Shadow Wrought's Journal: "users.pl": Is There Anything it Can't Do?

Once again slashdot has seen fit to take something that works smoothly and effeciently and decided to replace it with a steaming pile of fail. As much as I enjoy this community, its users, and (most) discussions, I am hard pressed to understand why they keep making things harder. The new JE form is but the latest example in this long, sad trend.

For those of you who would like to retain a semblance of Slashdot that works, http://slashdot.org/users.pl is your friend. The "Write in Journal" option takes you to the classic, usable interface, it lists your most recent JE on top with your comments underneath, and it has a direct link to your "messages.pl" page as well.

Unfortuantely the coders behind slashdot seem so hell-bent on destroying it, that I fear it is only a matter of time before users.pl is taken away too. That way there will no longer be a reminder of what slashdot is actually capable of, and their own twisted, self-infatuated vision of "usability" will reign unchecked.

Just trying to find the "write in journal" link ..

[tomhudson]

... can be a real adventure. Then again, if you prefer perl, you're not into being the most-organized type to begin with ...

Re:

[Shadow Wrought]

Indeed. Having to scroll all the way to the bottom of the "preferred" page is a pain. That's why I just type int he users.pl and ignore the link. I'm not sure what I'll do when its gone.

Imagine Helen Keller in the supermarket

[countertrolling]

Greater torture she would never find as they constantly rearrange the place. We, the user are not the "customer". The advertisers are, and they probably want to see something "fresh", or they'll think the site is stagnant. They don't care if it actually works. Face it, if something gets popular, there will be a marketing/accounting department to come by and ruin it.

Re:

[Shadow Wrought]

My own, admittedly cynical, view is that powers that be are self-absorbed with their own prowess. So whatever they do is the "best" regardless of what you, me, or any odd thousand slashdot users think. Since they are never wrong, they never need to fix anything. So they can downplay fixing the things that are actually broken, since that's hard; and instead tweak user-interfaces because it's easy. That way they can justify working without doing the really hard work.

I prefer a simpler theory

[tqft]

CmdrTaco got his wad of cash from the buyout (however many years ago) but is under contract to run the site for x years unless it fails.

Taco has identified a nice spot of land on a lake and would like to spend his time fishing.

PS: mod points for sale, end of season run out sale.

Not just that

[Captain Splendid]

But questions to the powers-that-be over whether older functions like users.pl will remain get met with vague answers. I know I won't bother if they decide to go Full Idle.

Re:

[Red4man]

This place fucking sucks. Some days, I wonder why I even bother mocking it's (l)users.

Re:

[Jimmy_Slimmy]

I only am here to troll the anonymous coward.

Re:

[nacturation]

When you get bored, you could mock yourself for the grammar tragedy that is "it's" instead of "its".

Re:

[Red4man]

Why, thank you, Grammar Fairy. I had no idea. This revelation completely changes my life and my perspective of all things. How can I ever repay you for your kindness, Grammar Fairy?

Re:

[nacturation]

You're welcome. I knew you'd appreciate it. It's my gift to you in your quest to help this place fucking suck a little bit less... starting with your fucking suckiness.

Re:

[Red4man]

Tsk Tsk. Such Language. Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?

Re:

[nacturation]

I agree... your language is horrible.

Re:

[Red4man]

Apparently you're paralyzed from the neck up.

Re:

[nacturation]

Don't remember what you wrote [slashdot.org]? Tsk tsk... such language.

Re:

[Shadow Wrought]

I know you're trolling the troll, but in all seriousness that's one of the things in my own writing that I've noticed I'm consistantly poor at. That and ending sentences in prepositions apparently;-)

Re:

[nacturation]

Yeah, feeding trolls is one of my pet hobbies. They're always so eager up with it to lap. (Screw the whole ending sentences with prepositions crap!)

Re:

[Shadow Wrought]

I know I won't bother if they decide to go Full Idle

"Full Idle is an appropriate oxymoron. Vigorously mediocrity also comes to mind. There's a difference between stagnation and leaving something that works alone. The user page worked very well and was, at least IMHO, a good example of concise information management. Now it seems to be on the way out.

To answer the JE title question...

[damn_registrars]

... I don't think users.pl is capable of inspiring slashdot employees to write good, functional code. Or - dare I propose such a thing - actually test code before they unleash it on an unsuspecting populace of readers.

Re:

[Shadow Wrought]

Well, since it is good, functional code written by slashdot employees, I think it actually could inspire them to greater efforts. But if they kill it then they can continue to not try. Hence I think it'll be the latter.

Re:

[damn_registrars]

Well, since it is good, functional code written by slashdot employees, I think it actually could inspire them to greater efforts.

That is true, it could do exactly that. I agree that users.pl is good, functional code. However, I cannot think of an example of good, functional code coming out of slashdot at any time since.

It appears that the new MO is "we've done good work before, so let's ignore it and try something else now". Just wait until comments.pl gets replaced by firehose.pl and our entire world gets all AJAX-y and dependent on cross-site-scripting as well.

/my/amigos

[LordBodak]

They also broke /my/amigos, which really sucks. The whole site is virtually useless in IE6 (I know, IE6 sucks, but it's all we have here at work).