Slashdot Subscription Update

A few things have changed in the Slashdot Subscription System since we originally announced it a few months ago. Most important to many of you is that we now can directly accept Credit Cards in addition to paypal. We also added some control to allow subscriptions to be time based instead of page view based. Read on to see how.

By far the biggest complaint that we heard was from users who either hate paypal, or simply don't want to mess with it. I'm not going to go into the politics of that issue here, but it's a valid complaint. As we've explained countless times, we picked paypal first because it was simple and quick and planned to support credit cards directly as soon as we worked the kinks out of the system. And now that's happened. I'm still interested in other payment mechanisms and I'm open to suggestions as to what they might be.

Complaint number two was from people who didn't like the metered subscriptions. Again, this is a very valid complaint. I've already explained why it was essential that we impose some sort of limits, so what we've implemented is a new option called Max Ads. What it does is limit the number of pages you choose to view ad free on any given day. By default, that is 10. So even if you view slashdot 20 times a day, your $5 subscription will still last 100 days with the default setting of 10 Max Ads. Of course, you can up that number too.

Subscribers still have the ability to choose what page classes you suppress ads on. Simply hiding ads on Articles and Index, but seeing them on Comments is enough for the vast majority of readers to never hit the default Max Ads settings. At those settings, the subscription fee for a year on Slashdot would be on par with a typical magazine.

So far we've been really pleased with the turnout: 2% of our logged in users have chosen to subscribe, and we really hope that number will increase since such a huge number of readers expressed support for the subscription system, but distaste for paypal.

As we explained earlier, a large part of our decision to suppress banner ads was so that we could start accepting other ad formats, but give users an option to support Slashdot, without seeing these new ad formats. These other ad formats are highly desirable and should allow our sales folks to get contracts that we would otherwise be ineligible for. Web Advertising is a highly competitive field, and these ad formats make it possible for us to compete.

The last thing I'm mentioning here is Subscriber Plums. We have a variety of things that subscribers will eventually have access to. We're certainly open to reasonable suggestions, and we'll announce them as they come online. As I've said before, we won't be taking away things from non-subscribers, just rewarding those who are throwing quarters into the guitar case. More on these plums at a later date.

Thanks to the subscribers, as well as to those who click on our ads and support us by supporting our advertisers. You guys are helping to ensure that Slashdot sticks around for a long time.

Comments

Blackout continues?

[Anonymous Coward]

Great, Rob, throw this out while the blackout is going on, so the "hard-core" discussion mongers won't be able to contribute. :)

I do wish you'd list what kinds of Subscriber Plums will be out there, though. I'm kinda-sorta waiting to see "what's in it for me" before I subscribe; if you wait too long I may just get used to the big fattie ads and not care about subscribing.

Just my feedback, without a name since I am kinda-sorta supporting the Great Slashdot Blackout.

Re:End of paypal?

[jamie]

"the credit card option's been on the subscribe page for about a week now. They only just got around to announcing it today."

Nope; it just showed up for an hour in the middle of the night, during a code refresh about a week ago. But has been absent from then until about 20 minutes ago. You were probably one of like 3 people who saw the dang thing last week :)

Editorial integrity

[FattMattP]

Here's what I want for my subscription: Editorial Integrity. Here's what I mean:

1. Spell check the articles even if you didn't write it.
2. Use proper grammar.
3. Make edits if the submitter mispells something, has poor grammar, or screws up the links.
4. Make sure the links go to the right place.
5. Remove unnecessary links. We don't need to link to CNN's home page every time we write the letters "CNN." Just link to the article or issue at hand.
6. Before accepting an article, search your own damn site to ensure that it's not something you've approved to post before.

Do all of this and you'll have my money.

Re:Editorial integrity

[jeffehobbs]

I completely disagree. To me, bad grammar and poor spelling simply denote a lack of editorial dedication and generalized laziness on the part of the editorial staff. I regularly spell check the messages I submit for the viewing of my friends and family, or if I post to a mailing list where my message might be viewed by a hundred people or so, because I respect the people who read my words and I want my message to be as clear as possible.

When your audience is in the hundreds of thousands, however, it's unthinkable to me that someone who calls themself an editor wouldn't take 30 seconds to throw their text through a spell checker.

And not to mention it just simply looks bad for "the cause" -- there are plenty of linux spell check options, but every time I see a spelling error on slashdot, I think, "poor linux, can't even spell check," and I know I must not be alone in that peception.

~jeff

Why I am Not Participating in the Blackout

[grytpype]

I am abstaining from the blackout because I think it is fundamentally misguided.

I like the Slashdot moderation system. It is the best system I've seen for handling the turd-tossers who want to ruin resources like Slashdot. They are not prevented from tossing their turds, they just get modded down to -1. Anyone who wants to examine their faecal projectiles can browse the comments at -1. (Have you tried that lately? Can you imagine trying to read a discusssion if you couldn't block that shit?)

Re:For only ...

[Redline]

C'mon now, you're not willing to throw quarters in the guitar case? Never mind that all the content is created by volunteers, and all slashdot does is distribute it.

This is such a fallacious argument. It is based on the assumption that your opinion is more valuable than the network services that distribute it. An opinion is worthless. Every person has one and every person wants to give it to you. The content (mostly the opinions of the uninformed) here is cheap, but bandwidth and employees are not. What's wrong with paying for the services that /. provides?
There is a coffee house down the street from my house that has open-mic poetry readings every Wednesday. I go, buy a cup of coffee, and listen to (and read) some poems. I am not going to demand my coffee for free, just because I provide some of the "content" on poetry night. The coffee shop provided the mic, stage, tables, lights, and ambiance. Isn't that worth as much (if not more) than the small amount of "content" that the users provide?

Re:For only ...

[jordan_a]

Read the copyright notice on the bottom of the page.

All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. Comments are owned by the Poster. The Rest © 1997-2002 OSDN

Re:Story moderation

[dipfan]

Hmm, interesting. Seeing into the submit bin is also helpful, in more ways than one. I often wonder, when submitting a story, if anyone else has already submitted it. If we could see the submit bin (and rejects and acceptances) then the chances are the editors would have to deal with a lot fewer duplications ... users wouldn't waste their time submitting stories that were already pending or rejected, and the editors wouldn't get so much noise in the bin.