, and I'm still not finished with college. $5 is a lot of cash to be asking for:

Poor grammar
Poor spelling
No stories (really, other than Jon Katz and the occasional book review, this site just makes a convenient one stop for me to read stuff elsewhere).

They compared this to a magazine subscription. If you want this to be a pay-site, I have to ask for just a few things:
Hire a fucking editor and use a spell checker! If I'm paying, I don't want to see all those embarrassing spelling/grammatical mistakes! I swear, reading through some of the story summaries reminds me of my High School years. You remember, all those stupid jocks that couldn't spell their fucking names. Folks, you're smart, use it to learn how to spell, m'kay? You may not take it seriously, but your paying subscriber base will.

2) Original content

etc.

This site could be the most profitable FOR FEE site if it had the BEST content. Professionalism goes a long way here, folks.

I'll put up with the ads, thanks (and maybe occasionally click through).

Hope you make it to 2003, /. .

Re:Put your money where your mouth is.

[gamgee5273]

You can't buy LUNCH for $5.

Hmmm. I generally agree with your other points. But you're wrong: I'm in Detroit and just had lunch for less than $4.

Re:Put your money where your mouth is.

[Anonymous Coward]

you can buy lunch for $5, but you can't eat slashdot.

Re:Put your money where your mouth is.

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't buy LUNCH for $5.

You must be a picky fucker. I can buy lunch for $1.69.

Re:Put your money where your mouth is.

[Anonymous Coward]

cakeeater. Giving all power to companies is not more freedom. You will never find freedom by looking for answers anywhere but within. The markey economy may work for you, but it can not work for many people.

Re:Put your money where your mouth is.

[SecretAsianMan]

You can't buy LUNCH for $5.

Well, you certainly can't buy the seven-course luncheon and three attendants that your snobbish tastes have come to expect. So you're right there, rich boy. But for the rest of us, $5 can buy many lunches. What is the price of Ramen noodles where you live?

Re:Put your money where your mouth is.

[Anonymous Coward]

until they see someone engaging in an activity they don't like and can't stop on their own, and then they want government regulation up the wazoo

Ay-freaking-men. This is the Slashdot hypocrisy that bugs so many of us.

Re:Put your money where your mouth is.

[Lumpy]

$5 a month is a _pittance_. You can't buy LUNCH for $5.

only if you eat at snooty places.
I can get you an exquisite lunch almost anywhere for $5.00, yes the places usually have broken neon signs.. but how the place looks says nothing about the food quality. There's a place in Chicago that has the absolute best Thai food on the planet... Yes I've even tried the hyper-expensive places... they suck compared to the $3.95 a plate wonder in the hole I visit on a bi-monthly basis (Chicago is 350 miles away... hard to get there every weekend.)

so only morons cant get a great lunch for $5.00 or less.

Re:Put your money where your mouth is.

[Vertigo Donkey]

I did put my money where my mouth is. I bit the bullet and used paypal. Now I'm so pissed off at PayPal that my furry has exetended to /. The anoyance has removed any joy I could possibly have for removing the ads. This is just as bad as when WinDrivers.com went pay ('cept I still see the @#!$ banner ads!). Just another quick note. I find this anouncement by /. to go pay rather ironic as they just finished praising Piro over at Mega Tokyo for an insiteful rant on pay sites. Now I do understand that he was talking more about "pay for use / content", but I still think it applies. The key principle is that the net isn't free, but would be better if it is. Good karma (and I mean the real deal, not this /. crap) does come from giving some of your own time and energy to produce something _FOR FREE_ and giving it away to others (on the net or in real life). With the bad karma produced by this move, I do predict that /. will become even more troll infested and flamer scarred. It really is too bad, because I real have always liked this site. RIP /.

Re:Put your money where your mouth is.

[doom]

> > You can't buy LUNCH for $5. > The thing is, I just did, because I don't live in the > USA. USD 5 is a lot of money, and fits lunch nicely. Now that you mention it, I just bought lunch for less than $5, because I live in San Francisco, and despite the scare story on the main page today lots of things are actually fairly cheap around here. $5 will get you a hell of a burrito. (Aren't you glad there are users like me around to contribute amazing content like this? My karma's still up at the ceiling of 50, too. Amazing.)

Re:Put your money where your mouth is.

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't buy CD's (or pirate music) due to the RIAA/DMCA.
For the same reason I won't go to the movies, or buy Sony equipment.

So why should I send money to a company that CLAIMS they are into Open Source (OSDN) yet does so very little to support BSD?

Sending the /. crew money would be rewarding VA Software for thier attitude. Why should I re-inforce the chosen path of VA Software with money?

Re:Put your money where your mouth is.

[Cylix]

Sorry bud, but slashdot has to make money. It has turned into a business after all.

I would hate to see my favorite site go the way of the .com bust.

Just my 2cents.

Re:Put your money where your mouth is.

[LoseNotLooseGuy]

I have seen a lot of complaints about "hitting refresh and loosing another page view"

I am uncertain how one would go about letting loose or releasing a page view. Perhaps you were referring to a user failing to retain credit for a page view after simply hitting refresh. If so, the word you were looking for is losing.

Congratulations! You have been participant #42 in my campaign to rid Slashdot of this error.

Re:Put your money where your mouth is.

[DeanOh]

I'd love to put a check in the mail. I damned sure don't want to go give paypal access to my checking account. That paypal is "easy and simple right now" is an inadequate answer to the 'how to pay' question. The devil is always in the details, and the move to create a subscription model has failed to address this detail. eff paypal. i've been self filtering banner ads for years....i can continue to do so.

Loose PayPal then I'll think about it.

[owlmeat]

Get your perl monkeys busy and do a decent on-line payment system, not that cheesy-ass PayPal thing.

Re:Loose PayPal then I'll think about it.

[$0 31337]

How the hell is the parent flamebait? It's that readers personal opinion that paypal isn't good and you should instead create your own online payment system... Christ.. Anyone says anything against slashdots new subscription service gets modded to troll or flaimbait

Re:Loose PayPal then I'll think about it.

[gamgee5273]

Of course, I personally think that modding down for spelling ("loose?" "flaimbait?" - the words are "lose" and "flamebait") and misuse of the apostrophe is quite appropriate.

Re:Loose PayPal then I'll think about it.

[$0 31337]

wtf are you talking about? I don't use or attempt to use either "loose" or "lose" in my comment. I did accidently put flaimbait (for some unknown reason) and I'm deeply sorry it bothered you. Also, I don't believe that I was talking about the moderation of my comment.. as stated, I thought the parent was unfairly moderated. Thanks for the comment dick.

Re:Loose PayPal then I'll think about it.

[gamgee5273]

No, I was talking about you and the parent. I'm equal opportunity in my grumpiness, son.

I understand and agree, but won't be subscribing

[Vairon]

I for one completely understand and agree with Slashdot for doing this. After all, we all sneer at those other bandwidth/machine-deficient websites who can't handle the slashdot effect, but we rarely think about the fact that Slashdot has to handle the slashdot effect 24x7. That sort of bandwidth and machine-power cost money, a lot of money. The only way a popular website can recoup its costs are through advertising OR subscriptions. We, the users of slashdot are fortunate enough to at least have the OPTION of which we want. Personally, I'll take advertisements, because quite frankly I actually like and sometimes click on them. Unlike other websites, slashdot advertisements are geared toward me and present me with things I'd like to buy or wish I could buy. I probably won't even filter them, unless they start using popups that are really annoying (never seen a good popup ad).

why paypal?

[afidel]

After This aand a few rather horific stories including payapal being sued by like 13 states for running an unregistered banking business I wonder why they chose payapl?

Contributors will pay the most!

[TrollMan 5000]

The rates are currently set at $5 per 1000 pages. To put this into perspective, $20 (typical magazine subscription) will be enough pages for 82% of our readers to view Slashdot without ads for a year. Another 15% will need to spend $5 a month to accomplish the same thing. 3% of our readers would need to spend more than $5 a month- but they could choose to see ads on comments and in almost every case, still pay around $5 a month. (As an aside, it's also worth noting that more than half of all comment posters fall into this 3%)

It;s the poster who make Slashdot what it is. Your fee setup essentially penalizes those people. Without the posters, Slashdot would have nothing to read!

I'd much prefer a monthly fee subscription setup rather than the $5 per 1000 pages.

Hit G

[inerte]

Well, text ads at least? On Opera you can press "G" so it won't load graphics. Other browsers also have similar functionalities.

boo

[Bongzilla]

you slashdot people have so much raw power right now in terms of the amount of affluent attention you can direct. the subscription could put an end to that.

Has anyone clued in the advertisers...

[Svartalf]

...that the annoying ad campaigns don't work and never did? Has anyone told them that bigger, longer ads in the way of the content is the cause of the demise of network broadcast television?

The business model they're operating under isn't in touch with reality and isn't sustainable.

No PayPal

[Anonymous Coward]

PayPal has had enough issues that I refuse to support them. Please consider other options. Getting hooked up with a system like Authorize.net is a fairly inexpensive process. The charging is handled through HTTPS POSTs, thus should be fairly easy to accomplish with the correct Perl modules.

I have worked with several clients to implement Authorize.net, and have never been disappointed.

Pay-per-use is bad!

[Dephex Twin]

When I saw this article about the subscription, I was ready to sign up. I'll pay a monthly or yearly subscription, sure.

But paying for every 1000 pages? What this leads to is every time I'm going to have a look at something in Slashdot, I have to weigh whether or not I *really* want to, because every time has a cost. It's like when I was using Compuserve back in the day, and lots of the content had "premium" costs. So I could never really enjoy the extra stuff, because every time I used it had to justify paying.

mark

Re:Pay-per-use is bad!

[pmc]

But paying for every 1000 pages? What this leads to is every time I'm going to have a look at something in Slashdot, I have to weigh whether or not I *really* want to, because every time has a cost.

Ah - it gets worse. You load slashdot (1 page hit), open a story (2), read the comments, decide to respond to a comment (3), preview your response (4), decide not to post and go back to the story (5,6), read a long comment (7), go back (8), but accidently hit back twice so your at the home page (9), so back to the story (10), read the extra comments on the next page (11), respond to one of these with preview (12, 13, 14), then go back to the story (15), and decide to look at the level zero posts (16), then you go back to the home page (17).

Then you check you messages (18) and see there is a new reply you click it (19) and then click the link (20) then hit reply, preview and post (21, 22, 23) then back home.

You decide to metamoderate (24, 25) and end up back at the home page (26).

Wow - that's a lot of pages. Admittedly there are more efficient ways of doing things, but these are my browsing habits.

The galling thing is that it will cost you money (if you chose to subscribe) to metamoderate and to post. Even submitting a story will cost you money.

Best wishes in your future careers guys, this site is dying.

Re:Pay-per-use is bad!

[Mynn]

I dunno. I wouldn't pay $9.95 a month to read Something Awful, but I don't get to Slashdot very often, so I like the pay per view as an option.

Though I agree it shouldn't be the only option.

Okay, WTP is with the damn lameness filter? Ye gods, people, sometimes LESS IS MORE!

sometime seventeen

syllables ain't enough to

express a complete

(c) poster

UNLAME ENOUGH FOR YOU?

Re:Pay-per-use is bad!

[Dephex Twin]

I dunno. I wouldn't pay $9.95 a month to read Something Awful, but I don't get to Slashdot very often, so I like the pay per view as an option.

I can see that. I guess if they want to make the max number of people happy they could offer a choice between flat per month and 1000 pages, so people who would stretch the 1000 much further than a month could do that option.

But as for me... flat rate? Almost definitely would pay (unless it was $20 or something). Pay-per-page? Not a chance.

mark

Opera users

[Anonymous Coward]

Press G now!

Re:Opera users

[Anonymous Coward]

That is cool. Quick toggle to turn off all pics.

Killing the goose?

[NMerriam]

As an aside, it's also worth noting that more than half of all comment posters fall into this 3%

So you're saying that the very people who make slashdot worth reading are the ones who will have to pay most? Isn't this...backwards?

Paying for something of value

[the_rev_matt]

I've no idea why people are opposed to paying for things. Sure, you can get tons of stuff for free online. But if you want a resource to stay around why would you be against helping that resource stick around? I already click on ad banners on /. when there's something interesting (usually on thinkgeek) and often buy things through those clicks. I buy stuff from copyleft, I buy boxed versions of distros that I like even though I've already downloaded and burned the ISO's.

People who want something for nothing are usually the first to bitch and moan when the entity providing that something for nothing is no longer able to survive due to lack of cash flow.

Re:Paying for something of value

[Anonymous Coward]

Because some people hold dearly the philosophy that people should never be charged for information. Or, virtual information, such as software.

Bunch of whingers ...

[srealm]

First, I dont know why your complaining ... your getting a free service from slashdot. You could go out and trawl all the places slashdot gets submissions from yourself, daily, but I highly doubt you'd find as much interesting stuff. However, they DO need money to pay for the amount of bandwidth we all suck (remember, slashdot has the slashdot effect daily). Plus running slashdot is a full-time job for some people, so they need to be paid, so they can feed themselves and any family (that includes fiancees! dayem they get expensive).

Second, If you use mozilla (which I'm assuming most of the readership on linux does), as of 0.94 you can turn off any add that pops up without explicitely requesting it. This is mainly to stop those annoying porn sites that you accidentally (yeah, sure) click on, that pop open 3 more windows when you exit. However, it does also effectively stop pop-up and pop-under adds. I highly doubt that slashdot will start putting huge adds right in the main page. Even if they do. They already put banner adds in, just give this new form of advertising the same level of notice you gave the old ones.

Three, we all want to see the linux community (and open source community as a whole) advance, and become a united force, and topple microsoft, yadda yadda yadda. However, its only after reading stuff like this, that you're realising that while free stuff is EXCELLENT, when software or a project advances to the stage where it becomes a service, you either need to open it up completely so you get enough people willing to support this infastructure in their own time, and you can still afford to have a full-time job (something that slashdot CANT do), or you need to start getting money from some other place. Corporate sponsorship tends to mean 'corporate control', so the only other avenue is advertising.

This is actually a sensible and logical move by slashdot. As much as I dont like looking at (and dont click on) web advertising, they DO serve one essential purpose -- funding the people who maintain the sites I like to visit. So I have just become so accustomed to them that I dont notice the ads anymore. Its like TV, you just skip over them (ok, TV you take a break, make coffee or something, on the net, you just point your eyes elsewhere).

Thats my $0.02.

What else do we get for subscription service?

[British]

100% factually correct news articles, which are just articles from other sources?(exception: Ask Slashdot)

Un-biased against MS and non-open source stories?

Pre-mirrored websites that can't take the slashdot effect? If someone's little page gets featured on here, and gets pummeled with hits, and possibly a much higher charge for the month from their hosting provider, do they still have to pick up the bill?

A "never randomly log you out" feature?

More than 5 moderator points every month?

Wow, the list can go on and on!

Don't rush to sign me up

[chrysrobyn]

Am I interested? Sure as hell am.

I hate ads, and Slashdot is only one of three sites whose ads I don't block at this point (because I want to support Slashdot). Interested enough to use Pay pal?

Certainly not.

Hopefully there will be a link on the front page with how to use my real credit card or send a money order before the really intrusive ads that I have to block show up.

You see, I'm not adverse to supporting a site I like -- but if Slashdot only offers a choice between using Paypal and being inundated with huge ads? Freeload I will. And if they start using Flash in their ads? I'll vindictively click reload just for spite.

Re:Don't rush to sign me up

[Hemos]

Yeah, we're currently working on implementing credit cards. When we started it, Paypal was still...doing well.

Re:Don't rush to sign me up

[erasmus_]

This should be updated in the article text so that more people see it, as this question is coming up over and over again.

The free market vs good content

[MungoBBQ]

Does everybody forget WHY /. is doing this? Seems to me people think that this is an evil scheme to take over the world when I'm sure that this is the only way for /. to actually survive.

It's interesting to see how many readers are willing to "screw" /. of either the $20 or the hard-earned ad-bucks that would make /. survive.

I mean, if you're willing to use measures such as turning of images, javascript or blocking ads in other ways, just remember that you might be a contributing factor if /. does not get the money it needs to continue to exist.

The capitalist idea works when users are willing to actually pay for services they like. If you like /. IMHO you should either pay or endure the ads.

Re:The free market vs good content

[Ozx]

The capitalist idea works when Slashdot provides sufficient value that I am willing to exchange value in return... There is nothing illegal about filtering out ads (and if it were, that wouldn't matter) and this is factored in the value that advertisers are willing to exchange for having their ads delivered to viewers... By engaging in discussion, I am providing Slashdot with value (in exchange for what little value it has to offer me). My posts contribute to ad hits by people willing to observe such obnoxious things, and now contribute to what some are willing to pay money directly for...

Whether or not my value is sufficient to run Slashdot, or all of VA's failed businesses isn't overly important to me... Either it won't be and there will come a time when they stop providing their services to me, or it will remain the same...

It's not as simple as going to the store and buying a pair of shoes, my presence here generates (at least in theory) income. I am not freeloading when I submit article suggestions or when I write posts that people view or respond to... I will not be clubbed morally for taking reasonable measures to decide what value Slashdot has to me...

Some obvious criticisms:

[Outland Traveller]

1. Paypal has some serious issues. They're facing a class action, have screwed over enough people to warrant a hate-website, and its only going to get worse once they go public. Slashdot shouldn't be supporting them.

2. It will be trivial to filter out the crappy big ads. The people who use slashdot all the time will filter them out, and the people who look at the site for the first time will say, "YUCK!" and go elsewhere. It sounds like slashdot doesn't know its audience.

3. Would it have been so difficult to try unobtrusive google-style advertising, "membership" drives, or a subscription model that didn't involve dumping large ads everywhere to the "regular" site?

I don't have a problem supporting slashdot financially as it is now. Strangely enough, by stuffing big obnoxious ads in the comments I will be less likely to financially support the site. Too bad.

The Proxomitron is your friend

[aderusha]

i'd recommend taking a look at the proxomitron if these sorts fo things annoy you. not quite as user friendly as the junkbuster, but much more configurable, and free as in beer.

Buh-bye.

[Tackhead]

> We really don't have an option: these are what advertisers want, and if we don't provide them, we won't be around much longer.

Unless this is a spec-fucking-tacular troll, what your advertisers want aren't what I want.

Buh-bye.

Re:Buh-bye.

[Anonymous Coward]

That should be 'isn't' what I want. The 'to be' verb needs to agree in number with 'want' not 'advertisers'.

Re:Buh-bye.

[Anonymous Coward]

what your advertisers want aren't what I want.

Hey, genius -- if the advertisers don't give /. some money, ./ can't pay the bandwidth bills and /. will close. Even the text you yourself quoted mentions this.

I'm not all that happy that /. is going to do this, but you don't see me whinging about it.

If the choices are
1: /. with ads
2: no /.

I choose 1.

Buh-bye.

Goodbye! Have fun at wahtever web site you wind up. Just hope it doesn't get too successful or you will have to move again.

Re:Buh-bye.

[Tackhead]

> Goodbye! Have fun at wahtever web site you wind up. Just hope it doesn't get too successful or you will have to move again.

Yeah, serves me right for posting without RTFarticle :)

As many have said for +5 points, Junkbuster's my subscription.

And on a more serious note, the people pointing out that nobody reads /. for the articles, they read it for the comments, and that it's the comment posters (the 3% minority) who produce the value that is /. for the other 97%, I wouldn't be surprised to see /. permit things like ad-blocking for subscribers with maxed karma.

Side note: I'd love to know just how many /. pageviews I go through every month. That's be a cool statistic to see on my user page. (Better yet, "xxxx pageviews, yyyy kilobytes transferred". We could then multiply "yyyy" by a cost-per-megabyte to figure out how much we were "costing" Slashdot to run.)

Hooray for microtransactions!

[uncadonna]

This moves in the direction of microtransactions, so it is good. When people pay content and editorial providers directly, content and editorial provision will improve, and the web will finally live up to its true potential.

Shame about the PayPal thing, though. What's wrong with my MasterCard?

Hahahaha

[Anonymous Coward]

Bwahahahahah, that's hilarious! Good luck! No one is going to *pay* to post comments making fun of how crappy the article is (50% of comments).

From the FAQ:
How do you verify the accuracy of Slashdot stories?
We don't. You do. :) If something seems outrageous, we might look for some corroboration, but as a rule, we regard this as the responsibility of the submitter and the audience. This is why it's important to read comments. You might find something that refutes, or supports, the story in the main.

So you're telling me, that you don't do anything, expect reader comments to do the work for you, and you want to CHARGE for this?

With the quality of discussion going downhill...

[Lawrence Ho]

I doubt many will pay for viewing /.

Could /. propose some solid plans to improve the quality of discussion, lower the signal-to-noise ratio, or at least listen to our opinions?

Why would I pay for someone to mod down entire threads, and take away my ability to metamod as they wish without providing a reason?

Could be a good thing...

[Big Sean O]

Imagine all the noise that would dissapear (like this post. He's an Anonymous Coward, why should I care if he sticks around?).

Anyone who can't stand an ad now and then isn't comfortable dealing with the Internet reality. I shudder to think about what other ideas are bouncing around that brainpan.

Bring on the ads. If I can't stand 'em, and if I'm too lazy to use Mozilla to block images from this site, I'll cough up the $5.

But the ads are well targeted...

[koogydelbbog]

i can deal with the slashdot ads as they are well targeted.

what i don't like is having to watch ads for dog food, sanitary products, motor insurance, the upcoming football and macdonalds when i'm trying to watch tv. none of them interest me, the slashdots ads sometimes do (currently).

also, i'm cheap 8)

andy

Slashdot Survivor

[Narag]

Institute a method for people who subscribe to vote one of the slashdot editors "off the island" for a month at a time. :)
Maybe we'll increase the signal to noise ratio on the front page if a specific editor can't post a story for a month. :)

S'posen I Give you 10 bucks...

[ackthpt]

Now gimme Karma! =)

Yeah, what'm I gonna do with Karma anyway? Work for youse guys? I.e. Moderate, Metamoderate? I already do that for free...

What about HOF'ers?

[FortKnox]

What about the people from here, you know, the ones that help Slashdot the most by submitting the stories you publish. We get any bonus for that?

What about the people that put in a lot of comments, to make the stories have more depth or meaning? Do we get something besides an insult by a slashdot author to the people that indirectly line his wallet??

I've put a lot of time and effort into slashdot, is that gonna matter at all?? I try to help the site become more than a "regurgitated stories" site, but I have to pay to avoid ads?

Re:What about HOF'ers?

[Skyshadow]

Well, that *is* a lot of comments. I don't have quite that many, and my UID is a bit lower than yours.

I understand what you're saying, though. Asking the users of /. to pay might seem at first glance to be completely off-base, but it's not unprecidented -- I used to pay for subscriptions to chat BBS's that were only worthwhile because of the users. The forum is only valuable because of us, but it also only costs serious money because of us. That's life.

The only thing that's ever really pissed me off in relation to our contributions to this site is when Katz started using them to line his pocket a couple of years back -- that stupid hack couldn't geek his way out of a wet paper bag, so he starts stealing the writing of other people to make money? And Taco doesn't stand up against this? What the fuck does he bring here that I'm missing?

Anyway, that's my only gripe. I understand that Slashdot has to bring in money to stay up, but I really wish I could believe that's all we were subsidizing (and not contributing to VA's profit report), but that's been a closed issue for ages now.

Taco deserves props for putting Slashdot together in the first place; expecting him to be a Torvalds-type decision maker (aka: almost always right) seems to be a really overly high standard.

oh what is a page - let me count the ways

[esarjeant]

What is the definition of a "page"? Is a page a URL? What if a "page" loads images and content from another page, do you pay for that as additional "page"-views?

What if I click on a "page" and bang the "Stop" button right away. I haven't actually viewed the "page", although I did request the link the content was not viewed or for that matter perhaps not even retrieved.

Even worse, what if my connection temporarily times-out and only part of a "page" is downloaded. When I'm forced to reload the page, then I'm paying again for something that I didn't get the first time.

I understand the concessions you're making, but I seriously think you should reconsider something more along the lines of a magazine subscription that provides carte blanc access to all Slashdot content.

Ethical Question

[Kallahar]

Now, I am faced with an ethical question. For over a year I have been using WebWasher to filter out all the ads from the internet (it catches over 99% of them, including popups and cnet style big-ass-in-your-face ads).

Now, slashdot offers a way for me to support their site, but at the same time tells me that their ads are shifting to annoy-ware. So, do I just continue to block the ads, or try a free site or whatever, or do I pay slashdot?

While people think the internet is free, it isn't. SOMEONE pays. In this case, it's the company that controls slashdot. I value having this site up on the net, and I value all the time and effort that has gone into keeping everything running and happy.

I've decided, I'll keep blocking with webwasher but I'll also donate my $5. Think about it, $5 for something you check twice a day is worth the cost of a single lunch.

P.S. I'd love to see some recognition to people who donate though, a little star would be cool and discourage AC's :)

Re:Ethical Question

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually Slashdot makes plenty of money.

VA Software doesn't.

So basically Slashdot is trying to carry the whole VA Software corp.

Onnly way to do that is to jack up the price and put in the ads.

Don't worry though, this will seem like nothing when slashdot subscribers and sourceforge users start getting spamed.

Oh trust me, it will happen.

Re:Ethical Question

[megaduck]

$5 for something you check twice a day...

Twice a day? Dear sir, you are a model of self-restraint.

Re:Ethical Question

[Anonymous Coward]

> P.S. I'd love to see some recognition to people who donate though, a little star would be cool and discourage AC's :)

What do you have against AC ? I read and contribute to slashdot for far more time than you. I dropped my UID after I understood that freedom only erodes if you don't use it. Having ACs is nice, and should be used and respected.

Cheers,

--fred

Re:Ethical Question

[Kallahar]

I completely agree that people should have their privacy, and I have no qualms with people using pseudonyms and hiding their real information. What I am strongly against is the jerks who make horrible comments and hide behind "Anonymous" because they aren't willing to take responsibility for their words.

So, to sum it up, I just want people to use a pseudonym that is anonymous, but that is actually them. (if that makes sense)

My philosophy: if you're not willing to put your name to it, maybe you shouldn't be doing it at all, be it an action, word, or even thought.

Its not so bad ... geeez

[RembrandtX]

Why does eveyone whine about having to acutally PAY for something ? How many people here are professionals, and how many are starving college kids ? [And why are some of the professionals ACTING like starving college kids?]

sieriously though .. $5 isnt a lot of money. Hell. thats going without my daily Star-Crack(tm) coffee addiction once a month. Hell ! its only 1/2 a pinball and i replace like 1 of those a month!

For something that adds value .. cool. I mean .. i read /. almost daily ..so ..

My big fear is what its going to do to the 'constructive' user.

Its not going to scare away trolls .. they don't spend a lot of time on /. It not gonna scare the casual reader .. the only people i *do* see it bothering are the people 40+ karma ... who post alot, and are actually providing content for free.

I mean .. people come here just as much for the commentary as the articles (and in the case of John Katz or the current report on the newest star wars trailer that is 2 seconds longer than the last one .. maybe MORE for the comments than the articles.)

If a large number of 'interesting' posters stop posting as much .. is /. gonna get 'dumb-ed down' ?

Re:Its not so bad ... geeez

[jdavidb]

Actually, I've seen very little whining. Of course, I browse at +4. But most people seem to be saying what you're saying, "Why does everyone think this is so unfair?" I'm not sure anyone does, actually.

I'm 40+ karma, and I'm not bothered. I've also decided not to pay for now, though.

Re:Its not so bad ... geeez

[SilentChris]

You're talking to a group of people that think paying $100 for software, for 3 years of daily, intensive use, plus support, is expensive to them.

Re:Its not so bad ... geeez

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, there are a lot of quasi-wealthy tech professionals on here. However, there are also a ton of broke, in-debt-to-their-ears college students. I really am a starving graduate student. It's not that I don't think /. is worth $20/year. It's that I can't afford even the $5 NOW, and not in the near future either. To pay /. $5 tomorrow would mean giving up a good 2, maybe 3 meals. Given the choice between eating and reading /., what would you choose?

Re:Its not so bad ... geeez

[Anonymous Coward]

$5 isnt a lot of money

Well, USD$5 isn't a lot if you are earning in US dollars. USD$5 is closer to NZD$12 in my currency. Thats quite a bit more expensive and I can't justify it. It may be affordable for US users, and those who earn in US$, but I can't see that many people paying internationally. Once again, the gap between the rich and the poor widens in the information economy...

How to stop annoying ads

[cbrese]

Don't click on them and if they are too annoying don't buy anything from the company that posts them. For example I will never use Orbitz or buy a web cam from x-10.com. If everyone does this the practice will stop.

Ad's You mean there are ads on slashodot

[Anonymous Coward]

I sure dont see any.

http://proxomitron.org/ -- best way to see the net the way you want to see it.

I hate to break this to you Taco, but

[Jesse Duke]

Junkbuster will get rid of your ads easily enough. If it doesn't, someone will write an extension so that it does (there is one for the stupid YahooGroup-style "intersticial advertisement pages" already too, in case you wondered).

I'm not saying this to be a party pooper, because I probably will pay /. some, not because I want the damn ads gone, but because I like /. and I don't want it to sink with the VA boat. If I just wanted the ads gone, well, I have that already.

Imminent death of Slashdot predicted

[marsvin]

Here's an idea: first post tax. Could solve more than one problem at once...

I wont pay for web viewing

[rufusdufus]

Not today. Not ever. I don't even like to *register* for free web sites. I don't trust PayPal either.

I am shocked that Slashdot would try something so foolish. It won't work. The audience is socialist for gods sake.

The day you start selling Karma is the day I never visit Slashdot again.

$5 bucks no ads....

[greymond]

...thats more than fair enough - id be down to pay but sinc eim near in-debt ill just do my part an when i am bored at work click the advertisements that pop up on the pages.

AdSubtract time...

[TheRealStyro]

Time for all /. readers to make sure your copy of AdSubtract, Webwasher, etc. is updated and be prepared to add more filters.

Ads on /. ?!?! I haven't seen one yet...

Subscribtions

[Tuzanor]

Some ideas -you should take away the karma cap for those who pay. -you should clearify what counts as a page view (refreshes, checking posts later, checking my settings, etc) -you should give us a "bonus" or priority when posting, since most of the payers will probably not be trolls or 37337 H4X0R5.

Re:Subscribtions

[CmdrTaco]

As I said, I'd like to do filtering based on subscriptions (thats what I mean by the Gold Star for posting). Operating under the assumption that a troll wouldn't want to give us his credit card number (half of them post through anonymizing proxy servers, so I seriously doubt that they'll be giving us their CC num ;)

It'd be a user option of course, just like all the other filters. You can set a +1 to subscribers. I dunno if everyone would like that, but I would think it would be interesting to see at least.

Re:Subscribtions

[Tuzanor]

Do you know what a great feature would be for slashdot? Some kind of auto-inform for software updates. You'd have a list of software that registered users could grab, then when a new release of them comes out it auto posts a story for their user with the changelog. No more millions of users jamming the submission queues with tons of "Linux 2.14.14RC12Pre35Test43 Release...PLEASE USE MIRRORS"
So say if I clicked off Apache, Linux Kernel, OpenBSD, and PuTTY. So whenever a release of one of these came out it would automatically post a story on my custum main page like this:

Apache 1.3.23 released
Apache 1.3.23 has been released. Major chances/updates include blah blah blah.
Changelog
This
That
This as well
Fixed this bug
Fixed that bug
Etc, etc, etc...

Of course you'd either have to get an extra user to constantly check for software updates that you have OR you'd have to get software makers to set up a standard format to send this kind of information around. It would be great for sysadmins, of which there are a lot at Slashdot!

Re:Subscribtions

[lblack]

I would pay $5 to post my trolls visibly (+2 bonus?) much sooner than I would pay $5 to filter out ads that...er... I'm already filtering out.

leem

Re:Subscribtions

[CmdrTaco]

I would prefer to see sites like SourceForge or Freshmeat do that myself. I don't really want to use Slashdot as a software announcement system. We do post a reasonable number of them, but its a minor portion of Slashdot.

Re:Subscribtions

[Anonymous Coward]

Mr. Taco,

I am a troll. I used to post with my real IP before I got continually banned and all of my accounts got $rtbl'ed. I probably would not worry too much about giving you my credit card number as long as you didn't use it against me like you did with my IP. Many other trolls probably feel the same way.

So, what do you say to the idea of removing the $rtbl flag and providing modslap protection for paying customers? Why not sell us the freedom to express ourselves?

Or is it more important to you to squash dissent than it is to keep the site from going bankrupt?

~wally

Re:Subscribtions

[Tuzanor]

meh, was just an idea :-)

Re:Subscribtions

[gnovos]

As I said, I'd like to do filtering based on subscriptions (thats what I mean by the Gold Star for posting). Operating under the assumption that a troll wouldn't want to give us his credit card number (half of them post through anonymizing proxy servers, so I seriously doubt that they'll be giving us their CC num ;)

That isn't logical. If somone is viewing slashdot with ads turned on, then they are "paying" via ads just as much as somone who is giving you $5. Punishing those users will just make them less inclined to participate, which will mean FEWER impressions of the ads they were viewing, which in turn will cause them to grow bigger and bigger.

If you actually wanted to make money, you would go with simple, text based ads. If your *current* advertisers don't like that, then find some who actually have heads on thier shoulders and understand that they actually make *more* money than the seizure inducing variety. Come on guy, you are posting stories about how successful the Google ad system works at *least* once a week, you can't tell me that none of that has rubbed off on you?

Not that you couldn't implement an "anti-troll" system as well, just don't base it on subscriptions. I mean you can already block out AC's, so why not just make a threshhold for poster's karma too. The chance of a troll getting 40-50 karma points is slim, and even if he does, he'll lose it within a couple of troll posts.

Re:Subscribtions

[CmdrTaco]

> If you actually wanted to make money, you would go with simple, text based ads

If only that were true, believe me we would be doing it.

Re:Subscribtions

[gnovos]

If you actually wanted to make money, you would go with simple, text based ads

If only that were true, believe me we would be doing it.

Have you tried it? Spend a few weeks getting in contact with people who advertise through Google, get some numbers from them. Take those numbers and show them to your current advertisers. Heck, just do it for a week. Tell them, "We'll try this text based thing for a week, completely free of charge to you, and if you find yourself getting more sales and hits in that week, then let's talk about expanding that..."

Heck, post an Ask Slashdot about it and you might find Google advertisers who read this site who can tell you the success stories.

Worst case scenario, you lose a week of ad impressions, best case, you have tiny ads that your readers actually go ga-ga for, how could you lose?

or they could use mod_gzip

[Micah]

mod_gzip works wonders on Slash based sites, so I have no idea why they don't use it here.

The typical Slash home page is about 50K or more. mod_gzip literally gets it down to less than 6K!

It would literally cut their bandwidth costs by more than half!

Of course, they may need another server or two, but it would pay for itself quickly.

Re:or they could use mod_gzip

[CowboyNeal]

We already use it. It's a noticeable amount of bandwidth that we save, but it's far from half.

Re:or they could use mod_gzip

[Micah]

hmm.

could have fooled me... (see reply)

If you're NOT saving more than half, there are possible explanations. POST requests cannot correctly be handled by Slash and mod_gzip. I host Slash sites, so I know this. :) Of course that will only account for a tiny bit.

The biggest reason why you wouldn't save half your bandwidth is that most of your pages are served to clients that can't take it. And nearly all modern browsers can. That means.....

you're serving lots and lots of pages to spiders or spambots. Ouch!

Re:or they could use mod_gzip

[AT]

The do indeed (at least for the uncustomized top page). Try this:
$ telnet slashdot.org 80
GET / HTTP/1.1
Host: slashdot.org
Accept-Encoding: gzip
[blank line]

You'll get back a page with Content-Encoding: gzip.

Re:or they could use mod_gzip

[ncr100]

Ain't Optimization Fun!

Yes, all our 1200 Mhz machines should have no problem decompressing a 50k /. page.

One cavaet, the /. server(s) itself would likely be buried with all the compression.

A question, does slashcode cache resources? or does it autogen everything every time? It would be nice if it cached the data (or incorporate some squid configuration and use Cache-Control?

Nick

Re:or they could use mod_gzip

[Micah]

There's not much it can cache for logged in users, but it IIRC it does cache the home page for non logged in users.

Also it's fairly efficient with things like slashboxes and the Recent Topics, so it doesn't have to re-generate those from SQL each time.

Re:or they could use mod_gzip

[icqqm]

How much bandwidth does /. save?

- 0
- 1/2
- 1/4
- 2/3
- 98467/98468
- CowboyNeal/CmdrTaco

...give 'em some time!

[arnoroefs2000]

and read...
Currently we only accept payment via paypal. It was simply easy and fast. We intend to offer other options as time permits and readers request.

Re:...give 'em some time!

[Cyno]

It was simply easy and fast.

Isn't that why corporations do anything these days? Oh, and don't forget to mention how profitable it was... hind site is always 20/20.

Three Words: License to Troll

[The Evil Troll King]

Dude, what Taco needs to do to raise money is to sell a "License to Troll." Basically, you pay X dollars a month, and get to post Y troll posts at Score 1 without fear of consequences.

A bad idea? Hell yeah. But it would probably raise a ton of money.

Steve

Re:Three Words: License to Troll

[Stephen VanDahm]

Actually, a better idea would be blackmail. CmdrTaco should demand that we either pay up or suffer the wrath of the X-10 advertisers.

Re:Three Words: License to Troll

[jonabbey]

And that would be different from this proposal how?

My Suggestion: sell out!

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you should sell out. Just do it. I mean, every really good free service has to bend the rules and introduce a paid service scheme at some point. Be a good litte capatalist and make those ad firms happy. I mean - heck - with a measly 'third of a million' readers daily, you don't really have any throw with them anyway, do you?

Oh - and while your at it, make sure that you plan on hiking that subscription rate in the future. Just migrate the whole thing, bit by bit, onto a paid plan.

<thesadpart>
There's no way Slashdot could even be around if it wasn't for the advertisers. Man, all of us dedicated fans should just throw some bones their way - becuase there's surely nothing we could ever do to keep it up and running.
</thesadpart>

</rant>

It just seems like i've seen this happen before....

$0.02

This is just a hoax..

[psycht]

like that email I got that said It had a picture of Brittany Spears. There was no picture! Now my computer is acting funny.

Support /.

[__past__]

But we do need support from you if we are to continue.

You mean, like providing all or your content to you for free so you get loads of page impressions?

holy losers batman

[Anonymous Coward]

Haha nothing says LOSER like having a slashdot subscription.

Well except maybe a subscription to a star trek magazine.

Is it April fool's day already?

[Petronius]

It must be!
Seriously. What's next? Charge $5 per 1000 check-ins on Sourceforge ???
That ought to encourage people to support the 'free' movement!
Snap out of it! Please.

Customer Service

[asv108]

I have no problem paying for slashdot, in fact this is one of the few sites that is worth paying for, but I have one question: Will there be any form of customer service? I have not had moderation points for 2 months even though I've reached the Karma cap. I have e-mailed taco twice with no reply or explanation from him. I was just about to transfer the funds from my paypal account when I realized that I should not pay until I have the ability to moderate. What is slashdot going to do assist it's customers?

Re:Customer Service

[ankit]

I agree with you completely. Slashdot needs to improve its service if they expect people to give them money. All those who moderated up the havent had moderation or metamoderation rights ever since. This requires an explaination. This is not the only thing. Rejection of stories etc. needs to be explained.

Dont get me wrong. I religiously come to Slashdot every day, and find it perhaps the best site on the internet. But if they start charging money, they need to get more professional. They need to be more answerable to people, and "I will select the stories that I find good" might not work quite as well!

I like it

[KingKire64]

Create a site where the users submit storys and the users post comments. Make a site for the users. And then Charge the Users to access the site without banners. After all it seems like the admins are hard at work creating content for the site....
Just somthing funny i thought of but really i understand y you need to do this and il put up with the adds.


Why not charge the advertisers on the linked stories you are getting them nore advertising then anyone could ever wish for?

Re:I like it

[J'raxis]

Wait, theres more! You also have the privilege to:

• Be prevented from posting comments that match a certain arbitrary, Editor-defined set of regexes called lameness filters.
• Be prevented from posting for three days if you get moderated down a few times in a short period.
• Be automatically moderated to 0 or even -1, if your total moderation falls into negative ranges.
• Be permanently blocked from moderation or metamoderation if you disagree with other moderators. Or a single Editor.
• Have your IP banned if you really piss of an Editor.

Where do I sign up!?

An idea for credit:

[Sahib!]

Here's an idea: how about giving "credit" to users who post high-rated comments. Several posters have already noted that these posters are Slashdot's golden egg. Without readers who care enough to make Interesting, Insightful or Funny comments, /. would have no value over any other tech website. So give something back to the community that supports you and allow a certain number of ad-free pages for your best readers.

Bye bye slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

It was nice while it lasted. Maybe I'll see you around some time. Take care, now.

If I give you your fithy money...

[John Harrison]

will you let me moderate again?

Of course I will again moderate up things that are funny/interesting that you think are offtopic.

Also, I think that it is pretty strange that the people who post are going to be the ones that have to pay the most. We are producing your content Rob! Don't you think that accounts that have a certain amount of karma should be rewarded for giving you good content for free? Or are you relying on the fact that these people are adicted to your silly site and will be the ones you can milk the most lucre out of?

I propose that every post that is archived at either +4 or +5 give the user a $0.40 and $0.60 credit respectively. Also, editor moderations down shouldn't change this calculation.

You don't want to annoy your posters Rob, THEY ARE THE SITE!

Re:If I give you your fithy money...

[mwalker]

If I give you your fithy money... will you let me moderate again?

I think the answer to that is NO. Abusive moderators only get once chance; the pool is large enough that is has to work that way. You can read more about how many moderators are banned and such here.

Re:If I give you your fithy money...

[RevAaron]

Pssssst: ESR didn't write my kernel. And according to his projects page, hasn't written any kernel worth mentioning. Is this some joke I don't get, or do you really think that ESR is Linus?

Re:If I give you your fithy money...

[chris_mahan]

You've hit it right on the money (so to speak)
I don't want to pay for something I contribute to.

I won't pay for /.

I don't like the ads on CNET and ZDNet. Guess what, I don't go there no mo'.

Will slashdot.org change to slashdot.com, then?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just a question, .com would be better suited!

Hmm...

[J'raxis]

Heres my way of blocking the ads!

wget 'http://www.junkbuster.com/ijb20.tar.Z'

Seems to be working well so far, and Ive spent... *checks* ... $0.00 so far to do so. See you on the ash heap of dotcom history, guys.

Slashdot used to be like wired before it went2shit

[ender_wiggins]

I liked wired alot... then it started to accept more and more ads. then I stopped getting it. I dont get many mags anymore cause I dont like over 50% ads! Bye bye slashdot, the nerds version. Welcome to Corp. Slashdot! The slashdot for the CEO's!

They should read their own site.

[tomblackwell]

I'm pretty sure the large quantity of Paypal horror stories I've read recently have been posted on Slashdot.

Perhaps they need to read over their recent postings and find an alternate payment method that doesn't leave their customers with that "I've been anally reamed" feeling.

Re:They should read their own site.

[otopico]

i have been using paypal for a while, and frequently and have never had any trouble. and i dont know anyone personally that has.

it cant be any worse than normal credit card companies, paypal just has some growing to do.

and if you dont like it, dont use it. wait and /. people will come up with an alternative.

subscription

[duns_scotus]

A I was logged in
B will you still criticise NYTimes for daring to have free registration?
C goodbye. it was fun , but not that much

Connection

[Anonymous Coward]

First the Taco decides to get married, then slashdot goes paid. Someone is thinking about the children's college already here? :)

Baby needs a new pair of shoes.

[Anonymous Coward]

I would rather see you disapear than see you, supposedly, cave into this advertiser pressure. What I would like to see most of all is a creative solution that does not include charging money or obnoctious- obtrusive ads. Because I will not be paying money, and if I can not find a way to avoid the ads I will find some other way to spend my time on the internet. I am sure it won't be hard to do.

Time for SOS (Son of Slashdot)

[eaddict]

I don't mind paying for a site that the content is created by the site manager BUT since /. content is created by the users - they both submit the story as well as all these replies then the users need to get paid for thier work. Do I get a discount if a story I submit is accepted? What if my reply is a good one (earn Karma AND get a rebate)? I would rather have something like I have with prohosting-I pay a flat fee and no ads for a year NOT per view.

I actually like the ads...

[Anonymous Coward]

There aren't many places I go to that have Linux-related ads. They aren't very intrusive at all, at least not so much compared to other sites.

However, if I just wanted to send you guys $20 for all the info and laughs I've gotten here over the years, where could I do that?

You could sell access to webcached /.ed sites

[DocSnyder]

It wouldn't be too much hassle to automatically cache sites linked from a story or a submitted comment. For paying users, links on stories and comments will be redirected through the /. webcache for e. g. $0.01 per redirection or $0.05 per megabyte of traffic.

As a first advantage, target sites get less /.ed, saving quite some bandwidth and traffic costs to their providers. What is more, paying users could even view /.ed sites through the cache.

Ads on Comments?

[WinPimp2K]

So what that says to me is that you will be changing the layout of /. such that we will see only two or three comments "per page" rather than loading up all the comments in a single page as happens now.This reeks of the worst practices of some online magazines and their ten page "top ten" lists where 80% of each page is advertising.

I am less than enthused by your subscription system. Lose the metering, make it a flat rate for an ad-free slashdot, then you'll see some of my money. But putting it on a meter really puts me off and noxious advertising will drive me off.

If 20 bucks a year would handle 80% of your visitors, then charge 5 bucks per quarter. Someone mentioned allowing moderation of the reject bin. Do that, and while you're at it, allow moderation of selected stories as well. If you want to have paying customers, give some serious thought to what we want and how to implement it.

Yeah, my wife did this to me too...

[irrelevant]

When we got first got married, my wife told me I could buy all of the geeky toys I wanted, but I had to pay for them with my extra 'consulting money', not the household budget.

Glad to see you're adjusting to the idea of marriage Taco!

Amen!

[ObligatoryUserName]

Pay Pal is a mess, and I obstinately refuse to do business through them. I give $10/month to Penny Arcade, but I'd give them squat if they forced me to use Pay Pal.

From the bottom of the page

[Rupert]

"Comments are owned by the Poster."

And the comments are what make /. worth reading.

Something feels wrong here. I know it costs a lot of money to run /.. I know we don't have a right to the forum that Taco et al are providing for us. We post our thoughts here freely, and get back more ideas than we give, also for free. And if ads, subscriptions or whatever are needed to cover the costs, so be it.

I think three main things are behind my unease. One is that my cheese is being moved. Secondly, VA/OSDN are for-profit. If subscriptions are successful, and they get more than they need, will the subscriptions be extended? Or will Taco, Hemos, ESR & Larry Augustin pocket the money? Thirdly, the posters are being asked to pay more than the lurkers. Hello? The people that make the site what it is have to pay more than those who merely use it? That seems wrong. If I could trade in 25 of my 50 karma for a hundred page views I think I would. Then I could keep posting witty and insightful comments, and /. would remain a great site.

Re:From the bottom of the page

[klieber]

You are not being forced to pay to read /.

You are *offered* an *option* to pay money as an alternative to seeing banner ads. You can still pay absolutely nothing and read all the stories and/or comments. Nothing is changing about that.

The choice is entirely yours.

Re:From the bottom of the page

[kawika]

There are real costs to running a site like this. Nobody at Slashdot is going to get rich with a $5 CPM. Slashdot isn't even preventing free speech at this site, they're just offering relief from ads.

I agree that it seems unfair to have contributors pay more. For simplicity's sake, I'd prefer a simple annual subscription fee. The pay-per-page plan seems like too much of a hassle to me. Plus I have the feeling it's not going to be a bang-up success, so it isn't worth applying lots of development effort on a complex pay scheme.

Re:From the bottom of the page

[lefthand50]

Bummer - double checking the date, though it might have been April 1st. Speaking of fool's...

www.fool.com recently went to subscriptions on their message boards (the most used/valuable component of the site) They "gifted" a few folks who had been significant posters (high karma) over the years - over a thousand total.

http://www.fool.com/landing/pb/pb_land_d.htm

Handing out a few here might be helpful to insure the content continues.

Re:From the bottom of the page

[not_cub]

If I could trade in 25 of my 50 karma for a hundred page views I think I would. Then I could keep posting witty and insightful comments, and /. would remain a great site.
Bzzzz. If you do this, you instantly give karma points a nominal value of 2 cents. This value, although tiny, instantly dominates the value of saying "this post is good, or this post is bad". I am going to use myself as an example, but obviously I am a very ethical person so I would not even think of this :) . In this system, if I get mod points, I will assign them to my friends old posts, and he do the same to mine, and a few weeks later, we have advert-free slashdot. Meanwhile the posts content of slashdot has gone downhill because we have not assigned our modpoints to posts that deserve them.

Slashdot's karma system is in very delicate balance. You cannot make wholesale changes to it without expecting to drive people away, and even very little changes may be dangerous.

not_cub

Re:From the bottom of the page

[mccrew]

Secondly, VA/OSDN are for-profit. If subscriptions are successful, and they get more than they need, will the subscriptions be extended? Or will Taco, Hemos, ESR & Larry Augustin pocket the money?

So what?

Why do you think that these people, who have worked hard to build a business, should not reap the the fruits of their labors?

If subscriptions are successful, and they get more than they need, I hope they get stinking rich, and go buy fast sports cars, Aeron chairs, and lots of toys!

Re:From the bottom of the page

[Rupert]

Gives a new meaning to "Here's my two cents"

Re:From the bottom of the page

[Rupert]

Of course they should reap the fruits of their labours. I just have misgivings about them reaping the fruits of my labours too.

Re:From the bottom of the page

[dstone]

You can still pay absolutely nothing and read all the stories and/or comments. Nothing is changing about that.

That remains to be seen. CmdrTaco's article clearly says: we intend to offer additional features to subscribers, and one of the possibilities he gives is the abilility to read articles that non-paying subscribers can't read (the rejected stories bin). You can look at kuro5hin for a taste of this. kuro5hin has its own problems, mind you. And obviously in these post-dot-bomb times, finances could end up driving access to content on that site also.

Re:From the bottom of the page

[rakerman]

People say "it's like a magazine", well sure, except most magazines I pay for don't include content that I submit and edit (moderate) and enhance (comment on).

There's something that just doesn't seem right about having to PAY to read a story that I've submitted, or a thread that I've moderated or submitted useful comments to.

Here is my suggestion:

- Viewing Slashdot should be ad free when you have moderator access
- Viewing a story that you have submitted should be ad free
- If you have a +5 rated comment on a story, that story should be ad free

Re:hypocrites...

[CmdrTaco]

yes we all work for free with donated bandwidth and servers. *cough*

PayPal?

[ClosedSource]

If you can't even accept payment using standard methods (checks, credit cards) you're not going to get many people to sign up.

Do it the way PBS does it.

[SSJ_Ramon]

Imagine this:

Today's Slashdot has been brought to you by the generous donations of:

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting
The Annenberg/CPB Project
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
etc.

Re:Do it the way PBS does it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, I'd love to see the "Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation" supporting Slashdot, too... :-)

-Baka!

Let's give some $$ to the poor folks who's ......

[Anonymous Coward]

ISP bills skyrocket after being slashdotted

Fuck this whole subscriptions bullshit

Objections

[Cro Magnon]

I don't like PayPal, I don't trust PayPal, I won't use PayPal. Period. I'm also wary about paying per X pages. I can't guarantee I'd pay a flat fee per month, but at least that would be a known quantity. Whether I stay or leave will depend on the ads. I'm already leaving one site I used to frequent cause it spewed out pop-ups. My tolerence here would be lower because I post from work, and I don't want the boss to see 12 pop-ups as he walks by. If you keep the ads reasonable, I'll stay.

Goodbye /. You Will Not Be Missed

[Anonymous Coward]

Yet another Open Source failure.

Do you guys realize that Microisoft made more money than you lost all last year in the time it took for you to read this message?

Maybe its because they have something consumers want.

Sounds good

[PenguinDude]

To me, it sounds like a good deal. $5 for 1000 pages is far more than I'd ever use. It's also nice to see that the Slashdot crew gave this some thought and decided to give their users a choice, rather than shove huge banners down our throats or go all-subscription based like the IGN boards.

My only complaint is the use of Paypal. I won't subscribe until they provide an alternative method that is more trustworthy. But it's understandable....like Taco said, this is probably the easiest method to get up and running first.

Good luck 'all

additional features

[mikeee]

I dunno about pay-per-page on slashdot, but I'd certainly be willing to pay for sourceforge.

If you added something to user info showing us how many pages we've viewed recently, it would help us decide. (And yes, I'm not a paypal fan either...)

I don't know...

[Hellbuny]

If this is the greatest system to impliment. First off I have the concearns of using all my page views up. I have you guys set to my homepage, and I check /. frequently. I would pay for a unlimited per month viewing subscription becuase I don't mind supporting something that I think is great.

Secondly, I suggest that /. be careful about paypal. I've had the misfortune of watching accts be frozen, and funds taken with little to no recourse. Maybe with some of the early subscription revenue you look into a way to accept credit cards on your own ya?

beowulf cluster?

[x1l]

Will they get a beowulf cluster to serve these huge ads?

keep checking the mail for my money.

This is A Good Thing(tm)...here's why..

[GiorgioG]

With the .com era, we've seen plenty of "free" stuff go down the .bomb way. Most services on the web are no longer free (or at least quite a bit of it anyway.) People are slowly realizing that companies need to make money off of their services. However, Linux junkies, (this is not a flame, just an observation), still believe that "free as in beer" is the way to go for many things.

The long and the short of it is, Linux users may start paying for a web service, realize it actually has value...and maybe they can get acustomed to paying for software, etc. There's no way a software company can honestly stay afloat without selling its software (not custom software/consulting firms) The software market for linux is growing, but who, right now is willing to pay for it?

Boycott

[Mdog]

See signature.

This is not a troll. I seriously think this issue should be addressed before anybody pours their money into slashdot. Money talks.

Beer!

[griffjon]

I think we should get gift certificates for beer, so we can remember what it was like to have "free as in speech" and "free as in beer" while avoiding "free as in puppies" BigEvilAds

Time to Up the login security

[SanLouBlues]

If screen-names can now be tied to genuine paid-for products (page views), maybe the login's should be a bit more secure than plain-text. This means no more "You can automatically login by clicking This Link and Bookmarking the resulting page. This is totally insecure, but very convenient." I wouldn't pay anything until some sort of login encryption gets put into use.

Re:Time to Up the login security

[sohp]

Yes, paying for something that anyone can bookmark and use up your paid-for pageviews is certainly suboptimal. There's another point here. As a /. user you have selected your preferences for topics and sections of interest. Of course every article and comment your read and post is associated with your login. What a bonanza for advertisers. *cough*Privacy*cough*

Re:Time to Up the login security

[dorko]

Ever give your credit card to a server when you eat out, only to watch them disappear with your card for 5-10 minutes?

Get over it.

Re:Time to Up the login security

[Anonymous Coward]

Ever put your credit card number on the outside of your bill when you send it in? I don't.

Subscription Service ideas

[shawnmelliott]

Although this may sound like me shooting myself in the foot;you have to make that subscription seem more worthwhile. I hate ads but I'd prefer to see slashdot stay and we all know that bandwidth doesn't come from the bandwidth bunny.

So. My suggestions for your subscription service.

1. Delayed posts. Make all comments by a non-subscribed author delayed until either 1 hour has passed or 5 unique ads have been viewed.

2. Advanced Moderation system. We all strive to get those mod points ( why else would you want Karma? ) so allow another tier of moderators. These being the *elite* few who are paying subscribers.

3. Offer people the ability to host a small gif ad as their sig in exchange for 200 views w/out ads. Hence each post they make will be an ad in itself.

4. Priority in the submission que. I haven't been accepted for a story yet. But if paying increases my chances of getting a story on the 'Holy Grail' of slashdot... the frontpage, I might just consider.

5. The most important. Techies can't help but fall for a challenge. so just say 'You can't handle a Slashdot subscription'. This last option is the one most likely to get you signups.

just my 1.034 cents worth

To really get people to subscribe...

[Betaman]

Slashdot should charge for people to read the comments. This doesn't require any "original" content to be made for the paying customers, but gives paying customers a significant advantage. I like reading the comments, and I would pay to read them. I will not pay to remove ads because I am used to them because I see them everywhere these days. What is the motivation? Slashdot could even give a teaser of the highest ranked message subjects to lure people into paying for the comments part. I bet more people would sign up, and others who could not afford, or did not want to pay for comments can still read the other content.

Re:To really get people to subscribe...

[RGRistroph]

People post comments because they believe other people will read them. If the audience is potentially limited, then fewer people will post, and the character of what is posted will change.

If Rob wants to increase the value of slashdot and get people coming back to use up their ad-free pages or veiw ad, here are the two single most effective things he can do to increase the value of the site:

1) A google-class search engine. By this I don't mean using site:slashdot.org in your search string; there should be an "advanced search" feature that allows you to search for threads of a certain length, parent comments only, etc.

2) Once you have 1) you will realize that the archiving of comments has to improve - threading must be preserved, among other things.

I believe that at one point in the past slashdot's search was the subject of some sort of abuse, in which people passed search queries designed to make a high load on the server. Possibly searching should be passed off to it's own box, using a copy of the database for all the archieved stuff, and only use the live database for dynamic searches. You do need to be able to search live discussions.

Right now people come to slashdot because it has a reputation for being the "weblog of record" or coffeeroom of a technical community. Slashdot is that, because people come. However, if slashdot keeps drifting towards group-thing censorship, banning posting from disagreeable IPs, as well as not presenting a good tool to plumb the opinions of the tech community on a subject (i.e., the archieving and searching), then slashdot will loose it's status, and we will all find ourselves sitting around like a bunch of old users of the The Well whining about the good old days when slashdot was so famous it attracted goatse.cx fans to every article.

There is still a lot of good stuff at the bottom of the barrel in every discussion. AC posts in stories about particular corporations, for example, often provide interesting information (if uncollaborated). When the next Enron hits the fan, if people can point to anonymous comments deep within slashdot from 'way back and say "it was first called here", that will cement slashdot's position. But many of those comments are currently thrown away.

Moderation

[gouldtj]

I don't know if it is in the plan, but one thing that I would like to see is that if you are doing moderation, it doesn't count against your page views. I know that sometimes I am selected as a moderator (which I am guessing most people are), and during those times I probably do alot more page views (looking for the good comments and such). I think that I would be less likely to spend the effort moderating if I knew that it was counting against me. Or maybe something like 25 free pages for every moderation point used - something where you would gain something through moderation? I doubt I use 25 pages for every points, and it would probably put me ahead a couple.

Hitting the Same Page Multiple Times?

[Chibi]

So what happens if you refresh a page or hit an article a few times? Does this count as a single hit or will each hit count as its own page (and reduce from your 1000 page bank)? I guess the question is pages vs. page hits.

One the one hand, since chances are the comments associated with an article will change on subsequent views, I can see the logic that individual page hits are counted.

But on the other hand, Slashdot churns out a lot of news stories, so hitting 1000 articles will happen relatively quickly for some users, so I could see where this might actually discourage them from continuing in discussions (well, only if they think it's too expensive).

Squid + SquidGuard == No Ads :(

[toupsie]

I already have a system that blocks about 95% of the ads on the Internet on my system using Squid with SquidGuard on my MacOS X box. Not really to screw webmasters but to protect my privacy from DoubleClick, ExitForCash, HitBox and the rest. Smart webmasters should display ads locally than having them served by these piracy killing companies. Don't let the ad companies dictate to you how to run your site. If enough webmasters stand up, the ad companies have to follow or you can be smart and start your own ad company -- its a free economy you know.

If Squid+SquidGuard works here, I will send you the work around, CmdrTaco, as a wedding gift...

You're absolutely right.

[TitaniumFox]

Actually, you're right, until we get an option to pay any way other than via PayPal. There're already other comments on this story about how PayPal isn't trustworthy. For any other information try out paypalwarning.com

Slashdot should inform it's advertisers....

[tfurrows]

... that web advertising doesn't work. Any slashdot reader can tell you that.

Re:Slashdot should inform it's advertisers....

[Trekologer]

For that matter, regular advertising doesn't work either. How many of you actually watch the ads on TV? Which the exception of the Superbowl, not very many. For most, the TV ad is time to get a snack or go to the bathroom, or similar non-ad-watching activity. How about a magazine or newspaper? Unless you are specifically looking for an ad (like the flyer for CompUSA or such) you flip right past ads.

Web advertising is a real bargain. Usually the advertiser doesn't even have to pay for the ad unless the user clicks the add. The advertisers are getting a lot more than traditional media for a lot less, to the point of ripping off webmasters such as yourself. The reader seeing the ad aparently has no value anymore. And as I said above, for TV and print, the viewer/reader probablly doesn't see the ad either.

I have been getting really ticked off at advertising. I've gotten to the point that if I am baraged with a pop-up or pop-under ad, I will actually decide to NOT ever buy that product. And kudos for spam as well.

And to be honest, I've clicked some of the Think Geek banners because the stuff I saw looked interesting.

A nail in Free Software's coffin

[Kombat]

First off, let me say that I don't begrudge the Slashdot folk for trying to make a living. Anyone who posts comments to the effect of "Slashdot is evil!" is an ignorant hypocrite. Things cost money, and there's nothing evil about trying to make a fair living. Slashdot provides a valuable service - valuable enough to keep all you guys coming back.

That said, let me also add that I think this is yet another example of one of the major flaws of Free software - its utter inability to be self-sufficient and sustainable. Ironically, as Free software (and content, in Slashdot's case) grows more and more popular, it becomes less and less able to remain viable under the "Free" model.

People will give away their time, as long as they get to control how much, and on what. That's why small projects like Apache succeed, and why toy projects like Mozilla are still kicking around (but not really making any mainstream noise). But, when a project's popularity demands a person's full attention, they're suddenly faced with a decision: abandon the project, or try to make money from it.

I value Slashdot. Do I value it enough to pay for it? Frankly, yes. However, I won't be forking over any cash until they offer more payment options (I don't/won't use PayPal). $5 a month is peanuts. I spend more than that on far more frivilous things. But that $5 will go a long way towards keeping Rob employed. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a way to request that none of my subscription dollars go toward keeping Jon Katz around. In fact, I'd pay money for him to be FIRED. He's never once posted a single commentary or editorial that has actually made me think. He just states the obvious, exaggerates it, and makes it sound like it'll spell the end of the world. But I digress.

Presumably, most of you reading this have a job, or will have a job someday. This is Rob's job. We've seen that the "free content" model doesn't work (and a few of us even got burned pretty badly in the dot-bomb fallout on the stock market). This is evolution. This is reality. Suck it up, or take your ball and go home, continuing to live in your fantasy world that there are a wealth of people out there lining up to donate their time to entertain you for free.

Re:A nail in Free Software's coffin

[Anonymous Coward]

"Things cost money, and there's nothing evil about trying to make a fair living. Slashdot provides a valuable service - valuable enough to keep all you guys coming back."

Actually the user provide the content.

I think we should be charging taco. How about that.

The users make the site, really slashdot doens't provide shit...

Basically it's just a for-profit version of usenet with a shitty interface and crappy mod system.

no (real) problem

[mirko]

no real difference with the yahoogroups ads, I think, maybe some colorfull big pictures (or applets, or whatever) about some products I won't be able to order from Switzerland...

This is nothing new so, I guess I'll stick with Slashdot while junkbusting whatever I can.
If that appear, well, as long as I don't have to wait until the complete ad has been shitted to read the tro^Wcomments, it's okay.

In a case, I'll have expectations if I pay to read an ad-free site, in the other, well, I guess we are becoming used to it.

After the numerous campaigns against pollutions (air, then water, then noise) I guess one will soon call these visual pollution and finally totally ignore ads as a cow ignores flies.

Good job, guys, if you don't change anything else (btw, I disable javascript, so don't put popups).

page views

[The Pim]

First, I want to support the per-page pricing, in principle. It's just more fair, and it might even convince some of us to do some work instead of reloading slashdot! Read an economics text about externalities and overconsumption if you're dense.

However, slashdot should be forthright about how the page views will be accounted. Is it a simple HTML page load, or something more complicated? What about requests for RDF? HEAD requests? Requests without images? Are there any other special cases? Also, slashdot should give non-subscribers a way to count their page views, so they can tell how expensive a subscription would be, based on their viewing habits.

Finally--every slashdot reader who subscribes should learn their browser's caching behavior--and maybe swith browsers! Does your back button reload slashdot (watching the "generated by a team of purple midgets" text is a quick way to check)? If so, you'll probably be throwing away your (half-) pennies on worthless reloads (unless you use such kluges as tabs and new windows).

Non-ancient mozillas prior to 0.9.8 would reload (as a result of bug 112564). I think (secondhand information) that IE does and Opera doesn't.

Don't count on a lot of subcribers

[quantaman]

While the pay per view option is problably fairer it's not very fun, as you can tell not a lot of people here would want to have to feel like they're counting clicks (regardless of how much a single page costs). In addition even fewer people like the idea of paypal (not to mention the story a few day ago on paypal (once more I'm not the first one to have mentioned this and you also say you were aware of the problem but you still went ahead with it). People also just don't like to pay when they can view for free, the $5/1000 sounds like a nominal enough sum but people are unsure of how many clicks they actually do. I think it would be an idea to tell a person how many "pages" they've viewed somewhere in the preferences, not only do I think it would be something interesting to look at but if people realize how little they click they may figure that the payment is worth it.

By the way, anyone wanna bet the comments reach at least a thousand;)

Spellcheck

[rlowe69]

Predictable, I know - but does this mean that Slashdot will actually be able to afford a spell-checker for CmdrTaco? Oh, and throw in a grammar-checker while you're at it. Probably a two-for-one going on somewhere ...

Re: actionary

[erasmus_]

Look for flames, there are none, you jumped the gun.

Are you sure? Let's see...

Your baby went corporate, and became a whore. Now she's been around the block, and nobody's going to shell out cash when they know she puts out for free.

Sounds like it to me, and there are plenty others.

The Price Is Right

[waldoj]

$5 is an excellent price point. I signed up immediately because it was so little -- and tossed in an extra $5 to be a swell guy. :)

No matter what you do with this system, you should always have a $5 price for some level of subscribing. It's so little as to be immediately spendable.

-Waldo Jaquith

Information wants to be free???

[rvaniwaa]

What happened to information wants to be free??? :-) Hope this works out for you guys.

Re:Information wants to be free???

[Anonymous Coward]

If you even understood where that quote came from, it's free as in speech not free as in beer.

$12 - Flat Rate for ALL

[Knunov]

Forget this tiered approach. It's confusing and silly.

$12 per year, $1 per month, for unlimited access. Cheap, simple and should be profitable.

Even if you keep only 100,000 readers, that's $1.2MN per year. If this scruffy site can't survive on $1.2MN in revenue per year, you have other problems. The easiest remedy to which would be the firing of Jon Katz. Seriously, there is not a single /. reader that comes here specifically for his articles. He is fat. Cut him away and gain instant efficiency.

Knunov

Subscription based wed does not work

[Anonymous Coward]

As long as there is free access to Slashdot, I don't see anything important happenning, except perhaps the realization by Slashdot Inc. that the number of subscribers will be way lower than expected.

However, if the ad based business doesn't work, do not expect to save yourselves by subscription revenue. It will not be significant, and if you make it compulsory for everyone, your clients will disappear. Part of the fun of Slashdot is that it is read by so many people, who actually contribute with news all the time.

The wonder of the Internet is that people have choices, so they do not need to pay for content. Worst case, we go all back to technology discussions on Usenet or IRC. The US$ 5 are not expensive, but if we add up all the interesting sites, we could end up spending a fortune on pages alone.

Advertising Revenue

[fro_less]

That was the weakest excuse for porn site pop-up ads I ever heard.

With all due respect...

[L-Wave]

I think slashdot is gonna "Jump the shark" on this one....

Some of you are missing the point...

[Golantig]

...this isn't about profit; it's about giving you a choice.

If nobody subscribes then /. still gets money from the advertisers. It's totally up to you if you want to block the adds or not...

well

[Anonymous Coward]

Paying for Slashdot? Isnt everything on slashdot a collection of news articles from other sites? Which are also free?

Question, Arnt the people who are doing the news collection the ones who are being charged?

It finally comes

[glh]

I've been reading slashdot for quite some time now, and I must admit I am a little disappointed. However, I can understand where Rob is coming from. After all, there is "no such thing as a free lunch". I just really hope what makes slashdot slashdot doesn't change. Part of the reasoning I read slashdot is because of the community feel to it, and that everyone is free to state their opinion. With this new subscription service, I fear that only those with $$'s will be the ones submitting opinions. While this may actually make the submissions higher quality, it will no doubt change slashdot...

I guess we can only wait and see. I don't know if I'm going to be paying the $5/month. Especially through paypal. Isn't there some other way to contribute to slashdot other than in a financial way?

Woah, woah, woah people.

[NetRanger]

Now look, before we go chopping off Rob's head, perhaps we need to look at this logically:

1) Slashdot uses A LOT of bandwidth. Bandwith ain't cheap.
2) Traditionally, Slashdot has provided very decent advertising that actually does catch my interest from time to time (IE, ThinkGeek).
3) More stable income for Slashdot would mean more resources for Slashdot to be improved... not to mention just stay around.
4) I agree on PayPal being a poor choice for getting Slashdot paid -- but I have a feeling that PayPal is just a temporary measure until a permanent solution is found.

Not to mention...

The only thing that costs more money than our little hobby is women, and Rob just got hooked by one :-)

On the negative side:

1) I agree that a "per page" system will not work -- a system based on time, not page counters, would be more fair for those who do the most to make Slashdot great.

Can I pay and get ads too?

[realkiwi]

I love ads! ads are full of usefull information. Some are cute. And no ad is too big for aDSL!!

Moneymaker: Personals

[Soong]

Provide a service that many of us Nerds/Geeks really need.

Disruptive Ubiquity

[_Stryker]

Here is a new site that is just getting started. It is called Disruptive Ubiquity. Perhaps a fresh new site is what we all really need. I remember in the "good ol' days" of Slashdot how much I liked the site. Maybe starting fresh will bring some of that back.

Re:Disruptive Ubiquity

[Anonymous Coward]

First off, a name like "Disruptive Ubiquity" is simply not as memorable as "slashdot". Second of all, the look+feel is too much like every other weblog that's using a builtin theme. Third of all, the poll didn't have any radio buttons allowing me to vote, and when I clicked the Results link it gave me the error "Referer check failed - access denied".

best solution if you don't want to see ads...

[krispyrice]

lynx. Enough said. In any case, I'd rather not see slashdot go away.

Re:best solution if you don't want to see ads...

[Anonymous Coward]

Ya but they put in all those annoying and useless links on the left side of the page to make browsing in lynx miserable.

Comments...

[Anonymous Coward]

The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

Are you planning on giving me a cut of this money you think youll be making off of this subscription service? Youre charging money for access to something youve already stated is my property. According to my userinfo, I have 471 comments on this site.

Whos up for a class-action lawsuit against Slashdot?

Instead of PayPal...

[idonotexist]

you may want to consider ProPay. I have no association with the company, just have used it for transactions as an alternative to paypal and have not seen the same criticisms of ProPay which paypal receives.

another alternative to subscription

[_crunge]

you could just always get yer daily slashdot at http://alterslash.org

Choose maximum of 1 month or 1000 page views

[bboy_doodles]

Having your most dedicated readers have to worry about reloading Slashdot is not a good idea.

There should be a flat-rate fee that allows your readers to view Slashdot an unlimited amount of times - the major ISPs have already found out that most people prefer this to hourly billing. Thus, I would suggest having a $5 fee entitle someone to 1000 page views, or a month of unlimited reading - whichever lasts longer.

The only problem with this is that people will likely start sharing user IDs. This must be why no such system has been proposed.

-----
Bboy doodles

Moderation and meta-moderation

[MikeCamel]

I'd like to suggest that moderation and meta-moderation pages are free. If not, you immediately remove a significant reason for bothering to moderate or meta-moderation. I tend to spend a few minutes a day moderation each day - say 250 days a year. Use up 1/4 of my pages? I don't think so!

If you keep these two functions free, then we can maintain the value added by the community, and people will continue to contribute, because they fill feel that they are benefiting. We currently avoid the tragedy of the commons, because we can all contribute, and all benefit - let's not lose that.

If we want to be even more sophisticated, how about allowing people to trade in a certain amount of karma for a certain number of pages? Maybe 10 karma points = $5? That would encourage people to contribute more intelligently, and add more value.

Re:Moderation and meta-moderation

[liquidsin]

What about comments? Comments are what make slashdot what it is - otherwise it would be 'stories other people wrote and we linked to'. But if I had to use one of my paid for pages to make comments, I'd be less likely to comment. That would greatly diminish the quality of the site. (well, not that *me* personally not commenting would have a negative impact, but users in general...my comments are mostly garbage anyways...)

Re:Moderation and meta-moderation

[John Harrison]

What about those of us who have lost the ability to moderate for no good reason?

Re:Moderation and meta-moderation

[Quadell]

I'd like to second the motion that modding and meta-modding be exempt from page-count charges. These are methods of giving back to the community, not consuming a product. I won't be modding if I have to pay for the privelege.

On the other hand, selling Karma sounds like a bad idea to me. Just my 2 cents.

Re:Moderation and meta-moderation

[Kwil]

Of course, it could also be set up so that one of the benefits of paying is that you're put into the moderation and meta-moderation pool. If you don't pay, no opportunity to mod or meta-mod.

That way, the people who are paying are the ones who wind up controlling the content - they get what they pay for.

As to submitting comments that's a fairly easy hack. This reply page and the preview or comment submitted pages simply don't count against paid page-views ever.

If you want to change your prefs to see comments in a different style, that strikes me as requiring bandwidth/processing power and isn't contributing anything to the system as a whole, so should have to be paid for like normal. (Where normal is choose what you will and won't pay for)

Re:Moderation and meta-moderation

[jeffsenter]

I'd like to suggest that moderation and meta-moderation pages are free. If not, you immediately remove a significant reason for bothering to moderate or meta-moderation. I tend to spend a few minutes a day moderation each day - say 250 days a year. Use up 1/4 of my pages? I don't think so!

This is in my opinion an important and very good suggestion. I hope it is adopted.

Futile

[TheLoneCabbage]

ok:
Let's say you get past robot security.
Let's say slashdot leaves you alone.
Let's say freeslashdot.org is popular.

Well... freeslashdot is going to get SLAMMED by hits just like slashdot... and not long after freeslashdot is either going to be shut down for not paying their bandwidth fees, or it wont be free for much longer.

Besides, Slashdot has been good to us. The least you can do is look at some extra ad's to keep them in buisness. (or better yet you COULD subscribe)

Re:Futile

[cHiphead]

maybe its just me, but with subscriptions, /. is essentially doubling the possible income if enough of use sign up.

"We need to have subscriptions so folks can turn off ads"

"Here Mr. advertiser, we get a quarter million unique a day, pay us big $$$"

Have ads or don't. Let the other news sites under the umbrella you folks got bought into whore their sites with subscriptions and huge banners for spying on your neighbor's wife with miniature webcams while playing online casinos and using penis enlargement kits so your wife can make better use of her 'women's viagra' as you wait for your real estate investment to bring in a huge return in 30 days like the nice man on the phone promised.

this worst part is, im not kidding.

and its not futile. nothing is futile. its a matter of finding people willing to put forth their time and work for free, and suprisingly if you look ALL OVER THE NET, everyone is doing it. lack of bandwidth is just an excuse for lack of motivation. :P

www.thekult.net

Re:Futile

[Iamthefallen]

Well... freeslashdot is going to get SLAMMED by hits just like slashdot...

Oh that's easy to solve, they'll just have to start...selling...ads...hmm

Re:Futile

[Anonymous Coward]

Or you could just put it on usenet.

Re:Futile

[Florian Weimer]

freeslashdot.org would have to be distributed from the beginning, built on top of existing infrastructure for broadcasting content (NNTP or even IRC).

I haven't got to pay a single dime for advert-free Usenet (even the spam cancels are gratis).

Re:Futile

[kaiidth]

Okay, here's an idea.

Many people here are always saying how much amazingly good stuff is available on P2P services that is entirely legal, etcetera.

This seems to me like a fairly good opportunity of proving it; how about a Slashdot P2P? Wait until each discussion is a day old/closed/whatever, and all the people who just read the stuff without posting can fire up their favourite client and download a nice postscript, pdf or whatever version.

If you truly claim that the bandwidth problem is the reason why Slashdot need adverts/subscription model, then surely this is a solution that users who don't post might find acceptable. Slashdot only need to fire the thing off at the end of the day...

Of course, if this is just a /. 'get rich' thing, or a VA Linux Emergency Revenue Production Model, then this doesn't help them at all. :-)

Questions

[Anonymous Coward]

CmdrTaco would probably say: "We are free as in speach, not as in beer. lolol roflmao ;)"

but even that would not be totally true. i wonder if subscribers would still be bitchslap-scripted for posting in the wrong thread or moderating up the wrong comments? oh, and will people finally be able to vote on what stories should appear on the front page?

hey

[nomadic]

If I pay the fee, do I get to moderate again? Or is the blacklist impossible to get off of?

I can't believe slashdot is considering this!!!!

[cybrthng]

Slashdot is trying to increase the advertising revenue by passing the CPM rates to YOU instead of the advertiser. So now instead of getting $3.00 per thousand adds slashdot will be getting $5.00 per thousand "adds" from you by removing the adds.

I'm sure instead of adds for services i may actually use, it will be new adds saying "refill your time, increase your level, buy this new feature, subscribe to this partner site, choose this system over someone elses". Atleast with slashdot the adds were targeted and somewhat of use to the general slashdot consumer.

The simple fact it isn't a monthly, yearly, quarterly subscription is very dissapointing. I bet this will be posted as add revenue to
increase your overall CPM rate and not a subscription revenue.

i say bah humbug to that.

oh well. slashdot was fun while it lasted.

I'll deals with all ads

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll deals with all ads that you can throw at me but will not pay, sorry.

If in the future some articles, posts, etc... are for subscriber only I'll stop browsing by.

I understand that you have to survive. Good luck.

Excellent Point

[waldoj]

Personally, I'll take advertisements, because quite frankly I actually like and sometimes click on them. Unlike other websites, slashdot advertisements are geared toward me and present me with things I'd like to buy or wish I could buy. I probably won't even filter them, unless they start using popups that are really annoying (never seen a good popup ad).

You know, I already miss them, oddly. I think I'll not filter out ads on the comments page. /. ads are the only ones on the Internet that I ever click on -- I have bought several products on the strength of their promotions here!

-Waldo Jaquith

Contradiction

[unorthod0x]

1. Pay, so that you don't have to see ads inserted in to stories and comments that YOU have authored.

2. The more people that pay, the less attractive ad space becomes to advertisers.

Aren't these self-defeating especially when placed within the context of a community that really likes their stuff to be free?

Fair enough

[georgeb]

I find this fair. Slashdot gets paid either be advertisers or by users. We're given a choice and that is Good.

Addons for subscribers... oh, that REALLY depends on the addons we're talking about. I'm not sure having special subscriber priviliges is a good thing, just think how stupid it would be to buy positive moderations...

Re:Does this change the viewer demographic for ads

[Kip]

Let's be real, have you ever really clicked on any Slashdot ad with the exception of ThinkGeek ads?

The Price is Right...

[betagoat]

I've been waiting for /. to offer this subscription feature for awhile. I've always ignored ads, and I never click on them. Since I value the site's existence, I'm happy to be able to contribute to keep things going.

I pay to subscribe for the same reasons I pay for my distribution, even though I don't have to. I believe in the inherent value of the product, and have a desire to see it continue.

Pay Pal?

[BurritoWarrior]

Only?? Cripes. Talk about hypocrisy.

What's next? Passport authentication?

The ultimate quandry...

[cr@ckwhore]

... why didn't this story slashdot itself recursively?

So...

[lblack]

So, those of us who read large numbers of stories, comment on them, refresh, re-read the thread, comment again, refresh, etc...

And by this I mean your content providers, since that is essentially what we are (others much more than myself), will be paying more for your service than the lurkers?

Hm. Flaw spotted.

-l

Why Not just accept Credit Cards here?

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't help but wonder why they'd allow the middleman (paypal) to take their cut?

Here's How to Setup Credit Cards on your site...

number of pages viewed available

[Apps]

It might be helpfull if the number of pages viewed in the last month appeared on our user page, this would let people know how much this would cost them at their current ./ reading rate.

As an aside this would also reduce the number of page views ./ gets - no more constant refreshing

Giving back to OSDN

[tjmather]

OSDN has done a lot for the Open Source community. They have provided Sourceforge, providing free
hosting and development environment for over Open Source 35,000 projects. Signing up for Slashdot is a great way of supporting OSDN, and helping to ensure that Sourceforge and other OSDN projects stay alive.

Re:Giving back to OSDN

[gehrehmee]

And already, the OSDN has played with the usage and privacy policies at sourceforge enough that the GNU project has taken an old snap shot of sourceforge and opened their own alternative, Savannah. As much as I've enjoyed using Slashdot, I can't help but worry that down the road we may see more of the same issues cropping up here. Hopefully not, hopefully the use of a subscription system to bring in revenue will avoid the need to resort to anything more draconian.

Slashdot now a Service Provider (like Verizon?)

[Anonymous Coward]

This offically makes Slashdot a Service Provider... they provide services for a fee to thier customers... they now become liable for service outages, bad routes, buggy non-complient browsers. If Time Magazine gets completely destroyed in transit, Time will sned you a new one for free, and now slashdot must be held to the same level of accountability. If I am paying a per month fee, I expect both a certain level of connectivity and a certain amount of content... If you average the number of stories appearing per day over the past 2 years, I expect at least the same amount of content... and QUALITY (which steadily has gone down since they graduated college)....

Just a thought about the liability of a subscription based Web Page....

And so it goes

[Rogerborg]

Does this sound familiar?

• Welcome to our free site! We have a zillion readers, and we'll figure out a way to make money soon!
• Sorry, we had to put adverts on, but the site is still free. We're now on two zillion readers, we must be able to make money soon!
• Please click on our adverts to help support this free site! With three zillion readers, if only 1% of you do this, we'll be rich!
• Damn, none of you bastards clicked through. We're going to have to put on huge adverts, because for some bizarre reason, really annoying adverts pay more. But we've got four zillion readers now, so if only 1% of you agree to pay just a tiny amount in lieu of adverts, we'll be insanely rich!
• Hello? Is anyone out there? (tumbleweed)

I love Slashdot, I really do, and I know this was inevitable. But it's sad, because it indicates that Slashdot has burned the last of the venture capital and has now slipped into the realms of desparate self delusion.

Please understand that this isn't a troll. I truly want Slashdot to survive, but I can't help but think that the people who will pay up tomorrow are the same people who are already clicking through today. There's no new revenue stream here, there's just a deparate gamble that the ads can get bigger faster than the readership goes elsewhere. There's no evidence to show that this happens. We're fickle bastards, us net users.

Before you mod me or retort, please understand one thing: I'm not talking about you. You are one of the good guys, as evidenced by your finger hovering over the "Moderate" or the "Submit" button. You care about Slashdot. You're one of the ones contributing, one of the ones who will stay after the ads (or the missing images from blocked hosts) take up half the screen. But you're not the problem. The problem are the quarter of a million casual viewers who turn up, get served a small banner or two, then wander off to Tom's Hardware or The Register. And I'm not saying bigger ads will drive them away overnight, just that the announcement of bigger ads mean that Slashdot needs to make more money... and they simply won't make it from the vast majority of casual users. They need to make it from a small hardcore minority, from the posters and the responders and the modders, from you and me.

And much as I love Slashdot, I don't want to end paying for (guesstimate) 0.02% of it. Do you? :(

Re:And so it goes

[Mike Hicks]

I dunno, I may have clicked through on ads on Slashdot a handful of times, and most of those were just going to sites that are part of OSDN (like ThinkGeek).

I put in $5, we'll see how long that lasts. Hell, that's like a 12-pack of Mountain Dew around here, so it's not a big deal to me.

Re:And so it goes

[chairmanKAGA]

"The problem are the quarter of a million casual viewers who turn up, get served a small banner or two, then wander off to Tom's Hardware or The Register."
You makea good point here and maybe they should make a system where in order to even read a page you have to at least sign up for a free account. That way it will help, no compleatly solve, the problem of people that are not involved from eating up the bandwidth.

Much cheaper

[a3d0a3m]

Paypal takes an order of two times as much percentage as any respectable merchant account. If they really want to make it work better, slashdot should find themselves somewhere else to collect money. Not to mention the insane managment of paypal, if someone was really angry they could just send a bunch of e-mails to paypal and wham, they will confiscate all of slashdot's money.

adam

Subscription service: About time

[Whatthehellever]

Personally, $5 per 1000 page views is nothing. I've already subscribed. It's a small price to pay to keep the best resource on the 'net alive.

Re:Good Riddance to the Ad companies

[ergo98]

How much do you think it costs to send say 100 gig of data down the pipe? Cmon "Mr.Bandwidth doesn't grow on trees". How much? I'll tell you how much. After the hardware is paid for (which it was in the 90's for the most part) It costs fucking pennies, if that.

I highly recommend you sign up for "Economics 101". If someone puts $1 billion of hardware out there, they expect a RETURN on that $1 billion worth of hardware (if you believe that is evil then please pony up that billion yourself) that at least equates what they could get if they invested it in the general markets (i.e. at least 6%), and that's ignoring that the internet today is VASTLY changed from the infrastructure put in place in "the 90's for the most part" : Want to back up that?). Don't like it? Build your own friggin' system.

if newspapers can do it..

[geekoid]

..why can't website.
this is stupid, very very stupid.
you have 300,000 eyebals a day, and your banners are animated.
all over the US there are newspapers who have much HIGHER expenses, yet they can produce a paper on just ad revinue.
why can't web sites do this?
nobody has ever been able to answer that.
I have, sent to my door, several magazines that are free to me. They seem to be making money through advertising.
Increase your ad costs, 300000 eyeballs is a lot to loose for any advertiser.

Just move /. to freenet!

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not run it over freenet? The bandwith cost would be zip and slashdot could also be free... Unless the /. goal is to make money, Of other peoples work (The minions hoarding information and submitting it).
They predict free software will die. If people keep tryin to make a living from other peoples work while the actual worker get nothing the prediction will probably come true...

Or you could just go to http://slashdot.org/palm/

[Picass0]

You don't get any ads in you use the plam version of the site, and you don't pay 5 bucks.

Ask for it by name!
http://slashdot.org/palm/

Ads

[MuMart]

The large ads that you see on many other sites are coming here. We really don't have an option: these are what advertisers want, and if we don't provide them, we won't be around much longer.

That's ok. Neither will we.

Last post?

I'll pay, but not on these terms + suggestions

[seldolivaw]

I'm a big fan of Slashdot, and read it all the time. Given my reading habits (and that I post fairly frequently) I'm positive I fall in at least the top 15% ($5 a month) and pretty sure I'm in the top 3% who would be charged more than $3 a month. I'd love to support Slashdot, but not on these terms.

1. Your heaviest/highest rated posters should get *discounts*, not have to pay extra. Remember, your most interesting content comes from those 3% of your audience -- the ones who actually post.

2. Page views are a *terrible* way of measuring site use. Changing settings (like viewing thresholds), double-checking stories before posting, refreshing a page to see a continuing discussion -- do these count? Can you tell? I don't want to live in fear of wasting my page-views, *especially* if I'm wasting page views by *contributing* content to your site.

3. I'm sorry, but the cost is too high. You have a circulation of 300,000+, and employ fewer than 10 people. You have hardware and bandwidth costs too, but 300,000x$20 = $6 million a year, not counting the 15% who are paying more than that. You can't advocate open source and free software and then overcharge for your website.

So, my suggestions:
1. Flat monthly fee with discounts for annual subscriptions.
2. Karma-based discounts, too, so people have an incentive to post meaningful content, which would boost your signal-to-noise enormously.
3. Lower prices.

Re:I'll pay, but not on these terms + suggestions

[jonearth]

2. Page views are a *terrible* way of measuring site use. Changing settings (like viewing thresholds), double-checking stories before posting, refreshing a page to see a continuing discussion -- do these count? Can you tell? I don't want to live in fear of wasting my page-views, *especially* if I'm wasting page views by *contributing* content to your site.

It depends on how /. implement this micropayment system, my current project is about micropayment and so I did some research on this. What slashdot needs to do is to set a time limit on each page for each user. Each page maintains a list of paid users and when a user has purchased a page, he is added to the list and can access it unlimited number of times for free within, let's say, 12 hours.

This is easy to implement and elminate all arguments like does reload counts? or my IE crash when I am reading in the middle of a page.

Bankruptcy!!!

[BurritoWarrior]

I just used up my thousand page views reading the flood of comments on this article alone!!!

Re:I can't believe slashdot is considering this!!!

[mikefoley]

I can't believe that people still use the term "adds" when they mean "ads". As in Advertise.

Sheesh..

As for Slashdot, TANSTAAFL. The dot-com free lunch is definately over.

Large ads?

[Cecil]

I would just like to thank you, slashdot, for reminding me to install Junkbuster.

No offense, but those giant monster ads are just too much for me. Banners I can deal with... I might buy a subscription at some point, after you have some of the issues like "What else can we give you for your subscription" worked out. I hope you'll use it as an opportunity to increase the signal-to-noise ratio. It worked extremely well on the SomethingAwful Forums.

Two requests

[petard]

I can't complain too much about the subscription, and will probably subscribe. I do have two requests before I do:

1. Please, please don't go to the annoying ads before you have some other means of paying than paypal. I will stop reading your site on a regular basis if you have these ads and no means of getting rid of them. Or I will put your ad servers on my junkbuster list. (They're not there already because your ads are not obnoxious and I like you guys.) I am not comfortable using paypal at this time, though, and I don't believe I am alone in this, so please don't move to the annoying ads just yet. Perhaps you could use ThinkGeek's CC billing system?
2. Please consider a second model whereby I can block only the big ads. I actually don't mind your current ads and click on them somewhat regularly. Perhaps $5 to chop the big ads out of 2000 pages??

Anyway, best of luck with the subscription model. I hope you guys can provide enough value that people want to subscribe. Thanks for a great site!

Re:Two requests

[waterbiscuit]

Well said.

I'd like to further both your requests.

1) From the poll about age, a significant proportion of your viewers are under 18, and therefore using paypal is a real problem. Myself being british and under 18 makes things even more complicated because I only have a british debit card.

2) If I were to be able to pay, I'd probably go for the scheme of being able to see the present smaller adds and more pages. I think this is a sensible comprimise which will not cause too many difficulties.

other than that, I have no objection to the subscription idea. I am very disappointed admittedly, somehow I can't help but feel it goes against /. philosophy, but it seems inevitable. I hope slashdotters stay loyal.

Time for the best FREE Pop-Up Stopper.

[Anonymous Coward]

www.panicware.com ... Works wonders, and is very tiny and doesnt slow your system down. I dont work for em but it's stopped every popup ever and I havent paid a cent and it kills them before it even transfers the data! So it saves ya some bandwidth and the evil popup site doesnt get its money either for having them.

The trouble with the alternatives.....

[Jason Levine]

Some people have knocked Paypal and while I'm sure it has it's problems, let me give the other side of the tale. As a webmaster who's looked into ways of accepting credit card donations for my site, I looked into Paypal and the only other service like it that I know of: Amazon's Honor System.

Paypal charges a fee of 30 cents + 2.9% of the payment. This means for a $5 payment, Slashdot would only see $4.56.

Amazon meanwhile charges $0.15 plus 15% of the payment. For that same $5 payment, Slashdot would only see $4.10.

A $0.46 fee might not seem like alot, but it can build up over time (especially with a high traffic site like Slashdot). For my site, I'm planning on looking into adding an Amazon payment option (along with a "snail mail check" address). I'd also fully inform visitors as to how much of their donation actually goes to me. If anyone knows of any better options out there, I'd love to know what they are.

So

[lblack]

Now that you're charging, if I donate can I expect to see a higher level of quality? Everybody has excused the typos, the factual errors, the double-postings, because, hey -- this place is free!

Now that this place ain't free, or ain't for some of us, will you be living up to a higher service level?

Oh, and if I sendja my money, will my $rtbl be removed? (Click Signature For Info)

leem

OmniWeb!

[gypsyx]

I use OmniWeb under MacOS X. It doesn't display banner ads. It also prevents all those pesky pop-up banner sites (Geocities, Tripod, etc.) from cluttering up my desktop with new windows. Click setting here, click setting there... No more ads! While most surfers have to see commercials on every web page they visit, I surf commercial free.

If all browsers provided anti-ad features, the banner/popup ad industry would die a much needed death. Ads suck ass!

filter certian ads

[ritlane]

I think it would be great for subscribers to be able to see a list of advertisers. We could then select which advertisers we'd like to see ads from. This could of course, include all advertisers.

This would be better for advertisers, as there would be more people seeing their ads, and better for people such as myself, who like seeing the new ThinkGeek offerings.

Hot damn, more money to pay out.

[lordmage]

I am sooooooo happy I pay for all this stuff to get "free" information. I have to pay for a computer 2,000 bucks (over time, I have spent tens of thousands). Reliable internet at 89 a month (broadband.. weee). Now we get to pay for a site. Its another site... its SLASHDOT.

Lets see that makes all my favorite sites going subscription and now that would make my total per month fee once on the internet to be around 30 bucks for some subscriptions?

You realize.. I wont be paying for slashdot. Agree or no, I have kids.. and I am already maxing out my budget JUST for internet ACCESS.

Wasnt there an article like a couple days ago on how broadband is getting even cheaper?

Why not tarpit ads instead of blocking them?

[EricLivingston]

If the non-subcriber model requries ad "views" for revenue, then traditional ad blockers will be counter-productive, as the blocker will not request the ad and there won't be a "view" to gain revenue.

So, why not make proxies that accept all the ads, "view" them, then just /dev/null them to oblivion and simply not send them along to my browser?

I can see this not being as good for dial-up users, as the ad will still suck bandwidth, but for cable/dsl users it won't be an issue.

That way, everybody's happy (except the ad people, but who cares?) Slashdot gets their revenue, and viewers get ad-free slashdot.

Heck, you could even have an "ad-laden" option for users with such an ad tarpit - load up every page with 50-100 ads to maximize revenue, and then have the tarpit proxy "view" them and take them out of the final rendering. Maybe even offer kickbacks to users that do it! :)

Almighty dollar

[Bazman]

And dont forget anyone outside the USA who wants ad-free slashdot has to pay in dollars, and hence is subject to the vagaries of exchange rates and rip-off currency conversion commission charges...

Baz

Slashdot doesn't deserve a dime.

[Anonymous Coward]

All this site does is link to interesting news on popular websites. Especially The Register, CNN and Wired. I will not pay! Toodles.

Credit Cards???

[Anonymous Coward]

Surely Slashdot could figure out how to setup credit card orders on this site. Why bother with Paypal?

Re:Credit Cards???

[omarh]

Why does everyone have a problem with paypal? I've used it several times without any problems.

cost vs cost?

[2MuchC0ffeeMan]

let's do the calculation, 1000 views for $5.00 , or a penny per two pages... that's the homepage plus one comments page.

two pages of bandwidth (mostly text) = a penny?

two revenues pages for advertisers = a penny?

5 bucks

[inetd]

For a couple of bucks you can subscribe to any number of adult entertainment sites.

After reading some of the comments in this thread, the /. news/$ ratio has fallen below that of the porn/$ ratio.

I'm better off paying for a nekked subscription, at least I won't have to listen to people complaining about how much things cost, or who gets the money.

I don't think so....

[malachid69]

While I understand the necessity of funds, and as much as I enjoy /., NO site is worth paying for. If there were any sites worth paying for, people would not have pwdz-lists online.

But let's think about what this really means. You know all those posts that require you register to read the original article -- I never read them. Is it because I don't want to register? Partially -- but mostly, I don't take the time to remember my name/pwd and login. As soon as I hit a link that says I have to login (other than like eTrade or my email), I simply close the window and *poof*, annoyance gone.

You say, "But you registered AND logged in to send this post." Accurate, to an extent. I logged in a few months ago, and never bother logging out. (Thanks Opera).

So, if /. has the popup advertisement -- well, Opera currently blocks those. If /. requires click-through, well, logout. If /. just has the graphics on this site, then it completely depends on how annoying it is.

Admittedly, the cost is extremely low (same as 2600 or something).... But if I support this type of behavior on /., then what site is safe?

BTW to the /. Staff... I think your advertisers are screwed in the head if they are going to require this. I personally click through your advertisements more than all the other sites put together -- because of their content. Making them larger makes me less likely to pay attention to them.

Malachi

What are subscriptions worth?

[cr@ckwhore]

Right now, lets be honest about the subscriptions. The only benefit is the lack of advertising on the screen. IMHO, for a subscription of this nature to be of value, the advertising needs to be extremely annoying. Perhaps something along the line of gigantic moving flash ads that obscure the screen, or the infamous "wait here for 1 minute before proceeding" ads.

The current slashdot advertising isn't annoying. Its a little banner ad on the top of the screen. So what!! Once I start scrolling down to the comments where I spend 99.99% of my time on /., I don't see the ads. Hence, the current "subscription" doesn't have much value.

So, here's the deal. Either sell some extremely annoying advertising, or hurry up and ad more value to the subscriptions.

Idea: would it possible for paying subscribers to cash in karma for /. merchandise?

Re:What are subscriptions worth?

[kolevam]

Need to do your reading... they said they'll be implementing BIGGER ads and such soon.

Re:What are subscriptions worth?

[Anonymous Coward]

you need to shut the fuck up and learn to take things figuratively sometimes.

Taco's Honeymoon needs funding!

[Gruturo]

Let's all do our part!

Just don't be annoying

[Alan]

I realize that this is most likely just going to get lost in the noise, but....

I don't have a problem with ads (much). They are a PITA, but a needed evil for the sites on the net to stay around until "free" bandwidth becomes a reality. My problem is not that /. is going along with the ad companies and their new methods, but with the methods themselves. Is it just me or does "new advertising technology" seem synonymous with "more annoying to the consumer"?

I'm not going to pay, just out of principle (yea, I'm a bastard), but I'm not going to block either... yet. When ads start becoming flash animations, or javascript images that float over top of the web page, well, that's the point where I'll either stop reading or start turning on junkbuster, turning off javascript, and disabling plugins. I'm not really going to loose a whole lot am I?

Why don't advertising companies realize that they are just annoying people more and more. I don't like ads and don't click on them simply out of principle, the exception being the thinkgeek ads that get served on /. Every once and a while there will be something that looks interesting, and it's targetted right at me. And I much prefer *effective* ads than the "lets make it more annoying and in their face to annoy them until the love us and buy shit" ads that are becoming more and more popular. I guess when you can get the 1% return via spam or banner or flash ads, you don't give a fuck right?

So in conclusion, /., Rob, Jeff... please try to make sure that as you fill up your page(s) with more and more ads, that you are doing something good, not just bending over and spreading your cheeks for the brainless suits at the ad companies.

Re:Just don't be annoying

[swordgeek]

Advertisers know something that you're missing out on here.

They can be as annoying as hell--they can absolutely piss you off and make you REFUSE to click on their banners--or indeed any banners. But at the end of the day, you've seen the product's name, and if they annoy you often enough with that, it'll stick.
Quick--picture C|Net. Who advertises there? You may or may not bring up the names instantly, but I can _guarantee_ that if you read C|Net, you're at least familiar with the names of companies who advertise.

Exposure is all they're after, and they don't give a flying fuck how they achieve it. Boycotts don't work until you can get 40% of the _buying_ market for a given product, and that's never going to happen for banner ads or even spam.

Let's all bend over now...

Re:Just don't be annoying

[Alan]

Exactly. They are "rude" :) It's much easier to do something shotgun fashion then properly, as anyone browsing the web (or driving down the road, or watching TV, or....) can see these days.

Re:Just don't be annoying

[bnitsua]

not just bending over and spreading your cheeks for the brainless suits at the ad companies.

Isn't that the goatse.cx guy's job?

Views vs pages?

[Malc]

So payment is per page, not per page served (viewed)? If I come back to the same story 5 times over a period of time, does that count as 1 page, or 5?

Pay Polls

[Frank of Earth]

Make the polls pay only and we'll all pay ;-)

Even better, let only those who subscribed be allowed to pick the Cmdr O'Neal option!

Info will flow, with or without portals.

[xdc]

If I could mod the parent post up as insightful, I would. Information will continue to flow, with or without high-profile portal sites like Slashdot.

How to do it

[bg289]

Centralised posting, decentralised reading.

Duh.

Bug and question

[42forty-two42]

First: when going from preferences to subscription, you don't see the preferences bar. Second, when will there be a FAQ entry?

now what about the rest of the OSDN?

[TheLoneCabbage]

Could FreshMeat make money by offering premium d/l service? I know I'd pay good money to be able to download the latest kernel patches and distro releases in a timely fashion. FreshMeat is in a unique position that for a small fee they could offer up the LARGEST collection of OpenSource downloads in the world. Note: They could also offer a premium, developer-site-cacheing, so that subscribers can see the dev-site even when they are down or defunct.

NewsForge? Same as slashdot I guess.

Sourceforge could also charge for premium d/l and maybe even advanced features, like nightly CVS/RPM builds, or automatic notification of subscribers when an update is released.

OSDN's job site could always make a good buck in the (I hope) recovering economy.

A Slashdot PAC would also be a good fundraiser (so long as some of the money is spent to counter bribe M$)

Heck, they could even sell tickets to TacoBob's wedding!!

Like Salon.com?

[Hollinger]

So are these going to work like salon.com's system, using a click-through advertising page every now and again? I kind of like that system; at least it's intelligent; I only see the ad once for each story, and, iirc, I see a different ad each time. I could deal with that, as long as I got all the same content I get now. If you add pay-only features, that's fine, but if I have to pay to view discussion posts or some such, I'm out.

This page was generated by...

[mad44]

a Squadron of Capitalist Monkeys for mad44 (516192).

I would rather prefer a Squadron of Attack Squirrels than this.

Did you see the item number in paypal?

[neye_eve]

They listed it as item # 666

nice move. kinda like the price for the original apples.

And yes, of course I paid. I don't use linux, and am a MS guy, myself, so I'm used to paying for things. Hello, you need money? Have a large sum of cash. I get used to it.

I'd pay if it would get /. to interact with users

[klieber]

Let me first say that there's a lot of belly-aching that has always occured on /. That's a fact of any popular web site.

However, there are also some very good issues and questions that get raised regarding /. that the editors never bother to respond to. There's the whole moderation suppression conspiracy, questions about mysterious stability problems and other honest issues that people have questions on. However, when people raise them via the only method they can; in a story, they get modded off-topic (and, if you believe what quite a few folks have been saying, occasionally banned from being moderators)

The only problem is there is no place to post these questions and comments and, even if there was, the editors have shown little to no interest in participating or interacting with the user community at all. Sure, Taco created some obscure discussion thread that few people know about, but I haven't seen any editors participating there.

So, what's our avenue for interactive discussion with the editors? Or are we not worthy of their attention? Sure, they're busy -- we're all busy. That's not an excuse. You could argue that most of the crap that gets posted is nothing more than FUD. OK, fine, but how about some editors telling us, at least once in a while, that it is, in fact, FUD. INTERACT with us, for christ sake. Isn't that what the web is all about?

So, you want me to pony up my $5 per month, start showing more of an interest in the user community. Start some sort of active, weekly "About /." post where folks can post questions/comments/concerns and editors will ACTIVELY participate. I know there's a /. topic for this already, but it's been so long since anyone has used it that I plum forgot what it's called.

Otherwise, I really don't care whether /. survives or not. As several other folks have pointed out, they've ceased being unique and innovative -- I can get the same information from any number of other web sites who *do* actively interact with their user community.

How about a poll?

[darken9999]

I'd be interested to see what some of the other /. readers think about this, as opposed to the current poll about RPG dice.

It could very well affect my decision (the poll about paying for ./, not the one about dice).

Mod Down CowboyNeal / Hemos and Taco

[Anonymous Coward]

I wasted all my moderator points in modding down their posts to Trolling, but some asshole moderator modded them all up.. Aaarrgghh!!!

What counts as a page view?

[gregbaker]

There have been some people wondering what counts as a page view.

If you subscribe and go back to the subscriptions page, you have the option of seeing "Ads" or "No Ads" on pages in each of these categories: "Homepage", "Stories (usually with reader comments)" and "Comments". It also tells you how many ad-free views you've used of your total.

From my initial test of a single page view, if you have "Ads" clicked for a category, it doesn't count towards your total. So, if you compusively reload the front page, you can choke down the ads there and not get charged. Loading a page for which you've selected "No Ads" counts as a page view on your subscription total.

There is a note that says: 'Set "No Ads" anywhere, and you'll get ads disabled for free on other pages too.' So, apparently, no ads on the preference, submission, etc pages are "free" if you're a subscriber.

Greg

You Can Buy Mine.

[cjsnell]

Gentlemen, start your bidding!

Re:You Can Buy Mine.

[tomblackwell]

A bucket of my waste.

Re:You Can Buy Mine.

[Sick Boy]

Mine's even lower! Let's open the bidding at say, the retail price of a small home in Southern California?

If your advertizers think that larger banner ads

[BattyMan]

that waste even more of my bandwidth and screen space will make me more likely to click on them, they're truly delusional. If _you_ believe this, well.....

You're taking square aim at your own foot. The same tiny minority who do the most browsing (and from whom you'l be asking the most money) are the tiny minority who supply your content. Any subscription system which does not provide some subsidy for those providing (perhaps positively moderated) comments will be counterproductive. I generally preview and edit my comments several times before I post. If each of these iterations is going to count as a page load, you'll see use of the "Preview" button fall off to nearly nothing. That can't be A Good Thing(tm).

And PayPal is a complete horror story:
Check this:
and this:

Even if I _do_ choose to buy a subscriptiuon (HIGHLY unlikely), I won't be doing it through PayPal!

Give Positive contributers credits to pageviews!

[Bullschmidt]

I see the necessity for this, but at the same time, the most positive contributers will end up payong the most. This seems counter productive. Why not do something like reward positive moderation. So, for example, at the end of the month, add up all the moderation points on my comments. If I have a positive balance, credit me with banner-less page views. You'd have to figure out a good "pricing" system, but I think this would be beneficial in (at least) two ways:

1. Positive contributers get rewarded.
2. Everyday users may work towards more positive contribution for reward, resulting in even better content!

Seems like there is no reason not to try this!

Thats right!

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree! I develop GPL software and that cost me money and time. Why the hell should I give it away? Im thrashing this GPL right now! I could make a living from this like Tacho and /. why give it away... Im just stupid!

-Anon

Slashdot deserves my money

[Sludge]

Please remove the Paypal requirement. I owe slashdot at least the price of a fat computer book every year. Slashdot has come so far towards making me donate (yes, a service that was cost-free to me that now wants my money in exchange for an additional service is donation as far as I'm concerened), but has this silly block at the end of it all.

Once I can get to https://secure.slashdot.org, pay with a CC, and have my account immediately upgraded, I'll pay most generously.

As a sidenote, page views?? I assume more people are going to be viewing comments flat or nested to reduce the number of clicks, unless the staff decide to make it clear viewing low level comments does not penalize the user one view. Hell, throw metamoderation on the free list. Helping the site out shouldn't subtract a paid view for the user.

Re:Slashdot deserves my money

[wbav]

You raise some great points, but also, let's remind ourselves, for the poor college student; if you don't pay it still will be free, there'll just be advertisements.

Caveats

[ChaoticCoyote]

Real magazines pay their contributors -- but somehow, I don't expect to see a check from VA Systems if one of my comments is highly rated by the moderators. ;)

You might consider some sort of karma-based subscription service, where you lower prices for those who provide "good" content (as moderated). That way, people have an incentive to post quality material, and they don't feel cheated by paying Taco's web bills. ;) Everybody wins (except the trolls, of course).

I also expect professional journalistic standards from a site I'm paying for. If I'm giving away content, I'm not that concerned about spelling and punctuation -- but if I'm charging people to read what I write, I have editors and such who make sure the content is clean and readable. If Slashdot wants to move beyond amateur status, it needs to act professional.

I have no problem with Slashdot trying to recoup its costs -- but I (and lots of other people) expect value for thier money. Getting rid of ads isn't enough incentive to make me pay for Slashdot.

Good luck guys.

blog

[xdc]

Blog is a trendy term that is short for "web log", which is usually refers to sites like Slashdot.

New Subscription Feature Idea!

[0xbaadf00d]

Wouldn't it be cool if the PAYING subscribers (rich people) got to moderate EVERYTHING (censor), ALL THE TIME!

The revolution will NOT be Slashdotized...

Paying for Trolls?

[lww]

Okay, I can understand how costly it is to run a popular web service. I also understand the extraordinary difficulties in leveraging accumulations of social capital into financial capital.

But, I'd be curious to understand how much of /.'s resources are consumed to maintain it's current low signal to high noise ratio. For example, as I'm writing this post, over 50% of the previous posts are modded at -1. How much of a burden does this put on the system?

I, for one, would happily pay for /. as long as we see efforts to meet the needs of subscribers, not trolls. Hell, if a significant number of trolls want to pay for the right to have FP's, ascii art and links to goatse.cx, then that would be fine by me. But until then, I'd like to see increased efforts to reduce their impact on /.

For example, if you added a feature that would automatically delete all posts that were modded down to -1 (or whatever), how much would that save in system resources to manage/deliver/archive comments?

I don't want to hear about integrity of speech, etc, that argument starts to become specious once you start taking money from your most valued segment of the population to support your most undesired population segment.

Current Page Count?

[VerdeRana]

Is there a way to see how many pages I'm currently viewing per month? A histogram over time would be really nice. Now if only you could count the amount of time that I spend reading Slashdot when I should be working... wait, do I really want to know that?

Sound

[Scrameustache]

Ok, fair enough, but as SOON as you put in an ad with sound, I'm out of here.

Geez, its time to think about dropping the broadband access...no more IGN, no more gamespot, and soon, no more slashdot.

Ah well, this "Inter-Net" thing was fun while it lasted...

Yeah, but will they rename it Slashdot.com?

[Anonymous Coward]

.org is for non-profits; it seems to me that as soon as you start charging for admission, you're moving into the for-profit sector. Of course, the whole idea of non-profits is a joke to begin with - the CEO of the typical non-profit makes very nearly as much as the CEO of the typical for-profit. The for-profit/non-profit distinction is just an accounting fiction that allows marxists to pretend that they're superior to the rest of us. Nevertheless, the hypocrisy of charging admission to a .org is startling.

Re:Yeah, but will they rename it Slashdot.com?

[erasmus_]

.org is for non-profits; it seems to me that as soon as you start charging for admission, you're moving into the for-profit sector. Of course, the whole idea of non-profits is a joke to begin with - the CEO of the typical non-profit makes very nearly as much as the CEO of the typical for-profit. The for-profit/non-profit distinction is just an accounting fiction that allows marxists to pretend that they're superior to the rest of us. Nevertheless, the hypocrisy of charging admission to a .org is startling.

Well, first of all, they own the .com domain as well. Secondly, I don't see the .org being a part of the name anywhere, certainly not in the logo, nor anywhere on the front page, nor in the headline of this article. Lastly, I'm not sure I see them raking money hand over fist with this scheme, perhaps breaking even or losing less is more likely for as much page views as this site gets.

So although your comment is interesting, I do not believe it to be valid.

Re:Yeah, but will they rename it Slashdot.com?

[Anonymous Coward]

Try going to the site http://slashdot.com; you will be redirected, instantaneously, to http://slashdot.org.

Re:Yeah, but will they rename it Slashdot.com?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't see the .org being a part of the name anywhere, certainly not in the logo, nor anywhere on the front page, nor in the headline of this article.

Are you blind?! At the top of the page of your post (and this one) I see a good-sized "slashdot.org" logo.

Re:Yeah, but will they rename it Slashdot.com?

[erasmus_]

I don't see the .org being a part of the name anywhere, certainly not in the logo, nor anywhere on the front page, nor in the headline of this article.

Are you blind?! At the top of the page of your post (and this one) I see a good-sized "slashdot.org" logo.

Oh yes, in the article type logo. The main logo is what I obviously meant.

Re:Yeah, but will they rename it Slashdot.com?

[Anonymous Coward]

RFC 1591:

ORG - This domain is intended as the miscellaneous TLD for organizations that didn't fit anywhere else. Some non-government organizations may fit here.

There's no requirement that ORG domains must be non-profit, sorry. If someone like Taco wants to put their For Profit 'community' site in ORG space, that's OK.

Seems backwards

[Eric Seppanen]

I might be more inclined to pay something if you offered an improved Slashdot for my money: let's call it "Slashdot plus": access to extra features, rejection bin, a fast server. The point is, I'd be paying more to get more than what I get today.

Instead, it's "pay more to get exactly what you get today, and maybe later we'll add some perks". Those that don't pay actually get penalized with large ads. Seems like you guys ran out with the stick and forgot the carrot.

I may be alone here

[Chocobo219]

I'll pay for a comic I enjoy reading. I'll pay for access to IGN, maybe. But paying for a site that's effectively a news filter? Why? Slashdot produces Zero content I'm interested in. You can read book reviews elsewhere. Slashdot doesn't provide quality content. It provides tech-oriented filtration. That's a fine thing, but it doesn't warrant cash. I acknowledge that it needs it to survive, but the idea of paying for a service that's fairly mediocre, rankles. If you want Slashdot for the commenting, there are tons of fora out there. (Of course SA does charge now.) Sorry, no dice. Funny how I was just saying yesterday that I need to find another website to be my home page. Well, not like any of you guys care. Adios guys. It's been a nice lurker run (3 years).

Your missing the point

[g8rgeek]

It's not pay or leave at all. /. will still be free is you don't mind the ads. It really is a fair setup. Deal with the ads or pay to do it without.

Heck, I'd pay bucks for the ads on tv to dissapear. Oh, wait, I do. It's called HBO, Showtime, etc.

Rantbait

Please, editorial control the ads!

[bluGill]

Yahoo groups have ads, and I no longer can view the archives in any graphical enabled browsers. I don't mind ads, I accept the nessicity of them to support a service I use, unless I pay for them directly.

In the case of Yahoo I've seen one too many ad selling something indecient. Sex might sell, but it is a turn off to many people as well. (Even people who like it otherwise, often don't want anyone to know they do)

Techie adds are okay, and there hasn't yet been a problem with /. ads. Consider this a friendly remindeder to keep the ads clean.

What if every site charged for access?

[MrEfficient]

Sure, one site subscription is no big deal, but how could anyone possibly afford paying for every site they visit on the web? Slashdot, Kuro5hin, Ars Technica, and more to come. Not to mention the fact that I've already paid big bucks for the computer and internet access necessary to view the site to begin with. It starts adding up quick. It just won't work, and it's not what the web is about. I'll never buy a Slashdot subscription. I'll filter the ads if I can, and if that's not possible I'll go someplace else.

Help your favorite site, spoof the click

[sterno]

What somebody should do is write an ad filtering client that does the following:

1. Actually download the banners in a background process
   
2. Selectively follow the links of some of the banners in a semi-random fashion
   

This creates the illusion that people are viewing the ads even if they are not. This makes it so you don't have to see the ads, and the sites you like will get advertiser supporting.

Re:Help your favorite site, spoof the click

[ostrich2]

I think all this energy trying to fool the ad agency is completely wasted. In the end, these agencies couldn't care less if you clicked here or didn't click there. Clicks, roughly translated, means purchases. If you make a program that clicks ads but absolutely never buys anything, the advertizer is going to realise that advertizing on Slashdot doesn't pay, and pull the ads anyway.

Now, make a crawler that actually buys random stuff occasionally, and you're on to something. It would be interesting to see what you got, too.

Re:Help your favorite site, spoof the click

[GreyPoopon]

Now, make a crawler that actually buys random stuff occasionally, and you're on to something. It would be interesting to see what you got, too.

Now that would be REALLY interested. You could call that the "I feel lucky" mode. Imagine your surprise when a 10 year supply of Viagra arrived at your door. Hmmm. I think I'd opt for a truckload of "All Your Base Are Belong to Us" T-shirts.

Re:Help your favorite site, spoof the click

[Anonymous Coward]

Think of the possibilities of a worm that did this with your Pay Pal account. Dot Com days would be back again!

Re:Help your favorite site, spoof the click

[fataugie]

Now, make a crawler that actually buys random stuff occasionally, and you're on to something. It would be interesting to see what you got, too

That's easy, get married. You'll see what I mean.

Re:Help your favorite site, spoof the click

[cs668]

Ten year suply of viagra for some of us thats only 10 tablets :-)

Re:Help your favorite site, spoof the click

[tps12]

I don't think this is really true. This is one of the few sites where I see ads that I'm interested in, but invariably what happens is I see some words on a banner, click something to read comments, and then think, "oh, I should have clicked on that." Of course, hitting "back" gives me a new banner, so if I'm still interested, it's Google time. Otherwise, I just forget about it. I think the billboard analogy is accurate, in that a lot of online ads function in this subconscious way. Most people read words whenever they see words, so just getting a product name into someone's brain might make a difference when they are choosing among products, services, or merchants. Also, I don't know what kind of analysis is feasible with success of advertising. It seems to me that the only way to accurately measure how well a given banner on slashdot is working is to compare the patronage of a random sample of slashdot readers who saw the ad with a sample of those who didn't, with sample sizes large enough to iron out confounding variables. Tricky, if not technically impossible (until we all have .NET or whatever).

Re:Help your favorite site, spoof the click

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately I'm not logged in but this has got to be the goddam funniest thing I've read on Slashdot in a while.

Seriously, read the original and than this comment and you'll be rolling 'til the cows come home.

Re:Help your favorite site, spoof the click

[dfreed]

True.
But what I would like to see is the ability to block specific advertisers. Lets say that I do not what to see any ads from company X, if I do not see ads from company X then I would see more ads that are relevant to me and that I am more likely to click on. Advertisers would also like this since it gets them exposure to people who want to see their ads, and not to people who have no interest.

I would also like to be able to specify categories of ads to see (or not see). Such as: New Ads (ads that have been on slashdot for less than X amount of time. I should even be able to chose to see ads for companies that I have blocked, if they are new.), ads from a specific company (i.e. M$, thinkgeek, sourceforge, etc), ads for a type of product (i.e. Any kind of caffeine drink, or for computer equipment).

I would also like to be able to block a specific ad regardless of company. For instance I have seen the hooded sweatshirt ad for thinkgeek more than enough. They do not make them in my size, I am tired of seeing them and it is time to move on to newer and better ads. Since I can't/won't buy from that ad Advertisers only benefit from me not waiting their impressions.

You might also allow advertisers to override my preferences (at a premium cost) if they think that they just have a product that will change the world and I must see it. But I should get extra credit for that.

One last think, you used to have a list of advertisers and the ads they showed, bring it back that way if I see an ad and want to find it after I have left the page I can look through all the ads and find it. It would be really nice if you tracked what ads I had viewed (and in what order, or at least by date) so I could narrow down the number of ads I looked through. I think that advertisers would be very happy to learn that I came back a week after seeing their ad to click on it and find more information or but it. (Hey Taco, it's a value added service to you advertisers.)

Just my two bits. What do you think?

Re:Help your favorite site, spoof the click

[maniac11]

But what I would like to see is the ability to block specific advertisers. Lets say that I do not what to see any ads from company X, if I do not see ads from company X then I would see more ads that are relevant to me and that I am more likely to click on. Advertisers would also like this since it gets them exposure to people who want to see their ads, and not to people who have no interest.

I think this kind of thing is a really good idea. I don't mind advertising (so much) that is interesting to me. I rarely click a banner, but sometimes is enough to make it valuable to advertisers. If there was a simple way to make decisions about the types of advertising I saw, I'd go for it.

Of course, this should be a free service to /. users and a value-added to its advertisers...

Re:Help your favorite site, spoof the click

[GreyPoopon]

Ten year suply of viagra for some of us thats only 10 tablets :-)

LOL -- I'm not sure how to take this. Are you sayin that your sex drive is good enough without it, or are you saying that you only need a good sex drive about once a year? Sorry, couldn't resist. :-)

Anyway, I suppose you could save the stuff for a hundred years or so when you really need it.

Re:Help your favorite site, spoof the click

[thumperward]

Actively downloading the banners is a bit daft, given that the usual gripe is that dial-up is slower with banners. A 'background process' (i.e. once all the html is in place and the user is browsing posts) is still hogging bandwidth the average power user could do without.

I don't really see what the fuss is about anyway. Slashdot is one of the very few sites where I actually DO click the ads, on accounts of them being of interest to me often. If ThinkGeek were able to export their more cushy merchandise more often I'm sure they'd make more.

- Chris

Re:Help your favorite site, spoof the click

[jjackson]

ROFLMAO... more truthful words were never spoken (or typed for that matter).

However, I am not sure wether to call this "Funny" or "Informative", both fit quite nicely.

Re:Help your favorite site, spoof the click

[Anonymous Coward]

omfg that was a good one

Re:Help your favorite site, spoof the click

[Anonymous Coward]

WTF? Over?

This is the place to nitpick, so shouldn't that be:

Whiskey, Tango, Foxtrot? Over.

Re:Help your favorite site, spoof the click

[Anonymous Coward]

let me guess---you generally laugh pretty late at jokes, dont you?

Re:Help your favorite site, spoof the click

[Anonymous Coward]

Yay. someone can create a netscape plugin or add it to Konqueror and Galeon. :)

Re:Help your favorite site, spoof the click

[Squalish]

LoL. Possibly the funniest post Ive ever seen

How about @slashdot.org email addresses?

[Will Collins]

I don't know if this has already been suggested, but surely you could make a lot of cash by selling @slashdot.org email addresses? I'd definitely be willing to pay for one of those!

Will Collins

Re:How about @slashdot.org email addresses?

[forged]

Actually if this was a feature proposed with your first payment, I'd subscribe now ! I think this is just such a neat idea.

Hmmm, more spam :)

Please don't seperate payers from non-payers!!!!

[Uttles]

The present moderation system where all posters are created equal is nearly perfect! Please do not make the posts of people who pay stand out from those who don't pay, it would ruin the whole fun of slashdot. I'll glady view a few ads and even click on them from time to time, but I'm not going to pay for something that I've been getting for free. I think it would be extremely harmful to the nature of slashdot if divisions in representation happened because of this system. Removing ads for people that pay, hey, that's fair. Elevating their "worth" on slashdot, that's just not right.

For an example of how bad it gets, check out www.thetigernet.com

Can I email my credit card number?

[WebWiz]

I'll encrypt it.
Key: (It's typed backwards)

madsupper.com - Don't leave the record store w/o quenching your thirst.

Slashdot is like PBS or NPR

[AnotherSteve]

All of the arguments that the announcers on PBS or public radio pound into your head during pledge week apply to Slashdot as well. It costs money to provide the service. They have some sponsors but that doesn't cover the entire cost of providing the service. You enjoy using the service. How much more do you spend on things that provide less value each month? Once you get past the idea that anything made of electrons should be free, which is pretty ridiculous if you think about it, twenty bucks a year is a laughably small amount for the service provided.

It adds value to your life, or else you'd go do something else, so why not kick in a little something?

Re:Slashdot is like PBS or NPR

[rudy_wayne]

" How much more do you spend on things that provide less value each month? "

Ahhh.... therin lies the rub. I'm hard-pressed to think of something I pay for that provides LESS value than this place.

I just figured it out . . .

[ptrourke]

This is just an experiment to see if you can slashdot PayPal.

Subscription Only Option

[RedWolves2]

You could have a subcription only area for Microsoft only stories. Hey if the software costs so much, you might as well charge for the intellectual rights of the same topic!

why frequent posters view more

[ballsbot]

To post a message, it requires at least 3 page views. At the very least, they must view the story page, then the reply page, then submit it. If they're good little posters, they'll read the other comments (as I did, though the signal-to-noise ratio is rather low on this topic) which may require viewing multiple pages, and they'll preview their posting before actually submitting. It probably takes between 5-7 page views to post most comments. Many posters will then check back for replies, possibly replying again.

It again requires several page views to moderate. They must click on the story, then submit their moderations. If they're good moderators, they'll probably view more. Meta moderation also requires extra page views.

Since the above actions are all necessary to the vitality of slashdot, it would seem unfair to count them as page views. I'd rather see one of two alternatives:

The pages that contribute to the site(comment|moderate|story submit) don't count as page views for paying people, possibly still containing the small (unobtrusive) banner ad slashdot currently uses. Keeping this for all users, or just the paying users, or paying users getting no ad at all as a bonus for paying and contributing, would all make sense.

Or going to a flat monthly rate. I understand that you want to those that use slashdot more to pay more. But your frequent users are your frequent posters - those that make slashdot what it is.

Charles

Quote:

[Anonymous Coward]

So it goes.
- Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse 5

I'll pay the dough, if it'll keep Katz from postin

[agrounds]

Seriously, I'll pony up some cash just to keep him off the site! Just like Mariah Carey! I'll pay to not listen to techno-troll!

my $.02, or maybe $5, who can tell these days!

Dumb idea.

[bytor4232]

You dont need a "subscription" to block banner ads dudes. Mozilla (also Galeon) will block images for you. Simply right click on an image and select "Block Images from...".

Gold Star?

[DavidKirkEvans]

For mathematical excellence?

You can kill cybermen with them. I'm in.

he already implied that he wouldn't do that..

[cheesyfru]

He's said that he would learn from the mistakes of others, and not create additional features for subscribers that cost more to maintain than they generate in revenue. I'd imagine this feature would fall under that category. And like the other posts have said, K5 does that already.

Re:he already implied that he wouldn't do that..

[boio]

I'd really like to be able to look through the rejected bin (especially if it were to be ranked, like over on the other sid^Hte), and this doesn't seem like a huge addition to the code base - it appears that slash already saves all of the postings, including rejected ones, and maintaining this could only cost a little more traffic (once it's working)...

I think when they're talking about features that cost more to maintain than you can sell them for, they're talking about features that have real on-going costs...like sending Geraldo Riviera to the middle east...

Not for sale

[ximenes]

Who even has one of these fabled UIDs?

Re:Not for sale

[sar]

i'm almost as low in #'s.. considering the number that there are.

# 398

Re:Not for sale

[RAD Kade 1]

me! ;)

I'm not going to sell mine, either. :)

Re:Not for sale

[Anonymous Coward]

I bid $100

Re:Not for sale

[CLorox]

Me too!

Re:Not for sale

[DeadBeef]

Well seeing as everyone else is jumping off the cliff....
Me too!

Trolls

[awills]

Why not require a subscription for anonymous coward posts? Seems a good way to make sure the trolls are paying their fair share.

Why I paid $5

[madro]

I see it as a way to indirectly fund Slash development. New features for subscribers --> new features for those who who use their free software. (Although I guess the 2nd edition of Running Weblogs with Slash will be required sooner than expected.)

I'll see how long the 1000 pageviews last, and go from there. Between NPR, Wall Street Journal Online, and Slashdot, I'm paying for content in several places but I'm getting my money's worth.

I like Slashdot because I don't have to waste my time reading crap (unless I'm moderating). I like Amazon because there are usually enough decent reviews ranked by usefulness to make my shopping experience easier. But I don't think I'd pay Amazon for the privilege of reading user reviews. It's still apples and oranges, though, because I can still get the content free but with annoying ads.

It would be nice to reward those who contribute to the site's success ... the only problem is that karma alone is a truly bad way to decide who's contributing enough to be worth rewarding.

WAP, PQA, history

[gruntvald]

I've been with you guys under various guises since chips and dips. Fix the WAP and PQA interfaces, and I'll cough up for a subscription. Looking back over the years I've been reading this site, there's been so much good stuff - the kerberos debacle, the april 1 1600x1200 table, the 9/11 coverage was simply the most human angle on the web that day (thanks Katz). IMHO, it's worth it. heck - if I can pay for 6 pages of perl journal in a magazine that has not much else interesting to me, I can certainly pay for slash.

Re:WAP, PQA, history

[Hemos]

Thanks - the WAP stuff does need more work.

Let users find out their page view rates!

[nellardo]

In the interest of not selling us a "pig in a poke," why not let users see their own usage statistics? Before they risk their money with PayPal? Even a simple "You view X pages a month/week/day" would be helpful for people to know how much they're going to have to dish out.

ThinkGeek: You are the weakest link! Goodbye!

[Anonymous Coward]

One has to wonder about the size of the intersection between slashdot-subscribers and thinkgeek-customers.

If most of thinkgeek's customers are slashdot subscribers, and they stop seeing thinkgeek ads, wouldn't that be "bad" for VA Linux since I assume more than $5 is marked up on each thinkgeek item?

Not Kur05hin!

[wiredog]

There's too many people there already... Please, no more k5 links from /.

Well, not for a few months anyway.

Re:Not Kur05hin!

[Trepidity]

But I found k5 from /.

So by definition the best k5 users come from /.

=P

[username Delirium on k5]

If I pay my $20

[Our Man In Redmond]

can I get a Slashdot that doesn't have trolls, irrelevancy, karma whoring, spammers or just plain stupid braindead timewasting noise mixed in with the signal?

It would be a much better Slashdot but I can't help thinking it would be very strange to no longer see my own posts.

alterslash -- slashdot without the crap

[joey]

This sounds like a good time to plug a website I found mentioned in LWN a few weeks back.

Alterslash - the unofficial slashdot digest. Shows the stories, the top-ranked comments, and no banner ads, no trolls, etc. It also has neat signal-to-noise graphs. It is an excellent replacement for the slashdot front page.

Hit tracking

[naloxone]

I really have no idea how many pages I hit at /. per month. However the stats listed above indicate that /. can or does track that. I wonder if they could provide that info in your user stats so you could calculate how far your subscription dollar would take you.

Ideally, they could show hits on the main page vs the comment pages and provide a calculator to show how long 1000 hits would last you with the specified settings. Plus, I'm just a stats junky and would be curious to see how I'm wasting my time.

Unrealistic

[EnglishTim]

I somehow doubt that all of those 300,000 will pay. I reckon about 1 in 50 of those people will pay, which makes $120,000.

Even if you get 1 in 10, it's still only $600,000 with 10 people and hosting costs...

Administration costs?

[sdo1]

I can't help but think that the administration of this system is going to end up costing them more than the income they're going to receive from it.

-S

WE ARE YOUR CONTENT!

[bokmann]

In the article you say
"As an aside, it's also worth noting that more than half of all comment posters fall into this 3% (that will have to pay more than $5 a month)"

Lets look at what this means...

The people that produce comments worth reading ARE your content... So, you will be charging those people that PRODUCE for you... This seems backwards to me, and if the people that normally comment are turned off, the quality of slashdot will suffer.

I fear that you will just become "another example of how websites can't make money". Noone will ever anlize the fact that you turned away the people that actually made your website worth reading... I certainly am not going to PAY you for the privledge of posting to your website so you can make money off of it.

Turn the concept around the way it SHOULD be. Do something like, "the top 20% highest moderated posters get free access" or something like this. This will, in effect, almost become like a payment to your authors.

But it is probably too late for anyone to read this... There are hundreds of posts already by upset people, and this will just get lost in the noise.

-db

Re:WE ARE YOUR CONTENT!

[Anonymous Coward]

shoo fly, don't bother us.

go produce content elsewhere if you don't like it here.

Re:WE ARE YOUR CONTENT!

[pgrote]

You are so right ... It seems odd and maybe I am missing something, but for people to actively use the site and respond properly and on-topic it takes page views.

The content we all love at Slashdot is created by the people who *read* the articles and respond. The value of Slashdot isn't the articles ... I can get them from NEWSGEEK.NET, etc. The value is the community.

I bid

[wiredog]

A one week old Grilled American Cheese on White.

Re:I bid

[dynoman7]

I see your bet and raise you one tomato slice, one 1/4 cut pickle and a Coke.

Lynx

[ManDude]

Another good reason to keep using lynx.

Re:Lynx

[talks_to_birds]

They'll block your user agent string...

t_t_b

PAY but not that WAY...

[oconnorcjo]

I think it is fine to charge for viewing slashdot free of various advertisements BUT I HATE the idea of micropayment and paying per page. If I pay xyz to have access to slashdot then I don't want to think of how many times I have reloaded the page or to suddenly get full fledged adds after xyz months. A yearly subscription is the simplest and best. If I get a subscription to an advertisement free magazine, no matter how many times I look at it, it will still be free of advertisements. Slashdot should think of itself as an electronic magazine and act the same way.

Re:PAY but not that WAY...

[Pierce]

But on an advertisement free magazine if you look at it multiple times it's only your time that's is being used up. On a web site if you look at it multiple times there are still bandwidth and processing being used up to serve you that data.

Re:PAY but not that WAY...

[Bryan Ischo]

That makes no sense.

If you pay per page view, then it is impossible to pay for more views than you use, unless you stop reading Slashdot and don't use up some of the views you paid for. But the same thing would happen if you stopped reading Slashdot before your yearly subscription were up.

It's simplest to think about this with some concrete examples:

Let's imagine that Slashdot charged $20/year instead of $5 per 1000 views.

For any individual user who pays the $20 yearly subscription, one of three things could happen:

1) You view the site less than 4000 times, say 200 times. In this case, you would have only paid $10 under the pay-per-view scheme. You are cheated.

2) You view the site exactly 4000 times. You paid for exactly what you viewed. Congratulations!

3) You view the site more than 4000 times, say 8000 times. In this case, you would have paid $40 under the pay-per-view scheme. You paid less than Slashdot thought that the views were worth. Slashdot was cheated.

So in the pay-per-time-period scheme, except in the highly unlikely second case, someone ends up cheated, either you, or Slashdot.

Wouldn't you rather just pay for exactly what you use, and feel confident that you are not being cheated and that Slashdot isn't being cheated either?

BTW, you don't have to think about how many times you have viewed Slashdot in the current payment scheme. You pay once, then forget about it. If you don't like to keep track of such things, then don't - some day, ads will start reappearing and you will realize that you need to pay some more. The exact same thing happens if you ignore your time-period-based subscription - eventually it runs out and you have to pay again.

You don't have to pay per view of Slashdot, anyway - if you have some kind of cache, then you can just view the already-downloaded Slashdot story from the cache should you want to look at it again. You end up only paying Slashdot for the views that you made which required their servers to service your request. So in the end, you only pay Slashdot when they're actually working, anyway.

So aside from being uncomfortable with having to embrace a new payment paradigm, I simply cannot see what you base your complaints on.

As an aside, I bought 10000 views today, and I'm happy as could be. I've been enjoying Slashdot for years now (check out my UID, which would be lower had I bothered to sign up for one when I first saw that accounts were available), and this is the first time I've given something back (not sure my previous comments count :) ... and it feels really good.

Give /. a try without paying.....

[psycht]

There are some ways of advertising that just isn't that annoying to me. I'll still frequent /. and maybe (just maybe) i might find an ad worth clicking on. I just hope the bosses as /. choose adequate sponsorship for the new /. Instead of that "damn little camera" or "piss on that stupid mokey". And if the advertising gets bad enough.. them I might consider paying, but i'd rather not.

Distributed Slashdot Client

[Eponymous, Showered]

The only reason Rob, et al has to do this is to cover the costs of tons of bandwidth and hardware. If he could do it for little or nothing, I'm sure he would. So let's build a Distributed Slashdot client. Spread the load around via mirrors to everyone's web space and bandwidth that they're not using. The hits to slashdot.org go way down, everyone gets their News for Nerds.

Anyone?

Hmm

[Suppafly]

Just like the people that talk about how great /. was before the trolls, I'll be able to talk about how great /. was before the ads.

sigs

[geekoid]

Perhaps people who don't pay shouldn't be allowed a .sig or be allowed to view the story icons.? No reasons people not paying for bandwidth should send anymore data then neccessary.

Hrm...

[Uller-RM]

At a time when nearly every other decent site with subscriptions (K5, etc) is charging a per month fee for no ads, /. is charging per pageview.

It's all a secret plot to stop people from refreshing nonstop to get first post. ;)

Slashdot users are whining bitches...

[DraKKon]

Damn.. just about every post I see is bitching about the ads.. subscruptions.. other sites you can go to..

Shut the hell up! /. and OSDN are paying for the site.. and they want to have some sort of income for thier time and effort.. what the hell is wrong with that?!

I run a music website, and not I'm NOT going to plug it (/. effect would kill me) that I have been runing since 1998. All of it is out of my pocket. I would love for the site to pay for itself. Congrats Taco! You'll get my $5!

I could also make the joke..

Step one sell ./ Subscriptions.
Step two ...
Step three profit!

Re:Does this change the viewer demographic for ads

[Anonymous Coward]

Excellent point. You're killing what gets you legitimate advertisers, leaving you the spam equivalent as your advertising base. People new to /. will see a rag top-heavy with invasive advertizing for crap. Less people will join. Even fewer of worth.

Guys.. I understand the rock you're on but you're starting down a path that guarantees you will lose.

This stick method just isn't going to work. ['Pay us and we we'll stop hitting you.']

You're also going to lose submissions. Better at least think of a karma whoring system where your trap line gets a free ride.

Subscriptions = Trolls - - ;

[goldspider]

Think about it, all but the most seriously compulsive trolls won't pony up and pay for a subscription.

I support a subscription-based site if only to achieve a better concentration of quality posts and fewer trolls.

I await the abuse from the trolling community.

Re:Subscriptions = Trolls - - ;

[W.B. Yeats]

May the Trolls feast upon the dead corpse of Slashdot. >GNASHGNASHGNASH

Feel my ABUSE as I PUMMEL your sorry, worthless little mind.

steamy letters of nerd love

[Anonymous Coward]

So the "Letters" section of the magazine will just be a bunch of blank pages?

Revenue from click-thru to other information sites

[megalomang]

I know this could put a slant on the postings that are approved, but assuming /. actually generates traffic for other sites such as wired and space.com and pbs.org and nasa.gov, etc, this should, in turn, increase the add revenue of those sites. Why can't /. get a cut of that (probably laughably small) sum of money somehow?

I know this would mean that /. would post more links to stories on the sites that comply, but at the same time, it would be drivin not by number of links posted, but by actual click-thrus. This means that the dumb stories don't actually earn revenue for /.

So what this effectively reduces /. to is a discussion wrapper for select stories on other sites. This would kind of out-source the discussion layer from those sites.

One flaw is that the other sites might want revenue from the ad viewership attributed to the discussion about that story, since without that other site's story, there would be no traffic at /.

Oh well. Back to the drawing board.

Adds on /.

[Our Man In Redmond]

I actually don't have much of a problem with ads here because they're often for interesting products, even if I've never bought any of them. I hope someone buys from ThinkGeek, even if I haven't so far.

Now if you start selling toothpaste, beer, cars, soap, soup, condoms, potrzebie or Russian mail-order brides, you'll end up running afoul of my adblocker.

Well, OK, maybe not the beer.

Why?

[Decimal]

Why would I want to pay money to have my story submissions rejected and to be randomly modded down by editors with unlimited points? I get these now for free.

Perhaps you're offering quality mod-downs?

Re:Why?

[NanoGator]

Errr so you want to pay for higher ratings?

Why don't you just generate an HTML page with your story submission added to it, and then stare at that. That would be free. ;o)

Seriously tho, the value of Slashdot is that it provides news, not that it provides moderator points.

I'm willing to pay /. $5 for 1,000 pages just to provide the news, but the banners don't bother me.

Re:Why?

[Decimal]

Yep. Notice the mod-down on that one, no rating applied, just reduced from 2 to 1.

Text Ads

[gnovos]

To understand why the system works like it does, you need to first understand that Slashdot is about to start accepting new ad formats. The large ads that you see on many other sites are coming here. We really don't have an option: these are what advertisers want, and if we don't provide them, we won't be around much longer. But we want to give you an option to see Slashdot without these ads. Second, you need to understand that Slashdot readers fall into a variety of types, and charging the same flat fee just isn't possible.

If advertisers would prefer that you post stories about thier products because "that's what the want" would you do it? I should hope not! Give the advertisers a smack across the head and tell them: "We will put text ads, you know, the kind that annoy no one and actually provide enough information for people to click on. The kind that Google uses to stay in business AND keep it's integrity."

NOTE TO SLASHDOT: BIG ADS DO NOT WORK! In fact, they actually do the opposite, which will make your advetisers even MORE desperate, and foolishly request even bigger ads! Use small, text based ads. They work!

Re:Text Ads

[josepha48]

All I have to say is 'ad filtering proxy'. Can you say proximitron -> http://thewebfairy.com/prox/ ...

In wonder if they took this into consideration. So how big and annoying can these banner ads get? Can't be any worse then yahoo's and what they did to the email. Ads between page views. Click a link, see and add then press continue.

What a waste of bandwith for someone who is filtering 'bbox' adds.

Re:Text Ads

[IAgreeWithThisPost]

actually the new flash type ads like yahoo does do in fact work. In fact, just yesterday i was using news.yahoo.com and suddenly half the page ripped open and a snickers bar appeared. Feeling some heavy hunger pains, i immediately went to my local vending machine and got a twix bar, because frankly i'm not a big fan of snickers, but it half worked at least!

I don't like large ads, i like these interactive flash type ads that yahoo is doing though..It more closely resembles the crash television commercialism i've been brought up on!

Re:Text Ads

[gnovos]

All I have to say is 'ad filtering proxy'.

EXACTLY. Yet another reason why text ads work.

Current marketing theory seems to dictate that actual "real" customers should be ignored but "impulse buy" customers, you know, the kind that like shiny, flashing things, are the way to go.

Not only is this just plain illogical (not to mention outright stupid), it also has the effect of *disinteresting* your base of "real" customers.

People do NOT BUY $600 palmtops on impulse. They buy gum and musical Santa Claus keychains on impulse. There is a REASON why you don't see lobster tails next to the People magazines when you check out.

The end result of having bigger, flashier ads will be fewer people clicking, which will just make the marketroids to clamor for even BIGGER ads.

Mark my words, a single *informative* line: P4 1.5ghz 100G 256M 19" $780 will garner more clicks than fifty pages worth of flashing "Click on the monkey and win!!!!!". And becuase a single line is so small, you can include five of them for every ONE big ad. How can that go wrong?

Re:Text Ads

[josepha48]

I'd agree.. and if you look at google that is what they do. As part of the search results at the top and to the right are little text ads. They almost look like results but are bold.

Re:Text Ads

[Reziac]

Text ads not only work -- I've even started looking forward to what Google's AdWords coughs up. I actually READ them and sometimes find them useful. Furthermore, I plan to start USING them for my own business.

Contrast to banners and popups, which I never see (I keep js and image loading turned off), and big boxy ads which my eye has long since learned to ignore.

A long time ago, I asked that /. put text descriptions in their banner ads (as a few sites do) -- sortof the equivalent of text ads, let me SEE what's there and read or ignore it as I like, without being annoyed by it.

Guess what -- no response.

Despite the huge amount of input regarding web advertising, straight from the /. community, it's quite clear that /. and its owners have remained clueless. :(

Slashdot just as dim as the RIAA

[Anonymous Coward]

Jeez, and this is supposed to service a community of geeks? And I though Hemios and the rest were intelligent? Nope, they're just plain dumb.

Firstly I refuse on principal to pay for anything that's just a news feed. I think /.'s success has gone to it's founder's heads - they really think they're special don't they?

Secondly it's going to take this community like 24 hours to come up with some way of filtering out the ads. Might get a nice little war here between /. and it's reader community to show/not show banner ads.

The /. community will see banner ads as damage - and guess what guys - the net will route around it. Just like censorship - or do you not read your own threads?

I like the ads.

[Omega]

I am probably one of the few people who actually likes the ads. Whether it be some cool offering on ThinkGeek, or a low priced DSL offer from Speakeasy, I like advertising as an interesting way of promoting new products and services to me.

This isn't to say advertising is the end all be all -- because, honestly, it's not. Some advertising is pure crap (like the flashing "You've got 1 new message" ad -- annoying as all hell and I'm just glad Mozilla has a "max_animation_repeat" option). The kinds of ads that try to deceive people just end up pissing people off -- and sure they get their CPM numbers, but if they're deceptive in their advertising, what's to say they're not deceptive in their business practices?

I'm not knocking the subscription idea, I think it's a really good one. Some people truly hate online advertising and some even have enough chutzpah to put their money where their mouth is.

My point is that I'm choosing to stay with the giant-ad sized slashdot because I actually find slashdot's ads useful (except for the VisualStudio crap). And no, I'm not using Mozilla's image blocking to hide the ads. Good luck with the subscription site, I'm sure you'll do well!

Moderating costs money?

[kcwhitta]

So if we choose to subscribe, are we paying to moderate posts? Every time we moderate, we postback -- does that count as an additional page hit?

Keenan

Re:Give Positive contributers credits to pageviews

[RedWolves2]

Or say you get a Mod 1 bonus to a comment. You can then get 25 pages banner-free.

If you get a Mod -1 point you have 25 pages taken from you even if you have paid.

I like slashdot ads and would pay too

[jamiefaye]

For the last 6 years, I have helped operate a web community that has two service-level tiers. One, which is free, has fewer desirable graphics and contains a content subset.

The other, which requires a subscription, has a noticably higher content quality - and still includes ads. We also feature a variety of "community membership features", like a home page, email, access to the archives, and so forth. Nobody minds, because our ads are genuinely useful and designed not to delay or annoy.

It works for us - we serve a niche audience - transgender people - who really appreciate the access to resources that ads enable. I have found similar value in slashdot advertising, buying usefull books, software, and equipment to help run this project.

Slashdot could do similar things. One idea is to give priority during busy times to paying subscribers. Another idea, suggested in an earlier post, is to give subscribers the ability to run their own weblogs. There are many other possibilities for a two-tier slashdot beyond just ad reduction.

Certainly paying subscribers should have the option to see ads, perhaps with enhanced performance or reduced annoyance.

Another Premium Feature

[erasmus_]

There are already a great deal of posts, but I tried to find anyone suggesting this, and haven't. I know the premium feature that I would like would be the lack of the 2 minute post separation rule, that prevents you from posting too soon after your last.

As I mentioned in a different post, I'm obligated to not cache my pages due to the nature of some web applications I use, so that means that when I hit back after being told that "You just posted 1 minute 30 seconds ago", my whole comment is gone. I have started copying and pasting before hitting submit every time now, just in case, but it's still a pain.

I think this would be a good feature for those paying. Or at least decrease from 2 minutes to 30 seconds or something. Very frequently in answering different posts I get tripped up by this.

Re:Another Premium Feature

[erasmus_]

/me smacks myself in the head. You're right, that is completely true, I should've known that. For some reason, not having my message on the error page made me forget that the browser remembers what it posted to the page as part of the headers, and then I just got used to the hitting back key and didn't stop to question my actions. Thanks for the tip.

Idea

[Xordin]

It would suck to reload the front page without seeing any good articles. And then find you're charged for them...

Why not charge for articles that you read the comments for (i.e., that you find interesting.)

I am ready but not thru paypal

[Anonymous Coward]

I have been getting lot of info from /..
I am prepared to pay for it.
In the spirit of open source give us more options just not one.

I will not pay

[Anonymous Coward]

I will not pay, I am cheap and broke. What if I started paying for CNN, Nytimes, BBC, Hotmail, Slashdot, Ebay, Google, etc, etc. By the time I am done, I will have 20 sites costing me $5 each a month. $100. It would have been nice if slashdot tried donation method first. Basically they have a donation page via paypal, then see how much people donate. Anyway, whatever.

Squid

[Asgard]

So who is going to post an 'optimal' squid configuration for this? Is Slashdot correctly sending out expiration information about the site? Or, do they set everything to expire immediately to push up page views?

Slashdot = Good Value

[nramsay]

Good Value

Yes, I think I'll end up paying. I don't really mind as I think that Slashdot is a good site and is worth supporting. Basically, I enjoy reading slashdot and I think that they deserve a little of my money.

And anyway, $5 isn't too much for 1000 pages. That's half a cent a page. Seems to me that it's quite good value. I guess that'll last me around 3 months or so. And if you can choose which pages the ads are displayed on, then I guess that money will last even longer.

I suggest readers who object to paying compare that $5 figure with other similarly priced products and services. Trying comparing it to a Big Mac combo from McD's. Or the price of a trip on the tube / train into your local city.

New Features

I really like the sound of being able to see rejected submissions. Sometimes I just feel like surfin' some techno type stories, and it'll be nice to see some of the more "oldball" submissions.

When will I pay?

As for when I'll be paying up - I think I'll wait until these ads arrive. Plus the new features.

What is a page? How much is enough?

[prototype]

This is typical of having a large site, offering it for free, yada, yada, yada. Always happens and we've been seeing it happen for a few months now. Seeing it happen on Slashdot is just something that was going to happen as it will everywhere.

However there are two problems to the subscription gig. First there's a huge issue with page views vs page count vs whatever. I can configure my threshold and viewing preferences so that any story I want to read, and complete comments, shows in one pass saving me a page hit but we all know that by the time you get to the bottom of the page and reload it, they'll be 10-100 new comments added and this can go on for several hours (depending on how popular the subject is). Also pages like this one where I'm entering my comment and will preview it and then it gets added, do all those count? I think you guys clearly need to define what is and what isn't counted.

However I don't believe that charging by the page is reasonable for a site like this. You get 300,000+ users so asking for even 10% of them to pay means a return of about $600,000 a year. You've been spinning along for quite some time now without having anyone foot the bill so why is now any different? The gravy train has run out. OSDN execs are saying "We want to make some ROI on this Slashdot thing". And 600K a year can't pay for the hardware? I'm no expert and I don't have the numbers for this site, but I seriously doubt 600K a year wouldn't cover the hardware, bandwidth and staff costs.

liB

Re:What is a page? How much is enough?

[RatFink100]

You make a fair point - but I think 10% subscription rate is widely optimistic - 1% will be good going.

Re:What is a page? How much is enough?

[neves]

10% is too much. Real paying subscribers numbers are no more 5% (and nearer 1%).

use PayDirect instead

[cheesyfru]

Yahoo! PayDirect is FDIC insured (up to $100,000), is a real bank (HSBC), and is not being investigated or sued by anybody. :-) As an added bonus, I'm fairly sure it's cheaper than PayPal.

http://paydirect.yahoo.com/

hello? /. set as homepage?

[StandardDeviant]

I have slashdot set as the homepage in my browser. Guess that makes me one of the three percent? And this makes me a troll how? Not to say I won't ante up the bux, but come on, saying that everyone who loads a lot of pages is a worthless turd is a little extreme.

Re:Give Positive contributers credits to pageviews

[hyphz]

Because, my dear fellow, they face the old problem that killed the dot.coms:

Positive contributions don't pay the rent. (Or, in this case, the bandwidth.)

Netters are used to lots of different kinds of rewards. There is karma, respect, long threads attached, etc. Unfortunately, there's only one that's useful in the rest of the world, and unfortunately it's the one that can't be given out freely.

I expect a fair number of slashdotters have ad filtration enabled anyway so this won't make any practical difference. Personally I don't care much about ads unless they're on a seperate server in badly written tables so that the slow ad server lags the rest of the page.

Cool Ads

[BroadbandBradley]

at least the ads are likely to be for Cool stuff, If I was on a slow connection, I'd consider subscribing just to speed things up by not downloading the ads, but I'm not. Plus, this way I'm sure to get updates about what's new at ThinkGeek.com.

As long as there aren't any ads about keeping my hair, growing my genitals, or getting rich working from home, I'll be OK with it.

Re:Cool Ads

[Eric Smith]

I agree. It would be nice to have an option that permits ads that are "on-topic" and not too intrusive. But I suspect that the "off-topic" advertisers wouldn't be willing to buy any ads if such an option existed.

Maybe a way to allow ads from specific advertisers as chosen by the subscriber?

I just bought a subscription for a large number of page views, but I'll actually miss some of the banners.

Re:Cool Ads

[BroadbandBradley]

I wasn't really thinking along those lines but that's a good point. I'm guessing that a good profile could be made out of the types of artilce that you choose to see and the links you want displayed.

I mostly like the ads, and the others I don't really mind.

tips

[geekoid]

everybody seems to think a "tip jar" approach wont work, but no big site seems to try it. I'd like to see /. incorporate that into there plan. I look at a story and say, hmmm good story, heres a 25 cents.
of course I'd need a tip jar so you could pay me everytime there a Jon Katz story...
sorry couldn't resist the Katz dig.

Ad Space?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why don't you do a little redesign on the site ... Ditch the YRO and Older stories on the right to make some ad space and have them accessible by links. Then we won't have to see pop-up and pop-under crap. That would be no different from sites like Tom's Hardware, etc. Problem solved. Then you'll have nice, larger premium ad space on the front page for each view.

Screw Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

I understand it cost money to run a website. But I'm not paying money for a friggin bulletin board. Because thats all slashdot is. There are free newsgroup and other sites that are more or just as informative that won't subject me to paying a fee or dealing with huge banner ads that make the site unusable. I think you need to find a better middle ground or your gonna shoot yourself in the foot. In the world of the web it's easy to go from number one to dead last really fast then you'll have no revenue.

You Realize

[azookeeper]

April Fools day is April 1st not March 1st!

I'll have to start blocking the ads

[codexus]

Banner ads are small enough that I can easily tolerate them, but the popups, flash ads that play music, animated shoot the monkey or all this annoying stuff is forcing me to configure some serious anti-ad protection. This is sad cause I clicked on an interesting ad once in a while and I bought some cool softwares and stuff after clicking an ad.

But when you go too far with advertisement you start annoying people, people get angry when they are annoyed and angry people aren't good customers.

Re:I so wish I hadn't been masturbating to porn...

[Anonymous Coward]

wow, so you're the originator of the LGC? i had no idea. i've been crapflooding with that for years. you are truely an american hero.

As Readers Request

[Sloppy]

We intend to offer other options as time permits and readers request.

Consider this a request. Find the time.

I had already dug my wallet out of my back pocket to get my mastercard out, before I saw that you only took paypal. Then I put it back.

I think what you're doing is Right. But you got one important detail wrong, and it is in the way.

Paying for JonKatz

[jeremiahstanley]

Yeah the bonus for paying for /. is that you'll get 'special' articles by JonKatz that are even longer, more whiny and twice as irritating...

Off by one

[jimfl]

Ummm. April 1 is next month, y'all.

Small suggestion re: moderation

[edibleplastic]

It might be smart to exempt people who are moderating from the page count, for the duration of their moderator status.... People won't want to have to root through the comments to find the good and the bad if they know that each one is reducing their page count. And hey, it lasts for only three days, so it's not that much... if it becomes a problem, reduce it to 1 or 2 days.. it's sort of like giving something back to the reader for taking the time to weed out the comments. Just a thought...

story submitters

[geekoid]

If I submit a story that gets posted, will I get a discount? or no ads when I view the posts to the story?
don't forget, the people you want to charge are the same people who make this site popular.
Why should I post a comment if I am getting charged for it?

Ads for Lynx Users?

[omnirealm]

I use Lynx to view Slashdot, and I resent not
having the opportunity to view the larger, more
intrusive ads. Posting ads in GIF or JPG format
does for Lynx users what posting Word docs does
for Linux users. In light of browser
heterogeneity, I would appreciate it if the
editors of Slashdot would kindly include ASCII
art ads for those of us who opt to use text-only
browsers.

Squid users

[morcego]

For those who use squid:

acl ads url_regex ^http://images\.slashdot\.org/banner/

http_access deny ads

WebWasher is now on full bore..

[ArthurDent]

Okay, I understand that /. needs to make money in order to keep going. Sell ads. Just don't expect me to look at them. I've used Webwasher on and off for a while now, and if the ads on /. get much beyond where they are right now, I will go to using WW 100%.

OTOH, I think I can count on one hand the times I've intentionally hit a banner ad anyway, so perhaps I'm not the best example....

The issue is that /. has an internet-savvy audience for the most part. If the editors think they can sneak one past the majority of their readers, I'm afraid my shield will be quite operational when their ads arrive! ;-)

Ben

Re:WebWasher is now on full bore..

[Symbiosis]

Which is why they have to move to larger ads to stay afloat. One of the main reason the internet ad business is floundering (aside from not doing a good job of send the right ads to the right target audiences) is because of the millions of people who just fire up junk buster or web washer or just remap all the advertiser domains they can think of to point to localhost (you can even do this very easily in windows, if you are wondering). So what to the advertisers do? They make the ads more in-your-face for the few people who aren't shutting them out. Just because they are advertisers and they are evil and whatever else you want to say about them, doesn't change the fact that they are businesses, and they will try to adapt to the market as best they can in order to survive. And since Slashdot is a free site (now with some very optional subscriptions) they need to get money from somewhere. And if advertising it what it takes, they have to do what the advertisers think needs to be done to save revenue. And, of course, since people all ready block the ads, and now that they're bigger more people will want to block them, having subscriptions will help them off-set some of the loss of all the ads that won't be viewed.

Seriously, if you're going to block all the ads on the site, you could at least pay 'em $5 and get them officially taken off, say, the front page for example. People are willing to pay a taxi cab a nice chunk of change for the convenience of not walking, yet you ask them to give you a few dollars a month so that a site which them frequent won't have to rely on advertising revenues, and it's like asking for their firstborn. It would be different if they wanted to charge for access to the site, but not having to view advertisements is just a convenience. Slashdot is a good site and $5 a month isn't that much, let's not kill off /. just for the sake of being anal about advertisements.

As long as there are no pop-up/under ads..... ;-)

Re:WebWasher is now on full bore..

[Ilgaz]

Ahem, you know the price of a T3 line, or many of them per month?

You are just 133t to use webwasher man, real.

New fashion on net, "I don't see ads, I am so c00l" stuff.

Ahem, how can earn food money than? Being like ZDNet? (You probably get what I mean)

Its not elite to turn off the ads, its stupid showing off by blocking them.

Oh, they break your attention? Get a real browser like Opera or (Netscape) and select "play animated gifs just once".

World isn't like Marx'es dreams man, at least for now. They must earn money to live, or worser, not to be MS whores.

Re:WebWasher is now on full bore..

[ArthurDent]

The problem is that the advertisers don't get it. I use WebWasher *because* the ads are too big and in-your-face and in the way of the content. Eventually, they'll figure out that this is the case and make less obtrusive ads that still serve their purposes, but until then, I'm going to continue blocking them.

IMHO, the ads that /. has now are perfectly tolerable. There are ways to put more ads on the page that would be fine and wouldn't make me want to block them. Maybe when the changes arrive they'll be no problem. Then again, maybe not.

Ben

Compensation?

[OneFix]

So, now that /. is going to be charging subscriptions, will readers be compensated for having highly modded stories?

This is done in the magazine business. Readers digest does this for their "Humor" section. Family Handyman does it for their "Tips" section. Almost every major magazine out there has a "Readers Comments" section and most pay the ppl that provide content. That being said, there are always alternatives to slashdot .

Waiting for something else

[MrgnPhnx]

Put me into the Not PayPal category - that's pretty much useless without a CC, and I have zero plastic to my name.

Les
waiting for a PO Box I an send a money order to...

what about the FARK "total" model?

[abde]

Fark.com has a brilliant model whereby users can pay a fee to see ALL stories submitted to the site, not just those approved for frontpage. I think this is a brilliant idea that would work even better on Slashdot and make a TON of money. I know I'd pay 20/year for it.

There's a good review of this idea and discussion of how it might apply to Slashdot here .

To get an idea of what this would be like, look at the preview.

$5 to read the opinions of morons without ads?

[Eldie]

So I'm supposed to give you $5 for the privilege of reading the opinions of morons without ads?

Hell, I can't even get you half-wits to realize that hiding visited links by changing them to be the same color as regular text is a bad idea.

I'm firmly in the f***-slashdot camp -- I'll relish using the free mirrors that show up.

All you "I'm upgrading to the latest alpha release of the kernel to get support for USB anal-egg" can go hang yourselves. I'll be curious to see what real company would want to hire on such a useless pile of deadweight.

Re:$5 to read the opinions of morons without ads?

[Anonymous Coward]

fla-fla-fla-fla-floh-hi

Peer to Peer slashdot?

[darkcookie]

Hi,

what you are doing is the same as making open-source programmers pay for their own code. In my opinion people will stop (meta-)moderating if they have to pay for the stuff.

Here is my solution to minimize bandwidth-costs: How about a P2P-Version of Slashdot where the data is replicated to Proxy-Servers? Then you're still able to read slashdot with your well-known browser but everyone's the server :-) For your administration costs you can still use banner ads as long as they are not annoying.

Regards, darkcookie.

Rob, why not this?

[geekoid]

How about people pay per day? say 25 cents? so I go to the site and say hmm I don't want adds today because there is abunch of stories I like, so I'll pay 25cents? like a newspaper.

Say goodbye to slashdot

[filmcritic]

March 1, 2002 marks the beginning of the end of slashdot. Just wait until all these Linux users fork over the cash to read slashdot...YEAH RIGHT!! They caused the downfall of Loki for God's sake because they're too damn cheap. Everything for free!! EVERYTHING!! We'll see just how much "community" good will there really is - about as much as Loki got I'd bet.

I don't see this being too successful..

[Ryan Amos]

Mostly because slashdot actually has good ads most of the time. They're not at all intrusive (a single banner ad at the top of a page) and they're generally for stuff I'm at least marginally interested in. I'd probably consider paying if all the ads I saw were for "herbal viagra" or online casinos, but I really don't mind the ads on slashdot as they are. Not to mention the fact that if you scroll down a little, the ad is gone. I only hope that the ads don't get more intrusive as they try to provide an incentive for people to register (though I doubt this, the backlash would be too severe with this audience.) I might sign up out of mere principle, but it wouldn't be to get rid of the ads. I don't wish death upon slashdot, and I don't think it's a bad idea to offer a pay-for-premium service, but until there's the promised extra "subscriber only" content (extra from what's free, don't pull an IGN ;) I don't see there being a ton of value provided to the reader. Anyway, $0.02.

Out of curiosity

[ViceClown]

How does this affect the xml feed they have? Can I still grab slash.xml from the root directory for free???

Re:Out of curiosity

[CowboyNeal]

You sure can! It's also staying ad-free, afaik.

Re:Out of curiosity

[ViceClown]

Cool beans, thanks for the clarification!! Mind you, I still plan to pony up for my subscription - just wanted to know if we could still pull feeds :-)

Cheers! - JP

Really, text ads work?

[JMZero]

I don't know about you, but I can ignore any ad*. It's an ability that anyone who has spent much time on the internet learns.

*Except perhaps the ones that float over the text you're reading and don't have a close button. And they lead me to make a mental note about not ever buying anything from that company.

.

Re:Really, text ads work?

[gnovos]

I don't know about you, but I can ignore any ad.

Yes, you can, and that's the point. No matter how big or intrusive the ad gets, the human mind can block it out completely.

But simple, informative text ads that get right to the point and offer neat deals or interesting services are often the kind of thing you don't *want* to ignore. That's why they work.

If you are not in the mood to buy anything at all, you will click on nothing. But if you are interested in getting a new wireless card, then an one line add offering them for $44 will get you to click, but a stobe-flashing "Hot tech deals!" will not.

Sell "admin for a day" on Ebay

[fleener]

Slashdot could auction the right to accept, decline and post topics on Slashdot for one day. Fark.com has done it a couple times with relative success. The auction winner obviously gets to promote himself with an article posting on that day. How much would that be worth on Slashdot? Fark got a few hundred dollars. I imaging slashdot is worth quite a bit more for the right business.

Don't we all love /.?

[mnordstr]

I don't really mind the banners, you don't need to look at them! =)

However, I will pay $5 / ½year, I really love what /. is doing and want to support them. I mean come on, $5 is the price of a hamburger meal!

I have another idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Not only should the people who pay get to look at the rejected submissions, let them give their own rankings too.

It might be interesting to see what ranking is given to a comment by the general population vs. what the moderator gave.

Re: meta-moderation and the Post O' Death

[teamhasnoi]

Do the people who have had their moderating privileges revoked get them back if they subscribe?

the poor are screwed on slashdot

[geekoid]

people who can afford the extra money, probably have braodband, so the ads are a minimal inconvience.
those of us who can only afford dial-up, the ads are a much bigger pain, and we can't afford a susbsrition to remove them, great.
why don't you charge for bandwidth? someone logs on, not a paying member, there through put is limited.

Brilliant.

[Mr. Neutron]

I think you're missing the point. The reason /. is forced to do intrusive ads and subscriptions or close its doors is that there are .33M readers/day. If those .33M readers ALL head somewhere else, then that site will be forced to do intrusive ads and subscriptions or close its doors.

It's like everyone at Brothers all going to Red Shed because Brothers is too crowded and no one can get in. While it is true that the Shed does serve some wicked Long Islands, you're not solving the problem. An actual solution would be for everyone to split up and start hosting smaller house parties.

Re:Brilliant.

[Anonymous Coward]

The Pub usually isn't too busy, and they have a lot of pool tables, as well as darts and a big-screen tv. I think they have specials on Leinie's on the weekends.

I often made the trip to the Come Back Inn, too. Sure it's not by State Street, but free peanuts and popcorn, $0.25 soft pretzels, and filled with a wide variety of people.

Being connected with Essen Haus is a good deal. They've got the soft preztels, and if Come Back doesn't have what you want, walk through the door to Essen Haus and see if they have it.

We also used to go to Brats on Tuesday (or is it Wednesday?). $2 pitcher refills (actually, I think it might be 3 now), and free darts. That's a good deal.

I can't believe I just recognized that you're talking about Madison by the 2 bars you listed. :^P

'the post' and losing metamoderation

[spasm]

So if I pay my subscription do I get back the ability to metamoderate and moderate that mysteriously disappeared after I modded up 'the post'?

Wake up and smell the coffie for Christ's sake

[nagora]

So what you're saying is "We've got 1/3 million users per day and we've got to do what the advertisers want"?

Well, Jesus, how many readers do you need before you start telling the advertisers what they have to do to get on?

If that really is the state of on-line marketing then you'd be better off getting out of it and selling blank discs on street corners because that situation is not stable.

What happens if the advertisers say "Dump the no-ads pages or we walk"?

TWW

Re:Wake up and smell the coffie for Christ's sake

[geekoid]

I wish I could mod this up.
something slashdot should of done a year ago, raise there advertising rates as there average viewers increase.
I just can not think of any other business, that uses the ad model, that charges the same rate per ad for 300000 viewer that they charged for 30000 viewers

Re:Wake up and smell the coffie for Christ's sake

[eyeball]

You have probably the single most intelligent cmoment out of the thousands posted on this item. I wish I were a moderator so I could mod this up..

If you want everyone to pay for slashdot...

[theCURE]

Just throw some T&A on the article borders. No need for ads. If you build it, they will come!

what is next, spam form /. ???

[Gambit-x7x]

it might be all down hill from now on...

Moderating Adds?

[tykeal]

How about letting us moderate adds? If I were to subscribe (which I haven't yet...) why not let us moderate adds as well? That way we can have a say in what's targeted at us. Besides if the adds were well targeted I might not even mind leaving them up and running if I was subscribed... provided of course they weren't those huge nasty things :)

Definition of idiocy?

[2Bits]

It seems that trolls and retards don't like having to pay $10 to get their login back after they get banned for being an idiot.

Hmm, I do not subscribe to .5e, so I don't know what kind of people are considered "idiots" there.
So I'm talking thru my behind.

Mind defining "idiocy" here? Think differently? Take an opposite stand againts the mainstream?
Or just saying something the "elite" consider stupid? Not knowing the Linux/BSD kernel inside out to participate in discussion?

I hate trolls too, but not all trolls are like those FPs and goatsex(?) or whatever. And sometimes the difference between "trolling" and "thinking on the edge of the mainstream" is a very fine line. Yeah, how many thinkers and scientists have been considered "trollers" and "retards" in the history? Go ask Galois (who has "failed" so many exams and been refused admission to Paris Polytechnique, just because the examiners thought he trolled. He died at 21 at a duel), who gave us an important foundation for modern computer science and cryptography.

I thought most people on /. or other "open" forum are open for open discussion (no puch intended). In an open forum, there's always noise to signal. Or am I too optimistic, and geeks are just a bunch of self-promoted elite? So all these talks about pro-democracy and pro-openness are just crap?

Quite a few of my posts here have been modded as troll too. Yeah, and go ahead, this one is also a real troll.

Re:Definition of idiocy?

[Lord Omlette]

He was talking about the forums on SA, not .5e. Read before you post. Please.

Re:Definition of idiocy?

[bonzoesc]

.5e is free, and has only had two trolls I can honestly remember - Hitler and Freeznfire. (side note - look at freeznfire's picture - he's the kind of kid who pirates W2k Advanced Server so he can play CS and brag about his sound system in his car) I would consider both of these characters trolls - Hitler posts all sorts of just predictable stuff about how he wants to take over the world and kill people, while freeznfire is quite content to use lame predictable verbal attacks against other posters.

Now, SA trolls are a different story. Take for example, this post in a thread in which somebody asked for a brief review of Red Alert 2, a popular RTS game by Westwood.

FlameHead
Registered: 06-01

westwood suck.

Probably one of our least elaborate trolls - he'll hopefully be banned soon. Usually, the people who are "thinking on the edge of the mainstream" usually get big red custom titles under their name. For example, as a result of a thread saying that rape is sometimes justified, the author got a big fat red RAPIST custom title. In other cases, blatant trolls will get nice blinking Moron pictures, a big HR so that their posts are off the side of the screen, and occasionally even scrolling text.

Me? I've got a fat red I CHEAT AT COUNTER-STRIKE custom title.

Re:I so wish I hadn't been masturbating to porn...

[Anonymous Coward]

A sad day, indeed - I just heard the news on Slashdot, folks - LGC author and karma whore ringbearer has passed away at age 14. Truly an American icon.

Karma

[Syberghost]

How about selling a raised cap, instead of actual Karma?

Then cap non-subscribers at 30 Karma, first-time subscribers at 50, and every $5 you spend after that gives you more of a cap, whether that's 1 more, or 5 more, whatever.

Was this passed by the SEC?

[streetlawyer]

I have to say that as far as I can see, Malda's comments that "if we don't do this, we won't be around in a year" seem to be in direct contradiction to the public statements made by VA Software about the profitability and cash burn of their businesses (particularly, about whether SourceForge Enterprise Edition is profitable, but also relating to the ongoing cash burn and cash pile). I'd appreciate some straight answers from somebody on either side.

Furthermore, I'd point out that this article contains forward-looking statements about the performance of VA Software's business, and as such really ought to have a "safe harbor" disclaimer attached to it.

Yes folks, "Open Source" appears to mean that I'm doing the job of the VA press office for them, for nothing.

Streetlawyer disclaimer: This post is of a general and journalistic nature and should not be construed as a recommendation to take any course of action with respect to investment in marketable securities.

I just paid, on those terms and they're fine

[jpatokal]

I agree with the idea of a karma discount, but:

3. I'm sorry, but the cost is too high. You have a circulation of 300,000+, and employ fewer than 10 people. You have hardware and bandwidth costs too, but 300,000x$20 = $6 million a year, not counting the 15% who are paying more than that. You can't advocate open source and free software and then overcharge for your website.

What planet do you live on? I doubt even Playboy.com gets that kind of money from subscriptions. Frankly, I'll be amazed if even 1% of Slashdot's readers actually fork out the cold cash, and I expect most of those who do will start off with $5, just to see how it works. That's $15,000, which probably doesn't even suffice to pay for a single month of Slashdot's bandwidth, never mind the salaries of 10 people.

I considered keeping up with the field a part of my job, and that's why I've checked Slashdot at least one a day for the past two years. Sure, ./ is not perfect, but neither are there any adequate substitutes. I just subscribed for $20 worth of articles, and I think this is a tiny price to pay for the privilege -- my subscription to the Economist was 5 times more, even after a 50% discount.

Cheers,
-j.

Re:I just paid, on those terms and they're fine

[seldolivaw]

The Economist (to which I'm also a subscriber) provides a weekly (printed, but that's not really a factor) magazine of entirely original content -- more than I can usually read in a week -- and employs hundreds of people to do so. It contains ads, but there's more content than ads (unlike most PC magazines). That's why the Economist is so expensive.

Much as I love it, Slashdot is not close to the quality of the Economist, and unlike the Economist does not rely on its readers for the vast bulk of its content (not just the comments: the stories are submitted by users, too, remember). And most Slashdot content these days is just a link to content from another source (most often C|net, ZDNet and Wired, with breaks for the BBC).

Regarding subscription figures: obviously 300,000 people aren't all going to sign up. But keep in mind that /. is still going to be getting the ad revenue from all those non-subscribers.

So I still hold that $5 per 1000 page views is too much. $2 or $3 sounds more like what I'd pay -- $36 for an annual subscription sounds good to me.

I might consider paying if...

[TheAwfulTruth]

Slashdot actually brought some real information to the table. Unfortunately /. rarly posts anything that I haven't seen somewhere else hours or days earlier. Then the article poster slants it all wrong and flames ensue. John Katz articles are yet another source of flamage rather than thought. The only real reason to come here at all is to participate in the daily arguments. And in fact the only reason I'M here is to try to interject a little sanity when the "Everything but Linux, Open Source and Free Software suXors", FUD slinging reaches saturation. So there really is rarly any value to /. at all worth paying for. In fact /. may actually be a disservice to the overall community with amazingly high noise to signal ratio. /.'s existance should be subsidised as a community service by another OS company (as it used to be) or just go away.

How about the PBS option?

[bpfinn]

Instead of advertising, Slashdot could ask for money every now and then. I could send in my payment, and maybe get a nifty mug or t-shirt in return? Oh, and you could post that JPEG of CowboyNeal sitting in the phone room waiting for pledges. ("A pledge of one hundred dollars gets you this nifty CmdrTaco Tote Bag!")

It's about time.

[symplegades]

I knew this day would come eventually. Although many of the members of the community may have been more receptive to donation solicitations a la erowid or PBS, token $20 per year for /. seems reasonable to me.

I see a lot of talk about perl filters and other technological solutions to the ad issue. What I don't understand is why anyone thinks it unreasonable to spend a sum of money that, on an individual level is absolutely nothing for the majority of well-paid /. readers. I routinely spend 5 times that in a single evening when I go out to a bar. Last weekend, I gave my waiter a $10 tip for the first found of drinks he brought us, and at the end of the night he ended up with more than $20 of my money in tips. And he didn't even come close to enriching my life the way that /. has over the past three years.

I've wasted hundreds of dollars over the course of my life on crap that I never use. I've seen people drop $25 and up on sachels of party favors that they consume in one evening. Twenty or so dollars per year is simply not a big deal, and /. is well worth it, IMHO.

Still, it would have been nice to have had the option of voluntary donation, instead of this carrot/stick strategy. I would've sent Taco et. al. more money under a donations regime.

-Rene

Re:It's about time.

[Anonymous Coward]

I know someone that was ripped off by one of those PBS auctions.
But that is off topic.

I can't understand why anyone would claim that all OSs should be free, and yet work in software development.

What you do while drunk is your own business but what we are talking about here is the PRINCIPLE of the issue.

I would have considered paypaling a buck to the poor sobs, just so I can feel better about laughing at their socialist/fascist commentary.

Easy to see . . .

[Anonynnous Coward]

. . . Slashdot is to be a casualty of September 11th. Due to the concerns of the DOJ that terrorist messages (e.g. a Penis Bird with two equal signs means "proceed with the bombing") have been communicated using the forum, along with dangerous open source digital rights circumvention data, threats against officials, libel against judges, and misuse of the Freedom of Information Act, VA was obviously "nicely asked" by the FBI to pull the plug on the renegade site.

However, since the Slashdot crew would not want to appear to be acquiescing to the demands of a newly powerful government, they are pursuing the following course of action:

- announce a subscription fee

- use a payment method most /.ers would find abhorrent

- report insufficient revenue to continue operating

- "regretfully" shut the doors

- destroy the archived posts to protect "copyrights"

Free Internet

[Anonymous Coward]

Can someone post the URL for the free exchange of information on the internet? It used to be free? What changed? Bandwidth costs? BS - it always had costs. I've watched Blues News, Salon, and now Slashdot - you guys just want better Ferraris, sell out MFs. No one seems to realize that the webmasters are buying houses in the country and new cars. That's what has changed - greed. I'll continue to visit your free site with add blocking software - and when the information gets dull I'll go somewhere else.

Re:Give Positive contributers credits to pageviews

[Bullschmidt]

This would be inaddition to the current subscription system. It would be so that positive contributers get a break. It would not be a replacement.

How about letting us "foe" specific Paypal accts?

[Dammital]

That could make it more difficult for trolls (that pay) to change identities rapidly.

Another suggestion: add people modifiers to comment preferences so that subscribers can be given more cred at our discretion.

Pay? For What?

[rudy_wayne]

Yes, it costs money to operate /. (bandwidth doesn't grow on trees...yada yada yada). But, if you're going to charge, you have to have something worth selling.

So, would you pay for a magazine with zero original content and that merely reprints stories that have already been printed elsewhere?

I didn't think so.

Open source the problem

[Rogerborg]

The subs page shows how much I've paid for and how much I've used. Why stop there?

Involve us in the process. Show how many other subscribers have paid, and how much. Show how much Slashdot has pulled in through advertising this day/week/month/quarter, and how much you've payed out in bandwidth and in salaries in various areas, i.e. $A to editors, $B to admins, $C to lawyers and $D to whatever the hell Jon Katz is.

You want us to be understanding about the need to pay? Fine, but I need to understand. And as with software, "Just trust us" doesn't cut the mustard. Show us how buggy the source is, and we'll gladly help you fix it.

Only if..

[Uncommon Troll]

I would be willing to pay for ad free pages on /.. I would even be willing to donate cash to help /. stay online, but I won't. If the paying customers accounts where made moderator free I would but not until then.

I'll just add the aproprate scripts to proxmitron and move on.

advertisers don't drive the market

[Anonymous Coward]

"We really don't have an option: these are what advertisers want, and if we don't provide them, we won't be around much longer"

Wrong. Large ads are what viewers hate with a passion, and if you adopt "large ads", you won't be around much longer. Witness the vast unpopularity of popunders.
Advertisers seem to feel they drive the market...wrong. With all the dot-com explosions, banner companies have fewer and fewer sites they can sell their services to, and there are a lot less advertising dollars running around. Slashdot shouldn't say "yes master, we'll add bigger banners and pop-unders." Slashdot should be saying "look bitch, we got eyeballs, if you don't want it, maybe yer fuckin' competitors do!"

Second, viewers drive advertising. If viewers hate the ads, watch how fast they leave. In droves. Slashdot will become a ghost town.

To be perfectly honest, I don't find slashdot worth paying for. Maybe you guys shouldn't have whored yourselves out to Andover.net thinking you could cash in on the dot-com craze.

Re:advertisers don't drive the market

[Inthewire]

Clap.
Clap.
Clap.

Don't call me abusive!

[John Harrison]

If you read sllort's journal carefully you will see that I am the one that brought his attention to the mass banning of moderators.

I don't think that I was abusive. You are free to disagree. I should have modded up The Post of Doom as under-rated and saved my skin.

But I continue to insist that off-topic is the most consistently misused moderation. Moderators need to read both the entire article and all parent posts to determine if a post is truely off topic. As far as the PoD is concerned it was more funny/interesting than off topic in my mind. The fact that Taco disagrees with me about ONE post should not have led to me being banned from moderation.

Regardless, I consider myself a good member of the /. community, currently have a karma of 49, and I don't troll or post crap. I think that if I contribute to the content I should get a "member's discount".

Whiners

[Eric Smith]

It was completely predictable that a lot of people would complain about this. I suspect it's largely the same group who complain about everything. When all is said and done, the majority of them will continue to read Slashdot.

I, for one, was happy to have the chance to help support Slashdot, and I bought a lot of page views. No, Slashdot isn't perfect, and I'll be the first to admit that some of the content is marginal, but some of it is really great. People have compared the subscription rates to those of newspapers, but Slashdot is worth much more to me than any newspaper.

Now where's the subscription option for Segfault? :-)

Re:Whiners

[Eric Smith]

Slashdot just links to content in newspapers so i don't know what you're going on about...

I don't know what newspapers YOU read, but Slashdot has a lot of content not to be found in my local newspaper (San Jose Mercury News). And often they run stories before they can be found in the SJMN. Other times the SJMN breaks an interesting story and Slashdot links to it, and I get the story sooner than if I just waited to get the SJMN. So even when it isn't original content, Slashdot is serving a useful purpose.

Slashdot isn't perfect, but IMNSHO it is providing a valuable service, which is why I'm perfectly happy to provide a small amount of financial support. I fully expect to get my money's worth out of it.

You're a perfect example of the sort of whiner I was referring to. If you really don't think Slashdot has worthwhile content, why are you bothering to read it? Go read your newspaper instead.

Except unlike a newspaper slashdot gives you the option to buy your own comments back!

Demonstrably incorrect. I've bought my comments back from the local newspaper several times, and was not the least bit unhappy about doing so.

My suggestion

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, I am an anonymous coward, and this will be post #2743279328 so it will not be seen by anyone, but I think slashdot should charge EVERYONE money to participate, anonymous or not. For free, you should be able to read comments and posts (with ads), but for $10/year you can post (anonymously or not)with ads and for $30/year you can post without ads.

Tweak yer damn browser!

[Chris Tucker]

So then fleener sez:

"So far I've stopped reading Wired.com and the NYT because of incredibly intrusive advertising. I got tired of Wired's ads dropping down over the article text. The NYT sent me packing with a single offensive ad - it filled the screen with a fake story rotated counter-clockwise 90 degrees for 5 seconds before disappearing."

Mate, get a smarter browser or read the FM than came with it.

I'm using an ancient PowerMac and iCab, the Mac only browser, and I've got it all nicely tweaked so that I NEVER see pop up ads or that type of ad mentioned at the NY Times site.

If you're using some damn fool Windows machine or Linux, try Opera. Oooops! You have to pay a modest fee for the advertising free version.

Guess you're screwed, then.

Re:Tweak yer damn browser!

[fleener]

I did not say anything about pop-up ads. And I do have a pop-up killer. The advertisements in question are Flash ads. I cannot disable Flash, short of uninstalling it (which I've often wanted to do).

I am a web designer. I use the browser that the bulk of my audience uses - IE on Windows. Different browsers render pages differently. I need to know exactly how my pages render for the majority of my audience - so I use IE on Windows whether I like it or not.

Re:Tweak yer damn browser!

[Anonymous Coward]

You can still use an alternative browser. I do a little Web-Dev too, my main browser is Mozilla, but I do a majority of my testing with IE. I also have Netscape 4.xx installed and I try to make all my pages operatable and astetically pleasing in all. The trick isn't to appease 90% its to appeas 100% (You should be testing with IE, Mozilla, Netscape 4, Opera, and Lynx (or other text based browsers) And you should validate your pages with Validator.w3.org.) MAke every one happy. I know the worlds not perfect but HTML was built to allow for "optional" rendered tags NEVER make any portion of your web page mandatory. (I.E. Dont user JAvaScript for Navigation)...

email

[nege]

Personally I would like some sort of OSDN email address like @linux.com...that would be well worth the subscirption price..(email + add free)

Bye bye!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah wow, thats what advertisers want, so I guess we /have/ to do it..
And thats the exact same thing CNN, NBC, and CBS say when the journalists say "This isnt news, I dont want to report this brainwashing propaganda."
Bye, slashdot, it was nice for a while. Have fun with your blood money.

Banner ads aren't that bad

[iamroot]

As long as theyre just banner ads. I don't really mind seeing them on Slashdot, and it wouldn't really be worth the subscription service to not see them even if I didn't usually use Junkbuster. Banner ads aren't usually annoying as long as they don't say "Punch the monkey and win 20$!" or have other stupid Java crap. You can just ignore them. It gets bad when a site uses Pop-Up or Pop-Under ads. Pop-Under ads are worse. You can just close a pop-up ad, but its harder with a pop-under ad. The advertisers just don't get it that all those type of ads do is make the viewer want to close them as quickly as possible. That and sometimes make people hate the company they advertise for. At least slashdot doesn't open half a billion ads which in turn double in number when you close them. Slashdot ads just aren't really annoying. If they were, I wouldn't ever go to Slashdot.org again. Since theyre not annoying there isn't any reason to subscribe.

Pay to not see JonKatz

[Anonymous Coward]

How about the subscription offering both no ads and no JonKatz, guaranteed.

I'd pay extra for that... Over at UseTheSource there's a Slashdot BS meter that measures the number of JonKatz stories on the /. home page and warns you before you click through :-)

Subscription service

[Anonymous Coward]

So: you want me to subsidize your pointless existence, by paying for a subscription. All so that you can show me a page full of links to "news" stories on other peoples' websites? Maybe it never ocurred to you but I can go directly to those sites, and avoid slashdot altogether.

The real "content" of slashdot is provided to you, for free, by the people who post here, and by people who submit "news stories". It is your claim to fame, your whole reason-de-etre.

Is slashdot going to start paying for story submissions that appear on the front page? Are you going to start paying posters who aren't censo^h^h^h^h^hmoderated to -1?

In any case, I can ignore the banner ads just as easily as I can fast-forward through the commericals on the shows and movies I tape off of TV.

Nice try slashdot, but face it: you have no viable business model, and no content worth "selling". I wish you luck, but you better start polishing up your resumes because soon you will have to make your way in the real world.

Careful though...

[Anonymous Coward]

Honestly, if you don't introduce a break of some sort for posters, you are actually going to be charging the people page-views when they are actually providing you your content.

If the Karma system is so cool, why not put your money where your mouth is?

Re:Careful though...

[CmdrTaco]

By default Comment Pages leave banner ads on. So they don't count towards your page views. We did this for exactly the reason you describe.

Someday we may in fact give free pages for accepted story submissions. As always, one step at a time.

Re:Careful though...

[renehollan]

Not good enough. Providing a reward for accepted articles is one facet, but not all valuable content comes from accepted articles. +4 and +5 comments count too. Their submitters should be rewarded because they draw readership.

Re:Careful though...

[Anonymous Coward]

I understand the reasoning of not debiting a posting contributor an ad-free page-view when they are actually posting.

The part I don't get is, why banner ad a guy who is in the act of posting a story for your web site? If they have respectable Karma, and they are posting, then don't punish them with ads. And don't charge them an ad-free page view either. There's plenty of page-view real-estate to slap ads on, and plenty of eyeballs to see them, even without punishing the folks who bring (free to you!) value to the site.

Re:Careful though...

[CmdrTaco]

I'm not opposed to doing this. But such a decision needs to be carefully thought through. There are many problems with the moderation system when all that is involved is words and karma. I'm sure you can understand that this would only get worse if people started thinking that they had an economic incentive to karma whore.

That said, while I don't mean to dismiss the value of comment posters, the percentage of readers that read comments is small. Yes comments draw readers, and keep them coming back. But half of readers don't care! An accepted story submission provides a benefit to hundreds of thousands of Slashdot readers. A Score:3 comment is read by 1/50th of that. So if we decide that an accepted story submission is worth 1000 page views, you would need to post perhaps 50 Score:3 comments to affect the same number of people :)

Re:Careful though...

[CmdrTaco]

I'm not saying we won't do that. I'm saying that "This is how it works for now". We broke things down by perl script. Comment viewing and posting happens in the same script.

Re:Careful though...

[renehollan]

Good points noted.

I was thinking of +4 and, particularly +5 comments that get seen (by default) on the main article page. Heck, I probably post close to 50 +3 comments during an active /. month.

The concerns about earning something of economic value are warranted, of course, but I think they are less worrying if they earn discounts, and not outright credits. As for karma whoring, what's the issue? I'm not suggesting discounts for karma, but rather positive moderations, and I think the feedback between the two is damped enough for this to not be a problem. If someone gets karma becase of positive mods, don't they deserve it?

Anyway, it's your site, not mine, do what you will. But, I'd hate to see the posters who have the most valued comments leave because of an ad or subscription policy. I'd be surprised to learn that half of all readers don't care about comments at all -- do that many never click beyond the headlines to see top level +4 and +5 posts?

Re:Careful though...

[I Want GNU!]

If you are at liberty to say, CmdrTaco, exactly how much money does Slashdot make from ads? If it makes $5 CPM (cost per thousand ads) then the $5 to eliminate the thousand ads doesn't give you much additional income. I was thinking about it this way because many people are giving you money to eliminate the thousand ads in the hope of helping out the site, but wouldn't it be a better way to help the site to just give to a tip jar in addition to giving you the ad revenue (and viewing ads is relatively painless, I might add)?

Re:Careful though...

[CmdrTaco]

I don't happen to know how much we make off ads off the top of my head, but I do know that we only sell a relatively small percent of the 2 million pages we serve each day. Subscriptions are fairly similiar to a tip jar... we're just giving you banner ad free pages instead of a tote bag or whatever ;)

Re:Careful though...

[I Want GNU!]

Oh ok, I didn't realize that. I figured a popular site like Slashdot would have no problem selling its ads. :-) Anyway, I earlier posted comments where I was guessing that it wouldn't give you more money (assuming you got $5 CPM for the ads), but I posted replies retracting those statements and am now considering donating a bit. Sorry for spreading any misinformation. (-:

Also, a tote bag you say? I know of the /. T-Shirts at think geek but a /. tote bag would be slick.

Re:Careful though...

[Anonymous Coward]

slashdot is cool, stop trolling, if you don't like it then go away

Re:Careful though...

[danielrose]

perhaps you should make a package for less ads. I mean if you are not getting full sales, you may as well create a package for like 1000 exposures at a cheaper rate.
Sounds sane to me

sell slashcode services to bisiness.

[geekoid]

really.
there is a demand for prebuilt slashdot service like this. many companies I've talked to recently are looking for ways to impliment this sort of thing.
google makes money by selling is search engine.

a dollar per person per year or you are doomed.

[Anonymous Coward]

it's your funeral otherwise.

Will they ever learn?

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you mean the stupid advertisers didn't realize that ad size is not the problem?

Case in point: right now most news sites have them, but none is making more money because of them. And I visit some of them less and less because those flashy ads give me headaches.

I'm waiting for the first seizure victim lawsuit related to a blinking ad on a web page. Which, ironically, will be a news piece on web sites with other blinking ads in them. The first self-replicating lawsuit! :-)

About the subscription model, I'd like to say I'm all for it. However, I don't know what 1000 pages would mean. Before you implement subscriptions, please put a cookie and a note on the page showing me some sort of page meter so I can have an idea of how many pages I see per day.

Re:hypocrites...

[Dirtside]

A lot of people are asking, what qualifies as a page view in the subscription system? If I post a comment, is that a page view? If it is, it seems like this system will discourage the most active people from further contributing to the site.

To me, it makes the most sense that the front page (and all news sub-pages, like the apache or science sections), comments (articles) pages, config pages and so on should all count toward your 1,000 page limit, but comment posting pages should not.

Half cent a page?

[jonabbey]

I'm up on the paid site thing. In fact, I just paid for 10,000 page views.

Then I promptly went and turned all the ads back on. Why? Because a) the ads aren't annoying yet.. in fact, since they are no longer just the OSDN ones, they're actually more interesting these days, and b) because I don't think I can afford to pay a half cent for each page I view on the entire web.

And that's what we're really talking about, here, isn't it? If slashdot goes pay-per-click, why shouldn't every other web site do so as well? If every web site did so, and each was a half-penny per click, I imagine that would easily amount to 15 bucks a day for me based on my current browsing habits. That could be as much as $450 a month.

Psychologically, I'm happy to pay a lifetime subscription to Salon for only $50. And I have an all-you-can-eat yearly subscription to The Economist for only $125, which includes an actual magazine I get delivered to my home every week. I don't mind those because the expenditure is controlled, and the meter isn't continuously running at such a high rate as a half penny per page.

Does it really cost half a penny for each page impression served by Slashdot, Taco? Were the ads making anywhere near that much?

And I see that I'm getting new ads for each step in the posting process (preview, etc.). Does that mean that it could a couple of cents to post to slashdot?

That would be one way to tune out the trolls, I guess. <smirk>

Now, what about our profit sharing? ;-)

Re:Half cent a page?

[CmdrTaco]

By default we are leaving the ads on for comments (subscribers can turn them off if they so choose) so it'll be purely up to the individual to decide.

We don't expect users to pay a half cent for every page. We expect that what will happen is that users will suppress ads on just articles or the homepage effectively costing a few cents a day.

Re:Half cent a page?

[jonabbey]

We don't expect users to pay a half cent for every page. We expect that what will happen is that users will suppress ads on just articles or the homepage effectively costing a few cents a day.

Sweet reason and good sense. I'm happy.

Is there any way that you can display page view statistics even for pages we view with ads? As I said, right now I'm leaving ads enabled for everything. I'd kinda like to be able to know how many page views I'm getting with ads so that I can better judge whether I should turn the ads off for awhile and drain down my slashdot account and put more money in. Otherwise I can well imagine leaving all the ads on permanently, and just putting in money to my slashdot account at whatever interval makes me feel happy and that lets me feel like I'm contributing in a meaningful way.

Of course, X-10 pop-unders would take care of any such impulse for altruism pretty quickly. ;-)

Re:Half cent a page?

[CmdrTaco]

Unfortunately we're keeping the tracking to a bare minimum so I don't believe that we can do that. We're trying to keep updates to the DB to a bare minimum so we don't have a new bottleneck.

Re:Half cent a page?

[jonabbey]

Unfortunately we're keeping the tracking to a bare minimum so I don't believe that we can do that. We're trying to keep updates to the DB to a bare minimum so we don't have a new bottleneck.

Reasonable, again.

I do wonder, however, about your statistics on page impressions.. I know that when I'm active in a comment discussion (which is several times a day), I can go through hundreds of comment pages. At a half cent a page, that would add up quickly. I understand you're saying that most of your users just hit the home page and link off to whatever is new. I hope that you'll structure your advertising for that, and make the biggest, most obnoxious ads appear on the home page rather than on each comment viewed.

Interestingly, I note that when I click on a comment, the HREF # scrolls the page down so I can't even see the ads that are there currently. Surely this can't continue, or are you merely assuming your advertisers don't know that a lot of ad impressions you provide are never actually seen by the user?

A cynical trend: monetizing the "community"

[kendor]

So another high-profile "community-based" site implements a subscription system. The Motley Fool also moved to a subscription model recently. There's is an interesting twist: the editorial content continues to be free, but if you want access to the boards, you have to pay the money.

I didn't pay the money, even though I frequented the Motley Fool for almost three years, (and speculated endlessly about who the brilliant and mysterious HowardRoark might be on the AMZN board.)

The problem I have with the Fool's approach, and Slashdot's apparent decision is that it violates an implied ethic between the business and the community. TMF touted its "free" boards for years. Slashdot reminds you that all comments belong the the poster. Both sites encouraged people to give freely of their time and mental energy, and both appear ready to hold access to "the community" hostage in exchange for money.

It's only a matter of time until Slashdot blocks all access to non-subscribers. Is the issue really "survival", in the sense of paying for bandwidth and salaries? If that were the case, Slashdot could put up an itemized target number, and the community could match it. But that isn't the case. The "survival" argument is a facade. Slashdot is a business, Andover/VA is a business, and all of these entities seek to monetize the community.

Who should pay for slashdot?

[guttentag]

1. Anonymous Coward (he posts more crap than anyone I know)
2. Positive Contributors
3. Whoever invented Beowulf clusters
4. RIAA / MPA
5. OSDN / VA Software Corporation
6. Cowboy Neal

Sooo

[tomblackwell]

You can take as many newspapers as you like?

The "flat rate" refers to the concept of paying a certain amount for something that you can take without limits. Note: Phone companies would looooove to switch away from flat rate. They started making noise about this when people got modems and started using their resources for much, much longer than they used to...

"Metered" means something that has a fixed per-unit cost. Cable tv doesn't count because they aren't giving away things that have a certain cost, they are giving away access to content whose cost has is (relatively speaking) limited. Look at it this way. The cable company doesn't care if you watch TV 24 hours a day, because it doesn't cost them more if you do. They are selling something that doesn't cost them more if you use more. So it's not metered. If you ride in a taxi, it costs them more (gas, etc) to go further, so there's a meter in the cab. Your ride is metered.

Re:Sooo

[cduffy]

How 'bout ISP service? That used to be metered, then they almost all went flat voluntarily. Higher usage certainly costs more -- but it's more economical to provide it that way rather than billing per usage, and more customers will agree to a higher monthly rate than what might be a lower (but potentially much higher) metered rate.

Re:Sooo

[tomblackwell]

Go sign up with an ISP with flat rate usage. Dial in. Don't log off. See how long you can go without them dropping your connection, or pointing you to a section of your user agreement that indicates that while the ISP advertises the service as flat rate, it is only flat rate to those who use up to a certain amount per day, month, year, etc.

Re:Sooo

[jht]

You can't take as many newspapers as you like, but there's no specific limit to how big the newspaper gets. Though there are costs, the big cost is producing the paper (which, of course, is mainly underwritten by the advertisers) itself - page count is a minor factor in determining cost (if it weren't, the price of your newspaper would fluctuate daily).

Cable TV is a pretty good example, though - you pay a tiered rate depending on how much information (number of channels) you wish to consume. Besides that, there are "bonus" features or extras, and that's analogous to pay-per-view programming.

Bandwidth, though, is best suited to flat-rate cost for two reasons - firstly, you do not entirely control how much data is pumped through the pipe, and secondly the system (meaning the Internet) is designed without an infrastructure to handle metered pricing (some individual services/servers can, but not the whole backbone per se). If I provide a pipe of a certain width to a customer, it doesn't inherently cost me any more for the customer to saturate the pipe versus if they just used it occasionally at peak speeds. I just need to make sure my infrastructure is designed in such a way that I can service the customers well enough to retain them and recover my costs if they actually dare to use the resource (bandwidth) they purchase from me.

Slashdot isn't in that kind of position since they are a server/service (they aren't infrastructure, despite what some of us may believe!), and they are in a position to be metered by their ISP as a result.

With taxicabs, the biggest thing you pay for is time, not gas (that's less of a cost). When the taxi drives you 5 miles, during that time they can't go drive anyone else - you are the only income. Though some places do have flat-rate cabs (rides to certain locations are fixed cost).

In a way, a good thing would be comparing the economics of a cab to a bus. The cab takes one person directly where they want to go, at a metered variable price. A city bus also takes you where you want to go, but you share the bus with other people and make stops to pick up and drop off those people on the way - at a fixed price.

Slashdot's economics are more like a cab's, while we surfers are mainly bus riders. If you want to ride in the cab, you have to pay one way or another for how much you use the cab.

Re:Sooo

[Anonymous Coward]

Did that, once. Stayed on for hours and hours and hours without a disconnect, and I never heard a peep of complaint from 'em. This wasn't a mom-and-pop ISP, either: this was Pacific Bell. They're dumb, but that works both for and against me (and quite well for them): if I don't violate the rules in ways they care about, I'm free to do as I will...and one dialup out of their entire pool is a rounding error.

Re:Sooo

[cduffy]

Ya know, I've looked into that (back when I was on a modem). They required that the connection be used when up (keepalives without a user on the other end were out) -- but if I or a family member were there surfing 24/7, it was true all-you-can-eat. The ISP, lightspeed.net, is still in business too.

For that matter, I've seen phone companies offering all-you-can-eat weekend phone calls at a flat rate (once again, not required by law). Sometimes the consistancy from knowing how much each customer will pay per month is worth having customers use somewhat more of your service without paying extra. Not always -- but there are situations where it happens. Yes, you can lose money on some of them -- but in doing that one can (sometimes) make it up with new customers who prefer flat-rate billing even if it costs them more.

mini slashdot

[Ramuh]

it's called slashcode.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/slashc ode/

Adjusting comments based on subscription status

[wowbagger]

How about adding a user pref to allow adding/subtracting a fixed amount to a comment's level based on subscription status? That way, I could knock 2 off anybody who's not a paid subscriber, and probably eliminate 90% of the crap on /. - it might even make reading at <3 bearable again.

Also, I'd like to be able to selectively ignore the moderations of [paid subscribers|freeloaders] - once again, I'd ignore the moderations of anybody too cheap to pay, and probably remove 90% of the bad moderations.

I'd buy that for a dollar (or $20).

Re:Adjusting comments based on subscription status

[Inthewire]

I could knock 2 off anybody who's not a paid subscriber

How about +2, Elitist Fuck?

I found a post intrestign and lost my mod privs.

[TurboRoot]

I found the great troll investigation to be intresting.. because lets face it.. it WAS.

Since then I lost the ability to moderate or meta moderate. So did about 600 other people who also moderated that post as intresting.

Like hell I want to pay money to a site that doesn't give me the right to determine what i find intresting or not.

I just like saying "Karma Whoring"

[Twister002]

Karma Whoring

Distributed OpenSlashdot.org

[Anonymous Coward]

After reading /. for years, and following what there ideas, I thought of a great idea so that you can read the content of /. without ads - an idea inspired by /.!

A Distributed OpenSlashdot.org program:

Each user runs a small program that pulls the headlines from the real site, then filters the ads out, and then posts them to the OpenSlashdot.org site.

They couldn't block it, unless they blocked every IP they didn't know, you could spoof your browser version etc. etc. It would be very hard to stop.

The content is normally just links to other free news sites that don't charge, with the bit of useless blurb by the poster anyway... Its very rare that /. posts something original nowadays.

Thanks /. for making money of other peoples posts, other peoples news sites, and ISP's bandwidth!

Remember - /. is "Free as in beer!"

Whip me, rob me.

[stjobe]

First you take away my ability to influence what the site is about ($rtbl'ed for moderating a comment 'interesting' - which means I cannot moderate or metamoderate anymore), and then you want me to give you money?

Somehow I don't think I will.

This isn't worth $5 an hour.

[blair1q]

Really.

--Blair

"Slashdot cant be free."

[mary_will_grow]

To those of you telling us complainers that Slashdot cant be free, its too good, and we should all go live in a communist country, heres our, or at least my, retort: Slashdot is US. You and me. We contribe the stories, we discuss them. Some guys do some of the boring work associated with making a nice web interface. We do everything else. Slashdot /is/ us. It is, or was, about as communist as you could get, in that respect. Now, unfortuantely, they are saying those fateful words "We have to, its what the advertisers want." And I'm sure Tom Brokaw and Ed Bradley and everyone else involved in the US media has said that at one point in there life, right before turning into just another paid mercenary for corporate america. Slashdot said the magic words. They are doing what the advertisers want, despite the objections from themselves and from the slashdot community. Its gone. Bye, slashdot, nice knowing you.

Re:"Slashdot cant be free."

[mary_will_grow]

s/contribe/contribute
s/unfortuantely/unfortunate ly

Maybe "Slashdot II: Free again" will have a spell checker. :)

Re:"Slashdot cant be free."

[Anonymous Coward]

You're missing the point. We provide the content, yes; the level of editing and proofreading in /. has become a legendary joke, and the less said about Katz, the better. (Though I actually heard a rather good, brief interview with him on NPR's Marketplace last week, proving that with proper editing and reporting, he cleans up real good.) But /. facilitates the sharing of that content; in economic terms, it reduces the transaction costs of communication. What you have to decide is if that facilitation is worth $X/n to you.

-Baka!

VA Linux...er...Systems dragging someone else down

[surlybastard]

Back in the old days when VA wasn't concerned with stock price and things were truly free (pick your own definition) there wouldn't have been a higher "authority" calling the shots. Andover.net seemed generally interested in getting the info out. But then VA came along with their "Biggest IPO in history" and started buying up everyone in the name of maintaining "the community". They're so in the crapper right now that they removed Linux from their name and started scrambling to try and make money. I worked for a startup and we were talking to VA about buying hardware. They weren't terribly interested in dealing with us. They were looking for bigger accounts. Meanwhile there wasn't a lot of bigger accounts using Linux but probably lots of smaller ones. It's a shame that something good has to suffer because of a company that claimed to be supporting the community but in reality really was only interested in lining their own pockets. I'm not saying that people shouldn't make money. I am saying that they shouldn't pretend to be something that they're not.

Use eBay?

[ackthpt]

Well, they could auction some off on eBay, wouldn't that be an interesting twist? Have some real prestige on /. a very low UID which you could rub in the noses of people over, say, 218170 (just to pick any number out of the air.)

Probably be bid up to a few million tho, like this.

Use flash ads and you are fucked.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll put up with others.

Open-Source Financial Information?

[imadork]

We bitch about the **AA all the time here at /. , saying things like "Why do CD's cost me $18 when they cost far less to make?" and listening to the **AA say "But it costs us a lot of money to develop the content and give the artists their fair share". Then we whine about how $.0023 per download is not a "fair share" for the artists, and we go around in circles.

Why do we do this? Because we don't REALLY know how much money is involved. We think the **AA is laughing at us all the way to the bank, but they insist there just one download away from poverty. We simply don't know the amounts of money that are involved.

Now, we have the same situation here. Taco and Hemos say "We need more annoying ads to pay the bills, and subscriptions to prevent people from being annoyed by the ads", and all the trolls are saying "How expensive can a web site that just has links to content be to maintain, we supply all the real content...",etc... There are only a handful of people on this planet that really KNOW how much money Slashdot is making. Or not making, as the case may be. As evil as some of us think profit is, the site has to at least break even to stay in business. And the editors have to eat.

Wouldn't it be great if we had a slashbox that told us how much it really cost to run the site from day to day? And how much of our subscription money went to keeping the site up, and how much went to Taco's bachelor party? It's probably impossible, because there are some details that need to be kept confidential. But they've said that open-source software would never work because some things would have to be kept proprietary, and yet it's been proven that it could work in many areas.

This way, when Slashdot raises their rates, the Management can reply by saying "We had no choice, Look at all those red numbers on the Cash-O-Meter!", and we can all see for ourselves what the need is.

Personally, since I have a high tolerance for being annoyed by ads (and even clicked on a few), if I want to improve life for the /. team, I'd be more likely to donate directly to a future Taquito's college fund than to subscribe. But that's just me.

Re:Open-Source Financial Information?

[Anonymous Coward]

Great post. You should change your nick to something more appropiate: imakissass.

How does that sound?

Re:Open-Source Financial Information?

[Aragorn_2002]

Why don't we do it like NPR. Have a Pledge drive during march, and have a pop-up to donate for the entire month. I would contribute to ./ because it is one place that is currently not dominate by doubleclick or X10. FYI. I also subscribe to Salon for $30 a year, and I would do the same for ./. Slashdot is one of the few remaining sane place on the net. Let's not ruin it because of a few bucks.

Re:Open-Source Financial Information?

[zoftie]

Keep the information flowing. If ./ users to become customers and it is a community site you really have to be careful on what you are doing.
I secod the cash-o-meter that will indicate what was sepent on what and how much is required for
months ahead. If all it is a salary raises to mr taco and others, then we can veto that and not pay
the money next time aroud, leave the site.

But accountability will be too painful for VA, so I doubt they will ever do that. It will never happen, so expect ./ to become a shit site just like everyone elses.

I might be in that 3%

[John Harrison]

Because I actually participate on /. and provide content for you Rob.

Just like paper...

[jpellino]

Paper mags and news aren't paid for by their subscription - they're paid for by the ads placed in them. No difference here. I can deal with the ads here just like anywhere else. At least so far they're faily topical and appropriate. Start listing viagra and credit card offers and my tune may change...

Newsflash: Slashdot readership to decrease by 12%

[cavemanf16]

UPDATE: 3/01/02 16:49 GMT - Hemos, listen to your readers, they're not just asking for alternatives to the massively underfunded and poor customer service PayPal, they're demanding alternatives to it! Besides, you've already pissed off some of your greatest assets for this site. Good work.

I suggest you find some added value to your site rather than just killing banner ads for your paying masses. I for one won't be hanging around if I'm subjected to big ugly white space all over your site simply because my 'hosts' file is sending all requests to the "evil empire", as you editors refer to it, of ads.doubleclick.net, straight back to my loopback address of 127.0.0.1. I'll be starting a $5 pool in my journal for anyone that wants in on it in relation to the various possible negative directions this will take slashdot.

They already deleted the entire meta-moderation discussion, what's to keep them from deleting other things that you'll be paying for?

What Moron?

[Anonymous Coward]

How the fuck came up with this retarded idea, to have the subscription be for page views, what magazine charges you based on how many times I look at it? Fuck that shit, I am going to read something else, Slashdot has honestly gotten worse and worse anyway.

Please don't do this

[fizban]

That's not meant for the subscription service. What it is meant for is this:

A 'Gold Star' in your comments header? Karma? (I think that would be hilarious) We really don't know. We'll decide and implement what makes sense as we have time to do it.

Turning Slashdot into a sytem where the payees get additional perks that increase the chances of their comments and thoughts being read is beyond admissable. It's just outright wrong and I hope you don't do it. It may seem funny to be able to buy Karma, but to me it's completely against everything this site stands for. How can you have an open society when the thoughts and ideas of the "rich" are more visible than those of the "poor?"

Will Slashdot become like the Internet Search engines that offer better search result standings for their paying advertisers? I hope not.

Re:Please don't do this

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is that there's no evidence that the current system is any more equitable than allowing people to simply purchase karma.

Article selection, meta-moderation, and the other features of /. seem to be parceled out on an arbitrary basis. A great many people have complained recently that their moderation capabilities have been yanked for mods that contradicted the opinions of the employee moderators.

The fact that employees have unlimited karma for modding means that they have no incentive to economize; their moderation is quite, um, immoderate, and increasingly controversial.

Finally, there's the "bandwagon effect," in which people tend to increase or decrease mod values according to the trend, so that posts in moderation tend to stay in moderation.

The end result? The biases of a small group of people -- the /. employees and founders -- are reflected in the posts that get the most visibility. Because few of us care to view at -1, a large number of potentially valuable posts are lost in the dungheap.

Until /. addresses these problems (yes, that might involve recoding some core functions of slashcode), then the community, such as it is, will continue to suffer. And I, for one, will save my money to help buy macmonkey.com a new server.

-Baka!

Lets see the adds

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll like to see these "adds" If they are crappy like the X10 camera or even a M$ add, I will go some where else. But seriously if I have to pay $20 to see add free material, AND have the potential to get karma'ed down -1 cuz the payers/elite think so then you can fuck yourself. There are plenty of other sites out there.

If 10,000 pay that's $200,000, plus what the advertisers pay.

Re:I understand and agree, but won't be subscribin

[MasterKayne]

advertising OR subscriptions

This is a false dichotomy. There are a lot of other options.

Personally I like the idea of ... Merchandising, merchandising, where the real money from the site is made. Slashdot the T-shirt. Slashdot the lunchbox. Slashdot the coloring book. Slashdot... the flame thrower! Kids'll love it. (my apologies to Yogurt).

I'd buy a "Old geeks don't die, they get Slashdotted" T-shirt.

"The wise man learns to meet the changing circumstances of life with an equitable spirit, being neither elated by success nor depressed by failure." Buddha

Here's a brilliant idea. use it.

[Anonymous Coward]

add a new identifier to registered users , suscriber number in addition to the member number.
It is a chance for users who don't have a low number now to get one.
this way people can have suscriber # 2 etc, ie
low numbers.
Don't laugh /. users are into this kind of
numerical glory.
this idea offered pro bono

Why not....

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not just sell moderator points? I would buy them! More money more power!

Will login be secure?

[Biljrat]

I would hate to have someone just sniff my password/key and start using my downloads.
I will also require another payment method. PayPal has screwed me and my friends before and we will not use it again.

Logical loop

[gvonk]

If you encourage people to stay at Slashdot, since it sucks in your opinion, the more they stay here, the more they will become frustrated with it and look to Kuro5hin and thus, you will still be peeing in your pool.
;)

Re:Logical loop

[jspaleta]

Hey kuro5hin isn't my pool...i don't lurk around there. And I'm not the one suggesting that slashdot is horrid...that was the guy one level up...I have no problem peeing in his pool.

And your wrong...its only a logic loop if you keep telling people about Kuro4hin...following the previous guy's logic...slashdot people are so stupid that they needed him to tell them to look at kuro4hin. According to him, if they are smart enough to find kuro4hin on their own they wouldn't bother with slashdot. So its only a self feeding logic loop if you inform the unwashed and patentedly web illiterate slashdot crowd.

Re:Logical loop

[gvonk]

So its only a self feeding logic loop if you inform the unwashed and patentedly web illiterate slashdot crowd.

From the redundant redundancy department.

(And no, I'm not a hypocrite)

Slashdot is not a real magazine so why pay?

[Damon C. Richardson]

Slashdot is not a real magazine. It was built by and for the tech/geek community. Now you guys compare slashdot to something worth of a subsciption. Lets take a look at motorcycle.com they are subsctiption based. Their fee is 11.95 for a year. 11.95 is what all my print subscriptions are costing me. Not 20 dollars... I can tell that your marketing fooks have their calculators out don't they....

You don't have original storys unless you call the Jon Katz stuff storys... ( they are not cultivated storys ). More or less they are adhoc reactive stories. I'll be sad to see slashdot go but If you monkeys can't make it with out subsctiption funds then. by cya

The fact is that anything more then a dollar a month is totally unrealistic. ( now matter what your marketing dept says ). This is all going to come to a head soon anyway... You need to explain that people only have so many 20 dollar bills a year to spend on the internet. sure you might get some people at first. But when they pay and don't get anything really useful they will drop you fast. You think people will pay for ads. You monkeys should know just as well as me that people learn to ignore ads.

I know I ignore all these ads on the internet without the use of any ad blocking software. So if I come with this ablity to ignore ads and Slashdot does not really do any real journalism. I just don't see any reason to pay you anything.

P.S. as you can see from my slashdot id I'm one of your older readers. Sorry to disappoint the marketing dept.

AD clicking system

[bdigit]

What if Slashdot just setup a system where they said if you click an Ad that for the rest of the day the ads would not appear. I am sure no one would have a problem with just clicking one ad a day and then closing the link and have an ad-free slashdot.

Really? Neato!

[jonabbey]

I've never heard of mod_gzip before. Which browsers support it? How can we tell if we have downloaded a gzip'ed page?

New meaning of karma whoring....

[josquint]

Exactly what those plums are remains to be decided: Access to the rejected submissions bin? A 'Gold Star' in your comments header? Karma?...

Brings a whole new meaning to 'karma whoring' ;-)

Seriously though, Slashdot is probably the only site i'd actually pay to use!
Maybe we should get some kinda 'troll rebate' or something...

just a test

[wyatt12]

just a test

Display number of loaded pages

[harmonica]

To get a feeling for how many pages someone with an account has loaded, you could display that number on top of each page (x pages this week = USD k).

Frankly, I have no idea how much /. "premium" would cost me per month, but I'd like to find out. And I'm sure as hell not gonna count myself! :)

You seem to do some statistics anyway, so that shouldn't be too hard.

What about ThinkGeek?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've always felt I supported /. buy having actually purchased various items of junk of ThinkGeek - tshirts I never wear, etc. Would purchases from ThinkGeek allow a subscription credit? I pay my isp for access, I refuse to pay for content beyond that. But I do buy physical junk online. How does this plan take into account those of us who choose to buy those silly tshirts to support slashdot?

Playing the devil's advocate

[Xouba]

Just to throw a little more enthropy to the box :-)

Slashdot's crew put things that people send to them on their site. Then, people comment on these things. Now, this same people that feeds Slashdot has to pay ... for what? For these things that *they* put here.

Sounds like charging the cow for milk to me :-) Anyway, I understand that bandwidth costs money and such. But I always thought that VA paid those things, even if it only was for the sake of the publicity that they got. Slashdot was a "public relations expense" for them, if you understand what I mean.

Don't misunderstand me, I want Slashdot to be kept alive. But I just don't buy the "it's your duty" thing that many posts seem to imply.

slashdot authors strike looms

[cel4145]

[ slashdot.org ]Posted by CmdrTaco on Friday June 01, 2002 @09:01AM
from the turn-about-is-fair-play-department dept.
Radical Rob writes" At 8:30am this morning, the slashdot authors union entered into contract negotiations with OSDN. Authors, wanting a piece of the multi-million dollar pie created by slashdot.org's addless pay subscription system, demand $100 per article posted and 0.25$ * comment rating for discussion board posts for comments rating 1 or higher. OSDN has refused to comment on the negotiation, but sources say that they have offered to rework slashcode to replace the term "author" with "payee." It is also rumored that authors refuse paypal as a payment system, referring direct deposits to 401K's. We knew it wouldn't be long before our regular readers responsible for all the content of the site wised up, realizing they were the ones who should be the one's receiving checks.

"i'm blinded for life!"

[cetan]

pretty much everyone is going to reply to this thread, so I need to make sure I get my 2 cents in.

Well, we all knew it was coming, but there's no way you're going to get me to pay to read trolls. For every troll in every article I think we should get 1 cent back.

That'll force /. to clean up the mess :)

Alternatives?

[Stillman]

I hear you, and agree with the sentiment of your comments. But for me, it's like this:

There HAS to be a better way than advertising.
Advertising pervades and destroys everything. I'm utterly sick of it, but I'm even more sick of it being taken as a "given" in any case where a site needs support.

Advertisers are like a form of parasite...
They attach themselves to a previously "free" site, often with promises of revenue, and slowly their needs grow, until it reaches the point you see on some sites where it's 80% ads, 20% content.

Often, this is because the ads have driven away many of the readers, and so their figures drop off, leading them to believe the ads are "too small", or "not numerous enough"...so they make them bigger/more frequent/more irritating. This of course drives more people away...and so it goes on until all that remains of the original site is a dead, drained husk.

Just consider the following: If /. had never been bought out by OSDN, would we even be at this point? I can't help wondering if the awesome creative people that run /. wouldn't have kept going somehow. What about:

1. Voluntary subs - people pay simply because they appreciate the work that's being put in. This would work here in NZ, but not sure about the "free for all" culture in the states. Actually, on second thought...we are getting just as bad these days...

2. Distributed /.ing! :) Some sort of DC effort - all interested parties install a slashcode client which mirrors a part of /. and provides access. The main /. site merely redirects requests.

3. Scale back... All the features are awesome, but I for one don't need them all. If things were turned off by default, and a reader had to enable them, /. would instantly see the bandwidth savings of serving less content to millions of readers daily.

These are just a few (possibly not properly thought out) ideas. Anyone got any others?

Nope

[ganiman]

I like /. and all, but I don't believe that ANY website is worth paying for. /. is just going to lose readers if they turn into a pay site. I didn't read completely through to see if there is some way I can view ads on all pages (like I do now) for no fee. I even like some of the ads seen on /. .

Decentralized hosting?

[jsimon12]

Why don't we work on a GPL decentralized hosting scheme for Slashdot? Then the hosting burden could be distrubuted over a larger number of machines (thousands, if not more) and you could have a sorta GPL Akamia setup. But maybe that is too socialistic, and wouldn't let anyone really be in control.

Re:Decentralized hosting?

[Scoria]

That'd be great if Slashdot were a simple, static web site. However, Slashdot is a relatively intricate operation driven by a single MySQL database server.

Of course, it's possible to add a "queuing" and "information sharing" feature to this theoretical Akamai-esque setup, but most people are too impatient to wait a day or two for their comments to propagate between Slashdot client-servers. There'd be no instantaneous uniformity without a single host mirroring the content to every client-server.

It's a wonderful concept without an efficient method of execution. :/

Re:Decentralized hosting?

[jsimon12]

Hey lets do something other then slam concepts, yes the idea doesn't have a clear method of excecution, but I am trying to get a little posistive discussion going on optimizing the setup, so rather then say, "no way in hell that will work, the current solution is the only one", lets try and work together, mmm k?

Comments are really the only major hurdle, in my opinion. Since Slashdot seems to hit only about 10 posts, maybe 15 a day, at no more then 1-10k a piece the stories would be easy to push out to a fair number of servers located across the world. With slower mirrors picking up some of the slack. Comments could be setup geographically, or housed per story on only a few servers or centrally, with the same monolithic MySQL DB but that doesn't seem to be an all too cost effective or none intensive concept. I am sure with a little queuing theory and routing design something better then a single monolithic database could be conceived. But then again why think out of the box eh? SlashCode is still Perl right (or am I massively outdated)? If so think someone needs to look at doing a rewrite, but maybe that has been done and it isn't years of spaghetti code.

Re:Decentralized hosting?

[Scoria]

The primary issue is that there are so many variables that must be synced among the hosts. Moderation and metamoderation are two of the most prominent issues. Considering neither of the two hosts in a hypothetical transaction would have authority over each other, it's likely that Slashdot's karma system would be rendered unusable. Also, syncing the servers would probably use quite an amount of bandwidth, negating the purpose of this hypothetical software.

Don't get me wrong; I'm not adverse to the idea. In fact, I'm attempting to create something similar to the concept we're discussing. :) I just believe that you should be made aware of the various issues I've encountered in devising such a system.

As for the Slashcode, I've been told (and observed) that it's rather bulky. While a massive rewrite isn't impossible, it'd most likely be a daunting prospect to undertake.

Re:Decentralized hosting?

[jsimon12]

Why not break the servers down by story then, karma could still remain central, but may need to be calculated daily at a central location? Don't know, maybe karma and story moderation needs to be rethought? Seems that is one of the problems to breaking Slashdot into something more useable? Granted karma and story moderation as it stands is a HUGE part of the fun of Slashdot, but if that is a problem with making /. into something that will survive without charging out the wazoo then maybe it is a sacrifice that needs to be explored?

Don't get me wrong either, I understand that any change to any large scale service is a daunting task (being an IT Architect, for Sun Microsystems I have been involved in some damn huge remodels and builds from scratch etc), much less a total code reqrite. But I guess my take is if you want something to survive you need to work at it constantly, not just maintaining the current setup but evolving (damn that sounds like a load of crap, but hopefully it makes sense ;) Just think the existing slashdot setup needs to be rethought, as it stands it doesn't seem to scale too well.

Re:hypocrites...

[Pinball Wizard]

I believe I've been $rtbl'd, and whatever the reason(or glitch) might be, its a mistake because I've never abused posting or moderation. Yet, from what I understand, its a lifetime ban from moderation. I'd feel kind of weird subscribing to a site I'm not allowed to fully participate in.

Would you consider lifting a blacklist mark for a subscriber?

Re:hypocrites...

[CmdrTaco]

Currently it breaks down by Index, Article, Comments, and "Other". By default, we leave ads on Comments and suppress ads on Index, Article, and Other for subscribers. THe bulk of page views for the hardcore reader ends up being comments, so the only negative is that they will see ads on those pages.

We hope people will give it a try- the system has enough options to let a hardcore two-hundred-page-a-day user chip in $5 a month to suppress ads from Articles and maybe the homepage... but again, this group is by far a minority. 82% of Slashdot readers read 10 or fewer pages a day.

PBS/NPR Model

[42gandalf]

Can something like the PBS/NPR funding model be applied here where a lot of content is member funded? Something like here's how much it costs us and here's how much we have in our coffers so please send the greenbacks. If PBS and NPR can run entire TV and Radio networks 24/7 I guess it might work here too.

Re:PBS/NPR Model

[daveman_1]

Weren't DOT org's (.org) originally intended purely for non-profits? If enough people support the "subscription" model, slashdot should consider going for non-profit status. If enough people value their services, it would be of benefit to all, especially in the way of content. But they would have to give up ALL ads. (But they could still do underwritings...)

Prove Open Source Critics Wrong!

[iCharles]

Dispite what some have posted, running a web site does cost non-trivial money:

• Bandwidth
• Hardware Purchase, Maintence, and Upgrades
• Backups (especially on a site as dynamic as \.)
• Support
• Facilities (Air Conditioning, Power, etc.)

Plus, quite frankly, if the owners of the site want to make a little money on it, I can't really begrudge them that.

Recently, I've seen signs that the free-as-in-free-speech software community also expect things to be free-as-in-free-beer. The whole thread about StarOffice started to make y'all come off as a bunch of cheapscapes. Add to that a recent editorial on ZDnet that basically called out the open source community as such, and I think a PR effort is lacking.

Now, one of the major resource of the Open Source community realizes that need a better financial footing. So, they exercise a two-step process: greater ad support, plus the option to opt out by directly contributing. There are basically four responses that can be taken:

1. Politely deal with the ads, and accept that it is a payment for the service you enjoy.
2. Pay the money.
3. Start your own site elsewhere
4. Use an ad filter.

Option #1 shows that there is an understanding of the real world that, by and large, is usually lacking here. Option #2 is a step beyond that--that the Open Source community is willing to support what they value. Perhaps if enough sponsorship from readers exists, the ads will die off.

Option #3, on the other hand, basically says that, now that you've stopped giving us a handout, we'll take our ball elsewhere. Sorta the attitude that has been taken with Sun. Until someone asks for money, you are the hero of the Open Source Movement, standing shoulder to shoulder with Stallman and Raymond in their battle agains Redmond. Ask for a few bucks for the product you value, and all of the sudden they are evil evil evil!

(A practical problem with option #3 is that you wind up being locust. Fly in and use the resources of a site until they are gone, and then move on, leaving an empty shell behind. Specifically, move from slashdot to, say, dotslash, and eventually, dotslash will need to find funding.)

Option #4 basically says that you are absolutely a cheapscape. You want the service, but don't want to give anything back to support the practical matters (servers, electricity, bandwidth). Perhaps you rationalize it by saying that because you post, you make \. what it is, and therefore shouldn't have to pay, but, lets face it, without the servers, electricity, and bandwidth, there is no \. to post to.

Why should you care about being perceived as cheapscapes? Because it limits the credibility of free-as-in-free-speech. It turns off people who might want to develop for your platform. It basically is a perspective you don't want to be associated with you.

I don't know which way I go, though it will likely be option #1 or 2.

Re:Prove Open Source Critics Wrong!

[radja]

>4. use an ad filter

>Option #4 basically says that you are absolutely a cheapscape. You want the service, but don't want to give anything back to support the practical matters (servers, electricity, bandwidth).

ok.. here's how I view it: the ads are an agreement between /. and marketeers. They're free to do so. Nowhere have I agreed to view ads. But I do give back.. I give back content. I give my opinion. And opinions and content from the readers is what /. thrives on, what makes /. what it is. Marketing is the most annoying form of speech I know, and a big part of free speech is that I dont HAVE to listen to you.

//rdj

Re:Prove Open Source Critics Wrong!

[greggman]

Easy solution for contributing. Post something, get it modded up to > 3 and get XXX pages free of ads added to your account. > 4 = XXX * 2, > 5 = XXX * 3 or someting like that.

That way you get paid for contibuting.

Maybe the opposite might also be good. -1 mod would remove pages from your total of ad free pages recieved by getting modded up (vs the ones you paid for)

Suggestion: allow contributions for others

[wambold]

A system that would allow me to contribute small amounts to other people's accounts would be nice too. Then it would be possible for an insightful/useful/funny frequent poster to get a reward for their being a good Slashdot contributor.

Re:Suggestion: allow contributions for others

[Anthony Boyd]

A system that would allow me to contribute small amounts to other people's accounts would be nice too.

Well that's a good idea. I am a "fan" of about 10 posters here on slashdot, and I would drop a buck into each of their buckets, if I could. In fact, I am more inclined to give each of them a buck than I am to pay out $5 for myself.

Also, it would be easy and useful for slashdot to use Amazon's donation system. It's a lot like PayPal, but Amazon takes about 10% more or less than PayPal does (I can't recall the rate off the top of my head). I'm waiting for that, as I don't use PayPal.

New policy on paid moderators?

[dstone]

CmdrTaco, I have a question.. Will there be true freedoms for paid users who moderate? I haven't really tracked the "official" policy, but I understand that many high-karma users (including myself) have had their moderation privileges revoked because of some posting or moderating or meta-moderating action they performed. (ie, modding up something controversial the editors didn't like, supporting controversial posters with meta-mods, etc.)

To be honest, I'm not sure at what point I lost my mod priveleges, but I haven't had them for quite some time. Yet I continue to try to post informative or insightful or funny things.

To CmdrTaco... what is your position going to be on revoking mod priveleges to paying subscribers? If I pay, will I be able to freely post and mod and meta-mod like I thought I could before?

Re:New policy on paid moderators?

[42forty-two42]

Umm... Mod points expire after 3 days, and your mods vanish if you post in a thread where you used them. RTFFAQ!!!

Re:New policy on paid moderators?

[42forty-two42]

Your +1 interesting dosen't seem to have been revoked :)

Re:New policy on paid moderators?

[geekoid]

hmm I used to be able to mod quite often, but now that I read your post it occurs to me its been a long time since I could mod.
How does one find out if there priveleges have been pulled?

Re:New policy on paid moderators?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know for sure, but some people have suggested that if you can still meta-moderate, then you should still be able to moderate. Again, I don't know that first-hand.

Re:New policy on paid moderators?

[Anonymous Coward]

Priveleges to moderate, not ability to receive moderations is what gets revoked.

Re:New policy on paid moderators?

[Anonymous Coward]

Read his post again; I don't think he was talking about mod points expiring. He's talking about the ability to moderate being revoked. I suspect if you mod his post up, you might see the effect he's talking about! ;-)

Re:New policy on paid moderators?

[forged]

Same experience here, entirely. No mod points in a long while. If only we were told why ??

paypal rocks! Thank you slashdot.

[jonathan_95060]

I am so happy I can pay my $5 subscription without using a credit card. I would not have subscribed if I had to use a credit card ...

My biggest fear with using a credit card is that given a CC # and some personal information, any merchant in the world can put charges on my card. Of course I can dispute the charges and get them reversed but this wastes my time and stresses me out (I've experienced internet credit card fraud a few times now).

Problems with Paypal not withstanding, their business idea is great:

they will not give a merchant money from my account unless someone with my password authorizes it.

This idea is so simple yet there are so few places I can pay like this. With Paypal I only have to worry about Paypal screwing me. With a credit card or CCBill or online checks or whatever I'm fair game for the whole thieving world!

Until online payment standards emerge that allow an EBay billpoint customer to send money to a Paypal customer (and vice versa) without having to open a Paypal account, Paypal is our best choice for online payment. I don't see standards like this emerging anytime soon. Consequently I think the best course of action is to try and bludgeon Paypal into becoming a better company. Write Paypal constructive letters. Write your newspaper to get them to do critical articles on Paypal's faults. Now that they are a public company they should be more sensitive to bad press.

BTW, I think Slashdot's subscription system is great. I wish Yahoo gave me this option! $5 for 1000 pages is a reasonable price.

Cheers,
Jonathan

It's coming

[WildBeast]

Looks like the day when $lashdot costs more than M$ Windows is coming soon :)

You are right!

[John Harrison]

Because of that you won't get modded up. The people who still have mod privs don't agree with you.

Wrong!

[sulli]

I sound like John McLaughlin: Wrong!

You can't make money giving shit away when it costs you money. Hence, the dot-com crash.

ISPs sell flat rate service and have for years. Yet we have thousands of ISPs still in business. Bzzt, try again.

Isn't this a classic case of feature-bloat?

[rnd()]

Why not just scale /. back down to a reasonable level of complexity, so that less of the following is required to keep it operational:

sysadmin skill

server power

storage space

code upkeep cost

bandwidth cost

I remember back when /. was a simple site hosted on a simple box. Why not go back to SlashLite?

Do people not read the articles?

[cheinonen]

Well, we all know the answer to that one now, don't we? It seems everyone seems to be forgetting that Slashdot has ads right now. They're just going to get a little bigger, but content and the free nature of Slashdot isn't changing. However, if you REALLY hate ads, you can pay $5 and get rid of 1,000 of them. Everyone that keeps suggesting $5 for a year seems to forget that they would probably be losing money on that (I'm guessing $5 is the going rate for 1,000 ads on Slashdot, so you guys break even on the deal), which doesn't help anyone out.

I'm not going to pay the money for removing the ads, since after growing up reading newspapers, magazines, watching TV, and seeing billboards everywhere, I'm used to them, and don't pay attention to them anymore. If they start to run popup or pop-under ads, however, then I stop visiting. Don't complain about them giving you the option (not forcing it like Salon) to pay to get rid of ads, though, it's a nice option to have.

Can someone answer me a simple question, though: If ads are blackholed thru my OpenBSD NAT, do those still count as hits for Slashdot? I'm pretty sure they do, but I've never gotten a real answer from someone.

Re:Do people not read the articles?

[j7953]

I'm guessing $5 is the going rate for 1,000 ads on Slashdot, so you guys break even on the deal

You can find out about OSDN's ad pricing by following the "advertising" link in the left navigation bar. Rates for the current banner type (468x60) start at $40 per 1,000 views.

More suggestions on how /. can make money

[spike_gran]

To maximize benefit for the advertisers, this is what I would suggest.

1) Ask users to supply basic demographic information, like age, sex, and general job description. Users could lie, of course, but, it would help establish an overall profile.

2) Require that users log in to view the site (like the NY times site does). This would chop bandwidth by a fair margin, get rid of annoying Anonymous comments, and allow better statistics to be gathered so that advertisers know who their target market is.

3) Precede the current front page (which is the list of articles) with a big ad page which must be clicked through before the list of articles is reached.

4) Reward good content providers (posters and submitters) somehow. They are your "authors" after all. Enter them into drawings for swag, or give them ad-free page views, or something.

In the end, its all about survival. Slashdot must change or die. There is no use whining about why it can't stay the same. If it is to survive, it must be beholden to its advertisers by providing them a good platform to sell their products.

Re:More suggestions on how /. can make money

[Anonymous Coward]

Google doesn't have to whore itself like a 2 bit hooker with giant flash ads and pop-ups just to pay the bills.

And don't even say slashdot has more costs than GOOGLE!

oh wait, google actually PROVIDES a service.

No more .org

[charnov]

Does this mean slashdot has to give up it's .org address now that they are generating a probable profit?

What about slashdot-smackdowns?

[doorbot.com]

There was a situation a little while back where posts (in the same thread) were all modded down to -1 by the endless points of the employees of slashdot. The exact thread escapes me at the moment, but think about this:

What if those users had active (paid) subscriptions? Now they actually have some stake in things... does slashdot itself have the right to effectively censor them? What kind of rights come with the payment? Can people request a refund if that happens (and is the subscription fee refundable at all)?

Well if I really cared...

[sterno]

Yup, no "I" there, because I generally send slashdot, etc, my money. I mean ultimately I end up paying for it anyhow since the marketing budgets of these companies are passed on the consumer in increased prices. I just think it would be amusing for somebody to do that :)

Re:Well if I really cared...

[Lemmy Caution]

Yes, it's funny how the TANSTAAFL crowd ignores advertising costs. Advertising is the hemoragging wound of capitalism: the only way to compete with advertising is to advertise in response. The net result is higher prices without value, a completely useless sector of the economy, and a lot of cultural pollution.

Re:Well if I really cared...

[NearlyHeadless]

Advertising is the hemoragging wound of capitalism: the only way to compete with advertising is to advertise in response. The net result is higher prices without value, a completely useless sector of the economy, and a lot of cultural pollution.

The FTC did studies about twenty years ago and found that prices were lower for eyeglasses in states that permitted advertising of prescription eyeglasses. One thing that gets advertised is prices, which results in more competition.

Also, although much advertising is image and puffery, there is also a lot of valuable information conveyed in ads. I've learned a lot about new products and product features from ads.

Re:Well if I really cared...

[Lemmy Caution]

Twenty years ago, that would be a valid statistic: advertising was useful as information about prices. Now, most advertisement is about building impressions, not about moving information. And there is a far, far more effective medium for moving information about price: the internet. One of the ironies of internet-based comparison shopping is that a retailer can advertise a product, and the consumer can them instantly comparison-shop and then buy from a competitor.

I know, because I do that with ThinkGeek products all the time: ThinkGeek will advertise a cool product, I'll go to pricescan.com and find the same product for a fraction of the price, so ThinkGeek's advertising actually cost them a sale.

Re:Well if I really cared...

[Drake42]

Unless ThinkGeek owns the other store too. If you're in the retail business you want to own both the highest and the lowest cost outlet. Advertise the highest so that if someone feels that it's worth it you get all the cash, but own the lowest cost generice and you'll get the volume without directly advertising. It is precisely for this reason that Cambles puts the same soup in many different brands of soup can. Branding is an important business tactic.

Re:Well if I really cared...

[Lemmy Caution]

Ah, but ThinkGeek is paying an advertising budget that the other store isn't. I'm pretty much dead-sure that the discount warehouses I got my stuff at wasn't owned by ThinkGeek. Check out PriceScan in action and see how it works. You get a ranking of 10 to 20 odd outlets for each product - you can shop for out-of-state resellers and avoid sales tax, you can factor in shipping options, and can decide to trade off a couple bucks in price for a somewhat more "polished, institutional" feel from the vendor if you feel like it.

Remember, there's a difference between the 'aura' (in Walter Benjamin's sense) of the product and that of the reseller. If Advertised Sexy Brand X is available from Not-advertising Unsexy Reseller A at half the price of Advertising Sexy Reseller B, then I 'enjoy' (or am manipulated by) the aura of X by purchasing from B, and the cost of the Sexiness is picked up by A. This is an advantage the only the internet consumer enjoys -it's been demonstrated that poor people are likely to pay more for the same goods - like cars - as rich people, and it has been hypothesized that internet access is a primary factor in that fact.

Slashdot wants pay off

[Anonymous Coward]

Since Slashdot is really a community based effort, where thousands of people post their
stories, the concept of paying for the content
on Slashdot seems stupid.

If Slashdot starts to provide a large ammount
of 100% orginal content that was not given to them
free of charge by a user, then they should talk about subscription fees.

As it is now, not only does the community in general find the stories, moderate them etc, but Slashdot also wants those same users who devote their own time to this site, to pay for that
privlidge. Time does not grow on trees Slashdot
admins, think about it.

Will you open-source your financials?

[John Harrison]

Hey Taco,

I wonder if you could tell us what your expenses are (itemized so we see what Katz gets paid) and how much money you take in. I would find it very interesting to see if your subscription service is making you all rich off our comments.

How much better do super-annoying ads pay? Have you thought about allowing users to do small low-cost text ads?

I'm gonna wait a bit...

[Triv]

Till I see how annoying these new ads are. As it is, I'll probably fork over the cash, but if I don't notice the change...

Ok, I'll STILL fork over the cash. When I get paid in two weeks. :)

Triv

*Sigh* You already can...

[srvivn21]

Go here. Click the box that says JonKatz. Enjoy /. Katz-free.

I would pay

[Anonymous Coward]

I would pay $5

Its amazing that someone wouldnt want to pay $5 to support /.

a member of #dlf has spoken

bow down quit bitchin and support um

So when do we get this new format?

[tfurrows]

I'm waiting to see this new format? When does it take effect?

a few comments

[nostriluu]

My first comment is this; it's a global network. With that kind of audience, one expects the price to be low. Targetting magazine prices is not reasonable. [print] magazines have a staff of professional writers, professional photographers, editors, printers, etc. Slashdot has, well, a bunch of hacks. No offense, but with the number of mistakes that are made and the uneveness of the stories posted here, the quality is indistinguishable from any other random group of people. In fact more often than not the people replying to stories are offering more thoughtful and relevant comments than the slashdot editors.

The only thing that sets slashdot apart is it was there at the right time and right place to gain critical mass and become "the" nerd system for this particular point of view (which is, sort, of, open source/linux issues, though I really find the editors often have more of a cynical, jackal point of view than anything). The moderation system is an interesting interesting 1990s technology (though of course it's been around much longer than that, vis pyroto mountain) but I rarely think it brings out the best postings and it's generally a waste of time contributing because by the time I read a topic and think to contribute, its out of date and no one will see my posting. And as others have said, the people who put the most into slashdot end up paying the most. How does that make sense?

I'll continue to view slashdot, with the ads blocked when possible, and if somehow the content is completely blocked, I'll go elsewhere. Hopefully somewhere with a more global perspective, slashdot is very American centered, tiresomely so and with very little self awareness. I hope to soon see a more sensible, intelligent, distributed content system so issues like bandwidth are not such a problem. When that happens I expect the people involved will not only have more thoughtful points of view but will also offer more progressive and innovative cost solutions.

I don't mean to be harsh, but I expect much more if I'm going to pay.

mv junkbstr.exe slashbstr.exe

[The MoMo King]

That should do it. Damn capitalist pigs ... ehh Comrade ...

Flat Rate?

[KarmaBitch]

I'm not sure about this -- not that I refuse to pay, since I understand the web won't survive on a free-for-all basis forever. What I don't like is the fact that you pay for a number of pageviews, not for a period of time or some other flat rate.

Flat rate pricing has two advantages: simplicity, and comfort. It's simple to say 'Okay, no ads for a year for $x.' No need to count the pages you visit, or wonder if reloads count, or if changing the threshold settings to go from 500 posts to 15 is going to count as an add-free counter item.

Comfort, because I hate nervously watching a meter deplete and trying to optimize my web viewing habits in order to make sure I don't run out. When you say 82% of folks are covered... don't forget that this site caters to the hardcore sorts that participate the most and are likely to fall into the 18% that have to worry. I've never counted my page views, so I can't even tell if I fit that 18%.

And all things considered, I'd rather browse with javascript off and image loading off than worry about depleting my ad-free views. It's less hassle. Which means less profit for you, but that's free market in action... maybe when you add those value-added feature you're thinking about we'll be getting somewhere.

Speaking of UIDs

[Municipa]

How about an option to sort comments by User ID. I know it doesn't make a lot of sense, but might provide hours of mindless comment sorting.

Pricing ala carte vs. bundled crap

[Spamalamadingdong]

If you're going to charge by the page-view, you are going to have to radically increase the granularity of the options on e.g. story selections. If a story has 327 responses, there is no way that I am going to pay for a page-view just so that I can change the threshold to something which pares it down to something I can actually read (not to mention, it wastes your bandwidth for something I am not going to read). That's unfair to me, the reader; I am going to be angry with you for foisting the crap off on me and making me pay for it. I will run Junkbuster rather than participate in a system which forces me to pay for things I don't want just to get to what I do want.

I also think I ought to be able to get credit for what I post. People who are reading the comments are reading for the comments, especially for the highly-rated comments; they are your bread and butter. If I am contributing to your bottom line I ought to be given some kind of credit for it. I don't even read comments on ZDNet any more because their system refuses to let me read comfortably (piles of ads and links on every response), and if Slashdot becomes as hostile to good posters as ZDNet is to readers, there will be no point in trying to contribute here any more.

And don't you dare count moderation or meta-moderation work against page-views! You won't have anyone left who's worth a damn.

Re:Pricing ala carte vs. bundled crap

[CmdrTaco]

As I have said several times now, by default, comments display ads. Users can choose to turn ads off, but by default we leave them on so that we don't have to deal with all those issues. We figure anyone clicking through on comments pages is gonna be loading a lot of pages and probably doesn't want to use their subscriptions up on it.

Re:Pricing ala carte vs. bundled crap

[Sophacles]

Something that you two have been overlooking for this thread is the nested option. I personally hate clicking for comments, so I put it on nested and just read down, scrolling past the threads im not interested in. Im sure it saves on alot of page views.

I also barely notice the slashdot ads. As long as they aren't pop-ups, they're not a big deal. The way its set up, I barely look at the sidebar and area that has all the story categories on the top. Those make a good enough buffer that even the most annoying ads (like the open projects one thats changing colors) are mentally filterable.

As soon as I get a paycheck im sure ill be putting down some money. I like slashdot. Im willing to pay $5 for it. Hell whats the difference? next week ill buy a couple of cases of presidents choice cola instead of coke and break even.

Re:I understand and agree, but won't be subscribin

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd buy one too, it will go well with my William fsck'n Shatner mug.

Donations

[prophecyvi]

I'd love to donate to the cause, but I will NOT give PayPal my personal data.

Give me a donation option that DOESN'T involve PayPal, I will.

On a side note, it's REALLY disappointing that in the same week we had stories about how much we love Google for eschewing BS ads, /. does it. Hello?? Editors?? Do you READ your site? Your users have told you over and over again that they love the Google system and even go out of their way to use it just to keep it going. Seriously, how many /. readers are going to click a giant Flash ad? FAR, FAR fewer than will click a nice textbox ad on the sidebar.

"Ad free" counter on every page?

[jonathan_95060]

I'd like to see a counter on every slashdot page that shows how many "ad free" pages I have left in my account.

Of course this should be a configurable preference option ...

Here's an idea: fast servers

[chocolatetrumpet]

How 'bout a value add such as super-fast /. servers, verses relatively slow ones for non-paying?

Also, even something like "theme choices" can be enough to nudge someone to buy an account.

I only subscribe to two sites; one is for original artwork, and the other one only buys me fast server access and some little options like embedding their pages inside mine, and using a variety of images.

The details that count!

Not until you give mod privs back to ....

[jerryasher]

Jeez taco, I do spend too much of my time here, moderated, and never trolled. In all fairness, I should be someone interested in supporting slashdot.

Except that I modded one post up as interesting and got punished for it. You know the post.

As so many have noted, you took away mod privs from all of us that honestly thought the post was interesting, and fairly modded it up.

What can I say, I'd see you fail before I send you any money. You're either abusive, hypocritical, or dense. Pick two of three.

Jumped The Shark

[UberOogie]

Slashdot.org officially jumped the shark with the Valentine's Day marriage proposal.

Re:Jumped The Shark

[gimple]

Damn, of all the times not to have mod points!

You are absolutely right on the spot with this!

How about volunteers to distribute the load on /.

[charnov]

How about we make an effort to make Slashdot a true product of the people and get some of those three-quarters of million people using slashdot to help host it and distribute the load. Hell, I bet that would allow /. to go ad-free. I be willing to throw my hat in for that.

Google's model?

[DThorne]

Well folks, it's only a few bucks. In the end, I'll probably just leave things as they are, and if the big ads drive me nuts I'll make a decision then whether to cough up, or make another site my homepage. That's life in the big city.

However, what about Google? Assuming I'll always be online, they're something I cannot live without, yet the ads are absurdly small and never interfere with it's usage. It's free. Is it because so many more people use Google than Slashdot that the advertisers don't give them as much flack? Perhaps the answer is to broaden the demographic - perhaps Brittany vs Linus online voting? :)

DT

The reason for metered vs. flat

[dalutong]

My best guess, and I've got no inside information, is that the metered rate is simply mimicing the ad views. For instance, the ad company give /. 0.005 cents per page view. So instead of having the ad company give /. 0.005 per page view, the /. subscribers give them the meager amount.

Or am I wrong here?

Privacy Concern

[col. Fudge]

I'd like to first point out the irony in having read so many posts on /. regarding the imminent failure of other institutions that have been forced to implement some sort of money collection and now reading this announcement. I understand the reasons but it goes against the idealogy behind the /. movement.

Also, when you become a member of /. you freely give away some of your personel information. Even though most of it is optional it's kind of nice feeling comfortable having it out there in a forum that to this point has never profitted from this information. What will happens in phase 2 of the subscription plan when the advertisers ask for this user information and a list of preferred information gathered from linking to other pages. The door is being opened and often once it's opened it's hard to close it again.

Why does it feel like a funeral?

Re:Privacy Concern

[C. Mattix]

Did you see the OSDN banner:

"Presenting GEO Targetting."

No pay-per view! Please!

[Ed Avis]

We all know that pay-per-view or micropayments don't work. This is because users just don't like the idea of someone standing behind them metering the pages they view. If any payment system is to work it should be 'fit and forget'.

I'd happily sign up for a reasonable *fixed fee* per month, but being charged more the more pages I view seems, well, unpleasant. OTOH if the Slashdot crew can justify it from bandwidth costs I might pay up.

FWIW, I think the karma money exchange is worth considering. As long as users can opt out, that is tick a box saying 'monetary considerations will have no effect on the comment scores I see'. But personally I'd be happy to sell a bit of karma (can always whore it back again), and I'd like to see a comment promoted if the author thought enough of it to put some money behind it.

one thing that made me think twice about donating.

[Twister002]

Is the fact that /. is run by OSDN and hosted at OSDN. OSDN is a wholly owned subsidiary of VA Software Corporation. VA Software used to sell hardware, but couldn't make any money on it so now they are selling SourceForge.

So it's not exactly like /. is still this free site that a bunch of people thought would be cool and they are still doing this as just a hobby (I could be wrong though). They are, by association, a business run site. If VA Software can't afford to run /. that's a business problem. They are trying to recoup some of their investment. I'd much rather they move to this kind of "either or" situation than move the articles into "premium content" like Salon did (heck even my local paper the Albuquerque Journal has started charging for their online content, yeah right I'm gonna pay for that when I can just go drop $.50 on the counter at Starbucks and get it when I want it.)

That being said, I don't think I'll pay for an ad-free /. since the majority of their content is provided by us. It's kind of like paying for a pencil and some blank newsprint and having to write your own newspaper.

BTW I'm not against donation type systems, I paid for "Ad-free Sluggy" at Sluggy Freelance because I enjoy the comic.

Ahh, I see my user # in the HTML

[Dr. Awktagon]

Okay, I see my user # is in the form code on the HTML page. So I guess email has nothing to do with it. Yes?

Hmm, I guess that means if I really wanted to, I could pay for someone else's subscription?

You should have leveraged JonKatz hatred.

[Gannoc]

Done something like "When we reach 20,000 in pledges, we'll fire Jon Katz."

Re:You should have leveraged JonKatz hatred.

[Anonymous Coward]

not everyone hates him, ya know.

Re:You should have leveraged JonKatz hatred.

[Gannoc]

>not everyone hates him [slashdot.org], ya know.

Actually, I signed up as a foe, but it appears he wiped his own list clean.

Do we get paid...

[night_flyer]

for submitting an article? after all, thats where most of your stories come from...

Re:Do we get paid...

[subgeek]

yes, but in karma. you probably meant in money.

Garbage Bin?

[KarmaBitch]

Access to the rejected submissions bin? Yes, please -- with the opportunity to moderate or rank them, so the most interesting rejected submissions float to the top. If a story gets a very positive ranking, maybe the editorial staff can give it a second thought. And if it goes the way of the troll, nobody is the worse for it

Re:Garbage Bin?

[nihilist_1137]

you mean like Kur05hin? the successful slashdot. Where the users mod the stories in the queue onto the frontpage, and the moderation totals of a comment is average/#mod's?

Kuro5hin needs money too. And they arent pissing off their user base for asking for it.

Re:Garbage Bin?

[nihilist_1137]

that should reall be kuro5hin

Re:Garbage Bin?

[sydb]

Except Kuro5hin is about things like female circumcision... can't they keep to normal geek-type stuff?

Oh well...

odo/trip meters and other comments

[subgeek]

maybe since we now have the option to buy ad free page hits on slashdot, it would be nice to have an odometer and tripmeter as a customizable slashbox so people could have an idea about how many times they load /. pages. i don't know about anybody else, but i have no idea where i fall in terms of the "percentage of readers" mentioned in the story. if we could track page hits, it would also help us decide how much to spend.

another comment- come on, people. it's not like slashdot is ceasing to be free. also, we are only talking about 5$. this is not going to break your bank. slashdot is offering you a chance not to see ads. this is a new service, not something that has been taken away. the advertisers obviously have to agree to any ad opt-out deal that /. has; otherwise /. would have no more advertisers. basically you pay for whatever would be slashdot's lost add revenue. at the same time you keep the advertisers from pulling out. (if that happened, btw, slashdot would only be available by subscription) if you think this is some sort of sell out, slashdot has had ads for some time. plenty of websites have ads. all they are offering is an alternative.

stop whining. pay or don't. either way you still get the content. i'm all for open source and being able to get things for free, but sometimes it seems like people here only care about what they get for themselves without having to spend any time or money. (no developers, not you. the other guys.)

mod this up

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the exact problem that everybody complains about with microsoft, intel, sun, and pretty much every big player in the industry. And now you expect us to put up with it from you? I'll just keep viewing the ads, thank you.

XML syndication must remain free!

[passion]

Definitely, I grab the syndication feed every time I open a new web-browsing window. I don't spend the time reading every article, just the ones that interest me the most. I want to see when things change, and if there is something that is interesting to me. Otherwise, I find I'm wasting my time.

Do you read every book in the library every time you visit? (didn't think so)

One could easily make the argument that charging for headlines info would drive viewers away, instead of drawing them in.

how fitting

[flynt]

This is the only time since I started reading this site in '99 that I remember the editors posting comments in such numbers. Naturally, it is when they want our money.

what is "large ads" and different payment benefits

[mindlace23]

Two things;

First, what do you mean by large ads? Those big square ones? Interstitials? Columnar? All of the above?

Personally, I like receiving the little banner ads; people that advertise on slashdot are much more likely to be selling something I want.

But can I use this system to just suppress the big ads? Is that what "only view ads on comment pages" means?

Also, can I still view ads and have the money go to paying original content authors? I like the reviews and whatnot and would like to pay for more of 'em.

Everything Unix!

[BoarderPhreak]

Head over to Everything Unix!

It's advertising free, and actually contains useful content!

Re:Everything Unix!

[radja]

>It's advertising free, and actually contains useful content!

Useful content.. just let me get this straight for a moment... You're trying to get /.ers to move, and of all things you have to mention USEFUL CONTENT? Please.. if we WANTED useful content, then why the fuck are we HERE??? We wwant stories about microsoft being the bad guys, linux ALMOST making it in the desktop market, fights about how much better the BSD license is over the commie pinko GPL and our daily whine from MPAA/RIAA. we dont want news. we just want our own opinions confirmed. Once in a while there's a new toy, but that's about it.. either I'm filtering all the ads (and before you start.. ads are an agreement between the marketroid and the sender of the ad, in this case /. and neither of'em is me. I never agreed to any ad), or I'm leaving. I'll get my mix of diverting stupid stories elsewhere. (btw.. try trolling on a board for marketeers... TONS'o'fun, although at times a bit easy.. they're easily confused) guess I should end my rant.. having a stressful day is not good for my lucidity, and being in a coffeeshop doesn't help much either).

//rdj, the flying dutchman.
I may be back on monday.. but then again.. I may not.

The irony . . .

[himi]

How ironic - the granddaddy of those weblogs is being trashed by the rats who decided it was cool enough to read . . .

Slashdot was a weblog almost before the idea had been invented - it's rather more now, and for the better, I think.

himi

Wow!

[lars]

A Three digit UID might even get you a marrige proposal...

So what does a 2-digit UID get you? I'd settle for Natalie Portman and a bowl of hot grits.

BTW, now that Taco is getting married, does that make me Slashdot's 71st-most eligible bachelor? :) (Although, considering these results, I'm not convinced that's a good thing.)

Sounds like a joke

[Anonymous Coward]

just to see readers reactions

Have you ever stopped to think...

[tfurrows]

... that some of us have more important things to spend our money on that bloated and useless software and subscription based "services"?

I personally think we're moving away from spend our money on "thin air" because we've learned through experience that it is not economically supportable over a long period of time. It was perfect for the Clinton administration, but it's reality time and we're paying the price for his shallowness.



Long live REAL services and REAL value. Other than that I'll save my money for my family like a responsible individual.

Re:Have you ever stopped to think...

[Anonymous Coward]

I like how you managed to drag Bill Clinton into your rant. Very creative and transparent. Spare us your political ax grinding.

Pay to Provide Content

[Anonymous Coward]

It took me a second to realize what we are really paying for. We provide almost all of the content so thats not it...

Slashdot is trying its revenue to how much it can annoy its users. If enough people don't pay to remove the unobtrusive ads then the ads need to become more obtrusive... If people circuvent those ads then something else will need to be done. The point is that if users are annoyed enough with the ads then they will pay to have them removed.

I don't think so...

I think as the ads become more annoying fewer people will use Slashdot. That will reduce the value of the service for everyone else... which will further reduce subscriptions...

I don't like where this seems to be going.

PayPal Link Broken in Mozilla

[gorgon]

Speaking of Paypal, your Paypal link doesn't show up in the latest nighlies of Mozilla. No graphic is shown and there's no link where the graphic should be. I have no clue if its your bug or a Mozilla bug. It works fine in Netscape 4.7x.

Re:PayPal Link Broken in Mozilla

[Rakarra]

Speaking of Paypal, your Paypal link doesn't show up in the latest nighlies of Mozilla. No graphic is shown and there's no link where the graphic should be. I have no clue if its your bug or a Mozilla bug. It works fine in Netscape 4.7x.

Honestly, if you're not gung-ho about bug-fixing and bug-reporting, you probably shouldn't be using the Mozilla nightlies. That's the audience the nightlies are aimed for. There's no problem with the image/icon in Mozilla 0.9.8, but if it's not showing up in the nightlies, then that's a bug there. Whenever you suspect a bug, compare the results to a stable release like 0.9.8. If it looks like a nightlies bug, then report it.

Re:PayPal Link Broken in Mozilla

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting that you make the same spelling mistakes that malda does, i.e. "becuase".

Very interesting.

Re:PayPal Link Broken in Mozilla

[gorgon]

Honestly, if you're not gung-ho about bug-fixing and bug-reporting, you probably shouldn't be using the Mozilla nightlies. That's the audience the nightlies are aimed for. There's no problem with the image/icon in Mozilla 0.9.8, but if it's not showing up in the nightlies, then that's a bug there. Whenever you suspect a bug, compare the results to a stable release like 0.9.8. If it looks like a nightlies bug, then report it.

Well, first off the Paypal icon doesn't show up for me with milestone 0.9.8 either. Are you using a Windows or Mac build? Secondly, I am gung-ho on bug fixing. I've confirmed and duped out dozens of bugs (and I even contributed one very minor patch), but this kind of bug is not my cup of tea. At first glance, it looked more like an evangelism bug than a real mozilla bug, but I didn't have the time to look more into it on Friday. If its an evangelism class bug, I thought it made more sense to point it out to the /. crew right away so that they could fix it, since /. probably has one of the biggest mozilla using population of any non-mozilla specific site. Anyway, if this still doesn't work in a couple of days, I'll dig through bugzilla and see if I find anything.

Re:PayPal Link Broken in Mozilla

[Anonymous Coward]

$las$hdot$$l$l$las$hdot$lashdot$ashdotashdot$$lash dot$las$hdot$las$lashdot$la$s$hdot$las$hdo$thdot$l as$hdot$lash$dot$las$hdot$las$hd$ot$las$h$dot$$l$l $las$hdot$lashdot$$ashd$otas$hdot$$lashdot$las$hdo t$l$as$lashdot$la$s$hdo$t$las$hd$o$thdo$t$las$hdot $lash$dot$las$hdo$t$las$hd$ot$$

Re:PayPal Link Broken in Mozilla

[Rakarra]

Well, first off the Paypal icon doesn't show up for me with milestone 0.9.8 either. Are you using a Windows or Mac build?

It shows up fine for me using Mozilla 0.9.8 on both Linux and Windows.

Re:PayPal Link Broken in Mozilla

[gorgon]

Heh, turns out its a profile problem. I generated a new profile and it worked fine in the latest nightlies. It wasn't the type of problem that I'd expect to be tied to profiles, but it was about time I updated my profile.

Didn't Andover buy you guys out?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, are you not commercial already? I do not know of anyone who clicks on advert. No one. Zip, zero, nada. Inet advertising ONLY works for rookies. It quits shortly thereafter. You gota wonder why dorky Chris Pirillo makes a living off the newsletter game and you folks cannot. Hell, he even has a cute wife and a house. He has lameoid content and he does well, he branched out into TV and Radio. Is this a problem only gays have with informative sites? You are not my home page anymore. Did you spend the money Andover gave you? Douche bags!

Public Trading

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't /. owned by a company that is publically traded? If so how does this figure in to their actions.

Applause

[GodSpiral]

Your charging plan is exceptionally fair, and I wish you luck and success.

It is demonstrably less evil (anti-consumer) than I would be given free tyranical reign, and I believe this is an important ingredient in the success of internet commerce.

I don't know if I will subscribe to slashdot, but I would be more intested in MMORPGs under similar financial terms.

How does this affect Jon Katz?

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder how much Jon Katz's readership will plummet once we have to PAY for his inane ramblings.

Some ads, but not others

[hether]

I would be willing to continue to view the ads as they are now. Can I get a version with some ads, but not the big square ones? Those that take up half the page, jump spin, and in general ruin a site? Would I get a cheaper rate than people who choose not to view all ads? That's what I'd like to see.

Options, give us options!

Already Married....

[DG]

...but I could use some cash...

Makes one think.

DG

sell to IBM

[geekoid]

no really. They have a billion dollar open sours intiative going on. They can sell there Linux uses via banners, and the cost would fall under marketing.
This would be a good move for IBM. They could use it to test there Linux Web servers,show people that they work in a "real world" enviroment, and Give IBM that added coll geek factor there going after.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Great

[IRNI]

You fire my friend cxreg then you start charging for the site. Did you guys hold a "How can we suck total shit" meeting this week? Fuck yeh.

Re:Great

[IndustrialCowgirl]

Lets boycott on behalf of CXREG !!!!!!!

I will bend this time

[Str8Dog]

I get a ton of enjoyment out of /. daily. Infact /. is the only page I would be willing to slap down $5 for to make sure it stays around. In fact I have no adds as I write this.

Re:Good Riddance to the Ad companies

[fscking_coward_2001]

Of course, bandwidth doesn't grow on trees. The electricity to run the hardware doesn't either. Nor do the people requried to maintain and improve the site. All expect to be paid, though. Ads can do it. Subscriptions can do it. The choice is up to you.

Please remove all my comments. Now.

[Animats]

To: Slashdot management
From: J. Nagle

Over the last few years, I have posted 1700 comments to Slashdot. (Current karma: 162)

I do not authorize the unpaid use of my copyrighted materials on the pay sites of others. Please remove all my previous comments before your site becomes a pay site. Failure to do so will be considered a copyright violation.

John Nagle
Menlo Park, CA

financial problems

[flipper28]

Sounds like advertising is not cutting it - just the same story as every dot com. Without people paying and advertisers getting an incredible response, I don't think, as far as business case goes, that slashdot can survive.

I know this upsets everyone, but thats the reality and nature of the global economy.

quit yer bitchen

[outlaw69]

Slashdot rocks and we should help support it. If you don't like it. get news elsewhere...like AOL! eheh

Goodbye Slashdot

[evilroot]

There was a time when I read Slashdot religiously, and came back multiple times every hour to read new stories. No longer. While it once was a great way for me to stay abreast of current developments in the Open Source world it doesn't hold the same glow it once did. More and more of my friends have been turning away from it, and now that it comes to this I will too. If I want huge banner ads I'll go to a cheap-ass portal. Slashdot was the one site I always expected to be above it. It saddens me that its come to this. As a college student on a scholarship I get a stipend for cost of living that covers just that. Not only can I not afford it, but paying for Slashdot defeats the whole ideal I thought this site stood for: that information and news should be free, just like code. I guess I was wrong.

Re:Goodbye Slashdot

[omega9]

I don't see you offering a better, or even different solution at all, so it's hard for me to take you seriously. You haven't even experienced the new format yet and you're already bitching. I assume you're pretty heavy handed with preconception in other aspects of your life as well. No really, it's OK. Most other people are like that so why shouldn't you be?

Seriously. They could've just posted "Slashdot is now taking subscriptions" and everything below that really wouldn't matter. Everyone has already come up with their own idea of how much this place is going to suck before it has even happened. What a waste.

By describing your own living situation you actually help justify the case for subscriptions. You admit yourself that with your allotted income you can only afford so much and live so long. That happens to be exactly what the SlashOps are saying. You can't yell at someone for relying on monetary income because you have to do the same. And that line "that information and news should be free, just like code"? Please. You act like you won't be able to view Slashdot unless you pay. It's not the news and information you would be paying for, it's the services of Slashdot itself in putting it all together. A service which I have been more then pleased with for quite a while.

Honestly, I too am skeptical about the new system, but I'm keeping an open mind and waiting to see the actual product. It's my opinion that everyone else should wait-n-see as well, because untill then it's all just preconception.

funny

[evacuate_the_bull]

took me five minutes to get into this discussion! slashdot wes slashdotted by slashdot...

Re:ads and such - WHY THE HELL WAS THIS MODDED

[lemonhed]

Can someone please explain to me how this moderation crap works?

When does a comment deserve the term "flamebait?" From now on, Ill have to worry about why my thoughts are or I may be labels as "flamebait" I mean come on! This was just my opinion something I believe in and you Mr. Moderator are trying push your agenda.

I hate to say it but it is the...

[DA_MAN_DA_MYTH]

beginning of the end of Slashdot.

This might be proof the editors don't even read the stories that they post.

First it starts with the advertisers. Than it goes into the WSJ or NY Times "subscription model." Eventually this starts snowballing into eventually to "stay around" it no longer becomes Slashdot.org rather Slashdot.NET.

It sucks that bandwidth costs money.

I don't know..

[Dave_bsr]

The whole point of Open Source is to be free. If they want to commercialize SlashDot and make it a pay system, then thye should get rid of the OSDN label and get rid of the .ORG domain name.

i suspect that they aren't trying to cash in on piles of money, but are instead merely trying to stay running...ever wonder why the slashdot effect rarely/never hits slashdot, even with all the DoS'ers? it's because they pay for a lot of bandwidth & servers.

crap

[einer]

I love slashdot. To me slashdot is worth 1 dollar per month regardless of pageviews. This seems reasonable, and even could be considered *GASP* a good deal! 5 dollars per month (and restricted # of pageviews) is outrageous. Taco, slash isn't the only site out there. If the other 10 sites I love enough to check daily started charging 5 bucks a month, I'd be dolling out a quarter of a car payment for websites. I'm layed off, I'm driving a POS dodge, I still love slash enough to give you money, just not that much. Leave the ads, charge me a buck, open up a donation bin. Don't add any value, don't tinker, you'll fuck everything up. (No offense intended hah). Anyhow, this comment has been posted so late, that I doubt anyone will even see it.

Re:crap

[W.B. Yeats]

I saw it.

Legitimate Question

[Zurion]

Let me first of all say that I've been reading slashdot for several years. In fact I remember when it was moved from a pretty low bandwidth site at some ISP in Michigan. I understand there are probably ungodly costs associated with running it, and ads don't bother me too badly (in their current form).

However, what bothers me is the subscription thing. I think this is one of the worst ideas yet. Why not use ads similar to what Google uses? It could work in exactly the same manner; the ad would be associated with the story to which its attached. Advertisers could pick which categories of stories it wants its page displayed upon. The ad would still be small (text only would be great for those of us forced into using modems), and could actually be imbedded, say, between the summary and the actual comments. That's a little more pervasive than regular banner ads, but *much* more likely to work. And, yes, there are issues--like what if the article posted is negative about one of the advertisers? One solution is to have the moderators turn off certain advertisers for certain stories. This shouldn't be too difficult, and, IMNSHO, probably wouldn't alienate either side--at least as not as badly. :)

Hey Taco, How many pages do I view NOW?

[thomis]

I'll probably subscribe... as soon as an alternative to PayPal is offered. But, since they have the scripting in place to count my pageviews, I'd like to get an idea of my habits before I buy. I'm pretty sure I view between 200 and 2000 /. pages a month. Does this include all my homepage refreshes? I'd like to get a handle on how much to purchase first (the fewer transactions the better), and I think you guys could help me out on this...
(Or are you afraid everyone will freak out when they realize that they actually view 50,000 pages a month? 8~)

Holy Fuck, Taco!

[Anonymous Coward]

You've posted more comments in this one story than in like the last 2 years combined. Maybe you do care about /. readers after all. Damn -- maybe I will spend $5/1000 pages to encourage /. to flourish.

Of course, you refuse to address the moderation conspiracy issues as well as the "heavy-handed editors/moderators" issue, so chances are this is just a fluke. I expect we'll see you go back to ignoring user comments after this story, just like always.

(and before you moderators mod me down as flamebait or off-topic, why not bother to check taco's posting history and see if I'm lying)

Re:/. converts to NT?

[sad_]

As mentioned in the article, and on the project plan page, we will support other browsers. NT/IIS was just quick and easy, and we knew a lot of readers use it anyway.

Fuck this

[Anonymous Coward]

Gay

Important Stuff:
Please try to keep posts on topic.
Try to reply to other people comments instead of starting new threads.
Read other people's messages before posting your own to avoid simply duplicating what has already been said.
Use a clear subject that describes what your message is about.
Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated. (You can read everything, even moderated posts, by adjusting your threshold on the User Preferences Page)

Fags

MODERATE THIS, BITCH!

Mordokc!

Why not just charge the advertisers more?

[petgiraffe]

I've never understood why ad-supported content providers (particularly radio stations, and now, perhaps, Slashdot) always follow this model:

1) Start out providing good content and very few ads thus becoming popular.

2) Once popular, start playing - or inserting - many more ads, to the point of extreme annoyance.

3) Drive listeners - or readers - away and fade into oblivion.

Why can't these guys just charge MORE for the small number of ads? Why not auction them off to the highest bidder?

Re:Why not just charge the advertisers more?

[hyphz]

Because the ad providers aren't going to go bust if they don't sell their ads. The content provider probably is, since chances are they didn't get money any other way.

Re:Why not just charge the advertisers more?

[ParamonKreel]

Man, that is THE Business model.
Example 1: give crack away on the playground. kid comes back to you for some more. give him a cheap rate cause you "Like them". Next time sell it for full price cause they're so hard up.

Example 2: Open a bar, have great specials all the time. People start showing up in droves. Jack your prices up, but keep a token special so people still like the bar.

No one wants to advertise with a place that doesn't have traffic. Ads don't work when no one sees them. That's why superbowl ads are all big companies shelling out millions and late night tv is all personal injury lawyers.

Freefreeslashdot.org

[Smack]

Just move around, keep the same database, publish the new URL before you turn off the old one...

what kind of ads?

[ranger8x]

will these adds just be wider or are we talking stupid airplanes flying across the page (like yahoo had a while back)?

Slashdot with a class system?

[Lictor]

I have to admit... I never thought I'd see the day that Slashdot became a stratified service site. The same Slashdot that strongly supports free (as in beer) OSes over the more traditional pay type. The same Slashdot where people strongly object to free registration to read NYTimes articles...

Its reasonable, of course. Someone has to pay the bill for bandwidth; and I shudder to think how large that bill would be for Slashdot. I have no objections at all to selling advertising... but to be honest the bit about 'Eventually we intend to offer additional features to subscribers' kinda bothers me.

Lots of people here are big fans of Linux. Do you get 'extra features' if you pay Linus $5/1000 lines of kernel code? Not the best analogy, but this just looks like a slippery slope.

Its not that I have no faith in Slashdot; its just that this scene has repeated itself on SO many once-free websites. It starts with a few harmless extra features for subscribers but the 'free' service eventually erodes into uselessness.

Again, I'm not questioning the addition of ads to generate revenue. I also think its pretty swell that we're being given the opportunity to buy our way out of ads. Its just the extra-feature thing that worries me. It seems so... contrary to the overwhelmingly cyber-libertarian feel of Slashdot.

Slashdot is moving from a fairly egalitarian 'society' to one with a class structure. Who saw that coming?

Re:Please remove all my comments. Now.

[Anonymous Freak]

Except, Slashdot is not becoming a pay site. You're just paying to have ads removed. Only if your comments ended up in a 'subscriber-only' section would your statement be true. Also, by merely posting on Slashdot, you have granted them a limited-use license to store and display your comments as they see fit. (They had a story about it awhile back, when they were wanting to use comments in a book that I don't think every actually came out.)

Just like usenet. If you ever post on a newsgroup, guess what, someone's making money off your post. There are companies that charge for usenet access, so you'd have to send a letter to each and every one of them, as well.

Why not just use USENET aka Newsgroups?

[Jagasian]

They are free.
They are ad free.
They are more efficient, bandwidth wise.

Oh, and they are more stable. Slashdot has been unavailable far more often than my trusty newsgroups.

Re:Why not just use USENET aka Newsgroups?

[dlb]

Usenet died the second the unwashed masses of AOL was unleashed unto the Internet.

I know why I won't subscribe

[Coolfish]

okay, and it's not just because I use webwasher. It's because even if these slashdot guys got any money, they still wouldn't improve the quality of slashdot. Hire someone to do spell checking? Not gonna happen. Hire someone to check dupe/old stories? Not gonna happen. Hire someone to weed out the blatant commercials (Hey geeks check out this cool new product that you can buy now!) that's news? Gimme a break. Slashdot quality has continually declined since I've been reading it, and it's only occasionally I see something worth more than the usual JonKatz movie review.

p2p or distributed slashdot??

[killa-b(a was taken)]

im not sure if someone wrote this already, but would there be a way to make slashdot more like a p2p net?ie thousands of mirror websites/servers, and each of us connects to one, gets updated, then people can connect to us. it makes sense in my head, it would solve the bandwidth problems, and be a cool project at the same time.

Slashdot Ads don't work?

[dcigary]

I'm really confused by that assumption. Most of the ads that I see on Slashdot DO work for me. I find myself clicking through to the ads on Slashdot BECAUSE THEY INTEREST ME. Ads like ThinkGeek, California Digital, Sourceforge, etc. They're targeted to the clientele of the web pages they're on.

I'm afraid of, however, is what the ads in the "free" Slashdot will be like... Metabolife, X-10 Cameras, Match.com, Free Credit Reports, 5 DVD's for the price of 1, 0% Visas....I've gotta stop, it's making me woozy. But the "bigger" ads to me mean non-targeted ads, with OSDN taking ads from anyone who is willing to pay. So much for the whole theory of Slashdot - "Stuff That Matters".

Oh, and by the way, the first time I get a pop-up from Slashdot is when I pull the flush cord!

Re:Slashdot Ads don't work?

[cdn-programmer]

Yes, those sites may be of interest to you. Unfortunatley I suspect that they also are losing money hand over fist. The people who have money to burn are the people trying to get you to switch to a different type of hairspray.

What this may mean is that in short order we will see the non-converged portion of the net poluted with ads which will create a rather large incentive for people to subscribe to converged internet sources like AOL.

Not happy... but better than the alternative.

[BoneFlower]

These prices are insanely low by normal standards. While we'd all prefer that it stay free forever, we don't have that option. Slashdot has three options:

1) BLow off the advertisers, get fired by Andover, and Slashdot loses all independence when the current crew is replaced.

2) Blow off the advertisers, be forced to buy back Slashdot, and slashdot is stuck on a far lesser net connection and hardware(less reliability and speed) or folds entirely.

3) Accept the ads.

Thankfully, Slashdot managed to do (3) while still giving us options to avoid the ads, at an extremely low price.

A bonus for the subscribers

[MBCook]

How about a little dollar bill next to their name and their comments? It would be the "Sell out" indicator! Seriously though, it's too bad that slashdot has come to this, but at least we can still see it for free (unlike so many other sites). Hopefully this won't be neccessary by this time next year.

Aww.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not sell all that VA stock you boys got?

Re:Aww.

[Anonymous Coward]

i will trade paypal and enron stock for va stock, 1:1 if you get me drunk first.

Changing boats in mid stream

[darrad]

If you wanted /. to be a pay service, you should have launched it that way. Nobody likes the idea that what they once got for free, now they have to pay for. I understand and sympathize with the cost of running the site, and ad revenues not being what you would like, but do you honestly think that a group of geeks who get bent out of shape about some company selling (gasp!, shock!, outrage!) Linux is willing to pay for this site?

Once free, always free..
Once cost, open to debate...
Once cracked, always free....

Good luck, but ...

[Naum]

... /. will probably disappear from my list of frequented net destinations. I used to visit salon.com often, but no more ... I understand the need for revenue sources, but I think it's wrong to accept free submissions and content, then turn around and charge folks for access ... if you want to put up a tip jar, go ahead - I would drop funds into the hopper, but to enact a subscription setup ... bleh ...

If I may add a point...

[jgerman]

... User submissions are the lifeblood of this site. As I'm writing this this particular article is the only one on the page that is not from a user submission. I suggest that the submission link should be ad free and not cost a page hit, it should in fact add a free page hit for the subscriber who lost a hit going to the main page to submit the link. It's bad enough a corporation is going to try to make money off of voluntart public submissions and comments, but the subscribers shouldn't be charged with contributing.

Re:Does this change the viewer demographic for ads

[ryepup]

Shh! Thinkgeek might be reading!

It's probably much better for /. if they get $5 then 1E-5 cents per page view.

How many pageviews?

[sulli]

If I am to pay by pageview, I'd like to know how many I have consumed recently. I'm sure I'm one of the frequent 3% (fuck, I read trolltalk and journals regularly!) but I would like to understand what this really means. Would I pay $5 for .. a month? two weeks? more? less?

What a bunch of whiners

[way0utwest]

Quit bitching. Pay to remove some ads or click through a few of them to support this site. Are you that cheap!!! Are you that upset that you cannot support this site? You are the same people who spend $300 to get a TIVO and remove commericials. NOTHING is free. Everything costs something, either money or time. Pay to support the things you like.
Most of the complainers are probably the same people who *steal* music using Kaaza and justify it with "the artists don't get the money", "I support the artists by going to concerts". Then support Slash with either a subscription or some click throughs.

Re:What a bunch of whiners

[trongey]

...You are the same people who spend $300 to get a TIVO ...

Yes, in my dreams I have $300 to spend on something like a TIVO. I listen to the radio for music. I drive 8 extra miles each day to bypass the turnpike.

Re:What a bunch of whiners

[Anonymous Coward]

You obviously have the $ to spend on an internet connection and a home computer though.

Re:What a bunch of whiners

[trongey]

You obviously have the $ to spend on an internet connection and a home computer though.

At work now. K6II 333 from clearance rack parts at home. I'm much cheaper than you can imagine.

H o f

[forged]

Come on guys, let's keep posting under here. With enough time/hate/ we may just push this story in the hof list.

Advertising on the Web

[radpole]

It is free and advertiser supported or you pay for it, that's life sometimes you do both. Bought any shoes or shirts lately? You pay to advertise and we like it!

.begin rant

How do advertisers associate click thrus with whether or not an ad works or not. Its not like you see people running to the convenience store when they see a pepsi truck. (Okay maybe when some of you see a beer truck.)

I mean is there no reasearch on the subliminal effects of advertising when you are seeing it plastered in front of your eyes all day long? The stupid thing is when the banner does not show the logo or slogan. Then the person viewing the ad will never associate it what the ad is for. Just ask Nike and Tommy Hilfiger how important branding is.

Advertiser will start paying big for sights like slashdot when they realize that not being there means not being seen by ME and others like ME.

.end rant

Re:Advertising on the Web

[Anonymous Coward]

Advertisers stopped paying by click thru like 5 years ago.

It's by pageview for a long time now.

The Slashdot Zeitgeist?

[joshwa]

As another possible slashdot subscriber-only feature, how about a weekly (daily? hourly?) statistical analysis of slashdot activity, a la the Google Zeitgeist?

I'd be interested in statistics such as:

• Readers vs/ subscribers
• comment length, frequency
• trolls vs. whores
• moderation (meta/non-meta)
• topics
• Signal to Noise ratio
• browsers/platforms
• like/dislike stats
• journal stats

etc...

What do other people think?

No way :)

[motox]

Its funny the idea of asking money for what is essentially a bulletin board which most of the content is provided by their intended customers :)
Plus 5$ for 1000 views it's expensive and you dont even have porn. :)

What would have been amusing ....

[jgerman]

... is if right after the this article the very next headline was:

Slashdot starts Subscription Service

anonymous coward writes: today Slashdot announced their new subscription service .... blah blah blah

Hell it would have made me laugh, not to mention the coolness of the self-referential factor.

I like slashdot....alot....but....

[Chanc_Gorkon]

I think 20 for no ad's whatsoever is a little much. Especially since most folks who pay that seem to be the ones who actually post and stuff. I am also starting to wonder...one day I was checking out Slashdot and I saw an ad for Windows XP. Kind of funny seeing that here. Oh well.

Personally, I think VA should sell the websites to someone like.....IBM. Think about it. IBM supports Linux A LOT. IBM could setup Source Forge, Slashdot and all of VA's sites on 1 zSeries machine. The cost for IBM to run it would be minimal (in IBM's budget anyway! ;))and the sites could stay ad free (with exception of the words an IBM supported community site on every page). I think IBM likes Linux enough that I could imagine them doing just this thing. Come on IBM make VA an offer they can't refuse.

In any case, as much as I would like Slashdot to succeed, I realize (and I hope Taco and Hemos knows this as well) that this is not going to work. I will not pay right now. If the ad's get real obnoxious, I will then consider it. Knowing Slashdot's audience and favorite Distro (Debian), it seems, to me that many won't pay. They'll just leave.

Pay for the right to post anonymously

[dmorin]

Seriously, I understand why people need the right to post anonymously. But how anonymous? I've never understood why the Slashdot crew can't say "Everybody has to register, but you can choose to post anonymously." That way if you mess around, they still know who you are. Are the people who demand the right to post anonymously demanding to be anonymous just to the other readers, or to the administration as well?

If it's the former, then make it so that the only people that can post anonymously are paying customers. Sure as hell cancel out the trolls in a hurry. How many people will be willing to pay for the right to be an asshole?

Lowering the number of trolls lowers the garbage on the site. Which lowers bandwidth. Which lowers operating cost. Which lowers the number of ads that the rest of the good guys have to see.

So you end up with three categories of people : anonymous and not paying, for whom the site is read-only. Registered but not paying, who see ads, but can also post as themselves. Registered and paying, who don't see ads and can post either as themselves, or anonymously.

Re:Pay for the right to post anonymously

[groke]

one of the things that make slashdot great is that the anonymous cowards truly are anonymous. I'm not sure where I saw this (I'm sure someone less lazy than I could find it in an instant), but I'm pretty sure that the system in place doesn't record, in any way, who posted something as anonymous. This allows for people to troll, sure.. but so what? It also allows for many insightful and interesting comments that people would otherwise be afraid to post.

just my unimportant opinion, posted too late to be noticed.

Re:Pay for the right to post anonymously

[sulli]

Once you know the credit card number I suspect it's not very anonymous. If I wanted to post something very sensitive I would log out, dial up or use a proxy, and then post as AC - and this scheme would prevent that. BAD IDEA. If you don't like ACs you can always give them a -1 bonus...

Good job

[beth_linker]

It actually looks like a pretty good system, as these things go.

I particularly like the idea of paying for pages, rather than for time. If I go on vacation or just take a break from Slashdot, I'm not wasting a portion of a subscription. That's very good. Not putting an expiration date on the 1000 page views is even better. I wish my cell phone company would sell pre-paid minutes that way, instead of having them expire after 90 days.

Deciding where to spend your 1000 page views is also pretty cool. I hope that it's eventually possible to add options like "show ads if I'm refreshing a page" or "show ads on the lameness filter page" so that people who want to conserve their page views for "new" pages can do that.

I also like being able to put only a small amount of money ($5) down. I paid $30 for a Salon subscription, but probably won't renew. I paid $5 for LiveJournal with almost no hesitation because $5 is a very small amount. Deciding to spend $20 would take much longer than deciding to spend $5.

Overall, it looks cool. I hope it works out for everyone.

The people who make the site pay the most?

[Ewan]

So the people who made the site worth reading (the people who comment lots), are now going to be charged more than the people who don't give anything of value to the site?

If half of that 1.5% who will have to pay over $60 a year to access /. without reading huge ads stop posting to the site as much, then the amount of content (and thus the sites value to the more passive readers) will fall dramatically. As the number of passive readers falls, the money /. will receive from the adverts will fall, and the charges will have to go up to make up the shortfall, making the "expensive" users use the site less, making the site less popular with the passive readers, reducing the income from the adverts...

Sorry but I just don't see how charging people who are content producers as well as the heavy content consumers is going to help the site? Perhaps people should now be paid for each submission posted to the site, after all a good story will increase the views, and thus the revenues incoming to ./

Re:The people who make the site pay the most?

[awallgren]

So the people who made the site worth reading (the people who comment lots), are now going to be charged more than the people who don't give anything of value to the site?

A possible solution to that problem is to award free ad-less page views along with the karma points we get for being good citizens.

In other words, if I like what you say and mod you up, you get 10 free page views along with that karma point. If I mod you down, you lose 10 free page views (not ones you've previously paid cash for, just your 'bonus' views).

Re:The people who make the site pay the most?

[Ewan]

That's a good idea, especially the 2nd part, people wouldn't be happy losing money for posting something someone had decided was "offtopic".

No you don't have to pay...

[TechnoLust]

This is really ironic timing considering the journal I wrote yesterday called Roll your own ad remover. Everyone take a look. I don't agree with ANY subscription based site, simply because I can't afford to pay for all the sites I frequent. I already pay $45/month for high speed internet access. That really is all I can afford to spend on something that is as much entertainment as tool. I don't blame them for doing it, and I'm glad these guys can make a living doing what they enjoy, but it seems to me that /. is doing well. This is (and I'm just speculating) corporate greed, brought about by VA Whatever's desire to increase the bottom line. I doubt Taco had much of a choice. He probably had to fight to get the subscription set up in this way. I know how corporations work, and I've been the brunt of these type desicions before. I just hope /. doesn't suffer because of a management dscision. Then again, I could be wrong, it has happened on occasion. ;-)

The sad part

[Anonymous Coward]

The sad part is that slashdot is the best model as far as being inexpensive to run.

They don't have any large graphics that take up bandwidth.

They don't have to pay for their content.

A large amount of the editorial work (moderation) is done for free.

Any yet they can't survive off the banner advertisements even given that most of the banner advertisements do a pretty good job of targeting the audience.

Re:Really? Neato!

[ncr100]

Most mainstream browsers support it internally. You shouldn't have to worry about setting it up or anything.

"it" is gzip, yet another compression algorithm. It's free and easy to incorporate into a streaming network thingy like a web-browser.

Your subscription model bores me.

[AtariDatacenter]

With 1000+ comments, the chances of this being read with any attention is small. And it is likely to be redundant. But here goes.

With a Slashdot subscription, I had hoped for something a little more. In fact, something even innovative. Instead, it is asking people to pay money to keep what Slashdot is currently like. Even worse, it has metering tied to it. How many times have we seen how popular an unmetered service is, versus a metered one?

GIVE us something for our money. And if you can be a trendsetter and do something new and innovative, all the better.

Please mod parent up!!

[nicedream]

Man how I wish I had some mod points to boost your post back out of the -1 hole it's in. You're dead right about k5. A bunch of know-it-alls hiding behind the anonymity of the internet to spout their self-proclaimed righteousness.

Those pretentious pricks actually posted and voted to the front page an article about how some guy died from rocking a coke machine which then fell on him. Yeah, dumb move on his part, but the guy is frickin' dead. No need to write a story about how whooptie-do smart you are and how much of a fat fucking idiot the guy was.

Oh Crap!

[trongey]

And I had such a nice low ID number. Oh well.

Slashdot used to be really interesting and frequently educational. The last year or so have been mildly entertaining. It's just not worth it anymore.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

This I like!

[Damon C. Richardson]

Great Idea.
And they could have a big board showing how much of the money is spent on the site. Maybe get Arther Anderson to do the books.

Re:Good Riddance to the Ad companies

[1155]

Bandwidth is actually more expensive than you think. A full t1 loop can cost up to 900 dollars. With the bandwidth that slashdot pulls, I would expect that you would realize that they probably have a ds3 or the like. Those are not cheap. So hence, your bandwidth=pennies theory is disproven, and my karma will go down most likely, just because I wanted to point out the obvious.

For many years we have surfed the internet with ads. The fact that the obviously annoying one at the top is there proves that it can be eventually annoyed. Another website, www.opendiary.com went to a paid format such as slashdot is proposing, and it turned out that they had 16000 people subscribe the first week. Of course, the people who subscribed recieved no ads. It is everyones own opinion, but I would rather be bombarded with advertisements the size of Cowboy Neals resume than have to pay for something that was free at one point. Others do not, and are annoyed constantly by them. So this allows for another solution for those people. So why would anyone have a complaint after this is all resolved, except for cheapskates like myself who will not be paying, but get these larger banners.. (maybe the ones that move, I love em :)

Re:Well, as a matter of fact

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't worry, you can stay as long as you want.

Please show me my page view history

[rhburton]

Please show me my historical page viewing count so I can tell how many pages I'd like to buy based on the pattern of viewing I've built up over the years here as an early subscriber.

Thanks.

Who knew that portals were still viable?

[dave-fu]

"We're not selling content, we're selling a community." - generic dot com talking head, 1998.
OSDN doesn't care about you, they care that they can say "our community is so popular that X members were willing to pay $5 apiece to get 1000 pageviews without ads on them". Revise the demographic, revise the ad rates for the rest of the site, still charge the suckers money.
Spare me the finger-wagging about TANSTAAFL and the sanctimonious bullshit about never getting a good thing for free and tell me how much you paid for your copy of Debian which you supposedly run on your machine which is inevitably (80%+ of the time here) actually a Windows machine. You're improving the demographics of a site devoid of editorial contribution past green-lighting inflammatory subject matter and linking stale material that you can get elsewhere.

hmmmm....

[mkmiller]

I'm afraid that if I click on that paypal button, I might see a 25 page long EULA. Pay for slashdot. HA! Who gives a crap about one little ad. The ads are usually better than the discussions anyway.

BOOOOOO!!!! No way.

[yzquxnet]

per page??? sorry no. as difficult as it would be to stay away from slashdot there is no way i will pay to read slashdot. especially on a per page basis. I might be more willing for a flat rate.

For slashdot I think this will be brutal on them. I look around and see who is the typical reader. The only paying people are going to be those who are really interested in paying for things. The trolls are not going to pay. And a lot of the linux die hard won't either. A lot of them believe in free (as in beer) rather than the other way around and won't fork out.

I see an impending doom in /.'s future.

Doh!

[toupsie]

piracy killing companies

Doh! Freudian slip. Meant "privacy killing companies"

Support /. -- buy LARGE ADS impressions

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll buy 50.000 impressions of the GOAT MAN

Don't use gold stars...

[flogger]

For heavens sake, the gold stars idea is wrong. It gives the non-subscribing public some false idea that the "Gold-Star Person" is valuable and worthy. Bah. Because I pay $5 doesn;t make me any better than anyone else. (Hell, there have been a lot of great comments that would say by giving $5 I am worse.) Instead, Give a little Green Dollar Sign $ in front of the person's name. Then everyone will know what the person really did.
I wonder how many $ Anonymous Cowards we will see.

It doesn't matter what you do.

[3ryon]

I have thought for a long while that I would love to directly support /. I am not at all shy of putting my money where my mouth is, however I'm conflicted about their proposal.

It seems to me that the $5/1,000 ads is basically just enough to cover the lost ad expense. So, it seems like /. makes the same amount of money whether I contribute or not. The only difference is whether I see the ads?

Ironically, I would pay to support Slashdot, but I am not sure that I'll pay to avoid seeing the ads.

The thing about getting rid of the ads...

[PCM2]

...is that the ads on Slashdot are actually far less intrusive than those on other sites. They don't pop up extra windows in your face, they don't play dancing Flash movies. What's more, they actually do tend to be fairly well targeted toward Slashdot's reading audience.

Thus, I find that I actually ... >gulp< ... use the ad banners on Slashdot as a resource to find out what products and services are being marketed to Slashdot's audience. Particularly I'm interested in seeing what companies see that audience as being a valuable market segment, and how they're tailoring their promotions or corporate strategies to suit that segment.

Re:The thing about getting rid of the ads...

[Luminous]

Sadly, as the initial article states, the ads are about to get much more intrusive. The odd thing is I am more inclined to click on the slashdot ads because they actually pertain to my interests. Funny how advertising works when you bother to advertise to the correct market segment.

Here's an Idea

[Anonymous Coward]

For people that post high scoring comments (for being funny, insightful, etc), they would get a free page or three added to their total ad-free page counter. It would give people a good reason to write quality posts...

Re:Please remove all my comments. Now.

[Anonymous Coward]

Tell me..

Do you think things through this much in other parts of you life? I hope not.

selling karma. Re:Here's an idea

[leuk_he]

that right , sell karma.

High id, karma = 50. any bids?

but then remember, karma is just a number.

Ad Filters not necessarily for cheapskates

[Hoi Polloi]

Actually I'd use an ad filter to avoid bogging down my pokey 56k modem connection with bloated ad graphics. It comes as no surprise that ads are passed first by websites so either you have to download a mess of graphics for casinos, booze, "nekked teenz", etc or the ad server is struggling and holding up the web page you are trying to view.

slashdotted already...

[ryepup]

So here's some karma whoring:
Slashdot Subscription Plan

>EASY $$$!
>Use the World Wide Web AND Internet E-Mail to make $75,000 per hour!!!!!
>
>Just send $5 to everyone on this list via PayPal,
>then remove the top email, put your email on the bottom,
>and post it on slahsdot!
>
>You too can be an Internet Millionare!
>Here's your lucky list!
>
>1. CmdrTaco@slashdot.org
>2 .CowboyNeal@slashdot.org
>3. Hemos@slashdot.org
>4. micheal@slashdot.org
>5. JonKatz@slashdot.org
>

Page counter for comment browsing issues

[Jay Mirioashi]

If each page adds to the counter, then if you browse comments at a threshold of 3 or 4, every time you click to read lower rated comments associated with a particular parent, you will lose another page.

I would suggest a system where the entire text of the comments (except for those marked as troll, offtopic, or -1), perhaps xml formatted was sent to the clients computer. The client computer would then rebuild the comment tree structure locally, thus allowing the user to still browse in the typical manner, but not having to pay when they wish to read sub-comments.

Additionally, when the user clicks reload, this structure would allow a check to be made wherein the client would only need to be send the changes to the structure, rather than the entire comment tree.

I see this as an option for people that aggresively use the comment system by regularly participating in the dialogue. The default option would still be the current way.

Would the server processing to send only the changes rather than the entire comment tree for additional reloads be prohibative?

That is all.

Re:Get on the phone

[wholesomegrits]

I hope you're not trying to claim credit for this post, because I posted it. And the bullshit thing is: it is the first post to mention fuckedcompany, so it can hardly be redundant. However, it is hardly original. The writing has been on the wall for quite sometime, but now someone came along with a fatass marker and wrote "GOING OUT OF BUSINESS SALE."

Consider international users payment methods

[eyefish]

I'm and international user, and it's a HUGE pain for us for pay for anything originating in the U.S.

I'd suggest /. support either (1) some kind of direct-payment option (best option) where we simply type in our credit card number, billing info, etc, OR (2) Yahoo Wallet which is easy to create by international users.

Note that it's been almost 2 years now that nobody I know from my country has managed to get a PayPal account (they seem not to want to make money - Their application form actually rejects some countries listed in their own drop-down country-selection list!).

In the worst case, allow payments by mail (certified check cashable in U.S. dollars by Slashdot.

What about professionalism?

[Anonymous Coward]

If I pay, does that mean I have protection from having my account bitchslapped or posts modded by the editors?

Way 2 Go /.! Over $5 worth of comment posting!

[Municipa]

On this thread!

That won't work

[Lazy Jones]

People who find the ads intrusive will filter them, period. Especially the tech-savvy folks on slashdot. Those who can't, probably won't mind the ads either, since they have to watch them on other sites where there is no way to turn them off.

If you want to introduce a subscription system, offer additional features instead. But be prepared to deal with users asking for money too, when they submit stories, because capitalism works both ways.

Rebates for story submissions?

[Anonymous Coward]

If Slashdot is to begin charging based on the number of pages that readers view, shouldn't users who submit stories be compensated? A simple rebate on the user's remaining page count before advertisements should work.

It seems reasonable that if Slashdot is to make a profit based on the content (or links to other's content) that it's users who provide the content be compensated in some form. It would bring a whole new urgency to being the first person to submit a story....

Re:Rebates for story submissions?

[night_flyer]

ha, like being first means anything

slashdot.ORG ??

[juliao]

So that means you'll have to change slashdot to be slashdot.com, right?
(yes, i know you already have the domain...)

Similar to magazines?

[Dan Guisinger]

I dunno about that. I get Ziff Davis magazines for free. I just filled out a survey in hotmail the otherday and paid $6 to get 3 other magazines for a year.

Even more of a worry. 80% of the time I never go past the Slashdot front page unless I want to see peoples responses on something contraversial....

Then to add to the fact that slashdot doesn't even make its own content 99% of the time, and I see a problem. To me, this is no better than AOL charging money just to send you ads during its signin process. Why? You are charging money to send people to other people's content!

Be careful of the legal ramifications. Deep linking has been ruled to violate a sites terms, if any sites get upset that you are charging to send people to see their articles, you are toast.

Use Mozilla to avoid ads

[Anonymous Coward]

www.mozilla.org

Options inlclude disabling window popups/unders,
moving and resizing windows and status bar text
amongst others.
I'm using all those options and a proxy.
While you're at it, turn off ALL the options
(scripts, etc...) in IE because you won't be using
it anymore. Many 3rd parties use IE to deliver
crap to you.

Happy add-free browsing.

Re:capitalists

[wholesomegrits]

So at what point do we get to hear the 'PROLETARIANS OF THE WORLD UNITE'? Have you been reading a bit of this?I'm right with you on this matter.

images off, java off, java script off ???

[cdn-programmer]

If we turn off images, pop up windows, and java and java script and then run Opera so we don't need to worry about active-x, will those ads still show up? What is to stop people from running slashdot through an ad stripping proxy?

Hmmm.... why pay slashdot to remove the ads when browser controls will do the same thing?

Seriously, this is a real thorny problem and I for one take great exception to the idea that AOL/TM for instance make a HELL OF A LOT OF MONEY on the distribution of copyrighted internet content which they do not own while the owners of the content do not. Read some of my other posts on this to see how this happens.

We need an organisation put together ASAP to fight for webmaster's rights. If we fail to do this, first we will see say Slashdot form an ad free subscription site and it might work because slashdot is pretty big, next there will be a clubs of websites that join together and you've got the balkinization of the net underway.

This is NOT in anyone's interest. But to be frank IMHO it has already started with the convergance of certain media giants with content distributors such that they make money on _ALL_ content they distribute while contributing an incredibly small percentage of it.

Before I subscribe

[spun]

How much do Taco, Katz, Hemos, et. al. make per year? How much is their stock worth?

And what, pray tell, do they actually do to deserve this money?

The content on this site is provided by the READERS and the editors don't know an adverb from a participle. Any news story on this site can be had for FREE elsewhere, EARLIER! The software is open source, undoubtedly most of the people who wrote it never got payed for their efforts.

I like the comments. Many are informative. If there were some way to pay the people who actually provide me with information, I would.

If I were actually buying into a cooperative community, where I had a vote on things, could elect a board of directors, editors, etc. then I would not hesitate. Why should I pay some nerd to do a job they aren't even doing well.

Let me reiterate, it is the community here at slashdot that I appreciate. The editors have been getting more and more on my nerves for years.

I know that it takes money to provide bandwidth. If I had a say in things here, I would pay to be part of this community. But for the same amount of money, I can get a subscription to a print magazine with articles actually written by staff writers as well as pretty pictures and diagrams. Part of slashdot's appeal has always been it's amatuerishness. I think certain geeks heads have gotten too swelled to realize that this isn't a professional operation, it's not a real magazine, it's not even a real web-magazine. It's a discussion forum with links to other news sources. As such, it's not worth paying money for.

If this money went to paying for a professional editor, if some of it went to pay the people who submit stories and comments, if some of it went to pay back people who donated hardware in slashdot's infancy, then I might reconsider. Until then, this is my last post. I won't moderate, I won't metamoderate. I will read slashdot with graphics turned off (not like I'd miss an actual picture or diagram, anyway.) Goodbye, chumps. Sad to be leaving, it's been fun.

But not $5 a month worth.

If I subscribe...

[jcoleman]

...do I get my moderator privileges back? I seem to have automagically lost them after modding up "the post."

Re:If I subscribe...

[Mr.Phil]

I second the question. Removing moderator ability for simply adding an agreement or a disagreement to that post without any type of prior notice is questionable.

Sucker.

[glrotate]

you don't pay because you can't steal it or they force you

Nor should you pay out of pity, nor should you pay for something you can get for free elsewhere.

What flames, numbnut?

[Anonymous Coward]

Jeeze, posts like these make me sick. Why don't you wait and see the consensus before trying to "predict" what /. readers think. I just spent 20 mins reading the first two pages and they are overwhelmingly supportive of the idea. Try RTFPosts before karma whoring...

Damn whiners

[gdyas]

OK Slashdot Children, it's like this:

You are NOT the nexus of this site. The idea that your feelings/opinions/rants are the reason people come here is, while correct in a narrow sense, wrongheaded in scope as far as costs are concerned. You're only providing Slashdot content inasmuch as they're providing you with an opportunity to state your opinion and be part of a community, so call it even on that score. How much you decide to use that opportunity is your concern, not theirs.

But the fact that you've decided to stand on the Slashdot soapbox to state your views creates no requirement for Slashdot to give you any concern or compensation. And in a social sense, I think that just the fact that we get to put our opinions in front of 300 THOUSAND readers is benefit enough to us, no? My point: stop bitching about wanting discounts or a cut of the pie because you fscking post here. So do a few hundred thousand other people.

Slashdot content, through news events and user posts about those events, has always been free, and is going to stay free, with more (and more intrusive) ads. The tech expertise, hardware, software development, content control, and power costs have never been free. VA's been shouldering that from the get-go for ALL OF YOU. God forbid they ask you ungrateful bitches, "Please, please, let us remain solvent so we can provide you this service!?!?". How repugnant of someone to seek to cover the costs, no less get some profit, from a forum that's obviously popular as one of the widest-read tech/geek forums in the world.

Discounts for highly moderated posts? Whiny flames about how 'net ads don't work? Fsck all of you.

Sorry to pull a Johnny Cochran, but if they can't make it pay, it's gonna go away. Me, I'll be paying as soon as they get a credit card account going. If you, the internet user, want the internet to thrive you need to realize that the content you're interested in has value and is worth paying for. If you can't put up for what you want to see, then don't expect anything of value for you to look at on this fancy info superhighway thingie. Go on, be a cheapskate. Go ahead & leave it to MS, AOL & Amazon to become one big high-tech fscking mail-order catalog. For you cheap bastards out there you'll just be getting what you deserve.

Re:Damn whiners

[night_flyer]

You are NOT the nexus of this site.

who supplies the stories? who supplies the moderation? who supplies the viewership? who clicks on the banners?

yeah you are right, we have nothing to do with the site, we all come to see Zatz inane rants and fake stories about comadore computers in afganistan that were burried under chickn houses for 7 years

Suggestions that I would pay for...there cheap

[Hangtime]

* Ability to filter on comments based upon moderation...(All responses "Funny")

* Access to the reject bin

* Track specific user comments (There are a couple of people who put thought in and I would like to be able highlight there comments or have them return in my sort no matter there moderated comment value)

....More to come

Re:Suggestions that I would pay for...there cheap

[Luminous]

* Track specific user comments (There are a couple of people who put thought in and I would like to be able highlight there comments or have them return in my sort no matter there moderated comment value)

Yes, yes, oh my god yes.

Let's face it, some people here are brilliant and I would love to be able to track there comments in a simple fashion. Sort of a Personal Moderation System, so I can select those people I think are worthwhile reading and give them a bump in their score so I can find them easier.

Or something.

Re:Suggestions that I would pay for...there cheap

[J'raxis]

Hey, look. All my newest comments collected in one place. You have one, too.

I thought you had a different bussiness model

[Edmund Blackadder]

I thought you made money by selling bulk mod points to microsoft and the communication companies, who would use those points to make a bunch of 5 rated comments how slashdot is onesided, and about how microsoft is just tryingr to help the customers, and about how monopolies from the communication companies are good things since they will allow "economies of scale".

SWEET!

[Drath]

Now I can finally find somewhere to buy a security webcam.

Ha-ha!

[cavemanf16]

My how times have changed.

Granted, I wasn't reading slasdot back then, but just look at it now. Controlled by VA Linux, forced to do big annoying banner ads that none of the users want to see, and editors slamming their biggest users for using the system. *sigh* - I guess perfection will never be achieved online. So much for that dream utopia, huh Jon Katz?

I'm willing to pay even if I get banners.

[NanoGator]

Slashdot is an interesting news service, definitely one of the more interesting ones out there. I'm willing to pay $5 for 1,000 views, banners or no banners. I think the news I get out of it is worth paying that.

It's comforting knowing that they have a revenue stream to keep them alive.

I would suggest that some of you adjust your attitude a bit. If /. closes it's doors one day, you may wonder if $5 was too much to spend on it.

IT's Becoming a Monopoly!!

[Ghengis]

Quick, Split them UP!!!!!

Re:Does this change the viewer demographic for ads

[coupland]

Interesting idea, but I think it would work the reverse of how you suggest. Have you ever, in your life bought anything from a banner ad? I think most seasoned web surfers are so jaded that they don't even see banner ads anymore. Hence the people who pay to remove the ads are likely the people on whom banner ads are already ineffective.

Meanwhile the monkey punchers will keep on being baffled by how their bank account continues to dwindle and wireless webcams keep appearing by FedEx...

kinda like prepaid micropayments...

[vtaluskie]

I would encourage people to give the guys running the site a bit of support instead of incessant whining and complaining. Go ahead and throw your $5 vote into the system and keep your perspective - we're talking $5 afterall, Christ!

People have been pointing out that we need a good micropayment system to fund the quality web sites out there. Well, I think the slashdot folks have done good analysis of their userbase and come up with an innovative system to fund the site - 1/2 penny a page - that sounds fine with me.

It also sounds like the Slashdot folks are open to updating the system as we get more time using it - it would seem to be a good idea to use the system as a way to reward content providers and folks who keep the discussion interesting. Finally perhaps, something you can do with your Karma: use it to continue to view the site ad-free and at no cost to you.

Looks folks, slashdot has almost always got interesting content and discussion - even if we do have to wade through a fair of drivel at times. I for one, am voting with my wallet for a site that provides me with many hours of entertainment and diversion if nothing else :)

Good work guys,

Vince

Re:kinda like prepaid micropayments...

[NerveGas]

We're only talking about $5, huh? Yeah. $5 to this site. $5 to another. $10 to another, $3 to another, ad infinitum.

I'm not going to pay every site that I go to. I don't want the total cost, the hastle of paying a hundred people, and I don't like the idea.

So you realize that I'm not being a hypocrite, Besides the web site that I work for as a day job, I run a couple of sites on the side that make money. Even the ones with quite a bit of good, quality content don't charge the end-users any amount of money, and certainly not for subscriptions. That's just not how I want the net to work.

steve

Re:kinda like prepaid micropayments...

[vtaluskie]

The web is changing - the kind of support advertising used to bring in is not cutting it for more and more websites out there as they go under or transition to annoy-vertising type ads.

The number of websites that you or I might be willing to pay for will be self-limiting - and as more sites make the transition we might see them organize content channels to make subscription more universal and convenient - if one thing is true I think is that the web economy wants to make it as easy as possible for you to pay :). Slashdot is the one of the few that I personally am willing to pay for...

While I'm glad to hear that your websites do not need it I think the commercial reality is that larger, more sophisticated websites are going to need to do something different to make themselves financially viable. At least in slashdot's plan, payment is optional - it's not like they are making it subscription only.

I hope more folks are willing to give the subscription system a try to get their daily nerd-fix with fewer ads and show the market that website users are willing to support *good* content.

Afterall it's only $5 to get things started - i'll decide when my 1000 pages run out if it's worth renewing - perhaps by then Slashdot's staff will have figured out some additional incentives to reward contributors to the site...

Vince

Re:I'll do like you, sort of

[Triv]

I think you're exaggerating a bit.

If you do the math, that means you'd reload slashdot every 57.6 seconds in a 16 hour concious day to use up 1000 reloads. Maybe you're on the extreme fringe, but I reload every 30 minutes for the 8 1/2 hours I'm at work. That comes to 51 loads per day assuming I load 3 pages per view.

Besides, I don't think there's anything wrong with compensating someone for a provided service. I visit /. more than any other site so I think it's fair - you wouldn't catch me spending money on CNN or NYTimes, but here, I've got no problem with it.

Triv

Number 13?

[Christopher Bibbs]

So who's the guy between us?

Re:Number 13?

[RAD Kade 1]

technoir.. he used to (still does?) work for themes.org, and created a popular E theme for DR14 or 15 or so.

Re:Number 13?

[DeadBeef]

I'd like to add that I'm on top.

Looking at the usernames of people with 50 UID's yields alot of people of repute ( and some complete nobodies like myself. ).

Become immune

[Anonymous Coward]

I have become immune to ads. I think its a reflex my brain developed from an early age from sitting in front of the TV. I tune out ads when they are on TV and don't even notice pop up ads on the net. I guess this is why the pop up doesn't work and Slashdot like other sites has to charge.

Here's a source of revenue...

[dstone]

See if you can get the Freest Poosters to pay for THAT privelege!

Subscription alternatives - add your ideas here

[Lazy Jones]

(non-serious):

• Blackmail web sites ("pay us $$$ or else we'll slashdot you")
• geek pr0n downloads (yuck)
• karma auctions
• theslashdothungersite.com

serious:

• ask linked commercial sites to pay per click, otherwise don't link (just post the URL without linking it)
• hire a professional editor and offer the moderation points given by him as a subscription service (much more reliable than moderation done by users)

So let me play Devil's Advocate...

[jgerman]

... or maybe I'm playing the Devil, but check out my reasoning:

Slashdot is soem very large percent users. Basically we use the tool (/.) over the web to create content. Wow, isn't this an ASP subscription based application thingamajig. You know the concept that get's booed into oblivion every time it's mentioned.

I would pay for NNTP access.

[Jens]

Slashdotters,

I would pay for NNTP access. Gate the stories and submissions
into a NNTP server. Post comments as threads. Gate postings
via NNTP into the weblog.

NNTP is capable of using login and password validation schemes
and is much easier, more efficient (saving bandwitdth)
than using the Web. Plus, setting up mirror sites is a snap.

I would pay for NNTP access. And don't be afraid of people re-gating stuff,
because they could just as well publish their Web login passwords,
and there aren't many people doing that, are there?

(I've heard freshmeat does it as well ...)

Re:I would pay for NNTP access.

[hymie3]

Wow, what an awesome idea! I read the payola description and thought "man, this sucks, now i'm gonna have to tweak my filter again".

I would *love* to have slashdot as a newsfeed. I think paying to not see ads is a bunk idea; being able to read slashdot via trn is something I'd pay for.

At the cost of being modded as a troll...

[Anonymous Coward]

> The large ads that you see on many other sites are
> coming here. We really don't have an option:
> these are what advertisers want, and if we don't provide
> them, we won't be around much longer

This is plain BS. Nobody forces you to show bigger ads, just admit that they pay more.
I've never blocked Slashdot ads before, like I do with all *.doubleclick.* trash, and often I clicked them and checked the products (some of those were really interesting to me) because I believe in that correct and fair model of making money without annoying people.
Sadly, now things are changing in a worse way, and I'll be forced to block ALL Slashdot ads.
Feel free to say that I hate Slashdot; I know that's not true, you know that too, and we all know that it's Slashdot changing worse, not its users.

Bye bye Slashdot. You were a good friend for a long time.

Ok, now someone post links of some really free geek information sites.

Uhh Oh.. I'm Already at 21 PageViews

[Str8Dog]

I can't read anymore today as I am about to read my 25 refresh limit. Damn guess I'll have to read ShugaShack the rest of the day.

How telling.

[Timmeh]

It's really sad that an article about the SSSCA, something EVERYONE should be enraged about barely nets over 500 comments, while an article about an entirely optional ad-free service for /. gets almost 1500 comments, mostly flames.

The math

[killosdnbar]

How does this work out? Let's say a page is 100K. 30M pages/month makes 3GB/month. To be safe, let's multiply that by (like this matters) 10 to account for e-mails and such. So 30G/mo. Looking at OSDN advert pricing, banner ads (the one at the top) is at least $40/thousand impressions. So 30M pages / 1000 pages * $40 = $1.2 million per month. Has bandwidth really become THAT expensive that a million bucks can't buy 30GB? To my knowledge, that kind of bandwidth only costs about a thousand. At least at http://pair.com they aren't charging a million bucks a month.

Re:The math

[Lazy Jones]

You forget that the company that bought Slashdot wants to earn interest on that investment.

Re:Does this change the viewer demographic for ads

[SilentChris]

Not to mention the fact that subscribers are generally going to be the ones who post the most, provide interesting comments and provide the content for Slashdot. The demographic is going to swing. Advertisers are going to have to go after trolls and lurkers, not real tech geeks.

Wow...

[Shaper of Myths]

I didn't think Denis Leary had a Slashdot account...

Scoop engine

[theantix]

You are right, K5 is not a good replacement for slashdot. K5 is great, much better slashdot IMO. But it isn't a slashdot replacement. It serves a different purpose than slashdot, and so some people will prefer one, others will prefer other things.

But the scoop engine is great at what Skim123 is talking about: the users select the stories, and the moderation system is superior to slashdot. So instead of going to kuro5hin where you don't like the split technology/culture articles, create a slashdot clone from the scoop code.

Scoop is a wonderful engine, and quite easy to administer. You could easily have a slashdot lookalike up and running in days. And I have heard that the server requirements for scoop are lower than slash for a low-end machine -- but don't quote me on that one.

put slashdot on freenet (or somethin like that)

[Anonymous Coward]

Is the technology good enough to make slashdot into a freesite? That would be a boost to freenet, and the /. 'leaders' would not have to pay much for hosting...

If freenet is not good enough yet, maybe some people (not me I'm lazy) could code a P2P slashdot software... seems like a really good idea.

bandwidth

[CoreyG]

Wouldn't your bandwidth bills increase by having to serve ads from your own servers? Unless you're telling me that ads pay for their own bandwidth plus that of the content...

so what again is the point?

[*weasel]

/. without ads doesn't help me.

/. is a collection of links to stories on -other- websites who -will- have ads.

i don't read /. for it's own content. i visit it because it's a convenient dumping ground for links to many things i find interesting.

the forums? hah! those are mind-numbing.

if the ads were intrusive (the page-top banner is thoroughly tuned out on just about every site) then i'd just stop visiting.

try a different model.
subscription didn't work for PCXL and it -had- redeeming self-generated content.

The Emperors New Clothes

[nullrun]

I cannot believe slashdot readers are so ignorant as to believe this facist B.S. Otherwise sane observant individuals are suckered into buying into this "ohh..we MUST start subscriptions or shutdown cuz its soooo....expensive to operate.." nonsense, at the thought of loosing your precious slashdot.

Didn't you all come here in the first place because it was a place to escape the lies and propagana of a market driven capitalist society bent on selling their collective souls to corporate america on the off chance of belonging to...something? WTF? I put up my first web page with a webtv unit I bought from a neighbor for $25. It was a free site at geocities. It didn't cost me a dime. Even though I have built over 100 websites since then, it is still up. It has never had more than 1 small banner ad. It has actually generated a profit of over a thousand dollars in three years. The maintainance is ZERO.

"Everyone knows that the dice are loaded..." Everybody here knows if they wanted to they could do this for almost nothing. Hardware? My father gave me his old gateway 2000 5 years ago, and I use it as a server now. It runs a site that gets 4000 - 5000 hits a day, on 128 megs of ram and a 75 mhz overdriven 486! Its seven years old and doesn't show any signs of stopping. Don't whine to me about hardware. I just built a rocketship with dual 1 gigs and 3 gigs of ram for $800. Hardware? Sure pal, and don't even think of mentioning the cost of software, with Linux and Open Source around...

Blow me, you cheap facist whiners. You just want us to hold down full time jobs and pay you so you don't have to do anything but sit on you big fat buts and hand out mod points. I work full time, 6 days a week, 12 hours a day. When a days work is finished I answer 20 or so e-mails, return at least 10 phone calls, work on at least two other sites, administer 21 different websites that get a total of 450,000 hits a day, help moderate a newsgroup, and write a column. I do all this on 1 new computer and an old gateway. I haven't spent more than $2000 on all of this in my entire lifetime, and I am usually on the internet using a dial-up modem. I do all this because I love to. Not to make a profit. I work at a real job to pay the rent. Any one can make excuses. The bottom line is you brought together a community of people who thought you were different. You have betrayed us. You are selling out. It is a sad day in /land. I, however, will not follow you to hell. You are on you own. You have taken a bit from the forbidden fruit, and you like the taste. Hope you enjoy the meal. And the COMPANY.

As for the readers, Remember who you are, and what's important. Slashdot is just a website. We can find another. I know it is a hard process. Like looking for a new job. Only worse. But at least you get to keep your soul.

ads

[sewagemaster]

1) you can update your /etc/hosts (c:\windows\hosts)
but if slashdot's using the same server that its using now to serve
ads, this doesnt help :(

2) maybe somebody can register freeslashdot.org where its only sole purpose is to parse thru the html and remove anything with slashdot/ad/whatever? but i guess
there's something called junkbuster that does this by slowing down everyone's machines...

maybe i'll just pay $5 bucks. it isnt that expensive. i wonder if each reload counts as a page view...

Costs vs value

[minyard]

Re: discussion that the users who use most bring the most "value" would have a higher (optional) fee. But the cost isn't the value (the comments/community), but rather the operational costs (bandwith, machines, salaries, organizational overhead, etc). The value justifies the cost, and the cost enables the value.

The point of this message: Whatever money they charge is for these costs. The users who bring the most value also consume the most resources. They also probably receive the most value due to their high-level of participation. Considering these users potentially have the most to lose should something happen to slashdot, they naturally have the most to gain (or rather maintain since they already have it) buy sustaining the cost of that value.

Re:hypocrites...

[waldoj]

Non-profit organizations get plenty of donations.

Ummm...no they don't. I have two. Work with me on this.

Not merely a troll, but a stupid one! Such a rare combination.

-Waldo Jaquith

LOL, Paypal?

[G00F]

I'm sorry, but if you haven't read a lot that goes on, but paypal is not a good way to do things, and many of us will not use such a service.

Purhaps /. should have talked more fully on this subject.

Why couldn't you set up encrypted pages to allow a direct pay with the cc?

Also, might want ot think of things that are vaule added that would be worth buying.

Like good fast encrypted web email with more than 10 megs of space.

A vote for new features.

Browse /. encrypted

Better chance of getting stories on front page

etc

I will pay if all my stories were posted ;)

[antdude]

[grin] :)

Remove karma cap

[Anonymous Coward]

No karma cap for users who pay the subscription... how about that?

Re:Remove karma cap

[Anonymous Coward]

When I first glanced at your subject line I thought it read "Remove Karma crap". That would have been a better idea. Level the playing field and let the readers do their own personal moderation. They don't need a babysitter.

Easy...

[Anonymous Coward]

Just buy a larger monitor...

You're Charging the Wrong People

[John Murdoch]

The rates are currently set at $5 per 1000 pages. To put this into perspective, $20 (typical magazine subscription) will be enough pages for 82% of our readers to view Slashdot without ads for a year. Another 15% will need to spend $5 a month to accomplish the same thing. 3% of our readers would need to spend more than $5 a month- but they could choose to see ads on comments and in almost every case, still pay around $5 a month. (As an aside, it's also worth noting that more than half of all comment posters fall into this 3%) {Emphasis mine]

Other people have faced this problem
Before the advent of the World Wide Web, everybody who was anybody in the computer world was on CompuServe. And each CompuServe forum competed for members (and the connection time revenue that the member paid) based on the help, support, community, files, or messaging that it provided. It was--explicitly--pay-for-content. It was precisely the business model that you guys want to adopt.

Savvy forum operators knew the statistics: only 5% of forum members ever posted a comment. And roughly 1% of forum members posted 90% of the comments. The more commments (particularly the more substantive comments), the more forum members there were--95% of whom were "read-only" lurkers. Thus, it paid to encourage people to post comments.

This policy discourages people from posting comments
Think of what you have to do to post a comment:

• Link to the "Post Comment" page (1 hit)
• Click on the Preview button to check formatting (1 hit)
• Submit the page (1 hit)

Are you done? Nope. You'd better hope your comment doesn't get mod'd up--because you'll get "messages" telling you that. Link to that page? (1 hit). You'd better hope you haven't contributed something provocative that produces replies--because you'll have to read each reply (1 hit apiece), and possibly post a response (3 hits per response, see above).

In short, contributing to SlashDot, writing interesting comments, getting mod'd up, and responding to replies now will cost you money. That is, all the things that you (SlashDot) want people to do (desperately need people to do) you are going to charge money for. You're creating disincentives to provide you with content--and that content is what you're trying to sell to subscribers.

What smart forum operators did was to issue "free flags". Each forum contractor got a certain amount of free forum time to award to forum users who helped out in one way or another. There were sysop accounts for people who did administrative things--but there were a lot more free flags for regular forum members who just participated in a lot of conversations. It would make a *lot* of sense for you to do the same thing.

In the ultimate geek world you'd be able to automate a process to identify people making significant contributions. That's what moderation is, after all. But automated processes can be manipulated (i.e. karma whoring)--this probably requires some individual discretion. Identify significant contributors (you can start with high-karma users, but I'm sure you can identify other factors to consider) and grant them free access. You want them posting comments all the time--those are the people whose peers have voted to indicate that their voices should be heard. The very last thing you want to do is get those people contributing less, because each contribution now costs them at least 3 page hits.

Oh, yeah--Paypal?
Be serious. If OSDN and VA Software is on such shaky ground that you can't get a merchant account through CyberCash or someone else, you have serious problems.

Re:You're Charging the Wrong People

[jamie]

Think of what you have to do to post a comment:

• Link to the "Post Comment" page (1 hit)
• Click on the Preview button to check formatting (1 hit)
• Submit the page (1 hit)

Are you done? Nope. You'd better hope your comment doesn't get mod'd up--because you'll get "messages" telling you that. Link to that page? (1 hit). You'd better hope you haven't contributed something provocative that produces replies--because you'll have to read each reply (1 hit apiece), and possibly post a response (3 hits per response, see above).

Nope -- by default, everything you just described costs you nothing.

Your default configuration leaves ads on comments.pl pages (reading and writing) which is a minor annoyance but doesn't use up any of the pages you've paid for. And the messages.pl click is free too (as well as adless).

See, we've thought of these things :)

Of course, if you really need to see comments.pl pages ad-free, and are willing to pay a penny to post, you can just set that preference by clicking the "subscribe" link. Up to you.

Re:You're Charging the Wrong People

[John Murdoch]

Nope -- by default, everything you just described costs you nothing.

Your default configuration leaves ads on comments.pl pages (reading and writing) which is a minor annoyance but doesn't use up any of the pages you've paid for. And the messages.pl click is free too (as well as adless).

See, we've thought of these things :)

Hi Jamie!

With respect--perhaps you haven't thought quite hard enough. You have clearly done enough evaluation of who your "subscribers" are to know that less than 3% of your members post comments. And, as the system stands at present, those people are the ones who would pay the most. But--those are the people who are contributing the content that SlashDot is selling to the other 97%.

Some CompuServe forums had trolls (RELIGION was notorious, and POLITICS wasn't far behind). But vendor forums (I was a VENTURA, COREL, and MSBASIC sysop) were generally very professional, and subject forums (DTPFORUM, CONSULT) had an extremely high signal-to-noise ratio as well. Two reasons why were a) we were paying money (who'd pay money to be a troll?); and b) there was no anonymity--you posted under your real name, not using a handle. (Any experienced CompuServe user could even tell what local POP you used to connect to the network.)

There's another dimension to this:
It is relatively easy to explain a flat rate pricing scheme to a bank. We're charging $N per month, or $(10 * N) per year. It is substantially more difficult to explain a pricing scheme of $P per thousand page hits. It will a customer service nightmare to bill people per thousand page hits. If you use a positive option system (where you send the subscriber an email or redirect to a web page saying, "sorry! you must re-up for another five clams to see this page") you're going to get into protracted fights with a bunch of subscribers who do read their machine logs. And sure as shootin' somebody is going to start yelling that you're hitting him for another five bucks when he's only had 950 page hits, and he's going to repudiate the charge, and he's going to do this and that and you're ugly and a censor and probably a registered Democrat to boot. It's a customer service fight you don't want to pick.

On the other hand, if you use a negative option subscription system (we keep charging your credit card five bucks until you tell us to stop) you are going to face real problems getting a bank to take you on. Visa and MasterCard both are telling merchants with a repudiation rate higher than 2% that they have a short time to clean up their acts or they lose merchant privileges. They do not like negative option subscriptions. Customers do not like them either. Especially when the customer has no way to predict when he will be charged.

Occam's Razor, right?
The simplest solution is most likely the best one: Charge a flat monthly fee. Say $4.95. Charge 10 times that for an annual subscription: $49.50.

Given the stats of Salon, the Motley Fool, and others, roughly 20% of your members will sign up--at best. With 300,000 members, that means 60,000 will sign up. 3% of those post comments--that's 1800 users. You'll find that 30% of those (or about 1% of your total subscriber base) post 80%-90% of your comments. Every quarter, produce a list of the roughly 500 people who fit that profile. Look at their comments, look at their moderation points, and make some choices. Flamers and trolls automatically don't make the list. People who write (and spell) like adults do. Bonus points for insight--negative points for me-too karma whores. You'll end up with 200 or 300 names of people who consistently generate a lot of the signal strength on SlashDot. They're your contributors--they're the people who provide the product that you're selling to everybody else.

Don't just "free flag" them.
When I was a sysop on the VENTURA forum on CompuServe, disaster struck. Xerox sold Ventura Publisher--and our forum contract--to Corel. And Corel made it plain that they intended to fold the VENTURA forum into COREL, and they had no place for the (all-volunteer) VENTURA forum sysop staff on COREL. Some wise (and wizened) people managed to persuade Corel that the VENTURA forum staff was a serious asset--perhaps the best asset that the software package had. Corel did something funny: they not only kept the forum alive (although we had an alias of CORELB, which we hated)--they also decided to pay attention to us in a way that Xerox never had. I have Corel Draw! rugby shirts and Corel Draw! backpacks and Corel Draw! clip art CDs and all sorts of Corel doodads and knicknacks--six years later my kids still haven't destroyed them all. When other vendors approached Corel to test for inoperability with their products, they automatically signed us up as beta testers--so I was on the Adobe Acrobat beta, the Exchange beta, and the Distiller beta. I made a lot of contacts with potential clients for imagesetter control software through Corel. They worked hard to keep the volunteers happy, and feel a part of the team, because they viewed our contribution as being particularly significant.

And our contribution was significant. The Ventura Publisher code base had all kinds of trouble, and the customer base was disintegrating as we watched. But we helped maintain the user base for several years as Corel tried desperately to salvage the product--and several members of that forum staff are still active on Corel's newsgroup site. We had a reputation for being excrutiatingly correct in our spelling, and ruthless in our punctuation (hey--we were a bunch of typesetters) but we were the place to come for help.

You should do the same thing. Identify your core contributors, and woo them. Free flag them on the site. Send 'em "I Got Root at SlashDot" t-shirts each quarter--and change the colors each quarter to develop a little bit of incentive to keep contributing. Invite them to a "Free as in Beer" private party at Linux World. Send 'em an email once a month with heads-up information on what's happening inside the ivy-covered walls of the OSDN campus. Make 'em feel like part of the team. (Roblimo's been around--he knows how this works.)

Can you do this? Yup. Can you afford it? Sure--you can pay for the entire program with the money you save from canning Jon Katz. 8-)

Re:You're Charging the Wrong People

[jamie]

"If you use a positive option system (where you send the subscriber an email or redirect to a web page saying, 'sorry! you must re-up for another five clams to see this page')...

"On the other hand, if you use a negative option subscription system (we keep charging your credit card five bucks until you tell us to stop)..."

There's an excluded middle you're ignoring -- we don't do either of those things. Our subscription system only affects whether you see ads on the page, we don't block you from reading or writing anything. And these subscriptions are one-time deals.

Your advice on wooing contributors is appreciated... as Rob said, we're mulling over future features, and who knows, maybe a T-shirt will qualify as a feature. Which would be fine with me... less programming...

Seems simple -- Don't charge those who post

[mactari]

> (As an aside, it's also worth noting that more than
> half of all comment posters fall into this 3%)

Stop and think about that, fellow posters. That means comment posters comprise *less than 6%* of slashdot viewers [according to some means of measurement].

What are those other 19 outta 20 people doing? Just reading the articles and surfing to the links? Are they bothering with comments? If so, why are they so interested in reading things but not saying anything?

Seems like you could charge the silent majority, if they're truly surfing the site for content and not merely curious homepage clickers that don't care enough to pay, and still make plenty without bothering to levvy a fee on the people who make the content come proverbially alive.

make me laugh

[maxpublic]

Nobody with an ounce of sense would rely on a forum like Slashdot - mainly a place for people to bitch about their favorite hot buttons - to be a solid source for news. Hell, the editors can't even spell a great deal of the time, much less recognize proper grammar; hardly the recommendation for any sort of serious news provider. And how many times has slashdot been completely fucked on little things like facts and details?

That said, the fact that Slashdot pretty much just repackages the efforts of other sites when it comes to news means that the $20/year they're thinking about isn't to cover journalistic efforts (there being no such thing) but to allow people to rant on their favorite forum sans ads. That's all it is.

Will it work? I doubt it. As you said, this sort of business model just doesn't cut it on the internet. But hey, if that's what someone wants to do then more power to them. If my refusal to subscribe means that Slashdot goes under or I get booted, well, them's the breaks. I like Slashdot, but not enough to put money down on this horse.

Max

Re:Really? Neato!

[jonabbey]

I'm not _worried_ about it, I just want to know how pervasive its use is.

And yeah, I know what gzip is. I just wasn't aware that some (many?) web servers were autonegotiating its use behind the scenes.

If you don't want to pay then don't

[gelfling]

But pleeeez shut the fuck up.

Microsoft Censors /.

[ONOIML8]

This is evidence to me that the following is possible:

Imagine a BOD meeting (21st century style with bottled water, not in a smoke filled room). In this BOD meeting sit those who own, and those in control of slashdot.

"Rob, you've got to change the script to remove any anti-microsoft content as it as posting. And the goat.cx stuff has got to go too"

"Uh, yeah. Well, um.....but slashdot is about freedom of speech, power to the people, communication of the masses"

"Sorry Rob, I know how you feel. But Microsoft is buying a lot of advertising with us lately and, quite frankly, they spend enough here to have earned our respect"

"But what about our subscriber base?"

"Look at the numbers guys. Subscriber revenue is one millionth of what advertiser revenue is. And Microsoft is now paying eighty percent of that advertiser revenue. And all that revenue is what's keeping your new bride living in luxury"

"It doesn't make it RIGHT"

"But it's what they want. And if they don't get what they want then they are pulling their account with us. We'll all be looking for jobs and the dot com thing is over. Your next job will consist of asking the customer if they want fries with their lunch"

"Oh. Well, um......will this afternoon be soon enough for those script changes then?"

What's wrong with ads?

[sunset]

Seems to me that /. is missing the boat here. There is such a thing as advertising that readers want to see.

I remember when PC Magazine first came out (in the 80's), it was mostly advertising and that was its primary value. Everyone wanted to know all about the latest hardware and software that you could add on to your PC, and the respective vendors were best qualified to talk about them.

I think the main reason most people despise today's web advertising is that it sucks. It's all about making an impression, and contains little interesting content. These "in your face" ads are also created with the assumption that you really don't want to see them, so they have to force you to look.

This, and Slashdot's new approach, are all horribly misguided. What /. needs to do is play a major role in the production, appearance and categorization of the ads. Make them a resource, not a nuisance. Make them informative, browseable and searchable. Reject products with no real value.

Slashdot should raise the bar for web advertising, not wallow in the mud of its current state.

Re:What's wrong with ads?

[talks_to_birds]

"..There is such a thing as advertising that readers want to see..."

Christ!

Speak for yourself!

What we're gonna get here are those same enormous f*cking Oracle "Unbreakable" ads that are all over the place right now, plus whatever other stupid crap the advertising "industry" wants to dream up.

Who the fsck wants to look at that crap even once, let alone over and over and over and over and...

As someone already said, Lynx is gonna be the *only* way to go -- until Taco decides to block Lynx by forbiding that user agent string...

And when that happens, it's goodby for good.

t_t_b

ps: wonder what I can get for a 4-digit user ID on EBay these days?

I'm NOT SMALL!

[jonr]

I'm insulted!

solution to ads

[Lord Omlette]

Lynx! The stories are important for two things: Links to the sites that CmdrTaco commands we destroy, and the comments of the community. Lynx can handle links, and the comments are made of text. Lynx is a text only browser. Done!

I'd feel better about it...

[Eric Damron]

if you would donate a small percentage of the income that subscriptions generate to the EFF.

It seems we all want to keep our rights but no one is willing to spend a dime to do so.

Uh huh.

[Anonymous Coward]

I refuse to believe that Slashdot needs to be expensive to run. I don't doubt that this is directly related to that Andover/OSDN "we need an army of paid employees" crap.

Presumably the hardware is already paid for. Articles are user submitted, so the time spent approving them should be minimal, and in any case should be donated. Bandwidth is the only real cost, and, well, you DO have ads. I refuse to believe that your raw bandwidth costs are greater than your ad revenues, unless you're massively overpaying for bandwidth, as some are wont to do. Oh, and to learn how to increase ad revenues without pissing people off, visit Google once or twice. Do smart correlation of the articles people click on and read, and target based on that and keywords in the article, etc., etc. The big money is in TARGETING, not in spraying bigger and bigger ads across peoples' screens. (Unless your major advertisers are car manufacturers, but, well, they're not.)

I don't think of Slashdot as a business, and you shouldn't either. It's a community resource. If you don't want to donate your time, someone else will.

Oh, and I filter the ads out anyway. I know the issues with this, but since it's just a checkbox option in my browser, I feel compelled to check it. There are a number of sites that I want to specifically decline ad revenue to, and Slashdot isn't one of them, but that's the way it goes. Also, in the case of Slashdot, I think that my payment is being part of the community and posting comments.

What we really need to solve this problem is something along the lines of freenet so that bandwidth costs disappear, and are borne by the people who view the content. If it could have something like distributed MySQL, perl, PHP, etc., that would be way cool AND solve all the world's problems. :)

Distributed Webserving?

[ONOIML8]

If it's so expensive to serve up /. then why not come up with a program of distributed webserving. I'm thinking about some way of serving up a /. like content which is distributed on among the systems of the various posters.

In other words, each poster would post his/her own comment/content on their own http or ftp server. Then some master system or systems would simply redirect you to it.

I don't know, just talking out my ass here and tossing ideas. But I for one am sick and tired of hearing all the excuses for why the internet must be commercial and that the only way it can be commercial is to pay for content or see advertising. There has to be a more simple way.

Adshield.org, baby

[Anonymous Coward]

I get a subscription free with Adshield. No pesky ads. Haven't seen that damn X10 cam ad for months.

Pay per View

[Anonymous Coward]

RIP

I already pay to access /.

[ONOIML8]

I already have to pay for an internet connection, why should I also have to pay not to see things?

My ISP and the telco are already charging me for to get the bits and bytes into my computer. Sites, like /. decide to put up ads and so I'm already paying for that to come down the pipe and into my computer.

Now you want me to pay further NOT to have that stuffed into the mix?

Something is VERY, VERY wrong with that!

Re:I already pay to access /.

[Lazy Jones]

Something is VERY, VERY wrong with that!

Yeah, right. Kindly ask your ISP to give some of that money to the sites he allegedly charges you for.

Re:I already pay to access /.

[ONOIML8]

"Yeah, right. Kindly ask your ISP to give some of that money to the sites he allegedly charges you for"

You missed the point.

As a non-commercial account I pay my ISP and the telco to be able to access the internet and the content that is on the net. I pay for the access. I am charged for the bandwidth that my viewing uses. As a non-commercial account I can also host my own content, but I am only allowed to provide a limited amount of content and anyone who views it is using my bandwidth so I can only have so much traffic.

If I wanted to do something big, like /., then I would have to pay thier commercial rates. Those rates are quite a bit more but are based upon the same formula (paying for the amount of traffic).

As a non-commercial account it is important that I limit my traffic. The more crap I pull thru the pipe, the bigger the pipe my ISP has to have, driving costs up which means they have to charge me more for being such a bandwidth pig.

Which is fine.

I want to view /. I like the content. But Jesus H Christ on a friggin pony, if I'm gonna open and download a page full of goddam X10 ads with every story on /. I can't afford that. And it's a waste because all that data is transported to me just so I can close the window without ever looking at it.

In any case, I'm paying for the bandwidth I use. It isn't right that someone then thinks they have the right to tuck extra crap in there....or give me the option of paying them to not stuff it in there.

It's like me buying gas for my car and Tom Jones telling me he's gonna ride along with me and sing. Or I can pay him to stay home and I wont have to listen to him sing. Who the hell invited him to the party anyway? Sorry but I bought the gas, get the hell out of my car.

My internet connection should be the same way.

It's bad enough I have to accept the ads. Now it seems like extortion.

Re:I already pay to access /.

[Lazy Jones]

You missed the point - you pay for the access, but you don't pay for the content. You can use up all the bandwith you want, your ISP will see to that, but please don't tell content providers that you don't want to pay for their content because you already pay for the traffic. That has nothing to do with it.

Wow!

[42forty-two42]

This is close to making it to the Hall Of Fame!

Karma lets us frag our stress away

[Anonymous Bullard]

How's this: each point of karma earned (or whored, where's the distinction) allows the poster to "kill" (with sound and explosion effects please) upto 50 (!!) humongous animated ad banners.

Satisfaction guaranteed all around. The ad pushers finally find their ads getting personal and undivided attention while the posters can relieve their AC-induced frustrations onsite without ever having to leave for a quick fragging mission in Quake.

It shouldn't take long to merge the slashcode with Quake engine. Of course a newsreader, mailer and activeX support should be added soon afterwards to remain compatible with other relevant technologies...

Patent laws will be pending after this concoction has been properly trademarked for development.

hypocrits

[Anonymous Coward]

Guess even slashdot has to face economic realities and can't thumb their noses at sites that use banners, popups, etc. and companies that try to make a (GASP) P-R-O-F-I-T.......

You're such hypocrits.

Game Over

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot is community based round stories from other news sources (e.g. Newsforge, CodingStyle, TheRegister, NYT, New Scientist etc) + user comments.
If you are going to charge users for reading stories, you are going to get fewer comments.

This dilutes Slashdot so you get fewer users. After a few iterations of this process Slashdot will only be a fond memory.

Junkbuster may prolong it's demise for a while, but now that CmdTaco has bent over for the suits I guess it's time to look around for a replacement.

It's been fun, but once Hemos et.al sold out it was only a matter of time until this happend.

Should Subscribers get a Submission Bonus?

[WickedChicken]

Just think, how many good stories are overwhelmed by the huge noise ratio of fake stories? Maybe a subscriber's stories won't get trashed unless they get blocked by all of the filters or something? This could maybe up the quality of Slashdot a bit by allowing more stories that are usually lost.

Re:Should Subscribers get a Submission Bonus?

[WickedChicken]

Maybe instead they could simply get precidence (sp?) over non-subscribed ones. Only problem is that someone could a troll could pay to get his 'story' to the editors.

No CowboyNeal Poll Option Subscription

[cisco_rob]

Now, I'll buy that for $5 a month..

you'll end like mr. kirch in germany

[smk]

Here in germany we have one guy who bought all film and sport licenses. then he tried to establish pay tv as he thought: charge a lot per view.

guess what: he is nearly broke.

since we have a lot free tv stations (and even good ones mainly without advertising) he was doomed. so are you. there will be others. this community will scatter and reform somewhere else. PS: bad idea to charge per 1000views. baaad idea.

Opposite effect today...

[sterno]

I suspect if you did the same study today you'd find that advertising actually does more to bring up prices. Companies realized that competing on price was detrimental to them, so they switched to branding as the primary form of advertising.

To see this in it's most obvious form, look at Nike. Their ads don't even mention their shoes. Heck, they don't mention the name. It's just a sort of video art piece with a nike swoosh and maybe "just do it" at the end.

The thing is, people buy Nike, not because the quality is better but because of branding. Thus prices can be raised because people will pay more for what may in fact be an inferior product. That's on top of the fact that price is raised anyhow because they need to spend so much on building their brand through various advertising channels.

When was the last time you saw an ad banner adverising a product being cheaper than the competition? It's rather infrequent, non?

Re:Opposite effect today...

[Rakarra]

To see this in it's most obvious form, look at Nike. Their ads don't even mention their shoes. Heck, they don't mention the name. It's just a sort of video art piece with a nike swoosh and maybe "just do it" at the end.

Thus the Onion article: "Nike to cease manufacturing products. 'From now on, we'll focus on just making ads,' says CEO."

The thing is, people buy Nike, not because the quality is better but because of branding. Thus prices can be raised because people will pay more for what may in fact be an inferior product.

Hell, this applies for just about all "designer" wear. Are Levis really that much better? Are Tommy Hilfiger shirts so much better than non-Tommy's? Of course not.

Re:Opposite effect today...

[billcopc]

Here's another example : I just saw about _fifteen_ ads on TV for the Pontiac Vibe in the last hour. They have this unfinished excuse for a beat, with people nodding and tapping whenever the car inches by.

They don't say a thing about the car. All I know is that it's a direct competitor (and poorly styled rip-off) of the Ford Focus (which I absolutely love). They never mention the price, nor features, nor anything pertinent.

"Look. Ugly car. Ugly music. Buy now!" At least they could have thrown in some naked women or something.. anything! The sad part is that this kind of 'empty' advertising probably works on the 70% of the population who are terminally stupid, so there will be more and more until there is nothing else.

Re:Opposite effect today...

[Anonymous Coward]

I see ads every night, from different supermarkets, advertising 'this brand of margarine, $x.xx'. Its actually rather frequent.

Re:Opposite effect today...

[leviramsey]

Hell, this applies for just about all "designer" wear. Are Levis really that much better? Are Tommy Hilfiger shirts so much better than non-Tommy's? Of course not.

The prices of designer clothing: a tax on the wealthy and stupid (which often equates to the same thing...)

The Decline

[gimple]

Maybe it was just the excitement of finding something new and interesting on the Internet, but I don't think the Slashdot of late holds a candle to what it was three years ago.

I would say things took a turn for the worse when Michael came on board. And we all know about Michael's tendency toward censorship, don't we?

The editors (or self-proclaimed authors (I wouldn't call them authors, because I tend to think an author should have at least a rudimentary command of grammar and spelling, which these guys don't.)) began to become heavy handed with their moderation of user comments. This was shown during the Great Karma Burn of 2002. What the Karma Burn proved was that the users of Slashdot were dissatisfied with the way Slashdot was being run, and the editors were arrogant enough to basically say "So what." Also, the infamous Bitch Slap capability demonstrates the editors' heavy handedness.

Use my material for content. Censor what does not fit your world view. Punish me for being honest. And now ask me to pay for it.

It reminds me of buying a Nike tee-shirt with the swoosh on it. I pay for the honor of advertising for Nike. I just won't do it.

Re:The Decline

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it is hilarious that someone moderated this as flaimbait. Ten bucks says it was Michael.

Re:The Decline

[Anonymous Coward]

Ten bucks? That's 2000 page views! HOly shIt?!

Front page cache?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it just me or have they started to send no-cache headers with the front page? For some reason my browser won't cache the front page at all. Does this mean when you read a story, then come back to the front page and subsequently hit the reload button because your browser didn't cache the front page, that it counts as one of your thousand pages?

Re:Front page cache?

[J'raxis]

Yes:

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Fri, 01 Mar 2002 20:46:23 GMT
Server: Apache/1.3.20 (Unix) mod_perl/1.25 mod_gzip/1.3.19.1a
SLASH_LOG_DATA: shtml
X-Powered-By: Slash 2.003000
X-Fry: I refuse to testify on the grounds that my organs will be chopped up into a patty.
Cache-Control: private
Pragma: private
Connection: close
Content-Type: text/html

Considering the site is dynamic, this is proper standard behaviour, however I cannot help thinking that using up your subscription as easily as possible is the reason theyre doing it Slashdot is not exactly known for its standards compliance.

i won't pay, it's for-profit

[FuryG3]

I have NO PROBLEM paying for information, even when I don't have to. KQED (bay area public broadcaster) recives money from me every year, because they are non-profit. I'd pay /. $5 and probably more $, if i knew it was going to pay for bandwith, servers, and editors.

If you are a corporation, you are trying to weasel me out of more money than the product is worth, that's the nature of the beast. I'm fine with you weaseling that money out of some peddler who wants to put an advert on your site, but not me.

So, I'll continue to parse out your ads, and you can continue to get money from moronic corporations that still think banner adverts work. I hope for you that they never figure out they don't, because when they do, you'll have to start charging everyone, and I'll go find a real community site (non-profit).

Re:i won't pay, it's for-profit

[nagora]

pay for bandwith, servers, and editors

Where do you draw the line on the last item? I can make my company nt-for-profit by giving everyone a pay rise when there's a profit and cutting their pay when there's not.

TWW

Good job, slashdot

[watanabe]

Great job, you guys! I've been waiting for the web to work out good micropay oriented subscription solutions since 1996. I'll gladly pay you my $20 / year, and I hope that you become millionaires -- seriously. If you can make it work, others will learn. And that means less ads for me.

Re:Good job, slashdot

[cruachan]

They already are millionaires - they became so when /. was brought out.

Charging is just pure greed.

You don't get out much, do you?

[J.C.B.]

There are all kinds of discussion sites that are moving to voluntary micropayments. Slashdot is following the crowd, not taking the lead.

Official Ad-less Slashdot Relplacement Site

IPO=money?

[Anonymous Bullard]

I always thought the people who had an IPO don't need money any longer.

A girl in IPOnema would be another good substitute for money.

Distributed /.?

[pongo000]

This will probably get lost in the noise, but something I've been thinking about is a "distributed /." Think of it as /. over Freenet. Hell, even use Freenet as a way to distribute bandwidth costs across an entire spectrum of users. This would help the Freenet folks, as well as keep /. alive.

Of course, this would have to be an independent movement, because I'm sure VA Linux (or whatever the hell they're named now) wouldn't want to lose out on a cash cow like /.

The death of Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't matter. The ad agency will be asking them "what happened?" when they see the sudden drop in use Slashdot will have as people wonder if all the good content is being shifted to the pay service. Oh, wait...what good content? Slashdot was just here for my entertainment, so now that it has gone and peaked, I am off to other, better things. It's just not worth $20 a year; there aren't many web sites that are, and that's the crux of the problem with the Internet.

Not like I click on those ridiculous ThinkGeek ads anyway. No one has a right to make me read anything I don't want to. The bits are mine to do with as I please once they make it onto my system.

this is an new ad format ...

[smk]

got you. you just read one of the new ad formats :P

buy buy buy - yadda yadda yadda
brought to you and invented by some squirrels and mr. katz.

... and you thought big graphical ads would be bad.

I've got your $5 right here...

[brassman]

...and you get the first payment as soon as you learn the difference between "its" (A THING THAT BELONGS TO IT) and "it's" (IT IS).

I'll pay up with a smile. Do we have a deal?

(Dang, my .sig never seemed so apt....)

What about Yahoo! PayDirect?

[tarkap]

It accepts everything PayPal does.. and charges about the same in fees too.

It used to be free.. oh well.

Has anybody had any good or bad experiences with Yahoo! PayDirect?

Re:What about Yahoo! PayDirect?

[Hemos]

Thanks - we'll check it out.

PLEASE keep the current ad-sizes as an option.

[Harik]

Force advertisers to submit a normal sized one as well, and let us pay to cut the ad down to the current size. I really do NOT mind /. the way it is now, but if you bow to advertisers now, it'll go to popups, popunders, spawners, homepage redirectors and all the other B$ you get if you missclick on google.

I'd be willing to pay to see the (somtimes very entertaining) ads you have now... because it's nearly the only site I've been to where I've been interested enough in an ad-banner to click on it.

However, I have very little hope of the survival of /.. If it survives because people pay, you won't have enough non-paying viewers to make the ad-banners worthwhile. If you get money from ad-revenue, the people paying are going to realize that forcing ever-larger and more obnoxious ads down the throat of geeks results in more filtering and less clickthroughs... and pull the plug.

You could just throttle the free, add-server version to a few meg/sec and let premium viewers have 1kpages/$ on a non-throttled server. That would encourage both payment _AND_ people using various methods to reduce the load on your server. Cache.net anyone?

--Dan

the irony is killing me

[negativethirsty]

First off, wow what a flame fest. How many people does it take to get you to reconsider?
And now...on with the show.

Slashdot in its operation collects stories, submitted by users. These stories are either re-written/edited etc and passed on as "News for nerds. Stuff that matters"
Slashdot runs on the back end using "slashcode", which is freely available to anyone and promotes the notion of open development/software thru said community that supports slashdot in the first place.
Now /. wishes to run presumably annoying/interrupting adds to further the goals of a return on their invested time and management.

Now let me get to my "what if" senario...where the irony comes in. What if slashcode...wasn't free? How many sites use slashcode, um alot. How many people post to slashdot and submit stories, hmm alot. So the code must be open, yet the content must be pay-per-view? The pain of the irony is just too much to bare.
All they've gotten with this new subscription plan is the biggest, or what will be the biggest, flamefest in /. history...along with a very loyal yet currently irate user base.

Internet advertising is dead

[clump]

I worked for a company called Thruport and one of our products was a spam^H^H banner-serving program. The long and short of it is that I came out with the realization that Internet advertising is deceptive, futile, and a dead-end.

In such a business, everyone is trying to screw over everyone else. IE, inflate your impressions and click-throughs, track down to geography of users, and place as many banners on a page as humanly possible. I would get calls from irate porn-peddlers and weird clip-art pushers. The second they lost an impression, you would get a call holding whoever was in the room responsible. Nevermind that our sales team sold all sorts of unrealistic promises.

There is wonderful content on the web that simply could not survive without ad revenue. I would love to just use Junkbuster or block images with Mozilla, but I do want my measly page-view to give some $0.000000002 to the kids that make Slashdot possible. I wish Slashdot luck. Its certainly an issue I have no idea how to solve.

What's the big deal?!?

[cheeserd00d]

Seriously though, what is the big deal? All I hear is people bitching about how awful this is and how slashdot isn't good enough to pay for. If you don't like the ads, then pay to get rid of them. If you don't want to pay, then quit complaining and live with it. It's not like a couple ads is really going to kill you. Personally, I think ads are annoying, and I also love reading slashdot (even with the supposed grammatical errors and lack of original stories which some people seem think is some huge deal), but I also do not have the money/want to spend my money on getting rid of the ads...so instead I'll just live with it. It's not that big of a fucking deal. Quit complaining and get over it, slashdot needs to generate some profit and this is one way to achieve it. Can you blame them?!?

Reasons to be here....

[Deskpoet]

Obviously, he has some reason to be here. My question is "what is that reason?". He gives a lot of good reasons for him not to be here, and mentions not one redeeming quality. My curiosity was piqued, and I responded accordingly.

What value does Slashdot add, that outweighs the catalog of faults he lists? I'm still waiting to find out.

This is a fascinating question, and it's a shame it's more or less buried under the hundreds of other posts. IMO, it should be a subject unto itself.....

Along those lines, I offer why I stop in here every once in a while.

First off, let me say I will *never* pay for this site's upkeep. As was noted elsewhere, the people who post here make up this site's value, not the structure itself (not to say that slashcode isn't valuable; all the other sites based on it testify to its worth.) Given that the people who post here are the value that prompts my return, they must be people who I admire and respect whose thoughts and opinions I share and want to hear, right?

Well, no, not for the most part. Most of the posts here are worthless, and the people who post them I hold in low esteem. No, the real value of this site is the cumulative glimpse provided by the various posters into how Power is distributed and maintained in our world today. That may seem lofty, but consider: most of the posters here are in some capacity members of the technocratic priesthood that allows the current power structure to exist. Though many are not aware of it, their very belief systems--which often *are* revealed quite graphically here--mark them as servants of the State, which more or less makes them my ideological foes. In a nutshell, I come here to see into the mind of the enemy, all the while hoping that I am not alone in my thoughts, and that the "enemy" is not as great as I fear it to be.

I am often disappointed to see just how great the Machine's brainwashing is. Still, I return here--AS LONG AS IT IS RELATIVELY EASY TO DO SO (which rules out bigger, more obtrusive ads, I assure you)--to see if in their clockwork minds, the technocrats have any sign of awakening to their responsibility for what is, or even if they realize they have that responsibility at all.

Slashdot...

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot has to be one of my favorite sites of all time, I *will* pay if the ads become annoying. Like a lot of slashdot's readership I run a junkbuster proxy... I would hate to have to use this for slashdot.

GPL'ed...

[jenea]

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
# Somewhat works. Takes 5 min to do it, not $5 =)
use LWP::Simple;
use CGI qw/:standard/;;
print "Content-type: text/html\n\n";
$slashdot = "http://slashdot.org/";
if(!param()) {
&remove_comments($slashdot);;
} else {
my $page = param('page');
&remove_comments($page);
}

sub remove_comments {
$url = shift;
print "url: $url\n";
my $newlink = "http://localhost/slashdot.pl";
my $content = get($url) or die print "cant get url: $!\n";
$content =~ s/<!-- begin OSDN Navbar -->.*?<!-- end OSDN Navbar -->//gs;
$content =~ s/<!-- advertisement code. -->.*?<!-- end ad code -->//gs;
$content =~ s/<A HREF=\"(.*?)\"/<A HREF=\"$new_link?page=http:$1\"/gs;
print $content;
}

Where the money comes from....

[darken9999]

Let's see. I look at about twenty ./ pages per work day. 1000/20=50 work days of ./ viewing... for five bucks!

Since I'm already wasting the time at work and getting paid for it, I'm more than happy to share the wealth.

I want to know why this market is run like this

[nagora]

I posted this earlier but I haven't heard from anyone that can explain why /. is thinking this way, so here it is again:

So what you're saying is "We've got 1/3 million users per day and we've got to do what the advertisers want"?

Well, Jesus, how many readers do you need before you start telling the advertisers what they have to do to get on?

If that really is the state of on-line marketing then you'd be better off getting out of it and selling blank discs on street corners because that situation is not stable. What happens if the advertisers say "Dump the no-ads pages or we walk"?

If you have the traffic you say you have then you should be telling them to get into an orderly line and, while they're waiting they can read your advertisement restrictions. I repeat, if you can't do this then you will never have a stable business model that includes advertising.

Dumping the adverts altogether and making posts a subscription-only facility (read and write) would be better. Why arse around with people that want big adverts on the site for next to nothing in the first place? Tell them where to stick it.

TWW

Re:I want to know why this market is run like this

[Hemos]

Being able to tell them only banner ads for this long has been because of our size. Neither do we accept Java applets, Flash, shoskeles, or anyone of a number of other ad types.

The problem is that there is competition out there- and in an economy like this, it's easy for them to walk over there.

Re:I want to know why this market is run like this

[nagora]

The problem is that there is competition out there

Is it really that tough in your sector? What are the figures as regards traffic to sites that geeks frequent; I find it hard to imagine that /. isn't one of the top three.

Either way, what are you going to do if advertisers say they aren't going to play if you make a big push for replacing them with subscriptions?

TWW

Madder than hell?

[talks_to_birds]

Don't take it anymore!

Of course, at home I've got Linux running on everything, so Lynx is a viable option for viewing the **new** advertising-cluttered /..

But at work I've gotta use W1nbl0w$, and what to do, what to do about /. and ads and Lynx?

Well, here's what:

Go to http://jim.spath.com/lynx_win32/ and pick up Lynx for W32!

Took me about 5 minutes to download it and put it on, including editing a batch file (Wow! does that bring back the memories!!) and setting up a shortcut and switching to a custom Lynx icon for the shortcut...

Ya'll ought to try it: it may be the first experience some of you get with the way the Web used to be, a long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...

t_t_b

Re:*Sigh* You already can...

[CrackElf]

1) I was being serious about thinking that modding stories would be a good thing, I have in fact suggested it before.

2) The comment was a joke, as whatever unholy hold he has on the other editors of slashdot have kept him here this long, he will undoubtedly be kept until the end of slashdot.

3) Even if it were not meant as a joke, it is completely valid as the fact that Katz is allowed to 'publish' here is brings this online forum to the level of tabloid IMO (He uses inflammatory and dramatic statements to make his points rather than facts, he states opinion as 'fact', and when he does use 'facts', he does not back up his 'facts' with sources). I freely admit that I resent the association between Slashdot and Katz, as he is in no way a responsible journalist.

slashdot becoming warez and p0rn?

[vicious_sloth]

The sites that have the most annoying popups and annoy ads are the warez and p0rn sites. They even hide the title bars, so unless you know how to alt+f4, you have this huge ad in your face trying to get you to increase the size of your 'member' and no way of getting it off. Now slashdot is going to be posting these types of ads?
WHat kind of ad are we talking about? Ad's trying to get you to buy a descrambler, look at 'hot teens' or ads that promise mircle cures or how to lose weight in 15 mintues.
I absolultly hat pop-ups. if slashdot becomes as annoying as warez and p0rn (no i do not go to these sites,) i will have to stop visitng slashdot..... who am i kidding? slashdot is drug!! run away! run away before its to late! you still have a chance!

Re:slashdot becoming warez and p0rn?

[Anonymous Coward]

try to check 'disable javascrpi pop-ups(window.open)' checkbox in konqueror preferences, if you are using konqueror. Also I think mozilla has same option, but I'm not sure.

Time to move on...

[weave]

The best part of slasdhot was the feeling of community. Well, it's now just a clusterfuck. Time to give some other hobbiest in a new intimate setting my time somewhere...

I've been basically thinking that for a while now anyway. It doesn't matter what the topic is, it seems like plants for the other side's company just come rushing in to flame on. It's just so predictable. Doesn't matter if the story is pro linux, windows, apple, p2p, anti-p2p, dmca, 2600, etc, etc... the arguments that will crop up are just too damn predictable. It's not even worth it.

Slashdot has just gotten too fat to sustain itself and this will just send it to hell. Not that I'm against people making money but hell, this is the net, there will always be free alternatives, and if not, there's always trusty usenet (which, btw, is reverting back to the old days. No newbies even know what usenet is now, I do believe spam is going down, and conversations are *almost* intelligent again...)

An idea

[Savatte]

Why not have slashdot offer posts numbers 1-10 on each story? You could have them at a permanent +5 without the ability to mod them down.

Re:Metered pricing vs. flat rate (flame, mod down)

[somebody else]

I don't know where I fit into your (unfounded, unsupported, and fully unresearched) estimates, Taco.

But I read the front page of slashdot about 1-3 times a day without logging into this account (aka anonymously // I only login if I want to identify myself -- as in this post -- so you'll know precisely who is slamming you for having lodged your head so securely in your colon).

About 3-5 of a day's postings interest me. Of those posts, my followup "clicking" is split about 50/50 between the articles themselves (in the case where the information interests me -- for which you deserve no credit, financially or otherwise) and the slashdot comments, reloaded once at level 4 (in the case where I want a sense of intelligent community opinion -- also for which you deserve no credit, financially or otherwise).

I will never pay you one red cent out of my own pocket. Ever. OSDN can rot in hell for all I care. Slashdot is one of many sites I use as a convenience. It's popular, yeah. But good? Not really.

If you're ads become intrusive, I'll start surfing in lynx. If you lock out text-only browsers, I'll leave you in a heartbeat, never look back, and likely be a better human being for having done so.

In the meanwhile, since you obviously seem sincere in your intention to financially gouge the members of the flailing, already depressed tech sector, whose interest in your site has made it what it is, I hope it leads you and OSDN into the annals of dot-bomb history as one of the last Net Titans to come crashing down in a night and a day.

The simple fact that you are even considering this is reason enough for me to want to see you fail. But the fact that you are considering it so seriously and sincerely (your lust for money having overtaken your love of involvement), makes me want to see you not only fail, but fail miserably... to have every effort you make to recover backfire and drag you deeper and deeper into the torments of self-doubt and depression... to have your life stripped away from you one tiny piece at a time... to have your entire legacy molded, day after day, into another example of what NOT to do after you become successful... to see you JOIN the rest of the victims of the dotcom bust... living in a homeless shelter... your nubile young new wife having left your sorry ass for some schmuck in the advertising industry.

Eat me, you greedy fuck.

back in the filters again

[dkh]

Slashdot was on of the few places I didn't block ads from... the ads were targeted, non-obtrusive and were not an inconvenience, so fine, I let them come through to be supportive and even occassionally clicked on them.

That was past tense...as of now, ads from slashdot are blocked.

The large ads are offensive and are the beginning of a downward spiral.

Re:Really? Neato!

[Chagrin]

I can't quite give a rundown of which browsers support it, but the browser will advertise its capability to support it in its request headers (for example: "Accept-Encoding: gzip, compress"). This is part of the HTTP/1.1 compliance standard, so it should be in any browser from 1999 or later.

It's quite simple to install with Apache. Also, the logging options of mod_gzip allow you to see just how much bandwidth savings you're getting and/or if the requesting browser will support the request, so just a little homework will give you all the information you need to know.

Anyway, most of your answers are here.

things I might pay for

[maxpublic]

A few things that might be worth $5:

- an exact count of the mod points handed out that day and who got them.

- a page that shows what posts were modded by which slashdot editors.

- the ability to refuse editorial mods in an effort to avoid idiots like Michael Sims.

- the ability to actual mod, since this seems to have been stripped from me right from the beginning.

Just a few things that might be worth $5. Finding out what the editors are doing would be enough on curiosity alone.

Max

/. the magazine--another solution?

[negativethirsty]

Why not slahdot.org the magazine? I'll subscribe to that, I'll give you $50/year. It'll look nice when my geek friends come over, a pile of them sitting on the coffee table.

Load it with adds, I dont care. A magazine I can read it anytime I want, as long as I want to, where ever I want to, hell I can even display it anywhere I want to. If an add bothers me I'll just rip that sucker out and chunk it in the direction of the nearest garbage can. I can't do any of this with slashdot.org the "online" magazine.

Re:/. the magazine--another solution?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you kidding? The editors would have to be able to...well, edit.

They can't spell--or bother to use a spell checker. They don't know a lick of grammar. And they certainly rarely write more than a paragraph or too.

Don't they--OSDN and the Advertisers--get it? It is the users that MAKE Slashdot, not the other way around.

when you think about it

[Anonymous Coward]

slashdot isnt anything that couldnt be replaced by a usenet group

Don't the decision-makers read Slashdot?

[Linux_ho]

The day before yesterday Hemos posted a link to Piro's insightful analysis of why the #1 dot-com strategy didn't work. Diluted to it's essence, "There's an inherent part of human nature that just makes you bristle at having to suddenly pay for something that you didn't have to pay for before." I would like you to know that this new policy does makes me bristle a bit. I won't pay for Slashdot; I feel that I have given nearly as much as I have received. To the decision-makers behind this advertising move, I respectfully recommend you read this article, toward the bottom left of the page.

Depending on how annoying those ads are, I may go elsewhere. I'll probably check back now and then, to see if the new ads have gotten any less annoying. I like Slashdot quite a bit, in spite of the fist prosts and the "dude, what if we made a beowulf of these" comments. It's all part of the fun, part of the culture. I like interacting with other people that have similar interests. Honestly, though, I'm not going to pay for something that I can get for free somewhere else. /. has been successful because it's free entertainment. I honestly hope the increase in income from each page view outweighs the drop in the number of page views /. will receive.

My "karma" rating has stayed right at 50 for a long time. As a contributor of content which is apparently valued by your other readers, I hope you will at least consider my opinion.

Re:Don't the decision-makers read Slashdot?

[talks_to_birds]

The simple point is that the people running /. don't fsck'ing care.

They haven't cared for a long time.

The entire point of this place is just like any other whoring web site: generate click-through, get the eyeballs, count the page requests.

It's just that now the people running this place care so little that they're willing to take that last, final step, and come right out and say:

"Screw you. You're all just a commodity, and we're selling *all* of you to the highest bidder."

t_t_b

Re:Don't the decision-makers read Slashdot?

[Hemos]

See my above comment in terms of the ad. I don't think that they are that annonying, and are certainly "not as bad" as what else is coming around. They aren't the damn shoskele ads, that's for sure.

As for page view drop - I don't think that's going to happen. We'll see what actually happens.

And, yes, the MT article is correct. That's why this is not going to be anything mandatory, and won't ever be. I'm not going to make anyone pay for anything - which I think is a key difference between this and the MT article.

Re:Don't the decision-makers read Slashdot?

[clarkie.mg]

Troll. Why don't you offer the hosting for slashdot for free if you think YOU care better than anybody else.

The simple point is that the people running /. don't fsck'ing care.
They haven't cared for a long time.

The entire point of this place is just like any other whoring web site: generate click-through, get the eyeballs, count the page requests.

I suppose you never read a newspaper or even - cough - buy one, because you would notice the high level of ads in these.

At least, here you have the choice. You can support slashdot with money or viewing ads.

Making good advertising requires skill.

[Futurepower(tm)]

I like thinking along the lines of the above post. Thoughtful advertising makes money and is a benefit to the reader, not an annoyance. Consider the Google ads, for example.

Unfortunately, one thing is abundantly clear: Neither the Slashdot editors nor the parent company have any detectable business sense. Did they expect to make money from ads for high-caffeine tablets? A sensible person would never buy most of the things they already advertise. A lot of the ads are subtly offensive toward the reader, as are some elements of Slashdot, such as "News for nerds". Apparently they aren't aware of the negative connotations of that word. There is no need to have two slogans. "Stuff that matters" is enough.

The Slashdot editors are communication-challenged. They are people who cannot be bothered to run a spell checker, or learn English grammar. They are exactly the type that runs a successful venture into the ground.

That's unfortunate, because Slashdot is an extremely valuable resource.

As I write this, there is a blinking banner ad for RackSpace. RackSpace should definitely advertise on Slashdot; that's good thinking. But the ad says, "Win a Gift Certificate" for $300. This is an invitation to you to embezzle money from your company. Apparently the people who designed the ad feel comfortable with this, or they are just plain ignorant of the implications.

Re:Making good advertising requires skill.

[Drake42]

I'm sorry, but you don't seem to have any idea what is going on here.

Your very first comment was quite correct. Google ads are a perfect example of good advertising done well.

You're second point is wrong. Clearly they do make some money advertising high caffeine tables, or they wouldn't do it. Probably they don't make enough on that alone, but it is the sum of all adds that run a business, not just the revenue of one particular ad on one particular day. As for the "News for Nerds" slogan, your comment is offensive. I take pride in my 'nerd' status, with all the goods and the bads that go with it. Am I as socially adept as I'd like to be? No. Do I occasonally suffer for that lack of aptitude? Yes. However, I have traded learning social skills for learning technical skills and it's a life choice I am comfortable with.

You comment that slashdot editors are communiation challenged is silly. It is precisely because they are interested in more than just the anal retention of any possible spelling errors that make them interesting. By analogy: most rock stars are terrible singers that actively damage their voices with every performance. Any voice teach will cringe to hear them. However the work they produce is about raw feeling and power, not dedication to carefully considered principles. There is a time and place for careful techniques and there is a time and place for just saying what is on your mind. On Slashdot, grammer is nice, but not required. It is the openness of the communication that makes the site interesting.

As for running slashdot into the ground, you seem to believe that slashdot feel from the sky after which Hemos picked it up off from ground and has been poking it with a stick ever since. D00d! These guys created slashdot, and they are experimenting with how to operate it. When that experimentation stops slashdot will die. In the mean time, if you don't like a course correction, you should say so, but it is definitely not an indication of emminent destruction.

As for your last point, the banner doesn't say "win $300 to spend on drugs and prostitutes!" its simply says "Win $300". You can put it into your IT budget and be happy. Your boss can take the team to a party. Whatever. You're assumption that it is going to be embezzled just shows that you were reaching to somehow find a point and have too low a faith in your colleagues and fellow people.

my take

[medcalf]

I would almost certainly reduce the number of times per day that I look at /. from about 10 to 1 or 2. It would reduce costs for /., while not seriously affecting my enjoyment of the site (I'll just browse at a higher level).

Things that would make me likely to pay for subscriptions:

- remove per-user limits on karma (keeping per-article limits); allow high-karma users to get discounts - the higher the karma the better the discount - so that someone with a karma of 100+ would only pay $1 for 1000 views, for example
- be very clear on what constitutes a view, and do not charge a view for posting stories, moderating or metamoderating

Things that would make me leave:

- too annoying to read slashdot any more - big intrusive ads, popunders, spyware ads, etc
- punished for contributing (with higher cost or more intrusive ads)
- ads which appear for some number of seconds, as the only content on the page, between clicking to get to a story and getting there

Frankly, I have no problem paying for the site either by having advertising or directly, as long as I feel I'm getting something worthwhile for it, and getting more than karma in return for contributing to the site's success.

What??

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you make as much sense when you're not posting to slashdot as you do when you post?

Me and ads

[DaCool42]

Switching to bigger ads is not a good idea at all. I definately will not pay to get rid of them. Currently, I sometimes click on the ads just because they are sometimes actually good ads for things I am interested in. If they change to huge jumbo popup ads, there is no way I'm putting up with it. If they do that, I'm blocking the ads and I won't ever click on them. It's really a shame, slashdot is one of the few places where I would ever click on an ad.

Additional Slashdot Products

[Goody]

Karma Points................. $5 each
Remove Articles that are Unsubstantiated Rumors.... $25
Read Goatsex Troll Postings.. $1 per 10 posts
Remove $rtbl Blacklist from Login...... $150
Ability to First Post........ $200 per fp

Depends on the bandwidth and the banner

[sterno]

I agree with your sentiment that slashdot is one of the few places that actually has ads I'm interested in. Actually up until now, the ads on slashdot have been well done, unobtrusive and usually for things I have an interest in. At the same time, many sites, and it sounds like Slashdot soon, are making ads large enough to interfere with the site.

As for the bandwidth issue, I agree that if you are on a modem it's a bit daft to have such a system. If you've got the bandwidth to throw at it, banner ads really don't take up much space. If it helps keep your favorite site up a bit longer, why not?

Its kind of odd...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm suprised /. is still here... I was half expecting it to dissapear forever in a puff of smoke within seconds of the posting of this story. To be instantly replaced by some garish parody with full page adds and stories praising Microsoft for their stability, security and generosity.

(looks around)

I guess that'll be tomorrow :-)

Will we get to see the results?

[Evro]

Will we be able to see how much money you guys collect from this? Will it be in your SEC filings as "Slashdot subscriptions"?

Re:Will we get to see the results?

[Hemos]

We're hoping to include that in a Slashbox, yes. ALong with something to show how many pages you've used.

Re:Will we get to see the results?

[pmc]

ALong with something to show how many pages you've used.

Huh????

I think it (the subscription idea) is a dumb idea, but that is just my opinion. If, however, you are going to do it, at least do it properly. You absolutely must show the user how many pages he has left. Preferably as a counter on each (chargable) page, but definitely on the user's page.

STOP whining about creating the content

[tempestdata]

Yes yes.. we all create the content, and thats all great and we all benefit from it equally. However, who is providing the forum for this communication to take place? No /. no content. Someone HAS to pay for this (or ANY) site that will provide the resources for people like you and me to create and share content.

Get (our) help!

[ediron2]

I have a 3-digit K5 uid, but I am done with that place. I simply don't have the time

So, back to that question about auctioning off low UID's... it'd be novel to watch auctions from both sites, just to see the cool factor the average webizen associates with the two sites.

Seriously, /., would it kill you to do some in-house market analysis. You've got the forum (ask slashdot), better demographic information THAN ANYONE IN THE WORLD to let you pick high-precision focus groups from, and you've got your survey mechanism that could be bent to serious work to use for minor sanity checks as you go.

A thousand times I've suspected that all the redundant postings, missed stories, slow return time, typo's in stories, and even the slashdot effect itself could be solved if the slashdot seven (or however many of you there are) was to ARBITRARILY ON THEIR OWN grant uncontestably REVOCABLE license to approve/reject/mega-moderate submissions to an indefinite pool of the best slashdot audience. Heck, make 'em feel like it's a job by paying 'em with waivers toward kiloclicks or whatever.

A few weeks ago, your story on the change-of-terms on sourceforge provoked me to post (to slashdot) the same question I see bandying about here:

I can imagine life without slashdot, sourceforge, and the rest of OSDN. It's not even a stretch: the internet (like the universe) abhors a vacuum. However, I miss the *HELL* out of adcritic.com, and would miss slashdot, too. Well, most of you. I'm pretty close to bored of (cough cough-- name withheld) as most people seem to be.

So... WTF? WHY WON'T YOU BRING US INTO THE LOOP and LET US HELP!?

You have two issues at stake here: How to get the revenue, and how to earn it. Don't ignore that second part.

Five bucks for a kiloclick? No sweat. I can afford it. I'll pay. Some won't. Personally, I think a few cheap bastards can fall off the free slashdot turnip-truck and it won't be a bad thing for slashdot (uh-oh, where'd I put that flame retardant suit). But there are lots of unconsidered alternatives and a lot of quality deficiencies you face. Any failure to manage both sides of this will get you your least-favorite way to be able to afford your bandwidth costs... they'll drop.

Good luck.

Bandwidth?

[dTd]

I believe slashdot has solved all their bandwidth
costs in three easy steps:

1. Big ads, subscription service
2. Readers flee slashdot the overbloated
3. Bandwidth problem miraculously disapears

Very eficient I must say ;)

Lynx

[wiZd0m]

How will this affect me?

What The Ads Will Be

[Hemos]

There's a lot of questions about the ads.

NO pop-ups, pop-unders, pop whatever.

NO Flash playing, Java Applet, MID playing ads.

What it will be is the messaging unit ads (the big square ad in center of page) and sometimes, a bigger banner ad where the current banner is. That's it. Still GIF/JPG ads. That's all. And yes, one ad per page.

Re:What The Ads Will Be

[talks_to_birds]

Who cares?

There are some people who *do* try to continue to conduct themselves through life with a continuity of the principles they have [pretended] to espouse...

That's the point.

It's a matter of principle, for those few who still have any.

t_t_b

Re:What The Ads Will Be

[j7953]

Take a look at http://www.osdn.com/advertise/, you'll find out that for Slashdot they're currently offering 728 x 90, 468 x 60, and newsletter sponsorships (which are a 468x60 banner and text only).

I think the 728 x 90 is the annoyance thing they're talking about. Well, it certainly does sound like an annoyingly big ad.

Slashdot doesn't accept any flash ads according to that site, and none of OSDN's sites accept pop-up, pop-under or Java ads.

Re:What The Ads Will Be

[Scoria]

Very good, Hemos.

I was worried that Slashdot's new ad formats may have included pop-unders and similarly ridiculous setups. While Slashdot users do indeed provide almost all of the site's content, OSDN does deserve to be reimbursed for the bandwidth costs.

$5 - big deal

[AmiNTT]

First off, I read /. as often as a few times per day. This is my second post.

I fail to see why so many people are freaking out over $5/1000 page views. Even at $5/week (thats one pageview EVERY 10 minutes) its not a bad deal.

Yes, everything is the world should be free. But, you know what? The world doesn't work that way. If /. has to have bigger ads to keep the advertisers happy, then so be it. The fact that they are offering a way around the new, bigger ads is commendable.

$5 isn't going to kill you. Besides, its a tax write off (in Canada, anyways)

Death of the slash spirit.

[triptolemeus]

My first post, what will this do to my karma, can you go negative?

There was a day slashdot was about open source, free (as in speach and in beer) and getting to know the way around the web... stuff that matters.

Today, they (there's a lot of them) announced the end of all this. Today it got announced that I have to pay to see slashdot the way I want to. Today I got told that filtering advertisement is bad. The next thing will be, they tell me not to skip the commercials on my taped tv programs.

I sit in my little web enabled corner and cry.

It is not that I am not willing to pay for good services. It is not that I am not able to pay about $30 a year. It's about my loss of faith. It's about an announcement that almost makes me not to believe in free (as in freedom 'cause I don't care about the beer).

It's about a mentality getting lost

It's about using old-fashioned management tactics in new uncontrolled environments.

It's about the loss of what we believe in.

I know there is a need for money, bandwidth and costs. But from a recent mail about some marriage I read there is also a 250.000 readers on slashdot. Multiply that with $20 and I think you can buy all the bandwidth you need + get yourself a nice honeymoon (which I wish Rob will have).

If this is going to be the goal slashdot wants to reach, I would like to cancel my subscribtion now.

Trip

Re:Death of the slash spirit.

[Hemos]

Trip,

I don't think is a loss of spirit at all. If I did, I wouldn't have done this. You are not being told you need to pay anything. If you have been looking at Slashdot and filtering the ads here's a reality check: I appreciate your comment, but I don't appreciate you filtering the ads. That's the only way that we've been able to try and pay money. And here's another reality check: No, Slashdot is not profitable. And the reality is that it will probably be single digit percent of people who sign up - at an average of 10 - 20$ per year. That helps, but not that much

And even RMS would say that Freedom *does not* mean being able to read this without seeing ads or something. The FSF makes a lot of money selling their GNU manuals. Advertising is the same thing for us.

That's too bad if you feel this is the loss of innocence or something - I just see it as another option that people can use, and moreover, something that will help to mean we stay around. While other folks may believe freedom means filtered ads, Cable & Wireless and hardware companies demand money for their services, and up until now, ads have been the only way for us to make money. If you do truly believe in freedom, then you must also believe that you must give back to the community - a number of people who have signed up today have said they are still going to see ads - they just wanted to give a few bucks.

Re:Death of the slash spirit.

[talks_to_birds]

"..And even RMS would say that Freedom *does not* mean being able to read this without seeing ads or something. The FSF makes a lot of money selling their GNU manuals. Advertising is the same thing for us..."

Excuse me.

Two points.

Think about them.

1) Don't even attempt, for one second, to put yourself in the same league as the Free Software Foundation.

2) Your readers (the people who you *depend* on for *everything* that is /. ) are giving you all a pretty clear message.

You would do well to heed that message.

t_t_b

Re:Death of the slash spirit.

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't see any banners on savannah.gnu.org or fsf.org.

now you hypocrits have resorted to twisting the ideals of the fsf? that's pathetic. Watching you jokers try and justify the same behavior you blast on your site is sad.

I will always block ads. You seem to like skipping ads on your tivo or whatever peice of junk you are trying to promote, so guess what, ok i agree, so now i am blocking YOUR ads. oh uh don't like that huh.

Listen to you, you are starting to sound more and more like a pathetic marketroid and you don't even realize it.

I have contributed plenty in the form of comments. But since the censors don't like my views they are always modded down. Well to bad.

Ya the FSF really beleives in banners ads, right, that's why there is a big banner on the top of your screen when you run xemacs...get real!

The fsf will sell you a hardcopy of the manual they wrote, they aren't forcing you to buy the manual or you get stuck with manual filled with ads.

You guys are really getting sad. I mean maybe you think you are different somehow, but you are doing the same shit as every other post boom dotcom.

What's the matter dreams of massive riches fading fast? time to sell out with some big banners and quick marketing speak? Why don't you close the source on slashcode while your selling out, might as well go all the way.

Re:Death of the slash spirit.

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you think the FSF is going to have a banner for Visual Basic .NET on the top of gnu.org?

get real you silly sell outs. modding yourself up is a nice sad touch.

Re:Death of the slash spirit.

[compupc1]

The reason they're "selling out" is because it's a harsh economic REALITY that running a website such as Slashdot is EXPENSIVE (all that hardware) and that it DOESN'T GENERATE REVENUE. It's that simple. It's not a matter of selling out or being hypocritical or abandoning one's principals. With as many hits as they get, they need good servers and that costs money. If you can't see that, you're a fool. I don't like it either, but if you have a better way to keep Slashdot running, I'm sure they would love to hear it.

Re:Death of the slash spirit.

[Anonymous Coward]

google doesn't need to sell out.

the fsf doesn't have any ads.

when the economy comes back do you think the ads are going to shrink? shea dream on.

Re:Death of the slash spirit.

[talks_to_birds]

Nonsense

"...DOESN'T GENERATE REVENUE..."

Nope.

It doesn't generate *enough* revenue. The owners think they have a cash cow, here, and they want more.

"...With as many hits as they get, they need good servers and that costs money. If you can't see that, you're a fool..."

heh..

Hardly.

Think about it:

The readers/posters of /. create it, not Taco and Hemos -- all Taco does is write poorly-crafted little snippets that headline each article.

You're being asked to *pay* for the privilege of creating the product that Taco and Hemos are selling to the advertisers.

You, sir, are the fool.

t_t_b

Re:Death of the slash spirit.

[triptolemeus]

Hi Hemos,

I don't think is a loss of spirit at all. If I did, I wouldn't have done this.

I'm very sorry but I cannot be anything but scared for the changes this brings. It's selling you finger to a commercial system knowing they will take you whole hand if they have a chance.
Personally I don't mind paying for a service like /. Quality will have its price, I'm very aware of that, and you guys need to eat too. No problem.

It's forcing smell behind it: if you don't pay we will give you adds, that really bothers me.

Personally I try to stay away from commercials, even if they are interesting. If I want to find out I will investigate and find it. I don't need no one to push me into the direction of information. That's why I filter and will continue to do that. It's my freedom of life. It also has something to do with esthetics (most adds are ugly).

I think if you want to go commercial there might be more to the google model. Let me explain what I mean:
Google advertises when you search for something, by presenting it as the first link you will find (telling by the way that it is advertisement).

I could imagine slashdot having an advertisement news flash, where some companies could tell about their latest greatest inventions in a way we, geeks, would like it (talking about target advertisement, wowy). So no: buy my product bull**** but indepth commercialized technical backgrounds: why is my product so cool.

Think about it, I guess there are some companies that would love to do this.

Karma Points

[Trolocsis]

Maybe people can use the Karma points for payment to avoid ads. Seems fair to me.

My theory!

[KDENCE]

I guess my theory stands, the only thing in life that is free is love. It seems that the sweeter the product gets the more money the provider wants. No matter who it is or what they offer I am almost certain that they eventually want to make money out of the deal. How about some unselfishness and make just enough money to stay alive? It seems to me that there is a profit invloved here and my suggestion is to forget the profit and do it just for the glory. Since my Karma is negative 1 most likely the general population will not get to read this, so if you have more Karma please copy this and post as your own for the sake of exposure.

Re:My theory!

[ArticulateArne]

First, let me say this: If you're looking for love on Slashdot, you are looking in the completely wrong place.

Second, they've probably got more glory than they care to deal with, and now they just want money. Or, at the very least, they don't want to be losing money. Kinda like our office - we feel good about what we do (sometimes, anyway), but the paycheck doesn't show it.

Re:My theory!

[KDENCE]

First, I figure people is slashdot know very little about love.

Second, you can never have enough glory, just ask Rambo. I have a hard time thinking that all of the money that they make is going to just pay the bills. Seems like you need to get out of that office.

But when?

[tfurrows]

When will we see this new setup?

Re:But when?

[Anonymous Coward]

NOW

/. == NetZero?

[AntiChristX]

Seriously, if slashdot becomes like NetZero, I'm out. I can barely stand to use the free service. it's handy in a pinch but I spent 4 hours yesterday in front of google searching for "(netzero or zcast) and hax0r". The "large-format" banner ads are too much. I sit at the browser with a terminal window open (like many, I do suspect), and you just can't tolerate many breaks in your coding, especially not for the X10 Wireless Spy Camera. That's what finally drove me from Yahoo Clubs, that damn camera.

A point from an earlier post stands out: we appreciate what you do Taco, Rob, Hemos, and yes even you, Neal, and all you other crazy cats, but maybe you have too much going on back there? Maybe you're growing slower than you think you're growing? Maybe you, like a whole armada of fellow .com's, are expanding too fast? Too many Indians, not enough Buffalos? I'd hate to see that... this is one of my top 5 sites... but so was Yahoo Clubs...... and cnn.com.............

Or, I could use my ad filtering personal proxy

[Anonymous Coward]

Or, I could pickup a personal proxy server to strip ads not only from Slashdot, but from all other sites as well. There are free ones out there, though I did pay for the one I'm using (I've been using it for years, though, on the whole web. A much better bargain)

The one I like best (sorry, I'm a windows user) is AdSubtract. They have a free version and a $30 version. It's worth the money to me to have an easy to use experience that does the job. It's configurable enough that I can use it in a web development environment, but simple enough that both my parents and my in-laws are using it. Anytime I browse without it it's painful.

Why pay for the privilege of not seeing ads? Just fix your browsing experience so they don't get loaded in the first place.

Get your screen real estate back (it actually shrinks away the space used by many adds. My slashdot banner is right at the top of the page, there isn't even a gap). Control cookie usage. Eliminate pop-up windows altogether. All things the browsers should have done in the first place.

-- Anonymous Coward
-- Committee for Advertising-free Environments

www.paypalsucks.org

[vlag]

I just paid a visit to www.paypalsucks.org and there was nothing there. Just that same old Network Solutions "Page under construction" garbage. begin sarcasm Maybe PayPal doesn't suck after all. end

Display MORE ads, NOT BIGGER ads

[foghorn19]

here's an idea: how about an ad for every third (or fourth,...) comment? This ad could be a TEXT LINK or a small half-inch by four-inch graphic. the textlinks/banners could be sprinkled between comments and that way the readers will actually see the ads instead of the banner they see at the top.

I really want to pay, but I use cash only

[ColGraff]

First of all, you don't need to bludgeon me with ads to get me to pay, Taco. This is my favorite web site - if you just posted an article explaining you really, really need money or you will go under, I'd be happy to pay my $10 to help keep you afloat.

The problem is that, as with many other people, I really don't like to conduct purchases online. I don't trust paypal, and I don't want to give you my credit card number. What I AM willing to do is send you cash or a check through snail-mail - and that is the ONLY way I (and probably many other people) am/are willing to pay. I'm sorry, but until you add a snailmail option, I will not subscribe. Add that option, however, and I will subscribe promptly.

But what will you give *us*?

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay, first of all, let me just say that I've been reading /. since 1997. The value of /. to me can be seen in the fact that I'm still AC'ing my posts, even though I've got a user ... somewhere ... with an ID ~1000. (When I set up that user, we didn't care so much about what number we got ;-) ).

There are a great many sites out there that I would be willing to give donations to. (This begs the question as to why more sites aren't set up as nonprofits.) Currently, Slashdot is not one of those, because what it provides -- a sometimes valuable filter; lots of discussion, most of which is unreadable; Jon Katz and his weird my-so-called-life angst -- has very little cash value to me.

What will I pay for? Reporting. Editing. Proofreading, for God's sake. I give money to my NPR affiliate because I find Diane Rehm to be thought-provoking, "All Things Considered" to be trustworthy, and "Marketplace" to be infomative. Slashdot, which has become infamous for posting articles without doing any sort of backgrounding on them ("Hell, we'll just print a retraction in the next Slashback") doesn't offer me any of those things.

Slashdot has a large, loyal readership, and the potential to become a respectable news source, not just a content filter. If it starts looking at article submissions as jumping-off points for research, interviews, and reporting, then I'll gladly pay for the service, on a click or flat basis. But until then, don't expect my check to be in the mail. I'll just be waiting for my "Fresh Air" coffee mug.

-Baka!

Blocking ads in the client

[mpsmps]

Whenever I go to a new site, I tell mozilla to block images from the advertising servers for that site. This doesn't work for slashdot because the banner ads use the same images.slashdot.com server used by the rest of the site. Depending on how they implement the new ads, this may or may not be a free way to get the same benefit.

I am not opposed to slashdot trying to make some (well deserved I think) money by charging for page views. Charging for ad-free pages probably isn't enough added (adless?) value because it is to easy to filter out ads at the client side. If the ads got obnoxious enough it shouldn't be hard to make the "block images" functionality finer-grained.

iF only I was leet0r then ...

[light101]

If only some comments would actually change something @ slashdot then MAYBE I would pay, until then, why bother? Community? Well, in my understanding, a functional community is one that interact with its people. Did slashdot ever changed something towards it? Or maybe im actually posting this and some other news is catching up all the attention. Oh well, ... keep on surfing!

In the warm light

[Anenga]

"News for Nerds" Web site Slashdot.org has joined the dark side, lining up with leagues of other Net publishers to start selling larger, more imposing advertisements and placing a premium on commercial-free pages.

CNET has posted an article here.

Two words

[MoxCamel]

Use lynx.

Let me get this straight. You want me to pay for the priveledge of not having advertisements being crammed down my throat in an obtrusive way?

What happens when subscriptions don't make enough money? Will you then have "premium" subscriptions? Normal subscriptions will now bypass all but the smaller ads, and premium bypasses them all. But wait, eventually that won't work either. You'll have to have "Gold" subscriptions. *sigh*

The internet is a means to an end, not the end itself. There's a reason the dot-com economy went bust. This plan reflects a lack of imagination, and a basic misunderstanding of the *new* new economy.

Okay, that was more than two words. If you want the two-word version, you'll need to subscribe to my new "Rant subscription service." Currently we accept cash.

Re:Two words

[justinburt]

I don't understand your objection. It's not like you're "paying for the privilege of not having advertisements crammed down your throat." They're not just doing it to be assholes. They're doing it because, otherwise, Slashdot "won't be around much longer," to quote CmdrTaco. As great as it would be to have an ad-free, no-pay site, that just doesn't appear to be within the realm of possibility. I guess it makes sense that everyone's upset - now the Slashdot experience will be slightly more expensive (either time or money), which sucks. But I don't begrudge CmdrTaco, et al. for trying to continue making a living at what they love doing. Justin

Re:Two words

[MoxCamel]

...because, this was the *only* solution, right?

I remember the day when Slashdot was considered fresh and innovative. Yet, they were completely unable or unwilling to draw on their readership and say "listen up, we need to come up with a new way to bring cash in, so we can continue to provide Slashdot. Ideas anyone?"

They're relying on an economic model that didn't work in 2000, or 2001, and won't work now. As I said, this solution shows a complete lack of imagination. I choose not to participate.

-k

Quite the nice haul of $$ coming...

[Lawrence_Bird]

so how much *does* /. cost to run? Even tossing in some reasonable profit margin, say 15%?

If you take the "1/3 of a million" users a day (I guess that sounded better than 300,000), if 5% actually pay $5/ month thats hmmm $75,000/mo. So what needs to be counted.. servers.. bandwidth.. editors salary? (No need to pay for content as it comes for free!)

I'm not involved in websites or hosting so I really *dont* know. But I'm curious to see what those who *do* know think it cots? I dont begrudge these guys trying to make some coin. Don't get me wrong. But I wouldn't care how much it was if they actually provided the content, which they dont.

Kuro5hin.org

[xTK-421x]

People are posting to visit http://www.kuro5hin.org/ as an alternative to Slashdot. Here was the first story when I visited there today:

Female Circumcision - Basic Information

I think I'll be sticking with Slashdot..

Re:Kuro5hin.org

[jenea]

Also for people who read/write in Russian, can visit http://www.slashzone.ru/, for Slashdot-like site in Russian. It uses Slashcode so it's much like sd.

Re:Kuro5hin.org

[Innominate Recreant]

Here was the first story when I visited there today:

Female Circumcision - Basic Information [kuro5hin.org]

It may not be "News for nerds", but for the circumcisee, it's "Stuff that matters."

I'd pay my $5...

[Jennifer Ever]

... If none of those 1000 pages included any Katz movie reviews. Which is to say, the quality of the stories here don't make /. worth subscribing to.

Re:I'd pay my $5...

[Kickstart70]

I second that motion. Katz is an idiot, and doesn't add anything to the site. I don't want any of my dollars to go to paying him.

Kickstart

Don't charge for your own posts.

[anser]

A simple workaround that avoids penalizing content contributors would be to never show an ad (or charge a no-ad pageview) when a user views his own submitted story, journal or comment. You could be generous and extend that to viewing children of the user's own comment.

MOD PARENT UP- INTERESTING

[tfurrows]

"News for Nerds, Stuff that matters."

Has this CNET story been submitted to slashdot yet? This seems like something they would be interested to see on the front page.

Now wouldn't that be an exercise in unbiased journalism... doubt it would happen though.

How about...

[shmert]

a +1 on post = +1 page view credit to acct?

I kind of like the idea of doling out karma with a little added bonus. Probably not a good idea to extend the idea to the negative aspect, though.

i got an idea

[Anonymous Coward]

How about you just block the ads and donate your $5 to the free software foundation instead of just filling the pockets of some money grubbing dotcom scam artists.

All this site does it link to other peoples content and then serve comments from the readers. what a fucking scam.

Just use some ad blocking software and donate the $5 to a place that deserves it.

I can't beleive these dotcom scammers actually beleive everyone owes them something.

Boohoo my dream of getting rich by linking to other peoples content just sin't paying off! you users owe me! pay me and click my banners or i won't upload anymore warez...err i mean link to other peoples content.

Slashdot, a scam and a half.

Sounds familiar?

[talks_to_birds]

Hemos:

"..I just see it as another option that people can use.."

Micro$oft:

"..It's another feature our customers have requested.."

Why do both of these phrases leave me feeling uncomfortable?

t_t_b

Ha!

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean Slashdot has ads? I never would have known if I hadn't read this article.

advertisers

[geekoid]

Maybe you should get some real advertiser will pay the price it takes to run /.?
ThinkGeek hardly qualifies as a money making advertiser.
Get Coke-Cola,Nike,Budwieser. compainies that can afford higher rates.

Maintaining the site dynamics

[ewen]

This change will change the whole site dynamics. For the worse, I think, in its current form.

Slashdot offers two main things:

1. A clipping service (the front page, etc)
2. A reasonably workable discussion forum for comments on the each article, that allows "good" comments to be seen fairly easily

Both of these things rely heavily on "community involvement". Most of the links for the clipping service come from contributions; all the discussion, and all the filtering of the discussion (moderation) comes from the community.

People got rewarded for sending in link suggestions with their name in lights; people got rewarded for good posts with karma; people got rewarded for moderation/meta-moderation with (some) karma. The efforts/rewards were reasonably well balanced to produce the current Slashdot.

Now there's a new factor. Annoying adverts. (I'm assuming they'll be annoying because of the way this is approached, the "we know you won't like this, so here's a way you can buy your way out of it" approach.)

Which changes the whole dynamics of the site. Suddenly people get "charged" for seeing their name in lights (with annoying adverts, or actual money). Suddenly people get "charged" for reading the comments so they can post. Suddenly people get "charged" for reading the comments so they can moderate them. And perhaps people even get "charged" for reading moderations so they can do meta-moderation. Incentives not to do these things. These things which make Slashdot what it is now.

If Slashdot wants to make a major change like this, and not dramatically change the "feel" of Slashdot, then it needs to be made balancing these contributions/rewards. Sending in article links needs to be rewarded; posting good comments needs to be rewarded; doing moderation and meta-moderation needs to be rewarded. In the context of the new change.

Some things Slashdot should consider:

1. Having an article link posted to the front page/a section should be rewarded by some number of "advertising free" pages. 250/500/1000 page views, perhaps based on interest generated in it. (Click through counting may be required; I'm surprised click-through counting isn't done already.)
2. Posting a really good comment, say one that is moderated to 5 AND all the moderations are supported by "that's right" meta-moderations should be rewarded. 100/200/300 page views, say.
3. Moderation done well (supported by meta-moderators) should be rewarded. 25/50/75 page views, say, for the whole set of (5) moderations.
4. Meta-moderation done well (same opinion as other meta-moderators) should be rewarded; say 5 page views for the whole set of (10) meta-moderations if they're all supported.

Without these sorts of balancing rewards all the things that make Slashdot good will be discouraged by annoying adverts (persuading people to go elsewhere), or by the knowledge that if you load the comments to contribute/moderate it's going to cost you, so why bother.

I've no problem with contributing to Slashdot, even money if the framework for the contribution is right (the current scheme is not). But all the contributions which make Slashdot what it is need to be recognised in the new framework.

Ewen

Re:Maintaining the site dynamics

[Sloppy]

Suddenly people get "charged" for reading the comments so they can post.

This thing, which "suddenly" happened, happened years ago when Slashdot start doing banner ads. It is not something that has changed today.

You've been paying all along, and today, you were simply given an option to pay in a different way, replacing the old way. And if you don't want to change, you don't have to. Why is this a problem?

Re:Maintaining the site dynamics

[ewen]

You've been paying all along, and today, you were simply given an option to pay in a different way, replacing the old way. And if you don't want to change, you don't have to. Why is this a problem?

The change is from not-particularly-annoying relatively-small banner ads to, apparently (from the way it was introduced) annoying/distracting/in-your-face block ads. Maybe we have been paying all along; but the price just got a whole lot more expensive.

The way the more-advertising/pay-to-avoid-it system was announced suggests that they're essentially going to make it so that people will want to pay for a subscription to avoid the content-keeping-the-ads-apart effect (or to abandon the site for somewhere else).

Both (people leaving, and people paying a subscription and worrying about using it up) will affect Slashdot. For the worse. The very thing that brought the audience (and hence the advertising revenues) will be discouraged/driven away.

I was merely trying to suggest a way that the things that make Slashdot good could be preserved while still allowing Slashdot a way to get money to pay for all the costs of running the site. From reading other comments here, it seems I'm not alone in suggesting a reward-for-contributing type system.

Ewen

Re:Maintaining the site dynamics

[randal_hicks]

Karma should not be bought, but Ewen has some good ideas for piggybacking subscription rewards ontop of the existing reward system.

Seems like this is nothing new , although /. seems a bit expensive. There should be an unlimited number of ad-free pageviews for the $20 rate though. Providing community service like metamoderating/moderating should not be counted against subscriptions, in fact, I'd like to see these pages Ad-free.

I cannot recall the exact figures, but only a small percentage actually contributes content to Slashdot, and since most of the content belongs to this segment, I say Ewen's ideas are well worth considering.

...perhaps this incentive to contribute will make Slashdot better in the long run?

Ya know...

[talks_to_birds]

...the more I read the posts here, and the more I put up posts of my own, the more I realize the outrageous nature of just what the hell's going on here.

Here's why:

/. is *not* -- I repeat *not* -- the goddam cheesy little snippets that Taco and Hemos and the other people put up to lure us into posting comments.

/. is, and has always been, posts.

Our posts!

We, the readers, are what has made /. into what it is.

We should be charging *them* for our contributions.

Without us, the readers, /. is nothing.

Got it, guys?

Nothing.

Zero, zip, nada, zilch...

Without us, there is no /.

Pay for a subscription to what *we* are creating?

Hell no!

t_t_b

Re:Ya know...

[tstock]

Think of it as paying for the service, not the content, and it becomes more palatable.

I think the effort here is to pay the bills, not to make a killing in profit.

Tiago

Re: Ya know...

[clarkie.mg]

Pay for a subscription to what *we* are creating?
Hell no!

Ok, don't pay. In case you haven't noticed :

Slashdot will still be free for non subscribers.

Re:Ya know...

[clarkie.mg]

Without us, the readers, /. is nothing.

And without hosting and bandwidth, what do you think /. would be ? Yes, you got it : Nothing. Zero, zip, nada, zilch...

The /. team and parent company have been hosting this site with their money for the past years. It's time to give back at least a little. If you want to be rewarded for your contributions, I agree that you could have a X discount on the subscription price for Y 5 rated comments. See my other posts.

Re:Ya know...

[Scoria]

... and without CmdrTaco and co.'s time spent programming Slashcode, there would be no Slashdot.

Without OSDN fitting the bill for bandwidth, there'd be no Slashdot.

you are almost there...

[mikemulvaney]

Distributed would be great. If you could get ISP's to run their own local servers, or even regular people running a peer on their own machine, you could reduce the load on a central server to a huge degree.

After that, you would need to create a protocol that allows people to post messages to their local server, and then make those messages propagate to the other servers all across the land. If you had a simple enough protocol, people could even write their own custom clients, instead of having to use a web browser.

And since everyone is running their own little server, we could allow anyone to post stories; not just the Slashdot Editors.

Hmm, maybe we should start up a project on Sourceforge. I suggest we call it USENET.

-Mike

Re:you are almost there...

[Nick Mitchell]

jeeesus, I was wondering how many fucking thousands of comments I would have to read through before someone mentioned usenet. As I was reading (hehee), I got to thinking: to what extent does slashdot want to retain control over the distribution of their (user-contributed!) content, like some other organizations which control distribution channels of artist-contributed content?

Maybe, post-PayPal ...

[dltaylor]

I looked for a better place to state this, but couldn't find it, so here's my (non)take on the subscription system:

I don't/won't use PayPal, so I will not be subscribing for a while. This also gives me a chance to see what happens to /. in the meanwhile. If the ads are too annoying, the coverage changes in ways that do not suit me, or the quality of discussion improves too much (some of the "fun", for me, is the often-brainless commentary, which, sometimes, brings out a really good point in response), I'll just delete the bookmark.

Which pay model is this going to be?

[dosun88888]

I have no problem watching Fox and waiting through commercials or going from channel to channel for 3 minutes at a time. I had no problem in the early 80's paying for commercial free cable television.

One was wasting my time, and another was wasting my money, both extracting their price.

But I can't live with AOL. Charging ridiculous fees for weak dial up connections, AND shooting ads at the poor sons of bitches who use them by mistake. I cannot live with paying $10 for a movie ticket and sitting through 30 minutes of previews for retarded movies that I have no interest in seeing. I hated watching 13 Days because I wanted to see the LOTR preview on the big screen ASAP (the one ad I wanted to see was preceding the worst movie I have ever seen - lucky me).

Not only do you get charged for everything nowadays, they insult you with ads. But they don't warn you about it. They don't care, because WE don't care. No matter that I have been to 6 movies in the past year - 6 showings of LOTR that is, or that I avoid products that I see commercials for as much as possible, or that I just stop using services that advertise at me while charging me, 99.999 percent of americans don't care.

And that makes all the difference.

I can live with a pay model. I can live with an ad model. I cannot live with a pay + ad model. I cannot live with the Hometown Buffet pricing model that they use for cable modems.

I have more respect than I probably should for the people that run this thing, but I really hope this doesn't turn into another pay + be harassed site.

~D

slashdottoo.com?

[Anonymous Coward]

this opens the market for competition at least.

Learn From Google

[mal0rd]

Repost of mine from earlier: 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.

Thoughts on the matter...

[S1mon_Jester]

There's a lot of finger pointing going on...but no one has answered (I believe) some of the key elements.

1. Increasing the ad size may not result in an increase in revenue. (Whatever your advertisers want - bigger ads are likely to get ignored - I know I haven't bought my X-10 camera yet.)
   
2. Sites depending on ads and/or subscription fall into a slippery slope of bankruptcy.
   

It seems to me that instead of merely selling ad space to the advertisers (and non-ad space to the user) Slashdot SHOULD look into selling unique items to it's readers. The thought of selling karma, accounts, etc. should be considered as an option. (No one other than slashdot can sell these things - and the monetary rewards are it's alone.)

Just a thought.

why should I care?

[Xeus]

Slashdotters have peculiar and wildly fluctuating feelings on whether the Internet should be free or not. In the Internet boom, everyone thought the Internet would change everything and make everything free. Now after the bubble has busted, people follow the psychological trail and claim that "the Internet is no longer free". They say that we SHOULD be expected to pay for stuff. We should empathize with site owners who have to pay for bandwidth and whatnot.

Well guess what? I DON'T CARE. $5. $1. Why should I care about whether they can afford to keep their site up or not?

It's just the way of the Internet, which allows people to pass through its time and space instantly, to have sites grow until they reach critical mass, exceed that, can't support themselves anymore, and flame out while their community members, who are not bound to stay at said site, just go to the next hotspot. It's not like trying to maintain your local neighborhood's sense of community or something physical, something you can't easily get away from or avoid. Moving to a new place is as easy as entering a new URL.

I simply do not care if slashdot survives or not. The information found on it is by no means exclusive or high quality. It's not like reading an investigative report in the Wall Street Journal or an editorial by a famous lobbyist in the Washington Post. It's mainly a bunch of Linux kiddies who think about the world in merely irresponsibly idealistic and theoretical terms (since they have no real world experience yet, which isn't their fault, but you think it should temper their arrogance at least, no?) commenting on news stories that other wires/news orgs break themselves. If you really think you're receiving "intellectual" content here, then I suggest you do yourself a favor and purchase subscriptions to "The Economist" or the "New York Times" and note the marked difference in integrity and creative thought.

You owe nothing to slashdot. This is how the Internet works. Slashdot has to deal with its own bulkiness now. Move on and let it die off.

hmm, more ads unless i pay?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, what ever happened to this whole "free information" and "free software" and "open source" idealogy?

I thought you fucking open source hippies want everything to be free?

Well, good luck getting me to click any of you fucking ads, I never click ads or buy any advertised crap anyways.

And now you are thinking, how does he think he can get away from ads without paying for a subscription?

Well its called running a browser with no JavaScript and no Active Scripting or any other shit, plus I filter ads with a dual-proxy (Junkbuster -> Apache). I don't see your ads, I see a 1x1 transparent GIF.

Advertise THAT you fucks.

HAHA nice try Slashdot, but the day I view an ad from you or pay your fucking subscription fee is the day I die.

Have a nice day, good luck with the ads, hipocrites!!!

Give the editors a break

[DarkProphet]

Personally, I've been looking for some way to give back to slashdot, so this is quite fine by me. This kind of things happens eventually to any site that amasses a good-sized following. There just comes a point where moving to a subscription-based format is the only fair way to defray the costs of running the service. I think Taco and Hemos have come up with a rather decent way to address this issue. Its not like they are taking away something we used to get for free. (*ahem* say like Activestate did with Komodo)

For those who grumble that the editors might turn a profit, I ask only why they shouldn't. If their efforts are used daily by over 300,000 people, maybe they deserve something for thier trouble. I congratulate them on the ongoing success of slashdot, and I also commend them for trying to approach this issue in a mature and intelligent way.

On the other hand, now I finally have to get a paypal account ;-)

Re:Give the editors a break

[talks_to_birds]

You're entirely missing one tremendously significant point:

We the readers/posters are what has created /. -- not Taco and Hemos and the rest.

99.99% of the content of /. is what's posted by the readers.

The little that Taco and Hemos do is to write poorly-formed snippets that headline each article.

The entire substance of /. is written entirely by us, its readers.

And now we get to pay for the privilege of continuing to provide /. with its lifeblood?

I think not.

t_t_b

I'm a masochist

[cat_jesus]

Alright! Now I can pay to get bitchslapped!

PAYPAL WOULDN'T LET ME PAY UP!

[Da VinMan]

You know, I wasn't going to do it your way, I was going to just pay up. I think /. deserves it for the bandwidth if nothing else.

You think I actually got to do that though?

Nope.

They have my address, my phone number, my dog's name (no shit!), my credit card, etc. and they still wouldn't take my damn card. Why not? Because they couldn't VERIFY it! Never mind that Amazon takes it. They want to put a temporary charge on the card with a verification number in the charge description, and then have me use that verification number to prove to them that the card isn't fraudulent/cancelled/from Mars.

Cripes, I hate this crap. I try to support something I use and they just get in the way!

I hope they find something besides PayPal...

I've been reading this site a while

[jpowers]

I learned a lot when there were still a lot of techs around. And when that was the focus of the stories.

I've submitted a few stories (all but one rejected I think, I never said I was GOOD), and I got my karma honestly, back when I cared to spend time in the threads here. I took the karma hits I deserved, too, for being a fool, or when I voiced my (relatively moderate and reasonable) opinion on given subjects and someone disagreed with me and had mod points that day. I have read your site for a long time, I was ALWAYS reading threads at -1, and I have never used any of your author filters, or anything.

And it isn"t like I can't afford to pay for your services. When OMM had their little "forum naming rights" game I bought two, which is $100, for a site that never even updates. So it's not like I feel like I should be getting the things I value for free. I don't steal with napster or whatever, either.

But now here it is:

- For continuing to allow Jon Katz to post stories to this website...

- For wasting your time half-coding a lameness filter that's yet to work, and would be better off without anyway...

- For using a fucking phone company "buy shit in advance" model...

...you're fired. Clean out your desk, these gentlemen will escort you to your car. Thanks for the GPLd code and the heads up about a bunch of stuff back when I needed a clue. Thanks for defending the anime discussions back when we first started, and eventually branching it off into a whole other website. Thanks for not showing bias against folks at other sites when they clearly called you the enemy (...kuro5hin). Thanks for the moments of clarity when you had people like Clay Shirky or the occasional other good QA post.

I will now join the ranks of your 1000s of former readers who will not come here unless a link is offered specifically, and even then I'll have to think about it. With or without harsh economics, in the end you and yours are no better than IGN, and no one sucks like IGN.

/jpowers/jeep/etc/

Re:I've been reading this site a while

[talks_to_birds]

Right on!

t_t_b

haha

[Anonymous Coward]

Time for slashcrap to face the music.

What's that tune? Bankruptcy? Yup.

Re:haha

[Anonymous Coward]

ra!

I hope some NT zealots buy this site up after VA bankrupts. They can post anti-linux stories all day and all night.

Not that I'm against linux, I just think it would be funny. They could make the goatse guy one of the moderators.

wrong url

[proxybyproxy]

It should be

http://www.paypalsucks.com or even
http://www.paypalwarning.com/

How much would you pay...

[Whatsthiswhatsthis]

How much would you pay for advertisment-free TV? I know I would be willing to pay a premium sum. That's why I zipped off $5 directly to slashdot. If not to get rid of the ads, to help them out. Everyone needs to quit complaining and remember... IT IS 5 DOLLARS! It's not like /. is asking for your souls.

Re:How much would you pay...

[Anonymous Coward]

being extorted by corporate theives, be it for $5 or $5000 is still giving in to their threats.

"Pay us $5 every month or two or we're gonna put big nasty ads everywhere! now pay up bitch!"

Nah, how 'bout this, i block you fucking ads and keep my $5.

When the school bully tried to take my lunch money in exchange for not getting beat up i took a big stick and broke it over his head.

I'm not gonna start giving in to extortionists now.

Re:How much would you pay...

[talks_to_birds]

I'll keep this up 'till I'm modded down or black-holed for redundancy:

*You* create /.

The readers/posters create /.

Without the readers/posters, there is no f*cking /.

What are they going to use for content, the poorly-formed, grammatically challenged (and that's being charitable..) snippets that Taco writes?

Any you want to *pay* for creating the content that makes this place what it is?

Ya gotta hand it to Taco and the guys, they came up with a hell of a business model: get your workers to pay for the privilege of creating your product!

Even Micro$oft hasn't figured that one out...

t_t_b

Re:How much would you pay...

[talks_to_birds]

• Re:How much would you pay...
  by Anonymous Coward on 16:04 Friday 01 March 2002 (Score:1) (#3094890)

  being extorted by corporate theives, be it for $5 or $5000 is still giving in to their threats.

  "Pay us $5 every month or two or we're gonna put big nasty ads everywhere! now pay up bitch!"

  Nah, how 'bout this, i block you fucking ads and keep my $5.

  When the school bully tried to take my lunch money in exchange for not getting beat up i took a big stick and broke it over his head.

  I'm not gonna start giving in to extortionists now."

Let's have everyone hear from all sides... ;-)

t_t_b

Re:How much would you pay...

[cheezehead]

Even Micro$oft hasn't figured that one out...


Yes, they have. Don't know if they still do it, but in the past they have charged beta-testers for debugging their products.

Advertising abuse

[Talinom]

I suppose that it could be worse. Companies like Coke and Pepsi might entice us to shop at our local AMPM or CircleK more often with a chance to win money or something. At the absolut wurst they could embed advertising into our very content and change the nature of our speech to suit their needs.

Or isn't that being done already?

Re:Advertising abuse

[isbhod]

Bwahahahah, this is funny! adn nicely done i should add.

charge us for our own submissions?

[Anonymous Coward]

now they are charging to us to see our _OWN_ submissions? what a bunch of baloney..

-d

Bite the hand that feeds you!

[sun_hardware_rules]

Give the advertisers a smack across the head and tell them: "We will put text ads, you know, the kind that annoy no one and actually provide enough information for people to click on. This is briliant. After slashdot manages to get rid of the advertisers (which pay for the site), maybe they can start telling each one of the visitors (especialy the ones that pay) to go fuck themselves. In this way, they can lower their costs because the less people that are looking at the website, the less money they will lose. Also, don't forget - Slashdot has been owned, in the worst way, by Andover. Andover is only here to make a profit. People who use this site and are not interested in helping it generate money, via ads or subscriptions, are a parasite and will be removed. Get used to it people - the world is not a happy place and shit is not free all the time!

Re:Bite the hand that feeds you!

[gnovos]

AAAARGH! I am not advocating free, I'm advocating TEXTUAL ADVERTISING. Text based ads produce HIGHER sales per hit than graphical ads. They are smaller and allow for MORE advertising in the same space as a typical banner ad. They produce more REPEAT CUSTOMERS.

Just becuase the current advertisers want X does NOT mean they know what's best for them. Nor does it mean that one must bow to thier wishes. I'm sure Think Geek (or whoever) would go gibber happy if Slashdot changed it's name to SlashThinkGeekDot, but if /. were to actually follow through with it, no matter how much money they were offered, it would be a *bad idea*.

Text ads will not only make more money for the companies selling goods, but it will make people happier in general with sites that have them. It is a good idea and one that can work if people don't sell it short.

Re:Alternatives? DC'ing

[Anonymous Coward]

That's what I don't understand. We all already pay for our bandwidth -- Why not support sites with that?
This would be a great use of Distributed Computing. A freenet style proxy (for content integrity) running on even 1000 clients should cut down their bandwidth costs. The comments would still be posted to slashdot itself, then distributed. Might take a little longer to get the newest comments but it seems a better trade to me.

I guess the problem with this approach is that they wouldn't be able to make a profit off of this, which is the real reason for the subscriptions. Bandwidth costs, although significant, are not the real issue. It's just an easier sell than saying, "Hey, we want some more money."

Besides, as others have already pointed out, the value here is, primarily, the content generated by the users.

well that's me done

[Tsugumi]

I do most of my reading of /. at work. We filter slashdot only the standard top level comments come through (anything through the script is junked). So I can't block the ads, and subscibing will get me nothing. Thanks.

Will it be legal to mirror?

[segmond]

With all this metered crap, if I mirror some section so I don't use up my meter, is that legal? What if I let me friends see it?

Re:Will it be legal to mirror?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's illegal, you will be in violation of the SSSCA and the DMCA,and it would be morally wrong!

Personally i'm just gonna copy the front page to a newsgroup and then people can respond however the like in the group.

Do I have to pay twice for viewing the same page?

[AShocka]

Do I have to pay twice for viewing the same page on different days? What if I view the page on the day it is posted, a every day after that for a week to check the discussion? Do I get billed for 7 page hits? If so, this is not a fair method of accounting.

Re:Do I have to pay twice for viewing the same pag

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh you get billed for everytime you hit refresh.

Gotta line tacos pockets with cash somehow, now that the va software stock is worth a buck fitty.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

first post

[lignano]

after reading for 1 year+:
seriously impressed: ( Read More... | 2438 bytes in body | 743 of 1832 comments )

;)
jl

IGN

[wwwgregcom]

When ign (the internet videogaming network) first started it was my favorite site for video game info. Than maybe a year back, maybe more there was a post very much similar to one on slashdot, informing IGN's readers they were launching a pay service. It wasn't to remove ads, it was supposed to have features and extras that would be added while keeping the same level of service for the free readers. After this, the pretty soon the news stories for the non-pay users became less and less frequent. Pretty soon they began to take away things the free users had like, the message boards. Needless to say, I don't read IGN anymore. What worries me about this slashdot subscribtion is the extras that might be offered to the subscribers, how long before some slashdot "features" become insider extras. Not to mention the nagging to subscribe like IGN.

The kings invisible clothes.

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't want to be anonymous, particularly. But I don't know my password from this account. I have an account here, "Robert Frazier".

It is difficult to see how a site can make money, unless it meets one of a small number of conditions.

i. Lead-in to a bricks and mortar site. That is, there is a traditional business for which the website is a front end. Buying clothes online is like that.

ii. A clearing area. E.g., an auction, or a last minute flight type place.

iii. Special content. Either the site provides some information at a speed which is especially good, or it provides information which is generally not available.

Slashdot meets none of these conditions. It is a coordination thing. It allows individually worthless content to accumulate, so that it *might* be worth something. I suspect that any additional costs, whether in money, bandwidth or time, will make it redundant. While I hope people here the best, I have little reason to continue reading it.

Best wishes,
Bob

Re:Do I have to pay twice for viewing the same pag

[talks_to_birds]

Who said anything about "fair" -- although you have a very good point.

It's the money...

• (heh..

• "Slashdot requires you to wait 2 minutes between each successful posting of a comment to allow everyone a fair chance at posting a comment..."

  Ouch..

  It hurts to care so much...)

t_t_b

But Paypal makes it free!

[J.J.]

At least, for the first 1000 pages. Remember, you get $5 free just for signing up at paypal.

Re: But Paypal makes it free!

[jesser]

http://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/gen/bon us-faq-outside

What are the New Account Bonus requirements?
To receive the $5 New Account Bonus, U.S. members must verify their account, add $250 by electronic funds transfer, and sign up for our Money Market Reserve Fund to start earning a return on their money.

Bandwidth costs???

[CubicZirconia]

There are endless free sites out there offering software downloads, with the popular ones requiring far more bandwidth than for slashdot's html & gif content.

They don't complain about their bandwith costs - they just set up a voluntary network of mirror sites. This would be the solution if the reason for asking for subscriptions was bandwith costs, or is this really the reason???

I personally feel that slashdot is a virtual meeting point for the slashdot users. All the usefull content is provided by the users in the form of recommendations to news stories elswhere. I don't thing this is something that should be subscription based in any form.

I think that there has been irreversible damage done even by the announcement itself, and that users will leave, even if little changes on the site in general. I don't know of a direct alternative to slashdot.org for focusing my attention to news relevant to me, but I'm sure that alternatives are at this very moment being planned (the code to create these sites is freely available). All it requires is that the next generation takes into account the possible bandwidth demands that may arise, and have plans for spreading the load amongst other friendly (and free) mirrors.

filter ads

[mr_burns]

Why should I pay for no ads, when I've effectively filtered out all the ads you currently have?

I already have this feature for free.

Slashdot alternatives explored

[Anonymous Coward]

What if there was life outside slashdot? I asked myself this question and found the following link:

http://www.cs.washington.edu/homes/klee/misc/slash dot.html#alternatives

Check it out and read it through, this guy makes some good points and gives some good ideas...

I think...

[talks_to_birds]

...the people who make /. what it is have spoken.

The big question is, is anyone listening?

t_t_b

Sure, I'll pay...

[Cruciform]

I have no problem putting up with the ads. But do I ever click on them? Almost never. So seeing what CPMs are these days, /. wouldn't see a lot of cash for my perusal of the site as a free user.

So you'll be getting my money. Damn you. Damn you to hell! :)

Time for a Boston Page View Party

[IgD]

I'm shocked and stunned at this announcement. Paying for Slashdot is like that company selling subscriptions/royalty for that online CD music DB!!!! It's time for a Boston Page View Party.

Paying for the privilege

[sohp]

I just don't see myself paying /. to put up content I create. There are many publishers out there that will happily take your money to finance their publishing your book -- it's called self-publishing and as any author will tell you, a self-published book is rarely anything more than an ego stroke for a wealthy writer wanna-be. Now the idea sending someone my words, who aggregates them with a bunch of words written by other people who have paid or not, and then paying them to see what I wrote sounds ludicrous. There just isn't enough value added by the intermediate party (slashdot) to justify my dime. If, on the other hand, contributors get paid, like magazine writers, out of the revenues generated in part by their contributions, that's another story.

change for the worse?

[jark]

i see a huge amount of people complaining about how this is a change for the worse. we did the same thing, by offering a subscription service to remove ads and offer some goodies, and saw the same thing. it did not affect anything, so i highly doubt that there is much worth in putting stock in all those that are complaining.

/. will do just fine with subscriptions, as have most other sites that implemented them correctly.

Re:change for the worse?

[talks_to_birds]

You, as a poster, create this place.

Why are you willing to *pay* to produce a product that *others* are selling to the advertisers?

Taco and Hemos don't *make* this place happen, you do, as do all posters.

Without us, they're nothing.

Other sites create their content; here, the content is created by the very people who are now going to be charged for the privilege of doing so..

t_t_b

Re:change for the worse?

[compass timber]

You seem to be under the impression that slashdot owe *you* something for your contributions.

I don't agree. Slashdot doesn't owe you anything - but you owe the *community* everything. And we all do - because we all get back *more* than we contribute (the lurker more so than the posters of course, but that doesn't change a thing). This is the same effect which the open source community owes its existence, and which has made it a success

Taco, Hemos, et al, are simply the facilitators for this community. And they need to pay for the bandwidth. That's fine with me

Why I hate PayPal...

[Rakarra]

... and maybe someone can help me with this. I simply can NOT stand Paypal's constant insistance that you link up a -Bank Account- to them. A credit card is simply not good enough for them -- there are credit card options hidden somewhere in their system, but after browsing through their limited options for 20 minutes, I still can't find the option I used to use to withdraw from my credit card (which I've done several times in the past). All over the place it's all "Withdraw from your debit/ATM card to pay for your purchases!" "link your bank account to us!" "Earn interest on the money you transfer from your bank account!" I can deal with giving sites like Paypal access to my credit card, but there's no way in hell I'm giving ANY site on the Internet, besides my bank, access to my checking account! That's simply insane.

Re:Why I hate PayPal...

[boopus]

From what I remember, you have to initiate a new payment with a zero balance and eventualy it'll ask you how you want to pay. At least that worked for me until they decided I was obviously trying to bilk them out of thousands by giving them a new credit card number. There isn't a snowball's chance in hell that I'd give them my checking account either.

Fraud?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you shitting me, you worthless little maggot? If I choose NOT to look at your unwanted ad, I'm committing FRAUD?

Man, you'd better stop licking those little mickey mouse blotter paper squares!

Re:Fraud?

[leviramsey]

The parent post was referring to a perl script that will "click the banners"

*You* are the one missing the point

[compass timber]

Yes, all the valuable content are provided by readers and posters of slashdot. But the whole point is that you always get more in return than you contribute. That is the whole logic of /., and that is also the logic behind the success of the open source movement. People contribute for free because they know they will get more in return.

And that /. starts a subscription scheme in order to be able to pay for their bandwidth needs doesn't change anything, IMO.

Slashdot don't owe *you* anything. *You* owe the community everything

Oh the irony....

[The Bungi]

Let me burn my remaining Karma here, since I'll stop reading /. soon. Better to go out with a flame.

Look at the first and second stories on this Wired story.

Bwahahahahahaha!!!!

Feel the burn babeeee!!!

Anyhoo, it's been interesting I suppose. But I guess concentrated zealotry, st00pid "editorial work", JonKatz and overall high suck factor will only take you so far. Count me along with the zillions of trolls and flamers that will leave this pace in droves. In any case, /. is nothing more than a big collection of links to other sites that have... wait... Ads! Hehehe.

In passing, I'd like to say I cannot freaking believe that anyone would even contemplate charging for this. I mean, sure. It's funny sometimes. Informative once in a while. But absolutely not worth it, not by far. Not even if you guys all leave, OSDN hires two amateur bloggers and then puts up one of those "Under New Management!!!1!!" signs on the front page. Nope, not a chance in hell I would ever pay for Slashdot.

Oh, and not only that - since ya'll have been giving away the code, ya'll can now expect 1,000 little Slashdots to pop up all over the Internet. Here's to giving away the crown jewels! Really mad #props for that!!!

So it was indeed karma (the bad variety) that eventually took this place down.

But - I'd like to propose a toast. Raise your glasses along with me.

Here's to the howling masses, demanding everything be free because they deserve it for some strange cosmic reason. Here's to all the open source "geeks", punks and 1337 h4xx0rz that think the most important thing in the world is to have a kewl mod case, 20 /. karma points and be able to compile a kernel. Here's to companies run by people who don't have a goddamn clue of how to run a business. Here's to all the times I saw an interesting thought being censored and sent to the troll bin because it gave a different point of view than all the kiddies and weirdos with mod points to burn. Here's to the ending of the "dream". Here's #props to ESR saying that "cheap PCs will kill Windows" while the "free software and beer and everything else has to be free" "movement" is slowly killing itself without help from anyone else.

So long live... whatever.

You may now start wasting mod points on me. Ta-ta!

I've already paid my $5

[pdcull]

I really don't care if I get ads or don't, but I do want to see Slashdot alive and well years and years and years from now.

Now I don't know whether selling advertising will in the long-run be sufficient to keep slashdot going, but I'm pretty darn sure that if we all paid our money we'd see /. continuing.

Free software as a concept is one thing, but let's value what's worthwhile and not be stingy...

Just my $5 worth...

Re:I've already paid my $5

[Anonymous Coward]

haha sucka.

Re:I've already paid my $5

[berniecase]

I spend my money where it's worth it. /. is where it's worth it. If it's worthwhile, and it's valuable, then it deserves to get my praise, and my dollars.

$5 is such a small price to pay.

--Bernie

Link to the story on CNet

[RabidMonkey]

CNet ran a story about this back in October ...

Ad slump spurs Slashdot to experiment

New hosts entry== 127.0.0.1 images.slashdot.org

[shodson]

Also, try these

127.0.0.1 ads.x10.com
127.0.0.1 ads.doubleclick.net
127.0.0.1 ad.doubleclick.net
127.0.0.1 us.a1.yimg.com

Re:New hosts entry== 127.0.0.1 images.slashdot.org

[cheezehead]

Isn't that circumvention? If it ain't illegal under the DCMA, it will be under the SSSCA or under Son Of SSSCA.

I'm joking...

Re:Please remove all my comments. Now.

[Anonymous Coward]

You are wrong.

I control the copyright to this comment, as Slashdot happily acknowledges in order to protect themselves from liability. "Comments are owned by the Poster."

If I request it, Slashdot must remove every last comment I've made on this website, including those made as an AC (for which I would specifically have to reference and prove ownership, perhaps a difficult task depending on how extensive their and/or my ISPs' logs are). I am not certain that Slashdot would be quick to oblige, but if necessary, I could have a lawyer pursue it, and as with the Church of Scientology, Slashdot would be forced to relent.

Those of us with a clue said the exact same thing back when the silly Katz book was revealed, and I'm quite certain that we are the reason it was never published. Hell, I'm the individual mentioned in the 'we're putting it on hold' story who mailed them specifically saying that I did not and would not explicitly or implicitly give my permission for any of my contents to be reproduced in any form but the one you're reading them in, though in that one case I hadn't made any comments on the Hellmouth stories.

I seem to recall that they made the text available online, anyway. If anything of mine had been in it, I *would* have taken action. As to assumed hypocrisy, I don't break copyright law when I download music, either (thanks to a convenient loophole in my country's copyright laws).

Posted anonymously because every time I make one of these comments on any forum, there's always some kook who goes back and archives anything I even hint that I might remove. Everything2 is terrible for that. I saw it happen to a dozen people if not more.

Voluntary donations do work!

[NewtonsLaw]

I run a daily Net-news and commentary site at Aardvark.co.nz and in order to cover the cost of bandwidth and hosting without resorting to carrying front-page advertising, I invite regular readers to offer a donation.

The level of donations is covering my hosting costs and some people have even donated twice -- which is very encouraging.

However, I have been regularly pestered by companies which want to advertise on my site (it's the most popular Net-news/commentary site in NZ) so in order to accomodate them without burdening regular visitors, I've created separate page that carries the ads.

The idea behind this is that those who want to offer a donation can do so and get the warm fuzzies that come from such philanthropy -- while those who can't afford or don't want to pay can, if they so choose, visit the advertising page and generate revenues for the site that way.

Of course that still leaves those who will neither donate nor support the advertisers -- but hey, you'll always get people who fall into that classification.

My philosophy is that if you provide good quality content in a fair and resonable way, you will end up being paid what it's worth to those who use it. If you find you're not getting any donations then obviously you need to improve your content to increase its value.

unsubscribe?

[otis wildflower]

Hi,
Maybe I missed it, but is there a way to
unsubscribe and yank all my old postings? If /.
is going to regressively charge people more for
contributing to the community more (as was stated
in the article) I would rather not be part of that
community. In addition, I'd also want, if I unsubscribe,
to yank my prior comments as well. It should be a
relatively simple SQL op.

Slashdot Light and How google does it

[gnugnugnu]

I strongly agree with above post, you really should emulate how Google does it. In particular im talking about text based Advertising.

If users find the advertsing particularly annoying or irrelavant, they can easily block all images from the site and your screwed. Dont forget some people still use text only browsers.

I really like using Slashdot light, but i still have to download a the advertising, and if its going to get worse then i might finally use adbuster or use mozilla's image blocking features, but i dont want to see Slashdot bankrupt either.

I've just changed my start page

[Anonymous Coward]

to kuro5hin, not really the same, but feels cleaner, if i want adds i'll watch tv, anyhow
images are turned off n opera

Discounts for Students?

[SkewlD00d]

I'm a po' ass college student. Are there any discounts? Maybe give credit for meta-moderating and submitting stories?

who is doing the adserving?

[BigBir3d]

if /. does it, that sucks, but if it is a different server, then i am only going to use mozilla (right-click on ad, choose 'block images from this server').

rm -rf *banner*

[SkewlD00d]

append to /etc/hosts:
127.0.0.1 images.slashdot.org
127.0.0.1 ad.doubleclick.net

LOL!!

Is banning ads in /etc/hosts somehow illegal/immoral? Or is it justifiable consumer response?

Adshield

[Anonymous Coward]

Install this nifty little program" and you will never see another banner ad. I've been reading slashdot "ad free" for months.

Re:Does this change the viewer demographic for ads

[jesser]

I learned about thinkgeek through slashdot banner ads and later returned to look for a gift. I bought a shirt that wasn't advertised directly on slashdot.

One feature I hope I'll see...

[Adrian Voinea]

I hope Taco will use some of the $$$ he'll get to buy a spellchecker.

Poor College Student toggle?

[Com2Kid]

Is there going to be a Poor College Student toggle switch so those of us with no money do not have to look at the ads?

After all it COSTS the advertisers money to show those ads, and well. . . . why show them to people who are not going to buy them?

I'll even e-mail a copy of my student ID if necessary. :)

Why not a mirroring system?

[extrasolar]

It seems that we get lots of volunteer sites on the internet and it seems the cost hasn't ripped a hole in their pockets. Think of all the FTP sites...when one gets flooded with requests you to a mirror with faster access. Whats wrong with a mirroring system for slashdot?

If someone would set up a system where they mirror slashdot and half the slashdotters go there instead of the original, it makes sense to me that both sites would require half the bandwidth. What if their were 3 mirrors, 4 mirrors, n mirrors of slashdot? Do you think then that running a popular site would cost so much?

The difference is that no one would get paid. It would actually be a volunteer activity. But the problem is with the internet itself. We've learned that it would be so much better if the internet could provide resources based upon need. If a site gets a heavy load then it should be given a majority of the resources. I think the FreeNet Project is experimenting with this sort of thing.

As for myself, I'm not gonna pay money to read other people's comments. We have newsgroups for that, we have IRC for that.

In my opinion, the Internet economy demands that we spread our communities into more diverse locations rather than suck everyone into a single web site. The later is the AOL-ization of the web. Everyone using one provider is gonna cost money. But I think we got to spread out. The internet is too large a place for just one web site.

As a regular /. user i want to support the cause

[smartin]

The question that i would ask myself is what is it worth? The answer I'd give is between $20 and $50 per year. This sounds like about 50000 pages per year or 136/day, i'm in!

Please tell your advertisers, bigger is not better, associating a company or product with an in your face annoying experience does not help sales

Magazine subscriptions and advertising

[atomicgirl]

People, I bet all of you have at least one magazine subscription, or at least buy a magazine once a month. Now consider the percentage of space in a magazine is taken up by advertising. More than half? More than 75%? How many pages of ads do you flip through before you get to the first page of content? Yet it still costs $5 for ONE ISSUE of most magazines!

Sure it costs money to print a magazine (and more money, when you consider the paper the ads consume), and it takes servers and bandwidth to run Slashdot.

So why is it so hard to imagine subscribing to something which actually uses your subscription dollars to reduce the advertising? You can give $20 to sites like Salon (to which I subscribe, and receive ad-free), or fork out cash only to get magazines with so little acutal content that you wouldn't consider spending $5 on if they didn't have the ad bulk.

Re:Magazine subscriptions and advertising

[Anonymous Coward]

ya except magazines actually provide their own content.

If a magazine was just a collection of articles from other magazines i wouldn't buy it

Just ask for money, I'll handle the ads

[Anonymous Coward]

No need for /. to bother with figuring out how to remove ads from pages. The Proxomitron does a fine job with that. Rather tell me how much money you need, show me your books and I'll just donate if I want to keep /. running. If it's in my interest for /. to stay up, I'll cough up some $.

No big ads at Google..

[Anonymous Coward]

Just the other day slashdot had a story about how Google makes money without having big, picture ads...how much we all loved it...good thing they weren't selling out...

And the Slashdot says they are getting big ads. Why not follow the Google model?

Re:*Sigh* You already can...

[srvivn21]

1) I will not argue with you about the virtues of modding stories. I don't have an opinion either way. :o)

2) Sorry for not taking it as a joke. I was just trying to be helpful. No harm done.

3) It might be a fact about your opinion. It's an opinion that I (and many others) share with you. That's what the check boxes are there for. If you can't enjoy /. for the very fact that you are aware of Katz' existence...You have my sympathy.

Paying to moderate ... uh, maybe not

[Skapare]

I'm all for paying to have a slashdot free of obese ads. I'll probably pay more than average because I do read quite a lot regularly. I think I can live with that. Of course this will only happen once there's a way for me to pay giving my CC number or sending my check to someone I trust (see my sig if you want to know what I mean).

Anyway, I'm a bit concerned about the moderation process. Periodically I do get some moderation points. Sometimes I don't have the time to do anything with them (fortunately they last a few days, so usually I eventually do). But when I do, I pick some current topic I don't really have any need to post on, and start reading to see who's on topic with real contributions. By picking a topic of less interest to me, I think I can be less biased than I would be for some other topic that interests me greatly. But by so doing, I'm reading a lot of comments that I otherwise would never have seen ... page views I otherwise would never have made.

CmdrTaco ... I recommend that moderation be changed slightly as follows. When a user is logged in and has moderation points, it gives them the option to make an election to moderate whatever thread they want to, much like it does now, but via a separate link. Confirm they really want to, and really understand they won't be able to post there. Then that thread can be viewed without ads, without cost, for the first 100 pages viewed. When a moderation point is used, add 100 again to the number that can be viewed on that thread. When all moderation points are used up, let the moderator keep their free ad-free views for that thread so as not to discourage delaying moderation (the moderating should be done because a comment is worthy, not avoided because it might mean the ads come back or the pages have to be paid for again). In other words, up to 500 free views on threads elected for moderating.

While I would pay to access /. ad-free, I would end up not doing any moderating any more if I had to also pay for the moderated pages. I'm not interested in paying to moderate just like I'm not interested in paying to vote for politicians.

Why not a grandfather clause?

[LM741N]

Let us with high karmas, and do thougthful moderating get grandfathered. Otherwise, all you'll be left with are trolls and flamers, and Slashdot will be dead.
Basically, I am not going to pay for a service where I am providing the content.

How about an end to the /. censorship?

[RonVNX]

What would _that_ cost?

Now it all makes sense

[mkelley]

I've been wondering why alterslash has been down. This would really cut into the possible /. revenue if another site was offering the top rated posts of each topic.

Spread the labor!

[kolevam]

Perhaps the burden of running this kind of site has rested on too few shoulders?

If you're all so hot and bothered about paying money for something of value, then perhaps this eveil plan appeals to you...

Take every topic (ie, Anime, BSD, Hardware, whatever) and get SlashCode and host a site for each topic, and they all share RDF (or whatever it is) data so that whatever site you're on you can see all the stories posted for that day on every other topic servers. Kind of a P2P thing in which each peer simply specializes in a different topic. Would something like that work?

Large Ads? How About Text Ads?

[Anonymous Coward]

All the sites are adding to add the larger ads that advertisers demand, but clickthrough rates keep falling. In the meantime, Google has small, text-only ads, and they get way better clickthrough rates than anyone - because the ads aren't obnoxious, and are well targeted. How about trying text ads on slashdot instead?

This is not going to work and you know it.

[Repran]

nuff said.

About those ads ...

[1ione1]

Hey, I like the banner ads on /.

Sure beats Yahoo, where I've never seen a banner ad for something I'm interested in. And those casino pop-ups make Yahoo look like part of the Net's red-light district

So go for it, /.! Who can argue with complete freedom of choice? Heck, if somebody doesn't like it, let them take the slash software and do it better with their own time and money.

Please read this post, this is the answer to all!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, the Ozx is right. The problem is that so many people visit the site, the costs run high and somebody has to pay. Nobody wants to!

What we need is a P2P distributed news source, where everyone volunteers resources for news.

Wait, pay me money for that thought!

Heres the deal

[chairmanKAGA]

If you want me to pay about $20.00 a year, and I will, then I want to have full moderation. At least 5 points a day. Let the people who pay decide what they want to read. If I'm paying I want "something". Trolls are not going to pay so they won't abuse this. Let people who don't pay still "earn" their points but damn it I feel that I will be in a group of similar people willing to pay (those that love this site so much and want to make it as good as it can) that we can help each other sift shit stories. I think the trick to having a pay iste is to give me something "real". Anyone object?

Re:Heres the deal

[cheezehead]

That's brilliant! You should go into politics! Here we are moaning all the time about how companies buy politicians and politicians buy elections, and there you are wanting to buy mod points!
So, what's the next step? Slashdot Premium? 100 mod points a day for only $25 a month? You think MS would be interested in buying mod points for their employees, so all those nasty pro-Linux/anti-Windows posts can be modded down to -1?

Your idea is no different from a corporation wanting political influence in exchange for campaign contributions.

Yes, I object.

Re:Heres the deal

[chairmanKAGA]

But your wrong because this *is* a private website, not a political forum for and by the people. If I'm paying money into this then I want to be able to have points to select what's good and what's not so others that pay will have the power to really control what *we*, the payers, want to see. Basically, this is a way to offer something "real". If I pay money I am therefore a more important citizen of slashdot and should be able to control the content you get for free that suits mine and others liking. Maybe not more important as in what I provide via content, but I keep the ship afloat and I want something in return.

Slashdot Inertia

[Tom7]

Slashdot: If you want to stay afloat, you should do this as gradually as possible. If you dump lots of changes on us all at once, and we don't like 'em, that might be enough to make us unhappy, and make us stop visiting -- and there's nothing like a lack of readership on a user-driven site to send it spiraling down the drain.

If you're going to make *negative* changes like these, you might consider making *positive* changes to offset it -- clean up the design of the site (you don't have to get rid of the green, just streamline it for all of the old obsolete stuff), implement some features people have been asking for forever (submission queue), etc.

Despite all its problems, it would be a shame to see this site go. This change could really do it, so be careful!

What about journals, etc.?

[tshak]

With people paying for metered access and therefore a "per click" fee, why would someone want to visit my journal or personal page? I think you may be killing some of the cool features of /. by making people "conserve" their clicks.

Plus, as many others mentioned, those that use /. the most are generally the ones contributing the most. Therefore, it really all comes out in the wash. Flat rates work for the telco companies, and they will work here as well.

Another idea

[Mr-Pope]

I've seen a lot of posts about how to make paying more valuable. Well, since we are paying per page (which I assume means per page hit, which means per reload), then how about this idea:

Another user preference where you can choose to be emailed when a new story has been posted. This way we don't have to waste "pages" when reloading the front page for a new story or poll.

It's true that you can just "choose" to not have the main page count against you, but that still means that there will be a big fat add between each story.

There's a good idea in that...

[MousePotato]

You can find out about OSDN's ad pricing by following the "advertising" link in the left navigation bar. Rates for the current banner type (468x60) start at $40 per 1,000 views.

How about this for a tiered membership option. Make it easy enough to buy a 'banner' membership. Say you pay a premium like $50 for the year and slashdot randomly inserts you banner 1,000 times over the course of the year for your membership.

It'd be easy enough to do and you could highlight user sponsored banners( a gold border when they display), maybe then the site users would even make the click through to support this idea.

What the problem with PayPal?

[skriefal]

Why all the recent hatred towards PayPal? Sure they're no longer free, but they have to turn a profit somehow.

Or are there other sinister happenings at PayPal that should make me dislike them?

Costs for slashdot and paying sites

[musicmaker]

I have no idea what Slashdot draws in bandwidth, but during peaks usage I could easily imagine it drawing a full DS3/OC3 based on some rough calculations I did. A DS3/OC3 worth of bandwidth for a year is not that far off $600k, and you haven't payed any salaries yet! I have no issues with slashdot charging for a service. It's a service, if you like it, pay for it, because before long there aren't going to be any free news sites left. The only problem could be that Slashdot charges, and then so does the news site that it links too! Double Whammy! That could be really nasty. Perhaps slashdot should contemplate getting some kind of cost share program with other sites, as I'm sure that even some of the most stalwart sites like the BBC will soon charge once everyone is going there because they are the last free site left!

Re:Costs for slashdot and paying sites

[SomeOtherGuy]

There will always be free sites as long as we have google and people with an opinion that can type it in and upload it to some $20 a month host. (unlike most sites -- I am confident that googles business plan will make enough cash to keep it free for the people.)

BBS

[ThePlumber2]

This is why I ran my OWN bbs (for free), and why I run my own site (free)....

A turd starts out small, but then gets bigger. If you were REALLY having problems, you would have someone with some bandswidth host it for you (possibly a university? I know, blah blah, but that is what they are for and that is where it started damnit). How about IBM?

It's time to take back the bullshit, I am soooooo close to installing frontdoor for linux hehehee..

OUT

S u b s c r i p t i o n?

[Anonymous Coward]

Huh? Am I missing something here? Pay some protection $$ to /. so as not to see the ads?

OR

Use WebWasher - it's free, works great, and did I mention it's free?

OR

Junkbuster...

OR

[insert proxy name here]

Moral: /. - just forget it. I'm NEVER going to pay you anything so long as I can go chat with people *anywhere* else for free. And when I can't do it online, I'll go back to CB, or hanging out in the mall... And I'm not going to feel bad for filtering the ads - I, and I alone, get to choose what will and won't be accepted for display on my screen and guess what? NO ADS are allowed.

F *&^ ya

[SomeOtherGuy]

The cornerstone jewel from a company who had stock hover near 200 bills per share and you want me to fucking use PAYPAL to send you money. (I have never used a cuss word on /. before) Paypal is ok for Aunt Edna peddling tumbleweeds on Ebay --- But did not someone pony some cash away back in the glory days that can to fronted to sign up for a fucking merchant account? And bandwidth.....300 GB a month for 100 Bucks at Rackshack ... A couple of these boxes should be able to sustain a semi busy geek board....And for a few single geeks making 100K a year spewing out c++ code for a fortune 500 company that would equate to beer money....

I do like /. and I will pay a fee (not through paypal though --- it does break my "any company who has the urge to ask me to pay to provide my mis-spelled bits of whino knowledge and opinion should at least have the balls to set up a merchant account....") Hell -- maybe enron and VA could get together and have a fucking garage sale or something.....

Re:F *&^ ya

[SomeOtherGuy]

Oops that is Rackshack.net and not rackshack.com (I will forego my /. cool idea commision fee for that one.....Sorry taco.)

P.S.....I do have 50 karma to burn so mod away (I will empty out my kids penny jar if I have to buy them back.... But since I wont use paypal....I will have to put them in a box and UPS them to the front steps of VA.)

Re:F *&^ ya

[dipfan]

Enron and VA have got something in common: both use Arthur Andersen as their accountants. It's true - check the VA 2001 annual report.

My 2 cents: I like /. and I'd pay for it, but not this model. $5 per 1000 impressions is a bad idea I'm afraid. Look, if you can learn anything from the pr0n industry (and I'm serious here) it's this: their subscription model is tried and tested. Do they charge per 1000 anything? No. They charge for time periods, one month, three months, one year subscriptions. It's the magic 3% of readers/posters who get hit any other way.

Please, at least set up a donations file, a "Friends of /." scheme, where people like me can send in $$ just because we want to support the site. Everyone now knows that advertising ain't gonna support the site, so another model has to be found. The one you're suggesting isn't the best, although I can see the logic behind it. The sites that have gone "premium" (eg, Salon, the Wall Street Journal) have another model that you should consider.

Some British politician said that taxation is like plucking a live rooster - you've got to do it very carefully to avoid a lot of squawking. Why not try a voluntary subscription scheme (an annual $25 sub?) that gives something warm and fuzzy to donors as well, like arts companies do (ballet, orchestras), and see how that goes first. Use that as a base. Use that group as a test bed for developing a premium service. Otherwise you risk detracting from the community that makes /. what it is.

I would pay for email summaries

[billmil]

Slashdot powers that be:

I would pay for a 'subscription to topics via email' where I get a nicely formatted email with daily 'top comments' on the topics I care about (java, linux, sci-fi shows: whatever).

By nicely formatted, I mean, HTML email with links to the original article and posts. So I can read it in one swoop. You can put ads in the email, as long as they're good and relevant and unobtrusive.

I would be more willing to pay if you guaranteed strong moderation: specifically good editors who know their topic really well made sure that all posts were read and bucketized correctly. Perhaps supplemented by comments from known experts in the field. (e.g. when John Carmack posted on the Quake2)

I use slashdot to feel the pulse of the tech world and I often find the comments more helpful than the original article, especially if someone knows their stuff.

I have no problem dropping some cash to keep current, whether it's a magazine, an O'reilly book.

flat it

[onShore_Jake]

I can see paying A simple flat rate for /. without ads. .

But if I have to start thinking "if I reload i'll waste a page view", it will make using Slashdot very gus. Bo Gus

I've got a better idea...

[dallen]

The problem isn't the ads. The problem is potentially repetitious, annoying ads. A large number of the ads on Slashdot are repeats. I would love to see ads for neat geek stuff. I just don't want to see the same ads repeated day after day...

You've got this new "self-serve" ad system, where people can create and pay for ads on OSDN sites.

Why do you want to dilute the value of your ad-spaces by eliminating the people with spare money?

Instead, you could promote sponsorship via self-serve ads. For the same $5 for 1000 views, "sponsorship" could get your favorite open-source project advertised on Slashdot. With you creating the ad yourself. Simple, eh?

Oh, for God's sake.

[Saint Aardvark]

Grow the fuck up.

a) First of all, you're paying for ad-free page views. If you can't load a page, seems to me that...surprise!...you wouldn't be charged for one of your ad-free page views.

b) Grow the fuck up. Do you think bandwidth is free? Do you think those really hibby rack-mount servers are free? Do you think that when one of those two fail, CmdrTaco is just gonna sit around, thumb up his ass, waiting for someone else to fix it?

Read CT's above comments: this is like a pledge drive for PBS. Instead of a tote-bag, you get ad-free pages. And remember: if you don't like it -- or Slashdot -- you're always free to fuck the fuck off.

Goddamn, but your comment has made me angry. I'll get modded down for sure, if anyone sees this in this field of 2000+ comments, but I don't care. I'm signing up because I like this goddamned site and I want to know it's going to stay around. I want to know that /. isn't going to sink beneath the waves because of apathy and "Where's my five-nines uptime guarantee?" clueless whining from idiots like yourself. I am honestly quite unable to understand what the fuck why your idiotic demands should seem important to you.

(I'll probably wake up tomorrow and regret how angrily I replied. But I won't regret that $20.

Re:Oh, for God's sake.

[Anonymous Coward]

Grow the fuck up.

Unusual attitude for a mature person like yourself.

Hemos toady.

Re:Oh, for God's sake.

[Saint Aardvark]

Touche. Like I said, I was angry. I'm not sure why, but the whole "what's my guarantee" question really got to me. I was reading 200+ pages (Lynx) at +3, and got about halfway through when I found that. My carefully-thought-out, sure-to-have-been-mature response went right out the window. FWIW, I'd mod you up right now.

Ads!! Damn!!

[Anonymous Coward]

God bless Junkbuster!

I do pay for bandwidth

[ONOIML8]

Can I get you to explain this to my ISP then? They are under the impression that the more bandwidth I use, the larger the pipe they have to have to accomidate that and that the larger pipe cost them more money which is passed on to me.

To that end I had to agree to TOS that says that I won't use whole gobs of bandwidth, and that if I do it can't be sustained rates.

So it's not necessarly that I disagree with you, it's that my ISP does.

As a member of the internet (that being one who is connected to the net, a resident, one who views content or provides content) we pay a fee to connect to the internet. The internet is us, it is both the content viewer and the content provider.

Supply is nothing without demand. Demand is nothing without supply. So yes, I'm telling you that I should have some say because I pay for my end of the traffic already. Slashdot might exist if it didn't have viewers, but what would be the point?

Your arguement would apply if we were talking about a different type of business. Take Wal Mart as an example. I can't bitch about the content of the local store because I don't pay to enter their store. If I want to go to their store I can walk or drive there and purchase what I desire, leave what I don't like on the shelf. Or I can choose to not go at all.

But with the internet I have to pay to connect. The amount I pay is directly related to the size and type of connection I desire. (28K dialup costs less than 56K dialup which is less than DSL, etc). My ISP is very concerned about how much of that pipe I fill. So yes, I have every right to tell content providers that I don't want to pay for their content. Certainly I shouldn't have to pay them to remove unwanted content that they inserted KNOWING FULL WELL that I didn't want that content to begin with.

And if you still you still think that you can use all the bandwidth you want on a residential account, try this: Write a simple script to download all the Red Hat ISO images over and over and over again. Run that script for a week. If your ISP doesn't complain then maybe I'm wrong. But I'll wager that you're going to find yourself being cut off by your ISP, or at the very least, getting a phone call from them insisting that you pay more based on your increased usage. It's extreme I know, but it should prove the point.

Re:I do pay for bandwidth

[Lazy Jones]

So it's not necessarly that I disagree with you, it's that my ISP does.

That's why I asked you to consider asking your ISP to pay your content fees ;-). If subscription models don't work (and they won't in the long run if individuals have to pay sites directly - noone wants to pay 50 monthly bills and manage all the subscriptions), sites will ask ISPs to pay for the content.

Large sites can easily force ISPs to pay by otherwise denying access to their customers (by blocking the ISPs IP range). Someone with enough weight has to be the first to do it, though (perhaps a conglomerate of high quality web sites or someone like CNN). So, it's not altogether unlikely that at some point your ISP will offer a "basic" access package that only gives you the connection and traffic, as well as a "premium" package that allows you to access those sites that charge your ISP for the content.

Floating Subscriptions, Fixed rate, the meritocrac

[Anonymous Coward]

Basically, paying for "premium" content is paying for content. That fine. Anyone who pays an ISP, pays for content. The problem is now cool sites just don't get any.

American consumers want a fixed month fee. Period. End of Sentence. Heck to you otherwise.

SO, there need to be "floating", "transferable" or other subscription system that gives the average user access to any kind of content spread around the entire web for fixed monthly fee. Just make it mayhbe twice what it is today. And divide among the content providers however you wish.

But that's it, that's all that works. Please, figure it out and get the inet working again.

Thank you.

How long is 1000 pages?

[shutton]

Answer: depends on who you are.

Slashdot is easily one of the sites I hit most; as such, I'd be happy to help out with the administrative costs. However, I haven't a clue how long my $5 subscription would last. If I had some historical data (my own, not the average for all users), I'd be more likely to pony up.

OTOH, from a technical perspective, I understand that it's page views that count. However, people work on a time basis -- they don't like to sit and count. Simply charging for page views isn't innovative -- it's insensitive to how people really operate. You might as well be an evil cell phone company.

Perhaps somewhere in-between would be to throttle a bit. Figure that someone will load 10 Slashdot pages in a day (that's about 3 months for a 1000-page subscription). If they expect to get 3 months out of their subscription, let them. Just let them know when they're hitting too frequently, or send a static page or banner-ad page when they run over a personally-set daily limit.

No

[sulli]

It's a pain in the ass to think about pay-per-view. I would rather overpay ("myself get cheated") via flat rate so I don't have to think about it - that's worth money to me.

hey pal

[Anonymous Coward]

stick your ads and subscriptions where the sun don't shine ok.

Slightly calmer than before...

[Saint Aardvark]

But the same conclusion.

I have a hard time understanding what *so much* of the whinging I just waded through (browsing at +3!) was about. Yes, we create the content. /. provides the means that allow that comment. We provide the stories. /. allows those stories to reach all of us, quickly and easily. Like (fortunately) a fair few) have said, it's not cheap. Something I haven't read yet: it's a symbiotic relationship, /. and its readers/posters (two diff. communities; read CT's constant statements about how many don't post). Neither one of us goes anywhere without the other.

If you don't like it, look at the ads or leave. If you like Slashdot like I do, stick around. I've paid my $20. Have you?

(Left here for posterity...there's no way this'll get read now.)

Re:Slightly calmer than before...

[tdye]

I read it.

Left the page up all weekend and reloaded when I got back to work.

Kuro5hin drift.

[autopr0n]

Yeh, K5 has really lost its focus. It's no longer about tech and has become a politics page. I think it has something to do with the fact that people are only going to sit down and write long articals for free unless its something they really care about or if they have to (school assignment)

Anyway, the k5 software is free and really nice. Download it and start your own tech-based site and request short articals. See how it goes, I'd probably visit.

Kap introduced after 200000

[yerricde]

Unless this was pre-cap, in which case low UIDs would have been common at the time and hence worth less. When was the cap introduced?

Worth not very much less. The Karma Kap wasn't introduced until at least 200000.

simple

[Anonymous Coward]

simple enough i'll block your stupid ads.

oh sure its ok to block the ads everywhere else.

but slashdot is somehow "special" or "different" than those other websites right?

i don't fucking thing so.

you ads get blocked like everyone else.

contrary to popular beleif you are not special.

you are a just a two bit internet swindler like the rest of the dotcoms.

the internet was so much better before all you greedy assholes showed up.

Middle of the roaders mod

[autopr0n]

Mods go to middle of the roaders, not the 'hardcore'. Not, even, the people with high karma. Slashdot is not a meritocracy, it's a mediocracy.

Arrrghh..

[sulli]

Okay, I just don't get it. I'm a pretty hardcore slashdot user (>1600 posts) and I think it's pretty damn good, even though the whole Post of Doom thing pissed me off. I have karma 50 and a bunch of fans. So I am a contributor by your measure.

But I COST SLASHDOT MONEY. Possibly quite a bit. All those posts, pageviews, flames, trolls, song parodies, karma whores, and failed submissions take up bandwidth. Sure, I click on the ThinkGeek links and have bought a t-shirt or two - so I have sent them some bucks. But I am quite sure that, dollar wise, I'm a net negative.

By your analysis, should I subscribe? Slashdot *depends* on me, and 100000s of people like me, by your definition. Yet I cost them money. What to do?

My decision: I'm going to fork over some cash. The slashdot experience is worth it for me. Maybe I'll be paying to get pissed off - but sometimes that's worth it too. To me, it's participation, and sometimes that costs money, and that's okay!

(My troll accounts will see the ads. No need to burn cash on those.)

Am I off base?

Yeh, but.

[autopr0n]

This business model is almost never used in the real world, and there's a good reason for that. people don't want to have to worry about things like reloads, comments changing, etc. You'd probably make about the same amount of money charging everyone $6/year rather then having a lot of people worry about not waiting their allotted HTTP requests. You're going to end up with a lot of people not signing up for this or a lot of people just blocking the ads because of the inherent complexity.

I have the Prior Art(tm)

[yerricde]

How's this: each point of karma earned (or whored, where's the distinction) allows the poster to "kill" (with sound and explosion effects please) upto 50 (!!) humongous animated ad banners.

You could probably just hack my Hampsterdeath game to do that, by replacing the five hamster bitmaps with stereotypical ad banners.

Patent laws will be pending

I have the prior art.

another thing

[autopr0n]

Only like the first two thirds or something of the users get modds. So you'll have to be around untill /. gets x users were x = 1.5*u where u is your UID.

Re:another thing

[jdavidb]

First 90%. I passed that mark awhile ago. I watched the same process in much smaller scale on use Perl;.

Why doesn't web advertising work?

[Anonymous Coward]

There's really two revenue generation methods available to /. - ads, and subscription based. Ads, imo, are not worth the same on the net as they are on say, TV - because the two technologies demand a different level of participation. On TV, it is only assumed that the ad will be viewed and more interest in a particular product, service, etc. will be generated in the viewer. On the web, it is believed that the only way an ad is effective is if it generates a click through to the site in question, and the ads are designed as such (show me an ad on the web that doesn't have some sort of 'click here' msg!).

If the ads were designed to be more simple, requiring less expectation of interaction upon the end user, and being there just because they are, they might actually become more effective. Because users may actually want to see a particular ad, merely because of its content. They may even start 'talking' about the ad in a positive way.

Food for thought for the people out there who actually design the ads, not so relevant to the task at hand.

Cheapskate.

[Pay The Fuck Up!]

Dude, RTFA. They have made it VERY clear that they are LOSING money. Would you prefer it if slashdot just quit, because they can't pay for the bandwidth necessary to post comments such as yours?

Maybe if /. just dropped ACs, they would save enough bandwidth. Whatcha think about that?

Re:Does this change the viewer demographic for ads

[skotte]

you know, an interesting thought here is: what if the ads arent fFor products which suck? what if they actually point to things i could use?

shock of all shocks .. it's happened before. AccessNFS was a new product to me till i saw a banner ad (couple years ago). and so we bought a fFew licenses.

ads arent inherently evil .. just a bit mind-numbing.

Karma or icons would be wrong...

[The Evil Beaver]

It would elevate the position of subscribers through money, rather than through the thoughtful prose which they post. There's enough status symbols existing to let me know that I'm in the lowest tax bracket of any first or second world country, so adding this one would be another straw on this camel's back.

The rejects bin is a good idea, though, and perhaps earlier access to articles (they can read articles thirty minutes before they appear to the general public, and post to them then). This would help with the 'f1r5t pS0t' issue, because I doubt that the trolls would bother paying any money to read Slashdot. Perhaps also e-mail notification of when an article appears (which would be nessesary under the early article idea). I'd shill for that, had I enough income to spend on it.

But please, no status symbols or karma. That's unfair to those of us with insight posted, yet empty pockets.

Re:Karma or icons would be wrong...

[leviramsey]

Getting offtopic here, but what would qualify as the Second World?

IIRC, the terms First, Second, and Third World can be traced back to French intellectuals c.1950. They defined the First World as the (primarily) Western Capitalist Nations (though Japan and others also qualify). The Second World was the Communist Nations. The Third World was "other". So, would, say, Russia or the Czech Republic qualify as First World now that they're developed, sort of Capitalist, and sort of democratic? Are the only Second World nations left China, Cuba, North Korea, and Vietnam?

I guess I just had to ask that question...

Re:Karma or icons would be wrong...

[The Evil Beaver]

As I was taught: First world are the capital nations of the world, such as the USA, Britain, Germany, etc. Second world are nations such as Canada, Australia... While not world leaders in their own right, are still listened to by the world and heeded. The third world are 'developing' and war-torn nations.

Re:Karma or icons would be wrong...

[leviramsey]

As I was taught: First world are the capital nations of the world, such as the USA, Britain, Germany, etc. Second world are nations such as Canada, Australia... While not world leaders in their own right, are still listened to by the world and heeded. The third world are 'developing' and war-torn nations.

I think you were taught incorrectly. According to this page:

A Euro-American bloc of states with political and economic ties came to be called the First World. Japan was later added to this monopoly of power. The term Second World distinguished the First World from the other geopolitical bloc: the communist-socialist states including the Soviet Union China, North Korea, North Vietnam and until recently, Eastern Europe. The states not aligned with either bloc of geopolitical power were regarded as the "Third World." These newly decolonized states were also the economically disadvantaged ones having just emerged from centuries of colonialism. Their situation of economic dependency on the First and Second Worlds (neo-colonialism and debt-burdens) is today the more commonplace connotation for the term Third World

Re:Karma or icons would be wrong...

[The Evil Beaver]

Well, it's a little too late to change my post, so hopefully this conversation will help any confused readers, heh.

BTW, thanks for the link and fixing something that my stoopid teachers told me. That's what happens when Conservatives get voted into Ontario. :P

sponsored stories?

[anshil]

Sponsored stories! (once in a while)

With yellow background instead of the white usual, like googles hit's.

Wouldn't that be far more profitable than this flashing images, or paypal subscriptions?

Imagine the hitrate a side gets with "hit this monkey and win" almost nothing, 1 in a few tousend or so. Now imagine the hitrate a site gets when it's allowed to write a small story? It's not called the "slashdot effect" for nothing :o)

And I would suggest simply branding "sponsored stories" with a different look and feel. (i.e. yellow background) I have also no problem to distinquish "sponsored links" in google from real hits.

Re:No Karma Cap for subscribers

[Anonymous Coward]

So what happens when their subscription runs out? They get knocked down to 50? Then you'd have people doing the "I was going to pay, really!" and if you don't knock them down, then people just won't pay. Seeing as you get the +2 option somewhere below the 40's, I don't see what extra karma points do for you.

Well duh.

[autopr0n]

People would rather be ripped off for a dollar a year then have to worry constantly about how many pageviews they're wasting.

:) (stupid lameness filter)

[Scoria]

For those of you who are complaining about Slashdot's newly announced subscription plan, things could be worse. CmdrTaco and company could have attempted to charge you for access to "special articles" written by "Slashdot's in-house journalists."

That's right. Slashdot won't accept your refund when you figure out you've just paid $30 for archives of JonKatz.

Then again, it's not a bad idea; it keeps those who worship JonKatz away from the general Slashdot population while ensuring that the unpaid weblog is devoid of all things JonKatz. After all, his articles are "special," you know.

DOWN WITH TUNA TACO!

[Anonymous Coward]

HE IS A VILE SHELL OF A MAN TWISTED BY GREED SO MUCH SO THAT HE WILL PILLAGE HIS OWN COMMUNITY FOR A FEW DOLLARS.

WHAT A SWINE.

TUNA TACO IS A SICKENING EXCUSE FOR A MAN.

topic.
* Try to reply to other people comments instead of starting new threads.
* Read other people's messages before posting your own to avoid simply duplicating what has already been said.
* Use a clear subject that describes what your message is about.
* Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated. (You can read everything, even moderated posts, by adjusting your threshold on the User Preferences Page)

Problems regarding accounts or comment posting should be sent to CowboyNeal.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Can O'Worms

[cheezehead]

I have some understanding for the fact that Slashdot wants some money to cover costs.

However, it may be opening a can of worms (and remember, if you open a can of worms, you will always need a bigger can to put them back).

If you charge subscribers for a service, you may get into all kinds of thorny issues.

For example, if Slashdot goes down (granted, it rarely happens, but still), are the subscribers entitled to a refund?

How do you ban notorious trolls if they are subscribers? Is it fair to ban people from posting if they paid a subscription? Can you do it legally?

How is moderation going to work? Are subscribers always entitled to moderate? Can non-subscribers mod down subscribers? That would mean that non-payers interfere with the service of payers? Will you need to redesign the mod system completely?

Again, I sympathize, and maybe all these issues have already been addressed. If not, be careful, guys...

Perhaps a Thought in Rescuing some Revenue

[Hangtime]

Everyone was expounding about the Google analogy today so I thought I would take it a little further. Slashdot already categorizes its articles by content...so smack some sense into your VA salesforce and sale based upon that. Have a couple of links that appear on the side "SPECIFICALLY" related to the article and you have a real winner. I have already taken the first step if I am clicked into an article plus advertisers aren't paying for untargeted. If wanted to get even more specific, search on keywords inside the comments of each user and if they mention something have it pop an unintrusive text link out to the side. There is a load of ways to think about this. Slice and Dice it. Even if you wanted to get creepy those UINs who were not paying for the site begin a collecting ONLY clickthough on articles. I would think in a pretty short time you could gather what they liked to read and serve better targeted ads that way WITHOUT intruding to much into personal privacy.

One last thing about content moderation...meta moderate for Karma Whoring and allow for moderation of "Good Link of Info". It would keep the karma whoring to a minimum and would also allow you to give breaks on pricing for people who actually take the time to write an informative article. The question becomes should a +5 funny posted early in a conversation be worth as much as an +4 Insightful...my thought is no. We have some damn smart people that read this sight, physicist, lawyers, wannabe lawyers ;), scientist. I LOVE reading explanations in the cryptographic articles. I have nowhere near the comprehension of high-order mathematics but I always know where I can read an intelligent rebuttal to a fluff piece on CNN or Wired and that's right here. Hell give these people a break on pricing...perhaps even bring them into the fold and require them to comment on specific conversations. You trade a subject matter expert's expertise for a free year of Slashdot. It's a real win-win.

Rob, you and the boys need to go through this entire article and read some comments. Stay away from the wars of whether or not to do this and focus on those of us who want to help you. I am not adverse to paying just make it worth my while. Slashdot is great right now, but with some tweaks and enhancements its going to get that much better.

HT

I'm truly disappointed...

[arawvegan]

not because of the large format ads that are coming, or the subscription-based alternative to viewing these ads. No, those might be necessary in the end to save this service, I don't really know. But I was hoping that with the hundreds of thousands of intelligent and educated people visiting this site on a daily basis, many of whom are now out of work, Slashdot's bright founders would find a way to harness all that potential for ENORMOUS new economic activity. Not to have a discussion about alternatives to merely increasing the obtrusiveness of ads is such a cop-out. How about a job board or at least forming an alliance with one or maybe collab.net, company critiques, reviews of opportunities for getting grants/SBA loans to start open source ventures etc? If Slashdot helped put money in my pocket I would be much more open to subscribing. What Slashdot does, I think it does well- but it's not enough, because it isn't much of a true community, that could uplift its hurting constituency- Slashdot is people publishing their opinions to news, mostly. That isn't enough interaction to form a community (with apologies to Philip Greenspun).

A note on 'nerd'

[MadScie]

Does anyone still take offense to this term? A little while ago in a land pretty close by being a nerd became a good thing, and a compliment besides. Save your hypersensitivity in our stead, we nerds are pretty thick skinned. What you consider demeaning to us is one of the greatest triumphs socially in our age. Think about it for a minute, and you'll understand. Our community (the 'nerds') has taken a word with derisive meaning and turned it into a compliment, something someones say when they are impressed by you. What other formally repressed and introverted minorities can offer that kind of triumph? Personally, I prefer 'geek', but you get to feel good about yourself either way. ~MadScie

Hrm.

[autopr0n]

In almost any meta story which incites me to comment on the slashdot state of affairs I deride it. I don't see how paying them would be "putting my money where my mouth is"

Unique subscription system?

[ChrisKnight]

>For some time now we have been developing a
>unique subscription system that we hope will
>make our users and advertisers happy.

It was 'unique' when Robin Bandy first wrote you suggesting such a system and asking if there would be interest in one. You blew him off then, and you don't credit him now with presenting you with his ideas.

I'm amazed at the scumbag behavior of SlashDot.

-Chris

Am I the only one.....

[MadScie]

who sees that /. is doing what they have to? Come on, at least we have the option to subscribe OR view the ads. That's more than some news agencies require.

When these ads go up, I can still log in to /. and do what I do, right? I don't HAVE to pay, and I think that is an important point. So I have to look at ads, so what? Ads are a part of internet life, and I am relatively sure /. is not going to be too obnoxious about it.

This is just another case of us tearing down someone who is doing what needs to be done to survive. The tentative approach is, IMHO, a pretty good indication that they would not have done this if they had a choice.

A lot of people have mentioned the fact that our submissions make up the content of this site. That's a decent point, but it is irrelevent. Nobody up there at /. HQ is becoming a millionaire on our research, are they? No, they are offering us a free medium to see the latest news and discuss it in an open forum. They need to put up some more ads so they can keep us connected like this, and I say more power to them. Being given the option to remove the ads (for 5 bucks a month, come on, my bank fee to keep an account open is more than that, and the bastards make a killing on me anyway) is pretty good, if you ask me.

FYI, I am not a business major, but I think that when your operating costs are more than your revenue you are running at a loss.

Anyway, I am going to pay my five dollars and, when I run out of pages, I'll pay five more. I think this community is worth saving, since it's really the only one most of us fit into, isn't it?

Avoid words with mild negative connotations.

[Futurepower(tm)]

I go a long way toward agreeing with what you said. However, in advertising, what is important is not what you and I think, but what other people think. Even a minority of 10% is important.

To some, the word "nerd" has the negative connotation of a person who is less socially skilled, as an earlier poster said. Part of good marketing is avoiding the many small mistakes. Using words with mild negative connotations is one of the mistakes to avoid.

Understandably, advertisers don't want to advertise in venues that would associate their product with something even mildly negative, for even a small minority of people. Advertisers must care for the quality of their branding. So, it is time for Slashdot managers to take a larger view.

I should have said earlier how much I value Slashdot. That's why these issues are important to me. I want to see Slashdot grow.

Probably partly because they are intelligent themselves, and because they have been willing to do the work, the Slashdot editors have created an intelligent and valuable forum, which I have often found very useful.

Re:Avoid words with mild negative connotations.

[MadScie]

I agree that in almost all situations you should avoid the mild negative connotations. This community, though, is a different story altogether.

One of the first things that attracted me to /. was the "News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters" title screen. I thought it was intrigued at the outset, and have been a faithful reader ever since. I think the nerd thing attracts us rather than repelling us, in this case.

What I was really trying to say is that nerd doesn't carry a negative connotation to those of us who actually are nerds. All of the nerds I've met love it, and proudly display it. If you call us nerds, you have our attention, and a smile.

Good original post, BTW.

Here's the BIG picture:

[acoustix]

So who really cares when slashdot goes to subscription? not a big deal right?

maybe not...

First (or close to first) is Slashdot.
Then what?

CNet?
zdnet?
freshmeat?
tomshardware?
Linux. com?
RedHat?
chicagotheband.com (ok, I just threw this one in)

But seriously. How many sites are we gonna pay for? Especially at ~$5/month. That alone is $60 a year for ONE SITE. I don't want to have to pay for information (other than the cost of actually getting online).

If we give in now, what's going to stop all of the other news sites from doing the same?

LOL!!!

[autopr0n]

That's helarious, it would be funny if twix and snickers wern't made by the same company. but still, I laughed out loud. :)

Should be modded much higher!

paypal's phone number

[Skuld-Chan]

kinda off topic - but if you have problems with paypal here's their phone number just in case anyone is curious (888)221-1161

I value Slashdot.

[Futurepower(tm)]

I should have said earlier how much I value Slashdot. That's why these issues are important to me. I want to see Slashdot grow.

Probably partly because they are intelligent themselves, and because they have been willing to do the work, the Slashdot editors have created an intelligent and valuable forum, which I have often found very useful.

You said, "On Slashdot, grammar is nice, but not required. It is the openness of the communication that makes the site interesting."

I agree that posters should not be expected to hold themselves to high editing standards. But Slashdot editors should use high standards in stories because poor grammar, incorrect spelling, and insufficient explanation degrade the quality of the resulting discussion.

Re:Does this change the viewer demographic for ads

[Inthewire]

Yes indeed...I clicked on the Visual Studio .NET ad a few days back.

A Spectre is Haunting Slashdot...

[limber]

Without us, there is no /. Pay for a subscription to what we are creating? Hell no!

I agree most wholeheartedly Comrade! Slashdot is created by a collective process... but the wealth that results is not shared equally -- the surplus value is being appropriated by pigdog capitalist imperialist corporations! The noble proletariat laborers of slashdot... must rise up and seize control... of the means of production... and abolish that dangerous bourgeois reactionary, JonKatz...

Yes Comrades, the class struggle continues. The only ad banner I need to read is the one that declares, "(A Post) From each according to his ability, (A ModPoint) to each according to his needs."

Viva la Revolution!

News From The Future: /. Closes

[Anonymous Coward]

Today /., the respected site for Nerds and people that find stuff matters, closed its virtual doors.

No comments were forth-coming from OSDN, which filed for chapter 11:bankruptcy last week.

The founders of /. emailed the press that /. will return shortly as they were personally buying back their former website.

Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda was reported as saying to the /. faithful that he looks forward to resurrecting the website, and looks forward to selling it, again, for L33T sums of $$/shares when the economic recovery reaches its pinnacle.

Charge based on your costs or risk abuse.

[Kris_J]

If you don't charge based on what actually costs you money then it won't take long before some sort of abuse puts you back at square one. If the problem is traffic costs, then the way you charge customers has to be proportional to traffic costs.

If you only have 1000 page views per $5 are you going to use a view format that forces you to click on links to see nested or long comments or are you just going to setup the comments to display in one huge page? Are you going to have a brief front page with just the stuff that interests you or are you going to double the number of stories and uncheck all of your excluded topics, just so you don't have to click on "older stuff" to see all the stories?

Slashdot has to charge based on how much traffic you cause and it needs to have a nice way of helping you optimise your viewing.

In Rob's defense

[Enhypnion]

For all the bitching, I don't see anybody offering any alternatives. This is the post .com world and it takes real money to run a website now.

In addition this isn't a new idea. UserFriendly.com offers an ad free subscription based service for its patrons and I don't see cars burning in the streets over that.

So enough bitching, if you don't want the subscription then don't buy it.

The Fine Print

[Anonymous Coward]

The 'fine print' should now read ;

The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way, but we will charge you for reading them.

I am REALLY looking forward to seeing these creeps at any Linux expo events :)

Shrug

[Anonymous Coward]

It really makes no difference to me. If I can block the ads and still read the articles I will.

If I can't block the ads, then I'll move on and delete my bookmark.

(shrug)

Non English

[MavicX]

What about those non-english webforums just like Slashdot that still are free ad. Like http://www.gildot.org/ for Portuguese readers and http://www.barrapunto.com/ for Espanish There geting more and more hits every day.

Taco, CowboyNeil...

[Jeff_Hagen]

I hope you are reading this thread. Of all the threads on /. you should be reading this one.

Before you add the banners you may want to consider the following:

1. Adding large shockwave or GIF files to the top of pages that are viewed by 250,000 people each day might not be a good idea, as each of them will be downloading the 500k image... Will the ad's generate enough revenue to cover the added bandwidth requirements? (or does the people whose site is hosting the ads have that kind of bandwidth?)

2. Adding a subscription service that penilizes the people who post the most is NOT a good idea. You could make it cheaper to "subscribe" if the people post a minimum number of times?

3. You could simply ask for donations. It works for Penny Arcade. (I would donate...)

4. Advertising based revenues for websites has been proven to fail. You can not keep a site up on advertising revenue alone. If you want to make this site pay for itself (and your bills), you have to make it profitable, and you should not have all of your revenue coming from one source. (advertising)

5. Making people pay money to "remove" ads is not a good idea. They can simply disable shockwave, or turn off images. If you want us to give you money, you could ask for it, or you could sell a product. Don't fall into the pithole that the record companies are in of trying to make people pay for what was once free. (Learn from history: look at what is happening to the music "subscription" services)

6. If you are going to use this subscription thing, make sure that there are multiple ways of taking in the cash. I will not use paypal, as I have heard too many bad things about it. Get a VeriSign credit card accepter, or take mailed in checks.

7. Consider that a good portion of your readers/writers are poor college students. They may leave if your site becomes too unfriendly.

This place is a great community to discuss computer related pseudo-news items. Please do not wreak it in an attempt to turn it into a company.

Anyway, that's my .02

----
Open Source has 2 major parts:
1. It's free
2. If you want it to work, YOU have to fix it.

Distributed Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

This is not a troll (although many trolls start with "this is not a troll") but a serious proposal.

Slashdot costs money to run and operate. It works on the idea that there is a central server: all costs are associated with supporting that. Why not innovate rather than charge?

Distributed Slashdot is simple in principle: Instead of searching for extraterrestrial life, use your local bandwidth and cpu time for Slashdot. It would take a fair amount of hacking to set it up, but wouldn't that be fun?

The only negative is that a for-profit company that owns /. wouldn't like it. However, almost all the content is provided free by users, so why not have the system run by users on their very own machines?

Paid stories?

[Anonymous Coward]

How long before /. whores itself completely to the almighty $$$ and starts accepting cash for stories? Microsoft could buy positive stories or perhaps bury negative stories?

I suppose it is how the rest of the world works, why did I think cyberspace would be any different?

Power corrupts...

Flat rate ? I disagree

[clarkie.mg]

With flat rate, you pay even if you do not use/read slashdot so mostpeople will end up paying more than what they use (except the crazy hit-reload-first-posters).

Flat rate would mean 60 dolls a year though with this system, you can read /. for 5 or 10 dolls a year.

Rewarding contributors could be an incentive.

[clarkie.mg]

I agree with you, contributors should be rewarded. For example, every comment that is highly moderated (4 or 5) would be rewarded by a chunk of free access.

This would be an incentive for posting interesting comments.

The moderation system should be improved though so that every comment gets a fair chance.

Free Subscriptions

[philj]

I think everyone with a UID 15,000 should get a free sub :-)

I disagree

[Dunkirk]

I disagree with the most common complaint I'm seeing in this thread. People keep saying that the value of Slashdot is in the commentaries. Balogna! Most of the comments are TOTAL CRAP. I read at a +3 just to stay sane on the 10% of the articles I click through. Even then, like on this thread, I must filter to a +5, or I just couldn't read all the posts in several hours. I find that the main value I get out of Slashdot is the fact that it's the one place to get all the relevant news. On top of that, you can get various sites linked to the front page. To wit: Slashdot has become my "Home Page." In the 8 years I've been using the web (all the way back to a Trumpet connection to Concentric, just after the brief flirtation with Prodigy), I've never had a "Home Page." Now, Slashdot has replaced regular reading of both ArsTechnica and Blue's News. In addition, I keep up with the headlines from The Register, Linux Today, and even the DNA Lounge. To me, someone who reads at least an hour on the internet every morning, having a place to keep it all in one location has a lot of value. But will I pay? I'd say "yes" right now, but I'll have to wait until all this feedback is heard, discussed, and acted upon. With some of the great ideas I've read in these comments, there's no way that the currently-proposed system can stand. There's just too many better ways of doing this. What's been proposed is the "admin's" way out, because he's the one that has to do the work. It's a technological cop-out; and I think it's doomed to failure.

Re:LAST POST

[dthable]

Glad to see the VA Software sheep are calling this offtopic. I really don't see what's offtopic. They screw the users and take away their IP. You want me to pay for your site....I want complete user moderation.

Time to share

[Alcoholist]

If Slashdot is going to start bringing in the big advertising bucks maybe it's time for them to give something back to the people who made the site worth viewing -- the submitters of the stories.

If Slash is going to behave like a big news site maybe they should start paying the providers of it's stories just like other news sites do. I for one don't really feel like paying for the upkeep of VA Research without getting something back.

National Public Radio

[Anonymous Coward]

I think of Slashdot as National Public Radio--as useful, interesting, entertaining. But especially as a community. That's how NPR is able to carry off its pledge drives. I don't love pledge drives, but they do seem to work and I appreciate them more because they appeal to me as a member of a community and not as a faceless customer. Subscriptions make me feel like we're being transformed from members of a community to just another set of customers, and that's what I don't like about the subscription idea.

Look, I don't know what your burn is and how fast you gotta bring in more cash, but please consider giving the NPR model a try. I for one enjoy Slashdot, read it every day and would happily donate at different levels to get my membership or Slashdot cap or autographed box set of Geeks in Space on CD. Shoot, I bet if you threw in an all expenses paid trip to Michigan (off-season, sleep in Cowboy Neal's basement next to the water heater, 3 tunafish sandwiches/day) to tour Slashdot headquarters and have lunch with Taco, Hemos, CowboyNeal and the gang for anyone donating >$1000, your money problems would soon be over.

So that's my $.02. If Slashdot's biggest commodity is its community, then you should trade on that in a way that reinforces it instead of exploits it.

Re:National Public Radio

[Anonymous Coward]

As long as the Delicious Dish never comes to Slashdot...

System is most expensive for those who contribute

[gotan]

It occurs to me, that most activity on /. falls into different categories:

1 simple reading: scan the frontpage for articles of interest and click on those of interest
2 thorough metamoderating: sometimes scan context in metamoderation if the comment can not be evaluated on itself
3 thorough moderating: switch to flat/newest first/threshold 0 to give new comments a chance, reload page (automatically) when moderating
4 writing comments: prewiew your comment at least once, maybe reference older slashdot articles or context of the current article, maybe also write multiple comments per article, especially when discussing.
5 submitting articles: although you only need one or two pages to submit, you will probably be very interested in the subject and comment a lot.

The order is not choosen arbitraryly by me. It is (at least i believe so) ordered according to the number of page accesses needed for these actions per item of interest (article). It is notable that those who contribute the most to /. (proper moderating and commenting) will access more pages than those who simply scan over some articles and grab a few opinions.

As an aside, it's also worth noting that more than half of all comment posters fall into this 3% [that would have to pay more than $5/month]

To my understanding the comments are what makes slashdot interesting, to grab the latest news it is sufficient to go to the frontpage and thus view only one page or stand through just one annoying ad, or just go to other sites. Your system makes those activities most expensive (either in adverts the user is exposed to, or in pages he has to pay) that contribute the most to /. and it's uniqueness. To avoid costs/adverts they will most likely do some of the following (to more or lesser extent):

- do less thorough or no metamoderating
- do less thorough or no moderating
- write less comments and not preview/edit them properly

This will make slashdot a poorer place, moderation will be worse, there will be less comments and less opinions. This will probably happen to some extent anyway, because of people leaving who neither want to pay, nor view adverts. But to charge those most who contribute for their contributions (in moderation and commenting) makes it even worse. I don't think it's far fetched, that manny moderators and commenters will revert to above methods to avoid costs/adverts, and that this will make slashdot less interesting (and thus also drive people away who were interested in the comments, and a well functioning comment system).

So if you must have adverts/subscriptions maybe you shoud try to avoid that effect (maybe by making those pages, that are needed for metamoderation, and especially commenting/previewing free (of fees and of overlarge adverts), maybe also introduce a special free moderation page (one page of newest/threshold zero/flat for an article)). I don't know how much a percentage those accesses make, and how much difference it would make to exclude them from ads/costs. But i think a well functioning comment/moderation system is vital to /. and hurting it by demotivating people (with ads/costs) to moderate/comment would hurt /. more than neccessary.
--

Slashdot adds subscriptions

[Andrew Dvorak]

On K5: Hi folks, we just anted to point out that Slashdot will be adding subscriptions to their site. The story is here (free registration required)

new homepage?

[Anonymous Coward]

this was my hompage for the last 2 years... any suggestions on what i could use now?

Posters are irrelevant!

[qsi]

Well, mostly, but it makes for a catchy subject-line :-) Here's why the folks running slashdot may not be too worried about all the furore and threats to leave. There are two key facts (which, for the sake of argument, we'll assume are accurate):

1) 3% of slashdot users load pages at 25 times the rate of the average user.

2) A score 3 posting is read by 1/50th of the slashdot readership.

So there's a very small minority here who write posts. Interestingly, the number of people who *read* posts is small too. So that means that for all those who're up in arms about this: you are not what makes slashdot what it is!

For 97% of visitors, your comments are irrelevant. They never read them. The only people reading comments are probably the same set of people who're writing them. Moreover, at 25 multiplier, it also means this tiny 3% minority accounts for about 44% of page views.

Does it matter if these 3% go away? Well, slashdot's bandwidth costs would fall dramatically, and the remaining 97% of viewers would still be there. (I know, this is a radical oversimplication of the issue.) You make slashdot what it is for the rest of the 3% very heavy users. Not for the 97%.

It would seem to me that the posters in this thread seem to grossly overestimating the importance of their contributions to slashdot. In reality, based on these numbers, there are two slashdots: one where 97% of people come to click on stories on the front page, and a lively discussion forum for the remaining 3%. So the fact that these 3% get hit hardest is fair, since they're putting a disproportionate load on the server with a limited benefit to others. Moving away from slashdot to another site would just create the same problem.

The final question you have to ask yourself is: why am I posting? Is it out of sheer altruism to help slashdot? Or is it because you want your opinions to be read and interact with others? Slashdot offers a forum where like-minded others will have a chance to see your posts. And they can respond to them. So slashdot is offering you a service that fulfills a need. Is it worth paying for?

In the end, there are four options:

1) Live with the ads.
2) Pay up.
3) Leave.
4) Block the ads.

I think CmdrTaco is probably not too worried about 1-3. The last option may look tempting, and will work in the short term. But by choosing option 4, you'll be contributing to the downfall of something you appear to find valuable.

Am I REALLY the only one

[raindog2]

....who *likes* the ads that appear on Slashdot?

Seriously, sure, the first time I see PTMF$20 or You Have One Message Waiting, junkbuster gets installed (or images.slashdot.org gets added to my hosts file as I've done with all the offensive ad servers.) But right now I'm seeing an ad for Rackspace, which is fine with me even though it's animated and I already have colo, and I really like the Thinkgeek ads for the most part. In fact, I click on them pretty regularly and sometimes even buy stuff from them. It's kind of synergistic too because Thinkgeek isn't the sort of site I'm going to regularly look at. Slashdot is pretty much their only way of reaching people like me.

I once tried to explain to a real live newspaper editor who was thinking about moving to the web that ads are part of the package if properly done, a valued part of the experience and not something to be skipped over. I *want* to see an ad for my local butcher in the local section of my paper. I *want* the Best Buy flyer in my Sunday comics. And just the same, I *want* to know when Thinkgeek has a new Photon Light or something equally shiny for me to abuse my credit card with.

I won't mind the "message unit" ads if they're of the same type as Slashdot has been running for years, and if they're still going to be GIF/JPG then no worries. I browse with Java and plugins disabled so I wouldn't see the other kind anyway. Subscribing isn't an option right now because I'm not about to give Paypal my credit card or checking account number, but if Slashdot keeps doing what they're doing, at least I won't be among the freeloaders.

Peer-to-peer

[Anonymous Coward]

If the bandwidth costs are killing you, then this seems like a good use for peer-to-peer. The web site is signed, dated and passed along (so people can't forge it). Connecting means you get a list of a couple of servers that mirror the site, and become a server yourself. You stay plugged into the network, and if one of your connections goes down, you ask an ajoining server for a random other server (on some least-loaded metric, or some asking-for-server-as-well metric).

$0 subscriptions?

[Cardbox]

Every subscription that you sell reduces your advertising revenue. I don't know whether you've priced things so that the extra subscription balances the advertising lost: probably you don't either!

Try an experiment. For an initial period, charge $0 for subscriptions (ie.allow users to turn off the advertising, while explaining to them in great detail why it would help /. no end if they really did view the ads). You would lose no collective karma at all, your users would love you so much that none of them would turn off the ads, and you'd avoid the hell of subscription admin (people love to argue for ever over such tiny amounts).&nbsp And if it all failed and you had to start charging for subs, you would have a valuable additional data point to feed into your pricing model.

Alternatively, keep the current price but give a 100% introductory discount.

quit reading it

[Anonymous Coward]

If the banner ads pi55 me off enough I'll just stop reading the page. Most of the news just depresses me anyway (DeCSS and CSSS etc..., patents, gadgets I can't afford>

I've clicked on the odd ad' from /. though. So if they stay unobtrusive I'll continue visiting. Just makes me recall a figure from Computer Weekly that 83% of people said that having to provide personal details to access a site gave them net rage. (As a percentage of those that suffer it.)

Then there's the NPR model, with pledgeathons ...

[Anonymous Coward]

501c(3) etc. Anybody tried this on a large site?

Get an Alternative to PayPal!

[phule]

I'm more than willing to pay for a /. subscription as long as I can pay by any means other than PayPal!

Alright.

[Scoria]

I am certainly not adverse to Slashdot's decision to charge us for access, especially considering it's completely optional. OSDN must be reimbursed for Slashdot's overhead somehow. However, they should begin treating us as customers instead of "the flock."

If we pay for the access, you'd better not restrict M2 simply because we moderated your bait as "interesting." No more $rtbling or "behind the scenes" censorship. We are now customers and expect to be treated as such.

Thank you.

Ok, but start paying $.50/word for good writing.

[Anonymous Coward]

Recognize value all around.

BTW, I wish all advertised prices and purchase receipts legally had to have a full price breakdown, not just sales tax split out. And that goes for charities too.

::::: breakfast flakes
$2.25 adv, promos (seller/dist&middle-men/mfr breakdown here)
$0.70 mgmt comp,perks,benes (s/d/m)
$0.60 corp debt financing (s/d/m)
$0.45 packaging,whse,transport (s/d/m)
$0.25 labor comp,benes (s/d/m)
$0.10 raw materials cost (m)
-----
$4.35

Ok, so what are the real numbers? Does the govt have this kind of numbers?

Per-view is not smart

[SurfsUp]

Slashdot subscriptions will essentially let you buy a thousand pages to be viewed without banner ads.

Time-based subscriptions are the way to go. You do not want to piss off the 3% of readers who post comments, and thus keep the other 97% entertained. And you do not want people to feel the meter is running while they're reading. Think about it, would you prefer a flat-rate or metered internet connection?

Somehow I doubt there's been a lot of market research here.

Thank you!

[ionpro]

Thank you, Slashdot! I've been looking for just this type of thing from my favorite sites for a long time. I do have a question, though --
for those of us in business, it would be nice to see just how successful Slashdot is with its subscription model; sort of a "test case" on a web-based business. I've yet to see a major site do this and share their results. I beleive they would be very interesting, in the least.

Re:I gotta go take a shit

[Anonymous Coward]

No blood in the bowl today. This is definitely a good sign since I'm worried I have colon cancer or some other worse thing than a bleeding hemorrhoid.

Drinking another 20 beers completely by myself tonight. I got some real problems, but at least I don't have to pay for some fucking banner ads!!!

Hee,
AC

Re:I gotta go take a shit

[Anonymous Coward]

Whaddup? I'm on beer number 16 right now. No blood in the terlit today. Pretty psyched! What a fucking loner I am. Much like the other fucking losers on this fucking site! Can't pay some nominal amount to read the site...fucking losers!!!

HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEee,
AC

HOFing the article

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah! go slashdot!

Anoying American ads

[Nice2Cats]

One of the reasons I filter out every ad I can (Junkbuster at my host,
wwwoffle on my machine, and Opera cutting out images) is that they target a
U.S. audience. If you live in Germany, buying something from Dipshit,
Utah is just not something you are interested in - imagine Slashdot was
carrying ads from Albania, or South Korea, or even Great Britain, and
you'll get the point. Slashdot is openly U.S. centric, which was fine when
the rest of the world wasn't on the Internet. Putting U.S. ads in a place -
real or virtual - where in the near future the majority of people are going
to be Non-Americans is not going to work.

On a more general level, ads are an attempt to manipulate the subconscious,
to program you to think of a certain brand name when you think of a
product. It tries to create an artificial need, convince their target group
they are inadequate, ugly, and missing some trend. As a cumulative force,
ads are enormously effective: Almost all young women in Western cultures
feel bad about their body, and people in American and Europa go into debt
to buy stuff the don't really need. But there is no reason I personally
should go along with this.

There is a difference between Capitalism, which brought material wealth to
the masses, and our current subtype of Consumer Capitalism, which relies on
ads to create fake markets for crap products. I support Capitalism
wholeheartedly. But I see no reason to support its current form which has
turned a country's citizens into consumers, has the president of the
United States going out and telling the people be patriotic and buy
stuff, and destroys people's privacy with the excuse that more marketing
data will be good for the country. Consumer Capitalism, like the system
of Shareholder Value it is paired with, is a historical dead end, and the
sooner we get it over with the better.

Unfortunately, is probably also the beginning of the end for Slashdot.
Apart from the problem of reading a text when half of your screen is filled
with an ad, Slashdot is associated with the Open Source movement, which is
directly opposed to the Consumer Capitalism philosophy of closed source
from companies like Microsoft. If there is any place these ads do not
belong, it is here - this is more of a Tyler Durden kind of place.

I assume that other people will be taking the Slashdot software soon and
setting up their own versions, specialized to a certain topic; this is what
the Internet tends to do when a site is killed by advertising. It has been
a fun place to read, and a fun place to write, and more than once made
Internet history.

Re:Anoying American ads

[leviramsey]

OSDN has started selling ads that can be restricted to certain countries, based on originating IP...

There's a Dollar Sign in Micro$oft for a Reason!

[mattr]

There are many other things you could do. Slashdot for the most part has completely stagnated and any technical work you have been doing has not been visible, it just makes things work the way they should.

Here are some concrete ideas for generating revenue. They require you to make some visible effort and leverage the (unbeatable, global, altruistic, ...) brainpower of your combined readership. Maybe trolls will come in useful too in this endeavor!

- Put all the information about the calculations you are making out in the public and give us all something to chew on. You aren't sitting out on the moon somewhere you know.

- Page the site starting tomorrow and see how it goes. This thread surfed at 5 still gives me 66 comments, or *60* screens for one little ad at the top. I spend a lot of time on Slashdot and your advertisers should be made to pay you for it without making the site unuseable.

I definitely try to escape sites with big ads, or ignore the big ad and find a printer friendly version.

- Maintain incentive for serious posters and make trolls pay. Ad size should be inverse to karma. Karma whoring a problem? Fix your voting system, -4 karma whoring.

- Slashdot readers are often reading to learn. Text and voting gets into their heads better than images. I'd recommend letting people pick theme boxes which include one or more ads guaranteed to be a small image with some descriptive text and a vote meter users vote on. Themed means I already want to know about the product. Votes over a given threshold make the border change color or move it to the top. The ads could remain on page within a 1-2 inch wide margin.

- Ask Slashdot (it's *not* too late) about ideas for increasing community involvement. We *do* provide critical feedback to manufacturers featured on Slashdot.

- I am well acquainted with a system called CARMA that is used by many PR agencies to prepare valuable reports on news about a specific issue or product. Humans grade articles from around the world (in this case just Slashdot, or you can further analyze your own demographics) according to many items on a scoresheet, and the company can find out what the main issues are, how favorable news is, which writers or news outlets are most favorable, etc. You could work out your own system, or if you like I would be interested in helping. Anyway, you charge AMD, the RIAA, Disney, or Microsoft for professional (hire one) analysis. You might want to have a separate firm do this so you are not caught between hoping Microsoft remains the bad boy (good for linux!) and teaching them how to tweak techies and open sourcerers. Micro$oft has the dollar sign in their name for a reason you know!

- If you really want to have a pay medium, consider getting more help understanding how to provide additional professional value to your readers. They can pay, they just don't want to pay for what they are giving you it seems. You will need to pay writers and editors, and innovate. Though you may have done so, the readers haven't seen it yet.

- Consider adding meta-functionality to Slashdot. I've suggested it in the past, but you might want to consider an integrated function akin to a BBS or Wiki which would assist in boiling down the brainpower of your readers. Perhaps it is a moderator who is tallying things, or maybe it is a way for people to stay in touch with threads over more than a few days. Currently Slashdot is in one ear and out the other, with little sense of its own history. This is childish management considering the immense value of the resource at hand. I suggest you add to the Ask Slashdot help at people mentioning things that are of value to someone regarding the site. Some can be made for pay for some people.

- Look at Perlmonks.org again. I at least put much more work into it than Slashdot. But there is a chat, a sense of community, altruism, and a vibe of rulership by intelligence. There is an offering plate. It is aimed more at tech people and you have to type in HTML. You can edit your posts and people do, especially to Update your postlater with new info. There are some great search facilities. There are heroes, gods, self-proclaimed writers of tutorials and other sections, different levels of editing crews, etc. You know all about it, just look again and analyze it. Maybe post a question in SOPW (Seekers of Perl Wisdom) from Taco or Hemos with a question about recommendations for Slashdot.org. You can't be embarassed, the culture doesn't allow it. Really. People get kicked out for personal attacks and bad trolls are deleted. You probably know we ask people "Is this a homework question". So look at Perlmonks, not for a revenue model but to see why Slashdot looks like it's in the 80's still. There is room for imagination.

- Offer money for creative patches to Slashdot which will do something neat with user/points/article/access stats. Nothing too deleterious to privacy. Slashdot takes itself way too seriously considering hardly anyone there is writing the articles. Most readers, sorry to say, are probably ignoring in disgust many of the "editors'" comments that are spliced to the submission.

- Analyze what the most popular threads have been, and if possible what threads have generated thank you emails to Slashdot about how this really helped. I'd guess info for public organizations setting up linux-based networks to save money is a big one. You could write up a real report based on actually following up on all the information provided in the posts (which in case you forgot are already editted for you for free) and get some professionals to vet it. Get some real world stats and maybe some advice from readers in return for sexy hardware or something cool they'd like. Maybe you make them special associate gurus or somehow help them in a geeky or other way. Then sell the report. The posts belong to posters (I guess?) but you can summarize the information and publish it as a Slashdot Report. Ask O'Reilly, or maybe some private consultants in different countries, for help. One example I can provide is Internet Magazine in Japan. It provides articles of course, but also the most detailed comparisons of providers, and also a separate booklet inside on a certain Internet technical subject.

- Consider New York Times. I am amazed at how many posts are made to Slashdot regarding their site and I wonder how many people sign up. They have Times Fax, which is now a gorgeous PDF (10 pages). Consider an online magazine mailed or web-accessible to paying customers, in HTML or PDF format. Did you know by the way that an immense number of magazines in Japan are selling mainly translated versions of data from the U.S.? Sell it to them or their readers pretranslated over the web! Have you guys got any professionals in the publishing business or what?

- Reconsider the launch of VA Software and what you can use it for. Recently VA Japan held an Open Source Database Conference and it was really beat I thought. There were so many more things that could have been done. Instead of a fairly insipid seminar for quiet suits you could have rented out a huge conference center. The only fun thing was drinking with Mysql's Atmark and the Mysql mailing list members. But businesswise, what a total waste!

- and while we're on international, slashdot japan which I had dismissed as miniscule and irrelevant a while ago, now seems to have interesting articles and weblogs not available on slashdot usa. How about translating some of it back to English? Many Japanese people have trouble reading tons of English you know.. Slashdot could be more relevant. Let's see, top four stories right now are the crash of KDDI's mobile phone network (not receiving more subscriptions), possible sale of Niftyserve from Fujitsu to Sony, a lawsuit being brought by the Japanese RIAA and main music copyright holder JASRAC against File Rogue, and stolen goods on Yahoo Auctions Japan (which had actually gotten a boost when eBay pulled *out* of Japan last week). Number 6 (Broadband Watch) is how DSL just beat out CATV for broadband connections. As of last september, they had half a million each and now they are growing exponentially.
Gee, how can you guys drool over 3G and Clies when you don't show the least interest in how the next generation digital economy really works? While the U.S. gets itself bound in sticky tape other countries have reached higher density.
- Tell us about the deal with apple (or did you do it for free? ..) and let us put our heads together for you. If you really are worried about going out of business then put the pedal to the metal and get some use out of the brainpower here. But don't just make a 2-day thread. Make it an initial test of the Slashdot Problemsolver or whatever this would be called. Email me if you want, I've worked on the idea a while myself.

- That's it for now. I think you have criminally wasted the resource in front of you and that's why you are where you have gotten. You are providing one of the the best marketing resources in the world for the IT industry for no money whatsoever. Duh! Let's fix the problem and make you guys a bundle of cash!

Time for slashdot to die...

[Anonymous Coward]

... or maybe the above should read: "somebody open a new tech news site."

Hmm mod_gzip wouldn't be a bad idea either. ;)

Re:Time for slashdot to die...

[leviramsey]

I've been thinking of opening a site similar to Slashdot, but maybe a little closer to Kuro5hin.

Whores.

[Anonymous Coward]

So how long until OSDN stands for Open Spam Delivery Network?

DMCA

[Anonymous Coward]

So if somebody posts a method for getting around the ads on /., will Rob sue them under the DMCA? - Wraith

A Suggestion

[Anonymous Coward]

Instead of charging by image size (as I presume you do), at least consider charging by file size.

This policy is to encourage the use of small (file size), static ads. A large, well compressed, static ad could end up costing less than a smaller, less well compressed, animated ad.

My big beef about large ads is that they waste bandwidth and slow the site. On many sites, I use an ad filter (amazing how much faster they load minus ads), however Slashdot has been one of the few I regularly visit without the filter due to their small (file) size, and thus rapidly loading (the ad often finishes before the page) advertisements.

I can only speak for myself, but sites with many adds per page tend to make it onto my Do-Not-Visit list (hosts file entry pointing to 127.0.0.1).

Re:A Suggestion

[leviramsey]

If I were to start a website, here's the rate card I would use:

• Basic text-ad: $2.50/1000 impressions
• Ad with JavaScript: $5.00/1000 impressions
• Ad with image/other media (advertiser hosted): $5.00/1000 impressions
• Ad with image/other media (site hosted): $5.00/1000 impressions, plus $5.00/10000 (KB*impressions)
• Ad that pops-up a new window: $20.00/1000 impressions [incl. JavaScript fee[
• Ad with Flash: $10.00/1000 impressions (in addition to any other charges that may apply)

If an advertiser thus wants me to host his 100KB Flash ad which will appear in a spawned pop-up, the charge is (per thousand impressions)

• Pop-up: $20.00
• Hosted File: $5.00 + $50.00
• Flash surcharge: $10.00

So the advertiser ends up paying $85/1000 impressions. So they'd better get 34 times the business out of this ad than out of a text-ad (which is not as annoying and costs only $2.50). In short, I doubt many advertisers would use Flash or pop-ups. I would also have a requirement that if an ad adversely affects the site (hijacks browsers, etc.), the ad is removed and the advertiser forfeits any refund that might be due.

Cat got your tongue moron?

[Anonymous Coward]

You compleat fricken morons - you have completely sold out - don't even _talk_ to me about rationalizing this totally lame corporate marketing-luser scenario...

Lamerz...

The readers do the work anyway

[Anonymous Coward]

Your comment about Karma is telling. I mean, the readers do all the work here at /. anyway. They comb the web for articles and make submissions. They contribute all the analysis and expertise for the comments. Yeah, trolls should pay to troll! But the rest of us shouldn't have to pay to work!

fucknozzles

[nodrip]

I stopped useing Yahoo's eGroups because
of this, and i'll stop reading slashdot
too if they get too intrusive.

fucknozzles.

real world wide web sites don't wear ads.

Those that post pay more. Here's the reason why:

[Anonymous Coward]

People with big mouths that think they have a lot to say are willing to take time and spend money to say it. Period. These people would pay out the roof to be heard. They check their comments ten times each morning to see how those comments have been modded, who has replied, and so on.

Taco and everybody knows this, so, why not make them pay? They'll do it---they'll pay to put their comments here. Why the fuck shouldn't the people at slashdot take their money away and put it in their own pocket? If you reason that quality posts make slashdot worth reading, if you reason that those that contribute content shouldn't have to pay for their contributions, well, that's your own reasoning. But, slashdot is corporate and their job is not to "notice an inequity and adjust it." Their job is to "notice an opportunity for profit and exploit it." Period.

It was only a matter of time. Hell, I remember when slashdot was a blurb on Malda's homepage. When he wrote stories like "If we had a good front end for LaTeX, I could finally get rid of my windows partition and Microsoft Word." When he sold slashdot, he relinquished control. He might kick and scream in meetings about wanting to keep things free or he might greedily rub his hands together while plotting with devious corporate snakes. Either way, it doesn't matter. Ultimately, he gave up control. (Maybe his contract says he has control over content, or editorial control, or something just as adolescent). Go make a buck Malda. Time to move on to another project...You might do another great thing in your lifetime, but don't hang on to slash much longer.

Re:Please remove all my comments. Now.

[Anonymous Coward]

If /. folks pcoket the extra money, then readers aren't paying "5$ have ads removed." They're paying the site.

fuck you. I'll filter your ads instead

[Anonymous Coward]

EOM

Is that all?

[PARENA]

Just the big square (read around it) and the bigger add at the top? Especially for that last one: hard to scroll an extra 30 pixels... :) No prob for me, as long as they truly aren't poppy, flashy and all that sorts...

$lashdot$lashdot$l$l$lashdot$lashdotashdotashdot$l

[Anonymous Coward]

$lashdot$lashdot$lashdot$$lashdotlashdot$lashdot$l ashdot$lashdot$lashdot$lashd$$lashdot$lashdotlashd otot$lashdot$lashdot$l$lashdota$lashdots$lashdothd ot$lashdot$lashdot$la$lash$lashdotdot$lashdotshdot $lashdot$lashdot$l$l$lashdot$lashdotashdotashdot$l ashdot$lashdot$las$lashdot$lashdot$lashdothdot$las hdot$lashdot$lashdot$lashdot$lashdot$lashdot$lashd ot$lashdot$lashdot

FUCK YOU!

[KharmaPussy]

You think I'm going to PAY to visit here?

Fuck that and fuck YOU taco.

See ya!

[Anonymous Coward]

Paying - for comments..
LAter !

Loosers!

Plenty of news for free elsewhere -
Another Web bomb in progress now...watch as this site slowly collapses.

bye

[criticalrealist]

I'm not paying for a service that I help to create.

Nice knowing everybody on Slashdot. Some bad arguments sometimes, but mostly fun and good.

Maybe we'll go back to Usenet, or figure something else out. See ya around.

23097# p057 b4by!

[Anonymous Coward]

The subject says it all...

Self serving ads

[neves]

Remember, ./ already have self serving ads.

Re:Slashdot Light and How google (and k5) does it

[gnugnugnu]

Text based advertising, like K5 does

In plaintext for the paranoid: http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2002/3/4/215438/5752

I don't belive it

[42forty-two42]

This has got more comments than Taco's proposal!

Re:I don't belive it

[sab39]

This has got more comments than Taco's proposal!

Yeah, and this one comfortably looks like it could hit #1 :(

Love couldn't beat out terrorism, but bitching and moaning about having to pay for something - *that* beats terrorism.

It's sad ;)

Stuart.

Where to go from here:

[zerofoo]

www.anandtech.com
www.tomshardware.com
www.hardo cp.com
www.cnn.com
www.msnbc.com
www.nyt.com
w ww.arstechnica.com

and a lot more!

All these sites are still free; and most slashdot comment is duplicated there anyway (minus the comments, which might be a good thing)....and no, i'm not affiliated with any of them.
-ted

Chapter 1 - Hear You Loud and Clear

[Great Literature of]

This is part of the Great Literature of Slashdot Series

[Part 1]

Punctually at six o'clock the sun set with a last yellow flash behind the Blue Mountains, a wave of violet shadow poured down Richmond Road, and the crickets and tree frogs in the fine gardens began to zing and tinkle.

Apart from the background noise of the insects, the wide empty street was quiet. The wealthy owners of the big, withdrawn houses - the bank managers, company directors and top civil servants - had been at home since five o'clock and they would be discussing the day with their wives or or taking a shower and changing their clothes. In half an hour the street would come to life again with the cocktail traffic, but now this very superior half-mile of 'Rich Road', as it was known to the tradesmen of Kingston, held nothing but the suspense of an empty stage and the heavy perfume of night-scented jasmine.

Richmond Road is the 'best' road in Jamaica. It is Jamaica's Park Avenue, its Kensington Palace Gardens, its Avenue D'Iena. The 'best' people live in its big old-fashioned houses, each in an acre or two of beautiful lawn set, too trimly, with the finest trees and flowers from the Botanical Gardens at Hope. The long, straight road is cool and quiet and withdrawn from the vulgar sprawl of Kingston where its residents earn their money, and on the other side of the T-intersection at its top, lie the grounds of King's House, where the Governor and Commander-in-chief of Jamaica lives with his family. In Jamaica, no road could have a finer ending.

On the eastern corner of the top intersection stands No. 1 Richmond Road, a substantial two-storey house with broad white-painted verandas running round both floors. From the road, a gravel path leads up to the pillared entrance through wide lawns marked with tennis courts on which this evening, as on all evenings, the sprinklers are at work. This mansion is the social Mecca of Kingston. It is Queen's Club, which for fifty years has boasted the power and frequency of its black balls.

Such stubborn retreats will not long survive in modern Jamaica. One day Queen's Club will have its windows smashed and perhaps be burned to the ground, but for the time being, it is a useful place to find in a sub-tropical island - well run, well staffed and with the finest cuisine and cellar in the Caribbean.

At that time of day, on most evenings of the year, you would find the same four motor cars standing in the road outside the club. They were the cars belonging to the high bridge game that assembled punctually at five and played until around midnight. You could almost set your watch by these cars. They belonged, reading from the order in which they now stood against the kerb, to the Brigadier in command of the Caribbean Defence Force, to Kingston's leading criminal lawyer, and to the Mathematics Professor from Kingston University. At the tail of the line stood the black Sunbeam Alpine of Commander John Strangways, R.N. (Ret.), Regional Control Officer of the Caribbean - or, less discreetly, the local representative of the British Secret Service.

Chapter 1 - Hear You Loud and Clear

[Great Literature of]

This is part of the Great Literature of Slashdot series

[Part 2]

Just before six-fifteen, the silence of RIchmond Road was softly broken. Three blind beggars came round the corner of the intersection and moved slowly down the pavement towards the four cars. They were Chigroes - Chinese negroes - bulky men, but bowed as they shuffled along, tapping at the kerb with their white sticks. THey walked in file. The first man, who wore the blue glasses and could presumably see better than the others, walked in front holding a tin cup against the crook of the stick with his left hand. The right hand of the second man rested on his shoulder and the right hand of the third rested on the shoulder of the second. The eyes of the second and third men were shut. The three men were dressed in rags and wore dirty jippa-jappa baseball caps with long peaks. They said nothing and no noise came from them except for the soft tapping of their sticks on as they came slowly down the shadowed pavement towards the group of cars.

The three blind men would not have been incongruous in Kingston, where there are many diseased people on the streets, but in this quiet rich empty street, they made an unpleasant impression. And it was odd that they should all be Chinese negroes. This is not a common mixture of bloods.

In the cardroom, the sunburned hand reached out into the green pool of the centre table and gathered up the four cards. There was a quiet snap as the trick went to join the rest. 'Hundred honours,' said Strangways, 'and ninety below!' He looked at his watch and stood up. 'Back in twenty minutes. Your deal, Bill. Order some drinks. Usual for me. Don't bother to cook a hand while I'm gone. I always spot them.'

Bill Templar, the Brigadier, laughed shortly. He pinged the bell by his side and raked the cards in towards him. He said, 'Hurry up, blast you. You always let your cards go cold just as your partner's in the money.'

Strangways was already out the door. The three men sat back resignedly in their chairs. The coloured steward came in and they ordered drinks for themselves and a whisky and water for Strangways.

There was this maddening interruption every evening at six-fifteen, about halfway through their second rubber. At this time precisely, even if they were in the middle of a hand, Strangways had to 'go to his office' and 'make a call'. It was a damned nuisance. But Strangways was a vital part of their four and they put up with it. It was never explained what 'the call' was, and no one asked. Strangway's job was 'hush' and that was that. He was rarely away for more than twenty minutes and it was understood that he would pay for his absence with a round of drinks.

The drinks came and the three men began to talk racing.

Intelligence Report...:..must do better @ spelling

[Anonymous Coward]

hurrah ! at last someone is correcting this annoying spelling mistake, i was beginning to think i was completely surrounded by retarded losers

i hope you win

Chapter 1 - Hear You Loud and Clear

[Great Literature of]

This is part of the Great Literature of Slashdot series

[Part 3]

In fact this was the most important moment in Strangways's day - the time of the duty radio contact with the powerful transmitter on the roof of the building in Regent's Park that is the headquarters of the Secret Service. Every day, at eighteen-thirty local time, unless he gave warning the day before that he would not be on the air - when he had business on one of the other islands in his territory, for instance, or was seriously ill - he would transmit his daily report and receive his orders. If he failed to coe on the air precisely at six-thirty, there would be a second call, the 'Blue' call, at seven, and, finally, the 'Red' call at seven-thirty. After this, if his transmitter remained silent, it was 'Emergency', and Section III, his controlling authority in London, would urgently get on the job of finding out what had happened to him.

Even a 'Blue' call means a bad mark for an agent unless his 'Reasons in Writing' are unanswerable. London's radio schedules round the world are desperately tight adn their minute disruption by even one extra call is a dangerous nuisance. Strangways had never suffered the ignominy of a 'Blue' call, let alone a 'Red', and was as certain as could be that he never would do so. Every evening, at precisely six-fifteen, he left Queen's Club, got into his car and drove for ten minutes up into foothills of the Blue Mountains to his neat bungalow with the fabulous view over Kingston harbour. At six twenty-five he walked through the hall to the office at the back. He unlocked the door and locked it again behind him. Miss Trueblood, who passed as his secretary, but was in fact his No. 2 and a former Chief Officer W.R.N.S., would already be sitting in front of the dials inside the dummy filing cabinet. She would have the earphones on and would be making first contact, tapping out his call-sign, WXN, on 14 megacycles. There would be a shorthand pad on her elegant knees. Strangways would drop into the chair beside her and pick up the other pair of headphones and, at exactly six twenty-eight, he would take over from her and wait for the sudden hollowness in the ether which meant that WWW in London was coming in to acknowledge.

It was an iron routine. Strangways was a man of iron routine. Unfortunately, strict patterns of behavior can be deadly if they are read by an enemy.

Strangways, a tall lean man with a black patch over the right eye and the sort of aquiline good looks you associate with the bridge of a destroyer, walked quickly across the mahogany paneled hallway of Queen's Club and pushed through the light mosquito-wired doors and ran down the three steps to the path.

There was nothing much on his mind except the sensual pleasure of the clean fresh evening air and the memory of the finesse that had given him his three spades. There was a case, of course, the case he was working on, a curious and complicated affair that M had rather nonchalantly tossed over the air at him two weeks earlier. But it was going well. A chance lead into the Chinese community had paid off. Some odd angles had come to light - for the present the merest shadows of angles - but if they jelled, thought Strangways as he strode down the gravel path and into Richmond Road, he might find himself involved in something very odd indeed.

Chapter 1 - Hear You Loud and Clear

[Great Literature of]

This is part of the Great Literature of Slashdot series

[Part 4]

Strangways shrugged his shoulders. Of course it wouldn't turn out like that. The fantastic never materialized in his line of business. There would be some drab solution that had been embroidered by overheated imaginations and the usual hysteria of the Chinese.

Automatically, another part of Strangways's mind took in the three blind men. They were tapping slowly towards him down the sidewalk. They were about twenty yards away. He calculated that they would pass him a second or two before he reached his car. Out of shame for his own health and gratitude for it, Strangways felt for a coin. He ran his thumbnail down the edge to make sure it was a florin and not a penny. He took it out. He was parallel with the beggars. How odd that they were all Chigroes! How very odd! Strangways's hand went out. The coin clanged in the tin cup.

'Bless you, Master,' said the leading man. 'Bless you,' echoed the other two.

The car key was in Strangways's hand. Vaguely he registered the moment of silence as the tapping of the white sticks ceased. It was too late.

As Strangways had passed the last man, all three swivelled. The back two had fanned out a step to have a clear field of fire. Three revolvers, ungainly with their sausage-shaped silencers, whipped out of holsters concealed among the rags. With disciplined precision, the three men aimed at different parts of Strangways's spine - one between the shoulders, one in the small of the back, one at the pelvis.

The three heavy coughs were almost one. Strangways's body was hurled forward as if it had been kicked. It lay absolutely still in the small puff of dust from the sidewalk.

It was six-seventeen. With a squeal of tyres, a dingy motor hearse with black plumes flying from the four corners of its roof took the T-intersection into Richmond Road and shot down towards the group on the pavement. The three men just had time to pick up Strangways's body when the hearse pulled to a stop abreast of them. The double doors at the back were open. So was the plain deal coffin inside. The three men manhandled the body through the doors and into the coffin. They climbed in. The line was put on and the doors pulled shut. The three negroes sat down on three of the four little seats at the corner of the coffin and unhurriedly laid their white sticks beside them. Roomy black alpaca coats hung over the back of the seats. They put the coats on over their rags. Then they took off their baseball caps and reached down to the floor and picked up black top hats and put them on their heads.

The driver, who was also a Chinese negro, looked nervously over his shoulder.

'Go man. Go!' said the biggest of the killers. He glanced down at the luminous dial of his wrist watch. It said six-twenty. Just three minutes for the job. Dead on time.

The hearse made a decorous U-turn and moved at a sedate speed up to the intersection. There it turned right and at thirty miles an hour it cruised genteelly up the tarmac highway towards the hills, its black plumes streaming the doleful signal of its burden and the three mourners sitting bolt upright with their arms crossed respectfully over their hearts.