The Jim Rutt Show

Currents 013: Rob Malda on the Slashdot Story


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Rob Malda (AKA: CmdrTaco) talks to Jim about the history & tech of Slashdot while speculating on what social media could learn from it.
In this Currents episode, Jim talks to Rob Malda (AKA: CmdrTaco) about the history & creation of Slashdot, its opensource tech, rapid growth & eventual decline, unique moderation system & community involvement, utilization of scarcity, the down-side of open rating systems, the game theory of social media & the evolution of manipulation tactics, moderation trade-offs, the advantages of having a niche audience, implementing innovations inspired by Word of Warcraft, the sheer complexity of the moderation problem, what led to Slashdot's downfall, and more.
Episode Transcript
Rob's podcast, Geeks in Space
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Rob Malda, also known as CmdrTaco, is an American Internet content author, and former editor-in-chief of the website Slashdot. After that, he spent his time writing, consulting, and working at the Washington Post’s Labs for a couple years. Today, he’s interested in news aggregation, community moderation, and pretty much all the nerdy techy subject matter he covered at Slashdot.
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The Jim Rutt ShowBy The Jim Rutt Show