
DHI Group Plans to Sell Slashdot and SourceForge - Garbage
http://www.nasdaq.com/article/dhi-group-q2-results-beats-view-plans-to-sell-slashdot-media--quick-facts-20150728-00501
======
kethinov
I really hope someone can turnaround Slashdot. To this day I find it to have
the highest quality discussion threads on average out of any tech news site,
largely due to its very mature community and quirky but effective moderation
system.

I've moderated on Slashdot for years and watched as the site's original low
tech but functional UX has been degraded by half-hearted attempts to make it a
modern web application.

There was a time when Slashcode was considered to be one of the best open
source comment systems you could set up for your own website. I think above
all else, the Slashdot team should start shooting for that again.

Build something with a UI that blows Disqus and reddit out of the water,
continue to use the Slashdot-style moderation system (with possibly some
tweaks to improve it), open source it, and be relevant again.

~~~
muraiki
I also greatly liked the Slashdot moderation system. But I left slash for HN
because I was sick of editorializing in the summary, along with completely
inaccurate summaries unchecked by the editors. Sometimes I wish HN had support
for small summaries under the article titles, but then I realize that at least
this way I don't have to deal with the above two problems!

~~~
kethinov
I remain active on both (along with reddit and Ars Technica too). I see value
in each community's ways of doing things, and it doesn't bother me one bit
that Slashdot's editors have bias, so long as they're transparent about it
when posting opinions which tends to be the case.

~~~
muraiki
Yeah, I realize that bias is impossible to completely eliminate. The greater
reason for me was consistently coming across summaries that were inaccurate
and an editor failed to correct it before posting. This was also a number of
years ago, so I don't know what things are like there now.

------
why_tho
Sometimes, I really have to wonder about the exact machanisms involved,
whereby one company sells out a thriving community to some other souless
marketing goons, and everyone on the outside of the deal knows that the magic
is over, and the aftermath will end poorly, but the buyer still seems to
believe that " _touching things_ " isn't the exact sort of behavior that will
destroy the thing they paid so much for, thus rendering it unprofitable, and
unwittingly destroying even their own desired goals.

~~~
fixermark
The game industry is like this. There've been multiple occasions where a
larger publisher bought a studio, only to find that the top-tier talent leave
to found their own studio and the publisher is left with successful (but
short-lived) licenses but no talent pool to build new golden eggs.

Microsoft's acquisition of Mojang may be the exception that proves the rule;
while Notch is no longer involved in Minecraft, the project itself has reached
a critical mass where it very well might make as much on licensing and deals
as it does on new users now (and with a healthy modding community on the PC
version, it's an open sandbox that children can "grow into" as they learn more
about how computers work). I think the way they'd kill that is to close off
the avenues to modding the game; time will tell if Microsoft is that foolish,
but I sincerely doubt they would be.

~~~
axus
Microsoft hasn't made any changes to Minecraft yet, have they? The login and
authentication servers are still on Amazon, right?

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taspeotis
Visual Studio Online is slowly edging towards feature parity with GitHub,
although I'm not sure whether that's intentional or coincidence. If Microsoft
did want to compete in that "social coding" space and not just enterprise ALM,
purchasing SourceForge to "seed" VSO with a bunch of (semi-)active
repositories wouldn't be out of the question, would it?

~~~
bhouston
The potential backlash to VSO likely isn't worth it -- but maybe there is a
way to politically navigate that.

------
pygy_
Regarding SF, That's their only chance to save the brand and the site.

At this point, the current owner can't be trusted anymore.

~~~
njharman
The site was lost long ago. Enforcing a brand on it is one of the things that
caused it to become lost. It was a developer tool. Developers want things to
work, fairly, reliably, transparently and ideally with (technical) elegance.

------
vortico
I'll take both for $9.99.

~~~
ExpiredLink
If done right a SourceForge relaunch could be a success. A practical
alternative to the GitHub monopoly would be appreciated.

~~~
sytse
Anything you're missing from GitLab.com? We have free private repo's and it is
primarily based on open source (like SF).

~~~
tomp
I just found out about GitLab today. I was pleasantly surprised! The only
complaints I have: (1) GitHub has IMO a better landing page for projects,
showing both files and a readme; (2) Personally, I prefer GitHub's layout
(more white space), it's definitely better for reading, although your menu-on-
the-right layout is probably better for navigation and management, and (3) I
couldn't find an example of a Wiki.

All in all, a great project, I'll probably be using it soon. Good work, and
good luck with it! Also, do you clarify anywhere what's your approach to
controversial projects - like "retards", PopcornTime and C+= - would they be
allowed on site or taken down?

Edit: never mind the last question, apparently you censored the GamergateOP
repository, I guess that answers it.

~~~
sytse
Thanks!

1\. The files + readme is something we considered but we choose to show an
overview of the project and the readme, we think this is cleaner. You can
configure to see the activity feed instead of the readme if you mostly use the
same projects (in a company for example). See
[https://about.gitlab.com/2015/07/22/gitlab-7-13-released/](https://about.gitlab.com/2015/07/22/gitlab-7-13-released/)
But what we learned so far that there are no perfect choices for the homepage.

2\. I think you mean our menu-on-the-left layout?

3\. We do have wiki's, for example see
[https://gitlab.maikel.pro/maikeldus/WhatsSpy-
Public/wikis/ho...](https://gitlab.maikel.pro/maikeldus/WhatsSpy-
Public/wikis/home)

Great to hear you'll be using it soon. We have one button importers for most
platforms.

Regarding the controversy please see my comment
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9967545](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9967545)

~~~
tomp
2 - Yes.

Re: controversy - ok, so the same as GitHub or Reddit, you just arbitrarily
choose what to take down and when. In particular, this leaves all repositories
open to media-induced attention and controversy, followed by a takedown. IMO,
having an explicit, well-defined policy would be much better, even if it's
highly restrictive, as long as it's objective (i.e. no "offended" and similar)
and changes aren't applied retroactively.

I agree that being open source helps, and I thank you for that, but I still
wish there was a hosted site with a large community safe from censorship.

~~~
proveanegative
>In particular, this leaves all repositories open to media-induced attention
and controversy, followed by a takedown.

It should be emphasized that this, rather than the possibility of censorship
by GitLab's staff on their own initiative, is the main concern here.

On the other hand, what incentives does GitLab have to host controversial
projects? The kind of person who appreciates it is not the exactly the social
or technological trendsetter at the moment. It would make a good marketing
point for a niche repository hosting service targeting a "red tribe" or "gray
tribe" audience* but a mainstream service could rationally choose to not get
involved with it.

* [https://paxdickinson.wordpress.com/2014/10/27/the-rise-of-th...](https://paxdickinson.wordpress.com/2014/10/27/the-rise-of-the-grey-tribe)

~~~
tomp
> The kind of person who appreciates it is not the exactly the social or
> technological trendsetter at the moment.

I'm not so sure about that. Of course, I might be wrong, especially as I'm not
really involved with the technological/programming community (especially not
the US one), but to me it seems that it's mainly the media driving the
politically-correct everything-offends-me culture and igniting scandal after
scandal. Many people are quite appalled by these puritan witch-hunts and
victimhood competitions, as they realize how chilling the effects are, and
what the endgame of the censorship slippery-slope is.

But then again, many just don't care at all. Just like with mass surveillance
and mass lies about e.g. weapons of mass destruction.

------
sjg007
I started with Slashdot, then went to reddit and now hacker news.. Wonder if
it can have a redux.

------
jacquesm
I wouldn't give $50 for sourceforge at this point.

They're a liability, not an asset.

