4 ms·

I've been down on Slashdot for the last few years, even going so far as to remove it from my RSS reader and bookmarks bar. I check back sometimes here and ther

I've been down on Slashdot for the last few years, even going so far as to remove it from my RSS reader and bookmarks bar. I check back sometimes here and there but devote most of my time to HN/reddit now. Taco's farewell (and Hemos' reply in comments) really brought to me back why I liked Slashdot in the first place back in 1998- an editorial voice curating interesting tech stories. That editorial voice was important to me in 1998, as I was in college for CS and was really uninformed about things like (as _delirium notes in this thread) the EFF, the RIAA, open source software, The Many Uses of Linux, etc. I compare that to today when I just scan lists of links on reddit or HN and pick out the items that interest me. The editorial voice was a good starting point for me- it directed me to interesting things that I couldn't have fathomed. As I grew into my techy career and interests, I needed it less and less. I hope it's not viewed as complaining or whatnot, but I do wonder if anyone else avoids Slashdot in 2011 almost purely because of the commenters' obnoxiousness. I always get a picture of sysadmin-like greybeards pounding away furiously at their keyboards the moment anyone suggests that some software, somewhere be written in something other than C or perl. Ah slashdot, you truly taught me what a 'troll' was (and "-5, Troll"? shudder.) And for that I thank you.

_delirium 15y ago
> Ah slashdot, you truly taught me what a 'troll' was In a lot of interesting varieties! Some even sort of artistic, and some precursors of later SomethingAwful/4chan/internet-meme types of things. I just heard some sad news on talk radio - Slashdot editor Rob Malda resigned from his editorship this morning. There weren't any more details. I'm sure everyone in the HN community will miss him - even if you didn't enjoy his work, there's no denying his contributions to geek culture. Truly an internet icon.
- zavulon 15y ago
  Natalie Portman, naked and petrified, covered in hot grits
  - spiffworks 15y ago
    Sometimes, while on HN, I miss the playfulness that made /. a true joy in the past. If we cannot scorn ourselves, we run the risk of taking ourselves to seriously.
    - mindcrime 15y ago
      Sometimes, while on HN, I miss the playfulness that made /. a true joy in the past. I do as well, but I also keep reminding myself "This is Hacker News, not Slashdot." And so I down-vote people who post memes and the typical /. off-topic crap. I just always take comfort in knowing that, when I want that stuff, Slashdot is still around.
      - trafficlight 15y ago
        I get my meme fix on Reddit these days.
        deleted 15y ago
        [deleted]
        mindcrime 15y ago
        Interestingly enough, I rarely find much in the way of memes on Reddit. But I think it's because I almost never visit the front-page or any of the popular sub-reddits. I stick to a lot of very niche / specialized sub-reddits like /r/machine_learning and /r/semanticweb and /r/csbooks, etc. <shrug />
- GregBuchholz 15y ago
  Trolling as an art form. I can still remember when "subscriptions" to /. first came out and the people who added a line to their signatures, bemoaning the little asterisk by the name of subscribers. I think I was probably the first (and probably only) person who anonymously bought gift subscriptions to several of the worst complaining offenders. Apparently some of the recipients tried to refuse the gift subscriptions, but /. didn't have a process for that, and I probably gave the admins a headache that they didn't anticipate. Ah, those were the days...
bcl 15y ago
I quit reading /. when the comments became too difficult to wade through, even when reading only +5's the system became overloaded with noise so I stopped visiting. HN is now my go-to site for news, due to the high quality of the comments (read 'em first to see if the link is worth the time) and the generally high value of articles.
- prawn 15y ago
  I quit years ago when the obvious meme-jokes heavily outweighed any interesting discussion. Even knocking down Funny posts didn't always help. On the very few occasions when I've returned, I've also really, really disliked the adjustments to the comment filtering and viewing - looks ugly and seems quite confusing. Like others, I do think they had an excellent moderation system that no one else seems to have matched since. With you on the switch to HN as well. I deleted /. from my bookmarks a few years back and have probably visited twice in the last year just to see if it's still alive.
  - adamc 15y ago
    Similar experiences here, but I still remember /. and CmdrTaco with fondness. It was an incredibly cool idea, even if it didn't completely evolve the way I would have liked. I'll be impressed if Hacker News can avoid the problems popularity seems to bring.
Cymen 15y ago
My experience is similar but in addition I also noticed that I would come across many of the topics a day or two before they were actually posted on /. so it started to get less and less relevant. Now I don't visit at all.
jcurbo 15y ago
Indeed, I entered college for CS in 1998 and Slashdot was my main source of tech news for many years. (userid #132!) The comments would actually have more info on the story, or even someone related to the story itself posting (e.g. Carmack) I still have /. in my RSS reader but don't really read the comments anymore... however one of the main reasons I come to HN is for the comments, just like /. years ago.
- _delirium 15y ago
  Re: Carmack, someone's collected all his Slashdot posts (1999-2008): http://www.team5150.com/~andrew/carmack/slashdot.html http://www.team5150.com/~andrew/carmack/slashdot.html
  - Sixing 15y ago
    Sounds Carmack is famous , great links, I'll bookmark it, thanks!
    - zikzikzik 15y ago
      you must be new here.

_delirium 15y ago

> Ah slashdot, you truly taught me what a 'troll' was In a lot of interesting varieties! Some even sort of artistic, and some precursors of later SomethingAwful/4chan/internet-meme types of things. I just heard some sad news on talk radio - Slashdot editor Rob Malda resigned from his editorship this morning. There weren't any more details. I'm sure everyone in the HN community will miss him - even if you didn't enjoy his work, there's no denying his contributions to geek culture. Truly an internet icon.

zavulon 15y ago
Natalie Portman, naked and petrified, covered in hot grits
- spiffworks 15y ago
  Sometimes, while on HN, I miss the playfulness that made /. a true joy in the past. If we cannot scorn ourselves, we run the risk of taking ourselves to seriously.
  - mindcrime 15y ago
    Sometimes, while on HN, I miss the playfulness that made /. a true joy in the past. I do as well, but I also keep reminding myself "This is Hacker News, not Slashdot." And so I down-vote people who post memes and the typical /. off-topic crap. I just always take comfort in knowing that, when I want that stuff, Slashdot is still around.
    - trafficlight 15y ago
      I get my meme fix on Reddit these days.
      - deleted 15y ago
        [deleted]
      - mindcrime 15y ago
        Interestingly enough, I rarely find much in the way of memes on Reddit. But I think it's because I almost never visit the front-page or any of the popular sub-reddits. I stick to a lot of very niche / specialized sub-reddits like /r/machine_learning and /r/semanticweb and /r/csbooks, etc. <shrug />
GregBuchholz 15y ago
Trolling as an art form. I can still remember when "subscriptions" to /. first came out and the people who added a line to their signatures, bemoaning the little asterisk by the name of subscribers. I think I was probably the first (and probably only) person who anonymously bought gift subscriptions to several of the worst complaining offenders. Apparently some of the recipients tried to refuse the gift subscriptions, but /. didn't have a process for that, and I probably gave the admins a headache that they didn't anticipate. Ah, those were the days...

bcl 15y ago

I quit reading /. when the comments became too difficult to wade through, even when reading only +5's the system became overloaded with noise so I stopped visiting. HN is now my go-to site for news, due to the high quality of the comments (read 'em first to see if the link is worth the time) and the generally high value of articles.

prawn 15y ago
I quit years ago when the obvious meme-jokes heavily outweighed any interesting discussion. Even knocking down Funny posts didn't always help. On the very few occasions when I've returned, I've also really, really disliked the adjustments to the comment filtering and viewing - looks ugly and seems quite confusing. Like others, I do think they had an excellent moderation system that no one else seems to have matched since. With you on the switch to HN as well. I deleted /. from my bookmarks a few years back and have probably visited twice in the last year just to see if it's still alive.
- adamc 15y ago
  Similar experiences here, but I still remember /. and CmdrTaco with fondness. It was an incredibly cool idea, even if it didn't completely evolve the way I would have liked. I'll be impressed if Hacker News can avoid the problems popularity seems to bring.

Cymen 15y ago

My experience is similar but in addition I also noticed that I would come across many of the topics a day or two before they were actually posted on /. so it started to get less and less relevant. Now I don't visit at all.

jcurbo 15y ago

Indeed, I entered college for CS in 1998 and Slashdot was my main source of tech news for many years. (userid #132!) The comments would actually have more info on the story, or even someone related to the story itself posting (e.g. Carmack) I still have /. in my RSS reader but don't really read the comments anymore... however one of the main reasons I come to HN is for the comments, just like /. years ago.

_delirium 15y ago
Re: Carmack, someone's collected all his Slashdot posts (1999-2008): http://www.team5150.com/~andrew/carmack/slashdot.html http://www.team5150.com/~andrew/carmack/slashdot.html
- Sixing 15y ago
  Sounds Carmack is famous , great links, I'll bookmark it, thanks!
  - zikzikzik 15y ago
    you must be new here.