ESA Aiming for Martian Probe in 2011

allanj writes "According to the BBC, the ESA is set to send a robotic probe to Mars around 2011. They apparently want to return samples of Martian soil with the probe - cool idea if it works better than Beagle 2 did..." From the article: "They still require a great deal of further detail and the agency's member states will also have to sign off the mission. Ministers will have their say when the Esa Council meets in December."

Comments

Zonk, STOP DELETING STORIES!

[Anonymous Coward]

Zonk, you're still fairly new here, so perhaps the other editors haven't filled you in yet... but YOU ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO DELETE STORIES. When you do, the associated comments become unavailable and are for all intents and purposes "deleted." Check out the profile of daveschroeder who posted in the deleted story Can Build Robots But Can't Afford College. You can't access his comment anymore, and instead get "Nothing for you to see here. Please move along." It's gone now, thanks to you.

You screwed up. You let a dupe go live after people emailed you about it. But the solution isn't to try to cover up your mistakes by deleting stories that have comments. Rather, you should be a man, apologize and learn from the experience. Start reading your email, or better yet Slashdot, and then you'll be less likely to post dupes. You've made a habit deleting stories after they've gone live and you need to stop. The other editors don't delete stories, and neither should you.

To quote CmdrTaco, "In short, you should think twice before you click that 'Submit' button because once you click it, we aren't going to let you Undo it."

Re:Zonk, STOP DELETING STORIES!

[LiquidCoooled]

FFS - the slashdot editors can't win either way.

Either they ignore us and post articles, or they remove them because they are blatently redundant.

Give them a break.

Re:Zonk, STOP DELETING STORIES!

[John Seminal]

I did not even see that story "Can Build Robots But Can't Afford College" http://slashdot.org/~daveschroeder, but it would have been more interesting than the past 2. :p

I am suprised they deleted the story and all the comments. That kinda sucks.

Re:Zonk, STOP DELETING STORIES!

[Anonymous Coward]

I hear by place my hand in for nomination to replace Zonk as a weekend editor!

Re:Zonk, STOP DELETING STORIES!

[Anonymous Coward]

grr i mis modded this. and im gonna fix it by posting to it.

Re:Zonk, STOP DELETING STORIES!

[SeventyBang]

Zonk, Notifying you of story duplication doesn't mean, "DELETE THIS STORY ASAP!", but rather, "in the future, spend a few minutes performing a search to see if the topic has already been discussed; particularly if it's within the previous [few] months".

The bottom line is: You are not Jimmy Olsen and you shouldn't worry about getting the "scoop" on someone else on the list. The ten minutes you take to back up your story will make you look a little more thorough if|when it's posted versus what you're dealing with now.

Does this make things a bit clearer?

let's just get this out of the way

[Anonymous Coward]

huh huh huh, you said "probe"

Soy bugreloaded y me cago en vuestros muertos

[Anonymous Coward]

Yankis de mierda a ver si aprendeis a hablar en cristiano.

Re:Soy bugreloaded y me cago en vuestros muertos

[Anonymous Coward]

didnt you mean :

Yankis de mierda a ver si aprendeis a hablar en castellano

translation for the dumb ass USians:

Shitty yankies, can you learn to speak spanish (castellano)

Re:You obviously don't get it

[LiquidCoooled]

Do subscribers REALLY want to waste however many page impressions reading page after page of "dupe - teh stupid editors are da b0mb"

Better to get rid of a worthless article than moan about it.

Great, but...

[djinn2020]

Is the probe supposed to knock chunks out of Mars towards earth? I like better the idea of sending probes with better analytical software/hardware to Mars. Cheaper anyhoo

Re:You obviously don't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

How does it waste any more pages? If a dupe appears, we see it, we email the editors, and they take it down. No page views wasted.

Subscribers that report dupes are trying to help the editors do their jobs (the ones they get paid for).

And, I'll say it again, Slashdot should not EVER delete a story with comments because it deletes the comments, too. That goes against Slashdot's supposed policy outlined by CmdrTaco.

MOD PARENT UP

[Anonymous Coward]

NOW!

Re:DON'T DO IT!

[aussie_a]

I'd hardly call a bunch of scorpions a "horrible virus." Besides, I hear that particular scientist whose prone to thinking of himself as god has been taken to the Stargate program. Apparently the ga'oulds didn't respect O'Neill.

Re:quit rubbing it in

[Anonymous Coward]

Well at least we've never elected a redneck retard like Bush

Naw, but you brought forth guys like Hitler, Mussolini and Franco. Hard to beat Josef Stalin though.

To be fair though, Europeans seem to have learned their lesson and are acting fairly sane these days. America hasn't learned anything.

Way off-topic

[MyLongNickName]

This is way off-topic, but I like buring karma for a good cause.

This bonch is a weird guy. Not entirely sure I even like him. However, I've seen him getting mod attacked for no legitimate reason. Some insightful posts that I may disagree with are getting modded troll.

I love free speech. I don't mind if someone disagrees with me. I don't mind if someone says things that I find totally wrong. Yet, obviously there is at least one person with mod points who has taken it on themselves to mod bonch into oblivion. You don't have to take my word for it.... take a look at the guy's posting history. Is he strange? Probably. Is he a troll? Definitely not.

What to do about it? If you are in M2 land, take your responsiblity seriously. If you seee a troll, and it isn't a clear troll, M2 the moderator down. If you have any mod points, help him to keep his head above water till the mods responsible get corrected by the system. The system only works when a majority of the people are fair, and not just out to push an agenda.

And keep an eye on me... I have a feeling that I will be getting followed a while too :)

mod do73n

[Anonymous Coward]

I burn7 out. I downward spiral.