From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
The Slashdot subculture is a mixture 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.
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.
Personal verbal assaults on the slashdot editors are extremely common.
These are often expressed as trolls that accuse the Slashdot editors (for example Commander Taco), 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.
A common "feature" on Slashdot is the prevalence of duplicate posts, an oft-made mistake by the slashdot editors. Comments complaining about the duplicity of current and past posts and even polls are common. Misspellings by the Slashdot editors are also very common and there are often posts making fun of this, and indeed this is yet another recurring theme.
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.
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. For example, if the poll was "What kind of vehicle do you drive?", the CowboyNeal option may be "CowboyNeal", or "CowboyNeal drives my limo" or even "I ride CowboyNeal's handlebars." This has spread outside of the poll and often jokes will be seen referencing CowboyNeal. Since the former poll editor stopped being in charge of approving polls the CowboyNeal option has been noticeably absent, instead being replaced with a more generic silly option, or even not having a replacement.
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 a post 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.
This troll is based upon a fictitious business plan concocted on the animated television show South Park, in which a community of underground gnomes have a three step business plan, consisting of:
For Slashdot stories where an individual or organisation is alleged to have performed some controversial action, an Anonymous Coward will inevitably post a false business plan based on this template, with the controversial action as the first step.
The sycophant type of troll is based on a quote from the fictional newscaster character Kent Brockman of The Simpsons television show. In one episode of the show, 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 sketch, variants of the phrase began appearing on Slashdot whenever a particularly nasty organism was discovered, or a litigious company claimed ownership of anything/everything.
Most often found in the "Your Rights Online" section of Slashdot.
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 based on a South Park episode.
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 California, 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.
A recent Slashdot article announcing that an official in the Russian government 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.
Quite frequently (especially for BSD-related stories) a comment will be posted providing dubious statistics and many links detailing the forthcoming death of the BSD operating system. With its bogus statistics and inflammatory language the original "*BSD is dying" troll was enormously successful, and was still guaranteed to generate responses years after it first appeared. Not surprisingly, many variants of this troll were created: Slashdot/VA Linux/Linux/BeOS/Apple (see examples below) is dying, and even elaborate poetry and song. None were as successful as the original.
Whenever a story mentioning a new gadget 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!"
"NO CARRIER", commonly known as a telephone line modem error response code, is usually used to truncate a positive statement about a product and make it look like something bad has happened with the product mentioned.
This joke dates back from BBS times: some terminal emulator programs had an amusing bug where when they saw the text "NO CARRIER" at the beginning of a line, they would stop listening to the modem and hang up.
Natalie Portman is a popular target for the affections of many Slashdot trolls. When referring to her, they frequently profess their endless love for a statue of the naked and petrified actress, preferably covered in hot grits. Naked and Petrified is now such an infamous troll that it virtually epitomizes Slashdot trolling, and is often referred to and parodied in Slashdot comments. Other incarnations of the troll suggest that Natalie Portman pours hot grits into their underwear.
Used simply as an off-topic troll or even a red herring the American writer, Stephen King, has his very own subculture repeating the myth of his death:
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.
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.
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 ontopic 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".
Complaints that the "typical slashdot reader" would not understand a subject because it would require social skills or a sex life, e.g., in response to Getting spammed is like getting herpes. All it takes is one person, one time, one place. the response may be "Why do people persist in using analogies so incomprehensible to the average Slashdotter?"
Trolling and Flamebaiting
Personal assaults on Slashdot editors
Misspellings and Duplicate Posts
Slashdot Poll
The CowboyNeal Option
You insensitive clod!
References to Pop Culture
Business plans
None of the Underpants Gnomes know what the second step is, and all of them assume that someone else within the organization does.Welcoming our overlords
The Chewbacca Defense
IN SOVIET RUSSIA
Technical humor
*BSD is dying
Beowulf cluster
NO CARRIER
Recurring, off-topic jokes
Natalie Portman, naked and petrified with hot grits
Sad news ... Stephen King, author, dead at 54
Another recent version is based around political figure Saddam Hussein:Irrelevant questions
You must be new here!
Filks
Nerd stereotype
Miscellaneous
External Links
