SoylentNews - User contributions [en]

Historic talk:FeatureList

2014-02-10T21:50:46Z

Mfnickster: /* MODDING */

(Pardon my editing. If anyone is more familiar with wiki editing than I, maybe they would care to format this more appropriately. However, I would not appreciate any editing of my comments other than for format.)

== MODDING ==

:First: I recommend against allowing mods in any discussion in which you have taken part. Preventing mods only to "your comment chain" would be far too complicated to implement and there are too many potential holes to exploit if someone wants to cheat.

:: Technobabble removed --- I don't see why it's really a desirable feature. You're opening the door to people gaming the system by modding other comments in the topic that they don't like, in order to support the comments in that topic that they did make. If you mod all your enemies down, and your own and friends' comments up, you distort the whole picture. My opinion is no. It's just a bad idea to allow mods in the same forum you comment in. (Please understand that my intention here is to be constructive. I used to think this should be allowed on the original site too, but after giving it more thought I changed my mind.)

::: I understand where you're coming from; what I and others have experienced is that we don't bank mod points until such time they want to use them since they expire. Most of the time when I have mod points, I find myself annoyed that I can't contribute to a conversation that I'm now paying close attention to. Are you specifically concerned about an issue-poster who will hunt through articles once they have mod points to game the conversation?

:Second: I recommend against giving users the ability to mod ACs up. Why bother? They're ACs. Allow downmodding but not upmodding. That gives them incentive to create an account. (I realize this would penalize the occasional brilliant comment from an AC... still, I say: let them create an account.)

:: ACs do sometimes post very good content. Sometimes individuals mentioned in an article feel the need to post with some plausible deniability. I'd advise against this. Perhaps a feature might be to simply hide AC posts as a display option (but not the default).

::: "Sometimes individuals mentioned in an article feel the need to post with some plausible deniability." Regardless of the occasional "good" purpose this can be used for, this is called '''sock-puppet''' activity and is pretty universally despised in online forums. Encouraging this kind of behavior will not do your site any favors.

:::: I disagree. I feel that being able to contribute or add an additional detail anonymously (plausible deniability) is vital, especially because of the sensitive nature of some articles with respect to where people work. Remember that a moderator still has to moderate the anonymous post up, and moderators are aware that an anon reply to an authenticated post might be a sock-puppet if it looks strange or like someone is deliberately trying to sound like a second voice.

:::: Slashdot was not a site optimized for Facebook arguments about politics or DND. Even if you can "win" an argument with sock-puppetry; if you won an argument on Slashdot you have already lost. It's a site optimized for technical discussions and each post should be able to stand on its own merits and there are no winners or losers, just informative or bullshit; the only amplification (speaking from authority) should come from registered posts and reputation. That's why Slashdot allows some registered or high-karma accounts to post with more points by default. If there was some real weird conversation steering by a bad actor with sock puppetry combined with mod activity you're already talking about needing multiple accounts in good standing, and that takes resources. If it can be detected by the clustering analysis and investigated, then we could combat it. If it can't, then it's a sophisticated attack by someone with a lot of patience or money, and in which case I don't think we can prevent that.

:::: I think that a targeted attack that abuses the ability to post anonymously could just as easily be done without anonymous posting (and yet another account), so I think the value of being able to post something very valuable without fear of repercussion outweighs the ease with which someone might try to make their own argument seem popular. I'd rather fish the depths for a gem and take that "go ahead and post the master HDCP matrix, free speech is paramount" approach that Slashdot had than tell you to use a pastebin.

:Third: I do not think fractional mod points is a good idea. It adds unnecessary complication, decimal numbers use up more space in the database and add performance penalties, etc. If you want to make some mods worth more than others, make them worth more than one point. E.g., 2 points and 1 point rather than 1 point and 0.5 points.

:: You wouldn't store decimals, just the traditional modpoints times 2. The fractions are a UI detail and their conversion (and truncation) are a function of the code that prepares fetched data to be templated and rendered to HTML. The reason for adding this is so that the default rendering option still shows a -1 to 5 scale as before, but allows for Funny and Flamebait to be de-emphasized. It's really a matter of empowering the default, non-logged in view, which we can't ignore.

::: I know how it works. You are still adding needless complication. Regardless of whether it's "just display" or not, you are adding floating-point arithmetic that simply isn't necessary.

:::: We could change the range. But I like the idea that the score is in a 0-5 "stars" range. Familiarity and all. I'd like it not to go into double digits (0-9) at the worst. And you're making a bigger deal out of it than it is considering PHP and Perl have no issue with floating point vs. integer scalars (and the database wouldn't store it). This isn't something to get worked up about. What I'd like to hear is a solid argument against finer weighting options.

::: "but allows for Funny and Flamebait to be de-emphasized" Why would you want to de-emphasize them? I think Funny is well-deserving of a full point, and Flamebait, while sometimes misused, is still a worthy mod.

:::: Slashdot already allows for user-defined weights for rating types. I have seen some user journals earlier on from slashdot devs where they talked statistics on how top-level comments end up getting overmodded (they receive a disproportionate number of different ratings to value the unauthenticated user score). Seeing how some comments quickly shoot up in score, I think this is still happening. I feel this would allow for a bit more fine-grained control for users who don't value Funny as much as you might. (I'm one of them, I like Funny, but I think it gets steam-roll mod applied sometimes, like the Reddit effect you mentioned earlier)

:Fourth: I would give a lot of strong thought to some kind of means to limit sock-puppet accounts and especially sock-puppet mods. I doubt there is any perfect way to do it, but having many times been victim of sock-puppet mods, I think it should be harder than in the original version. It should also be made clear to users that sock-puppets are considered the lowest of the low by the community. (They already are, but it should be made explicitly clear.)

:: Perhaps a new requirement is a feature in the backend that uses cookies and/or IP/browser fingerprinting to cluster accounts, and then further watch for correlated activity among them to identify potential sockpuppet accounts. A manual adjudication process would be necessary. While multiple accounts would not be specifically against the ToS, the site would reserve the right to ban accounts believed to be acting in bad faith (trolling, spam, sockpuppetry).

::: I agree. I think a form in the user area could be used to register a "complaint" about suspected sock-puppet mods. This could run an automatic routine to find correlations to cookies or IPs (cookies is probably more reliable). If that is above a certain threshold, it could be forwarded to moderators for a review. Just an idea, but that would give users a way to complain, without incessantly bothering moderators, yet allow moderators to act if anything is real.

:Fifth: I recommend adding an "I disagree" mod, which would be worth '''+1''' point. :)

:: Only if you change it to be "Devil's Advocate" and conversely a "Groupthink" downmod at '''-1'''. These are more descriptive rather than opinion-based tags (even though they really all are) which are easier to metamod and force you to think about your perception of the community attitude, not just your own.

::: It was just a joke. I like the groupthink idea, though (a "Kool-Aid" mod). I think it might be abused though.

:::: Some others have already expanded on this list apparently :)

:Sixth: ''"What about not-posting in the thread where you moderated? Good or bad rule? Maybe if you really must post, allow cryptocoin paying for post?"'' '''HELL NO.''' People should not have more say just because they have more money. This is a '''very bad''' idea.

:: Agreed. This is a dangerous precedence. Also, I don't think it's a good idea to incentive-ize anything beyond low UIDs, more browsing options (site scraping, CPU-taxing searches), maybe auctions for popular channel names to be owner/editor on.

'''Show multiple mod reasons.''' One thing that always bugged me about Slashdot's modding is that you could get a +1 funny and +1 insightful, but only one of them shows as the reason for the upmod. Why not "+2, funny, insightful" ? [[User:Mfnickster|Mfnickster]] ([[User talk:Mfnickster|talk]])

== KARMA (CHOPS) ==

:I really don't think mod points or karma should depend on user's customized point systems. Leaving it open to customized scoring could make your karma system vulnerable to cabals of users, unintended consequences, or a form of "elitism" (Good Old Boy Syndrome). It's been known to happen. There should be a clearly articulable standard that cannot be modified by users. Anything else is subject to chaos. If you don't give users a clearly defined standard, they won't know how to behave.

:: Note about the above: if what was meant was that it '''shows''' differently to users based on their custom scorings, fine. But the internal base scoring should not be modifiable by users.
:: '''Eeep edit conflict''' ... YES that's what I meant and I agree

:A Karma (or Chops) system needs to go above what the original system uses (only a few levels, with "Excellent" being the top). The current system allows people to receive massive numbers of positive mod points, but still remain at "Excellent" karma, which can be lost in a single day; they can find their karma at 0 if they are ganged up on by others and receive only a few downmods in a single conversation. Yes, it does happen. Karma should be allowed to accumulate (negative OR positive) beyond just a few points on either side of zero. It need not go on forever, but people should be allowed to develop some kind of persistence of positive or negative karma. That way somebody with a few years of good karma won't find themselves below 0 due to a single flamewar. And vice versa.

:: This already happens from what I understand. Karma isn't totally capped right now on slashdot; there's a functional limit for display purposes and mod perks. I think there's a weighting system where karma for everything older than a few months or so "sum from back then", capped at the functional limit, and then all the subsequent karma-affecting activity since then allows it to go above or below that number, and it's again capped at the limit for checks. And then they summarize the oldest month on some periodic basis into the new "sum from back then", but they again are capping it when stored so all the extra upmods in the past can't outweigh current downmods now.

::: I don't think they really do this. I say that because I have had many years of good /. karma, with consistently many more upmods than down, only to see it literally disappear in a single day, over a single discussion in which I took a "politically incorrect" position (about 5 downmods). I had to re-build it from scratch. I thought that was really pretty terrible: losing years of reputation in a single discussion. That should not be allowed, but was.

:::: They do do this. But it relies on an external script to do some stuff (it could be more nuanced on the slashdot in production vs. what's in the CVS). And I've done this too (got downmodded a lot), but have not experienced what you experienced. Or perhaps I posted enough other stuff that got upmodded subsequently that it didn't matter the next time I checked.

:: I'd like to continue using such a system so that you're given the ability to carry Chops above the "Excellent" threshold value, but summarization means that you can't "bank" good behavior limitlessly and it also cuts down on expensive database queries for long-lived accounts.

::: I don't think limitless would be a good idea either. But I also don't think big queries should be necessary. Just accumulate points in a field of the main user record. Allow the accumulation of a certain amount of points above "Excellent", or below "Terrible" (or whatever the low limit is... I've never been there). I don't see the utility of maintaining complex running averages, when a simple accumulator achieves most of the same goals, as long as you let it go somewhat above the top visual rating and below the bottom visual rating. (And as I mentioned before, I don't think the original site actually does averages, either.)

:::: What I'm hearing is that the summary-ization threshold is too low. Are you okay with it turning everything beyond "4 weeks ago" into a past total and starting point for karma (capped at 150% the display?). Let's say the display limit is "10" for excellent. That means you could have 15 upmods banked from a month ago, plus any recent upmods, and then need that many downmods to happen to you all at once to put you at zero.

:Care should be taken to avoid multiplication of karma points, either positive or negative. I.e., you should not receive more positive points for having positive points.

:: I can't think of a situation where this occurs as exists or proposed (except with sockpuppetry... )

::: I agree. I just thought it was worth mention because I had at first misunderstood your description of how reputation is scored. The "Reddit effect" is somewhat minimimized on Slashdot because comments don't move to the top based on their score. But on Reddit (if they still do it the same way) it is a serious positive feedback effect, in which mediocre comments can get shoved to the top if they get a few upmods early, while more insightful comments get buried in the noise. That's not directly related to karma (chops), but the effect should be avoided in any scoring system.

:::: Agreed.

== UTF-8 ==
Just to play devil's advocate here, I thought Unicode support (and lack thereof) was one of the things people commonly bitched about on Slashdot. So if it is possible to be smart about Unicode from the beginning, that could help us take off. I say this as someone without the ''relevant'' technical knowledge of the back-end so I don't know why UTF-8 is especially important to you guys. --[[User:Sir Garlon|Sir Garlon]] 16:34 EST 2014-02-10

Talk:SoylentNews

2014-02-10T14:07:27Z

Mfnickster: /* Hosting and collaboration */

"You have followed a link to a page that does not exist yet. To create the page, start typing in the box below"

Okay, let's see if that works.

And help kill beta by joining the Slashcott

February 10th -17th

unitron

Slashdot UID 5733

== Teething pains? ==

This message was created automatically by mail delivery software.

A message that you sent could not be delivered to one or more of its
recipients. This is a permanent error. The following address(es) failed:

John@AltSlashdot.org
SMTP error from remote mail server after RCPT TO:<John@AltSlashdot.org>:
host mail.altslashdot.org [66.147.244.192]: 550 No Such User Here

...

Is this an "only if Slashdot doesn't back down on beta" contingency, or =
"going to happen no matter what Slashdot does"?

...

== Hot Grits ==

I have poured them down my pants. Thank you. [[Special:Contributions/86.50.93.164|86.50.93.164]] 10:16, 6 February 2014 (MST) Iskender (1040286)

*Why are they down your pants? They should be on Natalie Portman - naked and petrified..

== Group or Business ==

Okian Warrior seems to want to be CmdrTaco all over again. While I am a very, very pro-business sort of person, I don't think we want to just push reset and do Slashdot over again as another build it up and cash out endeavor. It seems like that's exactly what would happen, and on the backs of volunteers no less. The only way I could see supporting this endeavor as a business would be with some sort of codified protection like a charter, whereby certain attributes of the way the site functions would be guaranteed, and those guarantees could only be changed if (the charter could only be modified if) the users were polled and agreed to it. In this way the business could operate but be ultimately accountable to and restrained by the userbase. This seems like a good hybrid solution. ~ElectricTurtle

You could solve this by managing it similar to the debian project.

^ Agree with both sentiments. I'm a bit skeptical of Okian Warrior's business mindset... we need this to resemble a non-profit FOSS project. Can that really be so hard to do (in the beginning, especially, and also with all the cloud services now available to avoid slashdotting?). Some will balk at the Debian-like structure as too codified and rigid, but let's at least discuss this as a FOSS project first, and *maybe* some ad revenue down the line to support it. Although, donations/crowdfunding seems better to me. ~ [[User:Seandiggity|Seandiggity]] ([[User talk:Seandiggity|talk]]) 08:52, 7 February 2014 (MST)

I agree that we shouldn't trade corporate overlord for a new master with the prospect of becoming a corporate overlord. I am not opposed to the project manager making money off the site though. Instead of an exit strategy how about a transitional strategy wherein the founder makes a fixed amount of money and/or profits for a fixed time? Eg $100k or 5yrs, whichever comes first.

As far as monetization, premium accounts with little or no ads is easy. Couple this with paid postings to receive a higher start moderation eg. 5¢ for 0,nuetral if you don't have an account. It shouldn't be hard to get the money to buy the site from the founder. Especially if coupled with annual wikipedia donation drives to cover the site overhead.

:Non-profit or volunteer org is a good approach. If it's owned by a business or corporation, I will not use it. [[User:Mfnickster|Mfnickster]] ([[User talk:Mfnickster|talk]])

==Stories==
*Could there be [[Open Hardware FPGAs]]? http://www.electronicsweekly.com/mannerisms/fpga/will-expiring-patents-boost-fp-2007-03/

== Barrapunto ==

People here should be familiar with the Spanish language version of Slashdot,
Barrapunto.com. It looks like it was forked from older Slashcode, and it does
not appear to be a dice holding. This is the most durable SlashClone with which
I'm familiar. I seem to recall reading about it more than 5 years ago. If nothing
else, we could learn a lot from them about running a successful SlashClone.

We should make a list of any currently running clones.
*http://slashcode.com/www.slashcode.com/

Thanks for posting the link. That looks a lot more like /. Classic. Now we certainly
don't want to knock over the server that discusses SlashCode, so we shouldn't be
posting there... but they seem like an ideal candidate for a bunch to form a non-profit
org. IMHO, that's the answer. We need to form a non-profit dedicated to serving the
users. Worst case scenario we replace ads with something like the annual Wikipedia
begging; but it might be worth it.

The Wikipedia begging beats having advertizes dictating the content of your site or selling the users info for $$$ Wikipedia I believe does it right. [[User:Script Cat|Script Cat]] ([[User talk:Script Cat|talk]]) 14:28, 6 February 2014 (MST)
 (The advertising on barrapunto.com looks fine and unobtrusive to me. My 2 cents, but no, I don't know much about advertising paying the bills, sadly.)(Gaaark)
== Alternate domain ideas? ==

It's come up elsewhere online that a name including slashdot might get this project into hot water with DICE

== Hosting and collaboration ==
make it foss with gpl2 
is there any reason why the site can't be directly hosted by https://github.com/ 
ultra-nerdy, with plenty of linuxy flavor 
no need to worry about dedicated infrastructure, and domain doesn't matter that much if it's something like "github.com/altslash" nerds are gunna find and remember it
: I don't trust Github. I don't think they really care about their community any more than Dice cares about Slashdot's. [[User:Mfnickster|Mfnickster]] ([[User talk:Mfnickster|talk]])
:: I don't think that's a problem, since every repository clone is essentially a full backup, so if they pull something sinister, we can simply stop using them. [[User:Yahwotqa|Yahwotqa]] ([[User talk:Yahwotqa|talk]]) 06:31, 10 February 2014 (MST)
::: Like we "simply stopped using" Slashdot? :) [[User:Mfnickster|Mfnickster]] ([[User talk:Mfnickster|talk]])

== Journals ==
I hope journals are included and hope people use them.

== AGPL licensing ==
If no one's said it yet, I think we need to move the updated version of SlashCode to AGPL and get it in a git repo for people to hack on (preferably github). I'm happy to put it up there under that license but I don't want to see (yet another) fork. Any objections to that license? It's recommended by the FSF for any Web software, or really any that runs primarily over a network. In my view, it will protect us from seeing the fruit of our labors be turned into another locked up DiceDot... how nice would it have been to have at least the updated "Slashdot Classic" interface available now to hack on instead of the circa 2009 version? The AGPL would have made that possible. ~ [[User:Seandiggity|Seandiggity]] ([[User talk:Seandiggity|talk]]) 09:22, 7 February 2014 (MST)
: Can you just re-license someone else's code? How is that legally possible? Also, it might make sense to fork it anyway just to have control over the code base. It could also be ported to another language (don't say .NET or PHP please!). [[User:Mfnickster|Mfnickster]] ([[User talk:Mfnickster|talk]])

:: You can license a modified version of a program under a compatible license, depending upon the terms that the original authors released the source. Many forks end up under a different license through some new mix of code. If the original Slash is licensed "GPL v2.0 or any later version" there's a clear path to GPLv3 and then AGPL. If not, the authors must be the ones to do it, and we might think about asking them (all of whom left Slashdot a while ago AFAIK) rather than stay on GPLv2 forever. Whatever the case, we should be thinking about licensing, esp. because direct competition between this and /. is bound to raise Dice's ire. ~ [[User:Seandiggity|Seandiggity]] ([[User talk:Seandiggity|talk]]) 20:43, 9 February 2014 (MST)

::: FYI, take a look at my [[SoylentNews#Licensing.3F|better-written frontpage post]]... we also should be thinking about things like CLAs and discussing them. Joining the Slashcott now... ~ [[User:Seandiggity|Seandiggity]] ([[User talk:Seandiggity|talk]]) 21:14, 9 February 2014 (MST)

Talk:SoylentNews

2014-02-10T13:28:16Z

Mfnickster: /* Hosting and collaboration */

"You have followed a link to a page that does not exist yet. To create the page, start typing in the box below"

Okay, let's see if that works.

And help kill beta by joining the Slashcott

February 10th -17th

unitron

Slashdot UID 5733

== Teething pains? ==

This message was created automatically by mail delivery software.

A message that you sent could not be delivered to one or more of its
recipients. This is a permanent error. The following address(es) failed:

John@AltSlashdot.org
SMTP error from remote mail server after RCPT TO:<John@AltSlashdot.org>:
host mail.altslashdot.org [66.147.244.192]: 550 No Such User Here

...

Is this an "only if Slashdot doesn't back down on beta" contingency, or =
"going to happen no matter what Slashdot does"?

...

== Hot Grits ==

I have poured them down my pants. Thank you. [[Special:Contributions/86.50.93.164|86.50.93.164]] 10:16, 6 February 2014 (MST) Iskender (1040286)

*Why are they down your pants? They should be on Natalie Portman - naked and petrified..

== Group or Business ==

Okian Warrior seems to want to be CmdrTaco all over again. While I am a very, very pro-business sort of person, I don't think we want to just push reset and do Slashdot over again as another build it up and cash out endeavor. It seems like that's exactly what would happen, and on the backs of volunteers no less. The only way I could see supporting this endeavor as a business would be with some sort of codified protection like a charter, whereby certain attributes of the way the site functions would be guaranteed, and those guarantees could only be changed if (the charter could only be modified if) the users were polled and agreed to it. In this way the business could operate but be ultimately accountable to and restrained by the userbase. This seems like a good hybrid solution. ~ElectricTurtle

You could solve this by managing it similar to the debian project.

^ Agree with both sentiments. I'm a bit skeptical of Okian Warrior's business mindset... we need this to resemble a non-profit FOSS project. Can that really be so hard to do (in the beginning, especially, and also with all the cloud services now available to avoid slashdotting?). Some will balk at the Debian-like structure as too codified and rigid, but let's at least discuss this as a FOSS project first, and *maybe* some ad revenue down the line to support it. Although, donations/crowdfunding seems better to me. ~ [[User:Seandiggity|Seandiggity]] ([[User talk:Seandiggity|talk]]) 08:52, 7 February 2014 (MST)

I agree that we shouldn't trade corporate overlord for a new master with the prospect of becoming a corporate overlord. I am not opposed to the project manager making money off the site though. Instead of an exit strategy how about a transitional strategy wherein the founder makes a fixed amount of money and/or profits for a fixed time? Eg $100k or 5yrs, whichever comes first.

As far as monetization, premium accounts with little or no ads is easy. Couple this with paid postings to receive a higher start moderation eg. 5¢ for 0,nuetral if you don't have an account. It shouldn't be hard to get the money to buy the site from the founder. Especially if coupled with annual wikipedia donation drives to cover the site overhead.

:Non-profit or volunteer org is a good approach. If it's owned by a business or corporation, I will not use it. [[User:Mfnickster|Mfnickster]] ([[User talk:Mfnickster|talk]])

==Stories==
*Could there be [[Open Hardware FPGAs]]? http://www.electronicsweekly.com/mannerisms/fpga/will-expiring-patents-boost-fp-2007-03/

== Barrapunto ==

People here should be familiar with the Spanish language version of Slashdot,
Barrapunto.com. It looks like it was forked from older Slashcode, and it does
not appear to be a dice holding. This is the most durable SlashClone with which
I'm familiar. I seem to recall reading about it more than 5 years ago. If nothing
else, we could learn a lot from them about running a successful SlashClone.

We should make a list of any currently running clones.
*http://slashcode.com/www.slashcode.com/

Thanks for posting the link. That looks a lot more like /. Classic. Now we certainly
don't want to knock over the server that discusses SlashCode, so we shouldn't be
posting there... but they seem like an ideal candidate for a bunch to form a non-profit
org. IMHO, that's the answer. We need to form a non-profit dedicated to serving the
users. Worst case scenario we replace ads with something like the annual Wikipedia
begging; but it might be worth it.

The Wikipedia begging beats having advertizes dictating the content of your site or selling the users info for $$$ Wikipedia I believe does it right. [[User:Script Cat|Script Cat]] ([[User talk:Script Cat|talk]]) 14:28, 6 February 2014 (MST)
 (The advertising on barrapunto.com looks fine and unobtrusive to me. My 2 cents, but no, I don't know much about advertising paying the bills, sadly.)(Gaaark)
== Alternate domain ideas? ==

It's come up elsewhere online that a name including slashdot might get this project into hot water with DICE

== Hosting and collaboration ==
make it foss with gpl2 
is there any reason why the site can't be directly hosted by https://github.com/ 
ultra-nerdy, with plenty of linuxy flavor 
no need to worry about dedicated infrastructure, and domain doesn't matter that much if it's something like "github.com/altslash" nerds are gunna find and remember it
: I don't trust Github. I don't think they really care about their community any more than Dice cares about Slashdot's. [[User:Mfnickster|Mfnickster]] ([[User talk:Mfnickster|talk]])

== Journals ==
I hope journals are included and hope people use them.

== AGPL licensing ==
If no one's said it yet, I think we need to move the updated version of SlashCode to AGPL and get it in a git repo for people to hack on (preferably github). I'm happy to put it up there under that license but I don't want to see (yet another) fork. Any objections to that license? It's recommended by the FSF for any Web software, or really any that runs primarily over a network. In my view, it will protect us from seeing the fruit of our labors be turned into another locked up DiceDot... how nice would it have been to have at least the updated "Slashdot Classic" interface available now to hack on instead of the circa 2009 version? The AGPL would have made that possible. ~ [[User:Seandiggity|Seandiggity]] ([[User talk:Seandiggity|talk]]) 09:22, 7 February 2014 (MST)
: Can you just re-license someone else's code? How is that legally possible? Also, it might make sense to fork it anyway just to have control over the code base. It could also be ported to another language (don't say .NET or PHP please!). [[User:Mfnickster|Mfnickster]] ([[User talk:Mfnickster|talk]])

:: You can license a modified version of a program under a compatible license, depending upon the terms that the original authors released the source. Many forks end up under a different license through some new mix of code. If the original Slash is licensed "GPL v2.0 or any later version" there's a clear path to GPLv3 and then AGPL. If not, the authors must be the ones to do it, and we might think about asking them (all of whom left Slashdot a while ago AFAIK) rather than stay on GPLv2 forever. Whatever the case, we should be thinking about licensing, esp. because direct competition between this and /. is bound to raise Dice's ire. ~ [[User:Seandiggity|Seandiggity]] ([[User talk:Seandiggity|talk]]) 20:43, 9 February 2014 (MST)

::: FYI, take a look at my [[SoylentNews#Licensing.3F|better-written frontpage post]]... we also should be thinking about things like CLAs and discussing them. Joining the Slashcott now... ~ [[User:Seandiggity|Seandiggity]] ([[User talk:Seandiggity|talk]]) 21:14, 9 February 2014 (MST)

Historic:Synced servers

2014-02-09T20:24:49Z

Mfnickster: /* Comments */

Altslashdot would be run on a number of independent web servers, which would utilise some syncing protocol in order to serve exact copies. The syncing would likely be cheap, because the number of such servers would be substantially smaller that the number of users.

The possibility of running a server would be open, in a hope, that a relatively large number of these would eventually be created. "Hub" sites might exist, that would redirect to the least--loaded servers.

Beside sharing hosting cost, the architecture would enable the exclusion of a rogue server.

== Comments ==
I'm no programmer, but isn't this how USENET worked?

Yes, it is similar, but we would need much more than Usenet, like safe user base and moderation. And it all would need to be tunneled through corporate firewalls, which often allow only web traffic.

:USENET was a great way to distribute postings, but it had the flaw that every USENET provider had to carry copies of all the messages for all hosted groups, leading to a lot of redundancy and a huge bandwidth burden syncing updates every day. If I were doing USENET today, I'd have designated "home" servers for each group, with all other servers caching updates for subscribers. [[User:Mfnickster|Mfnickster]] ([[User talk:Mfnickster|talk]])

Historic:Synced servers

2014-02-09T20:24:21Z

Mfnickster: /* Comments */

Altslashdot would be run on a number of independent web servers, which would utilise some syncing protocol in order to serve exact copies. The syncing would likely be cheap, because the number of such servers would be substantially smaller that the number of users.

The possibility of running a server would be open, in a hope, that a relatively large number of these would eventually be created. "Hub" sites might exist, that would redirect to the least--loaded servers.

Beside sharing hosting cost, the architecture would enable the exclusion of a rogue server.

== Comments ==
I'm no programmer, but isn't this how USENET worked?

Yes, it is similar, but we would need much more than Usenet, like safe user base and moderation. And it all would need to be tunneled through corporate firewalls, which often allow only web traffic.

:USENET was a great way to distribute postings, but it had the flaw that every USENET provider had to carry copies of all the messages for all hosted groups, leading to a lot of redundancy and a huge burden on syncing updates every day. If I were doing USENET today, I'd have designated "home" servers for each group, with all other servers caching updates for subscribers. [[User:Mfnickster|Mfnickster]] ([[User talk:Mfnickster|talk]])

Talk:SoylentNews

2014-02-09T19:19:34Z

Mfnickster: /* AGPL licensing */

"You have followed a link to a page that does not exist yet. To create the page, start typing in the box below"

Okay, let's see if that works.

And help kill beta by joining the Slashcott

February 10th -17th

unitron

Slashdot UID 5733

== Teething pains? ==

This message was created automatically by mail delivery software.

A message that you sent could not be delivered to one or more of its
recipients. This is a permanent error. The following address(es) failed:

John@AltSlashdot.org
SMTP error from remote mail server after RCPT TO:<John@AltSlashdot.org>:
host mail.altslashdot.org [66.147.244.192]: 550 No Such User Here

...

Is this an "only if Slashdot doesn't back down on beta" contingency, or =
"going to happen no matter what Slashdot does"?

...

== Hot Grits ==

I have poured them down my pants. Thank you. [[Special:Contributions/86.50.93.164|86.50.93.164]] 10:16, 6 February 2014 (MST) Iskender (1040286)

*Why are they down your pants? They should be on Natalie Portman - naked and petrified..

== Group or Business ==

Okian Warrior seems to want to be CmdrTaco all over again. While I am a very, very pro-business sort of person, I don't think we want to just push reset and do Slashdot over again as another build it up and cash out endeavor. It seems like that's exactly what would happen, and on the backs of volunteers no less. The only way I could see supporting this endeavor as a business would be with some sort of codified protection like a charter, whereby certain attributes of the way the site functions would be guaranteed, and those guarantees could only be changed if (the charter could only be modified if) the users were polled and agreed to it. In this way the business could operate but be ultimately accountable to and restrained by the userbase. This seems like a good hybrid solution. ~ElectricTurtle

You could solve this by managing it similar to the debian project.

^ Agree with both sentiments. I'm a bit skeptical of Okian Warrior's business mindset... we need this to resemble a non-profit FOSS project. Can that really be so hard to do (in the beginning, especially, and also with all the cloud services now available to avoid slashdotting?). Some will balk at the Debian-like structure as too codified and rigid, but let's at least discuss this as a FOSS project first, and *maybe* some ad revenue down the line to support it. Although, donations/crowdfunding seems better to me. ~ [[User:Seandiggity|Seandiggity]] ([[User talk:Seandiggity|talk]]) 08:52, 7 February 2014 (MST)

I agree that we shouldn't trade corporate overlord for a new master with the prospect of becoming a corporate overlord. I am not opposed to the project manager making money off the site though. Instead of an exit strategy how about a transitional strategy wherein the founder makes a fixed amount of money and/or profits for a fixed time? Eg $100k or 5yrs, whichever comes first.

As far as monetization, premium accounts with little or no ads is easy. Couple this with paid postings to receive a higher start moderation eg. 5¢ for 0,nuetral if you don't have an account. It shouldn't be hard to get the money to buy the site from the founder. Especially if coupled with annual wikipedia donation drives to cover the site overhead.

:Non-profit or volunteer org is a good approach. If it's owned by a business or corporation, I will not use it. [[User:Mfnickster|Mfnickster]] ([[User talk:Mfnickster|talk]])

==Stories==
*Could there be [[Open Hardware FPGAs]]? http://www.electronicsweekly.com/mannerisms/fpga/will-expiring-patents-boost-fp-2007-03/

== Barrapunto ==

People here should be familiar with the Spanish language version of Slashdot,
Barrapunto.com. It looks like it was forked from older Slashcode, and it does
not appear to be a dice holding. This is the most durable SlashClone with which
I'm familiar. I seem to recall reading about it more than 5 years ago. If nothing
else, we could learn a lot from them about running a successful SlashClone.

We should make a list of any currently running clones.
*http://slashcode.com/www.slashcode.com/

Thanks for posting the link. That looks a lot more like /. Classic. Now we certainly
don't want to knock over the server that discusses SlashCode, so we shouldn't be
posting there... but they seem like an ideal candidate for a bunch to form a non-profit
org. IMHO, that's the answer. We need to form a non-profit dedicated to serving the
users. Worst case scenario we replace ads with something like the annual Wikipedia
begging; but it might be worth it.

The Wikipedia begging beats having advertizes dictating the content of your site or selling the users info for $$$ Wikipedia I believe does it right. [[User:Script Cat|Script Cat]] ([[User talk:Script Cat|talk]]) 14:28, 6 February 2014 (MST)
 (The advertising on barrapunto.com looks fine and unobtrusive to me. My 2 cents, but no, I don't know much about advertising paying the bills, sadly.)(Gaaark)
== Alternate domain ideas? ==

It's come up elsewhere online that a name including slashdot might get this project into hot water with DICE

== Hosting and collaboration ==
make it foss with gpl2 
is there any reason why the site can't be directly hosted by https://github.com/ 
ultra-nerdy, with plenty of linuxy flavor 
no need to worry about dedicated infrastructure, and domain doesn't matter that much if it's something like "github.com/altslash" nerds are gunna find and remember it

== Journals ==
I hope journals are included and hope people use them.

== AGPL licensing ==
If no one's said it yet, I think we need to move the updated version of SlashCode to AGPL and get it in a git repo for people to hack on (preferably github). I'm happy to put it up there under that license but I don't want to see (yet another) fork. Any objections to that license? It's recommended by the FSF for any Web software, or really any that runs primarily over a network. In my view, it will protect us from seeing the fruit of our labors be turned into another locked up DiceDot... how nice would it have been to have at least the updated "Slashdot Classic" interface available now to hack on instead of the circa 2009 version? The AGPL would have made that possible. ~ [[User:Seandiggity|Seandiggity]] ([[User talk:Seandiggity|talk]]) 09:22, 7 February 2014 (MST)
: Can you just re-license someone else's code? How is that legally possible? Also, it might make sense to fork it anyway just to have control over the code base. It could also be ported to another language (don't say .NET or PHP please!). [[User:Mfnickster|Mfnickster]] ([[User talk:Mfnickster|talk]])

SoylentNews

2014-02-09T19:15:59Z

Mfnickster: /* Comments */

[[FAQ|Frequently Asked Questions]]

'''Site Announcements'''

We have a temporary name!

Thanks go out to everyone who made suggestions - some of them were
absolutely brilliant! For example, it hadn't occurred to me to choose a name based on a
non-English word, or a palindrome, or a puzzle. Many of the entries were quite clever.
(Adies, it took me more than a day to figure yours out. Bravo!)

I won't post the runners up because squatters might take the names before we hold the real
contest. We'll figure out a way to prevent this somehow - at worst case we can choose judges
and do it privately (like I did, but with more people).

Jerry had the winning entry.

The temp name is: '''SoylentNews'''

And the tagline is: '''SoylentNews is people!'''

Does this rock? It hits the trifecta of website goodness:

* It's descriptive in a way that mundanes will understand (compare "photoshop" with "gimp", "Internet Explorer" with "Firefox", and "MediaPlayer" with "VLS")

* It's part of Nerd culture, a pun, and slightly twisted

* It's suggestive of being community driven

This will be a hard act to beat. Start thinking up names for the contest, or throw your weight
behind this one. The contest will be held soon after we open the doors.

----

'''To the tsunami of volunteers... thank you!'''

I'm building a news site alternative to Slashdot. I've only started a day ago, this wiki is a temporary measure so that volunteers can coordinate and others can see what's happening.

I intend to run a site much like Slashdot used to be - better articles, less decoration and less "in your face" functionality. I'm looking for volunteers to help with setup and running the site. If the site becomes profitable, I intend to hire from the pool of volunteers. If you've ever wanted to participate in a site like Slashdot, here's your chance!

The proposed business model is [[Finances|here]].
Some business planning is [[Business|here]].
A statement of functionality (turn into a requirements document?)--- [[FeatureList]]

''' Get Involved '''

'''Slashcott''' Organized boycott of the Dice-owned Slashdot pages
* Show your support for the "Get rid of Beta" crowd by avoiding Slashdot during the week of February 10-17

'''forums.AltSlashdot.org:''' There will be a forum to discuss various topics: style, content, code, and so on.
If you would like to volunteer, please go to forums.AltSlashdot.org and register as a forum user.
* Go to forums.AltSlashdot.org and register a user
* Go to your user panel (UL corner of page) and then "Groups" tab
* Add yourself to whichever groups you are interested in

Can anyone admin their forum? Let me know & I'll bump up your permissions.

'''AltSlashdot Discussion on IRC:'''
*Head to IRC channel ##AltSlashdot on irc.freenode.net
*Web client is here: https://webchat.freenode.net/

'''Wiki:'''
We're starting to get spam on the wiki. (*sigh* - that didn't take very long.)
* To kill all spam we might use [[CryptoPayment]]
* Would anyone like to admin the wiki? It shouldn't take much work - just the admin details.

'''Contact:'''
If you want to send me a note: John (at) AltSlashdot (dot) org

'''Start thinking about what you would like to see at the site. [[FeatureList]]'''

'''Contact information - Project'''
* '''Mumble (Voice / Text Server) : voice.whackperiod.org'''
* [[AltSlashdot:IRC|IRC]]: ##altslashdot on chat.freenode.net ([https://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=##altslashdot Webchat])
* Forums: http://forums.altslashdot.org

==Status==

Check out the [[FAQ]]

* Forums are available at forums.AltSlashdot.org
* We upgraded the hosting by two tiers - this should fix the problems people were having yesterday accessing the system.
* The System team is working on installing SlashCode. If all goes well, we expect to have a working system by Monday. Everyone believes this goal is achievable.
* The site now has forums with four user groups: Code, Content, Style, and System.
* Probably won't be non-profit, see [[Finances|business model]].
* We won't poach from Slashdot. This includes articles and logos, also "style" to a reasonable extent.

Mailing list update Messages are [[MailingListUpdates|here]]

* THIS JUST IN: Dice is ''officially'' killing /. : "[...]Therefore, $7.2 million of intangible assets and $6.3 million of goodwill related to Slashdot Media were reduced to zero.".Refer to [http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=4766289&cid=46194085 this comment], Report is [http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/dice-holdings-inc-reports-fourth-quarter-and-full-year-2013-results-243471811.html here] (section Recent Developments), ([www.diceholdingsinc.com/External.File?t=2&item=g7rqBLVLuv81UAmrh20Mp2Z9yWAVjJWpF6SW97D7yy7ubesIOvkAePbEWUnorm83ObsCc9DbaL1YvCCjO18Rfw== pdf] here, page 3).

==Done==
* Registered "AltSlashdot.org", also ".com" and ".net".
* Purchased hosting through BlueHost

==ToDo==
[[SlashcodeTodo|Slashcode Todo list]]

* Install SlashCode on the production site
* Get some people to help with the site
* Run a contest for a better name [[NewName|New name discussion]]
* Incorporate
* Consult a lawyer
* How to handle Advertising (necessary evil) - Opt Out, Limited, Typical(box with ads in the top-right corner)?
* Improved Mod/Meta-Mod/Story-Selection system to minimize required editor input
* Provide a voting system to decide which articles hit the main page (Mod point related?)
* Find and submit some stories

== List of Discussion Pages ==
*[[Finances|Finances]] -- which model would allow to minimise and/or distribute hosting costs
*[[MailingListUpdates|MailingListUpdates]]
*[[Submission guidelines|Submission guidelines]]
*[[Business|Business]]
*[[NewName|NewName]]
*[[SlashcodeTodo|SlashcodeTodo]]
*[[Migration of users from Slashdot]]
That's all I see at the moment, please add more as you start or find new pages.

== Comments ==

* I've picked up the domain altslash.org, and I'm looking to be a part of a join effort to create a slashdot alternative more in the style of the classic slashdot system. I picked up this domain simply because a lot of the alternatives being discussed (e.g., altslashdot.org) may end up being the target of a trademark dispute. The "trademark" for altslash.org would be altslash, with the "dot.org" being merged into .org. It reads the same way as the original "slashdot.org," but looks very clean in my opinion. If anyone wants to setup a group to use altslash.org instead, let me know.

* Have you considered talking with Bruce Parens? He had a site called "technocrat.net" that some people from slashdot were quite fond of not too long ago. It seems some people on slashdot are already trying to get him to re-launch it. I don't know if the two of you would have compatible goals or not, but it might be worth sending him an email. He has a parking page up on technocrat.net right now that has his email address on it.

* I'm a professional web developer and can help. I was about to register a domain on my VPS to start something like this. If you want, I'll do what I can to help. I've built a few CMS from scratch and am downloading slashcode right now. Incidentally I'm a hybrid as I am also a digital artist (namely in UI). We need an IRC channel to talk about this I think.--[[User:Hedgie|Hedgie]] ([[User talk:Hedgie|talk]]) 18:34, 6 February 2014 (MST)

* I don't know about other people, but I think I would be more liable to stick with an alternative if it scraped content from original /. in addition to whatever else you do. [[Special:Contributions/173.13.21.65|173.13.21.65]] 09:21, 6 February 2014 (MST)

''I'm against this. I don't consider it fair - they've put a lot of effort into building up their brand and community. If we are to succeed, we need to do it on our own merits."

There are no doubt legal as well as moral objections to content scraping, but when you say "...they've put a lot of effort into building up their brand and community...", well, for over 15 years *we* have been that community and if not for us there would be some former college students who used to have a little hobby site.--unitron

** Scraping bad. Having editors dotted around the timezones that create their own better versions of the summaries, even if they contain just the same links as the /. story that inspired them, not bad. [[User:FatPhil|FatPhil]] ([[User talk:FatPhil|talk]]) 14:14, 6 February 2014 (MST)

** Agree with scraping bad. The general trend for the summaries has gone downhill badly over the past few years so better to have editors (re-)publish articles even if they use the same (or better) links ([[User:Qwade|Qwade]])

** Scraping Slashdot is pointless. It's been said many times, the discussion is the thing, not the articles. Considered purely as a news site, Slashdot is CRAP, always has been. Speaking of discussion, a Wiki is about the worst discussion medium I can imagine - is there anywhere we can move this to? - Mike Baranczak, 2014-02-07

* Maybe a wiki is the best way to do this? I see you've started with slashcode, but that might be a misstep. You have noticed by now that slashcode hasn't been updated in many years, hence it will be way behind the current slashdot. I think you might be better off hacking a wiki into slashdot-style functionality.

''I agree, this may be a misstep (and this occurred to me independently of your note). My best guess is to attempt installing slashcode and see where that goes, and try for a new system if it's unworkable. We'll see.''

:* I think hacking slashcode into slashdot-style functionality would be easier and better than hammering a wiki into that round hole. [[User:Mfnickster|Mfnickster]] ([[User talk:Mfnickster|talk]])

**[[https://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Main_Page Wikinews]] is Wikimedia's attempt to turn a wiki in to a news site. Not sure how easy that would be to mold in to a more Slashdotty site

* If you don't want to use the old slashcode, have you considered looking at '''discourse''' as the site server? AFAICT, it's a reasonably new project which being developed intended to address the authors' perceived flaws in the status-quo of forum software. It's written in JavaScript, but it might serve as a starting point for a new codebase, or worth a look to get some inspiration:
** http://www.discourse.org/faq/
** https://github.com/discourse/discourse

* '''Do this as a non-profit, user-run organization please'''. From what you write it looks like you want replace the regime, not giving the users the control over the website. Why should we trust you not to sell the website to a DICE-like company after it becomes successful? I applaud your efforts to change things, but I really believe that a [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debian#Organization Debian Project] like institution that is both non-commercial and controlled/run by the community has a much higher chance of securing the goals we fight for right now in the long-term. --[[Special:Contributions/141.84.69.20|141.84.69.20]] 03:20, 6 February 2014 (MST)

* I like the comment on a Debian like project organization, also, maybe we can create a freenode IRC channel to further organize?

* see Freenode, #slashdot-refugees for real time discussion.

'''UPDATE:''' ''My proposed [[Finances|business plan]] should allay these fears.''

''You make some good points.''

''In my experience, community-driven projects don't usually do well. This is not to say that no such projects succeed, but the balance of probability does not favor group management.''

''There is a wide selection of projects which are successful because one person had a vision and the drive to make that vision happen - every successful business starts this way.''

''I've run businesses that use a lot of volunteer help, so I've got some experience there.''

''As far as selling the website, it's crossed my mind. I don't want to "sell out" and destroy the community, but it would be nice to have an "exit strategy". Commenting on Slashdot fun, but doing it as a day job will probably get tedious.''

''I don't know what the answer is - it's something that we'll have to work out.''

* (I put in a topic with a suggestion on the discussion page so this doesn't get too cluttered. ~ElectricTurtle)

* Additional points: Make the whole website (including stories/comments) available under [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ CC-BY-SA] to retain the [http://meatballwiki.org/wiki/RightToFork right to fork]. You should also reconsider the name. I imagine "AltSlashdot" could get you into all sorts of legal trouble, since it is very close to the "Slashdot" trademark. --[[Special:Contributions/141.84.69.20|141.84.69.20]] 03:20, 6 February 2014 (MST)

* Attempt to '''coordinate and combine''' the parallel efforts. E.g. Slashdot user [http://slashdot.org/~dotancohen dotancohen] has [http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=4757151&cid=46171009 apparently] registered the domain "slashdotan" and is looking to build a new Slashdot there. There are probably a dozen people hacking away separately on similar efforts. Competition is probably good, but combining efforts should be considered. --Slashdot user [http://slashdot.org/~JustinOpinion JustinOpinion].

* [https://github.com/digilord DigiLord] - I would like to help

* I'm the dotancohen mentioned by JustinOpinion. I have some limited experience with Amazon Web Services to run cloud servers for sites with very dynamic load profiles. Altslashdot seems like the perfect application of that technology, as we can expect to get slashdotted at any time. I also agree that we should coordinate efforts, as the whole premise is to keep the /. community together. [[User:Dotancohen|Dotancohen]] ([[User talk:Dotancohen|talk]]) 08:38, 6 February 2014 (MST)

* Re: combining efforts. User somenickname (1270442) has registered bangslashdot.(org|net|com) [[http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=4757113&cid=46169131]]

* I ([[User:Bryan|Bryan]]) also plan on making a slashdot-inspired site. The website will be called "Pipedot" and be reachable at [http://pipedot.org/ pipedot.org] or [http://pipedot.com/ pipedot.com]. The motto will be "News for nerds, without the corporate slant." Get it? A pipe character looks like a slash without the slant! However, I plan on creating my own software instead of using slashcode/mediawiki/etc so it may take a while to get feature complete with slashdot classsic. (Why? Because I've always wanted to scratch that itch. Duh!)

* I think it would be best to just go over to Usenet. It is distributed, uncensorable, scales extremely well, the infrastructure is already in place, and it works. No Javascript, no business models, nothing but pure text-mode comment goodness. [http://www.eternal-september.org Eternal September] is free and works well, but does not allow binaries. That's fine, we have magnet links these days. EDIT: comp.misc is the new Slashdot. It's official now. Join us there and keep it free as in FREEDOM!

* relevant slashdot stats from 2011 [[http://www.dbasoul.com/2011/992.html]]
**5.5 million user visits per month.
**7,000 comments are added every day.
**Over 9 million pages views daily.
**Over 21 million comments.
**Average monthly bandwidth usage is around 40-50 mbit/sec (450GB/day)

* I suggest that when updates to the code are made, it should be in the charter (or whatever we are calling it) to make that code public. -- CommonJoe

== IRC ==
General Slashdot Discussion: Come on IRC channel #slashdot at irc.slashnet.org. Or use the web client: http://www.slashnet.org/webclient

AltSlashdot Discussion: Head to IRC channel ##AltSlashdot on irc.freenode.net, Web client is here: https://webchat.freenode.net/

== Banned ==
Anyone else get banned from Slashdot? I did a few 'Fuck Beta' posts and a Beta submission, and apparently this was enough to get a temporary ban. - Robotron23

That is surprising, I posted several times today and did not get anything. I wonder if it had something to do with the Beta submission. - Nightbrood

I've posted loudly, angrily, reflectively, snarkily, thoughtfully, sarcastically, and in many other different ways today (classic and beta). Yet, I've not been banned. - cervesaebraciator

== Features ==
What features worked and what features did not work during the lifetime of Slashdot? I would like to create a section about this but there's no link to do so.

IE: Feature that worked was the karma system allowed users to voluntarily disable the advertisement, made them feel happy even though it did nothing different for the business.

Feature that did not work: Adding a sponsored poll / slashvertising

I'm trying to list out all the critical features of Slashdot plus some clarifications and minor changes here: [[FeatureList]]

==== Confessions Of an Ex-SLASHDOT BETA user ====

Day 1: It wouldn't stop, the redirecting. At first I thought it was malware. Had my first drink in a long time.

Day 2: Barely had the strength to carry on as the BETA REDIRECTIONS continue.. trying not to talk to hallucinations at the bar and in the bathroom which laugh at me about these redirections.

Day 3: Discovered the BETA redirections were random, and while at first they looked somewhat usable, when I looked at me and my monitor screen in the mirror, a horrible woman with flesh hanging off of her body looked back, trying to lead me into a dance as the word BETA appeared across her rancid breasts.

Day 4: These BETA corridors go on FOREVER! On the plus side, I've taken up disassembling vehicles to corner this BETA beast and sacrifice myself rather than lead others to discovering it. I ate some red snow.

Day 5: Finding it harder to concentrate. I've ate some more of the red snow. The taste is starting to grow on me.

Day 6: This typewriter is the only entertainment I have, apart from throwing things at the walls, trying to get some response from the BETA which is now taking over my mind.

Day 7: Hahahahahha! Would you believe it? I'M STILL BEING REDIRECTED TO SLASHDOT BETA PAGES! AHAHhahahaah! Type, type, ding, ding! Wooo!

Day 8: The hallucinations are actually real! Would you believe it? They have offered to help me if I agree to work for them. I'm thinking about patenting this delicious red snow, the taste is unreal!

Day 9: Having black out sessions where I cannot remember large passings of time. Found some makeup, thought I'd paint a joker smile on my face to amuse the people only I can see!

Day 10: Productive today, part of what I wrote for my new screenplay:

I cannot opt out of Slashdot BETA!
I cannot opt out of Slashdot BETA!
I cannot opt out of Slashdot BETA!
I cannot opt out of Slashdot BETA!
I cannot opt out of Slashdot BETA!
I cannot opt out of Slashdot BETA!
I cannot opt out of Slashdot BETA!
I cannot opt out of Slashdot BETA!
I cannot opt out of Slas

(drops of blood on paper)

(obligatory reference to parsing HTML with regex over on stackoverflow)

== Shameless plug for myself ==

Would appreciate some eyeballs and thoughts on this while it's still available

http://slashdot.org/submission/3324011/a-modest-proposal-re-beta-vs-classic?utm_source=rss1.0&utm_medium=feed&sbsrc=firehose

== Telling the world about AltSlashDot.org ==
I don't know what John wants as far as advertising this page but I'm sure he wants as much exposure as possible. Please mention altslashdot.org as much as possible. It seems like the word is spreading (about 15,000 overnight?) good job everyone! Any idea on how and where to make sure people know about this project, please post them here?

> I'd send a note along to Ars Technica & BoingBoing. (That would get some attention) 
> Anyone have a Reddit account with a reasonable activity level? 
> The Register, Digg, Hacker News and anything else (2600 :-)

Talk:SoylentNews

2014-02-08T19:40:21Z

Mfnickster: /* Group or Business */

"You have followed a link to a page that does not exist yet. To create the page, start typing in the box below"

Okay, let's see if that works.

And help kill beta by joining the Slashcott

February 10th -17th

unitron

Slashdot UID 5733

== Teething pains? ==

This message was created automatically by mail delivery software.

A message that you sent could not be delivered to one or more of its
recipients. This is a permanent error. The following address(es) failed:

John@AltSlashdot.org
SMTP error from remote mail server after RCPT TO:<John@AltSlashdot.org>:
host mail.altslashdot.org [66.147.244.192]: 550 No Such User Here

...

Is this an "only if Slashdot doesn't back down on beta" contingency, or =
"going to happen no matter what Slashdot does"?

...

== Hot Grits ==

I have poured them down my pants. Thank you. [[Special:Contributions/86.50.93.164|86.50.93.164]] 10:16, 6 February 2014 (MST) Iskender (1040286)

*Why are they down your pants? They should be on Natalie Portman - naked and petrified..

== Group or Business ==

Okian Warrior seems to want to be CmdrTaco all over again. While I am a very, very pro-business sort of person, I don't think we want to just push reset and do Slashdot over again as another build it up and cash out endeavor. It seems like that's exactly what would happen, and on the backs of volunteers no less. The only way I could see supporting this endeavor as a business would be with some sort of codified protection like a charter, whereby certain attributes of the way the site functions would be guaranteed, and those guarantees could only be changed if (the charter could only be modified if) the users were polled and agreed to it. In this way the business could operate but be ultimately accountable to and restrained by the userbase. This seems like a good hybrid solution. ~ElectricTurtle

You could solve this by managing it similar to the debian project.

^ Agree with both sentiments. I'm a bit skeptical of Okian Warrior's business mindset... we need this to resemble a non-profit FOSS project. Can that really be so hard to do (in the beginning, especially, and also with all the cloud services now available to avoid slashdotting?). Some will balk at the Debian-like structure as too codified and rigid, but let's at least discuss this as a FOSS project first, and *maybe* some ad revenue down the line to support it. Although, donations/crowdfunding seems better to me. ~ [[User:Seandiggity|Seandiggity]] ([[User talk:Seandiggity|talk]]) 08:52, 7 February 2014 (MST)

I agree that we shouldn't trade corporate overlord for a new master with the prospect of becoming a corporate overlord. I am not opposed to the project manager making money off the site though. Instead of an exit strategy how about a transitional strategy wherein the founder makes a fixed amount of money and/or profits for a fixed time? Eg $100k or 5yrs, whichever comes first.

As far as monetization, premium accounts with little or no ads is easy. Couple this with paid postings to receive a higher start moderation eg. 5¢ for 0,nuetral if you don't have an account. It shouldn't be hard to get the money to buy the site from the founder. Especially if coupled with annual wikipedia donation drives to cover the site overhead.

:Non-profit or volunteer org is a good approach. If it's owned by a business or corporation, I will not use it. [[User:Mfnickster|Mfnickster]] ([[User talk:Mfnickster|talk]])

==Stories==
*Could there be [[Open Hardware FPGAs]]? http://www.electronicsweekly.com/mannerisms/fpga/will-expiring-patents-boost-fp-2007-03/

== Barrapunto ==

People here should be familiar with the Spanish language version of Slashdot,
Barrapunto.com. It looks like it was forked from older Slashcode, and it does
not appear to be a dice holding. This is the most durable SlashClone with which
I'm familiar. I seem to recall reading about it more than 5 years ago. If nothing
else, we could learn a lot from them about running a successful SlashClone.

We should make a list of any currently running clones.
*http://slashcode.com/www.slashcode.com/

Thanks for posting the link. That looks a lot more like /. Classic. Now we certainly
don't want to knock over the server that discusses SlashCode, so we shouldn't be
posting there... but they seem like an ideal candidate for a bunch to form a non-profit
org. IMHO, that's the answer. We need to form a non-profit dedicated to serving the
users. Worst case scenario we replace ads with something like the annual Wikipedia
begging; but it might be worth it.

The Wikipedia begging beats having advertizes dictating the content of your site or selling the users info for $$$ Wikipedia I believe does it right. [[User:Script Cat|Script Cat]] ([[User talk:Script Cat|talk]]) 14:28, 6 February 2014 (MST)
 (The advertising on barrapunto.com looks fine and unobtrusive to me. My 2 cents, but no, I don't know much about advertising paying the bills, sadly.)(Gaaark)
== Alternate domain ideas? ==

It's come up elsewhere online that a name including slashdot might get this project into hot water with DICE

== Hosting and collaboration ==
make it foss with gpl2 
is there any reason why the site can't be directly hosted by https://github.com/ 
ultra-nerdy, with plenty of linuxy flavor 
no need to worry about dedicated infrastructure, and domain doesn't matter that much if it's something like "github.com/altslash" nerds are gunna find and remember it

== Journals ==
I hope journals are included and hope people use them.

== AGPL licensing ==
If no one's said it yet, I think we need to move the updated version of SlashCode to AGPL and get it in a git repo for people to hack on (preferably github). I'm happy to put it up there under that license but I don't want to see (yet another) fork. Any objections to that license? It's recommended by the FSF for any Web software, or really any that runs primarily over a network. In my view, it will protect us from seeing the fruit of our labors be turned into another locked up DiceDot... how nice would it have been to have at least the updated "Slashdot Classic" interface available now to hack on instead of the circa 2009 version? The AGPL would have made that possible. ~ [[User:Seandiggity|Seandiggity]] ([[User talk:Seandiggity|talk]]) 09:22, 7 February 2014 (MST)