4 ms·

Slashdot is fun if you want a more cynical take on some of the topics that show up here. Slashdot's articles typically are general tech, science, security, and

Slashdot is fun if you want a more cynical take on some of the topics that show up here. Slashdot's articles typically are general tech, science, security, and politics (esp tech related). Here there's more software community stuff, blogs, update notes, personal projects etc. I read both HN and slashdot daily, they each have their own thing.

the_duke 8y ago
I remember when Slashdot was THE online community for tech news. Insightful comments, amazing (!) moderation system. It all went downhill years ago though and now the quality of the discussions is horrendous.
- Moru 8y ago
  https://soylentnews.org/ https://soylentnews.org/ is one of the Slashdot breakoffs from when they went too far. They are using an old fork of the Slashdot engine.
  - isostatic 8y ago
    Sadly the site is mainly populated with about 8 extremists and it mainly covers political angles.
  - fancyfish 8y ago
    Note this is unfortunately not a news discussion site for the meal replacement of the same name.
- snazz 8y ago
  The primary issue with Slashdot seems to be the flame wars—they don’t have some of the features and the moderation like HN does to detect and prevent them. If someone mentions systemd, you know that the quality of discussion just went from “mediocre” to “terrible”.
  - zhte415 8y ago
    I think Slashdot had a superior moderation system to HN, but it lacked an iron hand that led it to local equilibrium that was different from different visions and use-cases of the site by different users. HN has a clear vision and set of rules, Slashdot didn't. News for nerds, Stuff that matters. Slashdot did have a moderation system where, if you were over a certain number of points (like HN) (and later hidden on /.) you could moderate. Moderation was a bit more complex sometimes leading to fun results with comments '+5 Offtopic' and '-1 Insightful'. There was playfulness. There was also meta-moderation where consensus was sought for previous moderation decisions. I don't think an learning 3rd stage algorithm would have helped, going back to the above: there wasn't a clear set of principles and very strong enforcement of that either by community of mods. And there was a very strong trolling community that were happy to live at -1, some of whom were Anonymous Cowards but have in some cases come to light as smart leading figures in their technologies. Cmdrtaco and crew were ridiculed (sometimes very unfairly) but didn't react consistently. I don't think Dang and co wouldn't be bullied by a community site they shepherd. tl;dr There was a special time in the internet, and some parts of the internet have learnt from this. And before this, there was another special time. And before that another. And we will look back too.
egfx 8y ago
Slashdot is good for the first few comments in every post, then drop's like a ton of bricks.
sys_64738 8y ago
I thought /.'s articles were copied/pasted from here nowadays :-)

the_duke 8y ago

I remember when Slashdot was THE online community for tech news. Insightful comments, amazing (!) moderation system. It all went downhill years ago though and now the quality of the discussions is horrendous.

Moru 8y ago
https://soylentnews.org/ https://soylentnews.org/ is one of the Slashdot breakoffs from when they went too far. They are using an old fork of the Slashdot engine.
- isostatic 8y ago
  Sadly the site is mainly populated with about 8 extremists and it mainly covers political angles.
- fancyfish 8y ago
  Note this is unfortunately not a news discussion site for the meal replacement of the same name.
snazz 8y ago
The primary issue with Slashdot seems to be the flame wars—they don’t have some of the features and the moderation like HN does to detect and prevent them. If someone mentions systemd, you know that the quality of discussion just went from “mediocre” to “terrible”.
- zhte415 8y ago
  I think Slashdot had a superior moderation system to HN, but it lacked an iron hand that led it to local equilibrium that was different from different visions and use-cases of the site by different users. HN has a clear vision and set of rules, Slashdot didn't. News for nerds, Stuff that matters. Slashdot did have a moderation system where, if you were over a certain number of points (like HN) (and later hidden on /.) you could moderate. Moderation was a bit more complex sometimes leading to fun results with comments '+5 Offtopic' and '-1 Insightful'. There was playfulness. There was also meta-moderation where consensus was sought for previous moderation decisions. I don't think an learning 3rd stage algorithm would have helped, going back to the above: there wasn't a clear set of principles and very strong enforcement of that either by community of mods. And there was a very strong trolling community that were happy to live at -1, some of whom were Anonymous Cowards but have in some cases come to light as smart leading figures in their technologies. Cmdrtaco and crew were ridiculed (sometimes very unfairly) but didn't react consistently. I don't think Dang and co wouldn't be bullied by a community site they shepherd. tl;dr There was a special time in the internet, and some parts of the internet have learnt from this. And before this, there was another special time. And before that another. And we will look back too.

egfx 8y ago

Slashdot is good for the first few comments in every post, then drop's like a ton of bricks.

sys_64738 8y ago

I thought /.'s articles were copied/pasted from here nowadays :-)