Dear Slashdot User

Dear Slashdot User,

Speaking for myself as AC but reflecting on everything.

This comment is about Beta and the revolt. If you're not interested do move on, sorry for the brief interruption and Thanks.

I'll start by saying surely there's folk bothered by the anti-beta floods. I apologize if it's frustrated anyone who wants normal discussion flow. The fact is there's some of us who feel (super) passionate about this drastic redesign. Nerd or Don Juan, whatever [buzzword that describes you]...it would take a lobotomized sociopath to not even feebly feel something unsettling about the yanking of the historic roots of this site we call slashdot.org. Whether 1997 or 2006 or 2010 was your first time around these woods... there's much to admire and appreciate.

My bias is that I am 101% anti-beta on all points including ease of use, functionality & decimation of dense threaded discussion. It's ugly and hideous to me on so many levels. I could go on with a list UI details, I'll push that aside for now.

What I'm here to say is that as unprecedented as Slashdot's rise was - equally unprecedented is the scene unfolding in the altslashdot/slashcott movement. For or against, let's pause to admit this truth.

I feel what needs acknowledgement of the anti-beta movement is the validity of our own emotions here. I think the most passionate grew up with this site thru many phases of their lives. It's not just about the news business. I view Slashdot as an unprecedented cultural icon. A bizarre and intriguing global public forum - delivered to us reliably at every request direct to our private, personal computers.

-From trolls to flamewars to humor to all the memes, prose & poetry, robot crap-flooding to real intelligent valuable discussion and debate-
(If there was all of 1, it wouldn't work. It was that they all got to play)

Don't let what some call "immature" anti beta flooding fog your perception of the movement that is altslashdot. We are 150 strong in the channel and rising. We are busy resurrecting a dusty time machine that is the Slashcode from a long, ill-destined slumber. In all ~16 years of this site's unprecedented growth and dull drifting into "irrelevance" - can you say the community has ever been this ignited? This united?

I watch Facebook and Google+ destroy persona. I watch Google+ destroy old Google. I watch numerous sites redesign into turgid-with-whitespace messes. For some reason, the decimation of old Slashdot kicks me the in gut harder than the lamest trends of 3.0 and SOME lame things of 2.0.

I'm not saying I have all the answers. I have questions, too. Malda, how could you leave your dear creation in such apparently heavily corporate non-community minded hands? Why not some sort of not-for-profit to keep operational? Anything to at least let it operate with self-respect and not have to morph into something so ugly that is Beta. Oh well, I'm not a tycoon how would I know.

Maybe it's just the last straw for some of us. I believe altslashdot of many things goes beyond Slashdot itself and represents the intangible kicked-in-the-stomach feelings of many as the Internet changes over time - in this case not for the better.

To conclude, disgust with Beta can be expressed in many shades of grey, black or white. A heroic and perilous historical movement is taking place, ##altslashdot being the core of its engine. We battle for our beliefs like never before in the face of a twisted, ugly monster (that is not only Beta itself the end product, but all that is that conceived its bastardly existence).

We are trying to launch a Slashdot of old into the modern world. Our mission is community and absence of pure profit driven design. There's no free lunch but Lord let there be potlucks!

And I encourage you to join not to support nor pan per say... but to simply witness an awesome part of history unfold. A rebirth. A reclamation.

It's not so much whether we fail or succeed. It's about believing in something with feeling strong enough to band together and take charge. It's a fight for control over all frustrations described hereto. It's about going out obnoxiously kicking and screaming. It's about stabbing into the unknown and believing in what we feel is right.

If we fall, splinter, fade to digital dust - so be it. If we succeed then it was meant to be.

Sincerely Thank you for reading... AND FUCK BETA


Using your web browser:
http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=##altslashdot [freenode.net]

http://sylnt.us/wiki [sylnt.us]