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#4083 Slashdot ignoring preference for Classic Discussion Style
Preferences -> Discussions -> Viewing -> Slashdot Classic Discussion System
This option is ignored (at least for my user account), and Slashdot is showing me the "D2" discussion view all the time, despite my preference being set to Classic, and despite the "help test the new system" checkbox being cleared on discussion pages.
Please fix. The "new" discussion system is not only buggy as hell, but offensively ugly and I'd rather not see it until I'm forced to. And I don't appreciate being "volunteered" to try the beta product against my will.
Thank you.
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Well jeez, since you were so nice about it, sure, I'll look into it.
Let's see. It works for me. I'd check your specific user account but you didn't say what it is and your nickname here is not the same as there; I could also look into potential browser problems, but you don't say what browser you're using.
Cheers!
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You're right, I'm a jerk. (It's hard not to be angry when you have to use SourceForge to submit and comment on bugs. What kind of online service *forgets* what page you were on before you attempted to sign on, and doesn't return you to that page when the sign in succeeds? Ugh!! Any politeness I had was quickly burned up in the half-hour-long painful process to sign in to Sourceforge. Please consider switching to a better bug tracker, but that's neither here nor there.)
For what it's worth, the account is "Blakey Rat" (with a space), and the browser is Firefox 2.0.0.13 on Windows XP Pro. I haven't touched my user preferences (except to change the sig) in a very long time, definitely not since the new moderation system has been around.
Thanks for your help.
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I am also having this problem. Most notably in the discussion systems, large ugly buttons instead of hyperlinks, the amount of whitespace is also very distracting and the nesting indentation does not appear correct). Also in the preferences area the modal pop-up forms that allow you to change your preferences display graphical glitches when scrolling and "Save" button is cut off with Large Font settings enabled (for accessibility).
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I'm not sure if this is related, but I also seem to be getting the "Read the rest of this comment..." links at the bottom of long posts. I never used to get this before this bug started, and I seem to vaguely recall it being a configuration option, but I can't find it in the preferences now...
I've found a ton of "D2" bugs, but I kind of don't want to bother posting them since I'm being forced into using this commenting system against my will. But for what it's worth, in Firefox 2.0.0.13 on Windows, many of the floater DIVs in the user preferences page fill with black when you scroll down, making it impossible to see the fields. Good chance I can't find the "read the rest of this comment" pref because of that.
Thanks.
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Quite awhile ago we removed the prefs for the threshold of long posts, for performance reasons. Several months now. It's not directly related to D2.
As to the other problem, I don't know, but I'll pass this along to our designer.
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Oh, I realize I never posted about the original bug. I wonder if you are actually mistaken. What makes you think it is D2? How it looks, or certain functionality? If the latter, which functionality? Because I am capable of easily turning on and off D2 from the prefs in Firefox 2.0.0.13 for Mac, using both the checkbox on the discussion page itself, and the prefs at http://slashdot.org/my/comments . And I go to your user account, and D2 *already is* turned off, so I suspect you are assuming it is on because of the look, when it is not.
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Would it be possible to modify the view to make it more obvious that I'm going to have to click a link to read the whole comment, when I start reading the comment? It might help the server's performance to limit the page size, but it definitely doesn't help my performance when I start reading a long post, only to find that it's:
1) Cut-off
2) I have to wait for another page load to see the whole thing
3) Then I have to find where it was cut-off to start reading again.
It just makes me irritated, and is not a good user experience.
As a "good" example, take a look at the site "www.damninteresting.com", when they site cuts long posts off, they design it so that when you hit "show rest of text", the new text appears right below where you were just reading so you don't waste any neurons trying to get back to where you were a second ago.
Secondly, if I just finished writing a new post, it should always display my entire post, not the cut-off version. I don't think this would have any kind of performance impact, and when I submit a new comment I want to look over the entire comment, not just the top half of it.
And lastly, it would be nice if, when you make changes like that, you popped off a note to people who had that option turned on so they knew what was happening and wouldn't submit bug reports. (BTW, it's also a bad user experience to remove options from users. I can't imagine the additional servers would be worth the customer badwill of removing features, but it's your site.)
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The more I think about this bug, maybe I'm not. When I see something this ugly and buggy, I just kind of assume that it's the beta product I'm seeing... I certainly hope that not everybody is seeing what I'm seeing, because it pretty much removes all the graphical and usability improvements of your last CSS template. (Attaching a screenshot.)
If this is the final product, you really need better testers. Everything about it is wrong, from the floater DIVs that don't work in Firefox, to the text that gets cut-off at lower font sizes and wraps incorrectly at larger font sizes, to the grey "threading outlines" not matching the threads, and not lining up with the curved appearance of post headers. And replacing nice small links with buttons that are four times the size? Not an improvement. (Replace them with buttons if you like, but at least make the buttons look like buttons, i.e. give them at least a bit of 3d bump, and don't make them four times larger.)
Anyway, if this *is* the final appearance, please, please, PLEASE invest in some testers to run over the product before you subject the Internet-at-large to it.
Thanks.
(P.S. ARRRRRGGGH!!! Maybe Slashdot is taking "usability" tips from Sourceforge! I've seen bowel surgeries more pleasant than using this bug tracking software! File attachment coming as soon as I work out what magical incantation Sourceforge needs to f-ing post it.)
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I give up.
http://schend.net/images/screenshots/slashdot.png
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"I have to wait for another page load to see the whole thing"
Yes, hence: D2. This has always been a problem. We now have a solution: D2.
"when they site cuts long posts off, they design it so that when you hit "show rest of text", the new text appears right below where you were just reading"
Exactly. D2!
"Secondly, if I just finished writing a new post, it should always display my entire post, not the cut-off version."
It does in D2. It should still do so in D1. I'll doublecheck.
"from the floater DIVs that don't work in Firefox"
Which? They look fine to me.
"to the grey "threading outlines" not matching the threads"
I see no example of this.
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Yes, D2 will mow my lawn and feed my cats too. But I was happy with the old discussion system, until these changes, and as I've said several times, I resent being made a beta tester against my will. It sounds like changing the original Slashdot stylesheet is just a scheme to get people to switch to "D2". Which is still in beta, as well... so I get the option of using this stylesheet which obviously hasn't been tested much (but isn't called beta), or using the one that is in beta?
And for the record, the "problems" that D2 "solves" (the ones you quoted) didn't exist at all month ago.
But since I'm wasting time anyway, fine, I'll fill in the bug reports.
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"I was happy with the old discussion system, until these changes"
Apart from CSS, the only change you've mentioned was lowering the threshold, which happened MONTHS ago and *had nothing directly to do with D2 whatsoever.* You want that problem fixed. It is fixed in D2.
"And for the record, the "problems" that D2 "solves" (the ones you quoted) didn't exist at all month ago."
Nope. That's just not true. The only problem you mentioned that I said D2 solves is the long comments, and that absolutely existed months ago. Years ago, really. But the lowering of threshold and removal of preference was several months ago.
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There, I just submitted something like 7-8 bugs that I found *instantaneously* on Slashdot. All the time taken between when I started and now was taken up by making screenshots and dealing with Sourceforge, the bugs were all blatantly obvious.
Fire your QA staff. Seriously.
As to the threshold being lowered "months ago", I only started noticing it when the template change took place. Maybe I'm just crazy, but I'll trust your opinion on this one.
But you can't just say "aside from CSS" and dismiss all the visual problems in a single fell swoop; CSS/Javascript/presentation "stuff" is at least as important as the back-end code for creating a smooth and enjoyable user experience.
BTW, do you have any analytics data on which options people change in the Posting preferences page? I'd be extremely surprised if "modifier by post size" is ever used, and "Comment Byte Limit", if I'm reading the description correctly, seems redundant to "Comment Limit" right above it.
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<em>But you can't just say "aside from CSS" and dismiss all the visual problems in a single fell swoop</em>
I am not dismissing them, I am separating them, because you were talking about "old" discussion system vs. "new" and the CSS changes are not about "old" vs. "new." It is still the same discussion system. So yes, they are issues, just not in the context of old vs. new.
<em>CSS/Javascript/presentation "stuff" is at least as important as the back-end code for creating a smooth and enjoyable user experience.</em>
Yep, and we're working on it. Although I should note that you aren't using JavaScript in the old system.
Thanks for all your reports. I fixed the one bug you mentioned (which I believe is VERY old, unless one line was removed that I cannot find any record of) about "Read the Rest" on a just-submitted comment. Most of the rest have been dealt with or assigned to people who will.
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I would argue that when you change as many things as the last update changed, it's now a "new" discussion system. The user sees the front-end, even if there's no (or few) changes to the back-end, there was a significant change in the user's experience. Traditional version numbers might help in this situation.
The floating DIVs in the Help & Preferences pages that a few of my bugs are about certainly use Javascript.
The bug about "read the rest" might have been very old, but since "read the rest" on my account was turned off until (allegedly) months ago, it never came up for me before. (I still stand by my assertion that that behavior changed at the same time the stylesheet changed, though. I would certainly have noticed, I post long posts every week.)
Anyway, thank you for taking my concerns seriously. In the future, I would greatly appreciate it if you spent more time fixing the low-hanging-fruit bugs before releasing something new.