Slashdot Mirror
Announcing Slashdot Subscriptions
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 ;)
Get your perl monkeys busy and do a decent on-line payment system, not that cheesy-ass PayPal thing.
They stab it with their steely knives,
But they just can't kill the beast.
We have:
.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.
Half Empty, aka
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.
[o]_O
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.
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!)
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
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...
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.
I like ice cream.
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.
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.
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.
I don't know where I fit into your (unfounded, unsupported, and fully unresearched) estimates, Taco.
// 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).
But I read the front page of slashdot about 1-3 times a day without logging into this account (aka anonymously
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.
~~~~~~~~
Signature illegible, could be somebody else.