Slashdot subculture

Template:Slashdot The Slashdot subculture is mixtures of juvenilia, sarcasm, deliberately bad jokes, tasteless nonsense and highly developed and artistic attempts to provoke outraged responses from other forum users, amuse them, or challenge their thinking on the popular Slashdot technology website. Many of these are older phenomena which originated on common slang culture, which were migrated to Usenet, and then later to Slashdot.

Slashdot articles

A common recurring theme is the notion that most people do not read the featured article, and that many posts are therefore uninformed. Someone posting an incorrect reference to a linked article might be responded to by one or more comments urging the original poster to "RTFA", or Read The Fucking Article (adapted from RTFM). Personal verbal assaults on the Slashdot editors are extremely common. These are often expressed as trolls that accuse the Slashdot editors (for example Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda), open-source celebrities, etc. of being either homosexual, incompetent, or hopeless nerds. They are sometimes expressed as senryus. In the most extreme form, textual porn taken from random internet sites is rewritten to incorporate Slashdot editors. CmdrTaco's wife, Kathleen Malda, more commonly known by her maiden name of Fent, is a frequent target of these remarks.

A common "feature" on Slashdot is the prevalence of duplicate posts, an oft-made mistake by the Slashdot editors. Comments complaining about the duplication of current and past posts and even polls are common. Misspellings by the Slashdot editors are also very common. There are often posts making fun of this and indeed this is yet another recurring theme.

Trolling is very common on Slashdot, and there are a number of repeating trolls that are seen on the site. Similar to trolling is flamebaiting, which is also highly prevalent. The most common flamebaits on Slashdot are references to the Microsoft vs. Linux controversy. See Slashdot trolling phenomena.

Moderation

The Moderation system is an integral part of Slashdot, and has spawned a few common cliches on its own. Complaints about the moderators, or "mods" are common, and discussions about the fairness of certain moderations are often spawned as a result.

Karma whoring is a derogatory term for the posting of comments that do not add to the discussion but that are still likely to be modded up, doing so specifically to increase one's karma score. Like the term troll, karma whore can refer to the comment in question, the act of posting the comment, or the user responsible. While not malicious or deliberately disruptive, karma whoring is considered trolling because it distracts from more meaningful and informative comments.

The practice is a side effect of the karma system. Users earn karma when one of their comments is modded up. Users with a high karma score enjoy a higher status within the community and a default bonus to their comments' scores, resulting in higher comment visibility. Karma is designed to be a measure of the user's meaningful contributions to the discussion, since in theory it is meaningful comments that are modded up. In practice, some moderators will mod up comments simply because they agree with their opinion, and a user can sometimes collect karma points simply by stating an opinion that the majority of slashdotters agree with, without developing a full comment that would actually bring any new insight to the discussion. Many users consider this cheating, hence the derogatory term insisting that the user would do anything, even whore themselves out, for karma.

Other comments marked as karma whores are those in which a user pastes a verbatim copy of the featured article into a comment because the site that hosts the article is unavailable (usually due to the Slashdot effect). These comments are almost always modded up because they are genuinely helpful, but they are still derided as karma whores because any user could have created them, making it seem unfair that the karma boost should go to the particular user that did it first. This practice of pasting unavailable articles into comments has given rise to the article text alteration troll. To avoid being labeled as a karma whore, some users paste text of the article as an Anonymous Coward (thus not earning karma).

Slashdot Poll

The non-scientific Slashdot poll is usually updated a few times a week and polls Slashdotters on an array of technical and non-technical questions. On occasions when the poll goes for an extended time without an update snide remarks are sometimes posted about the need for a new poll.

The CowboyNeal option

Jon Pater, known in Slashdot by the handle CowboyNeal, is the frequent target of jokes. In the past, nearly all Slashdot polls contained what is called a "CowboyNeal" option, where one of the poll options is either "CowboyNeal" or some variant. See CowboyNeal.

You insensitive clod!

A common usage of this is in polls where a poll option accuses the person who framed the poll for giving an incomplete set of options. For example a poll on favorite genres of music might have an option saying "I'm deaf, you insensitive clod."

This particular running joke is also common among commenters, especially in the poll section. This type of post involves the poster of another comment being accused of being "an insensitive clod" for making an assumption about the troll's well-being; for example, in an article about which hand mouse-using people prefer, a troll will post a comment with the subject "I don't have any hands..." with the text "...you insensitive clod!". The distinction between troll and genuine grievance can become blurred, for example in the case of non-American slashdotters who believe Slashdot is too US-centric in its assumptions.

The most commonly accepted origin of this phrase appeared in the May 7, 2000 Simpsons episode "Last Tap Dance in Springfield". In the episode, the phrase is used when Professor Frink makes a pair of self-tap-dancing shoes for Lisa. After she dances, he points out that they were really in the "off" position, and that she had tap-danced by herself. Homer replies, "What are you talking about, Professor Frink? They're clearly in the 'on' position. See? 'On'." Professor Frink then says, "I was merely trying to spare the girl's feelings, you insensitive clod."

A much earlier example of the phrase came out of the first Calvin and Hobbes book, published in 1987.

Slashdot user stereotypes

Nerd stereotypes are extremely common on Slashdot. The most common stereotypes are:

That Slashdotters are male
That Slashdotters are single
That male Slashdotters have poor social skills, particularly in relating to women
That female Slashdotters are rare, non-existent, or in reality males hiding behind a feminine name
That Slashdotters spend inordinate amounts of time in front of computers
That Slashdotters have poor hygiene
Most Slashdotters usually live with their parents (often expressed as "living in their mothers' basements")

Complaints that the "typical Slashdot reader" would not understand a subject because of nerd stereotypes are common. The response may be "Why do people persist in using analogies so incomprehensible to the average Slashdotter?" when referring to one of the above points.

If someone questions an action or concept which appears ridiculous but is well-established on Slashdot, a wit may reply with "You must be new here!", indicating that only a newbie would not accept that ridiculous proposition as reasonable. It can also refer to the opposite - a practice that appears reasonable, but does not meet Slashdot standards. For example, it is common for people to post messages about an article without actually reading the article. This will sometimes receive a reply starting "Don't you people even read the article?" or similar. "You must be new here" is a common follow-up. The New Here user (id 701369) was created to provide standard "No, I'm New Here" responses to such posts and posted the somewhat historical Firefox 1.0 Released article.

Another Slashdot user stereotype is based on the pecking order created by the site's user ID system. Slashdot assigns a numeric ID, increasing over time, to users who create a username and password in order to post comments without being labeled an Anonymous Coward. Thus, users with a low (one- to four-digit) numeric ID, who began visiting Slashdot in its early days, sometimes view themselves as more elite than the masses of five- or six-digit ID-bearing newcomer rubes. Indeed, a comment may sometimes receive greater respect from readers because the poster carries a low numeric ID.

Orwellian and other political themes

Orwellian fears of totalitarianism are a recurring theme. Slashdotters are very concerned with privacy issues, and in fact, references to Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four are often seen. These types of posts are most often found in the "Your Rights Online" section of Slashdot.

Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt

The Slashdot community has a love/hate relationship with certain technology corporations. Much of this is directly related to the (presumed) popularity of Linux within Slashdot. (But some claim that browser statistics show that a majority of Slashdot posters in fact don't run Linux but instead Microsoft operating systems.)

The phrase "Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt", often shortened to FUD, is often used to ascribe a propaganda-like character to actions or statements by corporations. Most often, this is used when describing either Microsoft Corporation or The SCO Group. This has more recently been applied to the ADTI.

Microsoft is a long-standing target by Slashdotters for criticism. Common criticisms include that Microsoft's products are unstable, have poor security, or have Big Brother-like attributes.

The SCO Group is often targeted for criticism as a result of its claim that "Linux is, in material part, an unauthorized derivative of UNIX" (SCO letter to its Linux customers, 12 May 2003). SCO has asserted broad rights to the intellectual property of Unix, and thus also claims rights over Linux. SCO is attempting to enforce and defend its rights through a series of lawsuits, including ongoing litigation with IBM. SCO brought on the wrath of Slashdotters for, among other things, attempting to charge a fee of $699 for "authorized" copies of Linux. As a result, replies to Linux articles will often contain the semi-serious joke that the poster owes SCO some amount of money. (See SCO v. IBM.)

The Alexis de Tocqueville Institute (ADTI) has recently become the target of jokes since its president Ken Brown published a report entitled Samizdat which claimed that Linus Torvalds was not the original creator of Linux, but rather that Linux is a derivative of Minix, a claim which is disputed by many, including Andrew S. Tanenbaum, the creator of Minix.

Transnational politics

Slashdot is based in the United States, and uses English, so its readership is predominantly American and as a result the articles have a US-centric view. It seems that many US Slashdot editors and users are Democrats or Libertarians. The overall tone of the political articles is often demeaning towards social conservatives. Editors have posted articles on topics such as neo-conservatism or the idea that Bush stole the 2000 election. On the other hand many of the users are from Europe and other continents. Although there have been occasional slings towards France, in general French posters are treated well and their opinions are respected.

Tinfoil Hat

Often, a poster will refer to his or her "tinfoil hat", referring to someone who is overly concerned with privacy issues, or is a conspiracy theorist. For instance, in response to an article about putting GPS transponders in cell phones, a poster might say "Excuse me while I put on my tinfoil hat, but I don't want the government to track my every move!"

"Tinfoil hat" can also be used in an ironic sense, for example, "What if they started putting GPS transponders in Tinfoil hats?".

Welcoming Our New Overlords

The sycophant type of troll is based on a quote from the newscaster character Kent Brockman of The Simpsons. In one episode of the show (episode number 96, Deep Space Homer), Brockman watches a video broadcast from a space capsule, within which a number of ants have accidentally been released. The ants appear huge because they float directly in front of the broadcast camera and close to the lens. He mistakenly assumes that alien insects are invading Earth and attempts to ingratiate himself to them by broadcasting propaganda: "I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords."

Subsequent to this Simpsons episode, variants of the phrase came into common use in 2002-2003, generally used to suggest that whatever party referred to as the new overlords is engaging in Orwellian behavior. For example, in a hypothetical post referring to Deep Blue and its variants, one might post, "I, for one, welcome our new chess-playing robotic overlords."

In Soviet Russia

In these posts, trolls usually begin their comments with the subject "IN SOVIET RUSSIA" (all capitals) and typically proceed to reverse the order of words in that story's headline, usually changing the verb slightly to maintain subject/verb agreement and changing the object of the sentence to the second-person "YOU!". Thus, '[subject][verb][object]' usually becomes 'IN SOVIET RUSSIA, [object][verb] YOU!'

The nature of the joke, when done correctly, is such that the noun contains a different and Communist meaning in the latter part of the joke than in the former. The original "in Soviet Russia" joke, by comedian Yakov Smirnoff goes "In America, you can always find a party. In Soviet Russia, The Party can always find you!" The implication is that the latter use of the noun "party" implies the Communist Party, and refers to pervasiveness of the Communist party in Soviet Russia. Whether the members of Slashdot's audience who make these jokes have direct familiarity with Smirnoff's comedy act (which includes much observational humor about the Soviet Union which doesn't fit the word-reversal pattern) is doubtful, since this particular faction of the Slashdot community likely recalls the cold war as only a childhood memory. A likely vector for the introduction of the Soviet Russia joke is a Family Guy episode in which the family tries out an in-car voice navigation system, which has Yakov Smirnoff as one of the preprogrammed voices, uttering the one-liner "in Soviet Russia, car drives you!"

One Slashdot article announcing that a Russian minister had turned the tables on spammers by flooding their email inspired a number of Soviet Russia jokes, mainly because the article was about an incident that took place in Russia that involved an ironic reversal, the very meaning of the Soviet Russia joke.

Many variants of this troll have been created, for instance: "IN NAZI GERMANY/You get SHOT for [doing something]!", among others.

Technical humor

As Slashdot is a gathering ground for those interested in things technical, it is inevitable that a highly advanced sense of technical humor has arisen. Often, this humor is a reference to a past event in geek history, and is often inane and obscure.

Beowulf cluster

Whenever a story mentioning a new gadget (preferably one with networking capabilities) is posted on Slashdot, it will often be proposed that the power of a Beowulf cluster of the new gadgets would be incredible. Such comments are generally prefaced with "Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these things!" This type of troll actually began as a parody of sincere posts frequently made in stories about new computers back when the concept of Beowulf clusters first entered the technological mainstream.

Apple's Xgrid clustering solution was announced on Slashdot just as this phenomenon was dying, sparking fears that this might mutate into a new flood of posts declaring, "Imagine an Xgrid of these things!"

Terminal Humor

There is a small body of humor on Slashdot revolving around the idiosyncrasies of certain text-based terminals. These jokes require knowledge of arcane or archaic text-based terminals.

"NO CARRIER" is a response printed by a modem if it loses its connection. It is usually used to truncate a sentence, implying that some disaster has befallen the author or their computer. This joke goes back to the early days of USENET. This is used most often in the context of a user accidentally severing his connection, or in the context of the authorities silencing someone during an online exchange.

The full sequence, for full effect, is

  +++ATH
  NO CARRIER

a memorial to one of the first really intrusive software patents.

^H represents the key combination control-h, which on Linux/UNIX systems types a backspace. When a user has a misconfigured console the backspace key will sometimes actually print ^H instead of deleting a character. This can lead to embarrassing admissions when a word a user means to delete is left in a message followed by a series of ^H's. Jokes are often made on Slashdot in reference to this bug^H^H^Hfeature. These jokes provide a funny way for users to reveal their true thoughts and to make subtle comments.

A more concise alternative sometimes seen is ^W, which is the shortcut to delete the previous word in the Berkeley Unix terminal line discipline. One ^W can replace a whole string of ^H's. This shortcut has also made it into Emacs and its imitator text editors. For really embarassing blunders, ^U (kill line) can outdo a whole line of ^W.

Older teletypes did not have a backspace and used # for erase, and @ for kill line.

Buffering

"Buffering" is a response to any topic related to streaming media, particularly RealPlayer. The post features a sentence or paragraph broken by "...BUFFERING..." strings, imitating a streaming media program on a poor connection.

Doom3

Slashdotters often use the heavy hardware requirements of Doom 3 to make fun of supercomputers. For example, in an article about a new supercomputer, someone may joke by saying "But does it run Doom3?"

In August of 2004, Doom 3 was released. The system requirements weren't that bad.

Duke Nukem Forever (DNF)

Duke Nukem Forever is a game with a release date that has changed for years. Slashdotters often compare a timeline to DNF's timeline. For example, in an article about a product that appears to be vaporware, someone will post a "But will it come out before DNF?" Often, DNF is referred to as "Duke Nukem Whenever" or "Duke Nukem If Ever", referring to the many changes in release dates. Also, a prediction given by either a poster or someone quoted in a news story as to the availability of a new technology/app will be given the rhetorical question: "Can they also tell us when Duke Nukem Forever will be released?"

Search and Replacement

Sometimes, a post or quote from an article can be written vaguely enough that it could easily refer to something else. While the target of the article is explicitly stated elsewhere, some Slashdotters use search and replacement syntax to describe the switching of one concept to another, usually to make the original article more amusing.

"Just s/WMD/DNF/ and maybe they'll come up with something!"

The Slashdot effect

Some jokes are made on the Slashdot_effect and the fact that the linked website is dead. Like when a company announces a new storage medium with twice the capacity someone will write:

"They should have announced a new webserver with twice the capacity."

(Usually followed by "Thank you, I'm here all week!".)

References to pop culture

Business plans

This troll is based upon a business plan featured in an episode of the animated television show South Park, in which a community of Underpants Gnomes have a three step business plan, consisting of:

Collect underpants
???
Profit!to have performed some questionable action, a false business plan based on this template is often proposed in jest, with this action as the first step.

Obligatory

There are certain topics to which posters will post an "obligatory" post in reference to a certain element of pop culture.

On any article using metric measurments, someone will always quote Grampa from The Simpsons: "The metric system is the tool of the devil! My car gets forty rods to the hogshead and that's the way I likes it." Invariably, somebody else will actually do the calculation and point out that the car in question would get a mileage of 504 gallons per mile.

On any article about printing or paper, someone will quote Office Space and say, "'PC Load Letter'!? What the fuck does that mean?!"

On any article about passwords, someone will quote the movie Spaceballs and say, "The Password is: 1...2...3...4...5" followed by "That’s the combination to my luggage!"

On most articles about a future storage medium with relatively huge capacity, someone will invariably comment on what a huge amount of porn you could fit on such a large device.

Star Wars

Posters often make references to the line "That's no moon... that's a space station" (from the movie Star Wars and referring to the Death Star) whenever a story involves a moon or space station, particularly Saturn's moon Mimas, which has a distinctive crater.
Another frequently quoted line is "I find your lack of faith disturbing" (by Darth Vader in the movie Star Wars), applicable in any discussion on Star Wars when in reply to some critical opinion, including being used humorously when a reader wonders whether or not the Slashdot effect can bring down a specific website.
Also, when discussing movies, a common joke is to 'reveal' that Darth Vader is Luke's father. (And to reply in mock astonishment to this spoiler.)
Posters also like referring to the mysterious Jedi ability of convincing someone to do something (Jedi mind trick) in reference to other seemingly magical events that happen between businesses, people, and technology.
Story of "Greedo shot first !"
In addition to the Jedi ability of suggestion ( "mind trick" ), people often quote and deliberately misquote Obi-Wan Kenobi using this still at the Mos Eisley space port to hide his droids. The original phrase "These are not the droids you are looking for..." is often altered to fit the current discussion topic, with the word droids replaced by files, servers, kiwis, etcetera.

... in Japan!

Frequently, Slashdot articles involve news that, to a technical audience, seems unrealistic and plain odd. Examples are the claims of Kenneth Brown of the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution questioning the origins of the Linux kernel, the all-out lawsuit of SCO against IBM and anything else which doesn't make sense. It is believed that by postfixing the phrase "in Japan!" anything will make sense and seem real, yet still very distant and alien. This is in reference to the odd items and cultural phenomena that can be found in Japan and are considered normal, such as USB heated blankets, Hello Kitty vibrators and Domo-kun. For example, the article might state that Duke Nukem Forever will be released next summer. In that case, there will be some comments such as "Duke Nukem Forever will be released tomorrow ... in Japan!" This meme is believed to have started in this discussion.

Other references

When referring to someone's boss on Slashdot, it is common to refer to him or her as one's Pointy-Haired Boss, or PHB. This is a reference to the Dilbert comic strip, in which co-workers refer to their boss who does, indeed, have pointy hair. This notation usually indicates the boss in question as incompetent and not level with the technical staff.

The Chewbacca Defense is occasionally mentioned or quoted in discussion of legal affairs, usually cases involving Microsoft, SCO, or the RIAA; the implication of such a reference being that their legal arguments make no sense. This is also based on a South Park episode in which Johnny Cochran is the music industry's lawyer. His argument is "Chewbacca lives on Endor. He's the only Wookie on Endor and is surrounded by Ewoks. Now, that does not make sense."

Recurring jokes

Periodically when a new product is reviewed on Slashdot, some may post a comment asking an irrelevant question which cannot be applied to the product in question. An example might include asking whether or not a new model of toaster runs Linux or supports Ogg media, even when this is obviously inappropriate.

Filks are unofficial songs created by taking an existing well-known song and making a new set of lyrics for it. Though this is a relatively infrequently used trope, the Slashdot equivalent is to produce an on-topic song about the subject at hand - for example, a song about the SCO Linux lawsuit conflict caused some trolls to produce variations on Eminem's song "The Real Slim Shady", entitled "The Real UNIX Owner".

Haiku poems relating to the discussion are occasionally written, though they seem to have fallen out of favor, one will occasionally see one pop up.

The phrase "All your base are belong to us" is common, and is based on an interesting translation used in the English version of the Japanese video game Zero Wing.

When any of the above recurring jokes actually makes sense in respect to the article, an "Oh, never mind" like post is obligatory. For example in an article about a new handheld that runs Linux an obligatory post will be "But does it run Linux? Oh, wait...".

In some discussions, especially those about new or old hardware, often people post humorous "When I was your age..." type complaints, which parody such statements through extreme hyperbole. The original poster might say "When I was your age we didn't have X11, we did everything through the console". After several successive replies, each more unpleasant and unlikely than the last, a poster may complain that they walked to school "In the snow uphill both ways without gloves... and we liked it". This most likely has its origins in the Monty Python Four Yorkshiremen sketch.