Updated Slashdot Advertising Policy

In response to increased advertiser demand, we have decided that we will post one story a day paid for directly by our advertisers. These paid "Slashvertisements" will appear daily amidst the normal stories you read here. Our first Slashvertisement is for our sister site, ThinkGeek , stuff for smart masses. From Linus' Autobiography to 42" Plasma Screens and Caffeine Products Galore, ThinkGeek has everything you need, except love. But enough of their gift certificates could bribe your way to that too! And check out their current exciting specials!. Also at the request of our advertisers, anonymous posting has been disabled. If you are interested in reaching quality demographics using Slashvertisements for your company, or just have questions about the new ad policy, email Hemos.

First Slashvertisement! (by Microsoft)

Let's have a close look at the costs involved when running a Linux system.

An important factor in Linux' cost is its maintenance. Linux requires a *lot* of maintenance, work doable only by the relatively few high-paid Linux administrators that put themselves - of course willingly - at a great place in the market. Linux seems to be needing maintenance continuously, to keep it from breaking down.

Add to this the cost of loss of data. Linux' native file system, EXT2FS, is known to lose data like a firehose spouts water when the file system isn't unmounted properly. Other unix file systems are much more tolerant towards unexpected crashes. An example is the FreeBSD file system, which with soft updates enabled, performance-wise blows EXT2FS out of the water, and doesn't have the negative drawback of extreme data loss in case of a system breakdown.

According to Linux advocates, an alternative to EXT2FS would be ReiserFS. Unfortunately, ReiserFS is still in beta stage. This means it is not intended for production use (although according to many Linux advocates this shouldn't be a problem, which makes me wonder how (little) valuable they find your data).

The other proposed 'solution', EXT3FS, is nothing more than an ugly hack to put journaling into the file system. All the drawbacks of the ancient EXT2FS file system remain in EXT3FS, for the sake of 'forward- and backward compatibility'. This is interesting, considering that the DOS heritage in the Windows 9x/ME series was considered a very bad thing by the Linux community, even though it provided what could be called one of the best examples of compatibility, ever. When it's about Linux, compatibility constraints don't seem to be that much of a problem for Linux advocates.

Back to Linux' cost. Factor in also the fact that crashes happen much more often on Linux than on other unices. On other unices, crashes usually are caused by external sources like power outages. Crashes in Linux are a regular thing, and nobody seems to know what causes them, internally. Linux advocates try to hide this fact by denying crashes ever happen. Instead, they have frequent "hardware problems".

The steep learning curve compared to about any other operating system out there is a major factor in Linux' cost. The system is a mix of features from all kinds of unices, but not one of them is implemented right. A Linux user has to live with badly coded tools which have low performance, mangle data seemingly at random and are not in line with their specification. On top of that a lot of them spit out the most childish and unprofessional messages, indicating that they were created by 14-year olds with too much time, no talent and a bad attitude.

I could go on and on and on, but the conclusion is clear. Linux is not an option for any one who seeks a professional OS with high performance, scalability, stability, adherence to standards, etc.

Re:Come one come all!

I can see it now: a new deal - 100 mod points, $100 - protect your interests and your articles! Yes, here at Craaaazzzzzzyyyy Taco's, everything must go, go, go!!

And if you become our sponsor right now you'll get this fabulous one time only special bonus, auto-unmoddable-fp's for a month!!!

Yes, come to Slashdotland and memebomb the geeks!

Slashdot: Stuff for sale. Stuff that's modded.

Re:Enough with the April Fools already

Subscribe. Subscribers aren't forced to see the April Fools' jokes.

Re:Enough with the April Fools already

Do you get the feeling that this is kinda like *them* trolling *us*? Wierd.

WHAT THE FUCK?

Anonymous posting has been disabled due to advertiser's request? Are you insane?!?

Part of the beauty of slashdot is the ability to post your view without getting lambasted for it. I'm not a 'fp!' or 'you're a retard, Taco' kind of AC when I do, but sometimes I think things need to be said without my name attached.

Oh, and I guess you can't bash corporations anymore like you did. What's next, eliminating any poster who isn't in keeping with the various advertisers? God, shut slashdot down before subjecting it to this.

Re:WHAT THE FUCK?

And in other news both Duke Nukem Forever and Diakatana 2 have been released today!!!

What are the odds?

That's not all!

Bush signed the Kyoto Agreement and is personally pleging 20 thousand to the wildlife federation in Alaska

Re:WHAT THE FUCK?

Happy april fools day, everybody. Even though anonymous posting has been disabled today (as I see right now), I'd put money this is just a joke.

Just my two cents.

Re:WHAT THE FUCK?

You have no right to anonymity. That's the funniest April Fools Joke yet!

Re:at least you can tell what the infomercials are

You will easily be able to spot the ads because the ads don't have spelling mistakes in them.

Jon Katz...

will have a field day with this. And he'll actually believe this and all the other stories today.

Watch out for his upcoming corporatism-gone-amok rant.

The sad thing is...

It's believeable. If this had been posted tomorrow, or yesterday, rather than today, would anyone have been surprised?

If you get DDJ [ddj.com], read the Swaine's Flames column on Slashdot's New Business Model.

The last castle has fallen

And I thought I was safe from ever reading the words "Feminine Itching" on /.

Well, it was a good ride while it lasted. :)

Thank God

About time we had real ads, not these wimpy little banner ads and stuff. Go Slashdot!

Oh, uh, April 1st? Nevermind.

now this would have been funny if...

...it were a Microsoft advertisement.

Re:No love

Especially considering Hemos is in Japan this week, and probably sleeping right now!

Ahh, such a wonderful day!

Ahh, the joys of April 1 on Slashdot: where the stories ARE the trolls! Nice one guys. heheh

I do have to feel sorry for Hemos, though: hopefully his spam filter is on full-blast to catch the flak from this story. Wonder how he's going to pay CmdrTaco back? Perhaps with a story about selling Karma points with CmdrTaco's email address as the contact? :-)

I'm amused

but I can't tell what I'm more amused by!

1. The anonymous button really is missing.
2. CmdrTaco posted Hemos' email so that's where all the flames will go.
3. Anticipating how Hemos will get back @ CmdrTaco. (Note to Hemos: don't disappoint your loyal fans!)

This is a new policy?

I'm shocked. I thought slashdot has been doing this for ages.

Re:This is a new policy?

I'm shocked. I thought slashdot has been doing this for ages.

Where on earth would you get that [slashdot.org] idea [slashdot.org]?

Stop... no....

It's the worst Slash-dot
day of the year!
With geeks belly-aching
and everyone telling you
"a-hundred to one!"
It's the worst Slash-dot
day of the year!

There'll crapping and trolling
With dumb jokes a-flowing
And avian-I-P!
With a thousand and one posts
Reminding our hosts
It's 'oh four 'oh one!

It's the worst Slash-dot
Day of the year!
You'll think we're in hell
When you can't really tell
You gulliable nerd!
It's the worst Slash-dot
Day of the year!

Oh please oh please oh please

seeing as how I have moderator points today, can I moderate this

mod minus one
for you this time --
no sense of rhythm
and no sense of rhyme

Oh wait, I just posted to this thread, never mind.

No Love?

ThinkGeek has everything you need, except love.

Does that mean they've stopped selling "Sandra: The tech support doll"?

Good Way To Test A Big What-if...

They've been thinking about trying the no-AC idea for awhile now...What better way to test it out than to put it in as a big joke on 4/1?

No one can justifiably get mad, but they still get to test out if there are less posts, view the overall quality of posts, and generally assess the pros and cons of the idea.

Not entirely bad, but not good either

Questions: Will we be able to post comments in slashvertisements as with normal news stories? Will they be clearly marked as ads? If so, they could actually be sort of fun - we could post rebuttals to the ads, make jokes about them, etc. The only problem would be if the editors modded down such posts in order to unfairly present the impression that slashdotters all love the product being advertised.

I have to say, I'm not going to miss the anonymous cowards. The only thing that troubles me, though, is that they are not being banned to make slashdot better. They are being banned because the advertisers want to see - probably - who is saying what, so they can market to them better.

Are the new changes going to keep me from reading slashdot? No, of course not - but I can't avoid thinking we're losing a little bit of specialness here.

One last thought: if the advertisers are paying to post stories, might they also pay to keep stories about why their products are bad from being posted? And will Taco say no to that?

Re:Slashvertisements... will they be flagged as su

...will this be left to the wits of the /. reader?

You've shown how this wouldn't matter anyway. .

Happy 4/1. :)

Slashvertisements - An Unmitigated success!

Posted by CmdrTaco [cmdrtaco.net] on Monday April 02, @11:13AM
from the tightening-our-belts dept.

Well, folks, it started as an April fools joke, but we got such a positive response by companies such as Microsoft, eeger to spread FUD [com.com] throughout the slashdot community, that we have decided to implement this new advertising strategy imediately. Thank you for your cooperation. Any converns should be addressed to me directly.

--CmdrTaco