
15 Years after the First Slashdot Post - cmdrtaco
http://cmdrtaco.net/2012/10/15-years-after-the-first-post/
======
dasil003
Normally I might not identify with this level of nostalgia, but in this case I
find it hard to restrain myself.

Slashdot was a critical piece of Internet history. In my mind it was last big
thing that came out of the Internet from the era when it was exclusively for
geeks. It continued in the footsteps of what we had done previously with
email, usenet, ftp/archie, and irc, and became one of the biggest websites for
us old timers.

After Slashdot the next big thing was probably Napster, and at that point the
chasm was crossed to traditional mainstream youth demographics. Never again
would the biggest thing on the Internet also be the geekiest.

Godspeed cmdrtaco.

------
debacle
Just want to say thanks for all of the great work over the years. Slashdot was
never my home - I never signed up, always contributed as AC - but I've been a
loyal reader for almost a dozen years.

It's not what it once was, but it's still the best at what it does.

~~~
cmdrtaco
Thanks.

~~~
quink
No, thank you.

I'm 25 and I can honestly say that for all of us on Hacker News, Slashdot has
been a part of all our lives, a huge one. I've checked Slashdot at least once
every second day since 2000 (I'll admit more frequently in the past), and I
couldn't have imagined the past decade without it.

It may not keep up with some of the better subreddits, Metafilter or Hacker
News in many respects and I can feel its userbase aging when I read the
comments... but...

It stands like a rock, and may it always.

I remember my being in high school, checking Slashdot on the school computers
and telling other students about Wikipedia, their reaction being "anyone can
just edit it?", in about 2001. Memories of the phosphorus on white school CRT
with Windows NT 4.0 burning news of technology as it came along.

I will continue checking Slashdot for my fix of news just about every day, and
may you find my IP in your access.log for years to come. A true verdant thou
hast burnt in mine eyes and may it shine on brightly within them forever.

------
samstave
That was an enjoyable read, and Id like to Point out that it is also a chapter
in many of our lives. Maybe not as directly or deeply, but for me my discovery
of slashdot coincided with my move back to the valley in 97 specifically to
get into silicon valley IT.

I've grown a lot, slashdot was a part of that growth and while I don't visit
it that often any longer, it's still a part of my professional and personal
DNA.

Nostalgia is a good thing, after all; memories are the only things you have to
think back on. ;)

~~~
cmdrtaco
It was great while it lasted!

------
chrissnell
/. user #5825 here. I have great memories of the old days.

Let's start a list of funny and cool things that we learned about for the
first time on Slashdot. Here's mine:

1\. Google - I still remember the first postings about their search engine and
how awesome it was compared to everything else when I first tried it out back
in the mid 90's.

2\. RootServers, a startup that sold colo'd linux boxes and would give you
root--a big deal back in the mid 90's. I saw their ad on /. and was surprised
that they were based in my hometown. They later morphed into Rackspace, which
has been my employer for the last five years!

3\. Mac OS X. I remember the early posts about Rhapsody, which encouraged me
to go buy a Mac at the just-opened second-ever Apple Store in DC. Been a Mac
user ever since.

I'm sure there's more...

------
MattGrommes
Slashdot user #527 here. I feel as similarly as an outsider can to Taco's
feelings. Slashdot did a lot to shape what I think of as a real community,
both on and offline. It was based around news but there were also fun things
like all the Natalie Portman's grits stuff that not only didn't detract, it
added to the feeling. HN is a great discussion place but there's very little
"frivolous" stuff that really makes a friendly community. It'll never really
be replaced.

------
gamache
I first got good at network programming by writing /. crapflooders in the late
90's and early 00's, and my profanity skills honed in the trolltalk salt mines
still take my mother's breath away to this day.

Thanks for everything Rob!

~~~
gadders
It taught me what goatse.cx was, I'll always be grateful.

------
untog
Slightly OT, but I'm very glad that working at WaPo Labs feels like those
early days of Slashdot. I very much believe in news organisations and I want
them to have a future- hearing about this kind of innovation is fantastic.
Someday I hope to able to get into a similar news labs environment myself.

~~~
jashkenas
No need to wait 'til "someday". Here at the Times, we're looking for a few
folks to join the Interactive News team: [http://jobs.nytco.com/job/New-York-
Interactive-News-Develope...](http://jobs.nytco.com/job/New-York-Interactive-
News-Developer-Job-NY/2118423/)

------
lifebeyondfife
Before HN, before Digg, before any kind of social networking or all
encompassing tech news sites, there was Slashdot. I still remember when one of
the first questions to ask a fellow programmer was, "You on Slashdot? What's
your number?"

~~~
witoldc
And /. still has better comment setup than anything out there today that
supposedly 'surpassed' it.

~~~
WiseWeasel
Sadly, I think you may be right. We can do better though, because it still
sucks. Something merging the innovations in thread sorting from HN and cherry
picking from large amounts of comments from /. would be nice.

------
codva
In 1998 I moved to VA for a job as an Account Manager with a web consulting
firm. Their business model changed almost immediately and I had to learn how
to sell Sun hardware if I wanted to stay employed. Reading Slashdot was an
important part of my education into Unix, system administration, and system
administrators. That lead to an interest in open source and ultimately to me
installing Red Hat at home. Today I am much more comfortable in the FOSS world
than I am in the Windows world, and it all started with me reading Slashdot. I
finally removed Slashdot from my feed reader last year, when I realized I
couldn't remember the last time I clicked through to read a story.

However, I am still waiting for the box of swag I was supposed to get to pass
out at the 10th anniversary party that I organized.

~~~
discostrings
I also arranged a 10th anniversary party and I had no swag to give out. Two
weeks later, a box of 15 or so anniversary shirts showed up. I tracked a few
attendees down, but most of the shirts remain in a box that follows me around
as I move.

Which is to say, I'd be happy to provide a shirt. I've been wondering what to
do with them. I've been thinking about setting up an auction and giving the
proceeds to the EFF...

------
acheron
Semi-long time /. reader here -- six digit UID but just barely. If I had known
it would have conferred bragging rights I would have signed up a week or two
earlier.

Slashdot was absolutely the best community from the late 90s up through maybe
2005 or '06. I learned so much from both the news articles and the subsequent
discussion. Still have never found a better comments section than what
Slashdot had then, though I keep searching.

~~~
donretag
I am barely 5 digits long. Too bad I forgot my password a decade ago!

~~~
georgemcbay
#79509 here and was AC posting quite a bit before ever signing up. I've
actually got a few accounts there and my oldest was hardly used for posting
even back then.

Surprisingly I still remember my password on /. though I hadn't used that
password in many years.

Lucky thing I remember it too since the email account (gfm@my-dejanews.com)
registered to the /. account is long since dead.

------
evolve2k
I think it would be fair to say that /. pioneered the 'the comments are often
better than the articles' social news site.

I remember coming into the Uni IT labs and seeing everyone usually had /. up
on the monitors of their Solaris Workstations.

Hat tip to you.

------
SwellJoe
Loved Slashdot from the very beginning (read Chips n' Dips on occasion before
Slashdot). My second ID was 100612, and my first was four digits. I'd been
posting anonymously before that.

When reddit came along, I was splitting my time about equally for six months
or so. And then, I realized a few months after that that I hadn't logged into
Slashdot in months, and hadn't really noticed. I came back to Slashdot a
couple of times to answer questions about something I was involved in (like Y
Combinator), and found that it still led to a huge spike to my company/Open
Source project website...slashdot is, or was, a firehose of very focused
traffic that may never be replicated (at least, not for really nerdy folks).
reddit never sent that kind of traffic our way, and neither has HN, or any
other single source.

Anyway, it must be hard to let go of something awesome. But, it's also hard to
watch something awesome die while you try to save it. Slashdot may not be
"dying" per se (any more than any of us are dying, at a slow but steady clip),
but I'm pretty sure it's in a steady decline that will never be turned around,
and that's tough to watch.

------
Pelayo
Slashdot has been the only site where I've been able to spend two hours
learning about hard drive technology just by reading comments. Good times...

------
dmd
I was slashdot user # 404. Thanks, Rob.

------
menacingly
This is a great example of solid writing that transcends the specific
knowledge of any community. The nouns are all familiar, but the story would
resonate even if they weren't. It's just about being human, and doing human
stuff.

Also, thanks for building something awesome.

------
mutagen
Slashdot had an incredible influence on my perception of computers, the
internet, privacy, and participation. Though I don't remember the subject, I
remember printing out my first successful submission and posting it on the
wall.

------
recampbell
Slashdot introduced me to ArsDigita, which introduced me to web programming
and linux, leading me out of the depths of a corporate visual basic dead-end
job. I'm very grateful for the impact this had on my life. Thanks, Rob.

------
Spoom
I'm splitting my time between here and Slashdot nowadays. Karma is certainly a
lot more difficult to get here but I think that's a function of the quite
different communities.

I'm curious though, do you know if Dice has any plans for reviving Slashcode
or creating a new version of it? It looks like it hasn't been touched in about
two years.

In any case, thanks for everything, and I'm sorry that the site seemed to grow
away from you. I think most people here agree that it was better when you were
part of it.

------
wyclif
Ah, the fond memories of hitting Slashdot at least 5x per day back when I
worked for early Amazon (1998?). I remember all the memes from back then. Like
many people attest, it was hugely useful to make connections to other FOSS and
Linux users.

But the biggest thing I remember was 9/11 and the updates from /. users who
lived in NYC, Brooklyn, and Queens right after the disaster happened...at the
point when the only other coverage was CNN.

~~~
wyclif
For nostalgia's sake, here are the 9/11 threads:
<http://slashdot.org/index2.pl?startdate=20010911>

------
gadders
You know what? I think over the years cmdrtaco has become quite a writer as
well.

I started reading Slashdot when the first days of the "slashdot effect" for
flattening websites was being mentioned. Late 90's?

It was always a go-to site for me, and for events like 9/11 it was a better
news source, simply because the team was agile enough to swap to static pages
to handle the load, unlike CNN etc.

------
gfodor
This was a great read, user #11637 here. I had a project many years ago called
half-empty that made it onto the /. front page, which slashdotted my college
apartment and got my cable Internet service cancelled within a few hours. This
was my first taste of the crack-cocaine called "tail -f access.log". It was
awesome. Thanks again Rob.

------
colkassad
I still have Slashdot in every browser as a bookmark, even though I rarely
visit the site. I can't bring myself to remove it.

~~~
muppetman
I'm the same. I still add it to everything, but I too rarely visit. I felt
like it was over once cmdrtaco left.

------
dfc
Slashdot will always be near and dear to my heart. Slashdot was a big catalyst
in my early tech education, even if I had to wait for long threads to load
over my Courier Robotics modem. I can't remember if my user number was 8811 or
8872 but I do remember how cool it was to meet cmdrtaco at an early Linuxworld
in nyc.

Thanks for everything /.

------
prostoalex
Long-time top submitter here (still top 4, although I think I stopped in 2005
<http://slashdot.org/hof.shtml>), many good memories, the sense of community
helped shape my interests in many ways, influencing my career, so just want to
thank for your great work.

------
rmason
Still remember the moment six months into it's history when I found out that
Slashdot was a Michigan company. You never heard about any cool Internet
companies originating from Michigan in those days. I remember being dumbstruck
and then proud, damned proud.

------
jnazario
good memories.

myself, i had a modest user number, a few mentions for my work, posted some
book reviews, hosted timothy at my condo a couple of times, even got
slashdotted a couple of times (including once to distribute star wars prequel
trailers via a grad school server i ran, which should give you an idea of how
old i am now). "focused traffic" is hardly an apt description, and we still
call it "the slashdot effect."

good times.

thank you. what was always clear is that it was first and foremost a labor of
love and interest, and that's a rare thing among the net's high profile sites.
that has had a profound impact on the site's long term quality.

------
pnathan
I still find Slashdot one of the most valuable discussion sites on the
Internet.

Thanks man!

------
pgrote
The slashcode site hasn't been updated in years. Did it fall to the wayside
throughout the buyouts?

<http://www.slashcode.com/www.slashcode.com/>

------
smsm42
#1221 here... I remember when Slashdot ware THE place to get the tech news and
discuss them. I do not think it is anymore, but still have some fond memories
from these times. Thanks for that.

------
bootload
longtime /.r 2774,

thx @cmdrtaco for starting slashdot.

It really filled the gap on the web in Perl, Linux & FOSS, information and was
the go-to place in startups I've worked in. Now for a few questions,

Q. /. for me was the start of 'social software' through commenting & friends
(fondly remembering 'friends of foes' & freaks) - what lessons learned in
moderating & story post moderation do you think HN could improve with?

Q. Is there any way to get a dump of old posts. I've got 'em back to '96 &
wouldn't mind getting a copy.

~~~
jpeg_hero
Lol "perl"

Haha, I remember that one!

------
madrona
Happy 15th birthday! I posted as AC for the first year or two and sadly missed
out on the "low UID" boat. I was 15 at the time of its launch.

------
madrona
Are you a hacker? Do you like news? If you answered "yes" to both of these
questions, then HNAA might be exactly what you're looking for!

------
theycallmemorty
I've never used Slashdot for even a moment, but I really enjoyed that article
and I could really feel OPs pain as he let his baby go.

------
adefa
Slashdot was the original (and nerdier) reddit.

I just wish there was a way to find out when my slashdot account was created!

------
jpeg_hero
Cmdrtaco, whatever happened to Bruce Twickler?

------
noonespecial
#977520. Thanks for all the fish.

------
nickzoic
Next Up: Crackmonkey Nostalgia.

------
witoldc
I've always wanted to have story accepted on /.

But I've yet to submit one. :)

