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Comment Important Info (off topic) (Score 0, Troll) 93

Please post this to new articles if it hasn't been posted yet. (Copy-paste the html from here so links don't get mangled!)

On February 5, 2014, Slashdot announced through a javascript popup that they are starting to "move in to" the new Slashdot Beta design. Slashdot Beta is a trend-following attempt to give Slashdot a fresh look, an approach that has led to less space for text and an abandonment of the traditional Slashdot look. Much worse than that, Slashdot Beta fundamentally breaks the classic Slashdot discussion and moderation system.

If you haven't seen Slashdot Beta already, open this in a new tab. After seeing that, click here to return to classic Slashdot.

We should boycott stories and only discuss the abomination that is Slashdot Beta until Dice abandons the project.
We should boycott slashdot entirely during the week of Feb 10 to Feb 17 as part of the wider slashcott

Moderators - only spend mod points on comments that discuss Beta
Commentors - only discuss Beta
http://slashdot.org/recent - Vote up the Fuck Beta stories

Keep this up for a few days and we may finally get the PHBs attention.

-----=====##### LINKS #####=====-----

Discussion of Beta: http://slashdot.org/firehose.pl?op=view&id=56395415
Discussion of where to go if Beta goes live: http://slashdot.org/firehose.pl?op=view&type=submission&id=3321441
Alternative Slashdot: http://altslashdot.org (thanks Okian Warrior (537106))

Comment No sure what Slashdot beta is (Score 0) 221

not sure what beta slashdot really is. all I know is that it makes me very sad. Please fix beta make me happy again. Is this what beta slashdot is? From wikipedia Beta[edit] Beta, named after the second letter of the Greek alphabet, is the software development phase following alpha. It generally begins when the software is feature complete. Software in the beta phase will generally have many more bugs in it than completed software, as well as speed/performance issues and may still cause crashes or data loss. The focus of beta testing is reducing impacts to users, often incorporating usability testing. The process of delivering a beta version to the users is called beta release and this is typically the first time that the software is available outside of the organization that developed it. The users of a beta version are called beta testers. They are usually customers or prospective customers of the organization that develops the software, willing to test the software without charge, often receiving the final software free of charge or for a reduced price. Beta version software is often useful for demonstrations and previews within an organization and to prospective customers. Some developers refer to this stage as a preview, prototype, technical preview (TP), or early access. Some software is kept in perpetual beta—where new features and functionality are continually added to the software without establishing a firm "final" release. Open and closed beta[edit] Developers release either a closed beta or an open beta; closed beta versions are released to a restricted group of individuals for a user test by invitation, while open beta testers are from a larger group, or anyone interested. The testers report any bugs that they find, and sometimes suggest additional features they think should be available in the final version. Examples of a major public beta test are: In September 2000 a boxed version of Apple's Mac OS X Public Beta operating system was released.[3] Microsoft's release of community technology previews (CTPs) for Windows Vista in January 2005.[4] Open betas serve the dual purpose of demonstrating a product to potential consumers, and testing among an extremely wide user base likely to bring to light obscure errors that a much smaller testing team might not find. Impact of the World Wide Web[edit] As the Internet has facilitated rapid and inexpensive distribution of software, companies have begun to take a looser approach to use of the word "beta".[5] In February 2005 ZDNet published an article about the recent phenomenon of a beta version often staying for years and being used as if it were in production level, disparagingly called "perpetual beta". It noted that Gmail and Google News, for example, had been in beta for a long period of time and were not expected to drop the beta status despite the fact that they were widely used; however, Google News did leave beta in January 2006, followed by Google Apps, including Gmail, in July 2009.[6] This technique may allow a developer to delay offering full support and responsibility for remaining issues. In the context of Web 2.0, people even talk of perpetual betas to signify that some software is meant to stay in beta state. Also, "beta" is sometimes used to indicate something more like a release candidate, or as a form of time-limited demo, or marketing technique .[7] Release candidate[edit] A release candidate (RC) is a beta version with potential to be a final product, which is ready to release unless significant bugs emerge. In this stage of product stabilization, all product features have been designed, coded and tested through one or more beta cycles with no known showstopper-class bug. A release is called code complete when the development team agrees that no entirely new source code will be added to this release. There could still be source code changes to fix defects, changes to documentation and data files, and peripheral code for test cases or utilities. Beta testers, if privately selected, will often be credited for using the release candidate as though it were a finished product. Beta testing is conducted in a client's or customer's location and to test the software from a user's perspective. Release[edit] Release to manufacturing (RTM)[edit] The term "release to manufacturing", also known as "going gold", is a term used when a software product is ready to be delivered or provided to the customer. This build may be digitally signed, allowing the end user to verify the integrity and authenticity of the software purchase. A copy of the RTM build known as the "gold master" or GM is sent for mass duplication. RTM precedes general availability (GA), when the product is released to the public. It is typically used in certain retail mass-production software contexts—as opposed to a specialized software production or project in a commercial or government production and distribution—where the software is sold as part of a bundle in a related computer hardware sale and typically where the software and related hardware is ultimately to be available and sold on mass/public basis at retail stores to indicate that the software has met a defined quality level and is ready for mass retail distribution. RTM could also mean in other contexts that the software has been delivered or released to a client or customer for installation or distribution to the related hardware end user computers or machines. The term does not define the delivery mechanism or volume; it only states that the quality is sufficient for mass distribution. The deliverable from the engineering organization is frequently in the form of a golden master media used for duplication or to produce the image for the web. General availability (GA)[edit] General availability (GA) is the marketing stage at which all necessary commercialization activities have been completed and a software product is available for purchase, depending, however, on language, region, electronic vs. media availability.[8] Commercialization activities could include security and compliance tests, as well as localization and world wide availability. The time between RTM and GA can be from a week to months in some cases before a generally available release can be declared because of the time needed to complete all commercialization activities required by GA. At this stage, the software has "gone live". Release to web[edit] Release to web (RTW) or web release is a means of software delivery that utilizes the Internet for distribution. No physical media are produced in this type of release mechanism by the manufacturer. Web releases are becoming more common as Internet usage grows. Support[edit] During its supported lifetime, software is sometimes subjected to service releases, or service packs, sometimes also called "interim releases". For example, Microsoft released three major service packs for the 32-bit editions of Windows XP and two service packs for the 64-bit editions. Such service releases contain a collection of updates, fixes and enhancements, delivered in the form of a single installable package. They may also implement new features. Some software is released with the expectation of regular support. Classes of software that generally involve protracted support as the norm include anti-virus suites and massively multiplayer online games. A good example of a game that utilizes this process is Minecraft, an Indie Game developed by Mojang, which features regular "updates" featuring new content and bug fixes. End-of-life [edit] See also: End-of-life (product) and abandonware When software is no longer sold or supported, the product is said to have reached end-of-life, to be discontinued, retired, or obsolete, but user loyalty may continue its existence for some time, even long after its platform is obsolete—e.g., the Atari ST and Commodore's Amiga. See also[edit] Application retirement Paper launch Release engineering Release management Rolling release Software deployment Software maintenance Software testing Software versioning Vaporware References[edit] Jump up ^ Personal recollections of Allan Scherr, retired IBM fellow and software engineering executive (1960–1993) Jump up ^ "Encyclopedia definition of alpha version". PC Magazine. Retrieved 2011-01-12. Jump up ^ "Apple Releases Mac OS X Public Beta" (Press release). Apple Inc. 13 September 2000. Retrieved 2011-02-22. Jump up ^ "Microsoft Windows Vista October Community Technology Preview Fact Sheet" (Press release). Microsoft. October 2005. Retrieved 2011-02-22. Jump up ^ "Waiting with Beta'd Breath TidBITS #328 (May 13, 1996)". Archived from the original on 2006-05-15. Jump up ^ "Google Apps is out of beta (yes, really)". Google Blog. Google. 7 July 2009. Retrieved 2011-01-12. Jump up ^ The inconvenient truths behind betas Jump up ^ Luxembourg, Yvan Philippe (20 May 2013). Top 200 SAM Terms – A Glossary Of Software Asset Management Terms. OMTCO. Retrieved 21 May 2013. Bibliography[edit] Continuous Delivery: Reliable Software Releases through Build, Test, and Deployment Automation by Jez Humble, David Farley; ISBN 0-321-60191-2 External links[edit] Free Software Project Management HOWTO A Methodology to Support Software Release Decisions Semantic versioning

Comment I try something new (Score 0, Offtopic) 232

After my nap I had a fantastic idea. If I copy classic Slashdot web page and post to beta, maybe, maybe beta change to classic. I hope I fix beta and everyone will be happy again Slashdot Log out oRCAD Monkey Submit Newsletter Jobs Channels SlashTV rss stories submissions popular blog ask slashdot book reviews games idle yro cloud hardware linux management mobile science security storage Slashdot journal entries can be automatically submitted as stories Newer Older Target's Data Breach Started With an HVAC Account Posted by samzenpus on Thursday February 06, 2014 @04:05PM from the sneaking-in dept. Jim Hall writes "Security blogger Krebs reports that Target's data breach started with a stolen HVAC account. Last week, Target said the initial intrusion into its systems was traced back to network credentials that were stolen from a third party vendor. Sources now claim that the vendor in question was a refrigeration, heating and air conditioning subcontractor that has worked at a number of locations at Target and other top retailers. Attackers stole network credentials from Fazio Mechanical Services, then used that to gain access to Target's network. It's not immediately clear why Target would have given an HVAC company external network access, or why that access would not be cordoned off from Target's payment system network." Read the 20 comments xsecurity story Military Electronics That Shatter Into Dust On Command Posted by samzenpus on Thursday February 06, 2014 @03:22PM from the poof-it's-gone dept. First time accepted submitter MAE Keller writes "Two U.S. companies are joining a military research program to develop sensitive electronic components able to self-destruct on command to keep them out of the hands of potential adversaries who would attempt to counterfeit them for their own use. From the article: 'Last Friday DARPA awarded a $2.1 million contract to PARC, and a $3.5 million contract to IBM for the VAPR program, which seeks to develop transient electronics that can physically disappear in a controlled, triggerable manner.'" Read the 129 comments xbetatest xmilitary xtechnology xditchbeta xvaprware story The Standards Wars and the Sausage Factory Posted by timothy on Thursday February 06, 2014 @02:40PM from the these-things-take-time dept. Esther Schindler writes "We all know how important tech standards are. But the making of them is sometimes a particularly ugly process. Years, millions of dollars, and endless arguments are spent arguing about standards. The reason for our fights aren't any different from those that drove Edison and Westinghouse: It's all about who benefits – and profits – from a standard. As just one example, Steven Vaughan-Nichols details the steps it took to approve a networking standard that everyone, everyone knew was needed: 'Take, for example, the long hard road for the now-universal IEEE 802.11n Wi-Fi standard. There was nothing new about the multiple-in, multiple-out (MIMO) and channel-bonding techniques when companies start moving from 802.11g to 802.11n in 2003. Yet it wasn't until 2009 that the standard became official.'" Read the 136 comments xit xwireless xnetworking xbureaucracy xorganization story New Type of Star Can Emerge From Inside Black Holes, Say Cosmologists Posted by Soulskill on Thursday February 06, 2014 @02:00PM from the cross-black-holes-off-your-list-of-good-hiding-places dept. KentuckyFC writes "Black holes form when a large star runs out of fuel and collapses under its own weight. Since there is no known force that can stop this collapse, astrophysicists have always assumed that it forms a singularity, a region of space that is infinitely dense. Now cosmologists think quantum gravity might prevent this complete collapse after all. They say that the same force that stops an electron spiraling into a nucleus might also cause the collapsing star to 'bounce' at scales of around 10^-14cm. They're calling this new state a 'Planck star' and say its lifetime would match that of the black hole itself as it evaporates. That raises the possibility that the shrinking event horizon would eventually meet the expanding Planck star, which emerges with a sudden blast of gamma rays. That radiation would allow any information trapped in the black hole to escape, solving the infamous information paradox. If they're right, these gamma rays may already have been detected by space-based telescopes meaning that the evidence is already there for any enterprising astronomer to tease apart." Read the 127 comments xspace xbetatest xblackhole xstar xbetasux story QuakeNet: Government-Sponsored Attacks On IRC Networks Posted by Soulskill on Thursday February 06, 2014 @01:17PM from the get-out-of-our-internets dept. Barryke writes "Like FreeNode, it seems more and more legitimate businesses or non-profit organizations are being targeted by government subsidiaries in attempts to disrupt and spy on their users. IRC network QuakeNet has posted a press release condemning these efforts. Quoting: 'These attacks are performed without informing the networks and are targeted at users associated with politically motivated movements such as "Anonymous." While QuakeNet does not condone or endorse and actively forbids any illegal activity on its servers we encourage discussion on all topics including political and social commentary. It is apparent now that engaging in such topics with an opinion contrary to that of the intelligence agencies is sufficient to make people a target for monitoring, coercion and denial of access to communications platforms. The released documents depict GCHQ operatives engaging in social engineering of IRC users to entrap themselves by encouraging the target to leak details about their location as well as wholesale attacks on the IRC servers hosting the network. These attacks bring down the IRC network entirely affecting every user on the network as well as the company hosting the server.' One of those tactics applied by governments is the DDOS, which (perhaps not so) coincidentally, is what their suspects are accused of. Is this irony or hypocritical?" Read the 154 comments xbetatest xditchbeta xgovernment xcommunications xbetasux story Is Intel Selling Bay Trail Chips Below Cost? Posted by timothy on Thursday February 06, 2014 @12:34PM from the consumers-win dept. edxwelch writes "An analyst at Bernstein Research has found that Intel is selling their tablet Bay Trail chips to OEMs below cost, concluding that after end rebates, Intel's tablet revenues are likely to be "close to zero," while profits will be negative. Intel has responded that the 'special costs' Intel is incurring are not pushing down gross margin. Intel needs to offer the subsidies to OEMs building $199-$299 devices to bring the bill of materials down and make them competive with cheaper chips from the likes of MediaTek and Rockchip." Read the 128 comments xbusiness xhardware xintel xmoney xbaytrail story The Bitcoin Death Star: KnC Plans 10 Megawatt Data Center In Sweden Posted by timothy on Thursday February 06, 2014 @11:46AM from the you'll-heat-up-the-whole-place dept. 1sockchuck writes "Bitcoin hardware vendor KnC Miner has begun construction on a a 10 megawatt data center in Sweden that it will fill with high-powered computers mining for cryptocurrency. KnC has emerged as a leading vendor in the volatile market for ASIC mining rigs, focusing on underpromising and overdelivering. One goal of its move into cloud mining is to cushion any fallout from delivery delays on new hardware, which have been a sore point for miners in the fast-moving Bitcoin market. "Over the next few months we are bringing online enough hashing power to make sure that any delay in the Neptune timeline will be compensated with a completely free hosted hashing packages to all fully paid customers," KnC says in its newsletter." Read the 199 comments xcloud xmoney xdatacenter xbitcoin xbetatest story Amazon's Double-Helix Acquisition Hints At Gaming Console Posted by timothy on Thursday February 06, 2014 @11:00AM from the networks-need-nodes dept. Nerval's Lobster writes "A more prominent role in video-game development could prove the latest territory on Amazon's 'attempt to conquer' list. Yes, there's already Amazon Game Studios, which produces smaller games such as Air Patriots (a tower-defense title), but that evidently wasn't enough — Amazon has acquired Double Helix, most notably the developer behind Killer Instinct and other big-action games for PCs and consoles. Amazon confirmed the deal to multiple media outlets, suggesting that it would use Double Helix's developers and intellectual property 'as part of our ongoing commitment to build innovative games for customers.' Why would Amazon want to bulk out its game-creation abilities? Rumors have floated for the past couple weeks (hat tip to Gamespot) that the company is hard at work on an Android-based gaming console that will retail for below $300. Over the past year, it's also hired gaming luminaries such as Halo author Eric Nylund, which it probably wouldn't have done without something big — or at least interesting — in the works. Amazon would doubtlessly position such a device (if it actually becomes a reality) as the low-cost alternative to Microsoft's Xbox One and Sony's PlayStation 4. But even the cheapest console won't sell without some killer games to attract customers — and that's where Double Helix might come in. ... With Nintendo flagging, there's potentially an opening for a third console ecosystem to take hold." Read the 100 comments xamazon xgames xhardware xdevelopers xconsoles story Skinny Puppy Wants Compensation For Music Used in US Interrogations 208 Got Malware? The FBI Wants It Posted by timothy on Thursday February 06, 2014 @10:18AM from the target-market-after-all dept. wiredmikey writes "The FBI has placed malware on its shopping list, and is turning to third parties to help the agency build a massive library of malicious software. According to a 'Request for a Quote' posted on the Federal Business Opportunities website, the FBI is looking for price quotes for malware for the Investigative Analysis Unit of the agency's Operational Technology Division (OTD). The unit's mission is to 'Provide technical analysis of digital methods, software and data, and provide technical support to FBI investigations and intelligence operations that involve computers, networks and malicious software,' according to the document. The FBI did not say precisely how the malware will be used, but the document calls the collection of malware from law enforcement and research sources "critical to the success of the IAU's mission to obtain global awareness of malware threat."" Read the 85 comments xfbi xmalware xsecurity xsoftware xusa story How Edward Snowden's Actions Have Impacted Defense Contractors Posted by timothy on Thursday February 06, 2014 @09:26AM from the budget-suddenly-has-room-for-a-shredder dept. An anonymous reader writes "A new study sheds light on the attitudes of a very exclusive group of IT and security managers — those employed by U.S. defense contractors — at a time when national cybersecurity is under scrutiny. Most indicated that the Edward Snowden incident has changed their companies' cybersecurity practices: their employees now receive more cybersecurity awareness training, some have re-evaluated employee data access privileges, others have implemented stricter hiring practices. While defense contractors seem to have better security practices in place and are more transparent than many companies in the private sector, they are finding the current cyber threat onslaught just as difficult to deal with." Read the 164 comments xmilitary xnsa xsecurity xgovernment xsecrecy story Sony Selling Off VAIO Computer Business Posted by timothy on Thursday February 06, 2014 @08:44AM from the turns-out-it-wasn't-vaioable dept. Kensai7 writes "Confirming reports from earlier in the week, Sony has announced plans to sell off its VAIO computer division to a Japanese investment fund. Japan Industrial Partners (JIP) will take control of the operation for an undisclosed fee, and Sony will 'cease planning, design and development of PC products.' For a variety of reasons 'including the drastic changes in the global PC industry,' Sony says 'the optimal solution is to concentrate its mobile product lineup on smartphones and tablets and to transfer its PC business to a new company.'" I have some nostalgia for the tiny old VAIO laptops; I wish more companies incorporated the swiveling camera that they came with. Read the 170 comments xbusiness xhardware xjapan xsony xbetatest story Fracking Is Draining Water From Areas In US Suffering Major Shortages Posted by samzenpus on Thursday February 06, 2014 @08:09AM from the looking-for-a-drink dept. Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "RT reports that some of the most drought-ravaged areas of the US are also heavily targeted for oil and gas development using hydraulic fracturing — a practice that exacerbates water shortages with half of the oil and gas wells fracked across America since 2011 located in places suffering through drought. Taken together, all the wells surveyed from January 2011 to May 2013 consumed 97 billion gallons of water, pumped under high pressure to crack rocks containing oil or natural gas. Up to 10 million gallons can go into a single well. 'Hydraulic fracturing is increasing competitive pressures for water in some of the country's most water-stressed and drought-ridden regions,' says Mindy Lubber. 'Barring stiffer water-use regulations and improved on-the-ground practices, the industry's water needs in many regions are on a collision course with other water users, especially agriculture and municipal water use.' Nearly half (47%) of oil and gas wells recently hydraulically fractured in the U.S. and Canada are in regions with high or extremely high water stress. Amanda Brock, head of a water-treatment firm in Houston, says oil companies in California are already exploring ways to frack using the briny, undrinkable water found in the state's oil fields. While fracking consumes far less water than agriculture or residential uses, the impact can be huge on particular communities and is 'exacerbating already existing water problems,' says Monika Freyman. Hydraulic fracking is the 'latest party to come to the table,' says Freyman. The demands for the water are 'taking regions by surprise,' she says. More work needs to be done to better manage water use, given competing demand." Read the 224 comments xbetatest xscience xusa xtechnology xbetasux story New Zealand Spy Agency Deleted Evidence About Its Illegal Spying On Kim Dotcom Posted by samzenpus on Thursday February 06, 2014 @05:22AM from the was-that-wrong? dept. An anonymous reader writes "The latest news in this: GCSB appears to have deleted key evidence in the case in a ham-fisted attempt to cover up its illegal activities. Even more ridiculous, GCSB is trying to cover this up by claiming that the material had 'aged off' — implying that it was deleted automatically. New Zealand Prime Minister John Key claims that they had to delete the information under the law. Of course, there are a few problems with that. The first is that under New Zealand law, like most countries these days, parties have an obligation to preserve documents likely to be necessary in a legal case. But, even more damning is that there's video of John Key in the New Zealand Parliament trying to defend against an earlier claim that GCSB had deleted some evidence by insisting that GCSB does not delete anything ever:" Read the 201 comments xbetatest xprivacy xgovernment xbetasux xdotcom story Dried Meat "Resurrects" Lost Species of Whale 79 Newer Older Follow us:TwitterFacebookGoogle+RSS Feed Disable Advertising As our way of thanking you for your positive contributions to Slashdot, you are eligible to disable advertising. Slashdot TodayWednesdayTuesdayMondaySundaySaturdayFridayThursday Submit Story Every program is a part of some other program, and rarely fits. FAQ Story Archive Hall of Fame Advertising Jobs Terms Privacy Opt Out Choices About Feedback Slashdot Japan Mobile View Slashdot Beta Trademarks property of their respective owners. Comments owned by the poster. Copyright © 2014 Dice. All Rights Reserved. Slashdot is a Dice Holdings, Inc. service.

Comment Sadness of beta site for me today and how long (Score 1) 116

I try twice maybe work If not I will have MUCH MUCH more sadness today and for long time. Maybe beta not beta soon to make me happy. If beta beta sadness will be extremley sad sad sad sad sad sad to me. sad beta beta me sad. HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY NO BETA!!! HI. I posted this to see what it would look like on the beta website.. If they call it beta isn't it supposed to be working? maybe they will fix Slashdot Beta and everyone will be happy again. Can you see this? I can't. What is wrong? Is this why they call it beta? I hope someone will be able to fix this because I am not happy it is not working. Maybe after the beta test is over it will work. It sure doesn't work now. I am getting even sadder. It seems to work on the old site but the beta site is not very good and is making me sad. sad sad sad. I am not very happy when Slashdot makes me very sad. What will happen to me when classic is GONE!!! I will try posting this on YouTube PLEASE HELP ME!!!!! A little history of Slashdot courtesy of Wikipedia. What it was before It was destroyed by Beta. I tried posting this before but could not see it with beta. What am I doing wrong? I guess I will have to keep on trying until I can read it. Maybe that is why they call it beta. I am sure they will fix everything and everyone will be happy again. Tell me if you can read this. I am really upset that I can not see my own posts Maybe that is why they call it beta. I am sure they will fix everything and everyone will be happy again. Can you see this? I can't. What is wrong? Is this why they call it beta? I hope someone will be able to fix this because I am not happy it is not working. Maybe after the beta test is over it will work. It sure doesn't work now. I am getting even sadder.PLEASE HELP ME!!!!! The origins of the site now known as Slashdot date back to July 1997 when Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda started a personal website called Chips & Dips, which featured a single "rant" each day about something that interested him – typically something to do with Linux or open-source software. At the time, Malda was a student at Hope College in Holland, Michigan, majoring in computer science. The site became Slashdot in September 1997 under the slogan "News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters," and quickly became a hotspot on the Web for news and information of interest to computer geeks.[4] The name "Slashdot" came from a somewhat "obnoxious parody of a URL" – when Malda registered the domain, he desired to make a name that was "silly and unpronounceable" – try pronouncing out, "h-t-t-p-colon-slash-slash-slashdot-dot-org".[5] By June 1998 the site was seeing as many as 100,000 page views per day and advertisers began to take notice.[4] By December 1998, Slashdot had net revenues of $18,000, yet its Internet profile was higher, and revenues were expected to increase. On June 29, 1999, the site was sold to Linux megasite Andover.net for $1.5 million in cash and $7 million in Andover stock at the IPO price. Part of the deal was contingent upon the continued employment of Rob Malda and Jeff Bates and on "the achievement of certain milestones". With the acquisition of Slashdot, Andover.net could now advertise itself as "the leading Linux/Open Source destination on the Internet".[6][7] Andover.net eventually merged with VA Linux on February 3, 2000,[8] which changed its name to SourceForge, Inc. on May 24, 2007, and became Geeknet, Inc. on November 4, 2009.[9] Slashdot's 10,000th article was posted after two and a half years on February 24, 2000,[10] and the 100,000th article was posted on December 11, 2009 after 12 years online.[11] During the first 12 years, the most active story with the most responses posted was the post-2004 US Presidential Election article "Kerry Concedes Election To Bush" with 5,687 posts. This followed the creation of a new article section, politics.slashdot.org, created at the start of the 2004 election on September 7, 2004.[12] Many of the most popular stories are political, with "Strike on Iraq" (March 19, 2003) the second-most-active article and "Barack Obama Wins US Presidency" (November 5, 2008) the third-most-active. The rest of the 10 most active articles are an article announcing the 2005 London bombings, and several articles about Evolution vs. Intelligent Design, Saddam Hussein's capture, and Fahrenheit 9/11. Articles about Microsoft and its Windows Operating System are popular—a thread posted in 2002 titled "What's Keeping You On Windows?" was the 10th-most-active story, and an article about Windows 2000/NT4 source-code leaks the most visited article with more than 680,000 hits.[13] Some controversy erupted on March 9, 2001 after an anonymous user posted the full text of Scientology's "Operating Thetan Level Three" (OT III) document in a comment attached to a Slashdot article. The Church of Scientology demanded that Slashdot remove the document under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. A week later, in a long article, Slashdot editors explained their decision to remove the page while providing links and information on how to get the document from other sources.[14] Slashdot Japan was launched on May 28, 2001 (although the first article was published April 5, 2001) and is an official offshoot of the US-based Web site. The site is currently owned by OSDN-Japan, Inc., and carries some of the US-based Slashdot articles as well as localized stories.[15][16] An external site, todhsalS, has reported selected stories published on Slashdot Japan in English since March 1, 2009.[17] On Valentine's Day 2002, founder Rob Malda proposed to longtime girlfriend Kathleen Fent using the front page of Slashdot.[18][19] They were married on December 8, 2002, in Las Vegas, Nevada.[20] Slashdot implemented a subscription service on March 1, 2002. Slashdot's subscription model works by allowing users to pay a small fee to be able to view pages without banner ads, starting at a rate of $5 per 1,000 page views – non-subscribers may still view articles and respond to comments, with banner ads in place.[21] On March 6, 2003, subscribers were given the ability to see articles 10 to 20 minutes before they are released to the public.[22] Slashdot altered its threaded discussion forum display software to explicitly show domains for links in articles, as "users made a sport out of tricking unsuspecting readers into visiting [Goatse.cx]."[23] April Fools' Day 2006 logo In observance of April Fools' Day (April 1) in 2006, Slashdot temporarily changed its signature teal color theme to a warm palette of bubblegum pink and changed its masthead from the usual, "News for Nerds" motto to, "OMG!!! Ponies!!!" Editors joked that this was done to increase female readership.[24] In another supposed April Fools' Day joke, User Achievement tags were introduced on April 1, 2009.[25] This system allowed users to be tagged with various achievements, such as "The Tagger" for tagging a story or "Member of the {1,2,3,4,5} Digit UID Club" for having a Slashdot UID consisting of a certain number of digits. While it was posted on April Fools' Day to allow for certain joke achievements, the system is real.[26] Slashdot unveiled its newly redesigned site on June 4, 2006, following a CSS Redesign Competition. The winner of the competition was Alex Bendiken, who built on the initial CSS framework of the site. The new site looks similar to the old one but is more polished with more rounded curves, collapsible menus, and updated fonts.[27] On November 9 that same year, Malda wrote that Slashdot attained 16,777,215 (or 224 1) comments, which broke the database for three hours until the administrators fixed the issue.[28] On January 25, 2011, Malda announced that the site launched its third major redesign in its 13.5-year history, which gutted the HTML and CSS, and updated the graphics.[29] On August 25, 2011, Malda announced that he was resigning as Editor-in-Chief of Slashdot, effective immediately. He did not mention any immediate plans for the future, other than spending more time with his family, catching up on some reading, and possibly writing a book.[30][31] His final farewell message received over 1,400 posts within 24 hours on the site.[32] On December 7, 2011, Slashdot announced that it would start to push what the company described as "sponsored" Ask Slashdot questions.[33] On March 28, 2012, Slashdot announced the launch of slashdot TV.[34] In September 2012, it was announced that Slashdot had been acquired by Dice Holdings, alongside other Geeknet websites including SourceForge and Freecode, for $20 million in cash.[2][35] Dice, owner of job listing and career websites, stated that there were no plans for major changes to Slashdot.[35] However, beginning October 1, 2013, the site is currently in "beta" for a new, controversial redesign that looks more like typical blog websites with the once elaborate comment system now replaced with a simpler one at the end.[36] Administration[edit] Team[edit] Rob Malda, Founder of Slashdot The site is owned by Dice Holdings. It was run by its founder, Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda, from 1998 until 2011. He shared editorial responsibilities with several other editors including Timothy Lord, Patrick "Scuttlemonkey" McGarry, Jeff "Soulskill" Boehm, Rob "Samzenpus" Rozeboom, and Keith Dawson.[37][38] Jonathan "cowboyneal" Pater is another popular editor of Slashdot, who came to work for Slashdot as a programmer and systems administrator. His online nickname (handle), CowboyNeal, is inspired by a Grateful Dead tribute to Neal Cassady in their song, "That’s It for the Other One". He is best known as the target of the usual comic poll option,[39] a tradition started by Chris DiBona.[40] Slash and peer moderation[edit] The administration of the site uses the Slash source code and database, a content management system available under the GNU General Public License.[41] Slashdot's editors are primarily responsible for selecting and editing the primary stories daily from submitters; they provide a one-paragraph summary for each and a link to an external site where the story originated. Each story becomes the topic for a threaded discussion among the site's users.[42] A user-based moderation system is employed to filter out abusive comments.[43] Every comment is initially given a score of -1 to +2, with a default score of +1 for registered users, 0 for anonymous users (Anonymous Coward), +2 for users with high "karma", or 1 for users with low "karma". As moderators read comments attached to articles, they click to moderate the comment, either up (+1) or down (1). Moderators may choose to attach a particular descriptor to the comments as well, such as normal, offtopic, flamebait, troll, redundant, insightful, interesting, informative, funny, overrated, or underrated, with each corresponding to a -1 or +1 rating. So a comment may be seen to have a rating of "+1 insightful" or "-1 troll".[38] Moderation points add to a user's karma, and users with high "karma" are eligible to become moderators themselves. The system does not promote regular users as "moderators" and instead assigns five moderation points at a time to users based on the number of comments they have entered in the system – once a user's moderation points are used up, they can no longer moderate articles (though they can be assigned more moderation points at a later date). Paid staff editors have an unlimited number of moderation points.[38][42][44] A given comment can have any integer score from -1 to +5, and registered users of Slashdot can set a personal threshold so that no comments with a lesser score are displayed.[42][44] For instance, a user reading Slashdot at level +5 will only see the highest rated comments, while a user reading at level -1 will see a more "unfiltered, anarchic version".[38] A meta-moderation system was implemented on September 7, 1999,[45] to moderate the moderators and help contain abuses in the moderation system. Meta-moderators are presented with a set of moderations that they may rate as either fair or unfair. For each moderation, the meta-moderator sees the original comment and the reason assigned by the moderator (e.g. troll, funny), and the meta-moderator can click to see the context of comments surrounding the one that was moderated.[42][44] Features[edit] Slashdot features discussion forums on a variety of technology- and science-related topics, or "News for Nerds", as its motto states. Articles are divided into the following sections:[46] Apple – news related to products from Apple Inc., such as Mac OS X or iPhone. Ask Slashdot – articles that seek advice from users about jobs, computer hardware, software glitches, philosophical problems, or more. Book Reviews – original book reviews on (not necessarily) tech books. BSD – news about the various modern versions of UNIX derived from the UCB distribution. Developers – news about software or programming. Features – original, feature-length articles. Games – gaming news. Geeks in Space – a web audio broadcast featuring several of the editors of Slashdot (outdated; no new episodes have been posted recently). Idle – miscellaneous and humorous articles, pictures, and videos. Interviews – interviews with various people related to science and technology. Information Technology (IT) – anything that people with "Information Technology" in their job description might be interested to know. Linux – news specific to the Linux operating system (any variant or distribution). Politics – news typically relevant to politics of the United States, but occasionally featuring international political news. It was originally created to cover the 2004 United States Presidential Election. Polls – a poll is usually run on the site in the right-hand margin, asking users their choice on a variety of topics. In the earlier years of the site, one of the options that could be selected was CowboyNeal, the handle of Jonathan Pater, an administrator of the site. This became known as the CowboyNeal option.[47] During the summer of 2005, he stopped being in charge of the polls, and as a result the CowboyNeal option all but disappeared. Science – news on science-related topics (e.g. cool technology, space telescope observations, interesting medical research). Your Rights Online (YRO) – news on topics pertaining to internet privacy and digital rights. Tags[edit] Slashdot uses a system of "tags" where users can categorize a story to group them together and sorting them. Tags are written in all lowercase, with no spaces, and limited to 64 characters. For example, articles could be tagged as being about security or mozilla. Some articles are tagged with longer tags, such as whatcouldpossiblygowrong (expressing the perception of catastrophic risk), suddenoutbreakofcommonsense (used when the community feels that the subject has finally figured out something obvious), correlationnotcausation (used when scientific articles lack direct evidence; see correlation does not imply causation), or getyourasstomars (commonly seen in articles about Mars or space exploration).[48][49] Culture[edit] Tux, the Linux Penguin See also: Internet meme and List of Internet phenomena As an online community with primarily user-generated content, many in-jokes and internet memes have developed over the course of the site's history. A popular meme (based on an unscientific Slashdot user poll[50]) is, "In Soviet Russia, noun verb you!"[51] The phrase was actually originated by Ukrainian-born comedian Yakov Smirnoff as his famous Russian reversal – "In America, you can always find a party. In Soviet Russia, The Party can always find you!"[52] Other popular memes usually pertain to computing or technology, such as "Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these",[53] "But does it run Linux?",[54] or "Netcraft now confirms: BSD (or some other software package or item) is dying."[55] Some users will also refer to seemingly innocent remarks by correcting them and adding "you insensitive clod!" to the statement – a reference to a February 14, 1986, Calvin & Hobbes cartoon[56] or the 11th season The Simpsons episode, Last Tap Dance in Springfield, wherein Frink exclaims to Homer, "I was merely trying to spare the girl's feelings, you insensitive clod!" Users will also typically refer to articles referring to data storage and data capacity by inquiring how much it is in units of Libraries of Congress.[57] Slashdotters often use the abbreviation TFA which stands for The fucking article or RTFA (Read the fucking article), which itself is derived from the abbreviation RTFM.[58] Usage of this abbreviation often exposes comments from posters who have not read the article linked to in the main story. Slashdotters typically like to mock United States Senator Ted Stevens' 2006 description of the Internet as a "series of tubes"[59][60] or Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's chair-throwing incident from 2005.[61][62] Microsoft founder Bill Gates is a popular target of jokes by Slashdotters, and all stories about Microsoft were once identified with a graphic of Gates looking like a Borg from Star Trek: The Next Generation.[63] Many Slashdotters have long talked about the supposed release of Duke Nukem Forever, which was promised in 1997 but was delayed indefinitely (the game was eventually released in 2011).[64] References to the game are commonly brought up in other articles about software packages that are not yet in production even though the announced delivery date has long passed (see vaporware). Having a low Slashdot user identifier (user ID) is highly valued since they are assigned sequentially; having one is a sign that someone has an older account and has contributed to the site longer. For Slashdot's 10-year anniversary in 2007, one of the items auctioned off in the charity auction for the Electronic Frontier Foundation was a 3-digit Slashdot user ID.[26][65] Traffic and publicity[edit] See also: Slashdot effect As of 2006, Slashdot had approximately 5.5 million users per month. As of January 2013, the site's Alexa rank is 2,000, with the average user spending 3 minutes and 18 seconds per day on the site and 82,665 sites linking in.[1] The primary stories on the site consist of a short synopsis paragraph, a link to the original story, and a lengthy discussion section, all contributed by users. Discussion on stories can get up to 10,000 posts per day. Slashdot has been considered a pioneer in user-driven content, influencing other sites such as Google News and Wikipedia.[66][67] There has been a dip in readership as of 2011, primarily due to the increase of technology-related blogs and Twitter feeds.[68] In 2002, approximately 50% of Slashdot's traffic consisted of people who simply check out the headlines and click through, while others participate in discussion boards and take part in the community.[69] Many links in Slashdot stories caused the linked site to get swamped by heavy traffic and its server to collapse. This is known as the "Slashdot effect",[66][69] a term which was first coined on February 15, 1999 that refers to an article about a "new generation of niche Web portals driving unprecedented amounts of traffic to sites of interest".[67][70] Today, most major websites can handle the surge of traffic, but the effect continues to occur on smaller or independent sites.[71] These sites are then said to have been Slashdotted. Slashdot has received over twenty awards, including People's Voice Awards in 2000 in both of the categories for which it was nominated (Best Community Site and Best News Site).[72] It was also voted as one of Newsweek's favorite technology Web sites and rated in Yahoo!'s Top 100 Web sites as the "Best Geek Hangout" (2001).[73] The main antagonists in the 2004 novel Century Rain, by Alastair Reynolds – The Slashers – are named after Slashdot users.[74] The site was mentioned briefly in the 2000 novel Cosmonaut Keep, written by Ken MacLeod.[75] Several celebrities have stated that they either checked the website regularly or participated in its discussion forums using an account. Some of these celebrities include: Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak,[76] writer and actor Wil Wheaton,[77] and id Software technical director John Carmack.[78] I posted this to see what it would look like on the beta website.. Can you see this? I can't. What is wrong? Is this why they call it beta? I hope someone will be able to fix this because I am not happy it is not working. Maybe after the beta test is over it will work. It sure doesn't work now. I am getting even sadder. PLEASE HELP ME!!!!! I will try again HI. I posted this to see what it would look like on the beta website.. If they call it beta isn't it supposed to be working? maybe they will fix Slashdot Beta and everyone will be happy again. Can you see this? I can't. What is wrong? Is this why they call it beta? I hope someone will be able to fix this because I am not happy it is not working. Maybe after the beta test is over it will work. It sure doesn't work now. I am getting even sadder. It seems to work on the old site but the beta site is not very good and is making me sad. sad sad sad. I am not very happy when Slashdot makes me very sad. What will happen to me when classic is GONE!!! I will try posting this on YouTube PLEASE HELP ME!!!!! A little history of Slashdot courtesy of Wikipedia. What it was before It was destroyed by Beta. I tried posting this before but could not see it with beta. What am I doing wrong? I guess I will have to keep on trying until I can read it. Maybe that is why they call it beta. I am sure they will fix everything and everyone will be happy again. Tell me if you can read this. I am really upset that I can not see my own posts Maybe that is why they call it beta. I am sure they will fix everything and everyone will be happy again. Can you see this? I can't. What is wrong? Is this why they call it beta? I hope someone will be able to fix this because I am not happy it is not working. Maybe after the beta test is over it will work. It sure doesn't work now. I am getting even sadder.PLEASE HELP ME!!!!! The origins of the site now known as Slashdot date back to July 1997 when Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda started a personal website called Chips & Dips, which featured a single "rant" each day about something that interested him – typically something to do with Linux or open-source software. At the time, Malda was a student at Hope College in Holland, Michigan, majoring in computer science. The site became Slashdot in September 1997 under the slogan "News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters," and quickly became a hotspot on the Web for news and information of interest to computer geeks.[4] The name "Slashdot" came from a somewhat "obnoxious parody of a URL" – when Malda registered the domain, he desired to make a name that was "silly and unpronounceable" – try pronouncing out, "h-t-t-p-colon-slash-slash-slashdot-dot-org".[5] By June 1998 the site was seeing as many as 100,000 page views per day and advertisers began to take notice.[4] By December 1998, Slashdot had net revenues of $18,000, yet its Internet profile was higher, and revenues were expected to increase. On June 29, 1999, the site was sold to Linux megasite Andover.net for $1.5 million in cash and $7 million in Andover stock at the IPO price. Part of the deal was contingent upon the continued employment of Rob Malda and Jeff Bates and on "the achievement of certain milestones". With the acquisition of Slashdot, Andover.net could now advertise itself as "the leading Linux/Open Source destination on the Internet".[6][7] Andover.net eventually merged with VA Linux on February 3, 2000,[8] which changed its name to SourceForge, Inc. on May 24, 2007, and became Geeknet, Inc. on November 4, 2009.[9] Slashdot's 10,000th article was posted after two and a half years on February 24, 2000,[10] and the 100,000th article was posted on December 11, 2009 after 12 years online.[11] During the first 12 years, the most active story with the most responses posted was the post-2004 US Presidential Election article "Kerry Concedes Election To Bush" with 5,687 posts. This followed the creation of a new article section, politics.slashdot.org, created at the start of the 2004 election on September 7, 2004.[12] Many of the most popular stories are political, with "Strike on Iraq" (March 19, 2003) the second-most-active article and "Barack Obama Wins US Presidency" (November 5, 2008) the third-most-active. The rest of the 10 most active articles are an article announcing the 2005 London bombings, and several articles about Evolution vs. Intelligent Design, Saddam Hussein's capture, and Fahrenheit 9/11. Articles about Microsoft and its Windows Operating System are popular—a thread posted in 2002 titled "What's Keeping You On Windows?" was the 10th-most-active story, and an article about Windows 2000/NT4 source-code leaks the most visited article with more than 680,000 hits.[13] Some controversy erupted on March 9, 2001 after an anonymous user posted the full text of Scientology's "Operating Thetan Level Three" (OT III) document in a comment attached to a Slashdot article. The Church of Scientology demanded that Slashdot remove the document under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. A week later, in a long article, Slashdot editors explained their decision to remove the page while providing links and information on how to get the document from other sources.[14] Slashdot Japan was launched on May 28, 2001 (although the first article was published April 5, 2001) and is an official offshoot of the US-based Web site. The site is currently owned by OSDN-Japan, Inc., and carries some of the US-based Slashdot articles as well as localized stories.[15][16] An external site, todhsalS, has reported selected stories published on Slashdot Japan in English since March 1, 2009.[17] On Valentine's Day 2002, founder Rob Malda proposed to longtime girlfriend Kathleen Fent using the front page of Slashdot.[18][19] They were married on December 8, 2002, in Las Vegas, Nevada.[20] Slashdot implemented a subscription service on March 1, 2002. Slashdot's subscription model works by allowing users to pay a small fee to be able to view pages without banner ads, starting at a rate of $5 per 1,000 page views – non-subscribers may still view articles and respond to comments, with banner ads in place.[21] On March 6, 2003, subscribers were given the ability to see articles 10 to 20 minutes before they are released to the public.[22] Slashdot altered its threaded discussion forum display software to explicitly show domains for links in articles, as "users made a sport out of tricking unsuspecting readers into visiting [Goatse.cx]."[23] April Fools' Day 2006 logo In observance of April Fools' Day (April 1) in 2006, Slashdot temporarily changed its signature teal color theme to a warm palette of bubblegum pink and changed its masthead from the usual, "News for Nerds" motto to, "OMG!!! Ponies!!!" Editors joked that this was done to increase female readership.[24] In another supposed April Fools' Day joke, User Achievement tags were introduced on April 1, 2009.[25] This system allowed users to be tagged with various achievements, such as "The Tagger" for tagging a story or "Member of the {1,2,3,4,5} Digit UID Club" for having a Slashdot UID consisting of a certain number of digits. While it was posted on April Fools' Day to allow for certain joke achievements, the system is real.[26] Slashdot unveiled its newly redesigned site on June 4, 2006, following a CSS Redesign Competition. The winner of the competition was Alex Bendiken, who built on the initial CSS framework of the site. The new site looks similar to the old one but is more polished with more rounded curves, collapsible menus, and updated fonts.[27] On November 9 that same year, Malda wrote that Slashdot attained 16,777,215 (or 224 1) comments, which broke the database for three hours until the administrators fixed the issue.[28] On January 25, 2011, Malda announced that the site launched its third major redesign in its 13.5-year history, which gutted the HTML and CSS, and updated the graphics.[29] On August 25, 2011, Malda announced that he was resigning as Editor-in-Chief of Slashdot, effective immediately. He did not mention any immediate plans for the future, other than spending more time with his family, catching up on some reading, and possibly writing a book.[30][31] His final farewell message received over 1,400 posts within 24 hours on the site.[32] On December 7, 2011, Slashdot announced that it would start to push what the company described as "sponsored" Ask Slashdot questions.[33] On March 28, 2012, Slashdot announced the launch of slashdot TV.[34] In September 2012, it was announced that Slashdot had been acquired by Dice Holdings, alongside other Geeknet websites including SourceForge and Freecode, for $20 million in cash.[2][35] Dice, owner of job listing and career websites, stated that there were no plans for major changes to Slashdot.[35] However, beginning October 1, 2013, the site is currently in "beta" for a new, controversial redesign that looks more like typical blog websites with the once elaborate comment system now replaced with a simpler one at the end.[36] Administration[edit] Team[edit] Rob Malda, Founder of Slashdot The site is owned by Dice Holdings. It was run by its founder, Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda, from 1998 until 2011. He shared editorial responsibilities with several other editors including Timothy Lord, Patrick "Scuttlemonkey" McGarry, Jeff "Soulskill" Boehm, Rob "Samzenpus" Rozeboom, and Keith Dawson.[37][38] Jonathan "cowboyneal" Pater is another popular editor of Slashdot, who came to work for Slashdot as a programmer and systems administrator. His online nickname (handle), CowboyNeal, is inspired by a Grateful Dead tribute to Neal Cassady in their song, "That’s It for the Other One". He is best known as the target of the usual comic poll option,[39] a tradition started by Chris DiBona.[40] Slash and peer moderation[edit] The administration of the site uses the Slash source code and database, a content management system available under the GNU General Public License.[41] Slashdot's editors are primarily responsible for selecting and editing the primary stories daily from submitters; they provide a one-paragraph summary for each and a link to an external site where the story originated. Each story becomes the topic for a threaded discussion among the site's users.[42] A user-based moderation system is employed to filter out abusive comments.[43] Every comment is initially given a score of -1 to +2, with a default score of +1 for registered users, 0 for anonymous users (Anonymous Coward), +2 for users with high "karma", or 1 for users with low "karma". As moderators read comments attached to articles, they click to moderate the comment, either up (+1) or down (1). Moderators may choose to attach a particular descriptor to the comments as well, such as normal, offtopic, flamebait, troll, redundant, insightful, interesting, informative, funny, overrated, or underrated, with each corresponding to a -1 or +1 rating. So a comment may be seen to have a rating of "+1 insightful" or "-1 troll".[38] Moderation points add to a user's karma, and users with high "karma" are eligible to become moderators themselves. The system does not promote regular users as "moderators" and instead assigns five moderation points at a time to users based on the number of comments they have entered in the system – once a user's moderation points are used up, they can no longer moderate articles (though they can be assigned more moderation points at a later date). Paid staff editors have an unlimited number of moderation points.[38][42][44] A given comment can have any integer score from -1 to +5, and registered users of Slashdot can set a personal threshold so that no comments with a lesser score are displayed.[42][44] For instance, a user reading Slashdot at level +5 will only see the highest rated comments, while a user reading at level -1 will see a more "unfiltered, anarchic version".[38] A meta-moderation system was implemented on September 7, 1999,[45] to moderate the moderators and help contain abuses in the moderation system. Meta-moderators are presented with a set of moderations that they may rate as either fair or unfair. For each moderation, the meta-moderator sees the original comment and the reason assigned by the moderator (e.g. troll, funny), and the meta-moderator can click to see the context of comments surrounding the one that was moderated.[42][44] Features[edit] Slashdot features discussion forums on a variety of technology- and science-related topics, or "News for Nerds", as its motto states. Articles are divided into the following sections:[46] Apple – news related to products from Apple Inc., such as Mac OS X or iPhone. Ask Slashdot – articles that seek advice from users about jobs, computer hardware, software glitches, philosophical problems, or more. Book Reviews – original book reviews on (not necessarily) tech books. BSD – news about the various modern versions of UNIX derived from the UCB distribution. Developers – news about software or programming. Features – original, feature-length articles. Games – gaming news. Geeks in Space – a web audio broadcast featuring several of the editors of Slashdot (outdated; no new episodes have been posted recently). Idle – miscellaneous and humorous articles, pictures, and videos. Interviews – interviews with various people related to science and technology. Information Technology (IT) – anything that people with "Information Technology" in their job description might be interested to know. Linux – news specific to the Linux operating system (any variant or distribution). Politics – news typically relevant to politics of the United States, but occasionally featuring international political news. It was originally created to cover the 2004 United States Presidential Election. Polls – a poll is usually run on the site in the right-hand margin, asking users their choice on a variety of topics. In the earlier years of the site, one of the options that could be selected was CowboyNeal, the handle of Jonathan Pater, an administrator of the site. This became known as the CowboyNeal option.[47] During the summer of 2005, he stopped being in charge of the polls, and as a result the CowboyNeal option all but disappeared. Science – news on science-related topics (e.g. cool technology, space telescope observations, interesting medical research). Your Rights Online (YRO) – news on topics pertaining to internet privacy and digital rights. Tags[edit] Slashdot uses a system of "tags" where users can categorize a story to group them together and sorting them. Tags are written in all lowercase, with no spaces, and limited to 64 characters. For example, articles could be tagged as being about security or mozilla. Some articles are tagged with longer tags, such as whatcouldpossiblygowrong (expressing the perception of catastrophic risk), suddenoutbreakofcommonsense (used when the community feels that the subject has finally figured out something obvious), correlationnotcausation (used when scientific articles lack direct evidence; see correlation does not imply causation), or getyourasstomars (commonly seen in articles about Mars or space exploration).[48][49] Culture[edit] Tux, the Linux Penguin See also: Internet meme and List of Internet phenomena As an online community with primarily user-generated content, many in-jokes and internet memes have developed over the course of the site's history. A popular meme (based on an unscientific Slashdot user poll[50]) is, "In Soviet Russia, noun verb you!"[51] The phrase was actually originated by Ukrainian-born comedian Yakov Smirnoff as his famous Russian reversal – "In America, you can always find a party. In Soviet Russia, The Party can always find you!"[52] Other popular memes usually pertain to computing or technology, such as "Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these",[53] "But does it run Linux?",[54] or "Netcraft now confirms: BSD (or some other software package or item) is dying."[55] Some users will also refer to seemingly innocent remarks by correcting them and adding "you insensitive clod!" to the statement – a reference to a February 14, 1986, Calvin & Hobbes cartoon[56] or the 11th season The Simpsons episode, Last Tap Dance in Springfield, wherein Frink exclaims to Homer, "I was merely trying to spare the girl's feelings, you insensitive clod!" Users will also typically refer to articles referring to data storage and data capacity by inquiring how much it is in units of Libraries of Congress.[57] Slashdotters often use the abbreviation TFA which stands for The fucking article or RTFA (Read the fucking article), which itself is derived from the abbreviation RTFM.[58] Usage of this abbreviation often exposes comments from posters who have not read the article linked to in the main story. Slashdotters typically like to mock United States Senator Ted Stevens' 2006 description of the Internet as a "series of tubes"[59][60] or Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's chair-throwing incident from 2005.[61][62] Microsoft founder Bill Gates is a popular target of jokes by Slashdotters, and all stories about Microsoft were once identified with a graphic of Gates looking like a Borg from Star Trek: The Next Generation.[63] Many Slashdotters have long talked about the supposed release of Duke Nukem Forever, which was promised in 1997 but was delayed indefinitely (the game was eventually released in 2011).[64] References to the game are commonly brought up in other articles about software packages that are not yet in production even though the announced delivery date has long passed (see vaporware). Having a low Slashdot user identifier (user ID) is highly valued since they are assigned sequentially; having one is a sign that someone has an older account and has contributed to the site longer. For Slashdot's 10-year anniversary in 2007, one of the items auctioned off in the charity auction for the Electronic Frontier Foundation was a 3-digit Slashdot user ID.[26][65] Traffic and publicity[edit] See also: Slashdot effect As of 2006, Slashdot had approximately 5.5 million users per month. As of January 2013, the site's Alexa rank is 2,000, with the average user spending 3 minutes and 18 seconds per day on the site and 82,665 sites linking in.[1] The primary stories on the site consist of a short synopsis paragraph, a link to the original story, and a lengthy discussion section, all contributed by users. Discussion on stories can get up to 10,000 posts per day. Slashdot has been considered a pioneer in user-driven content, influencing other sites such as Google News and Wikipedia.[66][67] There has been a dip in readership as of 2011, primarily due to the increase of technology-related blogs and Twitter feeds.[68] In 2002, approximately 50% of Slashdot's traffic consisted of people who simply check out the headlines and click through, while others participate in discussion boards and take part in the community.[69] Many links in Slashdot stories caused the linked site to get swamped by heavy traffic and its server to collapse. This is known as the "Slashdot effect",[66][69] a term which was first coined on February 15, 1999 that refers to an article about a "new generation of niche Web portals driving unprecedented amounts of traffic to sites of interest".[67][70] Today, most major websites can handle the surge of traffic, but the effect continues to occur on smaller or independent sites.[71] These sites are then said to have been Slashdotted. Slashdot has received over twenty awards, including People's Voice Awards in 2000 in both of the categories for which it was nominated (Best Community Site and Best News Site).[72] It was also voted as one of Newsweek's favorite technology Web sites and rated in Yahoo!'s Top 100 Web sites as the "Best Geek Hangout" (2001).[73] The main antagonists in the 2004 novel Century Rain, by Alastair Reynolds – The Slashers – are named after Slashdot users.[74] The site was mentioned briefly in the 2000 novel Cosmonaut Keep, written by Ken MacLeod.[75] Several celebrities have stated that they either checked the website regularly or participated in its discussion forums using an account. Some of these celebrities include: Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak,[76] writer and actor Wil Wheaton,[77] and id Software technical director John Carmack.[78] I posted this to see what it would look like on the beta website.. Can you see this? I can't. What is wrong? Is this why they call it beta? I hope someone will be able to fix this because I am not happy it is not working. Maybe after the beta test is over it will work. It sure doesn't work now. I am getting even sadder. PLEASE HELP ME!!!!!

Comment Can you see this on the beta site? If not I am sad (Score 1) 156

HI. I posted this to see what it would look like on the beta website.. If they call it beta isn't it supposed to be working? maybe they will fix Slashdot Beta and everyone will be happy again. Can you see this? I can't. What is wrong? Is this why they call it beta? I hope someone will be able to fix this because I am not happy it is not working. Maybe after the beta test is over it will work. It sure doesn't work now. I am getting even sadder. It seems to work on the old site but the beta site is not very good and is making me sad. sad sad sad. I am not very happy when Slashdot makes me very sad. What will happen to me when classic is GONE!!! I will try posting this on YouTube PLEASE HELP ME!!!!! A little history of Slashdot courtesy of Wikipedia. What it was before It was destroyed by Beta. I tried posting this before but could not see it with beta. What am I doing wrong? I guess I will have to keep on trying until I can read it. Maybe that is why they call it beta. I am sure they will fix everything and everyone will be happy again. Tell me if you can read this. I am really upset that I can not see my own posts Maybe that is why they call it beta. I am sure they will fix everything and everyone will be happy again. Can you see this? I can't. What is wrong? Is this why they call it beta? I hope someone will be able to fix this because I am not happy it is not working. Maybe after the beta test is over it will work. It sure doesn't work now. I am getting even sadder.PLEASE HELP ME!!!!! The origins of the site now known as Slashdot date back to July 1997 when Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda started a personal website called Chips & Dips, which featured a single "rant" each day about something that interested him – typically something to do with Linux or open-source software. At the time, Malda was a student at Hope College in Holland, Michigan, majoring in computer science. The site became Slashdot in September 1997 under the slogan "News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters," and quickly became a hotspot on the Web for news and information of interest to computer geeks.[4] The name "Slashdot" came from a somewhat "obnoxious parody of a URL" – when Malda registered the domain, he desired to make a name that was "silly and unpronounceable" – try pronouncing out, "h-t-t-p-colon-slash-slash-slashdot-dot-org".[5] By June 1998 the site was seeing as many as 100,000 page views per day and advertisers began to take notice.[4] By December 1998, Slashdot had net revenues of $18,000, yet its Internet profile was higher, and revenues were expected to increase. On June 29, 1999, the site was sold to Linux megasite Andover.net for $1.5 million in cash and $7 million in Andover stock at the IPO price. Part of the deal was contingent upon the continued employment of Rob Malda and Jeff Bates and on "the achievement of certain milestones". With the acquisition of Slashdot, Andover.net could now advertise itself as "the leading Linux/Open Source destination on the Internet".[6][7] Andover.net eventually merged with VA Linux on February 3, 2000,[8] which changed its name to SourceForge, Inc. on May 24, 2007, and became Geeknet, Inc. on November 4, 2009.[9] Slashdot's 10,000th article was posted after two and a half years on February 24, 2000,[10] and the 100,000th article was posted on December 11, 2009 after 12 years online.[11] During the first 12 years, the most active story with the most responses posted was the post-2004 US Presidential Election article "Kerry Concedes Election To Bush" with 5,687 posts. This followed the creation of a new article section, politics.slashdot.org, created at the start of the 2004 election on September 7, 2004.[12] Many of the most popular stories are political, with "Strike on Iraq" (March 19, 2003) the second-most-active article and "Barack Obama Wins US Presidency" (November 5, 2008) the third-most-active. The rest of the 10 most active articles are an article announcing the 2005 London bombings, and several articles about Evolution vs. Intelligent Design, Saddam Hussein's capture, and Fahrenheit 9/11. Articles about Microsoft and its Windows Operating System are popular—a thread posted in 2002 titled "What's Keeping You On Windows?" was the 10th-most-active story, and an article about Windows 2000/NT4 source-code leaks the most visited article with more than 680,000 hits.[13] Some controversy erupted on March 9, 2001 after an anonymous user posted the full text of Scientology's "Operating Thetan Level Three" (OT III) document in a comment attached to a Slashdot article. The Church of Scientology demanded that Slashdot remove the document under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. A week later, in a long article, Slashdot editors explained their decision to remove the page while providing links and information on how to get the document from other sources.[14] Slashdot Japan was launched on May 28, 2001 (although the first article was published April 5, 2001) and is an official offshoot of the US-based Web site. The site is currently owned by OSDN-Japan, Inc., and carries some of the US-based Slashdot articles as well as localized stories.[15][16] An external site, todhsalS, has reported selected stories published on Slashdot Japan in English since March 1, 2009.[17] On Valentine's Day 2002, founder Rob Malda proposed to longtime girlfriend Kathleen Fent using the front page of Slashdot.[18][19] They were married on December 8, 2002, in Las Vegas, Nevada.[20] Slashdot implemented a subscription service on March 1, 2002. Slashdot's subscription model works by allowing users to pay a small fee to be able to view pages without banner ads, starting at a rate of $5 per 1,000 page views – non-subscribers may still view articles and respond to comments, with banner ads in place.[21] On March 6, 2003, subscribers were given the ability to see articles 10 to 20 minutes before they are released to the public.[22] Slashdot altered its threaded discussion forum display software to explicitly show domains for links in articles, as "users made a sport out of tricking unsuspecting readers into visiting [Goatse.cx]."[23] April Fools' Day 2006 logo In observance of April Fools' Day (April 1) in 2006, Slashdot temporarily changed its signature teal color theme to a warm palette of bubblegum pink and changed its masthead from the usual, "News for Nerds" motto to, "OMG!!! Ponies!!!" Editors joked that this was done to increase female readership.[24] In another supposed April Fools' Day joke, User Achievement tags were introduced on April 1, 2009.[25] This system allowed users to be tagged with various achievements, such as "The Tagger" for tagging a story or "Member of the {1,2,3,4,5} Digit UID Club" for having a Slashdot UID consisting of a certain number of digits. While it was posted on April Fools' Day to allow for certain joke achievements, the system is real.[26] Slashdot unveiled its newly redesigned site on June 4, 2006, following a CSS Redesign Competition. The winner of the competition was Alex Bendiken, who built on the initial CSS framework of the site. The new site looks similar to the old one but is more polished with more rounded curves, collapsible menus, and updated fonts.[27] On November 9 that same year, Malda wrote that Slashdot attained 16,777,215 (or 224 1) comments, which broke the database for three hours until the administrators fixed the issue.[28] On January 25, 2011, Malda announced that the site launched its third major redesign in its 13.5-year history, which gutted the HTML and CSS, and updated the graphics.[29] On August 25, 2011, Malda announced that he was resigning as Editor-in-Chief of Slashdot, effective immediately. He did not mention any immediate plans for the future, other than spending more time with his family, catching up on some reading, and possibly writing a book.[30][31] His final farewell message received over 1,400 posts within 24 hours on the site.[32] On December 7, 2011, Slashdot announced that it would start to push what the company described as "sponsored" Ask Slashdot questions.[33] On March 28, 2012, Slashdot announced the launch of slashdot TV.[34] In September 2012, it was announced that Slashdot had been acquired by Dice Holdings, alongside other Geeknet websites including SourceForge and Freecode, for $20 million in cash.[2][35] Dice, owner of job listing and career websites, stated that there were no plans for major changes to Slashdot.[35] However, beginning October 1, 2013, the site is currently in "beta" for a new, controversial redesign that looks more like typical blog websites with the once elaborate comment system now replaced with a simpler one at the end.[36] Administration[edit] Team[edit] Rob Malda, Founder of Slashdot The site is owned by Dice Holdings. It was run by its founder, Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda, from 1998 until 2011. He shared editorial responsibilities with several other editors including Timothy Lord, Patrick "Scuttlemonkey" McGarry, Jeff "Soulskill" Boehm, Rob "Samzenpus" Rozeboom, and Keith Dawson.[37][38] Jonathan "cowboyneal" Pater is another popular editor of Slashdot, who came to work for Slashdot as a programmer and systems administrator. His online nickname (handle), CowboyNeal, is inspired by a Grateful Dead tribute to Neal Cassady in their song, "That’s It for the Other One". He is best known as the target of the usual comic poll option,[39] a tradition started by Chris DiBona.[40] Slash and peer moderation[edit] The administration of the site uses the Slash source code and database, a content management system available under the GNU General Public License.[41] Slashdot's editors are primarily responsible for selecting and editing the primary stories daily from submitters; they provide a one-paragraph summary for each and a link to an external site where the story originated. Each story becomes the topic for a threaded discussion among the site's users.[42] A user-based moderation system is employed to filter out abusive comments.[43] Every comment is initially given a score of -1 to +2, with a default score of +1 for registered users, 0 for anonymous users (Anonymous Coward), +2 for users with high "karma", or 1 for users with low "karma". As moderators read comments attached to articles, they click to moderate the comment, either up (+1) or down (1). Moderators may choose to attach a particular descriptor to the comments as well, such as normal, offtopic, flamebait, troll, redundant, insightful, interesting, informative, funny, overrated, or underrated, with each corresponding to a -1 or +1 rating. So a comment may be seen to have a rating of "+1 insightful" or "-1 troll".[38] Moderation points add to a user's karma, and users with high "karma" are eligible to become moderators themselves. The system does not promote regular users as "moderators" and instead assigns five moderation points at a time to users based on the number of comments they have entered in the system – once a user's moderation points are used up, they can no longer moderate articles (though they can be assigned more moderation points at a later date). Paid staff editors have an unlimited number of moderation points.[38][42][44] A given comment can have any integer score from -1 to +5, and registered users of Slashdot can set a personal threshold so that no comments with a lesser score are displayed.[42][44] For instance, a user reading Slashdot at level +5 will only see the highest rated comments, while a user reading at level -1 will see a more "unfiltered, anarchic version".[38] A meta-moderation system was implemented on September 7, 1999,[45] to moderate the moderators and help contain abuses in the moderation system. Meta-moderators are presented with a set of moderations that they may rate as either fair or unfair. For each moderation, the meta-moderator sees the original comment and the reason assigned by the moderator (e.g. troll, funny), and the meta-moderator can click to see the context of comments surrounding the one that was moderated.[42][44] Features[edit] Slashdot features discussion forums on a variety of technology- and science-related topics, or "News for Nerds", as its motto states. Articles are divided into the following sections:[46] Apple – news related to products from Apple Inc., such as Mac OS X or iPhone. Ask Slashdot – articles that seek advice from users about jobs, computer hardware, software glitches, philosophical problems, or more. Book Reviews – original book reviews on (not necessarily) tech books. BSD – news about the various modern versions of UNIX derived from the UCB distribution. Developers – news about software or programming. Features – original, feature-length articles. Games – gaming news. Geeks in Space – a web audio broadcast featuring several of the editors of Slashdot (outdated; no new episodes have been posted recently). Idle – miscellaneous and humorous articles, pictures, and videos. Interviews – interviews with various people related to science and technology. Information Technology (IT) – anything that people with "Information Technology" in their job description might be interested to know. Linux – news specific to the Linux operating system (any variant or distribution). Politics – news typically relevant to politics of the United States, but occasionally featuring international political news. It was originally created to cover the 2004 United States Presidential Election. Polls – a poll is usually run on the site in the right-hand margin, asking users their choice on a variety of topics. In the earlier years of the site, one of the options that could be selected was CowboyNeal, the handle of Jonathan Pater, an administrator of the site. This became known as the CowboyNeal option.[47] During the summer of 2005, he stopped being in charge of the polls, and as a result the CowboyNeal option all but disappeared. Science – news on science-related topics (e.g. cool technology, space telescope observations, interesting medical research). Your Rights Online (YRO) – news on topics pertaining to internet privacy and digital rights. Tags[edit] Slashdot uses a system of "tags" where users can categorize a story to group them together and sorting them. Tags are written in all lowercase, with no spaces, and limited to 64 characters. For example, articles could be tagged as being about security or mozilla. Some articles are tagged with longer tags, such as whatcouldpossiblygowrong (expressing the perception of catastrophic risk), suddenoutbreakofcommonsense (used when the community feels that the subject has finally figured out something obvious), correlationnotcausation (used when scientific articles lack direct evidence; see correlation does not imply causation), or getyourasstomars (commonly seen in articles about Mars or space exploration).[48][49] Culture[edit] Tux, the Linux Penguin See also: Internet meme and List of Internet phenomena As an online community with primarily user-generated content, many in-jokes and internet memes have developed over the course of the site's history. A popular meme (based on an unscientific Slashdot user poll[50]) is, "In Soviet Russia, noun verb you!"[51] The phrase was actually originated by Ukrainian-born comedian Yakov Smirnoff as his famous Russian reversal – "In America, you can always find a party. In Soviet Russia, The Party can always find you!"[52] Other popular memes usually pertain to computing or technology, such as "Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these",[53] "But does it run Linux?",[54] or "Netcraft now confirms: BSD (or some other software package or item) is dying."[55] Some users will also refer to seemingly innocent remarks by correcting them and adding "you insensitive clod!" to the statement – a reference to a February 14, 1986, Calvin & Hobbes cartoon[56] or the 11th season The Simpsons episode, Last Tap Dance in Springfield, wherein Frink exclaims to Homer, "I was merely trying to spare the girl's feelings, you insensitive clod!" Users will also typically refer to articles referring to data storage and data capacity by inquiring how much it is in units of Libraries of Congress.[57] Slashdotters often use the abbreviation TFA which stands for The fucking article or RTFA (Read the fucking article), which itself is derived from the abbreviation RTFM.[58] Usage of this abbreviation often exposes comments from posters who have not read the article linked to in the main story. Slashdotters typically like to mock United States Senator Ted Stevens' 2006 description of the Internet as a "series of tubes"[59][60] or Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's chair-throwing incident from 2005.[61][62] Microsoft founder Bill Gates is a popular target of jokes by Slashdotters, and all stories about Microsoft were once identified with a graphic of Gates looking like a Borg from Star Trek: The Next Generation.[63] Many Slashdotters have long talked about the supposed release of Duke Nukem Forever, which was promised in 1997 but was delayed indefinitely (the game was eventually released in 2011).[64] References to the game are commonly brought up in other articles about software packages that are not yet in production even though the announced delivery date has long passed (see vaporware). Having a low Slashdot user identifier (user ID) is highly valued since they are assigned sequentially; having one is a sign that someone has an older account and has contributed to the site longer. For Slashdot's 10-year anniversary in 2007, one of the items auctioned off in the charity auction for the Electronic Frontier Foundation was a 3-digit Slashdot user ID.[26][65] Traffic and publicity[edit] See also: Slashdot effect As of 2006, Slashdot had approximately 5.5 million users per month. As of January 2013, the site's Alexa rank is 2,000, with the average user spending 3 minutes and 18 seconds per day on the site and 82,665 sites linking in.[1] The primary stories on the site consist of a short synopsis paragraph, a link to the original story, and a lengthy discussion section, all contributed by users. Discussion on stories can get up to 10,000 posts per day. Slashdot has been considered a pioneer in user-driven content, influencing other sites such as Google News and Wikipedia.[66][67] There has been a dip in readership as of 2011, primarily due to the increase of technology-related blogs and Twitter feeds.[68] In 2002, approximately 50% of Slashdot's traffic consisted of people who simply check out the headlines and click through, while others participate in discussion boards and take part in the community.[69] Many links in Slashdot stories caused the linked site to get swamped by heavy traffic and its server to collapse. This is known as the "Slashdot effect",[66][69] a term which was first coined on February 15, 1999 that refers to an article about a "new generation of niche Web portals driving unprecedented amounts of traffic to sites of interest".[67][70] Today, most major websites can handle the surge of traffic, but the effect continues to occur on smaller or independent sites.[71] These sites are then said to have been Slashdotted. Slashdot has received over twenty awards, including People's Voice Awards in 2000 in both of the categories for which it was nominated (Best Community Site and Best News Site).[72] It was also voted as one of Newsweek's favorite technology Web sites and rated in Yahoo!'s Top 100 Web sites as the "Best Geek Hangout" (2001).[73] The main antagonists in the 2004 novel Century Rain, by Alastair Reynolds – The Slashers – are named after Slashdot users.[74] The site was mentioned briefly in the 2000 novel Cosmonaut Keep, written by Ken MacLeod.[75] Several celebrities have stated that they either checked the website regularly or participated in its discussion forums using an account. Some of these celebrities include: Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak,[76] writer and actor Wil Wheaton,[77] and id Software technical director John Carmack.[78] I posted this to see what it would look like on the beta website.. Can you see this? I can't. What is wrong? Is this why they call it beta? I hope someone will be able to fix this because I am not happy it is not working. Maybe after the beta test is over it will work. It sure doesn't work now. I am getting even sadder. PLEASE HELP ME!!!!!

Comment Test of text rendering Slashdot Beta (Score 1, Informative) 193

HI. I posted this to see what it would look like on the beta website.. If they call it beta isn't it supposed to be working? maybe they will fix Slashdot Beta and everyone will be happy again. Can you see this? I can't. What is wrong? Is this why they call it beta? I hope someone will be able to fix this because I am not happy it is not working. Maybe after the beta test is over it will work. It sure doesn't work now. I am getting even sadder. It seems to work on the old site but the beta site is not very good and is making me sad. sad sad sad. I am not very happy when Slashdot makes me very sad. What will happen to me when classic is GONE!!! I will try posting this on YouTube PLEASE HELP ME!!!!! A little history of Slashdot courtesy of Wikipedia. What it was before It was destroyed by Beta. I tried posting this before but could not see it with beta. What am I doing wrong? I guess I will have to keep on trying until I can read it. Maybe that is why they call it beta. I am sure they will fix everything and everyone will be happy again. Tell me if you can read this. I am really upset that I can not see my own posts Maybe that is why they call it beta. I am sure they will fix everything and everyone will be happy again. Can you see this? I can't. What is wrong? Is this why they call it beta? I hope someone will be able to fix this because I am not happy it is not working. Maybe after the beta test is over it will work. It sure doesn't work now. I am getting even sadder.PLEASE HELP ME!!!!! The origins of the site now known as Slashdot date back to July 1997 when Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda started a personal website called Chips & Dips, which featured a single "rant" each day about something that interested him – typically something to do with Linux or open-source software. At the time, Malda was a student at Hope College in Holland, Michigan, majoring in computer science. The site became Slashdot in September 1997 under the slogan "News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters," and quickly became a hotspot on the Web for news and information of interest to computer geeks.[4] The name "Slashdot" came from a somewhat "obnoxious parody of a URL" – when Malda registered the domain, he desired to make a name that was "silly and unpronounceable" – try pronouncing out, "h-t-t-p-colon-slash-slash-slashdot-dot-org".[5] By June 1998 the site was seeing as many as 100,000 page views per day and advertisers began to take notice.[4] By December 1998, Slashdot had net revenues of $18,000, yet its Internet profile was higher, and revenues were expected to increase. On June 29, 1999, the site was sold to Linux megasite Andover.net for $1.5 million in cash and $7 million in Andover stock at the IPO price. Part of the deal was contingent upon the continued employment of Rob Malda and Jeff Bates and on "the achievement of certain milestones". With the acquisition of Slashdot, Andover.net could now advertise itself as "the leading Linux/Open Source destination on the Internet".[6][7] Andover.net eventually merged with VA Linux on February 3, 2000,[8] which changed its name to SourceForge, Inc. on May 24, 2007, and became Geeknet, Inc. on November 4, 2009.[9] Slashdot's 10,000th article was posted after two and a half years on February 24, 2000,[10] and the 100,000th article was posted on December 11, 2009 after 12 years online.[11] During the first 12 years, the most active story with the most responses posted was the post-2004 US Presidential Election article "Kerry Concedes Election To Bush" with 5,687 posts. This followed the creation of a new article section, politics.slashdot.org, created at the start of the 2004 election on September 7, 2004.[12] Many of the most popular stories are political, with "Strike on Iraq" (March 19, 2003) the second-most-active article and "Barack Obama Wins US Presidency" (November 5, 2008) the third-most-active. The rest of the 10 most active articles are an article announcing the 2005 London bombings, and several articles about Evolution vs. Intelligent Design, Saddam Hussein's capture, and Fahrenheit 9/11. Articles about Microsoft and its Windows Operating System are popular—a thread posted in 2002 titled "What's Keeping You On Windows?" was the 10th-most-active story, and an article about Windows 2000/NT4 source-code leaks the most visited article with more than 680,000 hits.[13] Some controversy erupted on March 9, 2001 after an anonymous user posted the full text of Scientology's "Operating Thetan Level Three" (OT III) document in a comment attached to a Slashdot article. The Church of Scientology demanded that Slashdot remove the document under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. A week later, in a long article, Slashdot editors explained their decision to remove the page while providing links and information on how to get the document from other sources.[14] Slashdot Japan was launched on May 28, 2001 (although the first article was published April 5, 2001) and is an official offshoot of the US-based Web site. The site is currently owned by OSDN-Japan, Inc., and carries some of the US-based Slashdot articles as well as localized stories.[15][16] An external site, todhsalS, has reported selected stories published on Slashdot Japan in English since March 1, 2009.[17] On Valentine's Day 2002, founder Rob Malda proposed to longtime girlfriend Kathleen Fent using the front page of Slashdot.[18][19] They were married on December 8, 2002, in Las Vegas, Nevada.[20] Slashdot implemented a subscription service on March 1, 2002. Slashdot's subscription model works by allowing users to pay a small fee to be able to view pages without banner ads, starting at a rate of $5 per 1,000 page views – non-subscribers may still view articles and respond to comments, with banner ads in place.[21] On March 6, 2003, subscribers were given the ability to see articles 10 to 20 minutes before they are released to the public.[22] Slashdot altered its threaded discussion forum display software to explicitly show domains for links in articles, as "users made a sport out of tricking unsuspecting readers into visiting [Goatse.cx]."[23] April Fools' Day 2006 logo In observance of April Fools' Day (April 1) in 2006, Slashdot temporarily changed its signature teal color theme to a warm palette of bubblegum pink and changed its masthead from the usual, "News for Nerds" motto to, "OMG!!! Ponies!!!" Editors joked that this was done to increase female readership.[24] In another supposed April Fools' Day joke, User Achievement tags were introduced on April 1, 2009.[25] This system allowed users to be tagged with various achievements, such as "The Tagger" for tagging a story or "Member of the {1,2,3,4,5} Digit UID Club" for having a Slashdot UID consisting of a certain number of digits. While it was posted on April Fools' Day to allow for certain joke achievements, the system is real.[26] Slashdot unveiled its newly redesigned site on June 4, 2006, following a CSS Redesign Competition. The winner of the competition was Alex Bendiken, who built on the initial CSS framework of the site. The new site looks similar to the old one but is more polished with more rounded curves, collapsible menus, and updated fonts.[27] On November 9 that same year, Malda wrote that Slashdot attained 16,777,215 (or 224 1) comments, which broke the database for three hours until the administrators fixed the issue.[28] On January 25, 2011, Malda announced that the site launched its third major redesign in its 13.5-year history, which gutted the HTML and CSS, and updated the graphics.[29] On August 25, 2011, Malda announced that he was resigning as Editor-in-Chief of Slashdot, effective immediately. He did not mention any immediate plans for the future, other than spending more time with his family, catching up on some reading, and possibly writing a book.[30][31] His final farewell message received over 1,400 posts within 24 hours on the site.[32] On December 7, 2011, Slashdot announced that it would start to push what the company described as "sponsored" Ask Slashdot questions.[33] On March 28, 2012, Slashdot announced the launch of slashdot TV.[34] In September 2012, it was announced that Slashdot had been acquired by Dice Holdings, alongside other Geeknet websites including SourceForge and Freecode, for $20 million in cash.[2][35] Dice, owner of job listing and career websites, stated that there were no plans for major changes to Slashdot.[35] However, beginning October 1, 2013, the site is currently in "beta" for a new, controversial redesign that looks more like typical blog websites with the once elaborate comment system now replaced with a simpler one at the end.[36] Administration[edit] Team[edit] Rob Malda, Founder of Slashdot The site is owned by Dice Holdings. It was run by its founder, Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda, from 1998 until 2011. He shared editorial responsibilities with several other editors including Timothy Lord, Patrick "Scuttlemonkey" McGarry, Jeff "Soulskill" Boehm, Rob "Samzenpus" Rozeboom, and Keith Dawson.[37][38] Jonathan "cowboyneal" Pater is another popular editor of Slashdot, who came to work for Slashdot as a programmer and systems administrator. His online nickname (handle), CowboyNeal, is inspired by a Grateful Dead tribute to Neal Cassady in their song, "That’s It for the Other One". He is best known as the target of the usual comic poll option,[39] a tradition started by Chris DiBona.[40] Slash and peer moderation[edit] The administration of the site uses the Slash source code and database, a content management system available under the GNU General Public License.[41] Slashdot's editors are primarily responsible for selecting and editing the primary stories daily from submitters; they provide a one-paragraph summary for each and a link to an external site where the story originated. Each story becomes the topic for a threaded discussion among the site's users.[42] A user-based moderation system is employed to filter out abusive comments.[43] Every comment is initially given a score of -1 to +2, with a default score of +1 for registered users, 0 for anonymous users (Anonymous Coward), +2 for users with high "karma", or 1 for users with low "karma". As moderators read comments attached to articles, they click to moderate the comment, either up (+1) or down (1). Moderators may choose to attach a particular descriptor to the comments as well, such as normal, offtopic, flamebait, troll, redundant, insightful, interesting, informative, funny, overrated, or underrated, with each corresponding to a -1 or +1 rating. So a comment may be seen to have a rating of "+1 insightful" or "-1 troll".[38] Moderation points add to a user's karma, and users with high "karma" are eligible to become moderators themselves. The system does not promote regular users as "moderators" and instead assigns five moderation points at a time to users based on the number of comments they have entered in the system – once a user's moderation points are used up, they can no longer moderate articles (though they can be assigned more moderation points at a later date). Paid staff editors have an unlimited number of moderation points.[38][42][44] A given comment can have any integer score from -1 to +5, and registered users of Slashdot can set a personal threshold so that no comments with a lesser score are displayed.[42][44] For instance, a user reading Slashdot at level +5 will only see the highest rated comments, while a user reading at level -1 will see a more "unfiltered, anarchic version".[38] A meta-moderation system was implemented on September 7, 1999,[45] to moderate the moderators and help contain abuses in the moderation system. Meta-moderators are presented with a set of moderations that they may rate as either fair or unfair. For each moderation, the meta-moderator sees the original comment and the reason assigned by the moderator (e.g. troll, funny), and the meta-moderator can click to see the context of comments surrounding the one that was moderated.[42][44] Features[edit] Slashdot features discussion forums on a variety of technology- and science-related topics, or "News for Nerds", as its motto states. Articles are divided into the following sections:[46] Apple – news related to products from Apple Inc., such as Mac OS X or iPhone. Ask Slashdot – articles that seek advice from users about jobs, computer hardware, software glitches, philosophical problems, or more. Book Reviews – original book reviews on (not necessarily) tech books. BSD – news about the various modern versions of UNIX derived from the UCB distribution. Developers – news about software or programming. Features – original, feature-length articles. Games – gaming news. Geeks in Space – a web audio broadcast featuring several of the editors of Slashdot (outdated; no new episodes have been posted recently). Idle – miscellaneous and humorous articles, pictures, and videos. Interviews – interviews with various people related to science and technology. Information Technology (IT) – anything that people with "Information Technology" in their job description might be interested to know. Linux – news specific to the Linux operating system (any variant or distribution). Politics – news typically relevant to politics of the United States, but occasionally featuring international political news. It was originally created to cover the 2004 United States Presidential Election. Polls – a poll is usually run on the site in the right-hand margin, asking users their choice on a variety of topics. In the earlier years of the site, one of the options that could be selected was CowboyNeal, the handle of Jonathan Pater, an administrator of the site. This became known as the CowboyNeal option.[47] During the summer of 2005, he stopped being in charge of the polls, and as a result the CowboyNeal option all but disappeared. Science – news on science-related topics (e.g. cool technology, space telescope observations, interesting medical research). Your Rights Online (YRO) – news on topics pertaining to internet privacy and digital rights. Tags[edit] Slashdot uses a system of "tags" where users can categorize a story to group them together and sorting them. Tags are written in all lowercase, with no spaces, and limited to 64 characters. For example, articles could be tagged as being about security or mozilla. Some articles are tagged with longer tags, such as whatcouldpossiblygowrong (expressing the perception of catastrophic risk), suddenoutbreakofcommonsense (used when the community feels that the subject has finally figured out something obvious), correlationnotcausation (used when scientific articles lack direct evidence; see correlation does not imply causation), or getyourasstomars (commonly seen in articles about Mars or space exploration).[48][49] Culture[edit] Tux, the Linux Penguin See also: Internet meme and List of Internet phenomena As an online community with primarily user-generated content, many in-jokes and internet memes have developed over the course of the site's history. A popular meme (based on an unscientific Slashdot user poll[50]) is, "In Soviet Russia, noun verb you!"[51] The phrase was actually originated by Ukrainian-born comedian Yakov Smirnoff as his famous Russian reversal – "In America, you can always find a party. In Soviet Russia, The Party can always find you!"[52] Other popular memes usually pertain to computing or technology, such as "Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these",[53] "But does it run Linux?",[54] or "Netcraft now confirms: BSD (or some other software package or item) is dying."[55] Some users will also refer to seemingly innocent remarks by correcting them and adding "you insensitive clod!" to the statement – a reference to a February 14, 1986, Calvin & Hobbes cartoon[56] or the 11th season The Simpsons episode, Last Tap Dance in Springfield, wherein Frink exclaims to Homer, "I was merely trying to spare the girl's feelings, you insensitive clod!" Users will also typically refer to articles referring to data storage and data capacity by inquiring how much it is in units of Libraries of Congress.[57] Slashdotters often use the abbreviation TFA which stands for The fucking article or RTFA (Read the fucking article), which itself is derived from the abbreviation RTFM.[58] Usage of this abbreviation often exposes comments from posters who have not read the article linked to in the main story. Slashdotters typically like to mock United States Senator Ted Stevens' 2006 description of the Internet as a "series of tubes"[59][60] or Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's chair-throwing incident from 2005.[61][62] Microsoft founder Bill Gates is a popular target of jokes by Slashdotters, and all stories about Microsoft were once identified with a graphic of Gates looking like a Borg from Star Trek: The Next Generation.[63] Many Slashdotters have long talked about the supposed release of Duke Nukem Forever, which was promised in 1997 but was delayed indefinitely (the game was eventually released in 2011).[64] References to the game are commonly brought up in other articles about software packages that are not yet in production even though the announced delivery date has long passed (see vaporware). Having a low Slashdot user identifier (user ID) is highly valued since they are assigned sequentially; having one is a sign that someone has an older account and has contributed to the site longer. For Slashdot's 10-year anniversary in 2007, one of the items auctioned off in the charity auction for the Electronic Frontier Foundation was a 3-digit Slashdot user ID.[26][65] Traffic and publicity[edit] See also: Slashdot effect As of 2006, Slashdot had approximately 5.5 million users per month. As of January 2013, the site's Alexa rank is 2,000, with the average user spending 3 minutes and 18 seconds per day on the site and 82,665 sites linking in.[1] The primary stories on the site consist of a short synopsis paragraph, a link to the original story, and a lengthy discussion section, all contributed by users. Discussion on stories can get up to 10,000 posts per day. Slashdot has been considered a pioneer in user-driven content, influencing other sites such as Google News and Wikipedia.[66][67] There has been a dip in readership as of 2011, primarily due to the increase of technology-related blogs and Twitter feeds.[68] In 2002, approximately 50% of Slashdot's traffic consisted of people who simply check out the headlines and click through, while others participate in discussion boards and take part in the community.[69] Many links in Slashdot stories caused the linked site to get swamped by heavy traffic and its server to collapse. This is known as the "Slashdot effect",[66][69] a term which was first coined on February 15, 1999 that refers to an article about a "new generation of niche Web portals driving unprecedented amounts of traffic to sites of interest".[67][70] Today, most major websites can handle the surge of traffic, but the effect continues to occur on smaller or independent sites.[71] These sites are then said to have been Slashdotted. Slashdot has received over twenty awards, including People's Voice Awards in 2000 in both of the categories for which it was nominated (Best Community Site and Best News Site).[72] It was also voted as one of Newsweek's favorite technology Web sites and rated in Yahoo!'s Top 100 Web sites as the "Best Geek Hangout" (2001).[73] The main antagonists in the 2004 novel Century Rain, by Alastair Reynolds – The Slashers – are named after Slashdot users.[74] The site was mentioned briefly in the 2000 novel Cosmonaut Keep, written by Ken MacLeod.[75] Several celebrities have stated that they either checked the website regularly or participated in its discussion forums using an account. Some of these celebrities include: Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak,[76] writer and actor Wil Wheaton,[77] and id Software technical director John Carmack.[78] I posted this to see what it would look like on the beta website.. Can you see this? I can't. What is wrong? Is this why they call it beta? I hope someone will be able to fix this because I am not happy it is not working. Maybe after the beta test is over it will work. It sure doesn't work now. I am getting even sadder. PLEASE HELP ME!!!!!

Comment Test of text rendering Slashdot Beta (Score 3, Informative) 234

A little history of Slashdot courtesy of Wikipedia. What it was before It was destroyed by Beta. I tried posting this before but could not see it with beta. What am I doing wrong? I guess I will have to keep on trying until I can read it. Maybe that is why they call it beta. I am sure they will fix everything and everyone will be happy again. Tell me if you can read this. I am really upset that I can not see my own posts Maybe that is why they call it beta. I am sure they will fix everything and everyone will be happy again. Can you see this? I can't. What is wrong? Is this why they call it beta? I hope someone will be able to fix this because I am not happy it is not working. Maybe after the beta test is over it will work. It sure doesn't work now. I am getting even sadder.PLEASE HELP ME!!!!! The origins of the site now known as Slashdot date back to July 1997 when Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda started a personal website called Chips & Dips, which featured a single "rant" each day about something that interested him – typically something to do with Linux or open-source software. At the time, Malda was a student at Hope College in Holland, Michigan, majoring in computer science. The site became Slashdot in September 1997 under the slogan "News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters," and quickly became a hotspot on the Web for news and information of interest to computer geeks.[4] The name "Slashdot" came from a somewhat "obnoxious parody of a URL" – when Malda registered the domain, he desired to make a name that was "silly and unpronounceable" – try pronouncing out, "h-t-t-p-colon-slash-slash-slashdot-dot-org".[5] By June 1998 the site was seeing as many as 100,000 page views per day and advertisers began to take notice.[4] By December 1998, Slashdot had net revenues of $18,000, yet its Internet profile was higher, and revenues were expected to increase. On June 29, 1999, the site was sold to Linux megasite Andover.net for $1.5 million in cash and $7 million in Andover stock at the IPO price. Part of the deal was contingent upon the continued employment of Rob Malda and Jeff Bates and on "the achievement of certain milestones". With the acquisition of Slashdot, Andover.net could now advertise itself as "the leading Linux/Open Source destination on the Internet".[6][7] Andover.net eventually merged with VA Linux on February 3, 2000,[8] which changed its name to SourceForge, Inc. on May 24, 2007, and became Geeknet, Inc. on November 4, 2009.[9] Slashdot's 10,000th article was posted after two and a half years on February 24, 2000,[10] and the 100,000th article was posted on December 11, 2009 after 12 years online.[11] During the first 12 years, the most active story with the most responses posted was the post-2004 US Presidential Election article "Kerry Concedes Election To Bush" with 5,687 posts. This followed the creation of a new article section, politics.slashdot.org, created at the start of the 2004 election on September 7, 2004.[12] Many of the most popular stories are political, with "Strike on Iraq" (March 19, 2003) the second-most-active article and "Barack Obama Wins US Presidency" (November 5, 2008) the third-most-active. The rest of the 10 most active articles are an article announcing the 2005 London bombings, and several articles about Evolution vs. Intelligent Design, Saddam Hussein's capture, and Fahrenheit 9/11. Articles about Microsoft and its Windows Operating System are popular—a thread posted in 2002 titled "What's Keeping You On Windows?" was the 10th-most-active story, and an article about Windows 2000/NT4 source-code leaks the most visited article with more than 680,000 hits.[13] Some controversy erupted on March 9, 2001 after an anonymous user posted the full text of Scientology's "Operating Thetan Level Three" (OT III) document in a comment attached to a Slashdot article. The Church of Scientology demanded that Slashdot remove the document under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. A week later, in a long article, Slashdot editors explained their decision to remove the page while providing links and information on how to get the document from other sources.[14] Slashdot Japan was launched on May 28, 2001 (although the first article was published April 5, 2001) and is an official offshoot of the US-based Web site. The site is currently owned by OSDN-Japan, Inc., and carries some of the US-based Slashdot articles as well as localized stories.[15][16] An external site, todhsalS, has reported selected stories published on Slashdot Japan in English since March 1, 2009.[17] On Valentine's Day 2002, founder Rob Malda proposed to longtime girlfriend Kathleen Fent using the front page of Slashdot.[18][19] They were married on December 8, 2002, in Las Vegas, Nevada.[20] Slashdot implemented a subscription service on March 1, 2002. Slashdot's subscription model works by allowing users to pay a small fee to be able to view pages without banner ads, starting at a rate of $5 per 1,000 page views – non-subscribers may still view articles and respond to comments, with banner ads in place.[21] On March 6, 2003, subscribers were given the ability to see articles 10 to 20 minutes before they are released to the public.[22] Slashdot altered its threaded discussion forum display software to explicitly show domains for links in articles, as "users made a sport out of tricking unsuspecting readers into visiting [Goatse.cx]."[23] April Fools' Day 2006 logo In observance of April Fools' Day (April 1) in 2006, Slashdot temporarily changed its signature teal color theme to a warm palette of bubblegum pink and changed its masthead from the usual, "News for Nerds" motto to, "OMG!!! Ponies!!!" Editors joked that this was done to increase female readership.[24] In another supposed April Fools' Day joke, User Achievement tags were introduced on April 1, 2009.[25] This system allowed users to be tagged with various achievements, such as "The Tagger" for tagging a story or "Member of the {1,2,3,4,5} Digit UID Club" for having a Slashdot UID consisting of a certain number of digits. While it was posted on April Fools' Day to allow for certain joke achievements, the system is real.[26] Slashdot unveiled its newly redesigned site on June 4, 2006, following a CSS Redesign Competition. The winner of the competition was Alex Bendiken, who built on the initial CSS framework of the site. The new site looks similar to the old one but is more polished with more rounded curves, collapsible menus, and updated fonts.[27] On November 9 that same year, Malda wrote that Slashdot attained 16,777,215 (or 224 1) comments, which broke the database for three hours until the administrators fixed the issue.[28] On January 25, 2011, Malda announced that the site launched its third major redesign in its 13.5-year history, which gutted the HTML and CSS, and updated the graphics.[29] On August 25, 2011, Malda announced that he was resigning as Editor-in-Chief of Slashdot, effective immediately. He did not mention any immediate plans for the future, other than spending more time with his family, catching up on some reading, and possibly writing a book.[30][31] His final farewell message received over 1,400 posts within 24 hours on the site.[32] On December 7, 2011, Slashdot announced that it would start to push what the company described as "sponsored" Ask Slashdot questions.[33] On March 28, 2012, Slashdot announced the launch of slashdot TV.[34] In September 2012, it was announced that Slashdot had been acquired by Dice Holdings, alongside other Geeknet websites including SourceForge and Freecode, for $20 million in cash.[2][35] Dice, owner of job listing and career websites, stated that there were no plans for major changes to Slashdot.[35] However, beginning October 1, 2013, the site is currently in "beta" for a new, controversial redesign that looks more like typical blog websites with the once elaborate comment system now replaced with a simpler one at the end.[36] Administration[edit] Team[edit] Rob Malda, Founder of Slashdot The site is owned by Dice Holdings. It was run by its founder, Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda, from 1998 until 2011. He shared editorial responsibilities with several other editors including Timothy Lord, Patrick "Scuttlemonkey" McGarry, Jeff "Soulskill" Boehm, Rob "Samzenpus" Rozeboom, and Keith Dawson.[37][38] Jonathan "cowboyneal" Pater is another popular editor of Slashdot, who came to work for Slashdot as a programmer and systems administrator. His online nickname (handle), CowboyNeal, is inspired by a Grateful Dead tribute to Neal Cassady in their song, "That’s It for the Other One". He is best known as the target of the usual comic poll option,[39] a tradition started by Chris DiBona.[40] Slash and peer moderation[edit] The administration of the site uses the Slash source code and database, a content management system available under the GNU General Public License.[41] Slashdot's editors are primarily responsible for selecting and editing the primary stories daily from submitters; they provide a one-paragraph summary for each and a link to an external site where the story originated. Each story becomes the topic for a threaded discussion among the site's users.[42] A user-based moderation system is employed to filter out abusive comments.[43] Every comment is initially given a score of -1 to +2, with a default score of +1 for registered users, 0 for anonymous users (Anonymous Coward), +2 for users with high "karma", or 1 for users with low "karma". As moderators read comments attached to articles, they click to moderate the comment, either up (+1) or down (1). Moderators may choose to attach a particular descriptor to the comments as well, such as normal, offtopic, flamebait, troll, redundant, insightful, interesting, informative, funny, overrated, or underrated, with each corresponding to a -1 or +1 rating. So a comment may be seen to have a rating of "+1 insightful" or "-1 troll".[38] Moderation points add to a user's karma, and users with high "karma" are eligible to become moderators themselves. The system does not promote regular users as "moderators" and instead assigns five moderation points at a time to users based on the number of comments they have entered in the system – once a user's moderation points are used up, they can no longer moderate articles (though they can be assigned more moderation points at a later date). Paid staff editors have an unlimited number of moderation points.[38][42][44] A given comment can have any integer score from -1 to +5, and registered users of Slashdot can set a personal threshold so that no comments with a lesser score are displayed.[42][44] For instance, a user reading Slashdot at level +5 will only see the highest rated comments, while a user reading at level -1 will see a more "unfiltered, anarchic version".[38] A meta-moderation system was implemented on September 7, 1999,[45] to moderate the moderators and help contain abuses in the moderation system. Meta-moderators are presented with a set of moderations that they may rate as either fair or unfair. For each moderation, the meta-moderator sees the original comment and the reason assigned by the moderator (e.g. troll, funny), and the meta-moderator can click to see the context of comments surrounding the one that was moderated.[42][44] Features[edit] Slashdot features discussion forums on a variety of technology- and science-related topics, or "News for Nerds", as its motto states. Articles are divided into the following sections:[46] Apple – news related to products from Apple Inc., such as Mac OS X or iPhone. Ask Slashdot – articles that seek advice from users about jobs, computer hardware, software glitches, philosophical problems, or more. Book Reviews – original book reviews on (not necessarily) tech books. BSD – news about the various modern versions of UNIX derived from the UCB distribution. Developers – news about software or programming. Features – original, feature-length articles. Games – gaming news. Geeks in Space – a web audio broadcast featuring several of the editors of Slashdot (outdated; no new episodes have been posted recently). Idle – miscellaneous and humorous articles, pictures, and videos. Interviews – interviews with various people related to science and technology. Information Technology (IT) – anything that people with "Information Technology" in their job description might be interested to know. Linux – news specific to the Linux operating system (any variant or distribution). Politics – news typically relevant to politics of the United States, but occasionally featuring international political news. It was originally created to cover the 2004 United States Presidential Election. Polls – a poll is usually run on the site in the right-hand margin, asking users their choice on a variety of topics. In the earlier years of the site, one of the options that could be selected was CowboyNeal, the handle of Jonathan Pater, an administrator of the site. This became known as the CowboyNeal option.[47] During the summer of 2005, he stopped being in charge of the polls, and as a result the CowboyNeal option all but disappeared. Science – news on science-related topics (e.g. cool technology, space telescope observations, interesting medical research). Your Rights Online (YRO) – news on topics pertaining to internet privacy and digital rights. Tags[edit] Slashdot uses a system of "tags" where users can categorize a story to group them together and sorting them. Tags are written in all lowercase, with no spaces, and limited to 64 characters. For example, articles could be tagged as being about security or mozilla. Some articles are tagged with longer tags, such as whatcouldpossiblygowrong (expressing the perception of catastrophic risk), suddenoutbreakofcommonsense (used when the community feels that the subject has finally figured out something obvious), correlationnotcausation (used when scientific articles lack direct evidence; see correlation does not imply causation), or getyourasstomars (commonly seen in articles about Mars or space exploration).[48][49] Culture[edit] Tux, the Linux Penguin See also: Internet meme and List of Internet phenomena As an online community with primarily user-generated content, many in-jokes and internet memes have developed over the course of the site's history. A popular meme (based on an unscientific Slashdot user poll[50]) is, "In Soviet Russia, noun verb you!"[51] The phrase was actually originated by Ukrainian-born comedian Yakov Smirnoff as his famous Russian reversal – "In America, you can always find a party. In Soviet Russia, The Party can always find you!"[52] Other popular memes usually pertain to computing or technology, such as "Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these",[53] "But does it run Linux?",[54] or "Netcraft now confirms: BSD (or some other software package or item) is dying."[55] Some users will also refer to seemingly innocent remarks by correcting them and adding "you insensitive clod!" to the statement – a reference to a February 14, 1986, Calvin & Hobbes cartoon[56] or the 11th season The Simpsons episode, Last Tap Dance in Springfield, wherein Frink exclaims to Homer, "I was merely trying to spare the girl's feelings, you insensitive clod!" Users will also typically refer to articles referring to data storage and data capacity by inquiring how much it is in units of Libraries of Congress.[57] Slashdotters often use the abbreviation TFA which stands for The fucking article or RTFA (Read the fucking article), which itself is derived from the abbreviation RTFM.[58] Usage of this abbreviation often exposes comments from posters who have not read the article linked to in the main story. Slashdotters typically like to mock United States Senator Ted Stevens' 2006 description of the Internet as a "series of tubes"[59][60] or Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's chair-throwing incident from 2005.[61][62] Microsoft founder Bill Gates is a popular target of jokes by Slashdotters, and all stories about Microsoft were once identified with a graphic of Gates looking like a Borg from Star Trek: The Next Generation.[63] Many Slashdotters have long talked about the supposed release of Duke Nukem Forever, which was promised in 1997 but was delayed indefinitely (the game was eventually released in 2011).[64] References to the game are commonly brought up in other articles about software packages that are not yet in production even though the announced delivery date has long passed (see vaporware). Having a low Slashdot user identifier (user ID) is highly valued since they are assigned sequentially; having one is a sign that someone has an older account and has contributed to the site longer. For Slashdot's 10-year anniversary in 2007, one of the items auctioned off in the charity auction for the Electronic Frontier Foundation was a 3-digit Slashdot user ID.[26][65] Traffic and publicity[edit] See also: Slashdot effect As of 2006, Slashdot had approximately 5.5 million users per month. As of January 2013, the site's Alexa rank is 2,000, with the average user spending 3 minutes and 18 seconds per day on the site and 82,665 sites linking in.[1] The primary stories on the site consist of a short synopsis paragraph, a link to the original story, and a lengthy discussion section, all contributed by users. Discussion on stories can get up to 10,000 posts per day. Slashdot has been considered a pioneer in user-driven content, influencing other sites such as Google News and Wikipedia.[66][67] There has been a dip in readership as of 2011, primarily due to the increase of technology-related blogs and Twitter feeds.[68] In 2002, approximately 50% of Slashdot's traffic consisted of people who simply check out the headlines and click through, while others participate in discussion boards and take part in the community.[69] Many links in Slashdot stories caused the linked site to get swamped by heavy traffic and its server to collapse. This is known as the "Slashdot effect",[66][69] a term which was first coined on February 15, 1999 that refers to an article about a "new generation of niche Web portals driving unprecedented amounts of traffic to sites of interest".[67][70] Today, most major websites can handle the surge of traffic, but the effect continues to occur on smaller or independent sites.[71] These sites are then said to have been Slashdotted. Slashdot has received over twenty awards, including People's Voice Awards in 2000 in both of the categories for which it was nominated (Best Community Site and Best News Site).[72] It was also voted as one of Newsweek's favorite technology Web sites and rated in Yahoo!'s Top 100 Web sites as the "Best Geek Hangout" (2001).[73] The main antagonists in the 2004 novel Century Rain, by Alastair Reynolds – The Slashers – are named after Slashdot users.[74] The site was mentioned briefly in the 2000 novel Cosmonaut Keep, written by Ken MacLeod.[75] Several celebrities have stated that they either checked the website regularly or participated in its discussion forums using an account. Some of these celebrities include: Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak,[76] writer and actor Wil Wheaton,[77] and id Software technical director John Carmack.[78] I posted this to see what it would look like on the beta website.. Can you see this? I can't. What is wrong? Is this why they call it beta? I hope someone will be able to fix this because I am not happy it is not working. Maybe after the beta test is over it will work. It sure doesn't work now. I am getting even sadder. PLEASE HELP ME!!!!!

Comment Re:Pfft (Score -1, Troll) 250

A little history of Slashdot courtesy of Wikipedia. What it was before It was destroyed by Beta. The origins of the site now known as Slashdot date back to July 1997 when Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda started a personal website called Chips & Dips, which featured a single "rant" each day about something that interested him – typically something to do with Linux or open-source software. At the time, Malda was a student at Hope College in Holland, Michigan, majoring in computer science. The site became Slashdot in September 1997 under the slogan "News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters," and quickly became a hotspot on the Web for news and information of interest to computer geeks.[4] The name "Slashdot" came from a somewhat "obnoxious parody of a URL" – when Malda registered the domain, he desired to make a name that was "silly and unpronounceable" – try pronouncing out, "h-t-t-p-colon-slash-slash-slashdot-dot-org".[5] By June 1998 the site was seeing as many as 100,000 page views per day and advertisers began to take notice.[4] By December 1998, Slashdot had net revenues of $18,000, yet its Internet profile was higher, and revenues were expected to increase. On June 29, 1999, the site was sold to Linux megasite Andover.net for $1.5 million in cash and $7 million in Andover stock at the IPO price. Part of the deal was contingent upon the continued employment of Rob Malda and Jeff Bates and on "the achievement of certain milestones". With the acquisition of Slashdot, Andover.net could now advertise itself as "the leading Linux/Open Source destination on the Internet".[6][7] Andover.net eventually merged with VA Linux on February 3, 2000,[8] which changed its name to SourceForge, Inc. on May 24, 2007, and became Geeknet, Inc. on November 4, 2009.[9] Slashdot's 10,000th article was posted after two and a half years on February 24, 2000,[10] and the 100,000th article was posted on December 11, 2009 after 12 years online.[11] During the first 12 years, the most active story with the most responses posted was the post-2004 US Presidential Election article "Kerry Concedes Election To Bush" with 5,687 posts. This followed the creation of a new article section, politics.slashdot.org, created at the start of the 2004 election on September 7, 2004.[12] Many of the most popular stories are political, with "Strike on Iraq" (March 19, 2003) the second-most-active article and "Barack Obama Wins US Presidency" (November 5, 2008) the third-most-active. The rest of the 10 most active articles are an article announcing the 2005 London bombings, and several articles about Evolution vs. Intelligent Design, Saddam Hussein's capture, and Fahrenheit 9/11. Articles about Microsoft and its Windows Operating System are popular—a thread posted in 2002 titled "What's Keeping You On Windows?" was the 10th-most-active story, and an article about Windows 2000/NT4 source-code leaks the most visited article with more than 680,000 hits.[13] Some controversy erupted on March 9, 2001 after an anonymous user posted the full text of Scientology's "Operating Thetan Level Three" (OT III) document in a comment attached to a Slashdot article. The Church of Scientology demanded that Slashdot remove the document under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. A week later, in a long article, Slashdot editors explained their decision to remove the page while providing links and information on how to get the document from other sources.[14] Slashdot Japan was launched on May 28, 2001 (although the first article was published April 5, 2001) and is an official offshoot of the US-based Web site. The site is currently owned by OSDN-Japan, Inc., and carries some of the US-based Slashdot articles as well as localized stories.[15][16] An external site, todhsalS, has reported selected stories published on Slashdot Japan in English since March 1, 2009.[17] On Valentine's Day 2002, founder Rob Malda proposed to longtime girlfriend Kathleen Fent using the front page of Slashdot.[18][19] They were married on December 8, 2002, in Las Vegas, Nevada.[20] Slashdot implemented a subscription service on March 1, 2002. Slashdot's subscription model works by allowing users to pay a small fee to be able to view pages without banner ads, starting at a rate of $5 per 1,000 page views – non-subscribers may still view articles and respond to comments, with banner ads in place.[21] On March 6, 2003, subscribers were given the ability to see articles 10 to 20 minutes before they are released to the public.[22] Slashdot altered its threaded discussion forum display software to explicitly show domains for links in articles, as "users made a sport out of tricking unsuspecting readers into visiting [Goatse.cx]."[23] April Fools' Day 2006 logo In observance of April Fools' Day (April 1) in 2006, Slashdot temporarily changed its signature teal color theme to a warm palette of bubblegum pink and changed its masthead from the usual, "News for Nerds" motto to, "OMG!!! Ponies!!!" Editors joked that this was done to increase female readership.[24] In another supposed April Fools' Day joke, User Achievement tags were introduced on April 1, 2009.[25] This system allowed users to be tagged with various achievements, such as "The Tagger" for tagging a story or "Member of the {1,2,3,4,5} Digit UID Club" for having a Slashdot UID consisting of a certain number of digits. While it was posted on April Fools' Day to allow for certain joke achievements, the system is real.[26] Slashdot unveiled its newly redesigned site on June 4, 2006, following a CSS Redesign Competition. The winner of the competition was Alex Bendiken, who built on the initial CSS framework of the site. The new site looks similar to the old one but is more polished with more rounded curves, collapsible menus, and updated fonts.[27] On November 9 that same year, Malda wrote that Slashdot attained 16,777,215 (or 224 1) comments, which broke the database for three hours until the administrators fixed the issue.[28] On January 25, 2011, Malda announced that the site launched its third major redesign in its 13.5-year history, which gutted the HTML and CSS, and updated the graphics.[29] On August 25, 2011, Malda announced that he was resigning as Editor-in-Chief of Slashdot, effective immediately. He did not mention any immediate plans for the future, other than spending more time with his family, catching up on some reading, and possibly writing a book.[30][31] His final farewell message received over 1,400 posts within 24 hours on the site.[32] On December 7, 2011, Slashdot announced that it would start to push what the company described as "sponsored" Ask Slashdot questions.[33] On March 28, 2012, Slashdot announced the launch of slashdot TV.[34] In September 2012, it was announced that Slashdot had been acquired by Dice Holdings, alongside other Geeknet websites including SourceForge and Freecode, for $20 million in cash.[2][35] Dice, owner of job listing and career websites, stated that there were no plans for major changes to Slashdot.[35] However, beginning October 1, 2013, the site is currently in "beta" for a new, controversial redesign that looks more like typical blog websites with the once elaborate comment system now replaced with a simpler one at the end.[36] Administration[edit] Team[edit] Rob Malda, Founder of Slashdot The site is owned by Dice Holdings. It was run by its founder, Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda, from 1998 until 2011. He shared editorial responsibilities with several other editors including Timothy Lord, Patrick "Scuttlemonkey" McGarry, Jeff "Soulskill" Boehm, Rob "Samzenpus" Rozeboom, and Keith Dawson.[37][38] Jonathan "cowboyneal" Pater is another popular editor of Slashdot, who came to work for Slashdot as a programmer and systems administrator. His online nickname (handle), CowboyNeal, is inspired by a Grateful Dead tribute to Neal Cassady in their song, "That’s It for the Other One". He is best known as the target of the usual comic poll option,[39] a tradition started by Chris DiBona.[40] Slash and peer moderation[edit] The administration of the site uses the Slash source code and database, a content management system available under the GNU General Public License.[41] Slashdot's editors are primarily responsible for selecting and editing the primary stories daily from submitters; they provide a one-paragraph summary for each and a link to an external site where the story originated. Each story becomes the topic for a threaded discussion among the site's users.[42] A user-based moderation system is employed to filter out abusive comments.[43] Every comment is initially given a score of -1 to +2, with a default score of +1 for registered users, 0 for anonymous users (Anonymous Coward), +2 for users with high "karma", or 1 for users with low "karma". As moderators read comments attached to articles, they click to moderate the comment, either up (+1) or down (1). Moderators may choose to attach a particular descriptor to the comments as well, such as normal, offtopic, flamebait, troll, redundant, insightful, interesting, informative, funny, overrated, or underrated, with each corresponding to a -1 or +1 rating. So a comment may be seen to have a rating of "+1 insightful" or "-1 troll".[38] Moderation points add to a user's karma, and users with high "karma" are eligible to become moderators themselves. The system does not promote regular users as "moderators" and instead assigns five moderation points at a time to users based on the number of comments they have entered in the system – once a user's moderation points are used up, they can no longer moderate articles (though they can be assigned more moderation points at a later date). Paid staff editors have an unlimited number of moderation points.[38][42][44] A given comment can have any integer score from -1 to +5, and registered users of Slashdot can set a personal threshold so that no comments with a lesser score are displayed.[42][44] For instance, a user reading Slashdot at level +5 will only see the highest rated comments, while a user reading at level -1 will see a more "unfiltered, anarchic version".[38] A meta-moderation system was implemented on September 7, 1999,[45] to moderate the moderators and help contain abuses in the moderation system. Meta-moderators are presented with a set of moderations that they may rate as either fair or unfair. For each moderation, the meta-moderator sees the original comment and the reason assigned by the moderator (e.g. troll, funny), and the meta-moderator can click to see the context of comments surrounding the one that was moderated.[42][44] Features[edit] Slashdot features discussion forums on a variety of technology- and science-related topics, or "News for Nerds", as its motto states. Articles are divided into the following sections:[46] Apple – news related to products from Apple Inc., such as Mac OS X or iPhone. Ask Slashdot – articles that seek advice from users about jobs, computer hardware, software glitches, philosophical problems, or more. Book Reviews – original book reviews on (not necessarily) tech books. BSD – news about the various modern versions of UNIX derived from the UCB distribution. Developers – news about software or programming. Features – original, feature-length articles. Games – gaming news. Geeks in Space – a web audio broadcast featuring several of the editors of Slashdot (outdated; no new episodes have been posted recently). Idle – miscellaneous and humorous articles, pictures, and videos. Interviews – interviews with various people related to science and technology. Information Technology (IT) – anything that people with "Information Technology" in their job description might be interested to know. Linux – news specific to the Linux operating system (any variant or distribution). Politics – news typically relevant to politics of the United States, but occasionally featuring international political news. It was originally created to cover the 2004 United States Presidential Election. Polls – a poll is usually run on the site in the right-hand margin, asking users their choice on a variety of topics. In the earlier years of the site, one of the options that could be selected was CowboyNeal, the handle of Jonathan Pater, an administrator of the site. This became known as the CowboyNeal option.[47] During the summer of 2005, he stopped being in charge of the polls, and as a result the CowboyNeal option all but disappeared. Science – news on science-related topics (e.g. cool technology, space telescope observations, interesting medical research). Your Rights Online (YRO) – news on topics pertaining to internet privacy and digital rights. Tags[edit] Slashdot uses a system of "tags" where users can categorize a story to group them together and sorting them. Tags are written in all lowercase, with no spaces, and limited to 64 characters. For example, articles could be tagged as being about security or mozilla. Some articles are tagged with longer tags, such as whatcouldpossiblygowrong (expressing the perception of catastrophic risk), suddenoutbreakofcommonsense (used when the community feels that the subject has finally figured out something obvious), correlationnotcausation (used when scientific articles lack direct evidence; see correlation does not imply causation), or getyourasstomars (commonly seen in articles about Mars or space exploration).[48][49] Culture[edit] Tux, the Linux Penguin See also: Internet meme and List of Internet phenomena As an online community with primarily user-generated content, many in-jokes and internet memes have developed over the course of the site's history. A popular meme (based on an unscientific Slashdot user poll[50]) is, "In Soviet Russia, noun verb you!"[51] The phrase was actually originated by Ukrainian-born comedian Yakov Smirnoff as his famous Russian reversal – "In America, you can always find a party. In Soviet Russia, The Party can always find you!"[52] Other popular memes usually pertain to computing or technology, such as "Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these",[53] "But does it run Linux?",[54] or "Netcraft now confirms: BSD (or some other software package or item) is dying."[55] Some users will also refer to seemingly innocent remarks by correcting them and adding "you insensitive clod!" to the statement – a reference to a February 14, 1986, Calvin & Hobbes cartoon[56] or the 11th season The Simpsons episode, Last Tap Dance in Springfield, wherein Frink exclaims to Homer, "I was merely trying to spare the girl's feelings, you insensitive clod!" Users will also typically refer to articles referring to data storage and data capacity by inquiring how much it is in units of Libraries of Congress.[57] Slashdotters often use the abbreviation TFA which stands for The fucking article or RTFA (Read the fucking article), which itself is derived from the abbreviation RTFM.[58] Usage of this abbreviation often exposes comments from posters who have not read the article linked to in the main story. Slashdotters typically like to mock United States Senator Ted Stevens' 2006 description of the Internet as a "series of tubes"[59][60] or Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's chair-throwing incident from 2005.[61][62] Microsoft founder Bill Gates is a popular target of jokes by Slashdotters, and all stories about Microsoft were once identified with a graphic of Gates looking like a Borg from Star Trek: The Next Generation.[63] Many Slashdotters have long talked about the supposed release of Duke Nukem Forever, which was promised in 1997 but was delayed indefinitely (the game was eventually released in 2011).[64] References to the game are commonly brought up in other articles about software packages that are not yet in production even though the announced delivery date has long passed (see vaporware). Having a low Slashdot user identifier (user ID) is highly valued since they are assigned sequentially; having one is a sign that someone has an older account and has contributed to the site longer. For Slashdot's 10-year anniversary in 2007, one of the items auctioned off in the charity auction for the Electronic Frontier Foundation was a 3-digit Slashdot user ID.[26][65] Traffic and publicity[edit] See also: Slashdot effect As of 2006, Slashdot had approximately 5.5 million users per month. As of January 2013, the site's Alexa rank is 2,000, with the average user spending 3 minutes and 18 seconds per day on the site and 82,665 sites linking in.[1] The primary stories on the site consist of a short synopsis paragraph, a link to the original story, and a lengthy discussion section, all contributed by users. Discussion on stories can get up to 10,000 posts per day. Slashdot has been considered a pioneer in user-driven content, influencing other sites such as Google News and Wikipedia.[66][67] There has been a dip in readership as of 2011, primarily due to the increase of technology-related blogs and Twitter feeds.[68] In 2002, approximately 50% of Slashdot's traffic consisted of people who simply check out the headlines and click through, while others participate in discussion boards and take part in the community.[69] Many links in Slashdot stories caused the linked site to get swamped by heavy traffic and its server to collapse. This is known as the "Slashdot effect",[66][69] a term which was first coined on February 15, 1999 that refers to an article about a "new generation of niche Web portals driving unprecedented amounts of traffic to sites of interest".[67][70] Today, most major websites can handle the surge of traffic, but the effect continues to occur on smaller or independent sites.[71] These sites are then said to have been Slashdotted. Slashdot has received over twenty awards, including People's Voice Awards in 2000 in both of the categories for which it was nominated (Best Community Site and Best News Site).[72] It was also voted as one of Newsweek's favorite technology Web sites and rated in Yahoo!'s Top 100 Web sites as the "Best Geek Hangout" (2001).[73] The main antagonists in the 2004 novel Century Rain, by Alastair Reynolds – The Slashers – are named after Slashdot users.[74] The site was mentioned briefly in the 2000 novel Cosmonaut Keep, written by Ken MacLeod.[75] Several celebrities have stated that they either checked the website regularly or participated in its discussion forums using an account. Some of these celebrities include: Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak,[76] writer and actor Wil Wheaton,[77] and id Software technical director John Carmack.[78] I posted this to see what it would look like on the beta website..

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