Slashdot's Disagree Mail

I am responsible for reading most of the help requests sent to Slashdot. Most of the mail I get in a day is what you would expect, comments and concerns about postings, user accounts and Slashdot itself. There are a very special group however that get passed around the office due to the inordinate level of anger, lack of understanding and just plain weirdness they possess. Through the years I've collected many and still get such gems on a regular basis. We thought it would be fun to share some of our favorite rants, ramblings and ruminations with the rest of you. I give to you the first of many installments of Slashdot's disagree mail. The names have been changed to protect the idiot — hit the link below to drink it in.

Our first entry starts off by explaining:

"Every time I try to login it tells me that my password is bad! I know I'm using the right password why won't you let me in? My account is *******"

I'm sorry but I don't see an account with the name *******. I also don't find an account with the email address you're using associated with it. Do you happen to know what your uid is?

"Try lookin harder cause I was using AOL a few days ago just fine but now I can't! I'm mailing you from the library right now cause you won't let me on the internet!"

AOL? Can you not log into Slashdot or is the problem that you can't get online at home?

"Whats Slashdot why am I given you guys money for internet if I cant use it?!"

Slashdot is the website you are writing to. If you were banned here for some reason I might be able to help you but I'm not in charge of the whole internet, at least not yet. It sounds like you need to get a hold of AOL tech support and hopefully they can solve your problem.

"If you can't help me why are you on google when I type in help with the internet? If you don't want to help people when they need it maybe you shouldn't be on google!"

Our last email this week demonstrates something, but I'm not exactly sure what it is:

from ***************
to banned@slashdot.org
date Mon, Aug 11, 2008 at 6:46 PM
subject stop sending me mail
"If your so fucking smart that you created the great and awesome slashdot why can't you figure out that I don't want your stupid bulshit mail! Everyone here acts like they are so much smarter than everyone else and that a teenager can't know what is right because he isn't fat enough from sitting around eating twinkys and playing games on the computer. You never even had a girlfriend I bet because you're to busy being smarter than everyone else. Fuck you stop sending mail just because you can't handle me!

P.S. Sorry I didn't write that my little brother did but I really don't want to get mail from you anymore can you help me please?"

Comments

It is most munificent of you,

[seanadams.com]

... good sir, to expend your precious electro-bits so as to share those TWO WHOLE EMAILS with your loyal readers. I look forward to future installments of these tomes.

Now, wtf do you expect us to discuss?

Re:It is most munificent of you,

[timster]

Maybe we can discuss how obnoxious the white-on-green text is? Please?

Re:It is most munificent of you,

[nharmon]

Send complaint to: banned@slashdot.org

Re:It is most munificent of you,

[jollyreaper]

Now, wtf do you expect us to discuss?

How about the unholy heinousness that is idle's design? It looks like hammered shit. No, I take that back. It makes hammered shit look good.

Re:It is most munificent of you,

[aceofspades1217]

I am going to have to agree with you. Really bad web design etiquette if you ask me. I mean I have always loved slashdot because they do a great job having a really clean website.

Re:It is most munificent of you,

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks like I'm not the only one who used to hammer shit as a kid.

Re:It is most munificent of you,

[Hoi Polloi]

Make sure it is a good rant.

By the way, thanks for making the comment box about 2 inches by 2 inches large. I guess it is a form of text compression.

Re:It is most munificent of you,

[harrkev]

Maybe we can discuss how obnoxious the white-on-green text is? Please?

Back in my day, we had green-on-black text. If you were really lucky, you had AMBER on black. Now, those were the days.

Now where were we? Oh yeah--the important thing was that I had an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time.

Re:It is most munificent of you,

[qoncept]

That's not green, buddy. It's teal. Which is incredibly annoying regardless of any other factors.

Re:It is most munificent of you,

[clone53421]

javascript:for(var a=document.getElementsByTagName("textarea"),i=0;i<a.length;i++){a[i].style.width="100%";a[i].style.height="300px";}void(0);

There ya go.

Re:It is most munificent of you,

[The MAZZTer]

*cough* @namespace url(http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml);

@-moz-document domain(slashdot.org) {
.inline_comment .generalbody {
padding-right: 30px !important;
}
.inline_comment .generalbody textarea {
width: 100% !important;
}
} *cough*

Whew, gotta do something about that cough. You know it's getting bad when you cough up Stylish sheets.

I should probably write another one to fix the lack of proper line spacing in the preview when using <p>s...

Re:It is most munificent of you,

[JustOK]

You should see someone about that

Re:It is most munificent of you,

[Firehed]

Or just use Safari and resize on the fly :p

(I hate Safari but had to throw it out there)

Re:It is most munificent of you,

[Anonymous Coward]

Burma Shave

Re:It is most munificent of you,

[Brett Buck]

When was that, nineteen dickety two?

Re:It is most munificent of you,

[megaditto]

I pasted this into my address bar, thinking "why the hell not"

The fact that it actually worked is just plain scary...
What's next? Address bar pong?

I'm sorry,

[pwnies]

I really am. Not for the hate letters you get... but for this as a whole. Idle just doesn't feel like frontpage material /.

Horrible stylesheet

[nharmon]

I'm about to send an email complaining about the horrible stylesheet that idle.slashdot.org uses.

Re:Horrible stylesheet

[MyLongNickName]

Style sheet? I though Someone swallowed the blue and yellow Playdough and threw up on my monitor.

Years worth of emails

[Gr33nNight]

And he posts two. Must be a tough job.

Re:Years worth of emails

[kraada]

There are only 10 hilarious emails he's ever gotten.

And he posted them both.

Re:Years worth of emails

[rolfwind]

There are only 10 types of people in the world --
those who understand binary, and those who get laid.

Re:Years worth of emails

[LordKazan]

but.. how do you classify the people who fit in BOTH groups?

LAID 1+0?

Re:Years worth of emails

[Flaming Babies]

There are only 10 types of people in the world -- those who understand binary, and those who get laid.

What about the other 8 types?

Re:Years worth of emails

[Saxerman]

but.. how do you classify the people who fit in BOTH groups?

There are two bits. Turn them both on. I.e, this one goes to 11.

Re:Years worth of emails

[duckInferno]

Ohhh I get it.

Yes... what about those other 8 types then?

Typical Slashdotter even if he doesn't know it

[4D6963]

Everyone here acts like they are so much smarter than everyone else and that a teenager can't know what is right because he isn't fat enough from sitting around eating twinkys and playing games on the computer. You never even had a girlfriend I bet because you're to busy being smarter than everyone else.

Despite a complete lack of clue he sounds just like any other Slashdotter.

Scratch that, he does sound just like any other Slashdotter.

Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

WTF? Is that it?! 2 emails? Where's the rest of it? What do I pay you for? WHat are you doing on the internet if you can't share more than 2 emails? Grrr! I'm so angry!!!

Oh crap

[Brazilian Geek]

Sorry for that, I just saw the option in the Index > Section preferences.

Sorry...

Re:Oh crap

[sinistermidget]

Too bad. You should have sent an irate email about it to slashdot. It looks like samzenpus can use the material.

Drink it in? Huh?

[nurb432]

Come on guys... Its just 2 emails.. thats more of a droplet of morning mist as it condensates on the leaf of a dandelion and not worthy of even remotely referring it to as a taste..

D'oh

[greywire]

You know, I was going to post a whole rant about how you got me all excited to read about some really funny emails from a bunch of idiot readers only to find you only posted two of them, and only the first one was kinda funny.

But then I realized maybe the whole point of setting us up for nothing was to see how many irate people would sent you hate mail and post rants about the pointlessness of this article, thus bringing the whole thing full circle:

10 Get irate email
20 post lame article about it
30 goto 10

The ladies

[qoncept]

If you ask a chick what she looks for in a man, she'll say a good sense of humor. It's a complete lie -- what she really wants is a good looking dude. That would mean you are screwed. You might be tempted at that point to feel a little better, saying "Hey, at least I do have a good sense of humor.."

But you don't. You clearly posted these support emails thinking they would be good for a laugh, but, instead, they were just really boring.

Priceless

[CopaceticOpus]

Oh man, those were priceless! Of course, so are grass clippings.

And they still haven't

[g0bshiTe]

fixed my internet.
I hope you know I called Google and told them to remove you from the search list for "fixing the internet"
I swear you guys are like the Maytag Repair man of the internet.

Tagging Beta

[bugg_tb]

You know I've been reading slashdot for years, long before the tagging stuff came in and its taken until reading this article to realise that you click the little arrows to add tags, I always wondered how it was done :)

Do they speak English in What?

[Free the Cowards]

Seriously, "Slashdot's Disagree Mail"? Do you people speak and/or understand English on any kind of working basis?

(Feel free to file this message with the "disagree mail".)

Re:Do they speak English in What?

[Ma8thew]

It's a joke. Email sounds like disagree mail. Of course, it wasn't a very good joke, I had to explain it.

Disillusioned

[Experiment 626]

I've always pictured the life of a Slashdot editor as a glamorous one. Partying with hot supermodels like Hugh Heffner, flying around the world in the Slashdot Learjet, racing Ferraris against CowboyNeal, pouring hot grits on Natalie Portman... that sort of thing.

After reading this article and discovering that the above emails were "very special" "gems" that brightened the editors' day, I think I may have to lower my image of them a bit.

Re:Disillusioned

[David_W]

Partying with hot supermodels like Hugh Heffner

Hugh Heffner is not a hot supermodel.

Dear Slashdot,

[Thelasko]

How do I mod down an entire article?

Thanks,
Thelasko

P.S. Worst article ever!

Re:Dear Slashdot,

[Maelwryth]

"How do I mod down an entire article?"

Go to the Firehose.

more needed

[m0llusk]

time to crank up the weirdness, people

More stupid people and IT pros

[daveywest]

Since idle.slashdot.org is failing to deliver on the promise to waste my life away, I present http://rinkworks.com/stupid/

The rest were ok

[symbolset]

But I didn't care for the last one or the first one.

Re:First one is actually a useful lesson...

[corbettw]

Damn, my ex-wife hangs out on Slashdot.

True or not, one of my favorites...

[UncleWilly]

The story behind the letter below is that there is this nutball in
Newport, RI, named Scott Williams who digs things out of his backyard
and sends the stuff he finds to the Smithsonian Institute, labeling
them with scientific names, insisting that they are actual archaeological finds.
This guy really exists and does this in his spare time!

Here's the actual response from the Smithsonian Institute. Bear this
in mind next time you think you are challenged in your duty to respond
to a difficult situation in writing.

Smithsonian Institution
207 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC 20078

Dear Mr. Williams:
Thank you for your latest submission to the Institute, labeled
"93211-D, layer seven, next to the clothesline post . . .Hominid
skull". We have given this specimen a careful and detailed
examination, and regret to inform you that we disagree with your theory that it represents
conclusive proof of the presence of Early Man in Charleston County two
million years ago.

Rather, it appears that what you have found is the head of a Barbie
Doll, of the variety that one of our staff, who has small children,
believes to be "Malibu Barbie". It is evident that you have given a
great deal of thought to the analysis of this specimen, and you may be quite certain
that those of us who are familiar with your prior work in the field
were loathe to come to contradiction with your findings. However, we
do feel there are a number of physical attributes of the specimen
which might have tipped you off to its modern origin:
1. The material is molded plastic. Ancient hominid remains are
typically fossilized bone.
2. The cranial capacity of the specimen is approximately 9 cubic
centimeters, well below the threshold of even the earliest identified
proto-homonids.
3. The dentition pattern evident on the skull is more consistent
with the common domesticated dog than it is with the ravenous
man-eating Pliocene clams you speculate roamed the wetlands during that time.

This latter finding is certainly one of the most intriguing hypotheses
you have submitted in your history with this institution, but the
evidence seems to weigh rather heavily against it. Without going into too much
detail, let us say that:

A. The specimen looks like the head of a Barbie doll that a dog
has chewed on.
B. Clams don't have teeth.

It is with feelings tinged with melancholy that we must deny your
request to have the specimen carbon-dated. This is partially due to
the heavy load our lab must bear in its normal operation, and partly
due to carbon-dating's notorious inaccuracy in fossils of recent geologic
record.
To the best of our knowledge, no Barbie dolls were produced prior to
1956 AD, and carbon-dating is likely to produce wildly inaccurate
results.
Sadly, we must also deny your request that we approach the National
Science Foundation Phylogeny Department with the concept of assigning
your specimen the scientific name Australopithecus spiff-arino. Speaking
personally, I, for one, fought tenaciously for the acceptance of your
proposed taxonomy, but was ultimately voted down because the species
name you selected