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from the stuff-to-play-with dept.
So D2 now remembers what you have read. This will mostly be useful to readers who use the key bindings to navigate -- we didn't really want to guess if you've read something, but if you use the WASD keys to navigate, moving on from a comment flags it as read. Read comments are slightly faded, and if you re-enter a discussion a few hours later, it should remember what you've read.
We've simplified comment retrieval as well. If you get to the 'End' of a discussion and try to get more comments (either by clicking one of the various 'More' links, or by pressing a keybinding like S or D that tells us to move on to the next comment) a dialog box will show up asking you if you would like to lower your threshold. So if you normally read at Score:4, and read to the end of the Score:4 comments, it will offer to lower your threshold to Score:3 either for all time, or just for this page. This means you don't need to constantly raise and lower your threshold to handle discussions of different sizes. This works really nicely.
Lastly is a user preference in the pref pane labeled 'Collapse Comments After Reading.' I'm actually considering making this one on by default but I'm open to feedback. It does what it says -- after you've navigated off a comment (using the keybindings again), it collapses the comment you just left. This makes it very easy to keep your place in a discussion as it grows. This is especially useful in discussions where you want to leave a tab open for several hours, or else come back later and figure out what's new.
There are undoubtedly bugs: feel free to email me or post them to the bug tracker. Thanks to pudge for hacking all this stuff too. Especially the bugs -- he wrote those first.
Display bugs (Score:5, Insightful)
Hmm, I think it's also about time to fix some display bugs. The most important one would be that replies to a given comment visually look like they're replies to the parent. And the lines that should tell you what nesting level you're at seem to disappear sometimes, especially when you collapse something. And collapsing a grand-grand-grand-parent, for example, also hides all children, but it triggers that triggers another kind of display bug: the boxes and hooks don't disappear.
I usually use Opera, but I was able to see that Firefox doesn't do away with those problems either.
Re:Display bugs (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, agreed! Nested mode is so much worse than it used to be, because of these bugs.
In addition, how about removing the longstanding restriction of only showing up to 100 nested comments per page? If you try to set your prefs above that, it just resets it to 100. Let me just load all 1000+ comments of a large story into one page and I won't hit the slashdot servers for another hour as I read through.
And I'm pretty sure there's a longstanding bug there where if a long comment thread pushes the page well beyond 100 comments, the next page may completely skip some comments/threads. Besides, it's freaking annoying when you get one of those 400-comment threads on the page, and then the next 3 pages are exactly the same because they still start within that massive thread. Stupid.
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Re:Display bugs (Score:5, Insightful)
Or why the heck is the 'Reply to This' button so fricking huge? Seriously think about shrinking it.
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Re:Display bugs (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Display bugs (Score:5, Interesting)
And what kind of bugs are you submitting?
Click the link, they're all listed. Mostly usability bugs, some extremely obvious visual bugs.
Keep in mind big projects get alot of bug sumissions.
Slashdot doesn't; maybe 5-8 on a busy day. Today it'll get a ton, but I've been watching their Sourceforge tracker for awhile.
Did you do the research and see if it's a dupe?
Yes. I used to work in QA, I do know what I'm doing.
Is it a security bug, they'll probably get looked @ first. Then they'll look if it's cosmetic or functioning.
My experience shows that they will not.
You're the one that attacked OSS
I'm not attacking OSS; I'm attacking projects that ask for contributions and then ignore the contributions. It just so happens these projects are usually open source projects.
Commercial products generally don't ask for contributions, and yet I've had much better luck getting bugs fixed in them. I've pointed out bugs to Apple, Blizzard, Microsoft, Adobe, MySQL (on one of their closed-source utilities) all with positive responses. Many of these bugs have been fixed, or will be fixed when the next product revision comes out.
Do you use a Mac? Do you play World of Warcraft? Do you use windowed mode? Did you notice about a year ago that windowed mode started remembering its position on the screen between runs? I submitted that bug, and it was fixed in the next Mac-specific client release. (Sadly, the Windows developers haven't yet implemented the same thing. I should pop off another email.) Blizzard doesn't ask for user contributions; in fact they make it pretty hard to even find what email address to use.
so I figured you're a MS fan boy.
Damn those shades of grey! I only see in black and white, and that's the way I like it, daggummit!
Most open source programs, except for big ones like DEs and distros or office programs, etc, most developers aren't getting paid to make and are writing them in their spare time.
Ok; that's fine. But if they don't have time to look at or fix bug submissions, they shouldn't ask people to submit them. They're just wasting our time and effort.
I don't know what your profession is or what bugs you actually submitted or to what projects, but when submitting a bug, evaluate how important it is, to everyone, not just you, and set your expectations.
I think it's a reasonable expectation that every bug, no matter how trivial, at the very least be assigned to somebody. Over 50% of the bugs I submitted were literally never read. Probably closer to 75%.
If you can code, then submit a patch.
I can code. But I don't have the free time to learn the coding style, build instructions, layout, possibly new programming language required to make the patch. Definitely not enough to make the patch when there's a good chance the patch will be rejected anyway.
The best use of my talent to the open source community is to use my extremely low tolerance of bugs and ability to notice tiny annoyances for QA purposes. Turns out most open source projects don't actually want that.
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Re:Display bugs (Score:5, Interesting)
Hell I'd even consider subscribing if the editors could keep their "witty" comments to themselves or give us an option for viewing submissions without editor comments
I've had half a dozen submissions posted (one last night, it was the first one this year) and sometimes submissions are straight from the submitter without even typos corrected, and sometimes they completely rewrite the submitter's summary (like the one I submitted yesterday afternoon so don't blame ME).
Contrary to popular opinion, slashdot editors do edit. They may of may not be good at editing, but they do edit. Or not, as they see fit, I've found.
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Re:Display bugs (Score:5, Interesting)
The best system for organizing a forum that I've ever seen is the left-hand pane on Google Groups (You have to enable Tree View to see it).
I'm baffled by the fact that no other comments system seems to use it. I bet Google would donate the code to Slashdot, too.
- Alaska Jack
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God, does it filter out "FRIST POST!!" attempts? (Score:5, Funny)
Hmm...guess not.
AWSD (Score:4, Interesting)
what does awsd do?
Re:AWSD (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:AWSD (Score:5, Informative)
Similar thing it does in games...
W = Up
S = Down
A = Out Of Thread and/or Last
D = Into Thread and/or Next
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Re:AWSD (Score:5, Funny)
Similar thing it does in games...
W = Up
S = Down
A = Out Of Thread and/or Last
D = Into Thread and/or Next
But how do you fire and cycle weapons ? Mouse wheel screws up the display and clicking mostly does nothing.
It's still very buggy IMO.
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Re:AWSD (Score:5, Funny)
You only get those controls when you get mod points.
Trust me, it's a fun game.
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Re:AWSD (Score:5, Insightful)
I use dvorak you insensitive clod.
No really, I do. Any way we can change these or am I going to have to browse the web with 2 hands?
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Re:AWSD (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:AWSD (Score:5, Informative)
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no h-j-k-l? (Score:5, Insightful)
w-a-s-d might be fine for some, but for us old school vi types, h-j-k-l is hardwired into our brains. Could that be added along-side the w-a-s-d stuff?
Re:no h-j-k-l? (Score:5, Funny)
I read slashdot directly from HTML source using vi. h-j-k-l works fine here.
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Re:no h-j-k-l? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:no h-j-k-l? (Score:5, Insightful)
Also there are plenty of people using not qwerty but azerty
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Re:no h-j-k-l? (Score:5, Informative)
Did you guys even try to use HJKL?
It works perfectly for me.
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Issues (Score:5, Insightful)
I've never consistently gotten the correct threads when I have more than one page and say show me the next page. I see a certain thread in the first 50, then hit page down and there it is again. The only way I've been able to compensate is filter to a high enough level that all threads fit on one page and then drill down.
And the biggest problem I have is lack of editing.
Just 15 minutes-- or better yet- hold all versions so people can see what you posted first so you can't lie but CAN fix stupid errors.
Also, there is no way to see level 0 posts only. That's very helpful when you want to up-mod folks who were silenced by a bad mod.
Logging in without having to navigate away ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Logging in without having to navigate away from the page when replying would be nice.
So, in the old system, you hit reply, realise you aren't logged in, type in user name and password (or have FireFox auto complete), type your comment and post.
The new system, realise you aren't logged in, hit the login link, get taken to a different page, login, navigate back to the old page, have to find where you wanted to reply, and notice that in the three minutes you spent logging in (some people are on dial up, some people do other things while waiting for pages to load, some people do both), you notice someone else has made the comment you were going to make!
So, how hard can it be to just include a username and password box when you hit reply and aren't logged in?
I vote for this (Score:5, Insightful)
This has been driving me nuts ever since the new comment system was introduced. Overall, I mostly like D2, but since the old system has allowed me to login while posting for *years*, and now suddenly I can't, it feels like a step *backwards*. I especially I hate when I've typed 2 paragraphs of text, then suddenly realize I'm not logged in. Yeah, copy-and-paste are you friend in that situation, but it's still a pain. As the parent pointed out, after logging in, you have to find the main article, then find whichever discussion thread you wanted to reply to, which can be a major waste of time.
Please, why in the world can't I login right in the comment box? I know you guys want to ajax-ify everything, but really, just having the username/password fields as part of the form with the comment summary and body was so simple and elegant, how could you possibly improve it? Since the code on the backend is already there to handle it, since the old system is still there, I can't imagine it would be terribly difficult to add this back into the new system?
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Re:Logging in without having to navigate away ... (Score:5, Informative)
I wholeheartedly agree with you. This is less useful than it was before, and would be a great improvement.
However, as a better workaround, note that the following works:
1. Hit reply, realize you aren't logged on.
2. Open the "log in now" link in a new tab. Switch to that tab and log in on that tab.
3. Return to the original tab, type out your reply.
4. When you hit the preview button, it updates you as logged in.
This way you don't have to navigate back and find the post to reply to. As you said, it would be much easier if the log in boxes were right here on the same page.
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keep up the good work (Score:5, Insightful)
Soon you'll have recreated the functionality of a late 80's usenet client.
Give us a classic option (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Give us a classic option (Score:5, Informative)
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And yet... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:And yet... (Score:5, Interesting)
They'd have to throw the first few weeks' moderations away (admit it, you'd be tempted to go LOL I MOD ZONK DOWN EVERY TIME), but it could be useful later on.
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Wake me up when the moderation system is improved (Score:4, Insightful)
We need moderation methods that actually reflect the scoring more intelligently, or a scoring that more intelligently reflects the value of the comment. The "overrated" and "underrated" moderations are garbage. Hacks use it to promote their friends and demote their foes. Why should a comment that started at +2 ever be marked "overrated"?
my own follow-up (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:my own follow-up (Score:5, Informative)
I'm pretty sure that quite a while back one of my moderations was meta-modded as stupid (or whatever, I can't be bothered with meta anymore) and I got an email for it and the user in question lost (or regained) the point. I don't think that Slashdot really needs to hand out gold stars for doing a decent job of moderating.
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Re:Wake me up when the moderation system is improv (Score:5, Insightful)
There was a big change in the moderator system some years ago. I think it was motivated by exactly the kind of abuse [slashdot.org] you're talking about. As I understand it, Rob decided to limit mod points to people in the middle of the range of posting rates. People who post a lot never get mod points, neither do people who post very little.
IMHO, this change actually made things worse, because they excluded the regular participants who were most committed to making the community work. People who post haphazardly are exactly the people who should not be moderating; they're the snipers and "oh yeah" types who like to tell others they're FoS, but don't have the attention span to have a serious conversation.
Rob and his editors obviously don't agree. My guess is they've had less occasion to "correct" moderations they consider unfair (because there are much fewer mods to correct) and they see that as evidence that the new system is working.
As for "overrated" and "underrated": these are not supposed to reflect the quality of the comment, they're supposed to be a way of correcting scores that have gotten multiple mod points when only 1 was deserved because two moderators flagged it at the same time. Personally, I don't think this happens often enough to justify two mods with so much potential for abuse. But if we must have it, you should be allowed to apply "overrated" to a post with less than 2 upmods or "underrated" to a post with less than 2 downmods. Ideally, those two mods should come within a few minutes of each other, but I suppose that would be hard to detect.
And whatever the quality of the moderator pool, it would make a lot of difference if people actually understood what the moderations are supposed to mean. The definitions are hard to find and hard to understand. What's the difference between "troll" and "flamebait"? "Interesting" and "insightful"?
(Hey guys, I explain stuff for a living. Give me a call.)
At this point, it would be helpful if one or more of the editors (Rob especially) butted into the conversation, defending their policies and correcting any facts I've gotten wrong. Never seems to happen. I guess they find the resulting flame wars taxing. Understandable, but frustrating.
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Previously read comments (Score:5, Insightful)
What I'd like to see is the option to gray-out / collapse any comments older than a certain timestamp. Then have that timestamp automatically set to the last time a particular discussion was brought up (allowing the user to adjust it if needed, i.e., if you didn't finish reading the whole page the last time it was brought up). That way, new comments would stand out.
Require Downmodders to Justify (Score:5, Insightful)
The biggest problem with Slashdot is that anonymous downmodding is used to suppress comments instead of posting something disagreeing with them.
If someone modding down a comment was required to post their reason, exactly like a reply comment, that could be viewed by both regular readers and metamoderators alike (and made hideable by default in preferences), that would probably cut back a lot of the frivolous downmods, and convert them to explicit disagreements instead. Since that feature is so similar to the regular comment system, it should be quick to develop, debug and deliver.
Re:Require Downmodders to Justify (Score:5, Insightful)
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What I'd like to see... (Score:5, Insightful)
I've seen a few sigs that echo this sentiment humorously; "Slow down cowboy, it's been 11 minutes since you last made a comment. Chances are, you type faster the 11 words per minute".
I understand the reasoning for the "slow down, cowboy", and mostly approve, but there are a few times when the slowdown seems inappropriate.
One is in one's own journal. I don't see any reason at all to have a "slow down cowboy" in your own journal.
The second is responding to a response to your comment, especially when you are getting to the comment through the "slashdot message system". How can it truly be a discussion when you can't reply to a response?
The third would be on stories older than 24 hours old. By then pretty much everyone has had a chance to comment.
I almost never comment anonymously, so I was surprised the other day when I tried to. A user posted an anonymous comment with the statement "sorry for the AC posting but I just moderated in this thread." I was going to point out that what he was doing was a bit unethical; the system is set up so you can't comment in topics you're modding for a reason. I was also going to say "there are legitimate reasons for posting AC" and wanted to illustrate this by posting AC. An hour later I still couldn't submit the comment, so I gave up. I was logged in; I checked the "no karma bonus" and "post anonymously" for the offtopic comment. If I had been posting anonymously all day I would understand this, but it was my first anonymous comment in months. I don't understand why it was so much longer than my usual four minutes.
I was surprised to find that you can metamoderate a comment that is in response to your own comment. I wouldn't have thought the system would have been set up like that, but I've seen it twice now.
Another suggestion would be on a user's "journal" link. Often I'll see a funny or interesting comment and want to see a user's journal, click the link and find that he's only made two journals and the latest is from some time in 2003. Rather than the link saying simply "journal, I'd like to see "latest journal entry [&date]".
And now for something completely different, I'd like to see TWO BRICKS BEING SMASHED TOGETHER</Python>
Re:slashdot editor update: (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:slashdot editor update: (Score:5, Funny)
how about you make those annoying Anonymous Coward trolls use the old discussion system? You know, as a sort of punishment for not logging in.
That'd be a reward. The real punishment would be forcing them to use D2.
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what's wrong with D2? (Score:5, Funny)
Between me and you
Omitting "R2", so brave
Is a day without
Burma Shave
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Re:slashdot editor update: (Score:5, Insightful)
My sig is more hate toward the moderators...
Love them or hate them, moderators and meta-moderators are part of the system. If all you are concerned about is karma, then you will have to weigh you desire to post against your fear of loosing karma points. My suggestion is to say what you want intelligently and damn whether it is popular. Popular speech is boring.
As to your post above:
I must disagree. If it exists [w3.org], it is a developer's responsibility to code to a set of standards. It is a site and browser developer's responsibility to code to a set of standards.
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Re:slashdot editor update: (Score:5, Funny)
We can post anonymously? This makes trolling so much easier!!! Microsoft rules!
Note to readers: I sacrificed any potential gain in fame and fortune to make this witty response work.
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Re:slashdot editor update: (Score:5, Funny)
You're posting from work, too, aren't you? ;-)
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Re:crazy new idea.... (Score:5, Funny)
I've generally got better things to do with my time than clicking preview, waiting, blah, etc.
Liar. I see you here on /.
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Re:Not working (Score:5, Informative)
From the FAQ:
"Currently, D2 is not supported in IE6- since these days only 10% of Slashdot readers use IE6, and that population is shrinking daily, we don't intend to work on compatibility."
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Re:Not working (Score:5, Insightful)
these changes seems to explain why i can't assign mod points with IE7 ?
who knows..
No, that's more likely to be a deliberate editorial decision. :-)
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Re:Not working (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:D2 broken in FF3? (Score:5, Informative)
Clear your cache. It worked for me the last time I got that message.
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Re:Moderator Points? (Score:5, Funny)
When did you up the number of moderator points given out at one time? Used to be that you got 5. But today I find I have 15.
That explains why I haven't gotten mod points in the last 5 week. NOW QUIT HOGGING!
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