Slashdot Effect

On Saturday, there was literally an astronomical blue moon. This meant I could get mentioned on Slashdot (thanks!). The statistics of referer hits to my JibJab lawsuit info post were:

Slashdot 1,603
Importance blog 404 (this is almost all a Slashdot reflect since posts there were also mentioned)
unknown 214
sethf.com 63

Note, that post was so much less work than a DMCA exemption or my Nitke vs Ashcroft Expert Witness Report.

Anyone who thinks there are no gatekeepers in the bogosphere, is simply deluded.

I'm not 100.0% banned from appearing in Slashdot. That would be a strawman version of the problem. Rather, I'm extremely marginalized, due to the complicated politics of the Slashdot de facto support connected to "editor" Michael Sims' domain hijacking (which is NOT a case of moral equivalence).

I've said this before. But every time I work through some numbers, some measurements, I think about how the Panglossian view is absurd and downright cruel. No, we are not a bunch of happy little blogging bears all playing patty-cake with each other. There are some animals who are far more equal than others.

Seth Finkelstein's Infothought blog (Wikipedia, Google, censorware, and an inside view of net-politics) - Syndicate site (subscribe, RSS)