Nice UID! I got mine while trying to get the fabled UID=1,000,000. Not sure who ended up getting that prize.

Just a reminder, comp.misc on Usenet is being used as a temporary discussion forum. Usenet access is available through eternal-sepetember.org

Let's hope Dice reverse their decision and cancel plans for Beta. If they don't, though, this is as good a time as any for people to break away from slashdot as a group. Good luck to everyone in the slashcott.

A lot of trust has been lost between users and management. And the first problem with a discussion site staying successful is keeping enough users. So, the question as to whether technocrat.net will succeed hinges on whether enough trust has been lost at slashdot to prompt enough people to move.

Assuming enough users do move, the second problem will be running the site. Editorship at slashdot, jokes aside, is a full-time job. So, another question is, will there be enough editor-hours to keep the machine running.

Will enough slashdot readers leave? I'm really not sure. There are a lot of upset readers, but the one thing that will really cause a big exodus, a forced switch to the new interface, won't happen for months. So, users who leave would have to leave a slashdot that is still, on the surface at least, passably acceptable.

Personally, I would like to see a few-month trial of technocrat.net. If things get moving, good; if not, then there will still be some time before slashdot becomes unusuable, and so some time to work with.

Either way, thank you for looking into this.

Regards

A few points.

- What exactly do you mean by 'make content more sharaeble'? I can already link to individual comments; there's even a 'share' link below each comment. I've never used it, but surely that would be the place to start if your goal is to make content more shareable.
- If your goal was to make content more shareable, then why, at this late stage in the game, is it still impossible to link to single comments in Beta?
- Nothing is stopping you from experimenting with the current layout

Incremental change is how the current slashdot was built. Taco, Hemos, et al slowly added pieces and tweaks together, according to the needs of the day, to create what we now know as the moderation system and the classic comment layout. Over fifteen years of design thought have gone into the current system.

You can accomplish all the goals you have laid out by continuing in the same, incremental-improvement spirit. Throwing out all of that work and starting fresh is unnecessary, wasteful, and pretty much bound to fail.

Please post this to new articles if it hasn't been posted yet.

On February 5, 2014, Slashdot announced through a javascript popup that they are starting to "move in to" the new Slashdot Beta design.

Slashdot Beta is a trend-following attempt to give Slashdot a fresh look, an approach that has led to less space for text and an abandonment of the traditional Slashdot look. Much worse than that, Slashdot Beta fundamentally breaks the classic Slashdot discussion and moderation system. If you haven't seen Slashdot Beta already, open this in a new tab. After seeing that, click here to return to classic Slashdot.

We should boycott stories and only discuss the abomination that is Slashdot Beta until Dice abandons the project.

We should boycott slashdot entirely during the week of Feb 10 to Feb 17 as part of the wider slashcott

Moderators - only spend mod points on comments that discuss Beta
Commentors - only discuss Beta
http://slashdot.org/recent [slashdot.org] - Vote up the Fuck Beta stories

Keep this up for a few days and we may finally get the PHBs attention. Links of note:

Discussion of Beta: http://slashdot.org/firehose.pl?op=view&id=56395415
Discussion of where to go if Beta goes live: http://slashdot.org/firehose.pl?op=view&type=submission&id=3321441
Alternative Slashdot: altslashdot.org
IRC Discussion: freenode #slashdot-refugees
IRC Discussion: slashnet.org #slashdot

Marked-up text of this comment: http://pastebin.com/mc2rhHBh

Please post this to new articles if it hasn't been posted yet.

On February 5, 2014, Slashdot announced through a javascript popup that they are starting to "move in to" the new Slashdot Beta design.

Slashdot Beta is a trend-following attempt to give Slashdot a fresh look, an approach that has led to less space for text and an abandonment of the traditional Slashdot look. Much worse than that, Slashdot Beta fundamentally breaks the classic Slashdot discussion and moderation system.

If you haven't seen Slashdot Beta already, open this in a new tab. After seeing that, click here to return to classic Slashdot.

We should boycott stories and only discuss the abomination that is Slashdot Beta until Dice abandons the project.
We should boycott slashdot entirely during the week of Feb 10 to Feb 17 as part of the wider slashcott

Moderators - only spend mod points on comments that discuss Beta
Commentors - only discuss Beta http://slashdot.org/recent [slashdot.org] - Vote up the Fuck Beta stories

Keep this up for a few days and we may finally get the PHBs attention.

Discussion of Beta: http://slashdot.org/firehose.pl?op=view&id=56395415
Discussion of where to go if Beta goes live: http://slashdot.org/firehose.pl?op=view&type=submission&id=3321441
Alternative Slashdot: altslashdot.org

Please post this to new articles if it hasn't been posted yet.

On February 5, 2014, Slashdot announced through a javascript popup that they are starting to "move in to" the new Slashdot Beta design.

Slashdot Beta is a trend-following attempt to give Slashdot a fresh look, an approach that has led to less space for text and an abandonment of the traditional Slashdot look. Much worse than that, Slashdot Beta fundamentally breaks the classic Slashdot discussion and moderation system.

If you haven't seen Slashdot Beta already, open this in a new tab. After seeing that, click here to return to classic Slashdot.

We should boycott stories and only discuss the abomination that is Slashdot Beta until Dice abandons the project.
We should boycott slashdot entirely during the week of Feb 10 to Feb 17 as part of the wider slashcott

Moderators - only spend mod points on comments that discuss Beta
Commentors - only discuss Beta
http://slashdot.org/recent - Vote up the Fuck Beta stories

Keep this up for a few days and we may finally get the PHBs attention.

Captcha: fuckbeta

http://developers.slashdot.org...
http://developers.slashdot.org...
http://yro.slashdot.org/commen...
http://science.slashdot.org/co...

On February 5, 2014, Slashdot announced through a javascript popup that they are starting to "move in to" the new Slashdot Beta design.

Slashdot Beta is a trend-following attempt to give Slashdot a fresh look, an approach that has led to less space for text and an abandonment of the traditional Slashdot look. Much worse than that, Slashdot Beta fundamentally breaks the classic Slashdot discussion and moderation system.

If you haven't seen Slashdot Beta already, open this in a new tab. After seeing that, click here to return to classic Slashdot.

I propose that we boycott stories and only discuss the abomination that is Slashdot Beta until Dice abandons the project.

Moderators - only spend mod points on comments that discuss Beta
Commentors - only discuss Beta

Keep this up for a few days and we may finally get the PHBs attention.

I propose that we boycott stories and only discuss the abomination that is Slashdot Beta.
Moderators - only spend mod points on comments that discuss Beta
Commentors - only discuss Beta
Keep this up for a few days and we may finally get the PHBs attention.

Captcha: fuckbeta

Beta must die

If they follow through on their threats that might be it.

Who knows, maybe a mass exodus to Kuro5hin will revive that old refuge just as Slashdot dies.

I forgot to say:

- The old (Malda-era) layout is fine
- One area that does need improvement is the mobile version of the site; something like El Reg's layout would be greatly appreciated.

Am I the only one seeing this?

When I clicked on the story link, I got redirected to

http://beta.slashdot.org/story/195783

which looks like

http://imgur.com/uVnwWHl

I do not want to browse 'Latest Tech Jobs' whilst browsing slashdot.

If you need more money to run the site, ask for donations. You'll probably get them.

PS - I can't post anonymously! That totally goes against my cowardly nature! I protest in the strongest terms!

Those emissions are going to be concentrated around airports, not distributed evenly amongst the population. Also, a tiny amount of lead can lead to drops in IQ and long-term problems.

The question you need to answer is whether the amount of lead being released is safe or not; the proportions don't matter:

(Wired)

Others are saying the same thing:

(BBC)

5 mcg/dl is 50 ppb, if I'm not mistaken. Intuitively, do you think that the people working around airports who are exposed to aircraft exhaust would get levels above that? Remember, too, that lead persists in the environment, collects in dirt, is kicked up in dust, etc.

And the effects are truly felt throughout life. Indeed, there is convincing evidence that the crime wave of the 80s was due to lead in cars:

(Mother Jones)

I'm boycotting these ridiculous polls.

Where are the cowboyneal options?

Say, 'One tab for every heart CowboyNeal has broken'

That's just an idea. In the end, it is up to the editors. But by gawd, CowboyNeal options used to bring a little light into my day and helped, maybe just a little, to bring together this diffuse group of sysadmins and other assorted computer folk.

He specifically says

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-not-lgpl.html

Just as free software is not a religion, proprietary developers do not have a freedom to use libraries created by free software developers. Where did you get that idea from?

Developers in general have a right to use software under the license it was released, and RMS is suggesting that free software developers use the license that best promotes the adoption of free software.

Indeed, this is one issue where he clearly shows pragmatism, by suggesting that commonly-available libraries be released under the lesser GPL. Yet you turn this around and claim that, by doing so, he is going 'to great lengths to compromise on freedom in order to push his free software religion'.