About the Jihad

Guiding Principles

We are in jihad against the editors of slashdot. We will not stop until our demands our met. Until that time, we will conduct civil disobedience on slashdot by constantly pointing out the editors' transgressions and discrediting slashdot as a news site.

The Case Against Slashdot

Slashdot Operates Under False Pretenses

Slashdot claims to be a free and open haven on the net. A place for geeks to catch up on the latest news, and read interesting opinions about it. Instead, it is rife with behind-the-curtains moderation and subversive actions taken against accounts.

The editors are well known for their abuses. The canonical example is documented here. A post which detailed troubling trends in moderation on slashdot was modded up by many moderators. Slashdot's editors secretly banned each and every moderator who modded the post up from moderating again on slashdot.

The Editors Are Unqualified

The editors of slashdot are unfit for the positions they hold. Above all, they lack journalistic integrity. The news posted is often factually incorrect, and is always slanted by the opinions of the editors. Their ineptitude in every aspect of the job crops up constantly. They are horrible programmers, incompetent sysadmins, and make elementary spelling and grammatical errors, and the quality of the site reflects this.

This problem produces a number of symptoms. Most notably, the competent readership is driven away. This is the group that has something to offer to slashdot- informative comments, wise moderations, etc. However, they are driven away by the site's amateur execution and moronic readership.

Moderation Sucks

Comments are judged by popular opinion. This means that anything that sounds smart gets the stamp of approval, which means that complete nonsense is promoted. While this may sound like a small point, consider that Slashdot is one of the most popular geek sites around. To a young, uneducated programmer, this sort of misinformation is extremely harmful.

Slashcode Sucks

The site is powered by a crappy backend. It produces ugly (both visually and syntactically), bloated, non-validating HTML. Instead of streamlining the code, the staff just throws more hardware at the problem, then scratches its collective head when the problems don't just go away. The editors are more interested in making money through ad revenue and subscriptions than saving money in bandwidth and hardware costs. They are too busy blacklisting those with differing opinions to make actual improvements to the site.

Slashdot is immensely popular in the geek community. It is seen as the online voice of the Linux community. It should be an example of how one can bring together powerful open-source tools and create a low-cost, efficient, standards-embracing website. It should be what every Linux geek can proudly point to, and say "this is how it should be done." Instead, we have the steaming pile that is Slashdot. Thanks, guys.

Our Demands

The jihad will cease when the following conditions are met:

• Slashdot posts a front page story regarding the infamous censored post and acknowledges the clandestine ban of moderators who supported the post.
• The editors of slashdot institute policies that ensure the actions of all posters, moderators, and editors are always completely transparent
• The editors show journalistic integrity in the production of slashdot.