ringbarer's Journal: The Death of Slashdot

I wouldn't pay for this shit. I don't think ANYONE with half a brain would.

An explanation: I used to be a good, noble poster. Carefully wording every article to provide insight and wisdom to my fellow posters. Slowly, I acculumated karma, giving me the artificial peer respect that made such things worthwhile. Yes, I knew that karma is an arbitary value, but it made my contributions worthwhile.

And then one day I got bored. It was an article about European Patents I think. Something dull and boring... I think I got the first 15 or so posts on that one as an AC. It was fun.

In the end, the article accumulated a grand total of 2 relevant posts, the remainder offtopic. One of the irrelevant posts that I made was a couple of paragraphs under the title of the Linux Gay Conspiracy.

To my surprise, my post was followed up by other suggestions as to the latent homosexuality contained within the Open Sauce movement. And I felt encouraged. So I gathered together these additions, made some of my own, and kept posting.

And posting. And posting. Every sick, depraved act I could think of was included. Before long, the LGC grew to be one of the most comprehensive documents detailing the carnality and perversity of the IT industry. And, be honest now, it was funny. Crude and childish, but funny. A necessary counterpart to the morbid seriousness of some of the other posters.

In the meantime, I carried on with my regular account, posting away. Being diligent in my real contributions to the community. And then the main account got bitchslapped.

What was the need for that? Did it act as a deterrent to the anonymous trolling? Of course not. If anything, it just demonstrated the petty minded fascism of the Slashdot editors. The LGC was posted at '0', usually modded down within seconds. Wasn't that enough for them, to know that such a posting would disappear into the ghetto?

Of course, the LGC has now taken a life of its own, and my original account got back up to an acceptable karma level. Mainly by whoring and cutting and pasting high scoring posts on previous articles. Originality is discouraged by the Slashdot gestalt after all.

After a while, I strived for a new challenge, or failing that an excuse to spout obscenties like some Tourette's induced retard. Hence the birth of ringbarer. Suddenly, Slashdot has become an enjoyable experience again.

For all the wrong reasons.

So no, I won't be paying for Slashdot. I'll be installing junkbuster instead. Let the site fall to the fucking ground. It is, after all, symbolic of the crumbling OSS empire, where everything is free until they force you to pay for it.

My gift to the Trolling community? The Linux Gay Conspiracy v2.0. With even filthier acronyms and anagrams.

Quality.