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A Pre-History of Slashdot

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Re: A Pre-History of Slashdot

#131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to write almost exclusively CPU and tech articles. Good for you. I wish your co-workers would stick to technology and lay off pushing politics. [edit] Wow, the moderators couldn't even tell I was complimenting the guy.

I honestly agree that ArsTechnica has lost something since Jon quit (or he quit because the writing was on the door). And not as much the politics, as the feeling that the site has become more "partisan" in the tech world.

I know right? I don't feel like my opinion was really that controversial.

Ars Technica has been a bittersweet story for years in all of the communities / circles that I hang out at. Some of their articles are great journalism. Others make you pine for "the good old days".

I wish they'd bring back Computer Gaming World. That was the gold standard of computer journalism. You can actually find PDF's of every issue ever released online and if you compare them to today, they used to be so methodical and objective. They didn't read like advertisements and there was no forced-in message about the political climate. You didn't read about Battle Chess and get shamed for liking that the Queen looked pretty.

Re: A Pre-History of Slashdot

#132
Fond memories, as many others have pointed out. I still check it out every few days. I find the stories there almost as interesting as the ones that make it to HN and a lot more interesting and educational than those making it to the top of reddit.

Shot in the dark and off topic, but for years I've been trying to find a comment posted on /. during the Columbia disaster. A poster mentioned how he was part of some high school science program and got to visit the Columbia before her maiden voyage. When it was lost, he was driving across remote Texas on the way back from a client visit when he saw the debris across the sky. It was quite a sad and moving story, and I'd love to re-read it.

Re: A Pre-History of Slashdot

#133
Perl Monks was my favorite thing that came from the Slashdot guys. I never got Perl, but did a few projects with it over the years and I was always amazed at how cool the community on that site was.

www.perlmonks.org

Re: A Pre-History of Slashdot

#134

cmdrtaco, thanks for all the grits, inventing the blog and the watering hole that helped facilitate the discourse and creation of the open source movement. #1794

Actually this is a great comment. I wonder how many ideas grew out of Slashdot? What was its influence on the world? The "watering hole of the open source movement." +1 Insightful

Slashdot shaped the minds, ideas and opinions of many people, and definitely changed the world. It helped get people into the internet, software development, perl, etc.

Would HackerNews exist without slashdot paving the way? Interesting to think about.

Re: A Pre-History of Slashdot

#135

Thanks cmdrtaco! Throughout the years, I'd turn to /. to keep up to date on latest shakings and goings ons. I first heard about MythTV there back in the heady days before the home media landscape was bought up and "civilized". I got to see a constant reminders of the failings for the RIAA and so....many....patent troll cases. I remember the crap packt publishing reviews too - basically getting someone to pimp their b…

I remember the endless IBM vs. SCO lawsuit discussions.

heh, now i remind myself that i still have User Friendly in the RSS reader. Anyone know what Illiad is up to these days?

Re: A Pre-History of Slashdot

#136
post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's been at step 3 for longer than most sites have last. I know I'm part of group 2, but I've seen a somewhat consistent culture since I arrived over five years ago.

Looks like you joined about 5 1/2 years ago. I'm surprised you think you're part of Group #2. Before what date do you think people can be group #1? Or are you ascribing the group number to contributions rather than date of joining?

When a friend first recommended hackernews to me it didn't show up in google searches. So I gave up. I think techcrunch finally led me to finding it. By the time I actually created an account(just 10 days before nathan^), people were already complaining about the deterioration of the community, so I assumed I was in group 2.

Re: A Pre-History of Slashdot

#137

Feels like the Slashdot guys chased the wrong end of blogging. Rather than seeing what Drupal/Wordpress saw (building the site is the real money) the Slashodt folks chased the advertising/traffic side to their site. It seems really obvious now, 20 years later, that they should've spent time on Slashcode and made that better for a larger audience and they could've maybe turned out to be something like Drupal or WordPr…

>> they should've spent time on Slashcode and made that better for a larger audience and they could've maybe turned out to be something like Drupal or WordPress now.

I'd be curious as to how much of the original code is left, but there's "Forked from Slashcode, rehash is the codebase that powers SoylentNews.org, powered by mod_perl 2"

https://github.com/SoylentNews/rehash

I wonder if a Perl-based CMS would have became as popular...Part of the appeal of Wordpress is any goober that 'knows a little PHP' can hack on it.

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