Slashdot Mirror
Slashdot Tweaks
Its a little confusing at 0 or 1 because you'll get chunks of conversation that seem out of place... well, they are because their parent is missing. But at the higher thresholds its very useful.
Sort Modes I added a few new sort modes (primarily so that jwz would stop pestering me :) that some of you might like. The existing Oldest First/Newest First sort modes still maintained thread structure. I've added new options that blow the threading away for those of you who want to strictly read comments in order.
New Topic Icons if anyone has nice icons that we could use to represent Graphics (A paintbrush?), Education (pencil? those dumb hats?), Media (vomit? a newspaper?), Opinions (a soapbox?) Don't send me crap, but if you have a nice image, I'll make it fit Slashdot. I'm mainly looking for clean photos or illustrations that I can play with.
Moderation I had a few glitches that were causing an unhealthy number of moderation points getting reinsterted into the system. I've tweaked around some numbers and fixed some bugs that should help. A lot of the problems we were having was simply that there were several times the number of points available than I intended. It appears that it is very important to keep the number of points scarce so people take them seriously and don't simply abuse the hell out of their power.
I added an over/underrated option to the drop down list of flags- these options don't change the textual description of the comment, but they do change its value, although they are slightly more limited than the other ratings (You can't "Overrated" a comment down to -1). Hasn't been tested much yet. Trial by fire methinks :)
Misc I've pretty well finished rewriting the Moderator Guidelines at this point so I guess we can consider them out of beta. There are a few minor points that they don't make yet, as well as a few other points they ought to make, but they're pretty solid. Suggestions are welcome.
I put my plan file up on a web link. Since I took finger down (a loooong time ago) nobody really new what I was up to. I don't do a very good job of keeping it up to date.
Ah well, thats all for now. I still need to clean out the quickies bin and then I'm largely caught up... a few Slashboxes need work, a few minor features, a couple major features, and then I can let the dust settle again for a bit. I just got 3 DVDs of South Park and I think I've earned some R&R time. Plus, now that the wireless lan is up and running in the Geek Compound, I can keep an eye on things from my couch. Yum.
Oh, you don't know the real guidelines?
Linux hype: 5, Interesting
*BSD bashing: 4, Interesting
Something positve about Linux: 3, Informative
Something negative about *BSD: 2, Informative
Something negative about Linux: -1, Troll
Something positive about *BSD: -1, Flamebait
Slashdot pages seem to load quickly and then freezes just before being displayed while adfu.blockstackers.com gets around to tossing an ad banner out. I see also that blockstackers.com is registered to Hemos (real name Jeffery Bates). Since /. and adfu are so closely tied, I see no reason for one server to be so much speedier than the other. A quick fix is to edit your local /etc/hosts file and make requests to adfu.blockstackers.com go to the firewall machine which refuses connections on nearly all ports. The banner load attempt quickly fails and /. works much faster.
I generally don't bother blocking ads, but I set junkbuster to hit anything that blinks at me; it drives me nuts, and I've seen it bring this k6/200 to it's knees, doing nothing but blinking.
I'd edit the binary of netscape, but there's the ocasional animation I want to see.
On version 4, sort of. Previous versions made it an window-by-window option; 4 and later make it a global option, so all window must act the same. It's one of the reasons I stuck with 3.0 (but i can't on this new freebsd install, becasue archive.netscape.com is no longer open to anonymous access), while the other was the alt- to go back by that number of pages.
I believe the FreeBSD box he was talking about is the one that's now dedicated to serving up images. Any Slashdot "speed increase" or stability improvements you see (aside from those dealing with the images themselves) can't possibly be attributed to this OS switch.
...or are you just being an AC troll?
The main free variants of BSD are FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD. They have different focuses.
NetBSD aims to be a stable, portable research platform. It runs on more hardware than any of the others, but has the ugliest installation (at least on sparc, 1.4 requires you to computer the block offsets of the cylinders to partition a disk). However, it runs on virtually anything, and is quite stable.
OpenBSD forked from NetBSD some time ago. Their primary focus is security. It runs on a good portion of the hardware that NetBSD runs on, is probably a bit less stable, and has massive amounts of crypto included in the distribution by default.
FreeBSD is primarily on Intel, though there is also a port to the Alpha. It has the nicest (by far) userland and installation, and the largest collection of ports. Its primary goals are stability and performance, with a strong security element (though not nearly as paranoid as OpenBSD). I'd say its largest strengths are overall performance and especially network and general I/O performance, and its biggest weakness is that it only runs on x86 and Alpha hardware.
Right now my personal stuff runs FreeBSD, and a couple of the sparcs at work run NetBSD (mostly a Linux shop).
ERROR: Null
I've brought this up on the slash-help mailing list, and I really hate to put more pressure on, but I can't possibly be the only one with this bug, can I?
With Slashdot in its normal (with all the tables and colors) display, both IE 4.01SP2 and Netscape 4.6 LOCK SOLID on me under Win98 when I scroll the pages. It doesn't happen under Netscape 4.6 on Linux, and it doesn't happen with "Slashdot Light" (great taste or less filling?). Basically, there's three constants here: my box (Gateway G6-400), Windows 98 (which I've reloaded 6 times and it still does it) and Slashdot (which is the only site this happens on). I'm seriously thinking the HTML making up Slashdot is seriously b0rked (run it through validator.w3.org and you'll see). I think a lot of the rendering problems people complain about would be solved if Slashdot put out correct or near-correct HTML 4. That way if there's problems, it's the fault of the browser and not Slashdot. Does anyone else agree with me?
I speak with some experience here, as I took Slash 0.2 and made the front page HTML 4.0 with exception to ampersands in URLs (then again, that's mostly out of my control.)
With all those bugfixe, it should be time for a new release of Slash my dear Rob. I have a lot of idea for wich I could pilfer some of your code !
Thanx for your good work !
:wq
Yes, I'm a bit curious as to the state of SMP on FreeBSD boxe(n/s). I'm somewhat aware/experienced with OpenBSD's non-SMP kernel and wondered to what level FreeBSD supports SMP.
--pygster
If you use FreeBSD, use it with softupdates (look in /sys/ufs/ffs) - it makes things a LOT faster !!!!
Talking to myself here =)
So a moderator is floating around, and nudging this comment around already...
Thanks, whoever you are!
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
So it does work...
I set my threshold to hide comments below 2...
And the original post, along with it's +3 comment, appears.
However, the +3 comment appears *twice*, once under the reparented comment, and later below, as a free floating +3 comment...
I wonder what happens if someone(I guess me) replies to both? I guess they still count as one comment, even if it shows up twice...
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
It is a bug...
*All* +2 comments appear when threshold is set to +2... Reparenting just makes it appear twice, I guess.
Unless Slashdot wants this to happen?
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
Again, thanks to the moderators who made this happen.
*sob*
I love you!
Sorry for the sillyness, playing to see if there is a bug in the system =)
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
So there is a reparent checkbox under preferences; with it enabled, I get to see two of every highly rated comment, as well as the reparented original post, despite it being below threshold.
With the checkbox disabled, the repeats disappeared, but the original comment/post remains visible...
I guess reparenting causes comments to 'belong' to the main thread if it is higher than the threshold, and if it's parent is below threshold.
What effect is causing lower than threshold posts to stay visible, when it owns a higher than threshold comment? Is this an intentional feature then?
I guess I got the term re-parenting mixed up.
High comments with low parents get 'reparented'
Low parents with high comments get bumped up to *always* be minimally the same level of visibility as the comments, I guess.
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
Sorry, this post appears twice... forgot to log in =)
I'm a bad test, as I can *always* see my own comments, no matter the threshold...
Though I do know reparenting works great, anyone want to change their threshold levels and respond?
Specifically, when I saw the page as an AC, slashdot didn't seem to know how to order/rank the messages, and I got a list of 2, 3, 2, 2, 2, 3, 2... everything else was below threshold =)
I guess it's unimportant, really.
It seems as if, for the AC, that the original post doesn't stay visible, no matter how high the comment attached to it... Though the comments do become visible...
For me, when I'm logged on, my original posts are visible, but I suspect that's because my posts will *always* be visible to me...
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
If you turn off, under your preferences, re-parenting, then you won't get those dangly floating replies...
You still get the 'feature' that crappy posts are as visible as their highest reply.
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
So I made a comment with the intention of getting it moved down, and a reply with the intention of it getting moved up, to see reparenting in action...
Hopefully this comment doesn't get moved down as well =)
Anyway, the reparenting works, but the reply appears twice now, as the child of the reparented comment, and as it's own free floating comment, though still below the reparented comment.
Is this intentional? A bug? Anyone else see it?
Set threshold to 2, and you should see it =)
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
So this is a default +2 comment, if a moderator is willing to demonstrate this reparenting... make it a +3 comment, while making the parent 0 or -1, I guess?
I guess it's a waste of points though. =)
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
Why don't people CHECK before going hyper? Communicator 4.6, the most recent I know of, has the same "Automatically load images" option, as always, that _still_ can be disabled, in both the Linux and Winblows versions. Edit/Preferences/Advanced. Sheesh.
I have used FreeBSD for a while now, and its stable. I like it. I have toyed with Linux. Its stable, I like it. However, I have yet to see a decent comparison of the two, and how they rack up, not just in networking, but an even comparison on all topics. Anyone have one? Or Rob, you wanna let us know how yoda is holding up? Opinions, anyone?
Rob, come on, dude! When are you gonna release a new version? I understand you not wanting to make tarballs of your code all the time but its been practically forever since you release SLASH v0.1(?). Can you please release more code?
Oh yeah, one more thing can you also please update the SlashNET link? For drdink's sake? Everyone come irc on irc.slashnet.org, and visit slashnet.org =).
"The world only exists in your eyes. You can make it as big or as small as you want." - F Scott Fitzgerald
I think the moderation scheme worked pretty well already, but these new tweaks are welcome.
...
..."
...)
...
... etc. Especially since a matrix of adjectives would let people sort based on how each of those adjectives matters to *them* instead of assigning a single digit + or - to broad categories. There's even some flamebait, or possibly off-topic material that I'd like to see, if it is Intriguing or Laugh-Till-Snot Funny.
Since I've only had moderator power once (and I'm trying to not let the sense of absolute power corrupt me absolutely), I am not an expert at the system really, but one thing I'd like to see in future updates to moderation would be a greater range of optional adjectival choices coupled with the filering scheme.
In other words, moderators could have the ability to choose not just "normal," "flamebait," "informative" and the handful of others, but instead could choose more descriptive ones (maybe on a sort of emotional / descriptive matrix with informative / uninformative as one axis and (what else) on the other. There are a lot of great adjective which fit certain types of posts very well
If there were choices like
- "vitriolic / negative / bilious" (just random mean-spitired spew)
- "contankerous" (good question or point, but with a bitter-old-man tone)
- indignant ("how can you say that's confusing, you cretin?! It's buried right there in plain sight 90 percent of the down the 10-page FAQ! Can't you even read?!)
- "intriguing" (someone suggests a wholly new way of looking at something that makes you realize "Hey, it's a face and a couple of cups!" or maybe just "Hey, that's a neat idea, we could do it X-way
- "honest question" (I have lots of dumb questions, and they're not trolls
A reader could go through a list of adjectives and select the type he'd like to read, and when logged in would remain blissfully ignorant of some hot flame wars or off-topic nonsense until he unchecked the boxes again
This is not terribly different from the way it is now, and I know the current system is already sort of complex, so please don't take this as criticism so much as suggestion. I just think a richer adjective selection would trim the fat from people's reading, let them get the posts they'd like in a much shorter time and avoid the frustration of reading yet another harshly-worded diatribe in response to yet-another
And it might improve the avg. Slashdotters vocabulary (already good! already good!) by forcing them to understand some obscure adjectives.
Thanks for the work, Rob and pals! Enjoy the Southpark shows!
timothy
p.s. Moderator ability is like jury duty, but less onerous.
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
Interesting, undoubtedly if I posted these exact words but switched FreeBSD and Linux around, I would undoubtedly recieve a (-1, Troll) rating, and deservedly so. Perhaps the moderation problems have nothing to do with points...
http://www.freebsd.org