Some functionality hasn't made it to the beta yet, yes. That's a totally valid objection, and we're working to make it feature complete. My personal preference is to never lose functionality -- but at the same time, I'm well aware of the development conventions that say at some point, you need to ship. It's really tough deciding which features don't make the initial launch.
Here of my own accord, actually. We'll have an official posting coming out soonish, but I wanted to let people know we're listening in the meantime.
Timothy has been responding to a ton of emails -- mainly the ones with bug reports and constructive suggestions. But our inboxes got blown up pretty well over the past 24 hours, and it takes time to consolidate several thousand data points.
We've implemented a number of changes since the first October rollout in response to feedback. We'll be implementing more in response to today's feedback. I'm sorry we can't make all those changes instantaneously; our engineering team is small and flooded with work. But that's why the classic site is still available.
I can't promise that the end result will be to your exact preference; a hundred different people will have a hundred different opinions on how the site should look. But I can promise that we'll take all the feedback to heart.
Well, to answer your first question -- yes, there are some users who like the redesign. It's a bit of an echo chamber in the comments, but we've received some complimentary emails. (Which is not to say we weight those more heavily than uncomplimentary ones -- we don't.)
Commenting is certainly not an afterthought. It's at the top of our list for things that need more work. We know you come to the site for the comments (as we ourselves did back in the '90s).
We'll have more posts coming about how the beta will shape up. (Possibly one within a few hours.) The comments and feedback emails are still rolling in, and we're trying to get as much information as possible.
I can't really speak to letting the old site hang around in perpetuity -- it's not my call. I know it'd be a stretch for our small engineering team to support both, though.
It's all any of us are talking about today (and most of what we've talked about for the past few months). Whatever changes get made, they need time to be decided on and implemented. I'm sorry it doesn't go faster, but that's why we still have the classic site available.
We're collecting and listening to all of your feedback.
There have been many changes to the beta site since its inception last October, all in response to user feedback. It's an impossibility to act on it all, since some users want exactly the opposite of other users, but we're weighing everything we get. And there's work yet to be finished; it's still a beta, after all.
We know most of the discussion will be centered on the beta. Some people will want to read news anyway, so we'll keep posting.
You folks are certainly welcome to keep commenting about the beta; we're reading all of it, and we're communicating it to the Product team who makes the decisions about the design.
Did you REALLY work with members of the community to come up with this new design?
Yeah -- and a lot of people actually responded saying they liked the images. That said, we knew plenty of people would prefer a more information-dense layout, so we created the Classic and Headlines options under this icon.
We opened up the beta because we really want more feedback about all these things. Thanks for your input.
Wow, I hope this is actually more of an 'ALPHA' or some sort of trial balloon.... If this is supposed to be 'BETA', that implies there's been some sort of testing and supposedly some thought would have already gone into it yet I can't imagine who would actually think this is better.
We did have some feedback from the alpha testers, and we made some changes in response. However, the pool of users was quite limited, and we're well aware that we'll find a much broader range of opinions now that the floodgates are opened. We definitely want to hear what everyone thinks. Sorry you don't like it -- but we are listening, and we're going to iterate further.
Remember, Slashdot comments aren't loved because we can read what others have written. They're loved because we can hold conversations. Anything that detracts from being able to hold or follow conversations will make Slashdot less popular.
Thanks for the feedback, and for stating this so well.
For those of you who would prefer to read the site without images, click the icon at the top right of the story column. You'll be able to switch to a classic view, or to a headlines-only view.
Slashdot Mirror
Thanks for the reasonable response.
Some functionality hasn't made it to the beta yet, yes. That's a totally valid objection, and we're working to make it feature complete. My personal preference is to never lose functionality -- but at the same time, I'm well aware of the development conventions that say at some point, you need to ship. It's really tough deciding which features don't make the initial launch.
You seem pretty worried about this, but there sure are a lot of high-scoring anti-beta comments on every story.
Also, we don't delete comments.
Here of my own accord, actually. We'll have an official posting coming out soonish, but I wanted to let people know we're listening in the meantime.
Timothy has been responding to a ton of emails -- mainly the ones with bug reports and constructive suggestions. But our inboxes got blown up pretty well over the past 24 hours, and it takes time to consolidate several thousand data points.
We've implemented a number of changes since the first October rollout in response to feedback. We'll be implementing more in response to today's feedback. I'm sorry we can't make all those changes instantaneously; our engineering team is small and flooded with work. But that's why the classic site is still available.
I can't promise that the end result will be to your exact preference; a hundred different people will have a hundred different opinions on how the site should look. But I can promise that we'll take all the feedback to heart.
Well, to answer your first question -- yes, there are some users who like the redesign. It's a bit of an echo chamber in the comments, but we've received some complimentary emails. (Which is not to say we weight those more heavily than uncomplimentary ones -- we don't.)
Commenting is certainly not an afterthought. It's at the top of our list for things that need more work. We know you come to the site for the comments (as we ourselves did back in the '90s).
We've had the community involved since October, actually.
We'll have more posts coming about how the beta will shape up. (Possibly one within a few hours.) The comments and feedback emails are still rolling in, and we're trying to get as much information as possible.
I can't really speak to letting the old site hang around in perpetuity -- it's not my call. I know it'd be a stretch for our small engineering team to support both, though.
It's all any of us are talking about today (and most of what we've talked about for the past few months). Whatever changes get made, they need time to be decided on and implemented. I'm sorry it doesn't go faster, but that's why we still have the classic site available.
We've got a blog post up here: http://slashdot.org/journal/634763/update-on-the-march-of-progress-how-slashdots-new-look-is-shaping-up
We're collecting and listening to all of your feedback.
There have been many changes to the beta site since its inception last October, all in response to user feedback. It's an impossibility to act on it all, since some users want exactly the opposite of other users, but we're weighing everything we get. And there's work yet to be finished; it's still a beta, after all.
We know most of the discussion will be centered on the beta. Some people will want to read news anyway, so we'll keep posting.
You folks are certainly welcome to keep commenting about the beta; we're reading all of it, and we're communicating it to the Product team who makes the decisions about the design.
Believe me, we're well aware of what everybody is discussing.
This is something I'd love, too, and I've been campaigning to get that added for ages. We haven't had the engineering time yet, but I'm hopeful.
Thanks for the specific suggestions, we appreciate it!
These are interesting, thank you. I'll make sure our engineering team sees them.
Did you REALLY work with members of the community to come up with this new design?
Yeah -- and a lot of people actually responded saying they liked the images. That said, we knew plenty of people would prefer a more information-dense layout, so we created the Classic and Headlines options under this icon.
We opened up the beta because we really want more feedback about all these things. Thanks for your input.
Thanks for the detailed list!
Thanks for the suggestions.
Wow, I hope this is actually more of an 'ALPHA' or some sort of trial balloon.... If this is supposed to be 'BETA', that implies there's been some sort of testing and supposedly some thought would have already gone into it yet I can't imagine who would actually think this is better.
We did have some feedback from the alpha testers, and we made some changes in response. However, the pool of users was quite limited, and we're well aware that we'll find a much broader range of opinions now that the floodgates are opened. We definitely want to hear what everyone thinks. Sorry you don't like it -- but we are listening, and we're going to iterate further.
What happened to the "From the ... Dept." tag under the title. Are we now too grown up for levity?
It's only viewable on the actual story page, now. Do you strongly prefer them on the front page?
Thanks for the feedback.
I know this isn't exactly what you want, but we do have an option to switch to 'classic' mode using this icon at the top right of the story column.
This is a good point -- thanks.
I hope to hell someone with a say in the matter reads this and understands what it really means.
We're reading, and we understand, believe me.
Thanks for the feedback.
Remember, Slashdot comments aren't loved because we can read what others have written. They're loved because we can hold conversations. Anything that detracts from being able to hold or follow conversations will make Slashdot less popular.
Thanks for the feedback, and for stating this so well.
For those of you who would prefer to read the site without images, click the icon at the top right of the story column. You'll be able to switch to a classic view, or to a headlines-only view.