New Movie Troll's Journal: The Four-S System Revealed!

The Slashdot Story Submission System or Four-S (pronounced "force") is a closely guarded Slashdot secret. As much as Slashdot claims to be anti-patent, in their well-known hypocritical nature, they have a patent pending for their story submission system. It is this very system's precision and robustness that explains why slashdot is so popular yet other similar slashcode sites get less hits that the average AOL user's personal homepage.

Like the formula to Coca-Cola, KFC's secret recipe, and the chemical structure of SPAM, the workings of the Four-S system was the question keeping me awake at night. After weeks of saving my allowance, obtaining a fake ID and making a few trips to the seedier parts of town, I finally had everything I needed to discover the truth behind one of mankind's greatest mysteries.

Thanks to a life-size inflatable tux doll and a keg of mediocre quality lukewarm beer, I had little trouble coaxing the secrets of the Four-S system out of Rob Malda. Between mugs of beer and unspeakable acts against nature (and vinyl inflatable dolls), in his drunken slurred speech, he explained the most intimate details of the four-s system.

R.M.: Well... Hey, your kinda cute. Wanna see a cool trick I can do with a taco?

Me: Umm, I think I know what you have in mind - it won't work. When I was mowing a lawn last summer, I had an unfortunate accident and was involuntarily castrated. How that would effect the outcome of your trick should be self explanatory.

R.M.: Damn, that sucks. Hey, since you've taken yourself out of the gene pool, did you win a Darwin award?

Me: Did you win a Queer of the Year award? All fags like you should be given a Darwin award for taking themselves out of the gene pool. One more comment about my lack of balls and I'm deflating Tux!

R.M.: No, not Tux! I'm SO sorry! How can I make it up to you?

Me: The Four-S system. Tell me about it.

R.M.: Never. I'll take it to my grave.

Me: Damnit Rob, tell me or I'll shove my withered scrotum in your face. It's so nasty BME, Stileproject AND Steakandchese refused to post the picture!

R.M.: You make a compelling case, but no.

ME: Damn you, I'm so mad I don't feel like typing A HREF= anymore! Now you're gonna pay!

At this point I pull down my pants.

R.M: OH LORD OF ALL THINGS HOLY!!! I'M BLIND! OH THE AGONY! FOR GREAT JUSTICE, PUT YOUR PANTS BACK ON!

ME: Not until you tell me about the Four-S!

R.M.: Okay you win, I'll talk, I'll talk. Just put your pants back on.

ME: I don't trust you. Tell me about the Four-S first!

R.M.: Sigh. Okay, the Four-S. Most people think the Four-S stands for "Slashdot Story Submission System", they're wrong - it's just the public codename. It really is an acronym for the four steps involved in story selection. Scratch paper, spin, semen, shredder - That's what the Four-S really means.

During the first step, the "scratch paper" stage, hardworking monks here at Slashdot HQ carefully transcribe each story submission on to a piece of environmentally friendly recycled paper. For the "spin" step, these pieces of paper are then placed in a Kenmore dryer (set to air dry only, heat caused us to lose a whole day's worth of submissions once when the paper burst into flames!) for 5 minutes for a good randomizing effect. Now ready for the "semen" stage, one of the Slashdot editing crew opens the dryer door and proceeds to masturbate into the dryer. Whichever lucky paper happens to catch the wad of jism will be posted to the main page of Slashdot and then placed in the shredder. The reason for shredding a successfully submitted story is simple, if it's shredded, we can be sure we won't see the dried semen on it and accidentally post it again. Since we can only masturbate so many times in one day, you can understand why we're only able to post so many stories in one day - and why so many are rejected. This is exactly why the Four-S system is so much more versatile than other story submission systems.

Me: Wow, that explains a lot. So how did you come up with the Four-S anyway?

R.M.: I was up late one night trying to write a script to randomly pick story submissions, but everyone at Slashdot HQ kept complaining it wasn't random enough. After debating for hours, my throat was becoming sore and I was starting to go hoarse. In frustration, I finally yelled, "Well how do you propose I make it more random, use the for..(cough)..se?" At that moment, the idea dawned on me.

Me: Why am I not surprised?

R.M.: Now that you have this information, you have entered a circle of trust. Promise me you won't tell a soul about what I have told you today!

Me: (With fingers crossed) Sure, I promise.