Interview with Timothy Lord about Slashdot

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in internet on (#1PQ0D)
FossForce has an interesting video interview with Timothy Lord:
The original Slashdot crew was declared redundant in early 2016 by the site's latest owner, Slashdot Media. Timothy Lord was the last of the early Slashdot editors to be let go, and has posted more stories on Slashdot than anyone else, ever, so we turned to him to learn how and why Slashdot helped the FOSS movement grow and eventually infiltrate mainstream IT.
The questions are mainly geared toward FOSS, but he does talk about "news for nerds" and explains the role that discussion sites, such as Slashdot, played in the community.

What form do you think discussion sites of the future will be? Will everyone still be staring at Facebook feeds and Twitter tweets in 20 years? Do human curated story sites (slash-like) have advantages over generic link sharing sites (like reddit, digg)? Or is every site just regurgitating the same generic news year after year and it doesn't really matter what form it takes?
Reply 2 comments

On the way down (Score: 2, Insightful)

by genericuser@pipedot.org on 2016-08-07 16:54 (#1PS6E)

I think slashdot, like a lot of forums or discussion sites, is on the way down. It'll still exist for years and years but the original audience is dying off (literally, in some cases).

I've run dozens and dozens of forums, some of them going on 20 years now, and they have a lifespan that frequently seems to run in parallel with the users. People gain interest in a subject, seek out a discussion forum for it, and then participate for some period of time. After a while (anywhere from a month to 10 or 15 years) their interest wanes and they taper off or depart entirely. Interestingly, they are often not replaced by a fresh cop of newcomers. Either the subject is no longer relevant or new, more trendy forums pop up that attract new users, or other sources for the same information appear, drawing users away. The same info can often be found elsewhere

I've seen this happen repeatedly. Slashdot has a pretty entrenched footprint, but I don't see the traffic and lively discussions that I used to. The rise of dedicated trolls and off-topic junk, mixed with racism and flaming doesn't help either. Anything is possible but I predict a slow and steady decline overall in sites like slashdot. There will always be a place for discussion sites but the need isn't as great as it used to be.

Slashdot? (Score: 1)

by fishybell@pipedot.org on 2016-08-07 18:07 (#1PSAR)

Wow. It's been such a long time that I've been to /. that I'd completely forgotten about it. It was good when it was good, but the "look how rich I am" speech was the beginning of the end. RIP Slashdot.