Slashdot Mirror
Slashdot Tries Something New; Audience Responds!
We've had only a few major redesigns since 1997; we think it's time for another. But we really do take to heart the comments you've made about the look and functionality of the beta site that houses Slashdot's future look. So let's all slow down. Right now, we're directing 25 percent of non-logged-in users to the beta; it's a significant number, but it's the best way for us to test drive this new design, to have you show us what pieces need to be fixed, and how. If you want to move back to Classic Slashdot, that path is available: from the Slashdot Beta page, you just need to select the "Slashdot Classic" link from the footer (or this link). We're committed to keep you informed of the plans as changes are implemented; we can't
promise that every user will like every change, but we don't want anything to come as a surprise. Most
importantly, we want you to know that Classic Slashdot isn't going away until we're confident that
the new site is ready. And — okay, we've got it — it's not ready. We have work to do on four big areas:
feature parity (especially for commenting); the overall UI, especially in terms of information density and
headline scanning; plain old bugs; and, lastly, the need for a better framework for communicating about
the How and the Why of this process. Some of you have suggested we're not listening; on the contrary,
some of us are 'listening' pretty much full-time. We're keeping you informed of this process, because
we're a community and we want to take everyone with us. But, yes, we're trying something new. Why?
We want to take our current content and all the stuff that matters to this community and deliver it on
a site that still speaks to the interests and habits of our current audience, but that is, at the same time,
more accessible and shareable by a wider audience. We want to give our current audience the space
where they are comfortable. And we want a platform where we can experiment with different views
of both comments and stories. It's not an either/or. It's going to be both. If we haven't communicated
that well enough, consider this post a first step to fixing that. And in the meantime, we're not sorry
to have received a flood of feedback, most of it specific, constructive and substantive. Please keep it coming. We will be adding more specific info here in the days to come.
Why say anything it isn't like you are going to listen or act on our concerns.
Slashdot BETA Sucks.
Your post here is a steaming pile because you know "Timothy" that You folks have absolutely NO intention of backing away from the new un-needed and useless "design" for the sake of "design" design. "Web Designers" and marketers have a lot in common, they want to foist "pretty" shit that serves no real benefit.
Hopfully Bruce Perens will reserect his Slashdot alternative that failed when Slashdot didn't SUCK as much as it does now.
Join the boycott 10-17 February!
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Thank you for acknowledging us. I'd like to see a new SlashDot that's even better than the old. Please let us help you define it.
And you can all thank me for sending my feedback in as this appeared shortly thereafter. And I am kidding of course, just a coincidence. Hopefully this isn't just lip service as so often the case in these situations. Sorry for the skepticism. But this is a good response finally by the people behind the current slashdot.
I don't think you have understood. We don't want you to slow down. We want you to stop; reverse; appologise for being so out of touch with your user base; and promise to never do anything so stupid again.
Scientists point out problems, engineers fix them
altslashdot.org: The future of slashdot.
How do I check it out? Anyone got a link, or care to comment on if its any good or not?
you give us a classic page for good option and you can do what you want.
It seems to me that the one unifying opinion of those critical of the changes is that *no changes are necessary*. So, clearly this is NOT something that is meant to benefit the users - it's more likely part of some monetization plan.
Just admit it and move on - stop blowing smoke up our asses like our opinion actually matters. Maybe it did once, but that hasn't been the case for quite a while now.
Humor from a Genetically Molested Mind
Please detail what you think you are changing other than UI. We're technical people and we don't like change for the sake of change, or, even worse, aesthetics only.
Every site that has gone beta (read YAHOO) has become worse (not better). Eventually, we are forced to upgrade to a slower, crappy, bloated site with evermore javascript!!! THANKS -- BUT NOT THANKS!
Did you not see Wayne's World?
MBAs do not always make things better.
Especially cult, underground things. Things that have historical, sentimental value and fly in the face of modern corporately-produced bafflegab.
Can't you guys stick to ruining Thinkgeek? Or do you have action items to ruin every brand you manage by Q2 2014?
... If classic slashdot goes away then I will stop visiting slashdot. Partly out of the way this has been handled, but partly because "beta" slashdot doesn't work properly without javascript.
If you don't support people who don't wish to have needless code execution on their machine - then I am not visiting. Simple.
Keep Classic and put Beta in the footer.
Truth.
No need to fix that which is not broken - new is not necessarily better. Remember "New" Coke?
It's been interesting and fun since 1999, but now it's not even amusing.
Last post.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Digg tried this exact same thing so they could sell better analytics. Digg died. You want tailored stories so you can get even more detailed info. So sad. You're already committed to this Death March
Is it really that difficult to have both forever? If someone wants classic, they can pick classic, and if they want beta, they can pick beta. Up for coin throw is what the default for AC is, but surely even that can be just a small cookie for that one theme setting.
We want to give our current audience the space where they are comfortable.
This is the fundamental problem between how the corporate overlords think and how the community thinks. Until this difference is resolved you will get the continual complaints and the eventual mass exodus. We are a community. We are not an audience.
I submit stories. I read stories. I add comments. I moderate comments. I am the reason that there is ad revenue.
I am Slashdot.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
Beta Sucks!!!!
Well I guess on the bright side when Digg did that, their infrastructure costs could have gone way down as they lost most of their users and layed off 37% of their staff.
Ah well it wouldn't be the internet without people bitching about what appears, to me at least, be a relatively minor website redesign (uh a bigger font and more white space basically?) of a site that's pretty much just a sequential listing of stories with links and comments anyway.
I'm not seeing the link for "Slashdot Classic" in the footer. I'm in an older browser (not by choice), so I expect some things to be broken, but the "ripcord" to a working version of the site needs to be easily available.
Is it weird in here, or is it just me?
Okay, they've said they're applying the brakes so don't attack then for doing what you want.
---- The above post was generated by the Turing Institute. Maybe.
1. Afaict, Slashdot Beta doesn't show posters' sigs. Sigs aren't exactly essential content, but are a good way to get some idea of what a person does outside of Slashdot. So I think they're helpful from a community perspective (same reason email has them).
2. This is more subjective, but basically Slashdot Beta looks too much like all the other blog sites. The commenting system in particular. Things like "3 minutes ago" instead of an actual timestamp. The "load more" thing. Also the moderation system seems not to be working properly (why I am seeing all these 0-score comments when not logged in?). Etc.
Why not always keep classic as an option?
I don't get it. Why change it at all? Sure it could be better, but change for change sake doesn't make a lot of sense.
TL;DR
Long-time lurker here (since iGoogle showed up, with Slashdot addon by default).
Why roll out the news part first if the commenting system is what makes Slashdot worth visiting? Why make the facade shiny and use a pile of s**t instead of what works?
If you don't keep the old Slashdot, I'm deleting my account and not coming back.
Do you understand?
Subject is rule #1.
Don't put anything in the way of that.
"Shareable by a wider audience" is too vague. What is difficult with the current design?
...keep the classic option permanently! How fucking hard is that?
Stop trying to force shit on people!
Microsoft did the same shit taking away the start menu. Give people who don't want to change the fucking option!! It's not fucking rocket science!!!!
I want the classic to be the _default_. A lot of the time I read from computers that are not my own and don't trust, so don't login. I don't want to search for a link hidden in the footer to make the site readable.
FUCK BETA! and FUCK TIMOTHY for not having any line breaks, guess the white space was all used up on the FUCK BETA site.
Just put a survey ans you will have some feedback... Although it will be pretty unpleasant feedback, by judging the crowd :) Good luck BTW, you guys who redesign this site will need it so much in this life and in the after one too.
It's funny how I make sense to others and not myself...
Did you hire the database guy from healthcare.gov to design Beta?
Most importantly, we want you to know that Classic Slashdot isn't going away until we're confident that the new site is ready. And — okay, we've got it — it's not ready.
Why are you so inflexible on the idea of keeping classic slashdot *forever*. Think of it as a protected historical landmark in the internet space. To help future generations understand where this 'blogging' thing really came from? Computers are good like that, keep classic.slashdot.org FOREVER and your audience^H^H^H CONTRIBUTORS might stop rallying against you.
I got redirected once. Was once too often. For some reason the current process seems to think that content comes last, and fancy headers, deasign and pages mean more. They don't. The beta page wasted a ton of space, showed me less content, was less clear and more invasive. I did not like it, did not enjoy it.
Why is it somehow we have ended up with people who are making things like Slashdot beta, Microsoft Metro, the new IOS, Gnome. A bunch of people who came out of the worst design schools ever? A bad decade at the schools? We just got unlucky?
I like slashdot, and have been around for a long time. But I'm not your damn plaything. Mess with the site, content and my usage - be warned, I can go away. So can others.
We`re all equal
We have work to do on four big areas: feature parity (especially for commenting); the overall UI, especially in terms of information density and headline scanning; plain old bugs; and, lastly, the need for a better framework for communicating about the How and the Why of this process
Those are exactly the problems I care about. Mainly information density; I want to see the same amount of information on the screen as I did before. Or at least 75%. It's more like 25% right now. Anyway, I'm glad someone is paying attention.
It would have been nice to hear this earlier though. Maybe you do have people *listening* to the complaints, but it would be nice if someone *responded* to them, and in a human manner.
FUCK
BETA
GO FUCK YOURSELF BETA
no it's not a repetition, fuck you filter.
OK it's like this. Beta should always be an OptIn. Seriously how many articles have been posted on Slashdot condemning companies that force things on their users?
Also, the character limit for the subject appears to be way too small.
I do like the fact that comments preview and post without reloading the page.
Is it weird in here, or is it just me?
It is nice that you speak about what YOU want. However, in the scheme of things, what you want is diametrically opposed to the community you claim to cherish. The appeal of Slashdot is the pedantry, the technical nature of things, and the overall level of the discussion. If I want to interact with a "wider audience" I can go talk on the Disqus comments that litter CNN, CNBC, etc. Short of having Wiki articles linked to every single in depth commenter's response I don't know how you are going to make things more "accessible" to a "wider" audience.
Also, please stop with calling us your "audience." It is demeaning. If you value our contributions to the functioning of your site so little that you consider us passive players, then I hope you press forward with your train wreck of a beta so that you can see just how much the "audience" actually contributes.
Lastly, tell the MBAs and PR guys/gals to lay off the BS and have a straightforward honest conversation with us. We are far from the drooling idiots you seem to think we are.
So the people that hate it (pretty much everyone) can quickly find their way out. I really hate the floating "brand bar", from the user's perspective, it's completely useless. On my android tablet, it's slow as hell and just wastes screen space. Putting the classic link there would at least give me a reason to click it (once).
If you want to have a "pretty" version of /. for the idiot masses to eat up, that's fine. We're okay with that. Call it something else, give it a different domain and just link the articles to both sites.
Keep comments separated, for obvious reasons.
Just let your current user base keep viewing the content the way we have for a long time, then we'll be happy and you can still pander to the idiot masses, just under a "cooler" domain name.
You know, exactly like the old interface, but with unicode.
There are lots of things that are annoying about slashdot, but almost none of them are found in the interface. None of them really need changing, except the lack of unicode support. Instead of wasting time trying to change the way slashdot looks when it looks just fine (It's not fancy, but it's clean compared to most of the web and it doesn't waste horrible amounts of space) you should spend the time on unicode. It's not sexy, but it is important.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
what is with all these bright white layouts nowadays? I can see it's all the rage, but why?
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
The real travesty has been the constant hijacking of threads with redesign whine. If I had hit the mod point lottery in the past few days the off-topic button would have broken. As someone who gave testing the new design some effort (in a helpful community member beta-test sort of way) I noticed right-away the ability to switch to classic (which they didn't have to do).
I seem to have had this now misguided impression that there was a healthy professional element of the community here who would give constructive feedback but all I've seen is a mob of angry comment children. I hope you all leave when it switches over so we can build anew without you.
I don't know how many years on this Earth I got left. I'm going to get real weird with it. - Frank Reynolds
Beta overall is slick, but comments section does not scale well on mobile. I was scrolling through comments on a pretty wide screen phone and the scale of all the connected responses felt awkward. I liked to see larger images on story postings.
"SO we bide our time, waiting for a purer kick to bloom and the future is still bleak, uncertain and beautiful" -GSYBE
In the words of Homer Simpson - "Just because I don't care doesn't mean that I don't understand".
I think the recent slashdot poll was directly tied to the redesign. Slashdot audience is getting older, the crowd is now mid-to later in their careers. I can see that - I've been a consistent reader since 1997.
So, Dice decides it is time to rejuvenate the website. I suspect that the objective is to pare down the number of crusty old coots, who block ads and otherwise freeload, and get the "hip, young" crowd that now hangs on Reddit and what not. It sounds like someone with experience in marketing had a hand in this.
The problem as I see it is that Slashdot is more of a Saab of web/news industry. You have a specific image, and a dedicated customer base. Historically, attempts at rebranding and reinventing oneself, in particular for a company with that kind of background, are generally not successful. This is particularly so when a rebranding is done in such an obvious, hamfisted way.
Dice was never a particularly web-savvy company. I've been using them as long as I've been a slashdot reader. Dice (no offense) is a poorly designed concentrator for all the spammy recruiters out there. It's a bit of a cesspool, but it serves its purpose. However, given their history and performance - it is highly unlikely they have sufficient web/social/marketing expertise to turn this site around.
Slashdot hasn't been as exciting as in the past for a while now. What it needed is fresh ideas, better ways to get involved in duscussion, *more* interactivity and possibly ability to connect among its users (I don't suggest it become a facebook, but it's has a long way to go in improving social side). Slashdot will not, in my view, benefit from gaudy pictures, "web 3.0" design and general dumbing down. You will not get the "hip crowd" and you will lose your current user base. Look at Saab for guidance.
Long live slashdot!
Nobodies Prefect
Tidbits for Techs Technology Blog
Windows 8 was a UI flop. It doesn't work
Making Slashdot look like Windows 8 is also a flop. It doesn't work. Flat tiles with no contrast and poor organization is not a good idea.
The new design adds useless eye candy, makes it harder to skim through the posts to find the ones that interest me. Slashdot works really, really well as-is. Please, please, please, leave well enough alone.
Cheers, Tim -- Tim Janke Part mad scientist, part lion tamer: sr. software engineer, global team leader, project mana
I tried the beta this morning. There was no obvious way to show only the comments rated 4* and above. There are ways of seeing funny or insightful posts, but you don't get to control how many.
The new design seems less space efficient. More clicks are required to read stories (including this one).
No plans to change in the near future.
It's nice to finally hear that they hear us, folks. Although this hasn't been handled very well, it sounds like they're trying to improve. So, let's think positive and give 'em another chance. Further cynicism isn't helpful at this point and can only lead to the demise of something that we've enjoyed for a long time. Please don't do that to yourselves.
Thank you for listening, and for taking our passion for this site and its battle-tested interface to heart. I look forward to seeing how serious you are about providing -- at least as an option -- the kind of lean, dense, static UI that made Slashdot work so well for so long.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
This is kind of a non-committal response. Slashdot is by far the most popular of Dice's 'holdings' but what about the future? There is still no clear position for the people who do not use Javascript, for example.
Let's just all move back to Usenet, like we were accustomed to in the old days. There will never be a redesign, it is decentralized, allows one to ignore any poster, it is non-commercial, and it can not be censored.
Look up Eternal September, after Comcast screwed me over by removing news I have started using their *FREE* service. No binaries but that's OK - Bittorrent has whatever you want anyway.
NNTP FOREVER KNICKERS!
I think I've got reasonable karma on here and the very few who recognise my login probably think I don't post total drivel *all* of the time, so I'd like to put in my two bob's worth. I don't like the beta as it is at the minute. The front page looks fine to me: lots of white space, but I can live with white space and it's no different from other websites, although I could very much do without the constant targetted videos from advertiers; but it's the comments pages that are distinctly compromised compared to the present setup. It's far harder to close an entire thread; it's far harder to close sections and leave others open and see quickly which comments have been added since the last refresh; far less content is onscreen at one time; and the comments screen is far too narrow, which compounds the previous issues. I'm sure that with more reflection I could think of other issues with the comments, but those are probably my greatest complaints.
Over the last few days the comments pages have been increasingly dominated by childish anti-beta messages. I understand these are probably born out of frustration and irritation (even anger on some parts), but they've made the website far less usable than if the beta had been rolled out without argument. This is the flipside of it: no redesign is worth fucking up a website over, and certainly doesn't justify the sheer amount of petulant whining the boards have been filled with.
And that said, over the last couple of days, when I've had mod points I've tended to use them to at least reverse the modding down of people protesting the new beta, since there seem to be no other avenues for people who genuinely care about how the comments sections of slashdot are presented. I have no issue with a redesign, but diminishing the usability of a service is a pretty hamfisted way of increasing its profitability.
I've heard all this shit before - that the guys in charge are listening to your efforts, that your concerns are being taken under advisement and that the end result will something everyone will appreciate. What people here especially hate most of all is fucking corporate speak they've heard a thousand times before and despite from the bottom of their hearts. It's patronizing to the audience who know exactly how things will play out. They always follow the same formula
People complained loudly to Microsoft regarding the all-caps of Visual Studio 2012/13 and Office 2013 during their pre-releases. What happened? They remained there, shouting back at the user in the finals. People complained to Microsoft regarding the lack of contrast between the various elements of the Office 2013 GUI as well as the default eye-melting white theme. What happened? Some very minor tweaks and the same eye-melting theme with minimal contract. They threw in a couple of darker themes which do add more contrast, but also make the software far more drab and miserable looking compared to say Office 2010, which in my mind is a thing of beauty.
Companies don't care. They don't give a shit unless there's a real threat to their bottom line. I'm honestly surprised though that the powers that be aren't scrambling to push out the news that they're throwing away the beta as a failed experiment before more people sign off permanently and move to greener pastures.
Account abandoned. I can't fucking spell for shit and Slashdot doesn't even allow time-limited edits of posts. Plus you'
Publish a log where it is easy for one to see what flaw does a new change amend, that way we can discuss the issues separately and you can better explain your reasoning.
Slashdot Tries Something New; Audience Responds!
We are not the audience. We are the performers!
First, let me state that I created my Slashdot account only days ago. And while did read Slashdot articles before a few times, I am by no means used to the "classic" view, so my opinion is not biased by being used to either version.
Yes, I cannot see anything that is better in the "beta".
And even the official statements on why that "redesign" is pursued do not provide a single compelling reason what the new design would actually better.
If "more accessible and shareable by a wider audience" means: "We want to lure more Facebook-zombies and other technically challenged people on our site" then let me tell it right away: That is the perfect way to get rid of everyone actually interested in science and technology. If you want to become yet another mainstream gossip page, that is the way to go.
The absolute no-go for me with regards to the beta is the JavaScript plague. I do not want my trusted computer to execute arbitrary code downloaded from the Net. And JavaScript adds no valuable information, just wastes CPU cycles and bandwidth - just as additional "pictures" do.
Not.
So, the motivation for slashdot (fuck)beta was (is?!):
Let's face it, you epically failed. Give up.
more text, tiny pictures, no videos, minimal JS
werd.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
Dice has had the same 'old' look and feel as long as I remember, and they aren't trying to hamstring the site with an improved interface. The beta slashdot is a smack in the face to technically minded people.
love is just extroverted narcissism
"The new site is a work in progress so Classic Slashdot will be available from the footer for several more months."
The ONLY reasonable interpretation is that after that it will not be. full stop.
"It's not an either/or. It's going to be both. If we haven't communicated that well enough, consider this post a first step to fixing that."
Did anyone anywhere ever think the the former communicates the latter?
"And â" okay, we've got it â" it's not ready."
So stop redirecting 25% of us until you've had a another good run at fixing it. And then, maybe put it out there and invite people to check it out instead of redirecting 1/4 of us while threatening us that its just months away from being the only site. You do realize a lot of us would have checked it out, given you feedback, and probably without having a nuclear meltdown over it.
"We have work to do on four big areas: feature parity (especially for commenting); the overall UI, especially in terms of information density and headline scanning; plain old bugs; "
So... The new logo design was good then!
" the need for a better framework for communicating about the How and the Why of this process."
If only this site had had a mechanism by which you could communicate with us and get feedback, perhaps in the form of comments! And if that mechanism itself had a mechanism with which to bubble the more interesting comments to the surface... why you'd really have something there!
Are you just trolling us? :p
You redirect me to the beta site, and I'm not even going to bother logging in. I'll just close the window immediately in order to stop myself from bleeding from both eyes.
Once more....
Fuck beta! Fuck it right in the ear.
Thanks for acknowledging that quite a few of us hate beta. For starters, how about making the new site not look like its made for people that can't see 2 inches in front of them. The text is huge. It's also white spaced to hell and back. You can see about 2-3 posts on beta before you have to scroll. However on normal slashdot, you can see 4-5. That's a huge issue. I don't want to scroll. I don't want needless white space. Slashdot.com doesn't have a huge freaking touch screen user following where we need tons of white space taking up room for no reason.
Also if anyone else has a problem reading small text, its a website for nerds, I believe they have the skills to increase the font size on their end.
Reasons I hate beta is because it looks like another f*** blog website. Beta has no style what-so-ever. It all just blends in with itself. Nothing stands out. And you spend a good portion of your time scrolling because of all the white space beta has.
I left netflix when they started pulling their shit years ago. Their member base exploded in outrage and they went back on their plans. I think you should follow suit.
There are other places that serve up other peoples news so a discussion can be had.
"Cowardice in a race, as in an individual, is the unpardonable sin." --Teddy Roosevelt
that every user will like every change"
Which is why you shouldn't change.
On a site that is populated by a huge percentage of users who use the command line over GUIs exactly because CLI doesn't change... why would you think it's a good idea to change?
http://www.reddit.com/r/socialmedia/comments/1x77zt/user_backlash_to_slashdotorg_beta/
Yah wonderful, you had a few redesigns over the years. Did you ever test them in lynx? Browsing the site on lynx in the late 90's was easy, now it's a shiftfest.
a brief summary: Slashdot users give new beta design a huge Bronx cheer
"...you just need..."
"...keep you informed..."
Stuff it. You obviously don't WANT to understand. This is like beating you to a bloody pulp with a baseballbat, and you still don't seem to get the message.
Personally, i'm not getting redirected to the new site, when it happens, i'm gone. I wont come back to "check if you got the message at some point and finally reversed course". Slashdot is (was) a great newssite, but it never had actual content, it just links to TFA's. The important one's make it to other newssites. Probably not all stuff for nerds. But that seems to be the goal, turn slashdot into yet another fucking website for the masses. It's not like there's a million other ones that noone cares about.
Good riddance, please, let the door hit you on the way out.
THIS! A THOUSAND TIMES THIS!
I'm sorry Dice, but you don't make Slashdot great - we do! Piss us off and we'll leave, and you can enjoy the eye-atrocious tumbleweeds and crickets.
Scientists point out problems, engineers fix them
altslashdot.org: The future of slashdot.
It doesn't work, when I get to the comments, they won't load, I have to reload a couple of times before anything comes up!
that is of course the most obvious failure I can think of but there's just so much to dislike!!!
I'm always right, except when i'm not.
Fuck. That. Shit.
Captcha: persist
I decided to log in with my slashdot account to share this, something that I haven't done in years, for one single reason: with every new slashdot "redesign", the USABILITY of the site gets far, far worse (despite the site looking more "designy"). It really is clear that you guys have no idea how users actually USE your site. For example:
1. With all this copious whitespace, I can fit like 1 or 2 comments on the screen. Finding valuable or highly rated is like finding a needle in a haystack.
2. Everything is expanded by default, which, again makes it tiresome to skip through pages of low-rated comments.
3. The comment sort order makes no sense.
You don't seem to understand that the main value of Slashdot is (or rather was, from a long time ago) the comment section, and with each successive revision it just gets progressively worse. No one give a fuck about your flat, "techcrunchy", "Androidy" design when you keep making the site so much harder to use.
I've popped over to slashdot every week or so when all my links on reddit turn purple, just to see if you guys have improved, and it's kind of astonishing how absolutely backwards you view the design process.
If Beta is future then I'll find other sites than /. I was/am happy with a text based site. I come here for the comments and I don't see how Beta is going to improve them. Counting down to my exit. 88, 87, 86...
Yea, it's nice being able to fit half the news articles on the page before being required to scroll to see more. Its even worse in the comments area. These people are addicted to large text and dead white space.
Place looks like a crappy blog. It looks like I'm on my damn phone, not a desktop.
"Cowardice in a race, as in an individual, is the unpardonable sin." --Teddy Roosevelt
communicating about the How and the Why of this process
I think this is one of the biggest reasons you are getting such negative pushback. A very large part of the active and vocal Slashdot audience (the "community") probably share a similar viewpoint when it comes to change. Change for change's sake is bad, and if you want to change something that works just fine then you'd better be able to give me a good, objective reason. So far that just isn't something we've seen. What I see is a site that's been redesigned with two goals in mind:
We want to take our current content and all the stuff that matters to this community and deliver it on a site [that is] more accessible and shareable by a wider audience.
What exactly is it about the current site that makes it inaccessible? Which audience are you trying to reach? I'm quite serious -- knowing this may make it easier for people to accept change (assuming that the audiences you're reaching out to aren't "advertisers" and "market analytics"). Just going based on what you've said it sounds like you want to make Slashdot Yet Another generic news aggregator. Don't you remember Digg? That sad story should have taught you a few lessons about the value of a generic news aggregator and the results of alienating a community.
Will the new site finally support (even a small subset of) Unicode? Just adding support for that would probably make Slashdot accessible to more people than this absurd proposed redesign. No, I'm not kidding.
"What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
/)
forever (instead of until Beta is fixed?) I instantly hated Beta because it looks and feels like the anithesis of what Slashdot is (content first - meaning comments - and minimal overhead.) Beta looks a lot like a mobile specific Web site and I hate those with a white-hot passion!
Seriously, let this Sh1T die a quick death.
2. I need to set the filter level. I have learnt to work the behavior of the slider bar. I don't want something radically different, just something that works reasonably well.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Timothy, I still don't think you understand what we're looking for.
What you need to preserve, to keep me at least, is a rating system where each of my best posts fluctuates wildly between -1 and +5 over the course of the day, while I curse the quality of both moderators and meta-moderators.
If you can't preserve that dynamic, I'm outta here!
Delete all cookies. Disable javascript. Keep rejecting any cookie apart from ones that are absolutely essential to you logging in. Alternatively, don't log in (and just use lynx). Then you should have the late 2000s view that the rest of us who refer to "classic" see. Of course, it's still a bit different from the real classic that we remember from the 90s, but it's good enough.
Also FatPhil on SoylentNews, id 863
Here's the link: Slashdot classic. I'll add it to the summary above.
None of you understand. I'm not locked up in here with you. You're locked up in here with me!
I just tried to cruise the comments section using the beta, and that is where things are the worst. There is no quote parent button, and it made me copy and paste the reply title by hand. There is no link to get a permanent reference to a single comment. Comment text does not show bold or italic. Quoted text is merely italic, but not indented or anything.
The mixture of serifed and sans-serif fonts feels disorganized, and does not seem to serve a clear purpose.
Comments are the heart of Slashdot, and the current beta offering is not complete. It is more of an alpha... functionality is woefully inadequate.
Curated articles are what set Slashdot apart from hive-thought sites like Reddit. Keep the articles unique and on topic, that is why I visit.
If you're listening, there's no evidence of it. You were plainly and clearly told of the flaws in the Beta site back in October and you have completely failed to fix them in the intervening months. It's not like you missed a minor bug or two, or got the color wrong by one hex numeral... it's a complete failure to grasp how badly the new site is broken and how ugly it is or to do anything about it. We gave you months, and you've wasted them.
No, you don't "got" it. Not even close, despite having a thermonuclear weapon detonate in your lap.
And this shows just hopelessly you don't "got" it - we are not your audience, we are a community, we are Slashdot.
I hate change, any change, Slashdot works fine as is, leave it alone. If you force change on me then I might as well just pick another site like that has news+comments and get used to it, such as reddit (which up until now I've only visited a few times). So, when beta is the only option... I think I'll make a reddit account.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Sort out:
Black text, white background, anything else is absurd.
Ditch the boxes round the comments they are seriously ugly and not helpful.
When I ask for the desktop version, I want the desktop version FFS, my phones screen has the same resolution as some laptop screens.
Get rid of the option to choose all insightful, all interesting etc comments - it's pointless because of the crossover between these things and it would lead to some bizarre meaningless threads being displayed. Not useful.
Bring back the user info, friend foe, userid etc, slashdot looks raped without it.
Things worth keeping:
The ability to mod without scrolling to the bottom of the page and hitting the mod button (I open the post in a new page to mod it so as not to lose my place/it's quicker)
The ability to collapse threads.
But that's it, the rest is a seriously bad downgrade.
Things that should have been improved, why weren't they?
The text box I'm typing in right now is tiny - why?
There is 'allowed html' It would be nice to have some buttons to put those tags around some text when you highlight it.
To any damn fool who's answer is well 'why don't you go and re-write the code yourself', I have the question - why didn't you build your own house and car?
Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
Slashdot beta is utterly broken, but there's a fundamental problem that won't be fixed by rolling it back. We need to start afresh with a new site.
Dice holdings clearly bought the wrong website and are wrecking it, so it's time to set it up again elsewhere. We are slashdot.
I think
a) I like the beta, please do it asap
b) It's not there yet but keep working on it, but don't turn it on now.
c) It's an abomination. Do not use it ever.
d) I don't read Slashdot you insensitive clod.
If c) greatly exceeds the sum of a) and b) responses don't do it. All d) votes, for obvious reasons, don't count.
At first I didn't hate it, but then I tried to, and actually did reply to a few comments, and WTF they've broken the discussion system? Also I can't see anyone's userid# damnit, what's the point in having a low six digit userid# if I can't subtly flaunt it? Really... Also hotgrits and natalie portman.
Yes, Coke did, but they realized their mistake and the old
reliable Coke is still available, because Coke is not run by idiots
like Slashdot seems to be.
The old Slashdot design works and is liked by many people.
It's not broken, so don't "fix" it. If fucking up a winning formula
is the only way you can imagine you might leave your mark on the
world, maybe the world doesn't NEED your mark, chum.
.
Slashdot has been on the slow decline for some time now, but this is the end of it. I log in to find this "beta" site. We all know what "Beta" means. It means crap, Welcome to the Windows Vista of Slashdot. I'm out, I'll find other more worthwhile places.
Because of how awful previous betas were, and how gradual and unannounced the improvements have been, the knee-jerk reaction to "oh, we're going to try redirecting you to beta!" is "OH HECK NO YOU DON'T."
The beta is still terrible, but it is substantially less terrible than the versions I looked at last year. During that time, I and many others gave careful feedback but it seemed like there was awfully little improvement over time. It got to the point that a redirect to beta just instinctively causes panic and anger because people have had such terrible experiences with it in the past.
I'm afraid that in the past couple of days some of the complaints and feedback I've given were no longer accurate for today's beta.
I still think the information density and the comment system have a long way to go. I still think the (thankfully slightly rarer now) stock photographs are uninteresting, uninformative, stupid, uninformative, and a total waste of space.
But at least you're not only using a third of my screen's width for content, making it so only ~3 comments can be seen on screen at a time, etc. like previous betas did. That was horrific. Before you redirect anyone to beta, help them know about what's been improved with beta and apologize for past mistakes.
And for pete's sake, give people the option to switch the silly color scheme. Should be simple enough.
People ask you to remove the side bar on the comments section and allow the page to expand to the size of the browser window. Every. Single. Time. This. Comes. Up. What is so contradictory about that? What is so difficult about that? I can do it with 6 css rules. I bet it can be done with less.
Heres your feedback: The site is AWFUL.
The reason I have thus far not taking your survey is it is HOPELESSLY biased in your favor and useless.
Scrap the new site, or don't expect me to be here when it's implemented. Social media is fickle, and this site will be a myspace memory if you continue to ignore the userbase. We can always go tolerate reddit for a while until something else takes it's place. I've been coming here for 10 years, but this may end it for me.
a handful of selfish greedy people are no match for millions of selfish, greedy people -u4ya
The new Slashdot Beta is so horrible its not just destroying Slashdot its destroying Beta.
Remember when a Beta was cool? When you got to try the invite only gmail beta? When you got to beta test the next game in your favorite franchise? All that beta cool, destroyed in one fell swoop.
I don't even want to teach my kids the alphabet now, just because it kinda has Beta in it. Hell, even Alpha is less cool now just because its fucking associated with Beta. Even Omega is a bit less glamorous.
Shit, I'm going to have to switch to some sort of Early Testing, Testing, Final Testing sort of nomenclature for software releases now. Beta is that bad that just releasing other software labeled as a Beta is going to make me cringe.
And Beta Carotene, well, right the fuck out of my diet, health consequences be damned.
Fuck Beta,
-Greg
Boycott as scheduled. The point must be made firmly.
Aside from being forthright communication, this thread is also a PR move designed to fragment a strong movement. It is crucial to not relent. This is only the first step. We must show teeth and continue this demonstration.
Do not be swayed by shiny beads and poison blankets. Fuck Beta.
If it isn't broken...
TFS says:
> okay, we've got it — it's not ready. We have work to do on four big areas:
> feature parity (especially for commenting); the overall UI, especially in terms of information density and headline scanning;
> plain old bugs; and, lastly, the need for a better framework for communicating about the How and the Why of this process.
Let's pretend for a moment that the folks making the decisions aren't so dense that they can't hear what everyone is telling them
Let's pretend they don't want to pull a "new Coke". They DID put up the beta as an option for a long time and actively solicit feedback,
after all, so maybe they are trying to get it right. What, specifically, are the problems that bother YOU? Any idiot on Twitter can squeal
"omg it sucks!", but I think we have some people on Slashdot who are more capable and articulate than that. We can come up with
better, more specific feedback than "omg it sucks!", can't we?
For me, the biggest thing is I want to be able to see the subject lines of comments like I can on the classic site. If I down-modded
comment has "hosts file" in the subject line, I know why it's down-modded and hidden - it's not something anyone wants to read,
and I'm not going to read it. Conversely, a down-modded comment with "MPAA is right about ONE thing" in the subject line is probably
down-modded because it challenges the groupthink of the Slashdot herd. That's something I'll click to read.
OzPeter makes a great point in http://meta-beta.slashdot.org/... /.ers submit the stories, vote for the stories in the firehouse, comment, moderate the comments, and meta-moderate the moderation. We pretty well run the site, leaving Dice to just run the _server_. We are not the "current audience", we are a _community_, not an _audience_. An audience is passive. There are a ten thousand news aggregators trying to get an audience. If Dice wants yet another site chasing the audience, you can sure go build one. Don't throw away the Slashdot community first though. Just go build DiceNews.com and advertise it on Slashdot. You want to leverage the Slashdot brand for a site that's supposed to appeal to a broad audience? Sorry, if you turn Slashdot into yet another a broad audience site the Slashdot brand will immediately have the same value as the Enron brand. That brand value just won't transfer if you mess up the community that is loyal to that brand.
Most importantly, we want you to know that Classic Slashdot isn't going away until we're confident that the new site is ready.
Well, that's a pretty weaselly statement, since you guys were confident enough in your new site to start redirecting a significant portion of your users there.
How about this instead -- "We will not remove Classic Slashdot." Make it an option if you really, truly believe that your beta site is actually better. You can set the new interface as the default, just make it easy to switch to the standard interface. Then everybody goes home satisfied.
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
You're right. Always some post catches my eye, I read most of the comments. And the comments are always better than the post itself (which, by the way, is usually submitted by someone from the community). The discussion at slashdot is (most of the time) high quality. Actually, I don't know any other site with such high quality discussion (yes, it could be better, but if you feel down about the quality here, go check the discussion on youtube).
Slashdot is all about it's contributors. Without you, people, this site would be a empty shithole.
Time to move on guys and gals.
I haven't heard that much managementspeak in years, and rookie managementspeak at that. I especially like the "more accessible and shareable by a wider audience" comment. Let me paraphrase that for you, [We are going to bind our logins with FB, twitter, intrusive ads, and everything else we can get our hands on to make sure no one is anonymous. We have implemented part of this already with googleapis and bootstrapcdn. We will sell that information to the highest bidder. Everything you write will be used against you in the future. This includes any resume you have every posted with us. That way employers get a full picture of the people they are hiring, or at least the picture we want to give them. We are committed to treating everyone like simple minded sheep and keeping them informed of the upcoming reaming. We can't promise every sheep will like it. But rest assured our velcro gloves are there to reassure you of this process.]
Bye bye.
But the summaries need to come back. Just do away with 'read more' links and go back to human generated summary with customary moderation comments, otherwise it does look more modern while keeping functionality.
We want to take our current content and all the stuff that matters to this community and deliver it on a site that still speaks to the interests and habits of our current audience, but that is, at the same time, more accessible and shareable by a wider audience
What makes you think that a site redesign is going to bring more folks to your website? I mean, what the actual hell. People don't become members of an online community because of flashy HTML/javascript magic
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
I'm a long time reader of Slashdot. I've had /. in my bookmarks since I was a 12 year-old nerd in 2000 (suck it grampas!) I didn't want to believe the hysterics of the old guard regarding the beta. It's a redesign, not the end of the world.
Now I'm not so certain. Also, I realize that whether or not the beta is the spawn of a corporate satan is no longer the relevant issue for me. Dice cares so little for the input of the community that I fear, regardless of its actual impact, that the beta will result in significant portions of the community (why the hell else would I be here?) leaving simply out of spite. I can't really blame them.
So now my question is this: Where is everyone going to go? Where can I point my ad views to find genuine discussion surrounding "news for nerds, stuff that matters" when the community finally jumps ship? If this doesn't turn around, what do I replace my Slashdot bookmark with?
Why did you remove the Slashdot Green Title Bars from the comment threads? (the green title bars create an easy to see delineation between the comments and are easy to see even when scrolling fast. (they are also part of that Slashdot Brand I was talking about)
Over the past decade the Slashdot logo, the Slashdot green, the title bars and icons, unique details and config options have become part and parcel of the "Slashdot Brand". It's what makes Slashdot unique. By ignoring this you weaken your brand and your reader's loyalty. You are basically stripping away all that is Slashdot without adding anything useful or new!!!!
He basically said they will still proceed with the changed version that everyone hates. What we wanted was the corporate version of a public execution: The head of Dice to come on here and say "Mr/Ms X who was made the decision to implement Beta is now no longer employed by us. We apologize to our community and will be starting over with a new project leader and asking for comment and input on desired changes before implementing any future site redesigns." Maybe they could present a couple of proposals and have people with mod points vote for the ones they like best?
There does not appear to be a "Slashdot Classic" link in the footer.
I already told you what was wrong with it and how to fix it.
You didn't listen.
Here it is again: http://i.imgur.com/rNPke5p.jpg
I never realised that 95% of the commenting /. world needs to shut the fuck up. What a bunch of trumped-up, patronising, presumptuous children. Go back to your forums and your usenet flamewars, for goodness sake. Feedback is one thing, activism is the next step, but so many of you have flown off the handle and polluted the comments, tags, and god only knows what else.. Give /. feedback the way they asked and just sod off if the end result isn't want you wanted. I won't miss you.
Some of us are here for the /., not your petulant whinnying.
Everything is much easier to read now, especially the comments. Though that's not to say the comments were really worth reading; see the negative comments about the beta for example.
The thing that I find amazing is that despite the feedback somebody at /. still thinks that this change is a good idea. Unless you are prepared to share with us 'why' the change is so important and 'what' we will have once it is complete that we haven't got now, we are unlikely to accept that ANY change is necessary.
But, to reiterate, fix the bugs, keep the text density high, remember that the comments are more important than TFA (which we are not even obliged to read!), and we are NOT AN AUDIENCE.
Other than that, it doesn't need changing until you have convinced us that it is necessary for OUR benefit, not for the benefit of someone who wants to sell me something that I don't want.
Have a look at soylentnews.org for a different view
_THIS_
Without the community, why would anyone bother with slashdot? There are better & faster sites for tech news, but the commenting is linear & low SNR.
The beta is like watching a "turnaround" CEO trying to save a company by firing the "high cost workforce" (experience & knowledgeable talent); posting a few good quarters and then getting dumbstruck when the company starts to tank.
If the community quality drops, slashdot WILL die.
It's not the current site design that's limiting slashdot's appeal to a broader audience. I think slashdot already has the readership of its target audience. Changing the site design is not going to bring new people flocking in, but it is going to drive away the ones that are already here. Seems like a bad plan.
What brought me coming back to slashdot over the years was the community. While interesting articles are posted, it has been the community discussion and involvement that has made slashdot what it is.
While I appreciate your reaching out, it seems that the people now in charge of slashdot now view the "community" as an "audience" and aim to "grow the audience." Slashdot is a business, and I understand a business decision to cast a wider net to increase reach, "audience size" and profit. You may be successful in this goal of increasing audience and profit, gaining more people than you lose. Unfortunately this push to be more like other sites will make slashdot more like other sites, and may lose many of the community who came here to be more than an "audience. "
Beta must be abandoned as a failed experiment. It is awful - not due to bugs, but due to the intention behind the redesign. Your existing 'audience' is what makes slashdot. If you want a larger audience I suggest you create a celebrity gossip website. Awful.
I only lurk for the comments. The comments are slashdot. If all of you leave, please leave a note where you're going - it's dangerous to go alone.
also, I came to spread FUD rumors about upcoming slashdot microtransactions.
It's only a model.
I've seen so many products and sites go in this direction over the years, it makes me sick. Something reaches near perfection and then someone decides to rewrite it in Java or .Net or XML or something, and totally ruins it.
Slashdot doesn't need some redesign. It just needs a few bugs fixed.
Where did they even get the idea that anyone wants any of that stuff on the beta site? Large fonts, huge pictures, HTML 9000 or whatever it is at today. What does Dice think this site is, I Can Has Cheezeburger? Actually, even THAT site went downhill after a bogged down redesign.
A real geek site would work great running on an Amiga using HTML 3. Oh, right, we had that:
http://toastytech.com/guis/ami...
I love shitting up comments with curse words to make this site NSFW in some places. I love people who self-censor with stars too, that just warms my cackles.
Fuck Beta. Fuck Dice
we want you to know that Classic Slashdot isn't going away until we're confident that the new site is ready.
Nobody gives a flying fuck about if it is 5%, 50%, 95% or 100% ready when they kill off the classic interface.
WE WANT THE CLASSIC SLASHDOT TO REMAIN AS AN OPTION!!!
They can go and fuck themselves with their beta thing. 3+ million accounts were opened on the classic interface.
We like it. It's fine. Leave it THE FUCK ALONE!
Some of you have suggested we're not listening; on the contrary, some of us are 'listening' pretty much full-time.
Nobody gives a fuck if any of you are " listening " timothy (emphasis on quotation marks there), as it is obvious that you are NOT HEARING US!
There, in that quote above. Clear as day.
Or you would not talk about Classic Slashdot going away.
So... in conclusion... Fuck Beta!
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
...for all of us who just want the content and no fluff.
The current (legacy) theme is straight to the point with plain text and limited graphics, while the new "beta" is for those who want more visual stimuli.
First, thank you for to Timothy and the rest of Slashdot's management for taking the time to reply. Maintaining communications between the site owner and the community it serves is important to creating trust between the two groups.
Nonetheless, a large part of me is screaming "about damn time", because this uproar could have been headed off twenty four hours ago if you had said exactly what you did with the above statement. That's not to say people would have believed you any more than do do now, but by remaining silent for a whole day you gave the impression that not only do you not care about what we think, but that it was corporate needs (legal, marketing, whatever) that kept you from issuing a statement. Smaller, individually owned websites tend to be quicker and more forthcoming with their responses because they don't have to go through various levels of approval first, and the Slashdot community - many of whom work in companies and are saddled with layers of middle-management pointlessly micromanaging their workflow - have little trust or love for corporate shenanigans. We tend to respect people more who speak bluntly and from their gut.
Still, at long last we did get a response, so I am grateful for that. Even better, you claim to be taking our feedback into consideration. I'm wary as to the truthfulness of this statement, but - for the time being - I'm willing to offer an olive branch.
Nonetheless, I think there is an onus upon Dice to be more forthright with their intentions with the redesign if they hope to regain some of the community's trust. Simple platitudes that you are "listening" are not sufficient. The biggest question we all have is to the overall goal of the redesign, especially since so many of the community feel it sacrifices what they consider the strength and draw of Slashdot: the community and the comments. We all understand that Dice is a business and needs to make money. We comprehend that increasing the audience is one method of achieving this goal. None of us, I think, are opposed to helping Slashdot become a more popular website. A redesign could draw in a new and larger readership. We get that. We just feel that your redesign is aimed solely at attracting new eyeballs while sacrificing your current user base.
Community websites like Slashdot are not like CNet or NYTimes or Apple. Those websites are unidirectional; the information is pumped down to the readership by the owners and the community involvement is minimal. But Slashdot - and other similar sites - are bi-directional; as much (if not more) of the website's value comes from the readership; is it any wonder the readers feel a sense of ownership and pride of "their" website? Is it no wonder that they feel betrayed when one side unilaterally forces their vision onto the community?
So I recommend that one of the web-designers at Slashdot take the time to walk us through the changes, both those we have already seen in beta and those you intend to work on moving forward. Let us know your reasoning for the different bits, how you came to these decisions, what your goals are. Have the designers write it up and - as much as possible - keep legal's and marketing's hands out of it. Be explicit, be detailed, be technical; we are, after all, the sort of audience who appreciates that sort of thing. Talk about your inspirations, and some of the feedback you have gotten. LET US KNOW WHY YOU ARE DOING WHAT YOU ARE DOING.
You also need to take the community's feedback into real consideration. Offer them different examples that they can vote on. Fark.com showed off preliminary Photoshop mock-ups of its redesigns long before the first line of HTML was written to its paying customers; you could try the same thing here. Let the audience pick which one they think is the best and then work from that one. Engage your audience and make them feel they have a voice.
Follow-up with slow changes. One of the biggest problems with beta.slashdot is it is a complete redesign, and un-necessarily so. Don't change everythin
But this doesn't actually concede anything, does it?
Main points in this statement:
1: One in four users are still being redirected to the new beta.
2: The current Slashdot layout is still disappearing, to be replaced by the beta.
3: The beta needs development.
So what's so groundbreaking about this announcement? Where's the concession? I'm supposed to be happy about this, I suppose?
This is the part that bothers me:
We want to take our current content and all the stuff that matters to this community and deliver it on a site that still speaks to the interests and habits of our current audience, but that is, at the same time, more accessible and shareable by a wider audience.
So Dice wants the best of both worlds; the tech oriented, intelligent userbase contributions, and a wide audience to monetise those contributions to? It isn't going to work.
In honor of you posting recognition of today's complaints, I've posted this using the beta. Even if some consider it pro forma at this point, here are some specific complaints:
1) "Oops! You do not appear to have javascript enabled. We're making progress in getting things working without JavaScript." Glad to hear it. No one should be "migrated" so long as javascript is mandatory.
2) White space and wasted space. Enough have made detailed complaints about this, so I'll just register my chagrin. I will say this: the people who come to this site are used to, indeed prefer, a denser presentation of information. This includes the text editor, which is absurdly restrictive on the x-axis.
3) Font size. Perhaps this falls under wasted space, but it's atrocious enough to deserve its own comment.
4) Incomplete summaries. Waste less space and use as much of the old summary as "Classic". (I recognize the drop-down menu allows one to switch between "Standard", "Classic", and "Headlines", but this, again, requires javascript. What is more, Standard adds nothing. Changes shouldn't be made for the sake of changing something. A change should be an improvement.)
5) Absurd margins on the right.
6) Obnoxious or irrelevant photos. We're literate here. Many of us read books that go on for hundreds of pages without a picture. We don't need pictures added like some security blanked.
7) Load more? The old system gave preference to higher modded comments but did not require that you filter for higher comments to see them. Of course when there are a great many comments, a load more button is useful. But such a button should not be obscuring high ranked comments within moments of an article being posted.
8) I just found another as I went to "Preview Comment." Why does the p tag produce what looks like four lines of white space?
9) Above all, all changes should be subjected to this test: Do they get in the way of the conversation? Do they make it harder to scan through the conversation, looking for interesting comments. If so, they are not improvements. They detract from the reason people come to Slashdot.
The formatting matters are some of the most obvious and often discussed. They should also be the easiest to fix.
fuck you slashdot.
why in the fuck do you think you and every other goddamned motherfucking site out there JUST HAS to make themselves look like a FUCKING USELESS PHONE UI? it's fucking retarded.
we're techies, and WE FUCKING LOVE PLAINTEXT.
so yeah
get lost
and
FUCK YOU.
Just use beta.slashdot.org for the url. It took 30 seconds for the comment box to appear and moderation is broken, so good luck
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Ok slashdot...I love y'all and I am always in favor of improving things...
but look: making something "more accessible" to a "wider audience" to "share" absolutely does NOT mean dumbing down the UI, hiding menus, removing sidebars, and reducing content!
thanks so much for what you do, I genuinely love /.
but you *must* understand...****less complexity does not mean more accessible****
people come to /. because it is not dumbed down and over-marketed to 'the average reader'!!!
Thank you Dave Raggett
We use our CPUs and power to mine bitcoins not your worthless javascript
A bright future! Fit for tablets, niced up by large pictures that provide the ever-needed Shiny! so the easily-distracted goldfish don't look away! Gotta keep'em captive!
Except of course that bandwagoneering with the hipsters isn't what the audience here is interested in. Or at least this here reader isn't. Like I skip any submission from medium.com and a bunch of others that prefer form over function. Ever read _Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance_? I'm a classicist, and slashdot management is going the way of the romantic. I don't think they have read that book, but apparently they've read _Crossing the Chasm_. Well, g'bye then. It really is time to bugger off and go read something else. Something with content.
Like *shudder* reddit.
The beta looks much like the mobile version, and that sucks big time.
Here's some tips about that settings gear icon behavior:
1. have a freaking separate radio button that sets: "and higher" or "and lower" or "exact".
These next 2 points are for the mobile version:
2. I don't want to waste all that screen real estate on text that says "Filtered due to preferences". WFT! I have a whole screen of "Filtered due to preferences", "Filtered due to preferences".
3. If you really want me to know that I've filtered out 200 comments then put that at the bottom, I don't want 200 "Filtered due to preferences" interlaced throughout the comments I've filtered for.
"We want to take our current content and all the stuff that matters to this community and deliver it on a site that still speaks to the interests and habits of our current audience, but that is, at the same time, more accessible and shareable by a wider audience."
You think we are that dumb? "Wider Audience????"
Really?
So why not just come out and say you want to turn Slashdot into something other than Slashdot because you need to monetize the investment.
Does telling the truth to your users hurt your sales and marketing training that much? Go ahead... tell us we're fu... ^H^H^H.... going to have to find another web site to replace you. Just be truthful.
How many times have you been screwed and been told "we're doing this for your own good?' Never? You must be a newbie.
It is obvious that you are going to give us an unusable site with a "pretty" Metro-style UI because... well because... you've already been given your marching orders.
Alas. Slashdot.
the beta site that houses Slashdot's future look.
So this is how it is going to be
we want you to know that Classic Slashdot isn't going away until we're confident that the new site is ready
You will have this forced upon you at some point
Some of you have suggested we're not listening; on the contrary, some of us are 'listening' pretty much full-time.
and ignoring any suggestions because we are owned by Dice, and this is how they want it
because we're a community and we want to take everyone with us.
and advertise crap to you
Why? We want to take our current content and all the stuff that matters to this community and deliver it on a site that still speaks to the interests and habits of our current audience, but that is, at the same time, more accessible and shareable by a wider audience.
and advertise crap to you
And we want a platform where we can experiment with different views of both comments and stories.
and sell your information, and advertise crap to you
It's not an either/or. It's going to be both.
So shut up and take it
If we haven't communicated that well enough, consider this post a first step to fixing that.
So Fuck You and thanks for all the Fish
If you have work to do on feature parity...why not just stop forcing people to use BETA for a while.
Its possible that someday the new slashdot might very well be quite workable...but it seems like the beta is still an alpha.
I don't know what everyone is complaining about. Most of those guys are retards that don't like change. I don't have a problem with beta.
in the eye.
also, I wanted to post as AC w/o logging out. Doesn't appear to be possible.
Back to classic. Somethings aren't right to change -- this beta is like New Coke.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
Via custom hosts file usage, as only I can -> http://ask.slashdot.org/commen...
* :)
After all, it's MY connection, & I'll let thru what I see fit, how I like to see it...
(As I have THAT level of "manual transmission" level of control here that way for this purpose & others of great value in added speed, security, reliablity, + anonymity via hosts).
APK
P.S.=> To quote the 'Dread Dormammu' (in regards to this beta redirection being effete & ineffectual vs. my technique blowing theirs clean away?) - "Bah! A mere conjuror's cone: I dabbled in such PUNY TRICKS when I was but a child..."
... apk
And then when they started redirecting users to the theoretically READY TO GO beta site this week, it was still a train wreck and change very little of the high-level concerns people had, at least that anyone could tell. I mean screwing around with fonts is easy, low-impact stuff, which completely misses the point. So now we're at the juncture where we just swipe the game board off the table and stomp off, because jesus christ. What the fuck.
Fuck Beta. Fuck Dice
There's nothing wrong with slashdot classic other than it doesn't appeal to the "casual" tech demographic. Slashdot is not a website where you can go and get the most reliable news, or even up to date. It's a place where people of different professions weigh in their opinion on why they agree or disagree with the snipplet and on occasion, TFA. Slashdot is about US, not YOU or the casual tech demographic. The new site will be a cancer that spreads us apart and they say they listen but in reality they will still release a new slashdot that isn't tailored for us.
I'm not saying we're the superior race over noobs or what have you but we all know what happens to these kinds of sites that take one step forward like this, and it ends up with an entirely new community with a whole different direction. SO WHAT I PROPOSE is that we collaborate to develop a new slashdot from the good old times. The sourcecode is already available and as a web developer I can volunteer and help make it happen. If you want to help out, reply and we can make it happen. Dice is going to throw us all to the curb anyways so we might as well find a way to keep the community.
What do you guys think? Mod up if you think this is a good idea.
I really do appreciate that you and Soulskill did at least break the silence that up until now has been deafening, but really, the nature of your reply does not fill me with confidence, and with the replies I am reading by other users, it looks as if that feeling is well represented, and that I am not alone.
I just want you to know that I am listening to you as well.
With that in mind, I have some difficult questions for you.
You say that you have been reading and contemplating our feedback. It is clear that you have been at least observing the fallout that has occured over the past few days here in the comments sections of some very promising and nice looking stories, as the quality of the community provided content dropped to levels that would make even /b/ look intelligent. Your colleague Soulskill even made some well received commentary recently, and we've eagerly awaited this public level of ice-breaking on the discussion. For this I, and clearly many others are greatful.
However, since you claim to have been receiving valuable feedback about the beta experiment since at least 5 months ago, why is it that the nature of the beta has not radically changed to accommodate that feedback? Why did you allow this situation to come to a head like this, if you have been observing and seriously considering the feedback provided?
I see in your announcement that you and slashmedia believe it is time for a change in the site's layout. What factors does slashmedia use to make these determinations, and why do you believe that a radical change instead of a refinement and polish of the current system is in order?
Can you please elaborate on some of the design choices that slashmedia has taken in the beta, ans why they felt these were good decisions, and why they have apparently completely ignored 5 months of user feedback about the beta?
I understand that nobody really profits from continuing the public protest, or from relentless, mindless trolling. That's why we need to have a real, and valuable discussion here about this, and why a show of good will about our feedback actually being considered, and how it is considered, in detail, is clearly needed for our community to resolve its differences with slashmedia's choices in performing its services as the community's host.
I am sure it would mean a great deal to all of us if the dialog did not end here. We, as a community need answers to these questions if we are going to stay and continue to contribute to what makes slashdot great.
I hate to say it, but ignoring us and leaving these kinds of questions unanswered is likely to be seen as a worse slap in the face than hearing only silence was. Please continue this dialog.
a cursory look feels like more nice graphics, less text and actual info. i don't like it.
Slashdot lacks Unicode support due to past vandalism.
I very much like the old design. It "scans" very easily. (By "scans", I mean by the human eye and mind, not by an electronic device.)
One thing that needs to be fixed is your use of non-standard HTML and CSS. Your home page has 140 HTML errors. Your CSS has 28 errors.
Also, the yellow box that led me to this page (http://meta.slashdot.org/story/14/02/06/2329227/slashdot-tries-something-new-audience-responds) and is repeated to the top of this page says:
WE HEAR YOU We did tell you we wanted feedback. Hereâ€(TM)s our response.
Note the strange characters that appear in place of a simple apostrophe in "Here's".
Before you embark on a new design, make sure you are not propagating your errors.
Since Slashdot is abandoning the Classic design and code, can Dice release the final version of Slashcode so it is free/libre? It would be entirely in the spirit of the "audience" here.
Don't get rid of the classic Slashdot look and feel.
If you do, you'll be alienating most of your user base and we'll depart in droves - a la Digg a few years ago.
All browsers' default homepage should read: Don't Panic...
In order to be "both", the choice to use "classic" has to remain. Like, stay. Like, not go away.
I don't get all this uproar from you guys. I've visited Slashdot for quite a few years now and I really like the new look.
Why? We want to take our current content and all the stuff that matters to this community and deliver it on a site that still speaks to the interests and habits of our current audience, but that is, at the same time, more accessible and shareable by a wider audience. We want to give our current audience the space where they are comfortable. And we want a platform where we can experiment with different views of both comments and stories
A few points.
- What exactly do you mean by 'make content more sharaeble'? I can already link to individual comments; there's even a 'share' link below each comment. I've never used it, but surely that would be the place to start if your goal is to make content more shareable.
- If your goal was to make content more shareable, then why, at this late stage in the game, is it still impossible to link to single comments in Beta?
- Nothing is stopping you from experimenting with the current layout
Incremental change is how the current slashdot was built. Taco, Hemos, et al slowly added pieces and tweaks together, according to the needs of the day, to create what we now know as the moderation system and the classic comment layout. Over fifteen years of design thought have gone into the current system.
You can accomplish all the goals you have laid out by continuing in the same, incremental-improvement spirit. Throwing out all of that work and starting fresh is unnecessary, wasteful, and pretty much bound to fail.
The English word fart is one of the oldest words in the English vocabulary.
But we really do take to heart the comments you've made about the look and functionality of the beta site that houses Slashdot's future look.
No you don't. You get plenty of feedback on the beta site in the initial announcement of it coming online, and for the most part the comments were ignored. Ever since the beta came online, there's been people mocking it.
Most importantly, we want you to know that Classic Slashdot isn't going away until we're confident that the new site is ready. And — okay, we've got it — it's not ready.
Saying it's not ready is the understatement of the year so far. The comment section is on fire so far, and this is actually the first time that I've seen people spend their modpoints to promote offtopic discussion of this nature on this scale.
We want to take our current content and all the stuff that matters to this community and deliver it on a site that still speaks to the interests and habits of our current audience, but that is, at the same time, more accessible and shareable by a wider audience.
What? Is this the website equivalent of "We want the Call of Duty audience" ? This statement right here, goes to show how much you're out of touch with your core audience: News for NERDS... Slashdot will never be reddit, or some fancy ITBiz magazine. Reddit already exists and won't be going anywhere, and the ITBiz audience doesn't give a shit about this place since it's just another site that scrapes headlines from other places.
The writing has been on the wall for a while now, ever since the advent of SlashBIcurious and the other nonsense you've been trying to push. Your "core audience" has been telling you this for quite a while now, but you've adamantly refused to listen, stuck your fingers in your ears and gone ahead as if nothing was wrong. And now you're surprised the comments section is ablaze?
We want to give our current audience the space where they are comfortable. And we want a platform where we can experiment with different views of both comments and stories.
Experimenting with an established platform can come at a high cost. I don't mind the changes to the layout, and I don't give a damn that you want to polish the look, but in all fairness you broke the damn commenting system. It's the only thing that keeps this place worth visiting. Beta just makes we want to look for another home.
If we haven't communicated that well enough, consider this post a first step to fixing that.
Oh fuck off... You know when people start talking about communication? It's the excuse the network engineer makes to the IT Coordinator/Manager when his network melted while users have been making tickets about problems for weeks. It's the pseudo-managers way of saying "I'm not aware of any issues" despite his mailbox being a festering pit of complaints and misery.
You communicated well enough. You communicated when the beta came online, and you get plenty of feedback which you chose to ignore. Now you've got 25% of users getting an iteration of your shitty beta, and boy oh boy is your comment section a cesspool of complaints right now. And the message you send now is obvious: "It's coming, wether you like it or not. Suck it.". Yeah, the art of communicating is not lost on you guys at all.
And in the meantime, we're not sorry to have received a flood of feedback, most of it specific, constructive and substantive.
That's like the time I heard someone from management say "In hindsight, I feel that despite the negative outcome I've made the correct choice. We'll just have to adapt and move on".
Well, guess what... We'll adapt, and move on. Enjoy turning slashdot into ITBizz2.0 or whatever pipe dream you guys at Dice have.
IF you don't bring back the old Slashdot I'm deleting my account!!! ...after I make one...
"User base responds", "Commenters respond" would also have been good options. Audience is a passive crowd, which might be what Dice wants to monetize, but they better make sure the "product" (the active part of the user base) doesn't jump off the new shelves. So please, change the title to show that you understand. Otherwise, this spontaneous protest will not stop, because everybody will remain pissed off.
TL;DR: Apology not accepted because of your choice of words.
Saying "we hear you" covers that whole hating what we're doing thing, right? Seems to work for politicians.
Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
The history to be learned from this case is that of Star Wars Galaxies. At one point, SOE insisted on making a massive gameplay change called the "New Game Experience", which completely changed the way the game worked. After the beta NDA was lifted, it was revealed that almost everyone who tried it were practically begging SOE not to implement it. The majority of players, upon learning of it, voiced the same concerns. SOE responded saying the changes were necessary.
After it launched, they lost the majority of their players practically overnight.
Learn from that, Dice, and don't let the same thing happen to you.
Seriously. Look at Slashdot BI. It's an absolute joke.
So there we have it. We are all dupes and we do not deserve a complete paragraph unless we click through and wait and wait and wait, and then, click back and wait and wait and wait... Hooray! I really felt that I was being shown far too much respect before. But going forward, I will just sheepishly read incoherent content, and pore over the site looking for "shocking content," "one weird tricks," and best of all, "nip slips!"
And while I am whining, what was so wrong with the "From the it's-all-about-the-benjamins dept." motif?
And, while you're at it, please be sure to collect all the meta-data you can and be sure to target ads to my specific tastes. Because, I ALWAYS click on those...
No, you are not "listening".
First of all we are not your "audience". Make no mistake: you are just a platform for us, the community. You serve us, not the other way around.
And if we get sick of your platform, we just move somewhere else and you are out of business, as simple as that. The Slashdot site itself is just a means for us to carry with our conversations. We can easily go open up a subreddit or something if you keep pissing us off.
So it would be wise for you MBA honchos to get over your cargo cult mentality, and think this through before keep insisting on fucking up this platform by "appealing to a broader audience". We are what keeps you in business: a non-mainstream community interested in non-mainstream stuff. A more "mainstream" Slashdot is just an idiotic oxymoron. Sure you will attract a few users if you fuck up the site with trendy 3.0 crap, but you will lose us in a second. You just can't have both.
I really do. I checked out the beta back in October. I felt, like now, that the front page and headers and stuff were alright, even quite nice looking, but that the comments section had been totally ruined. I said so in an email to the feedback address. I got a personal reply from Timothy agreeing that yes, comments were the most important part of the site, and that he understood the complaint about all the whitespace.
Looking at it now, at least it's no longer fixed width, but there are still huge amounts of pointless padding and margins everywhere, and comments are still confined to a column of about 55% of the window width. Compared with the existing design, every comment takes up about 150% of the current vertical space whilst simultaneously providing about 10% of the current information.
I quite like the new navigation, and the article list... don't really need such a massive font, but I could get used to it. But it still seems like nobody's really listening regarding the comments. They keep saying that they understand and agree, but still seem to be missing just how incredibly seriously they should be taking this. There's nothing special about the news on Slashdot. It's usually old, with a poor summary. What's special is the community of people who comment here. Without them, there is no reason to come here. Until the comments are fixed, the new design never stands the slightest chance of being accepted, no matter what they do to it.
There's obviously no way the redesign is going to be cancelled. It's going to happen, so let's concentrate on fixing it. Here's what you need to do: drop everything else for now, it's not anywhere near as important. Polish all the shiny bits later. Work on the comments, right now, for as long as it takes, until the community approves.
Someone needs to make sure the editors at least read this response. Nail on the head.
Fuck Beta. Fuck Dice
I have been reading Slashdot for more years than I can remember, even though I've never bothered to make an account. As has been said over and over and over again, its the comments that I come here to read, not the stories themselves. I can get articles and links to other articles on plenty of other sites, but this is the only place I can come to read good discussions that are intellectually stimulating, informative, and funny, all rolled into one place. The comments section on beta is completely broken, and the whole design is just plain ugly. Being forced to beta means I cant read what keeps me coming here to read.
If the option to continue to use /. classic remains for registered users, I'll make an account just for that, but if beta is the only option period, I, like many others, will have no reason to visit the site anymore.
Especially since it is utterly unreadable on a phone. As in, a one-word wide column of words. What the fuck?
I think maybe you lack perspective and haven't been following this very closely. Also your high UID opinion is less than worthless, lurk moar.
Fuck Beta. Fuck Dice
Thanks for taking the time for this, Soulskill (et al).
I really missed the ability to set comment thresholds in the GET of an article (removed in the last major UI upgrade). I have a lot of friends that do not frequent slashdot, and when I link them an article that I want them to read the better comments of, it needs to be at a threshold they'll tolerate (typically, 5/4 for full/abbrev if there are enough comments).
I have other suggestions as well, but getting comments right is by far #1. I can fix the rest with Greasemonkey.
Use my userscript to add story images to Slashdot. There's no going back.
Major balls, slashdot. Major. Balls.
This is the second go around with the beta bullshit, and both times there has been THOUSANDS of posts telling you exactly whats wrong, are you fucking retarded?
WHITESPACE
COMMENT SYSTEM
12 YEAR OLD BLOG LAYOUT
figure it out yet you dipshits?
The serif font used in the body of comments is eyestrain city. At least in Firefox 27, it renders so small I can't read it without increasing the size 2 or 3 increments. The gray font also should be made darker; again, too hard to read.
Nobody here cares about that crap. Nobody ever will - it's the reason why there are zero comments on *every* story, and your apache logs are so thin.
It still fulfill my needs of getting the news on the front page. I don't care for anything else. As long as /. doesn't pull a youtube and force you to click something in a menu to see ALL the news instead of just a couple "highly rated"/"recommended" ones, I'm fine with it.
The BETA is crap. If you are going to force me to use it, Ill stop reading slashdot. plain and simple.
I'm very glad that you're moving to the new format. I'm sure I'll enjoy it just as much as other sites that have done similar moves. After all, now that I don't spend any time visiting those sites, I'm spending far less time on the internet, the new hobbies I've developed are much more interesting -- and I've even lost a little weight!
So goodbye, and thanks for all the naked and petrified Portmans.
To borrow from Mel Brooks:
Count De Monet: "I have come on the most urgent of business. The userbase is revolting!"
King Dice: "You said it; they stink on ice."
I have my settings set for the "old" classic /. because I couldn't get the "current classic" to show me 0 or -1 modded comments on my phone (the slider was broken for touch screens).
As such, I didn't know what all the fuss was about until a few minutes ago when I visited the site with another browser. Wow. First off: The header images have white text with an extremely light green (almost white) background. Who can read that?
Then the comments only extend to 30% of the window horizontally.
And, because some idiot decided to use javascript to scroll the screen, there is NO SCROLLBAR. I have to use the keyboard or mousewheel to navigate. I like the scrollbar, not just for precision movement, but also as an indicator of how many more comments I have left to read on a page.
The new Beta looks and functions poorly.
It would be interesting to compare the user stats (stay length, number signup, number return) for the beta vs the classic.
Seems like a perfect way to figure out when a new design is ready.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
slashdot is my favorite sites; I am in it many times during the day, every day
I just wanted to say thanks for the hard work you all do on the site, despite the sometimes less-than-gracious feedback you get.
keep up the good work. am looking forward to seeing what you come up with for the new UI (I already sent in my comments)
" We want to take our current content and all the stuff that matters to this community and deliver it on a site that still speaks to the interests and habits of our current audience, but that is, at the same time, more accessible and shareable by a wider audience. "
Have you considered that those two points might be in conflict? That the precise reason for Slashdot's success might be that it speaks to the interests and habits of a fairly specific and narrow audience?
You dial 1-510-4PERENS. Email is probably better, though. bruce@perens.com .
Bruce Perens.
You are experimenting with something that nobody wants changed except somebody in your management who is determined. You paid somebody for a new design and dag gummit, you are going to use it.
That's the problem. Just kill it. You don't have to understand why we like it this way...just know that we like it this way. That's all that should matter.
"Don't teach a man to fish, feed yourself. He's a grown man. Fishing's not that hard." - Ron Swanson
"WE HEAR YOU We did tell you we wanted feedback. HereÃâ(TM)s our response."
/. doesn't even do unicode for the editors.
Sum it up: changes are coming, a polite fuck you, we are culminating a new audience by sending 25% of unauthed users whi may have never heard of slashdot before, another polite fuck you, classic slashdot is still going away, we the corporate assholes are slashdot and not the community. The whole summary amounts to a colossal polite "fuck you guys."
Im assuming there's a young punk-ass web developer who made a righteous bullshitty pitch to the suits at Dice to make a new slashdot. It sold them, but he didn't add it would likely destroy the entrenched user base. But that isn't his problem. His problem is trying to get these suits to come out of the dark slimey wet putrid hole they all live in to throw cash at him for a shiny new website.
Screw this. I'm gonna go make my own news for nerds aggregator. With black jack. And hookers! In fact, forget the news aggregator...
Chewbacon
The Bible is like Wikipedia: written by a bunch of people and verifiable by questionable sources.
I grew up reading text on paper. That's how I can intake and process information most efficiently. And that's why the web sites that I read regularly, and in which I participate, present information in much the same way as a printed page.
Aside from these basic and to my mind blindingly obvious design concerns, I'll add a couple of things. I haven't spent more than five minutes with the beta because it was so immediately not what I need or want, but I have been reading the comments here.
Finally, I'll remind people that there was a time when Byte was THE magazine for anyone involved in computers. It became Byte the web site, but carried over a lot of the same content and contributors.
Then, in the misguided quest for the almighty dollar the owners managed to kill it off entirely. It was a great loss.
Dice would be very foolish if they think that they can't manage to do the same to Slashdot.
Three Squirrels
What's amazing to me is that there's soooooo much animosity towards the changes in the new website
Just about as much animosity as you'd have toward an idea to hack your leg off because marketroids at some faraway corporation think they get a few dollars off of your misery.
It may not be the prettiest thing on the block but can somebody point out some functional deficiencies?
It does not work without JavaScript. Most people here know well why JS should be disabled.
It's not like this is the Healthcare.gov site is it?
It's getting there, though, and pretty fast.
I saw the beta for the first time earlier today. I might be the only one, but I kinda sorta like it (on the desktop). I like the new look - Classic is slow and ugly. But I still prefer Classic, and that's mainly because of the missing features of the beta. I haven't seen it on mobile yet, and it could be horrible, so I can't comment on that. But on the desktop it's not all bad.
Give me feature parity (specifically with regard to commenting and comment filtering), and the beta gets a thumbs up from me.
Funny you should mention that... I use NoScript on several machines, and couldn't even view the comments on THIS page without enabling JS from another domain. It kept offering "classic" mode and then disabling it when I came back...
If that's what it takes to view comments, I'll be drifting away from Slashdot. I *don't* read comments through Disqus and other services on other sites, but have instead always come to Slashdot to take the pulse of the geek world, as it were.
Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! We have a winner folks!
If I could I'd mod that post up to +1000. /.
Probably the most insightful comment I've ever seen by an AC in 17 years of visiting
> They do not understand that we are their contributors, their community, not their audience. Their articles are day-late dollar-short shit.
So basically *our* articles are day-late dollar-short shit. SHAME ON US!
On an unrelated matter: beta has no "quote" button but has a "share" button. Brave new world.
lucm, indeed.
Being (or tying to be) trendy will never set you apart from the crowd.
Those who are "trendy" are by definition conformers.
Conformers are destined only to be followers, never leaders.
My opinion of the beta is the same as it was on October 1st when I originally commented on it. It looks like some salesman turned marketing puke vomited up the last few trade magazine articles he read which consisted mostly of white space, gratuitous stock photos marginally related to the topic and embedded advertizements.
(plank, whatever)
is slashdot able to run two interfaces on one backend?
if not - can that be fixed?
if yes, as i said, be smarter than the board, carry both, wait and see.
Here's the real problem...Dice bought a niche website catering to a non-mainstream audience and is frustrated that ad revenue is not commensurate with a mainstream website, so now they want to maximize revenue by pushing the site to a wider audience. In other words, dumb it down, white space and images everywhere, probably sensational headlines...a copy of every other website out there. Here's what Dice needs to realize about Slashdot... We are your content. You are otherwise nothing more than a link page. A cheap version of Google News, and on to delay at that. We come here to make and (more importantly) read comments from the audience we have NOW. A wider audience will just mean it will turn into the CNN comments section tragedy of the commons and your content (read, us) will wander off to greener pastures. Just leave the option to use classic permanently, or make beta nearly indistinguishable from classic from a functional and feature standpoint, or best yet, do nothing. Accept that Slashdot is not going to be a cash cow for you. Maybe, if you listen to your customers and are very careful, you can pay the bills with it. But alienate your customers and that will be the end of Slashdot, slowly, but surely. Just accept that the product you purchased is for a specialized audience and stop trying it widen that audience. Instead of trying to maximize ad revenue by bringing more users that will change the community, try to maximize your profits in less obnoxious methods. Sell Slashdot apparel more openly, maybe develop a line of printed matter useful to the maker scene, consider adding a dedicated reviews section in current formatting. If you want an example of a site I think has managed to squeeze all the life out of their original classic page design while staying current would be Photo.net.
Slashdot should do an age poll
We have the code... A new slashdot clone could be created but would lose the audience. A few important problems with a replacement site:
1) All current content locked up and owned by dice. The new site could point to the old articles and discussions allowing them to be viewed in archived form. Dice could shut this down legally or play cat and mouse at obfuscating the links.
2) user iDs would be lost. Here's a solution. New site starts ID numbers at 2,000,000 or whatever. Older names and IDs are reserved and can only be re-registered thus: Login with prior slashdot ID, use a random number or string to verify. Enter this code in the user journal, new site verifies matching code and opens up old username on new site. This is a problem for those who've lost their passwords but they couldn't recover on classic slashdot anyways.
3) Who runs the site and selects articles? If enough old timers get together and agree on management the new site (let's call it "backdot" for now) enough momentum could be built to drive over a large part of the community. This could splinter however. It needs enough prominent user support to work.
It's possible to move much of the user base somewhere else but would require a lot of cooperation. Herding cats comes to mind.
Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
congratulations.
Your new beta managed for the first time every to make your UI so bad I have to scroll to see the whole poll.
Is the point to see just how far people will scroll before they give up?
Did you take UI lessons from Microsoft in how to waste screen real estate?
The technical prowess of the crowd that contributes to this site is far above most other sites. The site looks like it was made with Wordpress, this is /. it should be better than that. Granted the old site was too, but, at least the story previews were more compact so you could more easily scan the articles. Also, it's hard to tell the subject line from the comment area, they should be more easily distinguished.
I only give a fuck if you LISTEN to us, not just hear us.
The only way to demonstrate that you're listening to us is to change the fucking beta. If you don't do that,
then the Boycott is on for Feb 10 - Feb 17.
Go ahead and call our bluff..... See what it would be like to have no or reduced new articles and no or reduced web traffic for an entire week.
For once in your lives, don't act like Microsoft and try to force feed a new UI, when clearly, users don't want it.
For me, the beta blows because:
1) Too much white space and not enough information density. Who the fuck wants to scroll down 50 pages to read one article, the classic (sic) UI does just fine
2) Stop taking away functionality.
JFC, one would think that you guys were ex-Microsoft employees. Wait, is that Ballmer I just heard in the background on your conference call?
Forcing people to enable Javascript to read the comments, is the directly opposite of "more accessible" in my opinion. But if thats the road you're taking to "improve" the site, I have more ideas:
1. Make it mandatory to have a Facebook login for accessing Slashdot.
2. If visitor is NOT using a smart phone or tablet, then show the message: "Oops! You appear to use a normal PC " and then block access.
I do not like the redesign, it's too flat, and the text is too squashed leaving you with whitespace wasteland.
If you go ahead I'm afraid I won't be visiting anymore. I give flat, whitespace wasteland websites a wide berth.
-- Fuck Beta
There is indeed wayyyy too much whitespace in the comments section. There's also going to be a shedload of wasted space on the right hand side because there are usually way more comments than advertisements (unless you guys are going to keep loading adverts on the RHS as people scroll down or something?)
There's probably a bit much whitespace overall actually but that can make the site more "accessible"
And yeah, your mobile site needs a lot of work, and beta doesn't run on my phone or tablet properly at all - that should be a pretty important thing to get right.
Oh, no room for classic Slasdhot, huh? Fine! I'll go build my own Slashdot knockoff, with blackjack, and hookers. In fact, forget the Slashdot knock and the blackjack. Ahh, screw the whole thing!
Account abandoned. I can't fucking spell for shit and Slashdot doesn't even allow time-limited edits of posts. Plus you'
Not that it matters.
I quite like the new look. While I get the lack of features in the beta is annoying (which will be addressed, I'm sure), I think some folks here just need to read "Who Moved My Cheese".
While I do like the added imagery of the new beta, I don't like home much vertical real estate it takes. The classic slashdot fits a whole lotta information in one vertical screen; the new beta design has so much vertical whitespace that I need to scroll down constantly, about twice as much as classic.
Dense is good (... sometimes). I vote for dense (... sometimes).
You schmucks have been hearing from me and countless others for months now and you have yet to change anything in the beta. All you are doing is stress testing your new baby before launch.
But like me, your users, the people who actually generate Slashdot's content, have stated loudly and clearly that we do not like any aspect of the redesign and see no need nor have any desire for the site to be changed in the first place. For years, we've begged, pleaded and demanded that you and the other "editors" edit, at least run spellcheck on the summaries for fuck sake. That's the only change we've ever wanted. Instead you foist this undesired steaming-turd of a beta upon us and then pay this pandering lip service when the kettle really starts to boil.
This is Slashdot's Digg moment! You've been watching Reddit eat away at your ad revenue and very mistakenly decided that if you put a suitably crappy web 4.0 skin on this mess that it will turn into a money tree again. That's not going to happen! Look at Reddit for fuck sake, that thing looks like shit when compared to any version of Slashdot, including the beta. But, it's not appearances that are drawing the users.
You are on the brink! Retract this beta or go fizzle into insignificance EXACTLY like Digg.
I know that my opinion matters not, but figured that I would at least let my feelings on the matter be known.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
Trashing some mod points to post this, but here's a side-by-side comparison.
Important differences: Classic shows me the text of 7 comments. Beta shows me the text of 2.
Classic uses about 85% of the horizontal width of the screen for comments. Beta uses about 50% or less.
Those are probably the most relevant differences for me. We all come here for the comments, since the stories are by definition published elsewhere first. If a redesign makes it harder to read comments, that's a problem.
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
Also, if I'm logged in a setting for "don't show me the mobile site any more ever. I don't do mobile sites because all my mobile devices can handle full desktop sites" would be nice. Seriously guys my phone is 1080p quad core with 2GB of RAM. I don't need a downscale site just because Chrome happens to be running on a phone and being redirected to it is annoying. I could have no useful input on what the "mobile" version should look like as I don't have any devices that need that any more. Save that for people still on the Blackberry Curve.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
I mainly log in, do JEs, and respond to replies. Make that navigation effortless. Bring in some serious UI heads and do it right.
Also, lift the idiotic 400 friend restriction. I have 26k+ followers on Twitter. Why are you boring me with arbitrary restrictions? I don't mind a modest subscription fee; maybe you make a perk out of that.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
If I leave a story page open for a while, I expect the filters to update like a good little AJAXY wob 2.0 thingy that this appears to be. Yet in the time it took to write this post, I saw no 'funny' comments until I opened it in a new tab to check.
That said, I like the new filtering options, except that I can't filter for troll and flamebait comments. I mean, how else am I going to keep up with the latest GNAA spam?
I don't like not seeing UIDs -- how am I supposed to be bigoted against new users?
Also, I can only read the first page of comments for this story in lynx. Add some GET param that allows you to get the different filters/pages by default and have the links to see that stuff degrade gracefully. I also don't like not being able to middle-click a thread title and have the thread open in a new tab.
Wow, the style for p tags is wack. Way too much space between them; I'm having to be a dweeb and use double <br>s here.
Seriously though, I think it's a good sign that so many users are getting worked up about this. Slashdot's biggest danger isn't a boycott, it's being so boring that people wouldn't even care enough to boycott. Lord knows there have been some LONG stretches in the last few years where I couldn't care less about the topic discussed in this here tarted up IRC channel. Been picking up a bit lately though; otherwise I would have just lurked on by today.
The original slashdot interface was way crappier than this beta, folks. We used it because the stories were worth commenting on -- so I understand why the admins appear less than concerned about this whole 'fuck beta' business. If they can keep the post quality up, the quality of the software used for commenting is not really a deal-breaker.
Slashdot is going all Windows 8 on us.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
The joy of Slashdot to me has always been the discussions, comments, 'insightfuls' and wry humour of 'low member ID', 'young'uns' and AC's like me. BETA takes that experience away. If BETA is the way forward then that which makes the essence of this site so wonderful is diminished. At best the site will be a (somewhat) interesting article aggregator. A worst, and most possibly, a site that I used to frequent but no-longer find the incentive to visit.
This is the fourth major redesign around here (so version 5 is in beta). I liked version 3... a lot. We all got used to version 4 ("Classic", I guess it is now). It's not the end of the world here.
http://meta.slashdot.org/story...
Anyone remember when they added ads? Do you really think this is a bigger change than that?
http://slashdot.org/story/02/0...
This is what a beta test is for. You're never going to convince me that this interface is perfect. Go ahead and try to improve it.
Slashdot is having a Jump The Shark moment.
There is little need to change in order to scale up, provided the old simple text-based format is being used. Remember, it was always other sites being Slashdotted, never Slashdot itself.
Maybe the world needs a brand new competitor to Slashdot to be introduced, competing with modern Slashdot by being more focused on text, rather than gadgetry -- well, by being an earlier Slashdot, to be frank.
Groklaw was an excellent site with a text-oriented format. Content ruled, and there was no moderation, but it Seriously Did Not Suck.
Whirlpool.net.au is a brilliant tech site, and I suspect I'll be spending more time over there.
Slashdot? Not so much, any more.
Goodbye.
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
It reminds me of GIZMODO only not as good. Which isn't good. It's worse.
Stop trying to fix it!
There is nothing about the new site that I like better. It's so much harder to read.
a corporate greed, yeah that selfish greed; the type of greed that make humans bleed
The basic layout had a heavier font, which allowed for easier reading. This new font looks like chicken scratchings. I have to put on magnifiers to read it. Will my brain become accustomed to it over time??
Dice can't see it, since must be new here (he he)...
The most loyal long time most avid readers of Slashdot, are not trolling the site, in protest of the failed beta. Never thought I would see the day ...
Where is GNAA, Natalie Portman grits, and frist prost when you need them!
Let me explain ...
I have been a regular visitor to Slashdot for around 15 years. For that, I get the checkbox to disable ads, though I browse with Javascript disabled so my browser does not slow down.
I come here for the discussions, and often read comments at +5, changing that only if I find a discussion interesting and warrants reading at a lower level.
The new beta uses JQuery for the comment threshold selector, and changes that on the fly. This means all the comments are loaded, but not visible, and processing any page with considerable number of comments will slow down MY computer! If I have a few tabs open to read later, my computer will be unusable.
What is worse it that they require you to click on the slider on every article to change the threshold! This is just insane!
If they insist that I enable Javascript to browse the site at the threshold I want, then they will lose me as a long time. I imagine that others long timers will hate the site too.
Dice have to remember that this site has two unmatched features, interlocked: a moderation system that is good at cutting down the trolling, spamming, and noise, and a comment section that is frequented by many people who are passionate about technology and other nerdy stuff.
If they wanted to intentionally ruin the site and drive people away, they would not have done any worse than what they are doing now.
If they manage to aggravate a lot of their users, the comment section will no longer be attractive to the audience. People are discussing alternatives already. Wisen up and kill the beta NOW!
And no, it is not about look and feel only. Lipstick on a pig does not make it pretty.
See the discussion here about CSS vs Javascript.
I wrote the above in a feedback form that I filled a while ago, and I am emailing this comment to their feedback@slashdot.org. Please send them feedback too.
2bits.com, Inc: Drupal, WordPress, and LAMP performance tuning.
Why we need a new site? We're nerds, we're okay with shit looking like this forever, because it is about content and not presentation.
Then piss off already you fat fuck.
It's the damn auto-refresh on the main page. It was bad enough when it used AJAX to load new content - any new story would push down the one I was reading the summary of, causing me to lose my place. But for a while now it's been reloading the whole page (http://slashdot.org/?source=autorefresh), which is even worse. I've found no way to disable this "feature".
1) Please stop the never ending slide towards making slashdot into a "modern" graphics heavy website. If I want gizmodo or nbc.com I'll go there on my own.
2) I don't come here for wizbang buzzword features. I come here to READ about them.
3) My preference would be to even scrap the current implementation and go back 4-5 years when the site was much faster and more usable.
4) On the mobile side... you just need to start over. I find it very frustrating to use and have honestly almost removed it from my bookmarks.
Some of us actually choose to pay for it. It isn't talked about much, but it is possible to use Slashdot as a subscription service.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
If you're really listening, then you'll say:
"We get it. You don't like Beta. So, we're going to commit to allowing you to keep classic if that's the site you are loyal to."
You've been working on Beta for a long time. We've been aware of that. We're not responding to trying something new. We're responding to this bit from the message you retracted:
> "The new site is a work in progress so Classic Slashdot will be available from the footer for several more months."
We're responding to the implication that the functional site we love will be fully replaced with the awful beta; no takesies back. This very slim time frame of several months makes it clear that in your eyes, the new "slashdot" is nearly complete. The problem is, the real reason Beta sucks is because it's a different paradigm all together. It's not something you can fix by listening to feedback and tweaking over the next few months. It's a concept that needs to be scrapped.
I think I speak for many when I say the issue goes beyond ugliness. It's a frame of mind. It's what this site represents that you're changing. We are nerds. You really need to understand nerds better if we are your intended audience anymore. We like this site because it's functional and doesn't get in the way of OUR discussion. You're turning the site into buzzfeed. Save that crap for Slashdot BI.
We're all free to ignore the gibbering angry rages which are out of proportion to the injury caused by excessive line spacing, bloated text boxes, trendy Metro-esque lead article presentation, and a dozen other changes, none of which I like either.
I'll still throw my lot in with the mob and say that if I can't comfortably read the site including comments on any device, with or without Javascript enabled, then it may be thrown off my multiple-visits-daily list (5-10x). I'm a longtime and loyal reader who values what Slashdot is and what it isn't. It's management's decision whether they want the existing crowd, the bread-and-butter, the daily eyeballs of a generation, or if they want to spiff the place up and go after a new market. I hope they try to make it palatable for both.
BTW, Dice, even those of us who rarely post hate being called an "audience." These folks, even the rabble, are my crowd.
I can't post using LYNX in either site, the new one is inaccesspoolable, the old one won't display the capshit verification.
In firefox I like to enlarge fonts for old eyes so that I can see them. This is hilarious on the BETA. things blur and bleed together around like all new web things which are made for idiots who are not looking for information, conversation or intelligent ideas.
Has anyone said FUCK BETA yet?
Hi,
So, it is tempting to resurrect Technocrat.net now that Slashdot stinks worse than the last two times I shut down technocrat.net .
If you remember, we didn't get very many readers. We didn't get them because not enough people submitted usable articles.
As it happens, we don't just need a better Slashdot. We need a replacement for Groklaw. And I personally would be happier reading something with the absolute minimum of Javascript except perhaps in the submission editor. Maybe I'm old-fashioned.
I know that I can do it technically, and I have the server, and Cloudflare should be able to help me handle the load. But if it is like last time, and my wife observes that I'm talking to the same dozen guys all of the time, it's not going to work.
What do you think?
Bruce Perens.
Biggest problem with the new layout: Menu scrolling broken. The menu stays there consuming real estate as you scroll down every page.
We all know where the "Home" key is on the keyboard and can easily get back to the menu should we need it. Having it always present on the screen is not worth the real estate it consumes. If you make it scroll with the rest of the page (as anything on the page should) then I could probably get used to the new layout.
The right column on the main page is rather too big, but it does go away automatically if you make the window smaller (nice!) so not a big issue. I might have moved the threshold up so that it goes away sooner. At the smallest window width, literally only *half* of the window width is actually used for content, the rest is borders and the right column. That's not enough -- we're here for the content. A smaller right column size for borderline cases would be nice.
I'm Leif and I design (among other things) user interfaces for a living.
Did you get the idiots from Ars Technica to do this? It's ugly, inefficient, and hard to read.
If it aint broke, dont fix it..As for accessability, its on the Werld Wide Web, how much more accessability do you need? /. stopped being "geeky" how much readership/following has fallen off? People say they are listening, but still refuse to do anything..
I see this as a grab for new revenue streams/opportunity at the expense of the constituents which make up the vast Eco-system..
Since
In this article the phrase " on the contrary, some of us are 'listening' pretty much full-time", but whom is doing the listening? janitor, facilities personel, receptionist, the companies trash/sanitation engineers?
or how about this
" We want to take our current content and all the stuff that matters to this community and deliver it on a site that still speaks to the interests and habits of our current audience."
but your audience has spoken very loud and pronounced, but to whom??? "those whom are listening"
As we can see by the previews of the Beta, there has been alot of attention, the audience, detail, and accessibility (sarcasm)
moving beyond that, I am unclear as to what is really fueling the "make-over". I am wondering what the AD revenue potential is on the new site versus the old?
personally I think, based on the decline of "good" useful content @ this place, the "family/ do no evil" warnm and fuzzy feeling that used to pour our of the seams, has been poisoned, killed, and spun-off.
It is because of this I believe the individuals whom maintain this are looking for money. Taco Bolted cause he saw the writing on the wall, others do too.
It's sad to say that I am actually contemplating avoiding ./ all together.
It sucks how money can kill the "human-feeling" in almost anything like a pesticide. even more crappy /. is the example of how this paradigm will play out and ultimately how it will consume it self in a vapor of destruction..
I for one do not look forward to this, but it is a good study from a social affecting perspective..
How money can kill even the most good intention..
Funny thing is: mobile slashdot is waaaaay better than beta. Fills whole screen, comment threshold works, comments shown in their entirety with no problem and I get to see hundreds of comments before I get to the "read more" button.
There's so much whitespace I was starting to see penguins.
Speaking purely from a look perspective, there are a mess of problems.
I've done a fair amount with pure CSS (Userstyle for Stylish here), including fixing the acres-of-whitespace width issue (Though I could do more if the source was in a better order), and bringing back the nicely contrasting bars to comments. I'm sure there is more that could also be done, and I'm seriously considering playing with GreaseMonkey to sort out some of the more egregious Javascript problems, but that's going to remain something on the back burner for now. This is obviously a beta site, and a work-in-progress, and I'm only doing this as a personal amusement in my spare time. I'll gladly answer any questions on this, and I'm certainly more than willing to lend a hand to make one of my favourite sites better.
There is much potential here. Unfortunately, a cannonball at the top of the Eiffel Tower also has much potential. Only time will tell how this is going to work out. But for the moment, it seems, SlashDot Beta is not ready for prime time. Heck, at this stage I'd barely call it a beta.
Dice Business Plan
1. Legitimate users create legitimate content
2. Dice "Editors" like Nick Kolakowski (Nerval's Lobster) and Dawn Kawamoto mix in paid content passed off as user-generated
3. Dice Marketing (Slashdot Media) rebrands site as social media for techies, engineers and high-tech execs
4. Stupid advertisers think users commenting on their paid content legitimizes their product/service
5. Dice profits
Problems
Legitimate users can be stupid, but not that stupid
Marketing people have turned Slashdot into Slashparallelogram (check out the new logo)
FWIW. This place is dusty and needs a new coat of paint.
--J(K) DOS is like Unix in exactly the same way that a pinto is like an aircraft carrier.
With all the "fuck beta" posts leading all the other comment sections, it was interesting to hear from various folks who provided constructive feedback in this post. From the "fuck beta" posts, I thought the problem was Microsoft shilling, user data collection, invasion of privacy, and a host of other matters that would antagonize the Slashdot base.
It seems that the actual issues are more practical:
- Comment section doesn't have most of the features
- Javascript is a problem for some people
It seems like both of these just require more coding time. For my two cents, the site has a little too much white space. I realize clean looks with lots of white space is the going design, but I think there's not the right balance currently and it makes the site difficult to take in. Slightly smaller font, slightly less line spacing. Everywhere. Make it tighter.
The stories all seem normal enough: black holes, at least one Apple story a day, freedom of communication, etc etc. Users are correct in saying Slashdot is not a news site, it's a debate site. The most important content on the site are the comments. I feel that's just a matter of time.
I also feel like no one is going to read my 6 page post which would only be half a page without the idea that someone is supposed to write with a red pen between above each line of my words. And after previewing, it looks like I have 10 line breaks between paragraphs...hopefully submission fixes that.
Not sure if it's possible, but If you could have all the new fluffy stuff *wrap around* the old comment system, that would probably satisfy the majority. But the comments just look weird now. The Slashdot Comment system had an old school feel that people liked. Heck, do you remember the outcry with the first "redesign" just putting some rounded corners?
So yeah, wrap all the new stuff around the old comment system and that could be a compromise.
Then again I have no idea if that's possible or how this beta is engineered.
Another huge gripe I have that requires almost no engineering at all is the comment text is no longer on a white background. It's almost but not quite eye straining. I know some marketing/design person probably picked their favorite hex code without any idea about readability but reading is important on this site, and the comments need to have black text on a white background.
Yes, beta is really surprisingly horrible, and i really hope classic will remain an option.
<conspiracy>i bet the GNAA infiltrated dice, and made them create beta! (what have they been up to, anyhow?</conspiracy>
That being said, may I recommend some kind of diplomatic hybrid solution?
- make slashdot's CSS not suck, so that it is easily skin-able. Let US come up with funky themes in CSS form - and we can bet you that 'classic' will be one of the first ones to appear
- make slashdot more reddit-esque in the sense that everything should be API-accessible. That way, if you want to add some oh-so-great feature, you can just add an API call, an someone will mangle the CSS to reflect that. Hopefully, many new slashdot reader apps will pop up (including a decent mobile one! something like 'reddit is fun', but for slashdot!)
- you want to make more money? add that reddit 'give gold' option. They really seem to be making money of that over there, and it goes along nicely with the whole "karma" economy that slashdot basically started. I mean: you've got us all working for you, indirectly, because we all come here for the comments, which are made by us. So give us some additional way of cheering at each other for doing a good job, and make some money off of it!
- unicode! Hell - i make my living writing perl, and basic unicode is really not THAT hard. Geeez.
- if you want to make the whole place more modern and dynamic, you can always add bells & whistles like (unobstrusive) auto-updates and all that jazz. Hell, some CSS themes could even incorporate those obnoxious, but "modern" jQuery animations!
I honestly don't see what the uproar is about. It works the same for me as the old site and it's easier on the eyes and doesn't look like something I designed in 10th grade. What is so broken about the comment system? I keep seeing that in here, but nobody explains why. It "just sucks" is all anyone is saying.
Thank God that horrible, horrible, dumbed-down, candy-cane "beta" is gone. Please don't EVER try anything which looks remotely like that piece of crap again. Better yet, use the beta to learn: learn that whoever signed off on that beta as an improvement of user experience should be fired or downgraded to janitor. It was really, really, really painful to deal with that. Low density, obnoxious fonts, pictures in place of condensed subject matter, etc.
This is my honest opinion. I wouldn't waste my time voicing an opinion if I didn't care about this site.
Just about as much animosity as you'd have toward an idea to hack your leg off because marketroids at some faraway corporation think they get a few dollars off of your misery.
So you're saying that self mutilation is better than a website? Also remember, Slashdot isn't charging for this forum and the only reason I hang around is that there are articles once in awhile that aren't mainstream news. So I have no beef with somebody making a buck who's providing a free service.
It does not work without JavaScript. Most people here know well why JS should be disabled.
When the other 90% of websites out there turn off JS then I guess that argument will hold up but just because it still uses it doesn't mean that it's horrible. Would everybody have preferred them to write it using asp.net?? Yes JavaScript allows malicious sites to do bad things, I'm not seeing anything bad coming from the Beta site.
It's getting there, though, and pretty fast.
Well I haven't seen any security warnings or people beating down the door claiming that there PII was stolen from Slashdot, but I'll keep my eyes open.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
leave it the way it is
My post with distributed ideas: http://hardware.slashdot.org/c...
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
Too much whitespace, and stop borking with the comment system. Fix what people have been complaining about before you make things "look pretty"
Let me translate little Tim Tim's post. "Bla bla bla fuck you, we're doing this anyway." The Slashcott is still coming.
Even the updates to /. Classic (D1/D2) have stripped away the detailed options we used to have to format /. to our personal preferences.
For example: I can no longer find the options for adjusting post length or the # of posts per page.
The only thing I can still adjust is the size of the comment box. What's up with that?
Am I nuts? Check it out yourself.
https://slashdot.org/prefs.pl
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
You will pry Classic from my cold dark pixels, after which I will never return.
Some days it's just not worth
chewing through my restraints.
Slashdot is the comment system. In many ways, it's a forum in disguise, with each topic just an excuse to converse on that topic. Practically speaking, the only concrete difference between slashdot and an actual forum is that rank-and-file members can't start new topics.
So if you make the comment system suck, you have essentially put a stake through the heart of slashdot. It doesn't matter how pretty you think the front page is, or needs to be -- we come here to read the comments, not the fucking stories.
People who say "sheeple" have about as much sophistication as an AOL user, and in fact are probably actually AOL users.
This is how marketing people destroy a company. "We need more pazazz"
No, we don't.
"It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." -- Prof. Dumbledore
I say anyone with 7 digits or more and wants beta now needs to be flogged. Seriously though, I don't want video embedded period. I don't want RSS touched. (sorry don't use the front page) We all this is driven because Dice thinks that this site needs more ads. NO, it doesn't. The problem is Dice doesn't understand /.
Welcome to Dice Holdings, Inc., a leading provider of specialized websites for select professional communities. Our mission is to help our customers source and hire the most qualified professionals in select and highly skilled occupations, and to help those professionals find the best job opportunities in their respective fields and further their careers.
The bold and italics are the problem. Slashdot doesn't hire. Slashdot is news commentary. When you require news to constantly make a profit you pollute it.
Anyway, I say also can you at least return title bar back to a solid green and the words white. I can barely read the moderator notes.
The only thing missing are Live Tiles
I too have just created an account. I never had a need before. While I enjoy the discussions here, I never really feel that I am going to be a positive contributor. I have been coming here since I was in high school many years ago. I am with the "fuck beta" crowd and I don't understand the need to change. The new site is a complete waste of time and resources. I will stop coming and find another discussion/debate website if this one goes down the tube. Now I probably won't comment for a very long time now, I just thought this conversation needed more of the lurker crowd to weigh in.
I think there are is a better way to make this. Just my opinion. Thanks. Well no more things to say and i dont know what the min limit of characters.
The news is not good anymore. I (used to)come to Slashdot because it was one of the few places they cut out the fucking bullshit that is considered 'news' these days. You tools showed up and shotgun-sharted puke content with gimmicky images and catchlines...
We don't want to be preached to like fucking Gizmodo or TechCrunch readers. We want to read something new and interesting with sufficient details to understand the story beyond the title. Then, we want to form our own opinions and have intelligent & humorous conversations afterwards in the forums.
The new management seems to think their 'audience' is the cast of fucking Big Bang Theory. I fucking hate that show. It seems to me these new overlords seem to think that Slashdot is filled with Apple-worshipping Steve Jobs wannabes. Nope. You gotta drop the fucking cliche image you have of intelligent people, and start showing some interest in the details of things. Quality over quantity is where you need to take it. Also focus on free open source software, programming tricks.
What ever happened to 'Stuff that matters?' - Fuck this story: http://slashdot.org/topic/cloud/watch-bill-gates-get-wiped-out-in-chess/
Slashdot TV? --shudder--
I really hadn't paid much attention to the beta until now, but its becoming clear to me that I'm pretty much done here. Have fun swirling the drain on your way down.
I'd love to see the age breakdown for Slashdot. I'm 34. Definitely older than the mean age of the reddit crowd. But not quite as old as some.
The new design has a slightly less attractive font, flatter, maybe a little more whitespace, slightly larger social media sharing icons. I don't get the freak out. I've been using Slashdot since 1998 (see my fancy 4-digit user id) and have seen it go through a few redesigns since then. This is nothing new. It's just Slashdot catching up to the rest of the web for what's fashionable (flat design is in right now).
Calm down, everyone.
My god... slashdotted. I didn't know sites could still do that!
You can post your "new" slashdot when you pry the old one from my cold, dead, hands.
(actually, it's not that bad, I'll get over it.)
or that I were an idiot, but it seems to me the first (small) input box, which actually has the placeholder text in it, is the comment box.
However, as the text overflows, one has a natural tendency to break off, mid-sentence, and continue in the bigger (blank) box.
As another commenter has pointed out, why force the short line at all, what is its purpose?
Oh, Lordy: Separating paragraphs with double Carriage Return while editing this comment seems to have resulted in some unseemly large vertical gaps between paragraphs when the comment is displayed (see above!).
I nuked my account (in reality, you can't, so I wrote a GBCW note, and haven't bothered to sign back in since).
I did this about a year ago, when the flood of CNN Commentards hit the site.
They will love this new site.
Who needs content when you have page views?
All I want is the ability to have the OMG Ponies theme permanently.
But really, the only reason to change the look of slashdot is to make it less obvious when you're reading it at work. Which you can switch back to classic when you get home.
agreed
I see a lot of complaints here, but not a lot of specifics. Here are a few items that could use improvement:
1. The Comment Threshold doesn't stick. I don't want to read all the 0 and -1 comments. I can switch it to what I want, but I have to re-set it each time I select a new story.
2. The "Load More" button should go away. I want to be able to scan quickly through the comments, without having to click to load more when there are lots of them. That's what broadband is for!
3. The "Parent" link is gone from the bottom of each comment. When my threshold is set to, say, 2, I might still want to read the parent of a comment that catches my eye.
4. Too much white space.
5. Too much WHITE.
6. The Moderate link isn't as easy to use, too spread apart.
7. The comments don't appear below the survey results, even though it says there are comments about the survey.
8. When posting, pressing the Enter key twice to double-line-space between paragraphs...quadruple-spaces instead of just double.
So far I've only seen the new face when I go out of my way to see it. It doesn't suck like so many say, but it's much worse than the classic version. Not getting the butthurt today.... Prefer what I see today, but won't take my ball and go home if the new page takes over.
site?
I'm running firefox with addblock plus and noscript, I had all scripts enabled on the site, and for some reason noscript was finding something suspicious and I had to enable some objects that were blocked ...
but still no comments, only an error message?
Is it that you don't want commenters who use addblock? Is it that you don't want commenters who use noscript?
I suspect if that's the case then you're going to lose your techie audience who isn't going to trash their copy of firefox just for you.
This is why there is backlash. /. isn't an audience. /. is a community and it is all about the comments. Perhaps alt/. will work out.
If it isn't broke, don't fix it. HELLO... If it isn't broke don't fix it ! ... It isn't broke so just stop fucking with it !
You go with beta and eventually end classic, and I leave Slashdot.
If I want news from a poorly designed news website, I'll go to something like al.com. It's one of many poorly designed news sites. I KNOW where I'm at - I don't need a banner at the top of the page telling me that. And it would be nice if all the comments weren't crowded over on the left side of the page leaving nothing but unused white space on the right. Can't anybody at Slashdot get it right?!?
I could go on for a while, but I'd be wasting my time. Y'all are a lot like a city council wanting input from the public when you've already made up your mind. No thanks. I can get that from politicians - I don't need it here.
I've tried the beta. I've even tried to love the beta. I made it work for a while. I clicked the buttons, did the scrolling. And then I noticed I didn't want to visit Slashdot as often. And when I did want to visit, it wasn't for the white space-rich beta, it was to have my screen filled edge to edge with content. And comments. I've stopped using the beta, but I've been anxious ever since about the inevitability of it. I don't post often, but I try clicking all the ads I can muster. Because I like you Slashdot. And I want to keep on liking you. - Your loyal ad-clicker.
9. Let me edit my post after I've submitted it...please!
I like slashdot and I don't want to leave. But if beta goes through, I will move to technocrat.net
When the other 90% of websites out there turn off JS then I guess that argument will hold up
At least 90% of the Web sites that I visit do not require JS, and are perfectly usable without it. The few that insist on JS are never revisited. There are many Web sites out there, and so little time.
Would everybody have preferred them to write it using asp.net?
They are free to internally use whatever they want, as long as they send standard HTML to the browser. I do not want to permit random Web sites to run random scripts on my computer. It may be in a sandbox, but even the permitted actions may be undesirable. A small piece of JS code can run DDoS, for example, without you knowing it.
I'm not seeing anything bad coming from the Beta site.
Malicious code is often distributed through ad servers.
Well I haven't seen any security warnings or people beating down the door claiming that there PII was stolen from Slashdot, but I'll keep my eyes open.
That's a good plan. Besides, you have other things to lose than just the PII. It's a good thing that JS sandbox cannot be breached, ever, and that the code of all browsers is going through mathematical proof of correctness before release. It also helps that Firefox's code is secret, and nobody can look for bugs in it.
You don't have to lock the front door of your house. Most likely your neighbors won't be entering. However most of us still lock our doors - just because it's a good idea. I want my computer locked. Most of the JS out there is trying to sell me things and to sell me to others. JS rarely has a value to me. HTML alone is functional enough. I can understand that if you are building a complex piece of software in browser (like Gmail or Google Docs) then you need JS. But most web sites are not that advanced; nor should they be, because it requires a lot of trust. I do not trust any Web site simply because there is no reason for me to do so. With nothing to gain and something to lose, the ratio of those two numbers gets very simple to calculate.
10. When I reply to a post, show my reply in place, under the comment I replied to. Currently in beta, my reply doesn't show up until I re-load the whole page.
In my experience, any change (even positive change) garners a lot of aggressive resistance. Frankly, I'm no power slashdot user (frankly, the things that people are bitching about I hadn't really noticed), but I've been around for years, so I'm no noob (I'm just too lazy to log in at work).
In my opinion having briefly played in the beta before coming across this page of rants is that it looks ok, and functions much in the way of classic. Yes, I'm biased towards the old, comfortable, familiar site, but I really feel that with proper precautions (like this post seems to suggest you're trying to make), a redesign can be successful.
People that are spewing nothing but bile and adding nothing constructive ... please, just stop. "I hate beta" and "fuck beta" are going to do nothing to appease your concerns. At least add "fuck beta because [specific, reasonable issues]".
I don't understand why change something it is working well. You may change the looks but not the essence.
Surely we don't need to be so extreme in our expression.
I think we can do all the damage we need to with a simple statement:
"It looks like Windows 8.1 as a web site."
Futurist Traditionalism
nt
Black holes are where the Matrix raised SIGFPE
Just listen to your product.
Is it possible that the new site is meant to work on both mobile devices and PCs? This would explain why the new interface appears "dumbed down", and why less information is displayed. If in fact, it's intended to be primarily used with devices that have less precise GUI manipulation and fewer resources, this may explain some of what we're seeing.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
I read /. for the articles.
Anyone know where to find the option to show ads again?
They've figured out that once /. dies, their bit coin investments are going to go to shit.
Actually I'm sure your mom is a very nice lady but jesus christ that's the understatement of the year.
But a new _look_ is just that. It doesn't fix any problems and just introduces new ones.
Also: your mom wears poorly fitted shoes.
Black holes are where the Matrix raised SIGFPE
One other thing, I will never care how many non logged in users you send to beta. Send 100%, I dont give a fuck. But dont ever redirect me when I'm logged in until I click something that says "I really, really do indeed want to switch from the classic interface" Thanks for making a thread for this.
I've always thought I waste way too much time on this site and that it would be great if
I could just remember not to reflexively visit when I'm bored. It's good to finally have a
forcing function.
Good luck competing with facebook assholes.
You, sir, are the best part of Slashdot. You warm the cockles of my heart.
Not sure why every site seems intent on designing for tablets. Only a small percentage of web access is by tablets. Even smart phones have a larger access. I just feel this ideal of making fonts and these clumsy large cubes of information just makes a person have to scroll more.
Maybe its fine for a tablet? I have to give a thumbs down to the re design.
So, the new solution is liked by a vanishingly small minority and tolerated by an equally small minority, and hated by just about everyone else.
And so, of course it will be adopted as is.
I hear tell that Usenet is still up, although it's mostly a collection of sad, empty structures now. Perhaps we should give it another try. One advantage was that you could choose your news reader, and have the information presented to you in the fashion you wished.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
... it's uglier than sin, but i guess at my age change becomes more difficult to accept.
> "We've had only a few major redesigns since 1997; we think it's time for another."
Clearly, the great majority of your users do *not* think it's time for another redesign.
This makes me wonder if perhaps you don't have enough to do?
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
"It's the damn auto-refresh on the main page. It was bad enough when it used AJAX to load new content - any new story would push down the one I was reading the summary of, causing me to lose my place. But for a while now it's been reloading the whole page (http://slashdot.org/?source=autorefresh), which is even worse. I've found no way to disable this "feature"."
Refreshblocker.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
Timothy et al, please just stop and look at what you're doing. The beta is awful. The beta is awful because it seriously fucks up the one feature that has made Slashdot a site worth using since its inception: the user contributions.
The stories themselves are rarely why I bother to check Slashdot, I've always been more interested in the discussion. The discussion on Slashdot has been more interesting than the stories for several reasons. One major reason is the discussions would almost always add information about a story that wasn't linked to by the story itself or the editors. A Slashdot post would bring up a topic and then allow a bunch of nerds with an interest in that subject to chime in and share what they knew. Many times the people being written about in the Slashdot stories were Slashdot users themselves and could give first hand information.
Besides the contributions themselves the moderation system is actually pretty damned good. Positive discussion more often than not gets highly promoted. Because of the way mod points work there's little incentive to do anything but promote interesting commentary or demote outright trolling. Because of this system it's pretty easy to find worthwhile discussion no matter the topic.
It's because of these things that Slashdot's value comes almost entirely from its user contributions rather than news aggregation. In 1997 news aggregation like Slashdot was new and interesting. Today every site does it. What every site does not have is an intelligent and interested user base that will add value to the stories themselves.
The user comments section of almost every large website is a cesspool. Not only do they not have meaningful moderation but there's no community interested in promoting discussion. The design of the sites themselves also discourage long form commentary and encourage useless drive-by commentary.
The beta is it seems to be promoting Slashdot's weaknesses and hiding or abandoning its strengths. Promote user commentary and support the users in commenting on and moderating stories. Fix the character encoding problems and support Markdown for markup. Give the comments a lot of room with readable fonts and don't add whitespace just to add whitespace. Lose the fucking JavaScript popups and animations, I should be able to park my cursor anywhere on the screen and not have to worry about some attention grabbing animation happening.
In short remember that Slashdot users are not an audience, they are a community of contributors. Without the users there is no Slashdot.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
Bruce, thanks for all the magic you work.
If you're willing to let Technocrat take over the "News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters." mission, it would take off quite nicely. That would be a change from the prior mission, but if you'll do that, I'm willing to submit, edit, and post articles.
1. I've been 75% okay with the topic-mix even in the new "bad period". My big peeve is about source validity; 75% of what Nick Kolakowski posts is indeed business news. I just get grumpy with him calling it "Nerval's Lobster" hoping newbies will think it's an unbiased story, rather than "Slashdot Senior Editor Nick Kolakowski reports..."
2. Tone. Something has definitely gotten darker holistically since the "Linux on Desktop" days of 2006. I'm riding out WinXP, maybe moving to Win7 and later maybe even Win9 if they in fact fix it with that new CEO at Microsoft. But I've kinda given up on Linux. Awesome philosophy, really hard in the details.
3. How do you avoid mediocrity? Echoing a user elsewhere, Slashdot purposely refused to allow a bulk download of user contributions. I once thought of making a blog out of my comments, but got bogged down in a manual scrape. So if you re-invent wheels, a comment-download would be much appreciated!
After all, in 2004 I had no idea that faceless Dice.com would own Slashdot in 2014!
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
The older condensed layout was best. I'm talking about pre-2007. The right combination of color, curves, and corners.
All the silly, pointless whitespace and text enlargement was met with derision in 2006 as well!
Looks like they hid the comment threshold menu behind the cog to the right of the Funny tab.
I've been included in that 25% a few times now. But I had absolutely NO idea what had happened. At first, I thought it was a permanent change, then for quite a few days it was normal, then BAM, it was weird again, then normal again. I had not clue something was being "tested." I think better communication needed to be made to the consumer telling us it was a test and not to panic. The new look really doesn't do it for me. I'm a "headline" kind of person, having a whole bunch of photos doesn't honestly help and just make it more difficult because I have to scroll a lot more.
I realize things move on and I don't disagree with some changes. I'll wait for the final product to pass judgement.
Step 1. Run this script as `sh lynx.sh http://slashdot.org/` : http://pastebin.ca/2631924
Step 2. Open lynx.html in your browser
Step 3. ???
Step 4. Profit!
I didn't like Slashdot beta when I tried it. But geez, the crybaby wailing has gotta stop. Slashdot needs to be open to the next new 7 digit users. We need 7 digit users. I don't know whether the beta is the way to get it, but the crybaby syndrome didn't fix Netflix.
Gently reply
And I wasn't at the first round-table :-)
- The Kessel run is for nerf herders. I can circumnavigate the entire Central Finite Curve in a lot less than 12 parse
From the article:
-"...Why? We want to take our current content and all the stuff that matters to this community and deliver it on a site that still speaks to the interests and habits of our current audience, but that is, at the same time, more accessible and shareable by a wider audience."-
So, for an audience you don't know but want, you redesign a site which you know works for an audience you already have.
Getting Greedy?
There's a reason I deleted my link to a certain mainstream news site 2 days ago that begins with MS... /. But both of you are committing redesigns toward high-bandwidth/low density pages just as the user base is moving toward mobile device as primary platform. Oh, and by the way, the user pays for bandwidth on that platform. Do you see the problem? When all providers move to high-bandwidth content, the amount of IRL information transmission drops. And we all get dumber. And poorer.
I would greatly prefer not to do the same with
I like /. because the information density per page is very high, and the pages are easily processed and rapidly navigable.
Don't starve my brain, ok?
BTW, you're a main source of news for me. Thanks!
Animosity towards change is natural and to be expected of an old fashioned place like Slashdot, especially considering how long it has been around. In the past there had been a couple of pretty terrible changes to the comments section that left a bad taste in the mouths of regulars, and precedents like that undoubtedly come to mind when a redesign comes about.
I'm... going to stick with the classic layout as long as I'm able to out of familiarity as well, but I'd be willing to give a redesign a fair chance if it retained all the traditional elements and didn't get too fancy with the scripts.
You're holding it [beta] wrong. -or- They're testing out their new Obamacare web designers that the govt. just shit canned?
We have always been at war with your beta.
Hi!
I'd personally give it until after BETA is sorted out. If Dice somehow miraculously sorts out the commenting problem, Slashdot stands a chance as sticking around.
If they don't, then you'll definitely see an exodus.
There is, of course, the possibility that the users would migrate around to other sites that pop up in the interim (such as altslash) which would be the risk/trade off you'd make by waiting. It's difficult to assess how long you'd be able to wait before needing to actually get the site running, but I'd hazard the 'right after we hear a response from Dice about this topic' as the breaking point.
At any rate, I know I'd love to see a site like that around.
"Our goal each year should be to increase the number of goals we set for ourselves!"
Exactly. The statement "because we're a community and we want to take everyone with us" grossly misses the point. Sit down, knock it off, and serve the community. Slashdot is a community engaged around content. Save the cornea-assaulting web design to sites whose users think it's cool. Keep it up and there won't be anyone to "take with" you.
Change for changes sake. A waste of time and resources. But then maybe you need to put your "stamp" on it so you can pad your resume?
Dear poster, as you might have noticed: the readers are already "keeping it coming". Perhaps the readers haven't thoroughly communicated it enough: "Fuck Beta".
Dear fellow Slashdot commenter, as you might have noticed, we have now Slashdotted ourselves with the "Fuck Beta" mandate taking over the entire moderation system. This has become obvious when "Fuck Beta" receives a resounding +5 Insightful score from the neighbors dog with a UID of yesterday.
As you might have not noticed, the response above was succinct and polite. I'm quite certain (along with the rest of the fucking planet) that the Slashdot moderators, systems administrators, network engineers, financial controller, hell even the damn janitor at this point get it.
They heard us. Commenting on the very thread that was trying to diffuse the #FuckBeta movement was rather pointless.
The dead horse has been beaten. Enough already. No one has been forced to stay on Beta. And if people can't figure out how to click the "Classic" link at the bottom of the page, then perhaps the IQ threshold is set correctly.
Go back to Classic. If you don't like doing that, then leave. But enough of the Fuck Beta chant ruining the entire damn site already. We've been heard. They're listening.
Now perhaps we can focus on the other issue that has crept up over the years here instead...the fuck is the point of a beautiful UI if the quality of the content sucks.
Having gone through all comments ranked 3 and above, and a random sampling of those at score 2, there wasn't one that definitely supported the beta. At best there were a bare handful of lukewarm "wait and see" and "it's not that big a deal," which is not support, merely acceptance.
So close to 99% of comments actively dislike or outright hate it.
There's a cynical adage in politics, which is roughly this: if all parties who normally disagree on everything, suddenly and overwhelmingly unite very passionately on a particular topic, then it's a very, very bad thing. No the analogy doesn't quite hold, but I hope the point is clear.
I tried the beta. It sucks, for all the reasons others have mentioned, but particularly the broken comment thread/thresholds and enormous waste of space. You already drove my visits down 50% when you released the horrible mobile interface (with "filtered due to preferences" often taking up more space than comments themselves, wtf?), take away the current/classic and I'm done with this site. The "disable advertising" option has been unchecked for a long while now, but as of today that box is ticked in protest.
I'll be honest here too. I actually could have probably lived with Beta as it is now. But it would have taken a whole lot of work with user styles.
1. That person who decided lines should be doublespaced? Their head, on a pike, to serve as a warning to others who think websites should look like a 3rd grader's book report.
Hm, I actually hadn't noticed that as a problem. But it should be easy to fix in Stylish CSS.
2. Get collapsed/abbreviated/full comments working again so the MyCleanPC troll doesn't take up 100000 screenfuls of realestate: http://beta.slashdot.org/story...
I was working on this when the good news came down that Beta is delayed. It turns out that when displaying only, say, level 2 and higher comments, all the comments are there - just hidden. Furthermore, if I forced displaying of all comment headers:
article.com-hide header[style="display: none;"] { display:inline !important; }
...the bodies were hidden, but clicking the header would show the body. The main problems being that the formatting was all messed up and the little arrow on the left was backwards. But these things could be fixed in time.
3. Do something to stop wasting the right side of the comments. Flow the comments around the sidebar. Pack the sidebar stuff up higher. I don't know, how the heck do comments fit below the sidebar now (I even have mod points and the modpoint sidebar), but can't with the gigantic picture and doublespaced text in the summary?
On the current Slashdot, there's a moderate-sized chunk of space on the left lost. On the Beta, there's a somewhat larger chunk lost on the right...and on the right of the comments...and on the borders on both sides of the page. I'd say the two best one-liners in my user style were to fix the borders:
.container { width: 96% !important; }
and to fix the post padding - particularly on the right side:
.comment-article.com-show { padding: 15px 5px 10px 15px !important; }
Could the beta be better? Absolutely. But it's not the end of the world from my perspective.
(T>t && O(n)--) == sqrt(666)
eww. seriously, I've been here since the beginning of it all too. I left digg, I'll leave this place. I'll make my own slashdot with new for nerds and stuff that matters.
If I try to view slashdot on my iPad (non Air) it switches me to the mobile version and takes 30 seconds to render. What are you thinking? Slashdot is a message board for nerds and geeks. We submit news, you green light it, and then we comment (all the while generating ad revenue). So why on earth would you decide to screw up the web version? Let's review some history that possibly you can learn from......
The CEO of Coke decided that #1 selling cola in the world needed an update and launched NEW COKE. I am still not sure if they recovered the market share.
Northern Reflections a clothing mall store for older women (mostly selling fancy sweatshirts) decided they would switch to trendy teen clothes. They ended up closing all their US stores. since the alienated their existing base without attracting new customers.
Ford motor company discontinued the top selling car in America (The Ford Taurus) and replaced it with a Ford 500. People came in wanting a new Taurus, Ford said check out this Ford 500, the customers left and bought a Subaru. Ford got smart and renamed the 500 to the Taurus.
It is best to learn from the mistakes of others, since you will not live long enough to make them all yourself.
Answer the following question, "What are we changing and why are we changing it?" and if you don't have a good answer STOP before you destroy your business unless of course you are shorting the stock, hate your management, and are planning to bring the place down in flaming ruins.
You can't push a product that no one wants.
Another long time lurker/non-account holder here (been lurking since 1998/1999). I have to say I'm pleased to see the push back against Beta/Dice.
I have to agree that this is a bad idea and one that indicates that the decision makers truly do not understand what /. is to some in it's userbase. I think the desire to make slashdot "more accessible and shareable by a wider audience" really highlights this disconnect. I see /. as an outlet for the disenfranchised geek seeking a place that is not caught up in the latest trends or desire to monetize people's information through technology (yes I'm delusional) -- absent a resurgence of usenet I think those spaces are going become more fragmented and less meaningful. Rightly, or *wrongly*, I sort of view slashdot as one of the last holdovers (if you squint and use your imagination) from the days when Internet was transitioning from something technical to something more commercial. Sort of a thread back to the rose colored days when people still hand fed unicorns and debated HYPERTEXT vs. gopher .. "Awe fuck it .. time to mud."
Personally I enjoy mining for interesting, "insightful", thoughtful and humorous comments in what could otherwise be called the "Jerry Springer" of the tech world. I often disagree with comments, sometimes very strongly, but that is what brings real value to the site; sometimes we need to be offended or hurt for our own growth. A daily stroll through uninhibited, "unprofessional", NSFW, belligerent, technical banter is why I come here -- not C:\PG-13\MBA\BLOG\BUZZ\ W~D\SOLUTION\ . The phrase "more accessible and shareable by a wider audience" usually is is not congruent with something that can be offensive. My mind is probably recycling a statement made by someone else but it needs to be said either way -- Fishnet stockings, eyeshadow and lipstick aren't going to make this pig ready for that kind of meat market.
For me the final deal breaker is requiring javascript, I don't trust Dice or third parties and I don't have the time and/or patience to review these scripts regularly. I don't mind being forced to view ads, it's the cost of a free service, and I actually like seeing tech jobs posted on the side. But when you further force JS on me it's an imposition. I loose some more control of my browser's functionality and I don't trust the ethics behind the desire to gather marketable information. It's a real shame that the Internet has become more of a tool for marketing than the advancement of science and understanding but that's another rant for another day when those damn kids are on the lawn again. Maybe I just need to grow up and accept the real world of FICO scores, default credit swaps, microtrading, NINJA loans, six-sigma and ask my local MBA to anoint me so I can worship at the alter of ROI in service to the almighty EPS. PRAISE THE $LORD I've been saved(TM) by the profit !!!
Dice - you have a decision to make. Do you want to further alienate a disenfranchised community or do you want to expose them, and their technical skills, to some of your other offerings. It's up to you.
Finally - since I think I'm done with slashdot. I need to say this and get it off my chest once and for all. EMACS SUCKS !!!! JUST USE VI THE WAY GOD INTENDED DAMNIT !!!! Schwew - I've been holding that in for a while .. maybe now I can move on with my life.
P.S. - "In Slashdot Amerika - Libertarian lawn get's off on you. You insensitive clod."
Really...seriously, its NO BETTER at all, and in a huge number of ways worse.
SIGNED----
Slashdot UID# 8,361
Member since ~ 1997-2000
Been here since the beginning....considering leaving.
-- Given enough time and money, Microsoft will eventualy invent UNIX.
Fuck Beta!
We want to give our current audience the space where they are comfortable. And we want a platform where we can experiment with different views of both comments and stories. It's not an either/or. It's going to be both.
This is an irreconcilable paradox. Don't try, just do a mobile site and LEAVE US ALONE!
Tween girls go for pink ponies, Justin Bieber and Twilight.
Adult males in the STEM fields, not so much. For the most part.
Know your audience. Know why they come here (stories and analysis). Don't dumb it down IMO.
In trying to get more readers, make sure you don't lose what makes it attractive to the core audience. That means knowing what makes it attractive to the core audience.
I think this might be the definitive statement.
"What we have here, sir, is a real clusterfuck."
RTFA --- this is the identity and everything about slashdot.
Does anyone on the design team actually use slashdot? For how long?
Why does everyone think that they need to imitate Microsoft? It wastes a lot of space and time. It sucks.
I don't know where the rock is you've been living under, but you should come out from under it more often.
We gave feedback three months ago when Beta premiered. All of it was ignored. All of it . We've tried feedback, and it's failed. That's why we've moved onto the next step, to activism.
Now, sod off back under your rock, I think you left your clue there.
Folks, it's like you're trying to redesign the hammer. Don't. The hammer has been perfected. Any but the slightest of changes will make it worse, not better.
This is not a comment on your skills as web developers. You're quite good. But your new site isn't what your audience wants. They want the site they liked enough to stay and keep visiting. They don't want something that "looks" like it. They want *that site*.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
I don't want it taking up that much real estate. If you could cut it back by half that would be great,
I write professional videogame reviews! http://www.digitallydownloaded.net/
Think they will see this massive wall of FUCK NO and realize how horrible a plan it is. Or are we now doomed to our coroprate overlords?
When Netflix changed to their horrible "pause and scroll" method, I was one of thousands of users that protested.
I quit using their online site to look for movies because of it.
Add me to the list of those exiting when /. Classic is removed from the site.
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
I have been anonymously reading Slashdot's *comments* for the majority of my IT career. I browse the site compulsively, multiple times a day. I have introduced countless people to the site. I spread interesting links to colleagues and family. In my small way I drive traffic to Slashdot.
I have been tempted to join Slashdot many times, but for one reason or another never completed the process, until today. I do sometimes contribute as an Anonymous Coward. My miniscule contributions are nothing to cherish, but it is the comments and the contributions of the rest of the community that make this site.
I created an account to add my voice to the conversation, because this matters to me deeply. The way you are going about introducing change here will not work. Others have mentioned that this site doesn't have an audience, but they are only partially correct.
There isn't really, to me, a distinction between the site and the community - they are synonymous and I have been an avid consumer of all the myrid ideas and information flow that this community has put on display over the years. I am an audience, though a small audience. The show I'm here to see really has nothing to do with the submissions. What I am here to see is the community, the comments, the current conversation.
Let me beat a dead horse: There are brilliant people here. There is high quality discourse here. There is an incredible amount of information here. (OK, there's also metric tons of bullshit :) ) But - the value here is the people, generating content by the thousands of lines. If you change the site in ways that alienate these people who've built it, or if you make it difficult to sustain the conversation then it dies. And when those brilliant folks scatter to wherever they wind up, then Slashdot really will be left with just an audience. And I can tell you, Slashdot with an audience and no contributors will only have that audience for about a week.
-The Other Curtis
This is only the third time I have ever logged into slashdot and only the second time I've ever commented. If the intelligent commenters/contributors leave, I will leave.
I come for the community, and frankly, I will leave with the community. I used to read yahoo news, but the comments were horrifyingly stupid and that stupidity was rewarded. Classic slashdot provided a well moderated and intelligent discussion board. Beta slashdot cuts that functionality off at the knees.
You lose the intelligent people who comment here and you lose the only reason anyone comes here, and many are prepared to leave permanently. You need to stop, NOW. If you lose the intelligent and insightful individuals who comment here, I might as well go back to yahoo news, where I don't have to read a summary but I can just RTFA because I'm sure as hell not going to read their idiotic comments.
Apart from it's annoying habit of logging me out and bland greyness, it it acceptable on the tablet. Still prefer the classic interface, but I can live with mobile.
I have determined that my sig is indeterminate.
Which is not at all. I logged in to post this, just to show my support for the Fuck Beta crowd. I've been here a looong time and want to stay but if you gum it up, I won't. Slashdot is an historical land mark, as far as the net is concerned. It was one of the first DDOS mechanisms we all knew and we want to preserve it as a beacon to what once was. When it goes away (or turns into just another cookie cutter news outlet), so does a piece of our youth. Don't kill it for us.
I agree with quite a lot of what's written above, but I really appreciated this post by the slashdot devs. Communication is great, and get more feedback, have some polls, show us some alternatives, figure out how to make it based on what we want to see, and you'll keep us all and add millions more. Don't throw the baby out with the bath water, as they say. :)
I like it.
What an absolutely awful redesign. Could this be the final nail in slashdot's coffin after going commercial and losing the founder?
I have a better idea. It can be accomplished by deleting the last nine words of the sentence: "Classic Slashdot isn't going away."
It ain't broke. Don't fix it.
Slashdot's not particularly good for long back-and-forth exchanges, and it doesn't have the most modern-looking interface. That's a good thing. Because the commenting approach is STILL head and shoulders above most of what's happening now. Part of the Slashdot attraction is its quirkiness in a sea of one size fits all websites.
You're losing that.
This looks just like a hundred other sites, with a tuck here and a poke there to make it look marginally original. The commenting structure genuinely sucks. And it looks to me like it was designed to suck. It isn't that you need a few tweaks to fix little problems. The direction you've chosen is WRONG. I suspect it was chosen because some jackhole who uses terms like "monetize" and "accounting noise" got hold of the reins, and intends to Huffpost the place.
But hey, who am I to say it sucks like a tornado on meth? I've only been coming here for a few years.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
...and decide that what old guys want doesn't matter and then just trash all the old features and replace it with feature poor but millenial friendly white space and image filled bubble gum that uses responsive design and infinite scrolling even though I don't want that.
Rather than do what she did, let those of us who prefer, stay behind with the old interface.
I have to move off of my.yahoo and yahoo mail now, don't make me do that with Slashdot please.
Dear /.
I love slashdot and have been visiting and posting AC for many years. I am alarmed at the new beta design.
- There are no links to the parent in the posts?! The removes the context of the child post - many become meaningless.
- The abbreviated comments are missing?! These are very useful in finding alternate points of view and following/skipping conversations.
- There is no way of changing the number of full/abbreviated/hidden comments. You have however kept the All/Insightful/Informative/Interesting/Funny options - in all these years I have never found a need for them. Again this removes any context.
- There is a javascript dependancy linking to ajax.googleapis.com. This is unnecessary. I block this on every site that uses it, including beta. If that results in serious functionality loss I go elsewhere.
- Why all the white space? Please be more concise, it makes looking at the comments a pain. In a similar vein please also remove the right column, the comments (with all their white space) quickly out strip it in height leaving a large redundant area. (This is not an invitation to fill it with nonsense).
- Please reduce the font size to get more content on the screen, reading the comments is more difficult with the new design.
- At 1680px width I have to large gray borders on either side of the page please let it fill my monitor. Again this lets me get more text on the page, and makes my reading easier.
- Please add a "load more/all" comments button to the top of the page. I like the addition of one at the bottom.
If you've read this far you'll notice that I frequently mention the comments - the honest truth is I visit most slashdot posts but infrequently click on TFA, like many of my fellows. This means the comment system must be made paramount. In case I'm not being clear - it's what I'm here for.
Right now beta represents what I view as a very serious regression.
Sigh, I'm reminded of the title of the last episode of TNG - All good things...
I got over that - I can get over slashdot, or at least join one or many of the alternatives that will spring up.
Anonymous Coward (Nick)
If it is not broken, do NOT fix it!
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Let me rephrase that.
The bigger swankier pictures do nothing to inform us on the story at hand.
The layout improves nothing.
Classic lets me know in a few paras what I need to know to read the rest.
Beta tells me less, so I hafta decide do I commit on a lame single para or do I slap myself and go back to Classic.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
In the words of Roger Ebert, Your Beta Sucks.
To Slashdot's credit they are not just forcing the change on everyone all at once and refuse to change it back, but it is certainly not looking good in the face of all the feedback they have already received. If Digg is any lesson you can lose all your readers over night and they won't come back, ever.
"Oops! You do not appear to have javascript enabled."
"We're making progress in getting things working without JavaScript."
"You may prefer to switch to Slashdot Classic for now."
"There may be more comments in this discussion. Without JavaScript enabled, you might want to turn on Classic Discussion System in your preferences instead."
The above has a URL link on 'turn on Classic Discussion System' which claims to take one to this URL:
http://meta.slashdot.org/users...
From that URL I was redirected to this URL:
https://slashdot.org/login.pl
WHERE IS MY CLASSIC INTERFACE?!? How do I get it without logging in?
chrismcc@pugsley:~$ dig www.slashdot.org aaaa
; > DiG 9.9.3-rpz2+rl.13214.22-P2-Ubuntu-1:9.9.3.dfsg.P2-4ubuntu1.1 > www.slashdot.org aaaa ;; global options: +cmd ;; Got answer: ;; ->>HEADER- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 54207 ;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 1, ADDITIONAL: 1 ;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION: ;; QUESTION SECTION: ;www.slashdot.org. IN AAAA ;; AUTHORITY SECTION: ;; Query time: 1076 msec ;; SERVER: 127.0.1.1#53(127.0.1.1) ;; WHEN: Thu Feb 06 20:07:11 PST 2014 ;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 130
; EDNS: version: 0, flags:; udp: 512
slashdot.org. 26 IN SOA ns1.p03.dynect.net. hostmaster.corp.sourceforge.com. 2013100500 3600 600 604800 60
chrismcc@pugsley:~$
"And — okay, we've got it — it's not ready. We have work to do on four big areas: ..."
No, you haven't gotten "it". Almost nobody has anything positive to say about it, and you still keep at it!? No wonder money is tight. Also: Fuck beta.slashdot.org. Fuck beta. Are you trying to drive this place further into the ground? Oh, and fuck beta, mmkay? I Could have sworn I am forgetting something... sheeeet ...
right, fuck beta.
"I seem to have had this now misguided impression that there was a healthy professional element of the community here who would give constructive feedback but all I've seen is a mob of angry comment children."
This is a site for professionals in the field who know what works and has near-zero tolerance for front office denizens who decide it's a great idea to fly in the face of the professionals who are invested building something valuable AND functional - doubly so when the "audience" are the very professionals charged with making such things work well in the world and simultaneously the users tho have to ... use it. No need to sugar coat it here - you're mucking with something people have a lot of communal knowledge of, right in the pocketbook area.
It'd be like serving velveeta on rice cakes at a Cordon Bleu mixer and being amazed that people are pissed off. To use a more down to earth example - imagine we're all football players - it's ok to remind each other with all dispatch that you need to catch the #%@&! football. No one will be surprised at that.
You took something mature that works and gave us something broken with form over function. When you tell me "So let's all slow down" as if it's a dialog and then lecture to me that you're going to do it anyway you might as well simply say "You're reading it wrong" and be done with it.
Since I'm referencing an Internet meme to make my point I'll double-down and say, "Six lines of text ought to be enough for anybody."
I would imagine the fact that this being, perhaps, one of the largest and most discerning groups of techno-literate and bullshit doublespeak phobic groups on the entire planet....I would imagine that would give someone in the organization some pause. Someone with enough pull that they might be able to communicate how suicidal that move would be to someone who might care, if for nothing more than profit potential concerns.
/., as it has been deemed both unprofitable and perhaps a waste of money...perhaps even a way to bury value from another investment.
We are the filters. We see through this shit. This is perhaps why we aren't as click-baitable. Why we are so ad-averse. Why typical marketing paradigms have had no effect on us. We have the wherewithal to recognize it, the technical ability to eliminate it and the common sense to disregard it.
We aren't against being monetized. Lots of us make money doing that very thing. We are indeed a fickle crowd, but we are huge. We are smart. We want to be engaged.
...I'm starting to believe, as previously suggested, that this is an effort to bury
...who knows, lets get all tinfoil-hatty...maybe a conglomeration of so many technorati is undesirable to certain elements of society. Who knows what we might come up with? Tor? Mesh network? Uncompromisable encryption? Internet3? This is a concentration of brainpower from all ends of the information industry. All ends of all spectrums in information tech, electronics, security, programming, logic, mathematics, physics, all manner of political disciplines...maybe we're just a dangerous group?
Color me jaded, but, I think this is the end.
I'd just like to say to my comrades, It's been a brilliant and illuminating journey (for the most part). I've learned much, I've laughed even more. This one last hurrah has embiggened my heart. We have all universally united against a common foe--mediocritization...likely in vain.
I'll see you guys on the other side...wherever that may be.
Compare the Bay Trail story tease side by each in both formats.
Ditto the Target HVAC story.
One reasonable conclusion would be that the beta editor had a minor stroke halfway through writing the bit that tells is what the story is going
See?
Look: we're not "the audience", expecting to be amused or enlightened. We're slashdot. The point, which you seem to be missing, is slashdot is its contributors, who come here to interact.
Every time I see the beta design I grope for the alternate link that gets me back to the perhaps-weird but familiar interface I like. That's what I expect. If you want to change it, fine, it's your site, but the contributors will go somewhere they prefer and it won't be here.
i spent hours and hours trying to get rid of it, and couldn't figure out what it was. I kept using a different web browser just to get away from the beta.
Thanks for listening. Here's one thing to keep in mind.
Don't try and design a single user interface to work with both Computers and Tablets - It doesn't work (ie - windows 8). These two devices are different and used differently.
Calling the slashdot community an "audience" when it provides 98% of the sites valuable content is about the biggest fuck you you could have handed the community that generates your revenue.
Thanks sincerely for that....
FWIW my account is bsercombe72 and I have no idea how many digits it has, nor do I particularly care. One thing I will point out is that DICE is (likely coincidentally) the name of a company which is associated with EA. EA is another business which seems lately to think the best way to win friends and influence people is to insert a can of mace in their rectums and perforate the can.
I also feel that there is a general overuse of HTML formatting. Interpretation of tags is causing significant slowdown on my sidekick. Like many users, I don't have access to a semantical parser where I work.
The above needs to be repeated until dice and slashdot gets it.
Nobody comes here for the 'news'. The articles are the topic. The content is the comments! WE are your content creators. And we do it for free!
Fuck that up and you will have nothing. Because every news story you have here is duplicated thousands of times within days. People come HERE for the comments and discussion of the topic news article.
I had quite the laugh. The comment boxes are about 10 pixels large, and so is the reply box.
I'm all for modernizing UIs. Any UI that sits stagnant for an extended period can drift into a case where while it is much beloved, it is not as nice as it could be with some newer thought/style applied to it.
However, when the replacement UI does not keep, at it's core, the essence of what made the former UI so popular, one encounters significant resistance.
Many here will tell you that what makes Slashdot a part of their daily lives is not the articles. Sure the articles are topic starters and they contain some good information in many cases. But the reason many of us read Slashdot every day is that it is made up of a body of commentators who add the actual value of the website. Regardless of what the article may be, or how mundane or sensational the headline is, I have a clear "wait and see" response to it all until I've seen what the Slashdot community has made of the topic. I know that this crowd will dig into topics, look up facts, even unattractive ones, and find the interesting layers that are never part of the original articles.
Articles are the START of a conversation. The herd of intelligent, resourceful, knowledgeable detectives who live here are the actual product that I'm here to consume. I am THEIR audience, not Slashdot's.
All that being said, any changes that take away from my ability to easily consume the comments here is a step in the wrong direction. The new comments system for me is a complete non-starter. It lacks the view of the thread as the thread organically grows. It lacks the ability to see high rated comments inline while still seeing their position within the overall discussion without turning on everything. In short, it makes it harder to do what I'm here to do.
The rest is all window dressing to me. Bigger pictures, cleaner fonts and such. Yes, these things can be great when done well. I'm not suggesting that what we have in the beta is "done well" but rather that it could be done well if you scrap what you have and start over with a new focus on "what is our product" and realize that the answer is "our commenters".
Given the backlash that Slashdot is experiencing, my suggestion would be this:
Announce that you are cancelling the current beta and going back to the drawing board with a renewed focus on the site's content and purpose.
Make it clear that you do not believe that Slashdot is not "just another news site and should be formatted as such".
Show some appreciation for the legendary comment system that Slashdot has grown over the years and a dedication to remain faithful to it.
Then you can start over, and instead of going for a grand redesign, take an iterative approach. Small moves, in alignment with the community.
In the end, your readers are different than any other website news service, they know more about site design and site construction than you do. So tap into that and stop treating them like they are reading Engadget.
Hopefully this feedback helps out.
Warning: Teh poster of this messaeg is lysdexic
...are Nerval's Lobster and Hugh Pickens. They pretty much submit any story that gets posted these days.
*sigh*
Maybe they do. Maybe they see that a lot of sites that make a lot of money are mainstream gossip sites. Of course, that would be missing the fact that thousands of other people saw those sites and are also trying to imitate them.
Anyways, I'll entertain that: how would Slashdot make that transition?
If they switch on the Beta, the ruination of the comments will cause the complete loss of their current user base, so they're off to a weak start. What's going to replace the comments? They've been trying recently to generate more unique content, and for the most part it's been okay-to-poor. That's not going to draw anyone in at all. How about as a Buzzfeed-like link farm? Well no, Slashdot is still just as slow and unreliable as always, there hasn't been any transition happening there either. Just what is their plan exactly and when are they going to actually start it? And how is ruining Slashdot going to accomplish that plan any better than just registering an altogether new domain and starting it off ruined?
"We are a community. We are not an audience."
The more they think of us as an "audience", the more they will find that their audience has left the building for someplace else that treats them like the community they are.
I'd rather be raped by an HIV-infected nigger than use /. Beta.
Shazbot! We ran into some trouble getting the comments.
The site is now useful again to me since I don't have to scroll a million pages on my cell phone anymore when viewing multiple comments (which are the really great thing about this site).
I've said it MANY times. IF the current beta comment UI and main page goes live and I am forced to jump through hoops to get out of it, the likelihood I will visit Slashdot again goes to 50/50% (I've been a daily reader / commenter for FIFTEEN YEARS NOW!)
IF this current UI is discarded, I can GUARAN-FUCKING-TEE you that I will NEVER visit beta.slashdot.org in its current ugliness. It is a User Interface DISASTER! Just look at the frickin comment boxes, how much wasted space, non-thick feminine fonts that are hard to see, etc.
Thanks to your warning, I have been able to mourn Slashdot's inevitable demise since the first beta.slashdot post many months ago. I have been on slashdot literally my entire adult life. I WILL mourn it.
But I will NOT EVEN VISIT beta.slashdot until the UI is substantially redone in a more masculine, clean cut way, like the current slashdot.org.
Slashdot Valentines Beta Massacre: iT WORKED! The boycotts killed Beta!!
There's no ad impressions when we are sitting on a single page scrolling through the comments, that's why they don't appear to care about the comments, even though that is what drives traffic to the site. IT"S NOT ABOUT THE ARTICLES it's about the quality of the discussions and the mod system. Toss that and we could replace you with any of a thousand tech blog sites. STOP IT!
So I tried loading this story on beta.slashdot.org, and this is what I got in the comments section, instead of comments:
Shazbot! We ran into some trouble getting the comments.
Try again... na-nu, na-nu!
Um WHAT THE FUCK?! Is that English or *BABY*?! See? That's just way too immature for me. What are you developers? 5 years old?
I am very glad I turned down the Senior Slashdot Dev position offer in 2009.
Slashdot Valentines Beta Massacre: iT WORKED! The boycotts killed Beta!!
Fuck slashdot beta!
Amen, Brother!
Slashdot Valentines Beta Massacre: iT WORKED! The boycotts killed Beta!!
Pictures on a pure tech site that posts news are not needed and take away valuable screen space.
I've noticed so far that there's a lot of border spacing around posts and the comments system. Overall I don't mind the more open, less 'condensed' approach, but think that the beta page's spacing may need to decrease about 25% overall. Now that I think of it, it reminds me bit of viewing a 'mobile-version' of the site, but on a desktop display (21.5" wide screen LED backlit LCD monitor).
If anyone needs me, I'll be in the Angry Dome.
How many of us bookmark comments (for their content, or the entire threads they start)?
As everyone's saying, we're here for the comments. Myself, it's more than just "oh, good thought"; quite often in a technical discussion I'll bookmark a high-quality comment or thread if I feel there's a good chance I'll value it later on, for example when learning more about the topic for a new project.
Or maybe someone had a good example of a licensing issue. Or a nifty command line idiom. Or any of countless "gotchas"...
So for me, slashdot's also been a technical reference.
On the beta, bookmarking comments does not appear to be possible. (For any given comment, there doesn't seem to be anything that shows as a unique link like the current http: //BLAH.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=XXXXXXX&cid=YYYYYYY. And I guess all the gems I've bookmarked will be dead links.)
Seriously, it is really nice. Please don't let these loud mouths who have so little invested in life, and are so spoiled that a change to a web site gets them up in arms.
They a pompous asses slashdot doesn't need.
Couple of points:
A) The vast majority will still come here anyways. Whiny bitches are like that.
B) The few that leave will be more then made up by a new generation of nerds that expect something a little more technical savey.
This is my fifth account, I have been coming here since '99, and I have been a nerd for well over 45 years.
So I am not new, or young.
Also, I enjoy new music, I love the new cars, and new science and technology is awesome.
For you complainers:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Take a look at aldaily.com: lots of information but it never gets in the way of the reader. At a glance I can scan 20 stories that have been sorted into 3 generic types. I think the new look for Slashdot is "nice" but involves an information trade-off that I think doesn't serve Slashdot. For myself, I am far more interested in seeing more stories at a glance than nicer formatting and pics.
Hacker News is even more parsimonious--I feel this helps rather than hinder them.
list the exact problems. Oh wait, apparently it sucks causer you don't like it and not for any reason a thinking person would discuss.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Just take a look at your post in BETA. Without line breaks, it looks like a continuous pile of shit. In classic slashdot? You wouldn't even notice it.
Beta is fucked and slashdot wants beta while the users don't.
So who's for crowdsourcing or even getting other sources of funding to build a slashdot replacement that doesn't look like Disneyland?
we don't need people like you, want people like you..nobody does. The redesign is like a beautiful light that's scaring all you trolls away.
Good riddance.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Google for "Mork from Ork".
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Hi Slashdot,
There are many things broken, not least of all the comments section as mentioned in the comments here. As far as layout, the summaries are now too short. I need a longer summary to know if I'm interested in the story or the comments. Otherwise, I'll just read some other site. Really, the summary is what we want to see on the main page. You've made all of these other things we don't care about take up most of the space. Instead, you should be doing the exact opposite of that. All of that other stuff should be accessible, but hidden away.
I really dread trying to read this on my phone. The old site worked on my phone with a few problems. This one is..all noise, no content. On anything but a large screen, it is simply not usable.
J
Well, I heard some people talkin' just the other day
And they said you were gonna put Classic on a shelf
But let me tell you I got some news for you
And you'll soon find out it's true
And then you'll have to eat your lunch all by yourself
'Cause I'm already gone
And I'm feelin' strong
I will sing this victory song
Woo hoo hoo, my my, woo hoo hoo...
you stop complaining you don't like it, or leave?
The new site has a lot of great features, and it look really nice.
"It takes courage to admit that you've been wrong"
You should keep that in mind.
You're nothing but a child throwing a tantrum. Go take a nap.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
For as long as I have been using the internet and the web I have yet to find a comment system that works as well as Slashdot does.
I don't get why no one has copied it. Slashcode is out there.
The karma system, meta-moderation, mod points...it's all there.
Disqus, stack exchange, discourse they are all shit compared to what Slashdot has grown.
You fuck with the ecosystem of curation of comments and I might as well be reading reddit, gizmodo, or some other site's 3rd rate system.
Which means I might as well not come here.
"one unifying opinion of those critical of the changes is that *no changes are necessary"
of course they say that becasue that's all they got. It's a great change,, but you whiner see something different and modern an you just whine.
Will you pout and kick your feet on the floor next? maybe you will get really outraged and slam your bedroom door.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Don't like change.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
ignorant curmudgeon complaining who bad things are with there other slightly urine smelly buddies and the center.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
If Beta goes live, imma find a building with as many stories as this thread has posts and jump off of it. So true
... killing the beta. It's not good, it's bad. Let's stay with a design that doesn't suck... how's that for feedback, you are listening right?
just like a teenager saying it's there last facebook post. The fact that you announce it means you are just looking for an excuse to be outraged and want attention.
If you meant it, you just wouldn't have posted anything.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The fact is, you are NOT listening. If you WERE listening, you would know there are exactly TWO acceptable options:
1) Pull the plug on the new style
2) Keep it, but keep "classic" Slashdot available FOREVER for those who want it.
Anything else == NOT listening. Not doing these things and saying you ARE listening is a lie. (Or, technically, I guess you could be listening, but not caring. Same diff.)
There are plenty of things that could be done to improve Slashdot. NOTHING in Beta is an improvement.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
the comments are mostly useless rants by gas bags like you. Maybe 10% of the comments are worth while.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
and all I have to say to you is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
Good riddance, you never add anything anyways.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
to maintain the old crappy site and the new modern awesome site.
Work isn't free, the site isn't free, servers aren't free.
Got it?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
http://slashdot.org/firehose.p...
Time to support this guy and take the ad money away from DICE, gentlemen.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
If you're redirecting anonymous users, ONLY REDIRECT THEM IF THEIR BROWSER IS COMPATIBLE. Lynx does not work with the new design! I'm sure many other browsers don't either!
"when it looks just fine"
said every old and useless curmudgeon about every thing.
It's just as simple to use and that old interface, it uses the screen better,
What so hard, you add a comment, preview, submit.
What, exactly, is confusing you?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I'm not sure. Better if Slashdot releases reddit like APIs. Any user can choose better apps to read / comment / mod.
As an avid /. reader for years I'm extremely disappointed in where this site is headed. It is like digg all over again, except /. has been the best source of information and level-headed discussion on the internet long before digg or reddit ever existed. Put simply, for all it's flaws /. is still the only site of its kind and putting through this shoddy redesign is going to kill the site. I have to agree with other users that it almost seems like it is your intention. The only consolation I will have is that the Japanese slashdot.jp will still be around after this site collapses.
"The new design adds useless eye candy"
opinion. I like it.
"makes it harder to skim through the posts to find the ones that interest me"
That tells me that you are stupid and also that you haven't looked at the new features. It's no harder to skim now then it was last year, or last millennium.
" Slashdot works really, really well as-is."
Arguable, but so what? It works even better now.
I was expecting to hate it, but after looking at the new features and design, and using it(so much more responsive) I absolutely love it.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Way to demonstrate an inability or perhaps unwillingness to truly listen to us or address any of our concerns, your community. Only answer the easy questions, that'll endear us to you. Fuck you. Seriously, fuck you pathetic drones. Do you even read your own site? /. is selling out.
~ slashdotter of over 6 years
You are the first post I read that actual says something constructive instead of a pouty temper tantrum.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
/. Beta is nigger technology
timothy, you're a retarded faggot.
Now I've seen everything! A fricking AC absolutely nails it!!!
Fuck you, Dice Holdings.
How much would you sell slashdot for? Give us a goddamn dollar amount. Because if you keep on going like this, you will hemorrhage "audience" members. You say you are listening to us? Bullshit.
Lets cut the lies and games and halfspeak marketing jargon. How much would our community have to pony up to buy it back? Give us a number.
While we're at it, how long do you think it would take your board of directors to have their personal information discovered and spammed if you keep up this charade? You are threatening something we, I, love. And many of us here have a very special skill-set that would destroy your privacy in very legal ways. Do you have daughters? Do they attend schools? Have jobs? Are they cute? You are fucking up the wrong tree, and you are taking away the engine of apathy for a large quantity of people who understand the underpinnings of your empire. Leave us be, or sell us back our land.
Exactly right. This is how organizations and businesses view visitors to web sites now. They are not participants. They are consumers. We are not here to participate in discussions. We are here to consume advertising. The discussions are just a way to get our eyeballs to this web site and consume the crap they put in the margins. So they pretend to ""listen"" so we will say "OK, since you listened to us, we'll keep looking at your web site, increase your visitor count (sucker count), so we can convince advertisers to buy our ads.
Yeah, I've been on Slashdot for awhile too. But I won't be back anymore when the classic site becomes unavailable. Since the community is the actual product here, let's just fork it and we'll all go somewhere else. Maybe we can't call it Slashdot, but who cares? Let's just start a new site for all the old Slashdot members with the classic look.
WE FEAR CHANGE
That's what Slashdot has, and why it has persisted throughout the years. I've always loved that I can come to Slashdot to learn what truly educated and intelligent people have to say on the matters of the day. A story on Lockheed Martin? One of the team members will probably post the scoop on what's really happening. That is useful knowledge. It is valuable to me. Part of why it developed was the infrastructure of the site and how it allowed the best discussion to float to the top. Part of it was an absence of anything really like it back in the day. Part of it was happenstance.
But now that all of us long-time Slashdot readers know what the shape of the best form of Slashdot felt like, I believe it's possible to re-create that elsewhere, especially if the PHBs at Dice absolutely insist on killing this precious object. Furthermore, there are many of us who have great ideas on how to recast Slashdot with new features that would enhance the community, not detract from it.
Call out a channel for all of us to discuss what that is, and we'll hop on and iron out the requirements. An open source community redesigning itself would be an excellent reaffirmation of the principle of open source.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
I used to drive a Saab 9-3. When GM took over, I did not buy another Saab, because I did not like what they did to the brand. I held onto it for as long as I could, then changed brands entirely. GM will never get my money specifically because of what they did to Saab.
The same will happen here. If at some point I can't get Slashdot without it looking more or less like Beta does, I'm probably just going to stop bothering with the site altogether. Lose the pictures. Don't make me click "more" to RTFA. Use the whole screen for content; if I want a big margin, I can resize my browser.
Mandatory titles on replies and random ACs when I used to read at +4? I'm not sure what improvements they think happened, but so far, no thanks.
I remember watching Kuro5hin collapse and die because of some pig-headed decisions. I never imagined slashdot's blaze would be this much more fiery.
I have been on slashdot for almost 15 years (was anonymous the first few years). It has been a fun ride.
The initial silence of Dice, and then the market-speak of "Timothy" has been astounding. It's truly tragic what I have witnessed over the last two days.
This has convinced me that my hours can be better spent elsewhere. With this final message I bid farewell to my favorite website for the last 15 years.
I make a prediction, and I hope I'm wrong: with the Dice/Timothy attitude, in 6 months slashdot will be no more.
For Slashdot's corporate overlords... not really.
Their magical thinking revolves around the idea that all they need to do is have everyone switch to the new interface and... profit!
Most people foregoing on the switch is clearly not a part of their equation.
So... Fuck Beta.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
the excess whitespace is what they will put ads into.
I've been a slashdot reader for a good 15 years now and I really hope that the new beta design changes substantially before being pushed to production.
1) FAR too much white space, only two or three stories fit on my screen! This is not Windows 8 and most of us don't have the attention span of a goldfish....
2) Titles have the same background as the story text. This makes it much more difficult to quickly skim the site.
3) The comment system has been thoroughly broken.
Launch a poll for the new design and see what happens...
Its pretty clear that slashdot works fine the way it is and no one wants a redesign, period. They need to stop messing with it and leave it as it is. There is no reason or need at al to change it and no one here wants this. The message is clear, stop. Throw away the redesign. Forget about it. Leave it the way it is. Everyone likes the site the way it is right now. IF IT AINT BROKEN DONT FIX IT. Announce now that the redesign is cancelled for good. Only THAT is listening to your users. If you do not do this, you cannot honestly say you are listening to your users because NOBODY HERE FUCKING WANTS THE SITE REDESIGNED, period.
It's gross.
It's horrible.
It's for dumb end users more focused on the look of something than the functionality (ie: not us)
I am so sick of applications and websites focusing on flat, shadeless, bullshit design.
They seem to use literally 3 colours only - white background, black text / lines and ONE shade of colour used sparingly. Most pages entirely white.
I'm extremely sick of pages and applications removing most 'dividing lines' too. The post I'm writing right now is in a box to the left of this box is another nice line which is separating the reply form to the list of topics on the right.
Here's a prime example of design I fucking detest.
https://jira.cyanogenmod.org/secure/attachment/12130/Calling..jpg
Now a lot of people hail the Cyanogenmod / Google stock stuff as 'clean and wonderful'
Bullshit, look at those icons at the bottom, no labels, no lines dividing them to define the size of each button, all cramped in one spot and RIGHT BELOW and directly touching THE HANG UP BUTTON - extremely easy to accidentally end the call but noooo that's 'clean'
Gotta love those icons, I can probably guess what the function of each one is but if they were labelled I'd know for sure, no ambiguity. Yes it's easier for translation purposes, that's not my problem though, sorry! - I just know - at a glance, with the text, I will identify the icons faster, every time.
Here's another example of shit design.
http://dri1.img.digitalrivercontent.net/Storefront/Company/msintl/images/English/en-INTL_Office_2013_Pro_ESD_AAA-02776/en-INTL_L_Office_2013_Pro_ESD_AAA-02776_RM2_mnco.jpg
Now I got used to those office tabs in the end, with 2010, it's not too bad to be honest but look at this up the top, the "active" tab is the home tab, you'll note the text is a different colour and there's a line defining the outline of the highlighted tab - but that's it? Seriously? Why can't there be more colour behind the word home or grey out the other tabs text like INSERT , PAGE LAYOUT etc?
Those are 2 examples of the flat, colourless, white, ghastly design which "looks clean" because right now "clean" is in. Use some colours, use some dividing lines. Is shading a bad thing? Apparently - ok then use solid colours, use lighter ones, but for fucks sake this mishmash of just white with no lines, gross. Lines are good, boxes are good.
FWIW: Some of the slashdot beta is making good use of dividing lines but there's a lot of words which could be bold or a slightly larger font or placed differently. Everything looking the god damned fucking same makes things more difficult to read.
Look at source code in a good coding tool, it's not PRETTY but it's very easy to identify things with colour and spacing.
I generally detest the flat designs of sites and applications of late, please don't apply that shit to oldschool places which don't need it.
What I do remember is being disappointed by every single redesign that I noticed as they happened. If you ask me, make everything feature-for-feature compatible with the pre-1997 design, write sanity tests that enforce that compatibility and then start innovating.
Still hoping for Gentle Treatment...
It's that until that scares me. You had me at "Most importantly, we want you to know that Classic Slashdot isn't going away." Everything after that clause -- and everything else in the post told me loud and clear that my opinion doesn't really matter. Thanks for the clarity.
Still hoping for Gentle Treatment...
I was under the impression that truly Classic Slashdot pre-dates AJAX by several years. If it's doing AJAX, it isn't "Classic" to anyone with a less-than-six-digit user ID, I'm afraid.
Still hoping for Gentle Treatment...
Do i need to bring up Battlefield 4. Good game. Poorly executed. Dont ruin another thing. Mind you EA is not involved in this one.
You and I are like brothers in this regard. Most "funny" posts are anything but funny.
But then all of these clowns started moderating obvious attempts at being "funny" as "insightful". For every article, at least one more lame Monty Python quote manages to be a +5 insightful.
How do you deal with that?
aye, I do not like the beta look - it's crap, imo. I do the majority of my browsing with JS disabled.
I've even gone so far as to block redirects on slashdot.org and blocking beta.slashdot.org in opera 12 (before the opera devs sold everyone out and became evil by using google crap... err chrome).
haha captcha is 'rejoice'
WTF ...
0) Why change so that i have to CLICK with the Fking mouse or keyboard to read a simple article.
1) Why can't we have skins that we program up and save. Users can select UI flavors and FREEDOM of choice.
2) How about some short keys. - auto scrolll. a matrix ticker (in shorthand). I find myself with more to read daily so I need information to read faster not FATTER BIGMAC fonts.
3) I think that my 23" wide monitor cant handle all the white space one the sides . It seems wasteful to have the blogs formatted TALL and the monitors wide. I'm trying to get *MORE* information on my screen not just light to warm the room.
The ugly fonts in beta sucked. I couldn't scale fonts on my browser that supports scaling (Its an odd duck browser called CHROME!). There were buttons that didn't work, being locked out of comments. In short, if /. tries to keep beta and 'this is our future', then my ip address will be going over to reddit's logs. No pressure, just sayin'. Go ahead, lose eyeballs. I'm working on/launching a social media site too.
Next time I log onto slashdot, if it directs me to beta, I'm not coming back.
Can someone write a Chrome extension to always go to Slashdot Classic ? That will get the "powers that be" to realize that there is no point to continuing with beta.slashdot.org !
The beta site looks like something people would like to see on a tablet. I don't know any of my nerdy friends who even have a tablet. This lets me assume Dice wants this change because it wants to attract new users. The problem is I hate to look at these tablet optimized sites from my laptop: space is wasted, everywhere are large useless pictures, there is less useful text and so on...
I really like the current status of the "classic" slashdot look and feel, if you want to improve on that through little changes it would be fine by me. But the BETA is an abomination!! Scrap the BETA completely as soon as possible!!!
I have to agree with the people saying that /. is about the comments. I've read through literally hundreds of comments by my peers and by wiser folk than I because I wanted to learn something and to get new perspectives. But on the beta, roughly every other article, I get this bloody error:
Shazbot! We ran into some trouble getting the comments. Try again... na-nu, na-nu!
That gets old. Neither reloading nor clicking on the try again button works. It's pretty much inevitable that they're going to 'update the look' to make it look like one of those awful clickfarm sites. That's 'in' right now. But they don't have to break the core of it.
I agree the 'load more' button should go. I often like to search a whole page of comments without worrying about if there's another page to search through.
Also you can't then see how many more 'load more' pages there are. It's hard to see the size of the number of comments (and therefore how long it would take for you to check through them).
Plus, it's simply a pain to have to press each time.
Why OpalCalc is the best Windows calc
I don't think the label of "beta" means what Slashdot thinks it means.
There was a time when Slashdot was my home page -- first thing I read when I turned on the internet. That time has long passed. I'm not sure whether I grew up or Slashdot grew down. In the end I think RSS feeds and the proliferation and maturation of other tech sites with original content like Ars Technica filled some of what Slashdot used to do for me. Much of the news here is 12 hours behind the top of my feed.
I still come back often. It's not for the news like it was in the 90's but for the comments. When I want to know what's happening, I hit Google or Hacker News or Ars, but when I want to know what other people like me think about something, I wait for it to hit Slashdot's front page.
To me it feels like DICE thinks the articles are the content. They're not. The content comes below the articles which are only there (IMHO) to spark a discussion. So my feedback: Take a few months and learn about the community that makes Slashdot work. It seems clear that you have not. Then work the redesign to fit the ethos of that community. You can mess up the front page all you want to try to get new audience, but take a second or third look at everything below the article when you try this again in Fall of 2014.
Slashdot: News for Nerds, Stuff that matters
Strive to make your client happy, not necessarly give them what they ask for
Seriously I miss rn. If you don't know what that is google it. But I digress. Slashdot is not fun anymore. I think about the ARS redesign. Didn't like it at first but it is ok now. I will never be ok with this crap.
Good, you're listening. But obviously you are deaf. I have yet to see a single comment saying the beta design is good. Forget the bugs. The design is what people bitch and moan about.
Even more: most people ask to leave that beta and keep the current slashdot. But you keep on going forward. Keep on mentioning to make it better, fix bugs, etc. So if you are listening you are obviously deaf.
The majority of the users want the current layout. Simple as that. You can stop developing, stop putting effort in fixing bugs, because you are fixing bugs in something that is not wanted.
We have seen this before.
There is a vibrant, thriving CGM site. (CGM == community generated media).
An entity with money buys the site.
Things stay the same for a while. Invariably, the owning entity wants feature, UI, and usability changes made to their new property.
These changes aren't being made to serve the interests of the existing community.
Here's what happens.
Either, the community dissolves entirely, and something wonderful disappears and dies.
Or, the community mostly moves to a new site, which rallies around what people liked about the old site.
Here is a very specific example. There is a site called "Audiworld". It ran, for a very long time, a funny and antiquated forum software called "KAWF". Audiworld was the top destination on the English speaking internet for Audi enthusiasts. Absolutely excellent technical information about the cars, and many off-topic forums developed to serve the die-hard user community the site had.
Audiworld was bought by InternetBrands and converted to vBulletin. This was against the wishes and strong feedback from most of the cornerstone members of the community.
IB persisted and did the conversion.
Within a week or so, "Quattroworld" showed up as a competitor, and nearly ALL of the technical experts and cornerstone members dumped Audiworld and moved to Quattroworld.
Quattoworld simply chose to keep running the previous forum software.
Compare the two sites now:
The "converted" forum:
http://forums.audiworld.com/fo...
The rebellion forum:
http://forums.quattroworld.com...
Look at the information density in the topic listing on the KAWF based forum (the second one). The design is text heavy, information dense, not filled with ads and distractions.
It works on any device; it works on browsers from 10 years ago.
Now look at the vBulletin based forum.
Look at the quality of questions in the vBulletin form.
See any answers?
No, you don't.
Communities are the life of sites like slashdot. You piss off your community at your peril.
We are not interested in suffering so that you can expand your audience. We don't want an expanded audience. The people who should be here are here. The people who haven't found out about here yet will find out, and when they find it, they won't mind the design of the site.
How many other web forums does John Carmack post in? How many other forums get occasional visits from Linux developers? Where else do you see the occasional Microsoft and Apple employee talking about things candidly and without bashing each other?
Stack Exchange has excellent technical content and lots of very bright posters -- but it isn't a social community like this one.
When Classic is retired, and its inevitable replacement has lower information density and makes reading and participating more cumbersome, this community will leave.
Hopefully, it will go somewhere else that runs a fork of the classic code, and life will go on for us, the contributors.
But if not, then it will die entirely. The web will be a worse place; and I will consider myself worse off for the loss.
Your community doesn't need a site redesign. We haven't asked for it. We don't want it. So you're not doing it for us.
If you're not serving us, you've outlived your usefulness.
The internet routes around defects. You'd do well to remember that.
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
Slashdot readers and the people responsible for it are smarter than the gaggle of a billion morons who think that updating and changing and reinventing things that work well in terms of "graphical interface" is a great Idea.
Facebook features are stupid, windows 8 is stupid the MS ribbon is stupid the MLS website update is stupid. the weather site I go to is stupid. honestly how many groups are going to make the same MASSIVE mistake? They think that overhauls and updating websites and programs is no less enriching than a successful home renovation.....just because the complaints will slowly cease does not mean it was wise for everything to fumbled around and "updated". its sheer stupidity
people just don't have the right goals in mind....
Hi.
Been here for ages, and change a part of it....nothing we can do....or yet we can lol. I don't mind a change....if it's logical. For me right now it's just 2 points, the way you cap the story...what read more for 2 words? And the timeline seems off....other then that....refreshing look...kudos.
Flame war on :)
I agree, fuck the beta.
But I got to thinking, how about instead of sitting back and yelling like little kids, we act like the nerds we are? Grab the CSS from the classic site, grab the scripts, fire up GreaseMonkey and implement classic as a client side option. Would that be possible? I'm not nearly skilled enough in the black arts of web development to do it, but it seems to me the data model must be the same if they can run classic and beta alongside each other.
... whatever
Honestly. That's what I think when I see the new beta is "What the fuck? Did they just replace Slashcode with wordpress?"
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
I wouldn't have a problem if /. made the to-be-default interface, you know, default, as long as you can change it in your preferences to the old interface.
Fuck beta interface.
Just promise to make classic a permanent option, forever. Then go ahead with beta.
How about keeping Classic /. for paying users? All the freeloaders could get the new UI. I'd pay to keep my classic UI.
Dice has had months of feedback to change or improve the situation with Beta but has chosen instead to respond with a giant "fuck you" to its user base. That includes Timothy's non-answer, which is just another "fuck off" in so many fine words. Needless to say, it is that user base which the site is about. It is why people come here and what advertisers pay money to reach. Since Dice has demonstrated an unresponsiveness for months, including this last message from Timothy, it is time to escalate to Dice's bosses, the advertisers.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
I like Beta, please do it asap!
Why lynx? Because if it works with lynx it not only works with all browsers, it works with the search engines. That ensures that even the comments are searchable. As it is, the javascript is not only a major security hole it slows things down noticeably, even on fast hardware. I didn't buy this fast machine for Dice to use, I bought it because I want a snappy and responsive UI even when browsing the web. That includes Slashdot. Further, working in lynx ensures that screen readers can use the page, meaning that those with little or no sight can still use the web site. It's less work to avoid the javascript and reaches more people and search engines. Beta sucks and just needs to go away. If the powers that be still feel compelled to make changes, scrap Beta and start over beginning with usability and accessiblity.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
Or I will.
I am a stick-in-the-mud. I admit it. But the very first time I got the Beta, I specifically hunted down how to turn it off BEFORE I had even read an article. It was unreadable not because of bugs or beta-ness (who here hasn't trialled beta software or written their own?). It was just poor in a multitude of ways that another month's work for your designers won't fix.
But that's not the problem. Half of people will love it, half will hate it. The problem I have is even the implication of "it'll go ahead anyway but maybe we'll tweak it to shut you up". You just don't have the userbase size or user attitude to pull that off.
You rolled out a beta site to PAID customers like me (I may not have given YOU money, but I voluntarily donated to your predecessors to get rid of adverts and stay on old shitty designs once already). Without asking. Without much of a hint that it was even on the horizon (I heard other commenters getting it). With option to turn off, buried under a UI I didn't know or want, but then you ploughed on and folded 25% of your users in.
And then didn't give a shit about the "Fuck off beta" cookie NEVER holding on any of my devices and requiring me to fuck it or the message off every visit. You didn't notice nor care as the boycott began. You let it build to spoil EVERY article before even an official comment, let alone an article. Even that crappy "hoodie" sales video didn't take that long to get a response.
You don't care. What I take from this official notice is that you are going to plough on ahead, and that crippling a quarter of your users for weeks on end is "necessary" (there I was thinking that running beta.slashdot.org separately until commenters were telling people to use it would be better, no?)
I think you forgot that your audience probably include people who roll out larger websites on a daily basis, and people who have survived any number of enforced OS and design changes by being able to fix broken shit for themselves. This is our leisure site. We don't want to, and won't, tolerate shit and excuses that exist to make your boss's site look like his golfing pal's, and you not wanting to admit that the redesign was TOTALLY blind, without user input at the critical stage (before you spend money), and would now make you look silly after spending $X on it to not roll it out anyway (what else would you put on your performance review?).
We don't give a shit about that. We're easy to satisfy. Post the articles that we submit and rate ourselves in a boring old unmaintained interface. How fucking hard is that?
this a thousand times! we are the product. we are who they are selling to advertisers. i can't believe that they don't get this!
you shouldn't piss off your product. especially when most of them have a skill set to just recreate Slashdot elsewhere.
-S
Ok logged in to comment on this. Yes my id number is rather high. I've scrounged this site for years before finally getting around to making an account. The new UI does not fit in with what slashdot is. Not a fan over here. However, this comments and responses section reminds me of when ebay revamped its website scheme and interface a year or 2 ago. Lots of comments from sellers having problems, new interface, lots of "we are listening" talk. And plenty of "well, we're going ahead with what we think it needs instead of what you the user wants" The way i see it, you are trying to attract a new fan base, "audience", or user group and figure that the existing user group will adapt. Some of us will, some of us won't. On a side note "UX design" is bullshit marketing buzzword speak. You might as well say you are updating your page for SEO reasons and want to replace eHOW. Pages of the same crap as everybody else and nothing interesting anymore.
I like the cleaner beta look because it's cleaner and easier to read. I like the box structure to the stories and the comments.
I wish the story descriptions were not truncated on the main page and instead all the text was visible. I also wish that the comment font size was just slightly larger by default, but the story font size is large and that's fine.
I really dont remember the first time but its been a long while.
Please dont change it. It works GREAT AS IS. I agree with the vast majority of the comments; you know the ones that read like "the comments are the site", and "this is a community, not and audience". If it changes i will probably stop coming.
Linux mag stopped paper. I stopped reading it. I am not some anti progress knee jerk reactionary, (at least i dont think i am) But I do like the way it is now.
So i agree witht he other comment that said. Stop the upgrade efforts, apologize to the community, fix the minor tweaks, and shoot the engineer.
(Get the reference ?)
Here is the crux of the problem. Who is "we"? Because it certainly doesn't seem to be the slashdot community, that's for sure!
Basic functionality without javascript, that's what we need.
You made slashdot looks like techcrunch - not the same audience. It's like making minecraft look like GTA.
Hey DICE, I know you depend on advertising revenue for this site, but please make and maintain a separate version that can't show your ads at all.
Regards, Narnie
I also have a "funny" demotion. I believe I'm on the classicest classic available. I don't even have threaded comments. Just flat. As close to static layout as possible.
The story submissions have been getting worse and worse for shedding more heat than light. I only ever cared about the comments section.
While I appreciate that our evil redesign overlords are apparently listening, the level of communication around this (e.g. lack of clearly esoupsed objectives) screams of an underlying agenda that's incompatible with my long-established pattern of participation. Thus I can't see myself remaining here after classicest classic goes to classic heaven, unless there's more than listening, something which approaches a major change of heart and some serious backtracking on the original plan.
Once the comments go away, another core function will wither. Whether it's submissions, moderation, or just consumption I don't know. Then another function withers and it's game over. Ecologies are tricky things.
Maybe it's because they're getting a kick of out all you freeloading shits whining like spoiled children.
I know I am.
Yay beta!
ok, just tried the beta for the first time.. aaaaannnndddd.
MY EYES! THE GOGGLES DO NOTHING!
The beta crap has annoyed me enough to change my signature for the first time since i registered on Slashdot.
I'm not even going to try the comments system, but please make your designer eat all his whitespace. We're not buying 24-27-30 inch monitors to stare at patches of white.
I apologize for the lack of a signature.
The new beta looks is horrible, less space for the stories, unused borders, way too big font... Please keep the classic look an option, not only for the near future. I'll migrate to altslashdot.org or similar efforts if the new look is gonna be forced. This is from a 15 years slashdot reader.
Slashdot has the vertical space and the font size right. This beta wastes so much vertical space that I have to scroll thrice to read all news.-Ignacio Agulló
you prefer one of the other /. memes??? For Profit, Natalie Portman's Hot Grits say "Fuck Beta"
It'll die down of its own accord, until then chill and enjoy the fireworks.
oh yes I nearly forgot: FUCK BETA
Just fix the varous options so it's clear what they do, and add some help so it doesn't just say stuff like "use the small view" next to the small view option.
Ok, you need to redesign the site.
We get it.
Anyone who has tried to read the comment threads on an iPhone gets it. Slashdot didn't make the transition to the separation of content and display well, limiting your flexibility when it comes to adapting to the plethora of new devices popping up. Among other things which I'm sure include "monetizing" the site more.
So, you need to redesign the site. Got it.
So, you created "Beta", whether because of an edict from the new corporate masters or whether it's an internally driven project, it was immediately obvious whoever did Beta ( on mobile especially) didn't even do a basic "This is how people use the site" survey. Or if they did, they did a really shitty job. Maybe they read the comments and thought those were the truth. Anyway.
So, here's a thought:
What if you did the redesign in an open/community driven manner?
Set up a persistent discussion (make it a tab, "Changes are a coming to Slashdot", weigh in with a comment) and explain what changes you want to make, and why. Let the community hash it out. Maybe let us vote on a feature, and allow us to test it out on some dummy (or real) stories to see how it works. Allow us to view different stories under the new look and layout. Maybe with a button that changes the CSS a la CSS Zengarden (simplest reference site) or that redirects us to the same story at beta1.slashdot.org, beta2.slashdot.org, etc if it requires serious architectural changes that can't be done with just a reskin. Or something similar.
Also, set up a persistent discussion board where you guys explain the issues you're trying to fix and why(!) and see what the community has to say. You have one of the largest dens of geeks of varying skill and knowledge levels on this site and it's quite possible they may have an actual solution for you, or a simpler one, or a better one. I know the guys who run slashdot are super-geeks, but you can't know everything (root != god, sorry). But the community has an incredible amount of combined knowledge. Use it. And read the comments at level 1 or 2, since the way the slashdot moderation system works, a lot of valid commentary will get pushed down over the most artful use of an obligatory xkcd Natalie Portman reference.
Then, instead of committing to wholesale bulk changing the site (come on, you have to know better. Who's forcing that on you? New management? Tell them what's up.), make incremental changes. Maybe to one set of features of a subsystem, or an entire section or something. If that section of the site is "Difficult" to fix because it's interwoven with other parts of the site, then spend the time to unravel it. You're going to have to anyway.
But regardless, instead of making bulk changes and driving away the people that allow this site to make enough money for it to change corporate hands a few times, include the community. Maybe we'll have feature suggestions you didn't even know about. Maybe we'll have a solution to what you thought were inexplicable problems that are easily solved because you're just aware the solution exists. Maybe you're agonizing over a feature no one uses.
But try including the community. And it's a community, not an "Audience". Nor are we users. We're a community. Of people. Online. If you need to spin it for the new corporate overlords, we are the biggest "stakeholder" in the redesign. Frame the problem that way on the whiteboards and in the meetings with the IT people.
The beta and redesign comments have spilled into way too many comment threads. Because you guys are clearly managing it poorly. Or someone from corporate is managing it poorly. You've got once change to do this right. Because if you drive the community away, like the former inhabitants of Chernobyl and mySpace, they're not coming back.
Maybe it takes a little longer than it should. Unless you've got some corporate budget target to meet, that's ok with most of us. If it takes a year, or two. Who cares if it results in a truly better slashdot? Put
Reeses
Some time ago after moving my reading to a tablet I had beta /. foisted on me. I know I like /. as I have been reading the news & COMMENTS here since 2K. I did not enjoy the new site, in fact it put me off.
Then HAPPY DAY I found that on googoo play there is a stripped text only version where I can have a chosen font size and selected comment level. So I have been cruising along getting my fix and facts while the other poor schmoes got shafted. But this was the easy way out. I MISS CLASSIC...
I would prefer a permanent option to use what will likely soon be the 'classic' format. Please, when something isn't broke - don't fix it. Particularly when your own visitors have not asked for it.
What about those of us that do not mind the new beta?
The only problem I see is people continuing to complain in other story threads. I say Salshdot should just move ahead and drop Beta in permanently, the sooner they do the sooner the whining stops.
Every website redesign as a ton of people crying as if the site had killed their whole family. It's just style dude(s) (and we ALL know it's males doing the whining).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
And it did mess up things when I tried to post because it re-loaded in the background and killed the post I was trying to make.
Be aware that change isn't always for the better, using a lot of flashy features and the latest HTML with Javascript isn't always good. Think of the lynx users!
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
'more accessible and shareable by a wider audience' This is the problem. Car analogy... Ford sells more F-150s than anything else. Some geeks insist on buying economical compacts. So they redesign the compacts with huge heavy pickup sections to make them more useable by a wider range of customers. Only very few geeks want a compact with a huge pickup section so they all leave for Reddit. Plus I think they wanted 'responsive' but they've given us whitespace. 10 to 1 it's been designed by a Mac user.
I've used slashdot for about 15 years.
If slashdot changes the way it transpires, Slashdot will only be a domain name with whatever news on it. It will not be the Slashdot anymore.
And there is no need to boycot. When the change occurs they will see their userbase drop by some order of magnitude (hopefully in time).
mods are that bad
"So let's all slow down."
what is this? a frat party? these people are goofing around and trying their sub-par web design skills on us
Why??? Why do you have to cut off support? If it costs nothing to maintain (in the grand scheme of things i imagine this is close to that) then why does it have to be cut off? It needs no maintenance, it needs nothing! So, please give us ONE good reason. WHY???
Remember kids: What's right isn't as important as what's profitable.
I have to ask, what prompted this nonsense? Do you think slash dot will be more attractive to new readers when it looks likesomething other than slash dot? perhaps you should focus your efforts on using that UI for a different website. Slash dot is slash dot and classic is what slash dot looks like. It worked for Google, have they suffered badly from not dramatically changing their core launch page? Most people would say not.
perhaps you could offer a choice, keep the classic page abs the switch when 50% of your traffic chooses the new look then switch, something tells me that isn't likely though.
Listen to your readers, the ash heap of history is littered with companies that thought they knew what their customers wanted better than the customers themselves did. Don't do it. Just don't do it.
and now I am.
OMG, no UTF-8?! OMFG driving everything via javascript?
My fellow slashdotters, we have a voice. We know how to use it.
This comment was written with the intention to opt out of advertising.
cliffs?
I don't comment very often, but I read Slashdot almost daily. Look at my goddamn 6-digit ID — I've been coming here since the beginning. As others have pointed out, the comments ARE Slashdot. I clicked on Beta a few times and every time I had to switch back over to Classic. It's just not as easy to read and follow comments, nor as easy to decide which articles I am interested in reading. Listen to us. Others have given so many reasons why Beta sucks so I won't reiterate, but I had to comment to be counted with the hope that Beta dies.
The guys pushing beta, are so out of touch, they are not in this universe. Indeed, they are in the perverse!
They are so far up there own perverse, they are throwing "corporate-speak," as "us. I say to you, you break my site, I leave!
Be a grown up and admit you failed. Change would come from the community, not some PR/corporate arse-wipe.
Rob M, thanks for the good times mate. It looks like they are about to kill your baby.
Free Tibet.
GreekGeek :-)
Slashdot has changed hands how many times over the years? This was bound to happen sooner or later. MySpace fell from grace in the eyes of their users and if that's the fate Dice has for Slashdot, so be it. One of the great things about the Internet has always been that a popular site's incompetence can easily be an up-and-coming site's opportunity. We don't search the web with Altavista and download music with Napster and the world isn't worse off for it. Slashdot has had a good run and if management doesn't want to listen, maybe it's just time to pass the torch...
---
DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
..."if they don't change that outlook Slashdot will die."
*shivers at the thought of /. closing or being destroyed by noobs*
Leave _OUR_ site alone, we like it just the way it is!!!! Fucrs!
I am shocked to see the reaction of the community against the new design. Change is the only constant, especially in Software Engineering. Embrace change, adapt and move on. It can only be better.
I hope it was enough to make being an obedient little corporate toady worth it.
The ONLY acceptable response from Slashdot is the immediate and permanent abandonment of the Beta project. Everything and anything else is just happytalk bullshit from cowards and liars.
All I can say is that the old Slashdot would not have banned me for visiting the site with a Tor Browser. Nor would it have suggested that I might like to read about the Slashdot PT Cruiser being spotted in the wild. What's next? A section on game cheat codes?
I was going to post a link here to a tweet, showing how weird and shit the comments are.
see weirdness
Your comment inexplicably was a smaller less-bold font.
But the comments both above and below yours were the same.
Yours is score 1, above is score 2, below is score 5, but there is another comment just below off the screen also score 1, that doesn't have the same font as yours.
Yours has no replies; but neither does the one immediately below yours, nor the one above. Your comment is 10 hours old, and below is also 10 hours old.
I am at a loss to explain why.
And I am at a loss to really understand the comment box; since it doesn't indicate what the weird top box is - is it the comment box and the preview box below? ... I guess its the title of my comment (So why didn't it say: "Comment Subject" instead of "Reply to Comment" in the subject box - that isn't the reply, thats the topic of my reply! aarg).
no.. I can type in both
This is the comments reply box
And the giant Ad-whitespace to the right, if I had a smaller window it goes away.
To top it all off; when previewing my hyperlinks were smaller, but after posting my hyperlinks are the same size as the rest of my comment.
sigh. And I've never **HAD** to put a subject in before. (just got hit by that)
No idea how to replicate; but somehow your comment lacks a "
" tag around the content. Comments with (what I would call) the proper font/size have a P tag encasing the content within their comment-body div. Perhaps all single line comments get this treatment. Well thats fucking wonderful. (this comment is a test of that theory)
Yikes. Thanks for the reminder that they also screwed up sourceforge recently.
There are 1.1... kinds of people.
The gist of the responses here is that the users make Slashdot what it is, so why not start a code contribution website, say contribution.slashdot.org where users can make small changes to classic /. and the community can rate it as being useful/what is needed/it fixed that bug etc . Of course Dice is entitled to define certain rules (eg advertising model and revenue), seeing they own /. , but the rules are where Dice will shine or ./ will die in ignominy.
Otherwise, it's time for the /. community to fork off.
It's as simple as that - you do not understand WHY people visit Slashdot.
Nobody goes here to read amazing fresh news. It's safe to say what whatever "news" you put up have already been posted elsewhere at least half a day before. Your users come here for the discussions, to read what other Slashdot users think about the stories and to reply to those comments. That's why the comments are absolutely, 100%, the most important thing on the Slashdot website, and your beta site makes them much more annoying to read and reply to. Seriously, how can you NOT see that this will cause an exodus if it will go live? This is not a minor inconvenience people will get used to after a few days, it is a fundamental flaw, like replacing the juicy steak on someone's plate with a huge steaming turd.
Your website redesign is going in a completely wrong direction. Everybody is telling you that, you claim to hear it, but you ignore it. This won't end well.
Oh, and get rid of all that whitespace. I am using a 27" screen, not a portrait-oriented iPad, thank you very much.
Something general: I think if you get rid of classic slash dot as the default UI you will kill this great community and it will be the end of slash dot.
Something specific: if you get rid of classic slash dot in favor of anything as ugly and useless as the beta i will end my decade long support and use of /.
Don't be stupid. Leave well enough alone.
If they do not listen, there is a "evil corporatio" (TM), if they do, nothing gonna happen. No way to satisfy slashdot mob. It's just a new layout, what's the big deal about ?
Just look at the financial statement Dice made.
This part say's it all:
"Slashdot Media was acquired to provide content and services that are important to technology professionals in their everyday work lives and to leverage that reach into the global technology community benefiting user engagement on the Dice.com site. The expected benefits have started to be realized at Dice.com. However, advertising revenue has declined over the past year and there is no improvement expected in the future financial performance of Slashdot Media's underlying advertising business. Therefore, $7.2 million of intangible assets and $6.3 million of goodwill related to Slashdot Media were reduced to zero."
They now consider slashdot worth $0 , and they consider the goodwill of the users now worth $0.
So the Site has to change to give it some worth from advertising, so they are going to copy the bland tech news sites.
And stop complain about Javascript, are you living in the 90's ?
If you want to make a slash dot that looks like a fancy new website with tech news that appeals to new users with a fresh new look all the cool kids will really love then launch a new website with the new UI with a new domain. If they are new users then slash dot won't mean anything to them anyway. Domain registration is cheap, you can call it generic tech website news aggregator. Then for a few dollars at go daddy you can implement your change for changes sake nonsense without screwing up the great thing you adjust have.
Change for change sake is just inept management masquerading as dynamic. Don't screw up a good thing.
The title calls us their "Audience". This is the core of the problem. They think they are running CNN. They do not understand that we are their contributors, their community, not their audience. Their articles are day-late dollar-short shit. We are the authors of the good part of the site, they are the chalkboard.
This is an attitude change that came with Dice, Malda never looked at Slashdot that way. And regardless of the beta, if they don't change that outlook Slashdot will die.
This is probably the single most insightful comment I've read this week. Yes, Slashdot is "News for Nerds". But we don't come here to passively "consume" news. We come here to actively debate the news. That's what makes Slashdot different. Take that away and the site will be "pining for the fjords".
Slashdot has been plowing ahead with their 'beta' site despite the obvious elimination of functionality for reading and responding to comments and the predictable complaints from /* members. The comments and discussion are, after all, the ONLY reason for slashdot to even exist. They say they are 'listening' but they obviously are choosing not to 'hear' and so we have to think that that is intentional. Maybe we should consider that the problem with the 'classic' (gotta love how that word characterizes everything) site is NOT that it has an unattractive appearance, uses too many resources, doesn't display enough ads, or is too difficult to support going forward but that it does the discussions too well. You provide a forum for intelligent people to share thoughts and ideas and...guess what...intelligent people share thoughts and ideas...and for some people (governments, scientologists, corporate pr departments, etc.) that is a problem. There are very, very, few sites that offer the ability to comment and share interactive comments with others in a construction and information fashion...and slashdot is one. We should consider that the 'beta' site is just another way of snuffing out one of the last few flickering lights of informative discussion on the internet.
I think I have it figured out.
Since we are the product--eyeballs to which to show ads--what's going on is like what really happened with the supposed New Coke debacle.
It was a smokescreen to give them space between Coke with real sugar and Coke Classic with HFCS.
We, the original use base, are the real sugar version.
They want to replace us with an HFCS user base who just love it here at SlashingtonPost.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
The classic design works well and, quite honestly, I think most of the community couldn't care less about the aesthetics of the website. I strongly dislike the new beta version and believe it's a regression in terms of usability.
If you do decide to adopt the new look as a standard, please keep the classic look available at least as an option. Otherwise, prepare to lose mose of your userbase....
Some relevent comments I'd like to copy/paste here:/p>
The title calls us their "Audience". This is the core of the problem. They think they are running CNN. They do not understand that we are their contributors, their community, not their audience. Their articles are day-late dollar-short shit. We are the authors of the good part of the site, they are the chalkboard.
This is an attitude change that came with Dice
We are not the audience. We are the performers!
Don't appease your readers by saying, "We are listening" and then continuing down your existing path. That's worse than not saying it at all.
I don't think you have understood. We don't want you to slow down. We want you to stop; reverse; appologise for being so out of touch with your user base; and promise to never do anything so stupid again.
The solution is simple: can Beta as a failure. Be grown-up enough to admit that it did not work, and start again from scratch, designing with the contributors in mind. You know, the guys who provide the majority of the content people come here for - the discussions.
It takes courage to admit that you've been wrong. That would be respected. But polishing a turd is not going to win anyone's admiration, or even sympathy.
--
UX is exactly like Astrology or Alchemy and nothing like chemistry or astronomy. HCI (Human Computer Interaction) is the real science, UX is a pseudo-science.
UX research has given us Gnome 3, Unity, Metro. All universally despised.
And "UX" is a stupid buzzword.
--
The appeal of Slashdot is the pedantry, the technical nature of things, and the overall level of the discussion. If I want to interact with a "wider audience" I can go talk on the Disqus comments that litter CNN, CNBC, etc.
It's not the current site design that's limiting slashdot's appeal to a broader audience. I think slashdot already has the readership of its target audience. Changing the site design is not going to bring new people flocking in, but it is going to drive away the ones that are already here. Seems like a bad plan.
Beta must be abandoned as a failed experiment. It is awful - not due to bugs, but due to the intention behind the redesign. Your existing 'audience' is what makes slashdot. If you want a larger audience I suggest you create a celebrity gossip website. Awful.
Dumb question: why did you buy Slashdot in the first place if you think the web site is in need of a major makeover? Answer: it wasn't about the web site - it was about what you call the "audience", or what we call the "community". It's all about advertising dollars. We get it - we're not fools. We know the business model. But a word of caution to you: "communities" can be very mobile on the internet. Just ask MySpace. Push the beta on the "community" and you will be left with a web site and a bunch of blank slots where advertising once was. We will find somewhere else to go. After all, we all found this site at one time or another.
"Could be worse...could be raining." Igor
Why are all UI-designers focussed on less; less information, less functionality, less options. The only thing that is more is more nothing, emptiness, empty space, useless images and other nonsense. Please give me less white space and more information denisity, or at least give me the option of using the classic view forever.
Slashdot is a niche site for nerds. Attempting to reach "wider audience" will kill the site, I've seen the same exact process happen several times before.
Here are the steps in MBA logic:
1) The owner wants to increase readership (=advertising profits) by providing for "wider audience"
2) The owner does marketing research to find what kind of content the general populace would like to "consume" on the subject.
Unsurprisingly, the research shows that the majority (median) audience wants content on more mainstream subjects -- not the niche subjects they previously had.
3) The site content changes, more or less gradually, from niche to mainstream, and old audience (the niche followers) loses interest and goes elsewhere, because it's just not the same thing anymore. (Imagine a medical magazine going from "Alzheimer's disease therapy" to "How to cure the flu in 3 easy steps")
4) ...profit? No, not really. The old media is dead, all that's left is old fame and branding. The old niche audience dissappears faster than expected, and new audience is difficult to reach because it has become a generic "me too"-media, which suddenly has to compete with the big, established mainstream media.
In case of slashdot, since the niche audience is also the provider of the actual content (the discussion), the loss of niche audience will cause content quality to drop like a stone. Readership and ad views will drop accordingly. Slashdot will lose all of it's "competitive advantage" among news sites when the insightful discussion from expert nerds turns into mindless chatter of the masses.
The whole process is pushed by the owner, so stopping or reversing it is next to impossible.
Money talks, and the readers, editors and admins can only watch the slow motion train wreck.
So long, and thanks for all the fish...
Slashdot. The beta site looks like shit.
My karma is not a Chameleon.
'nuff said.
Hola, soy el (auténtico) troll de la Milanesa de Barrapunto. El lavado de cara de Slashdot es una puta mierda.
Durante el período del boycott estaré troleando de nuevo por allí. Nos vemos en la medio difunta Barrapunto durante la semana del 10 al 17 de Febrero.
FUCK BETA
Audience, not users. Passive spectators, not respected partners. That word selection says everything you need to know about the new bosses.
I suppose it would have been too starkly honest to label us as Product, so... Audience.
It's a very good start. Your mistake (and the reason why so many Slashdot posters have suddenly turned into 2 year olds throwing their rattles out of their strollers because mommy took their bottle away) was releasing it too early when it's clearly not ready.
Here's what MUST be fixed for me to switch over:
That's not to say that'd make Beta perfect, but it'd make it an adequate replacement where it's better than, say, the original Slashdot (not D2, the actual original) simply because Pudge broke so much.
Other suggestions:
That's it. It's a great start. Unfortunately you kinda went about releasing it really badly, which means I'm not even sure you'll get a chance to finish it. Perhaps the best thing you can do right now is to promise to make D2 and classic available to those who desperately want it for the foreseeable future.
Finally, a plea: you have unlimited mod points and a way to zap people's karma to less than zero. Perhaps, with fair warning, it's time you used those tools against those who are destroying every single story discussion. (Sorry guys, but you are. You are terrible, terrible people, and it's time something was done about the damage you're causing.)
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Beta will continue until morale improves
People should shut up with their entitled whining. The biggest annoyance about the Slashdot beta is assholes spamming unrelated stories with their complaints and getting voted up for it.
Every time a web site changes something around, someone comes out of the woodwork complaining that their favorite web site is incompatible with the Apple II or whatever ancient computer they have kicking around. I don't think web sites have any obligation to maintain backwards compatibility with the fringe users who insist on using antiquated technologies on the modern web.
Fuck your old PC's and your junk hoarding ways. Pry $25 out of your bank account and get a Raspberry Pi, which can certainly handle the javascript on this site more effectively than your rusty fleet of collected CompuTurds can.
1. I want to see the one line entries for comments that are below mod point limit. At least, make it an option.
2. Change the All or One filter to allow selection of multiple types, where All selects them all.
The comments here are bizarre, I think it looks fine and worked better than the old site. Are people here that afraid of change? Also the hate for JS is even more odd to me, I run a script disabling add-in and only enable for the actual site I'm visiting (as opposed to all the tracking scripts and such) but there's a reason I enable for the sites I'm visiting! The beta hate mob just come across as angry and irrational from what I can see.
Managers, this comment section is your jobs whispering... hissing in your ear: "We're leaving youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu"
If they're not going to listen, we should all organize on a new site and migrate. Less talk, more action. Anyone have a good recommendation?
I understand this as you do - there are frequent users and contributors which in fact makes them co-authors of the site. There are also owners of the site infrastructure and providers of infrastructure's maintenance. There are also financiers that give money - this is adware then right? There are also people that come and consume only. From these groups the first and last are the reason that adware is placed. Once this is cleared we can see whether owners can do what they want with the site? They of course can. If there is backlash with first group the last group will also be severely affected so this means less revenue from adware owners. What I would like to know is how much adware is needed to support the site and how big and what 'audience' one needs to consume adware.
Who is this wider audience they speak of?
>Dice - a cash cow thats what!
Why does the site needs to be redesigned for them?
>Dice - Because it needs web2.0socialmetrics integration to bring in more cash!
I thought this was news for nerds, not news for joe six-pack who doesn't know quark from physics and Quark from DS9. This site is targeted at real nerds/geeks of all types. Our interests are sciences, technology, sci-fi and things related to them. Its not a cash cow to be raped to death. We come here for a bit of news and discuss the topics, and many times find some really great and informative comments.
Timothy, /. editors. I believe you silently agree with us in our protest, at least I hope you do. Dice is writing your checks and I am sure you want to keep your job but understand /. has already reached its audience. Tell your Dice masters that the change will kill /., not grow it.
You know this community and I know that your are among one of the oldest
Dice, et al, /. already reaches its target audience. We don't need clueless masses coming here, that is what Popular Science if for. And Popular Science is a rag compared to what I used to read in the 80's/90's. You are doing all of us a disservice by screwing up the site.
Fuck off and leave Slashdot alone.
not sure if you ever saw rotten carrot I just did as I found one forgotten carrot root in my fridge - you will have significant problems with fucking people with it - not to mention hard....
Adapt or die out :P ...."we didn't give you not enough possibilities to complain!" or "we gave you enough possibilities to complain!"
Choose!
I do think all websites, even sites like Slashdot, need to evolve. You may disagree on the particulars -- and clearly, a lot of people do -- but I'm surprised so many attribute that to malice.
It's not about malice and never was. (a few idiots think everything is a plot but they self-identify and are easy to ignore) It's about fundamentally and badly misunderstanding what makes this site work. It took me about 15 seconds on the beta site to realize it was alpha quality at best. Virtually everything that makes slashdot worth visiting was missing. Commenting and (just as important) the ability to read comments and see what others thought of them on the beta is broken badly and at the end of the day that was job #1. This was not a project that was even remotely close to ready for public consumption.
Slashdot is a tough crowd. No, you are never going to please everyone and no matter what you do there will be a lot of complaining about it. But this redesign does not appear to provide any benefits to the slashdot community. It provides us NOTHING that we did not already have and breaks a lot of things we did have. If this redesign is of any benefit to people like me it is a well kept secret. With this crowd you need to explain what you are doing, why you are doing it and how it will benefit them. Just saying it "needs to evolve" tells us nothing. It does NOT need to evolve just because. If it needs to evolve there has to be an evolutionary pressure. Just understand that with this crowd your bottom line is not important. That's your problem and it provides no benefits to us aside from the continued existence of slashdot. You need to take a page from Apple and start with the benefits to us and work backward from there. You want eyeballs for advertisers (your customers) then give us something we actually care about in exchange. We don't give a crap about whether it looks like every other site out there.
Even the mea culpa that is the article in this thread seems to still miss the point. You say you are listening and maybe you really are but actions speak much louder than words. The communication about what is going on here has been horrible. What is most worrisome is that the developers appear to virtually everyone to be completely clueless about what what people actually want from slashdot and why they keep coming here. This site has been here a long time and you would think someone would have actually wrapped their head around why it works somewhere along the way. If you want to redo the back end stuff to make it more manageable for you, then fine but we don't care about that as long as it works the way we expect. If you are going to change the site in some way visible to the users you need to do it in a way that benefits us somehow. Forcing 25% of your users to some half baked alpha quality redesign that takes away or breaks a bunch of important and expected features is pretty much the definition of dumb. This is a group that gives Microsoft never ending shit for using their user-base to beta test products. Do you seriously think we will cut slashdot any slack for doing the same thing?
GM_addStyle('div.rail-right {display:none;}'); .river-left {margin-right:5px !important;}');
GM_addStyle('#view-standard
GM_addStyle('.split-right {background-image:none !important;}');
Then fire every single one that advocated Beta. (Because killing them with fire is illegal, for some silly reason.).
Make feedback questionair so you can get possitive feedback too. Not just a bunch of flaming fools. That's all. Nothing to see here.
Plenty of people have complained that there is no way in the beta to see a simple list of a user's comments (with replies and mods), the way you can in Classic. This makes it very difficult to follow long-term discussions or even respond to replies. Now the functionality is clearly THERE (since you can do this in Classic). So someone has clearly made the decision to NOT include it in the beta.
Lots of people have complained about this and other issue. Nothing has changed. In fact, AFAICT, not a single thing about the beta has been changed since I first tried it out months ago.
You have clearly NOT listened to us. And I doubt you have any intentions of EVER listening to us. And your bullshit post is the most verbose pile of shit that says ABSOLUTELY NOTHING that I have read in a long time. Allow me to summarize, for those who don't wish to read a huge paragraph of unadulterated horseshit:
Hey guys, stop throwing stuff at me, please! We're listening, I promise. And while I'm not promising do change anything, or do anything differently at all really; I really wish you would stop all this protesting and whining! I promise we're listening, and your suggestions will be put right here in File 13, where we will give them due consideration--before doing what we planned to all along anyway.
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
I always have my browser on half of my screen, that is 1920/2 = 960 pixels (best case). The layout doesn't work well with that setting and I'm not going to make my browser wider.
I'm well aware of the bad things Javascript can do. I'm also aware of tools that let you disable Javascript selectively. It's a question of who do you trust and frankly if you can't trust any websites out there, then don't go out. I can't see every website disabling Javascript just "because the NSA used it" or "hax0r x used it for a DDOS" attack. That's why we have Browser extensions that help defer us from malicious sites and for this website I'll just use it, like all others, with a moniker of caution. That still doesn't mean that Slashdot is "da debil!"
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
This is wrong. The Beta looks worse than Google and Yahoo combined. It looks like your dog on acid, it also sux
Has anyone said FUCK BETA yet??
When there's an outright rebellion, and yet you chose to proceed, that's not what I'd call "listening"... A few individuals may be hearing the complaints, but unless those in charge are responsive to them, it will never qualify as "listening".
Crapping on your customer more slowly (and randomly) is still crapping on your customers. Until you've fixed ALL the problems you know about, there's no point in inflicting it those known issues upon more unwilling victims.
I believe the mobile site, and the beta site are wothless lost causes, and they need a complete rethink and redesign. By trying to "fix" them, you're throwing away more money and time. When a hole gets big enough, people get trapped by it,. The hole gets bigger, and eventually companies feel obligated to use it for SOMETHING, so that they can "spin" their mistakes into something less obviously bad, whether for their ego or career's sake. So no matter what we hear about "listening", if you're continuing to dig that hole even deeper, I will expect it to be forced on us, eventually.
IMHO, you'd do best to start at zero. Put together a super-bare-minimum slashdot layout that is still fully functional, then insert whatever hacks are necessary for proper layout on common platforms, and get some public input at that point. I wouldn't be surprised if only a few simple color/layout changes would then make it a nice site, and you'll have your mobile site, ready to have extra junk tacked on for the desktop version.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Just look at the financial statement Dice made.
This part say's it all:
"Slashdot Media was acquired to provide content and services that are important to technology professionals in their everyday work lives and to leverage that reach into the global technology community benefiting user engagement on the Dice.com site. The expected benefits have started to be realized at Dice.com. However, advertising revenue has declined over the past year and there is no improvement expected in the future financial performance of Slashdot Media's underlying advertising business. Therefore, $7.2 million of intangible assets and $6.3 million of goodwill related to Slashdot Media were reduced to zero."
They now consider slashdot worth $0 , and they consider the goodwill of the users now worth $0.
So the Site has to change to give it some worth from advertising, so they are going to copy the bland tech news sites.
I think the Beta site is an excellent idea!!! Do it now, make it permanent!
See, I waste *wayyyy* too much time on slashdot reading the comments and posting my thoughts, time where I could probably be spending doing more important things in life... so if you implement the Beta, right now, then it will give me and thousands of other geeks/nerds just like me, who spend way too much time on here, motivation to find new places - or even to *create* new places - on the internet that feed our need for community.
Yes, it will mean that slashdot will die a horrible "death by 1000 cuts" as the community abandons it in droves for other places, but since that is apparently what the new management wants then they 100% deserve to get what they want - a bad reputation (not that Dice has a good one anyways) and a website that no longer produces any real revenue for them. Then, of course, the MBAs that made the decisions will move on to other companies to repeat the process, and the tech people will get to experience their own mini ".com bust" as they lose their jobs because off poor management and no revenue.
It's not like I am going to make a difference and any one is going to listen to me at Slashdot. The new beta look will be forced down our throats because a designer (or more) and Slashdot management think it looks good. I am too old not to understand that this is the type of things that simply will not be changed even it it make no sense. Beta version will be put forward no matter our comments and the justification will be "you can't please everyone".
The new layout is horrendous, to a point Slashdot will have an EX reader when classic layout is gone.
I just cannot stand that spacey flat look with too clean a look, you need to do a gazillion scroll downs to see anything and the general contrast between text and layout is not only bland but makes reading hard with too many hard edges separations and hard horizontal lines. I can guarantee you nobody who saw this site at Slashdot is epileptic or has screen motion dizziness.
Anyone have screenshots of the major designs over the last ten years? I'm remembering the original design looking the best but I'd like to see them side by side to confirm it.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
if the classic gui getting killed, i'm looking for alternative forums..
fvck b3ta!
Please, I'm tired of being dragged down with boat anchors.
Insightful?
Yeah as insightful as recognizing half the users would be thrilled to be using an 029.
slashdot troll = you make a compelling argument I do not like the implications of.
But the beta site sucks. Fuck beta.
You said it better than I could have. That is the core problem with Dice and the exact reason why Beta, if deployed will destroy Slashdot. They are making the chalkboard less usable. Everyone will just find another chalkboard. Slashdot is replaceable. In fact, maybe this should be viewed as an opportunity.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
Timothy: "Some of you have suggested we're not listening; on the contrary, some of us are 'listening' pretty much full-time." So Timothy, et al: "we want a platform where we can experiment with different views of both comments and stories. It's not an either/or. It's going to be both." I think overwhelmingly people have indicated they do not want to see stories and comments on the same page. I frankly could care less what the trolls post on every single story. If there's a story I like and want to see the comments on, I can click into it and read all I want. But I don't need and/or want them on the list page. Back on point, many folks have echoed the same perspective, yet you're still plowing forward with "it's going to be both." So either you are not listening, or far worse, you don't care what we're saying. In any case, I think you're now bordering on the point of "jumping the shark". Continue at your own peril, but in order to appease a few in order to deliver a shiny new interface will just send the bulk of us to some other sites.
The large aerospace company I work for forces Internet Explorer 8, which means images don't scale correctly and aren't placed in the page at a location you'd expect. Lots of junk is turned off for security reasons. Anyway, It's about time for a redesign.
Frankly Slashdot, this site used to be a daily visit (probably more). What is wrong with the design currently, nothing. The problem is with the content and the blatant ad stories. Please don't ruin slashdot (as it remains) with a stupid site re-design like was done to DIGG.
The BETA SUCKS. seriously, it just sucks.
I like your Chalkboard analogy. Here is another.
Bees make honey. You can set up bee boxes and have bees live in the boxes and make honey that you can harvest. But the bees are free to leave at any time. They only reason they stay is because it is attractive to be there. Try making the bee box unusable and the bees will just go build a beehive elsewhere. Don't believe it? They've been building beehives for a lot longer than bee boxes have been around.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
Also, it's worth noting that this response from timothy was written only after a fairly serious effort to replace slashdot.org with something better (as noted in both our sigs). The suits are thinking something along the lines of "We're going to lose to a competitor! Do something!" and decided that we'd trust timothy more than some PR flak. Of course, the fact that they'd think that indicates to me that they do not know their community - timothy is actually one of the less-respected "editors".
I am officially gone from
I had classic Slashdot saved on my mobile browser, but now it redirects me every time to the damn beta site. I miss classic Slashdot!
Curiosity killed the cat, but cats have 9 lives.
Logged in users should be able to use any "version" of the Slashdot look-and-feel that hasn't already been permanently retired, subject to things like "new features may not be added to deprecated "versions" and "deprecated versions may not work well or look good on devices/screen sizes they weren't designed for."
In short, don't take away any "version" that already exists until long after it's officially "deprecated," and don't take it away until the number of users in the last few months has dropped below a very small percentage of logged-in users.
And always, always, maintain a "simple version" that can work with a plain-old mid-1990s-standards web browser which provides at least the basic capabilities like logging in, reading, posting, and submitting stories. This isn't just for universal compatibility, but it's also to make sure that blind people or those who are on very slow or erratic internet connections can still participate. After all, when I'm connecting to Slashdot from outer space or Antarctica, my connection probably won't be the best and I'll be looking for simplicity over functionality.
Non-logged in versions should always have the ability to click on a link called "simple" or "basic" or type in a specific URL modifier like ...?version=simple to get the simple interface. Hehe, better yet, call it ?version=HTML2.0 :).
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Hey /. marketing ASSHOLES - we like CLASSIC. Don't pull a New Coke - be smart, not stupid. This is /. - it works, leave it the fuck alone.
I seem to be locked into beta on my phone, and it just simply doesn't work. 3 comments down, and the comments are single-word lines, and a few more nested comments down, even that breaks. Even though I visit classic.slashdot.org, i end up at beta.
Look, someone with black-hat skills, track down their dev environment and rm -r it for us, please?
Prediction for end of Universe #42: Fencepost error in Quantum_bogosort.cpp
I'll say my 2 cents is that the new layout has potential. I can understand the desire to move to a more modern looking layout. On the one hand I hate throwing out a good layout for no functional reason, but I also understand the fact that it is kind of a reality of the Internet that you have to look "current" if you want to attract many modern day Internet users. (Sad, but true.)
The main thing I noticed right away was the feature parity issues, particularly the lack of ability to expand and collapse summaries to/from titles. That had a major impact on my ability to use the layout and I switched back to classic shortly after. I liked the overall look well enough, but it seemed to take up a lot more space than the current one, so working on a way to increase information density, if even on a specialized page or something that can be set as an option, would be a great help. It also felt a bit like a move to a blog instead of the much more news site feel the current layout has. (I felt like I was looking at a basic Word Press template with a couple of unique features bolted on.)
The other thing I would encourage is consistent posts like this one when you get different features working. Let us know what you changed, why, how you envision it being useful to us and us a chance to check it out. I come here to view news quickly, so I'm not going to use the Beta while it isn't the fastest way to consume the news, but I don't mind stopping by when there is new stuff that needs looking at by many eyes to see how it is working. Keep the communication open about what you are changing, why you are changing it and how it should be of benefit to people and I think you will see approval of changes increase a lot, particularly if you are responsive to concerns.
AJ Henderson
We want to take our current content and all the stuff that matters to this community and deliver it on a site that still speaks to the interests and habits of our current audience, but that is, at the same time, more accessible and shareable by a wider audience.
This is a website for intelligent, highly technical people. The information density is not a detriment, it is a feature.
.
Trying to attract a wider audience will only force the content to be dumbed down.
I've been reading slashdot for years, but comment very little. So from my perspective I find the new layout clean and easy on my eyes for reading, but it sounds to me that the commenting engine is not even at parity, let alone better than the old site.
I kinda agree, keep Slashdot the way it is. Don't change it.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
"Many users don't have access to graphical browsers where they work"? Whaaaaaat? Really?
Who is forced to use Lynx at their workplace in 2014? And why are they so concerned about being able to read Slashdot at work?
Seriously, slashdot has been providing us a great site for how many years now? And at the first sign they are doing something we might not like everyone turns on them like a pack of rabid wolves. It's a bit disappointing.
Yeah, the beta site is ugly, and it lacks a bunch of features. it's *BETA*, as in NOT FINISHED YET. Can we give them a little room to work on it before leaving en-masse? "Release early, release often" is how you get software into shape. When they asked for feedback, they needed constructive criticism, not useless abuse. So they didn't instantly respond to everything you posted complaints about. THEY'RE BUSY. Give them a little time.
This avalanch of ranting, conspiracy theories and threats isn't helping any, and it's a poor way to repsond to people who have supported our community for so long.
There is no need to reach a wider audience. It's news for nerds. We don't need a bunch of ignorant hillbillies commenting on the articles. It wastes space and bandwidth. If you guys want to reach a wider audience, take the software and go start a new website -- Slashditz; News for Nincompoops; Stuff to rant about. You guys are not all going to get mega rich by tweaking /. and selling ads. You're going to alienate your current community, and nobody new is really going to want to come here. Leave Slashdot alone.
Proverbs 21:19
This post indicates that our concerns have been heard. Give them a chance.
Their actions indicate that the concerns have been roundly ignored. The fact that people continue to bother to post indicates they are being given a change but also a stern warning. Users of slashdot have been telling them for YEARS what needs fixing and most of that has been ignored too. Why on earth should we take it on faith that they are suddenly going to give a shit now? I'm sure they do care at some level but their actions are either incompetent or arrogant or both.
Whether those changes will be acceptable to the community can only be judged after we have seen them; but in view of this post it is most unfair to say that our concerns have not been heard
Until there are concrete actions supporting their assertion that we have been heard then it is not unfair at all.
Why do you suppose they used the megaphone graphic?
They could do away with the graphics altogether and few here would mourn the loss.
best. slashdot. design. ever.
that still speaks to the interests and habits of our current audience, but that is, at the same time, more accessible and shareable by a wider audience.
So you want to become the g4tv of the internet?
I remember another example... tons of nerds and geeks and then it was opened up to a "wider audience"... what was that?
Oh yeah it was called the Internet. I understand you weenies have bought a brand and wanna monitize it but can we just have anything anymore?
I'm tired of our clubhouses being opened up to wider audiences can we just have something nice once in awhile?
The first time I tried the beta site, it was horribly broken in chrome (massive whitespace with random links and text everywhere), but looked much better in Firefox. Now, it looks horrible in Chrome and Firefox, yet looks marginally better when using Internet Exploder 8.0 (the corporate standard here).
I think this is very much a work in progress and mostly broken. I am assuming that the slashdot developers are hard at work on it. //It is also possible that the corporate firewall screwed something up, but judging from all the various comment in *all* the articles, it seems to be broken everywhere :(
You are in fact not listening.
1) Vast wastelands of wasted white space in the margins? Still there. .... The list goes on.
2) Comment moderation slider? No.
3) UID Friends/Foes in the headers? No.
4) Ability to quickly link back to threads I'm commenting in? No
WE ARE YOUR REVENUE. We are the eyeballs you sell and the creators of your content; content (comments) that keeps people coming back. We are telling you that you're fucking up.
If you were listening we wouldn't still be having this discussion.
(My first comment on this got deleted, I think... kind of suspicious)
>We've had only a few major redesigns since 1997; we think it's time for another.
There's the issue. Why does it need a redesign? What valid reasons can you provide us as to why the site needs a new layout? Show us the stats and the emails and the UI needs that demand this. To make it more handicap-friendly? To update the codebase with newer web standards? To placate the 5% of users who haven't destroyed you about Beta?
Almost any technical reason given for why the site needs rewritten can be fixed without completely destroying the look of the site. Answer me! Why do you think it's time?
Instead of focusing on a "new look", why not analyze where Slashdot fails, and see if you can't improve on that?
While it's fine for everyone to have a voice and toss off irreverent irrelevancies - that's kind of at the heart of Slashdot commenting - why not try to build something new that IN ADDITION tries to help commenters move past the classic "all heat, no light" mode of internet discussions?
E..g., for controversial issues, help different sides build their arguments into a few high-contrast positions explaining to the ignorant other sides why their position is correct? With branching and versioning to allow evolution of those positions. Similarly, for the various outrages that fearful governments and greedy corps frequently try to impose, and are reported here, how about creating a means of building consensus positions on useful actions to counter them?
Make Slashdot the vanguard in Open Source consensus building. Something along the lines of liquid democracy instead of simple polling and modding. Maybe throw in something along the lines of building up a topic-focused micro-wiki of useful information, links and ideas centered on the topic.
Really? Who could think that breaking an article in the middle of a sentence with "Read More" is a good idea? And what benefit to the user is an image that takes up half the page that has no real information. For example, http://apple.slashdot.org/stor... has a giant generic Android image. So, half of a page to let me know the single piece of information that the article is about Android. Slashdot, to me, is about high information density. This is the opposite.
I can't use the search box on beta. It just won't interact with me. I haven't tried it before today. Firefox 25.0.1. Windows 7.
But we are not an audience.
Sadly, the entire web is moving in the direction of not only everyone being a consumer, but of consuming information on phones and tablets. UI design has suffered massively. Interactions that were once straightforward on a PC have been made dreadfully painful by the "prettification" / dumbing down of UI elements to jump on the mobile / small form factor bandwagon.
It is a goddamn cancer.
Low quality articles + poor UI design + destruction of the value of this site = less traffic, less revenue, less add dollars. Joe everyman isn't going to flock to this site with this re-packaging. You are sadly fucking mistaken if you think so.
A lot (most?) come here for the LIMITED audience and participation by (generally) highly intelligent posters making well thought out (or entertaining) posts.
A wider audience would be exactly the thing to drive the current audience away, so good job.
Let me guess, there were recent internal staff management changes who think they have a good idea?
In MBA thinking ,which might have influenced the cause of actions around the beta,
certainly questions around accountability for this disaster and decisions would come up?
"We've had only a few major redesigns since 1997; we think it's time for another. "
Why? This is precisely why everyone is so mad. You have a site that (mostly) works. You should get feedback from the users about THAT interface and look at new techonologies, then identify specific issues that you want to improve. Then, improve those things but keep everything that is good. This is a basic business process. Know exactly what your goals are before you start. Redesigning for the sake of redesigning is a waste of time. To put it another way, don't fix what ain't broke.
"Here Lies Philip J. Fry, named for his uncle, to carry on his spirit"
I'm surprised there aren't more comments from users viewing the site on an iPad. It's just horrible. And... why is the pinch-zoom locked out? Why? It takes forever to load. Frames flashing all over. And then sometimes the browser just gives up and crashes. This should not be. The site is predominantly text with colored frames. You are letting some CSS monkeys really drag down the experience. I like the news and forums. It's the only reason I come. However, I won't keep coming home to a site that beats me. I will go elsewhere.
Hello,
I'm your 'audience'. I don't have an account, and I don't post. I don't read this site for the news. The summaries are always crap and out of date. I read it for the discussion underneath. Your commenters are your USP.
If they go, I go.
Thanks for reading.
I'd prefer to keep classic. its like why everyone who's ever used windows before 8, hates 8. Slashdot beta might be good for new readers, but I highly doubt the new readership will ever replace the numbers of the old readership.
Really? Is it that hard to have multiple front-ends forever?
On mobile I surf off the Palm front end. It works just fine. I assume you are going to kill that too?
Sometimes I use a RSS feed. Is that going to be killed as well?
Some of your management staff and IT folks should be publicly fired as a show of good will to the community.
My main issue is that it takes a lot longer to come in on 2G/3G streaming, and using the various speedup options make the site's layout break.
Liberty - Security - Laziness - Pick any two.
...by a guy who's been a frequent reader for more than a decade, but one who never submits and almost never comments:
I like the new design. I find it to be cleaner, easier to read, and more aesthetically 'balanced'. A bit ubiquitous these days, perhaps, but I don't think that undoes its merits. I wouldn't have mentioned my like of the new look/platform, but this story seems to be *about* this change, so a comment seemed reasonable.
I'm all too familiar with reworking things to look and/or function better/faster/stronger, only to have a lot of people instantly complain about a feature that disappears, a divergence in personal taste, or the various "growing pains" a new incarnation may have on its journey to maturity.
I usually find myself naively hoping that the people who see changes will think something along the lines of "Wow, this is interesting and different - I wonder what all has changed? It'll be cool to see how this develops.", but, inevitably, it's more like "WTF did they do to my thing!?". This always happens on any new version of any thing. When I see this backlash on others' projects, I tend to find it annoying and (often) unconstructive, even when I would generally agree.
So, I would say keep working out the kinks - I think it will be great.
--
But then, perhaps I'm simply too much on the periphery to "understand" the fatal flaws in the new system. I see Slashdot as a news reference site, pure and simple - and the new layout presents said news snippets in a clean format. Good enough for me. If I want more info, I'll usually hit up the external link, only rarely looking into comments for something "Insightful" or "Interesting". I don't have any problem doing anything I did on the old site on this one, and some things are better/easier.
I've seen mention of problems with the new site with respect to the "community". I'm not really a contributing part of the community here, so those are issues I can't speak to, maybe they're a big problem. My only thought is when the first comment I see on a post like the one Timothy put up is "Why say anything it isn't like you are going to listen or act on our concerns.", followed by post after post of the same - and when many stories' comments contain depressing levels of cynicism, elitism and backstabbing - well, that doesn't sound much like a "community" to me. Sounds a bit more like an "arena".
~PS
on Chrome, on XP.
Looked at it on IE8.... well, I guess that is what you people complaining are using.
Meanwhile, ask yourself if this doesn't sound the same as every time Facebook changes their interface.
Not a registered member, as I mostly use the page to get knowledge, not to play social games on. I got FB for that.
What part of that message is not easily understandable?
I've been reading Slashdot since 1999. I've always been disappointed to see that so many self-ascribed nerds are so averse to change. It's an almost ubiquitous trait among slashdotters.
News flash: Technology IS change. Embrace the unknown, you whiny little wankers.
Windows 8 forces users to use a new interface instead of letting them choose to use the old Start Menu. And look how low it's market share is. If you don't let users choose to continue using the classic interface, the user base will plummet.
When they say a "wider audience", they mean more users who are borderline technologically adept. You see, nerds alone do not provide enough cash flow for Dice. They need more users to cover their rapidly thinning profit margins. Those users won't be using AdBlock or an edited host file any time soon. /. WILL be transformed for the lowest common denominator to consume. It will feature more "accessibility" and a "rich user experience". Code words for utter crap. Which of course, means what was once something very good will be mercilessly perverted into a grotesque useless wasteland for revenue. /. will be sold for pennies.
Thus, the net result is more ad hits, more money $$$ for Dice. For a short while.
Then, after bleeding cash quarter after quarter,
An end befitting Ozymandias.
So long $lashDot. Its been good knowing you.
I'll add my voice to the chorus I guess. Maybe someone will read this.
All I have to suggest about the new version is that you add the functionality that is currently available on the original site. Notably, actually having the full blurb for each article, without needing to click "Continue Reading" to read that last sentence of the summary. Also, the auto refresh that has been available for a while would be nice too.
Slashbeta needs to be remade to have THE Slashdot UI.
I would strongly urge the management of Slashdot to take heed of the lessons taught by the fall of Digg after the 4.0 changes and the concurrent rise of Reddit, or for those who game online, the fall of Star Wars Galaxies after the forced introduction of the New Game Enhancements.
In short, forcing unwanted changes on your users is never a good idea. You risk losing your current user base who are happy with Slashdot the way it is. If your users wanted the more "polished" look you are now pushing, they could have gone to a multitude of other sites offering the very same thing.
It's nice to finally hear that they hear us, folks.
Just because they say they hear us doesn't mean they really grok the situation. All we know for sure is that they are aware that a lot of slashdot users are very vocally angry and protesting their redesign. Whether this will result in any tangible positive action is quite a separate issue. We need actions, now words. They've been warned and now they need to show (not tell) us that they Get It.
Although this hasn't been handled very well, it sounds like they're trying to improve. So, let's think positive and give 'em another chance
Saying it hasn't been handled well grossly understates things. They screwed up BAD. It's pretty rare that you see any topic on slashdot get everyone on a single side of an issue. The fact that this redesign has managed to get pretty much everyone pissed off is a clear indication of how badly they screwed up. Furthermore slashdot doesn't exactly have a sterling history of giving a shit about user feedback. There are loads of technical and editorial flaws that have been ignored for well over a decade. With that sort of history in mind I see little reason to extend any benefit of the doubt. The mere fact that we haven't already left should be about as much as they should expect to get.
Further cynicism isn't helpful at this point and can only lead to the demise of something that we've enjoyed for a long time.
Heaping piles of cynicism and critique along with threats to leave seems to be the only way to actually get their attention. They are taking care of the demise part quite adequately themselves. People come to slashdot for (mostly) intelligent debate about (mostly) technical topics. Nobody gives a shit about "achievements" or friends or silly graphics or eyecandy. They're treating information density like it is something to be feared when in fact their "audience" (a condescending term if there ever was one) actually prefers it that dense. Worse, they have completely missed the fact that THE most important thing about slashdot is the comments. The fact that the beta handles this so badly speaks louder than any PR statement they could possibly issue.
In short they screwed up bad and are getting spanked for it. They need to own it, pull up their pants and get on with the job of fixing the problem. More weasel word "we hear you" statements are a waste of everyone's time.
The post says "we're a community", but otherwise uses the words "we", "you", and "the audience" in a way that indicates the author doesn't really believe it. When he says Classic Slashdot will be available until "we're" confident ..., I'm reasonably certain that I'm not a part of that "we". Rather I'm just a pair of eyeballs that's for sell to the advertisers. I never saw a poll where we,the community gets to vote on whether or not Classic Slashdot should go away. But "WE" are going to vote one way or another. Maybe we'll vote with our feet, the same way we'd vote a lousy restaurant out of business.
> Other than that, let's not forget it's a free site
I think this is largely forgotten among /. old-timers... yes, the community is what makes this site special, but YOU DON'T OWN IT. You are in someone else's house complaining about the coffee.
Please try again. Whatever the motivation of the beta, it is clear that Slashdot readers, myself included, prefer no change at all. I tested the beta, and the only thing I like is the comment nesting. I have zero interest in flashy, bigger images that fade into existance. I don't care about a persistent top navigation bar, even if it is flush with the background. What I want is functionality first.
To the redesigners: Please consider yourself first. Think about how you would want to use the site, and do not first consider what someone else (e.g. corporate entity, advertiser, government) wants. In doing so, you will consider all of us first, before thinking about how to force unwanted (and, dare I type, unnecessary) changes upon the reader.
I think we have succumbed to lowered standards and I think we have forgotten what is important in life. Fuck that. Fuck beta.
And what's up with no SSL/TLS on the password reset?! FIX THAT, NOT THE UI. Thanks!
I liked the beta site better.. Granted I don't regularly visit, Not since I discovered Reddit. It was nice to see something different.
I won't even give these people the satisfaction of logging into my real account anymore after 15 years. Thanks for systematically managing to destroy Slashdot in the short time since Taco left. This stupid Beta page will be the last straw for me. Go check out Trove.
An this one is a perfect example: Can anyone get a clear picture of a >1500 comments story ? Probably not, or at least for the vast majority.
The actual system is limited by the fact that is very hard to attach a personal contribution into the flow of comments. So, similar idea are expressed many times with little difference. I am not saying that the little difference should go away, but there can be attached the the common idea.
The simplest way I can imagine to start implementing something is that direction, is to let move the comments into a graph, instead of a hierarchical historical flow. Typically a comment tend to develop the parent idea in either "it's true" or "it's false" relation: the graph should show that. There is certainly a lot of useful relations to the parent to add in practice. Sometime the relation is related only a a part of the parent comment.
On the positive side:
These comments are purely on the visual aspects. I've not yet tried the other functionality, nor do I want to when the current beta visual outlook makes my eyes bleed.
Final comments - Consider your audience - by and large, they are mostly techies. They are used to dealing with information dense screens of information and want things quickly. They don't have time to waste scrolling up and down. Obsurdly narrow comment columns are just about the worst thing you can force someone to look at. Don't do it. With the classic site, I can set the widths to what I want and read at my comfort using half of my screen. The beta site makes me waste a whole screen. It doesn't matter how many screens we may have, but one of them is not going to be dedicated just to one website. No way.
Of course, no one likes change - look at how much flack facebook gets everytime they update their visuals - but if you can correct most of the visual oversights and errors you have added to the beta site - if you make the information as accessible as the classic site, perhaps the backlash will be reduced to a dull rumble?
Just a thought.
And no, aside from testing, I won't be using the beta site, nor will I attempt to read through the discussions with that visual layout.
I fiddled with Firebug on the Beta site, and made a few changes that amazingly improves the look'n'feel of it:
- Remove article images.
- Remove the CSS line-height property from both submission and comments.
- Distinguish where submitter intro ends and submission begins. "Quotes" are not enough - the old blockquote worked nicely.
- Make the submission text color black. It feels hazy as it is now.
- Let comments flow full-width. Having them constrained by the huge sidebar is awful.
In general, it seems like you're turning Slashdot from a community driven site to a more modern publisher/aggregator style site, which won't work. If the comments aren't the primary focus, Slashdot loses what makes it Slashdot.
I can get up to date news everywhere - I can't get quality commentary anywhere but Slashdot.
I'm reminded of the Gizmodo redesign. The new site was terrible for readability, destroyed the comment system, and the regular commenters all screamed to high heaven about it.
...basically what I'm saying to you, Slashdot, is don't try to fix things based on the complaints and then decide you've gotten close enough and push ahead anyway. If you can't actually get the new features to work correctly without breaking the beloved functionality of the site, then ABANDON THE UPDATE. You're better off losing the work you've put into the redesign than losing the core of your userbase.
Gizmodo said they were listening and implementing fixes for the issues, but it would take time, give them two months. Two months passed, nothing changed. Anyone who broached the subject was either outright banned, or shouted down and personally insulted by the editors. The lack of fixes was justified by saying "page impressions are higher than ever", so that must mean the redesign was great. But meanwhile, the long time core of commenters all slowly dribbled away from the site.
That giant pile of bullshit made me leave Gizmodo and never go back. I'm hoping Slashdot doesn't do the same thing with this redesign.
Hi, I have a few comments on the new site design. I agree with most of the feedback from that thread. It looks pretty grim. But here are a few specific things I noticed that I didn't see mentioned too much in that thread. 1. There are a lot of comments that mentioned that comments are harder to follow. That's true, but one thing I didn't see mentioned was the "Parent" link on each comment. I use this quite a bit. I'll often see an abbreviated comment that's part of a conversation. Hitting that link gives me context with one click. If you're not going to put back any other visual cues to help follow the conversations, this feature is critical.
Okay, it looks like they have clumsily addressed the ease with which you can follow a thread (indent both sides!), but the lack of a parent link is puzzling. I know this has come up a bunch in the comments.
2. The "Topics" list only has popular topics. I don't see anywhere to see "All topics". And Linux didn't make that list? Boy, how /. has changed!
Still the same. The original content still featured and no "All topics".
3. I have selected the "classic" view. A cookie or something remembers that setting, which is great. But when the site loads, I get a flash of the "standard" mode. This is really annoying.
This looks like it was fixed. Great job, guys!
3a. In fact, the whole "standard" mode is frustrating. Not so much because of its generic appearance, but because of the stock photos used for each picture. I know this was mentioned a LOT in the comments. But I'm going to bring it up again here. The great thing about the /. icons is that a quick glance tells me what broad category the story falls into. On the beta site right now, I see:
an old timey time clock for a story about Lockheed layoffs (not really helpful)
A screenshot of the overloaded healthcare site (helpful)
Steve Jobs holding an iPhone on a story about iPhones (sort of helpful - a story about Jobs, Apple, or iPhones??)
A quad-copter with a camera on a story about drone regulation (looks more like a story about modding drones than shutting them down)
The Steam logo for a story about Steam (helpful)
A water drop on a leaf for a story about hydrophobic materials in powerplants (not helpful)
The problem as I see it is that I expect a photo to convey more specific information than an icon. When a picture tries to do the job of an icon, like in standard mode, my brain gets confused; my brain expects the picture to belong to the story. In my opinion, the pictures make the site look cheap and make me want to look elsewhere. Please, please, default to classic mode to save bandwidth and to avoid the "photo as icon" thing I just tried to describe.
Yeah, they really like their pictures in the new design.
4. I'm also a little confused about the "All stories" vs. "Editor's picks". One thing I like about /. is that the editors, though they often don't do any editorializing or editing, do sort of curate the site. They act as a pair of eyeballs (hopefully) attached to a brain that makes the decision as to whether something gets on the front page. If the site defaults to "All stories" and that category is front page plus firehose, then I'll surely be looking elsewhere for my News for Nerds.
I haven't dug into whether "all news" is the same as front plus firehose, but it appears to be and is still the default.
I have little hope that any substantive changes will be made. The nature of UI redesign these days is to change things, ask for comments and ignore comments. We'll get used to it, right? Please don't do this to Slashdot. Although it's not quite the site it was ten years ago whe
Here's an interesting point. I don't want any of your features, but I also don't want a huge swath of other features disabled in the name of "progress". The unifying point between us isn't that we both want the same things out of classic, but that we don't want to be shoved into a one-size-fits-none blandfest.
Very nice, but some it (particularly the AJAX stuff) just doesn't work... and I use Firefox. I would expect slashdot to work best with a standards-compliant open-source browser, but I've had more luck with IE than Firefox or Chrome, and I refuse to use IE to browse anything but my company's intranet.
Yes, Slashdot is "News for Nerds". But we don't come here to passively "consume" news. We come here to actively debate the news. That's what makes Slashdot different.
Not only can we all come here and read and then talk about the nerdly news, but as it happens often enough, the nerds actually making the news are members here themselves. From physicists and IT guys at CERN, Linux and other OSS coders, celebrity nerds, spooks at the NSA (they're posting GNAA trolls on their lunch break, and we all know it), university students working on some cool project, etc. etc. I can't count the number of times I was browsing the comments of a story, and one of the subjects actually involved crops up and joins the conversation; and you know, that's pretty freaking cool.
As a collective, we're the circus performers, the contributors, the commentators, and the critics, all at once. Where else do you find this on the net? Nowhere. As far as I know, Slashdot is unique in this regard.
Constitutional rights may be respected, repealed, or modified; but they must never be ignored.
I would expect the beta to last a little longer then a few days before giving up on it. However, they should stop the forced redirects. Those who want to shape it for a few more months can help mold it before another test.
My issue with the beta is that when I re-size my window 860x1080 1/2 Screen Width the entire UI goes away. While this is great for browsing comments its horrible for browsing the main page as it takes away all of the configuration options. I'm assuming that this alternate view is some sort of mobile solution, but that is a fairly big solution.
Personally, I never browse the web at full screen almost all web pages look better at around 1000px wide and I can generally side scroll to ignore address if I run at half of 1920. I think any modern UI design should consider what windows thinks of as dual page mode. Why waste all that real estate. I'm likely doing something besides browsing the web.
Momento Mori
Doesn't matter how fast your hardware is; it is always faster without Javascript.
Uhhhh, no. Compare load-times with AJAX-based interfaces versus full-form reloads. Yeah, it might take a bit of time to process the JS initially, but then you can significantly decrease the bandwidth needed to load new content by only sending updates etc.
One of the things that still annoys me about classic is that logging in triggers a full page reload
Fuck this new format. It's fat and wasteful of screen real estate and it makes slashdot look like a run-of-the-mill fluff blogspam news site.
I'll be leaving if you force the change.
Sure, it's just one person, but I've been coming here for a damned long time.
Odd, but it seems so. ... get over it! ... really? ... if it was 'finished' you'd get 'no' say at all.
To some of the criticisms:
- it's 'different' I don't like it
- we want to design by committee of thousands
- it's not ready
I've learned more about a topic from the comments than I ever have from TFA. Take away the current comment functionality and I'll have to start slumming at reddit.
Fuck Beta!
(name withheld by request)
I have a picture of Wally with one of his epic quotes for a gravatar. It suddenly appears on the Beta site. Did I ever ask for that, or give consent to /. to use that one ? No. Now I know, it would be silly to complain about /. using something that was *meant* to be used publicly. And yet - and yet.
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
Honestly I resent being called an audience. WE the USERS are the content and what drives this site not anything they do. Lets see if they make the very same mistake Microsoft made They ignored its users and wouldn't up with a Windows 8. So MS is happy and the USERS are not.
Jack of all trades,master of none
Absolutely!!!! This couldn't possibly be more spot on. It's even a long running joke that no one even reads the damned linked-to articles fer chrissakes!! This site is (was) the closest approximation to the successor to Usenet. It's absolutely all about the comments and discussion system. The new beta ignores this so blatantly and egregiously it's very clear whoever is steering the ship doesn't understand they don't need to steer the ship.
Shazbot! We ran into some trouble getting the comments. Try again... na-nu, na-nu!
Been a user of Slashdot from when it started and I think the Beta is a huge improvement on a very tired site.
Slashdot is one of the very few sites on which I have clicked on an advertisement and actually followed through and purchased what was being advertised.
I am amazed at the huge negative response this beta is getting. It is very nice and elegant and solves many of the usability problems that have plagued this site for a long time.
Regardless of how you feel about the beta, we all agree that the Slashdot mobile site was fucking terrible. This site redesign solves that problem by embracing responsive design. It looks decent on my wide screen monitor as it does on my tablet and also my phone.
Commenting is much easier too.
Slashdot is trying to reinvent themselves because they ARE going the way of the dinosaur and all of you grey-beard engineers resistant to any and all change are dragging them down. Fuck Beta? You are bitching about Ajax and Javascript being required? Get the fuck out of the 90's and install a modern complete browser you sad paranoid old men! If you don't want ads or to be tracked then just install adblock and Ghostery like the rest of us. You are throwing the baby out with the bath water.
I have been following this site for over a decade, and I approve this beta. Stop pretending like you have a fake universal consensus and stop flooding every other story with your pathetic Fuck Beta campaign
Comments are sometimes missing from the HTML-only view. For example, try finding comment #37499132 by user "bugnuts" in the following discussion in both the JS and HTML-only views:
http://ask.slashdot.org/commen...
Comments #37499256 by NoSig and #37500168 by pRock85 are also missing.
It appears that an entire contiguous block of comments has gone missing between pages 2 and 3 of the nested view. Some discussions are missing hundreds of comments. In general, a higher proportion of comments (sometimes hundreds) go missing in longer discussions. I have a suspicion that this may have to do with how long threads cross page boundaries. In some discussions with long threads (some with more than 100 comments in a single thread), subsequent pages would be identical or near identical. The software seems to try to start comment display on a new page at the root of the current thread. Maybe in some cases this leads to mis-counting how many new comments are being shown, and thus to gaps.
I discovered this in 2012 when analyzing older Slashdot discussions. I reported it but did not hear back. I suppose it is possible it has been fixed for newer discussions but not for old ones. Also, with the decline in commenting activity on Slashdot in recent years it should be less likely to occur.
To return to the original topic, I find the beta unusable because there is no way to display high-scoring comments with context, then expand out low-scoring comments to investigate surrounding threads. This destroys the value of Slashdot's amazing moderation system. Without it I can neither read nor moderate effectively. If it is done away with, I won't be coming back. I'm not a fan of the new look either, but unlike the integrity of the moderation system that is not critical.
Idiot masses? How about you go be condescending elsewhere buddy. Not everybody who likes the new beta is an idiot. The usability is a vast improvement and if you can't see that then you are too blinded by your fear of change.
I haven't hung out on Slashdot for many years, so I come to the site with expectations shaped by years of use from the 90s to 2006 or so. The current site isn't too jarring from that point of view. The changes are mostly obvious improvements. Most important for me, the community is still recognizable. The same paranoid ranting and trolling, with occasionally very interesting/insightful/funny and useful contributions from a few posters, whose comments get modded up effectively. I think the motto, "News for Nerds" still applies, and that's comforting. (Although Slashdot seldom breaks a story, by design, it's a great place to get nerdy reactions to the news.)
The new design is familiar looking. It's the sort of thing you'll see on Google+ or many Wordpress blogs.Headlines are bigger. The in-your-face topic drop-down is startling, but effective. Assuming the sidebars are still customizable, I don't have an argument with the esthetics of the design. But it does affect my workflow to a slight degree. When I'm browsing Slashdot, I scan down the headlines until I see something that interests me. I immediately open the link to the original story in a new tab. If the article interests me, I keep the tab open, and click through to the comments in yet another tab. If I don't like the article, I close the tab and go back to scanning headlines. Since the link to the fine article isn't in the headline, the beta site forces me to open the submission just to get to TFA. It's a minor quibble, but I don't like change. ( :)
I'd like to add a couple more notes. First of all, thanks for providing this mechanism and for listening. Despite the paranoid trolls, It's clear you are listening. Also, I can't imagine you aren't eating your own dog food on this one. Trolls that accuse you of this without a shred of evidence are annoying. (They wouldn't be trolls if they didn't try to be annoying. Right.) One more thing, I'm concerned by your statement that you are trying to make the site more accessible to less technical users. Though I totally understand you trying to grow your audience, you still have "News for Nerds" in your title. It's always a challenge to balance a friendly interface with a nerdy "give me information now" sensibility. Without irony, I wish you good luck in your efforts to achieve that.
"Even if you are on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there" - Will Rogers
I just like to say that the beta loads extremely better than classic. Classic is just terrible on my iPad. I understand that the beta has some rough spots, text looks terrible on linux Firefox for instance, but with the ever changing device choices, change is needed.
is way2long. btw, this sux
The beta doesn't suck. The slow cantankerous site form the 90's sucks. Every armchair webdev who thinks they know best sucks. The fact that there are 300 posts in this thread at +5 informative without a single real criticism should speak volumes. Ignore the noise, and do the redesign.
Seriously. Tweaks I'm sure are necessary. The rest of the hatred is bandwagoning noise and bullshit. Take the real criticisms (if any) and listen. To all the jerkwads with the hashtag "fuckthebeta" nonsense and petulant "But they're gonna change it anyways! boo hoo me! I'll just go to reddit!", fuck off. You'll still be able to post "frosty piss!" just as easily on the beta as you are on this old dinosaur.
I don't care if Slashdot is ugly. I don't care if it looks like 1995. All I care about is that it's easy and quick to use. The reason I've been a daily reader since 1998 is not just the content. It's because the interface Just Works, with any damned browser and any settings I care to use. It doesn't ANNOY me into leaving.
Conversely, no other news-and-comments site has kept me for long, because I have to pay as much attention to the interface as to the content.
Slashdot's basic interface hasn't changed much in all these years. Don't you realise that this is a major reason for its ongoing success?
Conversely, I tried the beta -- and nope, I ain't dealing with this. It's marginally usable if I turn off CSS, but why should I have to suffer that nuisance? It's like Windows 8. Why 'upgrade' to something I don't like?
Slashdot isn't so important that I can't live without it. But it's CONVENIENT because as it stands, it Just Works. So I come here instead of hunting news elsewhere. Change that, and -- why would I bother? I don't come here to look at pretty widgets or admire someone's scripting prowess.
In every case where a radical change of interface has been inflicted on a vibrant existing community, that community has withered and eventually died. If you can't see the lesson in that, I don't know what else to say.
But once a critical mass of regulars fling up their hands and leave for greener pastures, there'll be no reason for the rest of us to come here.
Yeah, I know by now you feel obligated because you've put in all that work and by-damn you're gonna get some benefit out of it. But it doesn't work that way. You're not here to gratify your coding ego or to look good in the Pretty Website Olympics. You're here to keep us here. You'll keep us here by leaving well enough alone. How else do you think Slashdot got to the level of over 2 million registered users and probably the highest percentage of persistent regular posters of any discussion site since the heyday of Usenet?
Don't fuck with it. Seriously. Just don't.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Hi! I'd like to give some feedback as part of the 'early 20's' age-group, which I have to infer is part of the 'wider audience' you're looking to target.
First, I need to share how I ended up here instead of places like reddit, Digg, etc (which were 'things' at my time). I was an intern going to work at a large corporation for the first time, not really knowing much about the tech world or the people surrounding it. Sure, I had a facebook account and occasionally visited some other sites on the web, but for the most part I didn't bother with the news sites, even though I had browsed several (and various blogs).
I eventually ended up discussing technology and other aspects with my mid-30's boss, who realized I didn't have a good source for informed and intellectual conversations about technological topics. Do you know what he recommended? That I start to read Slashdot. And so I hopped on here ~ 5 years ago, and stuck around for reasons I'll get into later.
The important part of all of this is that it was the current community that brought me in. It was my boss recommending a site, not my own searches through the internet, that brought me here. I highly doubt that I'm alone in this regard. So I want to emphasize it once more: new users are brought in by the community.
So, why did I stay? I browsed for a while, reading comments and articles (I even read most of the articles when I started out). But the articles themselves weren't all that interesting, especially because I could find them elsewhere 4 days in advance. It was the comments. Being able to see and read well thought-out and reasoned viewpoints about topics, to learn about entirely new ideas in layman's terms, to have a system which makes discussions easy to follow in addition to promoting the meaningful comments (as opposed to reddit, which over-emphasizes upvotes and turns commenting into a contest). Nowhere else does this, reddit gets lost in upvote wars/groupthink, ars technica's comment system is appalling, CNN and pop-sci are populated by people who pride themselves on ignorance, etc. Slashdot is thee only place where once can come for these types of conversations.
In short, as so many other posters have already summarized, it is the commenting interface, and community around it, that makes Slashdot. As long as that stay intact, Slashdot will be ok.
So, with that background, a comparison of the current and beta sites:
Before I get into the main problem, I have to wonder what happened to noh8rz10's comment in the beta? It's very clearly formatted in classic, yet somehow that formatting got blown away in beta. You might want to look into that.
The major issue is the substantial increase in white-space. For example, in the classic picture above, one can plainly see 5 different comments (complete with sigs!), while the beta barely shows 4 (and no sigs). What this does is 'space out' the conversations and make them harder to follow, because one now has to spend even more time searching for them (scrolling up, down, etc).
The bigger whitespace problem, however, is the horizontal space. Conversations on Slashdot go well into 10's and 20's of replies, meaning that if there isn't enough space they'll become incredibly cramped and hard to read. As an example of a thread that's only 5-6 replies deep:
beta
current
The beta can literally only fit 2 posts! The current designs gets 5! Cutting out all that space on the right cramps the posts into an almost illegible format, with the benefit of showing absolutely nothing to the side! This isn't even deep into the replies!
This is THE problem because it stands to kill conversat
"Our goal each year should be to increase the number of goals we set for ourselves!"
Reminds me of Lose, er, Win 8. Please LEAVE "classic" for the large percentage of us NOT READING SLASHDOT ON A FREAKIN' "SMARTPHONE"? Your "improvement" givess my 23" monitor the resolution of a smartphone, and I really, *really* don't care for that.
It's bad enough what slashdot has come to, with ignorant, bigotted trolls commenting on well over half the stories, but this is absurd.
mark
Here's HOW Trax (& the problem with "beta" is that it DEMANDS javascript - they're going to lose users, mark my words, if THAT keeps up) -> http://ask.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=4753245&cid=46160789 simply by redirecting beta.slashdot.org to the IP address of Slashdot.org to override the server-side redirects (just like you would to override downed or redirect poisoned dns servers (which fasflux botnets recycling hostnames they bought in addition to dns settings redirects locally in ip settings once they're "inside" on enslaved rigs to THEIR rogue dns servers)).
* Enjoy...
APK
P.S.=> It'll work as long as the server running "classic" (diff. IP entirely & diff. server odds are too) exists serving up the classic oldschool version of THIS website's forums... apk
Whenever a system becomes completely defined, some damn fool discovers something which either abolishes the system or expands it beyond recognition.
I like this. Hate the XL pipeline.
1994 wants their argument back. I am all for no bloat but your recommendation for a Lynx appropriate redirect is a tad dated.
Perhaps if the corporate masters had been paying attention before, it wouldn't have come to this. I suspect the only reason this thread exists is because people made enough of a noise in the comment threads over the last couple of days.
Yes, it's annoying as hell. Yes it's rendered the site more or less useless for at least the last 48 hours. On the other hand, it's got the attention of the powers that be, even if they are going to completely ignore what's being said and destroy the site anyway. It's forced a response from the top. I doubt we'd have got that without people flooding the comment threads and expressing their displeasure.
Thank you for listening. I am so used to the "non-responses" of Yahoo that I am pleasantly surprised at your action.
This current fiasco sounds similar to that of the "new" and "improved" Coke re-branding attempt from years ago. All I can say is:
No, you don't get it. A beta is not forced upon a subset of the community in a "use it and you'll get used to it" manner. You ask for volunteers to test the beta ... and you listen to their feedback. From the few (100 of roughly 1500) comments I've read above quite clearly you have not listened to the feedback, and instead you've chosen to subject a portion of the community to your "new" and "improved" web site.
Oh, but I can opt to look at the non-beta (the so called "classic" site). Please just give me the non-beta site ... by default. I'll accept the web site improvements once they have been accepted by the community through beta testing (by volunteers), and are ready for prime time.
I tested it and I don't find it all that different.
I like the ability to filter on tags tho I wish they were OR, not exclusive (i.e. I could check informative, funny, overrated). Oh yea, and I wish all moderation tags were supported by the filters.
I'm in a very old classic view and on a wide monitor, I'd say 3 to 4 inches of the right side of the screen are wasted for all but the longest posts. So I understand going to a "pane" like message window.
It sounds like some others would like more control over the font sizes. Perhaps you need to consider that the site will be on 14" laptop screens as well as 28" monitors?
Summary: I'd give it a 7/10 on a 28" screen and hope for minor improvements but I do not see why there is such a shitstorm over this change.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
When they always have to end up resorting to illogical, non-sequitur, off-topic, effete & failed ad hominem attacks vs.validly computing technically disproving points I make that show hosts giving users of them more speed, security, reliability, + even anonymity gains!
Funny - Not a SINGLE 1 of those trolls ever have taken that challenge I put their way to validly technically disprove points I made favoring hosts over other competitors (it's always the reverse, I dust their doors out) - not once - All they have vs. my points is a "Run, Forrest: RUN!!!" since they can't validly disprove facts & truth I used to favor hosts files over other competing "So-Called 'solutions' that are sold out to admen & crippled by default for example & downmodding my posts but NEVER disproving them validly.
Especially considering the "MAIN competition" (adblock) is about to DIE due to ClarityRay ("Almost All Ads Blocked" = AdBlock, souled-out to advertisers & inferior on TONS of levels vs. hosts, which do far more than just block ads mind you), & just plain overall inferior (RequestPolicy & the original "fox in a henhouse", Ghostery (advertiser owned)).
Hosts can also STOP the redirect to "beta"here too -> http://meta.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=4761849&cid=46180863 - I haven't seen it since 2nd time they redirected me.
APK
P.S.=> Who downmods my hosts posts? 1 of 4 types obviously:
1.) Advertiser
2.) Malware maker (exe or script etc.)
3.) Botnet Herder/Master
4.) Inferior competing programmer & fanboys (real or sockpuppet)
NOT worried about them @ all: Why? There's NO technically valid defeating truth +facts, & the fact is, Hosts = SUPERIOR to browser addons (AdBlock, Ghostery, RequestPolicy) which layer more on adding complexity over already SLOWER & LESS EFFICIENT Ring 3/RPL 3/UserMode applications in webbrowsers vs. myself in far faster kernelmode via hosts & the IP stack which even shores up DNS redirect faults too!
... apk
Which part of No! don't you get?
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
"Audience?!?!", you're performing for us some how? We're not your audience. In web design we, the visitors and contributors to this site, are the client. You think CmdrTaco built this thing for himself? No, he built it for the community. When you build a website for yourself or some other entity--person or corporation--you or that entity are NOT the ones who drive features or major changes, your site visitors are. Why? Because if they aren't happy or served, they will go somewhere else. It would be a shame to see an internet institution like /. fall. Its design is its brand identity. A first year marketing student could tell you that after a bit of research. Take that away and you lose so much. Sure, it has evolved a bit over time, but to throw the whole thing out and make the site look like every other blog news aggregator is just completely ignorant. To not solicit early design concept input from members that ARE professional web designers and developers is doubly so. I understand. Corporations want to make money off their web properties through ad impressions. Fair enough, but some of us have also paid rent, so to speak and to snub those for input was also bad form. I am sorry folks but you just hit too many strikes on top of the zero improvement in editorial quality since things changed hands. That would be a vast improvement to the site, more so than a redesign. The old boys had an excuse. They had day jobs or were devs for the site. I just think that what you have done will lead to at least one million registered members leaving and not looking back. Members who have been loyal and community minded for decades. It's just a shame.
For non-devs
You work for us. We create the valuable content and we view the ads that pay your bills.
I've been here almost daily since the 90s and the day that beta goes live is the day that you are fired.
needed is fresh ideas, better ways to get involved in duscussion, *more* interactivity and possibly ability to connect among its users
Yes -- give users the option of accepting private messages from other users. Often I've come across a comment whose author is clearly an expert in some field, and I've wanted to pick his or her brain.
If Slashdot enabled this kind of collaboration among experts, it might actaully become the enabler for breakthroughs in various fields, such as particle physics or computer science.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
Im not gonna say the new format is Diablo 3, but you definitely missed why most people come to slahsdot....
I hear ya. This new page layout confines the article and comments to literally 45% of the width of my screen. There are giant gray bars on both sides that waste space, and a giant white bar on the right that wastes even more space. The giant white bar doesn't even have anything in it more than about 10% of the way down the page, not even ads, it's literally just wasted real estate in my browser. And the stuff that's on the 10% that actually has stuff mostly isn't even stuff I'm interested in seeing. I don't care if this is 'mobile-friendly' or 'the way of the future', it sucks. I'd rather the future didn't suck. Can someone please make it stop sucking?
Captcha: 'allots'. As in, this new layout allots 55% of the width of my screen to useless blank space.
the comments pages have been increasingly dominated by childish anti-beta messages
They may be childish, but if they're the only thing that gets Dice to hit the brakes before driving over the cliff, they will have been worth it.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
I tried sending email to the listed address. It bounced. I sort of feel like this undermines the perception that you're listening.
That said, glad to see you're acknowledging the feedback.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
The "Classic" look is clean and the headlines placed on colored bars makes it easy to scan the front page and see what articles may be worth reading in more detail.
The new layout does not as clearly mark headlines. The larger fonts used for headlines does make it clear what's a headline and what is summary, however, the colored bars of the "Classic" layout is much more intuative.
"Whenever a system becomes completely defined, some damn fool discovers something which either abolishes the system or expands it beyond recognition."
How fitting.
I do not like the Beta in any way. I wish it to be abandoned, and/or slashdot classic to remain as an option.
I'm a long-time slashdot reader, and for the last few years I've found that the best interface for reading is the search interface: simple no-frills interface, no javascript needed, no advertising, doesn't waste screen real estate, quite portable across browsers, etc. It's http://slashdot.org/search.pl
Can't say I've been on much in the last 5 years. Someone mentioned a redesign, so I came here to check it out. Looks similar to me. (Or am I just seeing the old look n feel?)
--
Marc A. Lepage
Software Developer
Don't know if it has anything to do with the beta, but the current beta-blockers are really disruptive idiots. I have no desire to read anything by people whining about the beta, ever, in any story (apart from this one). I would love to be able to set a list of text filters that I could add regexps to: "f... beta", "copypasta", "GNAA"; and any comment matching those (and all responses to those comments) would silently be rated -1.
Possible? Paid subscribers only? I'll happily pay for the ability to make these morons vanish.
John
I can't describe it, but it's the same effect I have seen at one of our customer's site. They hired a (supposedly) super duper Web UI designer. e-commerce got redesigned. On the first look, it appears to be very pleasing - looks very modern, kinda soft, I call it metrosexual. But... after going live, real world visitors started to complain that they can't find anything. It's just all form and no content. Somehow, the new Slashdot UI reminds me of this experience.
Gawd, I'll admit it I'm old now. I was young then... but creeping up on 50 makes me old.
If there's one thing I've learned, it's that MBAs and IT people are enemies. And this new beta site is a prime example of that. Sometimes things are "good enough". Slashdot is good enough- and has been for a long time. But the MBAs say "we need more profit". And now they are going to make things shiny.
Slashdot by itself makes money. But it needs to make more money. DIGG was destroyed that way. Didn't that site finally sell to it's new owners fro a small sum?
Want to fix Slashdot? Make it a site that technical people "graduate to" as they become seasoned. Which would mean making no changes whatsoever!
Slowly, I'm watching MBA types eviscerate, good, profitable websites for short term profit. Don't do it to Slashdot.
Another consultant who stuck it out.
"We are the Priests, of the Temples of Syrinx..."
If you actually read the article for yourself. You'll find that the purpose of the article is to point out that bitcoin being unregulated (in russia) at this point is a potentially dangerous for organizations and individuals to invest in, And will require further consideration concerning proper regulation. They are simply restating the pre-existing rules concerning foreign currency, And the need to further clarify the rules concerning crypto currency. Russia did NOT ban bitcoin.
Exactly!
Many times I have already read the article on another site and some to slashdot to read the comments.
They don't provide any news that I haven't heard anywhere else. I can't remember a time... ever I think.
There are precious few other sites on the net with comment sections worth reading, and it would be a damn shame to lose slashdot,but if they remove classic as a viewing option, I don't know that I will stick around, but I know for sure I will be around a lot less.
Arstechnica has already been getting a lot more of my time lately, mostly for it's much more timely stories and original content.
__
ipsa scientia potestas est
"knowledge itself is power" - Francis Bacon
Keep the setup as is but have a confirm for moderations. I really hate moderating and something happens where I miss select a moderation type for a post and it gets stuck with something I didn't intend to put there.
~~ Behold the flying cow with a rail gun! ~~
Here's one user's view of the new beta: I have a BlackBerry Q10 and browse Slashdot every other day or so. While the formatting has never been perfect, it's familiar, and I put up with the very small font. Today upon going to Slashdot, it was Clumsy Tech News for the Blind. I swear I thought Facebook bought you guys or something. The usual quick, compact content-rich page was traded in for an awkward, ugly, huge-font template-like thing. I checked the "menu" for a way to revert back, saw none, gave up and left. If I hadn't gotten on the laptop and came here to see if the rest of your readers are as outraged as I am (yep, they appear to be), I never would have discovered that the footer contains a temporary opt-out link. God, it's 'upgraded Gmail' all over again. Bottom line- next time I have twenty minutes free to scroll down on my phone, I'll opt out and keep enjoying Slashdot on my phone. As soon as it's enforced, however, you've lost this reader.
I will never understand this 'change for the sake of change' garbage. The only way you will truly keep your faithful long-time users happy is to ALWAYS have a 'classic view' option. Keep that in mind or this will be Digg all over again.
I read slashdot at work on a 1280x1024 19 inch monitor, and on that format everything about the redesign is terrible. The wasted space is atrocious and the comments unreadable due to the extreme narrow column of text. On a 23 inch widescreen monitor in full screen it actually doesn't suck that badly although it is in no way an improvement. In conclusion: slashdot needs to buy me a new monitor at work if they want me to continue visiting after classic goes away :P The beta is completely useless if you have a small monitor or are used to reading in a non-maximized window. I suppose the kids who designed it didn't even know there WERE 4:3 monitors and all their iPhone and Metro apps are fullscreen only ...
Frankly since monitors went to 16:9 nobody gives a crap about efficient use of space.
I wish I had a lawn.
Tl;DR Go google "Audiworld" "KAWF" "Exodus" Few years ago, Audiworld.com was bought out by Internetbrands. Audiworld's underlying forum engine is an open source project called KAWF. Its a threaded style and most would call basic. Its "Audience" though otherwise. Fast forward: All of InternetBrands automotive forums they own, runs a forum engine by vBulliten. Well, that didnt align up to what the rest of their portfolio they owned (eg common underlying foundation to make it easy to push ads to their "Audience" $$$$$$) IB created a Beta site to preview the NEW Audiworld. With credit, they made a solid attempt to keep the look and feel of the old forums to please the hundreds of thousands of members of its "Audience" daily. It wasnt the same. In the end the community "Audience" said a resounding "No, we dont like it". InternetBrands made the change anyways. After all Management knows better than its "Audience" A few of the core "audience" started another website called Quattroworld.com which ran the opensource KAWF forum software that they created similar feel for their "Audience" The result was a HUGE mass exodus. Any reference on Audiworld pointing to Quattroworld, InternetBrands immediately started removing the posts so people can find their new home. Their familiar community. Audiworld sits today a former to its once glorious self with little "Audience" but its not the 400lb gorilla it once was. Dice... Take a lesson. Sure, you can change over . Your management knows better than these insensitive clods here. You can introduce bot posted articles that promote a self serving advertising interest. You can make the look and feel easier to browse on phone. (I dont BTW) You will run off the nerds to another news for nerds forums. I only have a six digit 500K UserID, so I dont know what I'm talking about.
This is my signature.
We have tar, feathers, pitchforks and torches, getting the picture?
They can have my command prompt when they pry it from my cold dead fingers.
Fuck off we're not your "audience", the users contribute to this site a thousand times more meaningful and interesting stuff than the hidden ads and the rest of the shit you're posting from time to time. And when everyone and their dog says this new beta site sucks, it's time to back off and apologize, not post some shitty "we hear you" message. Really change that arrogant attitude
imagine if all this passion could be directed at something that matters.
Shazdot!
I would really like to see the people responsible for the layout updates to do a brief write-up justifying their decisions. It is obvious that the changes don't make sense to the target crowd - the same people that strogly oppose the ever increasing patches of white space and the introduction of pictures. To me all this looks like loss of direction in the Microsoft sense.
Using the word 'audience' is an insult. The readers of this site actually make it what it is.
Please roll back a design that's at least a decade old! Then let us comment!
The primary problems are not in the overall look of the new site -- honestly, the new site looks pretty similar to the old one. Green, black text, white backgrounds, nested comments, different stories. In my personal use with the beta, it wouldn't be so bad if the width-spacing, and comment management were more like the old system. (And the horrendous frame needs to rot.) The actual look and aesthetic, as well as many of the new features, are not actually all that bad. If the comment rating, UID, sort order, and screen real estate usage were tweeked, the Beta site would be very similar to the current site. The addition of Javascript may make some older browser users unhappy, but realistically speaking, at this point even cell phones can run it without choking. The current site codebase has long standing issues which needed a rewrite, and it's reasonable to take that opportunity to introduce updates. As much as I hate some of the new changes, it isn't so bad it needs to be thrown out the window.
"Sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of face the heart is made glad." [Ecclesiastes 7:3]
It's doublespeak bullshit.
Just take your beta and shitcan it.
Do that now.
Why not start at the beginning and tell us why the heck you're redesigning in the first place.
I read you're little "WE HEAR YOU" post. And no, you're still not listening. If you were, you'd know that we like slashdot just the way it is. No redesign. Why are you trying to change it at all?!? We're all baffled. Your stupid little post just said "we'll slow down". But nobody asked you to "slow down". We /told/ you to stop. Just don't touch anything.
If, for some unfathomable reason, you think you do need to change things, why don't you start by explaining why. Why are you trying to make /. look just like Ars Technica? Are your revenues hurting and you need to work more ads in there or increase readership to charge more for your ads? What gives. Why change it at all?
And if it's is revenue-related, why not just ask for money like Wikimedia. I donate to them every time they ask because I value their service. I'd give /. $5 ever once in a while too. I don't want to click on any ads, nor do I want to sign up for some paid account (I rarley log in anyway). I just want to read my FA's and comments. (Okay, maybe just headlines and comments).
While I have not extensively tested all the features, the beta shows promise. It could be better, could be worse. With some continued work, it will be a good thing.
- We dream of the stars. Now let us return to them.
The comments section of the beta is absolutely terrible, horribly unusable. The way it is now, the day beta's comment section is the only option, would be the last day I come here. I cannot begin to think of how it could be fixed without a complete rewrite or a kluge that puts classic's comment section in its stead. The two biggest problems:
1. The comment boxes NEED to span the full width of the page.
2. Every little feature in the classic comment boxes (UID #, moderation breakdown, parent post link, etc) MUST be retained.
3. Changing view thresholds needs to be easy, persistent, and actually work.
That having been said, I actually don't mind the beta's main page. As it is right now, it is at least usable and visually appealing. Helpful improvements:
1. Some more customization (font sizes and maybe an option for the green and white bar for the headlines).
2. If they want to keep the giant picture next to each story, the picture should be directly related to the thing being discussed. A picture next to a story about a fire at Iron Mountain should show the actual fire at iron mountain. If no picture on that level is available, stick with the small generic graphics.
The only thing that needs to change here IMO is the commenting system. Remove the score limits. +/- 5 is too limiting. Embrace reddit's commenting scoring with unlimited up and down scores. The look and feel of the site is fine and iconic. Changing it to the Wordpress look-a-like abomination you have for a beta is a travesty. It screams of New Coke marketing thinking to me. Content is what brings people here and has brought me here for what 15+ years now? Focus on adding good content to the site.
I remember Kevin Rose justifying changing the design for Digg.com on his "Random" TV show / video blog before they went live... "We don't want Digg to be like Slashdot who never changes". Shortly after the changes Digg traffic tanked from Alexa 150 to 1000+. They lost millions upon millions of dollars.
My point is this, the design doesn't make the site the content does (eg Craigslist).
Instead of spending another 6+ months on this new site, how about you spend the time to actually find and create compelling stories that people want to read instead?
You're content really is bad & you know you've been skating by for far to long. Really, the only saving grace of the entire site is the comment section (you know your community...)
You know, spend time on the news site that reports on & investigates on.... news.
I've been a reader, moderator and meta-moderator since 1998 or 1997. Last fucking century.
I've read and participated in many of the flare-up (remember John Katz?) and redesigns. All of them have been an issue, but nothing like this one. This one really is different; it's not just old people bitching about "the new thing".
To be brief, the redesign sucks. It took a layout that is simple, clean, easy to read (and more importantly, easy to skim) and turned it into a "modern" mess. UI is hard. Really hard. This time, the UI team just missed the boat. The new design makes it harder to read the site. It looks prettier to some people, but it's harder to read.
Secondly, you shouldn't even consider changing over until the comments works. The comments should be the first thing you get right. When /. was born, there wasn't much else like it, but now there's a million tech blogs. What makes slashdot different is the comments. When the comments are broken, there's not much difference between you and Engadget.
Most of us only have so much time in the day to gather "news". I can scan Google news, Ars, Engadget, Gizmodo and all the rest, but when I want to read good commentary from smart people who have an interest, I come here. Kill that, and you're no longer the innovator you started out as; you're just another copycat.
Bite the bullet, admit defeat, and try again. This time, figure out why people like me have been coming to the same website for 15 years. Slashdot and Ars have been part of my daily reading, since I got on the internet. Two sites. Please don't make it one.
Give it up and drop it, it sucks and is beyond fixing.
What happened to being able to disable ads?
It does not seem obvious where to offer feedback. I don't like the contrast of the printing in the first 3 stories, dark print on dark images is not readable. Was anyone thinking?
To paraphrase an old ad slogan, "People who like Slashdot like it a lot." and that could underscore the reception that the new /. is receiving.
Maybe I haven't been paying as much attention as I should, but I'm unclear of the overwhelming need to redesign the forum. Can someone explain it a little?
I.e. are we facing a crisis of some sort (think of IPv6, Y2K, etc.)?
Are we losing participants?
What pain is the redesign expected to cure?
Thanks!
Fred
If your only tool is a hammer, you'll approach every problem as if it were a nail. - Abraham Maslow
I read slashdot daily. I have for a long time. I read the comments. I enjoy it.
So, look. The beta site... the comments section is in ruins. It should function as it already does.
Also, the white space and giant fonts need to go.
Otherwise.. aesthetically.. it is such a massive improvement that you can forget about them not making the switch. Slashdot looks like garbage. Always has. Its about time they fixed it so its not an eye sore and so that they can attract some new readership and members.
Quit whining like little children and ruining the discussion on every single thread. You are damaging your own community with this rubbish.
Get over it. Things change, kids. This time, luckily for all of us - for the better (believe it or not).
Beta signals the end of a Golden Age of some kind.
We've had only a few major redesigns since 1997; we think it's time for another.
You've had one in 2009 that was so utterly horrible that it resulted in on of two times I used the journal, in over 15 years.
No, it's not time for another. There is never a time for a redesign. There can be a need for one, but that's a totally different thing. You know, a need happens to address a problem. The very people that make this site - because people come for the articles so little the abbreviation RTFA originated here - have told you strongly that there isn't a problem that needs fixing.
The argument is "broader audience". That's a business need. That basically means "we think we can make more money off this site". Which is perfectly fine if it doesn't conflict with the needs of the audience you already have. Else what you do isn't growing the audience, it's exchanging it.
People are already talking about setting up /. replacements. People with the know-how, resources and drive to actually do it. In a time where the sentiment on this site is strong enough that it could actually gain momentum. If you still haven't realized that you're playing with a live handgrenade, you are dangerously stupid.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
The real travesty has been the constant hijacking of threads with redesign whine.
Why? You can still read the stories. Surely that's what's important about Slashdot, isn't it?
No?
Perhaps that is the point the protesters were trying to make.
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
I tried the BETA. I think that I know why it SUCKS!
I SUCKS for the same reason Facebook SUCKS, or Google+ SUCKS, or most blog pages and web-sites SUCK. It simplifies the interface to the same low common demoninator and removes the VERY things that need to be in discussions on the Internet. Good topic setting hooks, good contextual reply. Even the Classic Slashdot does't have enough of the right kind of stuff. There is a misconception promigated by those Silicon Valley Socal Media companies, by the likes of Mark Zuckerberg that simple is always better and that structure id off putting. In fact, the way discussions are being simplified by Social Media and the changes in the Beta for Slashdot is killing discussion, useful, messy, contentious discussion, complexity essential for the continuation of democratic institutions being destroyed for a simplicity that actually weakens the ability of people to hold useful discussion.
If you want to get this right, actually go and read blogs out there, most blogs, and see how little interaction there is between the people who reply, and then fire anyone on your staff who has a social media background. The weakest thing about Slashdot is the editorial staff and the headline bottle neck. You can author any article but there is a social media filter to what gets seen. Slashdot would be much better if it had a topic hierarchy like USENET and one more complicated than Reddit. If the beta become the new standard I will not use Slashdot. It will become too much like Social Media and I think Social Media is killing communication on the Internet.
I want to see the end of Facebook and Google, and to see you guys taking your UI design cues from the likes of them is tragic, worse, it is evil. And one other thing, I am an old fart who actually remembers ARPANET and USENET, and I think that much of value has been lost so that a few companies can control the discussion and make a fast buck. FUCK them and you if you are thinking that way! I am opposed to blogs and social media and I would really regret it if Slashdot ends up looking more like them.
You are in someone else's house complaining about the coffee.
That's because we made the coffee and they are pissing in it. And when we complain, they say "Hey let's slow down! [sound of urine flowing] Let's work together to solve this problem! [sound of urine flowing]"
yes, the community is what makes this site special, but
The "but" is unnecessary. Slashdot is its community of commenters. If Dice don't want the community, just the brand, okay, so be it. It sucks but it isn't a community owned site. If they do want the community, then pissing everyone off for no benefit seems stupid.
It's like someone coming into a sports league with hundreds of volunteer players (and fans), some of whom pay the club, and arbitrarily changing over to another type of sport, but being surprised when the players and fans threaten violence.
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
Please "leak" the real reason behind this terrible move (monetization , whatever)
You owe it to us
Even after a thousand responses, Slashdot insists on directing me to the BETA !!
Patrick Hutber said it best -
"Improvement means deterioration."
--
The truth is never told during the nine-to-five hours. - Hunter S. Thompson
BETA cannot display a meaningful page... Canot figure out how much whitespace is needed for text. Just like the ACCOUNT information, half the test is missing.
BETA cannot let you post, just a META will not allow me to post. It keeps trying to refresh and has Jscript that I have cancel to get the page to work.
Do not break original.
Sorry dude, it's a low-UID joke.
Actually, it's more of a late 70's pop-culture reference... BUT YOU WEREN'T THERE, MAN!
You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike.
There is a lot of hype here.
Is to not force any new UI on us.
Sure, go ahead and make a new interface if you want, but don't take away the one we already have, make it optional.
That's the biggest change you could make, to not make any change.
To do something right, you often have to roll up your sleeves and get busy.
Ok,
Seriously, I almost never post. I don't love this site. I just go here a lot because it has good stories without too much noisy graphics and bad layout.
I miss the really old theme [3 or 4 years back?] but I adapted to the new theme because it wasn't all that different. That said, I didn't make a fuss.
But this new layout is unattractive, wasteful, and will only serve to create browser errors.
Also, posting the announcement with the "We hear you" tag line is silly given that you already posted the story earlier. That said, it is a great metaphor for what you're doing. Reiterating that you are doing the same thing regardless of what the community wants.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it!
Fuck.
Beta.
Apparently NO ONE has listened since the beta period began. I realize Timothy and Soulskill are replying above, but clearly no one has done any work on the actual site. Is there anyone who likes anything about the new beta? Put me in the *it blows fucking donkeyballs* category; for all the reasons cited above - broken comments, terrible layout, terrible waste of space.
So why not do a poll on it?
* I like the new beta
* I don't like it, but it's fixable
* It's terrible
* It's so terrible I'll quit using the site if you keep the design
* Print out the new website on dead trees and shove it up CowboyNeal's ass
----- obSig
If you show the entire summary, as you do in /. classic, the beta site becomes more usable.
That's pretty harsh...
Why not screw Beta gently instead?
HAND.
I hated the beta, can't remember specific reasons (it traumatized me enough that I now block it out!).
I do know one thing I hate about regular slashdot (only one thing, everything else is fine), is that damned autorefresh!!
I don't mind, just (lol at You had mail, btw) getting something funky when I click http://rss.slashdot.org/Slashd... which is what I was going to stress anyway, is that rss or very simplified lightweight text-only html is still available/easily found. =)
The new design doesn't have any clutter to draw you in. Everything is too clean these days.
let's just take our classic community and fork it!
umh... does anybody know how to clone sites around here?
While this account is far from new this is oddly enough a first post made merely to add my voice to those decrying the "newsblag" restyling. The first time I was redirected to the beta I was sure I had mistyped but consternation was replaced by shock. The value of this site is not the mainline content and never was. The value to me as a user are the highly educational, irreverent, nutty, idealist, anti-everything, pro-everything and all other manner of adjectives you care to think of comments. You misunderstand your own allure if you don't see that. I can get news aggregation anywhere I can not get discussion among old guard geeks in their hundreds, some who have been in the field since COBOL was fresh. The width and depth (and admittedly for some of us girth) of the community is what is unique here. Don't wreck it by taking advice that smells as if fresh from business school. FUCK BETA
I hope /. dies an ignoble death, and in the post mortem, all you sit around in a circle jerk and wonder what the fuck you did wrong. Perhaps you can find some ex-RIM people to commiserate with
Suppose you were an idiot and suppose you were a member of Congress
From this :
We've had only a few major redesigns since 1997; we think it's time for another.
We know there's a real reason for this change that you steadfastly refuse to disclose. It's time to spill the beans. We know you're not spending money on this change just for the sake of change. So what's the real issue here?
We want to take our current content and all the stuff that matters to this community and deliver it on a site that still speaks to the interests and habits of our current audience, but that is, at the same time, more accessible and shareable by a wider audience.
Your vision for beta proves conclusively that this is a total lie. You continue to steadfastly refuse to identify anything that's supposedly not "accessible" or "shareable" in the classic version that was supposedly fixed in the beta version.
the need for a better framework for communicating about the How and the Why of this process.
This is complete, fucking, bullshit. No "framework" is needed. All it takes is one post that explains the situation honestly. You had your chance in this post, but you just continued your steadfast refusal to explain what's really going on.
You are alienating the entire community for a specific reason. We will see through all your lies and bullshit until you explain this reason. Again, no "framework" is needed. I think about 5 or 6 sentences of honesty will get the job done.
I see more white space, bigger font. Probably that is good for the aging population of Slashdot readers. I suspect the younger generation of computer savvy people does not even know Slashdot exists.
Tracy Johnson
Old fashioned text games hosted below:
http://empire.openmpe.com/
BT
I have an exception in my ad blocker for /., no more. Stop solving problems WE DONT HAVE
Stop with the stupid graphics, have you not got it after how many years? Images all over my web page == hate u....ONE ad image, OK, start pumping your stupid fox news like graphics all over my stories and your no better than FOX NEWS.
Got it yet? No? Then fire that guy and get someone else.
You have nothing to lose by keeping Classic Slashdot as an option. Nothing apart from pride that is.
Is there a single comment even complementary to Beta rated above 3? Even if there was 30%, Dice should scrap beta.
But there are none. Never have I seen anything like it. I've seen a few obvious disasters that a company were set on driving headlong into.
But I've never seen mass, universal condemnation for a change. Not even in politics.
Anyone remember when Coca Cola came out with "New Coke?"
Yeah, that worked out really well.
In short order, and in response to consumer outcry, Coca Cola offered both "New Coke" and "Classic Coke." Seemed nobody liked the new version, which is no longer found on the market.
Anytime a product is simultaneously offered in a "New" and a "Classic" version, it seems that people prefer the Classic version.
Maybe because the Classic version was good enough and the "new, improved" version, while it may be new, isn't really improved.
You have a website with a technologically literate reader base, you change something that works for no reason, you piss off your readers... and you honestly think someone won't create an alternative to run you out of business? Good luck with that.
I haven't been able to see comments on beta for several days now, just get that javascript loading bouncing ball, then a purile little error message.
"Shazbot! We ran into some trouble getting the comments.
Try again... na-nu, na-nu!"
NB: Can see the comments when there is only a few of them, such as "Bitcoin Plunges after Mt. Gox Exchange halts trades" which ony has 2 comments. Someone neglected to see if it scaled on slow overseas connections (Australia).
Why are you still routing people to the Beta Abomination?! Has it not been made clear that it is unwanted? Do I have to explicitly choose non-beta every time I come here? I've been interacting here since 1999, reading every damn day, generally, and I'm loathe to cease interacting in the comments; but this is rapidly becoming not worth it at all.
Please service enable the back-end.
If you do you'll be free to experiment with *your* user interface as much as you like, and the rest of us can create the UIs we want, including recreating and maintaining Slashdot Classic, even after you no longer feel like doing so.
I share in the common sentiment that the current design is more than good. To me it's close to perfect.
The few features I'm presently lacking I've easily layered on top myself via GreaseMonkey.
Any change you do will never agree with all readers, so IMHO the best thing you can do to cater for those who will hate your changes is to allow them to render the UI themselves. Seeing as large parts of the entire industry is moving to a REST based backend model, for channel independence (mobile & web using the same services) and UI evolution through competition (marketing agencies creating competing with skins / mobile apps using another company's backend services), why not follow suit and offer such services yourself?
If you provide me a REST interface to all the categories, threads and comments, then I can myself create the UI I want, on-the-fly (in my browser / mobile app) or on my laptop's local web server. With that option available I won't cry foul, since at least then I have an avenue of recourse.
In a society that believes in nothing, fear becomes the only agenda ~ Bill Durodié
Anyone else have fish growing up, and not just any fish, a Beta Fish. You'd have your fish for a few weeks, or maybe even months, and then BAM, DEAD! Belly up in the tank. If only Slashdot Beta were like my old Beta fish.
I've taken the time to post my first comment to the site and it will probably be my last.
I've read (the comments) of Slashdot for years. I'm the kind of person that just read the comments. I never comment myself because I don't feel I'm qualified to add anything intelligent to the conversation. The discourse here is good enough and funny enough to keep me coming back. I think I represent a demographic that isn't well appreciated in this whole mix-up. I'm afraid that what I'm seeing is a top-down move that will destroy the community.
To be succinct. I hate the new redesign. I imagine the mobile site is even worse. This could have been avoided by allowing the community to submit changes to the site them over time using any number of methods. Hell, if Linux works. Why can't Slashdot?
I'll never come back if the old design goes away.
There are a *few* interface changes I'd like to see. The way that accidental moderations can't be corrected is stupid. The current default (AJAX) mode forces you to preview your post before submitting (which is great!) but applies moderation immediately on the "onmodified' event of the drop-down, without any ability to change it if the wrong thing got selected (which is stupid). A way to require that people confirm a moderation, or a way to change or undo a moderation (hell, even if it costs an extra mod point, though then you're just being silly) immediately after making it... those would be REALLY GOOD interface changes.
Another one I'd like to see is, if I post in a thread, remove all the moderation drop-downs immediately (don't force me to manually refresh the page to get rid of them). Similarly, replace all "Reply"-type links/buttons with something like "Reply to this (will undo <N> moderations in this thread)" or similar, so I don't spend a bunch of time writing a response on a thread I'd forgotten I moderated on, only to discover *afterward* that I have a decision to make. These changes would not only be handy, they're *really* simple. As in, I could probably write a bookmarklet to implement that. It's not a complicated piece of JavaScript that I'm asking for.
With that said, I completely agree that Unicode support is long-overdue.
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
Slashdot is the comments - nothing more. ./ IT managers) and learn a lot from ./, but from the other contributors, not the stories. This is probably one of very few places I take note of see targeted ads, and sometimes I follow through. (check how many times I've declined the 'no ads' offering).
For comments to work for me, I have to be able to filter at an overall score (I do 3+, mostly)
I want a way to click and see lower-rated replies to a post I see.
I value seeing the ID of a poster.
Beta font is way too big, and too much wasted whitespace.
For your beancounters - lower ID members are probably worth a lot more ££. None of those are here for the stories.
I control an IT spend of around $1M (not large I'd guess amongst lower UID
I imagine that you've looked at the bounce rate of a random new reader who expects a fun story site with big pictures. Fine if that's what you want, but I'd be surprised if the revenue from that (competing with every other similar site) would outweigh the loss of my kind of reader. And going with the beta as-is, you would lose me to whatever slashcode site wins the exodus.
Just saying, but I appreciate the chance to do so.
It is that most of time large organisations such as slash dot ought to leave things alone.
Microsoft has completely fucked up Windows and made millions of peoples lives a misery by getting rid of the start button and with that stupid fucking charms bar and tiles.
Google has completely ruined Youtube with Google+. It is now impossible to "discuss" a youtube video, impossible to follow a thread. What a bunch of wankers google are for effectively silencing discussion. It is obvious that users want threaded conversations for each video. They do not want Circles, they want threaded conversations and they want to converse with people outside of their "circle". That is the entire fucking point of the internet. it let's us talk even though we do not know each other.
So why does Slashdot think that it is not going to piss off most of their user base by wasting oodles of money on changing something which already works?
If I wanted to visit sites with flash and java I would go to the mainstream sites.... I dont so I dont.
Having been redirected several times, I've blocked beta.slashdot.org using a URL blocker addon. Most of the images on new site are irrelevant and space killers! Think about it.
We should not support encroachment of javascript into otherwise functional web sites. Javascript is one of the worst languages ever made. It is popular with hopeless n00bs. It is the rot that is dragging down the web.
If a site runs without javascript, that is a good thing. If it refuses to run without javascript, then that is a bad thing that could easily be avoided.
Too many scripts here. /. is a good site, but the java jive always makes me keep cruising without unblocking
It would be best for the public if there were a Java free option.
Too many interlocking scripts play hob with mobile devices and less powerful computers.
I had to unblock 5 or 6 here & there is still an object saying its blocked.
It has probably been said before, and probably better by many other posters here, but I would just like to add my voice to all the other people, who thinks the new beta.slashdot.org design sucks.
My main gripe is of course the comment system. It is so much harder to sift through the comments. I have a 20" monitor, but I can barely see three comments at a time in a font size I like. Yes, I know all usability experts will automatically quote the textbook saying that the lines on slashdot classic, are too long to read for many readers, but it works for me and other trained readers.
The new comment system simply doesn't work well as a comment system; it is not a matter of features or single deficits, but the overall design.
The general new design doesn't look promising either. It is not so much the design, but that it looks like a step for turning slashdot into yet another "click and gawk" site, with "funny" pictures of weird things. And videos too; that is so fresh!!!!
I am all for change and all that, and I wish that even more readers would like to read slashdot and comment on the stories, but I fear that present change is in the wrong direction.
Not sure if I, after +15 years of daily slashdot reading, will continue after this change. Not because of any bitter hate against the new design, but because I simply won't find slashdot an attractive place to come any more. I probably won't slam the door, but just vote with my feet, coming less and less frequently and then one day just stop.
I can get the stories elsewhere, it is for the comments that I come to read slashdot.
Slashdot, will the beta site still support the $rtbl, that flag that you fucked me and several others over with years ago when you didn't like how the community moderated a particular comment?
Tired of being "punished" by the Slashdot $rtbl since 2002. I'm now over at http://soylentnews.org/ .
I'm sorry Dice, but you don't make Slashdot great - we do!
Actually I make it worse.
Beta SUX.
leather-dog muksihs
Blog: @muksihs
Forgot I had one it's been so long. Never got a job from it, now linkedin or social media in general... every job in the last decade.
I like Slashdot. I have learned to live with its silly foibles, even when things don't work perfect they work well.
I suppose I am a bit of traditionalist. I hate change for changes sake, I don't really like it unless it is to make things better. Today I got a bit of a look at the beta site. Wow. It appears to embody all of the recent "flat" style that Apple, Microsoft and even Android is gravitating towards.
Why? I don't know. In MS Office, I hardly know what a button is anymore just be looking at it quickly. I have to decide on where to click, and often I have to hunt for the buttons. I don't really like it. It doesn't bring anything real to the table.
I'm not looking for karma, I don't really care, but it won't really matter because /. will change, and if I don't like the changes I'll just stop going there. It's a shame, because I really liked the discussions that took place. Sometimes, I even got the news before it appeared on other sites I frequent.
The bottom line for me is, if the conversation stops, and the futue looks like a whitewashed, pastel coloured world I won't bother. It's not worth it to get upset, I'll just look for something else to pass my time.
The site belongs to Dice. They can do what they will with it. If they screw it up, well, not many of us from the looks of it will be back to say "I told you so"
That's it. My 2 cents. Good luck Slashdot, I'll miss you for a while,
gosgog:
I'm always amazed at the opinions I read after any subject y'all publish....answers from every opinionated individual who (including me, but I have an excuse...I'm old, retired and have nothing much else to except a newsletter for local expats here in an asian country with some of the world's most gorgeous women!).
Anyway, generally change is good, but there are times when I think (like in Google at times), some of the changes are more aggravating than improving. In the case of Gmail...contact list changes, & Yahoo also a case in point.
While at it, FUCK CmdrTaco as well, for cashing out.
This is the trend that we see lately in the main stream software design, dumping down of everything around us for our own good.
There is no question that beta suck, space utilization on the new site is horrible, why leave so much empty space on the right side? Why are those buttons on the top so huge? My grandma definitely will not visit ./ so what gives? Your old icons are cool, beta looks like all the other sites up there.
Also its just flat, did I say FLAT
This beta could be compared to Windows 8 its the same thinking. No one needs those UI changes (from user point of view) but someone decides that this is the ways it will be now.
The good think is we have options and this will be opportunity for someone who is creative.
You have just proven that you cannot be trusted with this community! Throw away the BETA or pledge to keep classic around forever
FUCK DICE, FUCK BETA
Keep Slashdot classic as an option. It does not need to be the default; by all means, have Beta be the face of Slashdot for newcomers. This will accomplish two things:
1. Keep your current contributors. By the time you read this, you'll (hopefully) have realized the greatest perceived value in Slashdot is the comments. Slashdot users provide that greatest of content you deliver, but Beta cripples the ability to read and create that content. You have to accept this, or Slashdot will succumb to the entropy of Web 2.0 and be forgotten.
2. Make lots of money. Beta is pretty and will attract a "modern" crowd for that sweet, sweet ad revenue. But why will they stay if there's no longer anything to distinguish the site? Once a newcomer wastes an hour reading comments on an NSA article, they'll see the value in the site and return. No classic, no comments, no ad revenue.
Make the right decision! There's no reason you can't please everyone!
Please post this to new articles if it hasn't been posted yet. (Copy-paste the html from here so links don't get mangled!)
On February 5, 2014, Slashdot announced through a javascript popup that they are starting to "move in to" the new Slashdot Beta design. Slashdot Beta is a trend-following attempt to give Slashdot a fresh look, an approach that has led to less space for text and an abandonment of the traditional Slashdot look. Much worse than that, Slashdot Beta fundamentally breaks the classic Slashdot discussion and moderation system.
If you haven't seen Slashdot Beta already, open this in a new tab. After seeing that, click here to return to classic Slashdot.
We should boycott stories and only discuss the abomination that is Slashdot Beta until Dice abandons the project.
We should boycott slashdot entirely during the week of Feb 10 to Feb 17 as part of the wider slashcott
Moderators - only spend mod points on comments that discuss Beta
Commentors - only discuss Beta
http://slashdot.org/recent - Vote up the Fuck Beta stories
Keep this up for a few days and we may finally get the PHBs attention.
-----=====##### LINKS #####=====-----
Discussion of Beta: http://slashdot.org/firehose.pl?op=view&id=56395415
Discussion of where to go if Beta goes live: http://slashdot.org/firehose.pl?op=view&type=submission&id=3321441
Alternative Slashdot: http://altslashdot.org (thanks Okian Warrior (537106))
> Slashdot is one of the very few sites on which I have clicked on an advertisement and actually followed through and purchased what was being advertised.
Yeah, but Slashdot is hardly the only site pimping "seemepee.com"
At work i don't login and was one of those "just 25%" who got redirected to your "beta". I read the site for tech news at work and I especially read the comments to gain additional insight. Your beta was such a steaming pile I stopped reading it completely at work and stuck to reading it at home registered.
The comments were spread out, there was a ton more whitespace EVERYWHERE, it was hard on the eyes. the moment I found out there was a way to direct to the old classic style I did it! If you shove anything that looks like that down our throats again I'll leave for good - just like I did Digg and just like I've left other sites. I don't read the site for ads, I don't even read it for the most up to date articles because you are ALWAYS behind. I get the most out of the insightful comments that often show up from people who have knowledge in areas i don't or who have different thoughts that I've not been exposed to. Stop fucking that up idiots! This is like someone woke up from a nightmare and wrote Unity or Metro for Slashdot - seriously?! I don't use any of those either and for good reasons not simply because new is difficult - it's not...
Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
I browse /. with Lynx, you insensitive clod!
127.0.0.1 beta.slashdot.org
And don't forget all that free moderation we've done.
This! I could honestly give a feck if it were entirely text based with no graphics. I come here for the conversation and from what I've seen in the beta, it is rather difficult to even try and follow one thread.
I haven't been a productive poster, but have read Slashdot regularly since 2000. I created an account in 2007 for some reason, just to argue I guess, but I wasn't able to defend myself from the superior knowledge and experience delivered in a somewhat nice way. 7 years later, I have been looking at /. at least few times a week for the highly commented on articles and looking at the comments for more insight on interesting topics.
It would be a shame if this was Digg2 and it tanked in a short time. I was very shocked at the Digg transition, but there is probably some inertia here after 20 years.
trying to fix it up so they can try to sell it
supposedly they are losing money
You'd expect that people working for SlashDot would know how to write a simple comment. How about using paragraphs that are just about one thing? This looks like incoherent blabbering and after a few attempts to parse it, it still does.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
This many times over. I skim the titles to see which stories I want to view the comments for. A lot of the time if I see an interesting title I'll read the original article (unless I'm already familiar enough with the story to not bother) but I will very rarely read the actual slashdot post. Honestly the slashdot post bodies could disappear completely from the site leaving only titles and links to the original article and slashdot comments and I'd barely notice.
Uh oh,
I didn't know they were censoring stuff at this level!
Forget the layout etc, is THIS the real problem - that the site that once allowed absolutely everything to be posted (except Scientology), under the heavy reliance on the -1 mod system, and posts "YourRightsOnline" stories all week, is now censoring posts just because they don't like them??!
I should make the Dice annual report about "Slashdot value on the books being reduced to zero" into MY new sig!
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
I didn't see anything up there about not needing the perpetually insecure javascript to comment. That's a pretty big deal.
If you have a web server with cgi/perl support somewhere, you can try installing this: Avantslash. The main page loads in 33 kB and a typical comments page is below 100 kB at threshold 2. And it is optimized for efficient use of screen real-estate and low CPU demands. Works even on my ancient Nokia N82 (2008-era, 64 MB internal memory).
Avantslash: low-bandwidth mobile slashdot.
Especially to the /. audience. People are tired of following trends for the sake of following trendiness. It seems that people follow trendiness when they have no idea of what better to do. That is essentially what you mean, above.
My impression of trendiness is that it goes against good ui design principles. Every time a website is "updated" I find it less useable, less informative, I use it less, I buy from them less. The concept of making something both trendy and easier for new users is worst of all for current users.
/.'s product is the unique user base. I hope that I am right to call them product people. They are technical people who create products for their companies. (correct me if I am wrong.)
/. for the content. Many comments are valuable insights by very knowledgeable people. A bad, or incorrect comment is quickly called out by an expert in the relevant field. You do not want to dilute this value with less technical people. Fewer knowledgeable people will make /. less valuable.
I have a business degree, I know the theory, how it is supposed to work. However, through my life experience I think that the basic premise is wrong for product based companies. Product trumps marketing. Marketing slowly destroys product based companies. I think that the reason may be that the true value, to the customer, of product based companies is not measured by any method taught in business school. If it can't be measured, the MBA don't know it exists and it gets lost in changes made by them. For marketing base companies, the 4 P's apply. For product based companies, product is central, marketing is on the outside and should not interfere in the product. The people serving the customers are the ones that know how the product should be changed. The management should be partly formed from promoted product people, they are the business experts. At least that is my personal theory. And, it is the actual way business worked until the MBA's came along.
Looking trendy is not important for these people. I think this is correct, given the feedback. People like this are not surface people, they care about substance, not your trendy ui. I would venture to say that you don't want users attracted by trendiness, they are surface people, not into deep meaning and will never be valuable contributors.
In my opinion, the most valuable new users will come by referral of some way, not by finding the site and evaluating it on it fashion-ability.
I got into
UNLESS that is the plan. Do you want to triple the users and you don't care if you alienate and reject the current user base? Is that the secret plan?
Everyone know that the value of a discussion forum goes down when it is diluted with less relevant comments.
I repeat fuck beta.
One thing that I just noticed that I like about the redesign is what happens when the display width is reduced below around 800 pixels. The fact that the right-hand sidebar disappears and is replaced by a left-hand button is a bit strange. That button should be on the right for consistency reasons.
There's a softer version of the same effect ... "drifting away from Slashdot".
"Boycotting" implies passion and anger and attempts to save something.
But perhaps folks such as I will simply silently-but-surprisingly-quickly just fade away when it becomes unreadable, and reinvest the newly found time to more offline pursuits.
Maybe the analogy is Coke vs NewCoke. I wasn't around to know if there were passionate boycotts ... but my vague history of it all was closer to my attempt to describe "yuck, so I won't buy it".
Maybe a year off might be good for perspective, like an old short story called "the very slow time machine". I can see what MS's new tech oriented CEO is beginning to evolve for Windows 9, which might be near Beta by that point. Obama would be winding down on his last big initiative, whatever that becomes. The early shape of the 2016 Pres race should be clearer. "The Aftermath of Edward Snowden" might be clearer. A few cool rulings by smart judges. A few horrible ones that enrage the tech community.
And then a year into Beta ... a year is long enough for the inertia and nostalgia to fade away... so Dice will either have realized its evil plans with ... uh ... the "goodwill and intangible benefits" they just wrote down to zero ... or if as a few people are beginning to explore, if we *FINALLY* produce a successor to Slashdot, then we'll all just go there.
Heh come on, y'all are programmers - What would a *Near-Perfect* Slashdot look like, UI Wise? I'd LOVE for someone to do a mockup, even if it has some capacity issues - just for us to show *ourselves* what "Listening" means. We can solve the "staffing and picking stories" later - just do a mockup with ten stories, just so we can have the true answer to the Beta abomination!
My quick suggestions:
1. I have never ever used the left sidebar of
Stories ...
Submissions
Popular
Blog
So I'm happy if that gets hidden behind a special menu.
2. I don't use the right side boxes for very much.
3. Make comments "Level 1 2 3 4" and then the sideways space usage becomes much better.
Okay gang, see ya less for a while!
--Tao
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Sigh. You wrote one headline: "WE HEAR YOU We did tell you we wanted feedback. Here's our response." And you left out a period after the first sentence. Can a "professional" writer (I assume you're being paid for this) at least get punctuation correct? Putting the sentence in ALL CAPS does not relieve you of the responsibility of proper punctuation. It's not edgy or hip or "how all the kids are doing it" -- it's just another sign of lack of attention to detail, a problem evidently permeating the new design.
slashdot beta has completely ruined the connotations associated with the word beta. Now beta will be associated with "half-assed, really bad, terrible abomination" etc. Thanks for ruining a word, /.
Heh - well there's your problem.... "Audience" You guys really don't get it. With merely an "Audience" you wouldn't have a product!
When this "Audience", which obviously just sits on its collective ass and NEVER contributes content ( without you paying them a wage in return ) gets up and leaves your sorry ass BECAUSE YOU REFUSED TO LISTEN TO THEM AND THEN ACT ON THEIR OBSERVATIONS who in the hell is going to generate this site's content?!?!?!
Dice & /. You guys are going to be sooo screwed.
Hmmm all most forgot *** FUCK BETA *** FUCK BETA over easy with butter F U C K B E T A
You fucking idiots! clicking on any story now while logged in logs me out - I complained about this months ago in beta, but this "bug" is now in classic as well you dumb fucks.
Thank you. I sitll intend to participate in the slashcott next week, however. I believe that there is a political element at Dice that would not mind seeing the wretched hive of men's rights activism and anti-feminism that is Slashdot in mothballs.
Godspeed to those who are working on altslashdot.org. I'm afraid that Code.org and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have given orders from On High that the community that questions feminism at Slashdot must be disbanded.
I've encountered sexism many times in my life before. Usually the argument is that because I was assigned the male gender at birth, despite the physical gender of the wetware between my ears, THEREFORE I am sexist. Q. E. D.
I wished many, many times during my male adolescence thatI had been born female instead. None of those wishes came true. However, if any of them had, I suspect that my school's administration would not have attempted to threaten me with FBI incarceration because I wanted to have a computer club nor would they have attempted to paint me as a plagarist because my code was "too good" for somebody of my age back then.
More assigned males are speaking out against this problem. There is nothing you can do, Dice or Code.org. More and more of us are becoming aware that the feminist narrative is wrong-headed.
As much as I wish more cis women would go into programming, I am not their mistress or their Borg queen. I do not control their actions.
There needs to be a different approach.
How about a -1 WTF option?
Andy Warhol got it right / Everybody gets the limelight
Andy Warhol got it wrong / Fifteen minutes is too long.
We are skilled programmers here, we have the skills and ability to fork and copy this site.
Beta is giving us the motivation and incentive to do so.
Your on notice
If you are looking for an improvement that will draw subscribers, then why don't you fix up the search functionality of the site?
Maybe it's just me however I never seem to be able to get it to work right and I have never once been able to find a post let alone a thread I was looking for. So instead of messing with the presentation layer all the time can you please sort out the back end of the site if you really want to evolve it.
There are several indexes to use for search, Article, thread, year, subject, moderation, friend or foe and more. In other words "if it ain't broken, don't fix it" but feel free to improve it in a meaningful way
Slashdot is pretty important to me and it's ABSOLUTELY the comments from the community that are the most interesting, insightful, funny. It must be tough for Dice to try and figure out geeks and nerds who have highly attuned bullshit sensors. On the upside for Dice though they have the most tech savvy users, so it should be easy for them.
If you are sincere Dice, then please realise that the Slashdot community know how a site should interact without being pushy. It's Slashdotters who are pushy, that's why it's called "The Slashdot Effect" and why sites get Slashdotted. This alone is evidence of a community, not an audience.
The Beta tries too hard.
The pushy thing about the Beta interface is that it yells "HEY IM FRESH IM INTERESTING LOOK AT ME LOOOOOOK", it's trying too hard. It's not up to Slashdot to be pushy, or even try too hard. It's should be a low key, low bandwidth interaction.
Get the backend right, improve functionality so that it's worth subscribing to.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
I'm hoping it will make the whiners take their trolling elsewhere. Good riddance, dipshits. Don't let the door hit you on your way out.
While I remember having had a look at the beta, after opting out I never tried again. Due to your "post" I looked again.
/.
Yes, I still hate the wasted real estate of my screen. The useless pictures (helpful picture of pills for an article about the pharma industry) annoy me. I do not see why the right 30% of my browser window stay pristine white when reading comments.
Now I seriously started to look around for other sites with a similar content like
I come to /. to read content directly from the home page. Not to look at irrelevant pictures on the side of truncated text, with most screen space wasted.
We come to /. because the home page has that classic style that makes efficient to quickly read news. /. if the classic style disappear.
Most of my "news for nerds" now comes from Twitter, more than Slashdot nowadays. I will much less reasons to come to
Again. THEMES.
get with the program.
Yahoo has themes, 4chan has themes... Slashdot? you guys are like... technical
are we UBER GEEKS OR NOT?
dont forget that
unless somehow you people at dice are contributing to the discussion yourselves
not just from your actions
captcha=menace
"Some of you have suggested we're not listening; on the contrary, some of us are 'listening' pretty much full-time. "
Sure, you're listening, but do you actually UNDERSTAND what you hear?
If you really did understand, in any way, your community then you would never ever have released the beta as it was released.
You would simply be too ashamed to do so.
But apparently you never listened to your community and understood them.
The beta design shows the highest level of contempt to the people that generate the content.
man up and say we think this is better, and you will too once you start to use it, as has happened anytime hundreds of sites has upgraded.
if people really still dont like it, they'll go somewhere else and someone will make a new website that does what /. used to
www.RacquetUp.org - Helping Detroit Youth
I got the beta site going on my iPad and it's not that bad really. I can clearly see the comment entry boundaries, the text is easy to read, no wide white spaces on either side...maybe it's because I'm on an iPad, so I'll try it later on my notebook.
My only issue so far is that logging in on my iPad doesn't seem work. It just spits me back to hand main beta page with no indication of being logged in or out.
Government's idea of a balanced budget: take money from the right pocket to balance...oh who am I kidding?
Quite frankly I personally was extremely surprised at the level of vitriol. In fact it seriously pissed me off.
I come to slashdot not just for the stories but also the comments and all I heard was "whine whine whine fuck off beta".
What a bunch of babies. Disappointed in the whiny parts of the community. Not slashdot beta.
We're all techies, right? and know how to edit a hosts file?
127.0.0.1 beta.slashdot.org
I'll wait while you do that
I have been on /. for years now. And I've watched it change from Taco's personal site to a corperate entity and that is fine. Things change and we all move on.
But that beta website...no. Not gonna be viewing that. Slashdot will become one of the many sites that I used to know and love to something I don't visit anymore.
So good luck Dice and all you who are getting those paychecks. Once you make the change I will remove /. from my bookmarks and not look back.
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
Slashdot beta used to suck 6 months or a year ago (whenever its existence was first revealed), it sucks enough even today. If anything good about it had to happen it would have happened by now. So based on my own experience, I am fairly convinced that there is no point expecting anything good from the beta site.
I've already blocked the beta site using a browser plug-in. I've never failed to respect my own experience and my honest beliefs and these are the common elements that bind me to the other readers, their stories and their comments. And for the sake of them, if I have to leave slashdot (in case classic is discontinued), I'll leave and never look back. No regrets.
Make your move mods.
At least it's not like Google:
<TheGoogleExperience>
"Hey, here's a new great idea we formed a focus group to come up with and we think you'll just love it"
*clicks "Switch back temporarily" *
"Hey, we noticed you clicked "Switch back temporarily" Will you tell us why?"
*Fills out survey why I don't like the new gmail layout, why the new interface is clunky or impossible to use due to menu items being filed away places you'd never think to look, why the interface now takes twice as long to load, why I don't want to add a G+ account, why I want to remove the g+ account that I didn't know would be added by clicking continue and needing to transfer it to another account in order to remove it but needing to wait two weeks for the privilege of doing so, youtube being permalinked to my gmail account, the new compose, the youtube comments being attached to G+ for no reason at all, my youtube logging out when I log out of gmail, G+, etc*
*Swtich back temporarily gets removed and you get stuck with whatever you didn't like*
*Reads google groups post about the 'new feature becoming standard for everyone' noting the 150,000 dislikes and 37 likes
*Tries greasemonkey scripts that reconfigure the pages on the fly to what they should have been in the first place noted and advertised in said google groups post 1/2 way down the list*
*Switches to HTML/compatibility/mobile view only mode by whatever means necessary to gain functionaries lost until they change or disable that too*
*Reads follow up post from google about how happy they are with the changes no one wanted or requested*
</TheGoogleExperience>
So at least I've got my simple functional slashdot back for the moment, but if this keeps on being troweled over I'll simply find another site to obsessively check likely written by another unhappy former slashdot reader for other unhappy former slashdot readers.
The subjects says enough.
No, even less than that.
That is all.
The last thing we need is another website succumbing to the Microsoft flat Metro puke design.
The new Yahoo Mail. The revamped Outlook (formerly Hotmail). We don't need another UI casualty.
I've been reading slashdot since about 2004ish, and back then it was my one stop news site for tech stuff.
However, now, I only read it as a joke, a reminder of what used to be.
The editors are a joke, most of the articles put up aren't newsworthy and/or are very poorly edited/summarized.
And this new beta page? Absolute shit.
We get it, the current owners of slashdot don't give a single fuck.
I seriously doubt you hear us, but we hear you loud and clear.
I have no doubt that this beta page will be the straw that broke the camel's back, and long time members will leave in droves.
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
Nothing wrong with the current page. It has severed well for a long time with minor evolutionary changes. It is familiar and comforting, and works perfectly.
I have spent much time looking at the new page, but nothing on it seemed like it gave something the old one didn't.
1) Many of us do NOT want to give up Slashdot "classic" AT ALL and have said so repeatedly and forcefully. Yet you still tell us that it will only be available until you are done fine tuning the new look. (a new look moreover that we've said we hate)
2) you claim to recognize that what makes Slashdot so special is the community, but I think you fail to recognize a key aspect of this community. We are chemists, physicists, developers, sysadmins, engineers and so on. A HUGE percentage of us are not just geeks, but professionally trained and qualified geeks in some profession that takes brains. Over the years we've self-selected that demographic. Your desire to be "more accessible and shareable by a wider audience." runs the risk of diluting what the Slashdot community is. You are courting a new Eternal September and it appears that you don't even realize you are doing so. boards.4chan.org/b/ would cease to be what it is if it became mainstream. I think you can recognize and agree with that. A flood of pop culture would destroy /. just as a flood of nice average folks would destroy /b/ and drive out the /b/tards.
3) This seriously is a New Coke vs Classic Coke moment. Like the people at Coca-cola, you want to increase your market, I get that. Like Coca-cola, you are attempting to do so by copying the kind of features found among the competition. They failed to allow for the fact that they had spent decades differentiating themselves from Pepsi. Copying the Pepsi taste threw all that away. Slashdot is not primarily a content producer, but a news aggregator, so if you go with the glossy magazine look, what is there to separate you from say Ars Technica? We geeks often make a bit of a fetish out of choosing hobbies, sources of info and social situations that are less accessible to the common herd. In other words, we kind of like being outsiders. If you expand your market, you'd be throwing away that abstract sense of clique-ishness that attracts me to this place. I'm probably not alone in that feeling...
4) At the same time, you're not fixing things that in the group opinion, should have been fixed ages ago. Where is the Unicode and foreign language support? I personally support the long standing choice to not allow full HTML in comments, but I may be in the minority on that. I still think we should be able to incorporate umlauts and other accent characters though.
Here are my straightforward suggestions for expanding your appeal and market without killing off what Slashdot is to us long loyal members: a) Allow the full Unicode set and such
b) Don't EVER "dumb it down". You can try expanding the range of news items you list, maybe add images to if they are truly relevant to the story, but do not simplify things. In fact; feel free to get MORE detailed, more in-depth. Make your own articles +5 Informative or Insightful!
c) spellcheck, spellcheck spellcheck. There should be more to editing that picking a story and copypasta the summary submitted.
d) You already have slashdot.jp , why not slashdot.ru or maybe slashdot.eu ?(which would feature multiple languages, but probably primarily French and German). While you're at it, put links to the other language sites at the bottom of the page.
e) I for one would love to be able to read the days most actively commented stories from the Japanese Slashdot. (or any other language geeky articles might be published in) I have no idea how hard it would be to implement a *decent* auto-translation of top articles in foreign languages. I think it would be easy to do shitty translation on the fly, so the challenge would be t
I need a wheelchair van for my son. Help me get the word out. https://www.gofundme.com/wheelchair-van-for-jj
I've no doubt the code sucks and is unmaintainable. Just reproduce all existing features, reproduce the existing look 'n feel. Fix the code and leave the front-end indistinguishable from Classic. If you miss one feature, TBH, I may quit in solidarity with whoever cares about the missing feature.
Dice, you're a corporation, and the first thing you need to know about corporations and Slashdotters: corporations are guilty until proven innocent, daily.
You are not FOSS community heroes. You're just the pocketbook that bought our site. You get nothing (read: you don't get audience retention) unless you earn it.
You need to develop the attitude of appeasement. Every. Damn. Day. For at least a decade or two. If you think that's hyperbole, you don't know nerds.
I strongly disliked the pictures in the beta design. I come here to read content, not to glace at headlines.
Interesting idea you have there. I don't have a lot of cash to spare, but I'd pitch in a few bucks.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
After reading comments for a while I decided to see this "Beta" that people have been talking about. Wow - it's like every other web site out there, with every feature I dislike about them. It looks like someone is trying to make Slashdot look as exciting as the Windows 8.0 desktop. It looks a lot like the redesign that was imposed on the Rachel Maddow page last year. A redesign that was so awful that I stopped going to it. And only recently have I stopped in to find that much of the redesign has gone away..
I hate news items being presented as "tiles." Maybe this looks better on mobile devices but I'm not using a mobile device and on a standard monitor they look crappy. The idea, championed my Microsoft, of having one interface for laptops/desktop and for phones/tablets is stupid. The size limitations of mobile devices constrain presentation one way but the larger real estate of a desktop/laptop is better served by the old way with a long scrollable column.
I liked how Slashdot would mark off their headlines with a green banner. That was easy to spot, distinctive and saved space over just using larger fonts. There there is the convention of sticking a picture (not a tiny icon) in with every news item. Every fricking news site does this, and why? How often is a news article actually enhanced by a picture? Certainly not a tech news site like Slashdot. It's a waste of bandwidth, and a distraction of what the "audience" is looking for.
And I miss the days when the front page of Slashdot features several days of news items that you could just scroll down to view. When you're on a desktop scrolling down is the perfectly natural thing to do. Flipping through pages is more a mobile device idea and should be limited to mobile devices.
Here's the thing, I have long considered Slashdot to be the model for an effective news-aggregater design. I wish more sites would model themselves after Slashdot Classic. It's crying shame Shasldot is abandoning everything that made it great for cheap. flashy design.
Fuck the beta and everything it stands for. When classic is gone this long time lurker is also gone. Slash will go the way Digg did if they don't change course... and dice doesnt give a shit so that aint happening. So fuck them too and what they have done to /.
BETA = Slashdot death. If you desire to kill this website continue with BETA. If not, shit-can everyone involved with the idea and hire folks with a clue. You have a stockpile of resumes (Dice), use them!!!!
More than anything else, I think the use of "audience" is an insult to the community.
It's quite clear in the earnings report they released a few days ago when the users of slashdot went from content producers to audience. "Slashdot Media was acquired to provide content and services that are important to technology professionals in their everyday work lives and to leverage that reach into the global technology community benefiting user engagement on the Dice.com site. The expected benefits have started to be realized at Dice.com. However, advertising revenue has declined over the past year and there is no improvement expected in the future financial performance of Slashdot Media’s underlying advertising business. Therefore, $7.2 million of intangible assets and $6.3 million of goodwill related to Slashdot Media were reduced to zero." Slashdot was purchased to turn it's user base into consumers of other dice products, and they need to modify the site to meet that goal. Saying "abandon the beta" will never work, you can't have sites stay stagnant so there will always need to be development, the community just needs to help them refine the requirements and show Dice that the goals they want to achieve may not be possible with the users of the site they purchased.
First, beta isn't for the community - it's for the advertisers. Try taking "old" /. to some boardroom and showing it and saying, "Hey, ya wanna advertise to this incredible community of code nerds - many of whom are employed and make beaucoup bucks - then just sign here!" The response would be underwhelming. I've shown classic /. to hundreds of people looking over my shoulder and they are not impressed. They don't get the content and, to the simple minded, the site design looks antiquated so they assume the content is quaint as well. Beta is so the owners can get better advertisers to pay more for the privilege of showing you shit to buy.
Second, (and this point is really about my awful workplace so it isn't relevant for many in the community) I like to read /. at work while my code is running and I've got five minutes to surf. With all those stupid pictures and out-sized graphics to chew on, the goddam firewall forces beta to take forever to load. It loads like "Slate" or something. Who needs that? There are a lot of sites I don't go to at work because they are just too slow. If /. is like that, I will never read it again.
Third, why pictures? Is that what code and IT and science are about now? Pictures and out-sized graphics that convey jack-all? How does a great big graphic blob carry more information than a small version of the same graphic? Should we insert emoticons in 20-point now because that way they carry more meaning and information? I want to read intelligent articles and discussion, not look at more dumb pictures like Huff Po or something.
Fourth, I say thumbs down big-time to beta. Slashdot beta is not a place I want to go.
Wow, a new low for slash dot. I got redirected to a video ad when I looked at slash dot today. I guess it is my fault for not blocking ads on this site. It won't happen again.
Leave classic /. alone!
And, no to javascript.
Thanks!
I didn't expect to be enlightened by reading anything in the comments, but you proved me wrong. This is a point I always knew but didn't consciously appreciate until you said it. I don't come to slashdot for the crappily written summaries, I come for the sometimes-accurate comments that enhance the discussion.
Evidently, the key to understanding recursion is to begin by understanding recursion. The rest is easy.
Meh, slashdot comments aren't bad, but they're not great either. Specialized subcommunities on reddit -- the ones with strict moderators -- do fairly well.
Evidently, the key to understanding recursion is to begin by understanding recursion. The rest is easy.
The front page is a definite improvement. It looks cleaner, more modern.
The new comments section could use some work. Why do comments have different fonts and sizes? The biggest problem with the comments isn't the site though, it's the content ;)
I like the cleaner look. Comments could be improved though.
SCIREV.NET - fanfics,reviews & more
Let's cut to the chase.
The bottom line is that readers here are your product, and the readers simply do not like the new beta for a number of reasons, including:
* Moderation (which is part of what makes Slashdot's unique brand so unique) is horribly broken
* You are making it look like a slick magazine. Another aspect of Slashdot's unique brand is the image for each story on the front page
* View levels is broken - it seems to be highest modded or all, with nothing in between.
* the wide, ever-expanding gutters are obnoxious. The story and discussion pages are mostly text; forget the gutters.
* You are following a common trend of using far too much white space - we know the site has to include ads and you are trying to make room for them on the page, but what we're happiest with is ads which are subtle (think google's adwords) rather than obnoxious.
regarding ads: many (if not most) of us block that crap because all too often PHBs who decide to include ads somehow think that by getting all up in our face that they'll convince us to buy their product, when in fact the opposite is true; if you try to block the content I am viewing, start blaring loud audio ads when I am checking out the site late at night, or are otherwise rude and obnoxious, we will take note of the advertiser and NOT buy their product. Online ad techniques which might work in broadcast (being obnoxious, loud, etc.) works against you online, because you're getting in the way.
Keep the ads subtle and cut way, way down on the white space.
Also, when checking out tech news we like the content crammed into a small area for easy, rapid skimming
We (the readers, who are your product, if you recall how publishing and broadcasting work) have made it clear many times that generally we like the site as-is, but would like to see some bugs fixed (such as enabling unicode) and a better choice of editors before a story is published - and maybe do some cursory fact checking prior to posting, and maybe post some more timely stories, instead of stories which were published days or even weeks over on reddit, etc.
Don't change the look and feel of the site; fix what is actually broken, and maintain your product (readership) marketability. By deploying the new beta site without addressing a lot of major flaws, you are going to lose readership, which makes your product (readership numbers) a much lesser value to your customers (the advertisers).
Oh, and the mobile site? Has anyone at Dice even TRIED slashdot on a mobile device? The mobile site simply does not work.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Can anybody reply to me with some good sites that are similar to the news on Slashdot, in case BETA takes over?
Your Momma's so fat she makes emacs look like nano!
This trend of having only part of the summary on the main page is disturbing. I don't want to have to wait for another page to load in order to determine if I want to load yet more pages to see the full story. Believe it or not, there are some of us that live in areas with limited bandwidth, high latency, and lots of dropped packets. Your new format just makes our poor connectivity a worse problem. But I suppose the impact on the end user is irrelevant if it boosts ad prints. After all, it's all about the bottom line; users be damned.
Just remember, when you make yourself just like everybody else, there is no compelling reason to chose slashdot over anybody else.
You people are making a terrible mistake.
Its like we're screaming "STOP" and they can't hear.
Slashdot is fine!
Old format seems more readable.
(I did sign up for this but don't recall the signup info now so will post like this.)
Why?
Just... why? I got redirected to beta today and i almost cried.
I've been following slashdot since somewhere around 2006, and won't bother with some "can i haz hmtl5 on mah iPet Looool!!!11!!" toy website. Should I need this kind of mainstream crap, i'd rather go check gawker. This website is great not because of the news Dice deems acceptable to bestow upon us -- we can find these everywhere -- but because of the (usualy) great community and comments.
Don't forget your audience is not the same as CNN. We are not "average 25-45yo. iPhone owners". We are not what is usually called "geeks". We are for the most part what used to be called "geeks" before average Joe ever heard of "that intarweb thing".
And guess what? We are not the kind of people who want to have half of our screen estate empty. We are the kind of people who use "weird" browsers -- and please don't tell me you trust user agent values -- the kind who use plugins or custom scripts to streamline rendering, the kind who value efficiency over eye-candy. This beta is just trying to mimic dumbed-down website trying to attract people that just do not belong here.
So please Dice, don't kill Slashdot. Activating this beta is just shoting your self in both feet with thermonuclear bombs.
A long-time anonymous coward
First I would dispute this as being Beta software. I've been doing beta testing and QA for many years - now I teach audio and media theory, but I am still actively involved with software development. Slashdot Beta is actually Slashdot Alpha. Beta is feature complete. Whatever Slashdot is, is not. I go to Beta. I post a response. I get a notice that says:
You had mail. Paul read it, so ask him what it said.
Trademarks property of their respective owners. Comments owned by the poster. Copyright © 2014 Dice. All Rights Reserved. Slashdot is a Dice Holdings, Inc. service
Well, (1.) I can't "had mail", and (2.) who the fuck is Paul?
And why do I still have to type fucking HTML code to format a comment? That's been a royal pain in the balls since like *forever*, and one of the least attractive aspects of this website, and yet THAT is still required to use in comments - there's no Rich Text editor, something even the dorkiest of third rate commenting systems has. So, you've "improved" the site, but not made it more usable.
So, I figure, well, maybe I should go look at the "mail I had", and lo and behold, I can't find the link to my account. I scroll up - not there. Then I realise I had CTRL-plus a few times to make things bigger (I'm in the process of getting new glasses, so I need to blow things up a lot so I can see them until my new lenses arrive). So: I go back to the old slashdot, and I see the horizontal scroll bar. I go to the new site, and the scroll bar is missing. Which is stupid and wrong. So, I figure "they can't have deleted access to my account" so I go CTRL-minus a few times and bingo - the link to my account appears. So I click it and I cannot find any link to a messaging or email feature.
So, at that point, I'm getting kind of pissed off.
So, I post some stuff in a comment, you know - contributing like the good scout I usually am. I type a line, put in a paragraph command, and what happens? IT CHANGES FONT! WTF?!?!?!
No - Beta is not a beta - It's mid alpha, at best. I appreciate slashdot wanting to be more friendly to mobile platforms - that is understandable. What you fail to realise is you CAN do both - just sniff out the reciever and feed it the version of code it needs. If you can do it for fucking IE6, you can do the same for iOS or Android. Lots of other sites do that, why can't you?
I have FREQUENTLY reposted slashdot articles on FB and other social media. I post fairly often - usually 2 - 3 per week. I have excellent karma. I am (way) old enough to know better - old enough to know good from bad and quality from dross. I regularly mod comments. This slashdot "beta" is bullshit. Laughably inferior software.
If this "beta" goes through with its present (dys)functionality, I will likely reduce my presence and activity here.
I'm sort of known for having posts that say "Dear (so and so) FUCK YOU!" Sometimes, I get moderated as flamebait or troll when I do that, but sometimes I get modded as +5 Insightful when I do that. I don't think it is terrifically insightful to say this, but it is honest and I do believe I speak for many others when I say:
Dear Slashdot / Dice / developers and designers
FUCK YOU.
You want to improve things here? DO THIS: ,and a desktop version, just like you would modify your CSS etc by sniffing out the browser.
1. Fork it so there is an iOS version, an Android version
2. Don't change fonts when a paragraph command is entered.
3. I shouldn't have to enter HTML in the first place. RTF editors have been around for ages. Give us a nice simple one that recognises return character as a paragraph break, allows bolding and italicisation or BOTH AT ONCE by selecting text and clicking a button or two, and finally the use of text as a link by simply selecting the text, clicking a link button which brings up a text field for the URL with a "done" button. That would bring slashdot up to 1998. 4. The white space looks all designery-ish, but it doesn't help me read it any faster.
That is all.
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
Scriptable documents: MacroVirus anyone? It's like opening the door to your home & only a matter of time before the trash comes blowing in... CGI bins &/or Win CGI avoided THAT totally & kept that all in a "client-server" model, mostly server-side accepting mere parameters sent data & processing it on the server... much safer, & no "business logic" OR excess javascript CPU consumption in the clientside PC end either.
I don't know about you, but, I keep java, javascript, iframes/frames, plugins (only on demand in Opera) disabled on a GOOD 99% of the sites I use, & I do JUST FINE that way... Only where data access is necessary do I use it (e.g. - online shopping &/or banking sites really). Opera 12.16 64-bit does the job here for me that way (I wish IE could do THIS in fact) keeping a GLOBAL policy of all those things disabled, & then making 'exception sites' for their usage, on a need basis only.
This is great not only for security, but also speed (cutting out useless javascript makes pages load way, Way, WAY faster - bonus)...
APK
P.S.=> In any event? Enjoy classic slashdot while it lasts with NO REDIRECTS server-side by bypassing it with the hosts file entries I showed you (since i know you use hosts)... those "holding the purse strings" (advertisers) are DEMANDING it, nobody else (let's see how many people they'll lose & see how that works out for them - oh, they *probably* 'think' (using that 2nd term loosely considering the source it comes from, they aren't particularly educated or smart in my opinion & experience - as, after all, ANYBODY can be a deceitful huckster) they'll just get NEW people to take those that leave's place... we'll see... apk
It is 2014, after all....
Wow. Who knew that once the comment thread hit about 2000 Chrome would start to have serious issues?
br Guess I'll have to find a web site where people lose interest after the first hundred posts....
Three Squirrels
FUCK BETA for president! ;-P
The slashdot audience is old and old is not interesting to advertisers. Slashdot also has a uid status issue that favours tired old geeks, as well as being mostly about the USA because that is where the tired old geeks were fresh 20 years ago. It's dying of old age and that is ok. Let it go..
Dear Slashdot Overlords,
The primary reason I prefer Slashdot to, say, Ars Technica is the user interface. The classic interface provides needed functions in a compact, unobtrusive and clear manner. It puts content first, presented logically sorted by date.
After testing Beta, I'm afraid I dislike it. Beta uses excessive space for each article, and the titles are not collapsible. The contrast of the text on the background makes the summaries difficult to read (and I'm only 30 - imagine what it must be for any presbyopic 50 year olds). The square theme - while not offensive itself - indicates a desire to follow the trend, rather than be a trend setter. The reliance on a Java or JavaScript environment is annoying. I spend up to three months aboard ocean going ships, where our fastest Internet connection is akin to the 56K dial-up of yesteryear (but sometimes slower). We don't need any help making web pages load slowly. And finally, if you must use a persistent rollover menu, please put it on the left hand side of the page and not on the top. Wide-screen monitors already rob me of enough vertical space.
In short, I find the square, hard to read, slow loading, space wasting layout of Beta to be intolerable and would not willingly use it.
Regards
-A
@ Sea: Lat: 35 45.1N Lon: 006 30.2W
You say you want to make the site "more accessible and shareable by a wider audience". In what way is the current site ineffective in this regard?
The only serious issue I ever had with the current site was nullified when the mobile version came out. I found it quite satisfactory, so much so that the slashdot reader apps I had installed on my phone stopped being used immediately.
I noticed a significant change in the look and feel in the beta site, leading to a considerable loss of usability for those who were used to the current style (aside from the specific usability issues of the new code base). Certainly there has to be a purpose to inflict so much aggravation on your current users. When Microsoft does that, the purpose is clear: they want to make the old programs not work so well with the new OS so that you buy the new programs, but for Slashdot, there is no such incentive, so I wonder what is the reason. If the under;ying code is causing you problem, you do not need to change the look and feel in order to change the underlying code.
If the reason is that "the site has not been redesigned in xxx years", that is absolutely the wrong reason, particularly when your target audience is a group of people which I believe is generally more interested in efficiency (as in "look follows function") than looks alone.
I may be wrong...
It seems to me that you haven't heard a damn thing. Slashdot *IS* its community, and the resounding feedback from the community is that slashdot beta is an abomination.
Keep Classic /. or lose the community that IS slashdot. It's that simple.
Forgive me if I'm repeating something that's already been said in the 2,000+ comments made so far; but doesn't this whole affair sound a lot like Gnome3, Unity, and, to a lesser extent, Windows 8?
The fact that this kind of thing happens over and over and over again, in spite of very well-entrenched and eloquent communities that make their profound opposition abundantly and repeatedly clear, suggests some larger cultural, sociological, and/or psychological element at work. In an immediate sense we need to try to protect Slashdot from those who would turn it into an inferior version of the new Yahoo. (Hard work, that...). But over the longer term, shouldn't we try to figure out what's missing in this kind of equation? Clearly, massive user communities such as those represented by Slashdot, Gnome, Ubuntu, etc, aren't managing to hang their considerable weight on the right levers to steer the leaders/stewards/managers/head honchos of those communities in a mutually beneficial direction.
In short, what are we missing here? Let's figure that out so the next time we go through this we can get a better result, sooner in the process, without all the energy lost to (seemingly ineffective) hand-wringing and breast-beating.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
MAKE IT OPT IN NOT OPT OUT! IT SUCKS!
See if you can add one new feature that lures people in ! If it's opt in I bet you can't do anything that honestly makes the new advertising you require important.
MAKE IT OPT IN!
yousuckyousuck you suck you suck
you suck
you suck
yousuck
yousuck
yousuck
I've been a long time reader of Slashdot, primarily for the discussions and comments and now I write my very first post on /., simply to say this: I don't like beta. I don't want it. In any shape, form or manner. Stop it, just don't do it.
Nobody is stopping you from keeping the same layout and colours but re-writing it in whatever new code is around now, html6? Keep the old layout/design but on new code. Maybe new code will allow rapid switching from Old to New? Look at that piece of shyte iOS7, was the backend code and security patches necessary? Yes! Was it ok to degrade Steve Job's stunning UI to the current crappy Tim Cook flat UI and dull icons? NO! Now my iPad looks like cheap crap because of iOS7. So why make Slashdot crappy and unusable?
I can not figure out how to view the past discussion I partook in. I can view the whole page as a whole, but not just the part I was involved in. Classic makes this pretty easy to do. I sometimes like going back to see what nuggets (or turds depending on your view point) of wisdom I've left behind and why I wrote what I wrote. Using Beta, I have no way to figure out why I wrote what I wrote.
I have read this site since it began and only posted once in a while after signing in but have been an anonymous coward at times. The appeal of this site to me has been many and varied but mostly the idea that it is 'lean and clean' with low frills and a way to follow debate or comment in an easy enough way to make it worth while to scroll down a page to read many comments. I was an original paid subscriber to motorcycle.com web site after it went from free to pay a decade or so ago. It was sold a couple of years later and went to shit soon thereafter with a totally changed online web experience plus massive advertising and I have not been back there for many years. More recently I was using UPI mobile news channel and they redesigned their site to include a lot of pictures on the home page and a lot of pop up crap which ruined what had been a clean quick site. See a pattern here? How can you not expect Dice to screw this up? I posted as an ac to say to Dice to try to monetize the site and see how fast people leave. I got a 0 rating for that but felt it to be accurate just the same. They bought what they thought was a commodity, not truly a community. They are acting in that fashion to update it so that it is no longer lean and clean and quick to scan for news topics or comments. But, hey, it will look like all the other hip sites like facebook et al.. If they really ignore all of the community and go on directly as they seem to be doing then open software is also the model to follow here. Arrange a server service and migrate en masse to a new server without Dice attached. Ask for contributions and become like Wikipedia, not like Dice controlled /. Just a thought.
cheers..
Slashdot (not the beta) as it is will live (or die) by the evolution of its community of users. However decisions by Business Analysts of a company that happens to own the framework assets (hardware, software) who have the singular goal of profit through advertisements can very easily make the community of users go elsewhere (they will scatter to other forums and some of the talented souls will create forums of their own as a replacement).
Slashdot is a discussion forum which happens to be driven by a loose direction/range of topics and interests where any so called 'content' is created wholly by the interests and activity of the users in response to each other and in response to the topics. The whole value of Slashdot is an incidental emergent property of this interaction of the user base made possible due to its simple, low key, non interfering design that encourages a high bandwidth of user to user communication and networking of arguments (quality or not).
The fastest way to kill Slashdot will be to introduce a design that is loud, noisy, distracting, click happy with visual _exercises_ with dynamic pop ups and other toys that are just cognitively distracting (because in truth people cannot multitask, they can only task swap quickly) and energy sapping. These features basically kill the fundamental characteristics that made it the place that it is.
Maybe that is the goal! If your goal is to run the community off then by all means go ahead as you are on track. I do not think that you will get replacements. :) People will just go elsewhere/build an elsewhere. I for one will just spend more time on Reddit until one of the new alternatives becomes the new old Slashdot.
Now if you are trying to preserve the community here...well if you think market speak and tricks are going to work then you had better do some analysis of the community here. Seriously. You appear to be hilariously out of touch with the demographic. This is not a demographic that you can expand by making the place pretty or appealing to the everyone. You will just run off everyone and that will be the end of it.
The historical footnote is likely to be: Slashdot -- the interesting discussion forum that DICE ended in the mid 2010s.
> but that is, at the same time, more accessible and shareable by a wider audience.
We do not want a wider audience; this will dilute Slashdot's value to us (and by proxy, to you). Slashdot is a *self-selected* community; it is unwise to think you know better than those who choose to be a member (and those who don't). If we wanted to read every Tom, Dick, and Harry's opinion, we'd just visit digg.
It is called BREAKING.
It's painfully clear that whoever holds the reigns at Slashdot these days just wants it to become another Engadget/Gizmodo/whatever. Just dump the existence community, revamp your site, and get on with the 78 cell phone news stories per day and native-advertising.
Tells you all you need to know...
The boycott shouldn't be time-bound, kill it only after Slashdot kills this horrible piece of trash called "beta."
Have been a /. lover since the 90's .. the current site loads really slowly on older kit.
Beta just annoys me. Makes me think it's time to invest in looking at other news sites.
Keep the current one or better yet, go back a generation. Seriously.. the number of times I've longed for simpler things that aren't directed towards some modern tablet interface I can't stomach.
I like the first comment.. "Fuck beta". Sums it up.
I'm sure though that you'll all just ignore the minority and shove it down our throats eventually. Wow..this has to be the strongest response I've put into public view.
Catchya. Expect it to be never if you force feed us the beta.
Now we have video ads on Slashdot? What the fruck do you think you're doing? You're killing the goose of the golden eggs, you frigging morons!
FUCK BETA. FUCK YOU ADMINS.
Why is this still not in the header?
I just tried the beta, I really didn't care for it. Why would they ever replace this site with that one? That site is not as good.
Especially with regard to /.
Speaking plainly, the beta site is fucking awful in and of itself. Forget that discussion systems are broken (or whatever) it's just not Slashdot any more.
Consider your audience, display some regard for their opinions, quit fucking around with the site. End of.
Ah, fuck it
Using Redirector extension:
[New Redirect...]
Description: [Not needed]
Example URL: [Not needed]
Include Pattern: http*://*beta.slashdot.org/*
Exclude Pattern: [Not needed?]
Redirect To: http$1://$2slashdot.org/$3
Pattern Type: ( ) Regular Expression (O)Wildcard
Unescape matches: [ ]
Escape matches: [ ]
Enabled: [ v ]
[Save]
I despise the beta site. I tried it back when they made the first big notice about it. When I went to comment on it, I found that other people had already commented with the exact same problems that I experienced (although perhaps wording their comments more eloquently than I would have). There wasn't much for me to do except maybe post "me too" which as proper adult Internet users, we've been trained to not do. I figured that the powers-that-be would read the comments, see their mistake, and euthanize beta humanely.
For months I continued to read /. practically unaware that beta still existed, let alone be the unstoppable train of the future. I thank the #fuckbeta users that were the 25% of randomly fucked users forced into using beta for alerting me that the train is still coming. Admins take note; this is just a taste of what will happen when it goes live. If you need a car analogy (and hey, I understand), the check engine light has been on for months and now the oil light is on too. Perhaps you should get the site properly serviced instead of sticking Type-R stickers everywhere, adding a spoiler, and silly underbody lights.
The simply amazing thing here is that this is fucking Slashdot! When Dice bought the site, they had to realize that this of all sites on the Internet is a place where the community is the consumer and product all rolled into one. Toy with this ecosystem with extreme care as once it's injured, it will devour itself and all you'll have is a silly domain name of historic note. This will happen quickly and you may not even have enough time to backpedal from New Coke back to Coke Classic. Seriously though, the admins here should have been able to come up with the idea of forking the site. Keep Slashdot basically the way it is and make a new site that 'speaks' to this 'wider audience' of the future that gets its content from good ol' classic Slashdot. Call it Hip Techie and Political News for Cool Future People or something. Add a "Powered by Slashdot" note with a link to the old site so that the kids can go and occasionally poke the neckbeards.
So I will participate with the others on a Slashcott this week. Likely nothing will change except the train will be a week closer. I may just settle on civil disobedience and post "me too" until my karma goes to the point where all of my messages start at -2. Perhaps the most interesting thing about all of this is that we nerds here have always talked about combining our efforts to change this and that. If we can't even combine our efforts to save our playground from being paved over in the name of progress by the villain in a cheesy 80s movie, then we've really lost. Until then, we'll fight as hard as we can. Now cue the montage music!
#saveslashdot #fuckbeta #slashcott #awesomehashtags #eightiesmovies #neckbeards #metoo
If you like my post, make sure that you click the like button and subscribe to my channel to hear more useless blather.
The whole problem is the "company"
Ultimately, management does not care one little bit about the community that is slashdot. The only purpose that slashdot exists for them is to generate a profit.
If the company alienates it core users but gets twice the number of new people and make a profit, then that is what they want. They may actually think that way, and either way, they don't care at all about the core users. They only care about how to use the slashdot.org domain name to make a profit. What they are less likely to think is that after the core users go away, the site will slowly die. But we see this happen all the time.
It is the current mindset that all societal functions should be owned by companies and thus are not worth existing if they are not profitable. We know that this is false because many functions are filled by non-profits and government. Government is inefficient and non-profits lack funds. However, that does not mean that the knee-jerk reaction that everything should be privatized is correct.
In general, the current idea on companies is that the customers and users exist for the benefit of the company. That is the wrong way around, companies exist for the benefit of the people. If a company serves of no use to society and/or harms people or other things more than the benefit to society, it really shouldn't exist. The "company" is an artificial legal entity, it is not just sanctioned by the government, it is defined by government. The reason for the company is to allow society to benefit from a business that doesn't end with the lifetime of the proprietor. (Sorry, no citation, but I do have a business degree. However, does it not stand to reason alone?) Rules are added to be sure that companies do not harm society. These days, companies have run amok and some are damaging society. Companies are even controlling governments now.
That is a really sorry state of affairs for the world to be in, and it is the reason for what my username is.
Slashdot currently serves a very useful function for it's users and thus it is useful to society. However, with the current methods to value assets of a company, that means nothing. In general, there is no know solution to this conundrum.
However, given that slashdot is a dot org, why is slashdot not a non-profit entity supported entirely by it users? If it was a non-profit, then the management goals would truly be aligned with those of the users. Given who the slashdot user community is, the entire site could be run by the users.
Why not just get a new domain like slashdot.cc and recreate the functionality required?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eal4fep7pK4
It looks like a standard blogspot page, empty and anonymous You guys could just as well save yourself time and start posting everything on slashdot.blogspot.com Have you seen the recent Black&Decker brand redesign? This is worse.
Can we please have our "Newest first, ignore threads" option back?
Usecase: I just re-visited this thread about the beta, and I would like to read all new entries since I last read it. Which is exactly what "Newest first, ignore threads" would do. But it seems that feature is lost too*.
Remember beta.slashdot.org should not be about making a new slashdot, but about making a better slashdot. It currently fails in that regard.
*And I lost that feature many years ago, but beta.slashdot.org might be a good time to got it back.
Oh and there seems to be a bug in this comment, where it doubles the line spacing between my paragraphs.
Check out Slashdot from May 1998:
http://web.archive.org/web/199...
The way the landing page looks hasn't changed much since then. Dice says "it's time for a redesign". Why? The site has never had such a significant change in the way it looks like Beta is trying to pull off. If it isn't broken, don't touch it! Fix the old bugs and let us carry on.
It's pretty bloody obvious what's going on. A company has a unique asset, this asset is not making them money. I can sort of sympathize with this. You gotta pay the bills, right? So they try to broaden their audience (no quotations, I get that too). But as all the old timers have said - repeatedly - they only come to the site for the comments, and WE ARE THE MOTHERFUCKING COMMENTS. This has to drive marketing nuts, I suppose. There are a bunch of other more "fun" sites out there where idiots can blather on about crap. Slashdot is unique in that it has a highly technical/educated audience and a good moderation system (hah, I remember the uproar over the current comment system when it first came out, or was tweaked - somehow people DO get used to these things!).
I think the reason why you're not seeing Dice or whoever ask for the opinion of the current folks who use slashdot, is that they already know the answer. It's not about you/us - it's about getting new people on board. The problem is, that is a losing proposition. Slashdot's readership/writership really goes back to the USENET days of absolutely no moderation and a has a free-for-all meritocracy mentality. Slashdot has been around for long enough that I think your audience has already found you. We're already here. We are middle-aged highly educated highly opinionated nerds who have dealt with enough corporate horseshit to see through these things. Sorry about that.
There is a pretty high level of childish vitriol that permeates this site. If you don't at least throw us a few crumbs a lot of the crap that goes on at -1 will get a hell of a lot worse. Your audience will turn against you and that will drive away the folks who make the site work. There are alternatives. Christ, with the dwindling number of commenters, you could probably host a slashdot-like site on any of the many cloud server type places out there.
Tread carefully, corporate folks. And it wouldn't hurt if you just accepted the fact that slashdot isn't something that's going to make you money. Maybe you can leverage slashdot in other ways to sell other stuff, I don't know. But if you fuck with your nerdbase they will fuck with you twice as hard. I don't envy your position and I truly hope you find a solution that meets your objectives... keeping the old timers happy while injecting a few audience base. But you should probably try a new approach. Have you considered sending out a survey-monkey type thing to gauge exactly what the old timers are willing to concede/put up with rather than just dumping it on us?
A squid eating dough in a polyethylene bag is fast and bulbous, got me?
I had to check if it was the beginning of April.
This was after I thought I had been misdirected to some generic scum ad site.
If you want to make changes to something super successful... DO IT GRADUALLY YOU FOOLS. It's been successful for a reason, and part of that reason is that it hasn't looked like an ad-filled generic mess.
Perhaps slashdot is only about ad-revenue and profit now. What a waste. Anyone know of any other good nerd news sites?
Its ugly, and it doesn't work as well.
Either...
an idiot suit called a meeting and said something like "we're looking for a 10% increase in ad revenue and think that an expansion in user base would accomplish this. Oh, and put tons more ads on the site." Get to work underling site workers.
OR...
some ego-centric web designer at slashdot who has accumulated some power or is looking to do so has decided that "I want to show the world what I'm capable of and a total redesign would look fantastic on my resume".
Which is it?
punch whatever idiots created this mess, that would be my feedback. But all I have is this keyboard in front of me - but trust me I am TYPING HARD.
Assholes. Thanks for nothing.
Since it looks like the corporation has finally taken over /., what other sites have good news?
They don't really seem to know WHY they're protesting
;-)
In this thread alone they now have well over 100 +5 insightful comments telling them we don't want beta, and they're still not listening.
Way to recreate metro. As an occasional slashdot reader, this impending change will drive me to visit even less.
Just say no.
I second this! The beat just sucks big green donkey d!ck$! There is nothing wrong with the existing slashdot. What is this need to change up everything? They must have some people with wild hairs up their @$$! Dump your beta now while you still have people that congregate or they'll end up losing a major chunk of the people that come to this site.
The Truth is a Virus!!!
Otherwise you you would not be killing /.
What you think you are building is not going to work Tim. You are going to wind up with a big failure.
I am leaving now. I will check in again on the 17th.
If the Beta is still on track to replace Slashdot 'classic'
I will leave for good.
Fuck the Beta.
Contentment is the greatest wealth
- Sukhavagga Dhammapada
Contentment is the goal behind all goals.
On my mobile, there's no way to opt out. Checked the footer, checked everywhere- nothing. Only able to use slashdot again on my phone by deleting cookies and switching to desktop mode. This is ridiculous. I have to troubleshoot browsing SLASHDOT? The 'Beta' version it pushes to my phone is COMPLETELY unusable. Everything loads in a thin, lefthand strip that squishes all content, wastes even MORE space (if that's possible), and to boot the posting functions don't even work. You can't call something "progress" if you lose your client base by doing it, and you're well on your way with this unnecessary forced blasphemous downgrade. For God's sake, this is a tech site- we daily ridicule and rail against things like Vista, Google 'updates', and other bloated change-for-sake-of-change no-research crap. You really think you can pull the same thing and not shoot yourself in the foot? This is a community that praises compression, neat lightweight code, champions of Linux... and you try to force-feed us nonfunctional bloatware? Seriously? You survive through US, Slashdot... don't pull a Digg and alienate your userbase till we're forced to jump ship. And don't try and give us politician-like lip service while ignoring that fact that what you're doing is WRONG. If you want to dig your own grave, at least have the balls to be straight with us. Don't claim you're planting flowers.
If it ain't broke why fix it? The only thing I can suggest is a thumbs up or down button. That might be a small bit better than the current system. ... but not really.
Just because you noticed the protest doesn't mean you are listening and you clearly aren't listening.
You're 'reply' is nothing more than a 'go fuck yourselves, we're doing what we want anyway'.
So in short, we, the slashdot userbase are going to tell you to go fuck yourself and simply stop coming to your shitty site while you continue to tell your customers how you know more about what we want than we do.
In short, how about you go fuck yourself timothy and friends, Hows it feel to be the last idiots on a sinking ship with no life rafts left? You go ahead and keep telling us how you know best, see how far that gets you.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
In the meantime, this is the sign I'll be carrying at the rally: Bring \.
it's really annoying scrolling down and finding classic view. Just stop pushing beta that nobody wants nor needs, please.
Though it's true that those willing to actually speak out about it represent a minority of Slashdot's userbase, that doesn't mean that the many who choose to remain silent don't ALSO hate beta. To assume that those who keep their mouth shut all love beta is a BIG mistake.
If the administration really wanted to know what people think of beta they would run a poll about it. You'll notice that they are not doing this. I find this rather telling. To me, it implies that they don't actually care what we think.
The /. staff aren't censoring comments. People like me, with mod points, are. Shit that's off topic is off topic, no matter how full of righteous fury the poster is or how justified they think they are in posting off topic comments.
Alter Aeon Multiclass MUD - http://www.alteraeon.com
Frankly, it's hard to consider a website to be a legitimates source of information about programming when they botch their redesign this badly. I know that a lot of websites out there have a similar look and feel, and also work very poorly, but a good developer should be able to see those shortcomings and know to avoid them. If you're not competent enough to pull of the redesign, why not simply stick with the older version? What it looks like is some brainless suit from the parent company who doesn't understand the website or it's users tried it out and decided he wanted a more modern look. You can't make a good product when the person who has the final say is an idiot who doesn't know what he is doing.
I hadn't looked at beta before this fantastic storm in a teacup, so I thought, what the hell I have to try it. It's a bit different, and a bit more modern. I cannot for the life of me understand why you are all so upset.
I actually switched over to beta now, and probably won't think more of it (unless i see more of these childish f**k beta posts...) /Hans
I don't have one
Shazbot! We ran into some trouble getting the comments.
Try again... na-nu, na-nu!
I get this more often than not. And most times I can never get anything more even after waiting a while and trying again (a few times).
I have actual beta feedback and don't want to be bothered mailing it when email is a pain in the ass.
When replying, you do not auto-fill the subject line with Re: or anything, forcing you to type something.
This is irritating enough already in the old system with a new reply (as opposed to a reply to some other post.)
Now I have to add a subject when replying to someone else's post, too?
Also, I can't see +mods on my own list of posts anymore. This also is irritating. Also I don't know what's wrong with round-cornered rectangles.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Please o please function over form. Those who like pretty websites lack just as much substance!
If I want to look at Engadget I would go to Engadget.
They're trying to listen, but with their heads shoved so firmly up their own arseholes, all they can hear is their own heartbeat, and a gurgling sound.
You're saying you hear us, yet you ignore our main want. We want Classic. You're going to phase it out why exactly?
Ars Technica did a big UI/Layout phase a few years ago. You know what old members can do? Choose the classic layout. It's still available to this day.
The fact slashdot is so eager to bury Classic is not only stupid (because you say you're listening to users, when you're not) but it's downright scary. Why are you so eager to bury our personal preference with not even a whimper?
Audience? Fuck you.
Since this seems to be the place to post comments on beta:
I can't help but agree with the FUCK BETA crowd, even though I have started modding them down. This isn't beta quality, and it should never have been inflicted on the undeserving public.
fix something which isn't broken?
Seriously, the new beta sucks. I do hear that Microsoft is hiring gui designers for some update to make Metro more of a pain in the arse to use? Maybe you should apply and use the beta site as your reference.. I reckon you'll be instantly hired.
The whole problem is the "company"
Ultimately, management does not care one little bit about the community that is slashdot. The only purpose that slashdot exists for them is to generate a profit. If the company alienates it core users but gets twice the number of new people and make a profit, then that is what they want. They may actually think that way, and either way, they don't care at all about the core users. They only care about how to use the slashdot.org domain name to make a profit. What they are less likely to think is that after the core users go away, the site will slowly die. But we see this happen all the time.
It is the current mindset that all societal functions should be owned by companies and thus are not worth existing if they are not profitable. We know that this is false because many functions are filled by non-profits and government. Government is inefficient and non-profits lack funds. However, that does not mean that the knee-jerk reaction that everything should be privatized is correct.
In general, the current idea on companies is that the customers and users exist for the benefit of the company. That is the wrong way around, companies exist for the benefit of the people. If a company serves of no use to society and/or harms people or other things more than the benefit to society, it really shouldn't exist. The "company" is an artificial legal entity, it is not just sanctioned by the government, it is defined by government. The reason for the company is to allow society to benefit from a business that doesn't end with the lifetime of the proprietor. (Sorry, no citation, but I do have a business degree. However, does it not stand to reason alone?) Rules are added to be sure that companies do not harm society. These days, companies have run amok and some are damaging society. Companies are even controlling governments now.
That is a really sorry state of affairs for the world to be in, and it is the reason for what my username is.
Slashdot currently serves a very useful function for it's users and thus it is useful to society. However, with the current methods to value assets of a company, that means nothing. In general, there is no know solution to this conundrum.
However, given that slashdot is a dot org, why is slashdot not a non-profit entity supported entirely by it users? If it was a non-profit, then the management goals would truly be aligned with those of the users. Given who the slashdot user community is, the entire site could be run by the users.
Why not just get a new domain like slashdot.cc and recreate the functionality required?
Why not have both and let the users select what they want to use .
I've been reading Slashdot for more than 15 years. Bluntly, I want a format that lets me read the content. The beta redesign does the opposite of that. It shows itself off and impedes reading the content.
crooksandliars new design is bad.
dailykos is good.
This site used to be great. Even in it's latter days, it's been good. That is poised to change. Before long, it will be mediocre, and ordinary.
I didn't see a problem when Dice Holdings initially bought Slashdot. I figured there would be efforts to drive nerd traffic towards their job listings and such. That was fine. We all need jobs.
Things have changed now. Beyond the shifts in story choices, the slashvertisements, and so on, something fundamental has changed: Slashdot's owners do not appreciate it.
Their recent financials show that they have written its value as an asset down to zero. They have legally claimed it to be worthless. That is at the root of what is happening now. They want to fundamentally change the nature of this site in order to remake it into something with big growth potential.
Beta is just the latest symptom of this disease. It will not be the last. In striving to make it into a site that will bring them a growing user base and growing revenue per user, they have shown a willingness to dumb down the interface in the name of making it more accessible to newcomers, to cast aside essential elements of decade-spanning community culture, and to plow ahead with changes in the face of overwhelmingly negative user feedback.
This is not going to change. This will not go away. I will not support it.
I will be gone for this entire week, in protest. While away, I will work to create a new community where things can be run with quality user discussions as the paramount objective.
Be seeing you.
Here's a constructive suggestion on my way out, since I don't think I have seen it addressed. If you insist on redirecting visitors to the Beta site, please provide a link to "classic" Slashdot that does not depend on JavaScript. If they got redirected in the first place because they don't have JavaScript on and therefore are not logged in, there is no way to escape the Beta except the back button.
Slashdot has been an almost-daily habit for me since 1997 or 1998. I come here for the conversation on topics of interest. I don't know what Dice is thinking. Alienate your regulars, and you're throwing away the brand too. See you after the boycott.
What about making a UI contest?
Open some of your APIs, let us write views, and host them so that people can choose to use them.
I would be interested in a smartphone app that does not amount to a screenscraper...
I dont think so you guys will do anything bad with your site and destroy every thing you made in a long time.
Seems to be the trend in the industry - as soon as there is an usable UI, some bloody cowboy comes and destroys it, claiming that the replacement is somehow better. The actual result is an abject disaster, but still this behaviour is rewarded from above. All that I can say is: PHBs have won. Let them rejoice, but I will have no part of it. Go ahead and muck with the UI; I will care no more because there is no reason to come here just for the curse.
I've been enjoying the format and how it threads for over a decade. I find the articles and comments (even the funny and abusive) useful. I hope you leave well enough alone. As for Beta, for a phone it is barely useful, but loses something I find best qualities. Yes lots of phones out here, but once you go below 13" Slashdot gets too fussy. Stick to this unless there is a genuine reason for change. As one suggested, could possibly make one for phones & wee tablets? I don't know what is involved, but people who use phones and tablets are more inclined to suffer from ads and dumb designs. .
... good to hear you're reconsidering it. Frankly, I've missed a lot of the frufraw over this, mostly because, well, Slashdot just doesn't have the draw it once did (and yes, I've been here a long, long time).
I looked at the Beta site. It's annoying. I did my usual for annoying webistes these days: I restyled it more to my liking. Greencurve will always be part of what Slashdot's about.
As for where I'm at these days: mostly reddit. Some on Diaspora. I've tried a couple of the social sites, but frankly, operating as myself doesn't have a lot of draw.
What made Slashdot great when it came out (1997) was that it was one of the very few places online where people could talk about what was new, breaking, and most specifically, not part of the existing corporate hegemony in Tech. And you had people who were actively involved in doing stuff engaging: Bruce Perens, Linus, Miguel de Icaza, Rasterman. That engagement ... seems mostly to have moved on. I might scan the homepage once or twice a month now. I don't even have your RSS feed (does Slashdot have an RSS feed? Oh, good, it does) in my reader -- the stuff I'm interested in is better covered elsewhere.
Can you reclaim the spark? Questionable. Will pissing off the existing community (not "audience", not "users", not "readers") do you any favors? No. Is it a highly competitive market? Yes. Do people really, really, really hate gratuitous change and annoying websites? Yes, and rather more than you can appreciate. The traditional "we're going to drop-ship a metric ass-ton of change on your head" model of SAAS kinda sucks. I mean, it's awesome that you can fix and ship in seconds, but disrupting what users are accustomed to is really disconcerting.
What's it going to take? Communicate your goals and your needs. I can appreciate that you're a business. Guess what: online forum and community sites only generate so much primary revenue, and that advertising market? Google's got a hell of a lot of it.
Realize that technology is only a tool to generate connections between the actors here: yourselves, advertisers, other business partners, information sources, and the community. Especially the community, because that's who the product is, it's what makes or breaks you. Remember, going concerns can die and often quickly: MySpace, Digg (though it's making a second go of it), VA Linux, Yahoo, even maybe Microsoft (oh: what's with the shilling that's been going on in that quarter?). Realize that the big players (Facebook, Twitter, G+) have their own vulnerabilities, and if you work your focus right you'll have some win
Slashdot's got a brand, but little cachet at the moment. Look at who's doing well and why and how. Hacker News (but not for any hawtness in the UI or capabilities front), Stack Exchange. reddit (though it's getting a bit big for its britches). Think about what you want to be. ASK your community what it wants you to be. And get better at being that.
For myself? I'd really appreciate tight focus, quality posts, and good comments. A revise of the moderation system (I helped Rusty Foster on that part of Kuro5hin.org) is long, long overdue (yes, bad stuff tends not to float up, but a lot of good stuff is missed as well), figuring out how to scale conversation, and avoiding the bullshit and buzzshit that's infesting teh Intarnets would be a good start.
What part of "gestalt" don't you understand?
...Keen to try new stuff, eager to experiment. Now it's all newbie wannabes who want something reliable, safe and unchanging.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The comments in beta are awful on Safari on iOS... you can barely see three words per line before the comments wrap.
And you
can imagine
just how
difficult it
is to read
comments
when they
are written
this way.
Allow a more compressed format
The domains the CSS are hosted on are blocked by off-the-shelf corporate web filters, so I can't tell how good or bad it is supposed to look.
Slashdot has become something greater than the sum of its parts, in many ways.
If I show this site to someone who has never seen it before, their first impression is that it's some type of technology blog. After examining it more closely though, readers soon realize that's not true -- because the site doesn't consist of articles written by staff members running the site. Then, they conclude that it's a technology news aggregator. This is a little more accurate, but still misses what makes it worthwhile.
Anyone can put together a site that collects up the latest news items posted by others in a certain topic, and almost all who do bolt on some type of comment system so readers can respond to the articles too.
Slashdot has grown to where it has an active community of regular users who often know as much or MORE about the topics than the people writing the original articles it references. IMO, it's quite rare to find this happening on the Internet. If you successfully get a group of very knowledgeable people together on one web site to regularly discuss their area(s) of expertise, it's typically a message forum -- which is a different format.
The magic that makes Slashdot special, IMO, is the fact that you can visit regularly to keep up with cutting edge technology news and happenings, but THEN by reading the comments, you get a much deeper understanding of each of the original topics. Perhaps you can even contribute insight of your own, and if you do - you'll receive feedback (by way of rating your post up or down), which in turn helps you know if your own contributions are really useful, or just a waste of people's time and bandwidth.
If Slashdot's owners are out to "modernize/pretty up" the site in hopes of attracting a bigger audience? I think they're on the wrong track. If that tactic attracts a bigger group of site visitors, it only does so by watering down the talent pool that makes Slashdot work. The core group using the site today are perfectly content with the current site layout, IMO, and any changes should just be functional ones. (You say you can increase site performance and reliability with a "beneath the surface" code improvement? Go for it! You say you can add some sort of new, improved search functionality? Ok, I'm all ears. But you just want it to draw more color images and use more font styles so it doesn't appear "dated"? Yeah.... I think I'll pass.....)
I never met a person yet who avoided using Craigslist to post a free classified ad because "the site just looks too plain with all that straight ASCII text".
So say we all.
Google hasn't changed their home page since '97 ish - why should slashdot. What you have works. The mobile site sucks, and seems to be like the Beta. Classic is fast and works. Don't change just to change.
Good bye, Slashdot.
You ruined the UI, and the revolt against it ruined everything that was left.
I should be reading other things where the articles contain actual content and the comments are genuine contributions. Ars Technica, Boing Boing, a dozen others.
If I want to read nonsense, there are a lot of alternatives; not all of Reddit is a waste of time, but when I want to waste time, Reddit is always more entertaining.
A.C.
...is that unlike the main site, I can use my browser's keyboard commands to increase (and decrease) page display size, to make things readable as I like them. The old site has some scripting or such that eats or disables those actions, which is irritating.
If you have to scrap every other change of beta, fine. But please keep this one. It's a genuine improvement.
To "beta test" some of the alternatives to slashdot.
Slashdot from May 1998 works and looks better then the damn beta fiasco. team that designed new slasgdot are morons without any knowledge how to built working website. And then you wonder why windows 8 is a disaster, just take look at new slashdot.
I hate beta just as much as anyone on here. I've been using Slashdot for quite a while now and if they don't back down from beta I am never coming back here again. It sun k no one wants it and change for the sake of change is never good. This is suppose to be news for nerds. Us nerds like things our way not the way a user would want it. Also unlike a typical user we can leave and will be happy to do so. Same thing has happened to other things not just websites. Ubuntu being a perfect example of this. If the people who like your product are nerds don't go and try to make it all pretty and dumbed down. We will all just move on to something else that fits our needs.
Did I miss the exit ramp? Soon my, relatively, low UID won't be worth selling on eBay. Just like my Spawn comic collection.
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
and I for one, welcome our new clean design overlords.
FWIW, used to post occasionally under an account, now usually just read and post AC comments.
Classic has worked for me, I can scan Headers and decide if I want to read. NBC recently went to graphics and I hate it not impressed by pretty pictures.
Hell yes. Right on the money.
I don't read Slashdot because of the stories, really. I read Slashdot for the conversation about the stories. We are not an "audience," we are participants. Without the commenters there's be no reason at all to come to Slashdot.
Seems like the majority of complaints are about the stylesheet? Just add a 'theme' option. Start with 'Classic', 'New Classic', and 'Shitty Beta', then let everyone that's complaining make their own.
To avoid the complaints about javascript, open up an api that people can build javascript-free versions of the site on top of. Hell, make a CLI so everyone will shut up.
I won't get into my detailed, point-by-point criticisms of the beta, because they already have that. Instead, I want to express the thing that bothers me the most by far about all this. As some commenters above have pointed out, it's tied into them calling us an "audience".
My biggest problem with the redesign is that it calls out, loud and clear, that Slashdot no longer values the existing community. The redesign is including things that are of no value at all to us, and is omitting things that are of great value. That means they want a different community altogether. Or, not a community at all, but an "audience".
This phrase in the OP sent chills up my spine: "more accessible and shareable by a wider audience." That's pure marketing-speak for "we need to have readers in a more profitable demographic". The problem is, that demographic wants things that are completely incompatible with what most in the existing community wants.
This feedback from timothy (and I thank him for it, truly -- communication is better than silence) has made me more pessimistic about the future of Slashdot than I was before. It communicates very strongly that they are wanting to turn Slashdot into something common, mass-produced, and intended for "consumption" by a more general "audience".
In other words, it seems that they want it to stop being Slashdot at all.
I'm a Slashdot user with 'Excellent' Karma, but I never see an option for rating a submission or comments. So Slashdot is a broadcast only system where some secret cabal of editors gets to rate things. I go to Reddit if I want to participate. Too bad Slashdot doesn't have a way of letting users come to consensus on questions like, "do you like this new feature on Slashdot". But I bet they're using the newest tech fashions in CSS and Javascript for the new beta web pages. Shiny!
Ben in DC
"It's the mark of an educated mind to be moved by statistics" Oscar Wilde
Just another thing wrong with your beta.
So, now that Slashdot is going to hell with the horrible new beta, where are the real nerds moving to for intelligent discussion, the real News for Nerds?
If it ain't broke, don't fix it...