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Submission + - AltSlashdot is coming (altslashdot.org) 3

Submitted by Okian Warrior
Okian Warrior writes: I've registered "AltSlashdot.org". I intend to run a site much like Slashdot used to be — better articles, less decoration and less "in your face" functionality. I'm reviewing and getting comfortable with slashcode right now. I'm looking for volunteers to help with setup and running the site. If the site becomes profitable, I intend to hire from the pool of volunteers. If you've ever wanted to participate in a site like Slashdot, here's your chance! I'm particularly in need of people who can:
  • Set up and manage a high-traffic site (servers, load-balancers, data sites, &c)
  • Edit story submissions
  • HTML, CSS, and script creation/bugfix/repair

Contact me if interested John (at) AltSlashdot (dot) org

Submission + - Dice Holdings has written off Slashdot Media at the close of 2013 (prnewswire.com) 3

Submitted by moogla
moogla writes: Apparently Dice.com could not make Slashdot work they way they wanted to; with a murky plan to tap into the Slashdot-reader community to somehow drive attention or insight into other Dice Holdings properities, they've burned through

$7.2 million of intangible assets and $6.3 million of goodwill related to Slashdot Media

and have only started to realize some improvement on related sites. With ad revenue declining and not expected to pick up (read: everyone who uses Slashdot uses adblocking softwarwe), it appears that the Slashdot stewardship experiment by Dice Holdings has been a financial failure. Since the site has been redesigned in a user-hostile fashion with a very generic styling, this reader surmises Dice Holdings is looking to transform or transfer the brand into a generic Web 3.0 technology property. The name may be more valuable than the user community (since we drive no revenue nor particularly use Dice.com's services).

Submission + - Fuck beta 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The beta is bad. It's so bad. The comments are reduced in screen width about 50%. Subject lines are deemphasized, scores are minimized, etc.

The discussions are the reason to come to Slashdot, and the beta trivializes them entirely. It looks like the comment section on a generic news site.

The comments now look like an afterthought, whereas they used to be the primary focus of the site.

Submission + - User Backlash at Slashdot Beta Site (slashdot.org) 3

Submitted by hduff
hduff writes: Look at almost any current Slashdot story and see loyal, long-time members rail against the new site design, willing to burn precious karma points to post off-topic rants against the new design and it being forced on users by the Dice Overlords. Discussion has begun to create an alternate site.

Submission + - Boycott Beta 2

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: On February 5, 2014, Slashdot announced through a javascript popup that they are starting to "move in to" the new Slashdot Beta design.

Slashdot Beta is a trend-following attempt to give Slashdot a fresh look, an approach that has led to less space for text and an abandonment of the traditional Slashdot look. Much worse than that, Slashdot Beta fundamentally breaks the classic Slashdot discussion and moderation system.

If you haven't seen Slashdot Beta already, open this in a new tab. After seeing that, click here to return to classic Slashdot.

We should boycott stories and only discuss the abomination that is Slashdot Beta until Dice abandons the project.
We should boycott slashdot entirely during the week of Feb 10 to Feb 17 as part of the wider slashcott

Moderators — only spend mod points on comments that discuss Beta
Commentors — only discuss Beta
http://slashdot.org/recent [slashdot.org] [slashdot.org] — Vote up the Fuck Beta stories

Keep this up for a few days and we may finally get the PHBs attention.

Captcha: fuckbeta

http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=4757125&cid=46169357
http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=4757125&cid=46169451
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=4757045&cid=46168351
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=4756947&cid=46167453

Submission + - /. Goes down in flame war 5

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Slashdot users flame all site stories with comments about the sites forced switching over to Beta version. The comments are relentless, calling for a ban of the site from Feb 10 to Feb 17. The following post is being made in every story comment:
On February 5, 2014, Slashdot announced through a javascript popup that they are starting to "move in to" the new Slashdot Beta design.
Slashdot Beta is a trend-following attempt to give Slashdot a fresh look, an approach that has led to less space for text and an abandonment of the traditional Slashdot look. Much worse than that, Slashdot Beta fundamentally breaks the classic Slashdot discussion and moderation system.
If you haven't seen Slashdot Beta already, open this [slashdot.org] in a new tab. After seeing that, click here [slashdot.org] to return to classic Slashdot.
We should boycott stories and only discuss the abomination that is Slashdot Beta until Dice abandons the project.
We should boycott slashdot entirely during the week of Feb 10 to Feb 17 as part of the wider slashcott [slashdot.org]
Moderators — only spend mod points on comments that discuss Beta
Commentors — only discuss Beta
http://slashdot.org/recent [slashdot.org] — Vote up the Fuck Beta stories
Keep this up for a few days and we may finally get the PHBs attention.
Captcha: fuckbeta

Comment Re:So who is left (Score 1) 204

by plasticsquirrel (#46173899) Attached to: Sony Selling Off VAIO Computer Business
East Asian companies, basically. Acer (Taiwan), Asus (Taiwan), Lenovo (China), Samsung (Korea), and Toshiba (Japan). In Japan and Europe, they also have NEC (Japan) and Fujitsu (Japan). Not all of them are selling traditional desktops in western markets, though, which is unfortunate. As for western companies, the number of big manufacturers has really been cut down to a tiny number -- Dell and HP, basically.

Comment Re:Fuck Beta (Score 5, Insightful) 204

by plasticsquirrel (#46173183) Attached to: Sony Selling Off VAIO Computer Business

Indeed, a company that neglects the views of a site's user community is truly clueless. Slashdot has its own traditions, and Slashdotters like the fact that it has an older and faster design that allows more content on the page. That's part of what makes this site special. If Dice doesn't understand some of these very basic matters, then I don't trust them with the future of Slashdot.

The new design is really ugly Web 3.0 crap, by the way. Just a bunch of huge pictures, excessive whitespace, and fade effects -- treating a technical website like a picture book for Joe Sixpack! Part of the greatness of Slashdot was always its special moderation system, also, which controlled discussions in a positive way (not just +1 or -1 for dumb-dumbs). Talk about not understanding your demographic...

Submission + - Restoring HP and other Firmware access through legislation (digitalrighttorepair.org) 3

Submitted by DRTRLady
DRTRLady writes: The Digital Right to Repair Coalition (DRTR) www.digitalrighttorepair.org has been pushing legislation to prevent vendors, such as HP and others, from selling equipment without a clear right to keep using it without paying additional fees. This always includes firmware but also service documentation, schematics, diagnostics, error codes, passwords, and so forth. One way we have approached legislation is for everyone to be able to know what they purchased, and know ahead of time what they must license. See SD SB136 http://legiscan.com/SD/bill/SB... for this approach. We are also working on a more forceful bill modeled after the Automotive Right To Repair Law passed in Massachusetts which deals with the identical problems of repair including firmware. See https://malegislature.gov/Bill... . Which is better? What else can we do?

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: Can some of us get together and rebuild this community? 21

Submitted by wbr1
wbr1 writes: It seems abundantly clear now that Dice and the SlashBeta designers do not care one whit about the community here. They do not care about rolling in crapware into sourceforge installers. In short, the only thing that talks to them is money and stupid ideas.

Granted, it takes cash to run sites like these, but they were fine before. The question is, do some of you here want to band together, get whatever is available of slashcode and rebuild this community somewhere else? We can try to make it as it once was, a haven of geeky knowledge and frosty piss, delivered free of charge in a clean community moderated format.

Submission + - Alternatives to Slashdot post beta? 8

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Like many Slashdotters, I intend to stop visiting Slashdot after the beta changeover. After years of steady decline in the quality of discussions here, the beta will be the last straw. What sites alternative to Slashdot have others found? The best I have found has been arstechnica.com, but it has been a while since I've looked for tech discussion sites.

Submission + - Sony selling off VAIO computer business (theverge.com) 1

Submitted by Kensai7
Kensai7 writes: Confirming reports from earlier in the week, Sony has announced plans to sell off its VAIO computer division to a Japanese investment fund. Japan Industrial Partners (JIP) will take control of the operation for an undisclosed fee, and Sony will "cease planning, design and development of PC products." For a variety of reasons "including the drastic changes in the global PC industry," Sony says "the optimal solution is to concentrate its mobile product lineup on smartphones and tablets and to transfer its PC business to a new company."

Submission + - ReactOS 0.3.16 has been released (reactos.org) 1

Submitted by jeditobe
jeditobe writes: The ReactOS Project is pleased to announce the release of version 0.3.16. A little under a year has passed since the previous release and a significant amount of progress has been made. Some of the most significant include completion of the CSRSS rewrite and the first stages of a shell32 rewrite. 0.3.16 is in many ways a prelude to several new features that will provide a noticeable enhancement to user visible functionality. A preview can be seen in the form of theme support, which while disabled by default can be turned on to demonstrate the Lautus theme developed by community member Maciej Janiszewki. Another user visible change is a new network card driver for the RTL8139, allowing ReactOS to support newer versions of QEMU out of the box. Release images can be found in the usual spot here.

And for those of you that have not heard of it yet, the project is running a Kickstarter campaign in the form of the Thorium Cloud Desktop. If you want to help the project raise the funds to hire multiple full time developers and bring ReactOS to a state where it can be used for day to day activities, then please spread the word and put up a few bucks to back us.

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