Talk:Slashdot

Audience

Do we really need to list all those people? --TheSeer (TalkˑContribs) 00:08, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

In soviet russia people list you! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.107.46.3 (talk) 12:01, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

+1 Funny 74.131.110.31 (talk) 09:19, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Even if we do list all these people, we don't need to list Hans Reiser as "ReiserFS creator and convicted murderer." The people in this section are listed because they are technology experts and culture figures. Surely Hans Reiser is a notable Slashdotter because of ReiserFS. Removed refs to murder, but open to debate. 91.104.156.83 (talk) 15:13, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

IMHO, we should include the murderer reference. You can't even mention Hans on slashdot without getting a ton of black humor about the "killer filesystem."75.88.236.109 (talk) 21:06, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

list of famous slashdotters

I've found reliable citations for three of the people on the list. I am unable to find good sources that meet Wikipedia's WP:RS criteria for these people, so I am moving them to the talk page for now. If a good source can be found (and not just a Slashdot user page), they can be added back with the citation, but a laundry list is really unnecessary.

• Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales
• Nmap security scanner author Fyodor
• GNOME and Mono architect Miguel de Icaza
• Freenet creator Ian Clarke
• ReiserFS creator and convicted murderer Hans Reiser (inactive)
• Open source evangelist Bruce Perens
• MySQL AB CEO Mårten Mickos
• Eric S. Raymond OpenSource evangelist
• O'Reilly Media founder Tim O'Reilly
• Samba developer Jeremy Allison
• Physicist and author Clifford Stoll
• Linux kernel developer Alan Cox
• Linspire founder and chairman Michael Robertson
• Linux kernel developer Ingo Molnar
• John Nagle – Nagle's algorithm
• Attorney at law Ray Beckerman
• Codeweavers Founder and CEO Jeremy White
• xkcd author Randall Munroe —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wiki.Tango.Foxtrot (talk • contribs) 05:16, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

"Appearances in" sections

The "Appearances in books" and "Appearances in popular fiction" sections are very unspecific and as such, not very useful, can anyone improve them that has access to those texts? If the site is being merely "named" or "named indirectly" or "mentioned," that's of negligible encyclopedic value. Шизомби (talk) 04:23, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

There could also be appearance in games. For one, there was a reference to slashdot on Doom rpg mobile - when one server was slashdotted and went offline. 90.195.60.104 (talk)

Still not sure if minor "appearances" are notable or not, so I'm leaving it for now. Anyway, The novel Cosmonaut Keep is available on Google Books. Slashdot is mentioned on p. 29: "What's with the f**king news?" someone's saying, shaking his head and blinking hard. "I can't get CNN, can't even get Slashdot..." WTF? (talk) 15:41, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Can't really find anything to confirm Slashdot's mention in these two books. Moving here for further discussion. WTF? (talk) 16:22, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

• Accelerando by Charles Stross
• The Sandman: Endless Nights, by Neil Gaiman.

Linked: How Everything is Connected to Everything Else

I've removed the following entry from the 'appearances in books section:

Linked: How Everything Is Connected to Everything Else by Albert-László Barabási. The Slashdot effect is discussed with respect to network organization.

It doesn't seem to refer to the Slashdot effect, as stated, though it's difficult to confirm, since the particular pages of interest are not available at Google Books (I guess we'll have to see if it's in the library). Anyway, I found another book that's citing it -- here. It refers to, "A capability is provided for user or peer assessment of the quality and usefulness of the supplied metadata as well as the geographic data files.[cites 'Emergence'] The system also provides a means for reaching people interested in using or contributing commons-licensed geographic data.[cites 'Linked'] WTF? (talk) 16:13, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Primary sources tags

The primary sources tags need to be removed. You're not going to get information on this subject from printed sources, because no other printed sources exist.

I won't do it myself, but can we at least get some discussion on this, rather than the usual tyrant simply materialising and reverting this edit to the talk page? Petrus4 (talk) 06:05, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

I've removed the primary sources tags from the article as I've been able to find quite a few reliable citations out there that aren't just linking to Slashdot itself. Primary sources don't necessarily need to be "printed sources", but there are quite a few books that can be found using Google Books that do talk in quite good detail about the site. WTF? (talk) 05:22, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Audience - political tendencies towards various forms of Communism; however

"Eighteenth century/Enlightenment (both Voltaire and Thomas Jefferson are occasionally quoted) Atheism is strongly prevalent among Slashdot's core audience, as are (particularly among Linux users) political tendencies towards various forms of Communism; however accusations of the latter will generally both cause offense and be strenuously (if dishonestly) denied. The site's core audience was originally highly intellectual in nature, but with the advent of the 4chan/World of Warcraft forum subculture in recent years, this characteristic has lessened." The increasingly outrageous uncited comments in this paragraph seem to be a joke, as the next. I regret editing this out, because the it's rather clever and well-thought out. But... Tumacama (talk) 16:18, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

The ongoing assumption that Slashdot is Linux-oriented comes from historical reasons (e.g. Slashdot's parent company, or should I say corporate overlord which might be more apt in /. lingo, is SourceForge, Inc who used to run the Linux.com domain) and from its famous Bill Gates "Borg" icon, as well as the strong anti-Microsoft postings often made by Slashdot members. Despite this reputation, a significant number of Slashdot stories are related to Windows video games or applications, or Microsoft security bulletins. Slashdot was Linux-oriented from the beginning (and was a preference of the site's founders) Before acquisition by Andover.net. The site's coverage of Microsoft issues does not belong in Audience section, even if citation is found Tumacama (talk) 16:26, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Comma overload

This article may meet the sourcing requirements for GA, but the grammar is not very good. Who was the editor who decided a comma was needed before any quotation? This is not correct. I do not have time to proof this article myself, but someone should reduce the comma overload before the article is reviewed for GA. Firsfron of Ronchester 05:58, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

I did most of the recent editing on the article. Perhaps I am a bit overzealous with commas? From my understanding, you put a comma in a sentence when someone is quoting a full statement, such as: Forrest Gump's mother said, "Life is like a box of chocolates." But you don't put a comma if it's an incomplete quote from the middle -- like: The name "Slashdot" came from somewhat of an "obnoxious parody of a URL".

Are there other issues with grammar? I could go through it again and copy-edit, but maybe it would be better if someone else did it, seeing as how I'm the primary author already. It might be better to have another set of eyes on it? Thanks! WTF? (talk) 20:39, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Slashdot/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: –MuZemike 00:26, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Prose/MoS issues

• In the "Traffic and users" section, Today, most major websites can handle the surge of traffic, but "slashdotting" continues to occur on smaller or independent sites. → Don't you mean "the slashdot effect" that occurs on smaller or independent sites?

I was trying to avoid using the term "slashdot" effect twice in the same sentence. Even though it's not technically a word, it is used colloquially by users of the site, and I didn't think there was a problem with using the term in parentheses. Anyway, I've changed it to simply "the effect" in that case, again, to avoid repetition. WTF? (talk) 03:43, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

• The paragraphing in the "Administration" section seems a bit consistent. I was thinking of this: breaking off the "moderation system" part off the first paragraph, move the "comment system" up into that first paragraph, and then reorganize the rest. You would have paragraphs of more consistent lengths and of similar topics together.

It's really not feasible to do that since practically all of the administration discussed pertains to the moderation system. That's what makes Slashdot unique -- it's mostly user-administered and moderated through a very well thought out moderation system. The comment system and moderation system are tied together and can't be separated, really,. . . WTF? (talk) 03:49, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

• I don't know if it's possible to combine "Traffic and users" and "Publicity" into one section (or how such a section would be named), but if that can be done, that would be great; if not, it's no big deal.

Sections combined. WTF? (talk) 04:02, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

• In the "Traffic and users" section, As of February 2010, the site's Alexa rating is 1,268, where the average user spending 3.7 minutes per day on the site and 45,393 sites linking in. → First, you have a case of "noun plus '-ing'" in there. Second, the part of 45,393 sites linking in grammatically doesn't make sense. Please tweak that sentence to remove the "noun plus '-ing'" and that grammar inconsistency.

If you're referring to the "site's Alexa rating", this is not an issue. It's referring to something that is concrete and verifiable. While "rating" can be a verb, of course, in this case, we're using it as a noun, in the similar manner to a TV show's "Nielsen rating", for example. Changing this would be anything but accurate. WTF? (talk) 03:27, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Fixed. WTF? (talk) 22:08, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Verifiability issues

• At the end of the third-to-last paragraph of the "History" section, ... and in 2005, a "day pass" option was introduced as well, allowing non-subscribers to get the same benefits as subscribers for 24 hours if they watched a short commercial first. → [citation needed]

Statement removed since I was unable to find a reliable source to back that up. WTF? (talk) 03:56, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

• About the last third of the "Administration" section is completely unsourced. Please add a source in there (which from reading it, I guess would be some FAQ or how-to from the Slashdot site itself).

Source added (slashdot FAQ). Virtually everything stated there is backed up by the comments and moderation section of the FAQ. WTF? (talk) 03:56, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Conclusions

On hold pending improvements from what's noted above. Otherwise, good work, especially on the sourcing. –MuZemike 00:26, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Other things to remember

• Pay attention from time to time at [1] as I had to add a web.archive.org version of a 404 URL in one of the citations.
• Make sure you review WP:LQ on logical quotations; I saw a couple (which I already corrected) cases of having the end-quotation mark after the end-puncutation where it didn't apply.
• Try not to use too much "also" or "as well as" in your writing; keep the prose as crisp as possible.
• Whenever you can, work to build full paragraphs in your writing. One-sentence or otherwise very short paragraphs tend to put off readers as far as quality of writing is concerned. Conversely, too long of paragraphs that tend to drone on does the same thing to readers. –MuZemike 00:26, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Failed – after 10 days of nothing being done, and I think that's long enough. This can be renominated, or someone can let me know if anyone wishes to address the issues above. –MuZemike 22:42, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Image issues

• Both File:Slashdot screen capture.png and File:Slashdot omgponies.png need better and more descriptive fair-use rationales, especially on why they are being used in the article (purpose). Right now, they both fall short of meeting WP:NFCC#8. They both also fail WP:NFCC#3b as they both say they are full-resolution. –MuZemike 16:02, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

I added a fair-use rationale to the Slashdot screen capture image, based off of the rationale used on the screen capture for 4chan. WTF? (talk) 21:42, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

I've reduced the size and resolution of the Slashdot_omgponies.png image and added the fair-use rationale template to the image description, as well as modified the wording. WTF? (talk) 22:03, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Conclusions redux

On hold pending the image improvements. I'll take a second look at the prose (as I'm just now looking at them again and recalling and taking a second look), but it looks like they're all addressed. The verifiability issues look addressed. –MuZemike 16:02, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Passed – everything looks good and all issues have been addressed or explained adequately. Good work. –MuZemike 15:08, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Trivial

Should we mention that Opera has an integrated feature that typing in the adressbar /. you automatic get to http://slashdot.org ? mabdul 17:31, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Not very significant to be included in the page. It seems to be more of a feature of Opera, not Slashdot. There's probably other shortcuts to other websites on the browser, and Wikipedia doesn't need to provide a reference to all of them. WTF? (talk) 06:02, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Is Slashdot Off-Line?

As of today (31 August 2010) it seems that slashdot might be offline, or going offline. Most of the pages are either not accessible or are returning "unexpected end of file" errors. There have been talks of coming layoffs of current slashdot staff as well. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.79.62.75 (talk) 14:22, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

A Slashdot golden oldie

Slashdot readers were once tricked by enticing-sounding links into being Goatse'd, until Slashdot changed its link rendering code to always show the target domain. I've added that, with citation, to the chronological history, between 2002 & 2005(when the cited source was published). --Lexein (talk) 04:41, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Trolling

Where is the old article on Slashdot Trolling. It now redirects to this article, and it isn't even mentioned. Slashdot, along with Usenet are really the beginning of the whole trolling phenomena, and early in slashdots life it was known as the most 'important' trolling target on the net (being the origin of such troll memes as "first post" and the like). Can whoever decided that this was a good idea please revoke that. It was a good article, and an important record of what was a pretty important sociological phenomena 121.45.228.220 (talk) 02:01, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Slashdot trolling phenomena. WTF? (talk) 19:09, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

A snapshot of the article was copied to two Userspace subpages, see

• User:Kadin2048/Slashdot_Trolling_Phenomena and
• User:Timwi/Slashdot_trolling_phenomena

--Lexein (talk) 20:00, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Cleanup

I just finished cleaning up a lot of the primary sources. I removed the ones that verified trivial information (what the third most popular article is/was, etc.), added a few citations to the more important information, and tagged the information that only cited slashdot.org links with {{better source}}. It's on its way to becoming a featured article, in my opinion! LiteralKa (talk) 23:41, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

I cited one of the {{better source}}s, but removed two others, since Rob Malda can be considered a reliable primary source, and rephrased to read as primary source announcements.--Lexein (talk) 12:34, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Not really what I call a "cleanup", more like a mass deletion where you've removed several items of key importance, which has now been reinstated. Deletion is not necessary. Rob Malda is also still a reliable source, though what we have to be careful of is to not include too many sources from Slashdot & Malda, and enough sources from reliable third parties. But there should be sufficient third party sources presently in the article so that a few sources to Malda's Slashdot posts should not be a problem. WTF? (talk) 19:28, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

It should be noted that LiteralKa was recently banned indefinitely from editing Wikipedia due to trolling, sockpuppetry, and possible connections to the GNAA. Therefore, any edits made by this account, or comments, should be taken with a huge grain of salt. WTF? (talk) 19:42, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

WP:BOLD readability changes to lede

Hope I didn't tread on anyone's toes. Feel free to keep editing, or discuss aspects here. WykiP (talk) 04:53, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

It's actually spelled, "lead" section, not "lede". I'm not sure what language "lede" is a part of, but it's not English. If you spell it correctly, it would help to review WP:LEAD, which covers these sections. I reverted the deletion of text because too much was taken out, making it an insufficient summary of the article, which would lead to it failing WP:GA standards. The lead section needs to adequately summarize the article. If you can improve on the summary, feel free, but if you delete content, it will be reverted. WTF? (talk) 17:55, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

From WP:LEAD: "(The news-journalism jargon term lede is sometimes used, but Wikipedia leads are not written in news style, and journalistic ledes serve different purposes from encyclopedic leads.[1])" Eminence2012 (talk) 19:11, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

As indicated, it would have been better to explain your disagreement first, or reintroduced the content. WP:ROWN disagrees with your intent to revert any edits where content is deleted.

Here is what I replaced the first two paragraphs with:

-----

Slashdot (sometimes abbreviated as /.) is a technology-related current affairs website which bills itself as "News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters". News stories about science and technology are submitted by users who also collaboratively highlight the most valuable comments.

-----

Does anyone disagree that this is a significant improvement in readability?

I do not see the point of the current second paragraph. At first glance, it is unlikely to mean much to anyone who is unfamiliar with Slashdot.

Do you feel my edit made the lead too short? That it wasn't a good summary? WykiP (talk) 23:47, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes, that is FAR too short. And if you also continue to put incorrect information in the LEAD section, as you described the site as a "current affairs" website, I will continue to revert it. Please, please, please review WP:LEAD and actually READ the article before editing its LEAD (not "lede") section. Thank you. WTF? (talk) 15:58, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Such behaviour is edit warring. Consider this a formal warning.

I have not put incorrect information once. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Current_affairs_(news_format) for definition. "Current affairs" means exactly the same as "news". For sake of cohesion and as "current affairs" is more commonly associate with general news, I will accept the word change however clumsy the repetition is.

Quoting WP:LEAD:

"The lead should be able to stand alone as a concise overview." Note the word "concise".

"a clear, accessible style" Your version is neither clear nor accessible.

"15,000–30,000 characters Two or three paragraphs" Slashdot is about 20,500 words. The suggested number of paragraphs is then closer to 2 than 3.

I really don't know what you're referring to. WP:LEAD seems to support my initial edit even more than my compromise one which has the lead twice as long.

109.176.194.173 supported my removal of the repetitive parody-of-URL sentence: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Slashdot&diff=535913949&oldid=534738021. Consequently, the fairest interpretation of consensus is to support my edit. Your reversions, as I've told you several times, are against WP policy.

However, I personally do not mind the original length of the lead. I do think it's very important that it is "a concise overview" and in "a clear, accessible style".

I am happy to maintain the original lead length with a more meaningful, clearer overview. I have seen ownership of a site in other leads before although I don't think it's particularly relevant or meaningful here. I don't mind if you insist that be included.

The second paragraph is a relatively meaningless mess, as well as duplicating content from the page. The comments system should be emphasised in the lead but for its intent and effect, not its mechanism.

My preference for a more meaningful, clearer, longer overview is expansion of the awards, the Slashdot effect and expansion of types of topics and style. WykiP (talk) 05:37, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Do not lecture me about "edit warring" policy, which is something you apparently know little about. "Current affairs" websites and TV shows are about just that "current affairs", involving politics primarily. Slashdot is clearly not about that. It's about technology. Removing information about the owner of Slashdot is also detrimental to the article as it should be clearly put in the article. Simply stating, "News stories about science and technology are submitted by users who also collaboratively highlight the most valuable comments." is FAR TOO GENERAL and not even a complete statement about what the website is about! 90% of wikipedia readers only even read the lead sections of articles anyway, so you NEED more details. Period.

If you can't stop editing the lead with poor writing and incorrect information, you will be continued to be reverted until you're probably going to be blocked for vandalism. WTF? (talk) 02:50, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

I've neither reverted your 'current affairs' change nor used the word "lede" since original edit. Are you actually reading the edits?

Ownership of site is prominently displayed in the panel. I'm not trying to produce a perfect lead, I'm merely improving on the existing one.

I'm struggling to understand your disagreement and you have reverted for the 3rd time in a row. This is edit warring. I have asked for WP:Third Opinion. WykiP (talk) 13:26, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

Did you actually read my comment about your poorly worded sentence you added to the lead that I quoted above? WTF? (talk) 15:28, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

Yes. If you don't like the sentence, improve upon it. WP:ROWN WykiP (talk) 18:13, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

That's what I did. The best way to improve upon that sentence is to delete it. =) WTF? (talk) 19:52, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

I think I will merely escalate this, rather than respond in kind. WykiP (talk) 22:14, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

Do what you will, but I fail to see anything wrong with the lead section as-is. You appear to be attempting to fix something that isn't a problem. Perhaps it would be better to focus on one of the 4 million other articles on Wikipedia that are in need of actual improvement? WTF? (talk) 22:51, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

I am responding here per a request at WP:3O. I read through the discussion here and had a look at the various versions in the article history. The first revision that was submitted and subsequently reverted pretty clearly eliminated too much material from the lede, it was awkward both from a layout and readability standpoint. The lede section, as consisting of three short paragraphs as it stands now, is not obviously too long. Subsequent re-additions (or removals) of similar content were not bold so much as edit warring - WykiP please consider obtaining a consensus here on the talk page before making similar edits again per WP:BRD (more frequently cited but just as nonbinding at the WP:ROWN essay that you cite a few times above). I think "news" is more concise than "current affairs", the title should stay bolded per WP:MOSTITLE, and a new variation of the second sentence that uses a variation of "collaboratively highlighted" is preferable to the somewhat awkward hyphenation "user-submitted and ‑evaluated".

Behaviorally, the accusations of edit warring started flying around pretty quick. Realistically, substantial bold changes to the lede section of a good article are very likely to need discussion, so the revert should not have been particularly surprising. No consensus is apparent for any of the proposed changes yet, and none of the edits under discussion appear to constitute vandalism. VQuakr (talk) 05:07, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Ah, another idiot that wants to use "lede" instead of the correct "lead"! What is wrong with you people?!?! WTF? (talk) 15:24, 12 February 2013 (UTC)