...by a guy who's been a frequent reader for more than a decade, but one who never submits and almost never comments:
I like the new design. I find it to be cleaner, easier to read, and more aesthetically 'balanced'. A bit ubiquitous these days, perhaps, but I don't think that undoes its merits. I wouldn't have mentioned my like of the new look/platform, but this story seems to be *about* this change, so a comment seemed reasonable.
I'm all too familiar with reworking things to look and/or function better/faster/stronger, only to have a lot of people instantly complain about a feature that disappears, a divergence in personal taste, or the various "growing pains" a new incarnation may have on its journey to maturity.
I usually find myself naively hoping that the people who see changes will think something along the lines of "Wow, this is interesting and different - I wonder what all has changed? It'll be cool to see how this develops.", but, inevitably, it's more like "WTF did they do to my thing!?". This always happens on any new version of any thing. When I see this backlash on others' projects, I tend to find it annoying and (often) unconstructive, even when I would generally agree.
So, I would say keep working out the kinks - I think it will be great.
--
But then, perhaps I'm simply too much on the periphery to "understand" the fatal flaws in the new system. I see Slashdot as a news reference site, pure and simple - and the new layout presents said news snippets in a clean format. Good enough for me. If I want more info, I'll usually hit up the external link, only rarely looking into comments for something "Insightful" or "Interesting". I don't have any problem doing anything I did on the old site on this one, and some things are better/easier.
I've seen mention of problems with the new site with respect to the "community". I'm not really a contributing part of the community here, so those are issues I can't speak to, maybe they're a big problem. My only thought is when the first comment I see on a post like the one Timothy put up is "Why say anything it isn't like you are going to listen or act on our concerns.", followed by post after post of the same - and when many stories' comments contain depressing levels of cynicism, elitism and backstabbing - well, that doesn't sound much like a "community" to me. Sounds a bit more like an "arena".
"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics."
- Mark Twain
1 = As i think several people have alluded to: how do you control for the multitude of extraneous environmental variables within such a study?
2 = Also, even if their findings can be said to be 'scientifically valid', anytime you make such a broad generalization, the meaningfulness of your study decreases. Such a study doesn't prove that men are more capable, just that the men they studied scored higher than the women they studied.
1 + 2 = Example: Should we be surprised that men seem to be 'more intelligent' in a societies that, as a whole, have placed more value on the education and advancement of men than women. I.E. does this study really MEAN anything?
Not only does it seem to ignore how open source works, it seems to me to have missed the whole philosophy. I can easily be mistaken, but I have always viewed Linux in general as an alternative. If you're going to use this stuff, you're going to have to learn a thing or two - something many seem reluctant to do, hence the aforementioned misunderstandings. The more widespread Linux becomes, the more inane requests (ahem, demands) are going to be made. Let MS keep the user base. If it ever becomes the perferred choice among the general population, I think Linux will actually suffer.
In other words, why should Linux want to "conquer the desktop"? Sounds like a Redmond mentality to me...
~PS
__________________________________ "One Penguin To Rule Them All..."
Slashdot Mirror
...by a guy who's been a frequent reader for more than a decade, but one who never submits and almost never comments:
I like the new design. I find it to be cleaner, easier to read, and more aesthetically 'balanced'. A bit ubiquitous these days, perhaps, but I don't think that undoes its merits. I wouldn't have mentioned my like of the new look/platform, but this story seems to be *about* this change, so a comment seemed reasonable.
I'm all too familiar with reworking things to look and/or function better/faster/stronger, only to have a lot of people instantly complain about a feature that disappears, a divergence in personal taste, or the various "growing pains" a new incarnation may have on its journey to maturity.
I usually find myself naively hoping that the people who see changes will think something along the lines of "Wow, this is interesting and different - I wonder what all has changed? It'll be cool to see how this develops.", but, inevitably, it's more like "WTF did they do to my thing!?". This always happens on any new version of any thing. When I see this backlash on others' projects, I tend to find it annoying and (often) unconstructive, even when I would generally agree.
So, I would say keep working out the kinks - I think it will be great.
--
But then, perhaps I'm simply too much on the periphery to "understand" the fatal flaws in the new system. I see Slashdot as a news reference site, pure and simple - and the new layout presents said news snippets in a clean format. Good enough for me. If I want more info, I'll usually hit up the external link, only rarely looking into comments for something "Insightful" or "Interesting". I don't have any problem doing anything I did on the old site on this one, and some things are better/easier.
I've seen mention of problems with the new site with respect to the "community". I'm not really a contributing part of the community here, so those are issues I can't speak to, maybe they're a big problem. My only thought is when the first comment I see on a post like the one Timothy put up is "Why say anything it isn't like you are going to listen or act on our concerns.", followed by post after post of the same - and when many stories' comments contain depressing levels of cynicism, elitism and backstabbing - well, that doesn't sound much like a "community" to me. Sounds a bit more like an "arena".
~PS
"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics." - Mark Twain
1 = As i think several people have alluded to: how do you control for the multitude of extraneous environmental variables within such a study?
2 = Also, even if their findings can be said to be 'scientifically valid', anytime you make such a broad generalization, the meaningfulness of your study decreases. Such a study doesn't prove that men are more capable, just that the men they studied scored higher than the women they studied.
1 + 2 = Example: Should we be surprised that men seem to be 'more intelligent' in a societies that, as a whole, have placed more value on the education and advancement of men than women. I.E. does this study really MEAN anything?
~PS
Not only does it seem to ignore how open source works, it seems to me to have missed the whole philosophy. I can easily be mistaken, but I have always viewed Linux in general as an alternative. If you're going to use this stuff, you're going to have to learn a thing or two - something many seem reluctant to do, hence the aforementioned misunderstandings. The more widespread Linux becomes, the more inane requests (ahem, demands) are going to be made. Let MS keep the user base. If it ever becomes the perferred choice among the general population, I think Linux will actually suffer.
In other words, why should Linux want to "conquer the desktop"? Sounds like a Redmond mentality to me...
~PS
__________________________________
"One Penguin To Rule Them All..."