I like Slashdot a lot. I come here every day. Despite the common flames (and downright freaky displays of human frailty around -1), I think the group consensus here is fantastic. It's often very funny, and I like knowing what all the really smart mf'ers think about certain issues and topics. I feel smarter for reading Slashdot.
Having said that, my lack of subscription is for a very simple reason: it's not professional.
I won't subscribe until I never see a dupe or typo. Really, for all of our vaunted technology, if Slashdot cannot surmount these two very simple obstacles, it doesn't deserve any real monetary support. It just doesn't. And again, I say this as a real fan.
Fix that, Taco, and you've got my money. And maybe even a little more credibility.
If you want "Professional", read CNN. Slashdot is the trenches. Its down and
dirty. It has typos and dupe stories and flamewars. We do our best to avoid
mistakes, but we're mistake prone humans, trying to get news out in real time.
So, sometimes things will go wrong.
If I had any mod points, I'd be tempted to mod you as a troll.
I don't think most of slashdot sees typos and dupes as part of the fun, judging by the comments about it whenever it crops up. Sure, it serves as a basis for discussion, but then so would posting an extra funny article a day.
IMHO, the linkup and article from Slashdot should be pretty much error-free; the trench part of slashdot always happens in the comments anyway. And it's lovely to be able to read unique stories without trawling through hundreds of comments on incorrect spellings.
Sure, sometimes things will go wrong, but with a 10-20 minute lead time on most articles after they've been posted, it shouldn't happen quite so often. And I don't think it's anything to be defended.
My point is that some people take Slashdot far to seriously. We're not CNN. We're just some guys trying to post a fun mix of the serious, the important, and the entertaining. Lighten up!
My point is that some people take Slashdot far to seriously. We're not CNN. We're just some guys trying to post a fun mix of the serious, the important, and the entertaining. Lighten up!
(pssssst! Taco! You're asking people to pony up more money! Ixnay on the efensivenessday!)
Am I being defensive? Heh. Maybe. It's just that I've been running Slashdot for five and a half years now, and trying to keep it as an Informal news source. It was built on that very premise, and I think that this is core to its appeal. But there's always a group of people who think that this is a flaw. I just don't get it! I'm not trying to be defensive, I just feel like people who make these arguments want to fundamentally change the very nature of what Slashdot is!
Some people aspire to greatness, some have it thrust upon them, and some wander into it. I think you and your guys have had a mix of the three. A belated congratulations, by the way...
But, as Stan Lee has taught us, with great power comes great responsibility, which is to say:
D00d, take the $40 I just sent you and invest in a good spell-checker. (Open Source or Closed, your choice!)
Yes, that's a big part of the appeal. But, spell_check != formal_news. You need to do so much more to be a formal news site. You're so far away from being a formal news site that the tiny incremenatal change of spell checking really is a tiny drop in the ocean of change needed to become "formal". But it would make reading slashdot less irritating (and there's spell checking software that make this easy, unlike avoiding dups...)
I just feel like people who make these arguments want to fundamentally change the very nature of what Slashdot is!
You're saying that integrating a spell checking into the story posting process would fundamentally change the very nature of slashdot.
Now if you were to investigate all stories, use a formal writing style, write your own copy instead of primarily using the submission text, and dozens of other things... then you'd be talking about changing the nature of slashdot. Integrating a spell checking into the story posting, and even into comment posting and posting to the story submission just isn't going to change the fundamental nature of slashdot.
I just feel like people who make these arguments want to fundamentally change the very nature of what Slashdot is!
So... Duplicate stories and typos/grammar issues are "fundamental" and part of the "very nature" of slashdot?
Ah. Regarding grammar and typos, I thought you guys simply didn't care enough to read through a story three times before submitting it. I can see having one or two dupes a month, but several a month is just sloppy...
What do you guys do all day? I thought Slashdot had one or two editors that all they did all day long was story submissions. Either this is not true, or these guys aren't watching what other part-time editors are submitting, because they should have a pretty good idea of what has been posted before, especially in the recent past.
I can suggest two technical improvements which will fix spelling and dupes:
First, put in a simple spell checker for story submissions. Make it so that submit has to be hit twice if there are words that don't pass muster, wrong words can be highlighted in color in a preview above the submission editor. There are a few grammar checkers to make sure [its|it's] and things like [lose|loose] and [their|they're|there] are correctly used. This'll take care of 95% of spelling and grammar issues. Better yet, employ several proven grammar and spelling editors who get free subscriptions by spell and grammar checking stories before they show up on the front page. Give them some sort of direct line so improvements can be made in the 20 minute time span before publication.
The duplicate story is only a little harder:
No less than 3 editors have to sign off on any newly accepted story before it's displayed. If it's a dupe, chances are good that one of the three editors (the one that accepted and originally edited it and two others to add their stamp of approval to it) will have seen it before. There is no pattern matching engine in perl to match the memory of the human mind.
I understand your desire to keep the 'flavor' of slashdot the same, and to go fast and furious - jumping in where others might apply more caution. I applaud that about slashdot.
In short, you can argue all you want that the old truck on blocks and broken appliances all on the front lawn of slashdot are intended features. You'll just be very, very wrong. You aren't an artist, and you can't claim that a piece of art with feces smeared over it is still art.
-Adam
Grammar/style/spelling engines (in perl) can be found here diction [fsf.org] and over here- a list of them [rocketaware.com]. Most are relatively immature, but better than nothing - and adoption here could advertise the need for development in this area. You guys do want to push open source development, right? Don't enable it for comments or user submissions- too much load on the server. Just for the editor's submissions.
If there are too many story submissions to keep up with (ie, you do have two guys busy all the time rejecting stories) then you need to prune the stories before they get in the bin. Do auto-dupe checking on stories within the bin - when one is viewed by an editor, show the others so they can pick the best one, or just throw out dupes. I'm sure you do this to a degree already. Employ a simple spell checker and stop accepting submissions with more than 5 mispellings, never mind grammar. Make submitters work a little harder and the input will improve (garbage in, garbage out).
There is only 1 person guaranteed to be online from 8am until midnight on Slashdot. The so called "Daddy Pants" for that shift. So a 3-way signoff isn't possible. Usually there is 2-3 people available, but we can't require more than 1. You still want content, right?
As for the rest, well we can always just disagree;)
If it's not serious, how can you charge money for it? Anyone could do the "editors" job at slashdot in about 5 minutes from home. No need to bother reading old stories, just look at what ends up in your email box and post 3-4 random items. Your charging for this??? Right.
We're just some guys trying to post a fun mix of the serious, the important, and the entertaining. Lighten up!
Sorry for a second seperate post to ya', but when you play monopoly, you hope the banker doesn't start screwing up with the money counting. Otherwise, it's no longer fun.
Granted, slashdot and your crew do an excellent job of actually providing a service, but what happens when the banker screws up too much? People just quit the game and play elsewhere.
'careful Mr. Taco. 600k accounts is a big population to keep happy. It's a tough job. You know that. But all it takes is 1 user to lead your subscribers away to some other game.
I think that they're hoping with this new system is that the people who get to read things 20 minutes in advance will catch errors or dupes and let somebody know so it can be corrected.
And I agree, I hate reading through a bunch of comments saying "DUPE!" and "Damn you Taco that's a dupe" and all that, just to see if there's some other interesting comments maybe I missed in the previous posting.
So, if you're going to pay for it, then you jolly well should see content that isn't duplicated. I am continually surprised by this. It takes me very little time to see 90% of dupes, and the spelling part is important too.
If you're running a business that has paying subscribers, they should NOT see double content. Getting your editorial teams organised would be a step forward for SlashDot. It's a huge site, has a large userbase, but reeks of unprofessional practices. Get organised, and people will pay for the content. But if any people think they could do better, they are not going to part with cash. A clean editorial organisation is no too much to ask for $20 a year, heck you can subscribe to a magazine with free DVD on it for 6 months for that price, dude.
Fortunately, I can disagree with you about the definition of "Professional". Do you believe South Park should have higher animation quality? Slashdot was designed to be an informal place. Should I change that just because there is a subscription system? I think not. Slashdot is what it is, and I think that the informal tone is part of its appeal. Part of that means you actively see mistakes happen. You may not like it, but I think that its just part of Slashdot. I work very hard to keep Slashdot consistent with my original purpose for the site.
As for a magazien or DVD, I'd love to see it happen. I just don't have the time and expertise and budget for it. If everyone clicks on banners and subscribes, then I bet such a thing would be quite possible.
South Park's animation is cheesy deliberately, but I bet the putting together of the show is pretty "professional". Professional for me is about procedures, quality control, and get-what-you-pay-for. You can pay for unprofessional work, but you won't pay twice.
Now informal, you usually don't pay for. Seeing mistakes happen from time to time is perfectly human. However, SlashDot doesn't seem to have mastered the learning from the mistakes part. I do support SlashDot, and any initiatives that you have to make it a revenue stream, but I think there are two main ways you can do that, initially:
Selling white-labelled content (this means it has to be top quality, no dupes, etc) to other content providers (rather than allowing a free feed) -> I think this might be workable around some of the tech sites that are out there
Being as good as you can with tech news, tying in advertising based on story submissions (selling your soul a little bit), upping the content ante a little bit as far as your editors are concerned, and looking for something like a magazine tie-in which could easily use content from the site, and other classic advertising revenue, as a sort of Slahdot-on-Paper. If you could get funding to run a test printing of a SlashDot magazine, that might be very interesting
Now the original purpose for the site that you mention, is indeed noble. However, times have changed, and it is hard to make a living in this cutthroat Internet place now. But I know of a number of companies who are trying to get content "right", and the first idea (whitelabelled, perhaps specially edited content) might just work, sold the right way. Imagine - you have companies who could use a properly summarised review of the "public opinion" on a number of technologies. These people may never read Slashdot - and yet it is such a good indicator of tech trends, especially since you guys can sort the wheat from the chaff pretty well.
Oh, and in the corporate world, as far as I am concerned, the language has to be perfect.
In all things there are tradeoffs. The professionalism, the polish that you are referring to, comes at the expense of time. A magazine with a DVD typically has a several month lead time. If that is what you want, then I'll contract with CmdrTaco to take all of the posted stories, fix the grammar, remove dupes, and republish the site to people like you (several months late of course).
As for so called professional sites (CNN et al), they do make mistakes. They rarely admit it, and when they do they put it in a tiny box months later. As an example, some of your so called professional sites still have raving reviews up of Belliesles anti-gun book Arming America, which has been firmly debunked as a work of fraud. Still think they are professional? If so, what then is your definition, the appearance of professionalism?
Although I do concede, a perl script with a spell checker that rejects story posts would be a good thing.
As an example, some of your so called professional sites still have raving reviews up of Belliesles anti-gun book Arming America, which has been firmly debunked as a work of fraud. Still think they are professional?
Yes. When they posted the reviews the book had not been criticized in this manner. When Belliesles resigned from Emory many of these news outlets reported it. That doesn't mean they should go back and alter history by changing their review. When a panel of experts criticized the book as "unprofessional and misleading" it was reported, not covered up. That's as I would expect.
You're right, when they posted the reviews these criticisms did not exist. In fact no criticisms existed because many of the "professional" sites did not even have the book. Yes, they posted glowing reviews before the books was even available to reviewers. That is completely disgusting.
Alter history? That's quite a strange way to look at it. You would rather they retain items unchanged rather than put a notice at the top of the page altering their readers of the flaws?
Look at volokh [blogspot.com], many of the so called impartial and professional sites did NOT publish anything about the criticisms, and to date are still undecided about what to do.
The blog you linked indicates it was well covered by other mainstream papers (mentioned are NYT, BG and WSJ, the first two widely considered "liberal"). I'm not surprised the LATimes missed the boat. LATimes may publish a lot of good writing but it's widely known that actual journalism is not their strong point.
What I mean by altering history is that I don't think they should go back and change a review they published before. If they published a review they must have had someone actually review the book. If they just published a press release from the publisher as a "review," you're right, that's despicable. And yeah I would like to see them publish new information that the book has been discredited, but no I don't expect them to change a review that is old. If they want to they can put a link to the new review on the old page but I don't think it's unethical for them not to, especially if the old page has a publication date on it.
I'm not sure about the "several months" thing. I wasn't even thinking of a polished magazine, but rather a printed version of a edited content from Slashdot.
Of course professional sites make mistakes. I made allusions to that in my previous post. However, I think that some mistakes (like dupes) come from the fact that editors who take over on a story don't read what is already up on the site, and that somewhere maybe the workflow could be improved. If you have half hour lead times on new submissions, then why do two dupes appear on the home page, for example, a couple of stories apart? Don't you even check for that?
Now, some dupes are inevitable if the staff aren't doing their homework and haven't read the latest stories... but surely they could at least scan the last two days before finally approving a story for posting. Readers get it straight away, why not the editors?
Professionalism, for me, is correct English, rapid corrections of mistakes, and a minimum of proof reading and workflow adherence. I'm not suggesting radical changes.
The DVD thing, by the way, is a film magazine with a free DVD each month which is an old film (over 5 years from release) and a review of upcoming releases.
The printed Slashdot, incidentally, could be an annual review or similar, watching a technology take hold and including reader reaction from first suggestions to actual product launch and takeoff (or bombing) of the product.
As far as Arming America is concerned, I don't know the story well enough, but I imagine that if the book was reasonably convincing enough, and taken as genuine, then it is not a lack of professionalism to write a positive review. Rather, it was a "panel of experts" that debunked it.
Leaving old content up which refers to this work can only be due to a poor content management interface I guess.
If the DVD is an old crappy movie with ads for new movies, why even mention it? The very reason the dupes appear so close together is also the reason why they are missed, time is short, things can easily happen simultaneously. The only fix I could see is for there to be one person whose sole job is to give final approval to stories.
I have thought about doing my own summaries of stories that I like and am qualified to judge. I'm sure that many more useful comments could be elicited from the knowledgeable readers if they didn't have to read through hundred's of useless comments. That is, to me, one of the biggest shortcommings of/., the inability to continue discussions past a few days.
And your (good) idea of an annual review would necessarily need to be much more encompassing then just/.. That's one of the problems of tech, it's too arcane for the vast majority, much of the subtleties are lost quite quickly. There definitely needs to be more tech historians so that we would have something to show the next group that wants to design yet another programming language.
As for the book, see my other comment [slashdot.org].
Not necessarily an "Old crappy movie" (They have Warchowski brothers' "Bound" this month) and there are no ads in the movie itself. The movies are generally selected for their quality, but are older because they then cost less to license. DVD is a format that opens up all sorts of possibilities in this type of promotion, because they're very cheap to mass produce.
As for the dupes, well at least at final approval time there could be a list of the last 10 stories approved (maybe more, in a scrolling list) so that it *should* be reasonably obvious. Getting a good workflow system is not easy, but it is a goal to aspire to.
I like the idea of summaries of good stories. That fits in well with the annual review concept. I don't think it would have to be more encompassing than Slashdot - after all, the topics here aren't just computer related (we have science, astronomy, new products, tech wherever it is in the home, car, and just plain geek toys, software releases for business and for the home, etc). It stands up on its own, otherwise why would it be so popular already?
Yeah, it's great that you guys are in the trenches. Fine, it's nice to see things before hand. But by being human, shouldn't you be constantly be evolving and learning? A simple spell/grammar check in word will take a minute of your time. A system to check prior urls and actually taking 10 minutes to make sure urls weren't submmited before would save you constant pain of dupes.
Only reason slashdot and kuro5hin are so popular, are they did it first. Same goes for verisign and domain names. Think anybody wants to use their system which is err prone? Same for register.com. First registrar to do most of the tld's out there. Godaddy and other registrars are slowly eating away their competition.
Who is eating away your competition? Are they trying to be better human by making less mistakes? The features you are adding are neat and all. But shouldn't you guys try to bring up quality on all fronts?
Couldn't you have some code to simply search all the stories for the same, or highly similar, links as the story you are about to publish? Then before the finally publishing is done you will see a list of stories (most recent to least recent) which have high link similarity?
CmdrTaco, I know you can code something like this up in 20 minutes!
We have exactly this in the code, and I assure you that much more than 20 minutes went into it. You're welcome to improve the code and submit patches... perhaps then you will understand exactly how complex of a problem you are truly describing;)
Where in slashcode should I look for this code? I did some (well, a little, anyway) digging around because I was curious, but I couldn't find it. I'd love to play around with it. Grepping for "duplicate" didn't net me much.
Dupes seem to be a waste of time, especially the closer together they are. Even if it is the fist time I am seeing the post, it's not really worth commenting in either story. First one is "old", the second one is a comedy stage show. (Maybe that's the fun you are talking about, but then you wouldn't be offering this service as a way to reduce dupes.)
As for spelling errors, everyone makes them. You can either choose apathy or integrity. I understand you do your best, but slashdot should strive for integrity. Like the parent implies, this professional publication needs integrity. You get paid to do this thus you are a professional.
There are plenty of other things that make slashdot fun without dupes and typos.
If the standard for professional is "never see a dupe or typo", then you have to rule out CNN, New York Times, Washington Post, BBC, et al. All professional news sources have had typos, duplicate news entries (eg. watch CNN during a crisis), outright factual errors. News is a messy business.
Personally, I just subscribed. Getting rid of ads was nice, but didn't inspire me to get my plastic out, but this, I'm a news junkie. Thanks!:-)
I'm sorry Taco, but your statements to this effect have always mystified me. This an absolutely juvenile stance to take, it?s counterproductive, and it?s mildly insulting to your audience.
It doesn?t take but a few seconds to run a simple spell check, or to look over a post for things like run-ons and whatnot. We at Ars occasionally post dupes, and we occasionally have typos, but it?s relatively rare. Why is it rare? Because we care enough about what we do and about what our readers think of us to go the extra mile. (Actually, it?s more like an extra 10 yards or so.)
And before you protest that Ars doesn?t post as many stories as/., I?ll say that there have been times when our news volume was as high as it is here. And even then we were able to control dupes and typos quite effectively.
If you?re asking people to pay for a service, and they respond with a perfectly reasonable request for a little professionalism and respect on your part, then it?s in your best interest to try and make them happy. Being professional is not synonymous with selling out, and being unprofessional is not synonymous with being ?hardcore? and ?in the trenches.? This is a puerile fantasy more appropriate to adolescent suburban males who grudgingly work in the service sector stocking groceries or flipping burgers; it?s not at all appropriate for someone who runs a business.
When people see that you care about your work and that you think enough of them to give them your very best, then not only do they not mind supporting you, but they?re glad to do so.
Thanks for your response, indirectly through CmdrTaco's response to my original post. Imagine my surprise to see you posting here, and modded at 1 no less. You posted 2 hours ago. That makes me wonder.
Anyways,
I'm responding mainly because you are the only one who seems to have read my original intention correctly; I really was just sort of wondering aloud if they'd install a shell-checker for paying subscribers, and possibly keep the dupes down. My attempt to forestall an impression of hostility towards Slashdot didn't really work out - evidenced by Taco's response of 'this ain't CNN' to which I was originally horrified.
Not at the denial of the request, but that Taco possibly thought I liked to read CNN, which I abhor.
I like Slashdot the way it is. Which is to say, its free, and usually has some interesting content on any given day (I would say the same of Ars Technica). I also feel that I add value to Slashdot, in the manner of participating and regularly moderating. I try to do what they're asking, and I enjoy the discussion. Paying is a whole other thing.
Sorry for the length of this, it's just a thread that has mystified me. My suggestion at this point would be that a Slashdot membership possibly come with a free licenced copy of a leading web browser with inline form spellchecking, such as OmniWeb, until such time that Slashdot sees its way to providing that feature. Or - no, much better - possibly do an Apple-like scheme, where paying readers get the spellchecked versions, and the ability to view them full-screen. That's it.
You can't have everything... where would you put it?
-- Steven Wright
Reasons for not subscribing. (Score:5, Insightful)
Having said that, my lack of subscription is for a very simple reason: it's not professional.
I won't subscribe until I never see a dupe or typo. Really, for all of our vaunted technology, if Slashdot cannot surmount these two very simple obstacles, it doesn't deserve any real monetary support. It just doesn't. And again, I say this as a real fan.
Fix that, Taco, and you've got my money. And maybe even a little more credibility.
Re:Reasons for not subscribing. (Score:5, Informative)
Personally, I think that this is half the fun ;)
Re:Reasons for not subscribing. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Reasons for not subscribing. (Score:2)
I don't think most of slashdot sees typos and dupes as part of the fun, judging by the comments about it whenever it crops up. Sure, it serves as a basis for discussion, but then so would posting an extra funny article a day.
IMHO, the linkup and article from Slashdot should be pretty much error-free; the trench part of slashdot always happens in the comments anyway. And it's lovely to be able to read unique stories without trawling through hundreds of comments on incorrect spellings.
Sure, sometimes things will go wrong, but with a 10-20 minute lead time on most articles after they've been posted, it shouldn't happen quite so often. And I don't think it's anything to be defended.
Re:Reasons for not subscribing. (Score:2, Troll)
Re:Reasons for not subscribing. (Score:3, Interesting)
(pssssst! Taco! You're asking people to pony up more money! Ixnay on the efensivenessday!)
Re:Reasons for not subscribing. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Reasons for not subscribing. (Score:2)
But, as Stan Lee has taught us, with great power comes great responsibility, which is to say:
D00d, take the $40 I just sent you and invest in a good spell-checker. (Open Source or Closed, your choice!)
Re:Reasons for not subscribing. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, that's a big part of the appeal. But, spell_check != formal_news. You need to do so much more to be a formal news site. You're so far away from being a formal news site that the tiny incremenatal change of spell checking really is a tiny drop in the ocean of change needed to become "formal". But it would make reading slashdot less irritating (and there's spell checking software that make this easy, unlike avoiding dups...)
I just feel like people who make these arguments want to fundamentally change the very nature of what Slashdot is!
You're saying that integrating a spell checking into the story posting process would fundamentally change the very nature of slashdot.
Now if you were to investigate all stories, use a formal writing style, write your own copy instead of primarily using the submission text, and dozens of other things... then you'd be talking about changing the nature of slashdot. Integrating a spell checking into the story posting, and even into comment posting and posting to the story submission just isn't going to change the fundamental nature of slashdot.
Re:Reasons for not subscribing. (Score:2)
So... Duplicate stories and typos/grammar issues are "fundamental" and part of the "very nature" of slashdot?
Ah. Regarding grammar and typos, I thought you guys simply didn't care enough to read through a story three times before submitting it. I can see having one or two dupes a month, but several a month is just sloppy...
What do you guys do all day? I thought Slashdot had one or two editors that all they did all day long was story submissions. Either this is not true, or these guys aren't watching what other part-time editors are submitting, because they should have a pretty good idea of what has been posted before, especially in the recent past.
I can suggest two technical improvements which will fix spelling and dupes:
First, put in a simple spell checker for story submissions. Make it so that submit has to be hit twice if there are words that don't pass muster, wrong words can be highlighted in color in a preview above the submission editor. There are a few grammar checkers to make sure [its|it's] and things like [lose|loose] and [their|they're|there] are correctly used. This'll take care of 95% of spelling and grammar issues. Better yet, employ several proven grammar and spelling editors who get free subscriptions by spell and grammar checking stories before they show up on the front page. Give them some sort of direct line so improvements can be made in the 20 minute time span before publication.
The duplicate story is only a little harder:
No less than 3 editors have to sign off on any newly accepted story before it's displayed. If it's a dupe, chances are good that one of the three editors (the one that accepted and originally edited it and two others to add their stamp of approval to it) will have seen it before. There is no pattern matching engine in perl to match the memory of the human mind.
I understand your desire to keep the 'flavor' of slashdot the same, and to go fast and furious - jumping in where others might apply more caution. I applaud that about slashdot.
In short, you can argue all you want that the old truck on blocks and broken appliances all on the front lawn of slashdot are intended features. You'll just be very, very wrong. You aren't an artist, and you can't claim that a piece of art with feces smeared over it is still art.
-Adam
Grammar/style/spelling engines (in perl) can be found here diction [fsf.org] and over here- a list of them [rocketaware.com]. Most are relatively immature, but better than nothing - and adoption here could advertise the need for development in this area. You guys do want to push open source development, right? Don't enable it for comments or user submissions- too much load on the server. Just for the editor's submissions.
If there are too many story submissions to keep up with (ie, you do have two guys busy all the time rejecting stories) then you need to prune the stories before they get in the bin. Do auto-dupe checking on stories within the bin - when one is viewed by an editor, show the others so they can pick the best one, or just throw out dupes. I'm sure you do this to a degree already. Employ a simple spell checker and stop accepting submissions with more than 5 mispellings, never mind grammar. Make submitters work a little harder and the input will improve (garbage in, garbage out).
Re:Reasons for not subscribing. (Score:1, Troll)
As for the rest, well we can always just disagree ;)
Re:Reasons for not subscribing. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Reasons for not subscribing. (Score:2)
Sorry for a second seperate post to ya', but when you play monopoly, you hope the banker doesn't start screwing up with the money counting. Otherwise, it's no longer fun.
Granted, slashdot and your crew do an excellent job of actually providing a service, but what happens when the banker screws up too much? People just quit the game and play elsewhere.
'careful Mr. Taco. 600k accounts is a big population to keep happy. It's a tough job. You know that. But all it takes is 1 user to lead your subscribers away to some other game.
Yeah, i'm full of.. analogies today.
Re:Reasons for not subscribing. (Score:2)
BTW, its too seriously
Rob, I've been reading slashdot since it was "Chips and Dips", I love it! Do you have any insight into this thread? [slashdot.org].
Re:Reasons for not subscribing. (Score:1, Troll)
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And I agree, I hate reading through a bunch of comments saying "DUPE!" and "Damn you Taco that's a dupe" and all that, just to see if there's some other interesting comments maybe I missed in the previous posting.
Re:Reasons for not subscribing. (Score:2)
So, if you're going to pay for it, then you jolly well should see content that isn't duplicated. I am continually surprised by this. It takes me very little time to see 90% of dupes, and the spelling part is important too.
If you're running a business that has paying subscribers, they should NOT see double content. Getting your editorial teams organised would be a step forward for SlashDot. It's a huge site, has a large userbase, but reeks of unprofessional practices. Get organised, and people will pay for the content. But if any people think they could do better, they are not going to part with cash. A clean editorial organisation is no too much to ask for $20 a year, heck you can subscribe to a magazine with free DVD on it for 6 months for that price, dude.
Re:Reasons for not subscribing. (Score:4, Interesting)
As for a magazien or DVD, I'd love to see it happen. I just don't have the time and expertise and budget for it. If everyone clicks on banners and subscribes, then I bet such a thing would be quite possible.
Re:Reasons for not subscribing. (Score:1)
South Park's animation is cheesy deliberately, but I bet the putting together of the show is pretty "professional". Professional for me is about procedures, quality control, and get-what-you-pay-for. You can pay for unprofessional work, but you won't pay twice.
Now informal, you usually don't pay for. Seeing mistakes happen from time to time is perfectly human. However, SlashDot doesn't seem to have mastered the learning from the mistakes part. I do support SlashDot, and any initiatives that you have to make it a revenue stream, but I think there are two main ways you can do that, initially:
Now the original purpose for the site that you mention, is indeed noble. However, times have changed, and it is hard to make a living in this cutthroat Internet place now. But I know of a number of companies who are trying to get content "right", and the first idea (whitelabelled, perhaps specially edited content) might just work, sold the right way. Imagine - you have companies who could use a properly summarised review of the "public opinion" on a number of technologies. These people may never read Slashdot - and yet it is such a good indicator of tech trends, especially since you guys can sort the wheat from the chaff pretty well.
Oh, and in the corporate world, as far as I am concerned, the language has to be perfect.
Re:Reasons for not subscribing. (Score:2)
Re:Reasons for not subscribing. (Score:1)
As for so called professional sites (CNN et al), they do make mistakes. They rarely admit it, and when they do they put it in a tiny box months later. As an example, some of your so called professional sites still have raving reviews up of Belliesles anti-gun book Arming America, which has been firmly debunked as a work of fraud. Still think they are professional? If so, what then is your definition, the appearance of professionalism?
Although I do concede, a perl script with a spell checker that rejects story posts would be a good thing.
dumb example (Score:2)
Yes. When they posted the reviews the book had not been criticized in this manner. When Belliesles resigned from Emory many of these news outlets reported it. That doesn't mean they should go back and alter history by changing their review. When a panel of experts criticized the book as "unprofessional and misleading" it was reported, not covered up. That's as I would expect.
Re:dumb example (Score:1)
Alter history? That's quite a strange way to look at it. You would rather they retain items unchanged rather than put a notice at the top of the page altering their readers of the flaws?
Look at volokh [blogspot.com], many of the so called impartial and professional sites did NOT publish anything about the criticisms, and to date are still undecided about what to do.
Re:dumb example (Score:2)
What I mean by altering history is that I don't think they should go back and change a review they published before. If they published a review they must have had someone actually review the book. If they just published a press release from the publisher as a "review," you're right, that's despicable. And yeah I would like to see them publish new information that the book has been discredited, but no I don't expect them to change a review that is old. If they want to they can put a link to the new review on the old page but I don't think it's unethical for them not to, especially if the old page has a publication date on it.
Re:Reasons for not subscribing. (Score:1)
Of course professional sites make mistakes. I made allusions to that in my previous post. However, I think that some mistakes (like dupes) come from the fact that editors who take over on a story don't read what is already up on the site, and that somewhere maybe the workflow could be improved. If you have half hour lead times on new submissions, then why do two dupes appear on the home page, for example, a couple of stories apart? Don't you even check for that?
Now, some dupes are inevitable if the staff aren't doing their homework and haven't read the latest stories... but surely they could at least scan the last two days before finally approving a story for posting. Readers get it straight away, why not the editors?
Professionalism, for me, is correct English, rapid corrections of mistakes, and a minimum of proof reading and workflow adherence. I'm not suggesting radical changes.
The DVD thing, by the way, is a film magazine with a free DVD each month which is an old film (over 5 years from release) and a review of upcoming releases.
The printed Slashdot, incidentally, could be an annual review or similar, watching a technology take hold and including reader reaction from first suggestions to actual product launch and takeoff (or bombing) of the product.
As far as Arming America is concerned, I don't know the story well enough, but I imagine that if the book was reasonably convincing enough, and taken as genuine, then it is not a lack of professionalism to write a positive review. Rather, it was a "panel of experts" that debunked it. Leaving old content up which refers to this work can only be due to a poor content management interface I guess.
Re:Reasons for not subscribing. (Score:1)
I have thought about doing my own summaries of stories that I like and am qualified to judge. I'm sure that many more useful comments could be elicited from the knowledgeable readers if they didn't have to read through hundred's of useless comments. That is, to me, one of the biggest shortcommings of /., the inability to continue discussions past a few days.
And your (good) idea of an annual review would necessarily need to be much more encompassing then just /.. That's one of the problems of tech, it's too arcane for the vast majority, much of the subtleties are lost quite quickly. There definitely needs to be more tech historians so that we would have something to show the next group that wants to design yet another programming language.
As for the book, see my other comment [slashdot.org].
Re:Reasons for not subscribing. (Score:1)
As for the dupes, well at least at final approval time there could be a list of the last 10 stories approved (maybe more, in a scrolling list) so that it *should* be reasonably obvious. Getting a good workflow system is not easy, but it is a goal to aspire to.
I like the idea of summaries of good stories. That fits in well with the annual review concept. I don't think it would have to be more encompassing than Slashdot - after all, the topics here aren't just computer related (we have science, astronomy, new products, tech wherever it is in the home, car, and just plain geek toys, software releases for business and for the home, etc). It stands up on its own, otherwise why would it be so popular already?
Re:Reasons for not subscribing. (Score:2, Funny)
Never a truer word was written...
Re:Reasons for not subscribing. (Score:2)
Only reason slashdot and kuro5hin are so popular, are they did it first. Same goes for verisign and domain names. Think anybody wants to use their system which is err prone? Same for register.com. First registrar to do most of the tld's out there. Godaddy and other registrars are slowly eating away their competition.
Who is eating away your competition? Are they trying to be better human by making less mistakes? The features you are adding are neat and all. But shouldn't you guys try to bring up quality on all fronts?
Re:Reasons for not subscribing. (Score:1)
CmdrTaco, I know you can code something like this up in 20 minutes!
Re:Reasons for not subscribing. (Score:2)
OK, I'll bite (Re:Reasons for not subscribing.) (Score:2)
Re:Reasons for not subscribing. (Score:1)
As for spelling errors, everyone makes them. You can either choose apathy or integrity. I understand you do your best, but slashdot should strive for integrity. Like the parent implies, this professional publication needs integrity. You get paid to do this thus you are a professional.
There are plenty of other things that make slashdot fun without dupes and typos.
Re:Reasons for not subscribing. (Score:1)
You must be in desperate need of subscription money if the only colo you can afford is in a muddy hole in Passchendaele...
-Stephen
Re:Reasons for not subscribing. (Score:2)
Personally, I just subscribed. Getting rid of ads was nice, but didn't inspire me to get my plastic out, but this, I'm a news junkie. Thanks!
Re:Reasons for not subscribing. (Score:1)
It doesn?t take but a few seconds to run a simple spell check, or to look over a post for things like run-ons and whatnot. We at Ars occasionally post dupes, and we occasionally have typos, but it?s relatively rare. Why is it rare? Because we care enough about what we do and about what our readers think of us to go the extra mile. (Actually, it?s more like an extra 10 yards or so.)
And before you protest that Ars doesn?t post as many stories as
If you?re asking people to pay for a service, and they respond with a perfectly reasonable request for a little professionalism and respect on your part, then it?s in your best interest to try and make them happy. Being professional is not synonymous with selling out, and being unprofessional is not synonymous with being ?hardcore? and ?in the trenches.? This is a puerile fantasy more appropriate to adolescent suburban males who grudgingly work in the service sector stocking groceries or flipping burgers; it?s not at all appropriate for someone who runs a business.
When people see that you care about your work and that you think enough of them to give them your very best, then not only do they not mind supporting you, but they?re glad to do so.
Re:Reasons for not subscribing. (Score:2)
Thanks for your response, indirectly through CmdrTaco's response to my original post. Imagine my surprise to see you posting here, and modded at 1 no less. You posted 2 hours ago. That makes me wonder.
Anyways,
I'm responding mainly because you are the only one who seems to have read my original intention correctly; I really was just sort of wondering aloud if they'd install a shell-checker for paying subscribers, and possibly keep the dupes down. My attempt to forestall an impression of hostility towards Slashdot didn't really work out - evidenced by Taco's response of 'this ain't CNN' to which I was originally horrified. Not at the denial of the request, but that Taco possibly thought I liked to read CNN, which I abhor.
I like Slashdot the way it is. Which is to say, its free, and usually has some interesting content on any given day (I would say the same of Ars Technica). I also feel that I add value to Slashdot, in the manner of participating and regularly moderating. I try to do what they're asking, and I enjoy the discussion. Paying is a whole other thing.
Sorry for the length of this, it's just a thread that has mystified me. My suggestion at this point would be that a Slashdot membership possibly come with a free licenced copy of a leading web browser with inline form spellchecking, such as OmniWeb, until such time that Slashdot sees its way to providing that feature. Or - no, much better - possibly do an Apple-like scheme, where paying readers get the spellchecked versions, and the ability to view them full-screen. That's it.