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Did Slashdot really kill itself or was it just never ambitious enough to seek a broader base or try to foster communities? I don’t recall any user hostile prac

by roger_ 2y ago

Did Slashdot really kill itself or was it just never ambitious enough to seek a broader base or try to foster communities? I don’t recall any user hostile practices, though I was just a passive user back in the day. I remember a few redesigns that people weren’t entirely pleased with, but nothing on the scale of the “new” Digg.

hoistbypetard 2y ago
I think it's more that second thing than the first one. I joined slashdot in the late 90s, and though some of the OSDN stuff briefly sniffed at enshittification, they didn't really ever take that plunge. IMO, people who liked the user generated aspect of slashdot also liked the higher velocity of digg, reddit, and even HN better as those came along. People who liked the editorial curation angle that distinguished slashdot from these newer takes came to prefer more curation and professional editorial commentary, leaving slashdot in an odd in-between space.
- jghn 2y ago
  This is an interesting point. I was a heavy USENET user for several years before finding Slashdot. With /. I found myself rarely going to the source link and almost never reading the editorial commentary. I'd go straight to the comments and start reading what people had to say. All these decades later and what I love about sites like HN and Reddit is immediately wading in and embracing the zeitgeist. I *loved* Twitter for a long time for the same reason. But you're right. There are others I knew who were the exact opposite. And those people today have very different internet habits than I do.
  - antod 2y ago
    With slashdot I wouldn't RTFA (hadn't used that term for ages) until after reading some or most of the comments to give me an idea of whether or not it was going to be worth it. And often any comment I made was in relation to the ongoing discussion and not necessarily the article itself. I still do that here and elsewhere too.
    - mingus88 2y ago
      I’m really trying to pull back from that habit because I simply can’t tell what is legit discourse anymore In my golden era of message boards the worst you had to deal with were trolls or bad actors but today you simply don’t know who is an LLM bot What’s the point in reading or replying to machines. It’s like a sand trap just wasting your time in the worst possible way
emacsen 2y ago
My read on Slashdot was that we need to separate out the folks who built the site from those who run it. The original authors executed an exit strategy. They sold the site, got a bunch of money, and left to work on new things. The various new owners (of which there have been a few) have never been ambitious about expanding Slashdot, either in technical or social scope.
bombcar 2y ago
I think Slashdot died when Cmdrtaco sold out, not for any real nefarious reason, but simply that it was no longer "a list of things Cmdrtaco was interested in" but had spread so wide that it was more of a mish-mash. Early on it was nice, because if you liked the things Cmdrtaco was interested in, you'd like almost every post (even if you got mad at it). Once it was wide, it was harder to follow. Digg had a similar issue, but was more "active" for awhile. Reddit really "solved" the problem by having subreddits so you could curate what you were interested in. Also, the people who were using /. grew up, and there wasn't really replacement people.
- ta1243 2y ago
  > Also, the people who were using /. grew up, and there wasn't really replacement people. This is a big thing. The internet users of the late 90s just don't exist any more. The internet isn't for nerds any more, it's as ubiquitous an infrastructure as electricity or roads, everyone uses it. The generation before slashdot from the 80s upto Eternal September were another group You can't recreate slashdot today, because the people don't exist.
  - munificent 2y ago
    > The internet users of the late 90s just don't exist any more. We still exist, we're just a very small slice of a much larger pie. Also, we are likely a less profitable target for advertisers so aren't an important demographic for ad-driven companies.
    - bombcar 2y ago
      I take it more to mean "people who have to be technically inclined to a degree to get online in the 90s" don't really exist as a category that is self-selecting. The other thing you mention is huge, too, of course. All the "famous" things from the 90s were basically labours of love by individual hackers who then looked for ways to fund it. Now everything is all about ad-revenue dollars.
    - ta1243 2y ago
serviceberry 2y ago
> Did Slashdot really kill itself or was it just never ambitious enough to seek a broader base or try to foster communities? It's still around, but there's one simple DAU measure we can look at: it used to be that stories would get 100-500 comments, and now they usually get 5-30. But I don't think it's a good example of what the parent is complaining about. Slashdot didn't change to be more hostile, it was fairly hostile from the get go. It had a snarky commenting culture, fairly brutal moderation, etc. You'd be downvoted into oblivion for the most minor transgressions - like not hating Microsoft enough. It just happened to be the only game in town for geek news. But then, a number of alternatives popped up - tech-related subreddits, HN, etc. I stopped using Slashdot not because of any redesign or policy change, but simply because I could get the same news elsewhere, with a lower entry bar to participate.
chairmansteve 2y ago
They sold to Conde Nast or something.
AnimalMuppet 2y ago
I think Slashdot's problem was that the moderation there wasn't powerful enough. The percentage of trolls reached a certain point, and then some fraction of non-troll users got disgusted enough to leave, so the percentage of trolls was now higher, and more non-troll users got disgusted and left... That vicious circle destroyed the community. IMHO.
- mixmastamyk 2y ago
  To this day, it rarely to never gives me the chance to moderate, even with excellent karma. That’s its biggest flaw imho, and a major reason why I rarely visit.
spauldo 2y ago
I think a lot of the problem with Slashdot was cultural change. When it was new, most of the readership was made up of IT professionals and programmers. Sure, there were trolls but most of the comments were kind of like what you see on HN. Over time, the civility and intelligence in the comments dropped. It didn't feel like a community anymore - or at least a community the original readers wanted to be a part of, anyway. So more and more of the original readers left until the comment sections looked like 4chan. Slashdot had its scandals and drama, but I really believe it was the readership change that killed it.

by roger_ 2y ago

hoistbypetard 2y ago

I think it's more that second thing than the first one. I joined slashdot in the late 90s, and though some of the OSDN stuff briefly sniffed at enshittification, they didn't really ever take that plunge. IMO, people who liked the user generated aspect of slashdot also liked the higher velocity of digg, reddit, and even HN better as those came along. People who liked the editorial curation angle that distinguished slashdot from these newer takes came to prefer more curation and professional editorial commentary, leaving slashdot in an odd in-between space.

jghn 2y ago
This is an interesting point. I was a heavy USENET user for several years before finding Slashdot. With /. I found myself rarely going to the source link and almost never reading the editorial commentary. I'd go straight to the comments and start reading what people had to say. All these decades later and what I love about sites like HN and Reddit is immediately wading in and embracing the zeitgeist. I *loved* Twitter for a long time for the same reason. But you're right. There are others I knew who were the exact opposite. And those people today have very different internet habits than I do.
- antod 2y ago
  With slashdot I wouldn't RTFA (hadn't used that term for ages) until after reading some or most of the comments to give me an idea of whether or not it was going to be worth it. And often any comment I made was in relation to the ongoing discussion and not necessarily the article itself. I still do that here and elsewhere too.
  - mingus88 2y ago
    I’m really trying to pull back from that habit because I simply can’t tell what is legit discourse anymore In my golden era of message boards the worst you had to deal with were trolls or bad actors but today you simply don’t know who is an LLM bot What’s the point in reading or replying to machines. It’s like a sand trap just wasting your time in the worst possible way

emacsen 2y ago

My read on Slashdot was that we need to separate out the folks who built the site from those who run it. The original authors executed an exit strategy. They sold the site, got a bunch of money, and left to work on new things. The various new owners (of which there have been a few) have never been ambitious about expanding Slashdot, either in technical or social scope.

bombcar 2y ago

I think Slashdot died when Cmdrtaco sold out, not for any real nefarious reason, but simply that it was no longer "a list of things Cmdrtaco was interested in" but had spread so wide that it was more of a mish-mash. Early on it was nice, because if you liked the things Cmdrtaco was interested in, you'd like almost every post (even if you got mad at it). Once it was wide, it was harder to follow. Digg had a similar issue, but was more "active" for awhile. Reddit really "solved" the problem by having subreddits so you could curate what you were interested in. Also, the people who were using /. grew up, and there wasn't really replacement people.

ta1243 2y ago
> Also, the people who were using /. grew up, and there wasn't really replacement people. This is a big thing. The internet users of the late 90s just don't exist any more. The internet isn't for nerds any more, it's as ubiquitous an infrastructure as electricity or roads, everyone uses it. The generation before slashdot from the 80s upto Eternal September were another group You can't recreate slashdot today, because the people don't exist.
- munificent 2y ago
  > The internet users of the late 90s just don't exist any more. We still exist, we're just a very small slice of a much larger pie. Also, we are likely a less profitable target for advertisers so aren't an important demographic for ad-driven companies.
  - bombcar 2y ago
    I take it more to mean "people who have to be technically inclined to a degree to get online in the 90s" don't really exist as a category that is self-selecting. The other thing you mention is huge, too, of course. All the "famous" things from the 90s were basically labours of love by individual hackers who then looked for ways to fund it. Now everything is all about ad-revenue dollars.
  - ta1243 2y ago

serviceberry 2y ago

> Did Slashdot really kill itself or was it just never ambitious enough to seek a broader base or try to foster communities? It's still around, but there's one simple DAU measure we can look at: it used to be that stories would get 100-500 comments, and now they usually get 5-30. But I don't think it's a good example of what the parent is complaining about. Slashdot didn't change to be more hostile, it was fairly hostile from the get go. It had a snarky commenting culture, fairly brutal moderation, etc. You'd be downvoted into oblivion for the most minor transgressions - like not hating Microsoft enough. It just happened to be the only game in town for geek news. But then, a number of alternatives popped up - tech-related subreddits, HN, etc. I stopped using Slashdot not because of any redesign or policy change, but simply because I could get the same news elsewhere, with a lower entry bar to participate.

chairmansteve 2y ago

They sold to Conde Nast or something.

AnimalMuppet 2y ago

I think Slashdot's problem was that the moderation there wasn't powerful enough. The percentage of trolls reached a certain point, and then some fraction of non-troll users got disgusted enough to leave, so the percentage of trolls was now higher, and more non-troll users got disgusted and left... That vicious circle destroyed the community. IMHO.

mixmastamyk 2y ago
To this day, it rarely to never gives me the chance to moderate, even with excellent karma. That’s its biggest flaw imho, and a major reason why I rarely visit.

spauldo 2y ago

I think a lot of the problem with Slashdot was cultural change. When it was new, most of the readership was made up of IT professionals and programmers. Sure, there were trolls but most of the comments were kind of like what you see on HN. Over time, the civility and intelligence in the comments dropped. It didn't feel like a community anymore - or at least a community the original readers wanted to be a part of, anyway. So more and more of the original readers left until the comment sections looked like 4chan. Slashdot had its scandals and drama, but I really believe it was the readership change that killed it.