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!"

[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.

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?

[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).

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.

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.

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.

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."