New Dynamic Updating Discussions 100
Slashdot users of the Discussion2 system now have a new 'Update' button visible on their floating control slider, as well at the end of the discussion. This button will update your page to include comments posted since the page was loaded, so now you can keep discussion pages up to date without doing a full reload. It's nowhere near complete yet, but it's a nice step that goes a long ways towards making it easier to use larger discussions while they are actively updating. If you aren't using Discussion2, you need to log in, and toggle the checkbox visible on every page. You probably need bother only if you are using Firefox 1.5 or 2.x or Safari. You can send bug reports to me if you want.
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That's after finding it.
Sorry, I see that the Slashdot moderators are moderating criticism of their new system down rather than taking it on board, and expect this comment to be at -1 soon too, but for the love of chocolate eclairs, please make these things more obvious.
I'm still looking for the different view methods as well - seems to be nested by posting time only. Admittedly doing this in Javascript to avoid a page rel
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Also, where is my lovely "Top" link when I post a reply?
Is my connection slow? (Score:4, Informative)
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The good thing is that I now have time to actually read the article!
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Slashdot is being highly non-responsive. I can't conclude anything about the cause, but it is experientially slower. Traceroute and ping confirm this.
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There's a already a great way to keep Slashdot stories updated, it goes by the simple name of F5. All this other crap just ruins a once slick and enjoyable site (and yes my UID may be a high one, but I've was enjoying
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What's up with popular sites rolling out "fixes" and "upgrades" that are untested, broken, and don't really help anything these last few months? Smoother viewing of Slashdot is what Firefox extensions are for. Drop the web2.0 crap.
Please, Slashdot, don't keep changing things until I have to have custom stylesheets and javascript just to make the site usable, like Fark did!
(For the record, I still th
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SEND IT TO ME!
i emailed drew asking why they don't offer a fark.com/old (and a description of why i cancelled my totalfark membership) and he gave me some bullshit about it causing too much stress on the servers...which is a total lie, i hacked up a little perl script that did most of it in like 20 minutes, never finished it though, if you have something that does, i would love it!
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Firefox Stylish extension [mozilla.org] for custom CSS.
One or both of those, combined with the proper JS/CSS (a google search should find SEVERAL pre-made ones for you, just use the extension name + "fark" for the search) will fix most of the biggest annoyances, though it's still not perfect.
The funny thing is that one of the main reasons for doing this was to get space for larger-format ads (which is the real reason for the lack of an "old" option; no-one would use the
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Yours and everyone's, apparently (Score:2)
And I use the low-bandwidth option and a CSS-free browser, which normally has no perceptible lag. But today I just about have to drive stakes to see if it's moving!!
Probably explains why most of today's stories have relatively few comments -- people are getting timed out, or giving up and going away, like I did ear
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You would think that a tech website would be able to write good javascript.
Slashdot isn't K5 just yet (Score:1)
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Even better (Score:4, Funny)
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how is this better than irc? (Score:2, Interesting)
My initial mental image is that this would simply turn Slashdot a threaded IRC chat vehicle. We all know the quality of discussion online: as it gets faster, it gets worse. Instead of "+1 Insightful", we will need "+1 Merely On Topic." Will moderation changes also be instantly reflected, bringing items in and out of view in real time? How long before you do "fwoop" animations and live character-by-character ajax updates? Imagine the new games the trolls can play.
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Passable (Score:1)
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Re:how is this better than irc? (Score:5, Insightful)
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How? It has moderation, karma, threads, no client requirements, no abusive bots, and is presented in a form more conductive to essays than to 1-liner chats. Need I go on?
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You might want to think a little bit more about what you're saying.
I fail to see how there are no client requirements.
Pretty much any computer you go to has a modern web browser. Not many have IRC clients pre-installed.
If it's presented in a form more conducive to essays than to one-liners, why did you reply to my paragraph with a one-line answer?
That's possibly the stupidest question I've heard in quite a while.
What's the point? (Score:4, Funny)
(Including this one)
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(This post brought to you courtesy of the Well-Ordering Principle [wolfram.com].)
Implement this on the main page? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Ok, well, it is when each request takes 30s just to start.
Hi! My name's CmdrTaco. (Score:5, Funny)
FL (Score:2)
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Look, Slashdot is SAD - Special And Different - and buggy code, appeals for assistance with testing and feed
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Wohh hohh hoh!! Everything's speeded up again, back to normal. Did y'all pull the so-called "beta" code by any chance?
Looks like Slashdot got a Downgrade (Score:1)
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Expand by Default (Score:2)
Am I missing something, or should I just stick with the "1.0" version of the comments page since "All Expanded - Nested" is the way I prefer for the comments page to load.
Thanx!
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Re:Expand by Default (Score:4, Informative)
That being said, I'm still using the "Nested a +0" thankyouverymuch.
Re:Expand by Default (Score:4, Informative)
To modify this threshold dynamically for just the story you are reading, just drag the little dividers on that floating widget
To modify the default thresholds used when you load a new story go to Preferences -> Comments:
Threshold - all comments with scores at or below this are hidden by default.
Highlight - all comments with scores at or above this are expanded by default.
Any comments between these two settings are shown as collapsed by default.
I've been using the new comment system for months and I think it is absolutely wonderfull - far better than any other forum system I have ever used.
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Why oh why ...? (Score:1)
Fliches for footwear attack
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Because IE hates web developers (and the feeling is mutual).
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Michigan Testers Rejoice! (Score:3, Interesting)
For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about: A random group of Slashdot users were asked to participate in a study conducted by the University of Michigan on a new comment/discussion interface. This study presumably ended at some point (and possibly the data from it helped create Discussion2). However those users who were subjects in this study had a modified preferences panel, which prevented the Slashdot "Discussion2" mode from being available to us (bug report here [sourceforge.net]). Now they have apparently fixed the issue, though no official message was sent to anyone. So, if anyone else was affected by that bug, you can now test the Discussion2 system along with everyone else.
Thanks to whoever coded the workaround.
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Well, at least for me the "University of Michigan" option is still available. Tested now, while changing for the new system.
I didn't like the University of Michigan design because its javascript was too slow. Now I'll see what I think about this one tomorrow, when I'll use a slow computer, but until now everything seems ok.
By the way, what is that "Quote" button down here? Oh, it quotes the entire parent comment at the begining of mine. I didn't like that, very easy to abuse.
Collapse comments? (Score:1)
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sigh...
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browsers and testing (Score:1)
Oh, the update feature also works in recent khtml browsers (although the bar does not float down the page as you scroll).
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Well I like it... (Score:2)
Can I tell which comments are new since last view? (Score:5, Insightful)
A feature of dailykos that I like is that it keeps track of what's new since I last viewed a discussion, even if I close the discussion and re-open it later.
New comments are highlighted in red.
Also, if I reload the equivalent of the Slashdot front page, a topic I've seen before will say "X new comments".
Steal those f*cking features, Taco!
Re:Can I tell which comments are new since last vi (Score:2)
Re:Can I tell which comments are new since last vi (Score:1)
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Slashdotter extension? (Score:2)
A slashdot article about.. slashdot? (Score:1)
You have to be careful with recursion!
Slashdot Slashdotted (Score:1)
update button on homepage (Score:2)
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Any way to fix search (ctrl-f)? (Score:2)
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The floaty box... (Score:1)
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Couple more features and we're good to go (Score:1)
* Gmail style reply.. it's a pain to open a new window just to reply.. clicking on [reply to this] should lead to a pulldown textarea where you can reply. kidof like how the current [login] link at the top works. this will end a lot of irritating new-tab-opening.
* This is more of a nit pix.. add a [reply to main article] at the bottom too, so you don't have to scroll all the way up to reply.
Changing comment threshold (Score:1)
Discussion 2 is useless if you use custom bg color (Score:2)
I continue to use it largely because I hate the way discussion pages are split up in the old system, but I get essentially no benefit from all the floating control panel nonsense... I just
FYI: Moderation (Score:1)
I just used up the last of my mod points, then went to a tab I opened previously.
When I used the "update", it would just hang.
If I reloaded the page, then waited a couple of minutes, the reload worked in a second or two.
XP Pro + FF 2.0.0.4
Otherwise sweet system for those of us who use a feed reader and who might not actually get to read the comments untill hours later.