It's not a patch, it's a new version.... I don't think you can patch windows 98 (like you patch WinNT), you're buying a new version of Windows98, and reinstalling it. It's like Win95 --> Win95 OSR2. You couldn't upgrade from one to the other, you have to get a copy of Windows 95 OSR2 and reinstall it.
It is maddening, but it is not a new practice from Microsoft. Would people feel better if the had called it something else than Windows 98... maybe Windows 99? maybe.
here is how I see this system will work for most people, including myself.
You may have had a good post but: 1. it will not be seen because you're default score is not high enough 2. it will not be moderated up (regardless of quality) because nobody will see it 3. your default score will not go up because your posts are never moderated up. 4. you will get frustrated (I know I will) and stop posting because there is no point to it.
You may say, "Good Riddance", but slashdot users will be missing out on some potentially good post, as well as yet another opinion that adds to the diversity of slashdot (which IS what is -or was? - great about it).
Hmmm... Well, the alignment is an intruiguing (sp?) idea... Very mixed feelings.
On one hand it seems like a decent idea, because it rewards good posters, and it highlights their posts as being worth reading by default. Without the need of promotion from a moderator.
On the other hand, it promotes comments simply on the poster's history. It's a little bit dangerous, because the score is no longer based on the merit of the post. In other words, everyone has ups and downs, and not everyone write a good post every time.
I also feel it is a little bit big-brother-ish. Reminds of the credit rating system in the US (wonder if Rob was thinking about that?), where decisions to grant credit is based more on history than on the actual financial situation the customer is in. I always found that type of system frustrating.
I'll explain why the credit rating is frustrating. It may seem a little bit off-topic, but it isn't, i'll explain how it relates to slashdot. Suppose that you just graduated from college (like myself), and you did a few booboos with credit cards (college mistakes). Now you're a highly paid software engineer, responsible, financially stable. You won't be able to get any credit for many years. And without getting credit, you can't reestablish your credit either.
It's a little bit like slashdot - your comment won't get read because you may have posted a few items that were not up to standards. However, that comment that will not be seen, might have been a great one. Maybe the best in the whole thread. Too bad. Similarly, this stupid comment was seen from everyone just because the posters posted a few good things. Of course, you can argue that the moderator will fix those problems... I have my doubts.
Reminds me of a quote from Animal Farm - it goes something like this: "We're all equal, but some of us are more equal than others". There was a good lesson in that book, maybe Rob should read it:)
Is there a single set-top DVD player that does read CD-Rs? And if so, why would you want to??? I fail to understand what you would do with a CD-R in a DVD-player if they could read it... Because you can't duplicate a DVD on CD-Rs anyway. (sorry). Maybe you can expand on that.
If you're talking about playing audio cd (and CDRs) on your DVD player, I don't see that as really important since I suspect most people that own a DVD player already own "regular" CD players, which - as I understand it - will do a much better job at playing music anyway. (and will give you th e 100 disc crousel, etc...)
Newbie: it is a little bit discriminatory to eliminate users simply based on the age of their account. I don't think that how old/new to slashdot you are really has ANY influence on the quality of the moderation/posting. I'd like to mantion my case - for instance - I have been reading slashdot for ages, but I only recently signed up for an account. Partially due to the descrimination against "Anonymous Cowards". I think you will be missing a lot of great people (and I am not neccessarily saying I am one of them).
Can't post and moderate: another problem. I read the subjects that interest me. And I cannot moderate what I don't read. Therefore I cannot be a moderator AND a slashdot participant. Read a few messages in here, seems a lot of people agree.
Non-negative alignment: let's face it, most posts don't get moderated at all. And it only takes one negative moderation from an overzealous moderator would didn't understand what moderation is about to be out of the pool. Bummer. Problem.
The way I see it, Rob should pick one of three options: 1. Dismiss the moderation system (seems unlikely at this point, although I personally would not be against it) 2. Leave like it is now (don't like it now, but probably better than what is being proposed now) 3. Let EVERYONE logged in moderate (my favorite: I'll explain)
I think that statistically you probably will have the best moderation if everyone is free to moderate. Right now, you have a select few. That's a problem because you have kind of a "ruling class", and quite frankly I question the judgement of those people. So, now you want to expand the pool a bit. Fine, but it's essentially the same thing, although I may trust the score a little bit more. If everyone could moderate, I would definetely trust the score, because it essentially would be representative of everyone's opinion.
Issues with everyone being a moderator: well, there might be abuse. So what? you can deal with this and revoke priviledge for people abusing it. I think the advantages would outweight by far the dissadvantages. At least you wouldn't have to read these postings from would-be-ACs, just because they cannot say what they think while logged in (due to the "you can't reveal you're a moderator rule").
I don't think there is a single DVD-ROM player on the market now that doesn't play CD-R. Only the very first generation of DVDs (I didn't even know it existed then) don't. I bought my "Creative Lab" DVD player over a year ago, and it already did play DVD.....
Yep. It's a problem. I WOULD trust a rating if EVERYONE logged in had the same rights (that would be a democracy). Not a handful of people that have special priviledges.
This way of doing things didn't work for government, what makes anyone think it will for slashdot?
the proof that the moderation system is clearly not working.
The previous post, obtained a score of 3! (at least when I read - might be upped or lowered by then).
Seem to me that there is absolutely nothing constructive in this post whatsoever. The gist of it is "If you don't like it, go away". Clearly the moderators gave that post points because they agreed with it. fine, i agree with it too. But that's precisely what the moderator should not be doing: moderate based on opinion.
I stick by my previous post: this system is a bad, bad idea...
Reminds me of the "TV-MA", etc... TV ratings... Dumbest thing I've ever seen, because these things are purely subjective. Only CT took it a step further and is actually filtering stuff out based on it!
Regardless of that, I don't need or want someone to chew stuff for me... I can handle it myself, thank you very much. And I don't buy the treshold argument (make it so that you see everything - THAT should be the default).
I think CT is getting bored? So he keeps playing with his software. I know that problem very well, sometimes I do it at work. Bad habit. I learned, and I would have thought that CT did as well when he had major system problems a few weeks back (I got really annoyed about that, because it fueled so many arguments against Linux, when in fact Linux had nothing to do with it).
Isn't this the same people that demonstrated that Linux has supercomputer capabilities (they benchmarked a Linux cluster at the same speed as a Cray!). Now, I don't know about you, but it seems to me that they kind of self-destructed their argument.
My guess is that the person that made that statement (a subsidiary out of Germany?) just hasn't done his homework.
Yes, this site appears to be very slow. It does take a while for it to show up in your browser. That happens for me both at work (T1 line) and at home (56K modem).
However, it has nothing to do with Linux, his ISP, or your ISP. CT seems to belong to the webmaster school that seems to be more graphic design oriented that technically oriented. Slashdot looks pretty good (arguable), but to achieve that look, it has tables embedded inside tables. It just takes forever to render. I've actually written a cgi script once that crashed netscape by doing that.
I think slashdot needs to find a compromise between the look and the time to render. In other words, CT needs to tune its HTML - not his server or CGI (well, he may have to do that two, but that's another issue).
Slashdot Mirror
It's not a patch, it's a new version....
I don't think you can patch windows 98 (like you patch WinNT), you're buying a new version of Windows98, and reinstalling it. It's like Win95 --> Win95 OSR2. You couldn't upgrade from one to the other, you have to get a copy of Windows 95 OSR2 and reinstall it.
It is maddening, but it is not a new practice from Microsoft. Would people feel better if the had called it something else than Windows 98... maybe Windows 99? maybe.
here is how I see this system will work for most people, including myself.
You may have had a good post but:
1. it will not be seen because you're default score is not high enough
2. it will not be moderated up (regardless of quality) because nobody will see it
3. your default score will not go up because your posts are never moderated up.
4. you will get frustrated (I know I will) and stop posting because there is no point to it.
You may say, "Good Riddance", but slashdot users will be missing out on some potentially good post, as well as yet another opinion that adds to the diversity of slashdot (which IS what is -or was? - great about it).
1 --> 3 is a Catch 22...
Hmmm... Well, the alignment is an intruiguing (sp?) idea... Very mixed feelings.
:)
On one hand it seems like a decent idea, because it rewards good posters, and it highlights their posts as being worth reading by default. Without the need of promotion from a moderator.
On the other hand, it promotes comments simply on the poster's history. It's a little bit dangerous, because the score is no longer based on the merit of the post. In other words, everyone has ups and downs, and not everyone write a good post every time.
I also feel it is a little bit big-brother-ish. Reminds of the credit rating system in the US (wonder if Rob was thinking about that?), where decisions to grant credit is based more on history than on the actual financial situation the customer is in. I always found that type of system frustrating.
I'll explain why the credit rating is frustrating. It may seem a little bit off-topic, but it isn't, i'll explain how it relates to slashdot. Suppose that you just graduated from college (like myself), and you did a few booboos with credit cards (college mistakes). Now you're a highly paid software engineer, responsible, financially stable. You won't be able to get any credit for many years. And without getting credit, you can't reestablish your credit either.
It's a little bit like slashdot - your comment won't get read because you may have posted a few items that were not up to standards. However, that comment that will not be seen, might have been a great one. Maybe the best in the whole thread. Too bad. Similarly, this stupid comment was seen from everyone just because the posters posted a few good things. Of course, you can argue that the moderator will fix those problems... I have my doubts.
Reminds me of a quote from Animal Farm - it goes something like this: "We're all equal, but some of us are more equal than others". There was a good lesson in that book, maybe Rob should read it
Is there a single set-top DVD player that does read CD-Rs? And if so, why would you want to???
I fail to understand what you would do with a CD-R in a DVD-player if they could read it... Because you can't duplicate a DVD on CD-Rs anyway. (sorry). Maybe you can expand on that.
If you're talking about playing audio cd (and CDRs) on your DVD player, I don't see that as really important since I suspect most people that own a DVD player already own "regular" CD players, which - as I understand it - will do a much better job at playing music anyway. (and will give you th e 100 disc crousel, etc...)
A few issues that come to mind:
Newbie: it is a little bit discriminatory to eliminate users simply based on the age of their account. I don't think that how old/new to slashdot you are really has ANY influence on the quality of the moderation/posting. I'd like to mantion my case - for instance - I have been reading slashdot for ages, but I only recently signed up for an account. Partially due to the descrimination against "Anonymous Cowards". I think you will be missing a lot of great people (and I am not neccessarily saying I am one of them).
Can't post and moderate: another problem. I read the subjects that interest me. And I cannot moderate what I don't read. Therefore I cannot be a moderator AND a slashdot participant. Read a few messages in here, seems a lot of people agree.
Non-negative alignment: let's face it, most posts don't get moderated at all. And it only takes one negative moderation from an overzealous moderator would didn't understand what moderation is about to be out of the pool. Bummer. Problem.
The way I see it, Rob should pick one of three options:
1. Dismiss the moderation system (seems unlikely at this point, although I personally would not be against it)
2. Leave like it is now (don't like it now, but probably better than what is being proposed now)
3. Let EVERYONE logged in moderate (my favorite: I'll explain)
I think that statistically you probably will have the best moderation if everyone is free to moderate. Right now, you have a select few. That's a problem because you have kind of a "ruling class", and quite frankly I question the judgement of those people. So, now you want to expand the pool a bit. Fine, but it's essentially the same thing, although I may trust the score a little bit more. If everyone could moderate, I would definetely trust the score, because it essentially would be representative of everyone's opinion.
Issues with everyone being a moderator: well, there might be abuse. So what? you can deal with this and revoke priviledge for people abusing it. I think the advantages would outweight by far the dissadvantages. At least you wouldn't have to read these postings from would-be-ACs, just because they cannot say what they think while logged in (due to the "you can't reveal you're a moderator rule").
I don't think there is a single DVD-ROM player on the market now that doesn't play CD-R. Only the very first generation of DVDs (I didn't even know it existed then) don't. I bought my "Creative Lab" DVD player over a year ago, and it already did play DVD .....
Yep. It's a problem. I WOULD trust a rating if EVERYONE logged in had the same rights (that would be a democracy). Not a handful of people that have special priviledges.
This way of doing things didn't work for government, what makes anyone think it will for slashdot?
the proof that the moderation system is clearly not working.
The previous post, obtained a score of 3! (at least when I read - might be upped or lowered by then).
Seem to me that there is absolutely nothing constructive in this post whatsoever. The gist of it is "If you don't like it, go away". Clearly the moderators gave that post points because they agreed with it. fine, i agree with it too. But that's precisely what the moderator should not be doing: moderate based on opinion.
I stick by my previous post: this system is a bad, bad idea...
Reminds me of the "TV-MA", etc... TV ratings... Dumbest thing I've ever seen, because these things are purely subjective. Only CT took it a step further and is actually filtering stuff out based on it!
Regardless of that, I don't need or want someone to chew stuff for me... I can handle it myself, thank you very much. And I don't buy the treshold argument (make it so that you see everything - THAT should be the default).
I think CT is getting bored? So he keeps playing with his software. I know that problem very well, sometimes I do it at work. Bad habit. I learned, and I would have thought that CT did as well when he had major system problems a few weeks back (I got really annoyed about that, because it fueled so many arguments against Linux, when in fact Linux had nothing to do with it).
Ok, enough rambling.
Isn't this the same people that demonstrated that Linux has supercomputer capabilities (they benchmarked a Linux cluster at the same speed as a Cray!). Now, I don't know about you, but it seems to me that they kind of self-destructed their argument.
My guess is that the person that made that statement (a subsidiary out of Germany?) just hasn't done his homework.
Yes, this site appears to be very slow. It does take a while for it to show up in your browser. That happens for me both at work (T1 line) and at home (56K modem).
However, it has nothing to do with Linux, his ISP, or your ISP. CT seems to belong to the webmaster school that seems to be more graphic design oriented that technically oriented. Slashdot looks pretty good (arguable), but to achieve that look, it has tables embedded inside tables. It just takes forever to render.
I've actually written a cgi script once that crashed netscape by doing that.
I think slashdot needs to find a compromise between the look and the time to render. In other words, CT needs to tune its HTML - not his server or CGI (well, he may have to do that two, but that's another issue).