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posted by martyb on Wednesday March 01 2017, @03:30PM   Printer-friendly
from the moving-on-up dept.

Martyb here once again with an update on our progress with the site upgrade.

Our development team (paulej72, TheMightyBuzzard, and NCommander) have been hard at it trying to isolate and quash the bugs that have been reported. Having looked at some of the site source code (Perl) I can attest there are places where the comparison of Perl code to line noise is an apt description. Also, some of the code we inherited was written by, um, creative people who did not write the most readable code. Further the code documents what it does, but is just a wee bit short on the why. Translation: we have an amazing dev team here who have slogged many many hours trying to isolate and correct the issues that have arisen. If you've ever been bleary-eyed after a several-day coding sprint, you have an idea of things. I hereby express my personal thanks to the brain-numbing hard work these guys have put in for this site. And now on to where things stand.

We had an issue with getting a single comment to display correctly in "Flat" mode which appears to have been caused by issues with specifying the correct page it appeared in. Also, there was a rewrite of this code so things should be better, but watch out for regressions.

There are known issues with accessing the site via TOR most likely because we added a very restrictive Content Security Policy.

The new comment viewing modes "Threaded-TOS" and "Threaded-TNG" have been tweaked.

There is a strong voice to replicate the old "Threaded" behavior and it appears that may be feasible, now that we better understand how the community used it in the past. No promises, but it is being looked into.

We are close to making some changes for the defaults for Anonymous Cowards (non logged-in users), so if you have a preference, please speak up and make your voice known.

Oh, we have had reports of seemingly random 503 (Site Unavailable) errors. If you should experience one, please reply to this story with a description of what you were doing and a copy/paste of the entire error message. That will greatly help in our identifying, isolating, and hopefully fixing whatever gremlin is in the gears.

We have not forgotten about replacing chevrons with single/double plus/minus, but had some fires to put out that postponed action on these.

I expect I've left out a thing (or three) — please reply with a comment to (gently) remind us if you see a problem persisting, or if you find something new. it is most helpful to provide your user nickname, the date/time (and timezone), steps taken to cause the problem, and (ideally) suggestions on how you expected it to behave. Reports so far have for the most part been amazingly detailed and helpful — thanks!

Penultimately (I like that word!), I must express my sincere appreciation to the community who has been amazingly supportive and helpful in this transition. One benefit of the upgrade is you should see quicker page-load times on highly-commented stories. Our servers are experiencing a much lighter load to serve up those pages, too. Speaking of servers, I noticed that several of you have renewed your subscription to the site which is the primary way we can afford to keeps the lights on. Please accept my sincere and heart-felt thanks! The "Site News" slashbox has been updated to reflect our current situation.

Lastly, I must express my sincere gratitude to the community. I continue to be amazed at the breadth of knowledge that is freely shared here. Nary a day goes by that I don't learn something new. And many days when I am just blown away. Some long-held ideas have been challenged, and in some cases changed, thanks to what I've read here. Thank you!

Dev Note: Deployed a fix tonight for broken comment links that was due to yesterday's deploy. Alos deployed a partial fix for Flat comments and single comments. TMB will be working on getting it fixed up fully but I thought we needed what we had out now. -- paulej72

Continuation of:
Site Update 17_2
Comments Redux
Site Update: The Next Episode

Related Stories

Site Update 17_2 193 comments

Okay, I know it's been a long time since we did one of these but life does intrude on volunteer dev time. Hopefully this one will be worth the wait. Bear with me if I seem a bit off today, I'm writing this with a really fun head cold.

First, what didn't make it into this update but is directly upcoming. Bitpay is still down on account of them changing the API without notifying existing customers or versioning the new API and leaving the old one still up and functional. It's the first thing I'm going to work on after we get this update rolled out but it will basically require a complete rewrite. Don't expect it any earlier than two months from now because we like to test the complete hell out of any code that deals with your money.

Also, adding a Jobs nexus didn't quite make the cut because we're not entirely sure how/if we want to work it. One thing we are certain about, it would not be for headhunters or HR drones to spam us silly but for registered members who have a specific vacancy they need to fill and would like to throw it open to the community.

The API still has some broken bits but it's been low priority compared to what I've been busy with. I'm thinking I'll jump on it after Bitpay unless paulej72 cracks the whip and makes me fix bugs/implement features instead.

There were several other things that I had lined up for post-Bitpay but I can't remember them just now what with my head feeling like it's stuffed full of dirty gym socks.

Now let's throw the list of what did make it out there and go over it in more detail afterwards.

  • Tweaked the themes a bit where they were off.
  • Changed or fixed some adminy/editory stuff that most of you will never see or care about.
  • Fixed a mess of minor bugs not worth noting individually.
  • Improved Rehash installation. It should almost be possible to just follow directions and have a site working in an hour or two now.
  • Added a very restrictive Content Security Policy.
  • Added a link to the Hall of Fame. It was always there, just not linked to.
  • Return to where you just moderated after moderating. (yay!)
  • Return to where you just were after commenting. (yay some more!)
  • Added a field for department on submissions. Editors get final say but if you have a good one, go for it.
  • Added a Community Reviews nexus.
  • Added a Politics nexus.
  • Added <spoiler> tags for the Reviews nexus in case you want to talk about a novel without ruining it for everyone else. They function everywhere though.
  • Changed really freaking long comments to have a scrollbar now instead of being click-to-show.
  • Massively sped up comment rendering on heavily commented stories.
  • Dimming of comments you've already read. (You can turn this off with the controls on the "Comments" tab of your preferences page if it annoys you.)
  • Added a "*NEW*" badge to new comments in case you don't like dimming but still want to easily see new posts. (Disable it the same place as above.)
  • Removed Nested, Threaded, and Improved threaded comment rendering modes (Necessary due to the changes required for the massive speed-up)
  • Added Threaded-TOS and Threaded-TNG comment rendering modes. (TOS is the default)
  • All comment modes now feature collapsible/expandable comments. (Without javascript)

Morning Update: Really digging the constructive criticism. Some quality thoughts in there. Keep them coming and we'll see how fast we can get a few done. --TMB


Comments Redux 113 comments

Continuation of: Site Update 2/27

So, the recent site update got a lot of news, and comments. Predictably, there was a lot of comments split on the fence both ways. I've been out sick and haven't been actively involved in SN in a few days, but I did review the updated changes on dev before they went out. I'm still not up to responding to you guys personally, and TMB/Paul have had things covered, so I'm just going to write a blanket story. So, let's open this and say THIS ISN'T THE FINAL SET OF HOW THINGS WILL BE. I'm leaving my comments above the fold to make it clear what's going on. I'd put that in a blink tag on if that was still in the HTML standard.

The changes to commenting were primarily driven on technical grounds. To do D1.5, the site had to load a mass load of comments and do server side processing to thread them. To give you an example, on a cold page load, before we apply caching a few points in the site would take over a minute to load, render and thread. The only thing that prevented the site from becoming unusable in 503s is that the frontend has a lot of caching. Even with that, we can't cache every single bit of the site at once. In a "cold cache" scenario such as after a varnish or DB update, the site would be borderline unusable until those caches could be loaded. So let me make this clear that this change wasn't a change for changes sake. There was (and is) a need to revamp the commenting.

We noted that this change was coming in other meta stories, and even had a landing article on dev for people coming to check it out. No one did. How we use commenting on dev and how we use it on production are two different things; you can't realistically test these things in real world conditions without updating production.

As TMB stated, we couldn't get the same behavior without making the site cry in the corner, and this was fairly extensively tested on dev before it went live. For older users to the site, you may remember this is not the first time we've changed comments, and rather predictably, the roll out of Improved Commenting actually was fairly buggy. This is a more drastic update.

Right now, we're going to keep improving and changing things to address as many things as possible. To that extent, there will be a daily article for at least this week if not longer to allow for feedback as we work to make things better. If, at the end of all the tweaking, we can't satisfy the vast majority of folks, a revert remains as an available option. We've built this entire site on listening to the community, and taking their feedback into account. That isn't going to change now. I'm hoping we've earned enough trust from you guys collectively to be allowed to at least experiment for a bit.

I'm going to leave the rest of the article for the dev crew to use. Due to personal real life issues, I'm likely not going to be around much, so if you don't see me, that's why. I have full faith in the staff in helping manage and keep things going.

~ NCommander

Hi! I'm martyb (aka Bytram) your friendly neighborhood QA/test guy chiming in with my 2ยข on the upgrade/rollout.

Firstly, I apologize that you are seeing ANY issues with the site upgrade. I took this update very seriously and was, unfortunately, only able to perform about half of the testing that I wanted to see done before we went live. That said, there are some issues that were reported that I had not foreseen, so this has been a learning experience for me, too.

Secondly, I'd like to point out what you are NOT seeing -- the many MANY changes that TMB and PJ made as a result of feedback arising from testing. That said, comments are THE thing that makes this site. It's not the timeliness or fine writing of the stories — as I see it, this site is all about providing a venue for discussion.

Look past the fold for the rest of my comments.

Site Update: The Next Episode 139 comments

Hi there. Martyb again with an update of our progress on issues arising from the site update. (The new comment grouping and display code was necessitated by huge server loads as well as long delays on constructing and returning highly-commented articles.)

First off, please accept my sincere thanks to all of you who made the time to comment in the prior stories and/or engaged us on the #dev channel on IRC. Really! Thank you for your passion and willingness to provide steps to reproduce and ideas for overcoming the issues that have been found.

ACs: If you access the site as an Anonymous Coward, be aware that we have NOT forgotten you. We are still trying to ascertain what features work best for the most people and are holding off changing (and rechanging and...) settings until we have a better idea of what to change those settings to be. So, please speak up on anything that you continue to find problematic and help guide us to making a choice that works the best for the most.

Scrolling Within a Comment: From what I saw in the reports from Monday, one of the key issues had to do with the scrolling within comments. We heard you. Oh, did we ever! Scrolling within comments was quickly removed and replaced by setting a limit on how long a comment could be submitted. This was especially problematic on mobiles and tablets.

Display Modes: Another of the often discussed issues had to do with "Display Mode." This can be set in your preferences (for logged-in users) and ad hoc when you load a story.

Display Mode - Defaults: If, prior to the release you had chosen "Flat", then you were transitioned to "Flat" (Doh!) If you had anything else as your selection for "Display Mode", you were transitioned to "Threaded-TOS". That mode was intended, as best as we were able to do using only CSS, to replicate the behavior previously supported by the old "Threaded" mode. You CAN change this. Many have reported that changing "Threaded-TOS" to "Threaded-TNG" and setting a lower value for "Breakthrough" (in this mode, "Threshold" is ignored) seemed to do the trick.

Display Mode - ad hoc setting: For the ad hoc case, just load the story as you normally would. Below the actual story text and before the comments is a set of controls. If you are having issues with the current default of "Threaded-TOS" click on that text and change it to "Threaded-TNG". if you find you have way too many icons to click in order to read comments, choose a smaller value for Breakthrough (-1 displays all; in this mode Threshold value is ignored).

Spoiler: Another popular topic of discussion was the way the new <spoiler> tag was implemented. We've heard you, but have not as yet decided on a course of action on how to update its functionality... Stay tuned!

*NEW* and/or Dimming: A surprising (to me at least) number of folks had issues with how we flagged old/new comments. For logged-in users, again go to the "Comments" tab of your "preferences" page, scroll down a little, and there are checkboxes that you can toggle:

Highlight New Comments [ ] Highlight new comments with *NEW* tag
Dim Read Comments [ ] Dim already read comments

Please give those a try and see if that works for you. Our first implementation of "Dimming" was a bit too strong for most folk's liking - this has been reduced so as to be less jarring. As for the "*NEW*" text, there were several positive comments that on mobile devices especially, one could quickly search for the text and rapidly navigate comments to find out what was new. There was a suggestion that uppercase-only looks like YELLING. Yes, it does. On the other hand, whatever text is selected for display has to be a reasonably unlikely string to appear in the normal course of reading comments. (False positives, anyone?)

There were some suggestions on changing the color of the comment title to flag it as new. This sounds pretty simple, but the devil is in the details. We have some in our community who are color-blind and others who have very limited vision, if any at all. For them, any color changes could be well nigh invisible. But it gets worse. On the "Homepage" tab of the "Preferences" page, there are currently 11 different themes that one can choose as your default. Setting a new comment to have a lighter (or darker) title bar would not work across all of those disparate themes.

Chevrons: And as for those chevrons that control the display of a single comment and of a comment tree, yes we heard you. Work is underway to see if we can replace those images with single/double plus/minus characters.

Penultimately, I would like to add a call-out to Paulej72 who took point yesterday (giving TheMightyBuzzard a well-deserved respite) and worked tirelessly into the night to address the issues that were raised.

Lastly, again many thanks to you, our community, who have guided us through this transition. Your feedback matters. We listen and for those who have been following along, I hope you can see the changes and the progress. We continue to strive to earn your trust and support. Thank you!

Dev Note: Currently there is an issue with Flat mode and viewing single comments such as https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?sid=18223&cid=472653. It just came to our attention and we will be working on it to fix it. This issue will cause you to get a server error. Workarounds are to either switch modes to anything other than Flat or avoid going to single comment views.

Continuation of:
Site Update 17_2
Comments Redux

Site Update - Taking a Breather 62 comments

Martyb here once again with today's update on our site's update. I apologize that this is not as well written as my prior updates as exhaustion and outside issues are demanding of my time. I ask you to please bear with me.

Quick Recap: As you may recall, our servers were getting melted trying to serve up highly-commented stories. Further, this made for an unacceptably long delay between the time one would request a story and when it would finally get returned for display. Our devs have implemented alternative display modes, "Threaded-TOS" and "Threaded-TNG" which use a much more efficient means of processing comments and getting them to you. These changes went "live" on Saturday, February 25.

Like anything new, we expected there would be issues. We very much appreciate your patience as we tried to work through these as they were reported. And did you ever let us know!

Paulej72 (aka PJ) and TheMightyBuzzard (TMB) have been laboring mightily to keep up with the issues that have been reported as well as a few they found independently. Similarly, as their fixes have gone live, our community has had to deal with a changing landscape of "what happens when I do this?" To add to this, comments being such a major part of the site's purpose, there are "knobs" in several places where users can customize which comments are presented to them and how they appear. The permutations are many and wide-raging. As bug fixes have been made, the impact of changing these has had different effects over time.

I've been astounded at how much the community has been supportive of our efforts, how well problems have been described and isolated, and how quickly the devs have been able to fix bugs as they have been noted. Even more impressive was the discussion in our last update story on possible alternative means of implementing the <spoiler> tag. I'm proud to be part of this community — you rock!

Stories: While all this activity has been happening, stories have still been posted to our site for your reading and commenting pleasure. We are working with a reduced editorial staff at the moment. Us long-timers have been posting as we can, but I would like to personally thanks our new editors fnord666 and charon for their heroic efforts getting stories posted, and takyon for his continued efforts at providing well-written stories. I have noticed submissions from new folks as well, and the heartens me immensely! (Note: I hesitate to call out people in particular for fear I will overlook someone; any omission is purely my fault and I would appreciate being called out on it if I have failed to list your contribution.)

Plans: This development blitz has, however, come at a cost. For those who were with this site at its inception, there was a "day of rest" imposed on the developers who had worked basically non-stop trying to get our site up and somewhat stable. I have suggested a similar break to our dev staff. Recall we are all volunteers doing this in our spare time. PJ has plans coming up and will be unavailable on Friday and Saturday. From what I've seen, TMB is well nigh a crispy critter at this point and most certainly needs a break. And, quite frankly, I've put a lot of personal stuff on hold while working on this update and could use a break, as well. In short, we are tired.

So, PJ is around for a bit (in his free time while at work) for today and TMB is getting a well-deserved breather. NCommander is nearing burnout has been tied up with an outside project that demands his full attention and has been unable to help much. I'll poke in from time to time, but I really need some time off, too.

What I ask from the community is that we do something similar. Step back for a moment. Look at the forest and not just the trees. Play around with the different display Modes. Try setting a different "Breakthrough" and/or "Threshold". Things should be much more stable today, so that will make it easier to gain a "mental model" of what does what.

The other thing I would ask is for the community to pull together and try to address issues together. Someone posts an issue about struggling with having to click on all the little chevrons? Inquire about their user preference settings, and suggest a different value for Threshold/Breakthrough. My sense is that some are more adept at using the new features and they can help others to get a better understanding of how things work. With those issues addressed, we can more clearly identify and isolate underlying problems and focus our energies more productively.

tl;dr We're not done yet, we truly appreciate your patience and forbearance during this transition, we need a break, and you guys rock in helping others in the community understand and use the new stuff. As always, keep our toes to the fire — we are here for you — let us catch our breath and we'll be better able to move forward.

Continuation of:
Site Update 17_2
Comments Redux
Site Update: The Next Episode
Site Update - We're Getting There!

This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
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The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
(1)
  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by MrGuy on Wednesday March 01 2017, @03:55PM (4 children)

    by MrGuy (1007) on Wednesday March 01 2017, @03:55PM (#473348)

    Like all communities, we like to point out what could be better. But just so it's said - thanks to the dev team and testers for all their hard work, and for trying hard to keep the community engaged in the process. Some things in the past could have been communicated better, but you guys do a great job keeping this site up and usable, and everyone's a volunteer. I'm really encouraged by the outreach and engagement.

    Fuck beta.

    • (Score: 4, Funny) by fishybell on Wednesday March 01 2017, @04:07PM

      by fishybell (3156) on Wednesday March 01 2017, @04:07PM (#473354)

      Fuck beta.

      Jesus, it's been so long I'd almost forgot.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by inertnet on Wednesday March 01 2017, @04:27PM

      by inertnet (4071) on Wednesday March 01 2017, @04:27PM (#473365) Journal

      Heh, I need a "me too" mod here.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by DECbot on Wednesday March 01 2017, @05:38PM

      by DECbot (832) on Wednesday March 01 2017, @05:38PM (#473408) Journal

      Think we can get this on a coffee mug?

      SoylentNews.org

      #FuckBeta!

      --
      cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Thursday March 02 2017, @04:41AM

      by fido_dogstoyevsky (131) <axehandleNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Thursday March 02 2017, @04:41AM (#473741)

      Like all communities, we like to point out what could be better. But just so it's said - thanks to the dev team and testers for all their hard work, and for trying hard to keep the community engaged in the process.

      And if the green site had put in a tenth of that effort we'd probably still be there.

      Thank you to the developers and testers.

      --
      It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
  • (Score: 5, Informative) by number6 on Wednesday March 01 2017, @04:04PM (6 children)

    by number6 (1831) on Wednesday March 01 2017, @04:04PM (#473351) Journal

    Demonstration of a drop-down Spoiler controlled by one input button; mouse-hovering and changing window focus do not have any effect on the spoiler; made with CSS and and does not use any Javascript.

    The label text of the button will change from "SHOW" to "HIDE" every time you press it (along with the spoiler contents showing/hiding).

    The below code has been tested to work on Webkit-engine browsers going back to 2013; it also works on Gecko-engine browsers going back to Firefox v3 (2012); it also works on old Presto-engine Opera v9 from 2008.

    <HTML>
    <HEAD>
    </HEAD>
    <BODY>

    <STYLE>
    label {
        position: relative;
        top: 0;
        left: 0;
        padding: 2px;
    }
    input#show, input#hide {
        display:none;
    }
    span#content {
        display: block;
        -webkit-transition: opacity 0.5s ease-out;
        transition: opacity 0.5s ease-out;
        opacity: 0;
        height: 0;
        font-size: 0;
        overflow: hidden;
        padding: 5px 1px 5px 1px;
    }
    input#show:checked ~ .show:before {
        content: "";
    }
    input#show:checked ~ .hide:before {
        content: "HIDE";
        font-weight: bold;
        color: #FFF;
        background: #555;
        padding: 0.1em 0.5em;
        text-align:center;
        border-radius: .3em;
    }
    input#hide:checked ~ .hide:before {
        content: "";
    }
    input#hide:checked ~ .show:before {
        content: "SHOW";
        font-weight: bold;
        color: #FFF;
        margin-left: -4px;
        background: #555;
        padding: 0.1em 0.5em;
        text-align:center;
        border-radius: .3em;
    }
    input#show:checked ~ span#content {
        opacity: 1;
        font-size: 100%;
        height: auto;
    }
    input#hide:checked ~ span#content {
        display: block;
        -webkit-transition: opacity 0.5s ease-out;
        transition: opacity 0.5s ease-out;
        opacity: 0;
        height: 0;
        font-size: 0;
        overflow: hidden;
    }
    </STYLE>

    <B>*Spoiler*</B>
    <INPUT type="radio" id="show" name="group">
    <INPUT type="radio" id="hide" name="group" checked>
    <LABEL for="hide" class="hide"></LABEL>
    <LABEL for="show" class="show"></LABEL>
    <SPAN id="content">This text is displayed because you clicked the SHOW button.<BR>
    This text will remain visible until you click the HIDE button;<BR></SPAN>

    </BODY>
    </HTML>

    • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday March 01 2017, @04:40PM (1 child)

      by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Wednesday March 01 2017, @04:40PM (#473370) Homepage Journal

      Noted and we may very well steal it. We haven't had time to talk about spoilers since roll-out cause you guys keep finding bugs for us to fix.

      --
      My rights don't end where your fear begins.
      • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 01 2017, @11:58PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 01 2017, @11:58PM (#473624)

        That css button code seems cool, but badly fails http://validator.w3.org [w3.org] , and so do most websites (SN included).

        What's the general feeling / consensus re: w3.org code standards?

        And why doesn't anyone seem to care?

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 01 2017, @04:41PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 01 2017, @04:41PM (#473374)

      Many thanks for this. If you don't mind, I'm going to "borrow" some of that CSS as a solution for a current problem of mine. JS-Free show/hide.... Me likes.

    • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 01 2017, @05:01PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 01 2017, @05:01PM (#473390)

      How does this behave when there is more than one spolier on the page? I thought element IDs had to be unique on the page. Maybe it just works - I haven't tested it - but the (lack of) strict correctness just feels wrong, and may cause other issues down the line. What does the general case look like with lots of spoilers? For extra fun and bonus points, can this work when nested? =D

      Still though, I find it amazing what you can do with CSS3 these days, I've not done proper web development type stuff in years.

      • (Score: 3, Informative) by rigrig on Wednesday March 01 2017, @09:48PM

        by rigrig (5129) Subscriber Badge <soylentnews@tubul.net> on Wednesday March 01 2017, @09:48PM (#473549) Homepage
        You don't need IDs to make something like this work (or radio buttons for that matter, using a checkbox simplifies things a bit).
        (Unlike GP, this has only been tested in my browser, so for anything serious you want to either use that or properly test this)

        <html>
            <head>
                <style>
                    .spoiler-toggle { display: none; }
                    .spoiler-teaser  { display: block; }
                    .spoiler-content { display: none;  }
                    .spoiler-toggle:checked ~ .spoiler-teaser  { display: none;  }
                    .spoiler-toggle:checked ~ .spoiler-content { display: block; }
                </style>
            </head>
            <body>
                <label class="spoiler">
                    (always visible:) Warning, spoiler ahead:
                     <input type="checkbox" class="spoiler-toggle">
                    <div class="spoiler-teaser">You don't want to know this! (will be hidden on click)</div>
                    <div class="spoiler-content">Spoiler content (will be shown on click)</div>
                    (click anywhere in the label to toggle)
                </label>
            </body>
        </html>
        --
        No one remembers the singer.
    • (Score: 3, Informative) by number6 on Wednesday March 01 2017, @10:24PM

      by number6 (1831) on Wednesday March 01 2017, @10:24PM (#473574) Journal

      This code is an improvement of the code in my first post. You can ignore my first post and use this instead.
      This code allows you to have one or more spoilers on the same page; each spoiler will work independently of the other.
      The demo below contains two spoilers; you can easily add a third (or more) by using the code-block of "2nd Spoiler" as the template.
      Read the comments at end of file:

      <HTML>
      <HEAD>
      </HEAD>
      <BODY>

      <!-- ================================================================= -->
      <!-- 1st Spoiler "show" - code starts below here -->

      <STYLE>
      label {
          position: absolute;
          top:0;
          left:0;
          margin: 0.7em 0 0 10em;
      }
      input#show, input#hide {
          display:none;
      }
      span#content {
          display: block;
          -webkit-transition: opacity 0.5s ease-out;
          transition: opacity 0.5s ease-out;
          opacity: 0;
          height: 0;
          font-size: 0;
          overflow: hidden;
          padding: 0.4em 0.2em;
      }
      input#show:checked ~ .show:before {
          content: "";
      }
      input#show:checked ~ .hide:before {
          content: "HIDE";
          font-weight: bold;
          color: #FFF;
          background: #555;
          padding: 0.1em 0.5em;
          text-align:center;
          border-radius: 0.3em;
      }
      input#hide:checked ~ .hide:before {
          content: "";
      }
      input#hide:checked ~ .show:before {
          content: "SHOW";
          font-weight: bold;
          color: #FFF;
          background: #555;
          padding: 0.1em 0.5em;
          text-align:center;
          border-radius: 0.3em;
      }
      input#show:checked ~ span#content {
          opacity: 1;
          font-size: 100%;
          height: auto;
      }
      input#hide:checked ~ span#content {
          display: block;
          -webkit-transition: opacity 0.5s ease-out;
          transition: opacity 0.5s ease-out;
          opacity: 0;
          height: 0;
          font-size: 0;
          overflow: hidden;
      }
      div#show-title {
          margin: 0.3em 0 0 0.1em;
          font-weight: bold;
      }
      </STYLE>

      <DIV id="show-title" class="show-title">*1st Spoiler*</DIV>
      <INPUT type="radio" id="show" name="group">
      <INPUT type="radio" id="hide" name="group" checked>
      <LABEL for="hide" class="hide"></label>
      <LABEL for="show" class="show"></label>
      <SPAN id="content">==== content of 1st Spoiler is showing ====</SPAN>

       
      <!-- ================================================================= -->
      <!-- 2nd Spoiler "show1" - code starts below here -->

      <STYLE>
      #show1 {
          position: relative;
          top: 0;
          left: 0;
          margin: -1.2em 0 0 9.3em;
      }
      #content1 {
          display: block;
          -webkit-transition: opacity 0.5s ease-out;
          transition: opacity 0.5s ease-out;
          opacity: 0;
          height: 0;
          font-size: 0;
          overflow: hidden;
          padding: 0.4em 0.2em;
      }
      #show1:before {
          content: "SHOW";
          font-weight: bold;
          color: #FFF;
          background: #555;
          padding: 0.1em 0.5em;
          text-align:center;
          border-radius: 0.3em;
      }
      #show1:active.show1:before {
          content: "HIDE";
          font-weight: bold;
          color: #FFF;
          background: #555;
          padding: 0.1em 0.5em;
          text-align:center;
          border-radius: 0.3em;
      }
      #show1:active ~ span#content1 {
          opacity: 1;
          font-size: 100%;
          height: auto;
      }
      div#show1-title {
          margin: 1.5em 0 0 0.1em;
          font-weight: bold;
      }
      </STYLE>

      <DIV id="show1-title" class="show1-title">*2nd Spoiler*</DIV>
      <DIV id="show1" class="show1"></DIV>
      <SPAN id="content1">==== content of 2nd Spoiler is showing ====</SPAN>

       
      <! --
             * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
             * To add more spoilers:
             * repeat the code block for 2nd Spoiler ("show1"), changing th ID and CLASS
             * names - i.e. Change all occurences of "show1" to "show2"; and "hide1"
             * to "hide2"; and "content1" to "content2". Also change the margin numbers.
             * Repeat for further spoilers, incrementing names by 1
             * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
      -->

      </BODY>
      </HTML>

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 01 2017, @04:32PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 01 2017, @04:32PM (#473367)

    Just give me what the Buzzard is drinking. Default whatever, it doesn't matter. Maybe some of my kin in the Coward clan will come to their senses with sensible defaults.

  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by WizardFusion on Wednesday March 01 2017, @04:42PM (10 children)

    by WizardFusion (498) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday March 01 2017, @04:42PM (#473376) Journal

    One comment that someone made quite a while ago, that I agree with, is that we need a different title for logged in (registered) users that want to post anonymously. Something like "Registered User". That way we can differentiate between the unwashed ACs and the registered ACs.

    • (Score: 5, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday March 01 2017, @04:48PM (7 children)

      by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Wednesday March 01 2017, @04:48PM (#473381) Homepage Journal

      I was thinking giving ACs a truncated sha256 hash of the story id and their ip address. That way you can tell which AC is replying to you if you started a conversation with one in a story but the next story they're producing a completely different hash.

      --
      My rights don't end where your fear begins.
      • (Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Wednesday March 01 2017, @04:58PM

        by dyingtolive (952) on Wednesday March 01 2017, @04:58PM (#473386)

        I really like this idea.

        --
        Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
      • (Score: 2) by NCommander on Wednesday March 01 2017, @05:12PM

        by NCommander (2) Subscriber Badge <michael@casadevall.pro> on Wednesday March 01 2017, @05:12PM (#473398) Homepage Journal

        Part of me thinks we might want to do something like 4chan tripcodes if we want to go down this road.

        --
        Still always moving
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 01 2017, @05:22PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 01 2017, @05:22PM (#473401)
        • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday March 01 2017, @07:47PM

          by bob_super (1357) on Wednesday March 01 2017, @07:47PM (#473462)

          "registered coward 001", with the counter incrementing per user and resetting per story.
          Might confuse newbies.

          Maybe the hash of the story and the username...

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 01 2017, @09:03PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 01 2017, @09:03PM (#473523)

        Instead of the regular story ID, use a per-story nonce/salt that gets deleted/destroyed/overwritten as soon as the story is no longer open for commenting.

        Throw browser identification into the hash, helping to avoid collisions and make mapping from hash to IP more difficult.

      • (Score: 4, Insightful) by maxwell demon on Wednesday March 01 2017, @09:12PM

        by maxwell demon (1608) on Wednesday March 01 2017, @09:12PM (#473527) Journal

        That would effectively expose the IP address, as you'd just go through all available addresses (just 32 bits, unless you are on IPv6) and calculate the hash with that (the story ID is no secret, after all).

        On the other hand, an IP isn't a very reliable way to identify a poster. On one hand, several people might post from the same IP (e.g. because they are behind a firewall), on the other hand one and the same person may post from different IPs (VPN, TOR).

        --
        The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
      • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 01 2017, @11:51PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 01 2017, @11:51PM (#473621)

        I was thinking giving ACs a truncated sha256 hash of the story id and their ip address. That way you can tell which AC is replying to you if you started a conversation with one in a story but the next story they're producing a completely different hash.

        Modem reset = new IP addr.

        Work, stores, restaurants, library, etc., all = different IP address.

    • (Score: 5, Interesting) by DECbot on Wednesday March 01 2017, @05:41PM

      by DECbot (832) on Wednesday March 01 2017, @05:41PM (#473413) Journal

      How about "Registered Coward"?

      --
      cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by NotSanguine on Wednesday March 01 2017, @11:46PM

      One comment that someone made quite a while ago, that I agree with, is that we need a different title for logged in (registered) users that want to post anonymously. Something like "Registered User". That way we can differentiate between the unwashed ACs and the registered ACs.

      I disagree. I think ACs should be ACs, regardless.

      What's the value in separating out registered users posting as AC? If theyt wanted to be known as a registered user, they'd post under their own name, IMHO.

      --
      No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 01 2017, @04:58PM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 01 2017, @04:58PM (#473387)

    In normal viewing, don't put the AC fact in everyones face.
    Down votes for trolls, sure. Other sins, sure.
    But just wanting to say something without another permanent trail from the words to your job/address/bank account/online existence? No discrimination please.

    Anonymous posters have a steeper hill to climb to be widely heard, for several reasons.
    * some people look down on them, even to the point of discrimination. Fair enough, if someone does not want to see AC, good for them, let them have a way to avoid those they see as lesser. Personally, I like seeing the little sig that says someone dislikes AC's - helps to know.
    * some people see others looking down on AC's, and due to human nature "pile on"/"go along with"/"silently do not object" and otherwise become themselves less of a good person. This change seeks to address these folks slide into evil.
    * starting at 0 instead of 1 or whatever. Sure, reasons.

    I suggest that AC's show up with fake, made-up, non-persistent and semi rarely used pseudonyms.
    So if a post receives the pseudonym "bakedPotatoeWithCheese", that pseudonym goes back into the reusable pool but towards the end of the list.
    So if someone looks at all posts from "bakedPotatoeWithCheese" over the years, they are spread out in time, not tied to any one (or set of) real identifications, and do in fact have a semi-hidden "this post was AC".

    Yes, this is work. You have to eliminate user names that non-AC's choose. And prevent future user names from dipping into the poison AC pile.
    And the poison AC pile needs to have (at first, human glance at least, but to a statistical analysis, too as it improves) a plausible use as a normal user name.
    (I hope "bakedPotatoeWithCheese" is not taken).

    Official slogan needed, here's a bad one (for Godwin) "I will not wear a pink triangle nor any star of david unless I put it on willing and not under duress".

    PS - thanks for all the good work on the site.

     

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 01 2017, @05:07PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 01 2017, @05:07PM (#473395)

      Personally, I enjoy and prefer posting as anonymous because of the disadvantages you pointed out. If my comment still ends up visible despite being anonymous, then it feels it really was worth saying (or writing) in that it got noticed and stood out as such. Plus, you know, laziness stops me registering too if I don't have to do it.

    • (Score: 4, Funny) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday March 01 2017, @06:45PM (1 child)

      by DeathMonkey (1380) on Wednesday March 01 2017, @06:45PM (#473443) Journal

      So if a post receives the pseudonym "bakedPotatoeWithCheese", that pseudonym goes back into the reusable pool but towards the end of the list.

      Ahah! At least one AC unmasked!

      Good to see you, Mr. Quayle, how is post-politics life treating you?

      • (Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Thursday March 02 2017, @05:11PM

        by Scruffy Beard 2 (6030) on Thursday March 02 2017, @05:11PM (#473944)

        For that reason I figure somebody is going to figure out who I am at some point.

        (I have idiosyncrasies in my typing as well.)

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 01 2017, @05:00PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 01 2017, @05:00PM (#473389)

    I don't know if anyone else has run into this, but I've ran into the main page without any style multiple times since the update. The other pages would load fine, though.

    AC on an android phone running chrome.

    Also, what "changes for the defaults for Anonymous Cowards" are in mind?

    • (Score: 2) by drussell on Wednesday March 01 2017, @05:27PM (1 child)

      by drussell (2678) on Wednesday March 01 2017, @05:27PM (#473404) Journal

      That is the www.soylentnews vs soylentnews URL issue with the new Content Security Policy...

      It will be fixed one way or another...

      Have patience, the Buzzard is Mighty but is weak from programming exhaustion and a startling lack of whiskey... :)

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 01 2017, @06:27PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 01 2017, @06:27PM (#473436)

        I have patience, but not the knowledge to know that the URL issue with the Content Security Policy was what I ran into.

        The real part that I'm interested is what is involved in this:

        We are close to making some changes

        I actually am registered, but spend most of my time as an AC because the old defaults/changing view modes per story was less effort than logging-in. I only really log-in for moderation or for making comments related to my expertise.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 01 2017, @05:14PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 01 2017, @05:14PM (#473399)

    Whatever you changed with the Varnish cache a couple days ago fixed the issue, no problems since then.

  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by RedIsNotGreen on Wednesday March 01 2017, @05:50PM (3 children)

    by RedIsNotGreen (2191) on Wednesday March 01 2017, @05:50PM (#473416) Homepage Journal

    I just want to see the whole discussion, within my threshold, on one page, without having to click tiny-ass links on my phone screen.

    Nested is gone... It's been a good run, guys. I'm outta here.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 01 2017, @06:21PM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 01 2017, @06:21PM (#473430)

      Nested is gone... It's been a good run, guys. I'm outta here.

      We're in the middle of an update. Is there some reason why you lack confidence that your preferences won't be accomadated with the new display modes or the (possible) legacy nested mode?

      • (Score: 1) by RedIsNotGreen on Wednesday March 01 2017, @10:52PM

        by RedIsNotGreen (2191) on Wednesday March 01 2017, @10:52PM (#473588) Homepage Journal

        If there is a legacy nested mode and my settings don't keep getting reverted, I will probably keep reading. "I'm outta here" is a figurative expression, meaning I'll just keep coming back less and less often. (e.g. I've been to Slashdot maybe once this year.)

        The reason the new modes don't work for me is because comment replies are hidden behind a click, and clicking a link is an exercise in frustration on my phone.

      • (Score: 1) by RedIsNotGreen on Wednesday March 01 2017, @10:54PM

        by RedIsNotGreen (2191) on Wednesday March 01 2017, @10:54PM (#473590) Homepage Journal

        Wow, I feel like an idiot. All I had to do was change the "Breakthrough" setting to 0...

        Looks great!

        Thank you.

  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 01 2017, @05:58PM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 01 2017, @05:58PM (#473423)

    My filter is set to zero but I have to wade thru the "usual suspects" posts that are marked -1. They burn my eyes!

    • (Score: 1) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Wednesday March 01 2017, @06:24PM (2 children)

      by Scruffy Beard 2 (6030) on Wednesday March 01 2017, @06:24PM (#473434)

      I saw your zero-rated post at a threashold of 2.
      I set the TNG mode.
      Not all 1 an zero-rated posts show up: just the top-level ones.

      Could that be what you are describing? It may be intended/undocumented behaviour.

      • (Score: 1) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Wednesday March 01 2017, @06:27PM

        by Scruffy Beard 2 (6030) on Wednesday March 01 2017, @06:27PM (#473435)

        Oh, I had moderated a comment. maybe that expanded things.

      • (Score: 2) by NCommander on Thursday March 02 2017, @08:30AM

        by NCommander (2) Subscriber Badge <michael@casadevall.pro> on Thursday March 02 2017, @08:30AM (#473772) Homepage Journal

        This might be an implementation bug. On the old code, top level comments were always expanded as long as they were above score.

        --
        Still always moving
  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Marand on Wednesday March 01 2017, @08:30PM (2 children)

    by Marand (1081) on Wednesday March 01 2017, @08:30PM (#473495) Journal

    For example, if I click the "(#473387)" link in the title bar of this AC's comment [soylentnews.org], it attempts to link to https://soylentnews.org/meta/comments.pl?noupdate=1&sid=18253&commentsort=&mode=&threshold=&highlightthresh=&page=1&cid=473387#commentwrap [soylentnews.org] and gives a blank page.

    I don't think this was happening yesterday, so it's a recent regression.

    • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday March 01 2017, @09:15PM

      by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Wednesday March 01 2017, @09:15PM (#473528) Homepage Journal

      Pretty sure it's because of the empty mode.

      --
      My rights don't end where your fear begins.
    • (Score: 3, Informative) by paulej72 on Thursday March 02 2017, @02:26AM

      by paulej72 (58) on Thursday March 02 2017, @02:26AM (#473679) Journal

      I just deployed a fix to this. And a partial fix to the Flat mode comment links. I broke the first with yesterday's deploy and wanted to get what we had out quickly.

      --
      Team Leader for SN Development
  • (Score: 3, Informative) by Marand on Wednesday March 01 2017, @10:09PM (1 child)

    by Marand (1081) on Wednesday March 01 2017, @10:09PM (#473566) Journal

    I was trying out the "brief" setting for the nexus displays and noticed that the collapsed "brief" title bars are in the default-theme red when using the Grayscale theme. Looks unintentional.

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by paulej72 on Thursday March 02 2017, @02:27AM

      by paulej72 (58) on Thursday March 02 2017, @02:27AM (#473680) Journal

      Yar, probably someone forgot to set those when they created the theme. I'll add that to the list of css that needs fixing.

      --
      Team Leader for SN Development
  • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday March 02 2017, @02:48AM (2 children)

    by bob_super (1357) on Thursday March 02 2017, @02:48AM (#473690)

    Clicking on a comment number, even the first one, in the Trump Address thread, yields an empty area where the comment and mod math should be (SN sidebars are present).
    It works as usual/expected on this thread.
    Trump thread is at 108 comments this minute.

    • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday March 02 2017, @02:50AM (1 child)

      by bob_super (1357) on Thursday March 02 2017, @02:50AM (#473692)

      Actually, it worked on the fourth try... Not sure if it's intermittent.

      • (Score: 2) by aristarchus on Thursday March 02 2017, @04:02AM

        by aristarchus (2645) on Thursday March 02 2017, @04:02AM (#473725) Journal

        The mystery of the disappearing mod points remains! But not that big of a deal, if I can actual go to comments in reply, and check on the status of comments, and all the other Soylent goodness we have long become accustomed to.

  • (Score: 2) by fleg on Thursday March 02 2017, @04:16AM (4 children)

    by fleg (128) Subscriber Badge on Thursday March 02 2017, @04:16AM (#473730)

    first off, nice work thanks to all for your efforts. stories with large amount of comments are certainly loading faster for me.

    i read at -1, everything seems to work as i have come to expect.

    a couple of things that spring to mind :-

    1/ the first time i read comments i dont want to see the NEW tag but would find it useful when i revisit the story.

    2/ when there is only the single chevron showing (ie when a comment has no children), theres a rather large space between it and the subject line, i had hoped i'd get used to it but i'm finding it almost rage inducing.

    finally, i like that you're trying to accomodate AC's too, they're an important part of this place.

    • (Score: 2) by paulej72 on Thursday March 02 2017, @11:56AM (3 children)

      by paulej72 (58) on Thursday March 02 2017, @11:56AM (#473812) Journal

      1) I like the idea, but I am not sure how feasible it to code it up.
      2) Yeah, I am not liking it now. I think it should be possible to change the spacing, but it will need some testing.
      3) Hopefully we will have something set soonish to make ACs happier, if that is even possible :)

      --
      Team Leader for SN Development
      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by martyb on Thursday March 02 2017, @02:58PM (1 child)

        by martyb (76) Subscriber Badge on Thursday March 02 2017, @02:58PM (#473879) Journal

        I find the gap between the single chevron and the story title annoying, too.

        As I understand it, the reason for the gap is so as to provide space for the double-chevron to appear without having the story title bounce back and forth. IOW, there is fixed spacing for these display elements. I don't recall the exact steps where it was a problem before. But by having a fixed location on the title bar for the expand/collapse controls, I can just keep clicking my mouse at the same place on the screen and watch things expand and collapse below, and with no jarring motion of the comment title, either.

        I would think this effect could be lessened by swapping the order of the chevrons. Provide a space, first, for the double-chevron (to expand/collapse comment tree), then a space for the single chevron (to control this particular comment), and then, lastly, space for the comment title.

        --
        Wit is intellect, dancing.
        • (Score: 2) by fleg on Friday March 03 2017, @03:21AM

          by fleg (128) Subscriber Badge on Friday March 03 2017, @03:21AM (#474250)

          >swapping the order of the chevrons.

          good idea! that could work, now i think of it i'm not sure why this wasnt a problem with the old +'s and -'s. maybe they were just smaller and i didnt notice it happening.

      • (Score: 2) by fleg on Friday March 03 2017, @03:17AM

        by fleg (128) Subscriber Badge on Friday March 03 2017, @03:17AM (#474247)

        1/ yeah no worries, i'll eventually get around to just turning it off i think as i dont revisit comments much.
        2/ excellent.
        3/ well happy is probably a bit much to ask for, i'll settle for "not supremely irritated" ;)

  • (Score: 1) by DavePolaschek on Thursday March 02 2017, @02:36PM (3 children)

    by DavePolaschek (6129) on Thursday March 02 2017, @02:36PM (#473863) Homepage Journal

    So here's what I just saw. Read an article. Moderate a comment +1 Informative. See that someone else has also moderated the comment. Click the article-title again to reload it. Notice that the comment I had just moderated is marked as unread. Uh... That doesn't seem quite right to me. Yeah, I was quick with the clicking, but I'm pretty sure I wasn't using my time-machine.

    • (Score: 1) by DavePolaschek on Thursday March 02 2017, @02:38PM (2 children)

      by DavePolaschek (6129) on Thursday March 02 2017, @02:38PM (#473867) Homepage Journal

      Using threaded-TNG, plus don't mark as *NEW* but dim the articles I have read, so that by "marked as unread" I meant "was shown not dimmed". Sorry I left out those details on the initial report. Still not sufficiently caffeinated, I guess.

      • (Score: 2) by paulej72 on Friday March 03 2017, @01:28AM (1 child)

        by paulej72 (58) on Friday March 03 2017, @01:28AM (#474206) Journal

        Clicking the article title is the same as loading the comment from the home page or using the Mark All as Read button, it reset the newest cid for the story. We will need to ponder on this to see if this needs fixed, or it's expected behavior.

        --
        Team Leader for SN Development
        • (Score: 1) by DavePolaschek on Monday March 06 2017, @05:23PM

          by DavePolaschek (6129) on Monday March 06 2017, @05:23PM (#475691) Homepage Journal

          OK. But then why was the comment I had just moderated marked as UNread? It had a *NEW* on it, even though I had just moderated it (and clicked the article title to mark all as read).

          Seems that there's no way it should have been flagged as unread at that point.

(1)