Slashdot, sometimes abbreviated as
/., is a technology-related news
websiteA website is a collection of related web pages, images, videos or other digital assets that are addressed with a common domain name or IP address in an Internet Protocol-based network...
owned by
SourceForge, Inc.SourceForge, Inc. , formerly VA Software Corporation, and VA Linux Systems is the provider of the SourceForge Development Intelligence application. The company is headquartered in Mountain View, California.SourceForge, Inc...
It features user-submitted and editor-evaluated
current affairsCurrent affairs is a genre of broadcast journalism where the emphasis is on detailed analysis and discussion of news stories that have recently occurred or are ongoing at the time of broadcast....
news with a "
nerdNerd is a term often bearing a derogatory connotation or stereotype, that refers to a person who passionately pursues intellectual activities, esoteric knowledge, or other obscure interests that are age inappropriate rather than engaging in more social or popular activities...
y" slant. Each story on the site has an
Internet forumAn ', or message board, is an online discussion site. It originated as the modern equivalent of a traditional bulletin board, and a technological evolution of the dialup bulletin board system. From a technological standpoint, forums or boards are web applications managing user-generated content...
-style comments section attached. 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
URLIn computing, a Uniform Resource Locator is a subset of the Uniform Resource Identifier that specifies where an identified resource is available and the mechanism for retrieving it. In popular usage and in many technical documents and verbal discussions it is often incorrectly used as a synonym...
of the site ("h-t-t-p-colon-slash-slash-slashdot-dot-org").
The summaries for the stories are generally submitted by Slashdot's own readers with editors accepting or rejecting these contributions for general posting. Slashdot itself is well known for its pro-open source bias. Though the site predates the modern concept of the weblog, Slashdot's architecture is similar to that of modern blogs. The
content management systemA content management system such as a document management system is a computer application used to manage work flow needed to collaboratively create, edit, review, index, search, publish and archive various kinds of digital media and electronic text.CMSs are frequently used for storing,...
,
SlashSlash is the collection of free software Perl modules and stand-alone programs which runs Slashdot, one of the oldest and most popular collaborative weblogs in existence. Slash was originally written by Rob Malda...
, has long been available under the
GNU General Public LicenseThe GNU General Public License is a widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU project....
.
Editors
Created in September 1997 by
Rob "CmdrTaco" MaldaRob Malda , also known as CmdrTaco, is the founder of the website Slashdot. He is a graduate of Hope College and Holland Christian High School....
, Slashdot is now owned by
SourceForge, Inc.SourceForge, Inc. , formerly VA Software Corporation, and VA Linux Systems is the provider of the SourceForge Development Intelligence application. The company is headquartered in Mountain View, California.SourceForge, Inc...
The site is run primarily by Malda,
Jeff "Hemos" BatesJeff Bates, aka hemos, is the co-founder of Slashdot, along with Rob Malda .He is also the Vice President of Editorial Operations at SourceForge.-External links:*...
(who handles articles and book reviews and sells advertising) and
Robin "Roblimo" MillerRobin "Roblimo" Miller was the Editor in Chief of Open Source Technology Group, the company that owns Slashdot, SourceForge.net, freshmeat, Linux.com, NewsForge, and ThinkGeek during 2000-2008....
who helps handle some of the more managerial tasks of the site, as well as posting stories. The site is headquartered in
Dexter, MichiganDexter is a village in Washtenaw County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The majority of the village is in the northwest corner of Scio Township with a small portion in Webster Township. The population was 2,338 at the 2000 census...
.
Moderation
To prevent abusive comments, a
moderation systemOn Internet websites which invite users to post comments, a moderation system is the method the webmaster chooses to sort contributions which are irrelevant, obscene, illegal, or insulting with regards to useful or informative contributions....
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 moderatorsSortition, also known as allotment, is an equal-chance method of selection by some form of lottery such as drawing coloured pebbles from a bag. It is used particularly to allot decision makers. In Ancient Athenian Democracy sortition was the primary method for appointing officials, a system that...
. When moderating, the moderator chooses a given descriptor (such as "insightful", "funny", "
trollIn Internet slang, a troll is someone who posts controversial, inflammatory, irrelevant or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room or blog, with the primary intent of provoking other users into an emotional responseor of otherwise disrupting normal...
") and each descriptor has a positive or negative value associated with it. 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 add to a user's karma. 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 possibly other factors such as number of meta moderations. Slashdot editors, including
Rob MaldaRob Malda , also known as CmdrTaco, is the founder of the website Slashdot. He is a graduate of Hope College and Holland Christian High School....
("CmdrTaco"), can moderate limitlessly.
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 systemA meta-moderation system is an arrangement used on some Internet websites which invite user comments.Users rate how good a job moderators are doing. The most famous site with such a feature is Slashdot...
was implemented to moderate the moderators and help contain abuses. However, meta-moderation does not address bias problems, e.g. where moderators tend to overlook comments that don't already have a high score (e.g. new comments).
Karma is implemented in the
SlashSlash is the collection of free software Perl modules and stand-alone programs which runs Slashdot, one of the oldest and most popular collaborative weblogs in existence. Slash was originally written by Rob Malda...
Content management systemA content management system such as a document management system is a computer application used to manage work flow needed to collaboratively create, edit, review, index, search, publish and archive various kinds of digital media and electronic text.CMSs are frequently used for storing,...
and hence is generally used by all the sites that use this software.
All posts with scores −1 through 3 are hidden by default when not logged in.
Although the moderation system usually works well, it is not immune to abuse. Supporters of the
Free Software FoundationThe Free Software Foundation is a non-profit corporation founded by Richard Stallman on 4 October 1985 to support the free software movement, a copyleft-based movement which aims to promote the universal freedom to distribute and modify computer software...
in particular tend to use moderation points as a means of enforcing sympathetic opinions with relevant articles.
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, so a reader who moderates but constantly has their moderation decisions marked incorrect under meta-moderation will only infrequently be given moderation points.
Slashdotting
Slashdot has about 5.5 million users per month, 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 effectThe Slashdot effect, also known as slashdotting, occurs when a popular website links to a smaller site, causing a massive increase in traffic. This overloads the smaller site, causing it to slow down or even temporarily close. The name stems from the huge influx of web traffic that results from...
". Sometimes the website's
serverThe term web server or webserver can mean one of two things:# A computer program that is responsible for accepting HTTP requests from clients , and serving them HTTP responses along with optional data contents, which usually are web pages such as HTML documents and linked objects .# A computer that...
is unable to cope with the level of traffic, and the site becomes unresponsive: the site is said to be "slashdotted".
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
, Slashdot articles are divided into the following sections:
- Apple • Articles related to products from Apple Inc., such as Mac OS X
Mac OS X is a line of computer operating systems developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc., and since 2002 has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...
, iPodiPod is a brand of portable media players designed and marketed by Apple and launched on . The product line-up includes the hard drive-based iPod Classic, the touchscreen iPod Touch, the video-capable iPod Nano, and the compact iPod Shuffle. The iPhone can function as an iPod but is generally...
, as well as items that directly compete with those products.
- Ask Slashdot • Articles that seek advice from the Slashdot readership about jobs, computer hardware, software glitches, philosophical problems, etc.
- Backslash • This section contains editor's picks of best comments from a recent popular article, primarily intended for those who do not want to read hundreds of high-moderated comments from the original thread.
- Books • This section is for original book reviews on (not necessarily) tech books.
- Developers • News about the software, or anything that directly affects the practice of programming. (e.g. new programming languages, useful techniques, licensing issues)
- Entertainment
- Games
- Hardware
- Idle • A page dedicated to humorous articles, pictures, and videos on the internet.
- Interviews • Slashdot occasionally has interviews with various people. Questions are posted as comments in an initial story and 10 highly rated questions are sent to the interviewee; the answers are posted in a follow up story.
- Information Technology (IT) • Anything that people with "Information Technology" in their job description might be interested to know.
- Linux • The Linux section is for news specific to GNU/Linux
Linux is a generic term referring to Unix-like computer operating systems based on the Linux kernel. Their development is one of the most prominent examples of free and open source software collaboration; typically all the underlying source code can be used, freely modified, and redistributed,...
- Mobile
- News
- Politics • This section is for news relevant to United States government politics. It was created primarily to cover the 2004 US Presidential Election, but now exists for occasional stories that are related to U.S. Politics.
- Science • This is the place for science articles. Cool technology, space telescope observations, interesting medical research.
- Technology
- Your Rights Online (YRO) • News affecting your ability to live as a free, responsible person online. Such examples are Spam, invasions of privacy, and onerous licenses. Copyrights, patents, intellectual property, and other lawsuits often appear here.
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
One recurring problem is 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. One proposed solution is to have mandatory procedures to search for Slashdot dupes before an article is published.
Slashdot has also been accused of "dumbing down" since introducing a new "idle" section in 2008. Typically articles from the "idle" section are tagged "stupid," "idleispants," or "pleasestop." Often the comments express contempt for the section and the fact that it was posted on the front page.
Culture
Over time, Slashdot has developed many in-jokes, quotes and puns which regularly feature on the website.
These include:
- "In Soviet Russia, <thing> <action> you!" (the Yakov Smirnoff
Yakov Naumovich Pokhis , better known as Yakov Smirnoff, is a Ukrainian-born American comedian, painter and psychology professor...
Russian Reversal)
- Goatse (For years, a common tactic of Slashdot pranksters was to place comments with links which appeared to be article-relevant sites but were in fact links to the goatse.cx site, which featured nothing but a shock image
A shock site is a website that is intended to be offensive, disgusting or disturbing to its viewers, containing materials of high shock value which is also considered distasteful and crude, and is generally of a pornographic, scatological, extremely violent, extremely profane, or extremely...
.)
- "Hot Grits
Grits is an aboriginal American corn-based food common in the Southern United States, consisting of coarsely ground corn.Grits is similar to other thick maize-based porridges from around the world such as polenta. It also has a resemblance to farina, a thinner porridge. The word leads back to the...
" TrollIn Internet slang, a troll is someone who posts controversial, inflammatory, irrelevant or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room or blog, with the primary intent of provoking other users into an emotional responseor of otherwise disrupting normal...
(Referring to a probably apocryphal story about Southern women pouring hot grits mixed with lyeLye is a corrosive alkaline substance, commonly sodium hydroxide or historically potassium hydroxide . Previously, lye was among the many different alkalis leached from hardwood ashes...
into the pants of unfaithful male lovers to maimMutilation or maiming is an act or physical injury that degrades the appearance or function of any living body, usually without causing death.- Usage of term :...
them; usually combined with Natalie Portman references)
- “Imagine a Beowulf cluster
Originally referring to a specific computer built in 1994, Beowulf is a class of computer clusters similar to the original NASA system. They are high-performance parallel computing clusters of inexpensive personal computer hardware...
of those” (Slashdot's early history coincided with the rise to prominence of the Linux-based parallel computing Beowulf system; speculation about powerful new computers arrayed in a Beowulf cluster quickly became an overused comment.)
- “You must be new here.” (Invoked frequently after a poster complains of a common Slashdot issue such as duplicate stories or perceived bias by certain editors) first mention in 1999
- “But does it run Linux?” (especially regarding Linux devices)
- "I, for one, welcome our new <thing> overlords." (Often facetiously used in reference to technology that is supposedly going to become universal and inevitable. This references the Simpsons episode Deep Space Homer
"Deep Space Homer" is the fifteenth episode of The Simpsons' fifth season and first aired on February 24, 1994. The episode was directed by Carlos Baeza and was the only episode of The Simpsons written by David Mirkin, who was also the executive producer at the time...
in which reporter Kent BrockmanKent Brockman is a character in the animated television series The Simpsons. He is voiced by Harry Shearer and first appeared in the episode "Krusty Gets Busted"...
welcomes what he believes to be "our new insect overlords" but which are in fact only ants.)
- "I don't believe in censorsh%!$*%& [NO CARRIER]" (referencing a NO CARRIER signal from a disconnected modem)
- "Warning! Do not look into laser with remaining eye!" (with the word "laser" replaced by any other dangerous optical device). This is a joke that invokes the image of peering into an infrared laser to see if it's on, in the same way that one may stare down a hosepipe to see if it's blocked.
- “I <cite silly personal offense>, you insensitive clod!” which originates from a Calvin and Hobbes
Calvin and Hobbes was a syndicated comic strip written and illustrated by Bill Watterson. It follows the humorous antics of Calvin, an imaginative six-year old boy, and Hobbes, his energetic and sardonic stuffed tiger. The pair are named after John Calvin, a 16th-century French Reformation...
comic strip dated 1986-02-14
- Defective by Design
Defective by Design is an anti-digital rights management initiative by the Free Software Foundation. DRM technology, dubbed "digital restrictions management" by opponents, restricts users’ ability to freely use their purchased movies, music, literature, software, and hardware in ways they are...
(Referring to Microsoft products, DRMDigital rights management is a generic term for access control technologies that can be used by hardware manufacturers, publishers, copyright holders and individuals to try to impose limitations on the usage of digital content and devices...
, or any technology that undermines the user's best interests)
- 'Junis' referencing the infamous story , in which an Afghani named 'Junis' purportedly was back online via his Commodore computer. Used to describe doubt of authenticity of a posted claim, such as 'Junis, is that you?"
- "<Some action>. Cancel or Allow?" (Referring to Windows Vista
Windows Vista is a line of operating systems developed by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, tablet PCs, and media center PCs...
’s User Account ControlUser Account Control is a technology and security infrastructure introduced with Microsoft's Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 operating system. It aims to improve the security of Microsoft Windows by limiting application software to standard user privileges until an administrator authorizes...
, which is reputed to frequently ask for permission to perform an action.)
- "Stephen King
Stephen Edwin King is an American writer of contemporary horror fiction, science fiction, fantasy literature, and screenplays. An estimated 300–350 million copies of King's novels and short story collections have been sold, and many of his stories have been adapted for film, television, and...
is dead" variants (Referring to a popular early Slashdot troll which claimed to be posting breaking news that author Stephen King had died)
- Using "Young Sebastian" to refer to an innocent child.
- The high system requirements for Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is a multinational computer technology corporation that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of software products for computing devices...
Windows VistaWindows Vista is a line of operating systems developed by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, tablet PCs, and media center PCs...
or the game CrysisCrysis is a science fiction first-person shooter video game developed by Crytek Frankfurt, published by Electronic Arts for Microsoft Windows, and released in November 2007. It is the first game of a trilogy. A separate game entitled Crysis Warhead was released on September 12, 2008 and follows...
. Frequently appears in response to articles on supercomputing.
- References to Steve Ballmer
Steven Anthony Ballmer is an American businessman who has been the chief executive officer of Microsoft Corporation since January 2000. Ballmer is the second person after Roberto Goizueta to become a billionaire in U.S...
throwing a chair.
- References to William Shatner
William Alan Shatner is a Canadian actor and novelist. He gained worldwide fame and became a cultural icon for his portrayal of Captain James T. Kirk, captain of the starship USS Enterprise, in the television series Star Trek from 1966 to 1969, Star Trek: The Animated Series and in seven of the...
's halting vocal style when a user is deemed to have either overused or incorrectly used commas.
- Most of the online polls seen on Slashdot include an option to vote for CowboyNeal, the account name of editor Jonathan Pater, with contributors feigning outrage when it is left off.
- “In Korea, only old people use ” (origin)
- References to the Back to the Future
Back to the Future is a 1985 science fiction adventure film directed by Robert Zemeckis, co-written by Bob Gale and produced by Steven Spielberg. The film stars Michael J. Fox as Marty McFly, as well as Christopher Lloyd, Crispin Glover, Lea Thompson and Thomas F. Wilson...
trilogy.
- "itsatrap" tag and comment (sometimes "I have a bad feeling about this.."), reciting quotes from Admiral Ackbar
Admiral Ackbar is a character in the Star Wars fictional universe. He first appears in Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi and later is a supporting character in the Star Wars Expanded Universe of novels, video games, and comic books.- Depiction :As described in the Expanded Universe series,...
and Han SoloHan Solo, played by Harrison Ford, is a fictional smuggler and "reckless mercenary" in the Star Wars franchise. Introduced in the film Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope , Solo and his Wookiee first mate, Chewbacca , become involved in the Rebel Alliance against the evil Galactic Empire...
from Star WarsStar Wars is an epic space opera franchise initially conceived by George Lucas. The first film in the franchise was originally released on May 25, 1977, by 20th Century Fox, and became a worldwide pop culture phenomenon, spawning two immediate sequels, released at three-year intervals...
. Usually used with articles describing a "generous" or "benevolent" act by a company or entity not usually known for either, and maybe as an allusion that the act has a negative ulterior motive. (example: "Microsoft To Open Source Some of Silverlight")
- “There. Fixed that for you.” or "FTFY". Used after humorously or insightfully modifying the parent post.
- "Sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their heads." Quoting Dr. Evil in Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery
Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, released in 1997, is the first film of the Austin Powers series. It was directed by Jay Roach and written by Mike Myers who also stars in the title role. Myers also plays Dr. Evil, Austin Powers' arch-enemy...
. Inevitably appearing in comments on any story involving laser technology (or sharks). Often alluded to simply as "fricken' lasers".
- "BSD is dying" lengthy, frequently repeated troll post which explains that the BSD
Berkeley Software Distribution is the UNIX operating system derivative developed and distributed by the Computer Systems Research Group of the University of California, Berkeley, from 1977 to 1995....
family of operating systems are moribund. The general form "NetcraftNetcraft is an Internet services company based in Bath, England.Netcraft provides web server and web hosting market-share analysis, including web server and operating system detection...
confirms it: <some software> is dying" might also be spotted. Example: http://bsd.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=228247&cid=18495137
- Libraries of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress and is the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and holds the largest number of books. The head...
as a measure of data capacity. Such as in an article about a new hard disk capacity breakthrough "How many Libraries of Congress is that?". Relates to the amount of data that would be required to store a digitized version of the library.
- References to the release of game Duke Nukem Forever
Duke Nukem Forever is an unreleased first-person shooter video game that was under development from 1997 until 2009 by the software developer 3D Realms...
, which was first promised in 1997. This took the place of the earlier long delayed but eventually delivered DaikatanaDaikatana is a first-person shooter computer game developed by Ion Storm and published by Eidos Interactive. Released on April 14, 2000 for Windows, it was led by John Romero. The game is known as one of the major commercial failures of the computer game industry. Daikatana was later ported to the...
.
- Users often humorously ask for an explanation of a difficult subject to be restated in the form of a car analogy.
- References to the 2008 feature film Gran Torino
Gran Torino is a American drama film directed and produced by Clint Eastwood, who also stars in the film. The film marks Eastwood's return to a lead acting role after four years, his last leading role having been in Million Dollar Baby. The film features a predominantly Hmong cast, as well as...
, particularly the phrase, "Get off my lawn!"
Slashdot also has a system of "tags" where users can categorize a story with a lowercase tag with no spaces, limited to 64 characters.
- "whatcouldpossiblygowrong" (What could possibly go wrong?) - a tag expressing a perception of risk, especially catastrophic risk.
- "suddenoutbreakofcommonsense" (Sudden outbreak of common sense?) - a tag used when the community feels that the subject of the story has finally figured out something obvious, or when some legal judgment is strongly approved of.
- "correlationnotcausation" (Correlation does not imply causation) - A tag often used when scientific articles lack the direct evidence. Examples of the articles are "Crime Reduction Linked To Lead-Free Gasoline" and "Study Proves Having Fat Friends Makes You Fat."
- Use of tag getyourasstomars ("Get your ass to Mars", from the movie Total Recall
Total Recall is a 1990 American science fiction action film. The film features Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sharon Stone, based on the Philip K. Dick story "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale". The film was directed by Paul Verhoeven and written by Ronald Shusett, Dan O’Bannon, Jon Povill, and Gary...
) in almost all articles about mars and space exploration.
Additionally, the ID of the Slashdot user is sometimes regarded as a sign of how
LeetLeet or eleet , also known as "leetspeak", is an alphabet used primarily on the Internet for the English language. It uses various combinations of ASCII characters to replace Latinate letters. The term is derived from the word "elite", and the usage it describes is a specialized form of symbolic...
the user is, although this is not taken very literally. Having a user ID that is a
prime numberIn mathematics, a prime number is a natural number which has exactly two distinct natural number divisors: 1 and itself. The first twenty-six prime numbers are:An infinitude of prime numbers exists, as demonstrated by Euclid around 300 BC. The number 1 is by definition not a prime number...
or other significant mathematical number is also valued. 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 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 FoundationThe Electronic Frontier Foundation is an international non-profit advocacy and legal organization based in the United States with the stated purpose of being dedicated to preserving the right to freedom of speech, such as protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, in the...
.
Recently, a Slashdot community poll indicated that the
'In Soviet Russia...' meme is considered the most popular in Slashdot's first 10 years. The grits meme received the fewest votes.
Audience
While Slashdot's core audience is often said to consist of
LinuxLinux is a generic term referring to Unix-like computer operating systems based on the Linux kernel. Their development is one of the most prominent examples of free and open source software collaboration; typically all the underlying source code can be used, freely modified, and redistributed,...
enthusiasts and various other enthusiasts of the
open sourceOpen source is an approach to the design, development, and distribution of software, offering practical accessibility to a software's source code. Some consider open source as one of various possible design approaches, while others consider it a critical strategic element of their operations...
software movement, there is a significant Windows audience as well. A 2002 poll on Slashdot suggests that approximately half of all Slashdot visitors use
Microsoft WindowsMicrosoft Windows is a series of software operating systems and graphical user interfaces produced by Microsoft. Microsoft first introduced an operating environment named Windows in November 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces...
as their
operating systemAn operating system is an interface between hardware and user which is responsible for the management and coordination of activities and the sharing of the resources of the computer that acts as a host for computing applications run on the machine. As a host, one of the purposes of an operating...
, a third use some form of
LinuxLinux is a generic term referring to Unix-like computer operating systems based on the Linux kernel. Their development is one of the most prominent examples of free and open source software collaboration; typically all the underlying source code can be used, freely modified, and redistributed,...
, and above ten percent use
Mac OS XMac OS X is a line of computer operating systems developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc., and since 2002 has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...
. In 2008 only 32% claimed to not use Windows. 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).
As the "News for Nerds," tagline implies, many of Slashdot's articles deal with scientific subjects and events, among the others listed above.
Famous or well-known active "Slashdotters" include:
- Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a free, web-based, collaborative, multilingual encyclopedia project supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Its name is a portmanteau of the words wiki and encyclopedia...
co-founder Jimmy WalesJimmy Donal "Jimbo" Wales is an American Internet entrepreneur and a co-founder and promoter of Wikipedia. •...
- Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak
Stephen Gary "Woz" Wozniak is an American computer engineer who founded Apple Computer, Inc. with Steve Jobs. His inventions and machines are credited with contributing significantly to the personal computer revolution of the 1970s. Wozniak created the Apple I and Apple II computers in...
- Writer and actor Wil Wheaton
Richard William "Wil" Wheaton III is an American actor and writer. As the former, he is best known for his portrayals of Wesley Crusher on the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation, as Gordie LaChance in the film Stand by Me, as prep-school rebel Joseph 'Joey' Trotta in Toy Soldiers,...
- id Software
id Software is an American video game development company from Mesquite, Texas. The company was founded in 1991 by four members of the computer company Softdisk: programmers John Carmack and John Romero, game designer Tom Hall, and artist Adrian Carmack...
technical director John Carmack
- Nmap
Nmap is a security scanner originally written by Gordon Lyon .Nmap is a "Network Mapper", used to discover computers and services on a computer network, thus creating a "map" ofthe network...
security scanner author Fyodor
- GNOME
GNOME is a desktop environment—a graphical user interface which runs on top of a computer operating system —composed entirely of free and open source software...
and MonoMono is a free and open source project led by Novell to create an Ecma standard compliant, .NET-compatible set of tools, including among others a C# compiler and a Common Language Runtime...
architect Miguel de IcazaMiguel de Icaza is a Mexican free software programmer, best known for starting the GNOME and Mono projects.-Early years:Miguel de Icaza was born in Mexico City and studied at the National Autonomous University of Mexico but never received a degree. He came from a family of scientists in which his...
- Freenet
Freenet is a decentralized, censorship-resistant distributed data store originally designed by Ian Clarke. Freenet aims to provide freedom of speech through a peer-to-peer network with strong protection of anonymity; as part of supporting its users' freedom, Freenet is free and open source software...
creator Ian Clarke
- ReiserFS
ReiserFS is a general-purpose, journaled computer file system designed and implemented by a team at Namesys led by Hans Reiser. ReiserFS is currently supported on Linux. Introduced in version 2.4.1 of the Linux kernel, it was the first journaling file system to be included in the standard kernel...
creator and convicted murderer Hans ReiserHans Thomas Reiser is an American computer programmer, owner of Namesys, and the primary developer of the ReiserFS and Reiser4 computer filesystems. On April 28, 2008, Reiser was convicted of the first degree murder of his wife, Nina Reiser, who disappeared in September 2006...
(inactive)
- Open source
Open source is an approach to the design, development, and distribution of software, offering practical accessibility to a software's source code. Some consider open source as one of various possible design approaches, while others consider it a critical strategic element of their operations...
evangelist Bruce PerensBruce Perens is a computer programmer and advocate in the open source community. He created the Open Source Definition and published the first formal announcement and manifesto of open source. He co-founded the Open Source Initiative with Eric S...
- MySQL AB
MySQL AB was a software company. MySQL AB is the creator of MySQL, a relational database management system, as well as related products such as MySQL Cluster...
CEO Mårten MickosMårten Gustaf Mickos was chief executive officer of MySQL AB. He served as chief executive officer from January 2001 to February 2008, when Sun bought MySQL AB. He served as senior vice president of the database group at Sun Microsystems until February 2009...
- Eric S. Raymond
Eric Steven Raymond , often referred to as ESR, is a computer programmer, author and open source software advocate. His name became known within the hacker culture when he was self-appointed maintainer of the "Jargon File" since 1990...
OpenSource evangelist
- O'Reilly Media
O'Reilly Media is an American media company established by Tim O'Reilly that publishes books and web sites and produces conferences on computer technology topics...
founder Tim O'ReillyTim O'Reilly is the founder of O'Reilly Media and a supporter of the free software and open source movements. He is widely credited with coining the term Web 2.0....
- Samba
Samba is a free software re-implementation of SMB/CIFS networking protocol, originally developed by Australian Andrew Tridgell. As of version 3, Samba provides file and print services for various Microsoft Windows clients and can integrate with a Windows Server domain, either as a Primary Domain...
developer Jeremy AllisonJeremy Allison is a computer programmer famous for his contributions to the free software community, notably to Samba, a re-implementation of SMB/CIFS networking protocol, released under the GNU General Public License....
- Physicist and author Clifford Stoll
Clifford Stoll is a U.S. astronomer and author. He received his Ph.D. from University of Arizona in 1980. During the 1960s and '70s, Stoll was assistant chief engineer at WBFO, a public radio station in Buffalo, New York....
- Linux kernel developer Alan Cox
Alan Cox is a British computer programmer heavily involved in the development of the Linux kernel since its early days in 1991...
- Linspire
Linspire, previously known as LindowsOS, was a commercial operating system based on Debian GNU/Linux and later Ubuntu. Linspire was published by Linspire, Inc. and focused on ease-of-use, targeting home PC users...
founder and chairman Michael Robertson
- Linux kernel developer Ingo Molnar
Ingo Molnár, currently employed by Red Hat, is a Hungarian Linux kernel hacker. He is best-known for his contributions to the operating system in terms of security and performance. Some of his additions to the Linux kernel include an O and CFS scheduler in the 2.6.x kernel series, the in-kernel TUX...
- John Nagle – Nagle's algorithm
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....
- Attorney at law Ray Beckerman
Ray Beckerman is an attorney in New York City, practicing law at Ray Beckerman, P.C.. He is noted for his analysis and commentary on the RIAA's campaign, commenced in 2003, of copyright infringement lawsuits against United States individuals...
- Codeweavers
CodeWeavers is a company that sells a proprietary version of Wine called CrossOver, for running Windows applications on Mac OS X and Linux. The company was founded in 1996 as a consultancy, eventually moving entirely over to Wine development and support...
Founder and CEO Jeremy White
Several engineers from NASA involved in the
MarsMars is the fourth planet from the Sun in the Solar System. The planet is named after Mars, the Roman god of war. It is also referred to as the "Red Planet" because of its reddish appearance, due to iron oxide prevalent on its surface....
rover exploration projects have also participated in Slashdot's forums.
Appearances in books
Slashdot has been named, either directly or indirectly, in a number of works:
- Accelerando by Charles Stross
Charles David George "Charlie" Stross is a writer based in Edinburgh, Scotland. His works range from science fiction and Lovecraftian horror to fantasy. Stross was born in Leeds....
- Century Rain
Century Rain is a 2004 noir science fiction alternate history mystery novel by Welsh author Alastair Reynolds .- Plot summary :...
by Alastair ReynoldsAlastair Preston Reynolds is a British science fiction author. He specialises in dark hard science fiction and space opera. He spent his early years in Cornwall, moved back to Wales before going to Newcastle, where he read physics and astronomy. Afterwards, he earned a PhD from St Andrews, Scotland...
. According to an interview with the author, the main antagonists in the novel are named after Slashdot.
- Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software
This book, written by Steven Berlin Johnson, was published in 2001. Early review drafts had the subtitle "What the New Science Can Teach Us About Our Minds, Our Communities, and Ourselves" instead of the "Connected life..." -Achievements:...
by Steven Berlin JohnsonSteven Berlin Johnson is an American popular science author.-Career:Steven Johnson has worked as a columnist for magazines such as Discover Magazine, Slate, and Wired. He co-founded the early webzine Feed Magazine in 1995, and the Webby-award-winning news discussion site Plastic.com in 2001...
cites Slashdot's comment moderation system as an example of emergenceIn philosophy, systems theory and science, emergence is the way complex systems and patterns arise out of a multiplicity of relatively simple interactions. Emergence is central to the theories of integrative levels and of complex systems.-Definitions:...
and describes its operation in detail.
- Linked: How Everything Is Connected to Everything Else by Albert-László Barabási
Albert-László Barabási is a Romanian-born Hungarian scientist. He is the former Emil T. Hofmann professor at the University of Notre Dame and current Distinguished Professor and Director of Northeastern University's Center for Network Science and an associate member of the Center of Cancer...
. The Slashdot effect is discussed with respect to network organization.
- Embracing Insanity: Open Source Software Development by Russell Pavlicek cites Slashdot for Self-Correcting News and its solution for Self-Correcting of Trolls.
Appearances in popular fiction
Slashdot has been used or mentioned in a number of fictional works, including:
- The Sandman: Endless Nights, by Neil Gaiman
Neil Richard Gaiman is an English author of science fiction and fantasy short stories and novels, graphic novels, comics, audio theatre, and films. His notable works include The Sandman comic series, Stardust, American Gods, Coraline, and The Graveyard Book...
.
- Cosmonaut Keep
Cosmonaut Keep , a science fiction novel by Ken MacLeod.It is the first novel in the Engines of Light Trilogy, a 2001 nominee for the Arthur C...
, by Ken MacLeodKen MacLeod , an award-winning Scottish science fiction writer, lives in South Queensferry near Edinburgh. He graduated from Glasgow University with a degree in zoology and has worked as a computer programmer and written a masters thesis on biomechanics.His novels often explore socialist, communist...
.
Slashdot Japan
Slashdot Japan is owned by OSDN, Inc. (part of SunBridge Corp. (ex-part of VA Linux Systems Japan, the subsidiaries of
SourceForge, Inc.SourceForge, Inc. , formerly VA Software Corporation, and VA Linux Systems is the provider of the SourceForge Development Intelligence application. The company is headquartered in Mountain View, California.SourceForge, Inc...
) ), led by Oliver M. Bolzer. It started beta test on 2001-05-09, and began operation on 2001-05-28. However, the first Slashdot Japan news article was published on 2001-04-05.
The site carries some of the original Slashdot articles, and localized Japanese news. An external site named Backslashdot reports selected stories of Slashdot Japan in English since 2009-03-01.
Timeline
- July 1997 - short-lived forerunner to Slashdot, called "Chips & Dips"
- September 1997 - Slashdot is created.
- December 31, 1997 - First archived Slashdot post.
- February 2, 1998 - Slashdot begins accepting advertisers
Advertising is a form of communication used to influence individuals to purchase products or services or support political candidates or ideas. Frequently it communicates a message that includes the name of the product or service and how that product or service could potentially benefit the consumer...
.
- May 13, 1998 - Slashdot introduces the "Ask Slashdot" section.
- September 14, 1998 - Slashdot is hacked.
- February 1, 1999 - The Slashdot effect
The Slashdot effect, also known as slashdotting, occurs when a popular website links to a smaller site, causing a massive increase in traffic. This overloads the smaller site, causing it to slow down or even temporarily close. The name stems from the huge influx of web traffic that results from...
is first mentioned.
- June 29, 1999 - Slashdot is acquired by Andover.net.
- September 7, 1999 - Meta-moderation is introduced to Slashdot.
- September 10, 1999 - Slashdot announces the addition of the "Your Rights Online" section.
- October 15, 1999 - Slashdot announces the addition of two new sections: Apache and BSD.
- February 3, 2000 - Andover.net, Slashdot's parent company, merges with Linux
Linux is a generic term referring to Unix-like computer operating systems based on the Linux kernel. Their development is one of the most prominent examples of free and open source software collaboration; typically all the underlying source code can be used, freely modified, and redistributed,...
company VA Linux.
- February 24, 2000 - Slashdot's 10,000th article is posted.
- May 2000 - Slashdot is the victim of a week-long Distributed Denial-of-Service attack.
- September 28, 2000 - Slashdot is hacked again.
- March 9, 2001 - An anonymous poster posts the full text of Scientology
Scientology is a body of beliefs and related practices created by L. Ron Hubbard , starting in 1952, as a successor to his earlier self-help system, Dianetics. Hubbard characterized Scientology as a religion, and in 1953 incorporated the Church of Scientology in New Jersey.Scientology teaches that...
's OT III ("Operating Thetan Level Three") document in a comment attached to a Slashdot article. The Church of ScientologyThe Church of Scientology is the largest organization devoted to the practice and the promotion of the Scientology belief system. The Church of Scientology International is the Church of Scientology's parent organization, and is responsible for the overall ecclesiastical management, dissemination...
then demanded that the Slashdot editors remove the post under the Digital Millennium Copyright ActThe Digital Millennium Copyright Act is a United States copyright law that implements two 1996 treaties of the World Intellectual Property Organization . It criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or services intended to circumvent measures that control access to...
. A week later, in a long article, the Slashdot editors explained their decision to remove the page while providing links and information on how to get the document from other sources.
- August 18, 2001 - Slashcode 2.2 is released, which allows for comment notification, journals, and UNIX
Unix is a computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...
-style user pages.
- January 2, 2002 - Slashdot introduces the "zoo" system, allowing the marking of users as "friend" and "foe".
- January 16 - January 30, 2002 - An off-topic post purported to be detailing the results of an investigation into Slashdot trolling phenomena becomes itself the subject of a "moderation
Moderation is the process of eliminating or lessening extremes. It is used to ensure normality throughout the medium on which it is being conducted...
war" and ends up being moderated a record 851 times (as well as getting 268 direct replies). The editors are accused of indiscriminately modding down all the posts in the thread collectively as well as permanently banning anyone who moderated the post up from moderating or meta-moderatingA meta-moderation system is an arrangement used on some Internet websites which invite user comments.Users rate how good a job moderators are doing. The most famous site with such a feature is Slashdot...
again.
- March 1, 2002 - Slashdot begins a subscription service, where subscribers are given special perks in exchange for a small fee.
- March 6, 2003 - Slashdot subscribers are given the ability to see articles 10–20 minutes before they are released to the general public.
- August 18, 2004 - Slashdot has its ten millionth user posting.
- September 7, 2004 - Slashdot "goes political" and creates a new politics subsection, two months before the U.S. 2004 presidential election.
- April 8, 2005 - Slashdot introduces "day passes", allowing all users to enjoy the benefits of subscribers for the duration of one day if they watch a commercial.
- September 22, 2005 - Slashdot begins using HTML 4.01 and CSS on its pages, replacing the aging HTML 3.2-based system which had been in place for many years.
- April 1, 2006 - OMG!!! Ponies!!! pink theme is used for the day, some users report eye strain. The theme can be applied to the current Slashdot layout using the Slashdotter Firefox extension.
- June 4, 2006 - A new design is implemented following a contest.
- September 2, 2006 - richardcpeterson registers as Slashdot's one millionth member.
- November 9, 2006 - Slashdot reaches 16,777,215 (or 224 − 1) comments, temporarily breaking the database.
- October 2, 2007 - Slashdot marks its 10 years online
- April 1, 2009 - User Achievement tags introduced, with CmdrTaco presenting it as an April Fool's Day meta-prank.
- July 23, 2009 - Slashdot is hacked for the third time in just over ten years
External links