Re: [Slashcode-general] Unintended Consequences

[Rob M. <ma...@sl...>]

We spent years with forums being flooded with giant ASCII penises of every conceivable variation.

You can hate it, but it was a necessary decision and I stand by it.

The loss of ASCII diagrams is regrettable.  But ability to read a conversation without giant ASCII art every 4th comment is worth it.


--
Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda
ro...@ma... ma...@sl...
Pants are optional.

On Jul 27, 2011, at 7:54 PM, Michael Witten wrote:

> I just spent a significant portion of my life trying to improve
> the Slashdot community by contributing a tediously constructed
> comment on a technical subject. 
> 
> Once I had finished, I pasted my results into the comment text
> field and pressed `Preview', only to be greeted vacuously with
> the following message:
> 
>  Filter error: Please use fewer 'junk' characters.
> 
> After a few moments of playing around, I discovered that this is
> yet another sour outcome of Slashdot's baroque commenting system;
> it turns out that my pre-formatted ASCII diagrams, though small,
> are being flagged as unwanted content.
> 
> A little googling later, and I came across a number of comments
> to the effect of "I would post a code example, but Slashdot's filter
> thinks it's junk".
> 
> So, good going! You've succeeded in stifling meaningful dialog.
> 
> My immediate response at this point was to give up and get on with
> my life, but then roughly 2 words crystalized violently in my mind:
> 
>  NO, GODDAMNIT!
> 
> I'm not going to be silenced by this overengineered monstrosity.
> 
> The next idea I had was to use some service like `pastie.org' in
> order `to host' my ASCII diagrams, and then I would link to those
> diagrams from my Slashdot comment.
> 
> However, I can't stand the thought of these links being broken
> over time, thereby rendering my comment into mostly useless ruins;
> I needed to find a solution that more strongly couples my comment
> with the diagrams.
> 
> Moreover, I wanted to make a loud complaint about this nonsense.
> 
> Hence, I've come to this mailing list to say the following:
> 
>  * Your commenting system sucks ass.
> 
>    For all of the effort that you've put into making it as
>    intricately moderated as possible (and I've tried to spend
>    my moderation points properly!), it not only doesn't improve
>    the quality of the comments beyond what a simpler system can
>    achieve, but it also actively diminishes the quality (not
>    to say that my comment in particular is of high quality;
>    however, others have no doubt been quashed).
> 
>    If you want an example of a commenting system that consistently
>    yields excellent comment threads with decent fomatting and linking
>    and moderation, then look to copying something like that of
>    Reddit.
> 
>  * As an unintended consequence of Slashdot's nonsensical system,
>    I have decided to post my code examples and ascii diagrams here
>    to this list and then embed into my comment a link to the archived
>    email as a reference.
> 
>    I will do this whenever I find the need.
> 
>    I figure that as long as Slashdot is around to host my comments,
>    then this mailing list is also going to be around to host my
>    content, thereby providing the stable coupling that I desire.
> 
> Sincerely,
> Michael Witten
> 
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