Symlink.ch
Symlink.ch was a news ticker for German-speaking computer-savvy readers (" geeks ", " nerds "), which is a mixture of news ticker and blog ; Symlink is therefore often referred to as a "German-speaking slash dot ".
The name is the short form of the English-language computer term symbolic link , in German a symbolic link and describes the idea behind the symlink articles: They should only be short summaries, not complete articles in the sense of a newspaper or a news ticker.
content
Like its role model Slashdot , Symlink.ch is not a news ticker in the traditional sense in which the contributions and comments are created exclusively by an editorial team. Articles are submitted by readers and published by a permanent pool of authors. Symlink.ch lives from the cooperation of the readers, their comments and their opinions. Regular readers have the opportunity to become authors themselves. To prevent trolls , Symlink, like Slashdot, has a sophisticated moderation system. In contrast to Slashdot, however, since mid-2002 no more articles have been deleted from the automatic archiving that takes place after two months. Previously, articles with a negative score were not archived.
The subject areas are relatively broad and try to cover a broad spectrum. News on current events, entertaining, funny and interesting things from technology, science and research as well as political topics alternate. The editors try to offer the most interesting mix possible. Various organizations such as the Big Brother Awards , LUGS or Wikipedia have their own rubric.
Stylistically, Symlink tries to provide objective information in the articles, to avoid bashing completely and to let personal opinions shine through between the lines, if at all. Due to the submissions of readers, this is sometimes a tightrope walk and makes it necessary to change some passages and defuse articles or, in extreme cases, to refrain from publication. Comments, on the other hand, are never changed and the principle of freedom of expression prevails. The Symlink editors do not always take themselves as seriously as other news sites with similar topics do, and they also explain what a "pirated copy" is or how nerd and nerdine come together.
In addition, there are regular surveys on topics from the IT environment in which an answer with “Raffzahn” is always available as a running gag , e.g. B. What is your professional future planning? - “Wants to become famous like Raffzahn.” These surveys in no way claim to be representative, but often give a good picture of the mood or are purely for entertainment. It has already been asked whether readers generally take part in surveys. The only selectable point here was only "Yes", since it is logical that someone who would vote "No" would not even take part in the survey. At the urging of individual readers, a "No" button was added later.
Reach and visitor numbers
As a German-language news ticker, Symlink.ch tries above all to cover the German-speaking area. Articles on upcoming or past regional events are often sent in that are rarely or not at all reported in the established media.
The number of visitors fluctuated between 80,000 and 100,000 hits per day. A certain dependency of the accesses with the number of published articles can be observed here, which is due to the active linking of the web feed .
In 2007, Symlink had around 2,300 registered users. However, registration is not necessary to read or write comments. Registered users can, however, adapt the front to their personal needs.
history
Symlink.ch was created through an idea in LUGS - the Linux User Group Switzerland . After a short test phase, the website was officially put online on December 1st, 2000, thus opening the link, as stated in the first article. The focus of the contributions is on computer topics from German-speaking countries, the influence of politics on IT , data protection , the geek culture, and everything to do with open source .
At the general assembly of the LUGS 2001, Symlink became the official association magazine of the Linux Users Group Switzerland upon request.
On October 7, 2006, Symlink celebrated the 10,000. published article.
In 2010 (after 10 years of Symlink.ch) there was a major crisis due to a lack of motivation and cooperation on the part of both the operator and the user. No new article has appeared since August 9, 2012. (As of June 2015)
technology
The CMS is based, like his idol, the American website Slashdot , on Slashcode . For Symlink, all issues have been translated into German and various functions have been added over time. So it is possible to read Symlink on the go via WAP or in a lean text version on a PDA . The printing function was even mentioned in the O'Reilly book on Slash.
The hall of fame, i.e. the internal statistics, has also been expanded to include numerous filter options and functions. Registered users are also greeted with a randomly generated saying. The associated script has been expanded from originally a few hundred to currently 6,510,688,800 combinations. The generated sayings all follow a certain pattern, but rarely make sense and sometimes appear very Dadaistic . Example: "This page was generated for Wikipedia from a host of transatlantic monopole photons."
Symlink is hosted on the association web server of the Linux Users Group Switzerland and is completely free of advertising. All editors work on the project on a voluntary basis and in their free time.
planet symlink
planet symlink is part of the symlink website as a blog platform. The software Planet Aggregator is used as software for the collection (so-called “feed aggregation”) and processing of external blog posts written by symlink authors .
Individual evidence
- ↑ symlink.ch: What belongs on our website? - A symlink is a link
- ↑ Symlinks Mission
- ↑ pirated copy explained
- ↑ Nerd is looking for nerdine
- ↑ Message The symlinking is open! to start
- ↑ Decision of the LUGS-GV 2001, Symlink becomes the official club magazine
- ↑ Symlink article on the LUGS-GV 2001
- ↑ The 10'000. items
- ↑ [1] , article Is symlink dead?
- ↑ slash code
- ↑ The ninja monkey spell generator