Slashdot Mirror
Negative Webmonkey Editorial on Andover/VA Merger
BigTed writes "Webmonkey has got an interesting article up about the VA Linux takeover of Andover and its effect on *gasp* Slashdot and the Open Source Community." Personal note: I almost quit when I heard about the merger, because I had exactly the same worries Jay Greenspan expresses in this editorial. Since then I have been personally reassured by Larry Augustin that VA Linux has no desire to mess with the content on any Andover site, including Slashdot. I'm posting this story, even though we've been over this ground before, primarily so that we don't get accused of bias by not posting it. And yes, we will continue to post news of Red Hat, Penguin Computing, and others in the Linux corporate community, same as before. Everyone who works on Slashdot, and everyone in Andover.net management, has sworn to defend Slashdot's editorial independence. Period. - Robin 'roblimo' Miller, Editor-in-Chief, Andover.net. Update: 02/09 05:16 by CT : here is a Salon Story by Andrew Leondard expressing the same concerns as the webmonkey bit.
First Slashdot -> Andover.net then Andover.net -> VA Linux. With the current shopping runs of big companies, how long will Slashdot be free ? They said they have a contract to save their rights, but how long can they keep it up?
Before you email me, remember: "There is no god!"
So, this is a negative post about VA & Andover. And it's posted with a very obvious piece of editorialising which tells a very obvious story. VA get to add positive comment to their stories before they get posted. Do Redhat get the right to reply to stories in the headline? Do Penguin get that right? I doubt it.
Alternatively, this is a slightly more subtle attempt to avoid discussion on this subject. By making the headline a mini-feature in itself, a large portion of the discussion will be about Roblimo's comments, rather than about the original story. They're trying to manipulate us!.
</ADVOCATE>
My actual opinion on this? I think the quality of Slashdot has declined somewhat since I first started reading it, which was quite a long time before anyone had heard of Andover. I miss things like the war against using www.slashdot.org instead of slashdot.org aka TDwww(TMS). On the other hand, I have also changed a lot in the time since I started reading here, so it is just as possible that the 'problem' is with me, not Slashdot.
I'm glad to see the guys who put this thing together get their just rewards. I think that the code is finally open, VA are a well-known and well-respected company in the community, and there is certainly no more need to worry now than there was about Andover, and they don't seem to have (directly at least) caused any problems.
This is my normal sig - it just happens to fit this posting well:
Paranoia isn't an infectious condition, it's a way of life
What a lie. Just as Wired is out of touch these days, so is Hotwired/Lycos. Webmonkey has only headed downhill in recent years, producing progressively simplistic, shallow, "beginners" articles suited to who? None other than the beginners using Tripod and Lycos.
To claim Webmonkey (or Hotwired) have been unaffected by their own ownership dramas is outrageous
Remember, Webmonkey are the same people who claimed ownership and copyright of everything posted to their email discussion list - prompting users to leave and form evolt.org
In contrast, Slashdot has continued to operate as it always has - the material posted hasn't changed, and I do believe that roblimo et al would leave if the site's editorial independence truly were in jeopardy. That will be our signal, as site visitors, to stop using Slashdot.
Bad form, Webmonkey!
-- mind over pixel
I'm posting this story, even though we've been over this ground before, primarily so that we don't get accused of bias by not posting it.
/. article writers are always worrying about not seeming biased, it will be just as bad as if you blatently were. You can't post every article that is negative about VA, but whenever you don't, I can promise people will jump on you for it.
You can't force yourself to be impartial, and in the end, if the
Having a communal site like Slashdot owned by strong corporate interests is simply a bad idea, and I just don't think it can work out in the long run. There is an element of trust in the fact that community is willing to let a couple of people decide over what topics will be discussed here, and that trust is human, not corporate. I think the reason there is so much antagonism against Jon Katz here is that many of us feel he is abusing that trust, using Slashdot as a pulpit for his own preachings rather than choosing stories for us.
Having Slashdot owned by Andover was one thing, because Andover was a web company based on the idea of selling banner ads, and therefore had the very clear of objective of getting as many readers to return here as often as possible. With VA it is a lot more fuzzy. VA obviously do not have banner adds as their main source of income, so they have other agendas for wanting to own (even if you keep claiming they have no control over) the backbones of the community.
The relationship between the Slashdot community and VA Linux is somewhere between mutualistic and parasitic, and I share many peoples concern that it is leaning toward the latter. I guess it should come as a bucket of cold water to those who keep claiming that the influences of corporations and money will not harm the open source community, that they started by grabbing our favorite node for discussion right from our grasp...
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We cannot reason ourselves out of our basic irrationality. All we can do is learn the art of being irrational in a reasonable way.
When MSNBC was created, everyone assumed that Microsoft would muck with the content. Over the time that it has been around, how many Slashdot stories have referenced positive Linux or negative MS stories at MSNBC? I can remember 3 rather devestating ones right off the top (including an entire series on how easy Linux was to install and use).
Slashdot will continue the way it is now for a while. If and when it gets unpleasant, I suspect that we'll see the original people leave and the "info for the new users" to start showing up. It won't be VA touting their own strengths, that would make them stupider than MS, but I could certainly see a watering down of content in the next 2-5 years. For now, though, Slashdot is the best geek site on the net!
Thanks Roblimo, CmdrTaco, Jon, et al! It's been a fun ride (I say this as a reader, submitter, followup contributor, stockholder and geek), and I trust your standards enough to keep reading, learning and sharing.
Actually, the internal joke is that I do so much worrying about editorial integrity that no one else has to do any. There's truth to this. I come out of "old school" alternative journalism, back when weekly alternative newspapers were more interested in covering news the increasingly monopolized dailies overlooked than in selling futon ads and 900-number "telepersonals."
So please do wait and see. I work with people I respect; we don't always agree, but we *do* respect each other and each others' opinions. We screw up from time to time because Slashdot is, in many ways, an experiment in new ways to gather and distribute news. By definition, when you are experimenting you are bound to fail more often than if you stick to the "tried and true," but on the whole, I believe we have more successes than failures. And that's what counts in the long run.
More than anything, I worry about losing Slashdot's freedom to innovate (if I can use that phrase without stepping on a Microsoft copyright *grin*). One of the beauties of Slashdot is the fact that it's constantly changing, and if Rob et al are ever held back by a risk-averse management more interested in this quarter's profit than in trying new things that might lead to a better product (in this case, news and discussion) later, this site will slowly wither away.
But again, I do enough worrying about this for the whole bunch. I don't mind doing this, because I am a natural worrier. Note that both my Slashdot and "Andover corporate" e-mail addresses are easy to find because I *want* feedback and take all reader concerns to heart, even ones with which I don't agree. I try to personally answer as much e-mail as I can, although I've admittedly been getting a little sloppy on this front because of increased e-mail volume and increased job responsibilities.
My main point, though, is to make sure you know that it's not just Slashdot people who worry about the site's integrity, but the entire Andover management crowd. A large part of the reason Andover bought Slashdot in the first place is that it was the most popular news site among Andover employees. And it still is!
- Robin 'roblimo' Miller
Well, andover's been around since 1992 (albeit in software publishing rather than online ad-serving), so at least someone heard about them before.
;)
As for whether slashdot has improved or depreciated since the Good Ol' Days (TM), I'd have to say it's done neither. C'mon, you remember what a pain it was to read/post on slashdot before threaded comments were implemented, and you remember how nice it was when nested comments were later implemented (and if you need to remind yourself how inconvenient it was before, just hop on over to technocrat.net, unless Bruce has upgraded to the latest slash version). Cachedot.slashdot.org was cute in its day, but isn't it nicer just to have the main site have more serving capacity? (Of course that could use another upgrade, and cachedot was long after the primordial age you're pining for.) The editorial content hasn't changed much -- slashdot was always quick to announce, quick to get it wrong, and quick to retract. There're certainly more trolls than before, but that's inevitable and the moderation takes care of them as it should.
I'd say it has to be you.
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
Perhaps CmdrTaco shared the same concerns as Roblimo before all of this happened. He might have heard that VA was going to buy Andover.net and end up with control of Slashdot.
:)
:)
If that's case, then he made a very intelligent move, and it's called Slash
Think about it, there was probably the fear that VA would gain control of slashdot, and there would be nothing the current maintainers of the site could really do. So they rush and get the code out there as a form of insurence. Now, anything happens, they simply jump ship, grab a tarball off of sourceforge and start anew. I don't think there is much doubt that the readers would follow.
I've been trying to figure out why the sudden change in their stance on slash and why they released it so fast, now I think I know.
Finkployd