Slashdot Mirror
Special Interview: Rob Malda and Jeff Bates
The Andover.net IPO quiet period is finally over. A lot of you have had questions about Slashdot; what's happening, what's going to happen, and so on, that we weren't allowed to answer. Now those questions can be answered, and no one can answer them better than CmdrTaco and Hemos. They're already starting getting stacked up with interview requests from other media, but we decided that you, the loyal Slashdot readers, deserved first crack at them. Submitted questions will be selected by moderators and the usual hangers-on and will be submitted Wednesday afternoon EST. Answers will appear Thursday. (Friday is reserved for Steve Wozniak, who unquestionably deserves a day all to himself!)
Firstly, I assume you're running Apache, and it must be generating logs of some such (like, IP address, time stamps, etc.). Is this information stored, and for how long? (Also assume I am anonymous coward and do not accept cookies). If somebody posted something defaming someone else / some other company and they took Slashdot to court to find out who wrote it, would you actually give up the logs? Do you ever process these logs in any way (yes, I know they must be huge, but so are Amazon's and Yahoo's and they do it ...).
Under whose laws are Slashdot content governed? If the poster is in Australia, is it Oz laws that apply or is it those from somewhere in America?
Has anyone ever tried to sue Slashdot over content? (libel, etc.). What would be your reaction then, and what would be it now, and does Andover have a hand in this?
On a totally different note, here is a suggestion: If an Anonymous Coward actually manages to get moderated up, could their comment then rise up to 2 rather than 1, where it is lost in a barage of pointless digressions? I prefer to surf at 3 nowadays, so I miss all people with karma above 30 who set their default level to 2 and are no better than the ones posting at level 1.
On another note, who took the decision to wipe out the sudden growth of personalised sid=me, and why?
Other folks have written about editorial independence and about the quality of the stories; this is an entirely different question. A related question would be: could you perhaps identify more clearly which items are news, which are columns, which are editorials, and which are fluff? Traditional (i.e., "dead") media is adept at giving this kind of context to their stories, and it would be most helpful to your readers.
It sounds like becomming a physician is what Hemos has always and still always wants to do, whether you listen to Geeks in Space or read the posts. Sometimes a taste of the real world is all it takes to make you realize changing out of something was a bad idea.
Currently /. generates ad revenue and creates a fuzzy 'brand value'.
/. into a complete geek-focused portal with not just news and trivia but incorporating everything from freemail services and cheesy 'yourname.slashdot.org' web space to a peronsalised geek calendar and movie review service?
Is there a scheme to move to something else? To move to subscriptions for certain features (e.g. making the ability to filter out AC posts or low moderation posts a subscription-only features)
Or maybe to do more commercial tie-ins - such as interviews with Major hardware manufacturers, or QA sessions with corporate sponsorship.
Or to boost the ad revenue by turning
Or, maybe andover.net is just looking to get bought out by one of the media industry's big players like VNU or Disney or ZD or whatever?
-----
Obviously, you guys get a lot of submissions for stories everyday, all day long. You, being the entire Slashdot team, have to wade through all of these to find the ones "most worthy" of getting posted to the main page. I have submitted quite a few stories myself that I was interested in and I'm sure other geeks/nerds would have found them interesting as well, yet they were never posted. Obviously, you cannot post every story submitted, but if I've submitted stories that I found interesting and they were never posted, I have wonder how many other geeks posted stories that I would have been interested in and never had the opportunity to read?
My question: Is there some way we, the readers, could view a larger portion of the submitted stories whether they get posted to the main page or not?
Kind of an overflow buffer, if you will. Obviously, duplicates and nonsense stories referencing "grits" would have to be done away with, but I feel that Slashdot could provide much more information than it currently does. From the reader perspective, more quality content is definitely better and from a business standpoint, more stories equals more valid page hits for Slashdot. We would all benefit.
----------------
"Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds." - Albert Einstein
Co-founder and designer at Music Nearby: http://musicnearby.com
Have you thought of moving to a more enlightened state (pun intended) such as California (things like cheap broadband, and more peers)?
Do you see slashdot staying primarily as it's been in the past (collecting links to news on other sites and having discussions), or are you planning on running with the idea of gathering new material as you have recently with the interviews? In short, do you see slashdot doing more original journalism in the future?
For those of you not familiar with EDGAR, this is the on-line database that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission provides so that investors have access to the legally required filings of companies that have gone public.
I played around with it today, and this is the most effective query that I could compose. You should be able to just click the following link and see all of the documents related to Andover. Some of these documents discuss the how nature of Rob's contract with Andover, the relationship between Andover and Blockstackers, and related subjects.
http://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/sr ch-edgar?ANDOVER+ADJ+NET
--
Dave Aiello
-- Dave Aiello
What is going to be your policy on:
1.(l)User data.
2. Advertisements:
2.1. Are you going to continue to handle advertisements yourself?
2.2. Are you going to allow companies like doubleclick to handle advertising on slashdot?
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
Yes.. I know that you are thinking I probably got the two sites mixed up in the title...
/. and FM very few people actually HEARD of andover at all..
/. to non technical issues and some even more radical posibilities.
Slashdot is, imho, more influential then all the sites Andover owns put together. Untill this linux/Open-source craze came along and Andover.net bought
Andover is now a public company, and as such it holds certain responsabilities to it's shareholders, growth being the most obvious one.
To do this Andover needs to exploite Slashdot's brand, as I see very little other value within Andover's arsenal. The current situation of Andovers stock is a good indication of pressure that might build on you guys to "sell out" in various ways (some of them might actually be good, IMHO) like expanding the focus of
how do you guys see Slashdot and that your small insignificate Andover part collaborating together, through this? what's going to happen? should I buy the stock or not?? (just kidding)
--------------------------------
1) What is the deal with the slash source code? It would pacify a lot of criticism if the current slash code were released, even if it were broken, ugly, and full of syntax errors. I suggested a public CVS setup in another thread, is this something you're looking at?
2) Has the andover.net acquisiton gone as well as you hoped it would, as far as making the site better?
have you ever considered changing the base slash code to something other than straight perl? i'm wondering if you've considered changing to a mod_perl or java servlet world which, with some improvements to the html, would result in a much faster slashdot? i check slashdot multiple times a day on a t1 and still have some speed issues when requesting the site. i would have to believe that something like java servlets would greatly increase the speed of the site.
jesse.
<rant quality="weary">
Is there really any other industry on earth that would put up with sloppy, incompetent, unprofessional workmanship just because it looked good on the surface? I mean, come off it. I like
And it isn't any sort of excuse to claim that the majority of websites (particularly expensive ones) are also produced by sloppy incompetents who wouldn't know what an RFC was if it fell out of a tree on them. This is true. We know it. We can do better. And if we can't do better, what claim do we really have to being techs?
</rant>
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
Seriously -- this place is no longer a nonprofit org. They sell advertisements, they hold contests (with $10,000-$30,000 being the prize range), and they hold stock in the web page itself (okay, so they hold stock in Andover).
Legally, this place needs to change it's domain to slashdot.com -- there's money going into Rob & Jeff's pockets, guaranteed.
I'm curious when/if you plan on releasing a newer version of the slash code? How far behind is the stuff that you've released?
Key to financial independence: Spend less than you earn. Save and invest the difference. Do it for a long time.
will we EVER be able to moderate him down???- ---
----------------------------------------
Please give your mod points to others, Im at the cap. They will appreciate it more
I for one really like to be able to browse comments what are sorted by moderation, largely to get rid of the offtopic stuff, but it's gives a distorted view of what slashdot readers really think.
I think this is a great idea, but it would be very important that no AC's were allowed to comment on the incoming stories and we would have to control ourselves to commenting on them only if they're a hoax or otherwise not /. material.
Then when a story was actually posted the comments on its validity as a story could be removed or available separately. This would also give people some lead time on their comments and allow those dedicated enough to do some real research.
"Share your knowledge. It's a way to achieve immortality." -- Dalai Lama
For instance, oftentimes there will be a delay of as must as two days (as with the Uri Geller story) from the time that I see an article on Linux Today or another news site and when I see it here. I've been around /. for a while now, and this wasn't always the case.
Is this just a case of waiting for a "slow news day", or is it something more insideous like ANDN wanting to maintain some editorial control over /.? For that matter, has ANDN imposed any other constraints that we're not aware of? Are there any circumstances where you'd see yourself having to remove libelous posts or posts which violate SEC rules (read here: stock manipulation)? Or has Andover been a benevolant king which is dedicated to protecting the happy-go-lucky days of Slashdot using its deep pockets to keep your legal butts covered?
----
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
How will this affect the direction of Slashdot? (In other words, will you need to avoid topics which could adversely affect Andover's share price? Will you need to become more "mainstream"? Or will it be more "business as usual"?)
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
What new and wonderful reasources will andover bring to slashdot. More Hardware? More employees? More slashdot native news articles/"reporters"?
- Xabbu
- Jimbob
What important changes do you plan on making to the whole discussion thing?
Isn't it about time the moderation abuses and "first posters" are addressed?
Will we ever be able to moderate or score the articles themselves?
The secret of success is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake those, you've got it made. (Marx)
What is the release date for the (latest) Slash source code?
What license will it be released under?
Will it be immediately forked into "public" and "private" versions (i.e., will Slashdot be running the with patches submitted by users)?
If/When patches are rejected/not-applied to the main tree, will an explanation be given (similar to Linux) or will they just be dropped (similar to Slashdot story submissions)?
---
Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
(Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
What is the status of the both of you with BlockStackers? Is there a relationship between BlockStackers and Andover.net?
J
to slashdot.com?
(moderators: not meant as flamebait!)
I use Macs for work, Linux for education, and Windows for cardplaying.
I think the moderation system has been improved to a point where, with my threshold set to 2, I don't see anything I don't want to see.
I do think there is one part of Slashdot that is still unfairly biased towards the site operators and their opinions. I'm sure Slashdot gets a few hundred article submissions per day, but we are limited to reading maybe 12-15 articles per day, and those are the ones which the folks in charge are interested in or what they think we are interested in. This is a commonplace system, but I still find fault with it, if the site is truly going to be an "open forum."
Is there any site reorganization in the works, or perhaps an expansion of the moderation system to include the approval and rejection of article submissions?
John
also, please don't take away AC posting, I've posted as an AC for privacy several times and think that everyone should have that right.
" A company can be judged by the size of their lawsuits "
Since most of the technical questions have been asked: how has the whole recent experience affected you guys personally? It seems that being acquired by Andover.net was followed, relatively, quickly by the IPO. I'm just wondering if the whole adventure has changed your overall outlook, future plans, drinking habits,...etc. You know, the little stuff that matters.
"shop smart:shop s-mart" ash
It seems like whenever we embark on some crazy job, there ends up being one day we always remember, one set of circumstances that we could never have experienced without beginning that journey but never have predicted in advance.
Since the creation and subsequent explosion of Slashdot, what one day stands out in your mind as the most randomly odd of them all?
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
Which of the following would be the most effective course of action to get you to release (current!) Slash source code?
/. article
1. Post annoying reminders to every
2. Using the word "hypocrites" a lot
3. Slay the Andover Alien Masters and destroy their Mind Control Ray
4. Procure many beautiful women dedicated to the open source cause
5. Crack slashdot.org, download source code, leave kewl hAx0r d00d cracked page to brag from
6. Bribe Hemos
7. Get a lab insider to "innocently" copy code to an unclassified server
8. Dress up as Rob, go to Andover, claim "Hello, my name is CmdrTaco. I misplaced my copy of the Slashdot code, can I make another?"
9. Send the Slashdot gang a free case of beer.
10. Poison the beer, use the antidote as a bargaining chip.
11. Cry
12. Get Nitrozac to cry
"my college project turned into a huge success, so now i'm going to __________."
"since the recent monster ipo we've found it much easier to pick up ________."
"in spite of it all, my parents still wish i would _______."
"if you had it all to do over again, the name of your site would be ________."
and lastly, i'm sure it's been asked a hundred times already, but what's you're favourite linux system call and why?
US Citizen living abroad? Register to vote!
There used to be a slashdot page where we could see the daily hit count by browser and OS. While sometimes depressing (2/3's browsing from Windows!), it was very interesting. Is there any chance we will see this again? Is this now information that you feel you need to keep private for some reason? What about the number of registered slashdot users? Could we find that out?
"Moderation is good, in theory."
-Larry Wall
There is no K5 cabal.
I am not the real rusty.
I think it would be interesting to be able to view the story submission queue. That is, what type of stories are being submitted, which stories are being rejected and why, and other interesting trivia. Would you allow users to be able to view this queue, and if not, why?
The DVDCA named /. as a John Doe in the DeCSS case. Will you guys be personally fighting this battle, or letting others? Will you be donating $ to EFF to help fight this battle?
-- Don't Tase me, bro!
I would hope, for the sake of your survival, that you have a certain ammount of legal expertise on board now. Does "all comments are owned by those who posted them" really cover all legal possibilities? Are there still circumstances where you would have to delete a comment? What about slanderous / copyrighted / government secret material? Now that you actually have money, you are probably more of a target for legal action...
Thank you for not thinking.
How well is Meta-Moderation working? What pergentage of Meta-Mods are unfair? Do you think that it has improved Moderation on /.?
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
I am finding it less and less worthwhile and enjoyable to follow the discussions , as well as less coherent.
Have you any plans to further deal with this sort of thing, above and beyond moderation ?
Is it time for the end of AC posting, esp seeing as there is the post anonymously option ?
And lastly, do you find these trends a little depressing?
I know I do and I'm just a reader.
-- Oh Well
Lately we've been seeing more features and interviews and other forms of Direct Reporting (hint! This is good!). Now that SlashDot has more resources at it's disposal, is this content generation likely to keep increasing? I still enjoy lots of linked stories, but sometimes it's nice to have a geek point of view alongside the normal media...
---
Play Six Pack Man. I
The W3C made a tool to clean up HTML called HTML Tidy. Just for kicks, I tried it on Slashdot. It blew a fuse after logging several thousand violations. :) Usually works great though.
Any idea if Slashdot's code will ever be cleaned up? Would open sourcing help things?
"There's so much left to know/ and I'm on the road to find out." -Cat Stevens
It seems like the quality of discussion on /. is going downhill very fast.
;)
Browse at +1, you'll see the comments. Browse at +2 (or better), you'll see a greater ratio of quality/comments. Just because there are more lame posts, doesn't mean there's less quality. Increase your browse level, and lower the signal/noise ratio.
The ACs are working very hard to disrupt threads with NATALIE/NAKED/COMMIE/GRITS posts.
Some do, some don't. I browse at +1, and see none of them (just those who reply to them, and are +1 -- but they're at the end of the comments). Rob has provided, in all his Wisdom, a way to avoid ACs -- but he will not silence them. It's his decision to allow, and your decision on what to read.
What plans do you have (if any) for bringing more adults into the slashdot fold and to try and make for a more inteligent discussion.
... No comment
---
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
What will Andover be doing to make sure we can continue to trust that Slashdot Editorial policy is not in thrall to advertisers' concerns?
-Jordan Henderson
So, now that you guys are on the brink of obscene wealth, and slashdotters have put up with well, stuff for so long (and the Natalie Portman trolls, and the ACs from hell, and. . . and. . . ), instead of granting Mod Points, will you be handing out Andover.net shares, too? ;-)
Oh, shit, Signal11 is gonna be rich. . . .
Rafe
V^^^^V
Rafe
Opinions expressed by the author may not actually exist in the wild.
How crucial are the two of you to Andover's vision of /.? Do you have a clause like Charles Schultz' that says that nobody else can edit slashdot? What happens if the whole thing stops being fun for you (as it very well might)? Do Andover suck in the loss, or do we get introduced to "Scrappy-Doo and SuperGeek, the ALL NEW slashdot crew"? Has Andover.net taken out critical person insurance on you in case something dreeadful happens? Could they, in principle, fire your asses, or force you to resign on matter of principle?
etc, etc, (thud)
jsm
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The Wall St. Journal, two weeks ago, devoted considerable space to the Andover IPO--strongly suggesting that the only perceptible value in the company was SlashDot, and demonstrating the unorthodox steps that Andover took to get the IPO underwritten. (Notably, the WSJ reports that when Andover initially tried to get underwriting it owed the two of you more money than the entire assets of the firm.) The WSJ has subsequently referred to Andover, by name, as an example of an IPO with a stratospheric share price, but no substance. Nobody, anywhere, has suggested that there is any commercial value to Andover other than SlashDot.
Much as I appreciate the sense of humor you have, and the contributions of the SlashDot community, it seems to me that the really valuable thing about SlashDot is the software--the database system that permits posting, moderation, meta-moderation, etc. It is a work of genius. And, a very valuable thing.
The Wall St. Journal has all but called Andover a bubble--(or, to be less kind, a pump 'n dump). The only way to prove them wrong is to achieve corporate earnings that support the current share price. The only real asset of Andover is SlashDot--and the only real asset of SlashDot is the software. And the software is supposed to be Open Source.
So how are you guys going to make earnings?
The first one is related to a thread created by slashdot's worst troll ever. Even though I do not like the posters methods the question he raises is interesting...especially since I'm a CS geek. Here goes:
...
1.) Right now slashdot is rather inefficient in that we download the same comments over and over again when rereading an article searching for new comments. Is there anything in the works to deal with this inefficiency or will we be allowed to toy with this in the slashdot source (if it ever comes out) and submit these modifications? Will an NNTP slashdot be considered to deal with this?
My second question has to do with Karma
2.) Is there a chance that the amount of Karma needed for a default posting of 2 be increased to at least twice the current value(25)?
I ask this because I already post at a default of 2, which implies I must be a knowledgeable member of the slashdot community which I do not believe I am. Especially considering the fact that it is relatively easy to spew dogma for a month or so and get 25 Karma then revert to one's true self (Signal 11 has proved the value of spewing dogma and karma whoring for triple digit Karma). I would feel more comfortable if the Karma needed for a default posting off 2 was higher so that there is more chance that the person posting is actually an intelligent member of the slashdot community who posts are interesting and insightful instead of a karma whore who has no true value to add to a discussion. Because of this I now read posts at a moderation of 3 or higher.
3a.)What is the slashdot official position on the phantom discussion groups e.g. Trolltalk or Moderation?
I notice that some of the early posts to these discussions have disappeared (probably archived);
3b.)How do I get to read the old posts to the phantom groups since there's no assosciated story to do a search on?
And finally I have only moderated once and this was about a month after I got an account. Since then I have not moderated...
4a.)I would like to know if this is because of the rule that users who view slashdot excessively don't get to moderate?
4b.)And if so exactly how many page views per day/week/month is viewed as excessive by whatever algorithm does the selection?
(this is not a yes/no question)
I guess this is a question for both of you:
How's life in meatspace?
Lets just lay all technical issues aside for a moment. I want to know Who You Are, as people, not webmasters.
We have a pretty good idea of the comings and goings of your professional lives, but what about your friends, family, and groupies? Mmmm... groupies.
I guess this is more of a request for a biography than any particular question, but don't let that put you off.
Oh, one other question: Any plans on visiting KLUG any time soon?
--Mark
While others have commented on the degrading S/N ratio of the user comments, I would like to bring attention to the degrading S/N ratio of the stories.
I believe Slashdot got much of its "mature" geek following back when most of the headlines were apolotical in nature. A couple years ago, the biggest threads were generated while discussing new microarchitectures, physical limits of the lithography process, the size of the universe, and other *real* high-tech news. Since the stories were less subject to political debate, the S/N ratio was good. Now, the only "tech" stories are about nanotech (thanks hemos!) or the Aibo.
With Andover.net now owning Slashdot, am I just SOL? I know that most of the stories are going to be Linux/GPL/Open Source related, and that's fine. But please, Please, *PLEASE*, don't forget that many of your readers are well educated, and would like to spend time thinking about something new and exciting in the tech world rather than reading 500 posts ending with M$ $ucks...
Dan
Actually, in the beginning, /. actually posted stories on engineering, physics, space, philosophy and other topics that were actually interesting. Only in the last 12-18 months has it become a dedicated Linux/Open Source forum. I for one, would like it to go back to the "News for Nerds" theme, rather than the "Politics for Nerds" it is today.
Dan