Yeah, Rusty and I have had a number of disscussions about that.:) Some good ideas - and some ideas that would only be possible in a world of infinite bandwidth and infinite computing power.
I'm currently in Boston - time to move to where the rents are cheaper. And closer to family.
Most of the ads are from DoubleClick becuase our advertisers usually use DBCL as their ad serving software.
I'm philosphically opposed to putting in what I think of as "exclusionary" features - but perhaps early story reading is a good thing. Dunno. Need to think about it. But I understand your point about not subscribinig just for no ads.
It's an interesting idea - we've got a few things we're finishing up, but when Rob and I are in the same office again (I'm moving back to Michigan) that's something we can think about.
Where did you see it? E-mail me the ad, and I'll chase them down. Sometimes 3rd party ad servers try to sneak it in.
Re:slashdot vs alterslash.org
on
Slashdot IRC Forum
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· Score: 4, Informative
Read the IRC log. When someone posts a comment, they are granting permission for it to appear on here. If it's taken from here, and mposted some place, we're liable. That's bad. That's how it works - the commenter would take it up with them, but the way the legal system works, we bear responsbility.
I want to try and find a solution.
Re:Just read the entire IRC log...
on
Slashdot IRC Forum
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Basically, we run the site. I don't run the company. I'm not the CFO - that's the person who tracks all of that data. I attempted to answer as best I could. If I had to say, 1.5 million is it.
I also wanted to make my clear my statement about 18 - 24 months; that's current burn rate. That rate has been rapidly getting better - but please look at the filings with the SEC, and make your own judgement.
Here's the problem: Copyright violations. Believe me, I'd love to. But we can't because of that. People have asked how Google caches - frankly, I don't know how they legally do that. But because we're a content site, versus a search engine, we would be more liable for reprinting without permission which is a big No No in all print/editorial media.
Being able to tell them only banner ads for this long has been because of our size. Neither do we accept Java applets, Flash, shoskeles, or anyone of a number of other ad types.
The problem is that there is competition out there- and in an economy like this, it's easy for them to walk over there.
I don't think is a loss of spirit at all. If I did, I wouldn't have done this. You are not being told you need to pay anything. If you have been looking at Slashdot and filtering the ads here's a reality check: I appreciate your comment, but I don't appreciate you filtering the ads. That's the only way that we've been able to try and pay money. And here's another reality check: No, Slashdot is not profitable. And the reality is that it will probably be single digit percent of people who sign up - at an average of 10 - 20$ per year. That helps, but not that much
And even RMS would say that Freedom *does not* mean being able to read this without seeing ads or something. The FSF makes a lot of money selling their GNU manuals. Advertising is the same thing for us.
That's too bad if you feel this is the loss of innocence or something - I just see it as another option that people can use, and moreover, something that will help to mean we stay around. While other folks may believe freedom means filtered ads, Cable & Wireless and hardware companies demand money for their services, and up until now, ads have been the only way for us to make money. If you do truly believe in freedom, then you must also believe that you must give back to the community - a number of people who have signed up today have said they are still going to see ads - they just wanted to give a few bucks.
See my above comment in terms of the ad. I don't think that they are that annonying, and are certainly "not as bad" as what else is coming around. They aren't the damn shoskele ads, that's for sure.
As for page view drop - I don't think that's going to happen. We'll see what actually happens.
And, yes, the MT article is correct. That's why this is not going to be anything mandatory, and won't ever be. I'm not going to make anyone pay for anything - which I think is a key difference between this and the MT article.
What it will be is the messaging unit ads (the big square ad in center of page) and sometimes, a bigger banner ad where the current banner is. That's it. Still GIF/JPG ads. That's all. And yes, one ad per page.
*No one* is trying to steal any projects. Even if I woke one morning, and changed the TOS to say everything on there was closed source, and that I was the King of Fantasyland, neither of which would fly in the real world.
We may not be able to give deleted user accounts thei data, especially in the case of a legal issue. That's the reason for the change. I don't like it either,but welcome to the DMCA world. To be frank, any service that says you will always get your data is lying. We are simply trying to be honest on this. If a company comes at us with a DMCA cease and desist, and the project owner won't contest, I'm legally compelled to *NOT* give the user that data. You see the problem?
As far as changing the TOS: we plan on following the same path. However, the way it was worded before, if we wanted to change a typo, we had to e-mail all user accounts, post big messages, etc. That's the same deal with Privacy notice: I don't want to have to e-mail ever time a typo is chaned. Legally, substantive chanes are interpreted broadly, and I plan on intrepreting them broadly as well; e.g. more on the side of saying whenever we make changes we tell people.
The null paragraph is put in as legal CYA: esssentially, if thar graph doesn't exsist, and someone cracked our servers, and stole the user data you could sue, saying that we failed to comply with our privscy policy. Strange, but true. As with the substantive changes, of course we'd say if there was a change like MS bought all the data. Legally, a judge with side with the users as well, most likely. And no, the former escape clauses there were not sufficent, at least according to counsel.
People will of course take this as they want to - but I can tell you personally at least - we are not changing at all how we operate. Please e-mail Pat if you have other questions.
I think Rob's point is moreover that his opinion will be discounted by all anyway, so there's no point in stating that.
*My* feeling is that this TOS change is not a substantive change. The part in which the Privacy Policy is disavowed is done specifically because *if* the site is cracked, then we're lying about protecting it - not because we're going to sell anything. I'll shoot myself in the eye before we do that.
It's a legal requirement. All TOS must have DMCA compliance terms, per Federal Guidelines. That's basically saying that you need to contact us via DMCA , and this is what happens.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm currently in Boston - time to move to where the rents are cheaper. And closer to family.
-Jamie
I'm philosphically opposed to putting in what I think of as "exclusionary" features - but perhaps early story reading is a good thing. Dunno. Need to think about it. But I understand your point about not subscribinig just for no ads.
It's an interesting idea - we've got a few things we're finishing up, but when Rob and I are in the same office again (I'm moving back to Michigan) that's something we can think about.
Where did you see it? E-mail me the ad, and I'll chase them down. Sometimes 3rd party ad servers try to sneak it in.
I want to try and find a solution.
I also wanted to make my clear my statement about 18 - 24 months; that's current burn rate. That rate has been rapidly getting better - but please look at the filings with the SEC, and make your own judgement.
Yes, less then half of Slashdot reader click Read More. It's not a typo.
Here's the problem: Copyright violations. Believe me, I'd love to. But we can't because of that. People have asked how Google caches - frankly, I don't know how they legally do that. But because we're a content site, versus a search engine, we would be more liable for reprinting without permission which is a big No No in all print/editorial media.
Thanks - we'll check it out.
The problem is that there is competition out there- and in an economy like this, it's easy for them to walk over there.
I don't think is a loss of spirit at all. If I did, I wouldn't have done this. You are not being told you need to pay anything. If you have been looking at Slashdot and filtering the ads here's a reality check: I appreciate your comment, but I don't appreciate you filtering the ads. That's the only way that we've been able to try and pay money. And here's another reality check: No, Slashdot is not profitable. And the reality is that it will probably be single digit percent of people who sign up - at an average of 10 - 20$ per year. That helps, but not that much
And even RMS would say that Freedom *does not* mean being able to read this without seeing ads or something. The FSF makes a lot of money selling their GNU manuals. Advertising is the same thing for us.
That's too bad if you feel this is the loss of innocence or something - I just see it as another option that people can use, and moreover, something that will help to mean we stay around. While other folks may believe freedom means filtered ads, Cable & Wireless and hardware companies demand money for their services, and up until now, ads have been the only way for us to make money. If you do truly believe in freedom, then you must also believe that you must give back to the community - a number of people who have signed up today have said they are still going to see ads - they just wanted to give a few bucks.
See my above comment in terms of the ad. I don't think that they are that annonying, and are certainly "not as bad" as what else is coming around. They aren't the damn shoskele ads, that's for sure.
As for page view drop - I don't think that's going to happen. We'll see what actually happens.
And, yes, the MT article is correct. That's why this is not going to be anything mandatory, and won't ever be. I'm not going to make anyone pay for anything - which I think is a key difference between this and the MT article.
NO pop-ups, pop-unders, pop whatever.
NO Flash playing, Java Applet, MID playing ads.
What it will be is the messaging unit ads (the big square ad in center of page) and sometimes, a bigger banner ad where the current banner is. That's it. Still GIF/JPG ads. That's all. And yes, one ad per page.
We're hoping to include that in a Slashbox, yes. ALong with something to show how many pages you've used.
Thanks - the WAP stuff does need more work.
Yeah, we're currently working on implementing credit cards. When we started it, Paypal was still...doing well.
Defensive posting - it was being flood submitted, and most of the people didn't understand what it meant. I was trying to clear the air about it.
*No one* is trying to steal any projects. Even if I woke one morning, and changed the TOS to say everything on there was closed source, and that I was the King of Fantasyland, neither of which would fly in the real world.
*My* feeling is that this TOS change is not a substantive change. The part in which the Privacy Policy is disavowed is done specifically because *if* the site is cracked, then we're lying about protecting it - not because we're going to sell anything. I'll shoot myself in the eye before we do that.
I'd love to see something like this developed - redundancy == Good.
It's a legal requirement. All TOS must have DMCA compliance terms, per Federal Guidelines. That's basically saying that you need to contact us via DMCA , and this is what happens.
Actually, kernel.org costs a lot more then that - the bandwidth alone, in real dollars would be about 250k per year.
Albiet, with no Tekken.