Comment Re:Am I the only one who actually likes the beta? (Score 1) 365
Well, yes, you are the only one who likes the beta. And let me tell you why
The problems with the beta aren't about how it looks, but about how it works. Even the complaints about narrow text columns and excessive whitespace are based on how difficult those features make it to use the site for it's intended purpose (reading and posting comments).
In addition, the beta removes critical elements of the comment functionality, and it's largely based on Javascript. That functionality is the core of the site, and many in the Slashdot community (the people that actually post all these nice comments that everyone comes here to read) would rather pour battery acid in their shorts than allow Javascript to run on their browser.
Creating a Slashdot that looks like Beta, and functions like the current site would take any competent web designer no more than a few minutes (just some CSS tweaks), and it would be easy to maintain both looks, because switching stylesheets is easy. Unfortunately, that's not the approach they've taken, and so now they face the choice of either throwing away all the work they've done on the Javascript-based Beta (essentially they may as well start over if they do this) or having the bulk of their contributors leave, which would basically kill the site.