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 ;)
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.
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
"If ignorance is bliss, why aren't there more happy people in the world?"
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.
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!
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...
--
What happens when you outlaw guns
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).
... but it's still how the world goes round.
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
D
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.
"Shut up brain or ill stab you with a Q-tip" Homer Simpson
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.
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?
Please subscribe to see the more insightful version of th
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.
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.
/. of either the $20 or the hard-earned ad-bucks that would make /. survive.
/. does not get the money it needs to continue to exist.
/. IMHO you should either pay or endure the ads.
It's interesting to see how many readers are willing to "screw"
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
The capitalist idea works when users are willing to actually pay for services they like. If you like
Unless this is a spec-fucking-tacular troll, what your advertisers want aren't what I want.
Buh-bye.
I doubt many will pay for viewing /.
/. propose some solid plans to improve the quality of discussion, lower the signal-to-noise ratio, or at least listen to our opinions?
Could
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?
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.
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.
Eric Sarjeant
eric[@]sarjeant.com
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?]
.. $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!
.. cool. I mean .. i read /. almost daily ..so ..
.. 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.
.. 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.)
.. is /. gonna get 'dumb-ed down' ?
sieriously though
For something that adds value
My big fear is what its going to do to the 'constructive' user.
Its not going to scare away trolls
I mean
If a large number of 'interesting' posters stop posting as much
--Ne auderis delere orbem rigidum meum, non erravi pernicose!
The usual spots for me...f ocus.com
Newsforge.org
theregister.co.uk
security
ibm.com/developer
codingstyle.com
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.
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?
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
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.
This
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*
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.
I could not justify my existence if I were a turkey farmer. Would I terminate myself? Undoubtably, yes.
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.
-- We live in a world where lemonade is artificial and soap has real lemon.
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.
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.
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.
/. is worth 20 bucks a year. That's *nothing*, man. And they've been free for like 4 years now? Come ON.
/. just because the management has to pay the bills.
"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.
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
- Rev.
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.
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?
Runnin' On Empty
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.
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?
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.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
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
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.
I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
Has anyone ever eBayed a slashdot UID before? I wonder what a 7000s level UID would fetch :)
/. for six months.... DOH!!!!)
N.
(who's only registered after lurking
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.
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.
I miss the Karma Whores.
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!
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
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!
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
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.
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.
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
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
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 :)
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.
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.
/. team, I'd be more likely to donate directly to a future Taquito's college fund than to subscribe. But that's just me.
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
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.
+1 Insightful, -1 Troll. What can I say, I'm an Insightful Troll.
add a new identifier to registered users , suscriber number in addition to the member number. /. users are into this kind of
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
numerical glory.
this idea offered pro bono
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.
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?
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
I hear you, and agree with the sentiment of your comments. But for me, it's like this:
/. 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:
/.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.
/. would instantly see the bandwidth savings of serving less content to millions of readers daily.
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
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
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,
These are just a few (possibly not properly thought out) ideas. Anyone got any others?
Prisoner #655321
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.
- 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:
- Politely deal with the ads, and accept that it is a payment for the service you enjoy.
- Pay the money.
- Start your own site elsewhere
- 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.
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?
Does this mean slashdot has to give up it's .org address now that they are generating a probable profit?
[RIAA] says its concern is artists. That's true, in just the sense that a cattle rancher is concerned about its cattle.
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)?
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. ;-)
- jon
Ganymede, a GPL'ed metadirectory for UNIX
Yes folks, that was INFORMATIVE!
SIG: HUP
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.
~mindlace
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!
Most people would die sooner than think; in fact, they do.
*cough*Kuro5hin*cough*
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.
www.HearMySoulSpeak.com
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.
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.
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...
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.
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
Home Page
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.
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
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
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.
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.
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.
Bush's education improvements were
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.
$5 isn't going to kill you. Besides, its a tax write off (in Canada, anyways)
I don't happen to know how much we make off ads off the top of my head, but I do know that we only sell a relatively small percent of the 2 million pages we serve each day. Subscriptions are fairly similiar to a tip jar... we're just giving you banner ad free pages instead of a tote bag or whatever ;)
Pants are still optional, but recommended for you.
I don't think is a loss of spirit at all. If I did, I wouldn't have done this. You are not being told you need to pay anything. If you have been looking at Slashdot and filtering the ads here's a reality check: I appreciate your comment, but I don't appreciate you filtering the ads. That's the only way that we've been able to try and pay money. And here's another reality check: No, Slashdot is not profitable. And the reality is that it will probably be single digit percent of people who sign up - at an average of 10 - 20$ 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.
Yeah, I'm that guy.
This change will change the whole site dynamics. For the worse, I think, in its current form.
Slashdot offers two main things:
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:
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
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.
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?
"Allez Cusine!"
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!
Everyone is living in a personal delusion, just some are more delusional than others.
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.
;), 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.
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
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
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.