Who are your fellow Slashdotians?

Journal Mr.Intel's Journal: Who are your fellow Slashdotians? 8

Journal by Mr.Intel on Wednesday April 24, 2002 @11:33AM

Recently I began musing about why CmdrTaco, Hemos and the whole /. crew have been doing what they have been doing. With the advent of the subscription system, many questions have risen about the particular implementation. Why base it on pageviews? Some including Hemos would say that it is because of the dynamic nature of /. They contend that those who view more pages would view more ads and therefore create more impressions. I submit that subscriptions, aside from being a revenue source for OSDN, are also part of a specifically crafted plan to mold or channel it's user base into something Rob and Jeff want to see. The perfect.

There are several reader types on /. as you no doubt have guessed. I have identified some of them and posted them here for all to see. If you can think of more, please let me know and I will add them to the list.

Lurker: Probably the most common reader type. This person will read story after story for months or years on end without a single post. They usually have something to say, but are beaten to the punch by other 'faster' readers. Every now and then a lurker will post, usually about being a lurker.

Addict: The opposite of the lurker. Posts at least ten comments a day and would love to post more if space-time were more fluid. They come in many flavors (journal, science, Linux and debater just to name a few). Sometimes you will come across a lurker-addict. These poor souls can't stop reading /., constantly refresh the main page looking for a new story/poll/review to read and muse upon.

Pest (Crapflooder, FP Nazi, Fanboy): The bane of the /. editor, these (with the exception of the fanboy) are attracted to the stink of rotting flesh and enjoy causing as much trouble as possible. Their sole purpose on /. is to make noise and see who listens. Most of them would go away if they were ignored. However some would do it anyway. They get special glee when the site is specifically altered to thwart whatever attack they have devised. Anti-wide post mods, the lameness filter, IP banning and such all cause a warm glow to come over the pest. Fanboys are another breed of pest. They are almost never seen on the main page or in discussions but constantly badger the bejeezus out of the editors. E-mails, story submissions and endless banter on IRC extolling the virtues of whomever they admire. Another cause to shudder if you are an editor.

Troll: Technically a troll is an intelligent poster who is only looking to start a heated debate. Lately, troll has been a catch-all title for anyone not contributing positively to the community. Frankly, I love a good troll, especially the targeted troll.

Whiner: These have become more prevalent lately especially with the advent of subscriptions. These folks have issues and want everyone to know about it. "Why won't you accept my story submission?!?", "I got modded as flamebait, but I really was trying not to be", "Can't you do something about Klerck? His wide posts are annoying" and "I'm not paying a dime to you until you fix [insert pet peeve]" are just some of the few snotty rants typically found in posts by whiners.

Advertiser/Campaigner: These guys have an agenda and want to get supporters. Some can be whiners, but most are sincere in their desire to "save the community". Typically, they will post their plea in a journal entry then post like mad with a sig linking to it. A great example would be the "THGSB" campaign that is currently going on. Or is it? Anyway, they are usually a form of Addict or pest but sometimes are good solid slashdotians who just want to sell a book or something.

KarmaWhore: Do I really need to elaborate?

Idealist/Purist: Mostly older members of slashdot, they usually have UID's lower than 10000. They long for the days of old when Klerck hadn't invented crapflooding and a story rarely had more than 100 comments. They want all the newbies to go to Kuro5in or some other blog and to leave them the hell alone.

Perfect: These only exist in the heads of /. editors. They are what Rob and Jeff want us to be, the perfect /. citizen. These users post about once or twice a week, read about half the stories and are subscribers. They participate in M and M^2, have read the rules on moderating, and follow them. They have submitted one or two stories this year and might submit another. They don't whine, flame, troll or crapflood. When they read comments (about once or twice a week) they browse at 0, nested.

This last category is of course total supposition on my part. However, I have some supporting evidence. First, the Karma cap. Why cap it? In the FAQ. It states, "This was done to keep people from running up insane karma scores, and then being immune from moderation." Despite this I see a hidden agenda or at least a secondary effect. It destroys one incentive for people to post more. Quite a few people like slashdot because of the Karma system. For these people, once they hit 50, it is no longer fun to post on slashdot. They don't care and may even start posting crap.

Another indicator is the way slashdot implemented it's subscription system. They could have just put the guitar case out and let us voluntarily put money in. Why pageviews? Well, I think that a secondary motive or at least effect is to limit posting and participation by the addicts. This is where most of the bandwidth is used and therefore, the bulk of the cost for maintenance.

My last bit of 'evidence' is the way Taco and co treat their users. For the most part, they are left alone. But the vocal minority that happen to be the ones who post the most, are more frequently slammed. The post from hell is a great example.

***Update*** 4/26/02

After doing some thinking, I also have some more "evidence" for my reasoning. Think about how moderator points are awarded. When I posted four and five times a day, I was only given mod points once every two months. I took a few days off this last week and now have points again after only two weeks. From the FAQ: "The scripts track average accesses from each logged-in user. It then selects eligible users who read an average number of times. The homepage doesn't count either. It then picks users from the middle of the pack- no obsessive compulsive reloaders, and nobody who just happened to read an article this week ." So it seems that /. is bent on rewarding those who participate but don't use too much bandwidth\resources. I guess they believe that there is too much of a GoodThing(TM)? Can there be too much good contribution from a single user?

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