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BBC Documentary About Slashdot 130

Posted by Hemos from the excellent-media dept.
Well, we usually shy away from projects like this, but the concept that the BBC has is both intelligent and interesting. They are doing a series about electronic communities called Digitribes and would like to do a show (1 of 6) about Slashdot. Click below for more information about the documentary and how you can help. They are looking especially for readers from the United Kingdom, but would like to hear from people worldwide as well.

Want to appear in a BBC Documentary?

World of Wonder are currently developing a 6 part TV project for the BBC called Digitribes that will give voice to different communities whose existence has only been made possible through the internet.

We're interested in featuring Slashdot in one programme and are looking for a wide range of interesting characters from this community that we could potentially feature. If you are interested in appearing in the programme please get in touch by email (ryee@worldofwonder.net) as soon as possible. In order to give me an idea of your character, the following information would be helpful when replying.

  • A brief biography and description of yourself.
  • The background of how you first became interested in Slashdot.
  • Any interesting anecdotes from your time in Slashdot
  • An explanation of what being in the Slashdot community means to you and friendships that you have formed here.
  • How your life on Slashdot contrasts with your normal life.
Thanks for helping this gentleman out, folks.
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BBC Documentary About Slashdot More

BBC Documentary About Slashdot

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  • Slashdot is a community, but not a highly social community. We're more like a continuous panel discussion; whereas these questions are geared more towards people who play on MU*'s and other, more social fora (bulletin boards and IRC come to mind). Note especially this quote, which can be taken in more than one way:

    In order to give me an idea of your character, the following information would be helpful when replying.

    This could mean your personal character (morals, ethics, personality) *or* it could mean a "fronted" or role-played character, an identity you assume. I would suggest, in replying to these people, that everyone include this revised information:

    1. A brief biography and description of yourself (This one's okay as-is, I think)
    2. Where you first heard of Slashdot (as opposed to how you became interested.. as the header says, "News for Nerds. Stuff That Matters.")
    3. Any interesting anecdotes from your time reading Slashdot (as opposed to time *in* it)
    4. An explanation of what Slashdot and its community means to you, and what lasting impressions it has made on you (as opposed to just friendships)
    5. How Slashdot affects your daily life, especially contrasting times you participate and times you don't (After all, Slashdot doesn't encourage the making and playing of alternate identities like a focused role-playing community would.)

  • who am i (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    A brief biography and description of yourself.
    I have first-posted more times than I can count.

    The background of how you first became interested in Slashdot.
    I'd heard it was a GREAT website (for first posting).

    Any interesting anecdotes from your time in Slashdot
    I once first posted but then it turned out I was really the second poster.

    An explanation of what being in the Slashdot community means to you and friendships that you have formed here.
    I used to first post on lesser web pages. Here on slashdot I found numerous challenges to first posting successfully (i.e. other first posters). And these obstacles are realy just opportunities for fine-tuning my first-posting techniques.

    How your life on Slashdot contrasts with your normal life.
    I have no life outside of slashdot. Without first posting I don't know what I'd do (probably invent first posting)

  • They did say that they were interested mainly in those of us from the UK, but would consider others. Contrast this with the number of (especially click through adverts) offers etc on the net which are only available to US (or sometimes also Canadian) residents.
  • Just correcting a few inaccuracies.

    1) The BBC is losing badly to ITV in the ratings, but not to Channel 5. They ONCE had a program on which got similar ratings.

    2) The BBC isn't so much nervous about the digital market as eager to participate in it. Just like people with colour tvs pay more than those with Black and White, the BBC wants people with digital to pay more than those without. Assuming you accept the licence fee as a good idea (which of course not all people do) then this seems quite reasonable.

    3) The quality of BBC programs. Well if its an opinion then its not a fact. ;) Many of my favourite programs are on the BBC.

    All that said I`m always suspicious when other media wants to do programs on the internet. But the BBC has a better record on this than most.
  • The BBC does indeed have a humongous site. It spends 10% of its revenues (£120? per year tax on anyone owning one or more TV sets) on that web site.

    But this guy does not work for the BBC. He works for an independent contractor called "World of Wonder" who presumably do documentaries to order. Most of these people are in fact ex-BBC people who went independent during the downsizing and now act as jobbing film makers, mostly for their former employer, but also for anyone else who needs their skills. This makes the whole broadcasting industry more flexible, and is generally a Good Thing.

    As for World of Wonder's email server, it might go down, or they might pick up their email from their ISP.

    Paul.

  • I wouldn't say we don't have censorship in the United Kingdom.

    Sex is heavily censored. You can't purchase images (moving or still) of erect penises "over the counter" here.

    Not that I would really want to...it was just an example :-)
  • "down there in Europe"? Where are you? In orbit?

    We're to the East of the USA not underneath them.

  • It's not a case of being worthless -- it's a case of what will make good TV...

    I suppose the Beeb could make a show which consisted of 30mins of clips of normal looking people saying 'Yeah, I read the site for about an hour a day and it's kind of interesting!' but they presumably want to push this digitribes concept to give the great unwashed masses the impression that they are lifting the lid on one of the world's best-kept secrets (which is true, in a way, I guess.)

    So I imagine they want colourful stories and people. But just cos you don't make exciting TV doesn't make you worthless!

  • Slashdot is definitely a community! Not neccessarily a community in the sense of a neighbourhood... but a community all the same.

    You're right /.'s a website about Geek stuff. Cool, that makes us that read it a community of Geeks. An online community of geeks... a digitribe if you will.

    All the pointers he gave were just to give you an idea of what to write about. If it had just said write an application for a documentary on /. would you have known what to write? I don't think I would have written mine as quickly as I did without them. He by no means will want you to stick rigidly to that format.

    As far as friends are concerned, I guess that isn't the right phrase... but there are names you start to recognise... like hawk or Enoch Root or Che Guevarra etc.

    I think its a great idea... the program will hopefully show a varied bunch of guys and gals who share one thing... the fact they read /. I just hope you guys in the states get to see it, 'cause there's a lot more of you /.'ers in the US than there are here in the UK!!
    --

    "I was either onto something, or on something!"

  • Well, its official. Slashdot has worked its way into the realm of the net cliche with its annointing by the Media Wise as an Official Internet Community (tm) (accept no substitute).

    Seriously, though...the reporters who are so intently discussing this latest classification are ultimately the pawns of the marketing forces that sweep the web today like ocean currents. Unable to win big with the concept of the "portal," the marketroids have transformed (read: renamed) their sites into "communities", thus providing the ever-so-important weekly buzzword (and warm fuzzy feeling) that keeps speculative internet stocks inflated to their astronomically high levels.

    Perhaps at one point I would have bought into the idea of /. as a real, honest-to-goodness community. But that was back when I could identify 80% of the posters on the site, and I could predict the quality of a post solely on the nick attached to it. Back when a circle of 10 or 15 people were submitting the majority of the stories on the site. Those days are gone. Thousands of users and millions of hits after its advent, /. has lost all claim to community. It's still a very cool website, but it is not a community any more than the millions who read USA Today are a community.

    I am community member 686 of 50,000. Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.
  • What bothers me the most is the idea that a website can be a community.

    A community is more that a group of people with a similar interest, it's people working together to improve all aspects of their life.

    A website may be part of that, but you need a hell of a lot more to make it successful.

    Ask yourself this: If Rob pulled the plug on /. and walked away from whole thing, would the community still exist?
  • What are the odds that the BBC will make a RealAudio clip of the show and post it, or make it otherwsie available to those of us slackers in the US and the rest of the world?
  • close to 0. You will have to rely on your local tv station to invest money in quality programs. BTW. I wouldn't be surprised if this shows up on discovery channel at some point in time. If I'm correct discovery and the BBC have some sort of deal for exchanging documentaries (correct me if I'm wrong).
  • Congradulations on the BBC thing, but even the BBC has a habit of commercializing things. I've always felt that the standard of post on Slashdot is much higher than average forums, but i hope that more press doesn't change that.


    -- Moondog
  • I remember I heard a BBC realaudio broadcast of an interview made to Miguel de Icaza down there in London. I think they can do that
  • I take it that they're not really interested in those of us on this side of the ``pond''?
  • Not really sure... but BBC shows sometimes come up on PBS every now and then.
    RealVideo would be nice... maybe somebody in the UK with a TV card could use the RealServer to do a live broadcast and use the archive function to record it for later mirroring?

    That would demonstrate how our beloved "Slashdot community" works... maybe...

    Oh well, just an idea...


  • ..is that, I once before heard the BBC in radio down there in Europe, and I did not understand a word. I'm used too much to american english that I would prefer a text transcript of the article.

    But anyway it is a great idea
  • Well hold on a second, how are you defining community anyway? What is the 'real' community we live in if not a collection of tens of thousands of very different people (per town) existing in close proximity. What you make of that is up to you.
    If you make a 'presence' for yourself on a page like /., just as if you get out of your room once in a while in the real world, you find yourself meeting people, then getting into discussions and conversations. Where you take that initial contact is up to you.
    I'm not sure you can decry the /. sense of community just because of its size.
  • You are right. The objective of people in Slashdot is not for "friendship", we just want some news, "News for nerds".

    If I want more friends, I would rather choose other community, e.g. a community with more female users.

    For someone who have a lot of friends, a great social life, they are no long a geek. I really don't understand why BBC ask for that.
  • If it's on BBC2 it (language) won't be censored. And BBC1 is going very much that way. And if they ask what people think of Microsoft they'll show the answers, and probably ask *why* they think that way too. MS are possibly resented in the UK more than in the US as all our cash is leaving the country!

  • Mass vs Specialist Audiences (Score:4)

    by LL ( 20038 ) on Wednesday September 15, 1999 @07:00PM (#1679465)
    What a lot of people forget is that a mass audience eventually evolves into a mediocracy which caters to the majority opinion (you know that big lump underneath the center of the bell curve) for the given cost. On the other hand, due to the lower transaction costs, the internet allows a niche audience to assemble which, with the right structure and feedback (thanks Rob for the debates on moderation), IMHO actually creates a meritocracy where the "best" (as judged by the /. audience karma criteria) ideas tend to surface and get more widely circulated. Thus more marginal and reflective opinions tend to be disseminated creating a richer and diverse base (still centered around the specialist niche though).

    For some people, access to any form of semi-intelligent debate is probably a significant improvement over the opinion pages of magazines and newspapers (the real competition to /.), especially when all contributors have an equal chance of submission. It has the advantage of allowing human nature to get on a soapbox and express itself without the fear of public speaking as well as a degree of anonymity. Also /. fits a void between the very large broadcast mediums catering to millions of people (TV, newspapers) and narrowcast mechanisms (chat rooms, bullitin boards, social clubs) which can only scale to hundreds. It will be interesting to see how /. will evolve over the next few years, especially as other groups start copying its format.

    ObJoke - why is TV a medium? .... because it is neither rare nor well-done. :-)

    LL

  • Re:BBC --> US rebroadcasts? (Score:3)

    by Kaustav ( 92051 ) on Wednesday September 15, 1999 @07:12PM (#1679466) Homepage
    Yes, this 'deal' is known as BBC America. You csan receive BBC America in various parts of the USA via Sat Dish and some cable networks. The coverage is not widespread over the whole of the USA yet, although I know that you can receive it in Chicago, part of NY State, parts of California. Check the BBC American [bbcamerica.com] web site for more information.

    The BBC usually rebroadcast a hand full of their current affairs, business and news programmes in Real Video/Audio format. BBC World Service [bbcworld.com] is broadcast 24 hours a day in Streaming Quick Time 4 format.

    Whilst I worked at the BBC, I found they didn't rebroadcast such specialist niche programmes in RealVideo format much, although the BBC Education [bbc.co.uk] site does have a wealth of multimedia material to view. Local Hero's being one brilliant example, also the Windrush Project.

    Someone mentioned elsewhere about the BBC servers. Take it from me, it ain't a small operation ;-) Also, Beeb.com, the commercial wing of the BBC's online presence has outsources ALL it's servers to ICL. The set up is VAST.

  • Slashdot as a community? Anecdotes from your time "in" Slashdot? Friends you have made??

    Send for Katz! He's their ideal subject. They deserve one another!

    Ade_
    /

    (Does he still write for Slashdot? I wouldn't know, I filter his stuff.)
  • I look strange, and I live in Ireland - does that
    make me a likely candidate for Beeb's twisting
    of reality? ;)
  • Although it will probably be re-dubbed with an American accent and dumbed down for the US market. The joint BBC & Discovery documentaries are edited differently, and "dumbed down", for the US market. It seems that the American networks find it hard to get people to watch an educated documentary.
  • But this guy does not work for the BBC. He works for an independent contractor called "World of Wonder" who presumably do documentaries to order.

    The only thing I've ever seen by World of Wonder was the excellent Adam and Joe Show [dircon.co.uk] (although it got a bit samey in the third and final series).

  • Though I found your post interesting I have to disagree that the slashdot moderation system provides a meritocracy. I think that promotion by the majority can only lead to the mainstream views rising to the top. Unusual or challenging views are more likely to end, unread at the bottom. As karma decreases for these views, the problem only gets worse.

    It's not a big gripe I have though because I set my threshold to -1. It is the ability to do this and the fact that even first posters get to contribute that makes this forum great.

    Regards
  • Ratings aren't everything you know. ITV appeals
    to the lowest common denominator, but rarely with
    quality programs (i.e. Who wants to be a
    millionaire). Although BBC programs generallky get
    lower ratings, they do tend to be more intelligent
    and better made.

    There are of course many exceptions, mostly on
    BBC1.

    Ale.
  • I don't have a life on /.!! It's a website that lets me discuss stuff I'm interested in. I visit it during the day when things are slow at work.
    Right, and that's how most of us see it. Beware of journalists making documentaries - and I give that warning as a journalist myself. What we don't know is what angle the makers of this film will end up using. They might make something that takes a serious, independent look at /. But they may also portray the site's users as a bunch of losers, addicted to the net. Gives them a better angle for a story, doesn't it? Just remember that whatever you say to them could be edited.

  • Now, I don't claim to follow children's shows, but isn't BBC the people who own Teletubbies? And some of you want /more/ of their broadcasts to air in the U.S.?

    1. ITV is catering for the masses, The BBC still tries to be a little bit more up-market. C5 are rank because they are even more scummy/sexist/cheap than the masses want.
    2. The BBC only sees digital TV as a way of increasing the licence fee. They couldn't care less about it technically. Their net services are one of the main reasons they are needing more funds - creating, and maintaining, such a service is not cheap, especially when it creates no revenue.
    3. The quality of BBC programs is not amazing.
    The British Government should abolish the BBC licence fee, sell them off and be done with it. Let the BBC compete on level terms, let the BBC compete in the modern world - a licence on the radio spectrum... how quaint!
  • Sex is heavily censored. You can't purchase images (moving or still) of erect penises "over the counter" here.
    Eh? Perhaps sir should look at the top shelf...
  • If the programme is re-broadcast in the USA, it'll probably be more sensored than the UK version. The commerical broadcasters, unlike the BBC, often sensor the truth if it stops them making more money! I guess this is true the world over.
  • Maybe it's not a community to you. It doesn't reall feel like a community for me but I can certainly see how for some this website could be more than just news for nerds.

    After all, this site and everything in it is written by people. Getting a group of people together and communicating should be pretty close to anyone's definition of a community.

  • Looking through the posts, I'd hazard a guess that the people who wrote the request for interviewees didn't really look through Slashdot.
    I honestly don't think they'd understand half of what it really meant, the same as I wouldn't recognise most of what is being said in a broadcasting journal.
    I've known the newspapers twist stories for a quick kick, and a few ratings (Fell foul of that when I ran rag at University one year, and told the local paper of the proceedings.. Wow, from a well intentioned event like Rag, the paper made is seem we were a bunch of barbarians set to trash the town and murder the people in their beds!!)..
    I honestly don't think the beeb wants that kind of slant.. It's shown an interest in showing technology in a good light.
    It is, however a chance to put a few spokespeople on the spot, and show that just 'cos you're a geek, doesn't mean you're a porn addict with no life, and a dedication to a life as a script kiddie.
    Personally, I've always (subjective thinking, and just my opinion) thought of Slashdot as a community.. It's a gathering of minds with wildly varying views, but similar interests.. The same as you have debating clubs, or the gatherings of the intellectuals in cafe society, or, sometimes, in the same way you have a bunch of lads that just saunter down to the pub for a bit of a laugh, and to see what's around, and discuss "News for Lads, and Things That Matter"..
    Berate the Beeb for being uninformed if you feel like it, but, there's one good way to make sure you give someone the right message, and that's to be patient with them, and explain carefully, and nurture their understanding in ways that they understand.
    Just keep your fingers crossed we get a good set of ambassadors.. :)
    Heh, I may go for it.. :) But then I fear I'd have to hide forever and a day round here.. :)

    Malk
  • I haven't formed any friendships yet - but I've formed a strange urge to keep pressing my refresh button... Does that count?
  • The background of how you first became interested in Slashdot.

    Read an article in The Australian [national, fairly conservative print press] on Geoffrey Bennet's success with getting the M$ refund which made reference to the story being picked up by 'online magazine SlashDot (which describes itself as "news for nerds")'. I'd never heard of Linux at this point, but being a good little sociologist who'd taken an interest in the role of intellectual property issues on the way people use 'emerging technologies' (that's the way sociologists describe the internet, sorry) the idea of an open source OS was pretty interesting. One click on 'I'm feeling lucky' at google later, here I was.

    Six months of lurking & reading later, and a whole lot of rummaging around linked sites, and, well, I know a lot more than I did. I haven't written a line of code since high school fifteen years ago (C64 assembly : ), & I still haven't gotten around to installing Linux on something for a look & a play, but that's not really why I'm here. The articles that get posted here, the discussions that take place here represent the best source I've found on the thinking going on around the development of the technologies behind what the average punter experiences as 'technological progress'. Traditional print press & broadcast media do report on technology, and even on the cultural impacts of technology, but usually in a reactive way and, with few exceptions, without the benefit of any real expertise in the area. I've never seen a discussion in the print press on, for example, gift economies. I've almost never seen a discussion on the business models that can make something like open source development financially viable in 'the real world'. And I've certainly never seen discussions of the implications of things like open source on the way we think about things like the wider world of intellectual and property rights.

    To state the bleeding obvious, technological change almost always induces social and cultural change. I'm interested in the processes surrounding social and cultural change, and for me, Slashdot is a finger on one of the more interesting and potentially most influential processes of change going on at the moment.

    Just my pretentious .02
  • That's just crazy!
    It's probably true of course, it's just the sort of thing that broadcasters would do. I can imaging them losing half the content (or at least half the useful content) due to it.
    Like I said... crazy.
  • Probably.
    Depends exactly *how* strange you look.
  • > Eh? Perhaps sir should look at the top shelf...

    Softcore, mainly naked women only pictures. Some magazines catering for women / gay guys which have naked men in a non-erect state... Very occasionally pictures of couples, usually not touching groins, and definitely with the male non-erect...

    Are you in the UK? And if so, where do you shop?!?

    Regards,
    Denny

  • It's the same guy that was suing Larry Flynt and ended up in the supreme court against him (you've all seen the People vs. Larry Flynt, right? actually a good movie despite prior expectations..). He's like one of the most popular religious activists in the country or something. *thunks head against wall trying to remember that guy's name*

    Personally I think that all Teletubbies promotes is feeble-minded humans. I can see the kids that grow up that were a part of the "Tubbies Generation", all of them saying "Uh-oh!" instead of "Hello" and other assorted gibberish rather than real English.

  • Eh? AmigaLux, are you really from the UK?

    [the BBC is] currently being trounced by ITV (and even Channel 5) in the weekly ratings tracker

    Not massively more than normal(*). ITV has been slightly ahead of BBC1 for a long, long time. BBC managers like to claim that this is because BBC1 is deliberatly less populist than ITV. Which is probably partly true; I'll brave accusations of éliteism to admit there's not a lot on ITV I can bear to watch.

    Channel 5, despite recent gains through licensing a few select films and football gains, is nowhere near BBC1 in terms of share.

    (*) - the recent Who Wants To Be a Millionaire debacle aside, anyway. Actually I think Who Wants... is an entertaining, pretty clever and incredibly well-produced show despite the apparent simplicity of the format. But anyway.

    The BBC is nervous about the digital market and wants its pound of flesh from those that subscribe to digital on top of the pound of flesh they get from you if you just happen to own a TV

    Nervous about digital? Hardly. The BBC was one of the very few early backers of DAB (radio) and DTT (TV), putting a lot of time and money into it when no-one else was paying attention.

    And the digital license fee was proposed by a Government committee, not the BBC, where many oppose it.

    BBC outsourced most of its programme making a few years back in a Dilbert-esque move

    True, which is why it's World of Wonder producing this and not the BBC itself. WoW has been around for a long time; before the BBC started using outside production firms IIRC.

    This all adds up to the fact that the Beeb wants to screen a popularist programme on the internet probably with the Luddite Tabloid bias.

    I don't believe so. Given that it's about "internet communities" - a bit of a minority subject - and it's made by WoW, I expect this doc to end up on the rather less populist BBC2. Like The Net and other such fairly dodgy computer-related stuff the Beeb have shown in the post-BBC-Micro era.

    It might even be good, you never know. :-)

    Here's [waveguide.co.uk] a good link for British TV-related news. Having just moved away to Germany, I really miss British TV...


    --
  • If it was the Beeb itself then you're probably OK. But of course they don't make their own programmes any more. All they do is commission them from other people.

    As someone else mentioned (sorry can't remember) it's World of Wonder you need to worry about.
  • This has a lot to do with why America needs to completely start over. We need a new bill of rights and possibly we need to edit the constituion to add a branch of government that's job is to whacketh the officials who dareth to offend the all mighty Bill of Rights. AKA Clinton, half of congress.

    Then we need to shut the bible belt out of congresss, because they want to force their super-hyper conservative views on us, then we need to appoint howard stern as chairman of the FCC, that would kill tv and radio censorship.

    But that is too much workfor averave joe american

  • For FUCKS sake (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    ..and other such words can regularly be heard on UK tv. Admittedly there is a 9pm watershed so you can get the kiddies into bed. UK tv , especially the BBC (esp BBC2) and Channel 4 dont censor very much, if at all. The only way we differ from the rest of europe is that we are not allowed hard core porn. And that prob wont last much longer. The BBC wouldnt not censor someones opinion of Microsoft, ive already witnessed people on telly over hear slamming bill gates and his unholy army. the US isnt the only land of the free. Brad.
  • Where the hell did the MEEPT! go? He was pretty funny.
  • Another problem is all the advertizing on US cable, thy often have to re-edit to get the length right. They have a Discovery Channel on cable in the UK now, but the programs are differnet becuase the UK version has significantly less commercial time than the US, so an hour long show has alot more content than in the US.

    US shows like Bay Watch that are shown outside the US often shoot extra scenes known as "Euro minutes" to add into the exported version of the show so that it will run for a full hour outside the US
  • No censorship in Europe? There certainly is in the UK....The funniest one I remember was in a broadcast of the movie 'An Officer and a Gentleman' where the Sarge says "The only thing to come out of xxxx is 'steers and queers'" - they actually changed it to 'strays and gays'. Thats what I call censorship =P
  • /. is a meritocracy, so you say.
    When this other post talked about seeing outlandish ideas here that weren't in the regular media, this is the kind of opinion he was referring to.

    Moderation promotes the meritocracy, so you say. Geez, if you could meet the monkeys who moderate...! One of them, am I.

    I don't think it's a meritocracy, but it is a place to look at a variety of informed babble. Techno-babble (pretty high on the buzzword list, eh?) doesn't make it out into the conventional media, but it does here, as on Usenet. Progress can only come from diversity. Look at the human race (unless you're from Kansas).
  • First of all, karma is non-decreasiong. You want to get out of life with the minimum karma.

    Secondly your use of karma in this context does not appear to me meaningful.
  • Um, out with the minimum bad karma, that is.

    What is bad, as opposed to the good type? Depends. Better stop here, offtopic enough.
  • TV is putting out lowest common denominator trash like "Who wants to be a Millionaire",

    While the BBC is putting out such high quality programmes as "Noel's House Party" and "Neighbours".

  • Sure. We'd just hang out somewhere else, and it would be a lot more pleasant, at least until the Unwashed Clueless Eleet masses found us.
  • Consider the demographics. "We" tend to have a significantly higher proportion of the rare personality types. Mine (INTJ [typelogic.com]), for example, accounts for less than 1% of the general population, but a significant proportion of the geek/slashdot community. However, those same rare personality traits that make us geeks also make us wary of the media (I have more reason to be wary than most -- I work for them, and know how ruthless they are). The sort of people that will go forward for this are going to be the few extroverts among us, and they certainly aren't going to be representative.

  • Re:Sorry to blast the BEEB but.. (Score:3)

    by eddiec ( 10335 ) on Wednesday September 15, 1999 @09:34PM (#1679504)
    The BBC isn't having problems appealing to it's audiences, it's having trouble appealing to ITV's audience. ITV is putting out lowest common denominator trash like "Who wants to be a Millionaire", and is consequently leading in the peak time viewing ratings (although the BBC still has the highest rated show on UK TV). The BBC has not outsourced most of its programme making, it originally outsourced 25 per cent, when that was the target set by the last Tory government, and although that proportion has risen since then, it's still not most. By coincidence, this proposed programme will be one of those outsourced programmes. The production company World of Wonder has made a number of TV programmes [worldofwonder.net] for Channel 4 and Channel 5 in the UK, and for HBO in the US. These include,
    101 Rent Boys, The Adam And Joe Show, Daily Planet, The Divine David Presents, Drop Dead Gorgeous, God In The House, Hollywood Fashion Machine, Hot Property, Juror #5 - the OJ civil trial, Party Monster, The Real Ellen Story, The RuPaul Show, Shock Video 6: Turn On TV '98, Takeover TV, The Eyes of Tammy Faye, Tickled Pink, TV Afrika, TV Latino, TV Pizza, Viva Espana, Wrinklyvision
    As you can guess from the titles alone, we are not talking the height of serious television here.

    The attitude of doing everything on the cheap is one more endemic to the independent TV production companies than to the BBC itself. Don't think TV companies skimp on research because it is expensive, research is cheap, studio time, production crews, talent, and the rest is expensive. Research is often not done properly solely due to pressure of time, which is more of an issue with the structure of the commissioning process. You're view of TV production as some Dibert-esque corporate approach is almost laughable. Independent TV companies will look to save money on everything whatever the subject matter, and are going to be more concerned on being able to sell an idea, than any short cuts they might well make.

    The BBC have made a few good TV programmes on the Internet, such as Tales from the Net, and the magazince show The Net, but these have been made by the BBC Education division. These programmes don't get peak time slots, and even if they did, they would get lousy ratings. That is not the point. They were intelligent TV shows, which appealed to a niche audience. The fact that they got made at all, was purely down to "the unique way the BBC is funded", in other words, if the BBC were trying operate as a purely commercial venture, much of their best programmes would be ditched for stuff with higher ratings, and lower production values. I don't blame the BBC for not producing populist programmes that will trounce ITV's peak time offerings in the ratings, that is not what they are there for. The BBC should be concentrating on quality, and breadth of subject matter. I only hope they haven't made an unwise choice in the selection of this particular company to produce one of their new programmes, since their main oeuvre seems to be cheap TV.

  • Remember, this is outsourced. It's a WorldOfWonder [worldofwonder.net] programme. So, what other magnificent programmes have this company been responsible for?

    • The Adam & Joe Show - puerile comedy.
    • 101 Rent Boys - need I say more?
    • The RuPaul Show - and I thought I hated Ruby Wax
    • Takeover TV - this is the best thing they've done, and they didn't actually do any of it; it's viewer-contributed stuff like American open-access cable channels.

    I've sent them an exploratory mail about Monochrome [mono.org] to see if they're genuinely interested in real internet communities, or if they just want to cover "well-known" websites and pretend, once again, that Web == Internet.


    --
    Jamm!n

  • That was joke, not an argument. Nothing you watch on television is going to warp your mind. You're either screwed up to begin with, or you're not (well, you can be ok to begin with and get screwed up, but that's generally due to emotional, physical, or sexual abuse.. and despite sometimes convincing arguments to the contrary, television isn't included as a part of those categories).

  • Anyone who's familiar with this sort of rubbish (i.e. who gets BBC) can probably predict the outcome of this. The BBC itself would probably do a good job of it. However, I can see a jazzed-up set with an annoying female presenter talking to malda saying such peurile rubbish as "So, you have a big pooter then, wahey *nudges co-presenter*" and "De inturnet is big, izznit? Eh, eh?". I could be wrong on this, but if british TV is anything to go by, I wouldn't imagine justice would be done to slashdot. - DoC
  • hey, say what you want about World of Wonder, but don't judge them solely on what you think the programme titles sound like. have you seen any of those shows? The Adam And Joe Show in particular is a superbly above-par piece of television - yes, it's cheap, but it's a mistake to think that you can't make a decent tv show without a six-figure budget.

    World of Wonder's shows are typically concerned with giving cameras to talented people and seeing what happens. Adam & Joe was perhaps the best result of this formula (it was smart, funny and incisive, and often used its 'cheapness' to a humourous advantage) and it would be a shame to see this sort of thing die out. i suppose it's akin to the 'public broadcast' television that exists in the US and Canada, from whence several good shows have sprung (MST3K, Tom Green, etc).

    maybe it's just me, but most of the time i find it much more entertaining to watch genuinely interesting people do genuinely interesting things than to watch some smarmy overpaid talking head delivering a vacuous script in a shiny studio. and guess which is more expensive?
    ----

  • I can see it now:
    David Attenborugh [imdb.com] in a hushed voice in Slashdot HQ:
    "It is here that the slashdot newssite is created. These busy creatures spend all day looking over code, and reading tons of electronic mail and surfing the web trying to find the next newsworthy item."
    (Creeps over to an open fridge)
    "As we can see, the dietary habits of these animals are very simple, consisting mostly of carbohydred sugar-water and stale old pizzas...
    J.
  • I've never seen Slashdot as a community. It's a news source with a built-in newsgroup.

    Conversations here last as long as the story that spawned them remains on the Front Page. Form friendships? I do good if I can remember people here by their signatures. Certainly the discussions don't last long enough for people to get to KNOW each other.

    There are sites that get it right [flyingmice.com] - but Slashdot's focus is on the stories and the conversation, not on the community. It shows.
  • It seems to me that television is desperate for any internet content it can get these days. Well. Okay, it only seems like that to me TODAY.

    A few months ago, on a particually slow afternoon at work, I threw together a website [lineone.net] to take the piss out of all the loosers that want to be mayor of london basically.

    I still get the odd Email about it, even though it's rubbish and I can't be bothered to maintain it in any way at all. This morning I got an Email from Planet24 saying they want me to talk about it on The Big Breakfast.

    Odd.

    Okay, they're talking about a two minute slot most likely not a while show devoted to my community or whatever. I don't like TV or Getting Up In The Mornings enough to bother with it even if I really wanted Frank Butcher to be mayor anyway frankly.

    Still, it's feeling to me right now as though Internet Shows are the new Docusoaps. Cheep cheep cheep. They'll soon be everywhere.

    Just to rant a bit about TV licencing while I'm here. The licence man came around to my house yesterday wanting to know why I haven't got a TV Licence. I haven't got a TV I said. They don't broadcast anything good enough to bother with it for a start but I'm also protesting, in my small way, the unfairness of the licence itself. If you wanna tax TV go tax people who make rubbish cheep programs, maybe they'll finally make something worth watching.

    Pre.......

  • Internet segments on British radio and teevee invariably starting with the same sound sample followed by the same eight words:

    "beep boop beep boop shshshshsh boingy boingy boing shshshshshshsh...

    "The Internet -- it's not just for anoraks anymore."

    The BBC says it isn't dumbing down its coverage, oh dear me no, but it still has to start every feature on computers by putting down the very people who made these facilities available to computer-illiterates like themseves in the first place. Even on Radio 4, which is supposed to be pro-literacy.

    Imagine the tedium if every time the farming crisis (or crises) got mentioned on the news, they had to start with "Baaa baaa! Mooo! Not all farmers wear green wellingtons and barbour jackets these days...", and every discussion of the building industry started with the same crack about builders arses hanging out of their jeans -- even at the start of an interview with an award-winning architect.

    Oh, well. Sorry to rant about this. Despite the above, I am in favour of the popularization of communications technology, because I think computers aren't really very useful unless they're useful to ordinary joes, not just those of us lucky enough to be educated in their use. I'm sure that this documentary will be the exception to the rule, and will boldly eschew that tired old modem sound sample all together...

  • Being an ex-pat working in the valley, I like the respite of familiar programming. The BBC's programmes are all over Cable. most PBS stuff has a high amount of BBC or joint production. (NOVA is basically Horizon, a BBC joint production. ) ON the discovery channel I guess about 50-60% is UK product re-voiced with an american narration. Also with digital cable we get BBC America which may carry the /. thang. The main thing to realise is that the BBC will sell the rights to this to an AMerican broadcaster usually PBS but not exclusively. I think there is a good chance to see this where I am (Silicon Valley) as there is an big audience for any tech stuff, other parts of the states may not get a broadcast.
  • We're interested in featuring Slashdot in one programme and are looking for a wide range of interesting characters from this community that we could potentially feature.

    They should interview Alan Cox, ESR and RMS at the same time, they would have interresting characters...

  • What this usually stems from is that the UK TV companies sometimes buy the TV version of the movie from the USA - and that's where the movie is edited. Thankfully this practice is diminishing (esp. after the abominations that are the US TV versions of Robocop and The Excorcist).
  • You expect a government run company to tell more of the truth than an independant organisation? (although, that "Tonight" program on ITV last night seemed a bit biased against the corporations...)
  • >I've always felt that the standard of post on
    >Slashdot is much higher than average forums, but
    >i hope that more press doesn't change that.

    I don't think it will. /. seems immune to
    press, by the way it's made.

    Dunno if the same can be said about its makers:)

    --------------------------
    Your Favorite OS Sucks.
    ^D

  • I wonder how much will be censored once the final show actually goes to air?

    I wonder if they will ask the question "What do you think of microsoft"

  • * I do not remember how I first came in contact with /.
    * I do not remember any anectdotes
    * I do not have any friends here

    Am I wortheless, because of that?

    But, I do get interresting ideas from here. And I do get good response to my own postings.
  • The idea of "digitribes", and the 15 minutes that slashdot is going to get for a documentary, and that random quote about power corrupting bring to my mind the question of what the future holds for governments. In an age when we might not need our Representatives to go to DC for our voices to be heard, could there be a /. effect in the next election? I full well understand that most 'puterheads are notoriously apolitical, but what if???
  • As someone who lived in Europe, I'd like to know why you have this image of Europe (or maybe it's only the UK), that they have to censor everything? Is there a specific reason for it? Was that supposed to be a joke?

    Maan
  • This seems to be the case.
    I have a close friend at discovery and she is always talking about the BBC guys camped out at the discovery offices monopolizing the copy machines. They trade premiums too, I have more BBC america merchandise than discovery, In fact i'm wearing a BBC america t-shirt right now.
  • Hey!

    Don't be so despairing that you'll ever see the results of this documentary

    The BBC [bbc.co.uk] has a big web presence and rebroadcasts a lot of its regular programmes in RealVideo. As a homesick expat I watch the news and current affairs all the time from this page [bbc.co.uk]


    No reason why the documentary shouldn't air online also, particularly with a bit of peer group pressure, no?

  • * I do not remember how I first came in contact with /.
    * I do not remember any anectdotes
    * I do not have any friends here

    Am I wortheless, because of that?

    I don't think so. You can add me to the group, I can't answer those questions either. But, in my opinion, Slashdot isn't your average "find a friend" community, mostly because the discussions are related to a subject that's not of your own choice. It's still Slashdot. We're here to find out (more or less) insteresting stuff to read and discuss. Not your average ICQ-chatter.

    I expect to see a huge rise of friends in the Slashdot community when Rob adds Slashdot-chat and Slashdot-Instant-Messaging. :)

  • ^^^Moderators? How about it? ;)


    I'm considering whether or not I'm going to respond to the survey. On the one hand, I'm not the typical /. geek. On the other hand, I'm not the typical /. geek.


    (Yeah, that made sense.) What I'm saying is that I don't want someone to see me as a typical reader/poster/member of /., but I *do* want to show that /. has grown in such a way that it is capable of appealing to someone who doesn't fit the stereotype. As the above post mentioned, you're probably going to get the extroverts (like me! ENTP right here) responding, and extroversion is not a trait of the (stereo-)"typical geek." I'm also female. I'm also a technical writer, not a programmer or a CS student or even a helpdesk person (though I feel like one sometimes). And horror of horrors, I like most of Katz's stories. ;)


    And unlike what most people have said thus far, I have made friends here. I have an invite to come over for some post-Y2K homebrew from a /.-er who lives in my city, and I've gotten to know a couple of people who have been mailing me privately about things that would have been off-topic had we continued to discuss them here. I look at /. as a combination news source and debate forum, and I enjoy the atmosphere of discussion with intelligent people, whether or not I agree with their opinions. And as I've posted before, I am a hardcore info junkie, so of course I love Slashdot. :)


    OK. I need to do work and find caffeine. I'll quit babbling now. ;)

  • It's interesting how companies depend on templates -- first Corel Beta site and now this. You can tell because every question has 'Slashdot' in it. Reminds me of form letters. Can't these people at least make minor modifications so the questions will apply, at least to some extent? I'm glad Slashdot is getting some attention, and I don't oppose a Video Documentary (as long as it's Open Source!).

    As many people brought up, in the "Slashdot Community", we do not make friends. Some people come here to start arguments, those eclectic looking for the 'the whole story', First Posters, Anonymous Cowards, and other assorted esoteric zealots that do not agree with each another. I guess we're the broken web community.

  • I think its pretty easy to understand an English Accent or a gaelic Brogh (prob. spelled that wrong)

  • I don't get it. You have a national broadcaster that is on the same channel wherever you go? You're talking about Channel 4 and 5 like they are national. Is this correct?

    Yes, and Yes.

    You've also got to remember that, until fairly recently, the five channels were all there was in the UK (and still are, I think, at least as far as conventional broadcast goes, and 4 and 5 only came along since the early 80s. My TV had 3 channel buttons on it when I was growing up, for BBC1, BBC2 and ITV.

  • i have to say , that as a slashdot member , and as a few other thing , i would enjoy talking about one of the best news sites(in my case the best) on the net. the BBC is pritty good at making doc. and i watch them from time to time , its kinda cool that slashdot was selected to partisapate in this thing , i am just wondering who has the /. alter this week , will there be a religon involved? and why am i even here , as a slacker and a newly turn coat on microsoft , i have to say this "paper" has made one heck of an impact. i wonder if /. after the documentery will withsand the dreeded /. effect. i am also wondering if the bbc can handle a load . i would also like to put a vote in as some one other then myself to interview , that is larry wall , i have read and seen many things by the man and he has a truely odd personality imho.

    i didnt do it and you cant prove a thing
  • I don't get it. You have a national broadcaster that is on the same channel wherever you go?
    You're talking about Channel 4 and 5 like they are national. Is this correct?

    The UK has 5 national analogue TV channels:
    1. BBC 1
    2. BBC 2
    3. ITV
    4. Channel 4
    5. Channel 5

    BBC 2, C4 (except Wales) and C5 are largely the same over the whole country. BBC 1 and ITV have regional variations. Naturally the channels are found on different frequencies across the UK.

    Digital TV adds a whole swath more of free, national, channels (a la BBC Choice, BBC Education, BBC WhateverTheyWasteMonetOn, S2, ...)

  • You're quite right. Monochrome [mono.org] is a much more cohesive system but that is because it is a BBS with nice additions. Slashdot's community is so much more likely to be comprised of fleeting visitors rather than people who will spend all day logged in.

  • DAVEO (Score:1)

    by wangi ( 16741 )
    If they are looking for an interesting character from Slashdot, then thay are looking for DAVEO!

    Wangi thinks it's a good idea.
  • I'm INTJ and a media drone too - but the type's penetration here is something I hadn't thought about. Any guesses as to what the percentage is?

  • I always thought slashdot was a news and dicussion site. Reading what the BBC is looking for, I guess slashdot is a MUD. Could've fooled me!

  • ...or some cybernation
    Actually, this has sorta happened already. Remeber the story about Cyber Yugoslavia [juga.com], the entirely virtual nation? About 3/8 of the people registered as citizens signed up on August 8 of this year... the day it was posted on /.
  • Hmm... Don't US Documentarys usualy have a narater with a british accent?

  • I don't think you're worthless. I never post here either. But I must spend at least an hour a day here. I don't own a tv or listen to the radio, so my only connection to the real world is /.

    I've never made friends with anyone through the site, but I do start to recognize the regulars after a while. I don't think we're worthless because of that. More than likely we're the silent majority.

  • * I do not remember how I first came in contact with /.
    * I do not remember any anectdotes
    * I do not have any friends here

    Am I wortheless, because of that?

    Worthless? Maybe, but not because of your Slashdot deficiencies. ;)

    Seriously, I'd love to hear from someone who has formed friendships through Slashdot. I've looked at the site a few times a day for at least 6 months and I have yet to really meet anyone as a result of Slashdot. I know other people who read Slashdot, but they're all people who I've met in person. So is Slashdot conducive to the forming of friendships? I have made friends on IRC and in some online gaming forums (bungie.net comes to mind), but never here. Maybe not being an active poster has kept me from meeting people.

    That said, I also don't remember how I first came in contact with Slashdot either, and I certainly don't have any anecdotes. I have found countless cool web sites by looking at the pages of other posters. Too bad mine is in a rather sad state of semi-completedness.

    Maybe I'm worthless too.

  • Sorry to blast the BEEB but.. (Score:4)

    by AmigaLux ( 72252 ) on Wednesday September 15, 1999 @04:49PM (#1679554)

    1) The BBC is having trouble appealing to its audiences. IT its currently being trounced by ITV ( and even Channel 5 ) in the weekly ratings tracker.

    2) The BBC is nervous about the digital market and wants its pound of flesh from those that subscribe to digital on top of the pound of flesh they get from you if you just happen to own a TV. So they are spending less on programmes and production.

    3) The quality of the BBC programs has gone down HARD over the last year - Im sorry but its a fact and Im a consumer so I have a right to this opinion. I spend my TV time watching South Park and others on Channel 4 these days because the mainstream channels are dross.

    4) BBC outsourced most of its programme making a few years back in a Dilbert-esque move. This has made the production companies absolute fortunes and not visibly benefitted BBC at all.

    5) The terrestrial programmes are being criticised for not being relevant, interesting or up to date in content. Mind you so are much of the cable or
    sattelite channels.

    This all adds up to the fact that the Beeb wants
    to screen a popularist programme on the internet
    probably with the Luddite Tabloid bias. They also
    dont want to have to pay for the research. I can
    imagine a bunch of researchers sitting in a room saying ... ok what can we make a 6 part documentary about? The internet thats always a good one for provoking controversy. We can do one on "kiddie porn rings", one on IRC and the psychos that you get on there... oh hang on theres such good fodder here lets do one on internet communities!

    Manager sits nervously at the end of the table and sayes - how much is this all going to cost? Person who made the suggestion laughs manically and sayes but thats the good bit! It costs less than a cheap gameshow because the internets free and we can get the online people to do the research for us!

    Manager breaths sigh of relief...

    Ill give good odds that this is true.
  • can you imagine when some congressman (or woman) argues in favor of say... restricting exportation of cryptography software or something? Suddenly they get 20,000 angry /.ers flaming them! :)

    I think the government will always want to have some kind of buffer between themselves and the people they represent- it keeps them from having to deal with problems like that.

  • The Beeb broadcast Radio5 [bbc.co.uk] using RealAudio (except for most live sport coverage) and I've shown my kids some video snippets from an EXCELLENT series called Local Heros [bbc.co.uk] (a man on a bicyle's Scientific Heros by location) to explain things in more detail after the programme.
    Their transcripts are pretty good too ...
  • No, it's more the questions that are not suited.

    I don't know the sociologist definitions of groups and collectives but I think one of the central aspects is that they spend time together and have common interests and goals.

    For Slashdot it holds, that this is a place where we exchange information and build opinions together in our discussions. This is enough to form a larger group like that what we describe as Slashdot community, but except for the small group of Slashdot operators, this is not enough to form smaller groups and circle of friends centered around the Slashdot theme.

    However Slashdot serves very well as a place where groups are formed and spawned from.

    Take the CD Index [cdindex.org] project for example. It was formed spontaneously after a news on Slashdot was posted that cddb went commercial in a questionable way. A discussion followed, someone offered resources (among them the obligatory mailing list devoted to that goal) and the project started off. With one of that folks I maintain something close to a classical pen pal friendship, mostly centered around our common goal of building up a free CD database, but with exchanges of personal stuff as well.

    Slashdot might not only be suited well to spawn technical projects, but considering that we shape opinion here (this is the thing we build together), I would be not surprised to see having politcal groups having their initial point of gathering here (shouting out the geek party or declaration of the rights of cyber citizens or some cybernation).

  • /.'s a community?!? (Score:4)

    by Ummon ( 15714 ) <ummon@where.net> on Wednesday September 15, 1999 @05:21PM (#1679559)
    Sounds like someone's been talking to the Marketing department again.

    It's cool that the BBC is doing a show about /. but I think they are missing the point (or maybe I am).

    Just look at what they're asking for:

    A brief biography and description of yourself.

    Ok, I can't complain too much about that. They want to know who reads /.

    The background of how you first became interested in Slashdot.

    Do they realize it's a website about geek stuff? I found it just like I found 90% of the other websites I visit regularly: on another website.

    Any interesting anecdotes from your time in Slashdot

    My time in Slashdot? I really get the feeling that who ever is producing this hasn't actually spent any time reading /.

    An explanation of what being in the Slashdot community means to you and friendships that you have formed here.

    Has anyone actually formed any friendships on /.?

    How your life on Slashdot contrasts with your normal life.

    I don't have a life on /.!! It's a website that lets me discuss stuff I'm interested in. I visit it during the day when things are slow at work.

  • Very interesting questions. (Score:4)

    by grappler ( 14976 ) on Wednesday September 15, 1999 @05:34PM (#1679566) Homepage

    For no particular reason other than so other /. people can see who hangs out here, here's my answers to their questions:

    A brief biography and description of yourself:

    I'm probably pretty typical on this one - freshman in college double majoring in CS and EE. I go to the Colorado School of Mines and play a lot of ultimate. I am also a wrestler and a pole vaulter.

    The background of how you first became interested in Slashdot.

    Hmmmmmm... Kindof a chain of events. I've been programming computers since 4th grade, but it was in the last two years that I found my way here. I decided to get my own computer so I started searching for sites on how to pick out the hardware. I found a good one that went step by step and proved to be a good resource. At the very end, it said "After all that, you're not going to ruin it with windows, ARE YOU?????" and threw in a plug for linux and BeOS, both of which I hadn't heard of. I went to Linux sites and downloaded and installed it from floppy disk images, and of course once I had it installed I started keeping up with linux news - on Linux Mall's front page. They kept linking to Slashdot stories though, so I eventually saw where the action was.

    I also approached this corner of the net from another direction. Just out of curiosity one day I did a web search on "how to be a hacker". It took me straight to ESR's essay, entitled "How to be a Hacker." And that run-in with the oss people also took me here.

    It was a while before I got an account here though. For months, I just read and didn't even post anything. Then I posted for a while as an AC, and finally decided to get an account. I don't like racking up passwords on the web, so the only ones I have for actual web sites are slashdot.org and netaddress.com

    Any interesting anecdotes from your time in Slashdot

    Anecdotes? Yeah. I can think of three. One is the Columbine story - the first one right after it happened. I live in Littleton, CO and last year I graduated from a school that was a Columbine rival (in soccer anyway). I was surprised at first to even see it on Slashdot (sometimes when you're really close to something like that, you don't realize how big a deal it really is in the rest of the world) but the comments here gave me a very good perspective on it. I remember that a lot of misinformation was spreading around here so I stuck around counteracting a lot of it. My school is an awful lot like Columbine and yet I was almost completely unaware of the rift between cliques. I was on the wrestling and track teams, and also a bunch of AP classes and computer and chess groups, so I had friends from all groups who probably wouldn't like each other. The whole thing was a big eye-opener.

    Another anecdote is the recent evolution story here, where pretty much everyone had to put in their 2 cents. I was no exception, and I wrote a piece filled to overflowing with satire and sarcasm, but not the real grating obvious kind. Basically it took the viewpoint of an ignorant bigot who saw no need for science, or for that matter thinking, in this world. I was trying to provoke thought and make people laugh, and I think I did, but what I should have counted on was that some people just didn't see the sarcasm. Four or five people actually. It just went right by them, and they posted long rebuttals to my comment (which I think made it to level 4 or something). I spent an hour or so rereading them and laughing. I particularly liked another guy's response to one of said posts, which was to simply copy and paste the definition of 'sarcasm' out of a dictionary.

    Finally, last year I got out of a social studies class with slashdot. It's true! See, I needed extra social studies credits which didn't fit well in my schedule so I asked about an independant study. They said pick a topic so I wrote "Rights in Cyberspace" (the new section would have been very helpful). So then I spent alot of time reading and posting here, and I used this place as a springboard for my research on my independant study topic, finding other good sources from links people posted here. I covered "decency" laws, intellectual property, and cryptography restrictions, and that was my study. I wrote 3 essays over the semester and finished it off with a big presentation for the principal and some Littleton Public Schools higher-ups about Cryptography. It included a powerpoint presentation explaining public keys, authentication, and hash functions complete with neat little animated diagrams. They loved it, and I got an A+ for the semester!

    An explanation of what being in the Slashdot community means to you and friendships that you have formed here.

    Absolutely nothing. Nada. Zilch. I haven't made any friends here. How are you supposed to make friends on slashdot for chrissakes? I have friends that I can TALK TO and VISIT and DO STUFF WITH. I don't come HERE for friends. Jeez...

    How your life on Slashdot contrasts with your normal life.

    I don't think of it as my "life on slashdot". Sure, it's a community, but not a life. I come here because I like the variety and the sometimes intelligent discussions. Mostly I think it's the site design. I mean, this is what you call a well designed web site. It is astheticaly pleasing, responsive, and lets you follow discussions in an organized, easily readable manner. And due to the excellent moderation system, the signal to noise ratio is quite high compared to most places on the net.

    Oh, and the slashboxes. Can't forget the slashboxes. A few months ago I didn't think I would ever want to use a portal, but here I am using /. as my portal. Most of the sites I frequent have slashboxes here, and I can see right away if they've been updated or not. This is what the big name companies wish they could do, but here it is done right. This just loads as my home page and it's all right there at my fingertips.

  • Having a life, but not on /. (Score:4)

    by kris ( 824 ) <kris-slashdot@koehntopp.de> on Wednesday September 15, 1999 @05:46PM (#1679569) Homepage
    We are being asked for



    • A brief biography and description of yourself.
    • The background of how you first became interested in Slashdot.
    • Any interesting anecdotes from your time in Slashdot
    • An explanation of what being in the Slashdot community means to you and friendships that you have formed here.
    • How your life on Slashdot contrasts with your normal life.



    I think these questions show a great misconception on what /. is and how it works. I do not read /. to find friends or to experience anecdotes worth remembering. I am reading /. for the news and for the perspective it puts these news into.

    I am reading /. on threshold 2, occasionally switching to 3 if the thread is very large and to -1 if I'm on duty. Reading /. this way, I do read the original article and the top comments about these articles. They are usually well worth it, as are is the news selection I find on /.

    The remarkable thing about /. is that it still works. /. has now - how many? 80000? subscribers and experiences thousand of comments each day. Still Rob and gang have managed to build a system that still works, most of the time. Remarkable, it works mostly anonymously, that is, I'm reading /. not scanning for names as I am reading newsgroups, but I select articles using a score that is not tied to a person but to an individually judged article.

    /. has gone through a transition from a students home project with a few dozen, later hundreds of participiant to something with a worldwide impact, playing somewhere in the same league as the big portals. Rob and gang have not only managed to keep it alive through this growth, which is an astonishing fact in itself, but they also managed to preserve much of its spirit. Of course it can not be just the same it was in the early days (I have a user id of 824, but I was with /. before there was registration), but it is still good and it is far better than USENET. /. is an amplifier of targeted and well founded opinion and commentary - that's where the value is, at least for me.

    So I am still reading /., but not for people, or because of friendships, but because its news and because it matters.

  • your suspicions are well-founded (Score:5)

    by jsm2 ( 89962 ) on Wednesday September 15, 1999 @05:55PM (#1679572)
    A quick conversation with a BBC mate reveals that what has been sent is the "house template" letter to start research for a documentary on X, where X is anything from a condemned tower block to the Bavarian Illuminati. A bit boilerplate, but hey, it is not given to everyone to have a clue.

    My answers would be:

    A brief biography and description of yourself.

    I was born amind a thunderstorm in a Huddersfield tenament, the child of a milkmaid of easy virtue, and an indeterminate number of lost Persian sailors. As a child, I was prodigiously curious about words, and ate my way through five volumes of the Oxford English Dictionary until stopped by a curious fear of the letter K. My knowledge of computers comes from the workhouse, where a kindly beadle would strike me with a copy of Knuth (Vol.1) to still my piteous cries (a cruel act indeed, given my phobia). I am fat.

    The background of how you first became interested in Slashdot.

    I was interested in dots ever since university, where I studied punctuation under the great Professor Ewan Cribb. My interest in slashes developed later, while I was playing with Billy Boston's swing band.

    Any interesting anecdotes from your time in Slashdot

    I remember a terrible tussle I once fought with a ruffian.

    An explanation of what being in the Slashdot community means to you and friendships that you have formed here.

    To me, it means air, water, freedom and modesty. I have only one friend, a Mr. A Coward, who constantly impresses me with the volume of his invective and erudition. One day, I will beat him to the coveted First Post!

    How your life on Slashdot contrasts with your normal life.

    As different as chalk from carbonate. From my eerie eyrie next to Lake Erie, I spend my days chasing chicken-hawls and remonstrating with them. On Slashdot, I merely lambast.

    God, I'm bored. The bit at the top about the BBC having a form letter is true though.

    jsm

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