Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
User Journal

Journal Update on the March of Progress: How Slashdot's New Look Is Shaping Up 237

Journal by slashdotblog

In the weeks to come, you'll see Slashdot's ongoing redesign picking up several of the vital features that the
long beta period has been used to craft, as a new, cleaner look is implemented by default for more readers: quite a few of those "coming soon" info bubbles are finally being swapped out for genuine functioning tools that mean improved interfaces for some vital tasks and settings. Of note, since the last time we noted the progress in this blog, these features include:

  • A functioning moderation system
  • Comment filtering and threshold setting
  • Account sign-up
  • Password recovery (for when the inevitable happens)
  • Further improvements to responsive design, and general UI cleanup, as rendering and other kinks get straightened out thanks to your ongoing feedback

By the end of the month, we aim to have in place profile update, newsletter signup, and even more UI cleanup and assorted big fixes!

Watch this space for more details; for most readers, we hope that the elements we've redesigned mean a page that's gentler on the eyes, and has controls that are fewer, more useful, and easier to manipulate. Your feedback is very valuable to us during this redesign, so please tell us if you run into things that don't work for you on Slashdot Beta. If you would like to keep track of the latest updates for Beta, what's in it so far and what's in progress, bookmark our Beta News page, where the evolution is being chronicled.

This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Update on the March of Progress: How Slashdot's New Look Is Shaping Up More

Update on the March of Progress: How Slashdot's New Look Is Shaping Up

Comments Filter:

  • Ugly (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 03, 2014 @03:33PM (#46143425)

    as hell.

    • Feedback (Score:5, Insightful)

      by submain ( 856941 ) on Wednesday February 05, 2014 @02:49PM (#46164487)
      The pros:
      - Fluid layout is an improvement from the previous beta
      - The page does have less "noise" than classic

      The cons:
      - Could not find a "reply" button for the main article. After looking it for a whooping 5 seconds, I gave up and replied to the first post instead.
      - Fonts are terribly inconsistent
      - Fonts have excessive hinting artifacts, specially bolds and the title bar.
      Judging by the "donâ(TM)t" in the post, unicode support (or something like it) seems to be lacking
      - As pointed in other comments, there is no contrast between the title of article/comments and their contents. That made things easy to follow on classic, and IMHO should still remain.
      - Why such long padding at the page edges?
      • I agree. The consequence of odd fonts and excessive padding is less information per page, and you end up scrolling a lot more than with the old design. Another con:
        - I find gray text slightly harder to read. Why is text gray and not black? Probably to distinguish a comment from its title which is black.

      • Why such long padding at the page edges?

        Because nobody there knows jack shit about design, that's why. And your list doesn't even begin to start with all the things wrong with it. I wonder if the first sentence in this comment is italics? If not, it is no longer a nerd site and I no longer belong here.

      • Count me in with those who can't find the reply button for the article. What the crap?

        I just can't believe how bad this site is. The worst of the worst:

        - Different font sizes and families make the page look awful. AWFUL.
        - Ridiculously narrow content column. As a plus, there's loads of useful whitespace to the side of the screen! Editing box seems to be missing a sarcasm tag.
        - Much harder to follow the flow of conversations than on slashdot classic.

    • This is horrible (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Wizy ( 38347 ) <<moc.liamg> <ta> <chgtaggerg>> on Wednesday February 05, 2014 @02:51PM (#46164513) Journal

      Since I can't find any other way to reply to this post I will have to reply to the first post. I wanted to make my own reply, good luck finding that.

      I have my slashdot working as it has for many years. Your "classic" is my "great". I have the oldest comment system possible and it is wonderful and works amazingly. This new beta is amazingly bad. It does not look better, and it is definitely not as usable. It's not even close to as user friendly as Slashdot from 10 years ago.

      Why are you completely ignoring the userbase? Nobody wants this.

      • Since I can't find any other way to reply to this post I will have to reply to the first post. I wanted to make my own reply, good luck finding that.

        Easy, remove "beta" from the url and go back to classic.

        I was very much against the current javascript heavy update of /., until I learned "classic" would be an option.
        Maybe we should have all kicked and screamed a lot harder back then,
        because our silence seems to have emboldened the evil overlords.

    • I can't agree more. This is the worst crap I've ever seen. I've been coming to slashdot viewing stories for a decade, I never saw any issues with the classic design. This is just pure change for the sake of change. The sites I tend to read and stick to the most are very simple and minimal like the classic slashdot, reddit etc.. If I wanted some pretty over-designd blog I'd go over to any of the hideous Gawker sites or AOL news. I was part of the digg community when they made their huge sweeping desi

    • Worst UI ever seen (Score:5, Insightful)

      by martino87r ( 2612857 ) on Wednesday February 05, 2014 @03:51PM (#46165157)
      This is by far the worst UI design I've seen... The value of slashdot comes from user comments and making the new comment interface such a piece of crap, you're actually telling your users (or should I say "customers"?) to avoid using it. I myself cannot find a way to post a comment to the article, so I'm commenting on the first one, second the line spacing wastes crapton of space, the filtering option only hides the comments without eventually displaying the headline. The density of information decreased to such point that I don't want to read comments anymore, meaning that slashdot for me turned into another useless website that I should remove from my favorites. The main page looks terribly unorganized, before I could see 2/3 articles, now I barely see half of one and the space is just wasted for useless pictures and padding. If you want to improve it, then improve the information density and renew the design, but this is the wrong way of doing it. At least give the option to switch back

      • I dont mind UI refreshes but I think that it will dumb down the discourse if the information density is decreased too much. But we live in an era where most of the audience growth is thought to be on mobile interfaces. The web is changing.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by steveg ( 55825 )

          There are some times I read Slashdot on a mobile device. There is *never* a time when I read Slashdot (or any other site) using a site "optimized" for mobile.

          If you want to generate a site that you think is better for mobile, have at it, but please give me the option to always load the desktop site. This is true everwhere on the Net, not just Slashdot. I have never seen a mobile site that was worth spit.

          Ever.

          Incidently, I was unable to leave a comment at all on the beta site, I had to force it back to cl

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by MrL0G1C ( 867445 )

        And the font looks like crap, I have an extension 'document font toggle' if I continue to visit slashdot after it's been horribly mangled then I'll not be allowing it to choose that god-awful font.

        Having said that, if slashdot makes this new beta mandatory, I will 100% definitely be walking out for a couple of weeks to make my feelings felt, I recommend others do the same.

      • Remember, if you don't pay for it, you're the product, not the customer. As I've remarked elsewhere [slashdot.org], I'm willing to pay to keep the classic UI. If enough of us feel that way, we could become the customers.

    • It's not just that it's "ugly", it's that the washed-out colors make it hard on eyes. At the same time the damn margins around everything - except between paragraphs, because of course the one place where they would help readability doesn't get any - make the page sparse, the combination of which perfectly captures the "ghost town" feeling.

      Extra credit for the damn bar on top of the page which follows you around and you scroll, effectively shrinking the window. It works beautifully to augment the margin pro

    • >The colour scheme hurts my eyes - it's too shiny.

      >The condensed comments are gone.

      >So much waster space, the padding on everything is too big, margins are uselessly large. As the user scrolls down, the comment boxes get to ridiculously small proportions.

      > There is no reply button. Are you trying to reduce discussion?

      If you're trying to underemphasis the comments (the only worthwhile thing here) you're going to have to do better editorial work. Hacker News posts articles weeks b

    • It seems everyone unanimously dislikes the beta. It's looks like some newly minted web-hack with no clue on usability or ergonomics designed it.

      As other people have pointed out, the information density is extremely low and there are hardly any visual cues to tie the information flow together. It's HARD to read the site.

      I guess it will be rolled out looking like this regardless of the given critique and proclaimed to be "a huge success" since someone has put his (or hers) pride on the line.

      I tend to gravitat

      • Agreed about the feedback email. I already sent mine. Everyone should as well.

        Every. single. thing. about this beta is a massive step backwards. The stupid fuckers at dice don't understand that the community and the commentary **are** the content at slashdot. That is the only reason anyone comes here. Ruin that and there is nothing, NOTHING left.

    • Can't post a new comment so I'll reply instead. I agree with everyone else here. The new site is absolutely awful. Too much white space. Too much scrolling. It looks ugly with about 9 different types of font used. The comments section is now very difficult to read. The stories cut off after like 5 lines. I have been a long time user of /. and love it the way it is. I've noticed the decline over the years as has everyone else. But if this 'new' site becomes the main site and you take away Classic I will le

    • Seriously?? Where's the reply button?

      I had pretty much left the site a while ago, and this change is going to push me to never return. This place really hasn't been the same since Taco left. What's a good alternative?

    • Holy crap, the background isn't white and the text isn't black. What the hell is that supposed to accomplish?

      Hint, contrast, we need it. Maximum contrast comes from using white and black. This is basic stuff!

    • There's so many things wrong here, so I tried to fix it. My fixes are published in a Userstyle for Stylish and Chrome here [userstyles.org]

      If the side rail was in the source code before the main content, I could float it properly so the article and comments expand to use the empty space underneath. Unfortunately, it's not, so you'll have to make do with the dead space. Sorry.

      If you want to contact me about this fix, feel free to do so. I should be contactable through here, or you can find my e-mail address in the linked us

    • Nobody asked for new and improved Tide. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by PsychoSlashDot ( 207849 ) on Wednesday February 05, 2014 @07:40PM (#46168035)
      Now if the new improvement was that you only needed half of the detergent to get your whites whiter and therefore you'd spend half as much per load, sure, there'd be an argument.

      This isn't that. This is the digital equivalent of "the box now has toxic printing on it, and the detergent inside has each granule conveniently packaged in concrete. But we provide you a small hammer."

      Look, this is unpleasant to look at in at least four ways. The horizontal layout wastes a massive amount of screen space. The vertical layout wastes a massive amount of screen space. The background colour together with the default font reduce readability. And despite all of this, less information is shown at any given time.

      Would you like us to disable UAC, DEP, and our antivirus software in order to use this too? Do we need root/administrator rights to view your site? Perhaps we need the latest beta of .NET or JRE?

      My point is that this is a huge step backwards in usability. The point behind Chrome, Firefox, and IE reducing the amount of UX is to make it possible to display more content. Don't take the increased screen space created by making the status bar, menu bar, URL bar, title bar, tabs, buttons, and in fact UI of the browser and then show me reduced content.

      You. Are. Doing. It. Wrong.

      I. WILL. Leave.

      Am I in some way unclear here? I'm not threatening. I'm calmly explaining. The content value of this site is not so high that I will tolerate this reduction in functionality. I know, I know. You've got some assclown marketing guy who tells you that we'll all just... give it one try, because we can't go without our fix. And we'll get used to it.

      I'm informing you that I won't. On principle. Because if you're willing to say "fuck you" this loudly to me, I'm willing to say the same right back.
    • This is incredibly bad. Please let us use the classic look and make this abomination 'opt-in' because I (and most other folks) do not want to have slashdot look like this, it's new for the sake of being new. It feels like someone's bad joke.

    • You can take this beta fold it untill it is sharp and pointy and shove it now rotate on it.

    • Anyway, it's not progress, we don't like it, we don't want it.
    • Making my first post in years to say this experiment is flawed by design. No one wants it, your audience is long established people that don't jump on to the bandwagon of unusable interfaces claiming to be Web 3.0 or whatever bullshit. When classic is no longer available, you will see the mass exodus that all of us have been threatening for years. When you get rid of the Beta site, can you throw Timothy in the trash with it please.
    • Agreed, looks like its time for me to find another geek news website. I can't even figure out how to respond to the blog rather than your comments. Any suggestions for a new website? I've also stopped going to NBC News now that I can't read anything...
    • Who insists that men should find her attractive anyway, the beta remains repulsive.

    • Like everyone else, I couldn't find the option to reply to the story itself, so first post it is. I even did a cursory look in the source code. And the site is supposed to go live this month? (Good to know that Preview still shows it wrong, too.)

      In any case, at this point it seems pretty obvious that Slashdot doesn't give a shit about the concerns of the users. No acknowledgement that we all hate it, no /. poll, nothing. According to the alert on the main site, we'll still have the "Classic" option for a fe

  • just one reply ? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by blackest_k ( 761565 ) on Tuesday February 04, 2014 @12:38AM (#46147307) Homepage Journal

    i use the oldest version of the interface of the site i can, it works.
    I'm surprised at a lack of comments on this story because there have been plenty universally disliking slashdot beta on many other stories, perhaps it is because nobody wants anything to do with slashdot beta it has no value.

    Why not abandon it?
    Seems probable that you will lose users by implementing it. which means less interesting posts, which means less reason to come here.

    I have to say it is the comments that are interesting there are always new things, new software , recurring problems and peoples experience with these things, views, opinions methodology and insights help differentiate between whats worth spending time on , whats not and perhaps the best way to skin a cat.
    by the later i mean problems you may have solved one way, someone else came up with a different way thats faster or easier or just inspires you to try something new.

    of course there is a flood of crap that comes in other comments, and the usual troll posts but you skip them and find the good ones.

    anyway that is the value in slashdot the comments and it's kept me reading and informed for years many years.
    This beta program threatens to reduce the value of this site so perhaps you should reconsider before you lose the value in this site. Thats my opinion anyway and I actually care enough to say the beta program sucks because it will only lead to more crap and less insight. I guess slashdot will likely crash and burn eventually if the crap becomes too much but there is no need to put it into a nose dive, instead of gliding while you think of something to make it better.

    If you want to make slashdot better how about a noise or spam filter, I don't mean site wide censorship. I mean a list of keywords that users can supply so say I have the filter "gay nigger" in place then I can have that comment removed from my page view maybe adjust the moderation downwards towards -2 maybe grey the text so i can see its there and read it if it makes some other post out of context. Or perhaps once a post infringes my crap filter all replies to it can also be greyed out.

    Anyway my thoughts for what its worth.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      I hate the beta site (216.34.181.43) so much that I black listed it.

    • No replies probably because I did not see this story on the RSS feed. I only found it after seeing the big giant "look at our new site!" blurb on top of the classic view.

      Occasionally I would get beta look instead of the normal one and I hated it. Which means it is time for someone to step forward and say "you only hate it because you hate change", the pitiful defense often given to Windows 8 or Gnome WhateverVersion.

      I see no advantages here. I see tons and tons of white space, because of adblock somewhat

  • Ignore your users (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    So despite the overwhelming majority of users hating and avoiding the Beta site and vocally objecting to it's "Web 2.0" uselessness, you're going to go-ahead with the transition anyway? Brilliant!

  • Hit me at work yesterday (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mcgrew ( 92797 ) * on Wednesday February 05, 2014 @02:09PM (#46164099) Homepage Journal

    No link to "classic", no link to log in, no link to actual comments, in fact the only links are to the front page, Dice Holdings, individual stories, and user profiles (other people's since it won't let me log in). They're using IE7.

    I honestly think Dice bought slashdot to kill it. Have you guys seen even ONE comment in favor of your new shitty interface? I haven't, but I've seen a lot of AC comments cursing it and IMO, with good reason.

    The new interface may chase me away from slashdot. It's that bad.

    A functioning moderation system

    You used to have one until you changed it so "funny" gained karma and changed/ruined metamoderation.

    Comment filtering and threshold setting
    Account sign-up
    Password recovery (for when the inevitable happens)

    We already have that! Damn it, slashdot, the only things that are broke are what you broke trying to fix something that functioned fine.

    Further improvements to responsive design

    If by "improvements" you mean that new shitty interface, no thank you. Take away classic view and I may leave for good.

    general UI cleanup, as rendering and other kinks get straightened out thanks to your ongoing feedback

    Don't you think you should fix that crap before forcing it on us?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by unitron ( 5733 )

      I think "Funny" actually awarded karma points originally, 'cause I'm pretty sure that's where I got most of mine.

      I wonder if beta is intended to only be a temporary change, though.

      Remember when Coke was replaced with New Coke and then itself was replaced with Coke Classic, only they used that misdirection to switch from real sugar to HFCS?

  • Actual Feedback? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anrego ( 830717 ) * on Wednesday February 05, 2014 @02:12PM (#46164127)

    I don't normally make these kind of posts, but has _any_ of that feedback you claim to value been positive?

    It seems universal. Everyone (including me) hating the beta site. Now there's always a group of people who hate everything new but eventually gets used to it, but this beta has been around long enough for people to get past that and move on to legitimate hate.

    Usually when someone posts a comment saying site x just updated their layout and it sucks, you see a few replies along the lines of "it's different, but once you get used to it, it's not as bad/better". I don't see this here. I've yet to see a single reply defending the layout in the dozens of annoyed comments that pop up in every discussion when someone is forced to use the beta site.

    • I have feedback: I can't reply to this post directly.
      I have to reply to another post to write anything.

      I hope someone is making money on this forced change.
      Money of the golden parachute variety.

      Why not have a poll on this change?
      Why is it needed?
      Does it save bandwidth?
      Does it enable changes that users have been clamouring for? (What changes?)

      Or does it just give the CEO's son some job experience?

  • It's all about the hierarchy of comments (Score:5, Insightful)

    by tooyoung ( 853621 ) on Wednesday February 05, 2014 @02:21PM (#46164219)
    I use classic mode and perhaps have some setting that preserves some older layout. The thing that I like about the older layout is that I can get a real sense of the conversation that is taking place by seeing the hierarchy of comments. I may only be primarily reading +4 and +5 comments, but I can instantly see where they fit in the conversation. Perhaps someone posted a +5, was replied to for two levels, and then someone posted a +4. Showing the hierarchy allows me to instantly understand where the +4 was in relation to the +5, and if I wish, I can quickly open one of the intermediate parents in a new tab, allowing me to view its siblings as well.

    This works well for how I read slashdot - I scan down the page for interesting comments, and then open some of the summarized lower level children in a new tab and read through them. If someone posted an interesting point, it is easy for me to view all of the replies.

    Admittedly, I have not used the beta much, but I have not been able to figure out how to read in my style. Say that I am reading at the +4 comment level. I have no way of discerning if a particular child comment is replying to the +4/5 parent above it, or if there are several intermediate posts. I have no way to see all of the replies to a particular post.

    My experience with classic mode is that I'm reading a conversation, and I have a choice of where I want to dig in further to the conversation. My experience with beta mode is that I'm just reading a bunch of random comments with no good understanding of their relation to each other.

    • This. Exactly this. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by demontechie ( 180612 ) on Wednesday February 05, 2014 @02:41PM (#46164405)

      The conversational hierarchy and non-wasteful layout is what made Slashdot something I'd come back to every day. It is unfathomable to me why there is any principled desire (other than the possibility of simply wanting to end the site, in which case, just go ahead and do it) to switch to this new waste of space and context. Even the little details are wrong too: e.g. no uid display on posts - why? All those little contextual bits are part of interpreting the conversation.

      I've been reading, commenting and moderating for a long time now, but if this is going to be the new slashdot without any option to keep the old format, then I'm probably done. And from what I'm reading here I wouldn't be the only one.

      If even Google can admit they were wrong with their News revamp and eventually allow a rollback to the classic view, surely whomever is driving this revamp could perhaps acknowledge that keeping people around by not throwing out the old version could be a beneficial business decision? Or do I perhaps hope too much...

      p.s. how exactly is one supposed to produce line breaks in this new message window? They seem entirely random in the preview.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Tackhead ( 54550 )

        The conversational hierarchy and non-wasteful layout is what made Slashdot something I'd come back to every day. It is unfathomable to me why there is any principled desire (other than the possibility of simply wanting to end the site, in which case, just go ahead and do it) to switch to this new waste of space and context. Even the little details are wrong too: e.g. no uid display on posts - why? All those little contextual bits are part of interpreting the conversation.

        That. Exactly that.

        It should wor

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by BeerCat ( 685972 )

        And more this.

        OK, so maybe displaying the UID "takes up too much space" - except that the large font (is there a way of changing it without changing it in your browser?) means there is already "too much space" - except this is wasted.

        Not defaulting the parent posts's subject is an annoyance (but might encourage some "maybe my reply should have a different title" - except that breaks the thought flow when wanting a quick reply).

        And all wasted space was in "beta-classic" view - the headlines only is too littl

    • bingo (Score:2)

      by bmajik ( 96670 )

      this is precisely how I use classic mode.

      At one point, there was a newer mode where there was some kind of slider control that was supposed to be used to control what comments were displayed. I've never had that control work on any browser I've tried it with.

      The ui showing on beta right now (as I write this comment) doesn't seem like an improvement. The outline boxes are distracting, the grey background is distracting. The lack of contrast in the UI makes it mentally taxing to navigate the structure of t

    • I also want to add my vote against this design. I'm not a web designer, so can't give detailed suggestions about the design, but I agree with what tooyoung described above and with what valdrax described below, along with a few others. I think it boils down to:

      Too much white space - use the screen as much as possible for the relevant information.
      Not enough information - where is all the info on replies, post numbers, relationship, uid number, etc?
      Loss of functionality - how do I open an entire branch of a t

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by unitron ( 5733 )

        "PS: Why does my post lose the blank lines I added between paragraphs?"

        I'm going to guess because they hired the same people who screwed up (even further) the comment handling software at HuffingtonPost, where you have to insert hand coded paragraph and line break tags.

        (okay, I actually do just one and then copy and paste, but it's still a pain to have to go to the extra trouble to keep everything from running together)

    • This +
      Way way way too much vertical whitespace. With the crap 16:9 ratios, vertical space is more precious than gold, yet beta wastes tons of it with empty pixels meaning it is much harder to understand context.
      And whats this load more crap. Load the whole conversation. Don't mke me click for another 20 comments. Its 2014, text bandwidth is cheap.

  • Let me put it this way. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Valdrax ( 32670 ) on Wednesday February 05, 2014 @02:36PM (#46164351)

    If you don't leave "Classic" Slashdot as a default option, there is a good chance that I will not read the site anymore. The new Slashdot look is barren and space-inefficient (so much freaking scrolling!). While it has largely stopped looking like it was wholeheartedly committed to hiding the fact that there's any content on the stories, it's a serious lose-lose downgrade in usability in exchange for a blandness of visual appeal.

    The good news is that you've improved it to the point that it's only a "chance" and not an absolute certainty that I will logout and not login again, like I did for several years after the last major interface "upgrade." On the other hand, the big difference is that I've finally gotten around to reading reddit, so I don't really need Slashdot anymore when you finally impact in this slow motion train wreck that everyone here is trying futilely to warn agaist.

    You want some feedback? Fine.

    1. Use less vertical space. You waste too much space above and below text and within it by 1.5 spacing everything. You also squeeze out 1/3 of the horizontal space on the comment section. This does not flow well, and it tires the scroll wheel finger. It also makes nested comments feel really disconnected from the (now several screen back) parent comment, and the layout is a cruel joke on cellphones. You get a comment nested three under a top-level comment, and it only displays as a column of single words. Maybe you think I'm hammering this point too much, but it's a major factor in why the new site is an abomination of design. Increase your information density. Don't water it down. You serve a technical community, and we don't appreciate having to jump through extra hoops to get at the same thing.

    2. Your moderation popup should pop upwards when it's at the bottom of the current screen. It's irritating to have to scroll down to moderate after having to scroll so much to read a comment in the first place.

    3. The reply to a comment form seems to indicate that you should reply in the subject line instead of in the body. Consider filling in the subject line like the old system does rather than just telling people to reply there.

    4. You've taken away a lot comment formatting options, apparently. Not only do you no longer present the "Plain Old Text" v. "Extrans", etc. options and fail to tell the users what is allowed, but you take away several of the old tags that work just fine in the old layout, like <i&gt. For reasons. Why would you take functionality away from the users of a tech-focused site? Do you think we need hand-holding? Do you have GNOME developers on your staff?

    5. On the note of formatting options, your site still can't handle Unicode after years of people complaining. Quit spending so much effort on crappy decoration, and shore up your foundation first. UTF-8 is over 20 years old now. You have no excuses except laziness and a misguided belief that flash and flair are more important than solid fundamentals.

    But the most important point is #1. The site looks like a vast wasteland of nothing than to your excessively spaced style-sheet. Fix it or lose readers.

    • ... because I expect I'll enthusiastically agree with you, especially after reading "If you don't leave "Classic" Slashdot as a default option, there is a good chance that I will not read the site anymore." One of the reasons I come to Slashdot is the condensed nature of the site, the efficient design, and the ability to see snippets of other news sites on the side.

      I'm rather angry with you for encouraging me to use this beta site more than I want to.

      Perhaps this is a basic level computer class design

  • IT SUCKS IT SUCKS IT SUCKS IT SUCKS (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MightyMartian ( 840721 ) on Wednesday February 05, 2014 @03:26PM (#46164951) Journal

    I'd like to go into a deep analysis, but others have done it, so let me just state things plainly.

    IT FUCKING SUCKS!

  • The feedback has been unanimously negative, and they've been ignoring it so far. I could take the time to explain all the problems in detail, but there's no point, so I'll just give the executive summary: IT SUCKS.

    • Scared to try a Slashdot poll? oh and my $0.02 : Stick with the existing UI, this new one is awful.

    • It's actually rather amazing how universal the dislike of the new design is.

      Usually when there is a change like this, you get the normal uproar amongst existing users decrying the change while a small minority chirps in - whether because they are new, or shills, or honestly see advantage to the updated format - offering an alternate opinion.

      But since Beta slashdot was introduced, I can't remember seeing ONE voice speak up in favor of the change. Not /one/. It is absolutely and totally hated by the current u

    • There's nothing positive I have to say about this layout. It's not because I don't like change or 'new things', rather I hate when something good is replaced with something foul. This site is losing an extremely efficient design that scaled well regardless of the device I viewed it on and replacing it with a gigantic ugly page that I'll be avoiding once it changes.

      This is the Windows 8 of Slashdot... and that's being generous to Slashdot. Perhaps Titanic will be more apt after the change is instituted...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Valdrax ( 32670 )

      Perhaps they have been taken over by some kind of mystical vampire creature that feeds off of frustration and suffering. It's important, because it nourishes them and gives them strength and joy.

      It would explain a lot about Dice.com, now that I think about it...

  • Here's how to keep Classic for a while longer (Score:3)

    by computersareevil ( 244846 ) on Wednesday February 05, 2014 @09:35PM (#46169039)

    Here's how to keep Classic for a while longer:
    Edit a cookie called "betagroup" and change it to something like 99. Presumably they are forcing another group to Beta every day.

    I also changed "sendtobeta" to zero from 1. Don't think that one did it.

    Hey Slashdot! Fuck you and fuck beta!

  • A disaster. A total disaster. Just fucking stop. Now. No one, wants this. Everyone hates it. There is no need to redesign the site. Leave it the way it was. The comparisons to Microsoft are apt, you do not care what your users think and are trying to ram something down their throats because, apparently, you hate your userbase so much you want to punish them. You need to throw this site redesign into the garbage and FORGET about redesigning the site. Leave the site the way it was because the way it was worke

  • I wasn't able to post this until I logged in, and found a way to reach this url without the beta:

    Link to the non-beta version [slashdot.org]

    Holy crap, the beta is just useless! I don't think it can be patched - it really, really should be abandoned if this is where it is after all this time. Use it for 'lessons learned' but that's it.

    Ryan Fenton

  • Too much white space (Score:4, Insightful)

    by zzyzyx ( 1382375 ) on Wednesday February 05, 2014 @11:17PM (#46169845)

    Don't waste so much space everywhere. There are less articles per page, less comments, suddenly the line spacing is doubled, there is a blank column on the right of the comment page ... This makes browsing the site less comfortable. It also loses identity and looks like any generic flat UI news website.

  • please don't change to the new style

  • Slashdot Beta: a bold redesign (Score:3)

    by symbolset ( 646467 ) * on Thursday February 06, 2014 @12:19AM (#46170311) Journal
    It's the Windows 8 of slashdots. In case that's not clear enough, yes, like everybody else here I prefer classic Slashdot. I can see what you are trying to do, but this is the wrong way to do it. Recommend you roll back to Slashdot XP and regroup. Also, continuing to maintain Slashdot XP should probably be in the plan, since this is a very conservative group. How about instead of Slashdot Beta you give us an app for Android and iOS?

Slashdot Top Deals

Beware of Programmers who carry screwdrivers. -- Leonard Brandwein

Close