Here's my latest submission attempt:

Some readers may disagree but to me, the user signatures are an integral part of Slashdot discussions, often providing additional perspective about the posters' opinions.
However, sigs are not normally considered a part of the discussion and commenting on them is liable to get you moderated "off topic". Likewise, sig moderation is not provided.

Maybe it's time to acknowledge and celebrate the lowly sig.
Please nominate the best (and worst) Slashdot sigs of 2007.
Which ones did you find the funniest? The most insightful? Trollish?

Let the quoting begin.

Here's an article I submitted on Dec 1, 2004.
It was rejected (like the rest of my submissions) so I'm reposting it here.

Canadian witch hunt claims victim (YRO)

Injusticebusters reports the suicide of James LeCraw from Toronto who, on April 16, 2003, was publicly outed by the police as a suspect of child-porn possession as part of "Operation Snowball" that purports to "name and shame" suspected Pedophiles.

Although after a 5-month investigation the charges against were completely withdrawn, LeCraw was never cleared from the stigma of being associated with such a horrific crime and on on July 19th this year he killed himself.

Given the implications of the case, I find it strange that the only other reference I could find on the internet is a report by CBC Radio reporter Kellie Hudson (scroll down to The Current: Part 3).

Are we going to experience a wave of McCarthyism in Canada?

What the hell, guess it's journal time. I guess if I'm going to start off, I'd better start off big.

There is a solution to the Iraq problem. No, not the prisoner abuse, the real problem in Iraq: The fact is that Iraq is now a lawless wasteland just waiting to be taken over by terrorists (just like Afghanistan 10 years ago). Come the end of June one of three things will happen: (1) The US government will stay supported by the US troops, (2) The US puppet Iraqi Ruling Council will be placed in change supported by US troops, or (3)The US and it's troops will leave and the country will fall into civil war. Now the third option seems unlikely, Team Bush know they would never survive if Iraq were to fall into civil war. That means the troops will be staying well past the June deadline (most likely till at least after our election in November). The problem with this is that it directly against our stated policy of bringing democracy to Iraq. Peace at the end of a gun barrel is not democracy.

What needs to be done is to end the petty politics that have been going on there practically since Bush declared victory. Instead, if we are serious about returning control of Iraq to it's people and leaving the country to rule itself we need to start acting like it. We need to start transferring power, real power not this holiday bullshit, to the IRC (Iraq Ruling Council). Give them a budget and task them with rebuilding their country however they see fit. If this had happened six months ago the IRC wouldn't have the legitimacy problems they have today. Oh and while were at it, get rid of HalliBurton. There is no reason, other than profiteering, for foreigners to be rebuilding the infrastructure of Iraq. Last time I check they had several million able bodied citizens who have been all but begging for jobs since Saddam fell. What we should be doing is encouraging Iraqi citizens to fill these contract positions, after all it doesn't take a degree from MIT to fix roads or rebuild pipelines. Those few jobs were qualified Iraqi's can't be found should be filled by a combination of qualified foreigners and Iraqi's willing to learn, and the foreigners should be ready to step aside once the locals are prepared to take over.

CBC News has an article on the Criminal Property Forfeiture Act, introduced by the government of Manitoba (currently run by the New Democratic Party).

The legislation would let police seize the homes, cars, cash and other property of any person, as long as police could persuade a judge that the individual is a member of a criminal organization.
The onus would then be on the suspected gang member to prove the assets were earned through legitimate income and not the proceeds of crime.

The Manitoba bill is civil in nature and requires a judge to rule based on a balance of probabilities - a lesser burden of proof.

Supposedly, New York's Nassau County, New Jersey and Ireland have already implemented similar laws.

From 22 to 30 November 2003, the world's best chess software will be put to the test in a multimedia environment in the Dom im Berg. The world champion will be determined according to ICGA (International Computer Games Association) statutes in an eleven-round computer chess tournament in Graz. Clear favourite is a chip called "Brutus", programmed by Chrilly Donninger from Austria.

Under the title "Chess003" Graz will see the world's best chess programmes playing against each other according to the ICGA rules in the Dom im Berg. This World Computer Chess Championship will feature new media, video walls, broadcasting of all games in the Internet and presentation on site.

Further Events will be held in Graz: 1st European Youth Chess Championship, Styrian Open, Austrian Team Chess Championship, Advances in Computer Games Conference (ICGA), Computer Olympiad (ICGA).

More information is available on the ICGA at Graz 2003 and the 8th Computer Olympiad sites.

Interestingly, the list of participants is missing some of the highest ranking programs such as Fritz, Hieracs, The King and Chess Tiger.

CDRInfo has a piece about Plextor's new dual format DVD recorder.

The PX-708A (ATAPI) and PX-708UF (USB2 and FireWire) write and rewrite at a speed 8x and 4x with DVD plus, and 4x and 2x with DVD minus respectively. The recorders read DVD-ROMs at 12x, read and write CDs at 40x and rewrie them at 24x.

This story is also posted to cdfreaks.

8x DVD+R means that you will be able to burn 4.7GB of data in less than 10 minutes! I guess that the "plus" format scores another one...

A real challenge or just SlashDot posturing?

Time will tell...

While commenting on the space shuttle program critique, I found a link to the US FY 2004 budget.

Quite interesting to see what are the priorities of the world's only superpower.

Also, take a look here.

Update:
A lot of info about US budget here.

Update: Check the following journal for rejected submissions.

I give up. After 7 rejected stories (100%) I got the message and will not waste my time on submitting anymore.

Here are your recent submissions to Slashdot, and their status within the system:

2002-04-19 02:48:53 eBay censors discussion boards (articles,censorship) (rejected)
2002-10-01 15:25:27 Canadian proposed "copying tax" slammed in (articles,news) (rejected)
2002-10-29 18:39:27 J2EE vs .NET Application Server Performance Benchm (yro,news) (rejected)
2003-01-16 18:54:17 Viewing porn sites will get you arrested (yro,news) (rejected)
2003-01-23 15:06:34 Save the free programming resources from thefreeco (developers,programming) (rejected)
2003-05-09 22:20:55 Good computer hardware review sites (askslashdot,hardware) (rejected)
2003-05-11 16:42:58 Everyday life tracked by society's prying eye (yro,privacy) (rejected)
Summary:
rejected (7)

I know that "grousing about rejected submissions" is counterproductive but sometimes I feel that my submissions just get forwarded to an autorejector.

FAQ says:
Slashdot gets hundreds of submissions every day. Every day our authors go through these submissions, and try to select the most interesting, timely, and relevant ones to post to the homepage. There are probably as many reasons for stories to get rejected as there are stories, but here are some of the more common ones:

* Badly worded subjects

Look OK to me. OK, there was one "misclick" and a story got marked as "yro" when it wasn't.

* Broken or missing URLs

Nope.

* Confusing or hysterical sounding writeup

Nope. Factual al the way.

* It might be an old story

Nope, all fresh at the time of submission (48h max).

* It might just be a busy day and we've already posted enough stories

Maybe. Nothing I can do about it.

* Someone already submitted your story

Nope. Checked.

Your story just might not be interesting!

Hmmm... Check for yourself.

Anyway, I'm done.