Journal 2TecTom's Journal: What's wrong with Slashdot ... 1
Hi, my name is Tom and I am a slashdotolic. I am guilty of reading almost every article each and every day. I read the top comments for any story that interests me. Personally, I think there's some excellent work that's been done here by the admins, developers and users. That being said, I really have nothing to say about the users, I have no expectations except diversity and honesty. To all the contributors and readers, I applaud you, good and bad alike. However, despite the good work the admins and developers do and have done, there are some problems. I hope they will read this and reflect upon it rather than dismissing it.
Problem one: Who decides which articles get posted? Why is it so autocratic and apparently biased. Many, many people have commented on this. This is simply editorial abuse and privilege and needs to be removed if Slashdot is ever to be an "open" system. I wonder how many things I've missed out on thanks to someone else's personal tastes or inclinations.
My solution, put all submitted articles in a pool, let the moderators decide which ones go public. Or, alternatively, publish all submissions and let us mod articles directly or, at least, mod the people making these decisions and or the submitters directly. Or, how about letting subscribers post articles directly? This could easily be overseen with less effort than the current system.
Problem two: The inability to mod and comment on the same article. Ok, I can understand not modding your own posts, but after losing my mod efforts and points for posting a useful comment after the fact is counter intuative and productive. This "rule" was enacted from the fear of abuse but causes more damage than it avoids. Personally, I'll be contributing less now because of it.
My solution, get rid of this policy. Alternately, return the mod points after the comment is submitted. Or, at the very freakin least, make the warning more obvious by requiring a click to agree. Anything less is simply bad design.
Problem three: Lack of democratic openess. Yes, I know, I didn't do the work of writing the code and I don't do the admin work either. But all of that is dwarfed by the time spent by commentors, moderators and submitters. Let these people, or at least the subscribers, vote on the rules that govern the system. Anything less is tyranny.
Problem four: Lack of true anonymity. This is a major concern. It's obvious that even if the users don't know who you are if you post as an AC, the admins and the system does. I bet we've missed some valuable info being posted due to fear that the admins or the system could be or are corrupted.
Problem five: An inability to see all my old posts or at least the highest ranked ones when visiting my user space. No explanation required, just the question, how could this be? Sad, eh.
Anyone out there ambitious and capable enough to rework the slash code into such a system has my support. We need a less controlled avenue of free, relevant, speech.
Democracy is a great theory, why are some afraid to stand on it?
Democracy (Score:2)
The editors. Just like at any other publication or news organization.
What's unusual about this? You're attracted to one news site rather than another because you appreciate their selection of stories (i.e. their bias in selecting stories)
??? How is it different than what any editor does?
??? W