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Journal rho's Journal: T(H)GSB: Last Chance To See! 50

Journal by rho

This is the final period of a commentable journal before the blackout begins on Apr. 21.

For those new to the topic there is
The Original Complaint
and the
Pseudo-Question and Answer session

During this time, I'll be cutting/pasting the link to all my posts. This is a flat-out underhanded trick. I'm aware of the hatred that will be focused at me for doing so. Hopefully, I'll ameliorate the evilness when I promise to restrict my posting in current discussions to truly Insightful and Informative (or at least Funny) posts, and not one-liners. I'll try to make the added bit slide in with the sig as best I can. There might still be a BR and "--" in between, however.

I would like to get the attention of those with sigs turned off, and the casual non-logged in user as well. For you anti-blackout people, a representative ratio of those will also think I'm a kook and will join your side. So you shouldn't bite my head off--a nip or two oughta do ya.

This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

T(H)GSB: Last Chance To See! More

T(H)GSB: Last Chance To See!

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  • Here's my prediction for the outcome of the blackout (assuming we hit critical mass): first, the number of views of pages other than the front page will decline somewhat, due directly to the blackout. Then, the number of views of all pages will decline (proportionally to the number of blackouters) during the week, as users realize that the quality of comments is declining.

    Then, after the blackout is over, we'll see a sudden increase in the number of click-throughs, as blackouters come back, followed by a gradual increase of views of all pages as users come back, due to the restored value of the comments.

    If we see this, and CmdrTaco makes the obvious connection (comment posters increase page views == increase ad revenue or increase subscription revenue) then we've won.

    Otherwise, we have to see what the original decline was. If it was small, we didn't reach critical mass. Otherwise, we lost, and CmdrTaco is right in discounting posters.
    • Honestly, even if we hit critical mass, I don't think anything will happen.

      Taco will see that the blackout was successful, and know it WAS the blackout, so he'll ignore it.

      Its not like this is any secret anymore.

      I honestly want to see if everyone will actually survive the week...

      Maybe we should put some of the stories in journals so the blackout-ers can discuss it without page hits inside the original articles?

      Or a seperate site can have the stories?
      • By ``will happen'', do you mean ``CmdrTaco will do something''? If he's really that dense (i.e., we significantly reduce the number of non-blackouter page hits and he does nothing, not even acknowledging the importance of comment posters) we need a /. replacement BAD.

        And btw., I'm willing to predict that not only will we survive, but we'll see major technological breakthoughs by several blackouters :)
      • Or a seperate site can have the stories?

        Set up a dairy on kuro5hin.org and do it there?

    • That's interesting. It's Tuesday now, and it seems like the number of people talking out their ass in slashdot comments is in significant decline, and the quality of posts has increased dramatically. Why don't you all stay gone? At least stay gone until we finly get the (-1, Wrong) moderation option.

  • Well (Score:2, Insightful)

    by sulli ( 195030 )
    You're a kook, but I'm still joining the blackout.
  • Y'know, at first, I was annoyed at this blackout thing. But then I got to thinking, and now I think it will be an amazing experiment of a theory I have about /., which is that it is a self-healing organism. Essentially, I feel that we will see a drop in posts, then a gradual rise back to normal levels. Moderators will continue to find posts that are insightful and interesting and funny. Links to similar stories in mainstream/non-mainstream media will continue to be posted. Slashdot will look the same as it always has.

    Why? Lurkers. I, for one, am a lurker for the most part, on /. I read lots of stories and posts, but most of the time, if I have an interesting insight to a story, someone else has already had that insight before me and posted about it. If I find a link to a similar story on some other website, someone else has already found that link. And don't even get me started on the jokes on here. Most of the time, they're pretty damn obvious, and frequently, I think of them before I read them, but after they have been posted.

    Maybe I'm wrong, but that's how I see things. Hence, I see this G(H)SB thing as an opportunity for lurkers, like me, to start posting insightful, non-redundant, interesting, and funny comments. Hell, I can start blabbing my mouth off about whatever I want without fear of reprisal from regular posters. This is my time to shine. Furthermore, I am not alone.

    Watch out, the great silent majority will not allow Slashdot to be silenced.

    • It's an interesting idea, and I won't deny the possibility. I, too, will be interested in seeing the overall effect.

      I agree that long-term there will be no ill-effects from the blackout. After a week, we'll all come back. If there are enough of us, perhaps our little revolt will be noticed and acknowledged, and perhaps some difference will be made. But as to long-term harm, the ecosystem is too established to fall apart.

      Quite interesting will be to see how many people will stop for a week and... not come back. They stop and discover that they don't miss it. I've been worried myself that if I get out of the habit I won't return as I am now.

      • Re:Slashdot as a self-healing organism (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Zarf ( 5735 ) on Wednesday April 17, 2002 @11:15AM (#3358612) Journal
        Quite interesting will be to see how many people will stop for a week and... not come back. They stop and discover that they don't miss it. I've been worried myself

        that if I get out of the habit I won't return as I am now.


        Personally I've stopped posting for months at a time and then I come back. I always come back. I always come back because slashdot saves me time. I don't have to read each of the really good news sites out there and filter through the mountains of utter crud which they fill them selves with. That is the good bit about slashdot. I don't mind the in-obtrusive Slashdot ads at all... since most of the sites I go to through slashdot have much worse advertising on them anyhow.

        I've become frustrated with slashdot forums however. I find the friend vs. foe system useless since I don't desire to spend so much time on this board that I develop "friends" or "foes". I don't honestly care or even know what my karma is. I'm not even sure what it does.

        What I do care about in the forums is that I can read the +3 or better posts and get a good feeling of what other people in my industry think. What they honestly think. I appreciate their added insight. I may not post much, I may not read many posts, but once in a great while I will find a story and relish the forum.

        On that rare day I find a story so motivating I'll read through it in depth and may even read through the posts marked as troll so that I can feel I even gave the folks with unpopular views a chance to sway me.

        If I find a story I'm passionate about I will even post to a story days after it is "stale" and I will reply if someone posts to my comments because I love the Slashdot messaging system. So I may be one of the 97% mentioned in the FAQ associate with TG(H)SB but comments really really really matter to me.

        Perhaps it's time for Slashdotters to realize that they are not a community, they are actually several communities. They are actually a community of communities. We each get passionate about different things... but the forum is a constant between us that is both good and bad... it's the heart and soul of slashdot.

        ...and stop ripping on John Katz, he's entitled to his opinion even if it's a stupid one. If you hate Katz so much filter him out. jeez. Oh yeah, mr cmdrTaco... you should make the author system a friend-foe system on my button bar with each author getting Karma points from ME the reader! Then I can filter news stories by Karma and only read the ones with +5000 karma or what not (1-5 is too small). Authors like Katz would have immensely low karma and be marked troll or redundant.

        Bah. No one really reads this stuff anyhow right? :p
    • if (GHSB == true) {
      lurker = 'karma whore';
      }
      • Eek! That is some serious newbie code (don't even *think* of telling me it's in a language that requires it):

        if(GHSB == true){...}

        is equivalent to:

        if(GHSB){...}
        • I know that in all of the languages I've ever heard of, (GHSB == true) is equivalent to (GHSB), but that doesn't automaticly mean that a newbie wrote it. I know programmers that don't make use of that feature for code readability reasons (in their opinion). And in this case, the poster may have posted it this way on purpose, so that real newbies (who don't know about the feature) can understand it.

          I never write (foo == true) myself. Why type eight characters more than needed? (-8
    • i think that they should let us see the stats of this event, compare # of comments etc. for the week before during and after. it'd be interesting to see, although they'd be a lot more likely to show us if the numbers weren't affected by this...btw, i nether oppose or support the blackout, just find it interesting
    • Damn you - I'm a lurker too and you posted what I was gonna say. You had your moment to shine and are no longer a lurker so you have to participate in the blackout so I get my moment.
    • I also think Slashdot will "heal" itself with a lot of people stepping up to post more in place of those engaging in the blackout. I for one am mostly a lurker who doesn't post often because what I want to say has essentially been said. Like another poster said, I think those like me will step up and fill the void. But there is one factor that I haven't seen posted here that will be a big influence: not only are the participants taking their comments away, but they are taking away their moderation points. So while there will be people to step in with their comments, the scene will look different at first glance because it could not be moderated similarly.
  • Well here I am, posting to the Great RHO's Journal

    Well, where to begin...When I first read about this blackout, I thought "what utter nonsense", most likley the same as anyone who read it. I read people posting about how it was all about taking down the evil slashdot ad/subscription system and I thought "well that's lame, they're only animated GIFs for christ sake, ignore it, it pays for your right to bitch and troll about stuff so why bite the hand that feeds?"

    But, of course, that turs out to be irrelivant. T(H)GSDB is about a quest against CmdrTaco and the rest of teh goof troop. You know, I met the man once, at the Geek Pride festival in Boston in 2000 or early 2001 i think it was. Katz was there too but I resisted my urge to throw one of the VA demo machines at him. Anyways, my point is, Rob Madala is like a big college kid (in fact, that's exactly what he is :-). I'm sure they drink beers and goof off when the boss isnt' looking. I'm DEF. sure he likes to run his mouth like a big shot but if you helped create a web site that was considered by many geeks to be THE site to go to for news, you ego (we'll talk about that later ;-) ) would be huge too.

    NOw think of this: You're sitting in the /. server room hacking thru 1,000,000,000 lines of poorly organized perl code, and you need a break. So you finish your beer and look at the server stats. (NOTE: I've never set up my own SlashCode site so I have no idea what kind of stats it generates). You notice that most people dont' post. Then you notice how many moderation points went towards stuff like "Flamebait" and "Troll" that day. A little more investigation leads you to estimate about 3% of the users here actaully generate useful content, and the rest just troll or post things like "STFU Katz" or "First Post", maybe even "All your base are belong to us" or even the obligitory "goatse.cx".

    I'd feel kinda down about the whole comment system too.

    DOnt' get me wrong, some of the most infomative material I've read on any tech. subject ever has come from some comments here, but think about how much crap you just surf by, and how expensive all that is to maintain (which leads me back to my complaint about ppl and the ads but nevermind that now). Does it really suprise you that he has an attitude about it?

    Anyways, I'm not here to down your efforts, it does seem like some attention should be brought, but what do you hope to accomplish by bringing their attention to all this isn't clear to me. I mean, they realize that no one likes /. without the comments. They realize they make no money without the comments. Ok, so then what? You proved comments are valuable because we want... a better mod system? Or just to make the point?

    One more thing: I'm sure some trollers are watching and I'm sure they're planning to let all hell break loose on the 21st. Keep in mind if the server stats are >= normal you won't be noticed... (no it' s not a threat or anything,simply an angle you might not have considered before?)

    • Well here I am, posting to the Great RHO's Journal

      I'd be flattered, except I know I'm just a nutcase.

      I read people posting about how it was all about taking down the evil slashdot ad/subscription system and I thought "well that's lame, they're only animated GIFs for christ sake, ignore it, it pays for your right to bitch and troll about stuff so why bite the hand that feeds?"

      You don't seem to have read everything I've written. I don't blame you, my prose is thick enough to walk on.

      I'm not complaining about subscriptions or ads. I'm not complaining about moderation (tho I recognize that moderation could stand some more work). My core complaint is the expressed attitude towards the importance of comments on Slashdot. You say:

      ...but if you helped create a web site that was considered by many geeks to be THE site to go to for news...

      Why is it THE site to go for news? Is it anything the Slashdot crew does to make it so? They approve stories and post them, but who finds those stories? Who gives the site its "geeks only" flavor? While the Slash-team provides the canvas, the art is all ours, baby.

      The troll/flood community run rampant here, no doubt, and they do not add to the positive side of the environment equation (although they do provide what is known as "local color"). They find the holes and the Slash team fixes them--an interesting symbiosis.

      Does it really suprise you that he has an attitude about it?

      Actually, yes it does. If it sucks so bad for him, he can stop doing it--the same argument I hear from some people when I complain: "If you don't like it, just leave!" I know, however, he is loathe to give up the position he holds now, and the fame (such as it is) and fortune (such as it is) of being CmdrTaco of Slashdot.

      Anyways, my point is, Rob Madala is like a big college kid (in fact, that's exactly what he is :-).

      He's not a college kid anymore. He's a professional running a business, and no business will last long if its customers feel like they are being ignored. Perhaps the reason Slashdot only sells 18% of their ad slots is because Malda acts like a big college kid, rather than the serious entrepreneur that he is?

      T(H)GSDB is about a quest against CmdrTaco

      No no no. I am not anti-Malda or anything like it. I don't like what I perceive to be his attitude and what I think is his impression of comments, but reasonable people can disagree without taking sticks to each other.

  • I am unlikely to post in the week April 21-27. But then I am usually unlikely to post anyway. Why?

    * Slashdot's comment signal:noise ratio is crap, and moderation doesn't help. The same people who produce most of the noise do most of the moderation, and the probability of being modded up is *much* higher if you post soon after an article appears. I don't care about my karma, I care about reading (&|) writing something interesting.

    * Slashdot's story s:n is also crap. I used to read most slashdot stories, but these days they just aren't interesting anymore. There's too much YRO and "new toy" focus - stories mainly (I assume) of interest to americans with more disposable income than I. It is no longer news for nerds.

    As an example, of the stories currently on the frontpage (all-in-one media box, soft wifi, lycoris, CALEA, Burrough's Martian Tales optioned, Trouble ahead for java, should virus distribution be illegal, sandia DAKOTA GPLed, google DMCA notices, cnet: mozilla revival?, HCI research labs, sunken city, spread spectrum, spambot trap, google web api), most I find uninteresting. Most of these are either blatant trolls for banner displays, "look, something previously interesting is mainstreamish now", amazingly old news, or YRO/newtoy. Or they're interesting, but in that list I see only 4 that I'd bother following the links from.

    Out of habit I will probably still check slashdot's front page fairly often but it is sad to see what was once an interesting site with at least semi-intelligent commentary become what it has. Pity k5's stories are even less interesting than slashdot's; I shall probably have to go back to usenet.
  • I am sorry to predict that you will be dissatisfied, no matter what the objective results of T(H)GSB. An explanation follows for those with the patience to read it. For the rest, just mod me down and move along. :)


    So how will you know if you succeed? What is your standard of "I won!"?

    That's a hard question. I will never know what the internals of Slashdot are doing or thinking. ... If it is never said again that "half the visitors don't care" about comments, that would be a win. ... Mostly, I will see if the attitude I perceived in the past continues into the future. If so, I'll know that my small protest was lame and ineffectual. If it seems to have generated some positive attitude changes, I'll consider it a win.



    These statements (from Pseudo-Question and Answer session [slashdot.org] ) tell me that what's got you upset is the indifference of the "editors" to the regular, good commentors. Or, more precisely, the indifference of theirs that you perceive.

    What I'm sure you realize, indeed you say it explicitly, is that their true motives are obscured to you (and me) and are quite unknowable. This is perfectly ordinary and normal; we generally don't know what another person's motives are. We interpret their actions or words, assigning motives as a model to predict their future behavior. Perfectly normal. Then, quite scientifically, we test future actions against those interpreted motives, and continually re-evaluate the validity of the model.

    There's a little hitch, though: very often there's more than one motive that fits the actual behavioral data. It's possible to have a model of someone's motives that fits their behavior quite well, and has very little to do with their real motive. (I've seen this in my mediation work. It's incredibly common in disputes that make it to mediation, which is why it's such a thriving field. :)

    Now, I'm not saying that I think your ascription of motive to the editor's statement is correct or not. Beats the hell outta me, frankly. But if the motive you ascribe (which apparently is "they don't value commentors") is not correct, this test will prove nothing at all.

    The only way for your test to show that you are mistaken is open-ended; it's never over. No matter how well things go, you'll always be plagued by doubt. "So far, so good" is the best you can hope for. You have designed a situation for yourself where you cannot win.

    The other side of the coin is, if anything, even worse. If nothing changes, you're already assuming that your protest wasn't good enough. (Try a bigger one?) Also, just about anything the "editors" say on the subject will be evidence that your assumption is correct. If they ignore you, you can easily take that as evidence that they don't care about commentors. If they apologize for inadvertent callous wording, you'll be left to wonder if it's just a ploy. Only if they denounce you (or banish you, or something else silly and drastic) do you have any hope of a decisive result... and even then it could be just a matter of their honest frustration. (And not a good outcome at all, for anyone involved in /.)

    (This last paragraph may sound like I'm just being mean to you, by thinking you ungenerous. I'm not, and I don't. But I do ask you to put yourself in the "editors" shoes for just a second, and think about how they might be reacting to your statements. I expect it's quite similar. :) )

    I don't think you're crazy for undertaking this; actually I think it shows that you have a very high regard for the Slashdot community and a great willingness to try to help. (There I go, ascribing motives. :) I encourage you, though, if you find yourself disappointed with the results of T(H)GSB, to carefully re-examine your assumptions and see if their aren't ways to view some of the editors' unfortunate statements more positively.

    If you want to have a go at a different test, though, you might try one where the open-ended part proves you right, and the closed part proves you wrong. It would be a much more definitive way to go about it.

    Cheers!

    (PS- I think it's still worth doing, since you're already at it. It'll be interesting to see what happens when a group of commentors band together for a common purpose. I just don't think it'll help with the stated problem.)

  • I'm a "recreational user, " not an addict. Ninety percent of the time I don't have the leisure of reading comments or posting. Hell, a lot of the time I'm not interested in the stories enough to dedicate time to doing that.

    I guess what I'm saying is this...I may be part of that stat that doesn't click through regularly, but I wouldn't visit if I didn't have the option. And, I lack the time I would need to spend here to justify a subscription. I think the "editors" will find they don't get nearly as many hits as they think they will if there are no options for the "recreational user." Therefore, I will participate in the blackout.

    I probably won't be missed, but I'll miss /.

  • Whether the comments provide value or not, they give the user a sence of community, and that is what keeps alot of people coming back to sites.
  • I'm in, but just because I'm morbidly curious of what will happen if a bunch of the best posters stop posting for a while. Not that I consider myself a good poster. I get fours and fives once in a while, but more importantly I sometimes get people to write brilliant posts in response to my idiotic ones.

    Besides, less time on Slashdot means more time with my loved ones. (read: Nethack)

  • An Apology from Hemos and CmdrTaco is needed (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Vortran ( 253538 ) <aol_is_satan@hotmail.com> on Wednesday April 17, 2002 @06:07PM (#3361744) Homepage
    The discussion whence the incendiary quote was supposed to be an open question/answer forum on IRC.

    As one who logged on and stayed the entire sessin waiting for ONE of my questions to be answered, it burns me to this day that (among other things) these 2 only answered questions they wanted to answer instead of taking each question in the order it came in. I can understanding dropping dupes but..

    At one point in the discussion (after the infamous dismissing the value of comments) our host was begging for people to submit questions to the IRC bot. Questions were indeed being submitted... and ignored.

    If these guys want to be politicians, they've already mastered the art of bogus "press conferences."

    CmdrTaco/Hemos 2004!

    Vortran out
  • What was it? 1/50th of readers read Score 3 comments? So if you want to be a typical reader, you shouldn't just not read or post, you should set your threshold to 3 and then read a little less than one story per day. That sounds about right, actually. My threshold is at 2 and I click on maybe one or two stories on average per day, so I'm a slightly above average reader. :-)

    Face it, most comments are crap (Score 5, Funny, included) and aren't worth the time it takes to wait for the page to load. So most people only read the stuff that's actually relevant or interesting to them. Very few people are part of the "community" you're talking about, which I guess is that small clique of folks who get all the dumb FP, Beowulf, and Hot Grits in-jokes that the rest of the world could care squat about.

  • Query (Score:1)

    by Bnonn ( 553709 )
    In New Zealand--the arse end of the world; it's somewhere near Australia, which you may know of because I think it produces beer, and has lots of empty space. Convicts live there--time flows faster (unless you believe in that dateline crap). When, then, do we technically start the blackout?
  • During next week, my website [marotti.com] (PHP-Nuke, AC posting allowed, crapflooders will be deleted) will post all interesting /. articles with commenting enabled. Feel free to stop by and read/comment on the stories. It'll relieve any "slashdot withdrawl" you have!

  • two thoughts real quick: (Score:4, Insightful)

    by zerocool^ ( 112121 ) on Saturday April 20, 2002 @10:29AM (#3379022) Homepage Journal
    hey, rho, two thoughts:

    I wonder if the stats are taking into account how long people stay on the page.
    I say this because i know for a fact that quite a lot of people have slashdot set as their homepage. Fire up the browser, go to slashdot, then go where you want. It's not that you were reading articles, you just didn't click stop before it loaded.

    two:
    I used to have slashdot set as my homepage. I recently changed my homepage to google. I think honestly it has been the most productive thing i have done this semester. Example: the other night, i wrote my 9 page term paper for chemistry (bleah, hate, but long story). I got a lot of my research from online stuff - mainly statistics, but the point is i had the book research done, and was using the internet as i went to do other minor research.
    Had i had slashdot as my homepage, i feel confident i would have NEVER gotten the damn thing done on time.

    Short: If you want to be more productive, set your homepag to google - a stark page that never changes, but if you're like me, it's where you're going 1/2 the time anyway.
    Setting your homepage on a page with dynamic content almost guarantees lowered output.

    ~z
    • I actualy have an HTML file I use as my home page, with links to all the stuff I hit often in one colum (k5, slashdot, fark, mefi, salon, etc) and resources in the other (google, translations, dictionary, register.com, etc)

      Google is 1 click away, as is everything else I usualy look at.
  • I think a lot of this will be like kids having a "who can keep your eyes closed the longest" contest, and lots will take little peeks every now and again. How will you know the success/failure of this project (sidebar - how will you even MEASURE success/failure?) if nobody checks to see if others are following the rule?
    • Count # of comments (total and score: 1 and above) on stories (not journals) published this week, compare with last week. I already am seeing a decline.

  • sorry (Score:1)

    by thopo ( 315128 )
    i am sorry to say this but you are all wrong. support my campaign and see the light. thank you.
  • I spent too long trying to write a subject that would get you to read this comment. I decided against making it offensive at the last minute.

    You have this all wrong. The ability to post on slashdot is a service that slashdot is providing to you. It is not the other way around. You are not providing a service to slashdot by posting comments.

    I know what you're going to say. Something like "My comment adds value to the page" or "People read slashdot for the insightful comments", but that's not true. Any one comment alone is worthless . It's the discussion that has value. Who does it have value to? The people participating of course. You need to think about all of this from the perspective that any individual thing you write on this site has NO INDEPENDANT VALUE. How much sense does your 'blackout' make then?

    By not posting on slashdot for a week, the only person you're hurting is yourself.
  • . . . how's the blackout going, then? Oh, right. *ahem*. In any case, my personal cause is proceeding along nicely. I've been scouring Slashdot all week, and I haven't seen a single mention of you-know-whats.

    Lots of other posts, though, so I presume your blackout isn't going quite how you'd like it to. Ah, well. Better luck next time. Maybe you should start out smaller . . . "The (Hopefully) Great Slashdot Katz-Out," where whenever Jon Katz goes anywhere near a computer, thousands of geeks from around the world try their hardest to dissuade him from posting any more movie reviews! You'd probably have an easier time swaying people to your side with that one. Not that I mind Katz, personally. I think it's pretty funny how the distribution of Katz-related comments works out.

    Anyway, yeah. Dum dee dum.

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