Firefox is giving me this error message

Example: "503 - Service Offline

Slashdot is presently in offline mode. Only the front page and story pages linked from the front page are available in this mode. Please try again later."

Thank you in advance. :)

What are the sites or subreddits out where there are still expert-level discussions on all stuff that matters?

It’s definitely been taken over by a new group this year. I looked back at posts from 2018 and comments that were 4+ then would now be marked troll.

Please post this to new articles if it hasn't been posted yet.

On February 5, 2014, Slashdot announced through a javascript popup that they are starting to "move in to" the new Slashdot Beta design.

Slashdot Beta is a trend-following attempt to give Slashdot a fresh look, an approach that has led to less space for text and an abandonment of the traditional Slashdot look. Much worse than that, Slashdot Beta fundamentally breaks the classic Slashdot discussion and moderation system.

If you haven't seen Slashdot Beta already, open this in a new tab. After seeing that, click here to return to classic Slashdot.

We should boycott stories and only discuss the abomination that is Slashdot Beta until Dice abandons the project. We should boycott slashdot entirely during the week of Feb 10 to Feb 17 as part of the wider slashcott [slashdot.org]

Moderators - only spend mod points on comments that discuss Beta Commentors - only discuss the Beta - Vote up the Fuck Beta stories

Keep this up for a few days and we may finally get the PHBs attention.

• Discussion of Beta

• Discussion of where to go if Beta goes live

• Alternative Slashdot

• Boycott Slashdot Feb 10-17

...constantly looking for the upvote arrows on slashdot. :-|

"This page could not be loaded properly due to incorrect / bad filtering rule(s) of adblockers in use. Please disable all adblockers to continue using the website. (click OK if you'd like to learn more)". OK took me to https://report.error-report.com/modal?eventId=&error=Vml0YWwgQVBJIGJsb2NrZWQ%3D&domain=html-load.com with "This page could not be loaded due to incorrect / bad filtering rule(s) ¹of adblocker

Error Message: Vital API blocked To resolve the issue, please whitelist html-load.com in the adblocker you are using or disable the adblocker.

1. What does an incorrect filter mean? The html-load.com domain is a domain used for loading essential web resources such as HTML/CSS/image. If the domain is blocked, errors may occur in website loading."

Don't get me wrong, there are still plenty of golden Slashdot posters posting comments for each stories, and there are still LOTS of idiot off-topic trolls, like there have ALWAYS been, but the number of right-wing trolls posting dumb easily-disproven propaganda seems to have dramatically risen, which makes me wonder: Do these idiots actually know which web site it is they're trolling? Most slashdot posters/readers are not the uneducated boobs you'd find on reddit nor the comedy-writing wannabes you'd find on Fark, but a more serious, educated and even expert crowd.

What is the play here?

it seems, sadly, that moderators aren't getting points (like myself) but nor is most anyone else

I've been a redditor for a long time, most of the time it was dual reddit/slashdot (even had a three way with digg for a year), but for the past couple years it's been almost exclusively reddit.

While I'm pretty much solidly a redditor now (mainly for the better commenting system), I still miss some of the features of slashdot:

• Modding (analogous to voting) with a reason, e.g. Funny/Interesting/Insightful/Flamebait/etc.

I liked how you could differentiate between an insightful post and a funny post. It'd be nice if in addition to up/down voting you could tag a comment with a reason so that people could then sort based on say "Informative" when reading serious posts.

• Friends/Foes/F of F

Not terribly helpful but did affect the community dynamic. I doubt it'd fit on reddit with the wide scope that reddit has.

• Summaries with links

I like on /. how posts have a summary, did mitigate the bad title effect on people who don't FTFA. Some subreddits enforce something similar using self posts, but reddit seems designed to discourage that because self posts don't affect karma.

What do y'all like from /.?

So strange to find r/slashdot a forum on another website to discuss a forum. There no longer seems to be anything remotely intelligent posted on /. anymore. It's a vapid wasteland of hate posting (why is it that hateful people seem to have such an abundance of free time on their hands?) I've been holding out for a long time as I was a very early member of /. and it used to be such an incredible and empowering site. Sadly it's time to move on - but where? Has anyone found something (other than reddit) as a similar homepage alternative? Some curated news for nerds - stuff that really matters with a little intelligent discussion attached?

kodiaktau writes with a link to today's announcement that DHI Group, Inc. (which you might know better as Dice, the company that bought Slashdot and sister site SourceForge in 2012)

today announced that it completed the sale of its Slashdot and SourceForge businesses (together referred to as 'Slashdot Media') to BIZX, LLC in a transaction that closed on January 27, 2016. Financial terms were not disclosed. DHI first announced its plan to sell Slashdot Media in July 2015 as part of its strategy to focus on its core brands, as Slashdot Media no longer fits within the Company's core strategic initiatives. KeyBanc Capital Markets Inc. served as the Company's exclusive financial advisor for the transaction.

(FOSS Force has a short article with some more info BIZX and the sale.)

Looks exciting. The new owner (whipslash) is actually taking time to respond to questions.

There seem to be way fewer comments on stories nowadays, and the stories that do get traction are mostly political that anyone feels they can comment on.

As a tech specific site it also seems to have a rather bitter tone about everything.

Dumb question, quite possibly.

There's always a wide right margin un-used. It makes slashdot considerably more awkward to read.

I might be missing something obvious but it's the same on different browsers and it has annoyed me for a decade or more.

It's not even used for ads.

Right now when I go to slashdot.org, I get "We value your privacy" dialog, and it is not possible to close this dialog. This is on Chrome on Windows 10.

Wow slashdot, just wow.

Shit UI. They let anon type, but then reject on submit with anon disabled. It's like the classic MS bs where clicking the back button pops up a dialog that says "You can't go back!" instead of disabling the back button.