4 ms·

What happened to Slashdot wasn't a "consolidation", though, it was a suicide. I was a heavy reader of the site up until they had an infamous redesign that made

What happened to Slashdot wasn't a "consolidation", though, it was a suicide. I was a heavy reader of the site up until they had an infamous redesign that made the site literally unusable for me, so I left. That's very different from the scenario discussed in the article.

esafak 4mo ago
It is an interesting case study. Most designers would not think that they can tank a site.
- hn_throwaway_99 4mo ago
  One of the smartest things reddit ever did was ensure old.reddit.com remains fully functional. I imagine one day they'll EOL it, and when they do I'll no longer be a reddit user (probably not really a bad thing).
  - scragz 4mo ago
    they're gonna start making you log in on old to combat scrapers.
    - brookst 4mo ago
      I’m good with that. Wanting usable design is not related to avoid logging in.
  - TFNA 4mo ago
    Even if Old Reddit still exists, the vast majority of users are on New Reddit or the app on their phones. Those are designed to keep people endlessly scrolling, not sticking around in any one place and building community. Also, the phone as default device has reduced comments to 140-character quips, and one looks like a real weirdo now if one writes a solid paragraph or two like in the old days.
    - HappMacDonald 4mo ago
      "TL;DR" transformed into "TL;must be AI"
no_no_no_yes 4mo ago
Wow following the Digg playbook
- Forgeties79 4mo ago
  I can’t believe how long ago that was.
- hn_throwaway_99 4mo ago
  Well, it's kinda surprising that Digg actually followed the Slashdot playbook (Slashdot fucked up first) - Digg should have at least learned something from Slashdot's mistake. Both stories are pretty fascinating examples of how corporate dynamics can ruin a product. In Slashdot's case it was a clear example of "well, we hired a bunch of designers, so obviously we need to do a UI redesign!", but the designers had no idea how users actually used the site. They added a ton of whitespace and IIRC collapsible content to make the site more "modern", but in doing so it made it impossible to quickly scan the comments for high value/insightful responses. In Digg's case it had all the hallmarks of VC meddling ("we've got to monetize!") While people often comment about how buggy Digg V4 was when it released, the bigger issue was the content was just laughably bad - it was changed to like page after page of the dumbest corporate spam. Anyone using the site for 5 minutes would have known it was fucked, so I'm guessing there was just so much internal pressure to "get shit out the door" that they just wanted to release something rather than admit what they built was a turd.
flomo 4mo ago
I don't think that was it. Slashdot would only run stories from their 'content partners' like ZDNet and the Register, so they were always 2 days behind Reddit/HN/Twitter/etc. (When RMS was 'cancelled', that would have been a huge deal there in the old days, they had one post days later.) Also Digg wasn't just a graphical redesign, they changed how the site worked. I don't think Slashdot ever did that.
- hn_throwaway_99 4mo ago
  IIRC I was done with Slashdot before those other sites were even created (or at least widely popular).
- KennyBlanken 4mo ago
  RMS wasn't "cancelled" (a reminder that "canceling" and "canceled" is a snarl word.) His decades of incredibly shitty behavior came to be more public knowledge as both men and women in CS realized the behavior they'd witnessed wasn't some outlier once a few women who were well-known came forward and disclosed his behavior. What brought it all to bear was him repeatedly, on a technical mailing lists, defending sex with underage girls, which in turn led people to actually go looking through material on his own site where he pontificated that sex with anyone over 14 should be legal, or even younger. These are his exact own words: "I think that everyone age 14 or above ought to take part in sex, though not indiscriminately. (Some people are ready earlier.)" "I am skeptical of the claim that voluntarily [sic] pedophilia harms children. The arguments that it causes harm seem to be based on cases which aren't voluntary, which are then stretched by parents who are horrified by the idea that their little baby is maturing." Add onto that decades of stories of creepy, manipulating, harassing behavior toward girls/women as well as incredibly sexist comments about women's technical abilities...among a lot of other really anti-social behavior, like an apparent refusal to bathe...while expecting anyone who hosts him to read a 40 page long missive about exactly how treat him.
  - aboardRat4 4mo ago
    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lAA2dU8RmhA https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lAA2dU8RmhA Tl;dr: different races have different fertility peak ages.

esafak 4mo ago

It is an interesting case study. Most designers would not think that they can tank a site.

hn_throwaway_99 4mo ago
One of the smartest things reddit ever did was ensure old.reddit.com remains fully functional. I imagine one day they'll EOL it, and when they do I'll no longer be a reddit user (probably not really a bad thing).
- scragz 4mo ago
  they're gonna start making you log in on old to combat scrapers.
  - brookst 4mo ago
    I’m good with that. Wanting usable design is not related to avoid logging in.
- TFNA 4mo ago
  Even if Old Reddit still exists, the vast majority of users are on New Reddit or the app on their phones. Those are designed to keep people endlessly scrolling, not sticking around in any one place and building community. Also, the phone as default device has reduced comments to 140-character quips, and one looks like a real weirdo now if one writes a solid paragraph or two like in the old days.
  - HappMacDonald 4mo ago
    "TL;DR" transformed into "TL;must be AI"

no_no_no_yes 4mo ago

Wow following the Digg playbook

Forgeties79 4mo ago
I can’t believe how long ago that was.
hn_throwaway_99 4mo ago
Well, it's kinda surprising that Digg actually followed the Slashdot playbook (Slashdot fucked up first) - Digg should have at least learned something from Slashdot's mistake. Both stories are pretty fascinating examples of how corporate dynamics can ruin a product. In Slashdot's case it was a clear example of "well, we hired a bunch of designers, so obviously we need to do a UI redesign!", but the designers had no idea how users actually used the site. They added a ton of whitespace and IIRC collapsible content to make the site more "modern", but in doing so it made it impossible to quickly scan the comments for high value/insightful responses. In Digg's case it had all the hallmarks of VC meddling ("we've got to monetize!") While people often comment about how buggy Digg V4 was when it released, the bigger issue was the content was just laughably bad - it was changed to like page after page of the dumbest corporate spam. Anyone using the site for 5 minutes would have known it was fucked, so I'm guessing there was just so much internal pressure to "get shit out the door" that they just wanted to release something rather than admit what they built was a turd.

flomo 4mo ago

I don't think that was it. Slashdot would only run stories from their 'content partners' like ZDNet and the Register, so they were always 2 days behind Reddit/HN/Twitter/etc. (When RMS was 'cancelled', that would have been a huge deal there in the old days, they had one post days later.) Also Digg wasn't just a graphical redesign, they changed how the site worked. I don't think Slashdot ever did that.

hn_throwaway_99 4mo ago
IIRC I was done with Slashdot before those other sites were even created (or at least widely popular).
KennyBlanken 4mo ago
RMS wasn't "cancelled" (a reminder that "canceling" and "canceled" is a snarl word.) His decades of incredibly shitty behavior came to be more public knowledge as both men and women in CS realized the behavior they'd witnessed wasn't some outlier once a few women who were well-known came forward and disclosed his behavior. What brought it all to bear was him repeatedly, on a technical mailing lists, defending sex with underage girls, which in turn led people to actually go looking through material on his own site where he pontificated that sex with anyone over 14 should be legal, or even younger. These are his exact own words: "I think that everyone age 14 or above ought to take part in sex, though not indiscriminately. (Some people are ready earlier.)" "I am skeptical of the claim that voluntarily [sic] pedophilia harms children. The arguments that it causes harm seem to be based on cases which aren't voluntary, which are then stretched by parents who are horrified by the idea that their little baby is maturing." Add onto that decades of stories of creepy, manipulating, harassing behavior toward girls/women as well as incredibly sexist comments about women's technical abilities...among a lot of other really anti-social behavior, like an apparent refusal to bathe...while expecting anyone who hosts him to read a 40 page long missive about exactly how treat him.
- aboardRat4 4mo ago
  https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lAA2dU8RmhA https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lAA2dU8RmhA Tl;dr: different races have different fertility peak ages.