I think I can make it on slashdot

I have what I think is a pretty good slashdot article. I've submitted some over the years, but never got one published. This time i've made a pretty decent discovery that I think would make it onto the front page.

As I see it:
1) I have to have the context of my article published elsewhere. I don't have a search engine news site, but I suspect one of you guys can help me out with that.
2) I have to write the article well, and send it in on a lucky day.
3) I'd like to prepare my server as much as possible for a slashdotting.

Anybody out there willing to post an article on their SE News site in hopes for a slashdotting? (multiple sites reporting the same info are always good with slashdot).

I'm a little slammed, so maybe mid-next week would be a good time to try to arrange things. If you guys are willing to help out with the article (and agree not to steal my thunder), I'll disclose what I've found privately.

The bennies with a slashdot link would be a link on a PR9 page, and a bazillion visitors in the course of a day. If I wrote an article and it got posted, my link would be in my posting name, and a link to my page on my server would be slammed with traffic as well. Obviously, spammy sites are out of the question, but plenty of postings require sign up (nytimes, wsj) and have ads (no pop up ads that I've noticed, but then again, I always run a series of pop up blockers.

I'm off to bed, so you're stuck in suspense for a while.

Obviously, this is all speculation, but I think this has real promise to make it on the front page. It's just panicky enough to inspire discussion, and it involves two major search engines and a "secret partnership".

Other thoughts would be: release a PRWeb article the day you submit to slashdot. Have another person submit it on day 2, if it didn't make it on the first try. Post something about the subject in newsgroups to get other people to post articles up at slashdot. Heck, the 80 bucks for a front page prweb link would be worth it to get an article listed on slashdot anyways.

If you haven't heard of slashdot... first of all, you are not a geek. All geeks read slashdot, have read slashdot, or have at least heard of it. Second, google for the "slashdot effect", or just go to slashdot and try to get to a web site in the top two or three articles. Chances are, at least one doesn't work. The traffic from slashdot literally takes down web servers that aren't ready to handle it.

Don't get all hot and bothered though. You could very well think what I've found is totally meaningless. Obviously, I don't, but then again I've had every article I've sent into slashdot rejected - including one about the first titanium under-the-skin permanent bra - which I still firmly believe pretty much all nerds would be interested in.

 

I'll post it if you like...

I don't think I'd mind the traffic too much

Let me know

 

Sounds kinda interesting nevets - be curious to hear the news.

WRT Slashdot: www.komar.org has featured on the front page of Slashdot 5 times since 2002 - what made this especially challenging is that I was presenting dynamic content (uses a LOT more CPU/RAM) - the infamous christmas lights webcam hoax ;-)

It sounds like you just have a press release/information page - i.e. static content without large images or video's. Assuming you have a decent server, this should be MUCH easier to handle and while I'd certainly notice a static page of mine showing up on Slashdot (it's a fairly dramatic spike in traffic unless you are a HUGE site), I wouldn't worry about it. As a ballpark, I'd guestimate 100,000 inbounds in two days (see my slashdot effect analysis for details/trends) so multiply that by the size of your file, add some fudge factor since a few percentage of folks will click around your site if interesting and you'll have some idea of your bandwidth needs. If you are paying per the GByte, you might want to host elsewhere.

Again, the Slashdot Effect can (and does) crush people running web servers at home on their DSL lines, people with resource intensive dynamic content, and/or those with large images/video's/etc., and free (capped) hosted such as GeoCities. With faster computers/networks, it's less (but still) of an issue these days IMHO. If a static page on www.komar.org showed up on /. right now, I could go to sleep feeling confident the web server wouldn't get crushed.

BTW, that 100,000 (very!) ballpark number is for the URL describing the story - I never really analyzed the inbould traffic from the link on the posting name, but my guess is it is less than 1% of the folks who click on the story URL.

In terms of getting your submissions accepted. I didn't submit any of those 5 stories above, and before my Christmas Hoax, I was batting 9 outa 36 - i.e. 25% of submittals were accepted - I've been told that's pretty decent - dunno. Like anything else, know your audiance, do a complete writeup, and think three times before you hit the SUBMIT button because you don't get to EDIT it like you do here at DP!

Along those lines, I've seen stuff of mine rejected and then very similar stories later posted than weren't as good. And stuff that I thought would make a GREAT /. story never show up.

WRT PR9 Link: yea, that's pretty powerful ... but the story rolls off the front page in a day, so I'm not sure this is a "PR play" ... but if you really want a PR9 link, I'm sure they'd sell it to 'ya!

The traffic spike is kinda cool, but it peaks quickly and rapidly falls off as you become yesterday's news. If nothing else, I'd say it's more of a "Geek Play"

My two cents - drop me a note if you want more ... ;-)
alek

 

I've had stories make it on the front page of slashdot (not with a link to one of my sites), and the name of the story submitter doesn't get clicked on much. A few hundred click over the course of the day the story was on the front page.

I've also had a story with a link to one of my sites accepted but it only made to a section page. I was pretty dissapointed by the small amount of traffic I got from that.

If you get a link to your site on the front page it would be huge though!

I agree with alek that the editors are finicky. I've posted stuff that I didn't think had a chance make it, and other stuff that I was sure would make it get rejected. A lot of times they will get the same story submitted multiple times by different people; and they don't neccescarily pick the best written submission...

 

Yeah, there's a lot of reader angst over the whole "duping" thing, plus editors seem to show favouritism to certain blogs despite the readers slamming most everything the blog says. Would be fun just for the kudos though.