Hi Bruce, What I wish had happened is that /. had asked for volunteers to start a non-profit foundation (like Blender) to sell to instead of a company like DICE that's apparently run by pointy-haired bosses. In the absence of even that offer to the community, I'm onboard supporting your actions but I would also suggest waiting to see how the protest works out here.

The change is apparently because they're trying to co-opt the /. brand by putting the DICE website on it (and hope to have bought the /. userbase). Fat chance that's going to work out...

Hear, hear! I'm with you on this!

The editors know... we made it clear in the beta announcement thread and at least one editor said he was going to bubble it to the top of the foodchain. This is a topdown order and going to straight-up KILL slashdot. I don't think DICE even cares, and apparently neither do the editors as their still drawing paychecks. This is some serious shit; I don't know how things went down but I'd like to think Taco had the integrity to leave when he knew which way the ship would be going -- maybe he had family concerns financially. But the others, I feel bad for them, but damn, goddamn indeed, they need to stage a revolt because the users of /. are about to if this shit is forced down our throats....

If you took their survey you'll see they know most long-time /. users are outraged. The first question was something like, "Did you know, you can find the classic slashdot layout at a link at the bottom of the page" Answer: No. Next question, "did you find it?". Answer: No (it's buried in a text box). Next question, "Do you have any suggestions for improving the usability of the beta" Answer: Go back to classic Slashdot by default. Etc., etc., They know the beta's shit and don't care because they are going to use the site to phish irregular users into their "Business Intelligence" BS. They don't care to keep us here, they just want the name for the geek-chique with the managers that may think they're hip because they've heard of /. but never actually visited. I hope Taco made a mint on this and the other "editors" as well because they sold out hard -- I knew something was seriously wrong when he jumped ship after so many previous acquisitions....

Dear God this thread! DICE is killing a beloved brand if they go to this horrible new format. WE DO NOT WANT AND WILL NOT USE IT!!!

I mostly agree with you, but I don't think your personal anecdote is a good example of what you're trying to convey since apparently some boys started archery/self-defense, decided they didn't like it, and changed. The teachers were just conveying their experience (like you) that most boys play football/baseball and girls do the other stuff. Anyway, I would have been with you (and the girls :) doing the archery/self-defense. :)

What, you don't browse the Linux repository's weekly commits every Saturday evening like me? People get paid for that?!

This. Maybe GP is talking way above my head but that just sounded like a very bizarre requirement.

Another vote for vomit-inducing. DICE please take notice because it was strongly conveyed in comments of the beta announcement: I, and many like me, have had /. our homepage for 15+ yrs and read it several times a day. If you go with this godawful layout I expect you'll be lucky to have 10% of your current traffic. I will certainly not be one of those remaining... It makes me sad that a single company can singlehandedly kill a beloved site/brand like this... It now seems inevitable...

That's why more people should check out Cython. It's basically it's own language modeled closely after Python but uses C-like language constructions when optimizations are helpful. I quite liked it when I checked it out, but I haven't been following it much recently.