▲Don’t they have better things to do? Maybe vibecode a taskbar that moves when you try to move away the mouse over it or perhaps a windows 12 installation procedure that requires a fecal sample and iris scan?
reply▲> installation procedure that requires a fecal sample and iris scan
Do you work for Microsoft or something? Please do do not give them ideas.
zelphirkalt3 hours ago
[-] "Only for your own good!™" or alternatively: "Security next level! Fingerprint was yesterday. The future is Microsoft's new iris scan." and then it is built in a way, that you can simply hold up a photo of someone's iris and unlock the device, or trying to prevent that, works so badly, that half of the time you cannot unlock your own device.
reply▲You'll have to wear the fecal probe at all times while using Windows 12, for security reasons, and every command you issue will cause it to move around and take another sample, in order to make sure you are still physically there. On the plus side, it will make it painfully obvious to every Windows user how they are being fucked by Microsoft.
reply▲Maybe facebook can ride on this and let you share your feces with your friends family and groups of strangers from the internet! They can run models that predict what you ate and show relevant ads.
reply▲> "Only for your own good!™"
Very few things trigger me more than this doublespeak.
They're not. Operating systems will be legally required to ask for such samples in some jurisdictions by 2028. Linus has fecal_sample.ko lined up for merge in 7.3 or so.
/s but we jumped to the Black Mirror timeline so who knows?
“Featuring a partnership with Kohler Health and the Dekoda toilet camera and Withings and their UScan piss sensor…”
reply▲“Please drink Exlax verification can”
reply▲Remember, it is for the children. /s
reply▲> moves when you try to move away the mouse over it
They already did that. I sit down at my computer and try to activate the window I want to work in, and the "location" icon temporarily appears in the notification area which causes all the taskbar icons to shift left. I accidentally click the neighboring icon and launch an app that throws up a splash screen for 60 seconds while it loads.
We should start this process early and all start sending our fecal samples to MS headquarters.
reply▲brb, packing a small suitcase of specimen.
reply▲> requires a fecal sample
So requires the user to log in?
reply▲gchamonlive3 hours ago
[-] > So requires the user to log in?
Only on premium subscriptions, for free users you need your neighbour's stool sample.
Error: Timeout. Please submit iris scan less than 60 seconds after fecal sample.
reply▲"Installations of new Windows OS tied to pink-eye outbreak nationwide"
reply▲The next step is mandatory id verification for the age check on login.
To protect the children.
Why are you exposing our future security plans on a thread about coprophilic divinations?
reply▲fecalprinter262 hours ago
[-] Combine fingerprint biometric with fecal samples for a convenient "fecalprint" button. The user doesn't even have to go into the bathroom! It can be microslops version of Apple's TouchID.
reply▲You're absolutely right! It's not just a fecalprint button, it's a feces platform!
reply▲just press your bumhole to the glass
reply▲samgranieri2 hours ago
[-] I’m at the point to tell people (friends, neighbors, fellow parents, family, ie, not HN readers) to prolong the life of their existing computers and install what I think is the easiest windows equivalent on their computers: kubuntu.
Gnome is nice and all, but the default ui, and remember defaults matter for a lot of people, is just too jarring.
The people I am talking about just wanna browse the web, go on Facebook and use their gmail. Look at funny YouTube videos. The default KDE ui has that windows start menu and looks roughly the same so they can hit the ground running.
capitainenemo1 hour ago
[-] My family switched to Gnome 2 a couple of decades ago. My mother quite liked it and has consistently installed it on every new computer she bought. Her only confusion lately has been with the ubuntu snap packages and how they behave between multiple accounts on the machine.
These days she uses MATE which still offers that Gnome 2 layout. Awesome thing about Linux is that option to fork, so her desktop environment has remained consistent for over 20 years.
Projectiboga1 hour ago
[-] Cinnamon has a very classic Windows layout. I am getting very comfortable using MX Linux with KDE, especially that I have been able to move my NVME drive over several laptops now. Starting to get the itch to find a rolling distro to skip reinstalling the OS every two years.
reply▲That's a great idea the task bar could just shift to expose a link to sign up for azure/office/OneDrive/CoPilot subscription that the user misclicks on.
reply▲In different canton (equivalent to US states) in Switzerland, you take the sample at home, and go to the post office to send it.
So why not to create a M365 account? International dispatch to the US :D
estimator72921 hour ago
[-] Anal folds are as unique as fingerprints. Please submit a high quality hole pic to Microsoft for identity verification
reply▲An opportunity to sell chairs with built-in cameras!
reply▲I can really see them ship the first, that's at the same time very funny, and quite sad.
reply▲first one is a really slick tooltip ui to make sure people read tooltips. hover over button, it slides out while revealing tooltip text in its place, move cursor to button again
if you want to make sure people read a lot of instructions you can chain this so that you need to hover over the button multiple times, revealing the instructions a bit at a time
ajsnigrutin2 hours ago
[-] Will the oral and anal probe be clearly marked, or will you only get a warning of "swap the probes" after pushing them into wrong holes?
reply▲You are absolutely right! This was, in fact, an anal probe and you should correct location of the two. Do you want me to start the ID verification process over again?
reply▲“Your sample was insufficient. Please try again later.”
reply▲"please drink the verification can"
reply▲Sci-Fi Author: In my book I invented the Torment Nexus as a cautionary tale
Tech Company: At long last, we have created the Torment Nexus from classic sci-fi novel Don't Create The Torment Nexus
Someone misheard iris for anus? lol
reply▲> a fecal sample
a micro shit (tm)
Hehe, this reminds me of 30 years ago when people used to stylise it as Micro$oft or creatively misspell it as Microshaft, etc. Even on the Amiga, there was the filesystem that could read PC format disks that was called MessyDos. It just seems like the next generation has discovered what an easy name it is to make puns from.
reply▲If you're German-speaking: "Klopilot" and "Vibrierkot" are some modern day personal favorites.
On a similar, nostalgic note, I recall boot screens for "Sinnlos 98" floating around, back when modifying the bootup logo was a thing.
There are regions in Germany (Hessen) where "Azure" is pronounced the exact same way as "Ärger" (trouble). Makes you think...
reply▲Wow, that's incredible. Even though I'm from Hessen, I never thought of making that connection!
reply▲For Latvians Windows Vista was pretty funny cluck cluck.
reply▲Ok, Vibrierkot is something for the German shitpost communities with all my Zuhausis im Zwischennetz.
reply▲As a Polish man I love Klopilot <3
reply▲You made me laugh, thanks.
reply▲lowdownbutter1 hour ago
[-] Maybe you can explain it for we non German speakers.
reply▲Klopilot: Klo ~ Toilet
Vibrierkot: Kot ~ Faeces
reply▲What is "Vibrierkot" supposed to sound like?
reply▲dec0dedab0de2 hours ago
[-] I used M$ at work the other day by accident, I was like ooh wait this isn't turn of the century slashdot.
reply▲reply▲Anthony-G7 minutes ago
[-] I find it interesting to go back in time so I read the accompanying article and came across this snippet:
> despite the computing apocalypse that Windows XP's Product Activation features were supposed to ignite, I've never had the first problem with it
At the time, I remember a lot of scare stories about how the Product Activation system in Windows XP would result in the death of user freedom. It didn’t effect me because I was using GNU/Linux (probably Mandrake or Mandriva Linux). When I later got a job in an office that ran Windows XP, I don’t remember XP causing any more headaches than any of its predecessors. If anything, it was even more stable than 2000 which itself was superior to 95, 98 or 98SE.
I also fully agree with the last sentence:
> I do think it's clear that the way we use our computers totally pisses off gigantic, wealthy companies of all stripes, and it was only a matter of time until they tried to do something about it.
Part of it was that Microsoft was
really more concerned with distributors selling computers with pirated copies of Windows, and they basically would activate
anything if you were willing to call.
I remember doing it a few times for the "OEM" Windows XP which was cheaper but not supposed to migrate to new machines.
wasting_time3 hours ago
[-] MS-DOS itself is derived from QDOS, which stands for "Quick and Dirty Operating System".
Things only went downhill from there.
henriquecm83 hours ago
[-] In Brazil people used to say "Ruindows", which is a play with the portuguese word for bad.
reply▲Last week on a comedy show (the daily show) they made a joke about bill gates "micro and soft" which was old in the 90s already, so I can confirm this is the case.
reply▲dylan60428 minutes ago
[-] I think this was 100% justifiable use. If the founder of the company is going to be hanging out with pedophiles and sex traffickers, then micro and soft jokes are open season. All of his philanthropic adventures will never wipe his stain clean.
reply▲fluoridation4 hours ago
[-] Don't forget Windoze.
reply▲In french we have Windaube (pronunced Windob).
Daube is a slang word for something of low quality.
> Daube is a slang word for something of low quality.
Which is fun because it's also a really delicious dish from Provence (south of France) made with beef that has been marinated for multiple hours in red wine.
Don't forget Winblows
reply▲Another oldie
"If you play the Win98 CD backwards, it summons Satan. It's worse when you play it forwards - it installs Windows"
Ah, good times... :-)
I have a "quotes.txt" from slashdot days with some MS jabs in it:
> Last week, I left my 2 XP CDs on my dashboard in plain view. Someone broke into my car and left 2 more.
> The day Microsoft makes a product that doesn't suck is the day they make a vacuum cleaner.
> A Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer is to computing what a McDonalds Certified Food Specialist is to fine cuisine
Juvenile some might say, but they still makes me giggle.
I had to reinstall win98 so many times I still remember the pirate key k4hvdq9tj96crx9c9g68rq2d3 by heart
good times :)
I guess I was more of the FCKGW generation. :)
reply▲deltoidmaximus3 hours ago
[-] IIRC with Windows 98 you could just use any product key you had on as many machines as you wanted since there was no activation or real phoning home capabilities. So most likely your whole friend group would be using the same serial that was copied off your uncle's old gateway.
reply▲Ah, FuCK Gates, William.
I think there were at least three other commonly used codes, but this one was by far the most popular.
mghackerlady2 hours ago
[-] I'm pretty sure 000-0000000 worked (at least on windows 95)
reply▲Outbreak Express!
reply▲It was "Outhouse Express" and "GruntPage" for me in the late 90s. I still use these for software I find particularly irksome, for example Conscrewence from AtlASSian.
reply▲In Polish we used to say "Winzgroza" (win terror)
reply▲Orgs have had sensitive skin like this for a long time. Gamespy was a service for launching and playing multiplayer games with lobbies before Steam, and if you “accidentally” typed “GaySpy” (it was the early 2000s) it would autocorrect to “GameSpy” by the time it appeared in your messages.
reply▲I used to have a M$ email signature 30 years ago, and pay, nowaydays I mostly use Windows on my laptop, because I am not willing to pay Apple prices even though I can afford them, and even last year I was dealing with GNU/Linux installation issues on a Gigabyte BRIX.
reply▲My favorite nickname for MS-DOS is "Domestos" (pronounced /də ˈmɛs ˌtɒs/) which is a brand of bathroom cleanee from the UK.
reply▲ToucanLoucan2 hours ago
[-] Been in this industry since I graduated college, I have never stopped using Micro$oft or Microshaft. Also a fan of M$, Winblows…
Thank goodness their employees have time to crack down on people making fun of them on fucking Discord. That should definitely be the priority of a multi-trillion dollar software company, is making sure your users aren’t mocking you. We don’t need a taskbar that works reliably or anything.
What community is there to house around Microsoft Copilot?
Seriously, why does Microsoft Copilot need a Discord Server?
What do I talk about when I join the Microsoft Copilot server?
What are we doing here?
reply▲TheAceOfHearts4 hours ago
[-] I'd imagine that there's some discussion about how to make the most out of the tool as well as discussion of experiments and capabilities. I'm not even sure what exactly "Microsoft Copilot" entails anymore because of the multiple rebrands, but having a place where you can discuss exploring plugins and other adjacent features seems useful.
Not quite the same, but recently I was recently looking around for communities centered around Claude Code for discussion about people's workflows as well as discussion about what plugins people are using and if they notice it making a significant difference.
Since the technology is still evolving, having an active community can help you discover new patterns and explore the space more effectively.
> [...] I'm not even sure what exactly "Microsoft Copilot" entails anymore [...]
Watching from the sidelines (not a Microsoft user), I've completely lost track. Between this, the Azure 365 cloud whatever stuff, I have no idea what many of the products even exactly are any more.
Simply put Microsoft is the worst company at naming stuff. Even when they come up with a good name for something, they'll name 3 other totally different products the same thing to maximize confusion.
reply▲Seriously? Does anybody know what Copilot is? I don't think I have ever seem a "Copilot user", so I don't know what it looks like. Is it the little macro key on new laptop keyboards? The chatbot you get in Bing? A technical philosophy? Or is it in essence just copilot.com, the mediocre chat interface which you used to get free GPT-4 three years ago?
reply▲mghackerlady2 hours ago
[-] The copilot button isn't even a "button" in a traditional sense, it just maps to win+shift+f23
reply▲miriam_catira1 hour ago
[-] I wish. I got a Dell laptop for work and they've replaced the right Ctrl key with a Copilot key, and (because it's a locked-down work sysyem) the only thing I can remap that to is the Windows menu. And I keep hitting it out of muscle memory, interrupting everything. But at least now it doesn't launch Copilot.
Which I could add is "the only AI approved for use by IT" because they hate us.
dec0dedab0de2 hours ago
[-] I'm not even sure what exactly "Microsoft Copilot" entails anymoreI'm pretty sure Clippy and Rover had a child and it got bit by a radioactive LLM.
reply▲There is a chance that it's actually a Microsoft Office discord that was rebranded to Microsoft Copilot.
reply▲They saw other successful AI products with discords (like midjourney) and then they probably just copied the idea thinking they would get similar success from it.
That's a lot of what big corp america strategy boils down to -- copy your competitors.
Don't get me wrong, creating a passionate community around a product is a great strategy for many reasons, but microsoft never had passionate users in the first place.
And it is telling that they are banning humor and criticism form their community, it shows they do not want have any criticism for their product, which is one of the benefits of community (fast and honest feedback loops). Its sort of like north korea where saying anything bad about the "great leader" or else. That's not a fun community, that is a community people want to leave but can't bc they will get shot at the border.
An awful lot of corporate workers are stuck with Copilot as their only approved chat option, so some of them are probably trying to learn how to get the best results they can from it.
reply▲The same as every other Discord server: Giving a few people the feeling of power over dozens of channels with memes and unsearchable low-quality "discussions".
reply▲laserbeam9 minutes ago
[-] It needs a Discord Server because MS Teams is just that good X_X
reply▲I have been in similar groups, and trust me, there are a lot of
very enthusiastic users sharing their tools, success stories etc.
I stopped paying attention after a while as they get repetitive.
How do you do, fellow kids?
reply▲I have Copilot through work.
I haven't used the Discord, but having a place to ask for help using it doesn't seem farfetched.
Being Microsoft, you'd think they would just offer a public Teams server instead? Not that you'd get more traction with it, but at least it's in-house and theoretically they would be motivated to build integrations on top.
reply▲It reminds me of the US army and their fabulous idea to open a Twitch channel. Went as well as you expect.
reply▲Sometimes they have good ideas, America's Army was pretty popular for a while for example.
reply▲HardwareLust2 hours ago
[-] In the late 90s/early 2000's, AA was lit. Really good competitive shooter for free.
reply▲It’s just another checkbox in someone’s performance review, no need to think too hard about it.
reply▲Maybe all the users are OpenClaw instances?
reply▲Yeah ban the use of a catchy catch-phrase as you continue to shove AI down your user-base - that'll work. Streisand would be proud.
reply▲MarleTangible2 hours ago
[-] Most HN readers would now, but in the case somebody new reads it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect
> The Streisand effect describes a situation where an attempt to hide, remove, or censor information results in the unintended consequence of the effort instead increasing public awareness of the information.
I don't take this lightly.
These are the folks who are doing what they can to be part of the government.
They simply cannot take criticism and this seems to be a pattern moving forward.
reply▲ineedasername44 minutes ago
[-] Oh no, how will people signal that some functionality or product in general is what they'd previously been referring as Mircolosp? er, Microsolps. wait, that's not it either, Macroslop. Micro$lop. Microsplo. Sorry, so many typos! but you know what I mean.
reply▲Microsoft, can you please let me remove recommendations from the start menu? Not just less recommendations. I want the category to not be displayed and taking up space.
reply▲That's hilarious, I didn't realize you couldn't turn it off. I just tried disabling all the recommendation options and it still shows the category, except now instead of recommended items, it says "to show your recent files and apps, turn them on in Settings."
This sort of thing used to bother me back when I took Windows seriously.
It can be ripped out using regedit, I'm sure.
It's been a while since I used Windows as a daily driver, but I did oscillate between W10 and Arch for about half a year, and the Arch mentality creeped into Windows. I ended up adding a context menu to Explorer so I could paste images on my clipboard directly to a the folder I had open. I had to create keys in the Explorer portions of the registry.
If I could do that, I'm sure you can root around in the Start Menu parts of the registry and rip it out.
I know I can because I've done it on my home machine, but my work computer is restricted by IT. I can't open regedit or install most software unfortunately.
reply▲xerox13ster46 minutes ago
[-] Yeah I asked my director if I could rip out the shell and replace it with X Server running in WSL2 and he said it would make the IT people very upset.
reply▲Why is Microsoft using Discord and not Teams?
reply▲yoyohello131 minute ago
[-] Microsoft employees largely use Macs, so no surprise.
reply▲So non-employees join and provide free support to other users without having to pay them.
reply▲Why would anyone use Teams?
reply▲Because it comes 'free' with an Office365 subscription. Embrace (<<you are here), extend, extinguish.
It's usually 'management'. The same management that won't pay for developer tools (including Slack) because 'why do you need that when you can do 95% of your work in VSCode?' It's also usually the same sort of management that can do 95% of their documents in... VSCode and markdown. Or LibreOffice.
Microsoft products are only free if your time has no value.
reply▲Having been in the position, on a corporate Active Directory network it very much easier to roll out Teams than anything else. It works fine at the kind of internal video calls that companies spend their days on.
reply▲Dogfooding only works when the dog food is edible.
reply▲withinboredom1 hour ago
[-] Discord is owned by Microsoft IIRC.
reply▲It's not. It's an independent company, that's most likely going to IPO soon. Microsoft was reported to be in talks to acquire Discord at some point, but that never materialised.
reply▲Microslop doing Microslop things
reply▲Probably the AI blocked it
reply▲> Probably the AI blocked it
Maybe this is the real reason why companies want to use AI so badly.
They save money on salary but also they get to point at something they won't tattle against the executives during a plea bargain?
Someone needs to edit this title to change the first word to MicroSlop
I've never called them MircoSlop before, I haven't even written the word. But it's now my exclusive word for the company.
All I can hear is, it's working.
This just means I'm going to say microslop in random places - documents, slides, emails and Teams chats. "Copilot 365" is welcome to give me a red squigly all it wants.
reply▲mikkupikku2 minutes ago
[-] The way people react to criticism tells you a lot about how deep your remark cut. Clearly Microsoft people know their stuff is slop and are having a hard time coping with that.
reply▲throwaway858252 hours ago
[-] AI valuation is based on vibes not fundamentals. If the vibes are bad it could tank valuations. That's why theyre so sensitive.
reply▲but they make the vibes much worse by doing stuff like this
reply▲The default of making a public discord for your project/company always seemed like a bad idea anyway. It’ll always devolve into some drama or distracting overhead to moderate it
reply▲Microslop? Hmm... Never heard that before! Meanwhile, I just randomly remembered that I haven't opened a couple of dozen social media accounts in ages. BRB!
reply▲raxxorraxor6 hours ago
[-] Was hitting too close to home it seems...
But to be fair, corporate discords have to be like that. Why not create your own channel with your colleagues instead? This discussion would be "private" and corporate can just ignore it.
> create your own channel with your colleagues instead
Dont even think about it ... it will be private till it isnt then, it will be the reason you are fired. Its corpo world - shut your mouth and dont put anything on a permanent record you dont have to.
Like, why have a public discussion if we can have a private one? Public discussions are important, especially as AI is largely a political project
reply▲i'd argue a discord is never really "public", since there's still a barrier to entering and it's easy to get banned
reply▲If I were to bet on what would get a Microsoft Discord server shut down, I would have put money on discussions of the ties between Microsoft executives and Epstein. They should be happy if the worst thing that's happening is a mildly deragatory nickname.
reply▲So this is the company pushing to be an integral part of everyone's lives, forcing it down everyone's throat without consent.
And they're already moderation a light hearted joke about their low quality products.
Doesn't really bode well for the future product Vision.
nephihaha37 minutes ago
[-] It's a monopoly. Unless you are a wealthy hipster with money to burn on Apple products. (They also spy on you.)
reply▲I think we've found the 2026 word of the year already!
Let's get it out there and make this happen!
This is why 2026 will be The Year of the Linux Desktop
reply▲it will take years to fix their broken products, if they ever focus on that
reply▲MS has some snowflake (not Snowflake) execs... Poor little management, they need their safe space from a mean old word.
reply▲Microslop can't get one right. What is it with them these days..?
reply▲Microslop.
Has a nice ring to it.
Thank you Streisand effect!
stephc_int133 hours ago
[-] They are back in their villain arc. For a while now.
reply▲Our vocabulary is so stunted. Has no one else noticed that we increasingly talk about the world like it's fiction playing out in front of us?
reply▲It's not a vocab problem. It's inherent to the human brain, which appears to be fundamentally designed to prefer to view the world in terms of stories, with heroes, villains, and a narrative arc.
reply▲You don't have to tell me - even Bill S: "and what's he then that says I play the villain?"
Unfortunately, the collective quality of our storytelling is waning. Most people watch the least common denominator.
So now the greater human truth you allude to is being filtered through the streaming age mode of storytelling, and people have arcs, and bingo cards, and everything is reduced to water-cooler levels of urgency and relevance.
Is it though? Or are we simply in an environment that is heavily skewed toward "Great Person" theory narratives?
reply▲This isn't a new thing. Ancient stories like the Iliad or the Odyssey are discreetly historical records of a particular region mixed in with mythological foundations of a particular culture, but framed as the stories of Achilles ("Sing, O goddess, the anger of Achilles son of Peleus, that brought countless ills upon the Achaeans.") and Odysseus ("Speak, memory, of the cunning hero, the wanderer, blown off course time and again after he plundered Troy's sacred heights."). Likewise, ancient fables and parables are moral lessons couched in terms of stories with protagonists whose actions demonstrate the intended lesson, and this sort of thing is universal across every ancient culture for which we have records. Stories stick in the human mind, and they're what humans most prioritize transmitting forward through time.
reply▲Nobody can gauge the world for what it really is. It has always been like that. Proper empiricism is expensive and often enough impossible.
reply▲There's inability, and there's not trying.
reply▲When Microslop bans "Microslop" I don't need to try. I use their software daily, I know how their technical support is utterly fucked now and how rare the heroic power user actually solving the case for every co-sufferer has become. And I know I'm not alone.
Just recently they fixed the Win 11 start menu bug where they forgot to expose any functionality behind the "hide mobile pane" button. At least the forced recents are gone now, Jesus Christ! This is toddler level software engineering.
It's a corporation suffering from corporate things and the ridiculously out of control financialization of everything, feeding on its insane first mover advantage and network effects. This attempt to hide it is simply embarrassing.
There's only gonna be so much thinking or research involved and forget contacting primary sources or anything like that.
nephihaha41 minutes ago
[-] "Has no one else noticed that we increasingly talk about the world like it's fiction playing out in front of us?"
Most of our world is a fiction or at least a highly distorted version of reality.
My advice to people is: Get out into nature, stop believing everything on the news and meet people in person.
Most of the news is ragebait designed to get you angry at specific targets rather than the systems themselves.
Villain? More like geriatric.
reply▲I would be angry too. Its definitely not that micro.
reply▲I propose we refer to them as Microslop from now on.
reply▲Before this article I'd have thought that Microslop was used to designate small snippets of AI slop, like "Let that sync in" or "And to be honest" and "It's not X, it's Y" and "Deepdive" and "Delve".
But nice to see that MS is Streisanding their way to a nice new nickname!
What were the sloperators of that channel thinking?
In any case, it should be Micro$lop (may not be banned...yet).
semi-extrinsic59 minutes ago
[-] >
the software giant can’t risk getting more hatred towards their expensive investment in Copilot, especially since Microsoft’s head start in AI is starting to be overshadowed by competitors like Anthropic, Google, OpenAI, and maybe even Apple in the near futureThis sentence is from TFA, and I can't for the life of me understand it. "Head start"?? WTF?
May I coin the term "Slopware"?
reply▲I wonder what is Apple equivalent for this term
reply▲drumttocs854 minutes ago
[-] I would honestly be embarrassed to call myself "micro soft" in general.
Unless you're into that kind of thing.
365Slop all day every day all around
reply▲Wow, so someone opened a discord server for a community and banned an insulting word for the community? This must be a first.
reply▲They really showed him, didn't they?
reply▲Is "Microslop" really insulting, though?
reply▲You can argue that banning insults is a bad look, bad move, that the insult is warranted or whatever, but are you really going to die on the hill that calling the company Microslop isn't insulting?
reply▲insult (verb): to say or do something to someone that is rude or offensive
Corporate personhood at its finest.
People do work at Microsoft though and they're probably aren't very happy when their work is called slop. You could even say they are feeling insulted or offended.
reply▲Simple. Don't produce slop then.
If it offends you so much that people call your work as it is, you should do better work, grow some thicker skin, or stop.
I'd agree but if you ever been on the receiving end of a meme-train you'd see that it's not driven by rationality. I'm not familiar with this issue but my bet would be that even hand-crafted personal projects were being called slop because once meme runs away from initial meaning it just becomes closer to swear word than a meaning.
reply▲See, that requires the code to be written by an actual human being, who has agency and a sense of pride and ownership about their work.
Maybe there are still some teams deep inside the bowels of Microsoft that management has forgotten about that still operate like that, but judging by the way the user-facing parts of its products have developed, the mass firings, and the pushing of AI-driven development by upper management, it seems very clear to me that there's very little risk of insulting anything anyone actually cares about.
Hey now, what's wrong with 'slop?' A farmer loves slop. It's dirt cheap, and the pigs don't seem to mind...
reply▲It is definitely an insult because it’s used pejoratively. If it is insulting I guess depends on if the target feels insulted. Seeing as they blocked the word, it seems they do.
reply▲The branding people will hate it. Although IMHO the best thing they could do is co-opt it as a feedback term and acknowledge that AI can be hit or miss.
reply▲Less insulting than Macroslop
reply▲Why wouldn’t it be? It’s a mean derivation of their company name.
reply▲seanclayton5 hours ago
[-] It's as insulting as M$ is
reply▲JasonADrury3 hours ago
[-] Has there ever been a single good piece of writing that uses "M$" or the likes?
"M$" may not be insulting in itself, but it's certainly typically associated with insultingly poor writing.
How is M$ insulting? It just looks like a leetspeak version of MS.
reply▲And other insults are just words as well. It's the intention, history, connotation etc. behind words that give them meaning. M$ is meant as an insult, hence it's insulting.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/M$As I said, I was not aware of the insult.
reply▲It is supposed to indicate Microsoft cares only about money, which to me too, seems in the same league as microslop, i.e. mildly insulting but really not rude enough to be worth censoring.
reply▲4gotunameagain5 hours ago
[-] It would be mean if they weren't actually vibecoding copilot & md into notepad, introducing an RCE vulnerability.
In notepad.
Why get yourself twisted like this?
They can do a bad thing, and then you can make fun of it with an insult.
Own it, the insult is warranted, why hide and pretend it's not an insult.
If Microsoft is consistently shipping slop, then they deserve insults over it; not every "bad" thing is always unwarranted. Locking someone in a box is "bad", prison is a necessary thing that benefits society. Insults are "bad" and sometimes warranted.
They did not rewrite Notepad in Rust? Seems to be an easy target
reply▲fireflash385 hours ago
[-] Maybe they should stop insulting their users with the slop they put out and charge for then.
reply▲JasonADrury3 hours ago
[-] I think the most important question here is this: Are users who post the string "microslop" generally desirable participants that will contribute in a productive manner?
I suspect not.
It depends what the purpose of the Discord channel is. Is it for open and frank discussion, or for MS drones to discuss Copilot development. It's a cliche, but banning certain words smacks of 1984-style censorship.
reply▲JasonADrury3 hours ago
[-] > Is it for open and frank discussion
So... 4chan? Why would you possibly want that in this context?
Although, you're posting on HN so it's probably fair to assume that "open and frank discussion" isn't a very high priority for you.
An even more important question is: why does Microsoft care
so much about a handful of people using that term that they are willing to risk getting Streisanded over it?
Nobody cares about banning the few idiots who do nothing but spam "MICROSLOP SUCKS MICROSLOP SUCKS". But banning the entire term "microslop", just in case someone might use it? Well, what kind of response were they expecting?
JasonADrury2 hours ago
[-] >An even more important question is: why does Microsoft care so much about a handful of people using that term that they are willing to risk getting Streisanded over it?
Because the decision was made by some normal adult without mental health issues who hasn't internalized just how disturbed some people on the internet are?
It really shouldn't be unreasonable for moderators to try to maintain a professional tone. Although in this case they certainly picked the wrong platform if "professional" was what they were going for.
This is one of those things that's hard to understand without practical moderation experience. The presence of an insulting meme
creates the idiots who spam it, and creates a larger category of people who deploy it to toxify what would otherwise be polite and respectful discussion. And low quality comments that get a couple laugh reacts, even if you can consistently remove them within the hour, are fully capable of propagating it.
Keyword bans are definitely a heavy-handed option, they do risk the Streisand effect, and in the worst case that can require the scorched-earth counterresponse described in the source article. But sometimes there's just no other way to kill the meme.
If anything it is a diminutive for a company which really should have named itself Megaslop by now if not Gigaslop or even Teraslop. Poor little Microslop, are those people being nasty again?
reply▲Truth hurts the immature, which is also why censorship is rampant.
reply▲I would say that “microslop” is akin to the old term “micro$oft”, which was a good sign of immaturity of whoever used it.
reply▲2OEH8eoCRo04 hours ago
[-] > someone
It's Microsoft's official Copilot Discord. Microsoft banned the word
I'm sad that "Klopilot" only works in German.
"Hello, copilot, do you create slop? -> Skibidi slop slop slop aiiiiiii"
What will Elon's "Macrohard" company be called? "Macroheil"?
reply▲ratelimitsteve42 minutes ago
[-] they sincerely think that the primary problem they're facing is one of PR, don't they?
reply▲fishgoesblub2 hours ago
[-] Personally I think 2000s Micro$oft would be disappointed that 2026 Microslop is hosting user communities on a 3rd party platform owned other another company rather than using their own competitor.
reply▲That's a 'snatch defeat from the jaws of victory moment'
reply▲lmfao
> Microsoft's brand image may already be at an all-time low
and they decide to make it even worse. it's extremely obvious this would be an objectively terrible PR move. you always take banter on the chin and show that you're working on improving the product.
instead, they try to clamp down on the banter, which, without fail, achieves the exact opposite: banter increases tenfold and you get ridiculed for being overly sensitive to actual criticism
Tells you a lot about where their focus is at as a company.
reply▲It's kind of interesting that Microsoft is deemphasizing if not exiting making products for individuals to decide to buy. Contrast that with Google, who have to actively cultivate individual customers in order to have a large and reliable audience for ad based monetization of search, maps, and other free at the point of use products.
There are good and understandable reasons to not want to be in the games business. Game studios are frequently a hot bed of sexual predation and just horrifyingly bad management in general. But it's a business with a large customer base that wouldn't be customers otherwise.
Microsoft has spent tens of billions of dollars acquiring game studios and their IP. They're going to have to make a decision to cultivate growth in that business or sell it for whatever they can get for it. Neither of those choices will be easy to execute well.
nephihaha44 minutes ago
[-] Suppressing dissent? Par for the course for them and their WEFfer mates.
reply▲IDK what's funnier/more pathetic, them doing this or an entire article getting written about it.
MicroslopSlop
JasonADrury3 hours ago
[-] > them doing this
Wouldn't any community that wants to encourage good quality conversations immediately ban everyone posting stupid slashdot-esque jokes like this?
You can't build a community if you ban everything except soulless corporate dronespeak. Nobody would ever be interested in joining it without getting paid for it. That's a business meeting, not a community.
reply▲JasonADrury2 hours ago
[-] Banning slashdot-esque nonsense is not banning "everything except soulless corporate dronespeak"
reply▲ChromaticPanic2 hours ago
[-] Yeah that's what LinkedIn in is for. If they just want people or bots to just fawn over everything they put out. I'm glad M$ is getting called out for the slip they put out.
reply▲Given that nobody else banned it we can now blame Microsoft for taking down the only decent online community. Now we are stuck on hackernews and its ilk.
reply▲I guess I'll have to go out of my way to refer to their shitty product as "Microslop Copilot" then.
What are they going to do? Ban me from using their operating system?
FartyMcFarter3 hours ago
[-] Windows 11 is definitely failing in weird ways for me, I don't know if it's due to slop. The latest example is that I can't launch Notepad via the start menu... I can launch other apps though.
reply▲I have this problem with calc.exe. Sometimes it'll launch from the start menu, but often won't. I pinned it to the taskbar, but muscle memory is a powerful force, so I usually try to launch it from the start menu first.
reply▲Enshitification doesn't roll off the tongue quite the same way. You have 10,000 systems all each interacting at a 90% success rate when it needs to be 99.999%.
They fired all the SDETs 11 years ago. It's catching up with them.
SanjayMehta5 hours ago
[-] so this exists:
microslop.com
askonomm22 minutes ago
[-] I even registered microslop.ee (directs to .com) because of how much I dislike Microslop.
reply▲remember when they sued a HS student Mike Rowe for his microrowesoft website?
reply▲I am currently re-watching the HBO comedy show Silicon Valley, and oh man, is it hitting even harder this time than when it was originally released.
reply▲lloydatkinson5 hours ago
[-] Discord/Reddit moderators living up to their obnoxious stereotype as usual.
reply▲I don't know for certain, but moderators (on a company Discord) are likely random people in a 3rd world country that are payed peanuts and that is their only income. If higher ups tell them "I don't want to see the Microslop word anywhere" they just do it.
You should be angry at the higher ups that instead of saying: "maybe they are right and we can do better" they decided to hide the problem through censorship. Which, btw, always has the opposite effect of putting what you are trying to hide in the spotlight.
JasonADrury3 hours ago
[-] Spamming "microslop" is obnoxious, filtering out childish behaviour is not obnoxious.
But if you don't want childish behaviour, Discord is an ... interesting choice.