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posted by NCommander on Monday August 18 2014, @08:16PM   Printer-friendly
from the and-there-was-much-rejoicing dept.
Over the weekend, Paul finished upgrading the site to the latest release of Slashcode, 14.08, which contains the usual slew of bug fixes, site improvements, and plenty else. I know this is late, but we had to do a fair bit of regression testing to make sure the biggest part of the update, UTF-8 support, didn't cause any regressions. Here's the short list:
  • Full UTF-8 Support
  • Subscriptions - Revamped and almost ready to go live
  • Nexuses - Ready to go, still DEPWAIT wildcard SSL certificate
  • Removal of the most annoying aspects of the lameass filter
  • Two new themes, CSS fixes, and blockquote changes
  • Removal of journal themes (it was half broken, and interfered with the new theming engine)
  • Updated zoo, and topic logos, as well as touched up logo and favicon
  • Improvement some of the more stupid error messages
  • Backend upgrades and improvements performed during the weekend downtime
  • File upload support for admins (no more wiki abuse!)

All things considered, a pretty large update! I've got more to talk about, but check back past the break for that.

So, a long announced, and long-delayed feature, I want to offer a round of applause to TheMightyBuzzard, who did most of the grunt work; Bytram, who did most of the sanity checking; and paulej72, who lost his sanity in getting UTF-8 full-functional in Slashcode with a massive merge that caused my brain to melt the first time I looked at it. This was a massive amount of work, but the site should no longer have those long-frustrating issues where characters randomly show up, or get mutated after you click Preview or Submit, something that was true on the other site as well. As part of the work on this, Slashcode was modified to be native UTF-8 or in other words we're not dong any sort of conversion to HTML entities or such, and four-bit unicode characters are also working as expected (contrary to what was previously reported). As part of this update, most of the annoying aspects of the lameass filter got ripped out as they were incompatible with unicode support, and mostly served to piss people off vs. serving any using spam prevention method.

In other visible changes, we've updated most of the images, and artwork this goaround to be somewhat more consistent, and to make the site itself have a slightly cleaner look and feel. Thanks to rand, mrcoolbp, and paulej72 for their efforts in this department.

In other news, its been somewhat hectic since we completed our incorporation, and are now moving towards getting the site towards self-sufficiency. Due to various administrative hiccups, combined with what ultimately became an ill-timed vacation on my part, we've still got a few minor business hangups before we can accept income and revenue, but everything will be resolved by Friday. As I noted above, our subscription code required an unexpectedly large amount of effort to get functional again due to missing components (which was not evident until we tied it into PayPal), but I'm pleased to note that everything promised got implemented in this update, we're just doing a final smoke test and business 1-2 before pushing the button.

I'd like to offer an apology on behalf of the staff, simply on the long period of time it has taken us to get our act together. For those who haven't realized it, SN is now six months old, and while we have made tremendous progress, none of us are able to work on SN full-time. Unfortunately, that means some things do fall by the wayside such as the long promised, and under-delivered moderation rework. As always, we welcome anyone to come by and volunteer time and effort to the cause; you can find all of the staff on IRC, and anyone is welcome to attend both our staff meetings, and the board meetings (with the next one scheduled for August 20th, at 23:00 UTC) are open to all.

Looking ahead, we've still got a few major things that need be solved relatively soon. The migration from Apache 1.3 -> 2.x is still a high-priority item, one that I think I'll be able to dedicate the necessary time and effort in the next month, which will mostly complete our list of "things we need to fix from golive". Looking ahead, I'm slowly developing a list of longer term objectives to fulfill in Slashcode; in no particular order, or promise of delivery:
  • Subslash support (basically our version of subreddits)
  • More advanced filtering options for the main page for customization
  • Overhauling journals to be more usable as a blogging platform
  • Article rating system
  • Renaming slashcode
  • Revamped voting system
  • Bidrectional NNTP gateway
  • i10n and i18n of slashcode (a LOT of our userbase is international, and I won't mind working with someone who'd be interesting in SoylentNews in second language)
  • RSS Reader Functionality (have your favorite RSS/Atom feeds show up as part of "your" homepage)

As I've stressed before, time and again, this site exists for the community, so if you've got some ideas, post them below, and let us hear about it!

On the business side of things, I'm working on drafting a "longer-term" plan, hopefully ready to present something this week, or early next week, which lays down a specific "here's what we are going to do" plan, and then let you guys think it over, poke it with a stick, then call me an idiot, and have me do it again; as far as running a site, its been a pretty successful model thus far :-)

Expect one or two more "meta" posts in the next few days, and until then, let me know your thoughts below ~ NCommander

 
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  • (Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 18 2014, @08:28PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 18 2014, @08:28PM (#82728)

    zʎxʍʌnʇsɹbdouɯ1ʞظıɥbɟǝpɔqɐ

  • (Score: 1) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 18 2014, @08:32PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 18 2014, @08:32PM (#82731)

    キャンペーンおよび追加情報
    ※ amazonギフトカード、またはamazonポイントなどをご利用のお客様へ 【ご注意】 amazonギフトカードをご利用いただき、ご購入者様、ご本人以外の方へプレゼントやギフトとしてご注文される場合にのみトラブルが発生しております。 詳細はこちら (細則もこちらからご覧いただけます)
    ★受注締め切りから2営業日以降の着日指定が可能になりました★ ■(月~土曜日の9AMで受注を締め切らせて頂いております。日曜日は休業)■ ■冷蔵と常温商品を一緒にご購入された場合、全て冷蔵で同梱発送いたします■ ・ヤマト運輸指定の時間指定の利用が可能です。  ※ 一部の地域に関して、時間指定がご利用になれない場合や、発送が3営業日以降の到着となる場合がございます。  ・成城石井が販売し、amazonの倉庫から発送する商品と一緒にお届けする事は出来ません。 詳細はこちら (細則もこちらからご覧いただけます)
    = 7000円以上お買い上げ頂きますと、送料が全国無料となります。 =       ★ ご好評に付き継続中! ★■成城石井が販売し、amazonの倉庫より発送する商品は対象外となりますので、ご注意ください。■■送料無料キャンペーンは、予告無く終了する場合がございますので、ご了承ください。■ 詳細はこちら (細則もこちらからご覧いただけます)
    オススメ情報: 新着商品 | お米 | 【さらに最大10%OFF】定期おトク便 | トクホ(特定保健用食品) | 【ご当地グルメ】Nipponストア
    注目ブランド: サントリー | カゴメ | ヘルシア | コカ・コーラ | ポッカサッポロ | 伊藤園 | ソイッシュ | キリン | アサヒ飲料 | 内堀醸造 | マルサン | AGF | カルピス | ポカリスエットイオンウォーター | カロリーメイト | UCC | BOSS | ワンダ | オロナミンC | サントリー天然水 | ヒルスコーヒー
    カテゴリー:ドリンク

    • (Score: 2) by mechanicjay on Monday August 18 2014, @08:43PM

      Damn Unicoders...

      --
      My VMS box beat up your Windows box.
      • (Score: 4, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 18 2014, @08:46PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 18 2014, @08:46PM (#82739)

        ಠ_ಠ

      • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Monday August 18 2014, @11:38PM

        by kaszz (4211) on Monday August 18 2014, @11:38PM (#82823) Journal

        Way better than Unibombers ;)

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 19 2014, @04:14PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 19 2014, @04:14PM (#83146)

        Too late ;-þ

        But we now can use real smilies! 😜

        And of course, we've finally arrived in the internet, which, as everyone knows, is all about cat images. 😸

    • (Score: 1) by cosurgi on Monday August 18 2014, @08:45PM

      by cosurgi (272) on Monday August 18 2014, @08:45PM (#82738) Journal

      is that spam? Or just copy paste from Chinese amazon page?

      --
      #
      #\ @ ? [adom.de] Colonize Mars [kozicki.pl]
      #
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 18 2014, @08:46PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 18 2014, @08:46PM (#82740)

        It's Japanese.

      • (Score: 1) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 18 2014, @08:48PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 18 2014, @08:48PM (#82742)

        くそくらえ!

      • (Score: 2) by Random2 on Monday August 18 2014, @09:32PM

        by Random2 (669) on Monday August 18 2014, @09:32PM (#82767)

        It's an add for "California Pomegranate juice" in Japanese (apparently a great gift!)

        Normally spam but a useful test of the unicode. One in Chinese and Korean would probably also be good.

        Good job devs, and keep it up!

        --
        If only I registered 3 users earlier....
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 20 2014, @07:26AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 20 2014, @07:26AM (#83426)

          An add? Not a subtract?

    • (Score: 5, Funny) by Bot on Monday August 18 2014, @08:55PM

      by Bot (3902) on Monday August 18 2014, @08:55PM (#82745) Journal

      The only redeeming quality of your frankly predictable post is that I found a new smiley ッ

      --
      Account abandoned.
      • (Score: 1) by Lunix Nutcase on Monday August 18 2014, @08:58PM

        by Lunix Nutcase (3913) on Monday August 18 2014, @08:58PM (#82747)

        That's not a smiley.

        • (Score: 2, Funny) by Bot on Monday August 18 2014, @09:08PM

          by Bot (3902) on Monday August 18 2014, @09:08PM (#82752) Journal
          > That's not a smiley. It is, NOW ッ
          --
          Account abandoned.
          • (Score: 2) by tathra on Tuesday August 19 2014, @01:11AM

            by tathra (3367) on Tuesday August 19 2014, @01:11AM (#82854)

            へへ
            のの
              も
              へ

      • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 18 2014, @10:22PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 18 2014, @10:22PM (#82787)

        ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 19 2014, @12:00AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 19 2014, @12:00AM (#82835)

      我不相信!

    • (Score: 2) by shortscreen on Tuesday August 19 2014, @05:59AM

      by shortscreen (2252) on Tuesday August 19 2014, @05:59AM (#82934) Journal

      ACさんのホバークラフトでうなぎが多い。

    • (Score: 1) by Kunasou on Tuesday August 19 2014, @10:32PM

      by Kunasou (4148) on Tuesday August 19 2014, @10:32PM (#83273)

      すごう!! でも 7000円。。。
      UTF-8 support good news :)

  • (Score: 1) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 18 2014, @08:43PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 18 2014, @08:43PM (#82736)

    💩

  • (Score: 2) by The Archon V2.0 on Monday August 18 2014, @08:51PM

    by The Archon V2.0 (3887) on Monday August 18 2014, @08:51PM (#82743)

    > Removal of the most annoying aspects of the lameass filter

    I can't tell from that if it filters lameasses or if it's a filter that's lameass.

    Both, I'm guessing?

  • (Score: 2) by cosurgi on Monday August 18 2014, @08:52PM

    by cosurgi (272) on Monday August 18 2014, @08:52PM (#82744) Journal
    ᚻᛖ ᚳᚹᚫᚦ ᚦᚫᛏ ᚻᛖ ᛒᚢᛞᛖ ᚩᚾ ᚦᚫᛗ ᛚᚪᚾᛞᛖ ᚾᚩᚱᚦᚹᛖᚪᚱᛞᚢᛗ ᚹᛁᚦ ᚦᚪ ᚹᛖᛥᚫ


    ┌─────┐    ∞     
    │a²+b³     ⎲     
    │─────  ≠  ⎳aⁱ-bⁱ
    ⎷  c      i=1    

    ∮ E⋅da = Q
    --
    #
    #\ @ ? [adom.de] Colonize Mars [kozicki.pl]
    #
    • (Score: 2) by cosurgi on Monday August 18 2014, @09:00PM

      by cosurgi (272) on Monday August 18 2014, @09:00PM (#82749) Journal

        Excerpt from a poetry on The Romance of The Three Kingdoms (a Chinese
        classic 'San Gua'):

        [----------------------------|------------------------]
          ๏ แผ่นดินฮั่นเสื่อมโทรมแสนสังเวช  พระปกเกศกองบู๊กู้ขึ้นใหม่
        สิบสองกษัตริย์ก่อนหน้าแลถัดไป       สององค์ไซร้โง่เขลาเบาปัญญา
          ทรงนับถือขันทีเป็นที่พึ่ง           บ้านเมืองจึงวิปริตเป็นนักหนา
        โฮจิ๋นเรียกทัพทั่วหัวเมืองมา         หมายจะฆ่ามดชั่วตัวสำคัญ
          เหมือนขับไสไล่เสือจากเคหา      รับหมาป่าเข้ามาเลยอาสัญ
        ฝ่ายอ้องอุ้นยุแยกให้แตกกัน          ใช้สาวนั้นเป็นชนวนชื่นชวนใจ
          พลันลิฉุยกุยกีกลับก่อเหตุ          ช่างอาเพศจริงหนาฟ้าร้องไห้
        ต้องรบราฆ่าฟันจนบรรลัย           ฤๅหาใครค้ำชูกู้บรรลังก์ ฯ

        (The above is a two-column text. If combining characters are handled
        correctly, the lines of the second column should be aligned with the
        | character above.)

      Braille:

          ⡌⠁⠧⠑ ⠼⠁⠒ ⡍⠜⠇⠑⠹⠰⠎ ⡣⠕⠌

          ⡍⠜⠇⠑⠹ ⠺⠁⠎ ⠙⠑⠁⠙⠒ ⠞⠕ ⠃⠑⠛⠔ ⠺⠊⠹⠲ ⡹⠻⠑ ⠊⠎ ⠝⠕ ⠙⠳⠃⠞
          ⠱⠁⠞⠑⠧⠻ ⠁⠃⠳⠞ ⠹⠁⠞⠲ ⡹⠑ ⠗⠑⠛⠊⠌⠻ ⠕⠋ ⠙⠊⠎ ⠃⠥⠗⠊⠁⠇ ⠺⠁⠎
          ⠎⠊⠛⠝⠫ ⠃⠹ ⠹⠑ ⠊⠇⠻⠛⠹⠍⠁⠝⠂ ⠹⠑ ⠊⠇⠻⠅⠂ ⠹⠑ ⠥⠝⠙⠻⠞⠁⠅⠻⠂
          ⠁⠝⠙ ⠹⠑ ⠡⠊⠑⠋ ⠍⠳⠗⠝⠻⠲ ⡎⠊⠗⠕⠕⠛⠑ ⠎⠊⠛⠝⠫ ⠊⠞⠲ ⡁⠝⠙
          ⡎⠊⠗⠕⠕⠛⠑⠰⠎ ⠝⠁⠍⠑ ⠺⠁⠎ ⠛⠕⠕⠙ ⠥⠏⠕⠝ ⠰⡡⠁⠝⠛⠑⠂ ⠋⠕⠗ ⠁⠝⠹⠹⠔⠛ ⠙⠑
          ⠡⠕⠎⠑ ⠞⠕ ⠏⠥⠞ ⠙⠊⠎ ⠙⠁⠝⠙ ⠞⠕⠲

      Some math symbols:

      ≠ ≅ ≈ ≉ ∼ ≡ ≢ ≪ ≫ ≮ ≯ ≰ ≱ ∓ ± ∔ ∗ ° ∝ ∶ ∷ ∸ ∹ ∺ ∻ ∼ ∽ ∾ ∿

      ≔ ≕ ≖ ≗ ≘ ≙ ≚ ≛ ≜ ≝ ≞ ≟

      ⊕ ⊖ ⊗ ⊘ ⊙ ⊚ ⊛ ⊜ ⊝ ⊞ ⊟ ⊠

      source: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/ [cam.ac.uk]
      and more precisely: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/ucs/examples/ [cam.ac.uk]

      NOTE: I had to use UTF-8 non breaking space: " " instead of space: " " in order to have spaces not merged.

      --
      #
      #\ @ ? [adom.de] Colonize Mars [kozicki.pl]
      #
      • (Score: 5, Funny) by frojack on Monday August 18 2014, @09:08PM

        by frojack (1554) on Monday August 18 2014, @09:08PM (#82751) Journal

        Braille:
                ⡌⠁⠧⠑ ⠼⠁⠒ ⡍⠜⠇⠑⠹⠰⠎ ⡣⠕⠌
                ⡍⠜⠇⠑⠹ ⠺⠁⠎ ⠙⠑⠁⠙⠒ ⠞⠕ ⠃⠑⠛⠔ ⠺⠊⠹⠲ ⡹⠻⠑ ⠊⠎ ⠝⠕ ⠙⠳⠃⠞
                ⠱⠁⠞⠑⠧⠻ ⠁⠃⠳⠞ ⠹⠁⠞⠲ ⡹⠑ ⠗⠑⠛⠊⠌⠻ ⠕⠋ ⠙⠊⠎ ⠃⠥⠗⠊⠁⠇ ⠺⠁⠎

        Whatesay?, I can't feel a thing!

        --
        No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 18 2014, @09:09PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 18 2014, @09:09PM (#82753)

          Excerpt from a poetry on The Romance of The Three Kingdoms (a Chinese
          classic 'San Gua'):

        Looks like Thai rather than chinese.

        • (Score: 2) by cosurgi on Monday August 18 2014, @09:21PM

          by cosurgi (272) on Monday August 18 2014, @09:21PM (#82761) Journal

          yeah. I didn't paste the first line, that said "Thai:"

          --
          #
          #\ @ ? [adom.de] Colonize Mars [kozicki.pl]
          #
      • (Score: 1) by tftp on Tuesday August 19 2014, @04:21AM

        by tftp (806) on Tuesday August 19 2014, @04:21AM (#82909) Homepage

        Работает, однако. Удивительное - рядом.

        • (Score: 1) by Refugee from beyond on Tuesday August 19 2014, @07:13AM

          by Refugee from beyond (2699) on Tuesday August 19 2014, @07:13AM (#82949)

          Дождались! 21 век прямо ☺

          --
          Instantly better soylentnews: replace background on article and comment titles with #973131.
    • (Score: 2) by Geotti on Monday August 18 2014, @10:55PM

      by Geotti (1146) on Monday August 18 2014, @10:55PM (#82808) Journal

      Σοπα, ρε! Δουλεύει και τα Ελληνικα! Nice!

      • (Score: 3, Funny) by mendax on Tuesday August 19 2014, @05:52AM

        by mendax (2840) on Tuesday August 19 2014, @05:52AM (#82932)

        It looks like Greek to me.

        --
        It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
    • (Score: 2) by Magic Oddball on Monday August 18 2014, @11:55PM

      by Magic Oddball (3847) on Monday August 18 2014, @11:55PM (#82830) Journal

      I really wish the people behind Unicode would take pity on people's eyes and replace the runic characters with the ones created as standalone fonts, which tend to be much easier to read. It seems a little silly that they can't be bothered to do that, but found time to add a bunch of vertical emoticons that are easily made using existing standard characters.

      Also, I had no idea how incompatible proper futhark/futhorc letters were with the variant used in fantasy books/games until now. I wonder how the letters got to be so far out of whack?

      • (Score: 3, Informative) by CRCulver on Tuesday August 19 2014, @09:10AM

        by CRCulver (4390) on Tuesday August 19 2014, @09:10AM (#82970) Homepage

        I really wish the people behind Unicode would take pity on people's eyes and replace the runic characters with the ones created as standalone fonts.

        Unicode doesn't describe how characters must look, that is left to the fonts. All it does is describe a series of abstract character positions. If you think the runes here look bad, that is not the fault of Unicode, but the fact of whatever font is being used to represent the abstract Unicode positions. There are a number of fonts that contain the Runic block of Unicode, so just find one that looks better and configure your browser to use that instead.

  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 18 2014, @09:21PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 18 2014, @09:21PM (#82760)

    I would like to see quote tags do more than just indentation.

    My wishlist would be to have them look more like Ars Technica's quotes - but do it all in CSS, not javascript.
    (1) Quote bar on the left so you can easily count the nested levels
    (2) Collapsable/expandable - with the least indented quote visible by default and then all/nothing for collapsing the rest.

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by BasilBrush on Monday August 18 2014, @10:00PM

      by BasilBrush (3994) on Monday August 18 2014, @10:00PM (#82779)

      I would like to see quote tags do more than just indentation.

      Try using <quote> rather than <blockquote>

      It didn't used to work, but it does with this release. :-)

      Time to remove my sig!

      --
      Hurrah! Quoting works now!
      • (Score: 1) by bryan on Monday August 18 2014, @10:28PM

        by bryan (29) <bryan@pipedot.org> on Monday August 18 2014, @10:28PM (#82794) Homepage Journal

        There is no such thing as an HTML <quote> tag. There is only <blockquote> and <q>.

        P.S. the lameness filter is worse now. For example, this message got a "Your comment has too few characters per line (currently 7.5)." message even though it was only 1 line long.

        • (Score: 2) by paulej72 on Tuesday August 19 2014, @01:11AM

          by paulej72 (58) on Tuesday August 19 2014, @01:11AM (#82853) Journal

          ./ has an internal system for

          , but I have not looked into this fully and I thought that this is what we were implementing. We will probably need to look into that more. But for the second issue, I just made a change to turn off the line length filter.

          --
          Team Leader for SN Development
          • (Score: 2) by paulej72 on Tuesday August 19 2014, @01:18AM

            by paulej72 (58) on Tuesday August 19 2014, @01:18AM (#82859) Journal

            Well that will teach me to not use preview. The comment above has a <quote> tag in it. Slash converts this to a <div class="quote">. This is what I though it was going to do without fully looking into the code.

            --
            Team Leader for SN Development
            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 19 2014, @02:56AM

              by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 19 2014, @02:56AM (#82881)

              Another example of how letting logged in users optionally force a preview like it does for AC's would be a good thing.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 19 2014, @04:18PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 19 2014, @04:18PM (#83149)

          Of course, HTML also has no <ecode> tag.

          Yet
            Slashcode
          has.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 18 2014, @10:45PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 18 2014, @10:45PM (#82801)

        I would like to see quote tags do more than just indentation.

        Try using <quote> rather than <blockquote>

        It didn't used to work, but it does with this release. :-)

        I am using just <quote> - above is nested quotes.
        I am seeing indents where the more indented, the lighter the grey color of the text.
        I don't see indent bars and I don't see anything collapsible.
        Other than the very user-unfriendly reduction of contrast, I don't see any difference than how it was yesterday.

        • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday August 19 2014, @08:09PM

          by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Tuesday August 19 2014, @08:09PM (#83226) Homepage Journal

          Collapsible? Maybe. Different style? Proposed on dev: http://dev.soylentnews.org/comments.pl?sid=1105&cid=26449 [soylentnews.org]

          --
          My rights don't end where your fear begins.
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 19 2014, @09:29PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 19 2014, @09:29PM (#83257)

            I like the different gradients, that helps to make multiple segmented quotes understandable and the reduction in contrast is made up for by the increase in utility.

            But I don't like the 3D effect, it makes me feel like I am looking down on a pyramid. I do not have enough UX knowledge to propose a better way.

        • (Score: 2) by BasilBrush on Tuesday August 19 2014, @09:40PM

          by BasilBrush (3994) on Tuesday August 19 2014, @09:40PM (#83261)

          I am seeing indents where the more indented, the lighter the grey color of the text.

          FFS. Yesterday the <quote> tag had indent bars. Now they've removed them. WTF?!

          --
          Hurrah! Quoting works now!
  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Aiwendil on Monday August 18 2014, @09:27PM

    by Aiwendil (531) on Monday August 18 2014, @09:27PM (#82764) Journal

    The grey blockqoute-styling on the frontpage (only frontpage, not in the item itself) is _very_ annoying and noticeably harder to read than the black used in other text.

    Other than that - nice to see that progress are being made, keep up the good work

    • (Score: 2) by mrcoolbp on Monday August 18 2014, @11:35PM

      by mrcoolbp (68) <mrcoolbp@soylentnews.org> on Monday August 18 2014, @11:35PM (#82821) Homepage

      Thanks for the feedback, we'll look into using a different style. We wanted a quick-and-dirty method for distinguishing quoted text from "the rest." If it's not ideal, we'll keep investigating other methods.

      --
      (Score:1^½, Radical)
      • (Score: 2) by lhsi on Tuesday August 19 2014, @07:40AM

        by lhsi (711) on Tuesday August 19 2014, @07:40AM (#82956) Journal

        For what it is worth, I like the grey quote text. I'm using the BlackIcicle theme, so I don't know if that does it differently than the default.

        • (Score: 2) by TK on Tuesday August 19 2014, @01:37PM

          by TK (2760) on Tuesday August 19 2014, @01:37PM (#83061)

          Seconded.

          I'm using Night Mode and even nested quotes are legible. Less so with three layers of nesting, but that's a rare occurrence.

          --
          The fleas have smaller fleas, upon their backs to bite them, and those fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum
          • (Score: 2) by mrcoolbp on Tuesday August 19 2014, @03:04PM

            by mrcoolbp (68) <mrcoolbp@soylentnews.org> on Tuesday August 19 2014, @03:04PM (#83107) Homepage

            My thinking was that the further nested the comment was, the more places it's already been posted above; hence, the likelihood increases that it's already been read, so a slight decrease in readability is acceptable. We tried 4 levels and it was still readable on our setups as well.

            --
            (Score:1^½, Radical)
          • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday August 19 2014, @07:53PM

            by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Tuesday August 19 2014, @07:53PM (#83220) Homepage Journal

            Check the proposed version currently on dev: http://dev.soylentnews.org/comments.pl?sid=1105&cid=26449 [soylentnews.org] I think it looks even better in night mode than it does in the light themes.

            --
            My rights don't end where your fear begins.
            • (Score: 2) by TK on Wednesday August 20 2014, @01:24PM

              by TK (2760) on Wednesday August 20 2014, @01:24PM (#83512)

              Do it. Do it now!

              --
              The fleas have smaller fleas, upon their backs to bite them, and those fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum
        • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday August 19 2014, @07:57PM

          by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Tuesday August 19 2014, @07:57PM (#83222) Homepage Journal

          Random trivia: Black Icicle was going to be a much more black Darth Vader theme but I was getting tired and didn't feel like messing with it anymore. Also, check the latest blockquoting style proposal on dev as linked a comment or three below.

          --
          My rights don't end where your fear begins.
    • (Score: 2) by mrcoolbp on Wednesday August 20 2014, @03:21AM

      by mrcoolbp (68) <mrcoolbp@soylentnews.org> on Wednesday August 20 2014, @03:21AM (#83357) Homepage

      We made some changes today, what do you think?

      --
      (Score:1^½, Radical)
      • (Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Wednesday August 20 2014, @07:34AM

        by Aiwendil (531) on Wednesday August 20 2014, @07:34AM (#83431) Journal

        Much easier on the eyes - thanks :)

        However I am curious as to why just the indentation caused by the blockquote wasn't enough? (and will you also re-style the lists?)

        (a personal preference notice here: would be nice if the gradient stopped before the text itself, or if it was not a gradient but rather a _very_ lightgray block extending the background of the entire text - currently I can determine my viewing-angle simply by making a note of how far I can see the gradient extend (just for fun, look at how it changes when you change your vertical view of the screen) but I know I move around and change positions unusually often so this is most likely a non-issue for most)

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by N3Roaster on Monday August 18 2014, @09:55PM

    by N3Roaster (3860) <roaster@wilsonscoffee.com> on Monday August 18 2014, @09:55PM (#82775) Homepage Journal

    "Four bit" should probably be "four byte" unless I just failed to notice that half-byte characters are a thing.

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by MrNemesis on Monday August 18 2014, @09:57PM

    by MrNemesis (1582) on Monday August 18 2014, @09:57PM (#82776)

    Just browsed at -1 and... well, didn't really see anyone saying "thanks, devs!" so I, for one, would like to say thanks to the devs. Being a rightpondian I've only really cared much about having my £ sign work, but you've managed to achieve what ToS couldn't manage in a lifetime and caused frustration to no end of non-english speakers (I for one would like to see some more finnish swearing), so as lowly and humble as your task may have seemed there are plenty of us out here who appreciate it.

    So at risk of sounding like a broken record... no pain... no pain... no pain... no pain... and thanks, devs! :)

    --
    "To paraphrase Nietzsche, I have looked into the abyss and been sick in it."
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 19 2014, @10:42AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 19 2014, @10:42AM (#82995)

      Oh yeah! SN is nothing short of amazing. The mouth breathers and the marketing droids were left behind at the other site and we got to this new Eden, thanks to the kick ass SN crew.

      THANK YOU BUCKETS!

    • (Score: 2) by Open4D on Tuesday August 19 2014, @02:31PM

      by Open4D (371) on Tuesday August 19 2014, @02:31PM (#83086) Journal

      thanks, devs!

      Personally I don't mind typing “GBP” instead of “£” but I still appreciate your effort in bringing us Unicode.

      Out of the full list of new features, the one I most appreciate (indirectly) is subscriptions. Because that is progress towards keeping the site viable in the long term.

    • (Score: 2) by Common Joe on Tuesday August 19 2014, @02:59PM

      by Common Joe (33) <common.joe.0101NO@SPAMgmail.com> on Tuesday August 19 2014, @02:59PM (#83105) Journal

      I know I've quipped about the UTF-8 thing from time to time and that I didn't contribute and I tried not to make too big a deal out of the UTF-8 thing because I knew you were working on it and I knew it was a big job.

      Well, I'd like to say how I really feel about this: Friggin' awesome! Six months is not a long time to do everything y'all have done with this site. You guys are amazing and I stand in awe of you.

      I know someone else was complaining about the amount of UTF-8 art on this post, but (if I may be so bold to speak for others), I think that is most people's way of saying thank you.

      Thank you Thank you Thank you for the all the hard work all of you have done.

    • (Score: 2) by DECbot on Wednesday August 27 2014, @08:08PM

      by DECbot (832) on Wednesday August 27 2014, @08:08PM (#86437) Journal

      So, you think the UTF update will manage to show up on the green beta site? Or do you suppose that they will continue to only update the javascript and css, updating the database only to collect more data for their marketing masters?

      Personally, I'd think it would be pretty interesting to see the Soylent slashcode updates show up on /., but I wouldn't hold my breath.

      --
      cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
  • (Score: 3, Funny) by arslan on Monday August 18 2014, @10:44PM

    by arslan (3462) on Monday August 18 2014, @10:44PM (#82799)

    Here's my unicode contribution - a pikachu for you: (づ。◕‿‿◕。)づ

  • (Score: 1) by shah on Monday August 18 2014, @11:08PM

    by shah (3215) on Monday August 18 2014, @11:08PM (#82814)

    From where can I download new and improved source code?

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Ken_g6 on Monday August 18 2014, @11:21PM

    by Ken_g6 (3706) on Monday August 18 2014, @11:21PM (#82817)

    Does it include all these now?

    🐀 🐁 🐂 🐃 🐄 🐅 🐆 🐇 🐈 🐉 🐊 🐋 🐌 🐍 🐎 🐏 🐐 🐑 🐒 🐓 🐔 🐕 🐖 🐗 🐘 🐙 🐚 🐛 🐜 🐝 🐞 🐟 🐠 🐡 🐢

    • (Score: 2) by isostatic on Tuesday August 19 2014, @04:22AM

      by isostatic (365) on Tuesday August 19 2014, @04:22AM (#82910) Journal

      Oh dear.

    • (Score: 1) by justthinkit on Tuesday August 19 2014, @04:38AM

      by justthinkit (2427) <floyd@just-think-it.com> on Tuesday August 19 2014, @04:38AM (#82913) Homepage

      Yes it does. By the way, how many squares are in the whole set?

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 19 2014, @04:26PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 19 2014, @04:26PM (#83150)

      Hmmm ... that font seems not to be installed here. What should that look like?

      Related ... could Soylent provide free Unicode fonts for the web browser to use if the computer has none installed for the character? (I don't know how web fonts work, so maybe there would be technical obstacles; I don't think there would be legal issues as long as truly free fonts are used, but then, IANAL.)

      • (Score: 2) by DECbot on Wednesday August 27 2014, @08:38PM

        by DECbot (832) on Wednesday August 27 2014, @08:38PM (#86451) Journal

        Fonts can be specified in the CSS. You can actually link the font face to something that is available online. Using the Google fonts [google.com] is growing within the web development crowd as those fonts are free, fast for the browser to download, and always available; thus making the page always look right.

        --
        cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
  • (Score: 2) by prospectacle on Monday August 18 2014, @11:34PM

    by prospectacle (3422) on Monday August 18 2014, @11:34PM (#82820) Journal

    Most of the novelty and icon characters can be found like so:

    <?php
        for ($x = 9000; $x < 11000; $x++) print "&#".$x."; ";
        for ($x = 127000; $x < 129000; $x++) print "&#".$x."; ";
    ?>

    e.g.
    🂡 🂢 🂣 🂤 🂥 🂦 🂧 🂨 🂩 🂪 🂫 🂬, ♔ ♕ ♖ ♗ ♘ ♙ ♚ ♛ ♜ ♝ ♞ ♟ ♠ ♡ ♢ ♣ ♤ ♥ ♦ ♧ ♨ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬ ♭ ♮ ♯,
    ✇ ✈ ✉ ✊ ✋ ✌, ☸ ☹ ☺ ☻ ☼ ☽ ☾ ☿ ♀ ♁ ♂,
    🐬 🐭 🐮 🐯 🐰 🐱 🐲 🐳 🐴 🐵 🐶 🐷 🐸 🐹 🐺 🐻 🐼 🐽 🐾,
    👾 👿 💀 💁 💂 💃 💄 💅 💆 💇 💈 💉,
    🚀 🚃 🚄 🚅 🚇 🚉 🚌 🚏 🚑 🚒 🚓 🚕 🚗 🚙 🚚 🚢 🚤

    --
    If a plan isn't flexible it isn't realistic
  • (Score: 2) by Ken_g6 on Monday August 18 2014, @11:58PM

    by Ken_g6 (3706) on Monday August 18 2014, @11:58PM (#82834)

    You say if we have ideas, post them? 😔 I know, I know! 🙋 Now that we have unicode support, we could add emoticons in the text! 😄

    If you don't add an interface to insert them soon, I may work on something for greasyfork.org. 😈

    Oh, and by the way, while I was researching this, I discovered that window.jQuery is referenced in your JavaScript, but it doesn't seem to be loaded anywhere. Either I'm going crazy or this might be a bug. I might wait for it to be fixed before doing anything else.

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by paulej72 on Tuesday August 19 2014, @01:43AM

      by paulej72 (58) on Tuesday August 19 2014, @01:43AM (#82866) Journal

      Most of the javascript should be disable on the site. There are probably some script hiding in parts of the code we have not looked at yet. Can you let me know where the bad code is so I can nuke it from orbit.

      Thanks

      --
      Team Leader for SN Development
      • (Score: 2) by Ken_g6 on Tuesday August 19 2014, @02:53AM

        by Ken_g6 (3706) on Tuesday August 19 2014, @02:53AM (#82879)

        OK, if jQuery isn't supposed to be loaded, probably no big deal. But if you must know...

        Right-click on the article here and view source. Near the top is "function pageload_done( $, console, maybe )". The other reference to jQuery (directly, this time) also has a reference to pageload_done. So I don't think it ever runs without jQuery.

  • (Score: 1) by silverly on Tuesday August 19 2014, @12:16AM

    by silverly (4052) on Tuesday August 19 2014, @12:16AM (#82840) Homepage

    Dont stop being awesome SN

    (☞゚ヮ゚)☞ ☜(゚ヮ゚☜)
    (╯°□°)╯︵ ʞooqǝɔɐɟ

    ψ༼ຈل͜ຈ༽ψ RIOT ψ༼ຈل͜ຈ༽ψ

    ส็็็็็็็็็็็็็็็็็็็(ಠ益ಠส็็็็็็็็็็็็็็็็็็็)

    ᕼEᒪᒪO TᗯITᑕᕼ ᑕᕼᗩT, ᗪOᑎ ᑭEᑭᑭEᖇOᑎI ᕼEᖇE, ᑕᗩᑭTᗩIᑎ Oᖴ TᕼE ᗩᑎTI-ᖇIOT ᑭOᒪIᑕE. ᔕTOᑭ ᖇIOTIᑎG ᖇIGᕼT ᑎOᗯ, Oᖇ YOᑌ ᗯIᒪᒪ ᗷE TOᑭᗪEᑕKEᗪ. YOᑌ ᕼᗩᐯE ᗷEEᑎ ᗯᗩᖇᑎEᗪ. ᑎO ᑭᑌEᖇTO ᖇIᑕO ᑭᗩᔕTEᖇIᑎO ᗪE ᑎIᖇO TᗩᖇEᑎTIᑎO

  • (Score: 3, Informative) by Magic Oddball on Tuesday August 19 2014, @12:24AM

    by Magic Oddball (3847) on Tuesday August 19 2014, @12:24AM (#82842) Journal

    Guides for anyone that doesn’t know the quickest way to get ‘special’ characters in their desktop OS:
    Mac OS X [fsymbols.com]
    Linux [fsymbols.com]
    Windows [fsymbols.com]

    Last time I bothered trying to post at The Other Site, it still didn’t have UTF-8 support… If it still doesn’t, I’m going to be very tempted to post there just so I can have my sig point out that Soylent does. >:-)

    • (Score: 3, Funny) by dyingtolive on Tuesday August 19 2014, @03:52AM

      by dyingtolive (952) on Tuesday August 19 2014, @03:52AM (#82902)

      You should submit it as a story there. :P

      --
      Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 19 2014, @04:52AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 19 2014, @04:52AM (#82920)

        Fuck! That would be awesome!

        Do it, and post about it here and I'll go over and log in and vote for it as a story.
        It would be my first login over there in like 6 months.

  • (Score: 2) by melikamp on Tuesday August 19 2014, @12:34AM

    by melikamp (1886) on Tuesday August 19 2014, @12:34AM (#82846) Journal

    Мы ждали так долго,

    Что может быть глупее, чем ждать?

    ~ БГ

  • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday August 19 2014, @02:09AM

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday August 19 2014, @02:09AM (#82868) Journal
    From the TFA of another SN story [soylentnews.org]:

    Reddit, [...], sells Reddit Gold subscriptions [...]
    A culture has developed of giving a month’s Reddit gold membership to someone whose comments or content you’ve especially appreciated, rewarding both the individual and the community as a whole.

    I don't know about one month SN subscription, but I'd pay something for intelligent troll posting on SN (they tend to spice a bit the things, sometimes I miss this on SN - mostly "menuet and other society dances sprinkled with witty puns. Respect!" Well, good and nice, but I miss some punk rock from time to time).

    --
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
    • (Score: 4, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday August 19 2014, @03:04AM

      by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Tuesday August 19 2014, @03:04AM (#82884) Homepage Journal

      Realize this may be stealing some thunder but since it's already been openly stated in IRC, yearly subs will be a whopping US $20.

      --
      My rights don't end where your fear begins.
      • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday August 19 2014, @03:39AM

        by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday August 19 2014, @03:39AM (#82896) Journal
        Thanks.
        Then I might even pay a month of subscription for a good troll post - if not as a monetary reward, at least as a "+1 Troll" recognition.
        --
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
    • (Score: 1) by linsane on Tuesday August 19 2014, @03:11PM

      by linsane (633) on Tuesday August 19 2014, @03:11PM (#83111)

      Concur - thanks for all the hard work!

  • (Score: 2) by mendax on Tuesday August 19 2014, @06:22AM

    by mendax (2840) on Tuesday August 19 2014, @06:22AM (#82939)

    Yay! So, let us pray:

    Πάτερ ἡμῶν, ὁ ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς•
    ἁγιασθήτω τὸ ὄνομά σου,
    ἐλθέτω ἡ βασιλεία σου,,
    γενηθήτω τὸ θέλημά σου, ὡς ἐν οὐρανῷ καὶ ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς.
    Τὸν ἄρτον ἡμῶν τὸν ἐπιούσιον δὸς ἡμῖν σήμερον.
    Καὶ ἄφες ἡμῖν τὰ ὀφειλήματα ἡμῶν,
    ὡς καὶ ἡμεῖς ἀφίεμεν τοῖς ὀφειλέταις ἡμῶν.
    Καὶ μὴ εἰσενέγκῃς ἡμᾶς εἰς πειρασμόν,
    ἀλλὰ ῥῦσαι ἡμᾶς ἀπὸ τοῦ πονηροῦ.

    Оче наш, кој си на небесата,
    да се свети името Твое;
    да дојде царството Твое;
    да биде волјата Твоја
    како на небото, така и на земјата.
    Лебот наш насушен дај ни го денес,
    и прости ни ги долговите наши,
    како што им ги проштаваме и ние на нашите должници.
    И не воведувај нѐ во искушение
    но избави нѐ од лукавиот.

    Отче наш, Иже еси на небесех!
    Да святится имя Твое,
    да приидет Царствие Твое,
    да будет воля Твоя,
    яко на небеси и на земли.
    Хлеб наш насущный даждь нам днесь;
    и остави нам долги наша,
    якоже и мы оставляем должником нашим;
    и не введи нас во искушение,
    но избави нас от лукаваго.

    Оч͠е нашь ижє ѥси на н͠бсєхъ . да с͠титьсѧ имѧ
    твоѥ да придєть ц͠рствиѥ твоѥ · да бѫдєть воля
    твоя · яка на н͠бси и на земли хлѣбъ нашь насѫщьиыи ·
    даждь намъ дьньсь · и остави намъ · длъгы
    нашѧ · яко и мы оставляємъ длъжникомъ нашимъ
    и нє въвєди насъ въ напасть · иъ избави ны отъ
    нєприязни [яко твоѥ ѥсть ц͠рствиѥ
    и сила и слава въ вѣкы]

    אָבִינוּ שֶׁבַּשָׁמַיִם יִתְקַדֵשׁ שִׁמךָ:
    תָּבא מַלְכוּתֶךָ יֵעָשֶׂה רְצוֹנְךָ בָּאָרֶץ כַּאֲשֶר נַעֲשָׂה בַשָמַיִם:
    תֶן לָנוּ הַיּוֹם לֶחֶם חֻקֵּנוּ:
    וּסְלַח לָנוּ אֶת אַשְׁמָתֵנוּ כַּאֲשֶׁר סלְחִים אַנַחְנוּ לַאֲשֶׁר אָשְׁמוּ לָנוּ:
    וְאַל-תְּבִיאֵנוּ לִידֵי מַסָּה כִי אִם-הַצִילֵנוּ מִן-הָרָע:
    כִּי לְךָ הַמַּמְלָכָה וְהַגְּבוּרָה וְהַתִפְאֶרֶת לְעוֹלְמֵי עוֹלָמִים אָמֵן:

    أبانا الذي في السّماوات
    ليتقدَّسِ اسمُك
    ليأتِ ملكوتُك
    لتكُنْ مشيئتُكَ
    كما في السَّماءِ كذلكَ على الأرض
    خبزَنَا الجوهريَّ أعطِنا اليوم
    واترُكْ لنا ما علينا
    كما نتركُ نحنُ لِمَنْ لنا عليه
    ولا تُدخِلْنا في تجربة
    لكن نجِّنا مِن الشرير
    آمين

    Apparently it's not quite so international given that the orientation for the last two are still left-to-right, but I like the UTF-8 support!

    --
    It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
    • (Score: 3, Informative) by NCommander on Tuesday August 19 2014, @07:56AM

      by NCommander (2) Subscriber Badge <michael@casadevall.pro> on Tuesday August 19 2014, @07:56AM (#82959) Homepage Journal

      I *think* (don't quote me on this) we filter out the RTL/LTR markers because we don't have method of detecting them in the comment; TMB/Paul, can you guys weigh in?

      Right-to-left is a bit tricky, since if we allow users to manually input the unicode marks for the, we have to catch and check for them, then make sure they're properly closed. Perhaps a pseudo tag like the URL one is needed to handle this edge case. I'd love to make Slashcode fully usable for non-English audiences; and help build an international network, but as they say, one step at a time.

      Getting this to work well was a massive pain in the ass.

      --
      Still always moving
      • (Score: 2) by mendax on Tuesday August 19 2014, @09:02AM

        by mendax (2840) on Tuesday August 19 2014, @09:02AM (#82967)

        Uh... I was just pointing it out. :-} Unless, for example, the Syrian Electronic Army or Al Qaeda want to use this current version of Slashcode for their own nefarious purposes and use Arabic or some other right-left script, it's probably not necessary. What I posted could have been worse. I could have posted a text layed out using the boustrophedon [wikipedia.org] method. That would have been fun. Not only would the character flow been bi-directional, the letters moving from right to left would have been reversed. That would have been fun. But Unicode doesn't support that so it doesn't matter. ;-)

        Anyway, I am grateful for this change. It will make it easier for me to format my submissions in the future. Thank you.

        --
        It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
        • (Score: 2) by NCommander on Tuesday August 19 2014, @09:52AM

          by NCommander (2) Subscriber Badge <michael@casadevall.pro> on Tuesday August 19 2014, @09:52AM (#82985) Homepage Journal

          Its a sad but true reality that most sites don't support even the slimmest of internationalization; I'd like to at least get us to the point that someone could reasonable use Slashcode for a non-English site and aside from translating the templates, have it "just work"

          --
          Still always moving
    • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday August 19 2014, @02:41PM

      by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Tuesday August 19 2014, @02:41PM (#83098) Homepage Journal

      This behavior came stock with slash code. RTL marks and RTL overrides are specifically blacklisted in the database along with zero-width joiners. I left it in so that people wouldn't be rtl-ing or zero-width-joiner-ing malicious addresses that would look entirely legit to the community. That said, they're reenabled as of now unless/until they start getting abused.

      --
      My rights don't end where your fear begins.
  • (Score: 2) by lhsi on Tuesday August 19 2014, @07:45AM

    by lhsi (711) on Tuesday August 19 2014, @07:45AM (#82958) Journal

    I first noticed that this was working correctly before this post when I pasted a quote from a University site, and the non a-z chraacters didn't appear weird on preview.

    • (Score: 2) by NCommander on Tuesday August 19 2014, @09:58AM

      by NCommander (2) Subscriber Badge <michael@casadevall.pro> on Tuesday August 19 2014, @09:58AM (#82986) Homepage Journal

      The code drop itself happened very late on Saturday, but hiccups on the backend required additional work before it was fully setup and running (the site was very glitchy in that period). This annoucement was a bit late (fitting w/ how late the update is)

      --
      Still always moving
      • (Score: 2) by lhsi on Tuesday August 19 2014, @12:12PM

        by lhsi (711) on Tuesday August 19 2014, @12:12PM (#83020) Journal

        The Piwik Analysis has also changed. It was blocked by the browser when I was on the https site (with a "0" by Ghostery), but now it appears to be running (with a "1" by Ghostery).

        • (Score: 2) by NCommander on Tuesday August 19 2014, @01:52PM

          by NCommander (2) Subscriber Badge <michael@casadevall.pro> on Tuesday August 19 2014, @01:52PM (#83069) Homepage Journal

          We don't have the code for the piWik tracker in git since its site specific, and it accidently got removed during the upgrade until I stuck it back in. I have a post about that coming up discussing if we should continue statistic tracking indefinately.

          --
          Still always moving
  • (Score: 3, Funny) by Maow on Tuesday August 19 2014, @09:08AM

    by Maow (8) on Tuesday August 19 2014, @09:08AM (#82969) Homepage

    For Fuck Sake, now this site will have regular and Unicode smilies in ever other fucking post.

    Give it a god damned rest already.

    Not the devs, the lol-tards.

    And I thought implementing Unicode was a good idea, 'til I read this page. At least they're not replaced with those gawd-awful fucking emoji images. Or worse, animated fucking emoji. Although with image blocking, one can safely and easily remove those.

    Yes, I'm in a bad mood. Yes, it's fucking late and I can barely keep my eyes open. Yes, I'm pissed off.

    • (Score: 2) by NCommander on Tuesday August 19 2014, @09:59AM

      by NCommander (2) Subscriber Badge <michael@casadevall.pro> on Tuesday August 19 2014, @09:59AM (#82987) Homepage Journal

      If we start seeing large amounts of UTF-8 spamming across the site, we'll take preventive measures (likely limiting the use of non-ASCII to logged in users with some karma). Until then though, as long as it stays contained to this post, I'm not hugely concerned.

      --
      Still always moving
    • (Score: 2) by paulej72 on Tuesday August 19 2014, @01:18PM

      by paulej72 (58) on Tuesday August 19 2014, @01:18PM (#83049) Journal

      If we hand out more mod points, we can mod down abusers into oblivion. Drop the lower end down to -2 so we have a special place for UTF8 art spammers :).

      --
      Team Leader for SN Development
  • (Score: 2) by tempest on Tuesday August 19 2014, @01:36PM

    by tempest (3050) on Tuesday August 19 2014, @01:36PM (#83060)

    Do we really still need the "subject" line? Does anyone use this? Does anyone give a shit?

    • (Score: 1) by n1 on Tuesday August 19 2014, @01:42PM

      by n1 (993) on Tuesday August 19 2014, @01:42PM (#83064) Journal

      Please disregard.

    • (Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Tuesday August 19 2014, @02:18PM

      by LoRdTAW (3755) on Tuesday August 19 2014, @02:18PM (#83083) Journal

      Just type a dash or a row of periods like ...

  • (Score: 2) by zafiro17 on Tuesday August 19 2014, @01:40PM

    by zafiro17 (234) on Tuesday August 19 2014, @01:40PM (#83063) Homepage

    Congrats, folks, and especially you, NCommander. This is a meaningful improvement to a site that just keeps getting better and better. I've just clicked into action the BadA55 theme too, and I find for my own taste that it's an improvement. Adding Unicode support is a huge step in the right direction.

    My only remaining wish (other than calling it Soycode, even unofficially; let's leave Slash in the dust!) is to bring about meaningful small-screen support. I read sites like this one mostly on my phablet (Samsung Note 3) or tablet (Nexus 7). It's pretty lousy on both, and that makes it hard to read and contribute.

    Pipedot.org works really well on small screens, but it's got a tiny community of readers. And Slashdot addressed the issue by implementing Beta. This is an opportunity for Soylentnews to hit the sweet spot: decent-sized and growing community and good usability on small screens. In the meantime I disable slashboxes entirely, which helps, and I am a regular reader of soylitenews.org too, whose Avantslash system does a nice job of modifying the site for a smaller screen. But still, try it yourself and then see if you can dedicate a dev or two to the effort necessary to make the site work well on a small screen. Given how many of us are probably on tablets and phones now, consider it an effort to make all of us readers contribute more easily.

    Otherwise, congrats - this place is getting better and better.

    --
    Dad always thought laughter was the best medicine, which I guess is why several of us died of tuberculosis - Jack Handey
    • (Score: 2) by DrMag on Tuesday August 19 2014, @04:27PM

      by DrMag (1860) on Tuesday August 19 2014, @04:27PM (#83151)

      I agree about the BadA55 theme; it's easier on the eyes, and more suited to the namesake of the site. Plus, everything's better when the color of a Kerbal!

  • (Score: 2) by dublet on Tuesday August 19 2014, @02:13PM

    by dublet (2994) on Tuesday August 19 2014, @02:13PM (#83079)

    Now you can call it Éire, instead of Eire. :)

  • (Score: 1) by pkrasimirov on Tuesday August 19 2014, @03:30PM

    by pkrasimirov (3358) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday August 19 2014, @03:30PM (#83120)

    Can I rename my username now? I'd like it to be in cyrilic.

  • (Score: 2) by halcyon1234 on Tuesday August 19 2014, @04:55PM

    by halcyon1234 (1082) on Tuesday August 19 2014, @04:55PM (#83163)
    ‧̴̵̶̷̸̡̢̧̨̛̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠̣̤̥̦̩̪̫̬̭̮̯̰̱̲̳̹̺̻̼͇͈͉͍͎̀́̂̄̃̅̆̇̈̉̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̽̾̿̀́͂̓̈́͆͊͋͌̕̚ͅ͏͓͔͕͖͙͚͐͑͒͗͛ͣͤͥͦͧͨͩͪͫͬͭͮͯ͘͜͟͢͝͞͠͡
    --
    Original Submission [thedailywtf.com]
    • (Score: 2) by halcyon1234 on Tuesday August 19 2014, @05:05PM

      by halcyon1234 (1082) on Tuesday August 19 2014, @05:05PM (#83166)
      Can we all agree that we should just not do this? =)
      --
      Original Submission [thedailywtf.com]
      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by NCommander on Tuesday August 19 2014, @06:26PM

        by NCommander (2) Subscriber Badge <michael@casadevall.pro> on Tuesday August 19 2014, @06:26PM (#83198) Homepage Journal

        I just had to AC-ban (prevent as posting as AC) an IP address that was doing that in a bunch of stories. We're working on it to find that happy middle ground that allows us to be i18n friendly, while not dealing with stupid spam.

        Ulitmately though, any spammer or griefer can spam anything, UTF-8 related or not.

        --
        Still always moving
        • (Score: 2) by halcyon1234 on Tuesday August 19 2014, @07:56PM

          by halcyon1234 (1082) on Tuesday August 19 2014, @07:56PM (#83221)
          I guess the only difference is that rather than just dumping annoying content into a single self-contained element, they can break the flow of the page if not entirely destroy it. I (admittedly) know nothing about the massive amounts of hard work that went into this feature, so while I can say "Maybe you can blacklist any of those combining or direction-changing glyphs"-- I may also very well be asking for something nearly impossible that would take hundreds of extra hours of effort. Versus the 5 seconds of effort it takes to ban an asshole who tries to spam the comments with that crap. =)
          --
          Original Submission [thedailywtf.com]
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 21 2014, @01:44PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 21 2014, @01:44PM (#83932)

    One thing I'd like to be added for the future feature list:

    • Markdown support for comments.


    ┌───────────────────────────────┒
    │ But Unicode support is great! ┃
    ┕━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛

              ╭────────────╮
              │ Thank you! │
              ╰────────────╯

    • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday August 21 2014, @02:12PM

      by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Thursday August 21 2014, @02:12PM (#83941) Homepage Journal

      Interesting idea but I personally think it couldn't help but lead to rampant stupidity.

      --
      My rights don't end where your fear begins.
      • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Friday August 22 2014, @06:44AM

        by maxwell demon (1608) on Friday August 22 2014, @06:44AM (#84246) Journal

        Interesting idea but I personally think it couldn't help but lead to rampant stupidity.

        How that?

        You think marking italics like *this* instead of <i>this</i> of <em>this</em> leads to stupidity?

        Or quoting text

        > like this

        instead of

        <blockquote>like this</blockquote>

        or

        <quote>like this</quote>

        does?

        Maybe you think the problem of Usenet was that exactly this style was standard on Usenet?

        Wait ... you've got an bidirectional NNTP gateway in the list ... there people will inevitably use ">" formatting for quotes because that's how newsreaders do it automatically. If you don't support this, posts sent through NNTP will probably look awkward on the web site (and vice versa).

        I'd really like to know how a slightly easier to type (and to read!) formatting will lead to rampant stupidity.

        What it would cause is less formatting errors in posts due to incorrectly closed tags.

        --
        The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
        • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday August 22 2014, @03:40PM

          by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Friday August 22 2014, @03:40PM (#84369) Homepage Journal

          Ease up there guy. It's just an opinion not a personal insult.

          If we allowed full markdown it would be opening up formatting that we currently do not allow for very good reasons. That was the rampant stupidity I was talking about.

          If we limited markdown to mirror the tags we allow, you'd only be getting bold, italic, lists, and quote. Hardly seems worth the bother it would take to code properly* to me but if you want to convince paulej72 or NCommander to code it or to submit a pull request of your own for consideration, welcome to it. The issues tracker is here [github.com] if you want to submit it as a feature request.

          * You should see all the checks and transformations incoming text goes through before it ever makes it to even the preview much less the db. They would all have to be extended, tested, and debugged. And that's not even considering rendering the markdown correctly.

          --
          My rights don't end where your fear begins.