
RIP Robin “Roblimo” Miller - zdw
https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/rip-robin-roblimo-miller
======
dublin
I guess Hacker News is the "new Slashdot", but Slashdot really was much better
in its peak years. It's not unreasonable to mark the downhill decline to
beginning shortly after Roblimo's departure. I never met him, but I feel as if
I've lost a compatriot. He will definitely be missed.

~~~
_wmd
I'm not sure I ever observed Slashdot at any particular peak, but I've been
reading it weekly (if not daily) for something like the past 15 years, and it
still serves a role that HN, due to its bubble-like nature, can never fill.

Slashdot is more general interest, and it sports a much healthier cross-
section of the tech industry than HN at least presently does. Slashdot
comments though, definitely not worth reading any more, if they ever were

~~~
majos
How would you say the Slashdot and HN cross-sections differ?

~~~
_wmd
HN tends more towards software and startups, everyone is an armchair CTO,
Slashdot tends more towards tech, space and science. They both cover each
other's topics, but there is a definite tendency on both sides.

You're unlikely to read about some venture capital gossip on the Slashdot
side, while you're unlikely to read e.g. "Giant Predatory Worms Are Invading
France" on the HN side.

The great thing about HN comments is that everyone is a smart ass, the bad
thing about HN comments is that everyone is a smart ass. Slashdot comments are
generally just toxic noise, dumb jokes and horrifically amateur analysis.

~~~
mistersquid
I'll add that Slashdot's user comment toxicity is a product of its founders'
commitment to non-censorship and free speech.

Back in the day (what some here have referred to as Slashdot's "peak"),
Slashdot commentary and trolling could be side-achingly hilarious, irreverent,
profane, thought-provoking, insightful, silly, and humbling.

Slashdot's editorially permissive policy coupled with algorithmically assigned
moderator points allowed "representative" Slashdot users to choose which
trolls and provocateurs would be buried and which boosted.

As a result, Slashdot was renowned and reviled for its sometimes predictable
and frequently appropriate inside jokes (e.g. "Had Netcraft confirmed it?",
"Only old people ______", "IN SOVIET RUSSIA $NOUN $VERBs YOU", etc.) as well
as for its sometimes intractable and iconoclastic user base.

The user base was in fact so intractable that a site-wide redesign was
deployed and then retracted due to extraordinary complaints from the user
base. Dice ended up throwing a lot of invested time and resources away to
appease a user base determined to voice its displeasure with a Web 2.0
redesign.

Roblimo, CmdrTaco, and CowboyNeal were the ones who forged Slashdot's
editorial policy and, by so doing, indelibly shaped the character of Slashdot
at its peak.

Today, thoughtless shitposting and unoriginal trolling of anonymous (and some
pseudonymous) Slashdot users has driven away all but the most hardy (or
desperate) of Slashdot readers. Slashdot today seems to be an endlessly
burning tire fire. I'm grateful the current /. thread for Roblimo is so far
civil. [0]

But there was a time when its moderation policies and commitment to anonymity
generated insight and humor. Even now, Slashdot has a hackerish mean streak
that can yield endlessly entertaining threads full of puns, jokes, and in-
jokes and if there is anything I wish HN had more of it is an understanding
that iconoclastic juvenile humor can play an important discursive role in
conversations of technology, society, and culture.

I only rarely visit Slashdot these days due to the toxicity of its users'
comments (I can't bring myself to hide comments moderated to -1 for the same
reasons that I "showdead" here on HN).

I am forever indebted to the original Slashdot team, the Slashdot community
and, on this occasion, especially Robin Miller for providing a platform where
I could learn from others, express my opinions, and keep abreast of geek
culture.

Roblimo, you will be missed.

[0] [https://linux.slashdot.org/story/18/05/24/1750210/robin-
robl...](https://linux.slashdot.org/story/18/05/24/1750210/robin-roblimo-
miller-a-long-time-voice-of-the-linux-community-has-passed-away#comments)

EDIT: typos and small changes here and there

~~~
CaptainZapp
"e.g. "Had Netcraft confirmed it?", "Only old people ______", "IN SOVIET
RUSSIA $NOUN $VERBs YOU", etc."

Sorry to point out that you forgot grits and Natalie Portman, of whom some /.
users seemed to have a not quite healthy obsession.

Else than that your comment is spot on.

~~~
surrealize
I, for one, welcome our new inside-joke-forgetting overlords

~~~
dnnrly
I'd like to see a Beowolf cluster of those.

------
pasbesoin
For the younger of you here, think Slashdot.

 _Miller was perhaps best known by the community for his roll as Editor in
Chief of Open Source Technology Group, the company that owned Slashdot,
SourceForge.net, freshmeat, Linux.com, NewsForge, and ThinkGeek from 2000 to
2008._

Suddenly, the Web feels older.

\--

P.S. [https://linux.slashdot.org/story/18/05/24/1750210/robin-
robl...](https://linux.slashdot.org/story/18/05/24/1750210/robin-roblimo-
miller-a-long-time-voice-of-the-linux-community-has-passed-away)

------
mprev
It’s easy to forget both how small the Linux/open source world was back then
and also how big a source of news, commentary and community Slashdot,
NewsForge etc were.

Thanks roblimo.

------
hendler
Fun, crass, friendly. Met him at a Knight Foundation event in Miami. Kevin
Marks, if you are reading this, you needed a ride to BarCamp and this is who
we hitched a ride with.

------
jacquesm
Slashdot thread:

[https://linux.slashdot.org/story/18/05/24/1750210/robin-
robl...](https://linux.slashdot.org/story/18/05/24/1750210/robin-roblimo-
miller-a-long-time-voice-of-the-linux-community-has-passed-away)

------
indigodaddy
This is sad news. However, on the flip side, finding out that Linux Journal is
back from the dead is heartwarming. I hadn't caught that bit of news
previously.

------
gadders
Sad news. I remember refreshing /. multiple times on 9/11, and also getting my
first goatse link.

RIP Rob.

------
camgunz
Roblimo, thank you for being a huge part of my introduction to geek culture.
RIP

------
pc2g4d
His byline accompanied many of my early adventures in Linux and Open Source.

------
sixdimensional
Feel a bit like this deserves a Hacker News black bar. Reading Slashdot back
in the day, Roblimo, CmdrTaco - those were good times. I was at the early bit
of my career then, and being part of communities like Slashdot, Sourceforge,
etc. were instrumental in helping me grow and more importantly learn about the
constant changes in our field - so to me, these folks are also heroes of the
Internet as much as some of the founders - for example, people like Vint Cerf,
or Tim Berners Lee. Maybe in a slightly different way, but heroes of our
communities none-the-less. RIP.

~~~
throwaway5752
I find it unproductive to think about what HN should/should not do, but I just
wanted to echo your sentiment. Roblimo, hemos, CmdrTac (who posts here
sometimes... condolences if you're reading) had big and positive impacts on my
personal professional development with software and open source. I am very
grateful to them.

------
lightedman
As crass as Rob was, he'd never get to post here on HN.

Keep that in mind while you get rich off the back of his work, YC.

~~~
pc2g4d
???

~~~
duncan_bayne
I think he's pointing out that many (most? all?) unicorns are built atop open
source software that only exists because of a significant counter-cultural
struggle that happened in the 80s and 90s.

I still remember when the idea of running a free software stack was considered
deeply weird.

