Slashdot Index Code Update

For years now Slashdot has posted what we call "Sectional Content". That is to say, stories that we think are good, but since we try to keep the Slashdot Main Page to around 15 stories per day, some stuff just gets put into the sections. This content is mostly lost to readers who simply don't know it exists. Today we're deploying new code to help you find that content (and alternatively, to disable it).

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.

Comments

AHA!

[rilister]

That's the thing I've just spent five minutes working out how to switch off, right?

Re:AHA!

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice feature! I give it a digg!!

Very nice - but has some rough edges currently

[DeadSea]

Great idea. I have used the front page customization to turn off the politics section bring extra stories from sections into my front page. This gives me even more control, so I like it.

There needs to be a bit more work to get the rough edges that I see out:

1. My personal RSS feed no longer matches my home page. I see "Officer's Group Calls for Ban On 25 To Life" even though it is hidden on my home page
2. RSS feeds should have no description for the stubby version of the story. Currently I'm seeing a full description even for those stories that have only a title on my home page.
3. Stub stories in the mysterious future on my home page have a annoying green top 3 or so pixels.

Re:Very nice - but has some rough edges currently

[CmdrTaco]

We plan to fix up RSS to make it corrospond to your settings soon. The design stuffs on the mysterious future stuff needs a little work yet too... we'll get there...

Re:Very nice - but has some rough edges currently

[ari_j]

I don't like the way they display. It makes them look like they are part of the story listed above them. Maybe a line with "In other news..." and a rounded upper-left corner would help. Or just the rounded upper-left corner. But right now, they look like footnotes to the story above them.

Re:Very nice - but has some rough edges currently

[mspohr]

I agree that they look like they should be part of the story above. They seem to be just randomly placed on the page... it's confusing.

Why not put them together in a separate section at the top or bottom of the page and organize them better?

Re:Very nice - but has some rough edges currently

[Reducer2001]

I dig it

Watch yourself there....

Re:Very nice - but has some rough edges currently

[networkBoy]

Curve the upper left corner as well as the lower left. That makes them look all their own. Takes care of the looks like a footnote problem nicely.

Personally, I love the interleaving lesser stories with the main page.
1.75 thumbs up (reserving the .25 for the rounded top corners).
-nB

Awesome feature

[metlin]

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'm terribly disappointed

[Rob T Firefly]

I read that there was "sectional content" and thought finally, news about modular sofas. But, noooo...

Form, function, blah blah blah

[heinousjay]

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.'

Re:Form, function, blah blah blah

[CmdrTaco]

I think exactly the same thing- I wanted the curve on the right hand side, but it was decided that doing so would require an extra DIV in the CSS to make it work. So we went with this because it looks nice.

The case can be made that the 2 pixel green border at the top of the abbreviated article seperates it at least somewhat from the content above it.

Of course all of this is irrelevant since we hope to redesign the whole schebang soon too...

Re:Form, function, blah blah blah

[ahecht]

You can try to explain to people that the two pixel green bar means it's separate, but if everyone who looks at it immediatly thinks that that they are footnotes to the previous story, your UI is bad.

Go ahead and spring for whatever extra code you need to make it look intuitive.

Re:Form, function, blah blah blah

[CrazyWingman]

I have to say I agree the with the grandparent. The quarter circle upward curve on the bottom left does associate the "brief articles" with the article above. I have a simple suggestion to fix it, though.

Just change the curve to a half circle. Then you'd get something like a little bubble for each brief article.

Seems like it would be easy, and I think the curve on top would help dissociate it with the story above it.

I spent quite a while this morning before this article came up wondering what relevence any of the brief articles had to the rest of the articles. It seems I'm not the only one.

Re:Form, function, blah blah blah

[LDoggg_]

I like the green line

How about this ?

page filled earlier, more older stuff!

[pimpimpim]

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.

Lynx compatible?

[Average_Joe_Sixpack]

All I want to know is if the new format is Lynx compatible ... because if it isn't there'll be hell to pay!

Re:Lynx compatible?

[Virak]

It would appear so.

How about a "Dupes Only" Option

[Anonymous Coward]

"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!

Re:How about a "Dupes Only" Option

[damiam]

Counterpoint: if something gets duped, it means the editor didn't notice it the first time, so it can't be too important.

I can't stop my complaint gene

[digitaldc]

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?

Like it

[RealProgrammer]

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.

Re:Like it

[CmdrTaco]

That is a really fantastic idea. Here's the problem:

Say a story gets posted, and then it gets 100 comments, say that is the threshold for making it appear in full text mode. At this point it might be the 5th story down. Do I push the article to the top of the page (hearing 50 readers post DUPE as they cry in their soup!) or expand it and let it continue to slide down off the page... knowing that some users will miss it because they only read until they get to where they left off?

Really good idea. I'd like to figure out a way to use it somehow.

Small aesthetic issue

[AutopsyReport]

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.

Browser Stats!

[MMC Monster]

More importantly, can we have a page dedicated to the browser stats for /. ? Maybe something that shows trends over the past year or two?

(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 /. re-org, and, more importantly, on the open dialog that you are giving us now.

Possible next step...?

[aug24]

How about clicking on the bar makes it fold out to reveal the usual synopsis? J.

Re:Missing Sections

[CmdrTaco]

If you choose to disable a section entirely from the index, we remove it from the menu, figuring you really just don't want that section at all.

That is what AJAX is for

[DeadSea]

Don't load the story into the original page itself. When somebody clicks on the [+] to open up the full description, use AJAX to load it into the page dynamically.

The best of both worlds: small initial page size, dynamic content.

Suggested feature

[balster neb]

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.

Re:Suggested feature

[Sarisar]

Article Modding sounds interesting, but should also include post scores as well. A story with 10 +5 insightful / interesting / funny mods is a better read then 200 goatse links!

Of course that would slow down it turning up on the main page as people would have to first post and then be moderated.

Although I still generally just read the RSS and go from that as to which stories I want to read but it's nice to see people are still trying to improve /.

Un-relating the other stories

[slank]

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.

This will make Slashdot worse

[elliotj]

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.

Re:This will make Slashdot worse

[Dirtside]

The problem with Slashdot is that the signal to noise ratio of comments has been getting worse and worse.

That's preposterous. Go back and look at stories from a year, two years, five years ago; there was just as much gibberish and nonsense back then as there is now.

RSS vs. front page

[Deviant Q]

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!