If you visit Slashcode.com you will notice that it is now running a brand spanking new CSS template designed by OSTGs Wes Moran and implemented by Tim Vroom and the rest of Slashteam. As some of you are aware, Slashcode.com is a testbed for Slashdot's code development. It gets features a few days before Slashdot so we can test the code on a live site. Of course the site is virtually unused, but that's not really the point for us. It's more about making sure the stuff actually works.

Which is where you come in. If you know a thing or two about CSS and web design, I'd appreciate a look at the site. You can email me if you have specific feedback, comments, criticism. I'd especially like it if people logged in and played with that. You'll notice that a lot of form elements look different. Some intentionally. Some because we haven't actually got around to creating CSS stylesheet entries for the dozens of custom things out there. Also, the comment code itself is completely unchanged. The display of forums will remain pretty much icky old HTML until we either (A) Rewrite the engine (which is planned, but a big project or (B) Someone submits a patch that does it for us. So if you want your chance to get your name in lights on Slashdot, this is a project worth considering. There's a mailing list and a CVS server. What are you waiting for?

The Slashdot CSS theme itself is well underway- the core HTML you see on www.slashcode.com is almost exactly what will be on Slashdot itself, we just need to finish a few parts, fix a few bugs, and work finish the Slashdot Stylesheet. We're looking to have that done in the next few weeks, although actually deploying it on Slashdot itself is a pretty huge project. I want to do it in august since it's usually really quiet, and we have a lot of data that needs to be converted in addition to the actualy site templates.

Pudge has been working a lot on that problem. Specifically we've got scripts to fix HTML in all editor & user contributed content spaces. A lot of this is under way already. Old comments are being automatically fixed in the background. HTML in articles from 1998 is being corrected. Scripts are working very hard. And in some cases, tired editors have been re-reading stories from 1998 to correct HTML errors that boggle the mind. None of this is perfect, so don't be to surprised if you find something wonky. Feel free to mail me URLs if you see it. We've got almost 60,000 articles, 900,000 users, and like 13 million comments. There will be mistakes.

Lastly, once Slashdot has successfully been ported to CSS, we'll have a lot more design flexibility. I expect that soon after we'll actually be ready to give the tired old design a facelift. If anyone has ideas, you can start playing with designs today by simply modifying www.slashcode.com's CSS stylesheet. my guess is we'll have a contest similiar to the T-Shirt contest we ran awhile back- users can contribute designs and I'll select from the best a new look for Slashdot. I'm really looking forward to that. I'll miss having Slashdot be "My" design, but the site still looks like 1997 and it's time for new life to go with fancy new web technology.

Also, my rogue hit 60 in WoW a few days ago. I also made my Volcanic armor set and have a few nifty other items w/ high fire resist. Now to get attuned and visit that toasty place known as Molten Core! And somehow save another 400gp for my epic mount. There's just no end to this game.