Slashdont

For years, Slashdot greeted me each time I opened my browser. To this day it remains one of the best sites for breaking tech news, and I still lament that Voices From the Hellmouth only saw a short print run. Speaking of, read it online if you want to understand the aftermath of Columbine on geeks and nerds across the U.S. and the means by which the wrong reaction of parents and educators left them more victimized then ever (and then read "More Stories From the Hellmouth" and "The Price Of Being Different").

But I slashed the dot from my homepage ages ago, not just because Digg was cool, or because the /. community ranted too much. Actually, I found the Slashdot community one of the best aspects of the site. The problem was with the editors.

Slashdot's motto is "News For Nerds. Stuff That Matters," but it should read, "News For Nerds That Matters To Whatever Editor Saw Your Submission Request." You see, Slashdot gets thousands of story submissions each day, they have a small pool of editors to review them, and they can't publish them all, so your no matter how nerdy your news might be or how painstakingly you check that it isn't a dupe you must succumb to the whims of a person. I found this out the hard way the day that Serenity was greenlighted. I knew there were bunches of Browncoats on Slashdot, so I submitted the news the minute word got out. An hour or so later I checked and saw that Michael had rejected it. Twelve hours later, Cmdr Taco put someone else's post about it on the front page; same link, and basically the same verbiage (though mine had a few links to the biggest fan sites to boot).

I emailed Michael about his rejection and his reply summed it up. He said that he didn't care for Firefly so he didn't care about related news. I wish I'd saved the email, because his tone spoke volumes. What didn't matter to him didn't matter. I should be pleased he slummed it enough to personally reply.

If Slashdot had a solid editorial policy, one that reflected their motto, Michael would have realized that "News For Nerds" meant just that, and didn't include the disclaimer, "Except If Michael Doesn't Like That Corner Of Nerdom."

And it would be great if those same editors didn't publish duplicates on an almost daily basis.