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AltSlashdot

altslashdot.org

21–30 of 33 posts

Re: AltSlashdot

#21
post #13

Seems to be starting from a technical place to replicate slashdot. Slashdot is a great site and the new beta sucks, however I would try and take what works (Curation & community (and historically moderation)). Slashdot kept its relevance for many people because of the community and the curation. I read hacker news for the most up to date feed, But I read sites like slashdot for their insight and summarisation. Not be…

Amen. You said it better than I did. Slashdot is not just an aggregation site, is was Taco's baby and reflected his ambitions to curate a meta-news site and a healthy community.

The irony I find with the recent beta backlash is that Slashdot hasn't been relevant in my life in close to 10 years. The last redesign was a mess too ... and that's the nature of the audience Slashdot has. The site was always doomed to irrelevance eventually because 1) impermanence 2) their geeky audience hates change. Always have, and apparently, always will.

Re: AltSlashdot

#22
Slashdot has been dying for years due to things like sponsor astroturf reviews and the one-sided use of the site to promote specific political views, etc. Make any technical platform you want, the problem is the people

Re: AltSlashdot

#24
post #14

"Registered "AltSlashdot.org", also ".com" and ".net"." If that name is temporary, why bother with more than one domain? How many alternatives to HN spin up? How many last? I'd be confirming whether the interest was there before I got stuck on too many details like legal and load balancing. I was once involved with an overly broad community-built site that jumped to details before core content. It started to breakdow…

For the sake of a few dollars, it's insurance against the domain being less temporary than originally thought. Domain squatters are a cancer.

Re: AltSlashdot

#25
post #13

Seems to be starting from a technical place to replicate slashdot. Slashdot is a great site and the new beta sucks, however I would try and take what works (Curation & community (and historically moderation)). Slashdot kept its relevance for many people because of the community and the curation. I read hacker news for the most up to date feed, But I read sites like slashdot for their insight and summarisation. Not be…

> older style perl code

some bad advice here based on bad assumption. You assume and suggest that going with another "modern stack" is somehow going to be worth the extra effort. Re-inventing the wheel is a recipe for wasting time and effort that can be better spent elsewhere - like on building and driving the community.

Re: AltSlashdot

#26
If you dislike the beta redesign but still want to read Slashdot and don't mind missing all but the top 5 comments on each story (which is probably good against procrastination) I recommend http://slashdot.org/palm. The Palm version has been the least cluttered way to read Slashdot for over a decade. It might even make you RTFA. ;-) Unlike the later, now defunct, http://m.slashdot.org/ it works with every browser I've tried, including Opera Mini.

Hopefully they won't discontinue it when the classic design is eliminated. I hardly read Slashdot now but I find the continued existence of their Palm version neat.

Re: AltSlashdot

#27
post #22

Slashdot has been dying for years due to things like sponsor astroturf reviews and the one-sided use of the site to promote specific political views, etc. Make any technical platform you want, the problem is the people

> one-sided use of the site to promote specific political views

How do you mean? I've not encountered any similar community which isn't also a political echo chamber - unless you're talking about something more specific that I'm unaware of.

Re: AltSlashdot

#28
post #25
post #13

Seems to be starting from a technical place to replicate slashdot. Slashdot is a great site and the new beta sucks, however I would try and take what works (Curation & community (and historically moderation)). Slashdot kept its relevance for many people because of the community and the curation. I read hacker news for the most up to date feed, But I read sites like slashdot for their insight and summarisation. Not be…

> older style perl code some bad advice here based on bad assumption. You assume and suggest that going with another "modern stack" is somehow going to be worth the extra effort. Re-inventing the wheel is a recipe for wasting time and effort that can be better spent elsewhere - like on building and driving the community.

Normally I would agree with you but I think with a code base like slash code your going to end up having a lot more time free going back to something much simpler. Your going to spend ages dealing with little foibles with a code base that old, and struggle to find people who are willing to spend the time maintaining a legacy stack. If you have a team of perl monks who are wiling to take it on, then by all means keep the existing code base.

However if you don't, I think your going to be better rolling a minimal site as your able to tap a wider pool of volunteers. Slashdot isn't some technological marvel, yes it will take time to rebuild it, but you will be able to execute much quicker being able to tap existing resources that have developed since.

Re: AltSlashdot

#29
post #22

Slashdot has been dying for years due to things like sponsor astroturf reviews and the one-sided use of the site to promote specific political views, etc. Make any technical platform you want, the problem is the people

> one-sided use of the site to promote specific political views How do you mean? I've not encountered any similar community which isn't also a political echo chamber - unless you're talking about something more specific that I'm unaware of.

Constant, heavily politically slanted editorializing from the editors in a large share of posted stories is not the same as an "echo chamber" defined by the common demographics of a site

Re: AltSlashdot

#30
post #13

Seems to be starting from a technical place to replicate slashdot. Slashdot is a great site and the new beta sucks, however I would try and take what works (Curation & community (and historically moderation)). Slashdot kept its relevance for many people because of the community and the curation. I read hacker news for the most up to date feed, But I read sites like slashdot for their insight and summarisation. Not be…

Amen. You said it better than I did. Slashdot is not just an aggregation site, is was Taco's baby and reflected his ambitions to curate a meta-news site and a healthy community. The irony I find with the recent beta backlash is that Slashdot hasn't been relevant in my life in close to 10 years. The last redesign was a mess too ... and that's the nature of the audience Slashdot has. The site was always doomed to irrel…

I don't think it's a geek thing. Most people don't like it when something familiar changes. And this is doubly true when that something is a platform they feel invested in.

I think you are correct, though, that Slashdot probably peaked somewhere in the early 2000s.

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