Andy Carvin wrote: > Hi Phil, > > I'm honestly not sure if Slashdot is the community we should be > targeting. Frankly, I find a lot of the "conversation" that takes > place on Slashdot as shrill and rude. It's a huge website, sure, but I > don't care for some of the interpretations of "community" that seem to > arise from the nasty arguments that take place there. > > ac
Slashdot is not known as a 'tolerant' community - and that's no reflection on the people involved, though I do have my opinions on Slashdot itself which are not relevant to this discussion. I've had email discussions with CommanderTaco, and I've physically met a few people who belong to the group of websites which Slashdot is one of. They aren't bad people, but it would be dishonest to say that they don't profit from overexuberant techies who aren't known for being tolerant. Because Slashdot *is* a business, they have a market segment - which they admit is U.S.-centric: http://slashdot.org/faq/editorial.shtml#ed850 U.S.-centric isn't bad, but it certainly does leave out the majority of the world. Sure, everyone around the world can read what is being posted on Slashdot (if the story is accepted), but the stories are U.S. centric, and they are U.S. centric to the point of neglecting stories that are worthwhile from around the world. I know, I've submitted stories from 'unimportant countries', and have email discussions in my archives from CommanderTaco to prove it. :-) Slashdot is what it is, and serves a purpose for centralizing less than friendly two-sided monologues (mistakenly called discussion) so that it happens less elsewhere. :-) Then, there's the 'Omelette' concept (http://slashdot.org/faq/editorial.shtml#ed900 ), which I am familiar with as a former editor for Linux Gazette. The front page, or the stories for a day, are mainly picked for businesses to assure a 'good mix' for... increasing traffic. Standard business procedure, really, and nothing wrong with it. But good stories also slip by because of this - and will continue to. Slashdot has a great 'Omelette' for it's target audience. As Phil points out, Slashdot gets about 18 million unique visitors. But the demographics of these unique visitors are worth investigating. Who reads Slashdot? Think about that by viewing the omelette, and as Andy points out - the comments. What's the 'Omelette' for the Digital Divide? I think DigitalDivide.net provides a better 'Omelette' for Digital Divide issues than anywhere else, though at times even it seems skewed... but the skew is self-correcting, *unlike* Slashdot. Slashdot isn't a community publication, it's a publication for the community. Big difference. DigitalDivide.net is more of a community publication. As an interesting sidenote, check out http://barrapunto.com/ for a Spanish site sort of like Slashdot. Projection of Slashdot.org that expect 50-100 million visitors per month... I don't believe it; I know how much traffic they have gotten in the past through discussions with Robin Miller (who I keep bumping into around the globe). Such projections are not conservative, IMHO. ;-) Getting a site - especially an NGO site - Slashdotted (commonly referred to as '/.') can also be a problem because it costs money in web hosting to sustain a Slashdot link. Doc Searls has a similar effect when he posts links from his weblog; it becomes more of a problem for people working within the Digital Divide because they don't usually make money off of website traffic - oddly enough, too much website traffic can be a liability for some sites. Money isn't gained from that sort of traffic. Global Voices (http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/globalvoices/ ) is worth paying attention to, though I am on the verge of being a vocal critic of it as well because it seems like there is an 'Omelette' with Global Voices. In the end, if you have a story that you think is worth being Slashdotted, go for it. But remember the audience of Slashdot is more oriented to U.S. only news, in English alone, and for the technical 'haves'. And also remember that the Omelette works against the majority of stories, and limits visibility to what the editors think is worth being visible *for* *Slashdot*. -- Taran Rampersad Presently in: Georgetown, Guyana [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.knowprose.com http://www.easylum.net http://www.digitaldivide.net/profile/Taran "Criticize by creating." — Michelangelo _______________________________________________ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
