Seems to be starting from a technical place to replicate slashdot. Slashdot is a great site and the new beta sucks, however I would try and take what works (Curation & community (and historically moderation)). Slashdot kept its relevance for many people because of the community and the curation. I read hacker news for the most up to date feed, But I read sites like slashdot for their insight and summarisation. Not being so caught up in the moment means the stories often have more information available, and are less likely to "jump the gun".

I wouldn't use slash code though. Slashcode is older style perl code, hacked as was required to keep slashdot running on modest hardware at a time (less powerful then your phone) where it composed of a significant portion of internet traffic. This means that your going to have a whole pile of technical debt that your going to have to deal with.

You would be better off with a new minimal interface + moderation system (hell make it look like old slashdot, just build it in <INSERT MODERN STACK> ). I would even say taking the HN interface and simply reducing the number of articles in half, and adding a blurb to each article would get you a quick start.

I really want the slashdot to be reborn, but I think this will be more a case of a spiritual successor shall succeed as opposed to a clone. Slashdot worked because Cmdr. Taco was strongly interested in journalism and technology and brought those two together to make Slashdot.