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.
$0.70 a day, you too can join in the millions to help out the poor, starving /. editors.
Karma? Karma? I don't need no stinkin' karma.
How about an option to hide the always annoying, never clever CowboyNeal option in the poll? That'll get some people subscribing...
"People that quote themselves in their signatures bother me" - athakur999
Seriously: is this a reaction to Mastercard's decision to make things a lot more difficult for Paypal users?
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.
I think one of the main things that attracts people to slashdot is that it is not commercial and there is a sense of community (a very twisted one at that). Slashdot is a great FREE site and thats as far as it goes. I wish you guys all the success but I really don't think it will make much money. Slashdot is never consistent (which is a terrible business model) , so how can you expect to make a business out of it? Business involves planning and consistency. I for one don't want to pay for a service that at is heart is free and should always be free.
Sounds like you still purchase a number of pages, but after your daily allotment of pages, you still view those annoying ads. It's only a partial block this way.
I feel that this is a half-hearted solution to the "number of pages" problem, and still refuse to subscribe until a true time-based subscription scheme is implemented.
If I weren't nailed to the penis, I'd be pushing up the daisies!
I miss the banner ads! Can't you make the slashdot logo link, jump, and wiggle?
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
From what I could tell on the IRC conversation, the /. editors promised to avoid Flash ads. I have noticed a few in the past couple of weeks, along with the "extra-big" sized banner ads on the top. Has anyone seen a statement where they said they would start accepting Flash ads now?
"The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent." --Carl Sagan
Most important to many of you is that we now can directly accept Credit Cards in addition to paypal.
As someone who has never used PayPal, the fact that Slashdot is directly accepting credit cards may be enough of a reason for me to subscribe. I use a debit card for online purchases so I never get a bill so this would be an effortless purchase.
As with the sun's light
My mom was magnificent
Unquestionable
You just got $5.00 out of me. :-)
Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
How about revealing some MRTG style stats of usage types and subscription numbers?
I know it might be considered marketing data, but how many competitors does Slashdot have anyway?
I am wondering if a subscription is required to moderate.
I used to be able to meta-moderate and I used to be asked to moderate about once a month. Since the subscription service came out I have not been able to meta-moderate or been asked to moderate. Is there any connection?
One of the things I would be really interested in if I choose to become a member is something like the google zeitgeist. It could show things like browsers used to connect, number of hits by time of day, OSes used to connect etc. The google Zeitgeist in a way is a snapshot of what the google searchers are most interested in at a given point in time. A similar system for slashdot could be a very interesting snapshot of the geek/nerd community.
-F
At the intersection of computation and biology.
These other ad formats are highly desirable...
/. because they start putting that crap here too!
God help us if Slashdot resorts to floater ads. There's more than a few sites that implemented these ads that once i was subjected to, i never returned.
I hope i don't have to find an alternative to
There are 01 types of people in this world. Those that understand binary, and me.
I for one don't want to pay for a service that at is heart is free and should always be free.
Uh...OK. How about we host it on your server?
-Waldo Jaquith
Here are some of the reasons...
What's the /. owner's take on ad blocking software?
I think that it's becoming much more common.
I've never bothered to install ad blocking software, but I recently upgraded my firewall software (zonealarm) and it came with new ad blocking features. I figured, what the hell, turned it on, and wow! It's really nice. I wouldn't want to go back to browsing without it.
I think that this is the beginning of a trend and we're going to see ad blocking software built in to anti-virus software, web browsers, etc...
I've also just "subscribed" to google, by signing up for their adwords system. Its pretty nifty - I've had 452 people see my ad, for just over a fiver (the fiver being their account setup charge -- per-click costs add up to only 0.34 in a week). Its fun to subject that many people to your points of view for 0.34 a week -- give it a go, people! :)
("Microsoft" is going for only 0.37 per click -- but remember your linux advocacy HOWTO's...)
Slashdot's moderation system is pretty good and pretty unique. How about pushing the envelope a bit further?
How about an option where subscribers can see all the stories submitted and vote on them? The highest moderated stories could the bubble up to a "subscriber selected" page, viewable by all. The editors could then decide if the subscriber selected stories were good enough for the front page mix.
I could expand on this, but I want to post this before the thread runs to 400 posts. You get the idea. Subscribers want control. Push the envelope!
-Russ
Me
- Spell check the articles even if you didn't write it.
- Use proper grammar.
- Make edits if the submitter mispells something, has poor grammar, or screws up the links.
- Make sure the links go to the right place.
- 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.
- 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.Prevent email address forgery. Publish SPF records for y
In other words, right now, I have access to everything, and once the "Plums" start, I'll only have access to some things.
That's when I'll go.
Ellen
mods metamodded as "Unfair"
Maybe you can have a plum option, "don't bother showing me repeat articles, cause if I wasn't interested once, I'm not interested now"?
This for me is the biggest reason I won't pay for slashdot. Don't get me wrong, I think slashdot is great, and definitely worth what I pay for it, just not worth a whole lot more.... If I really want to see repeats, I can quickyl enough browse the 1/2 dozen sites that slashdot get most of their stories from anyway...
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?)
- Have a picture
I suggest that when /. stories are approved, they be visible only to subscribers for 15 minutes. During that time, posting would be locked, so subscribers wouldn't dominate the discussions. It would be a Bad Idea to let people who pay have an edge in the debate.
/. effect shuts down the affected sites.
/. I'm sorry, but I'm cheap, and that's the reality of the situation.
The idea behind the suggestion is that subscribers would be able to actually read the stories before the
This is the only thing I can think of that would induce me to pay for
Slashhdot will probably make a fair amount of $$$ off of the banner free subscription idea, but this "deal" just doesn't add anythng of value. I mean, what kind of value is it for me to pay to not see ads, I see them everywhere as it is and have become accustomed to filtering them (mentally and proxy).
/.
Here's something that I might be willing to pay for (ideas stolen from Fark):
- Open the submission queue, there is a lot of cool stuff that doesn't get posted but people would still like to read it.
- Make it known who the subscribers are, kinda like bumper stickers for supporting the police.
- Open the submission queue to early comments by subscribers.
There is little value in regurgitation of other news outlets and given half the chance and motive there are plenty of sites that would love to replace
Hammer of Truth
Personally, I'd be willing to pay for slashdot, but I'm NOT going to do it just to get rid of the ads. And I think that a lot of other people feel this way too.
/. to make it worth it. But as for ads... seems like the majority of ads (not counting the banner ads at the top of the page which I really don't mind) are from doubleclick, which I have mozilla block... so as-is I'm not seeing a lot of the ads on /. already.
I think that the people over at LiveJournal have the right idea. They don't make you pay for subscriptions... they don't beat you down with ads, but they have a way where if you like their site, you can pay them. And in return they reward you with some extra goodies that the unpaid users don't have access too.
I think that solution would work here too... I can think of a couple of decent features you could add to
Besides, there's nothing that says that I can't go to the Palm Pilot version of slashdot, which has no graphical ads at all. So, given that there are a lot of different news sites out there, there's nothing wrong with subscriptions, but you have to make your site stand out above the others if you go to that. If you don't people will just get fed up and go elsewhere.
-Through the server, over the router, off the firewall... Nothing but 'Net!
I know I am a maniac, but I tend to hit reload on the main page quite often, just to see if there's a new story I am interested in. I don't think I am alone in this. It looks like this actually counts for 1 page each time :--(
Of course this is a purely commercial decision, but just for the record, this system will probably lead me to read /. less than I used too. I know I could leave the banner on on the main page, but in this case I would feel like I paid my subscription for no benefit.
So what about counting the main page for 1 hit each day. Even a system where the main page would count for say 3 or 5 pages, and with a cap, for example 40 reloads per day would be better. I would feel that I get better value for my money as it would not require me to change my browsing habits to take advantage of the subscription.
Look, that's why there's rules, understand? So that you think before you break 'em. (Terry Pratchett)
If someone steals your credit card number you will only pay at most $50 by law.
If someone steals your debit card number as time passes without it being reported your protection decreases. After a certain period you no longer have any protection and the theft can clean out your account.
At a site whose name I will not mention because we're still trying to deal with the last batch of slashdot refugees that showed up.
Best Slashdot Co
but I think Members should be able to read stories first. Have a 10 minute delay for non members.
Maybe "Gold" members will have the smallest delay.
Only people that are logged on will have first posts. Its not likely people will pay money to be the first troll.
Value added. Slashdot members will be more likely to see sites before the slashdot affect.
This may also help to lower peak website traffic on linked sites.
easily implemented code.
and most importantly, Because I said so :-)
Print out the email receipt that comes with your subscription, and tack on the $5 to your next expense report. After all, doesn't your company pay for subscriptions and training materials? Odds are they won't balk at the $5, and if you've ever sent your coworkers a juicy news item via a Slashdot link, then you're totally justified. I bet your boss won't even blink at it - $5 for this is a much better value than a magazine subscription.
What's your damage, Heather?
Another sign it's a troll: All the words in the post are properly spelled!
Next we'll be seeing guys claiming to be Hemos and Jamie posting comments here...
Best Slashdot Co
Why are you moving back to Michigan? Too hot here in the South for ya?
Best Slashdot Co
Slashdot isn't selling information... it's charging rent for bandwidth usage and server space.
My journal has hot
A far, far easier way to avoid the /. effect is for /. to simply keep a local (local to /. and the andover colocs) cache of the page. Link to that instead of to the actual site. The /. network is set up for that much load; a home enthusiast's cable modem isn't.
Maybe replace the link-to-cache with the link-to-real after 24 hours, or a week, or whatever. There's probably lots of tweaking possible here that I haven't even thought of, much less posted. My point is that /. has the capability to shoulder some of those slashdottings, at least briefly.
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
What ads? Oh you mean those little empty boxes that say "Error 404, cannot load image"? Too bad advertisers don't think text ads are worthwhile, because on a hyper-techie site like slashdot, you HAVE to expect at least a good portion of those folks are going to be even halfway intelligent about blocking ads.
I'm sorry slashdot, but if your advertisers are too stupid to figure out that the demographic on this damn site is very unimpressed with large content-free ads, if they are too ignorant to comprehend that most of thier ads will pass unseen, and the ones that don't will be loathed, if they are so unfathomably clueless as to believe that I will, for a nanosecond, contemplate purchasing something from thier ad instead of, as is my usual wont, telling all of my friends and family NOT to purchase from them, then they deserve what they get... nada.
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
See above - I've replied to that. Maybe an alternate site - but it'd be a mountain of a task to perform.
Yeah, I'm that guy.
How about a 10 minute (or according to what subscription level) head start over the average viewer?
Avoid the slashdot effect, as it were.
GPL Deconstructed
you could contact small businesses, and say "hey, if you don't pay us $$$, we will post a story about you that will result in your entire years bandwidth allowance being used up by lunchtime!!!"
... would be access to the rejected bin. i pay $5 a month for full access to totalfark, and its worth it there. give access to the reject bin here, and you may well get more subscribers.
With something like the Proxomitron
(dun, Dun, DUNNN! )
(Sorry, but whenever I mention the Proxomitron (dun, dun DUNN! ), I am compelled to add the authoritative interlude)
they get 20,000 subscribers they'll release the slashcode!
Check out ioquake3.org for a great, free, First-Person Shooter engine!
I'm a slashdot advertiser as well as a subscriber. I've selected "No Ads" for Homepage, Stories, as well as Comments but I'm still seeing ads in all "Post Comment" pages as well as everything under users.pl.
What does it take to remove the ads? :-)
Well this prolly wont get read cause its so far down in the comments but here it goes... Slashdot has a wonderful opportunity here. They have a huge user base and could do wonders with it. By coming out with a subscription based system that offers nothing but no ads there is no reason for anyone to subscribe. They completely blew an oppotunity with this one. If they had planned out a bunch of features that subscribers would get before hand and had them all planned out and ready to be released when they announced their subscription plan , people would be subscribing. Only 2% of the community has subscribed so far, shouldnt that be telling them that they are doing something wrong? Come on guys you can do better than this. Hire someone using your ad money to help write you up a nice business plan.
I still think this page counting punishes the most valuable readers most. Charging a flat monthly fee would give more - not less - value for active posters.
In Murphy We Turst
There shouldn't be Flash ads - please e-mail me when you find one. I track down the 3rd party advertiser, and kick them in the jim-jams.
Yeah, I'm that guy.
Just remove his articles, believe it or not, everyone doesn't think like you. Some of us have our own opinions on the matter and like to see what the crackpots have to say from time to time.
I'm having a bit of a dilemma. I'm happy to pay Slashdot in order to keep it going, but sometimes a banner pops up that's interesting. I know it sounds silly, but like 3 times now I've seen a banner pertaining to something I was seeking. For example, I want an MP3 player that can play mini-CD's to travel with. *Gasp* I saw an ad for one at ThinkGeek.com, and now I'm considering purchasing it.
So if I get the subscription, I lose the ads. I guess Slashdot wins either way, but if I pay for Slashdot I'd like to get a little bit more benefit than just no ads.
One idea is that I'd like to see who mods me down. I think somebody'd be more careful about modding me down as troll when they know that I know who's doing it. Here's an example:
http://www.nanogator.com/slashdot.jpg
See that, within 6 minutes I had several posts modded down as Troll. If you look up a bit you can see that my other posts take about 20 minutes in between to get moderated. Anybody else think this is a bit suspiscious?
I really don't care so much about getting modded down, but I do think the quality of the moderations would go up if some of the 'premium members' know who's doing it. Afterall, if I'm paying to visit the site *and* look at the ads, its less likely that I'm here to just cause trouble.
That's all it'd take for me. I'm not demanding typo-free articles (damn people are anal about that, heh) or anything like that. I'd just like my time spent contributing to Slashdot worth more.
"Derp de derp."
It's grammar.
Best Slashdot Co
And it hasn't been for over two years now. Why is this particular piece of FUD so hard to stamp out? Debit cards from Visa/MC have the exact same level of liability, specifically none, with no limitation on how soon you need to report the card lost/stolen.
Visa:
Card Comparison chart, notice that all the check cards are covered by Zero Liability.
Information on Visa's Zero Liability Policy.
Mastercard:
Debit MasterCard features, notice their own Zero Liability Policy listed.
Information on the MasterCard Zero Liability Policy.
But gaffs like the Lone Gunmen thing today are complately inexcusable. It didn't matter to me -- I saw it live last night, but its rare these days that I watch TV live, and was just a fluke.
;-)
I don't think the story was at all necessary, and shouldn't have been posted with spoilers on the homepage no matter what time it was posted.
It sucks to say it, but four years ago, I would've subscribed in a heartbeat, but the ratio of interesting stories to recycled crap has changed so dramatically on here, its basically force of four or five years habit that I check the site a few times a day.
It'd probably be easier to quit smoking!
I am happy /. user and pretty sure I will be a subscriber soon. For now, the ads are completely no bother, so I dont really have any particular motivation.
However, something I would love, would be the possibility of viewing the comments with expand/collapse buttons. I like to view at threshold 0, so one thread can get biig, and I easily loose track of what sub-thread I am reading. What I would like to do would be to collapse the thread, so I can immediatly skip to the next one. This means every single comment which has sub-comments, would be expand/collapsable.
Another improvement: When I have mod points, it always bothers me that I have to select the comments I want to mod, and then, at the end of the page, I submit. Often I forget, and follow a link somewhere. A system I think works a lot better in this respect, is that of Half-Empty. When you see a comment you want to rate, you do so immediatly, but the page handling the rating is opened in a new tiny window in the background. This way I immediatly vote, and I dont move away from the discussion Im interested in, or forget to mod.
-Kraft
Live and let live
Heh. You must have a radically different notion of how this site makes money then reality.
Yeah, I'm that guy.
Yet another subscription idea:
Take a page from online stock tickers, which show 20-minute delayed values for non-subscribers, and realtime information for subscribers. If Slashdot did the same, it would mean that subscribers have access to new articles 20 minutes (or some other reasonable value) before non-subscribers, allowing them to beat the Slashdot effect, plus the ability to post comments before everyone else.
This benefit could be used in conjunction with, or separately from the existing no-ads system for subscribers, and IMHO it would draw many more subscribers than the no-ads system.
"It is a mathematical fact that the casting of this pebble from my hand alters the centre of gravity of the universe."
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.
I don't filter banner ads or banner icons, nothing. I'm not going to install programs of plug-ins in my browsers to censor content, even if they are ads. What I do and will continue to filter is pop-up anything. Not beacuse they are ads but because they annoy me and clutter my desktop.
I run a popular website with traditional banner ads (468x60 up top an a few 100x100 on the left sidebar). That's the way it was, that's the way it will be. The day an advertiser demands that I give them pop-up is the day they can look for a new place to put their ads.
In any case, I still think traditional banner ads are both more asthetic and more effective. The bigger and more intrusive an ad, the quicker it will be closed or scrolled over. And in the case of pop-up ads it's just too easy for users to disable them entirely.
In fact, I've been tempted to go to text-based ads. The main reason I don't is because I think they'd be TOO effective: users would actually see them as content rather than the advertisement that they are. I want to maintain a distinction. I think traditional banner ads are the right balance.
Out of curiousity, who does /. use for the accpetance of credit cards?
"There ought to be limits to freedom"
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.
This does allieviate the major inconvenience of the system, wondering when you're subscription is going to run out, but the fact still remains that the contributors are paying more. It's really now a point of whether or not the remaining issue of that principal is big enough to cause a problem. I personally won't be subscribing no matter what you do (I'm a university student with little $$ and am not in the habit of spending money online) but I do support the idea, I was also participating in the blackout (although I may reevaluate that now given the changes).
I stole this Sig
Give me the old days when people spelled things however they damn well pleased, like:
"The pyrate stole my hatts, three score bookes, and a pounde of sylk cloths."
Here's an interesting quote:
"Most people throughout much of the history of the English language have seemed remarkably unconcerned about niceties of spelling -- even to the point of spelling one word two ways in the same sentence. People were even casual about their names. More than eighty spellings of Shakespeare's name have been found. Shakespeare himself did not spell the name the same way twice in any of his six known signatures and even spelled it two ways in one document, his will. [Bill Bryan, The Mother Tongue: English And How It Got That Way, New York, William Morrow, 1990, pp. 124-5]"
c-hack.com |
Just out of curiosity, don't you want to improve your grammar just for your own personal betterment as a human being? I mean, English is your first language, right? Don't you want to feel like you're competent in it? I don't mind spelling or grammar errors at all, and I don't really see why people get so upset over them, as though they can't interpret what you're saying (well, unless the grammar is really really bad) but I think that you and everyone else would want to improve their spelling and grammar just so you don't look back on what you read later and feel like an idiot.
/. readers who bitch about grammar and spelling with posts containing errors of their own.
It's a skill like anything else in life. Just because you want your work to have that authentic feel to it doesn't mean that you can't pay attention to what you type. This goes for everyone, especially the
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
Well, actually we've all seen stories appear and disappear on here, and its pretty easy to jump into a database and start changing fields. A lot of people saw the spoiler last night out on the west coast before it was on, but two guys at work today flipped out because they had neither seen the spoiler or the episode yesterday, and the problem *could've* been fixed for them today. The story could've been removed, or the headline and description could've been changed to make it clear that there was a serious spoiler and not to click on it if you haven't seen the episode.
:)
Don't mind me though, its a dreary, snowy April Monday, and I have my summer tires on my car, so I'll be taking the T home if the weather doesn't improve. So I'm just bitter.
we now can directly accept Credit Cards in addition to paypal.
Watch out for paypal, here is my experience. That's not the end of it either. One class action suit is already in progress against Palpal, for exactly the things they've done to me, and another is apparently pending.
At least, include a warning not to give Paypal any more of your money than you are willing to kiss goodbye for an indefinite period, for no good reason.
There are alternatives, notably Billpoint which at least hasn't done anything evil to me yet.
Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
The ad's aren't that bad either, I dunno if the ad's are broken or what... but most of the time I don't see ad's on the comments pages.
May seem crazy, but a lot of ad's are useful (especially on slashdot). What options do I have if I wanted to see the ad's and support/donate to sladhdot? Would it be possible to set the number of no-ad pages to 0 (zero) or something like that?
I'm going to take advantage of the low post number due to the blackout and mention my situation.
/. but a bunch of daily links?
First, I don't mind the ads. I'm glad they're not too intrusive for me and you guys are still getting the revenue from me being here, subscription or no.
Second, thanks for the credit card option. I was worried about PayPal, so I can subscribe now.
But I won't, at least not yet. I'm still a student with 0 income, so I can't afford to subscribe here, as much as I'd like to. Once I have an income, you guys and Penny Arcade are going to be the first subscriptions I get, but not until I can afford it. I'm guessing that since there are a lot of students around here, I'm not outside of a general trend.
As for what I want, I like the idea of having a five to ten minute delay for non-subscribers on new stories, so that subscribers can initiate discussion. The subscribers are likely to be the ones who care about the site most, and are most willing to post intelligently. It'll provide a good baseline of quotes to start an intelligent discussion.
I'd like to see subscribers who got $rtbl'ed get their mod priveleges back. These are people who care about the site (perhaps too much) enough to subscribe, and simply trying to improve the site by modding a discussion on it shouldn't deny them the ability to fully participate. While this could be seen as buying your way back in, it is much easier to just make a new account and karma whore your way to the top than subscribing. Subscribing shows that they care enough to deserve mod privledges.
I like the idea of giving all subscribers the +1 bonus at a lower base karma, for the same reasons. These people care enough to subscribe, so perhaps give them +1 at 15 or 10.
All in all, subscription benefits should target posters and posting in general. Those who subscribe will do so because they care about the real content of the site, which is the discussion. As such, they deserve to be rewarded in that area. I believe Taco when he says that most people only pay attention to the front page, but I think he, and all the other editors, also know that the comments are what make the site what it is, which is why I'm not participating in the blackout. Subscribing should be used, like the mod system before it, in order to facilitate and improve the comments. Because without the discussion, what is
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
I emailed Rob about it. I guess I should have dug further and emailed you. I've seen flash ads for "iAnywhere".
In Soviet Russia...michael would be rotting in Siberia!
A similar system for slashdot could be a very interesting snapshot of the geek/nerd community.
Perhaps too interesting? A few offhanded comments in the past by /. editors have indicated that the majority of the hits on /. are from Windows machines running MSIE. Would disclosing the true numbers be traumatic to the /. community?
Even more fun: have a plum for showing the OS/browser for posters. How many of the "L1NUX R00L5!" folks are posting from their parents Win98 box running AOL?
Eric, posting from Mozilla 0.99 on W2K.
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
I don't care about the adds, so why should I pay?
/. .
Now, lets begin with how they can get my money.
1. Offer services that I can use to intergrate their news. They can and should beable to expand on this.
2. Discounts on other "sister" company services and products. (Like thinkgeek)
3. Allow users with paid perscriptions to post things with an easier/nicer "lameness" filter.
I am sure there are other things that you can charge for with out devauling
The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive
A /. mirror would be illegal. That is assuming, of course, that you did not go through the trouble of contacting every person who has ever posted & get their permission to reproduce their comment.
Well, what about an opt-out system?
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
A system that I think would work for slashdot is to give the top, say 10% of people on slashdot, ranked by number of stories accepted and also by karma, and give them a free subscription. This would encourage people to continue creating more and better content, while freeloaders would be forced to pay for their ability to view the site comfortably.
/gleffler
Better content, happier posters--it seems to work out all the way around.
On the other hand, ads are dead. What good are ads anyway? They only make pages load slower, waste bandwidth, and most importantly, they make the products I would buy anyway more expensive. So rather than pay another 1 buck (of whatever currency) for a product, I'd rather pay that 1 buck directly. If you would let me do it.
I think we are going to see some nasty situations soon. Obviously, banner ads are going to fail miserably soon. Ad-filtering software is being implemented in browsers, people are starting to really hate them. Joe Sixpack too. As a response, I think we might see more attempts to force you to look at them.
Content providers gotta eat too. They need the money. We ads failing, we are going to see more and more closed models, and the big content industry will lobby bad laws through that may go a long way in making sure it will be very difficult for independent journalism to get exposure. I don't know how exactly this is going to be, but then, I really couldn't imagine how bad DMCA was going to be. Given the track record I would say, be very afraid.
So, I think that to save free speech, we, the free software and open source communities have to start developing stuff to facilitate a move away from free as in beer. We must abandon free beer to get free speech.
This is how I would pay for Slashdot:
When I surfed on Slashdot, the browser recorded what I did, and along with it, payment information, inserted not only by /. editors, but also those who made comments. This payment information would include what /. editors would think a story should cost. Say once a week, I would review the stuff I had surfed, and authorize payments. Some money would go to /. for their editorial efforts, for hardware, etc. Some money would even go to posters of comments I would find insightful.
There would have to be short path between me, making payments, and receivers of payments, so banks would have to get involved, and they would have to rethink many things, and realize it doesn't cost that much to perform simple database queries.
In fact, this would not only apply to Slashdot, I would like to pay pretty much every newspaper and journal I read online this way. Also, I'd like to be paid for the content I provide myself this way. It should be big.
It requires involvement from many parties, and we really should have standards. Unfortunately, W3C's E-commerce activity died a horrible death. A good start would be implementation in browsers, and we can do that. After all, if we make something that works, and we're actually making money this way, they ought to come running. Making money by having a shortest possible path between end-users and content providers should be attractive to everyone.
Employee of Inrupt, Project Release Manager and Community Manager for Solid
When you are reading a big discussion, and you come across a comment that you want to moderate, just right-click on the "#3388399" link in its header. Open the comment by itself in a new window (or new tab).. moderate it there... close the window and get back to reading the rest of the discussion.
"The Crystal Wind is the Storm, and the Storm is Data, and the Data is Life"
(Well, looking at my username, this one should come as no shock.)
e-gold has many advantages. I once again offer a small click of the stuff to anyone who replies to my email address with an account number. e-gold Ltd. won't sell/trade/give away your information (because they need it to be accurate).
Now that we have things like http://www.fastsci.com and http://www.clicktwocents.com our shopping cart interface is MUCH easier to use, and recent news indicates that it may be more secure than some other methods of selling things online.
Since e-gold tipjars are (IMNSHO) the ideal musicians' solution to the Napster/RIAA problems, I am hoping that these sites become widely popular, (suggestions welcome)! Thanks.
JMR
Try e-gold - (contact me). I'm NOT e-
How about an enhanced search mechanism. Search on comment subjects, comment authors, story submitters, any one of the above but with a moderation total of x+....
Or maybe let subscribers see ALL the comments they've posted instead of just the last 24...
Actually, I don't really want to be subscribed. What I really want is to be able to go and donate $25 to /. as a "Tip Jar". Or something like "giving" subscriptions, as in paying $5 and the next 1000 ACs won't have ads, or a friend of mine won't have ads. I'd even pay a premium for that, if it went to /.... (Slashdot, dot dot dot....)
Just my $5 (I guess $0.02 doesn't work here?)
--joshua
(ah and the servers are being flaky, slow, and unreliable. I guess I shoulda paid before...)
I wouldn't mind if I could put a 'wishlist' somewhere like 'I want a DVD burner under $300' and have ads served up for an offer like that if somebody has it.
Heh that'd be kinda cool.
"Derp de derp."
I serve my banner ads from the same webserver as the content. Not any intentionally sneaky trick to get the ads not blocked, but just the way I've always done it.
If someone blocks my ads--which are not very intrusive at all--then that's a pretty jerky thing to do to a webmaster that is still providing completely free service in a web that is becoming more and more subscription based. Nonetheless, it still doesn't affect me (yet) because I quote my rates based on page views and my advertisers pay by the month. So if some people turn off banners all they do is reduce my click-thru; but if they weren't going to click on the ads anyway I don't really lose anything.
Maybe add "adv, /adv" tags, not the html but make it visible, you know?
Yeah, I've seen that done. It's ok. I tend not to like it myself because I feel like it's much more of a direct endorsement of something, which I may or may not be willing to do. When it's a banner advertisement it's obvious the company is paying for a place on my site and that's it. When I do something like what you mentioned here it may be more effective, but I feel that the advertiser is buying my personal endorsement. That'd make me feel like a whore which is not a feeling I get by accepting banner ads.
because no matter what your settings are you can't turn the damn ads off!
Face it, people are stupid, and the internet is the place where they all meet.
Okay that's kind of wacky, but the idea suddenly struck me and I thought it'd be interesting to throw out there.
- Jonathan
What about targeting the ads by the slash topic? Apple topic gets Mac adds. Linux topic gets the Redhat ads. Microsoft gets the...uhhhm...stupid ads?
Anyway. It should improve the S/N ratio of the ads. If you can do that, I don't mind them.
Do not confuse duty with what other people expect of you; they are utterly different.Duty is a debt you owe to yourself.
Palpal wouldn't accept my Bankcard or Visa, since my cards were not issued by a bank based in the USA. Automatic teller machines in most parts of the globe will accept them (including the UK, Argentina and Chile) but not paypal. I still don't know whether I'll pay a subscription, but at least now with the credit card option I can if I want to.
I've coded up NNTP support for Slash. Check out a demo at http://slash.zevils.com/ and news:zevils.com. It has support for limiting it only to subscribers and other neat stuff. Told Rob about it, and he said he was interested but I don't think he's had a chance to check it out yet. Also, I don't know Slashcode that well so it would be good if one of the Slashfolk vetted the code to make sure I was Doing The Right Thing. The code is here and my slashcode.com announcement is here. Is anyone interested in this?
No. Perl is CmdrTaco's first language.
Loneliness is a power that we possess to give or take away forever
That's ironic. My parent post got a Troll mod. If you read the rest of this thread, you'll find that kind of amusing. :)
"Derp de derp."
Waitaminnit! I thought that information wanted to be free *and* disseminated.
I thought that having someone filter information from me was to my detriment - after all, how do I know whether that person's bias is in conflict with my philosophy?
Isn't there some disconnect between being rabidly anti-filering on the one hand, and ticked because someone didn't filter a spoiler from you? Some people need to get a life!
Zoikes!
Anomaly
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
How about the ability to opt-out of a particular company's ads (like X10)? I suggest this because I don't want to lose *all* the advertisements, just the ones that I find useless, obnoxious, or offensive (like X10).
-Paul Komarek
Oh, come on! Http involves a bunch of GET requests. I can GET what I want off an apache server. There is no law that says I must download everything on a page (or anything on a page --- I can choose to ignore any page I want on the net and surf elsewhere --- it's a free Internet). Me and junkbuster are quite happy not downloading ads, /. or otherwise, thank you.
My point was only that the analogy the previous poster made was fallacious. I do not disapprove of the use of Junkbuster, nor do I believe that a person using it would (or should) ever lose in court.
I used to get pissed that I'd get the most unfair moderations possible. But it's impossible to do that now... you got modded offtopic for this?
CmdrTaco got modded offtopic, in his own story, on his own slashdot, for something 100% on topic, for something that would still be worth reading even if offtopic... etc.
Do I laugh or cry?
Please tell me the guy that did that now has -150 karma.