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A Pre-History of Slashdot

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Re: A Pre-History of Slashdot

#141

Post by IncRnd »

matt_wulfeck wrote: post #83
AndrewStephens wrote: post #79

I remember the early days of slashdot fondly, although I didn't actually make an account until a few years later. It was such an interesting mix of serious discussion, in-jokes, and amusing trolls (even the infamous goatsx troll that I fell for more than once.) I still think that the moderation and meta-moderation was one of the most interesting experiments in a self-governing commenting system, even though it was cl…

More like: 1. Group #1 joins who care about site 2. Group #1 improves site. Sense of "community" keeps things in check. 3. Site grows in popularity and group #2 joins 4. Site loses sense of community and ability to moderate itself effectively. 5. Group #1 leaves

Where's the Profit ???

Re: A Pre-History of Slashdot

#142

Post by Mediterraneo10 »

I had a four-digit Slashdot UID (just over 4000, I think). I have lots of great memories of technical discussions. As a young man who had managed to install Linux on his computer but still knew little about programming or the mighty Unix tradition, it was amazing to be able to participate there in discussions with so many big names in *nix or Free Software.

But some of my fondest memories come from trolling there with another account. Trolling Slashdot often wasn't like how trolling works on other news sites, where some user tries to make some controversial point or racist remark related to the submitted story in order to spark arguments and take the conversation off course.

Instead, troll posts on Slashdot were usually completely unrelated to the submitted story. They consisted of themes that were sometimes coarse and tasteless, but which fascinatingly evolved over time as each troll adapted the copy/paste to new circumstances or his own personal whims. The million variations on "BSD is dying" is a good example, but my personal favourite was "X touched my junk". And while I was never so cruel to link to Last Measure, I was grimly impressed by the work that had gone into it, completely with having an autoplay audio file "I'M LOOKING AT GAY PORN!!!!" which must have cost a least one or two cubicle dwellers their jobs.

Re: A Pre-History of Slashdot

#143

Post by Jarwain »

JoshMnem wrote: post #129

I wish that people would stop blogging on Medium, especially about Free software topics. I click the link and get an obnoxiously animated popup shoved in my face that tells me that I've read my two articles for the month and that I should log in for the full experience. Why should people be asked to sign in to follow a blog when there is RSS/Atom? Learning how to use Hugo, Metalsmith, Hexo, Pelican, or Jekyll is not…

For an author, I'd imagine there are discoverability and convenience aspects involved in the decision to post on medium, versus hosting one's own blog.

Re: A Pre-History of Slashdot

#144

Post by barkingtoad »

User #333 here. Back in the day, someone offered me oral sex for the low user number. What a perfect metaphor for the dot-com era: offering to wildly overpay for a social media asset that would eventually turn out to be useless.

Re: A Pre-History of Slashdot

#146

Post by rdslw »

Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #142

I had a four-digit Slashdot UID (just over 4000, I think). I have lots of great memories of technical discussions. As a young man who had managed to install Linux on his computer but still knew little about programming or the mighty Unix tradition, it was amazing to be able to participate there in discussions with so many big names in *nix or Free Software. But some of my fondest memories come from trolling there wit…

goatse.cx trolling under cloak of redirection...

ah those early days...

Re: A Pre-History of Slashdot

#147

Post by jonathankoren »

disease wrote: post #102

slashdot was one of the few news sites that stayed up during 9/11. I think there was even a follow-up technical article about how they kept it up that day.

Yeah, but that day showed just how weak they were in the journalism department. So many unsubstantiated rumors.

Re: A Pre-History of Slashdot

#148

Post by kevstev »

cannam wrote: post #92
jandrese wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I have a four-digit Slashdot ID and I don't remember friends and foes. Is it after my time, or is it just that I don't remember anything any more?

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.

Re: A Pre-History of Slashdot

#149

Post by threeio »

I remember registering wwwslashdot.org in my young days of being a typo-domain advertiser (had to eat in college, I've repented) and CmdrTaco posted a message indicating that they "Must have made it because someone registered our typo domain."

My mailserver crashed about an hour later from the flood. Lesson learned :)

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