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Heapin' Helpin' Of Slashdot Notes 90

Posted by CmdrTaco from the what-robs-been-doin dept.
A truckload of you have emailed to curse me because you aren't getting emails from the system for lost passwords and new accounts. I'm getting emails from some of my accounts, but not from others, so hopefully I can get this working soon. Probably just switch to Net::SMTP. But wait, thats not all. Hit the link for a big batch of assorted updates pertaining to bug fixes, hardware updates, and new features coming up on Slashdot. Its fun for the whole family assuming your whole family is deranged. Update: 03/10 11:34 by CT : I think email is working again. Hopefully everyone can stop emailing me now *grin*. Update: 03/10 11:55 by CT : The Users Page has been updated- click 'Preferences' to get the first round of Slashdot customization. More hopefully in the next day or 2.

Customizable Homepages
Yes thats right, you'll be able to filter on Topic, Author & Section. So if you only want to read Jon Katz articles, or really only like Star Wars stories or something, you'll be able to do that. The real wild card is how much server strain this is going to cause. I'm hoping that this will go live tomorrow (or maybe even later tonight if I can fix some stuff).

Even cooler is a coming-rsn feature- ya know the big grey boxes on the right hand side of the homepage? Those will soon be customizable. If anyone has good suggestions for sites to import, let us know. We've done a few sites already (freshmeat obviously, Everything is coming soon). But this will allow you to ignore features, or polls or book reviews entirely, and hopefully provide headlines to a few other sites if you're interested. There also is a user defined box so you can stick bookmarks or something if you want. I've been testing it all day with a link to the Jennicam and GNOME.org and it all seems to be working. We'll probably have that publicly usable by the end of the week. And I have a box with a picture of Dust Puppy for no apparent reason. Its neat.

Hardware
The new hardware is holding up fine. Its load is easily half that of the old box. We'll see how the new dynamic homepage affects this. I think we'll be ok, but if everyone uses the new features, we're gonna need to start load balancing. A dedicated SQL box, and a few load balancing web servers will probably let us handle significant growth, but for now, I'd rather concentrate on just providing all the features I want with the number of hits we're getting. Once I have to start messing with load balancing and massive scalability, I'll have even less time to add actual usability enhancements to the site.

Email
Ya, it seems to be busted. I'm working on it. Its a major pain because nobody can get forgotten passwords, and new users aren't able to login at all. Its my #1 priority right now. It might just be me now tho, but I think its working. I get email at 1 of my accounts, but not 2 of the others. Hopefully I'll figure it out soon.

Source Release
v0.3 is basically done. Unfortunately Slashdot itself has forked well beyond v0.3. I'm probably gonna release v0.3 anyway. Slashdot is getting so customized for slashdot that its more work to make a clean version of the code for distribution than I care to think about. So much of the code is stuff specifically designed for things we need here, but nobody else would need. The stuff that would be applicable to another site is in the v0.3 tarball (many of you have prereleases already). But I'll probably just bite the bullet and throw it out there in the next couple weeks. My time to work on it has gone from minimal to non-existant.

The FTP server is still down. I'm not really planning on putting it back up. The code is downloadable from this directory if you are dying to get it.

New Moderation Stuff
A lot of people had great ideas about how to improve Slashdot moderation. The new beefy server makes it possible for me to consider implementing some of them. We'll see how much juice the current feature roster sucks up- if we've got cycles to spare, I'll try the new stuff out. It'll be optional for people who like the old system, but I think the new system will be a welcome change. More on that later, but I'm really excited about it. I think that this system will provide the best compromise that will allow anyone to say what they want, and anyone to read what they want. But first I gotta finish that homepage crap.
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Heapin' Helpin' Of Slashdot Notes More

Heapin' Helpin' Of Slashdot Notes

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  • Damn... had a nice comment in reply to a FIRST POST! and it got moderated.

    Anyway, how about killfiles? It'd be great to kline MEEPT, SqlKitten, and JonKatz by name, rather than have to lose the AC's of the world along with 'em. No more baby tossed out with the bath water :-).

    --

  • we all appreciate your hard work man. thanks a million!

  • Idea! (Score:1)

    by Erbo ( 384 )
    Just one thing I'm waiting for...fict@slashdot.org pop3 email addresses.

    Perhaps Rob could give one or two of these away occasionally in contests, the way Debian's now doing with their logo contest?

    And they don't have to be full POP3 mailboxes, either, they could just be forwards...you can bet that, if Rob were to announce such a contest, you'd see a stampede that would make the ordinary Slashdot Effect look like a slow day :-).

    Eric
    --

  • > posted from: dhcp-345.test456.domain.net

    That's be a disaster... every script kiddie in the world would be using it to bother people, imho.... better idea is just to post *.psnw.com in my case, ie just the domain name, or 206.43.250.* if it's not doing reverse dns at the moment. Be even worse if you've got a static ip.. you'd have no end of troubles... there are small benefits to dynamic ip's, thou not many.

  • neet (Score:1)

    by drwiii ( 434 )
    Can't wait to get addicted to the new version.

    linuxonline.org [linuxonline.org]

  • Geez!!!! (Score:1)

    by jhack ( 439 )
    Uh, so anyway, Rob, you're hardened to the core...
  • Posted by Doctor P:

    Forwarded would probably be easier for the server(correct me if I'm wrong). It would be nice if it was only for registered users though so that there wouldn't be a people signing up for a million forwarded addresses just for the heck of it.
  • Posted by "Courageous Coward":

    Just imagine if Slashdot becomes the next Yahoo or Netscape...
  • You don't see a need and I don't see a need, but all those people who flame the posts that they are clearly not interested in (Katz comes to mind) have a need. At least I feel they have a need.
  • Thanks, Rob, for all your hard work. A day w/o /. would be a dull day indeed.

  • I only see Star Wars prequel on the list.. Where's the just "Star Wars"??

    The prequel item doesn't filter out the just SW items, btw. I've tried it.
  • Now I just need to find out why dselect decided to zap /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc (it's making Netscape very interesting).
    In the 2.0 -> 2.1, debian's X packages were completely reorganized. Part of that was giving the fonts packages more human-readable names. What you've probably done is flagged xfonts-misc for install (which conflicts with the old xfnt-misc) removed xfnt-misc, and haven't gotten xfonts-misc downloaded and installed yet. So, grab xfonts-misc and everything should be happy. :)
  • When you were in school you had no free time to work on slashdot and graduation was supposed to fix that. Now you graduated and have as much free time as you had in school. Well we do know this: new stories were getting posted at 8am before graduation and now aren't getting posted until after 12:00. Like I always said, school is a vacation. Enjoy the free time you have in school because after graduation it just goes downhill.
  • 1. Don't make everyone see the customized home page view by default. Store the fact they've got
    a customized home page in a cookie. If a bite of their cookie indicates they don't have a personalized home page, give 'em a static page that has everything (this page would be build every few minutes).

    DON'T do a if..end if for each article on the page. Get all this info from their cookie, grab all of the article data in one select, and layout the page.

    2. Set up some stored procedures to run fairly frequently to reduce the DB hit on selects.

    3. You should be able to use joins to stay to one db call per home page load.
  • Forget it!

    You would get lots of acesses form some webcaches and on't see quite a lot of people (hiding behind them).
  • Not if you use HTML formatting in the newsgroup. Sure, it sucks for people using primitive newsreaders, but there are hacks to view HTML for most newsreaders.
  • Actually, there is a Perl module called Apache::ASP that allows you to embed Perl code inside an HTML page. It uses the code delimiters like ASP, and even implements some of the ASP objects like the Session, Response, Request, and Application objects. It is actually pretty nice. It does not use the ADO database access that Microsoft uses, but you can use Perl's DBI instead. I think it is really worth taking a look at. I like being able to create an HTML page and then embed bits of Perl in it to get things done.
  • what ELSE would you do something like /. in?

    Python, of course.

    ;-) :-)

    Seriously, though, I wouldn't use Python -- I'd use Zope (www.zope.org). MAN that's a sweet program. And Open Source, too. It's based on Python (and tons of C), but then isn't everything?

    It only takes a few minutes to install and fall in love -- try it!

    All partisanship aside, Slashdot's stuck with Perl because that's the code they've got. Makes sense to me!

    A pity about the changes, though; I'll spend even less time visiting those other web pages. And the Zope people will have to delay their official Slashdot clone a little.

    -Billy

  • How is it better than using Perl? I couldn't find a direct answer to that question on the site.

  • It's got easy db access, and it's fairly universal.

    You could still keep the web server version for "plain" /. or for readers that don't have a java capable browser. Add new features to the java client and support them with less server load.

    It would be straightforward to implement a headline scanner applet, a preferences applet, etc. Eliminating the need to send gobs of html codes for formatting commands that are used over and over and over would help preserve bandwidth.
    Ever look at at the html source and see how little of the data that is transferred is actual content?

    What I'd really like to see is a "thread update" watcher. With a java applet it would be easy. Just let it ping the server every minute or so to see if there are any new comments to a thread that I am watching. No need to do endless reloads.

    Add an ad-dumper and I'd really be satisfied, for a while. Uh, by an ad dumper, I mean a device or page that displays all of the ads that are current on /. at once. Sometimes the ads are as interesting as the content.

  • If it becomes a universal portal, it will be useless for me. /. is my portal of preference today because the content and the links are very much in line with what I want to see. I don't need to enter keywords into a search engine and then work my way through the chaff, someone else has already done this for me.

    I come to /. looking for interesting links and there they are all lined up nice and neat.
  • Maybe not who likes what (I value my privacy) but how many people choose to see certain articles. Like how many people ignore Jon Katz (64-bit variables anyone? :P)

    Posted by the Proteus

  • Test.. (Score:1)

    by Adnans ( 2862 )
    Hmm, the Preferences section was not there. But hey I found password!!! Whoopee :)

  • Wow (Score:1)

    by pafein ( 2979 )
    It's getting to be a regular old portal around here, don't you think? ;)
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • If you want to appeal to Solaris users who visit the site, you could make one of the optional sidebars listing news from Solaris Central (www.SolarisCentral.org [solariscentral.org]).

    I operate the site and would be glad to provide the text and links in a flat file if that would make things more convienent for you. mail me [mailto] if you are interested.
  • That sort of application which resides on each users desktop and fills in the textual inforation is called a web browser.... it's already there!

    no flame intent here, i understand what you mean about how an app could have more interesting content, but i think it is cool how i can access /. from anywhere with a browser. common denominator, but it is still very functional.
  • You have my respect forever man!

    /dev

  • No way man. I have ooddles more time now that I have graduated and have a real job. The trick is while at uni there was always some assignment or project to work on. Now when I go home even after a 12hr day the time is all mine. Even when I was putting in nutso hours durring the last end of quater I had more free time. Or atleast it felt more free because of the lack of assignments and stuff.


  • Which is more-or-less Perl, as I understant it.
  • Ahh, see, but that's the neat thing. I like and read articles by sengan and Jon Katz. You don't. I will continue to read them, and you don't have to. If Rob succeeds, you won't even have to see that they're there. And I won't have to see you bitch about them.

    --
  • I'm sure customizable home pages would be neat, but I don't really see where there's a need. Personally I know I just scan the articles on the fornt page and it's pretty quickly apparent whether any interest me. Does this mean that we'll see more articles that never would have made it before? That would be cool, and would actually make the filtering useful.
  • Is for &nbsp; to be inserted for spaces at the beginning of lines. Like I did with this line by hand. And for the <CODE> tag to be allowed. (Just makes text look like code but allows formatting etc.)

    That way we could paste in code and it would look like code, complete with the formatting that you need to make it readable.

    Whaddayathink? Please?

    /me begs

    Ben
  • PHP3 = (perl-1)+(c/2) roughly :-)

    Seriously, though, php3 is a great language, especially for people who already know perl or c. very easy to learn and powerful enough to do all those little things you used to have to write little perl scripts for. www.php3.org [php3.org]-- check it out!
    ----------------------

  • It depends on what you are looking for. Perl has a lot more functionality than PhP. But PhP is GREAT for databases, way easier and trimmer than Perl. Someone actually ported the public slashdot code over to PhP completely, a nice, trim neat little port.
  • I'm just dying to know if something like them is going to be implemented.

    The suspense is killing me!
  • Not only did it get moderated, I plugged in my threshold to -133 and -666 and I didn't see any of them.

    I knew it was there, because I read the comments when this article only had one comment on it. Then I went back to coding for a class of mine. Later, I wanted to read your original post, and sure enough they were gone. Had to search for them. (hint: first)

    I am wondering if this is worse then the negative scores on posts critical of linux.com
    --
    Four years in jail
    No Trial, No Bail
    *** FREE KEVIN *** [kevinmitnick.com]
  • Actually I think this is all Super great! I'd love to see a doc on how to get the slashdot code running on my own server but that can wait.

    One thing though, How about offering an extended slashdot? I'd gladly pay $5.95 a year to access some extra stuff or have a members area.. I figure at $5.95 a year, if you got 1000 people to do it (easy) that would pay for something :-) if you got 10,000 people to do it that would really rock! Think about it... a nice members area with the super secret stuff woud rock.
  • These new features are really cool! Now if there were some way to change the color scheme... :)

    BTW, the option in preferences to choose the default posting type doesn't work and never has. If I choose HTML (it is listed twice for some reason) it shows up as "Plain Old Text" when I am on this Post Comment screen. I don't think it is actually "Plain Old Text" though because I am able to post HTML tags and they work.

  • Also the forward and backwards arrows at the top of articles do not filter (I am still getting Star Wars stuff even with it filtered out) -- the filter only works on the index.pl page. I guess I could just change how I read articles.
  • Everyone is asking for all these special features, etc. Its getting a bit out of hand for a website, imho. Why not do a program that is run locally on somebody's computer to get all these special features so your hardware requirements arent so high. So your computer would just serve the textual info to fill in the blanks on the program. Then the program would have other features like having interfaces to a chatroom and this bulliten board style idea sharing. The possibilities are endless if you would do something.
  • i'm somewhat confused...

    i've become so comfortable with the servlet paradigm, i never want to go back....

    i believe JIT performance improvements will eventually abate the performance arguments...

    i've seen a fairly good number of sizeable projects done with servlets recently...

    it certainly doesn't seem that anyone around slashdot feels likewise...

    am i alone?

    Peter
  • leave MEEPT alone.. he's fun.
  • Inverse killfiles would be interesting: ``I want to read all comments by user X even if they are moderated (or, say, all comments up to -2 moderation).''

    Now I just need to find out why dselect decided to zap /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc (it's making Netscape very interesting).

  • How about coming mirroring your message boards on a NNTP-style news server (and vice versa)? It would be nice to be able to read the comments in a threaded newsreader and not have to mess around with the somewhat clunky message-board interface.
  • Well, just make it so you'd have to go to the /. discussion area itself to find out what the name of the newsgroup was, then you'd click a link (or copy and paste to your newsreader) to go to it. You'd still see the advert when you stopped in to get the link, but you could read and post to the discussion in newsgroup style. Best of both worlds.
  • Hmm, I'm interested in the moderation stuff, but Rob's comments on tht are very vague. Anybody know any more details?
  • I've thought about this too. If there were an application that was just made to display slashdot, it would be much more efficient than Netscape (not quite lynx, but hey). I'm sure, even GPL'd, people could be persuaded to keep the ads (I load the slashdot ads on my homepage just because I like this place so much) The web interface is good, yes, but it's certainly not the most efficient way of doing things.
  • Hmmm, parts of that would offend people. But what if they got yet another server and yet more bandwidth, and had one f the servers be for-pay and the other be not-for-pay. I would pay to get a faster connection to slashdot. And that way nothing is being withheld from the freeloaders (remember how often we all complain when there's a link to a solely for-pay site).
  • Geez, Rob... when will it end? When does the free e-mail come online? Can I get regs@slashdot.org?

    Seriously, though, it all sounds good and I hope you are jacking your ad rates and courting some other big names (who have the big money). You deserve some compensation for this.

  • That is exactly the point. The next trend in portals (and something the internet is very well suited for) is interest-specific portals.

    You can't very well publish a Linux-only daily newspaper, there aren't enough readers to pay subscription fees nor enough advertisers to pay ad fees to make it anything other than a sinkhole for money.

    Since the internet puts the onus of delivery on the customer, not the supplier, publishing information can be done dirt cheap in comparison to meatspace information distribution.

    This paves the way for any Joe with a hobby to start a portal of sorts (Rob had a leg up, as an interest in coding makes it easier to manage a web site like /.).

    People are wowed by the figure of 75,000 that Rob tossed out there the other day, and I will agree, it's quite impressive... but do you realize that Yahoo! gets 160 million page views per day?. While it is somewhat of a chicken and egg issue, with numbers like that you can get advertisers that aren't VA Research and Sendmail, Inc., but more like Platinum Visa. Advertising is always done in terms of eyeballs, and Yahoo! boasts more eyeballs than any old media daily.
  • I did a prototype for a web application as Java servlets and liked it a lot (but in the end the "real" website doesn't use Java). I found it easier to work with Jef Poskanzer [acme.com]'s Acme.Serve [acme.com] than Sun's own servlet SDK (but YMMV).
  • AC's are a hot topic. While there certainly are enough potty mouths and undereducated fools out there, there's still got to be some right to express oneself, especially without fear of retribution (AC's). Of course, I almost find myself not agreeing with my own words.
  • Woohoo! Got my passwd, and the prefeerences
    page looks great!

    Good job.

    kmj

  • Trying a direct post.
  • If you want your sig to show up, and you don't have cookies set-up you must hit the submit button outright. otherwise, hit preview, back, then submit.

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