Whiteox's Journal: To Slashdot ot Not

Well it's New Year's eve in 2008 and I'm faced with another year of everything (which is a lot as I'm very busy).
So I've started thinking of Slashdot,about why I joined up and what it has given me over these many years and what future it has for me at least.

I've generally enjoyed this place, but I'm also becoming somewhat disappointed with it:

1. Mod Points: As Supermoderator, I'm finding that 15 mod points are either not enough or just too much as the quality of the articles and more importantly, responses are so variable that sometimes I dread getting them. I would like to see the option of banking points.
2. Experts: Where are the experts in the field? There has been very interesting articles but it seems no-one has the expertise in the area concerned to make an informed comment. That's a generalization, but it's becoming more the case.
3. Shit. I'm sick of the AC shit stories. I ignore them, but the guy who keeps posting them doesn't stop and it affects me anyway. A class of moderator should be able to delete them with consensus agreement with at least one other moderator.
4. Trolls I don't mind, as often they are not trolls or at least they have something interesting to say or have a POV.
5. Design: Coming into 2009 and seeing how far /. has come in terms of site design, still reminds me of the old BBS services of the 80s. This actually suits this 'forum' as it forces a good use of real estate especially when views are set to all posts, flat and at -1, however we should be able to have sticky sigs (ones that won't change on submitted posts) when you decide to alter it. That should go for avatars too. An option to have/have no avatar and an option to see a person's avatar would be welcome.
6. Repetition: Apart from dupes or near dupes, the 'swarm' keep saying the same things, asking the same questions and I'm having a distinct lack of will rewriting the same responses. I know that the demographic of the swarm changes, so it's not anything that /. can do about it. This forces me to just gloss over the posts and hope that someone else out there has the same POV that I do. Often there isn't for my expertise is history, philosophy, sociology and psychology and I do that reasonably well.
When I see another 'Evolution v Intelligent Design' debate, rehashing the same points again and again, often without any foundation, I want to write pages of why the particular point-of-views expressed are nonsensical. Atheism v God is another one, especially those atheists with a libertarian attitude. Some Christians are no better, sprouting theology when neither understand the ramifications of 'weltanshauung' or 'belief systems'. They have no concept of objective reality and that is humerous and sad at the same time. 'It's funny because it's sad.'
7. Originality: It doesn't exist in submitted stories. I haven't seen an original submission. It's all been copied from a news report from somewhere, or otherwise it's been a book review (ok well maybe that's original), or an Ask Slashdot type. That's about it. If /. is about dissemination of knowledge then so be it. At least the readers get to find out things they didn't know. I know I have.

So after I change my sig on the 1/1/2009, I'll keep my eye on /. but I think I'll do something more productive and visit idle and maybe take up knitting or flower arranging for a while.

Cheers to all.
Happy New Year for 2009