Killing Slashdot CSS

(tags web, webdev, CSS, failure, rate1, customize, Privoxy, regexp)

WTF is up with Slashdot? I mean, it looks like crap now with that "Redesign Slashdot" contest winner's CSS in Light Mode, the display mode I had set in my preferences since 1999. The title backgrounds don't complement the title text, the position of the "(Score ?:)" is too far away, and the font looks like ass in Internet Explorer and Sleipnir. It looks passable in Firefox, though. Bring back my lovely serif font Georgia!!

Light Mode has been replaced by 2 toggle-able settings. These are 'lowbandwidth' and 'simpledesign'. First I used Firefox's extension Web Developer Extension to figure out if I "fix" it by blocking individual CSS files. Turns out "base.css" is the main pain. What I do now is keep that Lowbandwidth and simpledesign active, and in my Privoxy settings, I kill all the css files except for one:

## Slashdot CSS 2006-06-06 killer for Privoxy, insert in user.action
{+block}
images.slashdot.org/.*css.*
{-block}
images.slashdot.org/slashcode_low_bw.css.*

It's drastic, yeah I know.

Ahh, all the words are in the right place, and the font is back to my browser default, which it should be. The best way to fix it for me, though, is if they had the option for the old classic CSS they had at the original redesign in 2005.

Wait a minute. Slash, the software behind Slashdot.org, is open-source. Could the old CSS be available as CVS tag T_2_5_0_87, perchance? I'll be dipping into the CVS soon, and figuring out Privoxy's url rewriting rules. Gonna fix this right for great justice.