Earlier quoted context omitted.
sssshhhhh.
I enjoy the idea that this account wreaks havoc on nyt.com's internal metrics.
And that they certainly know about it, and still let it go on... you have to think that they are in on the joke.
Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda Resigns From Slashdot
71–80 of 153 posts
Re: Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda Resigns From Slashdot
#72I was always impressed with the story selection on Slashdot. There was a certain mindset that they were pandering to, but it flat-out worked.
I was a voracious reader of Slashdot in the early years until I had an epiphany when reading the They Might Be Giants interview in 2000. I realized that the collective geek mindset was rooted more in fantasy than reality. Posters were so desperately wanting the TMBG guys to be off-the-wall wacky and absurdist, but really it was more that the two John's were just doing their own thing, and that thing was outside the realm of normal music. Yet no one picked up on it.
I couldn't read Slashdot after that. The geek fantasy fog was too thick and pervasive and self-referential.
Re: Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda Resigns From Slashdot
#73I don't visit /. anymore, but definitely grew up on it. I don't think you can understate the impact it had on a generation of geeks. Especially when it comes to Open Source, I think /. was incredibly important in educating people on a concept, history and philosophy many of us take for granted now. And hot grits aside, it really did set the bar for intelligent discussion. /. was the first site where the comments were…
One of the most amazing /. pieces ever: Neal Stephen's interview ( http://slashdot.org/story/04/10/20/1518217/Neal-Stephenson-R... ). And some of the comments are as hilarious as the interview. I, too, read /. in the late 90s and up to around 2005, when I became more interested in other things, and other sites began making the changes that /. (and presumably CmdrTaco) were resistant to. I also remember trying to read…
Thanks for the Stephenson link. Great reading.
Re: Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda Resigns From Slashdot
#74I don't visit /. anymore, but definitely grew up on it. I don't think you can understate the impact it had on a generation of geeks. Especially when it comes to Open Source, I think /. was incredibly important in educating people on a concept, history and philosophy many of us take for granted now. And hot grits aside, it really did set the bar for intelligent discussion. /. was the first site where the comments were…
Well put sir. I "grew up" on Slashdot as well (started reading circa 1998 as I recall) and although it's definitely declined, there was a "golden age" of Slashdot when the comments were far more interesting than the articles, which made the site worthwhile. Doesn't diminish what Slashdot was though.
Re: Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda Resigns From Slashdot
#75Slashdot was the source of my now-permanent news habits, and, I believe, the Petri dish in which modern hacker culture was first cultivated. Slashdot had memes before they were called memes, or so it seems; most importantly, it had discussion via threaded comments and community moderation. I first used this handle on Slashdot, and whenever one of my sites goes down due to traffic, I'll say it's been slashdotted.
But the relevance of Slashdot as a site has been eclipsed, first by Digg, then by Reddit and HN. The network effect is part of it. The technology is part of it. There's some je ne sais quoi about these newer sites; maybe they'll be replaced by some other, more minimalist social news platform in the future.
Re: Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda Resigns From Slashdot
#76Re: Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda Resigns From Slashdot
#77I wonder how he feels about getting stuck with the "CmdrTaco" handle. :)
Re: Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda Resigns From Slashdot
#78Interesting decision. In practice I don't think this will change a lot, because it's been years since Slashdot was primarily the personal project of Malda; from what I can tell, he's been "just another editor" and a bit withdrawn from the decision-making for a few years now. But I can see wanting to do something else. For all its downsides, Slashdot is a quite interesting experiment imo. In terms of form: It was one…
Not only were the comments threaded, they also had an elaborate moderation and karma system in-place that still works very well. (With meta-moderation, to boot.) I often browse Slashdot at +5 to get a quick overview of the discussion. If there something interesting going on, it's easy to drill down and see the less popular posts and counterpoints related to the +5 post. I think it's a great compromise: Get karma, you…
And you can modify comment scores by moderation reason, to boost e.g. informative comments while hiding e.g. funny ones, if you want to read a more serious discussion.
Re: Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda Resigns From Slashdot
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
Retiring the same day as Apple's CEO just seems like Rob Malda's style to me, in the best possible way. I doubt he made a snap decision to do it, but if he was already planning on doing it and saw the opportunity... :)
As someone on /. noted, Slashdot was also founded in September 1997, the same month that Steve Jobs returned to Apple. Maybe this coincidence influenced Rob's decision.
Wait, has anyone ever seen cmdrtaco and Steve Jobs in the same place? Maybe they're the same person! :)
Re: Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda Resigns From Slashdot
#80I don't visit /. anymore, but definitely grew up on it. I don't think you can understate the impact it had on a generation of geeks. Especially when it comes to Open Source, I think /. was incredibly important in educating people on a concept, history and philosophy many of us take for granted now. And hot grits aside, it really did set the bar for intelligent discussion. /. was the first site where the comments were…
Saying that you can't understate its importance may be understating its importance.