Slashdot history

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This article is a timeline of the most important major events in Slashdot history. Since its inception in 1997, the geek/technology web site Slashdot has had a long chronology of events that have contributed to its unique subculture.

Contents

1 1997 2 1998 3 1999 4 2000 5 2001 6 2002 7 2003 8 2004 9 2005

1997

• July - shortlived forerunner to Slashdot, called "Chips & Dips" [1] (http://web.archive.org/web/19970731134149/http://www.cs.hope.edu/~malda/cnd/)

• September - Slashdot is created by Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda. The name "Slashdot" was chosen for the resulting unusual URL, "http://slashdot.org" (or when read aloud, "Haitch tee tee pee colon slash slash slash dot dot org"). [2] (http://slashdot.org/faq/slashmeta.shtml#sm150)

• December 31 - First archived Slashdot post. [3] (http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=98/01/01/012000&tid=95)

1998

• February 2 - Slashdot accepts advertisers.

• May 10 - Rob Malda turns 22.

• May 13 - Slashdot introduces the "Ask Slashdot" section.[4] (http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=98/05/13/094300&mode=thread&tid=124)

• September 14 - Slashdot is hacked.[5] (http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=98/09/14/1949212&mode=thread&tid=124)

• November 6 - Jon Katz discovers Slashdot.Slashdot article (http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=98/11/06/166258&mode=thread&tid=124), Jon Katz's article (http://web.archive.org/web/20040328182309/www.freedomforum.org/templates/document.asp?documentID=11186&printerfriendly=1).

• December 17 - Slashdot founder Rob Malda graduates from Hope College.[6] (http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=98/12/17/151249&mode=thread&tid=124)

1999

• February 1 - The Slashdot effect is first mentioned.[7] (http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=99/02/15/1249237&mode=thread&tid=124)

• May 13 - Slashdot serves up its one hundred millionth page.[8] (http://slashdot.org/search.pl?threshold=2&op=stories&tid=124&sort=1&start=150)

• June 29 - Slashdot is acquired by Andover.net.[9] (http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=99/06/29/137212&mode=thread&tid=124)

• September 7 - Meta-moderation is introduced to Slashdot[10] (http://features.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=99/09/07/155233&mode=thread&tid=124)

• September 10 - Slashdot announces the addition of the "Your Rights Online" section.

• October 15 - Slashdot announces the addition of two new sections: Apache and BSD.

2000

• February 3 - Andover.net, Slashdot's parent company, merges with Linux company VA Linux

• February 24 - Slashdot's 10,000th article is posted.[11] (http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/02/24/0954216&mode=thread&tid=124)

• May - Slashdot is the victim of a week-long Distributed Denial-of-Service attack.[12] (http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/05/17/1318233&mode=thread&tid=124)

• September 28 - Slashdot is hacked by two hackers going by the names "Nohican" and "{}".[13] (http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/09/29/1245218&mode=thread&tid=124)

2001

• March 16 - An anonymous poster posts the full text of Scientology's OT III ("Operating Thetan Level Three") document in a comment attached to a Slashdot article. The Church of Scientology then demanded that the Slashdot editors remove the post under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. In a long article [14] (http://slashdot.org/articles/01/03/16/1256226.shtml?tid=153), the Slashdot editors explained their decision to remove the page.

• August 18 - Slashcode 2.2 is released, which allows for comment notification, journals, and UNIX-style user pages[15] (http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/08/18/0433206&mode=thread&tid=124).

2002

• January 2 - Slashdot introduces the "zoo" system, allowing the marking of users as "friend" and "foe"[16] (http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/01/03/1812245&mode=thread&tid=124).

• January 16 - January 30 - An off-topic post purported to be detailing the results of an investigation into the Slashdot trolling phenomena becomes itself the subject of a "moderation war" and ends up being moderated a record 851 times (as well as getting 268 direct replies). The editors are accused of indiscriminately modding down all the posts in the thread collectively as well as permanently banning anyone who moderated the post up from moderating or meta-moderating again. [17] (http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=26315&cid=2850660)[18] (http://slashdot.org/journal.pl?op=display&uid=442574&id=4236)

• February 14 - In an article titled "Kathleen Fent Read This Story[19] (http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/02/14/143254&mode=thread&tid=166)", Slashdot founder Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda proposed to his long-time girlfriend and now wife Kathleen Fent.

• March 1 - Slashdot begins a subscription service, where subscribers are given special perks in exchange for a small fee.

2003

• March 6 - Slashdot subscribers are given the ability[20] (http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/03/06/1548245&mode=thread&tid=124) to see articles 10-20 minutes before they are released to the general public.

2004

• May - Slashdot bans HTTP proxies running on ports 3128, 80, 8000 and 8080 from posting and institutes a system of semipermanent posting bans on the subnets of users who are negatively moderated several times.

• August 18 - Slashdot has its ten millionth user posting. [21] (http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=118344&cid=10000000)

• September 7 - Slashdot "goes political" [22] (http://politics.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/09/07/1513235) [23] (http://politics.slashdot.org/) and creates a new politics subsection, a few months before the 2004 presidential election.

2005

• April 8 - Slashdot introduces "day passes", allowing all users to enjoy the benefits of subscribers for the duration of one day if they watch a commercial.