Time again for our Website of the Week, when we showcase interesting and innovative online destinations. Our web guide is VOA's Art Chimes.
This week, we feature a website targeted without apology at computer geeks, but full of news that everyone who uses or is affected by technology may find interesting.
MALDA: "Our catchphrase is 'news for nerds, stuff that matters.' It's basically a place where geeks go and congregate and spend their time and talk about Linux, open source, iPhones, technology, the things that government might be doing to influence our ability to use gadgets and technology, Internet culture, that sort of thing."
Rob Malda is creator of Slashdot.org, a website full of technology news and, just as importantly, conversation about the new developments in the world of high tech. That sense of community — where one news item can spark hundreds of comments — is a basic part of what Slashdot is.
MALDA: "We have conversations. We like to compare Slashdot a little bit more to a pub than to a newspaper because we're really an opinionated bunch of curmudgeonly guys really discussing the issues."
Slashdot has been around for about a decade, and while most visitors are from North America, Malda says as many as one in four is from outside the U.S.
In recent days Slashdot readers could have learned about the newest beta release of the popular Firefox web browser, hacking a cardiac pacemaker, and new standards for aircraft flight recorders — the so-called black boxes.
Most of the stories are submitted by readers, who also get to vote on each others' submissions, though Slashdot's editors have the final word.
MALDA: "Our readers submit hundreds of stories to us every day, and we're sort of picking and choosing from them. Our readers are welcome to be a part of that process. They can vote up and down stories [in the 'firehose' section of the site], but at the end of the day our stories are selected by a group of biased editors, and not necessarily by the whims of a mob."
Rob Malda of Slashdot.org, sounding a little tongue-in-cheek there. News for nerds, stuff that matters as they say, at Slashdot.org, or get the link from our site, voanews.com.