Slashdot "Editor Upgrade" Updates
There's a few items worth noting on the Slashdot "Editor Upgrade" story, and I as seem to be in the position of providing the most investigative facts on the matter, I'll do an update.
Even a month later, nobody who I would consider to be a "reliable source" is willing to talk. At this point, I'd provisionally infer from the silence everywhere that something did happen. But it's still utterly opaque.
The Censorware Project domain-hijack continues, with the renewal yet again
of the censorware.org domain.
[Update May 21 2005: There may have been an autorenewal and nonpayment issue. The domain was at last able to be reclaimed in May 2005]
According to the WHOIS information now (emphasis mine):
Domain Name:CENSORWARE.ORG
Created On:25-Feb-1998 05:00:00 UTC
Last Updated On:25-Feb-2005 05:06:53 UTC
Expiration Date:24-Feb-2006 05:00:00 UTC
Remember, this hijacking basically did not matter in terms of any perceptible consequences for it. Whatever the truth of the reasons behind Slashdot's, err, "personnel change", I sadly doubt abusiveness played much of a part.
People keep telling me about the anonymous posting purportedly giving an insider account. I've been hesitant to give this more prominence. Perhaps I should have debunked it earlier. In my view, it's a "classic" troll posting. That is, not the absurd things about e.g. supposedly possessing an incriminating smuggled phonecam video capture of Satanic sex orgies with goats aboard the Slashdot yacht (that string should lead to some "interesting" Google hits ...). But rather, a well-crafted story which would be superficially credible.
It's reasonably written, However, any account talking about "[he] actually did move from New York to Canada to protest George W. Bush's inauguration in 2001", just can't be taken seriously, because that's fiction. Amusing fiction, maybe. Deserves points for creativity, perhaps. But, sigh, not the real story all the same.
I haven't tested or inquired to see if anything's different in terms
of my possibly being un-marginalized in terms of having stories considered
for posting at Slashdot. It just feels, well, futile ("Hey guys,
now that the infamously abusive domain-hijacker who made confidential
legal information available to censorware companies, and gladly worked with them to
stop me from investigating censorware, and was even cited by them
in formal DMCA testimony against me, is now gone, would a submission
from an award-winning free-speech pioneer be treated fairly?"). I suppose
I should ask, on pain of being deemed
defeatist
otherwise. But it's ... humiliating.
