daniil's Journal: Slashdot experimental AJAX interface

Is anyone else here using the experimental interface thingy (aka University of Michigan Testing)?

It's interesting to note that using that thing has forced me to quite drastically change my browsing habits. Now, I normally read Slashdot at a threshold of -1, with a +3 bonus added to all the negative moderations and a +1 karma bonus. The first thing I changed when switching to the experimental interface was losing the karma bonus. I don't find users with an Excellent karma to be intrinsically more intelligent than others. I only ever used this because then I didn't have to open every comment in a new tab. Unfortunately, this would clutter the comment pages with loads of boring comments from boring people who think that just because they have this +1 bonus everything they say is pure gold. But now I can skip all this crap and only read it if it sounds remotely interesting.

The other thing I did was adding a +1 bonus to friends/fans. I did this because in journals, I want to see all the comments at once. It's a good solution, but not a perfect one, as the scores next to comments are different from what I'm used to seeing. But it's something I'll have to get used to.

I still haven't practically touched the focal comment control buttons. Does anyone know what these could be good for?

I tried it

[Iamthefallen]

And realized about after 5 minutes that I really didn't like it.

Moderation points don't indicate good comments until a few days after the article was posted when moderation slows down and the hierarchy stabilizes. Until then, it does me no good to hide a comment that hasn't yet been modded up.

If anything, I would like the ability to show all comments on a single page rather than limit it to a 100 at a time. That, and bettter indication of nesting levels is all that's needed imho.

Re:I tried it

[tomhudson]

There's a simple way to use it an have it look exactly like the "New Old" interface - put everything at -1. Now if they had an "old old" interface option ...

Since I normally browse at -1, with comments nested, and no modifiers, it looks pretty much the same, except for slow load times.

My first impressions - too many options, black text on a dark background (for the "full" counts) is almost unreadable at my resolution - though YMMV, it seems people aren't too happy with a lot of things

Also, they seem

Re:I tried it

[daniil]

Just FYI we made our minimum requirements fairly high, because we do so much DOM manipulation in the browser. I would say on my 1.5ghz machine my comfortable comment range is in the mid-100s.

It's working fairly smoothly on my 1gzh Athlon, except for some situations. It grinds to a halt if I click to focus on a hidden comment deep inside a thread (lesson learned: never hide comments).

Re:I tried it

[daniil]

Of course the biggest problem is, I cannot fucking frist psot with this thing turned on! Argh!

Re:I tried it

[tomhudson]

That's because in slashdot, experimental AJAX interface fucking frist psots YOU! :-)

... or is that the CowboyNeal option?

Re:I tried it

[daniil]

It works for me only because I generally don't read past the first line of a given front page comment anyway (no wonder I have problems with focusing on stuff...). Now I can read what I want to read, instead of having to read everything.

Of course I'm still experimenting with this thing. Who knows, I might actually settle on -1 nested in the end.

Re:I tried it

[Iamthefallen]

I switched to 0 Nested and will continue to try it. It might be useful on frontapge stories that used to spill over.

Score levels

[Short Circuit]

It does change my reading habits. I used to ignore low-scored and anonymous comments (Unless they were replies to me, that is.). Now, I find myself reading them if the comment preview is interesting. Pity the system doesn't work properly in IE. (Not that I normally use IE, it's just that I'm often on a machine where it's difficult to load Firefox.)

The cool thing about Slashdot's redesign process is that they actively respond to criticisms and suggestions. Does something confuse you or adversely effect u

Re:Score levels

[daniil]

I think we're talking about two different things here. There's Discussion2, and then there's this other thing called MessagePlus being tested right now, which is apparently a sort of overlay to the D2, with a lot more controls (it's also a lot more confusing at first).

Re:Score levels

[Short Circuit]

Hm. I only heard about D2, where there's a button each to increase or descrease your threshhold and hard threshhold.

Re:Score levels

[tomhudson]

MessagePlus:

Controls to set to -1 to +5, or hide for each of the following:

1. General thresholds
   1. full
   2. one-liner
   3. hidden
2. top-level comments
3. relatives of high-scorers
4. replies
5. descendants
6. parent
7. siblings
8. same author

You can see what its about by going here: http://sd.si.umich.edu/ [umich.edu]

Re:Score levels

[Short Circuit]

Aw...I want in. :)

Re:Score levels

[tomhudson]

Apparently, once they're finished, maybe some of it will make its way into the "real slashdot", so you'll get your chance.

Re:Score levels

[Short Circuit]

Yeah, same as D2.

I set it and forgot it.

[artifex2004]

I told it to fullsize posts by people who have also made +5s in the same discussion, because I assume that they have a good probability of giving interesting replies to other posts, too. Beyond that, I haven't done much.

I read at +3, normally, anyway, with friends and fans at +1 each, no removal of karma bonus. So this just lets me read much faster if I hit a discussion late, and follow discussion leaders. If I'm early, of course, I can always click on the threshold notice, to see other posts.

p.s. for those