Currents 013: Rob Malda on the Slashdot Story

Rob Malda (AKA: CmdrTaco) talks to Jim about the history & tech of Slashdot while speculating on what social media could learn from it. In this Currents episode, Jim talks to Rob Malda (AKA: CmdrTaco) about the history & creation of Slashdot, its opensource tech, rapid growth & eventual decline, unique moderation system & community involvement, utilization of scarcity, the down-side of open rating systems, the game theory of social media & the evolution of manipulation tactics, moderation trade-offs, the advantages of having a niche audience, implementing innovations inspired by Word of Warcraft, the sheer complexity of the moderation problem, what led to Slashdot's downfall, and more. Episode Transcript Rob's podcast, Geeks in Space JRS: EP71 Philip Howard on Computational Propaganda JRS: EP81 Renée DiResta on Social Media Warfare Rob Malda, also known as CmdrTaco, is an American Internet content author, and former editor-in-chief of the website Slashdot. After that, he spent his time writing, consulting, and working at the Washington Post’s Labs for a couple years. Today, he’s interested in news aggregation, community moderation, and pretty much all the nerdy techy subject matter he covered at Slashdot.