It seems from some of Soulskill's comments that this is a change that's being rammed through from the Higher Ups and the Powers That Be.
It'll be interesting to see how this will play out, and I'm glad to see that there are people already working on building a new "slashdot." I was thinking about doing some hacking on slashcode or coming up with something new entirely this weekend when I'll be more free, but it looks like the initiative is well underway by individuals with better experience at such things than I have.
Something occurred to me today while browsing through all the FUCK BETA comments. I might need to loosen my tinfoil, but who knows. The way things go will be telling. I mean, I like the freaking MS Office ribbon and I'm looking forward to Wayland! FUCKing BETA is just an absolute disaster, but maybe it's intentional.
We know that Dice is a backer of Code.org, and Code.org has been involved in some proposals one might use the euphemism "affirmative action" for, but I prefer to call it what it is: sexism and discrimination based on assigned gender at birth.
This place is one of the few places I know on the internet I can come and participate in discussions about alternate theories about why there are no cis women in programming and whether that's even a problem or not (and get properly downmodded when I cross the line into misogynistic ranting). Personally, I think it is, although others disagree. All of those discussions are completely contradictory to the narrative that Code.org and feminism would like us to believe: that lack of interest from cis women must needs imply some kind of sexism and oppression on the part of all assigned males.
Perhaps the higher ups at Dice think that if they torpedo this site with a horrible excuse for a redesign (it looks like something I would design! and I'll freely admit I'm a terrible graphic artist!), that opinions such as mine and others that run contrary to the feminist narrative that constructs gender as a dichotomy of rapists and victims would lose their soapbox.
Maybe my tinfoil is on too tight, but Dice seems to be demonstrating that in the face of falling revenues from this property, they're willing to have it commit seppuku.
Hopefully I'm wrong and if the boycott next week goes well, Dice will see the light. However, I believe there may be a political element present in Dice that wouldn't mind seeing Slashdot in mothballs.