Slashdot Mirror
Slashdot Subscription Update
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.
No. Paypal has screwed up a few times for a few people. That makes people fear that paypal is going to screw up for them. And so paypal suffers for their lack of care.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
you hurt my brain.
PIDFTOUWEP?
?
?!
I'm a big retard who forgot to log out of Slashdot on Mike's computer! LOOK AT ME.
There was a blackout? Gee, I didn't catch that memo....
What was he before 911?
Chris
Oh no, someone made an innocent mistake and spoiled an episode of a TV show for me, woe is me, my life is meaningless, I am taking my ball and going home now. Wah, wah, wah.
Grow the fuck up.
BilldaCat
"loser"
I see the opinions of Trolls have greatly evolved in the last few months. Your response was certainly more educated than 'fag'. Too bad you didn't take the time to clarify the nature of your complaint.
"Derp de derp."
I am participating because I PERCEIVE that Rob, Jeff, et al do not value user comments as "content" to the degree that they should. Yes, it is their site. Yes, moderation is pretty much OK, and I am even OK with most of the editor moderation that goes on-- With the exception of a few BLATANT examples of editors blacklisting users and bitchslapping threads that I felt contributed to Slashdot, as both a revenue-generating site as well as this "community" that many people keep whining about.
The truth may well be different from my perception. Like I said, they run the site. But in the same way I can't possibly know about back-office details, Rob, Jeff, Jamie, etc. are now completely incapable of giving opinions from the perspective of end-users, simply because they don't experience Slashdot in the way we do. That is why I think that they should at least assign some mental value to the discussion and commentary, as opposed to (in my perception) dismissing it as superfluous discussion that hogs their resources. I'm quite sure that in between submitting nodes on e2, and having lunch in Holland, MI, Rob and Jeff are reading the comments behind some of the articles that pique their interest. Knowing that, how can they say (in public, with a stright-face) that comments are an insignificant part of Slashdot? Only in raw unique-IP pageviews as compared to the front page, we know.
But the point of the blackout as I understood it was the assertion that while there are a lot of loads of the front page, what really generates "interest" in slashdot are the comments.
Now I have to post with my name... great, I crossed the picket line. Sorry guys!
SlashSigTheorem: Humorous, Political, Critical, Constructive- If you have a
Mod parent up.
/. users (I myself have been actively reading for about 3 years), this shouldn't be about "what do I get for my money?" The ad-less pages should be an added bonus for helping to support the site. When the subscriptions were announced, I immediately bought 5000 page views. I still have 5000 page views (well...4998, I viewed a couple of pages before I figured out how to turn it off). I view it as more of a donation than a subscription...an acknowledgement that I've received a valuable service for the past 3 years. If I get access to some new "plum" that is just for subscribers, so much the better.
For long time
"Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos!"
I agree with you on the Lone Gunman thing- I read a spoiler about it a few weeks ago so I already knew what was going to happen. But Chris blew it. He knows it. He got the shit flamed out of him. He deserved it. But he apologized, and you can't un-say things. It's not like we're posting headlines every day with shit like 'Vader is Lukes Father' or something. It's a rarity.
Pants are still optional, but recommended for you.
The sum of it is that the comments are the meat of the stories, and if you're interested in a story, you're going to look to the comments. Since people didn't stop posting, I'm not having much luck at holding back from reading. And so now I'm posting as well since it'd be damned stupid to hold out trying to prove some point that I'm not really sure of. But I guarantee, if the comments faded, I wouldn't have had much a problem staying off the front page as well :)
SIG: HUP