We're going to change the pause-for-inactive thing soon as well. We've decided that it's got a lot of problems, and our best bet is not to let you expand entries once you've timed out... but instead to give you a modal dialog asking you to tell us you're ready to continue.
Start tagging things then... we'll see what sticks... 'badsummary' has been tossed around 'typo' or 'badtitle'? We don't have the answers, but the hope is that a few weeks from now it will be very obvious what needs to happen.
Each of those could easily be a tag. Users can assign whatever tags they choose... we just provided a short cut list to a few simple ones to get you started. 'biased' 'badsummary' 'boring' 'dupe' 'selfpromotion'? Start tagging entries. As we see useful tags gaining traction, we'll incorporate them into the short cut list, but there's nothing stopping you from tagging anything you want... 'requiresregistration'? 'interstitial'? The sky is the limit.
And you aren't kidding about the interestingness of stories falling apart upon click. I've rejected 10s of thousands of submissions;)
This is actually one of the problems that we've discussed extensively and not come up with a good answer for yet. The problem is that stories fall into many categories... some are time-critical and others are timeless... things like "I want a new laptop is Dell good" or "Here's a guy who tatood the BSD on his arm". Stuff like that never really needs to be 'rejected' since it could theoretically be a good story tomorrow. Or next wednesday. But other stories are very time sensitive and 24 hours later are a waste of time (Shuttle Launches etc). It's hard coming up with a clean solution to all of this.
I still don't have a good answer. I think the plan is that we internally have a 'put on hold' bit... and any story that isn't posted in a week or so will be 'rejected' unless it has the 'hold' bit. So hopefully most stuff that might get picked up later will have that bit set. Maybe we should have another state for submissions between 'pending' and 'rejected' because there really is something to be said for the whole 'maybe later' story.
Of course, firehose readers will be able to enjoy that content in real time, so it will matter less to them.
For now most of the labels in there are just place holders. We'll see what works. More so- those labels are just tags. You can tag a story as 'flamebait' or 'troll' if you like. We intend to watch what people organically choose, and incorporate those ideas as they rise up.
The plan is that subscribers will have an option to view 50 entries at a time. It's on the list.
The minus will still work. All you are doing is tagging the story as 'nix'. But if you tag it as 'Offtopic' then you are tagging it with both nix AND offtopic. We like more data. It can only better inform the system.
Eventually I suspect we will provide a pop-up dialog box with various checkboxes for you to noodle with, but for now the filter box is just simply 'word' and '-word' and we've defined a few things that are in various degrees of working. EG, hate me? -CmdrTaco and I'm gone. Not interested in linux stories? -Linux and you're done. Don't like journals? -journal etc etc... I think it's fairly obvious personally, but as we progress there will be more subtle keywords in there that will require documentation.
We considered color blindedness early on and decided to deal with it by providing alt-text and mouseovers wherever it made sense for now. There are philisophical reasons for this... I could see us labeling things more blatantly or having a more ugly version of the color tags where you see 'red' spelled out or something, but I figured I'd wait and see what actual color blind people had to say on the subject before we coded something that there wasn't a demand for. So thanks for your feedback (as well as the other folks who've had other comments on the subject)
The real problem with that is that we have historically very low data sampling for purple and lower stories. The hope is that once a few hundred readers turn their OCD juices on, that we'll have enough data to make better judgement on this content. It doesn't really take many people to make that happen. It just takes more than what we have now. Since almost everyone reads at blue, the purple area rapidly become a skeleton graveyard of RSS feeds.
We've seen a marked increase in spammers flooding us with garbage. hopefully the additional eyeballs will help in squashing that stuff faster. As with anything like this, it has mixed results, but I think overall the effect is good. People like feedback and participating... we've had a few dozen active taggers in the hose and their help is noticable. It's really more about scalling the system cleanly to handling as many readers as choose to participate.
My hope is that the net result will be that we can 'cast a wider net' by importing RSS feeds and such from commonly cool sites. If you throw your slider down to indigo, you will see CNet, Bruce Schneir's blog, Penny Arcade etc. Things that we generally like to see. The hope is that with more participants we can add more RSS feeds and eventually be quicker at finding the good stuff.
If you pause the firehose (menu item in the titlebar, also in the advanced preferences panel) then it won't disappear out from underneath you. That actually is a bit of a bug I think- we have code that prevents expanded entries from disappearing, but that may only be visible in the editor view ATM. The concern is that this could cause some wierd things to happen... like your page could just keep getting bigger and bigger and bigger as you expand stories and don't close them. it might get unwieldly. But we'll check into it.
You are welcome to design as much or as little as you want. The core of the contest is the index... while designing print & handheld templates are nice (and appreciated) they are not the focus of this contest.
I don't think it possible that any designer will think of every conceivable combination of bits that can be toggled in and out. Just get reasonably close and we can fill in the missing gaps.
I think a logged in page is a better place to start. Most logged in users are seeing tags now too. I'll see about adding more users to that tho.
There's a lot of potential abuse in doing that, so I think I'll pass on it at the moment. A design can simply save the HTML and edit a local CSS file. When they are done, they can mail me what they have.
You can see the complete list of topic icons.
As for the rest, you are welcome to propose anything in your designs. I've told you what I'm looking for. You might think of things I didn't know I was looking for. Who knows.
Yeah the icons we have were made maybe half by me, half by kathleen, with a few stragglers by random users. Over the years they have been made in photoshop, the gimp, and using all sorts of different techniques. Some had high quality source material, others came from really crappy source material.
I would love to one day rebuild all the icons. I just don't want to force someone to think that rebuilding a full icon pack is part of this contest. It could be- but it isn't required. So my suggestion is to work with what we have.
Guidelines are just that. Break them if you want. I'm telling you what I'm looking for, but if someone creates a better design that just has to be orange, and it really looks awesome, I'd abandon curves, greens, etc.
the white background is more about necessity. We don't have the source material and time to rebuild 153 icons.
Which is why I said 'How loud of an echo is up to you'. You are welcome to ignore any element. I don't want the new design to ignore it's past. I also don't want it to be limited by it. I want the old Slashdot readers to still feel like they are reading Slashdot. Thats the challange I guess... how far can a talented designer go...
the winning design may end up being purple. I don't know. But I think echoing a few elements of todays design is important, and will be judging with that in mind.
Your interface should work for Logged in and Anonymous users. You are welcome to make mockups for either or both. The two versions have differences that you probably should look at. I'd suggest using the logged in version myself since it has a bit more meat in it.
I absolutely would consider a design with all 153 redone topic icons.
We have stylesheets already that target some minimal browsers. Look in your user preferences for the low bandwidth and simplified design options. These are CSS themes already in place. Designs absolutely can include mockups for alternate platforms, but the contest is really about the main view of the site... on a traditional web browser.
Slashdot Mirror
This is intentional. The hope is that readers will find benefit from the ability to discuss entries as they rise and fall in the hose.
We're going to change the pause-for-inactive thing soon as well. We've decided that it's got a lot of problems, and our best bet is not to let you expand entries once you've timed out... but instead to give you a modal dialog asking you to tell us you're ready to continue.
Start tagging things then... we'll see what sticks... 'badsummary' has been tossed around 'typo' or 'badtitle'? We don't have the answers, but the hope is that a few weeks from now it will be very obvious what needs to happen.
And you aren't kidding about the interestingness of stories falling apart upon click. I've rejected 10s of thousands of submissions ;)
I still don't have a good answer. I think the plan is that we internally have a 'put on hold' bit... and any story that isn't posted in a week or so will be 'rejected' unless it has the 'hold' bit. So hopefully most stuff that might get picked up later will have that bit set. Maybe we should have another state for submissions between 'pending' and 'rejected' because there really is something to be said for the whole 'maybe later' story.
Of course, firehose readers will be able to enjoy that content in real time, so it will matter less to them.
For now most of the labels in there are just place holders. We'll see what works. More so- those labels are just tags. You can tag a story as 'flamebait' or 'troll' if you like. We intend to watch what people organically choose, and incorporate those ideas as they rise up. The plan is that subscribers will have an option to view 50 entries at a time. It's on the list. The minus will still work. All you are doing is tagging the story as 'nix'. But if you tag it as 'Offtopic' then you are tagging it with both nix AND offtopic. We like more data. It can only better inform the system.
Eventually I suspect we will provide a pop-up dialog box with various checkboxes for you to noodle with, but for now the filter box is just simply 'word' and '-word' and we've defined a few things that are in various degrees of working. EG, hate me? -CmdrTaco and I'm gone. Not interested in linux stories? -Linux and you're done. Don't like journals? -journal etc etc... I think it's fairly obvious personally, but as we progress there will be more subtle keywords in there that will require documentation.
We considered color blindedness early on and decided to deal with it by providing alt-text and mouseovers wherever it made sense for now. There are philisophical reasons for this... I could see us labeling things more blatantly or having a more ugly version of the color tags where you see 'red' spelled out or something, but I figured I'd wait and see what actual color blind people had to say on the subject before we coded something that there wasn't a demand for. So thanks for your feedback (as well as the other folks who've had other comments on the subject)
The real problem with that is that we have historically very low data sampling for purple and lower stories. The hope is that once a few hundred readers turn their OCD juices on, that we'll have enough data to make better judgement on this content. It doesn't really take many people to make that happen. It just takes more than what we have now. Since almost everyone reads at blue, the purple area rapidly become a skeleton graveyard of RSS feeds.
My hope is that the net result will be that we can 'cast a wider net' by importing RSS feeds and such from commonly cool sites. If you throw your slider down to indigo, you will see CNet, Bruce Schneir's blog, Penny Arcade etc. Things that we generally like to see. The hope is that with more participants we can add more RSS feeds and eventually be quicker at finding the good stuff.
If you pause the firehose (menu item in the titlebar, also in the advanced preferences panel) then it won't disappear out from underneath you. That actually is a bit of a bug I think- we have code that prevents expanded entries from disappearing, but that may only be visible in the editor view ATM. The concern is that this could cause some wierd things to happen... like your page could just keep getting bigger and bigger and bigger as you expand stories and don't close them. it might get unwieldly. But we'll check into it.
I like purple just fine- the games section is a purplish thing. Stop talking bad about the purple man!
Like I said originally- the winner is the one who gets us the closest to what we use.
However as always, patches are appreciated.
I won't penalize a design that lacks tags. I'd like to see them, but no worries either way.
I think a logged in page is a better place to start. Most logged in users are seeing tags now too. I'll see about adding more users to that tho.
There's a lot of potential abuse in doing that, so I think I'll pass on it at the moment. A design can simply save the HTML and edit a local CSS file. When they are done, they can mail me what they have.
You can see the complete list of topic icons. As for the rest, you are welcome to propose anything in your designs. I've told you what I'm looking for. You might think of things I didn't know I was looking for. Who knows.
I would love to one day rebuild all the icons. I just don't want to force someone to think that rebuilding a full icon pack is part of this contest. It could be- but it isn't required. So my suggestion is to work with what we have.
I've got no problem with that- if someone has the patience to do 150 odd icons, they certainly may. I just don't see that as particularly likely.
That is totally fine- but what I don't want is a design submitted with 3 example icons... leaving 150 icons to be rebuilt to fit the new design.
the white background is more about necessity. We don't have the source material and time to rebuild 153 icons.
the winning design may end up being purple. I don't know. But I think echoing a few elements of todays design is important, and will be judging with that in mind.
I absolutely would consider a design with all 153 redone topic icons.
We have stylesheets already that target some minimal browsers. Look in your user preferences for the low bandwidth and simplified design options. These are CSS themes already in place. Designs absolutely can include mockups for alternate platforms, but the contest is really about the main view of the site... on a traditional web browser.
It isn't necessary to install slashcode. You can just save-as Slashdot's index.shtml file, and start building your own CSS file.