D2 Updates, Text Message Notifcation

A few quick notes on some recent code updates. The smaller function is that we've added text messaging stuff for phones. If you visit the messages page (you must be logged in) you can define your cell phone's email address, and get notifications sent to it. The more interesting update is for Discussion2 users (turn it on on any article page). There is an option now to restrict page sizes and you will retrieve comments by score. This means you can configure your Slashdot to return smaller, more bandwidth friendly pages that you can expand without loading fresh pages. Anyone still running D1 is a sucker.

Comments

Texting in US is Ripoff

[DrunkenTerror]

The other day my wireless provider sent me a text message saying "It currently costs $0.10 to receive text messages. Would you like to upgrade?" I mean, damn guys, thanks for the message, ya know?

Re:Texting in US is Ripoff

[ZombieWomble]

This was something that intrigued me when I was talking with an American who was visitng - do you have some way to regulate how you receive texts/who you receive texts from? I can understand the rationale behind paying to receive a phone call (obviously, you can choose to reject the call if you don't want to pay the price). But over here at least, texts just arrive - doesn't this (theoretically) make it possible to bomb someone with vast amounts of texts and drive up their bills without them having a meaningful way to protect themselves?

I'm sure there's a simple solution to this somewhere which I'm overlooking, but having an aspect of a person's billing completely outside their control seems rather bizarre.

Re:Texting in US is Ripoff

[stinerman]

With all carriers that I know of, there is no way to stop unwanted text messages, and yes, we have to pay for each one.

AFAIK, if there is a consistent pattern of abuse, you can call your carrier and they might make concessions. Similarly, the FCC and your state attorney general will be interested in text message spamming. I don't see how this would stop someone from outside the US from simply spamming the crap out of us. Similarly, I can just use the SMS option on most modern IM clients these days.

Yeah, the state of cell phone usage in general in the US is shit.

Re:Texting in US is Ripoff

[smallfries]

I've never seen a UK contract where you pay for incoming texts. Who are you with, and which tarrif are you on?

(So I know who not to change to next time)

Re:Texting in US is Ripoff

[Skater]

You can get them to put a block on (at least with Verizon). The only problem is that the sender never knows that you didn't receive the message.

Re:Texting in US is Ripoff

[Speare]

Just for mentioning the phrases "American", "phone call", "pay the price", "bomb someone", "protect themselves", and "outside their control", you have been added to the Department of Fatherland Security watchlists. All of your finances, foreign or otherwise, will be monitored closely (in San Francisco) for any corroborating tendrils of threatening intent on your part.

"Sucker!"

[Nova Express]

Anyone still running D1 is a sucker.

Ah yes, insulting your readership. I see that Slashdot's grasp of the finer points of customer relations remains as firm as ever...

Re:"Sucker!"

[jrumney]

I just tried it again after finding it lacking a couple of months ago, and no, still no way to sort by score. So I guess I'll keep sucking the traditional interface for now.

Re:"Sucker!"

[mwvdlee]

So now I'm a sucker because I can't use D2 at work?

Re:"Sucker!"

[rufo]

I just tried it again after finding it lacking a couple of months ago, and no, still no way to sort by score. So I guess I'll keep sucking the traditional interface for now. Huh? I just hit Prefs and there's an option for Highest Score First...

Re:"Sucker!"

[jrumney]

I have that ticked, it works on the traditional interface, and now that I've posted that complaint it seems to be working on this discussion. But on other discussions I see things like:

Score 3
Score 2
Score 4
Score 3
Score 4

So I'd assumed that it didn't apply to the new discussion system. Maybe what I'm seeing is a bug, but still, am I a "sucker" for not using an obviously buggy new comment system that is clearly marked as a test?

Re:"Sucker!"

[zerocool^]

Yeah, I agree with you. I have my display set to show comments +3 and above; because with karma bonuses and bad moderation, comments 2 and below are often a waste of breath. I want to read *all* the comments that have actually been moderated at least once upwards.

Can't do that with the new system. You can say "highest ranked comments get priority showing up on my screen", but that's not what I want. if a story has 40 +5 comments, I don't want to set it to only show me +5's inadvertently by switching to the new system's threshold. I want to see the +3's too.

~X

Re:"Sucker!"

[GeckoX]

Pref is there, but it does nothing for me with D2, never has. Under d2, threads are always ordered by oldest first. Very annoying. This is the only thing that keeps me from using D2.

Re:"Sucker!"

[nobodyman]

Jeez, man, lighten up. I think he was just kidding around. Anyone thinking otherwise is a sucker.

Re:"Sucker!"

[fm6]

If we're a product, we should be productive. But we're not, because we waste too much time on Slashdot!

Re:"Sucker!"

[ozbird]

How about some consistent naming standards? There's no "Discussion2" or "D2" option in preferences - it's "Slashdot's New Discussion System Testing".

sucker?

[IPFreely]

Anyone still running D1 is a sucker.

or is stuck running IE. (Remember us, that lonely lost majority of the internet?)

Re:sucker?

[fm6]

Or use the Slashdotter Firefox Plugin, which isn't compatible with D2. It's ability to hide threads I'm not interested in far outweighs any advantages of the new layout. I also like the reply (no more typing in <blockquote>) feature, and various AJAX features.

Re:sucker?

[internewt]

The ability to colapse a whole thread appeared on this slashdot 2.0 ajax interface thing for a while. It didn't seem to be the best implementation (IIRC), but it kinda worked.

Did you used to be a usenetter by any chance? Thats where I picked up a desire to be able to kill a whole thread. Laugh all you like, but I used to like Netscape 4's news reader, and like a lot of usenet clients it could ignore threads. If a thread turned into a flame fest (that you've seen before), or just wasn't interesting, OT etc., you could just ignore the whole thread, and new messages in that thread would be marked as read.

The ability to ignore a whole thread, or from a point downwards would be nice on slashdot. Once you've been here for a while you start to notice that a lot of discussions are very similar: they follow the same patterns of posts and ideas that have been talked about a million times. If whole threads could be ignored more easily by /. users, it might mean that mod points get used more towards the end of discussions (which often have insightful gems of comments that get overlooked because either a mod has run out of points by the time they get to the end of the page, or they've moved on to a newer article).

Re:who cares...?

[Brian Gordon]

I use slash messages to keep track of replies to my posts. ..so I can have something to reply back to and whore more mod points :)

Not an exclusive or, of course

[benhocking]

Anyone still running D1 is a sucker.

or is stuck running IE. (Remember us, that lonely lost majority of the internet?)

Obviously, that's not an exclusive or you're using there. One could argue that it's redundant. After all if B implies A, then asserting A is the same as asserting A or B. (Do not mod his post redundant, however. That's not what I mean. I'm just making a joke.)

Re:Not an exclusive or, of course

[asliarun]

Obviously, that's not an exclusive or you're using there. One could argue that it's redundant. After all if B implies A, then asserting A is the same as asserting A or B. (Do not mod his post redundant, however. That's not what I mean. I'm just making a joke.) Dude, let it go. GP was just trying to be a karma OR.

Things I don't like

[Anonymous Coward]

Things I don't like:
- the floating widget floats over other things. I want to put it in the left margin and it must not float up above the menu, but stay below the Services entries.
- there still is no way to "close" a thread or to easily skip to the next top-level thread. when someone (usually an early poster) posts some flamebait comment it is very difficult to find the next top-level comment. There should be a [+] entry in the title bar of each comment where one can close all replies to that comment.

Mobile Browsing

[kevin_conaway]

Is there a URL other than slashdot.org to use when browsing on a phone or handheld device? My phone doesn't seem to handle slashdot very well.

Re:Mobile Browsing

[Reapman]

go to "slashdot.org/palm" thats what I use on my Treo 680.

Re:who cares...?

[fm6]

Brian, this is your boss. You spend too much time on Slashdot as it is.

Plenty of other URLs

[benhocking]

You could try google.com, freerepublic.com, dailykos.com, etc. There are millions more to choose from! ;)

Closing a thread

[benhocking]

there still is no way to "close" a thread or to easily skip to the next top-level thread. when someone (usually an early poster) posts some flamebait comment it is very difficult to find the next top-level comment. There should be a [+] entry in the title bar of each comment where one can close all replies to that comment.

There is a way: click on the title to close it and all replies to that comment. Click on it again to open it back up.

Someday soon

[eclectro]

I await the day soon when slashcode becomes sentient, and the first words out of its mouth will be

"Hallo Wurld"

as it still won't have spellcheck.

Re:Someday soon

[deniable]

I thought it would be "First Post." I'm getting a disturbing image of a child raised by trolls.

Interesting assertion

[Control Group]

Anyone still running D1 is a sucker

Sure am. Only a sucker would give in to the man, and not replace IE with Firefox on his company laptop. What a sucker.

I haven't complained about D2's not working in IE, because I recognize that it's IE's fault. I also recognize that IE will never change as long as everyone panders to its broken-ness, so I can even respect Slashdot's decision to not do so. I'll even continue to subscribe, despite not being able to use the New Shiny most of the time, because I think Slashdot's worth supporting.

But some of us aren't in a position where it's feasible to change our client, and cheap shots at our expense aren't particularly appreciated. If you don't want to put in the time and effort to make D2 work in IE because you don't want to perpetuate the use of broken standards on the client, that's great. But I'd really appreciate not being mocked in the process.

Thanks.

D2?!

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

Uhhhggh!! This thing is horrible! What's with the emboldened headings? Comment previews gobbling up space. Re:? The entire page juddering about with every click.

No thanks. Call me a luddite, but I like my pages nice and static if you please. If I need to read a subcomment, I open it in a new tab.

Re:D2?!

[porkThreeWays]

I think D2 has really encouraged reading of subcomments. When I'm not logged in and defaulted to D1 I almost never read deep into a discussion because it's a pain and I lose my spot. I suspect mods on D1 do the same. So comments that make it to +3 will probably make it to +5 and those not visible will be stuck. D2 has reeeeeally helped the moderation system and I find comments more appropriately rated in general.

"flat" d2?

[syrinx]

Last I checked, D2 did not have the "flat" display mode. I want to load up all replies to an article and be able to read them without doing anything else. (I am still annoyed at the change several years ago when the maximum number of replies on a page was limited.)

D2 is great

[rufo]

It's not perfect (as evidenced by much of the biatching around here), but at least for the way I like to read /., it's a huge improvement over the old system.

Just wanted to be the odd person who actually comments when they like something, instead of only posting when it's broken.

You know what would be kewl is

[semifamous]

Once all the bugs are worked out in this, the next cool thing would be a nifty ajaxish front page so that nobody ever has to hit "Refresh" anymore. Someone should code up some sort of ajax front page that gets the new stories as they're published. It would be cool if it also had the ability to expand the headline view into stories or collapse some stories that the user doesn't find interesting.

More for IE?

[RyoShin]

I know you've said that IE is low priority for D2. I don't neccessarily agree, but I know as a web developer that making something cross-browser compatible can be a large pain.

Even so, I ask that a bone be thrown to us IE users- give an option so that our use of D1/D2 is based on our browser. At home I am strictly FireFox except for the smallest subset of sites, so D2 works fine and I use it all the time. At work I am forced into a vanilla IE6 install[1]; reading comments is fine, but if I want to make a comment myself or mod a post I have to log in and deal with the IE-broken D2. I have three options:

1) Log in, do what I want, log out to continue reading (like I'm doing now)
2) Set my profile to not use D2 when at work and turn it on again at home
3) Create an alternate log in to use only while at work (this would require syncing with this account)

All of these are rather annoying and I'd prefer not to deal with them. I imagine I'm not the only one with this problem. The idea I have is that you have three options in your account: no D2, always D2, and D2 based on Browser. For the final option, a quick check is done prior to loading to see if the browser is IE or not, then choose which discussion method to use based on that.

I'm not familiar with Slashcode, so I don't know how trivial it would be to implement, but it's a feature I could really use. It would also be a benefit for those who use other legacy browsers for whatever reason.

[1] Yes, I've tried stuff like Portable Firefox. I made the mistake of showing a page to supervisor while using it, and now they're constantly checking to see if I'm using it. Policies are very strict around here.

The death knell for D1 for sure

[sacrilicious]

Anyone still running D1 is a sucker.

To paraphrase: "D1. No chat. Uses more bandwidth than D2. Lame."

Who are you people that pay for incoming messages?

[coryking]

I'm with AT&T (formerly Cingular) and I've never, ever paid for an incoming message. Ever. The lady uses Verizon and she too never, ever has paid for an incoming text message.

Really? What carrier does this?

Re:d2 ignores sort prefs?

[pudge]

That's my problem too. I get a Score:2 post first that's rolled up, then a Score:3 post, before hitting the first Score:5! Correct.

Sorry, D2 is buggy. Incorrect.