"I am an individual, and I will answer for no crime I have not committed. I will not feel guilty because of my assigned gender at birth. I will not feel guilty because women do not choose programming careers, because I am not the gaslighting asshole managers people like you keep mistaking me for who is chasing women out of tech. I will not feel guilty about rape, because I am not a rapist. I will not feel guilty about sexual harassment, because I do not sexually harass."
No, you have to feel guilty about all those things because you are white, and male, and therefore have Privilege. This type of racial discrimination is the SJW way of combatting racism.
"If everybody is speeding, maybe the speed limit is too low."
There is an old highway engineering standard that the speeds at which drivers actually travel on a new stretch of road should be surveyed first, and then the speed limit set at the 80th percentile. But all too often, speed limits are set by statute, as in 'a residential area should be posted for 25'. This results in neighborhoods where such a limit is unrealistic. If a major city street that happens to have some apartments above stores gets classified as residential, it could get an unrealistically low limit. In another place you might have a hidden school driveway that is accident prone because it should lave a lower limit.
When a company is rude to its customers, they drift off to the competition, unless it's a locked up market, like cable, airlines or medicine. So why shouldn't it work the other way around?
" If I have to pay to park at a mall, I'm likely to spend less time inside browsing items I might by and therefore spend less money. It's a bad business move and really doesn't make sense."
Malls grew in the US precisely so that shoppers could avoid the paid-parking trap in the old downtowns. But the whole situation in Europe is different: compact, high-density cities that have lush public transit systems, making cars an option, not a necessity. If you can take a subway to the basement of the mall, why drive in the city? And for those times when you buy something big or exceptionally valuable, there are delivery services. Meanwhile the mall is built in much more expensive land than in an American suburb, meaning no vast surrounding acreage of parking lots. Parking is typically in a garage under the mall itself.
If medallion taxi companies tracked their drivers, they could collect the same data, and drivers could make the same pitch for getting paid something for the data they are generating. But tracking would also reveal those roundabout routes cabdrivers like to use on newbie passengers, so I'm betting the union would nix it.
"Besides, most logged-in users are already anonymous cowards - your name isn't really MouseR, is it?"
I would turn this around to say that screen names already give us the anonymity we need, without the need for AC posting. And...every post as a screen name becomes part of a posting history. How many times have you seen an insightful AC post and wished we could see what else that person has posted?
I haven't seen beta for months (good riddance!) but a more relevant interface critique is: can we eventually have a mobile interface that doesn't suck horribly? At least on tablets.
That's a good point and something we will look at. Should we weight firehose voting more heavily so that highly voted stories make the front page regardless of an editor?
When we discuss politics in here, it would be nice if it were on topic. Instead of exchanging talking-point exchanges on guns and abortion, let's home in in science and its applications. There is a lot of politics in this area that we, as domain experts in technical fields, have unique contributions to.
"Fourth of all, this site needs to list who moderated each comment. It should show the username of the moderator, and what rating was given. If somebody's deemed responsible enough to moderate, then they should be willing to have their name attached to any and all moderation they do."
Yes! No need to eliminate downmodding; just let us know who modded what, and the abusive moderation dries up in the presence of oxygen. If there are such things as moderation trolls, we will know who they are.
"And don't DARE be a "person of color" and take issue with any leftist tenet. For then you will have the deep unthinking racism of the left unleashed upon you."
You will find yourself thomased or cosbied: ancient hearsay will be dredged from your past, even the kind of 'evidence' that plays directly into white racist assumptions, in an attempt to derail your career. It's not racist if SJWs do it.
Slashdot Mirror
"I am an individual, and I will answer for no crime I have not committed. I will not feel guilty because of my assigned gender at birth. I will not feel guilty because women do not choose programming careers, because I am not the gaslighting asshole managers people like you keep mistaking me for who is chasing women out of tech. I will not feel guilty about rape, because I am not a rapist. I will not feel guilty about sexual harassment, because I do not sexually harass."
No, you have to feel guilty about all those things because you are white, and male, and therefore have Privilege. This type of racial discrimination is the SJW way of combatting racism.
"If everybody is speeding, maybe the speed limit is too low."
There is an old highway engineering standard that the speeds at which drivers actually travel on a new stretch of road should be surveyed first, and then the speed limit set at the 80th percentile. But all too often, speed limits are set by statute, as in 'a residential area should be posted for 25'. This results in neighborhoods where such a limit is unrealistic. If a major city street that happens to have some apartments above stores gets classified as residential, it could get an unrealistically low limit. In another place you might have a hidden school driveway that is accident prone because it should lave a lower limit.
When a company is rude to its customers, they drift off to the competition, unless it's a locked up market, like cable, airlines or medicine. So why shouldn't it work the other way around?
"Yes, just I don't want to bother always making sure I have a physical keyboard, just in case."
Then get a keyboard case for your tablet. Some tablets come with one.
" If I have to pay to park at a mall, I'm likely to spend less time inside browsing items I might by and therefore spend less money. It's a bad business move and really doesn't make sense."
Malls grew in the US precisely so that shoppers could avoid the paid-parking trap in the old downtowns. But the whole situation in Europe is different: compact, high-density cities that have lush public transit systems, making cars an option, not a necessity. If you can take a subway to the basement of the mall, why drive in the city? And for those times when you buy something big or exceptionally valuable, there are delivery services. Meanwhile the mall is built in much more expensive land than in an American suburb, meaning no vast surrounding acreage of parking lots. Parking is typically in a garage under the mall itself.
Only a badly designed Edit button (*COUGH*Disqus*COUGH*) would be still usable after a post has been replied to.
If medallion taxi companies tracked their drivers, they could collect the same data, and drivers could make the same pitch for getting paid something for the data they are generating. But tracking would also reveal those roundabout routes cabdrivers like to use on newbie passengers, so I'm betting the union would nix it.
If we have posting histories, why not have moderation histories?
Interesting. Here in the US, Colorado has the same weird water law. There are people there who could use that barrister.
To address this problem I would seriously suggest mods +1, I Agree and -1, I Disagree. It would reduce abuse of the other categories.
The chintzy title length needs to be increased also.
Most sites allow editing within a window of 5-10 minutes. As a tech site, we could do better: a post would be editable until modded or replied to.
"How about adding readers who can spell correctly and understand English grammar while you're at it?"
We use our interns for that.
"Besides, most logged-in users are already anonymous cowards - your name isn't really MouseR, is it?"
I would turn this around to say that screen names already give us the anonymity we need, without the need for AC posting. And...every post as a screen name becomes part of a posting history. How many times have you seen an insightful AC post and wished we could see what else that person has posted?
My own suggestions on AC are in the sale thread.
Yes, I hate it when somebody is wrong on the Internet.
I haven't seen beta for months (good riddance!) but a more relevant interface critique is: can we eventually have a mobile interface that doesn't suck horribly? At least on tablets.
That's a good point and something we will look at. Should we weight firehose voting more heavily so that highly voted stories make the front page regardless of an editor?
Yes.
" At best, it forces someone to apply one extra step of using a sockpuppet to mod the discussion they've contributed to."
And if we make the suggested change to identify modders, use of that trick can be revealed.
I agree with GP's post with the exception of allowing people to moderate posts under the same story as they are posting. That's inviting abuse.
Only if you could moderate in the immediate vicinity of your post. Allow moderation in subthreads other than the one in which you posted.
Sorry, "rote talking-point exchanges." My kingdom for an Edit button.
When we discuss politics in here, it would be nice if it were on topic. Instead of exchanging talking-point exchanges on guns and abortion, let's home in in science and its applications. There is a lot of politics in this area that we, as domain experts in technical fields, have unique contributions to.
"Fourth of all, this site needs to list who moderated each comment. It should show the username of the moderator, and what rating was given. If somebody's deemed responsible enough to moderate, then they should be willing to have their name attached to any and all moderation they do."
Yes! No need to eliminate downmodding; just let us know who modded what, and the abusive moderation dries up in the presence of oxygen. If there are such things as moderation trolls, we will know who they are.
Apparently, the old Clinton magic is back.
"And don't DARE be a "person of color" and take issue with any leftist tenet. For then you will have the deep unthinking racism of the left unleashed upon you."
You will find yourself thomased or cosbied: ancient hearsay will be dredged from your past, even the kind of 'evidence' that plays directly into white racist assumptions, in an attempt to derail your career. It's not racist if SJWs do it.