DrWhizBang's Journal: Needing community

It's funnly how lonely you can feel in the midst of a crowd. I have been reading slashdot for ages, long before moderation and Karma existed. For years, I have been getting more or less accurate news, and feeling like everything is passing me by.

It occurred to me the other day that the little box in the top right corner of the page displayed what slashdot thought of me:

Karma: Bad

My Karma was bad? how can that be?

It seems you need to post, to get Karma ;-)

So I posted a couple of times. In all honesty, I just expected to place a couple of funnies as an experiment: how much do I have to do to bring up my Karma.

After a couple of posts, my Karma said "Neutral". I even got modded up to a "+3 Funny". But Neutral? It seems to me that I should have started there - so a-posting I went.

Slashdot actually posted a story that piqued my interest, so instead of posting a funny, I actually shared a little of my experience. I was surprised to find that when I got back to slashdot later on, there was a reply to my comment from someone who was struggling now with the same thing I had gone through.

For the first time ever, I had connected with a person through slasdot. This had only happened to me once before on a mailing list, so I was a bit shocked.

So I have made a new resolution. I am going to use slashdot. My life has been a little rough lately, and I ma feeling like I need to find a new place to hang out. This could work.

I will keep you posted.