Dammit Slashdot!

[giza]

I see this yesterday in response to a story suubmission I made:

2005-11-02 21:39:42 SGI stock faces delisting (Index,Silicon Graphics) (rejected)

Followed by this today:

Silicon Graphics To Be Delisted From NYSE Posted by Zonk on 09:25 AM November 3rd, 2005

So let me get this straight... I submit a story, it gets rejected. Then Slashdot turns around and posts the same story a day later. Really, what's up with that? Between this and all the dupes, I'm starting to wonder if they use any formal process at all for reviewing story submissions.

Comments

[lionman.livejournal.com]

Maybe Zonk just submitted his article before yours, and yours was rejected because it was a dupe?

[giza.livejournal.com]

Actually, Zonk is the editor who posts submitted articles. But anyway...

I submitted my article yesterday evening (time is in GMT) and it was rejected within half an hour or so. If the article was really submitted before mine, then it means that they sat on it for the greater part of a day, which also makes no sense.

[lionman.livejournal.com]

Perhaps Zonk hadn't had his coffee/caffine for the morning yet and rejected you out of hand because he wasn't thinking yet? :-)

Yeah, I know how you feel, it's daunting, particularly when they decide to post about it later.

[giza.livejournal.com]

If it was an isolated incident, then yeah, I'd STFU. But as a regular reader, I've seen other complaints, along with complaints about dupes, spelling mistakes, and poor editing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slashdot_subculture#Duplicate_.22dupe.22_posts_and_poor_editing). In some cases, the editor's don't even read the submissions.

Here's a good one (http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/10/23/1212252). Slashdot posted a link for an event that took place on October 22nd... on October 23rd! The submission SAID October 22 right on it, and CmdrTaco just didn't read it! And this is a "journalism" site?

Then there's an ongoing controversy of an apparent inappropriate relationship (http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=134092&threshold=1&commentsort=0&tid=126&tid=1&mode=thread&cid=11192313) that Slashdot has with one "Roland Piquepaille". The post I linked to explains more of the problem.

So anyway, I have a lot of complaints with Slashdot, and this latest thing was the straw that broke my back. :-/

[unciaa.livejournal.com]

Dude, that pales in the face of the evil Blizzard making him change his character name because he couldn't be bothered to follow their policy. Focus on what's -important-.

[giza.livejournal.com]

F*ck. You're right. What was I thinking?

[balinares.livejournal.com]

Well, perhaps your submission was refused by another editor, given that the story is borderline-dupe of an earlier one, and then someone else submitted it later and Zonk approved it.

And yeah, I'd be surprised if they have an actual submission reviewing process. I mean, gee, it's Slashdot. It's consistently unabashed about its suckage. That's what I like about it. :)

[giza.livejournal.com]

> Well, perhaps your submission was refused by another editor, given that the story
> is borderline-dupe of an earlier one,

It is? If that was the case, they could have like, incidated that to me. When all I have to see is "rejected", I have no idea what was wrong with it. Did I have bad grammar, not write a good enough summary, or was it just a dupe? If there's no feedback system in place for rejected submissions, it makes it very hard for submitters to know what Slashdot wants/expects.

> and then someone else submitted it later and Zonk approved it.

And this would indicate a lack of communication among editors, whether it be verbal or through a tracking system.

That's fine when it's a small site being run part time. But when it's a full time venture which, to many people, represents the open source movement, more professionalism is called for. Regularly posting dupes and not performing basic fact checking just doesn't cut it, especially when a you're doing it as a full time job.

[balinares.livejournal.com]

Oh, yeah, I agree... They really SHOULD given a modicum of explanation when rejecting a story, and the editing is, to put it mildly... somewhat substandard. I gave up on it as a serious news site a good while ago.

In fact, I enjoy it a whole lot more since I stopped taking it seriously. It's just a large number of geeks geeking around about various geeky topics, all wrapped in a somewhat sucky package. Nothing worth my money, and only a little of my time.

You're right about it being a pity that it sort of represents the open source movement, though. Then... There's no beating professionalism into some people, y'know. If you find a better news tech site with a good moderation system, please lemme know. :)

[lionman.livejournal.com]

The one thing I do about /. that you might consider: Don't equate it with actual journalism. They aren't atually going out and getting news and saying, 'Hey, look at this, it's cool!' They're letting Joe Reader do the work and then as you point out, not even doing a good job of getting that organized and put out.

Real journalism is where you go get the news, organize the facts and put forth a product that is at least moderately unique. /. doesn't really do that.

But, that's just my take on it. I like the discussion and opinion citing that arises out of some of the posts there. And, for someone who wants to see technical news in one place, it's better than a sharp stick in the eye.

[giza.livejournal.com]

If you have any recommendations for tech news sites that don't suck, I'm all ears.

One thing I do like about Slashdot is the moderated comments section. It's nice to be able to read comments on the story from real people who draw on their experiences, I like the perspective it provides.

[wesha.livejournal.com]

techdirt.com ?

[doco.livejournal.com]

I'd point to heise, but their English section is mostly bollocks...

[greenreaper.livejournal.com]

You didn't put the title in caps. What did you expect? :-)

[netcrimes.livejournal.com]

They're a bunch of doofuses, Tigs.