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  • (Score: 2) by janrinok on Tuesday June 22 2021, @05:04PM (3 children)

    by janrinok (52) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday June 22 2021, @05:04PM (#1148076) Journal
    OK, bye.
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 22 2021, @05:32PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 22 2021, @05:32PM (#1148082)

    Okay, fine.

    Somebody else must have figured something was awry. Otherwise, why did they start this poll about "Why Don't You Want Anything To Do With Us?"

    • (Score: 2) by janrinok on Wednesday June 23 2021, @05:01AM (1 child)

      by janrinok (52) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday June 23 2021, @05:01AM (#1148276) Journal

      You have made your decision to 'abandon ship' based upon erroneous information. What does it matter which language the site is written in? It makes no difference to how you interact with it. You seem to think that there is some sort of evil cabal overseeing this site plotting against certain community members - which is simply untrue. I have tried to correct this misconception but you have still decided to go. If you distrust us that much then I can only wish you luck in finding a community that you can join and enjoy being a part of.

      The site depends upon Rehash - our fork of the original Slash code written in Perl. It has been proven to be robust and more than capable of supporting a community several magnitudes larger than our current one. A decade or more ago Slashdot was famous for remain operational despite several attempts to bring it to its knees by Denial of Service attacks. The same cannot be said of the vast majority of modern frameworks. Rehash depends upon an old version of Apache. Work has been continuing on converting it to work with a modern and fully-supported version of Apache but this work was invisible to the community and, for the time being, has come to a stop. However what we currently have is working fine - the problems experienced over the last few years have all been systems problems and nothing at all to do with the Perl code. If it ain't broke - don't fix it.

      The the poll was run because we are always trying to recruit more staff. We have a very small editorial team, there are currently only 2 active sys-admins which is insufficient for 24 hour coverage and the amount of remedial work that a restructuring will require, and the last active developer for our software has just left the team with no warning. The software is fine but, currently, we are unable to make any enhancements or other changes. The problems have all been exacerbated by the arrival of COVID which has left many in our community struggling in their private lives and jobs with little time for giving support to the site. The poll, which was suggested by a member of the community - not a member of the site staff - is an attempt to discover if there are any other reasons why people are reluctant to join the team.

      There is also a frustration amongst the current team that many in our community are not here to discuss the stories that are published, but are using the site to push their own political or social views or simply to troll other members of our community. They seem to think that it is acceptable to attack the speaker rather than debate the views that are being expressed. We are not unique in this regard - social media of all kinds is battling with exactly the same problems amid much publicity. We are constantly looking for solutions to this problem and we discuss various options from time to time. None have yet been implemented and none will be without consultation with the whole community. None of the possible solutions discussed will please every member of our community and none discussed so far will address every aspect so we have not introduced them. But the fact that we are looking at the problem is not something that the community should interpret as an attack upon themselves.

      Good luck wherever you find yourself a home.