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IRC Forum w/ CmdrTaco & Hemos Tonight at 8pm Eastern

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the come-one-come-all dept.

Tonight on irc.slashnet.org in #Forum Hemos & I will be hanging out answering users' questions. This is your chance to ask about the moderation system, story selection, or the technology upon which Slashdot is built. (No Biz questions please ;) It's been a long time since we last did this, and we're hoping we can answer questions and get some feedback on some new ideas too. We'll see ya there.

2 of 433 comments (clear)

  1. Re:The question I'll ask if I'm around... by zaxus · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    ...
    And Katz said
    Nothing you idiots!
    Jon Katz is dead; he's locked in my basement! (ha, ha)

    (with apologies to Eminem)

    --
    /. zen: Imagine a Beowulf cluster of Beowulf clusters...
  2. Chat text by Joey+Patterson · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Here's the text of the /. IRC chat [also available as text and as HTML.
    -----
    [20:00:40] Welcome to tonight's SlashNET forum.
    [20:00:46] Tonight our guests are Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda and Jeff "Hemos" Bates.
    [20:00:52] They are two of the figures behind Slashdot.org, as you all know.
    [20:00:58] Topics they'd like to talk about tonight include comment moderation, story selection, code plans, and technical stuff.
    [20:01:06] If you have a question you'd like to ask, you can submit it to the queue by sending it in a private message to "Questions": /msg Questions
    [20:01:11] Before we get started with queued questions, would either of you like to say anything? Possibly a brief intro as to who you are? CmdrTaco first?
    [20:01:21] Uhh... we do slashdot.
    [20:01:25] first question!
    [20:01:41] rfoster asks: How has the Slashdot info structure changed over the last year are you still experiencing growth and what hardware are you running to accommodate these needs?
    [20:02:14] Well, we can answer what hardware we are using now...
    [20:02:14] The system continues to be refined. We add new hardware.
    [20:02:20] and I can answer the hardware that's coming.
    [20:02:21] The FAQ lists most of the hardware.
    [20:02:34] A dozen web servers... a few mysql boxes.
    [20:02:37] The major upgrade for hardware will be webservers/DB readers.
    [20:03:24] Yeah, we're getting new hardware for the first time in years.
    [20:03:28] Literally.
    [20:03:33] Like, I think 30 months or so.
    [20:03:35] We've added a few boxes, but really not much.
    [20:03:44] I mean, yeah, we've added new boxes, but they have been 2 - 3 year old machines.
    [20:03:55] w00t asks: Will /. users ever be able to change the "look and feel" of Slashdot? Such as the colors, and general layout?
    [20:04:04] Maybe a little, but not much.
    [20:04:30] It's computationally expensive.
    [20:04:32] The new machines will be 2x P3 1.4 Ghz, with 2 gigs of RAM.
    [20:04:34] It's programatically tricky.
    [20:04:43] And only a tiny tiny percentage of users care.
    [20:04:58] Patches are always welcome tho ;)
    [20:05:00] Aridhol asks: What advice would you give to people trying to start up their own content site(games,news etc...) How did slashdot get so many viewers?
    [20:05:13] Please don't msg me.
    [20:05:25] Aridhol: Being there first.
    [20:05:29] And not looking like ass.
    [20:05:33] Do something other people aren't.
    [20:05:55] reefer asks: Is there any system in place or a plan on developing some system to prevent duplicate posts?
    [20:06:03] Whatever.
    [20:06:04] Next.
    [20:06:11] Reefer: There is one.
    [20:06:12] jew asks: At LWCE 2000 NYC, you stated that you were considering developing alternate systems of accessing the site's content than HTTP/HTML. You mentioned NNTP. Have you considered or implemented any alternate means of accessing the site, such as RRS? If not, why?
    [20:06:19] It's just that the media spreads stories around.
    [20:06:29] And there's something like 30,000 stories, so dupes happen...
    [20:06:37] Well Jew, Patches are always welcome :)
    [20:06:39] Look at the bottom of CNN's top stories - usually that's all dupes.
    [20:06:47] We don't have time to implement much in the way of other protocols.
    [20:06:59] CmdrTaco: We did try the chat thing with whatever program that was.
    [20:07:03] Er, not chat.
    [20:07:09] Discussion thing.
    [20:07:11] Yeah, we had an IRC bot.
    [20:07:16] That gated stories & discussions.
    [20:07:17] Salsa.
    [20:07:18] That was fun.
    [20:07:21] Worked really well.
    [20:07:24] Nobody used it :)
    [20:07:36] The deal is that other protocols are fun, but HTML/HTTP is bread & butter.
    [20:07:43] Supporting other protocols is a lot of time,