from the from-the-original-founders-of-the-other-site dept.
I've got something real special for you guys today. Jonathan Pater, better known to most people as CowboyNeal, has agreed to do an interview with us. Given the source, we're going to do this in the "Slashdot-style" (for want of a better term) where you can post your questions below, we'll select our favorites and pass them on to him. Though he is quite busy, we've got the CowboyNeal account reserved for him just in case, so if you see it posting, know that's the real deal.
I'd also like to thank mrcoolbp for getting in contact with CowboyNeal, and recommend everyone thank him for helping setting up this opportunity. Now, let's get those questions going folks!
Note: Feel free to ask multiple questions, but please: only one question per post.
Related Stories
When I contacted CowboyNeal just as SoylentNews launched a year ago, I never expected a response. A few others tried to get a hold of him, but I was successful eventually. He was polite, but mentioned that he didn't have much free time to hang around on the site. A year later, I sent him another email; though still quite busy, he agreed to do an interview.
It's been quite some time since we asked for your questions, but I'm happy to announce that the responses are finally here. What follows is the email I received in it's entirety:
Read the responses from CowboyNeal past the break:
(Score: 5, Troll) by dyingtolive on Monday March 02 2015, @04:38PM
Why would we want to ask CowboyNeal anything?
(I'm actually kind of being serious)
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 5, Informative) by mrcoolbp on Monday March 02 2015, @04:48PM
Well, he was an editor, programmer, and sysadmin over on slashdot for many years. Given our history, I thought we might be curious to pick his brain.
(Score:1^½, Radical)
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Monday March 02 2015, @04:53PM
Okay. I honestly didn't know what connection he had to "over there" other than being the resident default poll option, and that didn't seem like something worthwhile to inquire about.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 2) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Monday March 02 2015, @05:24PM
Q: "Do you know the way to San Jose?"
You're betting on the pantomime horse...
(Score: 2) by francois.barbier on Monday March 02 2015, @06:40PM
Q: "Who are you? Describe yourself briefly for fresh soylentils who may not know you."
You can always Google the info [google.com], but I find the question pertinent and he may answer better than an algorithm sorting unverified facts [soylentnews.org].
(Score: 5, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2015, @06:35PM
Someone submit the interview as a story on Slashdot.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2015, @08:37PM
Seeing as this is just a copy of /. story (http://news.slashdot.org/story/01/02/12/1617256/ask-the-man-behind-the-legend---cowboy-neal), it would just be buried as a dupe.
(Score: 2) by mendax on Tuesday March 03 2015, @01:47AM
I second that sentiment.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday March 02 2015, @07:27PM
"pick his brain"
Is that you, Doctor Lectur?
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 3, Funny) by mrcoolbp on Tuesday March 03 2015, @04:16AM
Yes, it's me. Sorry for the late reply, 'been cookin' fava beans and searching for the right bottle of chianti.
(Score:1^½, Radical)
(Score: 2) by francois.barbier on Monday March 02 2015, @06:42PM
(Sorry, I didn't know voting "Underrated" would boost the "Troll" from +2 to +3)
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday March 03 2015, @02:51AM
This is how it was meant to be.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 03 2015, @02:55AM
FTFY.
That has to be the best troll here yet.
Its now rated +5, troll.
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Tuesday March 03 2015, @06:17AM
Why was this modded troll? TFA doesn't explain who the hell he is and until somebody below explained his identity I had no clue who he was other than a poll option, so it seems like a legitimate question to me. Not everybody keeps up with who the big muckety mucks are at websites ya know. I mean how many here can name ALL the guys in charge of THIS site? Only ones I know of are Mighty Buzzard and NCommander, sorry if I didn't spell the last one right.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2015, @04:42PM
What is your opinion about the path Slashdot has taken lately?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Ethanol-fueled on Monday March 02 2015, @05:38PM
What do you mean? Implementing Beta, or re-implementing the old UI (sort of)?
While we're at it, I have another question of my own - did the pre-Dice slashdot staff really fucking believe that the readership would just bend over and take beta up the ass without a fight?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by kramulous on Tuesday March 03 2015, @02:40AM
I have finally stopped reading it since viewing on my tablet means I have to navigate huge advertisements for apps (seriously, they take up the whole screen!). They get in the way and are too easy to accidentally press. I understand there is probably some way to block them but I couldn't be bothered. There is a viable alternative now.
That's me done with that site.
(Score: 2) by sigma on Tuesday March 03 2015, @06:43AM
...and what are your plans for getting me to go back to Slashdot?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by j-stroy on Monday March 02 2015, @04:49PM
What insights or thoughts do you have on "next level" ideas in this area and what kinds of tech/developments/usage would that require/inspire?
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday March 02 2015, @04:56PM
There's always the usual filler that is none the less interesting, like what you up to now, what would you do differently back then knowing what you know now, etc.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by VLM on Monday March 02 2015, @04:56PM
You like being a poll option on /. polls? Want to be a poll option on SN polls?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by VLM on Monday March 02 2015, @04:58PM
Honestly how many articles were slashvertisements, assuming you know the truth. I think there was a schedule for a couple months on tuesday afternoons to post e-ink promotional articles complete with astroturfed responses.
Same as above, assuming you know the truth, did we really land on the moon and who killed JFK?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by VLM on Monday March 02 2015, @05:00PM
And my 4th and final question, give us your best slashdot groupie story that the statute of limitations has run out on by now. If you still can't tell, then make one up.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday March 02 2015, @05:01PM
I'm the one who put most of the work in on getting SoylentNews playing nicely with UTF-8 characters, so I got to see that most of the code and external modules (HTML::TreeBuilder aside) were already UTF-8 friendly. In fact a large part of what I had to do was to strip out things that intentionally made UTF-8 characters not work. Why did you guys never get Slashdot on the UTF-8 bandwagon? Philosophical decision or were the perl versions you had to work with at the time just not up to snuff?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2015, @05:13PM
security? RTL, etc. http://unicode.org/reports/tr36/#UTF-8_Exploit [unicode.org]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday March 02 2015, @05:40PM
Got that covered. Any link with unicode in it gets visibly flagged as having unicode in it.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by francois.barbier on Monday March 02 2015, @06:46PM
But the scripts discards this data and then the website drives into walls... [bash.org]
(Score: 3, Informative) by VLM on Monday March 02 2015, @05:14PM
the perl versions you had to work with
From my joyous professional experience with Perl ETL work, you needed 5.6.1 circa 2001 to seriously "do" UTF-8. Then about a decade followed of continuous speed improvements and optimizations for UTF-8. The speed thing might have scared them away at first.
I'm still not convinced there's anything out there for ETL as good as Perl, overall.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by kbahey on Monday March 02 2015, @05:43PM
And for that, I would like to personally thank you ...
2bits.com, Inc: Drupal, WordPress, and LAMP performance tuning [2bits.com].
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Ken_g6 on Monday March 02 2015, @06:34PM
I heard the reason involved Unicode control characters that allowed posters to modify stuff outside the posting area. This is from memory, so I don't know exactly how it worked.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday March 02 2015, @07:14PM
I know stacking a few hundred diacritic marks on a letter was a problem but we solved that by just limiting the number of marks a letter could have to... well I forget how many. Five or six, I think.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by martyb on Tuesday March 03 2015, @04:10AM
You heard correctly. You might want to take a look at these comments which illustrate it on Slashdot:
Maybe not the best set of examples, but I had these links readily available. The first is a reply to a question on /. that pointed me to one of the other links. Then I stepped up the parents of comments to find a nice collection of comments that illustrated the problem. Pay special attention to the 'title bar' field and notice how the direction of the text reverses.
Hope that helps!
Wit is intellect, dancing. I'm too old to act my age. Life is too important to take myself seriously.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Tuesday March 03 2015, @04:59PM
Looks normal to me, except for "No discussion or comments found for this request. To create your own discussion, please use journals."
SM 2.5/JS off, here. What am I doing wrong??
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by martyb on Wednesday March 04 2015, @02:42AM
HUH!??!! Those were links that I had up a couple weeks ago... but now I, too, see "No discussion or comments found for this request. To create your own discussion, please use journals."
Let's see if I can find a working one. I launched this link:
and noticed nothing strange there. Then clicked the "Parent" button which took me to:
and THAT page exhibited the RTL (Right To Left) issue. Notice in the title bar (the green background area) of the first comment on that page has the order of some letters reversed.
That said (well, written, actually) it did not extend beyond the provided area, but it does mess with the functionality of the site to some extent. IIRC, going up a couple parent posts from these and following the discussion revealed still other examples.
I had the distinct challenge and pleasure of testing SoylentNews' UTF-8 implementation and that was one of the things we watched out for. If you can make it happen here, I'd really like to see it!
Also, while we are on the subject, there are a number of encoding schemes for URLs like using "%20" to represent a space, as well as UTF-8 encoding. There's something nagging at me that we may have missed the case where someone percent-encoded a series of bytes that, when translated, produce UTF-8 octets which, in turn, could be used to 'rickroll' someone. I couldn't seem to make it happen, but I would sure appreciate someone else giving it a try.
Hmmm, maybe try using Named Character Entities to construct an internationalized URL? e.g. é to get "é"...
Wit is intellect, dancing. I'm too old to act my age. Life is too important to take myself seriously.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Wednesday March 04 2015, @03:14AM
Ah, now I see. For a moment I thought it was my remarkable ability to break anything!
And your domain examples too... that could get nasty. :( Wonder what other tricks it has up its sleeve...
BTW, in your sig, wit not witt, unless you mean Katerina. ;)
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by martyb on Wednesday March 04 2015, @01:11PM
The Named Character Entities (NCEs) in URLs, AFAIK, exist only for vowel variants so that does restrict the error surface somewhat. Still, one could register a lookalike domain that would allow this:
So that could get 'interesting', indeed.
Yes. Katerina Witt was one heck of a skater and I'd say she 'danced' on ice!
But seriously, thank-you! When I 'penned' that, I hesitated as to the spelling and checked all my wordlist files -- 'witt' appeared 10 times so I thought I'd spelled it correctly. Even more interestingly to me, there are many derivatives of the word 'wit' that start with 'witt'! Among them:
Thanks to your feedback, a deeper search revealed that I did have them confused: witt [wiktionary.org] vs wit [wiktionary.org].
Wit is intellect, dancing. I'm too old to act my age. Life is too important to take myself seriously.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Wednesday March 04 2015, @02:11PM
I wonder how prevalent this is in spam's obfuscated links... I'm so in the habit of reading the status bar rather than the visual link that if it's going around as a spam disease, I haven't noticed. :/ (When I see spam at all. Earthlink's filter is pretty damn good. 1&1's is slightly hyperactive.)
English, that most flexible of languages... doncha hate it when you look at a word too long and suddenly it starts looking wrong!! Glad to help.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 04 2015, @02:18PM
Links with Unicodes are not treated correctly.
http://www.abisprüche.com/ [che.com] (the site really exists, and I tried that I can access it) gets mangled by the code into http://www.abispr%fcche.com/ [abisprche.com] which is an invalid URL and consequently doesn't load.
If mangled at all, the link target should now read http://www.xn--abisprche-v9a.com/ [che.com] (interestingly the software seems to recognize this, re-translate it into Unicode, and then again incorrectly mangle it to give the invalid link!)
Well, let's see if that site can at least be linked at by directly giving an a tag (not that I care much about that specific site, it's just the first example I've found with an Unicode character):
By entering the ü directly [che.com] or by using the encoded form. [che.com]
Ah, no, Slashcode insists in breaking the link even then!
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday March 04 2015, @05:12PM
Thanks for the report. Thought I had that fixed. Unfortunately it's likely to stay broken for a few more weeks before I have time to get to it. Once I do we'll do a quick point release and hopefully it'll retroactively fix all the bad links as well as future ones.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by paulej72 on Wednesday March 04 2015, @06:17PM
We found it only breaks for high ASCII characters (128 -255) as these are not UTF8 compatible. Our code was not designed to handle the situation properly, although we are not sure if it is even proper for a domain name to contain high ASCII characters. We will probably need to put in few lines of code in to transform the characters properly or leave them undisturbed if turns out that the Unicode version can't be used for these characters.
Team Leader for SN Development
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 04 2015, @06:22PM
Thanks so much for the testing -- helped make things much clearer. We've got a Top Man working on it and we seem to have narrowed down the possibilities. Probably won't be sometime until the weekend at the earliest when testing is done AND there's a quiet time to roll out any changes.
Thanks again!
(Score: 5, Interesting) by VLM on Monday March 02 2015, @05:06PM
and my fifth and really last question, tell a hell of a good story, preferably true, about the olden days, aside from the request for groupie stories, that you haven't told or at least isn't common knowledge that has something to do with /. Funny, interesting, insightful, gossipy hell how bout one of each.
(Score: 2) by Bob9113 on Monday March 02 2015, @05:10PM
Is your title real, or honorary? Seriously, though, thanks for your contribution to social media! Slashdot's moderation system and community have been a positive influence on our culture, and on my life.
Here's a real question: Being in the right place at the right time has a lot to do with success, as does skill and hard work in executing on an opportunity. Likewise, hard work and skill, when applied to a path that turns out to be a dead end, often comes to naught. Do you think that the material rewards of success in our society are properly balanced with the skill, effort, and fortune that lie on the road to success? If not, should it be changed, and how?
I guess I think your answer could be relevant since Slashdot experienced a significant confluence of those three factors.
(Score: 2) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Monday March 02 2015, @05:31PM
"I can see by your outfit that you are a cowboy."
"You can see by my outfit I'm a cowboy too."
"You can see by our outfits that we are both cowboys."
"Get yourself an outfit, and be a cowboy too."
You're betting on the pantomime horse...
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday March 02 2015, @07:34PM
Wrong lyrics. Try these.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9LEBO9qlT0 [youtube.com]
Lots of people can talk the talk, few can walk the walk.
And, no. I'm not a cowboy. I own a Stetson, and I know which end of a horse to NOT walk behind, but that don't make ME a cowboy either.
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2015, @08:27PM
More likely these lyrics,
The bus came by and I got on
That's when it all began
There was cowboy Neal
At the wheel
Of a bus to never-ever land
http://artsites.ucsc.edu/GDead/agdl/other1.html [ucsc.edu] Last verse.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neal_Cassady [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Monday March 02 2015, @09:10PM
Man! THAT is peckerwood!
You're betting on the pantomime horse...
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Wootery on Monday March 02 2015, @05:10PM
What are your thoughts on the various scoring systems used by sites like Slashdot, SoylentNews, and reddit, and the tradeoffs between them? Related: the ways these sites can be structured (for instance, some subreddits reliably generate good discussion).
Slashdot and SoylentNews both allow ACs, and both see endless streams of crap from ACs, along with the occasional worthwhile comment. reddit forbids ACs, but make account-creation extremely easy. Is there a way to 'win' here? I presume there is not.
Do you support Slashdot's policy of forbidding both moderating and commenting in a given thread?
(Sorry if this seems a bit contrived or scattered, but I figure you're in a good position to comment on this general sort of thing.)
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Monday March 02 2015, @05:21PM
Don't forget the dead ones like digg
Also bolt on "echo chamber" as a topic.
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Monday March 02 2015, @09:28PM
Both good additions.
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Tuesday March 03 2015, @03:39PM
Another thing I forgot: whether the order in which comments are displayed is decided by score, by age, or by some other scheme (e.g. one with a random component).
(Score: 5, Interesting) by tibman on Monday March 02 2015, @05:15PM
When sitting at a desk, what is your device of choice and what OS is on it?
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 1) by TLA on Monday March 02 2015, @06:03PM
Notebook and Pencil 1.0
Excuse me, I think I need to reboot my horse. - NCommander
(Score: 2) by Alfred on Tuesday March 03 2015, @06:12PM
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2015, @05:19PM
Shouldn't these questions be part of a poll that includes a Cowboy Neal option?
Hmmm, I guess the times they are a changin'.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2015, @05:23PM
Welcome to the community.
How do you like the site wearing red?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by infodragon on Monday March 02 2015, @05:32PM
Slasodot was an amazing site when it first started and had quite a long life. Given your experiences with that success what words of advice and caution would you give to the Solyent community?
Also thanks for all the hard work you put into Slashdot! The early days were evident it was a labor of love and many shared in that journey!
Don't settle for shampoo, demand real poo!
(Score: 2) by infodragon on Monday March 02 2015, @05:34PM
I don't know HOW I missed that. Slashdot, not Slasodot!
My apologies!
Don't settle for shampoo, demand real poo!
(Score: 5, Funny) by Ethanol-fueled on Monday March 02 2015, @05:34PM
Did Timothy ruin Slashdot like Yoko Ono ruined the Beatles?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by cafebabe on Monday March 02 2015, @10:16PM
Timothy was moderate compared to Jon Katz.
1702845791×2
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Thexalon on Monday March 02 2015, @05:41PM
What was your favorite and least favorite "CowboyNeal" poll option?
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 1) by Buck Feta on Monday March 02 2015, @05:47PM
Did all that stuff from the /. polls really happen to you/come true?
- fractious political commentary goes here -
(Score: 3, Interesting) by TLA on Monday March 02 2015, @05:58PM
Has the other site evolved since the History [slashdot.org] series concluded in October 2007 the way you expected or wanted it to?
Excuse me, I think I need to reboot my horse. - NCommander
(Score: 5, Interesting) by paulej72 on Monday March 02 2015, @06:08PM
Team Leader for SN Development
(Score: 2) by Geotti on Monday March 02 2015, @11:38PM
Expanding on that, any comments on improving the (meta-)mod system?
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 04 2015, @06:17PM
Maybe an automatism to change every use of "./" into "/."? ;-)
(Score: 2) by paulej72 on Wednesday March 04 2015, @07:01PM
Team Leader for SN Development
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Marneus68 on Monday March 02 2015, @06:16PM
Yay or nay and detail why!
(Score: 5, Interesting) by cafebabe on Monday March 02 2015, @10:22PM
I think that should be: SysV init, systemd or CowboyNeal?
1702845791×2
(Score: 4, Interesting) by hemocyanin on Monday March 02 2015, @06:17PM
If you look back to 2001, and compare how the life of slashdot actually is compared to what you had dreamed, did it come close?
Also, anyone with more time than I have right now, might want to dig up the answers to this 2001 /. thread. I gave it 60 seconds of effort, but I have to actually work today: http://news.slashdot.org/story/01/02/12/1617256/ask-the-man-behind-the-legend---cowboy-neal [slashdot.org]
As a side note, regarding karma, check out this ancient post involving karma gamification and multidimensional karma: http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=10511&cid=437429 [slashdot.org] -- Interesting how little things change.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Monday March 02 2015, @06:22PM
I had a 4-digit user # from the early days, but during a migration from the West Coast to the East Coast there were swathes of time when I didn't log in on a regular basis. When I came back to Slashdot on a daily basis I had just moved to NYC. A week after that some friends and I saw the trainwreck that was Phantom Menace. So, I knew Queen Amidala was Natalie Portman, but I missed the exact origin of the Natalie Portman and Hot Grits meme. At the time I didn't bother to backtrack because it seemed like one of those you-had-to-be-there kind of things, or another Goatse deal. But it kept going and going such that I eventually tried to figure out what the origin had been, but without success. It's the one bit of unresolved Slashdot memorabilia I still carry, so I'm hoping you can shed some light on it since you were there.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2015, @06:51PM
An old version of the Slashdot Wikipedia page [wikipedia.org] has some insight:
But that's all I could find so far.
(Score: 2, Informative) by TLA on Monday March 02 2015, @07:20PM
this stems from a story that ran about a woman who panned her husband in the face for sleeping around, and basically burned his skin off down to his chest with the boiling hot maize porridge that was up to that point happily bubbling away in the pan over a gas stove. Natalie Portman being a bit revealing and extremely suggestive in the movie "Leon" at the time (very much 13 years old in 1994), became a bit of a Lolita pinup and the subject of many a jealous row among middle aged couples. Connection made.
Excuse me, I think I need to reboot my horse. - NCommander
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday March 03 2015, @05:13AM
So..."Natalie Portman is so hot I'd take hot grits poured down my pants?" as in, it'd be worth it?
Thank you! At long last, after at least 15 years, it makes sense.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Leebert on Tuesday March 03 2015, @02:16AM
Also see a post I made about this subject [soylentnews.org] the other day.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Monday March 02 2015, @06:29PM
I have kind of wondered what the story was with selling Slashdot to the first acquirer (what was their name, the company that also owned Freshmeat?). What was the argument for you guys to consider selling it? Was it the general frenzy of the DotCom days that drove it, or was there a more material argument that was made whereby it would result in a better site for the Slashdot community? Also, how did the acquiring company plan to monetize the site and recoup their investment?
I ask because though SN has been founded and incorporated as a public benefit corporation, volunteerism can only take you so far and even endeavors such as this require some money. Given your experience with Slashdot, can you give the SN members your thoughts on how to square that circle and avoid destruction from another Dice.com?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by isostatic on Monday March 02 2015, @08:07PM
I have kind of wondered what the story was with selling Slashdot to the first acquirer (what was their name, the company that also owned Freshmeat?). What was the argument for you guys to consider selling it?
From wikipedia:
On June 29, 1999, the site was sold to Linux megasite Andover.net for $1.5 million in cash and $7 million in Andover stock at the IPO price
So less than 2 years after launch in Sep '97, they made $1.5 million in cool hard cash. And you ask what the argument was?
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday March 02 2015, @06:35PM
Do you ever travel under your moniker? I have often thought if I ever ran into Cowboy Neal or CmdrTaco at a bar or convention that I'd like to shake your hand, thank you for what you did for the world, and buy you a beer.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2015, @06:36PM
Can you give us your two paragraph capsule summary of how the Slashdot site and software developed over the first 10 or so years, including (especially) names?
Thanks,
Anonymous Hero
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2015, @06:45PM
What do you think about the current state of slashdot in terms of articles, code, comments, etc?
What do you think about soylentnews?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by tynin on Monday March 02 2015, @06:58PM
What's the story behind you being a default if often humorous poll option at /.?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by VIPERsssss on Monday March 02 2015, @07:00PM
Only one question; vi or emacs?
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Slartibartfast on Monday March 02 2015, @07:26PM
We (well, I) certainly miss you as an option on polls -- aside from that, I just wonder where you feel that Slashdot has gone wrong. I'm not throwing them under the bus, per-se -- I think (for example) that the Beta debacle was just them trying to do the right thing, against the wishes of the userbase. Re-designs are almost never welcomed with open arms. All that being said, I find Roblimo's insistence that someone, somewhere, will care about his product videos to be irksome in the extreme. I'm also thrown by the complete disconnect between the staff and the users -- with the exception of Timothy, nobody posts anything even kinda-sorta close to Taco's posts, etc. What say you? Site that's become mature? Or one that's lost the essence of what made it great?
(Score: 3, Funny) by Slartibartfast on Monday March 02 2015, @07:38PM
Just realized my UID on here is higher than my UID on /.
Apparently, I'm getting slower with age.
(Score: 2) by SlimmPickens on Monday March 02 2015, @08:21PM
So how long had slashdot been running at the time? Just curious to try and gauge the health of this site.
(Score: 2) by Robotron on Monday March 02 2015, @08:09PM
Are you frustrated that you didn't file a trademark request for Slashdot's color as NealTeal, while you had the chance?
(For those unaware of the practice: Color trademarking [wikipedia.org])
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Robotron on Monday March 02 2015, @08:13PM
Back when your site was up I noticed you clocked in a lot of hours gaming on Steam, particularly with MMOs like LOTR Online.
Given that this genre is apparently a favourite of yours, what are your thoughts about the oft-repeated accusations that MMOGs have, in recent years, become excessively dumbed-down, formulaic, or otherwise stale?
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2015, @08:47PM
Given that you've seen slashdot grow and change and competing sites come and go, I imagine you have developed strong preferences about how you like to take your tech news (cream, two sugars, etc). So my question is: what is your current preferred source for technology related news?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2015, @09:17PM
Why is El Reg the best tech news site?
(Score: 2) by buswolley on Monday March 02 2015, @08:55PM
Does cowboy Neal Systemd or no?
subicular junctures
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2015, @09:08PM
Many here are refugees from Slashdot because they are dismayed with how it changed. You may (or may not) feel similarly, but still, slashdot was your baby. Do you feel comfortable criticizing it?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2015, @09:09PM
Is this a better/worse time to be starting a career in the software/IT industry compared to 20 years ago?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2015, @09:25PM
Did that have anything to do with you?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by barrahome on Monday March 02 2015, @11:35PM
Do you think that Slashdot(news site) failed to users after you leave it?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Appalbarry on Monday March 02 2015, @11:51PM
The Internet that we see today is dramatically different from what existed when Slashdot was launched in 1997.
The corporatization and commercialization of so much on the 'net has changed it from the free and easy, wild west place that some of us remember, and we're now at a point where pretty much everyone, from all walks of life, is on the 'net in some fashion, instead of just the nerds, geeks, and techheads that were hanging out back then.
The culture of the 'net defined early projects like Slashdot, and the kind of people who were early users led directly to the still brilliant Slashdot moderation system, and to every attempt at commenting and moderation that followed.
Arguably almost all post-Usenet conversation on the 'net is influenced by what Slashdot created.
Do you think that Slashdot could be created today? And is it fair to also look at the site as an important historical artifact?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 03 2015, @02:49AM
http://www.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/2xcyrl/i_am_j%C3%BCrgen_schmidhuber_ama/ [reddit.com]
(Score: 1) by zugedneb on Tuesday March 03 2015, @04:42AM
What did you do to end up as an option to every poll?
Did you pull some unforgettable epic comedy stunt? =)
old saying: "a troll is a window into the soul of humanity" + also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ajax
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Tuesday March 03 2015, @04:59AM
What is the capital of Abyssinia?
(Score: 2) by Common Joe on Tuesday March 03 2015, @05:32AM
Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] says your online name was inspired by a song. Are there any interesting stories about the choice of your online name?
(Score: 2) by CoolHand on Wednesday March 04 2015, @07:55PM
It's inspired by a Grateful Dead song (which was naming Neal Cassady as Cowboy Neal). So my question would be, "How big of a Deadhead is CowboyNeal? How many shows did he attend? Will he be attending any of the 50th anniversary shows this summer? Which singer in the dead was his favorite?
Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job-Douglas Adams
(Score: 2) by Common Joe on Tuesday March 03 2015, @05:36AM
Obviously, you don't mind Soylent News since you're doing an interview, but any interesting thoughts that you have concerning Slashdot competition like Soylent News or Pipedot?
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 03 2015, @07:31AM
Dear Cowboy Neal:
Why can't we marry young girls.
The Bible allows it (Deuteronomy 22 28-29 in hebrew).
(Score: 2) by goody on Tuesday March 03 2015, @01:40PM
Who made the decision at Slashdot to $rtbl a bunch of people after they modded the forbidden post?
(Score: 1) by Natales on Tuesday March 03 2015, @03:25PM
CowboyNeal: I, for one, don't have a question for you. I want to say thank you for all the work you put in the early days working on something that has been relevant for the most part of my adult life. Regardless of what's the state of /. today, this site exists because we still believe in the same things.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by drussell on Wednesday March 04 2015, @06:01PM
Is there anything about the slashcode style sites that you would change if you could, whether it be something that you would have liked to have been able to change about slashdot but were prevented from doing so, and why, or something in general about slashdot/soylentnews/etc., perhaps something you see in hindsight that may not have occured to you at the time?
And, no I don't mean something like "get rid of the trolls" unless you have some idea how to do that. :) Something about the site itself.
Thanks for your all your work over the years! I enjoyed the early days at /. very much and now SoylentNews.