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A Pre-History of Slashdot

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Re: A Pre-History of Slashdot

#201

Post by Nelson69 »

blakesterz wrote: post #13
cmdrtaco wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks!

Wow, just realized something totally crazy.. Honestly, I ended up where I am today because of Slashdot. In 1999 I wanted to build a Slashdot site but had no idea what I was doing. So I sat down and just learned how all that stuff worked, ran phpSlash for a while, then Slashcode, then Drupal. All the while I kept learning to code and run servers because of my little site. All the while new doors opened, and I kept wor…

I will echo this. I absolutely knew I was a software engineer pre-Slashdot but it shaped what and where and how I do that. And I also have had a very good run so far. So thank you for that impact on my life.

I did a book review on there, way back when, and I meet Rob and Hemos at the Atlanta Linux Showcase (I guess it was 1997 or 1998) as I took part in the "Loki Hack" (they might have brought food, I don't fully remember.) I don't know how to fully describe it but I was a fresh out of school engineer at IBM, generally introverted and shy, and I somehow felt like I needed "permission" to take part in opensource and the community. Not permission from work, that was actually very very easy, but more like "where do you start" and I didn't want to look like a fool. Someone else was running a project and I had some ideas and had no idea if my ideas meshed with their mission. It's just easy to stand on the sideline and talk about stuff, but you sort of have to take a risk and put yourself out there to take part, and maybe I needed "permission" to do that. The slashhdot guys were particularly down to earth, and laid back and totally welcoming, Hemos even told me that they could probably send me more books to review if I was up to it, just made me feel totally welcome for my fairly trivial contribution. I think it's really easy to turn away newbs with a bad experience and these guys didn't do that. A big website and a business are some neat things to be a part of and to have created, but to be really early members of a new community and to do that well and welcome people and grow it and nurture it is a major accomplishment.

Re: A Pre-History of Slashdot

#202

Post by serf »

geezerjay wrote: post #196
Nition wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The anti-Microsoft zeitgeist that you could find at the top of pretty much any thread, even if it was about something completely unrelated. Just a side comment, I feel like Hacker News is going this way with Facebook a little. Posts that tangentially mention Facebook, there's usually a high-rated comment about how Facebook is evil and since the user left Facebook their life has improved. Those "I don't even own a T…

> Just a side comment, I feel like Hacker News is going this way with Facebook a little. In slashdot, PR companies working for Microsoft were operating dozens of sock puppet accounts to post copy-paste messages extolling the company for its perfection, and praising each and every single product they were announcing. Slashdotters became aware of the problem, and what appeared to be a deep collusion between those PR co…

>In slashdot, PR companies working for Microsoft were operating dozens of sock puppet accounts to post copy-paste messages extolling the company for its perfection, and praising each and every single product they were announcing

the more things change the more they stay the same.

It's not a winnable bet (at least right now), but i'd wager that groups are doing that right this very second, even here.

Techies are an important group to influence, and there are a lot of interests here. The level of discourse and discussion is fairly high here, but don't let that trick you into the naiveté that folks with vested interests here are any more honest than they are anywhere else in the world or on the net.

Re: A Pre-History of Slashdot

#203

Post by [deleted] »

FabHK wrote: post #123
300bps wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like most of us, I drifted away a long time ago I just checked and was shocked I remembered my password there.

Wow, good memory, assuming your username, boasting of your new high speed acoustic coupler modem, is any indication of when you registered your account :-)

[deleted]

Re: A Pre-History of Slashdot

#204

Post by flukus »

gfodor wrote: post #189
MartinCron wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

most of the people there were ruthlessly crushed by Microsoft business tactics That has to be hyperbole. Even at the height of Microsoft's aggression, there were many professional software devs left uncrushed.

I feel like avoiding the steamroller of "embrace and extend" that was MS at the time was highly dependent upon luck.

The steam roller is still there from quite a few companies, make something popular and Google, MS, Facebook will clone it and force it on people. No luck about it though, these companies are only interested in mass market stuff, the long tail has only gotten longer.

Re: A Pre-History of Slashdot

#206

Post by [deleted] »

dotancohen wrote: post #177
barkingtoad wrote: post #144

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.

But if course you wouldn't have taken the offer, /.ers never have sex. That would require leaving mom's basement!

[deleted]

Re: A Pre-History of Slashdot

#207

Post by j_s »

geezerjay wrote: post #196
Nition wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The anti-Microsoft zeitgeist that you could find at the top of pretty much any thread, even if it was about something completely unrelated. Just a side comment, I feel like Hacker News is going this way with Facebook a little. Posts that tangentially mention Facebook, there's usually a high-rated comment about how Facebook is evil and since the user left Facebook their life has improved. Those "I don't even own a T…

> Just a side comment, I feel like Hacker News is going this way with Facebook a little. In slashdot, PR companies working for Microsoft were operating dozens of sock puppet accounts to post copy-paste messages extolling the company for its perfection, and praising each and every single product they were announcing. Slashdotters became aware of the problem, and what appeared to be a deep collusion between those PR co…

Can you link to any examples?

I'm curious as I don't remember things as being that bad - no expectations of any unwanted research just for my sake though!

Re: A Pre-History of Slashdot

#208

Post by shortoncash »

otakucode wrote: post #101
smacktoward wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I need a beowulf cluster of attention at work. I used to have one of those! Sadly, Natalie Portman filled it with hot grits.

It makes my heart swell to know there are still those out there thinking of dear Natalie, petrified and with hot grits down her pants...

I don't have time for Natalie; I'm fretting over Netcraft's confirmation that BSD is dying.

Re: A Pre-History of Slashdot

#209

Post by isostatic »

whathaschanged wrote: post #62

Slashdot was awesome right up until the point that they forced the redesign on everybody and drove away all the users that made it great. It would be the equivalent of HN forcing autoplay videos and animated banner ads on each page. A lesson to reflect upon--monetizing is ok when it doesn't kill your userbase. My ID is under 5000 (cue the older ID replies) and I refuse to give them pageviews now.

There were several changes over the years, but beta was when I left, but that was really just the straw. The politics was getting too much for me, it was always a factor (remember Katz and the buried commodore64 in Afghanistan)

Sadly nothing really recaptured the spirit of the first few years, and it can't. The internet isn't the Wild West any more, you're not using it over dial up from a box room staring down a CRT, times change, and you can never go home.

Re: A Pre-History of Slashdot

#210

Post by 20721 »

My favourite part of Slashdot was the trolling.

Some classic trolls there like "egg troll", "The Turd Report", etc. with their quite absurd yet entertaining posts.

Then there was the rather ruder trolling, like not knowing if the link you were about to follow was yet another Goatse Man. Or the more helpful trolls, such as ones taking music requests to spam as the first post.

There was even a 'hidden SID' forum, trolltalk, which was rather amusing (and somewhat disturbing) until it was overrun by some Markov chain bot.

And spinoff trolling sites like http://adequacy.org - satire to rile uptight nerds and amuse the rest.

I think the bizarre trolling subculture, amidst the righteous frothing of Linux fanaticism, was what really made Slashdot.

Anyway, good times.

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