Ars Technica

File:Ars Technica.png

Ars Technica's main page

Ars Technica is a for-profit technology-related website catering mostly to computer hardware enthusiasts. Started in 1998, it has grown into a popular site, covering technology news and providing editorial and analysis. The name "Ars Technica" is a Latin phrase for "(The) Technical Arts." The main content is a blog-style presentation of news stories, interspersed with advertising. Featured articles are less frequent but go into more depth than the news stories.

Ars Front Page

The Ars Technica Front Page features two main sections: "From The News Desk" and "Featured Articles." The News Desk generally consists of short articles featuring analysis of technology and science-related news, but may also include full length technology articles or reviews that would also appear as Featured Articles. Featured Articles are broken into two sections, Journal.Ars and articles. The bulk of the entries are a part of Journal.Ars, which are quick, blog-style postings of rumors and news about technology and the sciences. Journal.Ars doesn't face the same editorial scrutiny as the News Desk, and are often staff opinion pieces. There are four sections of Journal.Ars: Infinite Loop (Apple Computer centric), M-Dollar (Microsoft centric), Nobel Intent (science centric), and Opposable Thumbs (video game and technology gadget centric).

Ars Technica articles are further divided into reviews, guides, columns, and other articles. The content of these divisions often overlap and complement one another. The reviews are largely limited to video games, software applications, and operating systems, but hardware reviews (particularly of new iterations of the iPod) are not uncommon.

The guides section is typically used only for the Ars System Guide; AskArs! is now defunct and other guides are rare additions, amounting to only a few additional guides per year. Though presented separately, the columns (Linux.Ars, Mac.Ars, Science.Ars, and Ye Olde Games.Ars) are actually a subset of the general articles, and the columns are presented as general articles on the articles page. For example, the Linux.Ars column includes content contributed by members of the Ars Technica Linux community, as well as notable figures within the larger Linux community. There are additional article sections that provide content not contained in the Ars Technica columns, including Technology and Culture, CPU Theory & Praxis, Hardware, and Paedia (itself consisting of CPU Theory & Praxis and Hardware articles). The content of articles often overlap the various categories, but the non-column articles tend to be more technical. Of particular note are CPU Theory & Praxis articles written by Ars Technica co-founder Jon "Hannibal" Stokes, and John Siracusa's series of lengthy articles covering releases of Mac OS X and related Apple Macintosh subjects from 1999 onwards.

Appearance

• 1999-2001: Black background with white text.[1]
• 2001-2004: Black background, with more orange detail.[2]
• 2004-present: White background with adjustable color, scheme and fonts.[3]

Ars OpenForum

Ars Technica also maintains the Ars OpenForum, a mostly-public internet bulletin board.[4] The OpenForum is primarily dedicated to discussion of technology issues, but everything from dating techniques to the latest political outrage is also thoroughly dissected in the more general areas of the forum (i.e. the Lounge, the Soap Box). References to Latin and Ancient Rome may be found in places such as the ranks and titles of the forum members.

Microculture

Over the years, Ars Technica has developed a unique microculture with its own words, phrasing, and events generally centered around the Lounge forum. Members of Ars often hold meets for members to meet one another in person.[5] A popular 'alternative' poll option, used in place of 'none of the above,' is "Tacos," used in a similar manner to the "CowboyNeal" option on Slashdot, and only coincidentally related to Slashdot's CmdrTaco. It is generally accepted as a humorous reference to TACOS, the mythical 'The Ars Community Operating System.' Furthermore, Lounge threads often jokingly demand "pics" or Microsoft paint diagrams of events or people from posters, no matter the topic. "Chili" is also a popular, non-sensical phrase that is organic to Ars, despite being frowned upon by moderators and parts of the community.[6]

History

• 1998-1999: First hosted on wwwthreads.
• 1999-2000: OpenForum was moved to UBB.classic.[7]
• 2000-2004: Forum moved, code changed to OpenTopic.
• 2004-present: Forum moved from OpenTopic to UBB.x (later renamed Eve/Groupee).[8]

Moderation

Moderation of the OpenForum is carried out primarily by volunteers that have been selected by Ars Technica staff in cooperation with the Ars community[9]. Of the more than 40 moderators on the site, most have been at Ars Technica for more than four years. Moderators use the Posting Guidelines[10] to moderate the forum and rely in part on reports from Ars Technica readers. Ars Technica's Terms of Service (located on the forum index[11]) notes that they do not monitor the entire contents of their forum. According to an Ars Technica Subscriber survey of 470 respondents, 36% were "Very Satisfied" with the moderation on the forum, 47% were "Satisfied," 15% were "Somewhat Satisfied," and 2% were "Not Satisfied." This poll does not include non-subscribed members.[12].

The Posting Guidelines have been adopted and/or modified by a number of other websites: [13][14][15][16][17].

Criticism

Ars Technica

• Political topics are common [18], and some readers have expressed dissatisfaction at the levels of political content. [19] [20] [21].
• In March of 2006, IP Democracy blogger Cynthia Brumfield accused Ars Technica of using material from her site without attribution. Eric Bangeman and Nate Anderson apologized for the incident.[22]

Ars OpenForum

• The Ars Technica OpenForum search is well known for being dysfunctional and performing poorly. A recent Ars Technica Subscriber survey showed that 39% were not satisfied.[23]

Writing Staff

Active Front Page writers

• Ken "Caesar" Fisher
• Eric Bangeman
• John Siracusa
• Jon "Hannibal" Stokes
• Jonathan M. Gitlin
• Charles Jade
• Julian Marcone
• Ben Kuchera
• Clint Ecker
• Jacqui Cheng
• Adam Baratz
• Ryan Paul
• John Timmer
• Jeremy Reimer
• Anders Bylund
• Matt Mondok
• Nate Anderson
• Peter Pollack

Past Front Page writers

• Ben "Ator" Rota
• Panders
• Aleksey "Geon" Cherman
• Loki
• Josh "Semi On" Warner
• Johnny "johnnyace" Brookheart
• Peter "Yaz" Yang
• Scott "Damage" Wasson
• Andrew "andyfatbastard" Brennan
• Wayne "Hat Monster" Hardman
• Will Ryu
• Carl Salminen
• Matt Woodward
• Adam Israel
• Elle Cayabyab
• Jorge Castro
• Rian J. Stockbower
• Fred "zAmboni" Locklear
• Kurt "Kurt" Mackey

Other content writers

• Peter "DrPizza" Bright
• Frank Monroe

See also

• TACOS

External links

• Ars Technica - The PC Enthusiast's Resource
• Ars OpenForum
• ArsWare - software packages from the Ars Technica programmer community

• Product Reviews
• Ars Buyer's Guide
• Linux.ars
• Journals.ars

Ars Technica journals:

• Opposable Thumbs
• Infinite Loop
• M-Dollar
• Nobel Intent