The thing is, at the moment posters can still use the classic system. If you take that away, I'd suddenly expect the quality and quantity of comments to drop. Suddenly the comment threads are likely to be a lot less easy to read.

Like you, I'm more of a reader than a commenter, but if the comment system is fundamentally broken, we both lose.

Perhaps if the corporate masters had been paying attention before, it wouldn't have come to this. I suspect the only reason this thread exists is because people made enough of a noise in the comment threads over the last couple of days.

Yes, it's annoying as hell. Yes it's rendered the site more or less useless for at least the last 48 hours. On the other hand, it's got the attention of the powers that be, even if they are going to completely ignore what's being said and destroy the site anyway. It's forced a response from the top. I doubt we'd have got that without people flooding the comment threads and expressing their displeasure.

Spot on. Slashdot looks somewhat outdated, and I'm not opposed on paper to it being modernised and given a new, improved look. Hell, even a full on "rebrand" wouldn't be a big deal, provided that important functionality isn't broken in the process. Slashdot works because it manages to get large volumes of information across in a clear way. There may be other ways in which the same information can be conveyed that work just as well, The current beta is not one of them.

The thing is, I rarely post to Slashdot. I've been here since around 2002/2003, and I read massive comment threads regularly.

There's just something about the way comments work that make sense and promote good discussion. From a reader's perspective, you get masses of content presented in a logical, easy to follow way, usually with most of the spam filtered out, and with everything on one page so you don't have to keep clicking to move from page to page. Reading massive discussions here is effortless. I couldn't tell you what it is that makes it good. I just know that it works.

Screwing up the comment system doesn't just cause problems for your contributors. It'll undermine things for your readers as well. Your "audience" won't keep coming back if it's harder to follow the masses of comments. Bear that in mind.

Spot on about the home page. I want to see the full summary of each article so that I can make decisions as to whether or not I want to view the comments. If I'm having to expend every single story because every one is being truncated, I have to waste time and mouse clicks. Stop making it difficult for users to get an overview of the content.

Yet others of us don't go shopping all that often, don't drive and have our big orders delivered to us. So now, I'm suddenly expected to constantly carry around bag(s) in my pocket on the off chance that I might need to pop into the shops to re-stock on perishable goods on my way home?

I'm all for trying to reduce the number of bags in circulation, and tend to re-use the few that I do get when shopping as bin bags, so no real loss there. I'm just annoyed at the general attitude of just expecting everyone to always have a bag handy, as if that's practical for everyone.

Maybe a better solution would be for people to be able to get one disposable bag free when shopping, and be charged for additional ones. Maybe they could even reduce the size of the bag if it's that big a deal. That way, people would still be rewarded for taking dedicated bags with them when they do a big weekly shop, whilst not impacting on those of us who just need to pop into Tesco to get a pint of milk before getting the bus home.

Because it's not intended to be a secondary auth. It's intended as a primary auth. It's a username and password replacement, not a second factor. One where your personal master key never leaves the device under your control.

Well, they immediately benefit from a much better sensor and much better lens, so that's one hell of a benefit. Plus, auto mode is a great starting point. Once you start looking at the photos you've got, that's when you can figure out what didn't work particularly well, and how to adjust your settings accordingly. My camera tends to stay in "P" mode 90% of the time, and only gets switched into one of the manual modes when I specifically need to override the default settings.

What's to stop them integrating Wine into the appropriate game packages and certifying them to run on Linux? That way, not everything would need a re-write. They'd be able to port a significant library right from the start, Valve would be able to verify compatibility and it'd all be pre-configured out of the box.

We're not complaining because we know full well that Linus has backups. It's called the Git source code repository. All he's lost is time, and assuming that he's saved a whole load by not having to run backups, he's probably ahead on average.

He just needs to switch to his other machine, and re-download the sources from Git. Problem solved, system working as intended. Once he gets a new drive for his old machine, it's a case of re-install the OS, re-sync with Git, done. Maybe copy a few config files off his laptop to save time getting his preferences the way he wants them.

The new approach is to use automated diallers that play recorded messages and don't mention the company name. They just ignore the TPS, and it's hard to report them if you don't know who they are.

That only works when the caller is human. I'm also TPS registered. I usually get 2-3 calls per week to the land line, and they're all automated messages. There's no-one to talk to, no one to tell they're breaking the law, and no company name provided. I'm getting tired of deleting all the voice mail messages.

No, some of us believe that project management is doomed to fail if non-technical people are doing it with no regard for whether or not the technical team have the time or resources to deliver. You cannot separate the technical and business requirements of an IT project. They are one and the same, each bound by the other. Good technical people know this and appreciate this. Far too many business people don't know this or don't care, and feel that they can dictate from on high whilst ignoring the technical aspect completely. That is a recipe for disaster.

You know what, sod it. I'm going to risk Slashdotting my site because it's relevant. I decided to give Windows 8 a go about two weeks ago because I wanted to A) See whether it was really as bad as everyone makes out, especially as I hated fighting with it on the few occasions I'd been asked to fix a Windows 8 laptop or tablet, and B) have a play with client Hyper-V. Whilst I was at it, I decided to document my experiences. If you want to see my more in-depth opinions, take a look at http://mouseat.co.uk/category/tech/

In short, I've actually spent some time working with this, and trying to figure out what works and what doesn't. I'm not saying that there isn't a better solution than just bringing back the old Start menu. I AM saying that the Start screen as it is now is not a suitable replacement for what we had before on a desktop PC with a keyboard and mouse.

That said, fair play to Microsoft, they certainly have thought through the interface and how it's going to work on a touch screen. The various swipe gestures actually make quite a lot of sense there.

There's more to the missing functionality than just the missing shut down button though. I can recreate that with a bit of JavaScript and a shortcut, even if it's more of a pain than it should be.

No, the problem is what else I'm missing compared with the old Start menu. Quick access to the Control Panel when I want to change something. Quick access to my Documents, Downloads, Pictures and Music folders. Quick access to printers and print queues when something isn't quite working right. Yes, I can recreate them, but that takes time and effort. The default is a gigantic step backwards, and even once the items are recreated it's less efficient than the old menu was.

Once you put a Start menu on Windows 8, it's actually not that bad. Metro tends to get out of your way more than I expected to be honest. The Start screen is not an adequate Start menu replacement for everyone though, and it's high time Microsoft acknowledged that.