stderr writes: "I used to visit a certain website quite often, but if Dice Holdings decide to switch the interface to what is currently known as "Beta", I'll have to find another site for my "stuff that matters" fix. So, SoylentNews, what sites can you recommend for a "maybe-ex" /. user?"
(Score: 5, Informative) by Koen on Monday February 17 2014, @04:16PM
There is an active group of slashdot refugees on Usenet [wikipedia.org]: comp.misc
You can use a usenet news reader through (among others) an account at eternal-september.org [eternal-september.org] and then use a reader like Thunderbird or Pan [rebelbase.com].
Alternatively you can get there through Google Groups [google.com] or, if you want an interface which resembles Slashdot, through s'qute [squte.com].
Here's an article about the /. refugees on Usenet [ngrblog.com].
/. refugees on Usenet: comp.misc [comp.misc]
(Score: 1) by Covalent on Monday February 17 2014, @04:43PM
Ugh. S'Qute is uglier than Beta. Pass.
I'll stick with Soylent for now, thanks.
You can't rationally argue somebody out of a position they didn't rationally get into.
(Score: 1) by Koen on Monday February 17 2014, @04:54PM
"Ugh. S'Qute is uglier than Beta."
True. But my beef with Beta is not the esthetics, it's the loss of functionality.
The impressive thing about s'qute is that it builds a slashdot-like interface with moderation etc... on top of Usenet. If one day Slashdot or SoylentNews folds, all old comments are gone. If s'qute or Google Groups go down, all comments are still available through Usenet's distributed database.
/. refugees on Usenet: comp.misc [comp.misc]
(Score: 5, Informative) by tdk on Monday February 17 2014, @04:58PM
I'm the developer of s'qute. It's a proof of concept not a beauty contest.
You can always use custom style sheets [mozilla.org], and when you're happy with them, send them to me and I'll add them as an option on the site.
Moderated Usenet [squte.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by kru on Monday February 17 2014, @07:30PM
This is why Slashdot (and now Soylent and other alt sites) are awesome. Some user posts a comment about an unknown (to me) utility and the actual developer him/her-self chimes in with a brief and useful reply. That's the sort of stuff that I've been missing.
(Score: 1) by forsythe on Monday February 17 2014, @04:56PM
While I must second the recommendation for Usenet, I ask those interested to please, PLEASE not use the Google Groups interface. The post editor does strange things to quoting, provides no sane way to limit line length, etc. Posts made through Google Groups are very irritating to read unless the author formats them meticulously.
(Score: 1) by Aiwendil on Monday February 17 2014, @05:07PM
Speaking of newsreaders I'm a fan of slrn. It's a nice little commandline* newsreader that has all the functions one really wants, and take a little while to set up to taste.
I also recommend eternal september as a newsserver.
* = crossplatform, originally for unix-like platforms, dates back to 1994, last update was in 2012, and yes, it's in debian so just apt-get it.
(Score: 1) by cykros on Monday February 17 2014, @07:30PM
Tin is another reasonable option, if you're for whatever reason not happy with slrn. It's what I got the hang of quickest back in my early *nix days, and has aged just fine.
(Score: 2, Funny) by cykros on Monday February 17 2014, @07:24PM
Usenet has been almost surprisingly working quite well for us for the last week, though naturally, there's no moderation system in place. On the plus side, I get to write my posts in Vim (emacs would work too, but that'd be a questionable decision :-P)
(Score: 1) by wjwlsn on Monday February 17 2014, @11:53PM
Hail Vim! :)
I agree about comp.misc... it has been a good place to be during the past week. There seems to be good core group of insightful posters there, and the signal-to-noise ratio has been high. I think all of us would agree, though, that more participants would be very welcome.
I am a traveler of both time and space. Duh.
(Score: 1) by paulej72 on Monday February 17 2014, @08:23PM
Can someone who is already setup post to usenet about this site? They may want to hear about it.
Team Leader for SN Development Dev Server [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by Koen on Monday February 17 2014, @09:45PM
At comp.misc everybody is aware of SoylentNews.
Which of the 110,000* other newsgroups on usenet would you like to inform? I'll put a note on alt.folklore.computers [alt.folklore.computers].
--
* Wikipedia estimates [wikipedia.org] that 20,000 of those are still active, but that number is tagged [citation needed].
/. refugees on Usenet: comp.misc [comp.misc]
(Score: 1) by paulej72 on Monday February 17 2014, @10:45PM
How about the one in your sig. I figured I did not need to mention it because of the context of this thread.
Team Leader for SN Development Dev Server [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by wjwlsn on Monday February 17 2014, @11:40PM
We've had multiple posts about SoylentNews on comp.misc during the past week. I posted the one announcing that the site had gone live, immediately after signing up here myself.
I am a traveler of both time and space. Duh.
(Score: 1) by JeanCroix on Tuesday February 18 2014, @10:57AM
(Score: 1) by dry on Tuesday February 18 2014, @12:03AM
There's also aioe.org as a free usenet server and I've been using astraweb.com as payed usenet server. Astraweb is very cheap if you only use text, something like $10 for 5GBs, at least that is what it was some years back when I signed up.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitari