The Slashdot Effect Investigated

Grenamier writes "Stephen Adler analysed his httpd logs after he published some papers and had mentions made of them on Slashdot, freshmeat.org and linuxtoday.org. The results showed a pretty dramatic demonstration of the Slashdot Effect. " Where's the part where servers melt? Anyway, this amused me so I figured I'd share.

Slashdot Effect is a Wired Jargon

[gavinhall]

Posted by hansc:

Did anyone notice that in the latest issue of Wired, the Slashdot Effect made it in as one of the Wired Jargon terms.

--
Proud member of SVLUG

/. effect

[tgd]

Even casual references to a website on slashdot generates a noticeable jump in hits on a server. On Friday I mentioned the autoLinux project I was working on, and had 2,500 visitors within two or three hours of the post, and it wasn't even a featured story, just a url I mentioned in the comment.

I don't recall seeing things on any of those papers mentioned though, so I'm wondering what kind of a load a server gets in the case of the stories that really catch people's attention. 100 hits per minute is pretty low, even if you're going to a site doing dynamic content. I'm wondering what sort of server hardware/software is being used on sites that have real problems as a result of the slashdot effect.

100 hits per minute of files that take more than a dozen seconds or so to download could bring servers down that run Apache and have limits on the number of children they can spawn. (150 default?)

My guess is its large numbers of modem users not large numbers of hits that really causes the /. effect.

Maybe a slashdot poll asking what speeds people view slashdot at?

(the URL for autoLinux is http://www.bangsplat.org/autolinux for anyone interested who missed it before...)

Steven Adler

[Zoyd]

I've been wondering what he's been up to after getting kicked out of Guns 'N Roses ten years ago!

People with too much time on their hands...

[mholve]

I think would've been a better title for this.

paradox?

[swingkid]

more like self-fulfilling prophecy

-----------

[pez]

all i know is, i feel so violated, using us a pawns in his papers :)%)

Newbie question - how do you analyze?

[Hall]

Quite simply, how do you analyze or even get the data that tells this information?

I've looked around for this but haven't found anything... Do you have to interpret it from Apache's "access_log" file?

Thanks for any help

What hubris

[Weasel Boy]

Flame on [dons asbestos gloves]: I hate to be a grump, but what you folks are self-congratulatorily calling the "Slashdot Effect" has been known on the Net since well before /. came into existence. Before WWW came into existence, even.

Today's lesson: Just because you though of a cute new name for it doesn't mean you're the first to discover it.

Okay, flame off. I don't blame you folks personally. On the whole, the mainstream press is MUCH WORSE about this than /.'ers. Wonder if that's because they don't even understand what they're reporting? ... Hmm, must ponder.

Always found it odd...

[inkless1]

that Slashdot wasn't effected by the ./ effect...;)

Newbie question - how do you analyze?

[Stephan Schulz]

Yes. Or rather, you write a program that does it. Wannabe hackers use Perl, real hackers use AWK, and real programmers use Fortran-58 ;-)

Did Slashdot.org ever ...

[Pig Hogger]

Did SLASHDOT.ORG ever fell victim to it's own Slashdot effect???
-- ----------------------------------------------
Vive le logiciel... Libre!!!

Its the Lemming Effect, kids...

[Thomas Charron]

And, by you being here, and posting such a message, appear to be one of what you describe..

I can attest to the existence...

[Chris Johnson]

...of a MacInTouch Effect! o_O
I managed to get mentioned in a story about ClearType, and I'm telling you, my site got hammered. Much worse than anything I've ever seen from Slashdot, but I've never been in a _story_ in Slashdot, only comments, and that may be a difference. I figure if I can survive the MacInTouch effect, I could also survive a Slashdot Effect, as they appear to be roughly comparable and it depends on how obligatory the link seems. Many people wanted to read about ClearType issues- indeed, it may have been very indirectly Slashdottish, as I believe Slashdot was mentioning the MacInTouch Cleartype story. Mind you, MacInTouch is analogous to Slashdot and used to that kind of traffic...

Smartypants

[Weasel Boy]

After a brief discussion with my trousers, I find that, indeed, they had considered this angle, whereas I had not. I must conclude that, since my pants are smarter than I, they are indeed smartypants (unless I am myself stupid, a consideration upon which I prefer not to dwell).

Geez...

[marcus]

...I thought RM's only problem was clothes?!?!?

Same For My Site

[Peale]

My site's in my sig, and whenever I post a comment, sure enough, there's /.ers that show up.


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