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Slashdot
Slashdot's main page layout
URL http://slashdot.org
Type of site News
Registration Optional
Owner SourceForge, Inc.
Created by Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda
Launched September 1997
Revenue Advertisement, optional subscription
Slashdot
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Slashdot, often abbreviated as /. Uniform Resource Locator is an URI which also specifies where the identified resource is available and the protocol for retrieving it SourceForge Inc ( formerly VA Software Corporation, VA Linux Systems, and VA Research, is the provider of the SourceForge Development Rob Malda (born May 10, 1976) also known as CmdrTaco, is the founder of the website Slashdot. Rob Malda (born May 10, 1976) also known as CmdrTaco, is the founder of the website Slashdot. " Anonymous Coward " is a term applied within some online communities to describe users who post without a screen name; it is a dummy name attributed to anonymous The Slashdot effect, also known as slashdotting, is the phenomenon of a popular Website linking to a smaller site causing the smaller site to slow down or even temporarily Slash (a Backronym for S lashdot- L ike A utomated S torytelling H omepage is the collection of Free software Geeks in Space was a semi-weekly Internet audio show produced from June 1999 to June 2001. ,[1] is a technology-related news website owned by SourceForge, Inc.. A website (alternatively web site or Web site, a back-construction from the Proper noun World Wide Web) is a collection of Web pages SourceForge Inc ( formerly VA Software Corporation, VA Linux Systems, and VA Research, is the provider of the SourceForge Development It features user-submitted and editor-evaluated current affairs news with a "nerdy" slant. Current affairs is a Genre of Broadcast journalism where the emphasis is on detailed analysis and discussion of News stories that have recently occurred Nerd is a term often bearing a derogatory connotation or Stereotype, that refers to a person who passionately pursues Intellectual activities Esoteric Each story on the site has an Internet forum-style comments section attached. An, or message board, is a Bulletin board system in the form of a discussion site The name "Slashdot" is described by the site's owners as "a sort of obnoxious parody of a URL", chosen to confuse those who tried to pronounce the URL of the site ("h-t-t-p-colon-slash-slash-slashdot-dot-org"). Uniform Resource Locator is an URI which also specifies where the identified resource is available and the protocol for retrieving it Hypertext Transfer Protocol ( HTTP) is a Communications protocol for the transfer of information on the Internet. The slash ( /) is a punctuation mark It is also called a virgule, diagonal, stroke, forward slash, oblique dash, [2]

The summaries for the stories are generally submitted by Slashdot's own readers with editors accepting or rejecting these contributions for general posting. While Slashdot's haphazard editorial style produced a unique voice in the pre-blog age, users frequently post criticisms of perceived arbitrary or biased editorial choices. Editing Language, Images or Sound through correction condensation organization and other modifications in various media Though the site predates the modern concept of the weblog, Slashdot's architecture is commonly compared to that of modern blogs. A blog (a contraction of the term " Web log " is a Web site, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary descriptions of The content management system, Slash, has long been available under the GNU General Public License. A content management system ( CMS) is a computer application used to create edit manage and publish content in a consistently organized fashion Slash (a Backronym for S lashdot- L ike A utomated S torytelling H omepage is the collection of Free software

Contents

Editors

Created in September 1997 by Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda, Slashdot is now owned by SourceForge, Inc.. Rob Malda (born May 10, 1976) also known as CmdrTaco, is the founder of the website Slashdot. SourceForge Inc ( formerly VA Software Corporation, VA Linux Systems, and VA Research, is the provider of the SourceForge Development The site is run primarily by Malda, Jeff "Hemos" Bates (who handles articles and book reviews and sells advertising) and Robin "Roblimo" Miller who helps handle some of the more managerial tasks of the site, as well as posting stories. Jeff Bates, also known as " hemos " is the co-founder of Slashdot, along with Rob Malda ("CmdrTaco" Robin "Roblimo" Miller (born October 30, 1952) is Editor in Chief of Open Source Technology Group, the company that owns Slashdot, The site is headquartered in Dexter, Michigan. Dexter is a village in Washtenaw County in the US state of Michigan.

Moderation

To prevent abusive comments, a moderation system has been implemented whereby every comment posted (including those posted anonymously) has a starting score which can be incremented or decremented by semi-randomly chosen moderators. On Internet Websites which invite users to post comments a moderation system is the method the Webmaster chooses to sort contributions which are irrelevant Sortition, also known as allotment, is an equal-chance method of selection by some form of lottery such as drawing coloured pebbles from a bag When moderating, the moderator chooses a given descriptor (such as "insightful", "funny", "troll") and each descriptor has a positive or negative value associated with it. An Internet troll, or simply troll in Internet slang, is someone who posts controversial and irrelevant or off-topic messages in an online community such as an As such, posts not only are scored, but characterized ("20% insightful, 80% interesting"). Users can configure the value of each descriptor. The descriptors available are normal, offtopic, flamebait, troll, redundant, insightful, interesting, informative, funny, overrated, and underrated.

Moderation points added to a comment are also added to a user's karma score. Having high karma gives one bonus point to posts made by that author. (Being a registered poster adds one more, so that the highest normally achieved starting score is two).

Conversely, users with low karma have penalties imposed on them. People that post comments designed to get more karma, for example mirroring a linked article or presenting a banal groupthink opinion or lame joke, are often referred to as karma whores. Those who can moderate are selected by their karma score and number of meta moderations (and maybe other criteria). Slashdot editors, including Rob Malda ("CmdrTaco"), can moderate limitlessly. Rob Malda (born May 10, 1976) also known as CmdrTaco, is the founder of the website Slashdot. Moderator access for non-editors is time limited to a few days.

A given comment can have any integer score from −1 to +5, and Slashdot users can set a personal threshold where no comments with a lesser score are displayed. A person browsing the comments at a threshold of 1 will not see comments with a score of −1 or 0 but will see all others.

A meta-moderation system was implemented to moderate the moderators and help contain abuses. A meta-moderation system is an arrangement used on some Internet Websites (such as Internet forums Blogs and news websites which invite user comments

Karma is implemented in the Slash Content management system and hence is generally used by all the sites that use this software. Slash (a Backronym for S lashdot- L ike A utomated S torytelling H omepage is the collection of Free software A content management system ( CMS) is a computer application used to create edit manage and publish content in a consistently organized fashion

Recently Slashdot has implemented a moderation and comments system which obfuscates posts with lower scores. An example of this can be viewed under the post "Google Vows to Increase Gmail Limit" [1] All posts with scores −1 through 3 are hidden by default when not logged in.

Meta-moderation

Meta-moderation is a Slashdot mechanism whereby a reader can volunteer to review the correctness of moderation decisions. The reader is presented with eight to ten moderation decisions made by other readers and is asked to say whether or not those moderation choices were fair, by reading the post which was moderated and considering the moderation given.

The correctness of users' initial moderations, as determined by the users who are meta-moderating them, affects how often the initial moderators are given moderation points[3], so a reader who moderates but constantly has his moderation decisions marked incorrect under meta-moderation will only infrequently be given moderation points.

Slashdotting

Main article: Slashdot effect

Slashdot has about 5. The Slashdot effect, also known as slashdotting, is the phenomenon of a popular Website linking to a smaller site causing the smaller site to slow down or even temporarily 5 million users per month,[4] and encourages its readers to read the articles linked to in the summary. This leads to a sudden upsurge in people visiting any website linked to, a phenomenon known as the "Slashdot effect". The Slashdot effect, also known as slashdotting, is the phenomenon of a popular Website linking to a smaller site causing the smaller site to slow down or even temporarily Sometimes the website's server is unable to cope with the level of traffic, and the site becomes unresponsive: the site is said to be "slashdotted". The term web server can mean one of two things A Computer program that is responsible for accepting HTTP requests from web clients which are The Slashdot effect, also known as slashdotting, is the phenomenon of a popular Website linking to a smaller site causing the smaller site to slow down or even temporarily

The demand on the servers is reduced as the Slashdot story is moved down or off the front page from new stories being posted. Some webmasters have responded (either before or during a Slashdotting) by replacing dynamic content with static content on that page, to reduce the load and allow their servers to handle more requests. Rarely, a webmaster will take the entire page down or replace it with a blank page temporarily if the traffic is not wanted. Today, most major websites can handle the surge of traffic, but Slashdotting continues to occur on smaller or independent sites.

Article sections

As of May 1, 2006, Slashdot articles are divided into the following sections:[5]

The Apache and BSD sections are still posted to, although they no longer enjoy a place in the main site navigation. The Geeks in Space section was a web audio broadcast featuring several of the editors of Slashdot; there have been no recent updates to this section.

Criticism

Some point out the frequency of reposts (also known as "dupes"), where editors approve articles for the front page, often slightly re-worded, that have previously appeared on the site. Since the major responsibility of editors is to sift through article submissions, reposts leave the impression of incompetence. Some readers have called for mandatory procedures to search for Slashdot dupes before an article is published. [6]

Culture

As Slashdot has existed for so many years, it has developed its own subculture, especially running jokes and gags, and the continued obsession with repeating certain quotes or phrases, as well as the use of obscure puns. These include:

Additionally, the ID of the Slashdot user is sometimes regarded as a sign of how 1337 the user is, although this is not taken very literally. Leet or Eleet (sometimes rendered l33t, 1337, or 31337) also known as Leetspeak, is an Alphabet used primarily on the Having a user ID that is a prime number or other significant mathematical number is also valued. In Mathematics, a prime number (or a prime) is a Natural number which has exactly two distinct natural number Divisors 1 Some people have successfully sold their Slashdot ID (usually because it was a low 4 digit or smaller), although the website's policy on this isn't exactly clear. Slashdot assigns user ID numbers in the order that the user registered; i. e. , lower user ID numbers correspond to older accounts. A 3 digit user ID was among a number of items that were auctioned for the benefit of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The Electronic Frontier Foundation ( EFF) is an international non-profit advocacy and legal organization based in the United States with the stated purpose of being dedicated [10]

Recently, a Slashdot community poll indicated that the 'In Soviet Russia. . . ' meme is considered the most popular[11] in Slashdot's first 10 years. The grits meme received the least votes.

Audience

While Slashdot's core audience is often said to consist of Linux enthusiasts and various other enthusiasts of the open source software movement, there is a significant Windows audience as well. Linux (commonly pronounced ˈlɪnəks Open source is a development methodology which offers practical accessibility to a product's source (goods and knowledge A poll on Slashdot suggests that approximately half of all Slashdot visitors use Microsoft Windows as their operating system, a third use some form of Linux, and above ten percent use Mac OS X. Microsoft Windows is a series of Software Operating systems and Graphical user interfaces produced by Microsoft. An operating system (commonly abbreviated OS and O/S) is the software component of a Computer system that is responsible for the management and coordination Linux (commonly pronounced ˈlɪnəks Mac OS X (mæk oʊ ɛs tɛn is a line of computer Operating systems developed marketed and sold by Apple Inc, the latest of which is pre-loaded on all currently But only 32% claim not to use Windows. [12][13] Polls on Slashdot, like most on the Internet, may be unreliable (all Slashdot polls include the disclaimer "If you're using these numbers to do anything important, you're insane"). The ongoing assumption that Slashdot is Linux-oriented comes from historical reasons and from its famous Bill Gates "Borg" icon, as well as the strong anti-Microsoft postings made by Slashdot members. If you would like to experiment with Wikipedia please copy The Borg are a fictional pseudo- race of Cyborgs depicted in the Star Trek franchise Despite this reputation, a significant number of Slashdot stories are related to Windows video games or applications, or Microsoft security bulletins. A video game is a Game that involves interaction with a User interface to generate visual feedback on a video device.

Famous or well-known active "Slashdotters" include:

Several engineers from NASA involved in the Mars rover exploration projects have also participated in Slashdot's forums. ***************************************************************************************** * * Jimmy Donal "Jimbo" Wales (born August 7 1966 is an American Internet entrepreneur known Richard William "Wil" Wheaton III (born July 29, 1972) is an American Writer and Actor. id Software (ɪd officially is an American computer game developer based in Mesquite, Texas, a suburb of Dallas. John D Carmack II (born August 20 1970) is an American Game programmer, and the co-founder of Id Software. Nmap is a security scanner originally written by Gordon Lyon ( Fyodor) Gordon Lyon (perhaps better known by his Pseudonym Fyodor Vaskovich) is a network security expert Open source programmer writer and self-proclaimed A gnome is a Mythical creature characterized by its extremely small size and subterranean lifestyle Mono is a project led by Novell (formerly by Ximian) to create an Ecma standard compliant. Miguel de Icaza (born c 1972 is a Mexican Free software programmer best known for starting the GNOME and Mono projects Freenet is a decentralized Censorship -resistant Distributed data store originally designed by Ian Clarke. Ian Clarke may refer to Ian Clarke (computer scientist (born February 16 1977 an Irish computer programmer the original designer and lead developer of Freenet ReiserFS is a general-purpose journaled Computer File system designed and implemented by a team at Namesys led by Hans Reiser Hans Thomas Reiser (born December 19, 1963) is an American Computer programmer, the owner of Namesys, and the primary developer Open source is a development methodology which offers practical accessibility to a product's source (goods and knowledge Bruce Perens is a Computer programmer and advocate in the Open source community. MySQL is a Relational database management system (RDBMS which has more than 11 million installations Mårten Gustaf Mickos (born November 6, 1962 in Espoo, Finland) was chief executive officer ( CEO) of MySQL AB. Eric Steven Raymond (born December 4 1957 often referred to as ESR, is a Computer programmer, author and Open source software advocate O'Reilly Media (formerly O'Reilly & Associates) is an American media company established by Tim O'Reilly Tim O'Reilly (Tadhg Ó Raghallaigh is the founder of O'Reilly Media (formerly O'Reilly & Associates and a supporter of the Free software and open source Samba is a Free software re-implementation of SMB/CIFS networking protocol, originally developed by Australian Andrew Tridgell Jeremy Allison is a Computer programmer famous for his contributions to the Free software community notably to Samba, a re-implementation of Clifford Stoll (or Cliff Stoll) is a US Astronomer, Computer expert and Author. Alan Cox (born July 22, 1968 in Solihull, England) is a British Computer programmer heavily involved in the development Linspire, previously known as LindowsOS, was a commercial Operating system based on Debian GNU/Linux and later Ubuntu. Michael Robertson may refer to Michael Robertson (tennis player 1963 (born 1963 South African born U Ingo Molnár, currently employed by Red Hat, is a Hungarian Linux kernel hacker. Nagle's algorithm, named after John Nagle is a means of improving the efficiency of TCP/IP networks by reducing the number of packets that need to be sent over the network

Appearances in books

Slashdot has been named, either directly or indirectly, in a number of works:

Appearances in popular fiction

Slashdot has been used or mentioned in a number of fictional works, including:

Slashdot Japan

Slashdot Japan is owned by VA Linux Systems Japan, led by Oliver M. SourceForge Inc ( formerly VA Software Corporation, VA Linux Systems, and VA Research, is the provider of the SourceForge Development Bolzer. It started beta test in 2001-05-09, and began operation in 2001-05-28. However, the first Slashdot Japan news article was published in 2001-04-05. [14]

The site carries some of the original Slashdot articles, and localized Japanese news.

Timeline

References

  1. ^ Favicon of Slashdot.org
  2. ^ Slashdot FAQ: What does the name "Slashdot" mean?
  3. ^ Source: Slashdot's Meta-moderation section of the FAQ: http://slashdot.org/faq/metamod.shtml
  4. ^ Naughton, John. "Websites that changed the world", The Observer, 2006-08-13. Year 2006 ( MMVI) was a Common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. Events 3114 BC - According to the Lounsbury correlation the start of the Maya calendar. Retrieved on 2007-05-05. Year 2007 ( MMVII) was a Common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. Events 553 - The Second Council of Constantinople begins 1215 - Rebel Barons renounce their allegiance to King John  
  5. ^ Slashdot FAQ: What are the Slashdot Sections for?. Slashdot. org.
  6. ^ On the matter of Slashdot story selection - At that day, complaints about Slashdot story selection process were appearing on all published stories, which prompted a response from Slashdot editors
  7. ^ The 3 Stages of SCO Business Plan...
  8. ^ Slashdot: UK Schools Bans WiFi Due To Health Concerns
  9. ^ Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you: CTDF
  10. ^ Slashdot | Slashdot 10-Year Anniversary Charity Auction for the EFF
  11. ^ Slashdot Poll
  12. ^ Slashdot Poll
  13. ^ Slashdot Poll: My Main Computer Runs... (2002)
  14. ^ Wind River Systems BSDi
  15. ^ Slashdot | Become 007 On The Internet
  16. ^ Slashdot | Ask Slashdot:The Debut
  17. ^ Slashdot | Slashdot Gets Hacked
  18. ^ Slashdot | Beware of the Slashdot Effect
  19. ^ Slashdot | Slashdot Acquired by Andover.net
  20. ^ Slashdot | Slashdot's Meta Moderation
  21. ^ Slashdot | Slashdot's 10,000th Story
  22. ^ Slashdot | The Slashdot DDoS: What Happened?
  23. ^ Slashdot | Yup, Somebody Cracked Slashdot
  24. ^ Slashdot | Scientologists Force Comment Off Slashdot
  25. ^ Slashdot | Welcome to Slashdot 2.2
  26. ^ Slashdot | Slashdot Code Update
  27. ^ Oracle Breakable After All
  28. ^ Journal of sllort (442574)
  29. ^ Slashdot | Slashdot Subscribers Now See The Future
  30. ^ NSLU2 Now More Useful
  31. ^ Slashdot | Slashdot Goes Political: Announcing politics.slashdot.org
  32. ^ Slashdot: News for nerds, stuff that matters
  33. ^ Slashdotter :: Now I Have a Blog Too
  34. ^ Slashdot | Slashdot CSS Redesign Winner Announced
  35. ^ richardcpeterson - Slashdot User
  36. ^ Bar Performer Arrested For Copyright Violations
  37. ^ Rumsfeld Stepping Down
  38. ^ Slashdot | Slashdot Posting Bug Infuriates Haggard Admins

External links

Dictionary

slashdot

-verb

  1. (computing, internet) To render a web site slow or unusable via the unusually large number of page requests that result from a link on a very popular web site.
  2. (Can we verify(+) this sense?) To overwhelm, swamp.
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