We have better response rates than that... but it's nowhere near what some people think it is. A full half of Slashdot readers don't care in the slightest about the discussions. Don't read 'em at all. They read the index and nothing more. The other half of the site is a fairly self selecting group and they tend to participate more. More importantly to me- most of our submissions for stories come from the same users who submit comments. So improving the discussions is key to getting better submissions.
'slownewsday' to me indicates a story that is technically ontopic for Slashdot, but really not all that great. In other words.. it's good enough on a slow news day, but you sure wish there would be something better.
This is distinct from 'stupid' or 'offtopic' which I think are much more negative... they indiciate that the story is a waste of time... not just mediocre.
There's no reason you couldn't just take things as 'meh' and move on... the system has positive tags and negative tags defined. A short list for each. But everything else is up for grabs.
The title was orignally 'author' only because thats what the original mysql table was named. 'Editor' really was what readers began calling us in the forums (along with less polite names) and I think Editor is more accurate than Author. We may not grammar/spellcheck, but we *do* edit thousands of submissions down to dozens of submissions. That's not the traditional definition, but it's part of it. There already are 'moderators' so its not like I'm gonna re-use that term.
If this doesn't work, it will eventually. We have 2 search systems in place- one we're working to deprecate and the other which is very very beta. The plan is that you can do '-linux -cmdrtaco -yro' and get your Slashdot that way.
Defining the inter-relatedness of stories is on the TODO list. There's a number of relationships: Clarifications, Follow-ups, Duplicates, Continuations... coming up with a UI for all of this is hard. We've no shortage of ideas:)
If your only concern is that 'Editors' have an inaccurate job title, then I think we are doing just fine.
If you want community oriented tools to actually edit content wiki style or whatever, www.slashcode.com has sourcecode. I've had a user contributed patch/diff system on my TODO list forever, but it's a hard job and I've got another dozen hard jobs ahead of it on the list. We'll get there someday, you could get there tomorrow:)
This is explicitly undesirable in the case of something like Ask Slashdot stories... I'd prefer to pick the best one from 10... be that a week old a day or a month. They are timeless, so I might as well choose my favorite.
I don't know what to tell you except that once a story falls from blue to indigo, the small group of active hose users won't see it any more because they mostly browse at blue or so. And all RSS feeds start at indigo. Like I said- it's messy down there, and only more involved eyeballs will really solve the "Problem" which I don't think is that big of a deal. Blue is the middle of the curve. It's where the action is. Go from there. If you really got time to kill, visit indigo.
There are ways of dealing with that I think. We can wrap low-rated content in search engine aware tags and use the no-referral thign to make sure search engines don't crawl lowly rated content. It's something we'll need to deal with no doubt.
As for your 'thinly veiled slashvertisements' I take offense at that. We pick what we pick because we like what we like. Sometimes we pick stuff that may be a simple press release. Hell, I might post a straight up commercial if I thought it was interesting. But we still to this day pick what we pick because WE want to pick it, and not because we're paid to pick it.
The other practical reality is that we're trying to post a story every 40-50 minutes. By the end of the day, the best stuff is gone... sometimes you choose stories that simply aren't as good. And sometimes those may be advertising or something. We're still choosing it because we think it's the best of what's available, but I don't like when people accuse us of taking bribes for the homepage. Believe me, if we did that, this would be a different site (Like I wouldn't be here).
I hadn't thought about the difference between the submission date and the content date... that's an interesting idea, although one that wouldn't be very trustworthy... plus people wanting to promote something would tend to exagerate the newness of their content because new is better (generally speaking)
I occasionally give a slide show where I discuss gaming and Slashdot. The reason is that numbers create games that people try to win. The problem is that Slashdot isn't really a game... or at least, it shouldn't be. We learned this the hard way with 'karma'. It was a publicly visible integer and it turned into a dick-length contest. People treated it as XP. They treated it as currency. And none of these things aided the real goal of the value ("Promote positive Discussion").
The lesson I learned from all this is to avoid numbers at all costs because otherwise people create video games where perhaps it is better that none exist. I understand this- it's our nature. I LOVE video games where I earn and spend money. I love games where I gain XP and improve stats. But Slashdot shouldn't be those things... it should promote discussion. It should try to put the spotlight on good stories. It shouldn't be about how much XP You or I accumulate, it should be how much benefit we all collectively get from quality content.
Of course you've demonstrated that you are a cynic. I try to be an optimist here. I've learned an important lesson. Hopefully Slashdot is better off for it.
I think there is value in both methods. I think it's about striking a balance between mob rule and dictatorship. I refuse to let the Slashdot story selection turn into American Idol because I think sometimes the little stories are the most important, and sometimes the story that everyone wants to read... well, everyone has already read it, and do you really need to see it again?
As for the community, I like this one. Lots of good folks post here every day. And a few dickheads that I really wish would shut up. Sometimes I wish I was as evil as some of them accuse me of being. It would be a lot easier to simply ban them;)
Well I disagree with you on some points of course... I think that part of why Slashdot is relevant is because us editors exist and prevent 'amazing photos! title sez it all".
The problem with the concept of 'Community' is that the so-called 'Community' is the vocal minority. More than half of Slashdot readership is only interested in the articles those editors you hate so much. Perhaps a third of you are 'The Community'... so we need to strike a balance between what works for each groups particular needs.
My hope is that the hose will give us a chance to satisfy the desires of a broad spectrum of users... the ones who want minimal to no editor involvement and simply want to participate in the community discussion aspect of the site... to the silent majority who simply want the 10-15 best stories, without seeing crap like 'Amazing Photos!' etc...
Slashdot Mirror
I'm not looking for absolution ;)
We have better response rates than that... but it's nowhere near what some people think it is. A full half of Slashdot readers don't care in the slightest about the discussions. Don't read 'em at all. They read the index and nothing more. The other half of the site is a fairly self selecting group and they tend to participate more. More importantly to me- most of our submissions for stories come from the same users who submit comments. So improving the discussions is key to getting better submissions.
This is distinct from 'stupid' or 'offtopic' which I think are much more negative... they indiciate that the story is a waste of time... not just mediocre.
There's no reason you couldn't just take things as 'meh' and move on... the system has positive tags and negative tags defined. A short list for each. But everything else is up for grabs.
No, I don't estimate. I do mysql SELECT count() statements and get the actual numbers :)
there's already an autocomplete function, but I don't think it handles '-' tags yet. It probably should.
The title was orignally 'author' only because thats what the original mysql table was named. 'Editor' really was what readers began calling us in the forums (along with less polite names) and I think Editor is more accurate than Author. We may not grammar/spellcheck, but we *do* edit thousands of submissions down to dozens of submissions. That's not the traditional definition, but it's part of it. There already are 'moderators' so its not like I'm gonna re-use that term.
If this doesn't work, it will eventually. We have 2 search systems in place- one we're working to deprecate and the other which is very very beta. The plan is that you can do '-linux -cmdrtaco -yro' and get your Slashdot that way.
Gee, it's almost like the 'slownewsday' tag is designed to do exactly that!
It's on the todo list.
Brilliant. In fact, thats exactly how it works :)
Defining the inter-relatedness of stories is on the TODO list. There's a number of relationships: Clarifications, Follow-ups, Duplicates, Continuations... coming up with a UI for all of this is hard. We've no shortage of ideas :)
Not only does it do something, but it SHOULD be clear (the button should visibly appear depressed after you clicked it)
These are exactly the sorts of experiments I would love to play with as we iron the more glaring deficiencies in this system.
If your only concern is that 'Editors' have an inaccurate job title, then I think we are doing just fine.
If you want community oriented tools to actually edit content wiki style or whatever, www.slashcode.com has sourcecode. I've had a user contributed patch/diff system on my TODO list forever, but it's a hard job and I've got another dozen hard jobs ahead of it on the list. We'll get there someday, you could get there tomorrow :)
Don't you mean Kuro5shin invented?
This precise feature request is on my TODO list. It's a hard UI problem tho.
This is explicitly undesirable in the case of something like Ask Slashdot stories... I'd prefer to pick the best one from 10... be that a week old a day or a month. They are timeless, so I might as well choose my favorite.
I don't know what to tell you except that once a story falls from blue to indigo, the small group of active hose users won't see it any more because they mostly browse at blue or so. And all RSS feeds start at indigo. Like I said- it's messy down there, and only more involved eyeballs will really solve the "Problem" which I don't think is that big of a deal. Blue is the middle of the curve. It's where the action is. Go from there. If you really got time to kill, visit indigo.
www.slashcode.com has the code. feel free to patch this in... It's not really a priority to me ATM.
As for your 'thinly veiled slashvertisements' I take offense at that. We pick what we pick because we like what we like. Sometimes we pick stuff that may be a simple press release. Hell, I might post a straight up commercial if I thought it was interesting. But we still to this day pick what we pick because WE want to pick it, and not because we're paid to pick it.
The other practical reality is that we're trying to post a story every 40-50 minutes. By the end of the day, the best stuff is gone... sometimes you choose stories that simply aren't as good. And sometimes those may be advertising or something. We're still choosing it because we think it's the best of what's available, but I don't like when people accuse us of taking bribes for the homepage. Believe me, if we did that, this would be a different site (Like I wouldn't be here).
I hadn't thought about the difference between the submission date and the content date... that's an interesting idea, although one that wouldn't be very trustworthy... plus people wanting to promote something would tend to exagerate the newness of their content because new is better (generally speaking)
The lesson I learned from all this is to avoid numbers at all costs because otherwise people create video games where perhaps it is better that none exist. I understand this- it's our nature. I LOVE video games where I earn and spend money. I love games where I gain XP and improve stats. But Slashdot shouldn't be those things... it should promote discussion. It should try to put the spotlight on good stories. It shouldn't be about how much XP You or I accumulate, it should be how much benefit we all collectively get from quality content.
Of course you've demonstrated that you are a cynic. I try to be an optimist here. I've learned an important lesson. Hopefully Slashdot is better off for it.
As for the community, I like this one. Lots of good folks post here every day. And a few dickheads that I really wish would shut up. Sometimes I wish I was as evil as some of them accuse me of being. It would be a lot easier to simply ban them ;)
The problem with the concept of 'Community' is that the so-called 'Community' is the vocal minority. More than half of Slashdot readership is only interested in the articles those editors you hate so much. Perhaps a third of you are 'The Community'... so we need to strike a balance between what works for each groups particular needs.
My hope is that the hose will give us a chance to satisfy the desires of a broad spectrum of users... the ones who want minimal to no editor involvement and simply want to participate in the community discussion aspect of the site... to the silent majority who simply want the 10-15 best stories, without seeing crap like 'Amazing Photos!' etc...