A popular meme (based on an unscientific Slashdot user poll) is, "In Soviet Russia, noun verb you!" This type of joke has its roots in the 1960s or earlier, and is known as a "Russian reversal".
The website was founded in 1997 by Hope College students Rob Malda, also known as "CmdrTaco", and classmate Jeff Bates, also known as "Hemos".
This phenomenon was known as the "Slashdot effect". ==History== ===1990s=== Slashdot was preceded by Rob Malda's personal website "Chips & Dips", which launched in October 1997, featured a single "rant" each day about something that interested its author – typically something to do with Linux or open source software.
The site became "Slashdot" in September 1997 under the slogan "News for Nerds.
Many Slashdotters have long talked about the supposed release of Duke Nukem Forever, which was promised in 1997 but was delayed indefinitely (the game was eventually released in 2011).
By June 1998, the site was seeing as many as 100,000 page views per day and advertisers began to take notice.
By December 1998, Slashdot had net revenues of $18,000, yet its Internet profile was higher and revenues were expected to increase. On June 29, 1999, the site was sold to Linux megasite Andover.net for $1.5 million in cash and $7 million in Andover stock at the Initial public offering (IPO) price.
In July 2015, Dice announced that it planned to sell Slashdot and SourceForge; in particular, the company stated in a filing that it was unable to "successfully [leverage] the Slashdot user base to further Dice's digital recruitment business". On January 27, 2016, the two sites were sold to the San Diego-based BizX, LLC for an undisclosed amount. ==Administration== ===Team=== It was run by its founder, Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda, from 1998 until 2011.
Early versions of Slash were written by Rob Malda in the spring of 1998.
By December 1998, Slashdot had net revenues of $18,000, yet its Internet profile was higher and revenues were expected to increase. On June 29, 1999, the site was sold to Linux megasite Andover.net for $1.5 million in cash and $7 million in Andover stock at the Initial public offering (IPO) price.
After Andover.net bought Slashdot in June 1999, Slash remains Free software and anyone can contribute to development. ===Peer moderation=== Slashdot's editors are primarily responsible for selecting and editing the primary stories that are posted daily by submitters.
A meta-moderation system was implemented on September 7, 1999, to moderate the moderators and help contain abuses in the moderation system.
This was known as the "Slashdot effect", a term first coined on February 15, 1999 that refers to an article about a "new generation of niche Web portals driving unprecedented amounts of traffic to sites of interest". Slashdot has received over twenty awards, including People's Voice Awards in 2000 in both of the categories for which it was nominated (Best Community Site and Best News Site).
The site has won more than 20 awards, including People's Voice Awards in 2000 for "Best Community Site" and "Best News Site".
Andover.net merged with VA Linux on February 3, 2000, changed its name to SourceForge, Inc.
on November 4, 2009. ===2000s=== Slashdot's 10,000th article was posted after two and a half years on February 24, 2000, and the 100,000th article was posted on December 11, 2009 after 12 years online. During the first 12 years, the most active story with the most responses posted was the post-2004 US Presidential Election article "Kerry Concedes Election To Bush" with 5,687 posts.
A thread posted in 2002 titled "What's Keeping You On Windows?" was the 10th-most-active story, and an article about Windows 2000/NT4 source-code leaks the most visited article with more than 680,000 hits.
This was known as the "Slashdot effect", a term first coined on February 15, 1999 that refers to an article about a "new generation of niche Web portals driving unprecedented amounts of traffic to sites of interest". Slashdot has received over twenty awards, including People's Voice Awards in 2000 in both of the categories for which it was nominated (Best Community Site and Best News Site).
The site was mentioned briefly in the 2000 novel Cosmonaut Keep, written by Ken MacLeod.
Some controversy erupted on March 9, 2001 after an anonymous user posted the full text of Scientology's "Operating Thetan Level Three" (OT III) document in a comment attached to a Slashdot article.
A week later, in a long article, Slashdot editors explained their decision to remove the page while providing links and information on how to get the document from other sources. Slashdot Japan was launched on May 28, 2001 (although the first article was published April 5, 2001) and is an official offshoot of the US-based Web site.
A thread posted in 2002 titled "What's Keeping You On Windows?" was the 10th-most-active story, and an article about Windows 2000/NT4 source-code leaks the most visited article with more than 680,000 hits.
On Valentine's Day 2002, founder Rob Malda proposed to longtime girlfriend Kathleen Fent using the front page of Slashdot.
They were married on December 8, 2002, in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Slashdot implemented a paid subscription service on March 1, 2002.
Slashdot has been considered a pioneer in user-driven content, influencing other sites such as Google News and Wikipedia. There has been a dip in readership as of 2011, primarily due to the increase of technology-related blogs and Twitter feeds. In 2002, approximately 50% of Slashdot's traffic consisted of people who simply check out the headlines and click through, while others participate in discussion boards and take part in the community.
Many of the most popular stories are political, with "Strike on Iraq" (March 19, 2003) the second-most-active article and "Barack Obama Wins US Presidency" (November 5, 2008) the third-most-active.
On March 6, 2003, subscribers were given the ability to see articles 10 to 20 minutes before they are released to the public.
This followed the creation of a new article section, politics.slashdot.org, created at the start of the 2004 election on September 7, 2004.
It was originally created to cover the 2004 United States Presidential Election. Polls – a poll is usually run on the site in the right-hand margin, asking users their choice on a variety of topics.
The main antagonists in the 2004 novel Century Rain, by Alastair Reynolds – The Slashers – are named after Slashdot users.
The rest of the 10 most active articles are an article announcing the 2005 London bombings, and several articles about Evolution vs.
During the summer of 2005, he stopped being in charge of the polls, and as a result the CowboyNeal option disappeared. Science – news on science-related topics (e.g.
Slashdotters typically like to mock then United States Senator Ted Stevens' 2006 description of the Internet as a "series of tubes" or former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's chair-throwing incident from 2005.
Slashdot altered its threaded discussion forum display software to explicitly show domains for links in articles, as "users made a sport out of tricking unsuspecting readers into visiting [Goatse.cx]." In observance of April Fools' Day in 2006, Slashdot temporarily changed its signature teal color theme to a warm palette of bubblegum pink and changed its masthead from the usual, "News for Nerds" motto to, "OMG!!! Ponies!!!" Editors joked that this was done to increase female readership.
Slashdot unveiled its newly redesigned site on June 4, 2006, following a CSS Redesign Competition.
Slashdotters typically like to mock then United States Senator Ted Stevens' 2006 description of the Internet as a "series of tubes" or former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's chair-throwing incident from 2005.
For Slashdot's 10-year anniversary in 2007, one of the items auctioned off in the charity auction for the Electronic Frontier Foundation was a 3-digit Slashdot user ID. ==Traffic and publicity== In 2006, Slashdot had approximately 5.5 million users per month. The primary stories on the site consist of a short synopsis paragraph, a link to the original story, and a lengthy discussion section, all contributed by users.
on May 24, 2007, and then became Geeknet, Inc.
For Slashdot's 10-year anniversary in 2007, one of the items auctioned off in the charity auction for the Electronic Frontier Foundation was a 3-digit Slashdot user ID. ==Traffic and publicity== In 2006, Slashdot had approximately 5.5 million users per month. The primary stories on the site consist of a short synopsis paragraph, a link to the original story, and a lengthy discussion section, all contributed by users.
Many of the most popular stories are political, with "Strike on Iraq" (March 19, 2003) the second-most-active article and "Barack Obama Wins US Presidency" (November 5, 2008) the third-most-active.
on November 4, 2009. ===2000s=== Slashdot's 10,000th article was posted after two and a half years on February 24, 2000, and the 100,000th article was posted on December 11, 2009 after 12 years online. During the first 12 years, the most active story with the most responses posted was the post-2004 US Presidential Election article "Kerry Concedes Election To Bush" with 5,687 posts.
In another supposed April Fools' Day joke, User Achievement tags were introduced on April 1, 2009.
An external site, New Media Services, has reported the importance of Online Moderation last December 1, 2011.
On November 9 that same year, Malda wrote that Slashdot attained 16,777,215 (or 224 − 1) comments, which broke the database for three hours until the administrators fixed the problem. ===2010s=== On January 25, 2011, the site launched its third major redesign in its 13.5-year history, which gutted the HTML and CSS, and updated the graphics.
On August 25, 2011, Malda resigned as Editor-in-Chief with immediate effect.
On December 7, 2011, Slashdot announced that it would start to push what the company described as "sponsored" Ask Slashdot questions.
In July 2015, Dice announced that it planned to sell Slashdot and SourceForge; in particular, the company stated in a filing that it was unable to "successfully [leverage] the Slashdot user base to further Dice's digital recruitment business". On January 27, 2016, the two sites were sold to the San Diego-based BizX, LLC for an undisclosed amount. ==Administration== ===Team=== It was run by its founder, Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda, from 1998 until 2011.
Many Slashdotters have long talked about the supposed release of Duke Nukem Forever, which was promised in 1997 but was delayed indefinitely (the game was eventually released in 2011).
Slashdot has been considered a pioneer in user-driven content, influencing other sites such as Google News and Wikipedia. There has been a dip in readership as of 2011, primarily due to the increase of technology-related blogs and Twitter feeds. In 2002, approximately 50% of Slashdot's traffic consisted of people who simply check out the headlines and click through, while others participate in discussion boards and take part in the community.
In 2012, they sold it to DHI Group, Inc.
In 2012, Slashdot had around 3.7 million unique visitors per month and received over 5300 comments per day.
On March 28, 2012, Slashdot launched Slashdot TV.
Two months later, in May 2012, Slashdot launched SlashBI, SlashCloud, and SlashDataCenter, three websites dedicated to original journalistic content.
While initially stating that there were no plans for major changes to Slashdot, in October 2013, Slashdot launched a "beta" for a significant redesign of the site, which featured a simpler appearance and commenting system.
While initially an opt-in beta, the site automatically began migrating selected users to the new design in February 2014; the rollout led to a negative response from many longtime users, upset by the added visual complexity, and the removal of features, such as comment viewing, that distinguished Slashdot from other news sites.
An organized boycott of the site was held from February 10 to 17, 2014.
In July 2015, Dice announced that it planned to sell Slashdot and SourceForge; in particular, the company stated in a filing that it was unable to "successfully [leverage] the Slashdot user base to further Dice's digital recruitment business". On January 27, 2016, the two sites were sold to the San Diego-based BizX, LLC for an undisclosed amount. ==Administration== ===Team=== It was run by its founder, Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda, from 1998 until 2011.
In January 2016, BIZX acquired Slashdot Media, including both slashdot.org and SourceForge.
In July 2015, Dice announced that it planned to sell Slashdot and SourceForge; in particular, the company stated in a filing that it was unable to "successfully [leverage] the Slashdot user base to further Dice's digital recruitment business". On January 27, 2016, the two sites were sold to the San Diego-based BizX, LLC for an undisclosed amount. ==Administration== ===Team=== It was run by its founder, Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda, from 1998 until 2011.
In December 2019, BIZX rebranded to Slashdot Media. Summaries of stories and links to news articles are submitted by Slashdot's own users, and each story becomes the topic of a threaded discussion among users.
Comments are very rarely deleted, even if they contain hateful remarks. Starting in August 2019 anonymous comments and postings have been disabled. Moderation points add to a user's rating, which is known as "karma" on Slashdot.
All text is taken from Wikipedia. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License .
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