Slashdot Mirror
Mozilla Working On a New Website Comment System
sfcrazy writes Mozilla is working on developing a content and commenting platform in collaboration with The New York Times and The Washington Post. The platform aims to be the next-generation commenting and content creation platform which will give more control to readers. Mozilla says in a blog post, “The community platform will allow news organizations to connect with audiences beyond the comments section, deepening opportunities for engagement. Through the platform, readers will be able to submit pictures, links and other media; track discussions, and manage their contributions and online identities. Publishers will then be able to collect and use this content for other forms of storytelling and spark ongoing discussions by providing readers with targeted content and notifications.” The project is being funded by Knights Foundation.
Slashdot BETA is the answer! All in favor?
Maybe they can integrate a reader into their webbrowser, and while they're at it, add an email reader and a web editor too.
Through the platform, readers will be able to submit pictures, links and other media; track discussions, and manage their contributions and online identities. Publishers will then be able to collect and use this content for other forms of storytelling and spark ongoing discussions by providing readers with targeted content and notifications.”
So what does it do that we can't already do using 1: the web in general and 2: twitter in particular?
From the article:
what if we could build a commenting system that gives commenters a real sense of ownership? What if readers could manage their online identity and contributions across news sites under a single sign-in? What if they could contribute pictures, links, even their own stories? What if they could track discussions and form friendships with one another? Wouldn’t that system build a sense of community and lead to self-policing and civility?
So decentralisation of commenting, with a unified account?
Remember the comment bar plugin Google had for Firefox back before the Chrome days? It let you comment on ANY webpage? Anyone who had the plugin could see you comment. Side Wiki or something? I can't recall the name.
Yeah, this sounds a little like that.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
Web browser maker decides to create a disqus competitor, instead of working on their web browser.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
Single sign-on is a fine thing. But let's encourage people to run their own message bases, because I'm tired of having to figure out which domains I need to permit scripts from, and because I don't really want one company aggregating all my comments without even having to work for them.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
is probably the "least bad" one I've seen. It would be nice if multiple ratings could be applied to a post, ("+1 funny, +1 insightful, -1 Troll") but it is fairly good at reducing the trolls and flamage.
Best Slashdot Co
Usenetzilla.
Will this be Firefox' version of Google+?
The community platform will allow news organizations to connect with audiences beyond the comments section, deepening opportunities for engagement. Through the platform, readers will be able to submit pictures, links and other media; track discussions, and manage their contributions and online identities.
If they manage to pull this off successfully, that could be very useful platform.
Sounds like they're reinventing Disqus
Such systems already exist. There is one from Facebook, another one from Disqus, and many more. They always use this to track users across websites (since it's usually some sort of iFrame, if you stay logged on, you can track users over different websites) and sell the information to third parties. I wonder if Mozilla wants to get into that system or not. I'd be surprised (and disappointed) if they did.
Will this system support the moderation (a.k.a. censorship) of comments?
I can't see mainstream media corporations adopting it if it does not support the editing or removal of commentary they disagree with.
But does supporting such functionality conflict with Mozilla's mission and the Mozilla Manifesto? Can Mozilla really claim to stand for openness and freedom while simultaneously creating a system that supports overt and indisputable censorship?
At a time when news organizations are shuttering their comment sections?
One news agency after another are realizing that comments actually *hurt* readership because there are enough asshole commenters out there posting crap, that it's actually turning off readers from their service entirely.
That's also because Slashdot is absolutely tiny. Any reasonable comment system would work well here.
Well, the core of Firefox was written more than 10 years ago, and while it didn't necessarily have to be that way, the truth is that it has simply not kept up. Just getting Firefox to optimally use a modern multi-core processor is considered a massive effort. It is time for Mozilla to close down Firefox development (like they did with Thunderbird). Or at the very least, fork Chrome - it's been done before and it will give them instant parity with all modern web browsers.
Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.
You've never been to reddit. That commenting system is close to perfect. It does it's job, and it's scaleable.
Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.
Will it look up your voting record by scavenging your computer? Will you automatically make electronic transfers to the charity of Mozilla's choice when you use it? Will the mob form up at your house if you haven't voted for ?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
No. Just no.
Gestapo "news organizations", like Ars Technica, want one message, one world.
Please will someone fork off Firefox and turn it back into a simple browser. One that doesn;t change it's interface every 5 minutes. One that isn't being designed and programmed by clueless hipsters who have no fricken clue.
Let's take back the web from retards.
Slashdot does. Mark someone as a foe. Gone.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
From TFA:
What if I don't want to be tracked across different sites so I pick a different identity everywhere I log into (different emails, different names)? Single sign-in is convenient especially for whoever is tracking us.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Within the past 18 months along with the whole web site. It's gotten really JS heavy and the comments section (which is only allowed to fill the right 1/3 of the browser window), which makes it really painful to use and browse the comments.
I liked the older system which had the comments on the bottom of the news story instead of on the side.
It's may not be practical, but it would almost be nice to see an IMDB style comments section for every story the way IMDB has one for every cast member and every film/show entry. If IMDB can make it scale to ~8.8 million personalities and titles I would think the NY Times could. At 500 stories/day it would take them 48 years to hit IMDB scale.
The Fine Summary states that the sponsor is the Knights Foundation. But the story makes reference to the Knight Foundation.
Knights Foundation: does good works with London juvies.
Knight Foundation: does good works with news organizations.
/. eds: Please review and fix or clarify.
Will
Disqus works pretty well for me on my personal blog.
the System comments you! ... sorry... had to....
Most forums do have that. It's called an ignore list. They've had such a feature since forever ago.
The OP is describing SeaMonkey.
Likewise I have been trying to find or remember this tool.
I though it a very interesting idea. What happened to it?
That's all I really want. The media seems to think that news is crowdsourcing common opinion. This will not add value to Firefox or the NYT.
You can set a karma modifier for foes and for friends; if you set your foes to have -6 karma, then they're going to be at -1 forever to your view and thus not show up. I know there's at least one Slashdot user who sets their friends to +1 karma, and their foes to +6 so as to not mod them up by mistake, which strikes me as a pretty backwards way of doing things.
(1)DOCOMEFROM!2~.2'~#1WHILE:1<-"'?.1$.2'~'"':1/.1$.2'~#0"$#65535'"$"'"'&.1$.2'~'#0$#65535'"$#0'~#32767$#1"
Now I can flame them for abandoning their perfectly secure old sync method in favor of a "simpler" but much less secure username and password scheme.
To their credit, the move was widely praised on "tech sites"(1) as a welcome change.
(1): "tech sites" - Websites created or managed by hipsters with iPads that know what a partition is and wear NERD t-shirts. They also reformat their mom's computer from time to time. See: slashdot, arstechnica
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
granted, they are short words.
I would love to have more modern version of Usenet. A simple news and commenting protocol that can be implemented in a web browser or a dedicated client alike. Something that is ubiquitous as RSS feeds. I have a client that aggregates all the latest articles from my favorite sites and and then can go in and browse comments in a tree like structure. I would have the ability to mark individual stories and even sub-threads to follow or know what comments I have read or have yet to read. Hell, I doubt that something like that would really be that hard to hack into RSS or design from scratch in XML.
Personally, I miss the early days of the internet where everything had a tool, and there was a tool for everything. There were programs and protocols galore: HTTP, Gopher, Usenet, Email, FTP, IRC, Archie / Veronica, Telnet for BBSes. Most of them are dead or so niche to be included only for "legacy compatibility". Now there is just HTTP to rule them all and shit is boring.
Slow Down Cowboy! It's been 1 hour, 47 minutes since you last successfully posted a comment
"The most ambitious aim of the project is to create a feature that would efficiently highlight the most relevant and pertinent reader comments on an article, perhaps through word-recognition software."
The object of the game is to get a complete load of bollocks accepted as the most relevant and pertinent reader comment on as many articles as possible. Extra points for the front page and headline articles.
took away the ability to move the address bar to the top without an extension while at the same time claiming "the most flexible firefox ever", firefox 30 crashes all the time, thunderbird is still not feature complete, firefox could do more for privacy and security (lots of things). i don't mind them starting other projects but why not fix/finish the ones they already started. firefox and tbird are important to a lot of people and mozilla is acting like they don't have anything to do but screw them up or start other projects. has mozilla been taken over by dumbasses or is this malicious like that degenerate POS steven elop and the nokia coup?
Give less control to readers and allow the screaming angry retarded mob to reinforce itself by rabidly banning the 1% of people who don't agree with them.
While I generally support Mozilla's endeavors, as one of the last bastion of noob-to-guru accessible, Free/open source, secure and most important privacy respecting software around, this has me worried. The statement about "Publishers will then be able to collect and use this content for other forms of storytelling and spark ongoing discussions by providing readers with targeted content and notifications." could mean yet another data mining and targeted advertising opportunity, for instance.
The only way I could see any value in this for users is if it adheres to privacy-respecting principles. We've seen a handful of alternatives on the net, such as Disqus, but ultimately these tend to centralize personal information, not much different than 'log in via Facebook, Google etc.." . We don't need any more of this; I give up convenience all the time and create a variety individual site accounts specifically to avoid someone being able to see and profile all the sites upon which I comment.
Now, giving Mozilla the benefit of the doubt, it is possible that this endeavour is built out of their "Persona" project ( https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/... ) , which seems to be the best SSO type option I've seen on the web, at least in theory. It requires only an email address, doesn't disseminate personal information all around the web or allow for site-owners / third parties to mine your data, and what little information that passes through Mozilla is under their privacy policy which is very reasonable. Mozilla has shown in the past, especially with Sync, that there are ways to provide convenience to users while protecting their privacy, so I'd like to think that Persona could very well do the same. However, I am worried that this project, funded by third party grants and media giants, may have other interests in mind. If this is the case, I'd prefer that Mozilla not sully themselves by getting involved.
I suppose time will tell. I can only hope Mozilla has the fortitude to make the decisions that put user intent and privacy before the whinging financial desires of data miners and trackers.
Personally, I miss the early days of the internet where everything had a tool, and there was a tool for everything. There were programs and protocols galore: HTTP, Gopher, Usenet, Email, FTP, IRC, Archie / Veronica, Telnet for BBSes. Most of them are dead or so niche to be included only for "legacy compatibility". Now there is just HTTP to rule them all and shit is boring.
Boy, I miss that about the Internet too, where you had open protocols and then people chose their own interface to use it. Everyone was happy! Now you have a mish-mash of proprietary protocols on websites using interfaces that are, for the most part, inferior to many of the programs that we used 15 years ago. Use whatever interface the end user likes the most. How revolutionary!
What I want is a 'foe' system that cuts out not only the foe's posts but the entire comment tree started by them.
I've found kill-files are somewhat useless when well-intentioned troll-feeders reply and I end up seeing the troll's nonsense in the first place.
You mean the rothschild/rockerfeller/morgan/big bankers/military industrial complex's/ 9/11 was an inside job talking pieces?
Sure, lets cater to our masters who manipulate every way we think and exist through their "news sites". In fact, lets make a cute comment button to play even more into their game. Meanwhile, let's enrich the most anti-competitive company to ever exist - Google - in the process.
There's a San Francisco 501(c)(3) working on this stuff: hypothes.is
My own (nontrivial) browsing is definitely not CPU-bound. I've never said "wow my browser keeps using 100% of a cpu, if only it could utilize the other cores too!"
On my laptop with an Atom N450 (single core, dual SMT) CPU, when I go to Cracked.com in the morning and open the four new articles of the day in tabs, Firefox is CPU-bound for tens of seconds. I see the CPU usage pegging at 50%, which represents one of the two virtual cores in use.
Because of ads, that'll never happen
It exists - sort of - and it's pretty cool. Check out www.squte.com. It's a web overlay to Usenet, permitting modding up and down and a lot more. Written by a guy who really loves Usenet but recognizes that it needs a web interface that provides the functionality people coming from systems like Reddit or Slashdot would expect.
It's pretty commendable, really. GIve it a look.
If this were Usenet, I'd killfile the lot of you.
Not true. Of the big three article comment platforms:
No. It's the exact opposite. With Disqus, all discussion is stored centrally, on the Disqus servers.
http://www.palemoon.org/