Slashdot Mirror
Would You Attend a Slashdot Convention?
J.J. Lee asks: "I must say that I'm truly touched. I've just read some of the peoples' response to the System Administrators - College or Career? posting and I found it very encouraging that people have posted selfless, useful, encouraging and helpful advice to a complete stranger. I've been a Slashdot devotee for about a year now and I know this wasn't the first time I felt proud to be in such a community. The responses (for the most part) were well though out and had a genuine concern for this young fellow.
Would the Slashdot community be willing to come together for an annual convention or event? If so, what would be the theme and what talks would a convention like this have? Just thought it might be great to meet some people and get to know each other on a non-virtual level."
I've been doing Ask Slashdot for somewhere close to 5 years, and it's been one of the best experiences of my life. I sure wouldn't mind meeting some of the faces behind the nicknames (particularly this "Anonymous Coward" chap), what about you? If not a huge convention, would local
get-togethers be more your speed?
It would probably be a good vessel on which to piggyback a keysigning party.
But that's about all it would be good for, IMHO. I certainly wouldn't make a special trip for it. I doubt many would.
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I have to say I am somewhat suprised by the first few responces, asside from those which suggest sex with farm animals. I thought the Slashdot Community would have been a little more anxious to be as sociable and helpful in person as they are online. But then it hit me. The Slashdot Community consists of a really diverse range of people, most of whom i wouldn't really like to meet. There's everything from 13 year old script kiddies to 60 year old unix gurus, and everything inbetween. And that diversity that would make a "reunion" a little weird is what makes Slashdot such a sucessful online community. There is something for everybody on Slashdot. Although this has been a source of complaint in recent months ("What has happened to Slashdot?!?" and "This made front page?!?") I believe that because of the diverse nature of the followers Slashdot has to be the best source for news and tech talk on the net. Tristan
Yawn.
For many of us we make rare apperiences and spend a lot of time enjoying others banter. I think the mix of activists, case modders, opensource purests, people selling their latest and greatest, negatives, positives, coders, users, etc would be like any other convention but we would be spending our time celebrating all of it instead of selling one point of it and hiding the rest for the sake of X Inc. This doesn't mean we have to all speak at the same time the same way I can't read all of the different types of posts on the same page.
Don't be scared. I am sure if it were to ever come about you would find yourself surounded by warm, fun, well informed (maybe a stretch) people like yourself. Embrace and extend ;p
I like the idea of nametags with the nick on one side and Anonymous Coward on the other, that could be easily flipped over. And pin the first post on the troll sounds good. Or maybe pin the mod on the troll. I can just imagine the fillibustering (ie. face to face crapflood).
...and this lie crawls out of its mouth: 'I, the state, am the people.'
Why not hold a mini convention the same weekend as a bigger convention we are lickly to be at anyways? Didn't OSDN have a party the day of the linux convention in San Fran 2 or 3 years ago? I remember something like that, well I remember alot of free booze the rest is blurry....
Anyways hold a get together one of the days of linux world, everyone would be in town anyways.(And for some people the company picks up the tab)
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Four years ago, I would have answered a resounding "Yes!". Today, I would answer an uninterested no.
Slashdot has becomed the shadow of it's former self; it is now a little more than a news outlet for me. It was'nt always the case. It had been a real community a few years ago. Notice my UID; I have been reading Slashdot for a long time ... back when CmdrTaco was actually taking part in the discussion.
If you want to see a real community in action, I suggest you check out Kuro5hin for the political/social stuff and ArsTechnica discussion forum for the technical stuff. These are real community in my mind; not glorified news outlet. They are not the only one; just two good examples.
:wq