Now that's something that I can take to the bank.

You see, I lost that aspect of it when I was seeing people posting line after line of "Fuck Beta", often anonymously, and often seeming to offer insults to anybody who felt differently.

You, on the other hand, have answered my questions without questioning my intelligence, or heaping scorn and abuse on my head for daring to have a different opinion, or generally resorting to name-calling, so I don't think you qualify for "bitter vituperation". <grin> Rather, you qualify as someone who helped me decide that this site is worth staying on. Thanks!

Now, at least some reasoned, if seemingly over-wrought, debate.

You argue that the content, being user-provided, will go away if people are unable to see the content organized in a sensible fashion. Okay, I can buy that. I also hadn't considered that since the content is provided by users, they might have a reason to be a bit more passionate about how their thoughts are presented.

What I don't get is the need for insult to anybody who disagrees, or the call to leave Slashdot in droves even after they acknowledged that the beta was not working out and removed it.

And, again, I submit that you have validated my other point. Bitter vituperation towards the failed beta, even after it's gone, may do as much to drive away readership as the beta

You have put a name to my pain, sir/madam.

I realized that the "Beta sucks!" chorus was bothering me, not just because it was a huge overreaction to, as you pointed out, a _proposed_ change to a _free_ site.

The thing that bothers me the most is that there seems to be almost a competition to show who can be the most obnoxious in registering their objections... from people who went through "gamer shaming" in high school, insults about nerdiness through college, and what not. It seems that these are people who have wanted to strike back at a handy target.

Like the French Bourbon dynasty when they were restored to power after Napoleon's defeat, they seem to have remembered everything, forgotten nothing, and learned nothing.

And then they discover the screwdriver, and declare the hammer to be obsolete.

Yes, but with the cage match, we can make a lot more money from sponsoring, ticket sales, and broadcast rights. The potential audience for the duck weighing is probably not so much (although there would probably be some overlap).

Simmer down? Simmer down?

How dare you tell me that I am over-reacting! Who gave you the right to judge whether my honestly-held opinions are or are not relevant to the situation?

By God, it's people like you who oppress us and censor us by saying that, after we denounce you for Godless Communist heathens, mindless socialist prats, and other names that are considered unsavory by the obviously-biased mainstream media, perhaps we should modify our language.

</sarcasm>

(Did I forget that <sarcasm> tag again? Oh, that's embarrassing...)

Seriously, though... your point is well taken. Slashdot hasn't always been so great with article summaries - but said summaries are also usually written by the submitter, so sometimes one can find an axe being ground.

As for overwrought expressions... the Internet is the voice of the world, and there are those who seem to think that the only way to be heard distinctly is to scream everything.

I wish to protest. There are some things that I can simply let go, but the above post was unwarranted crewelty.

That would make pouring hot grits down her pants difficult - (B) determining "down" in zero-G is an issue, and (A) being naked, she wouldn't have pants available.

Could you provide a citation for this? Otherwise, I'm going to assume that you made that up...

"Clearly, he has a dizzying intellect."

...Or at least 1990s nostalgia.

The problem with 1990's nostalgia is that it spent time pining for the 1970's... which in turn was bemoaning the 50's. So it doesn't matter which nostalgia you pick - it isn't as good as it used to be.

For me, I started with RedHat 6.2, dual-booting it with a Windows 98 machine... then tried other distros (including one called Caldera) before going with Mandrake. After a while, I got side-tracked... and then started to work on trying to set up an older home machine as a server, and worked with DSL and Zenwalk before getting side-tracked again... then when I got an older laptop from my father-in-law, started using Ubuntu, especially when it just worked without getting too bogged down with eye candy. That was followed up with Linux Mint, which now shares space on my laptop with Windows 7, while another laptop has version 1 of Peppermint Linux (it works, so what the hey?) and serves as a file server and alarm clock. I have different distros burned onto flash drives, and hope to have more soon. This is probably an indication that I am all over the map - so if you can find a pattern out of all of this, congratulations!

Well said. There are many who believe that "moderation is an admirable virtue - in other people."

Many of these people claim to be experts, and in some cases even "rockstars" and "coding ninjas".

I have yet to meet anyone who actually writes code for a living who refers to themselves in these terms. Usually, I hear it from body shop recruiters or dotcom promoters (e.g "we're looking for a rockstar")...

"Rock star" - someone who makes a lot of money by doing something brilliant in the limelight for two hours... and only every other day at that.

... that hopefully haven't already been done to death:

• "The Jigsaw Man" by Larry Niven
• The Sheep Look Up by John Brunner
• "There Will Come Soft Rains" by Ray Bradbury (from The Martian Chronicles)
• The White Plague by Frank Herbert