Slashdot Mirror
Bitcoin Plunges After Mt. Gox Exchange Halts Trades
krakman writes with this excerpt from Bloomberg News: "Bitcoin plunged more than 8 percent [Friday] after a Tokyo-based exchange halted withdrawals of the digital currency, citing technical malfunction. Mt. Gox, claimed in a blog post it needed to 'temporarily pause on all withdrawal requests to obtain a clear technical view of the currency processes.' It promised an 'update' — not a reopening — on Monday, Feb. 10, Japan time. This is day after Russia's Prosecutor General concluded Bitcoin and other digital currencies are illegal under current law."
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 traffic plunged by way more than 8 percent [next Monday] after a group of angry nerds decided to stop wasting time at work looking at Slashdot and be productive, citing a technical malfunction known as "beta." Slashdot management claimed in a blog post that "we're trying something new" and "If you like your Slashdot Classic, you can keep your Slashdot Classic (for now)." It promised an 'update' — not a cancellation of the beta— in the days to come.
Grow the fuck up and stop spamming the comments. The grown ups want to discuss the news.
To their advertisers, Dice presents Slashdot as "Social Media for B2B Technology" platform. They ignore the detailed feedback of Beta that they have received in these past months, and they disregard our grievances. They pretend to listen, all while admitting that Classic will be cancelled soon:
"Most importantly, we want you to know that Classic Slashdot isn't going away until we're confident that the new site is ready.
What company directs 25% of its users to a partially-working, not-ready-for-production website? A company like Apple can get away with using its customers to test out beta versions, because many of its early adopters are fanboys and suckers. This is how Dice views its userbase.
Beta delenda est!
Comp.misc on Usenet is the new Slashdot. Please change over immediately. If your ISP no longer carries Usenet please use the Eternal September *free* Usenet servers.
See you there, and DOWN WITH BETA.
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Acceptance
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If history is any sort of an indicator, any rights we sell today, our children must buy back with blood tomorrow
Bitcoin may indeed have plunged after Mt. Gox Exchange Halted Trading.
But not half as much as Slashdot has plunged after Dice failed to halt Beta.
I visit daily. Unless they halt this abomination, I won't be back.
As others have so eloquently put it - FUCK BETA
sucks cox like beta
I tried using it for a while trying to get used to it. I really did. For reasons emphatically stated by the /. community, the amount of whitespace is distracting to the point of being detrimental to reading/skimming the comments (as well as the comment system is broken). Again, as the greater /. community has said, comments are the main driving force why people visit the site. I read the comments and almost always ignore the story submitted. It's a running joke when I talk to IRL nerd friends to never cite the summary of a /. article. In a sense, the summary is click bait. Sure it could be better, but somehow that is part of the stupid nerd charm the site has.
When /. went to D2, I started poking around for other nerd sites that engendered intelligent comments. I found it in ArsTechnica. They have a different way of running the website, with real editors and it shows. For the most part, the articles are well worth reading. As are the comments. In some respects, the comments are actually better than /. because a wider net of different viewpoints are allowed to be seen/discussed. About a year ago they implored their loyal readership to turn off javascript/ad blockers to allow the continuation of the site remaining free. I considered the options and decided that I valued the service Arstechnica was providing, so much so that I purchased a year subscription.
That is something I've never done with Slashdot. This is the part of the reason Dice wants to get rid of me as a consumer of the content - because I enjoy it for free. In all my 15+ years of frequenting the site (almost daily), I've only once clicked on an add. In terms of supporting the site, I am the worst type of consumer. Dice wants me to leave and be replaced with people who will click on web adverts. From a MBA perspective, it makes perfect sense. I don't agree with it at all - for reasons stated much more succinctly in other comments.
Will I take part in the Slashdot boycott? I sure will. Because I have a vested interest in retaining the wonderful resource of comments that enrich my geek knowledge on a weekly basis. What will happen if it does go to the new Beta design without a massive redesign keeping in mind it's intelligent readers/commenters? It will die on the vine. Just like some other website redesigns. Digg.com being the latest example that affected me.
When Groklaw was shut down, I respected the reasons why. I seriously miss the content of that site. Partly because of PJ's internal integrity, but also because of the people who commented on the stories. To this day, I haven't found anything that even comes close to the level of professionalism and truly meaty content Groklaw had. While the feelings aren't quite as strong for /. as a site, something very valuable will be lost when it goes away. I personally think that's why the community has reacted so strongly against the Beta.
Where will the commenters and the greater community go? To someplace else on the Internet. It is inevitable. The Internet has this built in property to route around flaws and disturbances, so to do online communities. When the Phoenix lands on it's new perch, I will be there, occasionally adding my voice and enjoying the greater wisdom of the community.