Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda Resigns From Slashdot

After 14 years and over 15,000 stories posted, it's finally time for me to say Good-Bye to Slashdot. I created this place with my best friends in a run down house while still in college. Since then it has grown to be read by more than a million people, and has served Billions and Billions of Pages (yes, in my head I hear the voice). During my tenure I have done my best to keep Slashdot firmly grounded in its origins, but now it's time for someone else to come aboard and find the *future*. Personally I don't have any plans, but if you need to get ahold of me for any reason, you can find me as @cmdrtaco on twitter or Rob Malda on Google+. You could also update my mail address to be malda at cmdrtaco dot net. Hit the link below if you want to read some nostalgic saccharine crap that I need to get out of my system before I sign off for the last time.

It was the summer of '97 and I was a college kid working part time as a programmer at an ad agency. I wrote a simple CMS: practically my first perl program (I was so happy to not have to write in anything Microsoft!). I got an old DEC Alpha Multia in exchange for some freelance Java work. I stuffed it under my desk at work and registered the domain name in October. Jeff "Hemos" Bates chipped in on the registration fee. Within months we were serving thousands of people per day on a system that looked remarkably similar to the Slashdot you see today. It was simple: I just was sharing stories that I stumbled on with a small group of friends.

When I wrote the essay "Simple Solutions" a few months later, we doubled in traffic almost overnight. New hardware had to be purchased. Soon we exceeded the bandwidth capacity of our ISP and had to start co-locating. This meant banner ads. I barely made it through the end of college, working night and day on a site that was growing so fast, it was all I could do to keep up. We started making a little money and I eventually was able to quit my job and dedicate myself full-time to Slashdot. I barely graduated. Soon my friends followed me, eventually forming our company Blockstackers.

As my little hobby became a full blown business, it became clear that we needed help. The burden of running Sales and Marketing and HR it was to much for us. Slashdot was sold to Andover in '99. Since Slashdot was founded, my business card has read Blockstackers, Andover, Andover.net, VA Linux Systems, VA Software, OSDN, OSTG, SourceForge, and finally Geeknet. My title has changed several times: from my first card which read "Lies and Misinformation", until today when my title read "Editor-in-Chief of Slashdot.org". During that entire time, my job has been some version of the same thing: Make Slashdot Great. I always did my best, and I'd like to think that I got it right more often than not.

In the last 14 years, Slashdot has covered so many amazing events: The explosion of Linux. The rise of Google. The return of Apple. The Dot Com Bubble. The DMCA. 9/11. Wars. Elections. Numerous successful Shuttle Launches and one Disaster. Scientific Breakthroughs galore. Cool toys. Web2.0! Social Networking. Blogging! Podcasting! Micro-Blogging! The Lord of the Rings being filmed and an entire trilogy of new Star Wars. OMG Ponies!! So many moments that I could run this paragraph for hours with moments where we shared something important, meaningful, or just stupid. But the most important to me was my marriage proposal to Kathleen. Slashdot has posted Over 114,000 stories so far. And there will be many more to come. I just won't be the one picking them.

Slashdot has been read by kernel engineers and billionaires. By sys-admins and CEOs. By high school kids and government bureaucrats. But what brings so many of them together is that we are nerds. It never ceases to amaze me the similarities that I find between us all when I climb out of my dungeon and go meet readers. From the inside of some of the most wonderful places on earth, to conference halls with useless wireless connections, to cube farms, you guys always reminded me of why I started this thing in the first place. We share something important and unquantifiable.

The internet has changed dramatically since I started here, and that's part of my reason for leaving. For me, the Slashdot of today is fused to the Slashdot of the past. This makes it really hard to objectively consider the future of the site. While my corporate overlords and I haven't seen eye to eye on every decision in the last decade, I am certain that Jeff Drobick and the other executives at Geeknet will do their best. I am unquestionably confident in the abilities of the Slashdot editors and engineers- some of whom have been here just short of forever. They have proven themselves in the best and worst of conditions to be capable and dedicated.

As part of my resignation, after this story appears I will lose the ability to post. For me, this is the most bitter pill to swallow. Posting stories has always been my favorite part of the job. I created Slashdot to share these stories with my friends from IRC and school. It was never 'work'. Now I will have to go cold turkey. I'm walking away from the soapbox I built. I wish I could continue to post stories forever, but those closest to me know that if I maintained the ability to post, I'd never move on. I'll continue to read Slashdot and hopefully my occasional story submissions will make the cut. My old mantra: News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters still holds true here today. Nobody does it better.

As for what's next, I really don't know. I don't have a job lined up. I have no plans. I'm gonna spend some time with my boys and my wife. Read some books that have been on my shelf forever. Maybe it's time to write a book of my own.

If you want to get ahold of me, my email is now malda at cmdrtaco dot net. Geeknet has graciously agreed to continue to forward malda at slashdot dot org forever, but you should still update your address books if you care. I'm available on twitter as @cmdrtaco and Google+. My homepage hasn't been updated in a decade, but it's still CmdrTaco.net. And since I'm going to have to find a job in a few months, I'm on LinkedIn as well.

Thanks to everyone who helped build Slashdot over the years: the list is far to long to fit in this textfield but you know who you are, and you all know that I've got your back in a knife fight. Lastly, thanks to every Slashdot reader for giving me your time all these years. I hope I've wasted it efficiently and enjoyably.

Pants are optional.

Comments

Thanks for all the Fish Wrapper

[chrisd]

In 1997, right after Chips n' Dips had faded away, to be replaced by the enigmatically named http:///..org, all of us free software nerds hung on its every story, comment and poll like it was carved on tablet and flung from a burning bush. A year later I had started at hardware maker VA Research and /. was falling down for lack of machinery, so we rummaged through our returns piles and sent Rob and Jeff some 2u servers to help out. That was for me the beginning of some of the most important friendships in my adult life.

Its hard to explain how important Slashdot was to all of us 10 years ago. Indeed, without it it would be hard to imagine HN, Reddit, Digg, Fark or any of a thousand lesser sites. The editorial perspective of Rob and the other editors of /. is what kept people coming back and for a long time that perspective was Rob's, then Rob and Jeff and a bunch of us (some, like Timothy and samzenpus, still around!), but then Jeff left, now Rob. In some way I see this as a passing of an era in free software.

Throughout, while some have left for those greener shores, slashdot abided even while buffeted by the markets and the de/evolving internet news world, and it has remained a default tab in my and many others' browsers.

I didn't mean this post to be about Slashdot though, but about my friend Rob. I'll only say that while the site will be the lessor for you leaving, I firmly believe that computer science will gain my. While this note reads like an epitaph or the last pages of a book, it is really no more than a thank you note from me and many I know to your for your decade+ of work on the site. So...

Thanks.

Re:Thanks for all the Fish Wrapper

[Seumas]

I still remember in the beginning of my career, when a colleague came over and showed me this website that he went to every day. A site that a short while later became Slashdot. A site that I read often and, eventually (though far too late to have a cool UID, damn it!) created an account on. It's strange that Slashdot has pretty much been part of my life for my entire career and that it has maintained its ready place in my regular "hangouts" after all this time. Even despite the complaints and failures, it has still had a pull that none of these other linkbaits from Digg after could manage.

Sometimes, I like to go back and read random headlines on Slashdot from years ago. Back when we even paid attention to the byline of a post. Back when people knew why Roblimo was Roblimo. So much has changed around us and this same group of strange geeks has been along for the ride. In this same time, I also ran my own project that started shortly after Slashdot and that I just finally shut off this past year. Experienced the same surprising scaling issues when this thing I did for kicks took off, like Slashdot did. It was a huge experience that consumed most of my life and I, too, experienced the delayed closure. The feeling that it was time to move on, but this nagging hesitance to do so. This feeling that it had been such a part of my life (as Slashdot has been Rob's) that I was almost obligated to continue it and maintain it. And yet, cutting the cord and stepping away has been such a breath of fresh air. Such a release. I can only imagine this must feel much the same way.

Best wishes ahead and all, but I have to say that in light of yesterday's news, maybe this could have been postponed another week to have come across a little less "whacky".

Re:Thanks for all the Fish Wrapper

[mosch]

Rob-

Thanks for Chips n' Dips, and Slashdot.  I hope you enjoy a little bit of respite while you discover what you want for the next step in your career.  You started out with a big, highly influential bang, and I'm glad you're getting a bit of rest now.

All the best,
- some asshole on the internet who you don't actually know, but who is glad you did what you did.

Simple

[airos4]

Thanks. Really. Make sure you have a towel going forwards.

Re:Simple

[wwphx]

Not that I'm leaving, but like most others here, Slashdot has been amazingly valuable to me. I was working at a police department when I Love You broke loose: I read about it here at 7am, went to our security/network guy, showed him the story, we went to our router and just pulled the incoming line. Saved our bacon, very minimal problems. Upstream, at the City, they got hammered. So definitely thanks! And it's always a good idea to know where your towel is, especially in our field: DHMO and expensive electronics usually don't mix very well.

My standing offer to take you to Apache Point Observatory stands if you ever get the hankering to see a 3.5 meter telescope up close and personal. Best of luck in your next job life!

Hemos Says: "So Long, and Thanks For All The Fish"

[Hemos]

I left Geeknet aka all the other names Rob has typed already nearly exactly a year ago now, and had stopped really posting on Slashdot prior to that but the work, creation and launching of Slashdot remains one of the best things that has ever happened to me. Rob and I went to the same middle school, high school, college and had the joy of working together for well over a decade; I've been very lucky to have worked with him and the other friends we started with.

Rob and I became friends not actually because of being in the same school, though we knew each other that way. We because friends when we both had modems and got on the BBSes, and that desire to have a place to share news and stuff with friends was what I think Slashdot has done well with. Bringing together the people who have the love of technology in their blood. Rob is really really good at that, and working with him and the rest of the folks has been on honor and privilege.

We've had some good wedding times and some burnination times (Chris, I forgot about the cell phone. That makes me giggle.) And while I could go on and on, then I'll turn maudlin and no one wants that.

I started at Google just over a week ago now, and love what I'm doing -- and I think that's the most important lesson I learned from Slashdot. You won't always like what you are doing but if you working on something you love and with good people around you, that's worth a lot.

If you care to see me poke fun of Rob, you can find me on Twitter as (the imaginatively named) @hemos, or find me on Google Plus as Jeffrey Bates

Thanks for the fun, Rob. We done good.

Succession plan?

[grub]

Well Taco, I hope that you have a good succession plan in place as Steve Jobs does at Apple.

Presumably you've trained all your editors in the fine art of spelling mistakes, grammatical erros and story duplication. If so, the transition should be seamless.

Jokes aside, best of luck and thanks for /. ! :)

Re:Succession plan?

[grub]

sigh... "erros"... can I put my name in the hat?

Re:Succession plan?

[jd]

If you notice, they both resigned at the same time. AND they have never been photographed together. This proves CmdrTaco IS Steve Jobs!

Re:Succession plan?

[sg3000]

Well Taco, I hope that you have a good succession plan in place as Steve Jobs does at Apple. Presumably you've trained all your editors in the fine art of spelling mistakes, grammatical erros and story duplication. If so, the transition should be seamless. Jokes aside, best of luck and thanks for /. ! :)

Rob, for old time's sake, please repost your resignation as a dupe in about a week :-)

Steve Jobs = Rob Malda?

[Danathar]

I knew it!

Good luck Steve..er...Rob...err..whoever you are actually!

Re:Hemos Says: "So Long, and Thanks For All The Fi

[Anonymous Coward]

...what's up with all these Real Names on Google+? How am I ever going to find you guys? Sheesh.

Anyway, bon voyage CmdrTaco!

Re:Hemos Says: "So Long, and Thanks For All The Fi

[JustOK]

you must be new here.

See You Rob, and thanks for the ride

[ja]

This is like the Internet going into retirement

Re:See You Rob, and thanks for the ride

[Hemos]

Thanks. And you all should know that it has been the readers that kept Rob and I going for as long as we did.

Wait, what?

[Rysc]

After the news about Steve Jobs I really had to check and double-check the date on this. Not April 1st?

Okay, okay... I think I believe it.

CmdrTaco, thanks a lot. I've spent a ridiculous amount of my formative years reading slashdot. It got me into Linux, Geeks In Space specifically got me in to Debian. Without Slashdot I'd be half the man I am today, easily.

So long...

[rsidd]

I've been around for a while, reading though not posting often. For some of us your resignation ranks up there with Jobs' (but more unexpected and, one hopes, not for similar reasons). All the best in whatever you do. You must be in your mid-late thirties, and have an entire life ahead of you!

Thanks for everything

[deblau]

I could write a long rambling ode, but I think I'll just say thanks for the last 14 years. You did good.

I have some difficulty understanding this

[gzipped_tar]

Car analogy please?

Re:I have some difficulty understanding this

[virg_mattes]

Imagine getting into your car, and driving away, and not coming back.

It's like that. Mr. Malda, you'll be sorely missed. Thanks for all of your efforts. You've made this site a place where geeks of all stripe can find a good story and a good troll.

Virg

Re:Hemos Says: "So Long, and Thanks For All The Fi

[jank1887]

uid 2, huh? I bet you just missed the first first post, too.

So long and thanks for the OMG PONIES!!!

[TimeForGuinness]

Somehow this has hit me harder than Jobs stepping down. I've been coming to Slashdot for the news/commentary for about 13+ years...and still plan to do so.

Man, it's weird, I've never met Rob or corresponded with him...but it feels like I'm losing a good friend or family member. The internet can be weird sometimes.

Godspeed Taco!

Re:So long and thanks for the OMG PONIES!!!

[Zembar]

I'm going to have to add "making a site that doesn't post what the preview shows" instead of what I actually wrote.

Oh well, at least it's does its job consi

Re:Given that...

[Anrego]

I know I shouldn't be feeding the trolls..

But truth is, for all I've griped about the "new" slashdot (and then the "new" one after that) ... and the dubious submissions... I still find myself active here quite frequently.

Slashdot isn't perfect.. but it's still a damn good thing.

Re:Hemos Says: "So Long, and Thanks For All The Fi

[chrisd]

For the record: I really thought that champagne cooler was empty.

I knew it!

[elrous0]

I always thought it suspicious that I never saw Taco and Steve Jobs in the same room. Now I finally know for sure that they're the same person!

Thanks for giving us this forum Taco/Steve. But I still hate iOS.

Today ...

[nosfucious]

Today a little piece of my inner nerd just died.

Please don't let me wake up and suddely find that I'm a responsible 40 year old IT professional/business person. I'll be repeating that as I stumble home drunkenly tonight.

Thanks

[fons]

Slashdot has always been a beakon of good taste on the Internet.

It helps me stay grounded to the truly important stuff that matters in a chaotic world of information overload.

It helped me be confident about my own opinions.

Thanks
Peter Van Hende
'Trendwatcher' for Belagcom

Re:Given that...

[Seumas]

We need to continue our strengths. Being a platform where old guys can bitch about kids these days.

Re:Hemos Says: "So Long, and Thanks For All The Fi

[c]

I think it's fair to say that the average uid in the comments on this post will be the lowest in the last few years... possibly the last decade.

Oh no!

[AntEater]

"The internet has changed dramatically since I started here, and that's part of my reason for leaving..."

I hope that doesn't mean that we're going to see some radical change in direction here. That reads like the money holders want to take the site in a direction that CmdrTaco isn't interested in. Hopefully I'm just being pessimistic.

I've been on since the late 90's myself and I've really enjoyed this site over the years in spite of the spelling and grammar issues. I hope it continues on even without Mr. Malda's influence.

Now watch as the low UIDs to take over the discussion on this post.

First Jobs, now this?

[gig]

Next you will be telling me that HP is getting out of the PC business.

Best of luck

[raph]

As you can see from my uid, I've been with you since almost the beginning. At times I've been frustrated with the quality of the posts, especially the pseudoscience garbage, but /. has always been one of my go-to places, and always enough interesting content to make it worthwhile to visit. Plus, the format of the site, especially the moderation system, has proved to have enduring worth, even with all the other changes going on. I wish you the best of success in whatever you choose to do next.

Re:Hemos Says: "So Long, and Thanks For All The Fi

[whoop]

And to think I waited a few days before registering an account here. "Damn, yet another site wants me to register a name/password?" If only I had known then how much this UID would help me get the girls...

No wifi

[Brannon]

Less impact than SJ's announcement. Lame.

Fairewell

[Eugene]

Thank you so much for creating the best experience on the internet... when /. effect was what everyone feared and loved...

Re:Hemos Says: "So Long, and Thanks For All The Fi

[mister_playboy]

Couldn't be bothered to RTFA even for this story, eh? :)

He's just losing the ability to post stories as an editor, he says he'll still do some story submissions and post like a normal user.

What's up with the timing?

[suso]

Steve Jobs came back to Apple officially in September 1997.
Slashdot was founded in Septemer 1997.
Steve Jobs quits in August 2011.
Rob Malda quits in August 2011.

Re:What's up with the timing?

[LordEd]

That's how restraining orders work.

MyCleanUnderwear.com

[Heed00]

Bah, it's MyCleanUnderwear.com -- at least get it right.

Re:Given that...

[alexo]

But truth is, for all I've griped about the "new" slashdot (and then the "new" one after that) ... and the dubious submissions... I still find myself active here quite frequently.

Slashdot isn't perfect.. but it's still a damn good thing.

I'm on /. every day but I have to admit that nowadays it is not because of the way the site is run but in spite of it.

Compared to a decade ago, the front page looks more like a yellow tabloid than a serious tech site. Slashvertisements, titles and summaries chosen for shock value rather than informative content, clueless submitters, incompetent editors.

It's like a good thought provoking series turning into a Brazilian soap opera.

Thankfully, the discussions are still worth it.

Re:Last one out.... turn off the lights.

[Hemos]

Nope, CBN left a few years ago. Samzenpus and Timothy are still around tho'!

Re:Hemos Says: "So Long, and Thanks For All The Fi

[mcmonkey]

Tell me about it, brother.

At 5 digits (just), I'm stuck with your wife, too!

Slashdot is Dying

[fak3r]

It is official. Netcraft now confirms: Slashdot is dying

One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered Slashdot community when CmdrTaco confirmed that he is resigning from Slashdot, now that Slashdot market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all geek news outlets. Coming on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that Slashdot has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. Slashdot is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive geek news reading test.

You don't need to be the Amazing Kreskin to predict Slashdot's future. The hand writing is on the wall: Slashdot faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for Slashdot because Slashdot is dying. Things are looking very bad for Slashdot. As many of us are already aware, Slashdot continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.

Slashdot YRO is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core contributors. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time Slashdot contributors only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: Slashdot is dying.

Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.

Slashdot leader CmdrTaco states that there are 7000 users of Slashdot. How many users of Ask Slashdot stories are there? Let's see. The number of Ask Slashdot stories versus Slashdot posts is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 Ask Slashdot stories users. Slashdot book reviews (or, 'Slashvertisements') are about half of the volume of Ask Slashdot stories. Therefore there are about 700 Slashvertisments. A recent article put Slashdot Security posts at about 80 percent of the Slashdot market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 Slashdot users. This is consistent with the number of Slashdot posts.

Due to the troubles of OSNews, abysmal sales and so on, OSNews went out of business and was taken over by Digg, another troubled geek news site. Now Digg is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.

All major surveys show that Slashdot has steadily declined in market share. Slashdot is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If Slashdot is to survive at all it will be among geek news dilettante dabblers. Slashdot continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, Slashdot is dead.

Fact: Slashdot is dying

Re:Hemos Says: "So Long, and Thanks For All The Fi

[tburkhol]

Heh. I only signed up so I could put JonKatz on ignore.