The issue of tracking entities that quote your resource is not really the size of a problem that demands this much answer.
IIRC, the original design included a large number of other features that became nonsensical as modern conventions for information arrived:
- We do not require licensing or micropayment for quoting text or speech. The www follows free-speech by default, and tools must be built on top to restrict things. (Among many reasons why not: There is no permanent trust-able entity for enforcement)
- There is a vastly larger usage of linking than quote usage (links jump but also embed)
- Commercial licensing of text, images and video is still required but the infrastructure to enforce it has to constantly differentiate by usage and intent (satire, education), not mere presence or absence. (YouTube's big review process...)
- There is no permanent barrier to building a free side-channel for information that would otherwise be licensed. (P2P File Sharing, etc)

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^This is exactly what give me pause to blindly swoon over Kurzweil's predictions: His achievements in other fields were at times good, other not-so-much, but really none of it carries over to his AI research predictions: It's a huge problem, much larger than the individual - a composite form of pattern acquisition, storage, search and association that deals with modeling all our senses, modeling our cognition, self-awareness, ethics, history, etc. I see his aim to "understand a sentence" (for his definition of 'understand') as a piece of string connected to a huge sweater: Pull just a little, and one finds it's connected to the entire thing.

When he compounds the (predicted) discoveries of nanotechnology and some form of artificial intelligence into all sorts of fantasy, I'm not able to suspend disbelief. If we replaced sections of your brain with machine replacements in tiny portions over time, so that you never fully realized the difference, there would be, in his words, "no death". I disagree: there would be several dozen post-operation mini-deaths where we didn't feel or act "the same anymore" to our peers or to ourselves. This is not extending life forever, this is converting ourselves into the v1.0 buggy technology equivalent, killing ourselves in the process. Is the "self" just the biology? No, but we're not going to have the first (or any) version of this concept work flawlessly. I envision Kurzweil's future not as sentient machines, networked together in a single giant consciousness - but rather a swarm of flawed algorithms flooding, corrupting the networks, flopping around with fatal bugs - like a post-op brain patient machine-zombie population. "There's Grandma - she got v2.4 of the Kurzweil artificial brain - yeah the one with the 'TakePillsAllDay' bug. We're waiting for a bugfix."

By that logic, we could use any of several dozen mythological creation stories that have no evidence. I find the Christian myth really unexciting, can we please instead examples of Scientology, Hindusim or DungeonsAndDragons ?

So you disagree that genetic changes over a long time can result in an incompatible species from another divergent ancestral line, yet remain internally viable? Seems like a quite arbitrary limitation, given that mutations can result in non-viable populations in as short as one generation.

Some meat for under the bridge: How would you expect science to investigate this?

If all the mechanisms for this evolutionary process exist on Earth, and have been observed in the short-term and have evidence over the long-term - why inject any other mechanism that arrives without any evidence? Also, why stop at any one fantasy? If you use the same evidence to construct one fantastical story, why not invent a story of any fancy that simply retrofits to the evidence we're finding? In summary, all claims that cannot differentiate themselves from boundless fantasy must all be grouped together: Creative perhaps, but not a model we can claim to be true. This is why certain models in science are possible, but not yet accepted universally - Scientists disagree if such a hypothesis is able to make a prediction - String Theory comes to mind. String Theory's mathematics can be shown to explain many of our forces and concepts in physics, but it hasn't been yet able to make a unique prediction that's be provably true to be due only from String Theory. The best thing going for it is that there isn't yet a viable competitor at that level of model.

Subject is rule #1.
Don't put anything in the way of that.

"Shareable by a wider audience" is too vague. What is difficult with the current design?

Folks, OP here... thanks for discussing this. Express yourselves as you wish. I now understand some of the concerns. As a member since 98, I've seen several style revolts, and I'm hopeful this concentrated thread will get the guys in the home office some food for thought. Everyone here is a member so this isn't some fly-by BS thread.

Why the more-grey background? Did reduced contrast make it easier for everyone to read? Not me. The BETA needs to go back to a white(r) background for reading.

The mobile version has a custom filter that shows headings even after filtering, but doesn't show the level you have filtered to. Why?

The full-screen version doesn't even offer this. Can we get a filter to be standard, and to actually REMOVE the filtered-away comments?

Why must every new redesign narrow the area that comments are actually displayed? The margins are larger each time, and thus the amount of scrolling to see a comment-branch is tedious at best

http://beta.slashdot.org/submi...

http://beta.slashdot.org/submi...

http://beta.slashdot.org/submi...

Certainly not without a true suggestion for alternatives, or writing like "userpage interfact".

Take some pics, circle the offenses, suggest an alternative pictorially. Ya know, like what real designers do when they want to improve a product.

If you say "I like it just the way it is" - realize that not everyone may agree, and you aren't in charge. Do you write these letters to all the sites you visit?