Slashdot Mirror
Help Shape the Future of Slashdot
Long-time readers will know that we try not to clutter the front page of Slashdot with much stuff about the site itself; this is a rare exception, but we hope you'll like the reason: we want your opinions. You should see above a link to take a survey about Slashdot, and (just to be heavy handed) here's the direct link. The questions there are simple, but we're going to read the answers carefully. The reminder bar up there will remain active for some time, but this story will scroll down the page like all Slashdot stories. Comments are welcome below; surveys have their limitations, after all, but please don't comment without also giving the survey a visit — if it makes sense, feel free to cut-and-paste any answers from there as comments, too. The engineers who build this site (and the editors, too!) are counting on your honest opinions and hoping for some great ideas; ideas outnumber the hours we have to do things, so we hope you'll make a case for the ways that Slashdot should change (and the ways it shouldn't!).
The moderation system seriously needs thinking and redone. It's constantly abused on Slashdot, up to the point where it really has started to annoy people. All the stories are filled with slashdot groupthink comments and it's always clear what kind of comments will be modded up and which down. This especially comes up within certain subjects - anything anti-piracy will get modded to -1, as does anything that says good things about Microsoft.
This really ruins the comment system as one is supposed to only have certain mindset and he is supposed to do all the same comments over and over again. Then there is the other mod abuse what happens when someone sees a comment he really doesn't like, so he goes on personal war against the poster and downmods all his comments from his comment profile, causing him bad karma and inability to post. Moderation system needs some serious work.
I always liked triangles. Slashdot needs more triangles.
Funny may not give karma, but +5 Informative never made anyone snort coffee out their nose.
Make it so I can see all the posts without logging in or Javascript. My usage of the site has gone down dramatically because it's a pain in the ass with the (relatively) new system. I have been reading the site since 1998 and this fucking sucks.
Stop hitting the web server on my NAT box for ok.txt every time I post.
Don't assume that any cookies you set will ever be sent back.
Don't use referer fields at all, just send straight HTML.
Don't use all this horrible crashy javascript.
Some really terrible articles get through sometimes. Articles from some no-name person's blog that contain no or very few external links to anything to back up the crap put forth on their site.
Better quality editing.
Sounds mean but it has to be said. Some of the stories over the last year or two have had blatant errors in the summary (one was even in the title, about some incident at a nuclear plant), I remember at least a few troll stories that got through, it's shameful. It seems like the posters are often putting more effort into the posts than the editors are putting into the articles.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
All I want is at least one professional editor. Somebody to do basic things like check for dupes, make sure stories aren't wholesale ripped off, basic fact checking, that kind of thing. This is done by almost every other professional news media site out there, can Slashdot please make this /one/ change?
How about you read your own bug tracker and actually fix, or at least respond in some way, to the bugs in it?
Comment of the year
Bad stories. Useless stories. Stories that are identifiable after reading the first couple comments that they are in fact non-stories, trolling, or something like that. Stories should be demote-able, so less of Slashdot need waste their time with them.
Bring back Jon Katz!!!!
That is all.
Articles shouldn't start like this: "Mr Submitter, with his first accepted submission, writes: [summary]". No one gives a fuck.
I filled out the survey, but I will share my major concerns here as well. I use IE 7. My company mandates its use and locks things down fairly well. I am a lawyer interested in science and tech policy, but with no actual computer skills (i.e., I programmed a few lines of HTML in my youth, but that's about it).
Over the past few years, my user experience has gone into the gutter, with very few corresponding benefits. Boxes often overlap, and the whole site freezes on a regular basis. Most other sites are fine.
As a result, I show up less. Sure, I could read it on my home computer, but eh. What's the point if you can't sit on a conference call while reading?
More poines.
Oh, and more selection on the moderation. -1 Insane and +1 Really Insane and -1 Fanbois and +1 Well Played, Sir
The search function completely sucks. If I'm looking for a comment that I *KNOW* was posted in an story, but can't remember the story, good freaking luck finding it.
I usually wind up with better results by using google ("search text" +site:slashdot.org).
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
In 2011 we shouldn't have to wait 10 seconds after hitting preview for our less than 1kb of text to be checked and displayed back.
In addition to the moderation / meta-moderation issues noted (confirmation bias anyone?) Changes over the past year have made reading /. on a mobile device (e.g. iPhone) almost impossible. Page loads take forever and it must be trying to calculate pi to 1 billion places for each page load. Plus, clicking a collapsed story to show it will scroll to the top. That's stupid. The "More" links are lame, too. You can keep clicking "more" to get more stories (since it only displays like 5), but when you go into a story to read comments and then come out, all your extra stories are gone. A simple "next page" feature would be far more useful. AJAX is all fine, but /. abuses it to the point where it detracts from site functionality.
Oh, and more stories about ponies.
I don't know, but it works for me.
Being able to edit/delete your posts would be favorite. Yeah I know there's the preview button but often mistakes can slip through a quick proof-read. For a further example, look at how many actual submission titles/commentaries are riddled with spelling and grammatical errors... Now imagine the comments.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
I want an option to automatically load all the comments on an article. not 250 at a time, everything. Every time. Automatically.
Actually I have a somewhat tongue-in-cheek way to help the bias problem.
Add an actual moderation option "-1 disagree". Have this only lower the post for the moderator himself, and secretly subtract karma from the moderator. Eventually disagreers will no longer be able to moderate. Problem solved.
And to elaborate... bias isn't a problem with the moderation system, it is a problem with human nature. A way to filter that out would be helpful, but I am not sure how.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
There will be ten firehose entries for the same article. They will sit unposted for days, and then when it finally hits the frontpage it is from the same five people who always get articles posted, the worst link, the worst summary, and often through a spammy blog instead of the source.
I was happy when the firehose opened up. I thought it would help out a lot. Instead it is just like a cruel joke seeing what could have been posted instead of what did get posted.
The sad thing is you could move slashdot to a sub-reddit on reddit.com, possibly one of the worst sites on the internet, and it would be an improvement. For something masquerading as a technology site, the current setup is just embarrassing.
Oh, and more selection on the moderation. -1 Insane and +1 Really Insane and -1 Fanbois and +1 Well Played, Sir
+1 Well Played, Sir.
I'd add: -1 Inaccurate, -1 Misleading, -1 Citation Needed, +1 Citation Provided, -1 Whoosh!
You post. Posting has more effect than moderation anyway. Most of us don't get all excited about the number, and the ones that do, well, they're all Apple fanbois anyway...
We also need emoticons. Really.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Slashdot works very well. I don't see any problems requiring a major change. Is this a solution (e.g., an editors' ambitions to leave their mark) looking for a problem?
1 esp for those that have "classic"/D1 style selected DO NOT ADD TEST STUFF (D1 was selected for a reason)
2 have a -5 (oblivion) rating where you have to have N!^2 mod downs to reach it (you have to be down modded from 0 55 times to reach -5(oblivion)) then if you draw a posting with that rating 1 your ip is banned for 24 hours 2 after your ban you are limited to posting once a day (with an ip block check)
3 add a function to mod POSTERS/Editors (they get blocked for a week if they reach -1 moderation)
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
One of the things that I find disappointing is that probably the single largest factor in terms of whether a comment is promoted or demoted is the time after the post hits the main page. It is extremely common to see average posts (i.e. limited informational or insightful quantity/quality) rated very highly (probably too highly) simply because they are submitted shortly (within 1-2 hours, often much less) after the parent post hits the main page. Conversely, insanely high quality posts (i.e. those with tons of useful information or insight) that are submitted after the magic window either do not get voted up or are only voted up to a minor degree.
I understand why this occurs. A large influx of people are reading the comments shortly after the post and then there is an exponential decay afterwards. The result is that high quality and deserving posts do not get voted up since fewer and fewer people with mod points see them. It is completely understandable, however I think addressing this would have a significant positive impact. I know there have often been times that I would not post simply because I figured it was too late and practically no-one would read the comment so why bother. Unfortunately, I do not know how to solve this problem, just that it is real.
I do realize that the meta-moderation system does have some limited impact here, but I think it is too limited to be effective.
If there a filter for mod types? Sometimes I just want to see the Funny.
I have mod points but you're already at 5. They should remove the cap on just this one comment so it can go to a million.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
While tech articles are frequently ok, I've noticed life-science and physics stories especially have this problem. Often they feature sensationalist pieces trying to fluff up absolute garbage. The editors and story-submitters seem to have just enough background in the field to recognize the buzzwords and take the bait; not enough to render good judgement or comment in the header insightfully (in other words, too incompetent to realize how incompetent they are).
Firehose /moderation doesn't help as much as one might think -- from the comments it's clear this site is full of sharp comp/tech folks, but doesn't quite have nearly enough experienced bio/physics people to balance the discussion.
"You might consider adding avatars / gravatars next to people's comments."
Useless decoration. Have an option to disable.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
... a trusted users system. I know people on slashdot that are intelligent and have reasonable judgement we really need these people to float to the top and given more weight. Trying to test out new systems to have these people float to the top would be nice. Politics usually seems to be slashdots worse subject - you get all sorts of nonsense in posts that are mere repeats of mainstream media talking points that are often false and misleading.
I'd like a slashdot skin that looks like, say, eclipse, so I can read at work in way that isn't 100% obvious from the complete opposite side of the room (no privacy in this office).
=D
If someone can really contribute to an issue, and takes the time to write a thoughtful post, complete with sources. By the time they are finished, the "magic window" has often passed, and their post never gets up-voted... I rarely make substantive comments any more, for exacty this reason: I know that the investment of time required to make a real contribution to the discussion means precisely that the comment will not be seen by most people.
How to fix this? That's hard...
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.