There's a softer version of the same effect ... "drifting away from Slashdot".
"Boycotting" implies passion and anger and attempts to save something.
But perhaps folks such as I will simply silently-but-surprisingly-quickly just fade away when it becomes unreadable, and reinvest the newly found time to more offline pursuits.
Maybe the analogy is Coke vs NewCoke. I wasn't around to know if there were passionate boycotts ... but my vague history of it all was closer to my attempt to describe "yuck, so I won't buy it".
Maybe a year off might be good for perspective, like an old short story called "the very slow time machine". I can see what MS's new tech oriented CEO is beginning to evolve for Windows 9, which might be near Beta by that point. Obama would be winding down on his last big initiative, whatever that becomes. The early shape of the 2016 Pres race should be clearer. "The Aftermath of Edward Snowden" might be clearer. A few cool rulings by smart judges. A few horrible ones that enrage the tech community.
And then a year into Beta ... a year is long enough for the inertia and nostalgia to fade away... so Dice will either have realized its evil plans with ... uh ... the "goodwill and intangible benefits" they just wrote down to zero ... or if as a few people are beginning to explore, if we *FINALLY* produce a successor to Slashdot, then we'll all just go there.
Heh come on, y'all are programmers - What would a *Near-Perfect* Slashdot look like, UI Wise? I'd LOVE for someone to do a mockup, even if it has some capacity issues - just for us to show *ourselves* what "Listening" means. We can solve the "staffing and picking stories" later - just do a mockup with ten stories, just so we can have the true answer to the Beta abomination!
My quick suggestions:
1. I have never ever used the left sidebar of
Stories
Submissions
Popular
Blog ...
So I'm happy if that gets hidden behind a special menu.
2. I don't use the right side boxes for very much.
3. Make comments "Level 1 2 3 4" and then the sideways space usage becomes much better.
Okay gang, see ya less for a while!
--Tao