DHI Group Plans to Sell Slashdot and SourceForge
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I've moderated on Slashdot for years and watched as the site's original low tech but functional UX has been degraded by half-hearted attempts to make it a modern web application.
There was a time when Slashcode was considered to be one of the best open source comment systems you could set up for your own website. I think above all else, the Slashdot team should start shooting for that again.
Build something with a UI that blows Disqus and reddit out of the water, continue to use the Slashdot-style moderation system (with possibly some tweaks to improve it), open source it, and be relevant again.
The SoylentNews people have put some effort into improving slashcode... utf8, ipv6, modern perl, modern apache, tor .onion gateway, modern everything.
https://github.com/SoylentNews/slashcode
Note that the last release of slashcode was a VERY long time ago so its /. from 2009 not /. from last week.
1. Their backend advancements have come at the expense of a focus on a more modern user experience. Their fork of Slashcode simply is not competitive with modern web forums from a UX perspective. It needs to be at least as usable as Disqus or reddit to be competitive, ideally better, as both of those takes on the web forum concept have plenty of room for improvement themselves.
2. Relevance. Try as they might, there has never been a mass exodus from Slashdot or anywhere else to Soylent. Until that happens, Slashdot still posses a much more robust bully pulpit from which to popularize a modernized Slashcode. Slashdot's relevance may be fading year after year, but it still has plenty left. That's why we're discussing it on HN right now. They need to seize that while they still can and make the most of it.
Suffice to say that the experience over the next few years was so surreal that most people I told it to have difficulty believing anyone could so accurately and repeatedly shoot themselves in the foot without learning anything from the pain.
So what main mechanism was involved? At the time I was young and cocky so I would have said "basic stupidity." With greater experience, I can see it was more nuanced than that, so let's call it management hubris.
Microsoft's acquisition of Mojang may be the exception that proves the rule; while Notch is no longer involved in Minecraft, the project itself has reached a critical mass where it very well might make as much on licensing and deals as it does on new users now (and with a healthy modding community on the PC version, it's an open sandbox that children can "grow into" as they learn more about how computers work). I think the way they'd kill that is to close off the avenues to modding the game; time will tell if Microsoft is that foolish, but I sincerely doubt they would be.
I wonder if there is any way to train people to design better mergers. It would seem that MBA schools and pre-marital counselors both are not terribly good at it. That means you could sell them a checkbox to help them out. Insert stereotypical "sounds like a really difficult job in other words the perfect crazy startup idea". Maybe gamified somehow, either entirely or some component? It might just be a lack of empathy, surely that can be trained? Or lack of critical analysis skills? Good luck with this startup idea. I'm sure that some liberal arts degrees have considerable research on this general topic, although I'd ignore the religious studies and b-school documentation for purely pragmatic reasons.
At this point, the current owner can't be trusted anymore.
All in all, a great project, I'll probably be using it soon. Good work, and good luck with it! Also, do you clarify anywhere what's your approach to controversial projects - like "retards", PopcornTime and C+= - would they be allowed on site or taken down?
Edit: never mind the last question, apparently you censored the GamergateOP repository, I guess that answers it.
1. The files + readme is something we considered but we choose to show an overview of the project and the readme, we think this is cleaner. You can configure to see the activity feed instead of the readme if you mostly use the same projects (in a company for example). See https://about.gitlab.com/2015/07/22/gitlab-7-13-released/ But what we learned so far that there are no perfect choices for the homepage.
2. I think you mean our menu-on-the-left layout?
3. We do have wiki's, for example see https://gitlab.maikel.pro/maikeldus/WhatsSpy-Public/wikis/ho...
Great to hear you'll be using it soon. We have one button importers for most platforms.
Regarding the controversy please see my comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9967545
Re: controversy - ok, so the same as GitHub or Reddit, you just arbitrarily choose what to take down and when. In particular, this leaves all repositories open to media-induced attention and controversy, followed by a takedown. IMO, having an explicit, well-defined policy would be much better, even if it's highly restrictive, as long as it's objective (i.e. no "offended" and similar) and changes aren't applied retroactively.
I agree that being open source helps, and I thank you for that, but I still wish there was a hosted site with a large community safe from censorship.
Obviously, reddit doesn't abide by it's own rules. That would require balls of steel (or equivalent for corporations), especially in the face of controversies such as The Fappening.
I don't think we want to host nudes without consent on GitLab.com
It should be emphasized that this, rather than the possibility of censorship by GitLab's staff on their own initiative, is the main concern here.
On the other hand, what incentives does GitLab have to host controversial projects? The kind of person who appreciates it is not the exactly the social or technological trendsetter at the moment. It would make a good marketing point for a niche repository hosting service targeting a "red tribe" or "gray tribe" audience* but a mainstream service could rationally choose to not get involved with it.
* https://paxdickinson.wordpress.com/2014/10/27/the-rise-of-th...
I'm not so sure about that. Of course, I might be wrong, especially as I'm not really involved with the technological/programming community (especially not the US one), but to me it seems that it's mainly the media driving the politically-correct everything-offends-me culture and igniting scandal after scandal. Many people are quite appalled by these puritan witch-hunts and victimhood competitions, as they realize how chilling the effects are, and what the endgame of the censorship slippery-slope is.
But then again, many just don't care at all. Just like with mass surveillance and mass lies about e.g. weapons of mass destruction.
They're a liability, not an asset.