Funnily enough, every time I see the friend/foe dots/pills on a post my first thought is "that's an old-timer". I'm betting well over 75% of the current Slashdot readers don't even know it exists.
You just don't remember anything anymore. IIRC, it was implemented around 2001. It was little more than a curiosity though, you may have just bypassed the little colored "pills" on comments, but aside from being angry about having foes, or happy about getting a new friend, nothing was really done with the feature.
I think that friends' posts had an extra point of moderation calculated for your display, though that feature might not have been present in early incarnations.
