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.
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?
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: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?