Fibe-Piper's Journal: 2 Cents re: Slashdot Re-Design

I have read through the supposed 250 (or 2070 depending how you look at it) some odd posts that are visible on the "Slashdot Launches Re-Design" thread. and can tell that that the posters are not happy.

My initial experience with the re-design was similar. Though I just though it was broken, or that it was messed up because I was using Chrome. So I tried it with Firefox. That's when I noticed the Re-Launch message.

There is much to be said about a clean interface. Everything these days has to be "Apple Like". But what about the usability? It seems to me that the re-design was all about aesthetics and had nothing to do with actual improvement for the users of Slashdot.

The comments are way more difficult to follow - especially if you have posted one yourself. Good luck finding it unless you are immediately mod'd to a 2 or higher.

Yes I can lower the thresholds for comment scores, and do that anyway when I have mod points, but the typical/casual viewer or even a rookie moderator would probably not bother.

On the other hand...

[Wonko the Sane]

I've seen several journal posts reaching the front page that complain about the new interface so maybe it's smarter than it appears.

Re:

[sznupi]

Probably just because it's the prime subject of journal entries now...

But seriously - on one hand it's a bit pointless to moan too much about aesthetics, we were also simply very used to the old look; _however_ - removing features? (why the tag for cursive doesn't work anymore, for starters?)

Generally, while D2 had some faults - it at least managed to allow relatively effortless following of unraveling discussions: one-line previews of _all_ posts at hand, to quickly glance over them; quick expanding

Re:

[Wonko the Sane]

I had D2 set up to show all comments by default and my score threshold was -1. Then I just used the F key to collapse comments as I read them and reload the page when I got through everything. It was the best system for reading large, developing discussions that I've ever come across. Now it doesn't work any more. Thank you, Slashdot.

Re:

[sznupi]

Ah, and IMHO(!) yours was even relatively a time wasting approach ... what if somebody mostly just glanced over visible 1-line previews of posts to decide if they are worth expanding (*) and, maybe, after a while, clicking "more" - so new ones (mostly also in 1-liner form) will be added without reloading & without showing again already collapsed trees. Oh well, I might return to mostly-inactivity from the end of last year / a reason to waste much less time here isn't a bad thing.

(*) Yes, of course, m