Slashdot Mirror
Slashdot Index Code Update
One of the most common questions I get is simply "What does the '2 More' mean in the left side menu?" To me it's obvious: it means there are 2 more stories on say, apple.slashdot.org than you have seen on slashdot.org. This is because Slashdot probably already had 15 stories today, and this particular story is only of interest to users who explicitly chose to view Apple stories.
Those little 'N More' snippets clutter up the left hand menu, and confuse people. Our power users know that they can suck all the sectional content into the main page, but very few users actually bother with that kind of customization. And just as important, we have a lot of content that is simply lost because most of you never knew it was there in the first place.
What you'll see now is the interleaving of sectional content with main page content. These articles are displayed in a very abbreviated format, amidst the other stories. This is content we've been posting on Slashdot for years, but most users never knew. I'm pleased with the design of the whole thing. I think it looks really nice and doesn't clutter up the page.
Of course some users will always disagree with me, and for them there are now a plethora of user configurable options. Essentially, each section has a range of options ranging from "All" (Meaning, every story is displayed in full text) to "None" (Meaning I really really really never want to see anything about Apple really no seriously I'm not kidding!)
These options are available on the left hand menu by simply clicking the 'Sections' menu entry. A fancy little window will open with various tools for you do play with allowing you to choose what content on Slashdot you want to read... and perhaps more importantly, to disable the content you don't. The default view of Slashdot has slightly changed today, but you can set your preferences back to make the site look like it did before too.
We are keen on making sure that this works for as many browser platforms as we can. We've tested it on the platforms used by around 96% of you. (that is to say, Internet Explorer, Safari, Firefox, under Windows, Mac, and Linux) and it works on those platforms. However if your platform doesn't work, you can still change the settings from the user preference page (click the word 'Preferences' on the left hand menu if you are logged in. If your browser doesn't support javascript, clicking the 'Sections' menu item on the left hand menu should take you there.).
We fully expect there to be some bugs with this, so please feel free to contact us... preferably by submitting a bug report to our sourceforge project tracker. We hope to have any major kinks worked out of the system in the next few days, so just hang in there.
All in all I am very pleased with this. This solves a number of long standing problems on Slashdot: That is to say sectional content getting "Lost" in the shuffle, the left hand menu being confusing, and the user preferences to twiddle these settings being buried so deep in the UI that nobody would bother changing them.
Best of all, if any of this bugs you, it takes just seconds to disable this stuff. In fact, it would probably take less time to fix it then to post a comment complaining... not that that will stop some of you ;)
update many people have commented on the design of the abbreviated story. Many make great points about how they visually could be interpreted as being "Footnotes" or "Related" somehow to the content above them. Just a reminder, the site is all nicely CSSified now... modifiy the CSS send it our way. If someone creates a design that works better, we'll use it! We're not married to what we have. Personally I wanted the grey curve on the bottom right side, but we thought we'd need an extra DIV to get it right, so this was the compromise.
updated again the reason we don't update the index 'on the fly' is because it is possible for you to get content that we don't actually have yet. We don't have a full ajax engine yet- so if you made an abbreviated article be a full text article, we'd have missing fields. When we have a real dynamic engine for loading the content, doing it on the fly will be trivial. Today I think it would just look crappy.
That's the thing I've just spent five minutes working out how to switch off, right?
'This writing business. Pencils and what-not. Over-rated if you ask me. Silly stuff. Nothing in it' - Eeyore
There needs to be a bit more work to get the rough edges that I see out:
I like the layout... it's clean, easy to read, and relatively unobtrusive. Good work.
... elipses...
This is a really, really neat feature.
I've always felt that having to browse separate sections of Slashdot was a little painful, and a way to know if new articles were posted in certain sections of interest would be neat.
This is a really cool feature and a much needed one. Props, folks!
I actually like it, there are always good articles on 'other pages' (ie - not the front page) but I rarely ever look around for them. I used to click on the Apple section, but all of those are now on the front page, thus I don't anymore. Often I've read great BSD stories, but since they weren't on the front page there was little or no discussion attached to them; this should address both points and make Slashdot more interesting/informative. A welcomed update, thanks!
fak3r.com
I read that there was "sectional content" and thought finally, news about modular sofas. But, noooo...
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
The whole upward sweeping curve gives the impression that it has something to do with the story above it, which of course isn't true. Not really good design from a user perspective. This is what happens when you focus on 'pretty' and forget to deal with 'works.'
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
I have one request. Can the sections that you choose to be in 'Full' format also be added to the 'older stuff' slashbox? Since the topics end up in the 'older stuff' box now faster than before, I'd like to see if I've missed something.
molmod.com - computing tips from a molecular modeling
Because they are unable to follow the "Yesterday's News" links? Unable to see the "Sections" links? Us the "Search" function? Thes must also be the people that have never been to a web portal or blog before. I would have never guessed it was a "problem".
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
I think its great too. Keep up the good work!
Han shot first.
While I kind of also liked the old format, this new format works nicely, too. The beveled corners fit in really well with the news item immediately above it.
All I want to know is if the new format is Lynx compatible ... because if it isn't there'll be hell to pay!
Figures that this would appear just two minutes after I figure out how to turn it off in preferences... I'm sure it's a useful feature, but after this many years of reading Slashdot it just didn't look "right" to me.
...is that it will force the Slashdot crew to get off their asses and actually improve the site again.
Ain't competition great?
http://tinyurl.com/4ny52
Apparently it knows I always click the Games header after I read the main page. Very cool, please keep it going or at least make it a selectable style sheet.
The fact that there seems to be a relation between the "parent" post and the "child" histories, gives the idea of "related items", which is not true. I think someone failed at the concept.
:: Andrea
Anime Wallpapers
"Essentially, each section has a range of options ranging from "All" (Meaning, every story is displayed in full text) to "None" (Meaning I really really really never want to see anything about Apple really no seriously I'm not kidding!)"
I only want to see the dupes. Really no seriously I'm not kidding!
I was wondering what all those new tiny lines were. I thought that you were just not expanding them into full posts unless they got a certain number of comments. Silly me. It looks good, although for my personal preference I'd like to see it tightened up a little so it takes up less screen realestate.
Wake up - the future is arriving faster than you think.
I'm glad to see that the competition has made the monkeys running this gig a little more interested in making it better. Of course, it's not like there was anything to improve on to begin with... right? Anyway, I think these new 'improvements' make the front page look broken. But that just may be me.
NMG
At first, I thought the grey boxes were attached to the stories above them but once I finally stopped to read all of the text, it made more sense.
Imagine that, a Slashdotter that doesn't read something the first time.
In fact, it would probably take less time to fix it then to post a comment complaining... not that that will stop some of you ;)
I have a complaint, why do you say that it probably takes less time to fix it than it does to make this post?
Is my typing not fast enough for you?
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
I guess I fall under the "poweruser" category. I've had the slashboxes that I want over on the right for years now, and I'll admit that having the mini stories between full stories looks a little cluttered to me (but I've already turned it off, so no big deal).
I did notice, though, that after changing that setting, my top-most slashbox got moved all the way to the bottom. Is there an easy way to get it back to the top without clicking that "up" widget about 15 times? (I haven't done any searching for it, so this may be a RTFM situation.) Being able to order those on a preference page, a la my Netflix queue, would be excellent.
"Understand you're having a little Jimmy Page trouble."
Wow! There's so much content that doesn't make the main page. And thank goodness, as I sure wouldn't care to see it. I had no idea that the editors were doing such a good job.
What are you doing??!?! Don't you know that /. users fear change! Next thing you know, /. will update the hideous green color scheme that we have all come to know and love!.
http://religiousfreaks.com/I'm sure I'll get modded down for being the lone dissenter here, but I hate it.
This is a case of information overload. It makes it harder for me to read the page because there is always a contrasting color right under what I am trying to read thus pulling my eyes downward.
There should be a better way to present this information. Digg (without getting into the lame cliches others has been posting about that website as to why it is "better") just has a page where you can browse all the stories that are not on the front page. I think this would work better for Slashdot.
I'm disabling this new "feature".
Thanks.
Now if only we could get the knowledgable AC's (often insiders at companies discussed in the article) back. It seems like the amount of truely interesting (first-hand) information went way down when it recently became harder for an AC to have a conversation.
The little sub-headings frequently count the comments wrong, saying things like "15 of 1 comment".
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
first, i personally find the text in the grey container bottoms (as i like to call them) too small, i think the text size needs to come up a little.
also, i'd like to think i've figured out that you're trying to make them fit in with the rounded green headline at the top (which i like), but i think for the sake of visual consistency each story should now get the rounded grey border treatment, even if there are no longer stories. the front page definitely has some disjointedness to it now that some of the stories have a nice rounded bottom edge and others do not.
Now maybe we'll have more posts on the stories that wouldn't normally on the front page. I usually read the games section, but alot of the stories hardly get any posts at all...
Han shot first.
It looks good the way it is now. I like it. Now I have to commit fewer clicks to see stories. I don't have to memorize the number on the sidebar and then just compare when I load Slashdot.
About this...
One of the most common questions I get is simply "What does the '2 More' mean in the left side menu?" To me it's obvious: it means there are 2 more stories on say, apple.slashdot.org than you have seen on slashdot.org.
I imagine that much *is* obvious, but what isn't obvious is how that number is determined. If there are "5 more" stories on Apple, and I click on Apple, why do I see more than 5 stores? How is the number "5" factoring in at all? At first I figured it might have been cookied to only show unread stories within a certain timeframe, but that quickly proved to be false. So, the usefulness of the link is apparent, but the descriptor is byzantine.
"Mod, mod, mod...and another troll bites the dust."
Hey, Malda? What's with you being so active lately? I've been here for years on various accounts and you've never been this active with the community as far as I can remember. I like it, it's just... hey, something different.
Works perfectly on Konqueror 3.5 (Gentoo GNU/Linux KDE 3.5), btw.
Oooops.. looks like the Mysterious Future has a bug!
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and see it early!
Games: Officer's Group Calls for Ban On 25 To Life
I figured it out when the storyless stories started moving down the page. It's nice, but I have a suggestion.
The verbosity of a story on the main page should be a function of its activity, moderation, and timeliness. In other words, stories appear as a single line, then gradually get more page space as people reply, and less as they fade away, until finally you have a bunch of one-liners at the end. Sort of like the way threaded postings work with but with 'newest first'.
Done right, the code would be simpler.
Or maybe not. As I said, I like the new feature/design.
sigs, as if you care.
The first thing that caught my attention was the grey background (behind the new links) that seemed off. The grey background should be reserved for the right column; it is not present in the left and center column. I find it very distracting and out of place. Perhaps keep the same design, but lose such a dark background in the middle column.
For he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother.
More importantly, can we have a page dedicated to the browser stats for /. ? Maybe something that shows trends over the past year or two?
/. re-org, and, more importantly, on the open dialog that you are giving us now.
(Yes, I realise people here are stuck to browse with what's at work, but it's still a extra blip of information)
BTW, Kudos on the
Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
It has a few flaws (slightly larger text size would be nice) but overall it's much better than sorting through each section trying to find new stories.
Here's an idea. Have the slashdot servers tag various items (i.e. sections, comments, etc), and let a greasemonkey script* set everything were it needs to be.
*Have some premade, and we can customize them (think of it as CSS on steroids).
I actually checked to see if I was logged in this morning; given that there was no story about the settings, I figured maybe they'd always been there and I just noticed. ;-)
:)
Looks good, I like it... but off topic, why is it only Taco's comments of the 40 that exist so far that actually meet my mod filter? Does he auatomatically get bonus points?
I think it's a good idea to have links to sectional content on the main page, BUT.
This is really ugly. It distracts me while I'm trying to read. I think it belongs more one a side pane somewhere. Look at kuro5hin.org for a good example of this (minus the ads)
I have a hard time re-engaging my brain to read story titles as black text. It requires a fairly substantial context switch. In the interest of a unified theme, is it possible to change the black on gray story boxes to white on green? That'll tell my brain "these are stories" and makes it easier for my eyes to scan them.
I appreciate the thought, but it was not that challenging to start with, and I have no sympathy for anyone who did not understand the "X more" concept. I like the change but please do not make changes based on the 10% who cannot function without a map and a plan.
I don't think that this is a troll as it is a very valid comment about how this site is run. If the site owners want to make changes and improvements they could at least attempt to let us know about it first.
I think it's an awesome idea. I don't always see stories in other sections, and I see a lot of old stories (you know, 8 more, but the same 8 you saw two days ago).
I like that the "niche" stories stand out more - I find it a bit distracting, but I'd rather see them than not notice them.
I already went and found the setting to turn it off before this story was posted. FYI it's under your Preferences->Homepage tab. Since the columns only have little pictures instead of headings (not even alt text), I can only tell you to click the 2nd radio button from the left.
How about clicking on the bar makes it fold out to reveal the usual synopsis? J.
You're only jealous cos the little penguins are talking to me.
Good idea, though. Thanks!
-Dom
Excellent idea. Nice to see content instead of having to hunt for it and this will force submitters to get creative with their headlines!
I have only one complaint and that's having the stub stories "grafted" onto the bottom of full stories. While I like the curve and it makes for an interesting visual package, I think the stub stories should be in their own individual little capsules, color-coded to the sections they belong in. This will make it easier to see them for one and also indicate that they are not "attached" in any way to the full story above them.
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
The extra rows are just interruptions, and I can't "turn it off" if I browse with cookies disabled.
This is not the Slashdot I'm used to. Definitely not the Slashdot I'm used to. Definitely not.
I'm an excellent driver.
PS.
I like it.
DS.
The Internet is full. Go Away!!!
The main story title and the "other" stories seem to frame the main story description. In my mind this implies that the other stories are somehow related to the main story item which is not true - except that they get posted in chronological order. It seems to me that the "Read More... | story stats | msg count" should be the bottom framing element of the main story (ie. a frame that is flat on top and curved on bottom) and the each of the other stories should be distinct in little frames that are curved both top and bottom.
NB. I refer to "frame and "element" not as HTML items but layout concepts.
-- The morphemes of your disquisition are ascertainable, but they have eschewed an ambit of transpicuous exposition.
Time to go from "what the heck" to "hey neat": 50ms.
How about some disclosure triangles next to to the stubs so I could check out the description without having to open up a new tab?
My main issue with this is that the articles look associated with the previous article
Maybe this will mean there will be more than 15 posts in any given Games thread. Perhaps not, though, for five weeks straight the Games section always had 17 new posts. The easily-annoyed will stop hassling Roland Piquepaille and start going after Zonk, updating every 15 minutes, 24/7.
cuz I likey... (not that I ever use the homepage....RSS anyone?)
Please make it go away. Create a simple and easy way for people to turn it on, if you must, and watch ... few push the button.
But on by default? For *this* "feature"?
Slashdot is now unreadable.
...but I still like to think it was inspired by this.
It would be nice to see the last 100 stories in that same small font at the bottom or side of the page...
your "Older Articles" link under old stories has been horribly broken for years... the older articles link should pick up where the old stories secion leaves off. Instead, it seems to be random, and repeats a lot of stories.
OK I'll admit that this is a minor issue.
Several commenters have mentioned it already, but it bears repeating - the gray background on these sectional snippets disturbs the visual flow of the page, and makes it seem cluttered to me. And makes it harder to read. Especially because those boxes vary in height depending on how many snippets are included. Make it a white background & it'll be much better.
Since you are cleaning this code up, why not when its a slows newsday, and one clicks "Yesterdays News" at the bottom, it shows the 15 previous stories, instead of the current page plus a couple extra stories? I am sure this would save you guys bandwidth... A penny saved is a penny....
Actually, I don't disagree. I just got tired of reading "I agree" in every post and wanted to shake things up a bit.
My one fear is that there will be more (off topic) comments in the stories that were previously only posted in by people who were really interested in that section. In the past, there were several stories in the science section that didn't make it to the main page but were really interesting to me. The only people who posted to those stories tended to be people who were really interested in the article rather then making yet another tired slashjoke.
Overall, I'm glad of the change. In fact, I really like it. I just hope the posts stay interesting in some of the more obscure topics.
Obviously now the trick of changing the color on subsection stories by just changing the initial part of the URL doesn't work any more ...
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
I noticed that at least the BSD and Apache sections are missing from the nifty Sections javascript window. Yet, they are there in the Preferences section. Oversight? On purpose? Customizable?
Evolution or ID?
But you've been hoping that for years. Sort of like controlled fusion which has been fifty years away for, oh, fifty years or so.
Best Slashdot Co
Of course, Slashdot login was still broken in Safari 1.0 last I checked, but unlike most people, I'm not in love with any individual browser; I've got Safari, IdiotExploder, Netscape, and Opera all running. I'm content.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
Dragging people kicking and screaming into reality since 1996.
I like it, but I can see how it would be confusing... I may have to update my user css to make the grey swoop go down and the green border be on the bottom.
-TheDawgLives suckitdown
Would it be possible to have the story expand right on the home page without having to load a second page when settings are for 15 full and the rest abbreviated? This is a relatively easy javascript function that you should be able to implement in 10 minutes.
I've always liked reading the "hidden" stories. The signal to noise ratio seems to be much higher. This change will likely be good for Slashdot as a whole, however, it's going to fill these stories up with more crud.
Wow. Digg really has you guys shook up. That's great. That's what competition's all about. This is the exact kind of action Microsoft, the recording industry and the Baby Bells would be forced to make if there were really competition in their worlds.
kudos!
MjM
XKCD:Xeric Knowledge Comically Dispen
The best of both worlds: small initial page size, dynamic content.
This feature is a welcome addition, since I now no longer have to visit different sections to view the "sectional content".
Here's one suggestion for an improvement: How about automatically "promoting" abbreviated stories to full stories if a certain number of comments are posted on it. In other words if, say 200 comments are posted on one of these abbreviated stories, it becomes one of the main page stories and it's full summary is displayed.
The reason behind this is that if a "sectional" story is particularly popular, it probably deserves the same treatment as the major stories. I am more likely to take interest in a story if a large number of comments have been posted to it. Assuming that a good default is chosen for number of comments before an article is upgraded, this shouldn't affect your 15 stories a day rule much. Of course, registered users should be allowed to select their own minimum comment count.
In effect this would probably be a type of crude article moderation. The sectional stories are moderated up by way of user comments.
Of course, if you have more ambitious changes to story selection in mind, this wouldn't be of much relevance.
I don't like the visual look (it looks like the stories are related) but this thing reminded me that I had an account, so I logged in and updated my prefs. ;)
It also reminded me about the sections, so I inlined all the section content. Yay!
All is well with the world now.
I think it breaks up the flow of the main page too much. I'd prefer just a list on the side of the page of other not-so-hot stories in the sections, instead of randomly showing the Apple section or Science section over there.
How about rounding both the top and bottom corners. This would separate it from the other content.
There's a lot of talk of adding an upper curve on the related stories, but it makes more sense to me to have them look like the main headlines: White text on a green background. That way they just look like collapsed story boxes, and stand on their own. Using any other coloring will make them look like they are part of the story box above, as footnotes of some sort.
It's a bit annoying that they are interspersed with all the other stories.
How about putting them all together under an "other stories" section at the bottom?
Do you have to be logged in to make the customizations? I don't have an account and would prefer to save the changes in a cookie, but when I click on a section it simply goes to that section, I don't get a popup. And there is nothing blocking the popup either.
Well, looks like slashdot still works great for us konqueror users. I like the setup alot, and I'm sure there can still be some improvements, but it looks like you guys are already on top of that. Thanks and cheers!
Only put items in the gray area below the post which match the category of the post above it. e.g. 'IT: IE7 Leaked' would have only 'IT' articles below it in the gray area. 'Slashdot Index Code Update' post doesn't have a category so put an EMPTY gray area below it. Uniformity is good. Categorizing this is good.
Url's with 'game' are block at some places (was at my last job) so it's nice to see the headlines for it on the front page.
Does it work with Slashdot "Light" mode?
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
I, for one, welcome our interleaving of sectional content overlords.
"Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under." - H.L. Mencken
I've always liked the fact that sectional content was largely missed by the wider readership: this fact acted as a filter of sorts. The problem with Slashdot is that the signal to noise ratio of comments has been getting worse and worse. I like the fact that only a few power users had figured out how to comingle all the content on the main page, or that only people interested in a topic would routinely read the sectional stuff. This meant that those non-frontpage stories generally had better comment quality. I think this will suffer under the new system.
Just want to say, I never use the front page any more. I just use my Firefox live bookmark (i.e. RSS feed). I think other users might be in the same situation.
So, whatever changes you make, I think you should definitely keep in mind that at least some people (probably a lot) rely on the RSS feed as the main means of getting slashdot information.
Thanks for the great site, and especially the recent efforts towards improvements!
"May the days be aimless. Let the seasons drift. Do not advance the action according to a plan."
It's amazing what a little competition from a certain other site can do in terms of kicking the devs and editors arses into making improvements to the site.
Sad that it took this to make these changes here, but you're not alone (see IE/Firefox, etc.)
-- jimmycarter
I would have put that Gray round edge on the top and the green line on the bottom...
to me the way it is, it looks like the "links" to other articles belongs or relates to the article previous to it.
I like it other than that.
"If you have done 6 impossible things this morning, why not round it off with breakfast at Milliways" -- hhgg
Well, I guess I have to register now so that I can turn this off. Or...could that have been the idea behind this the whole time? Get more registrations? Tinfoil hats anyone?
Almost felt compelled to register to post this...almost...
This is pretty confusing - your instinct says "Hey, related items!" then you look and realise that it appears to be just some random, unrelated items...
Also, when there is a "lesser" item as the top news item (i.e. its on its own at the very top) it looks like the site's HTML is broken (because it looks like related stories to a nonexistant item!).
If you could change it so it showed other items that are somehow related to the ones they are attached to that would be best IMO. Failing that, seperate the main items from the lesser items with a nice chunk of white space to really drive the point home that these are unique and beautiful snowflakes of their own and nothing to do with the post above it.
Congratulations!
Due to your valid point in conjunction with the much maligned 'D' word, you have been modded as officially the first 'Insightful Troll'
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
I like the new design VERY much. One warning though; it is dangerously close to looking like an RSS feed. (for good or bad you decide.)
Is there an option to show 'ALL' stories the new way? (One line description/link)
"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." ~Plato (427-347 BC)
Is it just me, or did slashdot suddenly turn slow after this feature was introduced today?
:'(
Perhaps its just the fact that a million users wants to fiddle with the new Sections bar at once? Or does it somehow put extra load on the servers?
My first thought would be to have a "virtual" section for the most popular stories. All that section would do is beg/borrow/steal articles from other sections and reformat them to the way desired and in the order desired. That takes care of avoiding the dupe-detector but at the same time retaining stories of exceptional significance.
My second thought is on the code for varying the size of the intro. I've a feeling that that code could get a little messy - but maybe you don't actually have to vary the number of lines... *Evil cackle* For most graphical browsers, you can alter the size of the font, instead. Hey, users who want to read the whole intro can just fire up the magnifying-glass tool. The advantage of the font method is that then you're just setting a variable, rather than parsing a string.
My third thought would go great on its own or in parallel with the above. And that is to allow users, in their preferences, to define a search criteria. (A regular expression and a section, perhaps.) Anything that meets the criteria is set "sticky" and will "stick" on that user's front page for an extra while (say until read, unstuck or the glue wears off).
*Whichever suggestions above sound interesting are mine. The rest were invented by alien space monkeys that were holding my brain hostage.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
While it needs tweaking (like the wrong direction for the curve), the basic idea is great. It's a much better solution than the old "17 more" number.
--
"Open source is good." - Steve Jobs
"Open source is evil." - Microsoft
Two other options -
a) You could create a seperate "headers only" table to call out the sectional stories, rather than attach it to individual stories.
b) If you're going to attach sectional stories to the main page, you should keep it relevant to the topic it's being attached to. Label it: "Other science stories: " for example..
Albiet in a minor way.
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
n/t
Q: What did the comedian say to the crowd?
A: If I knew, this joke would be funny.
I don't like all these non-related stories below each story. What is the connection between "Slashdot Index Code Update" and "Games: Industry Asks Gamers To Pay More"?
Please, move all those stories to the footer or the left bar!
Could I have all stories posted? I wouldn't mind a longer page. Maybe you could have a setting to allow some readers to see all posts within the last x days.
I don't like this change, because the articles that are pointed to at the bottom of each main page article have nothing to do with the main page article. These articles are not even from the same section as the main page article. For example, at this moment nearly every one of the new pointers on the main page pint to articles from the Games section.
The new format would be fine if each main page article were followed by pointers to additional articles from the same Section as the main page article. For example, an article from the Science section would be followed by pointers to additional Science articles. The next main page article might be from YRO, followed by pointers to more YRO articles.
ISTR there used to be a "BSD" in the sections list on the left, is that gone or just hidden?
- Hubert
if article_dupe_count > 50 then fade_away();
I suggest making the top of the "footnote" story have a rounded edge just like the bottom so it looks self contained instead of being flat on one side.
I didn't know there were extra stories in the sections until last year when someone mentiond they'd had a Slashdot article accepted but not to the main page. Later I had one put in the science section but not on the main page so I saw what he meant. I like the change, as long as the footnote effect is eliminated I think most people will too. More stories = good.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
I use slashboxes for viewing other sites RSS feeds and Slashdot sectional content. This new feature you've added disrupts my flow of reading. I do not wish to miss any content that could be of interest to me, but then again I don't want 50 stories with abbreviated text littering the home page or being purged off the page due to excessive stories being listed. Is it possible to make "Sectional Content" appear as a Slashbox option? (I didn't see the option in my "Home Page Preferences") I would rather much prefer the ability to scan a slashbox for a subject that interests me rather than the other options currently presented.
So now I get to see more dupes from the times when main articles are duplicated by sectional articles?
Dear diary: Today I stuffed some dolls full of dead rats I put in the blender.
I don't get the graphic design. Putting the headlines in a rounded grey box make them look like part of the preceding story summary (whose title is in rounded green box going the other direcection). The grey boxes actually look nice-- perhaps they could be used for the "Read More" part of a story summary.
But I would display the "extra" headlines In a different way. Maybe just as a bulleted list? Or round the grey box the full 180 degrees rather than halfway.
At work I usually SSH into my box at home to read websites on Links so I can browse without leaving a trail in the company's logs. Plus if someone walks past, they dont know I'm browsing the net.
slashdot.org works ok in links, but slashdot.org/palm is preferred.
I agree and was about to post the same thing. The UI is awful and should definitely be changed.
I noticed this this morning and quickly realized what had happened. I liked things the way they used to be more so I looked in my preferences to see how to disable it. I didn't recall seeing those boxes before but didn't realize that's what you use to disable it.
It would have been nice to have a simple, textual, option like "Disable section stories in main page" or something like that instead of 6 different pairs of oddly shaped boxes.
What's more, now that I disabled the inline section stories, I no longer has "2 more stories.." Perhaps that feature can be added back when section stories are disabled?
The current solution really does make it look like a footer, but if flipped over to mimic the green headers, it would look like yet another story, but a different color and smaller... which intuitively would make more sense. I spent about 2 hours this morning looking at this trying to figure out how you guys were relating the "child" stories to the "main" stories.
Don't anthropomorphize computers: they hate that.
I played around with the sections but I can't figure our in which section this slashdot related story is. The only section that should appear "small" is the review section but this story appears small, too. How's that?
I was thinking much along the same lines. Because the "little stories" have bars that curve the opposite direction from the "big stories," they all look like they're grouped together. I was thinking the new stuff was some sort of broken "related articles" system before I saw this article. Change the bar so it's a gray version of the main story bar, or do what the previous poster suggested. Anything to end the unintentional appearance of "grouping related topics" that is there now.
I never thought I'd say this, but even Fark does a better job organizing their news. Whose idea was it to visually attach *unrelated* stories together?
Look! Seems this GAMES character gets all of his or her sectional content posted right away!
Furthermore, I discovered how, in my preferences, to get rid of all the goddamn gaming articles. Yay!
Proverbs 21:19
How do we get rid of the gray bars that are interspersed with the main news items? Either that, or an ability to consolidate them in one place at the bottom.
I must admit I find the gray bars most annoying, and a quite unnecessary distraction.
The gray bars look so bad, I suggest that you make them an optional extra, that is turned off by default.
The only positive thing I can say about them is that they may encourage me to look at Slashdot once a day instead of multiple times during the day.
-Nivag
yes, there's a bug tracker, but I don't want to track down an login for that. This css seems to be an improvement for me:
.briefarticles {
div.storylinks {
padding-left: 1em;
-moz-border-radius-bottomleft: 10px;
background-color: #c8ccc8;
border-bottom: 2px solid #066;
}
-moz-border-radius-topleft: 15px;
}
I was talking, not thinking. -D. Franz
So, am I the only one who *liked* the old format?
Every day or so, I would look to see if there were articles in "Ask Slashdot", for example. I liked that I could tell "What was on the front page" and keep it separate from the other info I found interesting.
I could also tell, at a glance, how many new articles had been posted in each topic. Sadly, that functionality appears to be gone.
I find the new default to be a bit too cluttered. Just IMHO.
Milalwi
Turn it off.
I was going to suggest the exact same thing: It's requires the least amount of changes, is quite elegant and would make the whole thing much clearer to the casual viewer.
I agree! At first that's how I thought it was, til I realized wtf? These articles are totally unrelated. I agree that just MAKING it related is a great idea. Really, -when- the side article is posted is irrelevant, it should only make the main page when a related article is good enough for the main page.
Posted by yintercept - "...science...[is] the study of the 'divine creation.' "
I really like the new options ... there are definitely sections that i'm interested in enough to want to see the summaries of all the stories inthat section right on the front page, but why isn't there an option to turn back on the "2 More" links for the sections in the left nav?
In my normal day, there are only a handfull of sections that i care about enough to read on the front page, but if i'm waiting for a build and i have some free time, it would be nice to know which sections have content I haven't seen (without having to click on each one and skim them to see if anything doesn't look familiar)
-- The Hoss Man
It is very messy trying to deal with rating articles based on the number of comments. Certainly a large number does not directly correlate with quality comments. So I think the whole issue of expanding and contracting articles based on comments should be approached in a different way.
If an article does approach some comment benchmark, perhaps we can just add an icon into the title, or make articles without body text render in bold or something along those lines, and then add "popular" as a new section.
This solution would allow people to find articles that have a lot of comments easily and help users navigate to those articles that they might not read for any other reason. This also prevents the page from being dictated by commenters rather than the editors. This isn't Digg.com and we don't need the users to mod up or down various articles. The editors serve that purpose just fine for me.
I like the new design, but hope that you can find a good work-around for the visual impact issues of the grey articles.
Funtime Candy Wow! - my plan for eventually conquering Japan.
Is there a way to group the substories? Like, the main detailed one is "YRO", and I expected the "other two" to be from the YRO section as well.
Now it's even EASIER for me to spend time on the clock not doing anything productive.
Thanks Slashdot!!
very few users actually bother with that kind of customization
Everyone who's not a power user please raise your hand.
Right, everyone who raised their hand please turn in their geek license on their way out.
I like the idea, but I think if you were to make a toggle like that, make it based on a number of positively modded comments. I say that simply because it's possible that trollers could use the general comment idea to get their spam/flood and cause a mess when articles appear on the front page with 200 comments that are mostly trolls and flamebait..... that are *not* sitting at -1. If you had it so that say 15 or so comments were modded 3 or higher, then you might have something the general slashdot crowd would want to read/check out.
"The bass, the rock, the mic, the treble. I like my coffee black, just like my metal" - Mindless Self Indulgence
My only complaint about the new system is that the subtopics in the gray boxes seem to be randomly placed, instead of placed under their relevant front-page story.
For example, under the Microsoft IE7 link, I get a ton of 'Games' section topics, but under the one front-page 'Games' topic, there's nothing there at all.
I think it would be a bit more intuitive if the sectional topics were grouped by relevance under the front-page story, rather than randomly spread over the page... but that's just me... otherwise I like it.
I like to have all sections and stories on the front page. But I wish I could totally disable anything with the Anime topic, since I have absolutely no interest in it.
(emphasis mine)
Anyone can get the XRay extension for firefox and see that this is not truly the case. There are FAR too many nested layers of <div> as just one starting point. I'd personally not like to try hacking the CSS here much. I'd expect unanticipated problems (like the need for two p tags after the first paragraph of a journal entry...)
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
Personally I dislike the grey boxes, period.
The initial post said there was 'how to disable' info, but I didn't see how...
Sorry to say but this new feature uhm well... sucks. If I were unable to turn it off I'd probably not read /. any more. Screen layout is a mess and there is a tendency to show only uninteresting stories. Let's RTFM how to get rid of it...
Suprisingly I noticed them but not quite, I was neglecting them as ADS and never read the content until now.
...I find I'm losing the big stories in amongst all the little ones.
How about an option to move all the little items to the bottom of the main page? That'd still keep them visible, yet not in the way.
I just want to point out that a collapsed article view (expandable with one mouse click) can be achieved with a greasemonkey script (link with screenshot). I'm sure many will find it useful, as I did.
Still, despite the deep fog, I tried to navigate. Eventually I came across this thread. A light went off. This UI change was intentional. And, shock of shocks, I saw that many folks like this -- that they actually "get" the new interface and understand what it's all about.
So I guess I'm just braindead. Something happened to me, and I cannot recall the event. I wonder... should I contact Elections Canada and tell them not to count my vote in today's federal election, owing to my evident lack of neural capacity?
Would it be possible for the new sectional article header feature default to off for non-logged-in readers? ie opt-in rather than opt-out? ;-)
/. this way.
Currently when I browse, I'm usually not logged in. All I want to see are the top stories and the top-modded comments. If I'm particularly interested in a story and want to see deeper into the comment stack, or if I want to see the additional stories and sectional content, I log in.
Eh, maybe I'm the only one that reads
When a new story that's not a main-page story comes AFTER the last main page story posted (but with no supporting main page story above it), it looks like a orphaned child, seperated from it's mother story.
Of course the very association between the two stories should be sorted out, as many people have mentioned, but at the moment, they look like stray interface elements, or a page mis-rendering.
By interspersing the other articles randomly through the content it creates the feel that there is a relationship between them (i.e. if you thought this article was interesting, look at these ... or read these other articles in the same section).
They should either all be in their own section or you should come up with a way to make a relationship between the article and the suggestions. Right now its just an eye sore / confusing...
Evolution: love it or leave it
Will it be possible to not see postings from certain people who just post to promote their own site? And I mean the ones who post articles, not just the people replying.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
I just did a quick and dirty (not entirely perfect) PS job. Anyhow, I think you get my idea. In this way it will be no doubt about the articles not beeing related to the "green" ones.. http://www.geo-recon.no/slashdot.gif/
My comments is with the new backend design in general. I am a subscriber, and a have the display set for "minimal'. With the old code base, I could have slashboxes and they showed up as nice lists at the bottom of the page, now withthe layout set at minimal, the slashboxes are gone.
I could probably just subscribe to the RSS feeds for the equivalent of slashboxes; however, I prefer to get my news for nerds in a browser, because I generally do not like RSS readers.
Oh well. As far as the little story stubs go, they are ok. What would be cool is if they were more closely related to the story they are "attached" to. To me (and apparently others) they are a bit confusing, because they look like some sort of footnote to specific the story, rather than simply other titles in the same section.
I think they would work better if the stories were organized by section on the main page (ala USAToday / CNN.com, etc) That way the lead stories are at the top and it is clear that the story stubs are part of the section. Of course that would destroy the blog look and the chronological ordering of the stories. Put I think the haphazard "blog" style is not a good fit for a site like slashdot, since it has many editiors and sections. For traditional blog style site where the chronolgy represents a train of thought, of an individual blogger (much like it did long ago when this was started by Taco) the chronology added something to the site. Here now the format is just plain confusing and annoying since the submmision queue is so backlogged we often see stories several days after they were submitted. Also changing the main page to group articles by section would likely cut down on dups, since a qucik scan would make it much clearer what has already been posted.
Yes I know these requests can basically be accomplished using slash boxes, but getting back to my original point, my slash boxes are gone!
-MS2k
I like the idea of displaying the extra news articles on the main page.
Much like a lot of other people, I think that it's relatively hard to distinguish the extra links from the article right above it. It makes it feel as though those links are relating to the "parent" article above them. Here's an idea: How about adding a short one liner above the "other news" topics. eg. "In Other News..." or something like that. I'm sure it'd be easy to add so that it's displayed each time the additional news topics are displayed.
Just a random idea I had.
If you're looking here for something insightful or thought provoking, you're probably looking in the wrong place.
i have been reading /. for 4 years, i had never posted anything, but this is a major change that i do NOT like, and i dont want be logged everytime i want to read /. the way i use to
I like the idea of showing sectional articles on the front page this way, and the customization that goes with it. But I think what was said here in some other comment (can't be bothered to look for the link) was quite right: there should be a somewhat better separation from the regular-size article above an abbreviated one so as not to mistake the abbreviated one as a footnote. One way this could be improved is by slightly enlarging the green horizontal bar on top of the gray bar to three or four pixels height, and giving it a rounded corner on the left side. I think that should separate it enough.
On another note, on my system (Firefox 1.0.7, Gecko/20050922) the configuration box that opens up on the front page when you click the Sections link misbehaves slightly. The Close button jumps around either on mouse-over events or when clicking it. I haven't looked at the code, but I've got a screenshot of it.
Thanks for keeping these weekly /. meta-stories coming!
This is really a great upgrade. I'm sure a great many people are very tired of one section (eg. Google, Apple, Microsoft, etc) and would like to turn 99% of it off, but don't want to miss it when there's something legitimately BIG that falls under that section (eg. Apple Switching to Intel).
The one complaint I have is the preferences section where this stuff is adjusted/selected.
First of all, the icons are terribly non-descriptive. I had absolutely no idea what they meant upon looking at them. I would STRONGLY suggest redesigned icons.
Second, the linked FAQ entry about that is fine, but it would be nice if you revered the order of the bullet-points. I generally assume a top-down list will address items from left-to-right. I had to flip back and forth between those two pages a few times to figure it out.
If you can just fix that, I'd be perfectly happy with it.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
So I tried to "fix" it, and get rid of the dang things; but oh wait, taco's fix is worthless, I don't have an account. I've read slashdot for many years, but I've never seen a reason to create an account. Can't we get a cookie or something that turns it back to normal?
Put anther curve on the lefthand side. The 3 pixel green border is not enough to separate it.
Gorkman
I like the idea of promoting other content, but I don't like this implementation.
It comes across to me like background noise. Stuff is just "randomly" jammed into the article list and my brain wants to make some sort of correlation between the main content and these new links. "What are all these game links doing under a headline about patents?"
Perhaps if only stories of the same article *category* were promoted under each headline story, and then links to articles in categories not represented on the front page could be promoted at the bottom of the page.
Section-appropriate colors on the index page? Egads...it would be the Blinding Nightmarish Rainbow From Hell. Please, not that.
The sectional favicons is a nice idea though.
Constitutionally Correct
Nice update. I don't know why there are so many people complaining about the look though? I think the grey matches with the slashboxes background on the right. Also it blends nicely with the time the article was posted, so it makes sense to arc up and complete the nice rounded corners.
/. has been pretty much static since launch new site, so lets see your CSS.
Overall good job guys, I can't see myself ever changing this style no matter what new designs come out.
For the ones complaining about the look and feel, shut up and code. The HTML 'schema' for
First off, let me say I welcome the increased customization of the home page. But I think it could be done in a different way that would be easier to extend in the future, including doing things like you suggest.
Currently there are two separate systems that determine whether or not you see something. There's the new full/abbreviated/none system that uses the "home page" flag set by the editors in conjunction with the user's sectional preferences (which used to be a simpler yes/no by section), and there's yes/no by editor.
My idea uses a point-based scheme to decide whether or not a story appears on the home page. It incorporates all aspects of the story into one system. In the user prefs, you promote/demote stories by one point based on section, topic, editor posting it, and whatever other characteristics of the story exposed for this. NumPosts over X where you decide what X is, or Y% of comments at +4 or better where you decide what Y is, or submitter is a friend ... these are all possibilities. Then the editor posting it gives it a +1 if he marks it "home page" news. Tally up the points, and if it's positive it shows up full-text. If it's zero, it shows up minimized. If negative, it won't show up on your home page (but will in its section of course).
For example, a JonKatz story might have your personal -1, and the +1 for "front page" yields a 0 - you see only the minimized version. But say you really like stories in the BSD section (+1), and Jon happens to be writing about BSD. Then you would see the full story. Assuming no user customization, the default works just like it does today: stories at +1 (home page stories) show up full-text, all others are at 0 and show up abbreviated.
I've mailed this to Taco and posted it as a feature request for slashcode several years ago.
I'd also like to see support for regionalization added to slash. I'd bet there are lots of slash sites that would like to post news that's specific to a certain geographic locale, but don't want to make it front page news for everyone. With regionalization and a customization system like this, Slashdot could mention local conferences (which would be a useful service to those in that area) without getting flamed by the 99% that don't live there.
Constitutionally Correct
"One of the most common questions I get is simply "What does the '2 More' mean in the left side menu?" To me it's obvious"
I assumed only a dumb-ass could not figure out the "2 more" was for TWO MORE articles. Oh well.
gimme my -10 flamebit damnit
This has been another valuable and informative opinion from:
Catahoula!
Neat feature, but are you guys going out of your way to make slashdot.org look like the ugliest site on the net? Or do you like that early 90's feel? You guys should add some javascript to make the background fade in and maybe a custom cursor with some trailing penguins or something. If you're going to make an ugly 90s web page.. you might as well take it to the limit.
I know, Microsoft is a topic and Apple is section. Maybe next round we will be able to disable topics we don't want to hear about.
That competition only brings advantages for 'consumers'.
/. editors, I hope our future dialogues will be fruitful. I love this site.
Nice to see you,
I like the concept but the interface needs to change. Have the change in size of the posting and having an irregular number of items just make the page hard to read.
I would either make the heading just like the normal article headlines or somehow segregate them on the page.
Now how do I turn this off?
So, how do I go about re-enabling the "x more..." display? I like the idea of having all the articles from a section display on the main page, but I promptly turned off the (IMO) ugly and distracting 'abbreviated sectional article summaries' for all other sections - but I would still like the bar on the left to tell me that there's something new there.
And while I'm thinking about it, how about, using cookies perhaps, making that number reflect the number of new articles in that section since I last read it, rather than whatever arbitrary time period was being used previously?
Duct tape is like the Force. It has a light side, a dark side, and it holds the universe together.
Although I like the idea, the implementation comes out very ugly - it breaks the flow of the article spacing with what looks to the eye like random noise. I'd rather see them collected at the bottom of the page as a seperate list - if I've read all the front page articles, I can then skim the "next page".
Slashdot rocks. CmdrTaco rocks. Thanks for all the effort from the Slashdot developers, its fantastic.
;)
I would like to suggest that maybe the small, headline only stories would look better (and look much more like the old slashdot) if they were grouped at the bottom of the page, instead of mixed in between the larger stories. Is the order which those stories were posted with respect to the main stories really that important? The only real difference is to create an impression of 2 seperate sets of stories which are "scrolling" by as they are posted / expire, instead of just one set of stories. (did that make any sense?)
Anyway, the site looks great as it is. And I think we all know that the real strength of Slashdot is the deep, intellectual discussion from its user base
Two thumbs up, CmdrTaco.
Taco, while I know these changes are good to consider, and i'm glad you guys are innovating....I'm really wondering how much of this is because your company honestly wants to just improve your site, or if there are ad sales incentives behind this.
The reason I ask is because while its good to get users the stories they want....it seems as if this changed is designed to make people read more stories and view more ads.
I just kinda feel like....I want the changes to be made for the users, not what works best for ad dollars.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
More content. Less clicking. I like it.
Enjoy your Karma, after all you earned it. Feel your Karma Joe, feel it burn.
This is the most confusing "feature" I've ever seen. Remove it now!
If you really want to attract attention to the article, you need a scoring system. Heck, it could probably be something as simple as "Comments per minute".
Popular articles may end up staying at the top too long, but all you'd have to do is raise the "minute" part to some appropriate exponent.
I don't subscribe. I don't click on advertisements. I have not ever paid a single advertiser on Slashdot for their product/service/annoyance. Free software improvements! I like it!
Every mans' island needs an ocean; choose your ocean carefully.
Yeah, but can you post or make a new account from links?
I agree. They should know that it only takes a user 50 ms to decide that they don't like a look of a site... as shown three times here. (:
Whoever stated that signature sizes should be limited to one hundred and twenty characters can just go ahead and kiss my
Parent is right on.
I really, really hope that's not what the /. editors are thinking with these posts. Digg is such a steaming pile it's not even remotely funny. Sure, /. has it's trolls, but. Fucking Digg? WTF are you thinking? /. is not the stories it links to.
/. commentary is not exactly Shakespeare. But, fucking Digg? What, do you have the intellect of a 2 year old?
Digg is just a bunch of links with some of the most retarded and half-assed commentary I've ever seen. Sure,
Let Digg "be competitive" with whoever it is that can fucking stand it. Why do we need them? This isn't a popularity contest.
Oh, and, fuck you, you fucking fuck.
This is how slashdot has always looked, more or less. It's the slashdot identity.
Personally I like the look and see no reason for it to change - the second some suit decides it needs to make noise/be animated/use flash/etc is the second I stop visiting, and I'm quite sure most of the "old school" audience would be with me on that one.
There's nothing stopping you writing your own flashy version of slashdot, or for that matter writing/submitting a stylesheet for it.
smash.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Maybe I'm misinterpreting what you're saying, but in Lynx you can do that under 'O'ptions - Editor. I typically set mine to edit.com in DOS / Windoze, and obviously you can set that to emacs, vi, mp, or whatever you prefer in Linux. The default keybinding to invoke the external editor on the Windows port is Escape, then 'e'. I'm pretty sure it's similar on Linux, but I cannot verify that at the moment.
/. with Lynx / Links (text mode) / eLinks?
On a side note, how does one post on
FWIW. I don't think this is flamebait either. I thought my employer had broken the site with another overzealous web filter the first time I saw it. However, it only took me minutes to work out what had changed and I like the result. It took me much longer to work out what the "1 more" bit meant under some sections.
The flashy javascript comment was sarcasm. You're absolutely right about flashy websites sucking, but they really could build a much nicer website with some simple HTML and CSS. Change the font and the color scheme. You could probably get the HTML for this site more optimized than it currently is, and still make it look way better. No javascript or images are needed, really (except maybe their logo and their story icons).
Well it made me look at the home page, which I've not done for urm...years, as I get the daily email.
----- I refuse to have an argument with an unarmed person
I see you've removed the curve so that the abbreviated sections no longer look like part of the preceding article - kudos - but for an even better enhancement I like the idea of the half-circle at the start of the abbreviated sections.
AND... any article with a comment with subject "Dupe" goes away immediately!
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048