Slashdot Mirror
Slashdot Discussion System Updates
So D2 now remembers what you have read. This will mostly be useful to readers who use the key bindings to navigate -- we didn't really want to guess if you've read something, but if you use the WASD keys to navigate, moving on from a comment flags it as read. Read comments are slightly faded, and if you re-enter a discussion a few hours later, it should remember what you've read.
We've simplified comment retrieval as well. If you get to the 'End' of a discussion and try to get more comments (either by clicking one of the various 'More' links, or by pressing a keybinding like S or D that tells us to move on to the next comment) a dialog box will show up asking you if you would like to lower your threshold. So if you normally read at Score:4, and read to the end of the Score:4 comments, it will offer to lower your threshold to Score:3 either for all time, or just for this page. This means you don't need to constantly raise and lower your threshold to handle discussions of different sizes. This works really nicely.
Lastly is a user preference in the pref pane labeled 'Collapse Comments After Reading.' I'm actually considering making this one on by default but I'm open to feedback. It does what it says -- after you've navigated off a comment (using the keybindings again), it collapses the comment you just left. This makes it very easy to keep your place in a discussion as it grows. This is especially useful in discussions where you want to leave a tab open for several hours, or else come back later and figure out what's new.
There are undoubtedly bugs: feel free to email me or post them to the bug tracker. Thanks to pudge for hacking all this stuff too. Especially the bugs -- he wrote those first.
Hmm, I think it's also about time to fix some display bugs. The most important one would be that replies to a given comment visually look like they're replies to the parent. And the lines that should tell you what nesting level you're at seem to disappear sometimes, especially when you collapse something. And collapsing a grand-grand-grand-parent, for example, also hides all children, but it triggers that triggers another kind of display bug: the boxes and hooks don't disappear.
I usually use Opera, but I was able to see that Firefox doesn't do away with those problems either.
Logging in without having to navigate away from the page when replying would be nice.
So, in the old system, you hit reply, realise you aren't logged in, type in user name and password (or have FireFox auto complete), type your comment and post.
The new system, realise you aren't logged in, hit the login link, get taken to a different page, login, navigate back to the old page, have to find where you wanted to reply, and notice that in the three minutes you spent logging in (some people are on dial up, some people do other things while waiting for pages to load, some people do both), you notice someone else has made the comment you were going to make!
So, how hard can it be to just include a username and password box when you hit reply and aren't logged in?
I wank in the shower.
these changes seems to explain why i can't assign mod points with IE7 ?
who knows..
No, that's more likely to be a deliberate editorial decision. :-)
XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
Soon you'll have recreated the functionality of a late 80's usenet client.
I use dvorak you insensitive clod.
No really, I do. Any way we can change these or am I going to have to browse the web with 2 hands?
I've seen a few sigs that echo this sentiment humorously; "Slow down cowboy, it's been 11 minutes since you last made a comment. Chances are, you type faster the 11 words per minute".
I understand the reasoning for the "slow down, cowboy", and mostly approve, but there are a few times when the slowdown seems inappropriate.
One is in one's own journal. I don't see any reason at all to have a "slow down cowboy" in your own journal.
The second is responding to a response to your comment, especially when you are getting to the comment through the "slashdot message system". How can it truly be a discussion when you can't reply to a response?
The third would be on stories older than 24 hours old. By then pretty much everyone has had a chance to comment.
I almost never comment anonymously, so I was surprised the other day when I tried to. A user posted an anonymous comment with the statement "sorry for the AC posting but I just moderated in this thread." I was going to point out that what he was doing was a bit unethical; the system is set up so you can't comment in topics you're modding for a reason. I was also going to say "there are legitimate reasons for posting AC" and wanted to illustrate this by posting AC. An hour later I still couldn't submit the comment, so I gave up. I was logged in; I checked the "no karma bonus" and "post anonymously" for the offtopic comment. If I had been posting anonymously all day I would understand this, but it was my first anonymous comment in months. I don't understand why it was so much longer than my usual four minutes.
I was surprised to find that you can metamoderate a comment that is in response to your own comment. I wouldn't have thought the system would have been set up like that, but I've seen it twice now.
Another suggestion would be on a user's "journal" link. Often I'll see a funny or interesting comment and want to see a user's journal, click the link and find that he's only made two journals and the latest is from some time in 2003. Rather than the link saying simply "journal, I'd like to see "latest journal entry [&date]".
And now for something completely different, I'd like to see TWO BRICKS BEING SMASHED TOGETHER</Python>
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
Or even better, just make it configurable. For Dvorak users, w-a-s-d is useless.
While we're on the topic of mods, I think some work needs to be done on the Funny mod. Say some one is modded funny four times and troll once, that person loses karma. I'm fine with funny mods not giving karma, but I think they should at least act as buffers from losing it. For example, a score of two funny mods and three troll mods would be the same as one troll mod. I know it isn't that important or anything, it just irks me when a funny person loses karma because some people have no sense of humor.
At the risk of losing karma:
...it's a site developer's responsibility to make their web site work in all browsers in common usage, not just the ones they feel like.
My sig is more hate toward the moderators...
Love them or hate them, moderators and meta-moderators are part of the system. If all you are concerned about is karma, then you will have to weigh you desire to post against your fear of loosing karma points. My suggestion is to say what you want intelligently and damn whether it is popular. Popular speech is boring.
As to your post above:
I must disagree. If it exists, it is a developer's responsibility to code to a set of standards. It is a site and browser developer's responsibility to code to a set of standards.
The cancel button is your friend. Do not hesitate to use it.