Slashdot Notes

Ok, two things today. First is that I've actually finally almost finished designing the Slashdot T-Shirts. They are basically the logo you see next to this story, and will available soon. If you are definately going to be buying a shirt, I'd like you to email BEP so we can figure out how many of these buggers to print. We're open to suggestions (mugs, hats, stickers etc) so feel free to express interest in these sorts of items as well.

The second note is a bit trickier- it pertains to credit on articles on Slashdot. A lot of egos have been bruised, and I just want to explain things so nobody else gets angry. Hit the link below to read more.

Ok, here's the deal. At least once a day, usually more, I get a message from an unhappy reader who saw a story that they submitted, but it was posted with someone else's name on it. Let me list reasons that this might have happened:

• Often a dozen people submit an article within minutes of each other. I usually don't give credit when this happens just because it seems like splitting hairs. This is often the case on things like new Linux Kernel releases, or when something major floats accross a mailing list and half the list forwards it to me. I designate these by saying 'lots of people sent this' or something similiar.
• You sent it in, but didn't put a good subject on the submission. If you subject is 'Damn it...' I may not read it for several hours. Make those subjects clear, because if I see a submission 'Hey Cool!' and another one that says 'Gimp 1.0 released', guess which one I'm going to read first. I get hundreds of these things each day, make my life a litle easier. I have 50 submissions right now waiting to be read as soon as I finish writing this little blurb. If I only posted stories when I was caught up, I'd post much fewer stories!
• It is very possible that somebody else sent it in before you, and even though an article got posted 24 hours after you sent it in, somebody else may have submitted it before you.
• The most common scenario involves one of the other authors (typically Hemos, Sengan or Justin) who find an article and post it on their own, despite the fact that someone has already submitted it to me. Those guys don't see the big list of submissions- really I only do, so if they find it and post it, they won't credit you. This happens at least every couple days, and I'm sorry that you don't get to see your name on Slashdot, but there is nothing I can do. If more than one person maintained the big list of submissions, it would be very very tricky, so for now this system allows me to post most of the news, but when I'm unavailable, the other guys can post cool stuff to. This means that you get stories faster, and hopefully more regularly, but sometimes you may not see your name. I guess all I can say is maybe next time.

Anyway, in summary, I post maybe 3% of the total number of submissions we get, so it's not even close to a guarantee- I apologize to the people who occasionally email and complain, but please remember that I'm doing my best, and doing I hope I'm doing a good job. I figure if I have 300 submissions, and I post 10, that means I have 290 people who didn't get their name posted on Slashdot. If only 1 person complains, that's a pretty good success rate *grin*. All I can do is my best, and I'll keep doing that.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.