Should we abandon the Slashdot mobile theme in favor of a fully responsive site?
Displaying poll results.17312 total votes.
The IBM purchase of ROLM gives new meaning to the term "twisted pair". -- Howard Anderson, "Yankee Group"
The IBM purchase of ROLM gives new meaning to the term "twisted pair". -- Howard Anderson, "Yankee Group"
request desktop site instead of lamenting? (Score:2)
Ads ruin it. (Score:3)
Half screen adverts.
Half screen adverts. That if you touch they open. Usability really bad. Written from mobile.
Mobile theme is quirky (Score:3)
The mobile theme today is quirky and limited, that's my primary reason for wishing it to change or go away.
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I can read and post on the full site on the phone, so the less familiar, mobile site never gets used.
It kind of looks like the Beta site, which as you may have heard, was received like ants at a picnic.
Re: Mobile theme is quirky (Score:1)
Yeah, mobile Slashdot is pure shit. I don't understand how it's not obvious to the developers. I've given up wishing it was fixed. This was one of the first sites I ever used, and I've watched the comment go from... well, Slashdot, to YouTube. Hacker news seems to be where you actually learn from the comments section on a tech site these days.
I voted for responsive but I'm not even sure what that means as I don't follow trends in web development. Shouldn't all software be responsive? Does it mean I won't g
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Yeah, mobile Slashdot is pure shit.
It's good enough for lurking and offhand reading. Yes, layout glitches and general slowness are annoying, page-width ads for inane apps even more so, but it's the same ugliness on all kinds of mobile browsers I've tried.
I voted for responsive but I'm not even sure what that means as I don't follow trends in web development.
Responsive design [alistapart.com] is not new. Summary: don't make a separate mobile-only site, but style the content so that it adapts itself to various device sizes. Nice if you can pull it off, but requires careful design in order to be both effective and maintainable.
Re: Mobile theme is quirky (Score:1)
Check out m.reddit.com for what's possible.
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They should be in a border and not full width as to be able to scroll around them, rather than having to block them because they open malicious links.
Other than that, the only thing missing is the option to post a new comment. Now you can only do replies, and sometimes the reply gets posted to the wrong comment, I guess there is some internal counter that gets changed while y
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Over the years, I've learned to detest responsive design, because there's no way to make it stop being responsive. As a result, when I'm viewing a site on the desktop and want to resize the window, the minimum useful size (a tad bigger than when the "responsive" crap kicks in) is far too large.
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The mobile theme today is quirky...
Actually, that's enough that it has to go away. You see different comments on mobile from desktop and so there are kind of two commenting communities that don't work well together.
Loaded Question (Score:4, Insightful)
'Fully responsive' isn't defined, but sounds like a positive. It's implied that the mobile version of slashdot is lacking this positive aspect. Having the top option be 'Yes (duh)' makes it sound like a no-brainer that this positive thing is important... but is it really? If undefined, how can we determine how important it actually is?
Browsing the normal site on a 7" tablet is somewhat difficult, if the text is taking up the full width of the screen (portrait) then it's too small to press with my finger accurately to expand comments or follow links. When landscape, very little information is presented vertically. The current mobile version of the site is frustrating to use, as 80% of the vertical space is wasted with useless "this comment is hidden due to your cutoff" messages, and (IIRC) the 'post' button is hidden as if to encourage consumption rather than contribution.
Re:Loaded Question (Score:4)
Re:Loaded Question (Score:5)
You know what, Logan? I was thinking about this. Not just this, this specifically, but the /. 'changes' in general. I knew you couldn't be half bad when you referred to us as a community and not an audience, target market, or shit-stirring, goat-raping, kiddie-diddlers.
But, really... This is what I've concluded. It's nice that you take the time to ask. More importantly, it's nice that you *also* take the time to listen.
Yeah, I think we'll let you keep the place for a little while.
Re:Loaded Question (Score:4)
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Nope, thank you. ;-)
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Hey, those goats gave full consent.
let's not forget that a young goat is called a "kid", you kiddie-diddler
Re:Loaded Question (Score:5, Insightful)
Missing option: I browse the desktop site on mobile.
Responsive design makes me nervous. The absolute worst thing on mobile sites is stuff moving as the page loads, and it tends to affect responsive sites the most. The BBC mobile site is a great example. Sometimes I go to read the comments, and just as I'm about to click to expand them the whole page shifts down and I accidentally hit some other link.
The desktop /. site actually renders reasonably well on mobile. The width of some elements could use some adjustment on the front page, and long unbreakable text can mess with the comments pages, but for the most part it's a reasonably good browsing experience.
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Seconding this - my preferred means to browse slashdot is the desktop interface on mobile. The only barrier for between me and saying "Don't touch it at all" is that I can't adjust the slider for comment threshold.
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"The desktop /. site actually renders reasonably well on mobile. "
But with text rendered in Paramecium Sans. Just try reading it when you're over 25.
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The particular behavior you describe is typically a product of "lazy loading" where site operators try to cut down on either initial load time or bandwidth by only loading part of the page on the initial request, then filling in the blanks as you scroll down. It's annoying as hell, but it's fortunately not really part of responsive design.
Responsive design is great when executed with any level of care.
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TResponsive design is great when executed with any level of care.
This may or may not be true. All I know is that I have literally never seen an execution of it that didn't suck.
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Yeah, this
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Responsive is, I'm pretty sure, one that adapts to varied screen sizes while (allegedly) retaining its functionality. It has been done very well with a few sites. In fact, I'm kind of working on one right this very minute but, in my case, I just have used someone else's theme and I'm adjusting it to suit my needs.
But, responsive is an option and it can be done well. I'm kind of impressed with the speed at which the site has made changes. I know... I know... We don't have Unicode yet but most of the ones I r
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In theory anyway. A lot of responsive design frameworks such as Twitter Bootstrap have classes like ".hidden-xm" which hides things on mobile. The ethos is that you'd do this if you have a matching ".visible-xm" to provide a more mobile-friendly version of the same element. Classic example being hiding a navbar and showing a burger icon instead. But it can also be used in the old lazy "just hide all the things on mobile!" way, so it only has that benefit if the designer isn't lazy.
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Rule 1 of trendy web-design: You're never using enough JavaScript.
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The answer is simpler, better, whatever that means in good UI design terms. I think it the mobile site is OK. I am not so sure about the "fully" responsive part. That implies adding a bunch of functionality that usually interferes with a good user interface especially on mobile screen sizes.
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Yep. Just get rid of the mobile theme, or at least never apply it unless people decide to go to a crippled version of slashdot. It is really annoying to constantly having to make the browser request the desktop version to have a functional slashdot.
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In the context of web design responsive means it adapts to the device being used.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
It's easier to get it wrong than to get it right.
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It was, but the web left the ideal for dead many years ago due to too many web designers harboring a deep desire to force their layout, font, etc. choices on you no matter what.
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In webspeak, "fully responsive" is really an AJAX controlled nightmare of a site where everything is controllable via AJAX.
It can range from simply only showing you the 5 late
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And also the requirement to use Javascript. Requiring Javascript is a showstopper for me -- if a site requires it, then that site doesn't exist.
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I don't even carry a cell (Score:1)
Yes, I know. I'm a little behind the times. But my balls are small enough already, I don't need them any smaller.
It's been a while, slashdot. (Score:3, Interesting)
I have recently given up Facebook and Reddit and still wanted to read something online so I've come back to my old stomping grounds!
I use the mobile site and think it works great. interface is intuitive, responsive and looks great on the iPhone 6 screen.
I think as long as people are aware that they can still visit the desktop version of the site (whether via requesting the desktop version in their browser of choice or a link on the site), i would like to see the mobile site stay.
Thanks!
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That's nothing. I even know the password to this "Anonymous Coward" account.
Maybe (Score:2)
I mainly read Slashdot on my phone (Chrome/Android) and the desktop theme doesn't work properly, eg. font sizes for posts below threshold are far too small, the control to adjust the threshold just doesn't work. If I look at the desktop site on my phone, I have to clear Chrome's cache to get back to the mobile site.
In short, the mobile site is fine for me and if a fully responsive site would give a worse experience on mobile, then please don't change it.
Keep it (Score:2)
I like and prefer the mobile site on my Galaxy Note, and prefer the desktop site on my desktop, laptop and 7" tablet. Occasionally I might switch to the mobile site on my tablet (via Firefox user agent). I think this all works really well.
The mobile site was a great improvement for small screens and slashdot became actually legible. The big mistake was trying to impose a similar design on the desktop UI such that now there is a herd of people who automatically chorus their disapproval of the mobile site,
Not sure how to answer this... (Score:2)
On the one hand: yes, responsive design is a nice idea and I'm not married to the mobile version of the site. But on the other hand I've never seen a stellar implementation
My main gripe is that every site I've seen uses terrible dimensioning. If you dock your browser window to the left or right half of a monitor (or just narrow the window to a similar width), then you will detect as a mobile viewport, and you will get the mobile version of the site with hidden menus, click-to-reveal images, no sidebars and
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Agreed.
I have nothing against a single design adapting to the viewing conditions in theory, but not only does this often not work properly, as you point out, "responsive" sites also often get a bunch of bullshit web 4.whatever nonsense as part of the deal.
I'm talking half a gigabyte of javascript that that takes forever and does god knows what, enormous menus designed for toddlers, giant, full-screen images that add little to the content, etc.
Check out something like Engadget. Not only is the layout incompr
Missing the joke option, oh wait... (Score:1)
... the entire poll is the joke!
(I'm serious, the ambiguity here is too high to make a correct decision)
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A number of sites I occasionally visit have recently switched their design to what I assume is a responsive one. Wired is one example.
When browsing on a laptop, the result is awful: the story I'm reading has giant lettering (16pt) in a narrow column down the center. It's flanked by two gigantic sidebars with stuff I'm not interested in, and a bar along the top that randomly spawns another row.
When I zoom out, the text column gets narrower, leaving empty space along the sides.
Responsive is nice, but all too
Re:Missing the joke option, oh wait... (Score:4, Interesting)
No. Kill the mobile site with fire. Or at least give me a preference that insures that I never have to see it again.
The current desktop site works fine for me on desktop, tablet, and phone.
Thank you.
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Ever heard of an ensurance company? Ever visited an ensurance broker?
They don't even sound the same. It's really not hard.
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Ouch. Jet lag is an evil, evil thing.
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m.slashdot.org
It looks like your browser doesn't support JavaScript or it is disabled. Please use the desktop site instead.
It looks like the mobile website is already more responsive than I want or need.
Please continue allowing /. to work without javascript. /. page elements to be moving around too.
The world is moving fast enough as it is, I don't need
Missing option: No, I like the desktop site as is (Score:2)
Make the desktop site elements responsive
If that is exactly what they would be doing... hmmmmokay. I'd feel bad for the NoScript guys but c'mon, it's no longer 1994. Why can't you use whitelists? And there are other (more advanced) technologies out there that could help with selective blocking.
Back to the main subject. If they actually take the desktop site as basis and add scaling and shifting of the page elements to make readability better on small screen devices, I'm all for it. Not so much if they 'blow up' the mobile site and call it 'fully r
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I'd feel bad for the NoScript guys but c'mon, it's no longer 1994. Why can't you use whitelists?
If I was willing to do that, I'd just stop using NoScript entirely. Javascript is too risky to simply allow a website free access to. I prefer my current method of just not going to websites that don't work without JS. Fortunately, the vast majority of such websites are ones of minimal value anyway -- so much so that I take such a requirement as a signal that the site is a poor one.
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... the entire poll is the joke!
(I'm serious, the ambiguity here is too high to make a correct decision)
My impression is that they've decided they're going to redesign the web site and they've thrown us this poll to make us feel like we asked for it.
It's ok... (Score:2)
Learning from past mistakes - or railroading ? (Score:2)
Now I haven't (intentionally) used the mobile version (I have and I don't like it) and I can see why people would like something better.
However as the 'improved' version is not very well defined, is this a serious attempt to gather feedback beforehand, or is it laying the groundwork so tha
I use the original classic (Score:2)
I still have the tickbox ticked, somewhere in my preferences to keep the site old school. I don't like the new comment slider thing to adjust my viewing threshold.
As for mobile, I (think?...?) I check it now and then an it seems fine.
The site doesn't seem slow to me.
Also big shoutout to keeping classic, same as IMDB letting me have that option, I'm still using a 10 year old design on IMDB and I love it.
Meh (Score:2)
The real problem is that if you're browsing the site on a mobile device that's older than a year, or has low processing power it effectively hangs and will eventually cause it to crash with all the requests. This is pretty much a problem through-and-though with the web in general with any mobile device. It seems that companies and in turn web developers believe that people get new devices(whether ebook readers, tablets, or cells) every 6mo regardless of whether or not said device is still working, and sim
Please keep https://slashdot.org/palm running! (Score:2)
Sadly, my Palm Treo died a while back. Please keep slashdot.org/palm running, it is a near-perfect mobile version. Readable, responsive, summary, and a few comments. Just about what I need on mobile.
It is hard to comment in detail from a mobile device anyway, so just have something readable / navigable on mobile is ok.
*could* care less (Score:1)
Not couldn't. Get with the programme, nerf.
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No, it's couldn't. "Could care less" doesn't make any sense.
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Please (Score:1)
It's annoying have to enable "request desktop page" just for slashdot and then have to disable it everytime I switch tabs to a website with an actually functional mobile layout...
AvantSlash (Score:5, Interesting)
The only reasonable way to read Slashdot on your mobile is to use the AvantSlash screen-scraper. It was 15 years ago when it was first written ... and still holds true today
Yes, I'm biased - but go to the site below and compare the screen shots and the page sizes, then go download the code and give it a go for yourself.
http://avantslash.org/ [avantslash.org]
If you fix anything on the mobile site, please remove the stupid "filtered due to preferences" message. If a comment is below your threshold, the whole thing should not be displayed. Pages upon pages of notifications that -1 rated comments have been hidden isn't remotely helpful.
If you want any advice on the silly things that the Slashdot mobile website does, feel free to email avantslash-dev at the domain name and I'm very sure we'll be glad to point them all out :)
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If you fix anything on the mobile site, please remove the stupid "filtered due to preferences" message.
Yes to this! I never even visit the site on my phone because that makes reading the comments almost unusable.
Responsive, yes. Dynamic, god no. (Score:2)
First of all, NO ANIMATION. Thereafter, feel free to dazzle me.
Frankly, a minimally responsive totally inert site that puts all the focus on the news, like HN, works for me..
It's the content, cupid, not the style.
There's an app for that (Score:2)
m.slashdot.org on my phone appears to redirect to slashdot.org, but the layout is mobile-friendly, so maybe I'm confused.
But I don't read slashdot in a browser on my phone.
I read it in an app (Slashdot reader).
It works OK.
Make it easy to switch (Score:2)
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Missing option (Score:2)
WAP!
So platform agnostic it will even work well on your Nokia 3310!
Just.... (Score:2)
Bring back the in-line polls and I'll be happy.
Top 5 (Score:2)
I used to like what I think was the mobile view - at least the view I'd get via RSS readers - it had a "top 5 posts" section - now it is a redirect to the entire comments feed and is unwieldy.
Mobile websites and apps (Score:1)
This comes to mind [xkcd.com]
Mobile sites are terrible (Score:1)
Having a separate mobile site is a terrible idea. They are often sufficiently different from the "full" site that all brand continuity is lost and it might as well be a completely different site altogether.
I browse in desktop mode on my mobile and /. is perfectly usable, for crying out loud.
Functionality (Score:2)
Responsive is fine. The problem with most mobile sites is that most of the important functionality is stripped out to make it work on a small screen. Of course, you have to be able to read the summaries and comments. But will the "responsive" site make it easy to read the comments that have been modded up? Will it be possible to see the lower-scoring comments in between, if I want to? Will it be possible to vote or post? One feature that's not so important...is being able to read the linked articles.
Advertising restraint (Score:2)
I'll say it. I won't read slashdot on a desktop without AdBlock Plus. Right now, it's telling me it blocked 14 ads on the home page, and 8 on this article page. Really, slashdot???
I don't mind a few non-moving ads, if they don't get in the way, and they're not in my face. But 14 is more than a "few." On mobile, it's not as easy (yet) to block annoying ads, so I won't read it there, unless there is a little more restraint when it comes to ads.
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From my use of the mobile version, it seems to place a couple of ads at the bottom of each scrollable "page" instead of cluttering up the entire top and any horizontal space like on the desktop version of most sites.
Missing option: Fix mobile, but nothing responsive (Score:2)
However, "Responsive" usually turns out to be "Responding very slowly", so I'm not too keen on that.
I usually let Opera Mini reflow
Another thing with mobile websites is that it may be difficult to detect when mobile layout is best.
10" tablet: Full
bleh (Score:2)
It's nice when there are actually comments (Score:2)
How about... (Score:2)
Leave the damn code alone and let us all enjoy Slashdon't for what it is?
I like the mobile site. (Score:2)
Please NOT responsive (Score:2)
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As a supporter of responsive, I like that it typically is more feature-complete than separate sites because developers must actively hide elements (work) vs with 2 sites a feature must be added to both (work). So developers are more-likely to restyle a feature rather than hide it.
It also makes Desktop sites more lean because fewer elements do well on mobile and may-as-well be that way on Desktop too.
I do support having a feature like: ?view=desktop
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That would be good. I also think browser makers (especially mobile, but even desktop) should have an easy feature to fake the window size they send to the website. Add that to the "Request desktop site" feature in the mobile browser and that would resolve 95% of my objection to responsive sites.
I agree that specifically mobile sites are likely to hide features too, but with those at least I can get the non-mobile version trivially.
Couldn't care less (Score:2)
Couldn't care less, because I don't browse /. on mobile
--
Posted from my iPhone.
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Couldn't care less also because for me browsing on a mobile device means a 10" tablet, Firefox with desktop mode add on so I see ALL the sites as God intended :p
Yes, please (Score:1)
WYSE Terminal (Score:2)
Remove "Filtered due to preferences"! (Score:2)
Please do NOT include comments with the text "Filtered due to preferences". It's about as useful as printing "This page intentionally left blank". Removing the filtered comments altogether would make reading them MUCH easier.
Movie should not be special (Score:2)
Here's a thought - only do responsive if in some way it helps desktop users.
Because every mobile site I come across, I always tell it to go back to a desktop display if possible... I find it vastly easier to pinch/zoom around a full size site than to try to figure out where some function I want to access has gone because some "responsive" demon has decided to fold away some key element.
Other questions (Score:2)
I am not a fan of the mobile site, and never have been. It has many glaring faults, and for that I would tend to vote: drop it like a sack of hammers!
But the real question to ask is an internal one: do you want to expend the engineering resources to maintain a separate mobile site? For the last few years, the answer to that was a resounding "No." Nobody (well, nobody with decision-making power) wanted to commit Slashdot's engineering time to it. The faults, obvious though they were, never got fixed unless t
Keep the button (Score:2)
Please keep the button that allows you to switch to the desktop site.
You know just in case something goes terribly awry like it often does.
What would you change for the "responsive" design? (Score:2)
Nice Themes Just Keep it simples (Score:1)
No, because i like the desktop site (Score:2)
not another beta
If the mobile site stays, fix the comment filter (Score:1)
The mobile site handles comment ratings in a weird way. IMO, either fix that or kill the site.
For example:
1) When filtering comments by rating, ALL the titles are shown so you have to scroll through every comment regardless of the applied filter. This is a PITA on a mobile screen.
1a) The comment titles are loaded 100 at a time. So, for articles with lots of comments you have to scroll through a bunch of comments that are below the current threshold and then reload more. And then repeat.
2) Even when reading
The old mobile site used to work well (Score:2)
Before the last mobile site was rolled out, slashdot had a mobile site that mirrored the desktop site in functionality, but was just scaled for a small screen. No side bars, just narrower columns. But the way comments were manipulated and displayed was the same as on the desktop site. It worked great.
I view the desktop site in classic mode with no slider, and with no comments hidden. I never understood the point of the slider interface. I'd like the same classic interface available on mobile but like I
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This AC is me. I am even going to try to turn off ad blocking and see what happens...