Poll
Why I Love Pipedot
Subject matter of the articles
129 points (15%)
Quality of the summaries/editing
142 points (17%)
Works great on mobile/Large text support
112 points (13%)
Easy to spot unread posts
103 points (12%)
Moderation system
66 points (8%)
Choice of images/icons
35 points (4%)
The community
97 points (12%)
The pipe
50 points (6%)
Feeds, Journals, Stream
68 points (8%)
Other
34 points (4%)
36 comments
836 points
Reply 35 comments

vote system (Score: 1)

by Anonymous Coward on 2015-08-24 06:23 (#J8ZQ)

i still don't get this voting system; you get how many points? is it even-distribution? is it by-order? i'm sure its simple, and im just being stupid, but i'm missing something, and there are no tips.

Personally, i'd prefer, 'pick 3 you find most important', or simliar - less effort required to get in on the vote.

Re: vote system (Score: 3, Informative)

by zafiro17@pipedot.org on 2015-08-24 07:06 (#J92H)

That works too, I think: just assign 1, 2, 3 and leave the rest blank. You don't get points, exactly. I was the first to submit my opinion and my first choice immediately rocketed forward with 55 points or something large like that. Wikipedia has a decent article on Borda polls. It's essentially just rank order. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borda_count

Re: vote system (Score: 2, Interesting)

by zafiro17@pipedot.org on 2015-08-26 07:55 (#JFW9)

Just looked into the math, and had a flashback to when I was 17. So if you have N choices, your top pick gets (N) points, second pick gets (N-1), third gets (N-2), etc. The total number of points possible is the sum of all consecutive from 1 to N, which is equal to: [N*(N+1)]/2. For a poll with ten options, a total of 55 points are distributed (10*11)/2 = 55.

Not sure how it works if you don't assign a choice to each of the ten options, but the fact that the current total of points, 677, isn't divisible by 55 evenly says to me borda polls must only assign a total number of points equivalent to the sum of N, even if N is less than the total number of options.

Yay, math. My brain hasn't totally atrophied (although it seems well on its way).

Feed me (Score: 2, Insightful)

by Anonymous Coward on 2015-08-24 13:45 (#J9Z1)

The feed function is excellent. Best rss tracker I have used.

Mobile (Score: 2, Interesting)

by zafiro17@pipedot.org on 2015-08-24 17:28 (#JAP5)

I'm surprised at the results already. We're at 300~ points and "mobile friendly" is only in 5th or so place! I thought for sure it would be higher. For me it's one of Pipecode's best features. Pipedot is awesome on a small screen, and both Slashdot and Soylent are very hard to manage on my smartphone. That means I participate more at Soylent when at a desktop and on Pipedot more when I'm on a phone. Interesting!

Elsewhere I run a Simple Machines Forum (SMF), and while it was awesome in the days of desktop, the fact that it's hard to use on a mobile really frustrates me (they're working on responsive frameworks, but they're not there yet).

Glad to see the quality of the articles has risen to the top though; I tend to agree! It's the basis of any good site - the content. Kudos to evilviper and others for keeping us going with a steady stream of great stuff to read. I haven't done a great job of submitting things over the past couple of months - life got in the way.

Re: Mobile (Score: 1)

by Anonymous Coward on 2015-08-25 02:40 (#JBXH)

This. Although, I voted Feeds as #1 :-)

Re: Mobile (Score: 3, Interesting)

by zafiro17@pipedot.org on 2015-08-25 04:17 (#JC2T)

All the praise for the great feedreader makes me wonder if adding a connection between feeds and the pipe would be the missing link that gets us more submissions. It was suggested once, earlier this year.

Works without Javascript (Score: 4, Insightful)

by metamer@pipedot.org on 2015-08-25 02:59 (#JBYB)

In addition to the choices in the poll, I like that it works well without Javascript and cross-site requests. Also, that the focus on HTML based functionality makes it easy to browse in lynx.

Story selection (Score: 3, Informative)

by evilviper@pipedot.org on 2015-08-28 11:55 (#JQF2)

I completely gave up and quit Slashdot, then later SoylentNews, because of poor story selection. Before giving-up on discussion sites all together, I tried Pipedot, and found higher standards. If it had gone differently, I wouldn't be here, and over the past year, Pipedot might have been very much dead.

The reasons why are many... You can mod-down users spouting trash, but not front-page stories (or their editors). It has cascading effects, as well... When a story is trash, nearly all the comments on it will be ripping it apart, while anything about the subject gets lost in the noise. And the kinds of stories a site gets greatly influences the community of readers and contributors... It was the technical focus that gave Slashdot its audience and high-quality contributors, while it was likely the politics and other trash that have driven its decline.

While the site has some good features, it's got plenty of bad ones, too. Replies are still sent as a link in a bare-bones e-mail. Some things you can do under stories you can't do under direct comment links (like moderation). There's no nice user-summary page that shows your comments, moderation, reply counts, and submissions. Instead that info is spread across multiple info pages, harder to get at and therefor less useful. Pipedot works, and quite well, mostly because it's still small. Things like the RSS Comments Feed are great, but would be nearly worthless on a bigger site.

Re: Story selection (Score: 1)

by zafiro17@pipedot.org on 2015-08-29 02:12 (#JSKA)

I agree with you. From Pipedot's earliest days, I thought it was important to keep this place focused on tech, and avoid a lot of the crap that seems to be invading other sites.

You've done some awesome work here over the past year (even longer than that!) The fact that Pipedot has had such high quality subject matter is attributable largely to your hard work and perseverance. Many thanks for it. You just have to glance at the history of the pipe to see who has kept this place alive. Thanks for all the good reads.

Re: Story selection (Score: 1)

by bryan@pipedot.org on 2015-09-12 10:37 (#JV7N)

Some things you can do under stories you can't do under direct comment links (like moderation)
Fixed. You should now be able to moderate (both inline with JavaScript enabled or form based with JavaScript disabled) on a comment page.
There's no nice user-summary page that shows your comments, moderation, reply counts, and submissions.
I started making the profile page more summary-like. Example: http://bryan.pipedot.org/summary

Re: Story selection (Score: 1)

by billshooterofbul@pipedot.org on 2015-08-31 20:24 (#K0Z4)

That's a noble goal. The trick is to avoid the press release crap of non-noteworthy products like the recent apple pay hardware thing. That's putrid man, really bad.

Re: Story selection (Score: 1)

by evilviper@pipedot.org on 2015-09-01 02:08 (#K1Q3)

Try not to get too worked up. It's still a numbers game... Even with 99% accuracy, that's still going to be several not so good articles per year. It's strange the way some interesting stories turn out as poor summaries, and sometimes press releases do end up as pretty good stories. It's not easy to quickly introduce everyone to a topic and explain why it might matter to them (and nothing is always interesting to everyone).

Everyone can help... with more submissions, it's less tempting to publish the so-so stories, and you havent exactly submitted much yourself.

Re: Story selection (Score: -1, Flamebait)

by Anonymous Coward on 2015-09-01 13:05 (#K370)

Screw you and the boat you came on. I hate slashvertisements as much as the next riled up dice bashing anti-wtfhappened to my fav news site and ffs fix the damn mobile view antislash person but that was useful information because it may change the visa / mastercard duopoly to breaking point. OK. OK. Those righteous screwblls who tender POS CC need to be kicked off the planet. I am biased.

Re: Story selection (Score: 0)

by Anonymous Coward on 2015-09-01 13:22 (#K38E)

Sigh. So. Yeah. A friend of mine was screwed over by the asshats who currently provide POS CC facilities. He bought out his partners in a computer shop, mostly single systems and parts sales. This was in the 90s. Business was growing. He had good credit and lots of cashflow. When the business changed hands they cut off the CC POS service citing contract termination due to ownership change. Reducing the number of owners to one person. Right. He applied for a new service. They responded by sending out a technician to retrieve the POS machine. The technician never showed. My friend applied for a new service. After weeks of being able to only accept cash or cheque they declined the request and put it on hold. He contacted other banks. No one would provide a credit card point of sale device and account while a business had an existing request pending or denied. One year later he had to close his shop. The lack of credit card facility crippled him. According to the bank, when he assumed full ownership the business ended and started again as a brand new business. A business with no history. With one owner. And, over time, a business with dwindling sales.

The option being offered by Apple is interesting news, to me. YMMV. TFA mentions an Android version soon from Google and Samsung.

Re: Story selection (Score: 0)

by Anonymous Coward on 2015-09-01 13:26 (#K38F)

OTOH perhaps I just hate banks for their horrible terrible soul sucking demonic more terrible than a cat on catnip dropped into a cold bath in winter attitude to their customers. Read a mortgage contract and disagree if you will.

Re: Story selection (Score: 0)

by Anonymous Coward on 2015-09-01 13:33 (#K39J)

*I* have never dropped or had allowed to have dropped a cat high on catnip into a cold bath in the middle of winter. Having seen the result of such and in particular the blood spatter and sheer agony resulting I can assure that usage as a comparison is sane.
Perhaps the next poll can vote on what we dislike more. Bankers? Mortgage brokers? Lawyers? Bad programmers? Horrible bosses? Sociopathic work colleagues? Charity collecters on the street? Dice management? Egotistical tier 1 helpdeskers? Fruit ninjas? Robocallers? Politicians? Drunks? Stoners? Anonymous cowards...

Re: Story selection (Score: 0)

by Anonymous Coward on 2015-08-29 15:46 (#JTXE)

I do try to submit good stories to the pipedot, not duplicating /. or SN if possible. Thanks for the sharepoint story; good timing to see that.

Re: Story selection (Score: 1)

by evilviper@pipedot.org on 2015-08-31 07:16 (#JYVX)

I do try to submit good stories to the pipe
Thanks. We need 'em.
not duplicating /. or SN if possible.
I've never been concerned about that. While I'd never want to copy /. or SN stories, we certainly don't want this community to be left-out just because somebody else mentioned the topic first (poorly). Furthermore, I've found it very interesting to compare how the different sister sites cover the same stories (when that occasionally happens), with Pipedot always having a vastly more accurate and in-depth write-up.

Re: Story selection (Score: 1)

by tanuki64@pipedot.org on 2015-09-10 18:28 (#M27G)

while it was likely the politics and other trash that have driven its decline.
I don't think it is that simple. Other trash...can be entertaining now and then. And politics... I don't think politics in general is necessarily a problem. Upholding more or less forgotten journalistic standards (truthfulness, accuracy, objectivity, impartiality, fairness and public accountability) may provide a fertile ground for controversial, but still levelheaded discussions. But the biased propaganda, which goes as 'politics' on /. poisons every community. It is repulsive for more clear thinking members, but attracts at the same time fanatics and crackpots. Of course, fanatics and crackpots might generate more clicks, so this kind of audience might be favoured by /.'s owners.

Anyways, I like the stories here... though I wish there would be some more. Not that this is a complaint...

Re: Story selection (Score: 1)

by bryan@pipedot.org on 2015-09-12 10:35 (#M7JT)

Replies are still sent as a link in a bare-bones e-mail.
Fixed. New notification system informs you when someone replies or moderates one of your comments

Re: Story selection (Score: 1)

by evilviper@pipedot.org on 2015-09-12 13:59 (#M7Q0)

That looks pretty good, certainly a huge improvement. EXCEPT when I click "dismiss" I get an error message:
* "record not found - table [notification] id [1]"
Similar to the error when modding a comment as spam. Perhaps that's only from a direct comment link?

Now if you could just fix the problem of low readership. Maybe you could spring for an ad on /. telling them |. doesn't have such annoying ads. ;-)

Re: Story selection (Score: 0)

by Anonymous Coward on 2015-10-20 09:30 (#R1DA)

I, an AC, have done exactly the same for Slashdot and SoylentNews, partly because of poor story selection, and partly because of the trolls. It just wasn't worth the hassle of reading through the crap.

Re: Story selection (Score: 0)

by Anonymous Coward on 2015-10-25 09:07 (#RHVQ)

Well, the slashdot beta ui made it much harder to read, crap or not.

All of the above (Score: 1)

by bsdguy@pipedot.org on 2015-09-03 17:17 (#KBEN)

All of the above should have been a choice!

Re: All of the above (Score: 2, Informative)

by evilviper@pipedot.org on 2015-09-04 01:50 (#KCPY)

It is... You can give points to ALL of the options, if you like.

All recent posts by article and user (Score: 0)

by Anonymous Coward on 2015-09-11 12:22 (#M4N6)

I love the pipedot blue highlight for unread comments. Is it possible to see a list of recent new unread posts perhaps in a table: Article | Comment Title | Comment text

Re: All recent posts by article and user (Score: 3, Informative)

by evilviper@pipedot.org on 2015-09-11 13:33 (#M4W1)

Not quite what you're asking for, but see:

http://pipedot.org/comment/

Also note the RSS "comment feed" link at the bottom of that page.

Re: All recent posts by article and user (Score: 0)

by Anonymous Coward on 2015-09-12 14:00 (#M7YM)

Excellent! Thank you!

Re: All recent posts by article and user (Score: 1)

by zafiro17@pipedot.org on 2015-09-20 19:48 (#N1DG)

Agreed - |. gets high points for usability.

Lots of stuff (Score: 0)

by Anonymous Coward on 2015-10-03 17:26 (#PBZT)

The community is friendly, the posts are well written, the interface is BEAUTIFUL (unlike Soylent which looks like it got thrown up on), there's no corporate tomfoolery, the image preview system is pretty tight, RSS that works reasonably well, and the community isn't weirdly antisemitic (looking at you Soylent). Slashdot is like New York, Soylent is like Detroit, Pipedot is like some pleasant southern town where you're always welcome, and things move slow.

The captcha system (Score: 0)

by Anonymous Coward on 2016-04-22 13:36 (#1BDZA)

So much better than recaptcha or similar. They can be really bad.
The x color in a, b, c and d is? <--- excellent!