Slashdot

Slashdot is a site of current events in English language dealing with “all that interests the Nerd S”. The tackled subjects usually refer to the Ordinateur S and the technologies the information, with the video games, Internet, the Science, the Intellectual property and several other related subjects. The site asserts: 700000 users per month, it is thus very popular.

History

Created in September 1997 by Rob “Cmdr Taco” Malda, it is today the property of the network OSDN. The majority of the contents of Slashdot consists of short summaries of news published on other sites, with bonds towards this news; moreover, possibility is given to the readers of publishing comments on the news. Their summaries are subjected to the approval of the regulators, which accept or rejetent the contributions. In addition, one finds on the site of criticisms of books as of the requests Ask Slashdot (“ask Slashdot”), emitted by users wishing of information on behalf of the public.

The name of Slashdot was selected for unpronouncable URL that gives, http://slashdot.org being read in English HTTP-colonist-slash-slash-slashdot-dowry-org . That wanted to be at the beginning a kind of parody.

Slashdot is maintained mainly by Rob “CmdrTaco” Malda, Jeff “Hemos” Packsaddlled (which publishes stories, sells ad space and deals with the literary critics) and Robin “Roblimo” Miller (who came to help to manage some of the most managerial aspects of the site and publishes also stories). The band-width is provided by Exodus.Net.

Public

The principal public of Slashdot would consist, according to readers themselves, as users of systems Unix pertaining to the movement of the free software. However, a survey on Slashdot affirms that more half of the visitors would use in fact Windows, and only one Linux third, while the identification of the navigators shows a proportion still much less, this having to be moderate by the fact that many visits are done since the work place, where Windows is very present. Moreover, one most of the articles published are directed towards a public customer of Microsoft, it goes from there in the same way for publicities.

Slashcode

The software used by the Web site is called Slashcode . It is the whole of scripts Perl which allow the operation of the site. Written by Rob Malda, these scripts are currently maintained by Jamie McCarthy and Chris Nandor. It was carried out under the public License general GNU. Other Internet sites use versions modified for their forums.

Slashdot effect

The effect Slashdot indicates the fact that an Internet site is submerged requests coming from users of Slashdot at the time of the publication of a news referring it, making it thus temporarily inalienable by Denial-of-service. It gave rise to a new adjective: slashdotted (more than 100.000 references on Google):

Effect Slashdot

The system of self-regulation of Slashdot

Slashdot uses an elaborate system of Autorégulation, which gives an electronic idea of '' democracy '': the principles are the following and concern only the only users having an account on the site (the opening of this account is free and free):

Users

Each user has a karma . This karma increases:

When the user writes a comment who is positively moderate thereafter
When the user proposes an article accepted by the editors
When moderations of the user are considered to be good by the métamodérateurs
When the user métamodère itself often (each one has the right of it if it belongs to the 92,5% of the most tested users)

Its karma decreases on the other hand when its comments are considered to be poor, or its partial moderations by the métamodérateurs (see further).

Regulators

The system regularly draws with the fate from the moderating , a little with the manner of the duty of Jury

the probability of being drawn with the fate increases with the karma
the regulator obtains a certain number (5) of points of moderation (many contributions that it can moderate)
This number of points décrémente to each moderation. The points of moderation not used are lost at the end of 3 days, which avoids temptation to cumulate points “to strike a great blow”.
the regulator chooses the comments which he wants to moderate, which he makes in their allotting an adjective which will give or remove points of karma to the author and will give or remove points with the comment itself. The adjective are: Underrated (+1), Informative (+1), Insightful (+1), Interesting (+1), Funny (+1, without no-claims bonus of karma), Offtopic (- 1), Troll (- 1), Flamebait (- 1), Overrated (- 1).
the comments can have from -1 to 5 points. The users individually choose the threshold from which the articles have sufficient point to deserve to be read.

Métamodérateurs

Any acceptable user can become voluntary metamoderator , and thus agree to judge the work of the regulators - of which he does not see the names. The limit is of ten moderations per day and metamoderator, so that it seems.

It is this time on the quality of the moderation (and not of the article) which it is necessary to carry a judgment: just, abstention, or unjust. The métamodérateurs form a kind of virtual court of appeal by Percolation. A moderation described as unjust by the métamodérateurs will make lose karma has its regulator. A regulator thus may find it beneficial any (at least if it holds to often become again it) to as show just as possible, or at least recognized such, in its choices.

the metamoderator does not choose the contributions which it has to moderate. They are proposed to him by the system.
the system chooses the contributions to métamodérer only in the subjects to which the metamoderator did not contribute, which avoids any temptation of settling of score.
the metamoderator does not see (except if he asks to see the context ) the name of the authors of the contributions whom he owes métamodérer, which avoids to him very prejudged: it must come to a conclusion about the contents and not be influenced by the reputation of its author.
the métamodérateurs can punish the bad regulators when necessary but that does not cause to restore in any way the karma of the original author of the comment.

External bonds

Site of Slashdot
the site of Slashcode
List of sites using the '' slashcode ''
Slashdot FAQ - Meta-moderation
Slashdot FAQ - Comments and Moderation
LinuxFR, kind of Slashdot French-speaking (more restrictive in the topics approached)
Heise Verlag, kind of Slashdot German-speaking

Simple: Slashdot

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