What research? Which users? "Users" aren't a monolithic group, you know. Slashdot attracts a very different crowd from, say, espn.com.

And "UX" is a stupid buzzword. When I go to a website--any website--I'm not looking for an "experience." I'm looking for something that loads quickly, renders readably, and provides the functionality I expect.

Or not change at all. That's an option. It really is.

It's been "cutting it" for fifteen years, more or less; it's certainly changed some during that time, but it's still recognizably the same site. Why shouldn't it be good for (at least) another four?

In another post, you wrote:

That BBC page isn't bad. Not great, but at least as good as the current one. And really, a decade ago was when the web was at its best. The browser wars were over, and it was reasonably easy to code a standards-compliant page that rendered well in the major browsers of the day. Sites offered all the functionality you expected, and still managed to load quickly even when a lot of people were still on dial-up (often faster than they do now over DSL and cable).

And for the most part, they looked great! I was a regular Salon reader in those days; please don't try to tell me that the current crapflood looks better. Yahoo was still a useful web index in those days, as opposed to ... whatever it's supposed to be now. Google News was attractive, fast, well-organized and information-rich; it's still not bad, but it's definitely not as useful as it once was. And you know, there was this really nifty technology news site that I absolutely loved; there's still something at that URL, but it looks like the domain might have been hijacked or something.

I wish I had a million mod points for this post. It really says everything that needs to be said, and says it beautifully.

Apparently the only responses you consider "reasonable" are the tiny minority supporting the beta. Okay, now we know unequivocally what the terms of the "discussion" are.

The Taliban and al-Qaeda are desperately hoping that the software is written by the Slashdot Beta coding team.

Normally I'd consider this a real dick move. But under the circumstances, I think it's perfectly natural for Turkey to want to defend itself against Slashdot Beta. The rest of the internet is just collateral damage.

First of all, thanks for replying. It's nice to know that someone in the /. hierarchy is paying attention ...

... or are you? Because seriously, I think it's pretty obvious from the feedback that the best thing to do would be to give the overworked engineering team some time off. As in, stop having them work on the beta. Because there is no way to fix the beta. The only change we want to see is the beta deleted forever.

Several thousand people--which is probably just about Slashdot's entire active user base at this point--have made their single opinion quite clear. Please stop pretending there's a debate about this.

Uh-huh.

Ah yes, that must be it!

I have trouble understanding how hooking up to the internet in Russia would be any more or less dangerous than anywhere, or why the threat would be more likely Russian. Part of the damage was self-inflicted in the classic way by opening a "suspicious" email (an attachment?) that could have been sent from anywhere to anywhere. As for the compromised phone, I have no idea. This story sounds like a fairly unimaginative effort to ridicule Russia and draw attention to the reporter. Why wait several days to reveal the technical details that people need to protect themselves?