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rho (6063)

rho
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http://www.deadgobot.com/

Not available at this time. Please come back when I don't have to type in a <TEXTAREA>. After more than 20 years of Emacs development, this is the best we can come up with?

Emacs lover since 1999

Journal of rho (6063)

The (Hopefully) Great Slashdot Blackout

[ #5872 ]
Monday March 11 2002, @06:06PM
User Journal
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Last Chance to See! The final opportunity to discuss this before the lights go out

Questions? There are answers here!

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Saved for posterity, from a discussion about the new subscription system:

... while I don't mean to dismiss the value of comment posters, the percentage of readers that read comments is small. Yes comments draw readers, and keep them coming back. But half of readers don't care! An accepted story submission provides a benefit to hundreds of thousands of Slashdot readers. A Score:3 comment is read by 1/50th of that. So if we decide that an accepted story submission is worth 1000 page views, you would need to post perhaps 50 Score:3 comments to affect the same number of people :)

A statistic in the hand of the ignorant is more dangerous than a gun in the hand of a child. Malda's dismissal of the importance of comments reflects on the inability of Slashdot's "editors" to understand the way communities work.

For the record, my feelings on the Slashdot Subscription Embroglio rests firmly in the uninterested. I have almost zero opinion on the final outcome of subscriptions. I love Slashdot, and will probably subscribe at some point to support the site, but the details are dull (to me).

Says Rob Malda, "... while I don't mean to dismiss the value of comment posters, the percentage of readers that read comments is small. Yes comments draw readers, and keep them coming back. But half of readers don't care!" In that case, Slashdot would be much better served by dumping the flaky and irritating overhead of a DB server and filling the pipe with a longer "Favorites" list--which, essentially, is what Slashdot is once you strip away the comments and comment posters. This is where a meaningless SQL query puts dangerous statistics in the hand of the ignorant. If Malda thinks that he can divine real knowledge from a SELECT query, he is sadly mistaken. While I do not doubt the validity of the numbers, I seriously doubt the validity of his extrapolation of the data. The ebb and flow of a community cannot be read from the tea leaves of an Apache log file.

This easy dismissal of the value of the only providers of interesting and insightful content on Slashdot is offensive. Thus, I propose a small revolt. The (Hopefully) Great Slashdot Blackout.

T(H)GSB will be during the week of April 21 through April 27. Easy to remember, the full moon in April falls on the 27th. During that time, I will not be posting, nor will I click through to read the comments from the home page. I will become as Malda's idea of the typical Slashdot reader. I will provide no new content (neither comments, nor story submissions--although I'm not much of a story submitter).

During that week, I'd like to see if Malda sees Slashdot become a better place, or if it becomes the Hallowed Shrine of Troll. I'd like for the logs to be revisited and new queries run. And, I'd like for the "editors" to really see what the true value of Slashdot is--not the sum of click-throughs and page-views, but the sharing of knowledge and dissemination of information; the passing of experience from the more to the less.

This is where the (Hopefully) comes in. This is only meaningful if enough free content-providers (i.e., comment posters) agree to go along and participate. If there is only me and a handful of others who cease normal activities during that week, it will be pretty meaningless. Barely a dent will be made, and Malda and the other "editors" will never realize the incredible value they receive from comment posters.

To spread the word, I'm changing my sig to link to this journal entry. If you would like to help, you can link to this journal from your own sig, or you can simply resolve to enter into a voluntary one-week blackout. Pass the word. This will only work if a goodly number of comment posters participate.

To summarize, if you wish to participate, during the week of April 21 through April 27

  • Do not click through from the home page to the comment page
  • Do not post any comments to stories
  • Do not submit new stories

A useful HTML link to this journal entry (69 characters, should fit in most sigs). You'll probably have to unfungle it after the lameness filter gets through with it:

<a href="http://slashdot.org/~rho/journal/5872">T(H)GSB</a> Apr 21-27

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Last Chance to See! The final opportunity to discuss this before the lights go out

Questions? There are answers here!

------------------------------------------


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  • This is a great idea. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Lethyos (408045) on Tuesday March 12 2002, @01:01AM (#3147013) Journal
    We have here something Slashdot readers really ought to do. I've argued that the comments posted by Slashdot readeres are what's being sold back to them with the subscription service. This is a load of crap. Editors do not listen to the readers and favored monied interests in the name of "journalism". If we stop participating in this foolishness, maybe they'll realize the role comments play.

    Good call!

  • recognizing value (Score:3, Interesting)

    by jamie (78724) <jamie@slashdot.org> on Tuesday March 12 2002, @01:45AM (#3147205) Homepage Journal
    We know the value of comments. A great deal of programmer time, not to mention hardware and networking support, has been committed since I joined the company to make comments work better. It's been a project in itself just to make the system handle the load of supporting this forum.

    Since the last year or so, we wrote the Journal code [slashcode.com] to give users more of a voice of their own. It's ironic that people are using that very platform, which represents a large investment in person-hours, to argue that we don't care about reader feedback.

    • Journals: Oh come on! That's half the fun of having a journal system. Wild rants, raging flamewars, tinfoil hat conspiracy theories, insane trolls, disgusting crapfloods, crybaby antics, and self righteous bullshit.

      Then we have this. Slashdot blackout indeed. These trolls are among the best.

    • We know the value of comments. A great deal of programmer time, not to mention hardware and networking support, has been committed since I joined the company to make comments work better.

      However, according to Malda, half of the readers don't care. Why bother, if so many don't even notice? Save the bandwidth and programmer time! Not to put too fine a point on it, without the comment posters, Slashdot is a "Hot Links" with bad HTML and worse grammar and spelling.

      I believe I adequately explained the reasoning behind a temporary blackout, and I stated unequivocably that I love Slasdot. Stow your bleating self-righteousness. I suppose you'd find it ironic that Thomas Jefferson's First Amendment was used to criticize him in the colonial papers. That's not irony--it's the whole point of the damn thing.

      • Stow your bleating self-righteousness. I suppose you'd find it ironic that Thomas Jefferson's First Amendment was used to criticize him in the colonial papers. That's not irony--it's the whole point of the damn thing.

        I support the basic idea behind THGSCB ... added a link in my sig. But I think we need to be really quite polite about the whole thing. Phrases like "stow your bleating self-righteousness" don't really help the issue at all (not to mention the fact I don't think it acurately characterized jamie's comment).

        Taco and some of the editors think that the value comments add to the system aren't worth reflecting in subscription prices. Some /. readers feel differently. The comment blackout is a great way to make a test. That's all this is about to me, and I think that's all it should be about to anyone. Calling the editors names won't help a thing.

        Jamie quite correctly states that the attention given to comment features in slashdot's system shows they _do_ value comments. In other words, even though their values aren't showing up in the pricing structure, they show up in the efforts made on adding the features in the first place. The sole benchmark of attitudes doesn't have to be financial. They HAVE built a first class comment system, for which we only have to ignore ads in order to use for free, and which we can use to criticize slashdot editors. That should say something.

        So join THBSCB (and yes, I think we should throw the word "Comment" in there, because it accurately reflects what we'd be doing) and politely encourage others to do so. Let the editors draw their own conclusions from it, and don't prejudice them with vitriol beforehand.
      • why not just don't go to the site if you don't like the way it's run. there's other areas for public discussions... i don't get it. you're calling for a partial boycot. something like "i'll go to the game, but i'm not buying any more popcorn...". not going to the game makes more sense to me, and if you want to be vocal about why you're not going to the game, so be it, but don't go to the game, complain about the general management and then say you're not buying the popcorn... it just doesn't make sense.

        • Consider it, then, a good reminder.

          Of course, this could be entirely moot. Perhaps nobody will participate. If that is the case, you can consider that most commenters believe that they are appreciated, and that I am a complete nut.

          I'm saying you should look at actions, not just (out of context) words.

          Words mean things. Malda's words mean things (even if they're spelled poorly). He takes a statistic to mean something--half of the readers don't care about comments. His love of figures and statistics blinds him to the compexity of a community and the value of those community members. He thinks he knows something, when he does not. I would like to show him the truth.

          So when did you become the Slashdot ombudsman?

            • Quoth CmdrTaco:
              "Again, I'm talking value in purely economic sense ;)"

              ... which is exactly the wrong sense in which to think about comment posters. Ever. They are not an economic drain--period, not in any way. They are a net-gain, regardless of the bandwidth or hardware utilized.

              You are falling prey to the same disease; thinking of the community in only two dimensions when their value is multi-dimensional.

              You cannot think of comments and the posters in a pure economic sense. Or, actually, you can, but only if you include both sides. What is the sum total of man hours added to Slashdot by volunteer workers? What is the sum total of free advice given, if cast in terms of consultancy fees? Where are the economic figures for that? Add those into the mix, and you'll find that Slashdot likely owes a lot more to its hordes of volunteers than it spends on them.

              • Re:recognizing value (Score:5, Insightful)

                by the_quark (101253) on Wednesday March 20 2002, @04:01AM (#3192874) Homepage
                Look, YOU are the one being idiotic here. No offense. :)

                There's a basic equation that has to be balanced, or /. goes away, community, or no.

                The simple version of that equation is:

                S - C = P

                Where S is Sales and C is Costs, and P is Profit. P has to be >= 0.

                Arguably, VA would like that 0 to be some much larger number, but the simple version is that a number &lt 0 means (eventually) no more /. Rob and company are facing down corporate masters who are seeing C get bigger while S gets smaller, with the right side of the equation already less than zero.

                Any points about the economic value of the comments system to the posters and readers are irellevent. That system could be making each of those groups literal millions of dollars, in actual cash, but if VA can't get a dime of it, it doesn't help the above equation and /. will eventually go out of business.

                Now, back to that equation. On the "S" side of things, we have dimininshing prices per page view. On the "C" side of things, we have more and more people reading SlashDot. Normally this would be a great thing, but right now /. is in the "we lose money on every one, but we make it up in volume!" mode. Where /. is right now, is, "50% of the sales from ads [i.e., pageviews] come from people who never read comments." Those same 50% commit far less than 50% of the bandwidth portion of the "C" equation. Malda and company have simply realized that, while the /. community may have some value (and, I believe, they WOULD LIKE TO SAVE IT), it doesn't keep the lights on, and, if they can't keep said lights on, the community has no place to exist.

                From a pure business perspective, their best decision might be to simply turn the forums off, frankly. They'd lose a big chunk of S, but they'd lose an even bigger chunk of C, which would make P bigger, maybe bigger enough to get over zero. Because they agree with you that the forums have some intrinsic value (and I'll agree that they make /. some value from people who are into it and submit stories), they're willing to let the forums leech off the people who actually make /. money - the people who read the front page and click on the ads. The people who posts lots of crap on /. and reload the forum pages over and over cost /. money, and it can't pay for that forever.

                Personally, I'd like to see them redesign the forums aggressively to remove the massive bandwidth they use. I think an intelligent system could significantly change the forum economics.

                Anyway, I'm rambling from my point: Your idealism about the value of the forums is very quaint. You might even be right that they are extremely valuable (although I doubt it when you include the signal to noise ratio, and the time wasted slogging through trolls to get the good stuff). But the fact of the matter is that they are a DRAIN on /.'s resources, and as long as /. doesn't have any spare money on the P side of the equation, their primary concern has to be getting that equation balanced. Any other focus is going to cause VA to take its ball and go home, which is GAURANTEED to kill /. forums.

                To put this in a much simpler setting: I run a Wolfenstein server, called The Quark's Challenge (TQC). It uses about a megabit of very high quality bandwidth. It has a devoted following, who REALLY enjoy playing on it.

                A megabit of very high quality bandwidth at retail or near-retail prices costs about $300/mo (including rack space). I've been utilizing some spare capacity of my company's (bandwidth that came with some rack space we needed, but that we don't actually utilized). So, the equation above, for TQC has been 0 - 0 = 0. Break-even (not including my time maintaining it, of course).

                Under this economic model, TQC has grown a community of hundreds of players who enjoy it very, very much. I'd be willing to wager that it's worth threee dollars a month to these people, in the value they get for wasting their time in an enjoyable fashion.

                The contract my company was getting that rack space under is about to expire, and my company is not going to renew (we don't need the space there, anymore). So, my equation is about to look like:

                0 - 300 = -300

                So, I have here a community that is worth something like $300 to the community that uses it. And it's worth something extra to me - I get to have my name in lights and server where no one ever gives me shit (for more than a few seconds, anyway...). So, I'd be willing to chip in $20/mo:

                20 - 300 = -280

                But, that's still $-280 in my pocket, despite that $300 in value to the community you keep talking about. If I run that equation for any months at all, I'll decide that TQC isn't worth $300/month to me, and that'll be that for the community.

                So, I've either got to reduce costs to save the community, or increase sales (a tip jar, perhaps? Or subscriptions...) But the point is, no matter how much I love the community, and no matter how much the community loves TQC, unless their dollars can pay my hosting bills, it's a losing situation.

                /. is in the same boat. Vacuous arguments about the value of the community are great in a socialistic way, but they simply don't pay the hosting bill. And if the hosting bill doesn't get paid, you'll be writing notes to yourself about how awful it was that they killed /., sticking them on your fridge, and writing "+5 insightful" on em yourself because there isn't gonna be anybody HERE to moderate em.

                  • Re:recognizing value (Score:4, Insightful)

                    by the_quark (101253) on Thursday March 21 2002, @08:32PM (#3204532) Homepage
                    The flaw in your logic is the same flaw a lot of people are having this argument. There are people who are profitable who don't contribute to the community. There are people who create the community who aren't profitable. The fallacy is that everyone seems to think that the people who are profitable are consuming the community created by the people who aren't. What CT was talking about in the IRC log was, that's wrong. Our expensive community primarily only creates content for itself. The main reason we're expensive is because of the programmer time needed to maintain (and extend) the community features, not because of the bandwidth as I incorrectly suggested, above. See this ridiculously long-winded post by me [slashdot.org] for a detailed analysis of /.'s business based on what has been publically disclosed.

                    The root problem is that /. is only selling 18% of its ads. Comments make up (and I'll admit this is a guess, but I don't think it's too far off) about 2/3 of the pageviews. CT has also stated that 50% of the daily visitors never even read comments. They don't even know our expensive community is here, and they couldn't care less about it. They'd still come and view the front page if comments were turned off, entirely.

                    Since /. only sells 18% of its pageviews, if they dumped comments and laid off the people who maintained it, they'd still sell every single ad they do now (and still have some spare inventory), because they'd still have 33% of the pageviews they do now. They'd significantly reduce costs while not harming sales appreciably.

                    Don't fall into the trap of assuming that because we create valuable content that's what the lurkers are reading. It isn't. They're reading the stories, which I think would still mostly get submitted even if we weren't here.

                    All of that said, of course, I think CT and company love the community at least as much as you do and they want to figure out how to keep it going. But try to understand when they say, "The community doesn't help our business," it's not becase they don't care about the community - it's because the community doesn't help their business. And I think it's ridiculous and juvenile to get angry at them for saying that when it's true.
              • I have defended subscriptions in the past [slashdot.org] and I actually subscribed this week (a whole $10, hey big spender); I'm actually okay with the whole subscription thing. I'm still pissed about the 500 moderators getting $rtbl'd for modding up the Post of Doom, but I am enough of a fan to kick in the bux anyway.

                I was concerned about the problem of the hardcore fan burning 100s of points a day (trying to get fp?) but the enhancement, live today, of a daily limit on ads suppressed (default=10) makes the risk of inflated costs not so high.

                (All you can eat would still be better .. but I can see how this is difficult to implement given shared accounts and so on.)

                • Try being one of the moderators. I still load as many pages as I did before, but no way in hell will I subscribe and help Taco run slashdot.

                  He said to me, "Fuck you." I've been reading Slashdot since the beginning. I've purchased tshirts. I've met him IRL. If he wants his little club he can do it without me. I am also trying to find a way to block ads just from slashdot and no other sites -- any ideas?

                  I come to slashdot for the community, and the comments. Let Taco give me my mod privledges back and apologize for doing it and I may rethink my stance. But until then I view Taco as an evil that slashdot doesn't need..

                  I support the slashdot blackout -- I think Taco needs to see that a large percentage of his viewers do care about the community. A community he is doing as much as he can to destroy.

                  • OK, it is clear that you have something against CmdrTaco. That's your right. However, I will not support T(H)GSB for this reason. I like Slashdot and in most cases I agree with what CmdrTaco is doing. But I will support T(H)GSB anyway, because I think that it is nice from time to time to help everybody to re-evaluate the importance of comments in a site like Slashdot.

                    I think of it as an attention catcher and as a way to improve Slashdot in the long term, not as a protest against those who run this site.

                    • I have a problem with CmdrTaco because of his actions to the moderators and posters of the Troll Investigation thread. Slashdot is supposed to be a community board, and having editors mod posts down in that thread should not have happened. It should have been up to the moderators.

                      Also, I moderated up a post that raised valid points, was well thought out and concise -- now I have the $rtbl flag. CmdrTaco told me in his actions to fuck off. I do like Slashdot. I like the majority of the community here. However, I don't like the fact that CmdrTaco has no clue how to run a community -- he wants it to be self sufficient, but if it disparages him he abuses his power. I'm not protesting against CmdrTaco by participating in T(H)GSB, I'm protesting against CmdrTaco by not subscribing and blocking ads.

                      I'd be more than happy to subscribe after he apologizes to me -- until then I don't care. I don't hold grudges, I just want to be treated fairly by trying to contribute to the community and make it a better place.
                    • I have a problem with CmdrTaco because of his actions to the moderators and posters of the Troll Investigation thread.

                      This may seem overly simplistic, but if you don't like slashdot, go somewhere else. Unless you're subscribing, you're not paying for the service. If you're not paying for it, exactly what do you think you're owed?

                      Either use the site or don't use the site. Vote with your pageviews.

                    • This may seem overly simplistic, but if you don't like slashdot, go somewhere else.
                      I said nothing about disliking Slashdot. I dislike CmdrTaco (and a few other editors, but they do not make Slashdot).

                      Unless you're subscribing, you're not paying for the service.
                      Wrong, I pay with my time. Slashdot is a community site, it has a message board with threads to respond to geek events. The editors role is to choose what stories get posted, not to make sure Slashdot users post positive comments and nailing those who disagree with their stance and/or the communities sheep mentality.


                      If you're not paying for it, exactly what do you think you're owed?
                      Again, I am paying for it. I add value (questionable as to positive or negative) to slashdot with every comment I post. And, I'm not owed anything from Slashdot. The issue I have with CmdrTaco and the other editors is a personal one. They personally attacked me, yes they do run the site but I contribute a lot to this site. I like the community, and dislike some of the editors. So be it. Don't confuse Slashdot with CmdrTaco/michael/jamie -- they aren't the same.

                    • Wrong, I pay with my time.

                      You volunteer your time. Twist it into whatever little blender you wish, it still doesn't come out that you're paying for it. If you believe you're adding value and you don't like the way those who own the site are treating you, then go away. Refuse your "added value".

                      The deal is this. You're allowed to have your opinion. You're allowed to express it. That doesn't mean that anyone else has to like your opinion. And if Rob/Jamie/et al attacked you, then they probably didn't like what you had to say. They didn't take away your acocunt. They didn't block you from posting your diatribes. They just modded a few of your posts down. If you're allowed to have an opinion, so are they. And if you don't like the way they express their opinion, if you don't like the fact that they own the site and can do with it whatever the hell they want, then stop "adding value". Stop contributing. Just go away.

                      That's really the only rational recourse that you have.

                    • You volunteer your time. Twist it into whatever little blender you wish, it still doesn't come out that you're paying for it. If you believe you're adding value and you don't like the way those who own the site are treating you, then go away. Refuse your "added value".
                      Right, I volunteer. I spend my time on Slashdot being part of a community. There is no twisting logic here, and the owners of the site have nothing to do with the community (unfortunately, if the authors actually cared about the community life would be much different).

                      As for their attacks against me, they did not dislike what I said because I didn't say anything. I moderated. A privledge setup for the entire community who has a decent track record. They didn't mod my posts down, in fact Jamie has modded a few of my posts up. They are allowed to have an opinion, and I am entitled to disagree or agree. However, they are not allowed to think that they can set the $rtbl flag on a long standing user of the site for no good reason. They killed about 500 moderators for that thread -- that is abusing the power of a community based system when they are not an active part of the community.

                      I have a lot of rational recourses actually - I can stay here and post about getting the $rtbl flag set on my account for no decent reason and get some supporters and hopefully Rob will decide that Slashdot is in fact a community and he should either participate or hand the project over to someone who cares. Or, I can still post and not mod. Which is what I do now, I'm fine with it -- but I still would appreciate an apology from Rob for doing it to me. Dont' worry -- I'm not holding my breath.
                    • Thanks -- I'm not a troll, and I like to think that I do contribute positively to slashdot. I do like Slashdot because there are a lot of great people to get into debates about random things and a significant percentage are great people to talk to.

                      The reason why I would be interested in paying Slashdot for a subscription fee is to keep the community going. I really don't care about moderating, I rarely do it anyway only if I see something that is actually well thought out or damned hilarious. The fact it was taken away from me is irritating. I'm trying to help the community, hopefully it will work out ok.

                      RE: your p.s.
                      Waiting to see their next action in the legal battle before going forward with more info. Another 30 days of silence and I think I can take it that they are backing down -- then I go to the media and such. However I am thinking of spending a sunday in a business suit picketing with a sign "Carr Chevrolet Lied to Me." -- And yes, I do realize I was really really dumb. My mother never lets me forget that ;)
                    • Ok, there was the original thread about the Troll Investigation. It was moderated about 900 times, mostly by editors.

                      Any moderator (about 500) that gave a + score to any comment in the thread had the $rtbl flag set (Myself included) -- that is CmdrTaco telling me to fuck off.

                      That's the nutshell, not a troll.
                    • I can't remember the exact statistics, and can't be bothered to search for them, but if you look at the mod totals there is plenty of supporting evidence.

                      Upmods were split up between insightful, interesting, informative, as you'd expect with human moderators (I forget if there were any funny mods) Look at the downmods - a couple of trolls, a couple of flamebaits, then several hundred offtopics. And this was the same story for any replies in that entire thread.

                      Human mods have different opinions - one thinks it's insightful, one thinks it's interesting. On the flipside, one thinks it's a troll, one thinks it's offtopic. What we saw was this expected distribution on the upmods, but the downmods were all the same.

                      Oh, and besides, the editors admitted it. Look for the reference yourself, I'm drunk and lazy.

                      BTW, I'm not entirely against the editors automatically modding the post as offtopic when it clearly was. Automodding the entire tree down was cheeky though. The worst part is the $rtbl-ing of upmoderators. You ask how we can be sure this wasn't done in metamod - well, how many mod points can one person expend on a post? How many unfair metmods are needed to $rtbl someone? I'll give you a clue, they don't match.
                    • Well, aside from my word, I could moderate the day I did it - and 2 or 3 days later I could no longer moderate or metamod.

                      Also, you could watch the thread. After it got modded up - the entire thread (every single post) got mod'd to -1 Offtopic -- at the same time.
                    • Well, it's kind of interesting. Go read the thread - I did, just a day or two ago.

                      Tell me, how do you get a 0-score post marked informative - it wasn't posted by an AC, and the user didn't start at -1!

                      Quite interesting there!

                      And many many more marked off-topic. I'd doubt that there were even that many total mod points given over that period of time.

                      Next, the mod's continued for days. You and I both know that people don't mod stories that aren't on the front page - and certainly not in these numbers.

                      Frankly, get rid of editor moderation or subject it to meta-mod. Sure, I'll have more trash to wade through, but it's be honest.

                      Editors need checks and balances too. Either remove the mod privs, or subject them to meta mods that then remove their privs when more than a few readers disagree - for more than a day or two.

                      Perhaps, disagreement in meta mod ought to be a employement metric too?

                      Cheers!
                    • Tell me, how do you get a 0-score post marked informative - it wasn't posted by an AC, and the user didn't start at -1!

                      Easy. A user mods up a 0-rated post, then decides he/she wishes to post in the same story. As soon as the post is made, the moderation is undone, and karma adjusted accordingly. But for some reason, Slashcode does not adjust the modifier when moderation is reversed. Trolls use this to mod down a (Score:5, Insightful) post as Troll or Flamebait, then posting in the thread undoing the moderation but not the modifier. So the post now reads (Score:5, Troll) or (Score:5, Flamebait).

                      Frankly, get rid of editor moderation or subject it to meta-mod.

                      Editor mods are metamodded just like any other mod. However, their moderation powers cannot be removed (not even by the $rtbl) except by adjusting the $seclev value. One must remember, in most cases, the editor status is earned, and there is a certain trust factor involved, although I agree with editor mods being limited to one per post.

  • I've added it to my sig... (Score:3, Informative)

    by cperciva (102828) on Tuesday March 12 2002, @11:37AM (#3149127) Homepage
    But I think adding the dates as well is helpful. That way people who don't bother following the link will still see the date steadily approaching.
  • I have a site that gets a good amount of hits (note: not the elitemrp.net site listed in my info).. If someone were to create a graphic (a good looking one), standard mini banner size maybe (110x40), that has some info on T(H)GSB, i would gladly put it on my site and link back to this journal, and i'm sure others would too... I'd make the image but I'm too lazy (my lazyness should come in handy during the black out hehe)
  • >This is where the (Hopefully) comes in. This is only meaningful if enough free content-providers
    >(i.e., comment posters) agree to go along and participate. If there is only me and a handful of
    >others who cease normal activities during that week, it will be pretty meaningless. Barely a
    >dent will be made, and Malda and the other "editors" will never realize the incredible value
    >they receive from comment posters.

    And this is what will happen. To think otherwise is to fool yourself. I have never seen a single boycott that works, and the pool of lazyness that is slashdot is not precisely a militant's dream.
    Still, good luck.

    >T(H)GSB will be during the week of April 21 through April 27. Easy to remember, the full
    >moon in April falls on the 27th.

    Whoa, man, not everyone is that aware of when the full moon falls, and I'm not sure knowing it by heart makes you more trustworhty ;)

  • Hrmmm. (Score:3, Funny)

    by dasmegabyte (267018) <das@OHNOWHATSTHISdasmegabyte.org> on Thursday March 14 2002, @02:53PM (#3163576) Homepage Journal
    I am a karma whore and would generally scoff at such an idea. However, I am closing on my house the 19th of April and plan to spend that next week painting.

    So you got lucky.

  • The boycott should last only one day, in my opinion.
  • I've posted 1395 comments as of this moment in time (well, increment that one for this comment).

    It is rare day that I do not comment here on slashdot. Its a pretty cool thing. I like slashdot. I subscribed less than days ago and I've used 66% of my pages already.

    But you are right. Count me out. Thats the week of my 21st birthday, and I won't even be reading slashdot at all. Its going in my firewall hosts file that whole week.

  • And the point is? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by singularity (2031) <nowalmart@gmail. c o m> on Sunday March 17 2002, @12:35PM (#3176909) Homepage Journal
    So what do you hope to ultimately accomplish with this boycott?

    Do you want to show CmdrTaco that, indeed, the comments are valued at Slashdot and that he should not get rid of them?

    I do not think that Taco has ever even considered doing that.

    Do you want to show CmdrTaco that, indeed, the comments are valued at Slashdot and that he should force people to post?

    Do you want to show CmdrTaco that, indeed, the comments are valued at Slashdot and that he should wake up and smell the coffee?

    Do you want to show CmdrTaco that, indeed, the comments are valued at Slashdot and that he should turn Slashdot over to someone who will work to keep Slashdot comments valued?

    Do you want to show CmdrTaco that, indeed, the comments are valued at Slashdot and that he should stop looking at server logs?

    *OR* do you want to show CmdrTaco that, indeed, the comments are valued at Slashdot and that he should admit that "Of course you are 100% right, and I am wrong?"

    I am guessing that this last one is the reason for a lot of this.
    • I really don't understand what the point is, either. I happen to be one of the Slash coders. We spend a lot of time improving its codebase, and probably 80% of the code is tied to comments in one way or another. Over the last couple of years, we've released, improved, rewritten, and released some really kickass software that is designed to support huge discussions -- not only on Slashdot, but anywhere else people want to run it. A lot of the work that I personally do is maintenance and improvements on portions of the code that is related to comments. That's most of what Slash is. Comments/discussion is the main thing it does well, it's the main thing that distinguishes Slash from most other Content Management Systems.

      Most of the Slash editors and authors read comments obsessively. I read comments on almost every story posted to the mainpage, at threshold 0. I've read the discussion in this journal, and the journal entry itself, and I can't figure out what anyone wants from us. As far as I can tell, people are upset because they (deliberately?) misunderstand one or two lines of what Rob typed over the course of a three-hour IRC session. But I can't tell what this boycott is supposed to make us do, or realize, or change.

      Should we look at server logs more? Or ignore them? Should we stop paying any attention to Slashdot's financials? Or should we be more bottom-line? Should we keep doing what we've been doing and just not talk about it anymore? Or should we pat comment-posters on the heads every day, and tell them what good little comment-posters they are?

      Always judge people by their actions, not words. Since before I joined this company two years ago, it's been funding development of this (open-source!) code which is highly optimized to handle large-volume discussions. I think the logical conclusion is that we care about those discussions and recognize their importance.

      Post your thoughts here, I'll check back on this journal occasionally.

        • What you say makes a lot of sense, but it still does not answer the question "What do you hope to get out of this?"

          If anything, this will just add on to the "contempt for those hard-core fans." Anyone who follows Slashdot enough to follow a link in a .sig to a journal, and then make sure to avoid pasting that week (and someone who started out posting) could be called a "hard-core fan."

          In addition, the original journal article, the one linked to in the .sig, still offers not a single expected result of all this.
          So now we know what dynamic possibly causes this feeling among some posters, but not a single solution to be found.
          • The answer to the question "What do you hope to get out of this?", is evident to me, quote:

            And, I'd like for the "editors" to really see what the true value of Slashdot is--not the sum of click-throughs and page-views, but the sharing of knowledge and dissemination of information; the passing of experience from the more to the less.

            "Respect us!" cry the hard-core fans. "We are the heart and soul [of the franchise]!" Again, a problem is that any reply of "We respect you as a market" doesn't address this.

            Now, as to a solution, I must confess that's beyond my abilities. I'm pretty good (I believe) at figuring out what is the problem, in a certain framework. However, it's an entirely different task to come up with a way to solve it. I don't know. And if I did know how to solve problems with Slashdot editors [sethf.com], I'd have my anticensorware investigations [sethf.com] on the front page!

            So all I can offer is my analysis. This isn't a case of "If you have to ask, you'll never know". But I do think it's a case of "If you don't know what is being asked, you'll never know how to reply".

  • Um... your sig that I ckicked on shows the blackout dates as 3/21- 3/?. That's in March. If your want the blackout to be successful (and I will participate by not reading that week), then you will have to change your sig.
  • I may have jumped too soon. Apparently the link was to your journal but the sig wasn't yours. It was someone else that can't do math. Sorry.
  • I've seen two websites go from a free site to a pay-for-some-services site. They are:

    Salon.com - started charging for some stories, for forums

    Fool.com - started charging for forums.

    I was not a member of Salon.com's forums, but I was posting on Fool.com's forums. I paid for both sites, and saw the same cycle at both sites. The cycle is:

    After much soul-searching, the current admins of the site decide on a pay model rather than a free model. The top admins write an essay on why the new model is necessary to announce the upcoming change.

    Heated debate ensues. The admins spend more time than usual in the forums debating the topic, sometimes rewarding those that agree in a insightful way, and punishing those that disagree in a crude way.

    Camps emerge - those that want to support the site anyway, those that are disgusted that the admins are trying to make money off of their content, those that decide that the deal makes financial sense, etc. etc. The wide-spread debate does NOT change the smallest detail of the original plan.

    A boycott is announced at a future date. The boycott comes and goes. Some of the boycott announcers forget themselves and post anyway. The results are inconclusive.

    D-Day occurs. Forum traffic goes way down - lots of "are you here?" messages. In some ways, it is because the most vocal have left. In other ways, it's because the ones who paid are now thinking - "would I pay for the comment I'm about to write?".

    Within one week, things are back to normal, except for the addition of "I'm paying for this crap?" messages and "This post is worth the fees alone!" messages.

    Within one month, things are back to normal, expect that there are fewer rabble-rousers.

    But go ahead with the boycott. It is an important part of the process, and may give you an idea of the size of your faction and the ability of that faction to make a clear statement. Good luck.

  • Geeze . . . (Score:3, Interesting)

    by cjpez (148000) on Tuesday March 19 2002, @05:19PM (#3190045) Homepage Journal
    Seems a little extreme. All Taco was doing was running around some logic. And he said himself, "I don't mean to dismiss the value of comment posters." What more do you want? Anything after that is just some logical look at the numbers that slashdot actually gets. Doesn't really seem worth all the effort of this meta-discussion.

    Of course, evidentally I find the meta-discussion worth adding to, so it seems I'm actually a hypocrite. Whee! :)

    Whatever. I like the comments and I've never felt they've been marginalized.

    Just had an idea: Imagine if a whole bunch of people decide to go along with this plan of yours and don't post at all during the week. I'm guessing that the people who participate meaningfully in it will be people who post regularly to Slashdot. Infrequent posters like myself won't matter, because I'm just as likely not to post as post during any given week. However, most of the time, I don't post because I've come into the discussion when there's already a hell of a lot of posts, and it turns out that any point I felt like making has already been made a number of times and moderated to hell and back. :)

    So when us infrequent posters notice that there's actually some room for us in the discussion, your plan would kind of fall apart if suddenly there's just a whole bunch of "new" people filling the empty holes.

    Add to that the number of people who won't even be aware of the movement because they don't bother to follow .sig links or just don't care about meta-discussions (which I actually find quite interesting), and it becomes a rather dismal prospect. :)

    Or it could be wildly successful beyond your, um, wildest dreams. (heh) Yeah.

    • Re:Arggggh!!! (Score:2, Insightful)

      by rho (6063)

      You miss the point entirely. This has nothing to do with subscriptions. Read my statement again.

      This is purely a reminder to the "editors" that Slashdot is what it is due to the contributed efforts of hundreds or thousands of readers. It has nothing to do with subscriptions. As I say in my statement, I will probably subscribe myself.

      Read it again, then think about it again.

    • Honestly, why do people care? No one is forcing your to subscribe, yet everyone is complaining about this. If you don't like how the site is run, leave.

      This isn't about subscriptions. This is about making a point to the people who run Slashdot about the value of the community.

    • Re: (Score:5, Interesting)

      by rho (6063) on Tuesday March 12 2002, @09:17PM (#3153830) Homepage Journal

      Again, read what I wrote more carefully. This has nothing to do with subscriptions, per se, but with the attitude I saw expressed by the "editors", most importantly by Rob Malda.

      I don't believe he quite understands the importance of the comment posters, for the very reason you describe--you click through to read the comments, and learn things. This is the true value of Slashdot, not the collected links on the front page. If you take away the comments and comment posters, you are left with a poor "hot list" of links, often spelled poorly, with inane comments attached to the tail.

      This is not anti-Slashdot, nor anti-subscription. This is pro-comments and pro-comment authors. Often, those at the top forget the value of those at the bottom. Sometimes a sharp crack on the head is a good reminder to pay attention.

      • while I don't mean to dismiss the value of comment posters

        You know, he starts out by showing that he does understand, is sympathetic to your viewpoint, and recognizes that many people are going to feel like you do about this.

        the percentage of readers that read comments is small.

        and then he makes a statement of fact. Not opinion, but fact. Perhaps it is false fact; maybe he's lying. I don't know. Do you? Have you got access to the logs? Nevertheless, it's not an opinion. He hasn't said anything bad against comment posters and readers, only told us what the server has to say about the size of our group.

        I was pretty amazed. Over 50% of unique slashdot readers don't click past the first page. But these people are sucking the bandwidth of a great site, and it's going to go down if it doesn't turn a profit. So, you and I are drawn by the content and interaction, but apparently average Joe bandwidth-sucker is just along for the headlines.

        Give the guy some credit; he said he understands where your coming from. You, and I, and CmdrTaco all understand the importance of the community. But the subscription and advertising systems are going to be based on statistics, and that's the only statistic we've got.

        I'm not going to quit contributing, because when I say "contributing to slashdot," I think, "contributing opinions and information to a huge and vibrant community, many of whom will feel a benefit from what I have to say." I won't let those people down, and I think Rob and the others have done a great job of making this sort of thing possible.