Chris Barton: Victim of nerds and weirdos

Shortly after my last column (June 27) I was slashdotted. No, it's not some sort of sado-masochistic ritual. But it is an experience that delivers both pleasure and pain.

For those who aren't familiar with Slashdot (where have you been?), it's an American-centric website with the sub-heading "News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters".

It does have news - but not the stuff normal people read. The presentation is on the fringe too. Think electronic bulletin board plastered with graffiti.

The site's heritage is Usenet news groups where like-minded individuals and weirdos gather online to post messages about pretty much anything that's on their minds.

From such small beginnings Slashdot has evolved into an online version of the Jerry Springer show - but always featuring white trash geeks railing against Microsoft.

The Slashdot editors are Jerry - setting the tone and choosing the topics to get things going.

The moderators - hundreds of loyal Slashdotters who post a lot to earn good "karma" and moderator "tokens" - are the studio audience stoking the fires of Jerry's prejudice. Jer-ry, Jer-ry, Jer-ry ... We, the online readers, are the anonymous TV audience watching - or quickly turning off - the unfolding skirmish with a mixture of disdain and guilty voyeuristic pleasure.

Much of the time it's benign stuff. In my own slashdotting over a column about using Linux for the first time, the most irritating part was the pedantic nerdspeak.

The nerds were critical of my dumbing down of the words "free", "public domain" and "Linux". For the latter they wanted GNU/Linux. GNU is a recursive acronym for "GNU's not Unix" and is pronounced "guh-new".

Yes, these people are a different life form, but if you want to know more go to www.fsf.org or www.gnu.org.

Overall, I enjoyed it. Traffic to the Technology section of the Herald increased four-fold and I felt honoured to have one of my articles picked apart and analysed by the more intelligent and civilised folk there. Feedback - good or bad - is always useful in this job.

But sometimes Slashdot gets out of control. An example: "And an even better case for waiting outside the guy's office with a baseball bat and a ski mask. Sure, MS can deny you a future contract, but one Linux zealot (and believe me, there are tons) can deny you a working set of knees.

"If you haven't yet, I'd suggest reading up on 'Assassination Politics'. Basically, a group places bets on how someone will die. Once enough bets are placed, the pot grows to be huge. Then one of the betters (that word seems right, but feels wrong) decides to take matters into his own hands and make his bet come true. Very clever stuff."

The post was one of many following another Herald story about a local CD duplication company refusing to copy some Linux CDs. It was moderated as "flamebait" - meaning it is deliberately designed to wind people up and create a flame war (similar to the all-out brawls that are so essential to Jerry Springer).

But it wasn't alone in what escalated into an online campaign against a hapless New Zealand company.

Tactics included publishing staff email addresses and mobile phone numbers resulting in some of them being bombarded with abusive and threatening messages.

One clever soul even posted alleged (most likely fake) criminal records of some staff. All good fun or seriously sick?

To be fair, a number of slashdotters posted criticisms of the most fanatical suggestions. But you have to wonder where the Slashdot editors and moderators were. Absent or defending the American version of freedom of speech?

The Slashdot site ducks responsibility for its content by putting the onus back on the individual stating that content "is the sole responsibility of the person from whom such content originated".

Fair enough. But also misleading. As the conduit and holder of the content Slashdot is liable for its contents.

Several websites such as Yahoo and Barron's Magazine have found that they are not immune from prosecution when they harm individuals and break laws in other countries.

I'm not a lawyer, but I reckon staff of the local CD duplication company would have a strong defamation case against Slashdot under New Zealand law.

* Email Chris Barton

Slashdot.org

Google Usenet discussion forums

Slashdot reaction to Chris Barton's last column

Gnu

Slashdot post relating to Herald story on CD duplication

Webliography on the Yahoo case
Case against Barron's Magazine