Announcing something to Slashdot
A fellow from JPL announced that they're releasing data from the Mars Spirit rover for users to download and play with, using a tool that they've also released - the same tool that folks at NASA are using to analyze the data they've gotten back. This is a pretty cool thing.
He announced it to Slashdot, probably thinking that this is a huge community of like-minded geeks, and, well, Slashdot being what it is, a whole lot of people started basically making jokes about it.
The JPL dude posted this:
Well, I really hope that people won't be scared away from Maestro because of all the rubbish posted here. It certainly killed any useful discussion before it could start. It's a pity - we worked very hard on Maestro, and I think that there are a lot of people out there who would enjoy it.
I'm very new to Slashdot (ok, ok, I joined just so I could announce Maestro :) ). Does this happen often? How is it usually dealt with? It seems like in situations like this the editors might consider just pulling the article and posting it again later.
Of course, I don't see how anyone could even FIND this post considering the company it will be keeping.. oh well! :(
I'm very new to Slashdot (ok, ok, I joined just so I could announce Maestro
Of course, I don't see how anyone could even FIND this post considering the company it will be keeping.. oh well!
I hope someone lets him know that this is perfectly normal and that there isn't any useful discussion on Slashdot.. it would be pretty discouraging to have something you've worked on for years and take very seriously announced on Slashdot.
BTW, a plug for SciScoop here - SciScoop is an awesome site (although I did prefer the SciFiToday name).
On the other hand, I'm sure it got them a lot of traffic...