Slashdot Edit Meaning

1.

One of the earliest and arguably most successful examples of Internet democracy. The self-proclaimed "news for geeks" site (this can have a bad connotation for some, and a good one for others) features news that may have interest to Internet junkies. Unlike the dictatorship-like models that most web sites use, Slashdot is a functional democracy. The officials post news, and it is commented upon by users. However, some also believe that this use of democracy is also a bad thing. Slashdot is somewhat famous for its irrelevant and highly opinionated comments from members. Oftentimes, the information presented by said members is inaccurate and based on incorrect understanding. This has led to heated discussions as to whether or not Slashdot, is in fact, a viable democracy; however, thus far, it appears that the answer is for the most part "yes". It does, in fact, function as a democracy, as flame-ridden and questionable as its comments may be. Those who expect a site lacking boilerplate may be disappointed, but so far, no other Internet democracy has been as successfully active as Slashdot. While mumblings about more sites fashioned off it have been heard, most of such sites fail because they do not realize that democracy does not necessarily mean quality. It is a lesson that Slashdot teaches, however revolutionary it may be.

"Slashdot is a good example of Internet democracy and democracy in general. It reminds people that democracy is a lot more difficult than it may sound." -The Unwritten Book of Internetisms, 2001

2.

A website visited by tech monkeys which posts articles of geek interest from other sites and encourages discussion of said articles.

As a verb: When a web site seriously disabled or compromised by the flood of visitors from slashdot, the site is said to be slashdotted.

Anandtech posted geforceFX benchmarks and was swiftly slashdotted.

See bean

3.

*******************

SLASHDOT

*******************

News for Nerds. Stuff that matters.

Slashdot (/.) is a news site and forum for nerds and the tech community to read and discuss nerdy related material, usually the articles consist of information technology, open source software and science fiction or other nerdy and delightfully brainy topics.

Have you checked out the article on the new Linux kernel updates on slashdot yet?

4.

When used as a verb: A site that has been slashdotted has been overwhelmed with visitors to the point that it is overwhelmed and goes down for a period of time.

As a noun: A website that posts news for geeks and similar types.

My site got slashdotted because a download I hosted was in very high demand.

Slashdot just posted an article about the new Geforce 6800 series.

See Miroku

5.

A reference to the root (top most) directoryon a Unix system (written as "/."). This is normally used when logged in as the root user, as it can be a security threat to have the root directory as part of root's path. This was borrowed as the name for the popular news site "slashdot".

"cd /." goes to the root directory.

See Brian

6.

A large news discussion site for geeks.

slashdot

Did you see that article on slashdot yesterday?

See Will