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==Administration== ===Team=== [[File:Rob 'CmdrTaco' Malda crop.jpeg|thumb|right|alt=Rob Malda, co-founder of Slashdot|Rob Malda, co-founder of Slashdot]] It was run by its founder, [[Rob Malda|Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda]], from 1998 until 2011.<ref>{{Cite magazine |last=Watercutter |first=Angela |date=2011-08-25 |title=Slashdot Founder Rob 'Cmdr Taco' Malda Resigns |language=en-US |magazine=Wired |url=https://www.wired.com/2011/08/slashdot-founder-resigns/ |access-date=2022-11-26 |issn=1059-1028}}</ref> He shared editorial responsibilities with several other editors including Timothy Lord, Patrick "Scuttlemonkey" McGarry, Jeff "Soulskill" Boehm, Rob "Samzenpus" Rozeboom, and Keith Dawson.<ref name="slashdotFAQ_who">{{cite web|url=http://slashdot.org/faq/slashmeta.shtml#sm100|title=Slashdot FAQ: About Slashdot: Who does this?|last=Malda|first=Rob|date=February 7, 2002|publisher=Slashdot|access-date=January 12, 2010|archive-date=September 24, 2006|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060924100115/http://slashdot.org/faq/slashmeta.shtml#sm100|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="emergence">{{cite book | last = Johnson | first = Steven | author-link = Steven Johnson (author) | title = Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software | publisher = Scribner | year = 2001 | page = [https://archive.org/details/emergenceconnect00john/page/46 46] | location = New York | isbn = 978-0-684-86875-2 | title-link = Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software }}</ref> Jonathan "cowboyneal" Pater is another popular editor of Slashdot, who came to work for Slashdot as a programmer and systems administrator. His online nickname (handle), CowboyNeal, is inspired by a [[Grateful Dead]] tribute to [[Neal Cassady]] in their song, "That's It for the Other One". He is best known as the target of the usual comic poll option,<ref name="spoke">{{cite web|url=http://www.spoke.com/info/p7ZQR2G/JonathanPater|title=Jonathan Pater, Programmer, freshmeat.net |date=2009-04-06|access-date=2009-04-06|publisher=Spoke Software}}</ref> a tradition started by [[Chris DiBona]].<ref>{{cite web|last=samzenpus|title=Making a Slashdot Omelet|date=19 October 2012 |url=http://meta.slashdot.org/story/12/10/09/1650205/making-a-slashdot-omelet|access-date=19 October 2012|archive-date=17 May 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130517132726/http://meta.slashdot.org/story/12/10/09/1650205/making-a-slashdot-omelet|url-status=live}}</ref> ===Software=== {{update section|reason=It is unclear whether Slashdot still uses [[Slash (software)|Slash]] or some newer look-alike since around 2009|date=January 2019}} Slashdot runs on [[Slash (software)|Slash]], a [[content management system]] available under the [[GNU General Public License]].<ref name="slashcode">{{cite web|url=http://www.slashcode.com/about.shtml|title=Slashcode: About This Site|publisher=[[Slashcode]]|access-date=January 13, 2010|archive-date=December 29, 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091229210805/http://www.slashcode.com/about.shtml|url-status=live}}</ref> Early versions of Slash were written by [[Rob Malda]] in the spring of 1998. After Andover.net bought Slashdot in June 1999,<ref>{{Cite news| last = Malda| first = Rob| title = Slashdot Acquired by Andover.net| work = Slashdot| date = 1999-06-29| url = http://news.slashdot.org/story/99/06/29/137212/slashdot-acquired-by-andovernet| access-date = 2016-09-08| archive-date = 2016-10-09| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20161009135910/https://news.slashdot.org/story/99/06/29/137212/slashdot-acquired-by-andovernet| url-status = live}}</ref> Several programmers were hired to structure the code and render it scalable, as its users had increased from a few hundred to tens of thousands. This work was done by Brian Aker, Patrick Galbraith, Chris Nandor and others, resulting in version 2 of the software, released in 2001.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Aker |first1=Brian |last2=Krieger |first2=Dave |title=Running Weblogs with Slash |date=2002 |publisher=O'Reilly Media, Inc. |isbn=978-0-596-00100-1 |page=1-10 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oigJsLSyZUoC&pg=PR13 |language=en}}</ref> Slash remains [[Free software]] and anyone can contribute to development. ===Peer moderation=== Slashdot's editors are primarily responsible for selecting and editing the primary stories that are posted daily by submitters. The editors provide a one-paragraph summary for each story and a link to an external website where the story originated. Each story becomes the topic for a threaded discussion among the site's users.<ref name="Lampe_Resnick">{{cite book|publisher=School of Information, [[University of Michigan]]|location=[[Vienna]], Austria|author1=Lampe, C. |author2=Resnick, P. |title=Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems |chapter=Slash(dot) and burn |date=2004 |doi=10.1145/985692.985761|isbn=978-1-58113-702-6|pages=543β550|s2cid=207548645}}</ref> A user-based [[moderation system]] is employed to filter out abusive or offensive comments.<ref name="Pavlicek_Russell">{{cite book|last=Pavlicek|first=Russell C.|title=Embracing insanity: open source software development.|publisher=[[SAMS Publishing]]|date=September 15, 2000|isbn=978-0-672-31989-1|url=https://archive.org/details/embracinginsanit00pavl}}</ref> Every comment is initially given a score of ''β1'' to ''+2'', with a default score of ''+1'' for registered users, ''0'' for anonymous users ([[Anonymous Coward]]), ''+2'' for users with high "karma", or ''−1'' for users with low "karma". As moderators read comments attached to articles, they click to moderate the comment, either up (''+1'') or down (''−1''). Moderators may choose to attach a particular descriptor to the comments as well, such as "normal", "offtopic", "[[Flame war|flamebait]]", "[[troll (computing)|troll]]", "redundant", "insightful", "interesting", "informative", "funny", "overrated", or "underrated", with each corresponding to a ''β1'' or ''+1'' rating. So a comment may be seen to have a rating of "+1 insightful" or "β1 troll".<ref name="emergence"/> Comments are very rarely deleted, even if they contain hateful remarks.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=5216493&cid=47124781|title=Mutant Registration vs. Vaccine Registration β Slashdot|access-date=16 April 2017|archive-date=1 December 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181201132900/https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=5216493&cid=47124781|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=7527117&cid=49878335|title=Feds Want To Unmask Internet Commenters Writing About the Silk Road Trial Judge β Slashdot|access-date=16 April 2017|archive-date=1 December 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181201135311/https://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=7527117&cid=49878335|url-status=live}}</ref> Starting in August 2019 anonymous comments and postings have been disabled. Moderation points add to a user's rating, which is known as "[[karma]]" on Slashdot. Users with high "karma" are eligible to become moderators themselves. The system does not promote regular users as "moderators" and instead assigns five moderation points at a time to users based on the number of comments they have entered in the system – once a user's moderation points are used up, they can no longer moderate articles (though they can be assigned more moderation points at a later date). Paid staff editors have an unlimited number of moderation points.<ref name="emergence"/><ref name="Lampe_Resnick"/><ref name="Poor_Nathaniel">{{cite journal|last=Poor|first=Nathaniel|year=2005|title=Mechanisms of an Online Public Sphere: The Website Slashdot|journal=Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication|publisher=[[Indiana University]]|volume=10|issue=2|url=http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol10/issue2/poor.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050216090413/http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol10/issue2/poor.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=February 16, 2005|access-date=28 February 2012}}</ref> A given comment can have any integer score from ''β1'' to ''+5'', and registered users of Slashdot can set a personal threshold so that no comments with a lesser score are displayed.<ref name="Lampe_Resnick"/><ref name="Poor_Nathaniel"/> For instance, a user reading Slashdot at level ''+5'' will only see the highest rated comments, while a user reading at level ''β1'' will see a more "unfiltered, anarchic version".<ref name="emergence"/> A [[meta-moderation system]] was implemented on September 7, 1999,<ref name="metamod">{{cite web|url=http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=99/09/07/155233&mode=thread&tid=124|title=Slashdot's Meta Moderation|last=Malda|first=Rob|date=September 7, 1999|publisher=Slashdot|access-date=January 22, 2010}}</ref> to moderate the moderators and help contain abuses in the moderation system.<ref name="The Wikipedia Revolution by Andrew Lih">{{cite book | title=The Wikipedia Revolution | publisher=Hyperion | author=Lih, Andrew | year=2009 | location=New York City | isbn=978-1-4013-0371-6 | oclc=232977686 | url=https://archive.org/details/wikipediarevolut00liha }}</ref>{{unreliable source?|date=August 2014}}{{page needed|date=August 2014}} Meta-moderators are presented with a set of moderations that they may rate as either ''fair'' or ''unfair''. For each moderation, the meta-moderator sees the original comment and the reason assigned by the moderator (e.g. ''troll'', ''funny''), and the meta-moderator can click to see the context of comments surrounding the one that was moderated.<ref name="Lampe_Resnick"/><ref name="Poor_Nathaniel"/>
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