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Now we're a few weeks in, and most stories when I come here are re-treads of things that I read on Slashdot a few days earlier. There's no point commenting on them, because I've already commented on the ones I'm interested in on Slashdot. Everyone else seems to feel the same way, because I rarely see a story with more than 10 comments. For a site that is meant to be all about the comments, that's an abject failure.
How could this have been solved? Well, as I proposed around launch time, the editors could have made a point of commenting on each story to prime the pump. When a story scrolls off the bottom of the front page with fewer comments than there are editors, then it's a failure. It means that either editors are posting stories that they're not interested in (in which case, why are they posting them?) or that they don't actually visit the site (in which case why are they editors?).
The only stories currently on the front page with more than 12 comments are 'people opting for dumb phones instead of smartphones' (which I'm just about to read - sounds like a typical rehash of the 'I have no self control so I'm going to use crappy technology to limit my exposure to stuff' story) and 'SCOTUS Signals Support for Corporate Religion?'. Where's the tech news? Are there any people here interested in discussing tech stories?
It feels like the staff gave up after the public temper tantrum between two of them and the community followed.
(Score: 2) by Open4D on Wednesday August 27 2014, @12:42PM
Right, I think you get the point.
Now, I have not been making a note of the stories where Slashdot 'beat' Soylent. But my impression is that they are slightly more common than the other way round. So out of all the stories posted on both sites, Slashdot probably gets about 55-60% of them first, and Soylent probably gets about 40-45% of them first - that'd be my guess.
Perfectly respectable IMHO.
I’m going to stop making a note of these examples now.