OK, I skipped the last 150 comments, so maybe this has been said already.
I grew up reading text on paper. That's how I can intake and process information most efficiently. And that's why the web sites that I read regularly, and in which I participate, present information in much the same way as a printed page.
- - Big swathes of white space means less text means less actual information.
- - Pictures almost never add as much information as they take away - big pictures equal less actual information
- - A video almost never is the most efficient way to get information across. You can take what you include in a 3 minute video and usually say as much in one paragraph.
Aside from these basic and to my mind blindingly obvious design concerns, I'll add a couple of things. I haven't spent more than five minutes with the beta because it was so immediately not what I need or want, but I have been reading the comments here.
- - I really, really, really like the Slashdot commenting systems, the ability to set and change the levels of comments; and the moderation and meta-moderation. Without these I probably wouldn't be here. Anything that alters how they work will almost certainly be a bad thing.
- - I'll say that the the overall quality of the comments on Slashdot is better than pretty much any site that I know. That's because there are a lot of long time users, with a lot of long time experience and knowledge, and because you can easily filter out the garbage and just see the stuff that matters. I don't know of another site with such far ranging interests that offers so much good information.
- - Slashdot and The Register are the two tech sites that I read pretty much every day. When I visit other (Tom's Hardware, Ars Technica etc) it's usually because someone pointed me there from here.
- - The honest to god truth is that I find that most tech sites offer a really low amount of solid and useful information, or bury it in a sea of advertising and other crap. My time is worth enough to me that I just won't bother.
Finally, I'll remind people that there was a time when Byte was THE magazine for anyone involved in computers. It became Byte the web site, but carried over a lot of the same content and contributors.
Then, in the misguided quest for the almighty dollar the owners managed to kill it off entirely. It was a great loss.
Dice would be very foolish if they think that they can't manage to do the same to Slashdot.