I've been reading slashdot for a long time. I have to say that I am impressed. It has evolved into a pretty nice system. I still lament the problem of late posting*, but the moderation system seems to work fairly well. I keep my filter at 4 or above (except when moderating) and rarely see dumb comments. So, bravo to the designers.

An empty page is daunting in its limitlessness. I could write the great American novel. Or a prize winning poem. A touching or enraging news story.

Or I could just talk about a meta issue is such a way as to sound important, but ultimately convey nothing of importance.

Which is this?

The saddest thing about Slashdot is that most of the people who post comments think their comments are important. Obviously, they decided to write that comment rather than doing something more useful with their time like coding or reading a book.

Here's a tip, folks: if you aren't an expert in the field in question, you'd probably do best to not comment at all.