Rob CmdrTaco Malda AMA On Reddit

TheNextCorner writes with news on where CmdrTaco has been hiding. Quoting Malda's IamA blurb over at that Reddit thing: "In 1997 I started Slashdot.org. For several years, we pioneered news aggregation and on-line communities while exploring our niche of the 'net under the slogan, 'News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters.' Our work was later expanded upon at countless other more successful sites including Reddit and the Huffington Post. I left Slashdot last year, took a long time off, and then started work at the Washington Post Co's WaPo Labs their digital media R&D skunkworks group. I work as their Chief Strategist and Editor-at-Large, contributing what I can to a variety of projects ranging from their Social Reader, to some projects under development. From here I am able to continue to explore my interests in news, journalism, technology, and communities. ... I'll hopefully be answering from 2pm-5pm ET"

Comments

Re:yes but

[AttyBobDobalina]

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=jonathan+pater

Slashdot has the best commenters...

[teadrop]

I spent a greater part of my life reading Internet comments, here's what I found...
Hopelessly dumb:
Yahoo News, Newswine, Foxnews, CNN, MSNBC (pretty much any news site), Youtube (depends)
- By reading comments from these sites, you will lose all hope for mankind

Dumb but not hopeless:
Cnet, Endgadget, Verge, Facebook...
- It does not speak well for mankind but we still have hope...

OK:
Wired, Washington Post, Huffington Post

Best quality comments:
Slashdot, New York Time
- There is intelligent human out there!

Re:Wrong place to do a Q&A

[FrangoAssado]

If you only see the posts on Reddit's front page, you might get the impression that Reddit is really dumb. You'll also be missing a lot of good stuff.

I'll give an example: there was a story a while ago saying that a kid in Germany found an equation to solve a (pretty basic) open problem in classical mechanics. The discussion on slashdot had some good comments, a lot bickering about unrelated math stuff and the obligatory comments denouncing the American educational system (moderated +5 insightful, naturally).

On Reddit, this post on the "Math" sub-reddit (which sadly got nowhere near the front page) also generated a lot of inane comments, but also some really good stuff:

• -the derivation of the equation "discovered" by the kid, highlighting that the equation was just an implicit solution
• - a link to a previous paper from 1977 that contained a similar solution (showing the kid's work wasn't that original)
• - a link to a French book from 1860 that also contained the formula (showing it wasn't even recent)

Lost Luster

[DaKong]

I have been an ardent /. fan since early days. When CmdrTaco left I was emotionally affected, as if my brother was moving to the Moon and I'd never see him again. And all these years the naysayers and haters have railed against Jon Katz and goatse and dupes and spelling errors and such when I've considered them idiosyncracies that make the place more genuine than your typical corporate clone news site (tm).

I still read Slashdot for the comments, same as always, because I still learn about areas I don't know much about; but, several recent misadventures like that goofy business portal make me think there's some jackass MBA PHB at the parent company who knows absolutely zip about science, technology, intelligence, or, heck, even the Slashdot community and who's spending every waking hour scheming how to pump-and-dump this bitch. That makes me very, very sad.