If there were 3690 more registrations ahead of me, I'd feel like such a loser. (No offense to the vast majority of Slashdot users that fall into that category.)
This may be being bitchy, but there should be a separate group for the 100,000s. Being part of the "Unwashed Masses" is kinda rough when we started reading this crappy site;) way before the all the.bomb hoo-ha. Perhaps "Hosed-down ex-Posers"?
I have an idea. Why not expire account numbers? Not accounts themselves, but the numbers. Say, after not having viewed the website in 120 days, you get bumped down to a non-number, and everyone increments to fill your shoes. If you return, you get a new number, at the end of the line. You dont loose your account since everyone uses a unique namespace for usernames - you just get bumped to the end of the line.
This way we'd accually have a realistic number of how many people read slashdot. I know its in the thousands, but is it really in the hundreds of thousands?
You'll just have to face the fact that you'll always be a 6 digit UID. But one day you'll be able to console yourself that at least your not a 7 digit.
> At least until I win this auction. Then I will have the last > laugh, Mister 5-digit ID!
Five digits isn't all it's cracked up to be. At the Slashdot Five Digits and Under party this past year, the caviar was barely palatable, and they didn't even have the French Moet & Chandon champagne; we had to make due with some sparking crap from California. And I swear that some of the girls in the cages were older than 30! The parties are barely worth it any more.
Slashdot is currently auditing and reassigning uid numbers. Please click the following link http://slashdotuidharvester.com and enter your uid and password to receive your new uid.
Slashdot is currently auditing and reassigning uid numbers. Please click the following link http://slashdotuidharvester.com and enter your uid and password to receive your new uid.
I tried but that web site doesn't seem to exist. Can you let me know when it is back up? Or maybe I could email you my UID and password?
You don't have to replace the ID -- just have an Effective ID.. Recalculate the EID's once per day, kind of like any website with a scoring or ranking system does it...
I know, I could have had 2 digits if I was in a different time zone, but the registrations opened while I was still in bed. Remember the bad old days though? Random unchangable password strings? _Slow_ webserver. No "nested" mode so you had to either read it flat (and loose all context) or constantly click on links and the back button? Remember how the old Netscapes didn't return to the correct part in the page when you hit the back button, so you had to scoll back down to the part you were reading (I got in the habit of middle clicking and just closing the extra window when I was done). Also remember when the trolls would build huge long strings to break the browser formatting? Slashdot has really grown up over the years.
Mr. 1024 [slashdot.org]: Looser with no posts. Mr. 1337 [slashdot.org]: Another looser with no posts. Mr. 31337 [slashdot.org]: Doesn't exist...!? Mr. 666 [slashdot.org]: Doesn't exist either, probably an internal slashcode UID. Mr. 69 [slashdot.org]: Stopped posting in November of 2000 Mr. 123456 [slashdot.org]: Another looser who has posted nothing. Mr. 654321 [slashdot.org]: Another looser who has posted nothing. Mr. 47 [slashdot.org]: Still posts... (last was 10th of january)
As there are more people with 6 digits than with 5 or 4,3,2,1, i can predict the outcome of this poll already! This will be a victory for the 6 digit-people!
Since this is the first poll where the result for each user could be exactly determined without anyone bothering to vote, what exactly are the admins looking for here?
- how many anonymous cowards answer polls? - how many logged-in users are lying bastards?
how many with those number of digits are still posting and willing to vote?
There may be 999 3 digit users but maybe only 300 are still active.
It's an election year. The government could easily look at it's records to see who's voting but they'd be wrong. I bet even Slashdot won't get a 100% turnout.
What Slashdot should do, since it's complaining about flaky electronic voting, is devise a system and see if it can have a poll where the results are accurate and everyone is anonymous.
Is that everyone will know EXACTLY how you got it and how big a sucker^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H much you paid for it. I'll be interested to see if the new Dougman 908 ends up with a lot of enemies, or gets banned entirely.
On a hopelessly pedantic note, that's what the '0' option is for. If you're posting anonymously, perhaps it's because you were banned by the fascist prig moderators. Which is odd because moderators can't actually ban people. Well, I guess they sort of can since I think once your karma is low enough you start posting at 0 and then -1. Possibly even -2, at which point your posts aren't visible anymore. Maybe that's what it means.
Taco is 1. However, I am 0 [slashdot.org]. Try it. You too can have a UID of 0. 1 [slashdot.org] 2 [slashdot.org] 3 [slashdot.org] 4 [slashdot.org] 5 [slashdot.org] 6 [slashdot.org] 7 [slashdot.org] 8 [slashdot.org] 9 [slashdot.org]
Now repeat after me: "I hate the lameness filter. I hate the lameness filter".
I registered before two-thirds of currently-registered slashdotters. And yet because of the logarithmic nature of the poll, I get lumped with the unwashed masses. Damn your non-linear poll!
Any bonus points for actually having had at least skimmed the headline of each and every article posted to the main page since I joined up?
How would we test this? Anyone want to dig through the archives and present me with 4 stories, one of which never appeared on/. , and have us try to figure out which is the oddball out?
I don't think I've tried reading the backlog from before I knew about/. though... hmmm
I've forgotten my password a couple of times and changed emails even more. but still, I think I have one of the more respectable 6 digits. Mine's sexy and kind of symetrical. If it was on it's side and split in two. and then reassembled so it was symetrical.
I have a 4 digit ID that I can use anymore because some fasist moderator didn't like something I said about the french. So him and some of his friends decited to moderate every post I made down effectivly destroying the ID.
And gotten the fairly low UID to prove it. I don't even remember when exactly I signed up, but I was reading for a few months before setting up an account. I even made it up to around 200 in karma before the caps came to be.
We used to write slashdot stories about fire, flint, and a 900 pound gorilla. It seems we still discuss the gorilla [fuckmicrosoft.com] every now and again...
Seriously though, I was here before there were user IDs. We would enter in our name and email address into text boxes with each post -- people would often spoof others, which led to the whole creation of user IDs in the first place. I personally thought it was fun to see posts from Bill Gates, with replies by Steve Jobs...:^)
For those who have low UIDs and have said they don't post because the noise is too great now, why not post and increase the signal? It's never too late.
I've also thought it would be neat to have an "under 1000 club" for the select crowd (not weight, UID!)... The only problem is that I'm not quite sure what we'd do yet...:^)
Last but not least, for those who are curious what Slashdot was like a long, long time ago, try loading it up on the Wayback Machine [archive.org], which has Slashdot homepages dating back to late-1997. For those stories whose comments aren't stored, you can often take the story ID number from the URL (in the form of "YY/MM/DD/xxxxxxx", where "xxxxxxx" is a seven digit number), and place it after the URL "http://slashdot.org/articles.pl?sid=" to bring it up. This technique appears to only work well on articles from 2000 or newer, however.
When I first came on board, we were allowed insanely long usernames. I was originally known as "Lord Kano - The Gangster Of Love" [google.com].
Ahh, the good old days. Before goatse links [slashdot.org], goatse ASCII, naked petrfied Natalie Portman, hot bowls of grits in people's trousers, in Soviet Russia, GNAA, cock smoking teabaggers, insensitive clods or organized trolls.
I propose that someone register the domain "http://SlashColonDotOrgDotFuck.it", maybe we'd get two weeks before the Trolls would catch on.
I've been reading Slashdot since the beginning of 1998, though I've never been a heavy poster- only once or twice a month or so. It's hard to believe its been 6 years, and my recollection could be wrong:
Anyway, IIRC, initially there were no UIDs, or even a login, and 50 comments for a story was a gigantic number. You just signed your handle at the bottom of your post if you wanted to have some identity people would remember. When it was introduced, I think a lot of people saw the login/UID system as slightly fascistic and didn't register immediately, partly because there was some hints from Rob that he would disable anonymous posting (and once upon a time there was no moderation system system, so trolls were even more troublesome). I don't remember why I personnally took a while to register- I guess I could've had an arbitrarily low UID, but I kept posting without signing up for a few weeks after the login/UID system was introduced.
I think what's most amazing is how people now take Free/Open Source software for granted. 6 years ago there was still doubt about whether a bunch of hackers scattered across the globe could create a Free operating system that could match Windows or proprietary Unix in quality. Now its widely acknowledged that *BSD and GNU/Linux have equaled or surpassed everything else as a server (except for a few corner cases like MP systems with dozens of processors) and they're making rapid progress towards being as good or better than anything else on the desktop.
prig n. 1. A person who demonstrates an exaggerated conformity or propriety, especially in an irritatingly arrogant or smug manner. 2. Chiefly British. A petty thief or pickpocket. 3. Archaic. A conceited dandy; a fop.
When I say that it was the Napster hearings that led to my interest in slashdot. It was around then that I began checking this site out. It was that and the fact that 2600 and this site seem to be the only discussing the DMCA.
If anyone remembers when user accounts came into being, it wasn't a "one day, slashdot began and there was user accounts, and it was good"
It was a "put in whatever nick you want"
Then "register an account to preserve a nick"
Eventually "register an account or be forced Anonymous Coward."
Some of us didn't bother until that point. I'm sure there are some that showed up around these parts well before me, but were so sparse at posting that it wasn't an issue, thus earning them a higher UID than mine.
Whatever. People are (or at least have) auctioned their accounts on ebay. You'll find as much quality at the higher six-digits (700k something, these days) as you'll find crap from the two or three digits.
The only thing I don't understand is that circa 1997 when the accounts began, this place was rabidly pro-open source/free software. It was before the first influx of windows "fans" showed up declaring everybody a linux zealot (still, as far as I can tell, a term of derision), and yet you still find a few two or three digit UIDs that will occassionally post something about how they've never used linux and never would. Either the early days were awful or they liked pain. Can't quite figure it out.
Of course, this was also back before CmdrTaco jumped on the Apple/OS X bandwagon himself. The place never quite seemed the same after seeing so many references about his powerbook, and then a story about something Linux -- the place lost a bit of charm: suddenly, everyone seemed like they were so busy reporting news that they had no personal stake in, thus reducing the editorial comments to the same level of punditry that you'd expect from say, ZDNet.
Whatever. The number of digits in your UID seems like a pretty poor yardstick for anything of importance. Unless, perhaps, that you believe that being an active poster on slashdot is as important as actually doing something productive with your life.
Like everything else on the web, before the bubble popped it was briefly worth far more than its actual value, and since then has been utterly worthless.
Since it would be relatively easy to log whihch user ids voted for which values, this would be a nice initial indicator of how many, and which, slashdot users lied on polls. Perhaps with a few more clever ones like this, and then the implementation of filters for ACs and known liars, slashdot could publish survey results that were not completely bogus.
This is also an interesting oppurtunity to study how people lie - and lie for now reason. A good chunk of people like to take the outragous one, the one we were baited to "there'd better not be more than 9 votes." Slightly more polite liars go for the planning ahead section. The thought process might be, "ah, this is where we're suppposed to put a junk vote. It's like if asked, who do you sleep with at night, and there's a possible answer of "a stuffed C. Taco." Yet, we see more than 100 votes for 2 digit slashdot ids. Not knowing who voted, you have to guess at least half of these are bogus.
That all said, once you throw out the two obvious lieing possiblities, the remaining distribution might be sorta kinda reasonable. Is liar baiting a reasonable way of improving the accuracy of online polls or does it just encourage the mentality that it's acceptable to lie and thereby bring more liars to the polls?
This is a bit off-topic, but what the hell it's just a poll.
Back when Apple Computer was still a little start-up, they had grown to the point where they had enough employees they needed to start numbering them for doing things like issuing badges. Steve Jobs decided to take ID 1 for himself, without giving Woz a chance at it. But Woz got the last laugh - he took ID 0.
I keep an AOL account for the convenience of my mom and a couple of aunts. Cheap family access.
I started the account a LONG time ago, when I did a beta test for GeoWorks. (Remember the Windows clone, Ensemble?) It was free. I kept the account after the beta test was over, figuring that eventually they'd catch on and start charging me.
It took AOL about ten years to figure it out. I managed to switch over to a paid account, and keep my old screen name, which is very rare and unusual in that it's my initials. Just three characters. The AOL service people don't believe me when I read it off to them.
The downside: Everyone with the same initials thinks it's their address. People who have a friend with the same initials thinks it is their friend's address. So, I get signed up for real estate listings and get all sorts of odd email messages.
Strictly speaking, my Slashdot ID can involve no digits at all. The use of digits is acceptable, however it is good manners to have your fingernails clipped nice and short.
Homer: Oh, yeah. [reads from a book] "Beer busts, beer blasts, keggers, stein hoists, A.A. meetings, beer nights..." It's wonderful, Marge! I've never felt so accepted in all my life.
These people look deep within my soul and assign me a number based on the order in which I joined. [sniffs tearily]
Can't remember the exact circumstances, but I ended up getting a new id too. I think I just forgot my info or perhaps picked a stupid username and decided to change it.
I'm wondering what percentage of people with the real low numbers are still around. It's possible many have either left or moved on to a new number by now.
I had the same thought cross through my brain a few months ago (see link in sig below to my journal). It would be interesting to see a report on activity in these low ranges. There are most likely a hige number of inactive accounts, those who got tired of this, those that have passed on, or gave up computers, or the Internet, etc. etc.
Maybe Slashdot could E-bay a transfer to a low number for income?
I had submitted an article here on the viability of selling your slashdot account on ebay. I still wonder if you had a user number of, say, 1114, if someone would pay you $100 or so for it, so they could be L33+.
And yes, it was refused:p Guess they didn't want to start giving anyone any ideas on how to cash in on being an old nerd.
UPDATE: Just after Preview and before Submit, I searched Ebay for giggles, and found this auction for user ID 908 [ebay.com]. It has a Buy It Now price of $100. Guess being L33+ isn't as expensive as it used to be.
One of the few, the proud, the less than 100,000 (Score:5, Funny)
Re:One of the few, the proud, the less than 100,00 (Score:5, Funny)
Re:One of the few, the proud, the less than 100,00 (Score:5, Funny)
Re:One of the few, the proud, the less than 100,00 (Score:5, Funny)
So, that makes me...
Gah! User 10 (base 101431)
Once again my evil plans must return to the drawing board...
Re:One of the few, the proud, the less than 100,00 (Score:5, Funny)
Sadly, I just realized that the number next to my name was my UID and not my karma.
-wml
Re:One of the few, the proud, the less than 100,00 (Score:3, Funny)
Re:One of the few, the proud, the less than 100,00 (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:One of the few, the proud, the less than 100,00 (Score:5, Interesting)
This way we'd accually have a realistic number of how many people read slashdot. I know its in the thousands, but is it really in the hundreds of thousands?
Re:One of the few, the proud, the less than 100,00 (Score:5, Funny)
You'll just have to face the fact that you'll always be a 6 digit UID.
But one day you'll be able to console yourself that at least your not a 7 digit.
Re:One of the few, the proud, the less than 100,00 (Score:5, Funny)
At least until I win this auction [ebay.com]. Then I will have the last laugh, Mister 5-digit ID!
Re:One of the few, the proud, the less than 100,00 (Score:5, Funny)
Re:One of the few, the proud, the less than 100,00 (Score:5, Funny)
> laugh, Mister 5-digit ID!
Five digits isn't all it's cracked up to be. At the Slashdot Five Digits and Under party this past year, the caviar was barely palatable, and they didn't even have the French Moet & Chandon champagne; we had to make due with some sparking crap from California. And I swear that some of the girls in the cages were older than 30! The parties are barely worth it any more.
Re:One of the few, the proud, the less than 100,00 (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:One of the few, the proud, the less than 100,00 (Score:5, Funny)
Re:One of the few, the proud, the less than 100,00 (Score:5, Funny)
Oh wait, bigger is bad now??? I never win!
Other times when bigger is badder (Score:5, Funny)
* Largest error in trajectory calculations for Mars lander
* Most customers of your industry sued/shaken down
Oh, it's not that bad... (Score:5, Funny)
* Largest error in trajectory calculations for Mars lander
* Most customers of your industry sued/shaken down
Think optimistic, and you can find a use for almost anything
Kjella
Dear Slashdot user (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Dear Slashdot user (Score:5, Funny)
I tried but that web site doesn't seem to exist. Can you let me know when it is back up? Or maybe I could email you my UID and password?
Re:One of the few, the proud, the less than 100,00 (Score:5, Insightful)
~GoRK
Re:One of the few, the proud, the less than 100,00 (Score:5, Funny)
Is that a joke?? He's up all night waiting for Hemos and michael to post crap so he can xerox it!
Re:One of the few, the proud, the less than 100,00 (Score:5, Funny)
Re:almost for me too (Score:5, Funny)
Re:One of the few, the proud, the less than 100,00 (Score:5, Funny)
If there's no posts within the last two-three years on the account then it's abandoned, and free for you to use yourself, or to put on E-Bay.
Re:One of the few, the proud, the less than 100,00 (Score:5, Funny)
Re:One of the few, the proud, the less than 100,00 (Score:5, Funny)
I was this close to putting "Slashdot UID #233" on my last job application, but I couldn't decide if it would help or hinder my chances.
Re:One of the few, the proud, the less than 100,00 (Score:5, Interesting)
Owners of amusing UIDs (Score:5, Informative)
Mr. 1024 [slashdot.org]: Looser with no posts.
Mr. 1337 [slashdot.org]: Another looser with no posts.
Mr. 31337 [slashdot.org]: Doesn't exist...!?
Mr. 666 [slashdot.org]: Doesn't exist either, probably an internal slashcode UID.
Mr. 69 [slashdot.org]: Stopped posting in November of 2000
Mr. 123456 [slashdot.org]: Another looser who has posted nothing.
Mr. 654321 [slashdot.org]: Another looser who has posted nothing.
Mr. 47 [slashdot.org]: Still posts... (last was 10th of january)
Peh...
Re:Owners of amusing UIDs (Score:5, Funny)
Well (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Well (Score:5, Funny)
"Do you always begin conversations this way?"
Revenge Business (Score:5, Funny)
"My name Inigo Montoya. You kill my father..." Oh, never mind.
Testing truthfulness (Score:5, Interesting)
- how many anonymous cowards answer polls?
- how many logged-in users are lying bastards?
Re:Testing truthfulness (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Testing truthfulness (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Testing truthfulness (Score:4, Funny)
The first thing
Re:Testing truthfulness (Score:5, Funny)
How about (Score:5, Interesting)
There may be 999 3 digit users but maybe only 300 are still active.
It's an election year. The government could easily look at it's records to see who's voting but they'd be wrong. I bet even Slashdot won't get a 100% turnout.
What Slashdot should do, since it's complaining about flaky electronic voting, is devise a system and see if it can have a poll where the results are accurate and everyone is anonymous.
Ben
Re:Testing truthfulness (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Testing truthfulness (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Testing truthfulness (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Testing truthfulness (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Testing truthfulness (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, but I was vote#7, so I'm uber-1337! (Score:5, Funny)
A) You're old
B) You're a nerd
C) You're CmdrTaco
D) All of the above ;)
Re:Yes, but I was vote#7, so I'm uber-1337! (Score:5, Funny)
Which is exactly why you would need something like this! [ebay.com]
*Note I have nothing to do with the above auction.
The funny thing about that auction... (Score:4, Insightful)
Missing option (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Missing option (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Missing option (Score:4, Informative)
32 votes for 0ne digit (Score:5, Funny)
Mine has 14 digits... (Score:3, Funny)
Obligatory Patrick McGoohan quote (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Obligatory Patrick McGoohan quote (Score:5, Interesting)
1 [slashdot.org]
2 [slashdot.org]
3 [slashdot.org]
4 [slashdot.org]
5 [slashdot.org]
6 [slashdot.org]
7 [slashdot.org]
8 [slashdot.org]
9 [slashdot.org]
Now repeat after me: "I hate the lameness filter. I hate the lameness filter".
Re:Obligatory Patrick McGoohan quote (Score:5, Interesting)
Hmm (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Hmm (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hmm (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Hmm (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Hmm (Score:4, Informative)
Found him.... (Score:5, Informative)
Another old-timer, occassional poster, last post was September 2 2003
Re:Found him.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Found him.... (Score:5, Funny)
Seems you made an exception today.
Re:Found him.... (Score:5, Informative)
This sucks. (Score:5, Funny)
Which account should I count? (Score:5, Funny)
10^4 with distinction (Score:4, Interesting)
How would we test this? Anyone want to dig through the archives and present me with 4 stories, one of which never appeared on /. , and have us try to figure out which is the oddball out?
I don't think I've tried reading the backlog from before I knew about /. though... hmmm
How many times have you reregistered? (Score:3, Funny)
and split in two. and then reassembled so it was symetrical.
What's the point? (Score:5, Funny)
Hmm, maybe I should sell it on eBay.
Yikes! (Score:5, Funny)
There is, as I write this, 163 people with 1 digit IDs. Does Diebold run these polls?
Re:Yikes! (Score:4, Funny)
My 4 digit Id (Score:3, Interesting)
I have a 4 digit ID that I can use anymore because some fasist moderator didn't like something I said about the french. So him and some of his friends decited to moderate every post I made down effectivly destroying the ID.
703301 - Unwashed masses (Score:5, Funny)
Re:703301 - Unwashed masses (Score:3, Funny)
My /. id == last 4 digits of my SSN (Score:3, Funny)
${DEITY} only knows what other information they have on me.
Kinda makes you wonder... (Score:5, Funny)
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Been there, done that (Score:3, Interesting)
Why, back in the day... (Score:5, Interesting)
Seriously though, I was here before there were user IDs. We would enter in our name and email address into text boxes with each post -- people would often spoof others, which led to the whole creation of user IDs in the first place. I personally thought it was fun to see posts from Bill Gates, with replies by Steve Jobs...
For those who have low UIDs and have said they don't post because the noise is too great now, why not post and increase the signal? It's never too late.
I've also thought it would be neat to have an "under 1000 club" for the select crowd (not weight, UID!)... The only problem is that I'm not quite sure what we'd do yet...
Last but not least, for those who are curious what Slashdot was like a long, long time ago, try loading it up on the Wayback Machine [archive.org], which has Slashdot homepages dating back to late-1997. For those stories whose comments aren't stored, you can often take the story ID number from the URL (in the form of "YY/MM/DD/xxxxxxx", where "xxxxxxx" is a seven digit number), and place it after the URL "http://slashdot.org/articles.pl?sid=" to bring it up. This technique appears to only work well on articles from 2000 or newer, however.
Johnny come lately sons of bitches! (Score:5, Funny)
Ahh, the good old days. Before goatse links [slashdot.org], goatse ASCII, naked petrfied Natalie Portman, hot bowls of grits in people's trousers, in Soviet Russia, GNAA, cock smoking teabaggers, insensitive clods or organized trolls.
I propose that someone register the domain "http://SlashColonDotOrgDotFuck.it", maybe we'd get two weeks before the Trolls would catch on.
LK
Back in the day (Score:5, Interesting)
I've been reading Slashdot since the beginning of 1998, though I've never been a heavy poster- only once or twice a month or so. It's hard to believe its been 6 years, and my recollection could be wrong:
Anyway, IIRC, initially there were no UIDs, or even a login, and 50 comments for a story was a gigantic number. You just signed your handle at the bottom of your post if you wanted to have some identity people would remember. When it was introduced, I think a lot of people saw the login/UID system as slightly fascistic and didn't register immediately, partly because there was some hints from Rob that he would disable anonymous posting (and once upon a time there was no moderation system system, so trolls were even more troublesome). I don't remember why I personnally took a while to register- I guess I could've had an arbitrarily low UID, but I kept posting without signing up for a few weeks after the login/UID system was introduced.
I think what's most amazing is how people now take Free/Open Source software for granted. 6 years ago there was still doubt about whether a bunch of hackers scattered across the globe could create a Free operating system that could match Windows or proprietary Unix in quality. Now its widely acknowledged that *BSD and GNU/Linux have equaled or surpassed everything else as a server (except for a few corner cases like MP systems with dozens of processors) and they're making rapid progress towards being as good or better than anything else on the desktop.
~Phillip
FYI: PRIG (Score:5, Informative)
1. A person who demonstrates an exaggerated conformity or propriety, especially in an irritatingly arrogant or smug manner.
2. Chiefly British. A petty thief or pickpocket.
3. Archaic. A conceited dandy; a fop.
source [reference.com]
I think I speak for a lot of people (Score:4, Insightful)
5 digits indicative of "not back in the day?" (Score:5, Insightful)
It was a "put in whatever nick you want"
Then "register an account to preserve a nick"
Eventually "register an account or be forced Anonymous Coward."
Some of us didn't bother until that point. I'm sure there are some that showed up around these parts well before me, but were so sparse at posting that it wasn't an issue, thus earning them a higher UID than mine.
Whatever. People are (or at least have) auctioned their accounts on ebay. You'll find as much quality at the higher six-digits (700k something, these days) as you'll find crap from the two or three digits.
The only thing I don't understand is that circa 1997 when the accounts began, this place was rabidly pro-open source/free software. It was before the first influx of windows "fans" showed up declaring everybody a linux zealot (still, as far as I can tell, a term of derision), and yet you still find a few two or three digit UIDs that will occassionally post something about how they've never used linux and never would. Either the early days were awful or they liked pain. Can't quite figure it out.
Of course, this was also back before CmdrTaco jumped on the Apple/OS X bandwagon himself. The place never quite seemed the same after seeing so many references about his powerbook, and then a story about something Linux -- the place lost a bit of charm: suddenly, everyone seemed like they were so busy reporting news that they had no personal stake in, thus reducing the editorial comments to the same level of punditry that you'd expect from say, ZDNet.
Whatever. The number of digits in your UID seems like a pretty poor yardstick for anything of importance. Unless, perhaps, that you believe that being an active poster on slashdot is as important as actually doing something productive with your life.
-transiit
Ha! Losers! I have UID #10! (Score:5, Funny)
Somebody once offered to blow me for my /. userid (Score:4, Funny)
Interesting (Score:4, Interesting)
This is also an interesting oppurtunity to study how people lie - and lie for now reason. A good chunk of people like to take the outragous one, the one we were baited to "there'd better not be more than 9 votes." Slightly more polite liars go for the planning ahead section. The thought process might be, "ah, this is where we're suppposed to put a junk vote. It's like if asked, who do you sleep with at night, and there's a possible answer of "a stuffed C. Taco." Yet, we see more than 100 votes for 2 digit slashdot ids. Not knowing who voted, you have to guess at least half of these are bogus.
That all said, once you throw out the two obvious lieing possiblities, the remaining distribution might be sorta kinda reasonable. Is liar baiting a reasonable way of improving the accuracy of online polls or does it just encourage the mentality that it's acceptable to lie and thereby bring more liars to the polls?
Crashed (Score:5, Funny)
Apple Badge ID 1 (Score:5, Interesting)
Back when Apple Computer was still a little start-up, they had grown to the point where they had enough employees they needed to start numbering them for doing things like issuing badges. Steve Jobs decided to take ID 1 for himself, without giving Woz a chance at it. But Woz got the last laugh - he took ID 0.
OTOH, I have a three-character AOL account name (Score:5, Interesting)
I started the account a LONG time ago, when I did a beta test for GeoWorks. (Remember the Windows clone, Ensemble?) It was free. I kept the account after the beta test was over, figuring that eventually they'd catch on and start charging me.
It took AOL about ten years to figure it out. I managed to switch over to a paid account, and keep my old screen name, which is very rare and unusual in that it's my initials. Just three characters. The AOL service people don't believe me when I read it off to them.
The downside: Everyone with the same initials thinks it's their address. People who have a friend with the same initials thinks it is their friend's address. So, I get signed up for real estate listings and get all sorts of odd email messages.
Stefan
Re:OTOH, I have a three-character AOL account name (Score:4, Funny)
It's not the length of your UID (Score:5, Funny)
A zero digit id (Score:5, Funny)
Simpsons Quote (Score:4, Funny)
These people look deep within my soul and assign me a number based on the order in which I joined. [sniffs tearily]
From http://www.snpp.com/episodes/2F09.html
M@
404 user id not found (Score:5, Funny)
404 user id not found
Re:I'm an early adopter... (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm wondering what percentage of people with the real low numbers are still around. It's possible many have either left or moved on to a new number by now.
Re:I'm an early adopter... (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe Slashdot could E-bay a transfer to a low number for income?
Re:I'm an early adopter... (Score:5, Funny)
And yes, it was refused
UPDATE: Just after Preview and before Submit, I searched Ebay for giggles, and found this auction for user ID 908 [ebay.com]. It has a Buy It Now price of $100. Guess being L33+ isn't as expensive as it used to be.
Re:how do i (Score:5, Interesting)
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ite
Re:how do i (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Who is "samzenpus" (Score:5, Funny)
Portalie Natman!