Science Addiction

On Sunday, the 18th of December this website was the victim of “the slashdot effect”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slashdot_effect. That is, we were slashdotted.

slashdotted
Function: Verb
Etymology: Post-modern geekspeak
1 a: to kill a web server through excessive traffic, usually caused by a link from “slashdot.org”:http://slashdot.org
Usage: “Science Addiction”:http://www.scienceaddiction.com was slashdotted on Sunday because I submitted my “article on open source charity for the holiday season”:http://www.scienceaddiction.com/2005/12/18/seasons-givings/.

Here are a few stats from the aftermath:

• So far, in 2 days, my server has recorded 9000 views for the article linked from slashdot.
• In the first 6-8 hours after the effect, the site was practically inaccessible. Read “comments on slashdot”:http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/18/1453256&tid=105&tid=95&tid=4 to that effect.
• So far, 5 people besides me have del.icio.us’ed my article! Translation: they added it to their web-bookmarks at “del.icio.us”:http://del.icio.us.
• This website, which till a few days ago barely received a dozen visitors a day, is averaging in the hundreds 50-ish hours after the effect

Interesting stuff, to say the least. I will put more facts up as I come up with them!

UPDATE (12/22/05): A few more facts…

• A vast majority of the slashdotters use “Mozilla Firefox”:http://spreadfirefox.com/community/?q=affiliates&id=76836&t=1. Many use Apple with Safari, and finally, a few poor souls actually use MSIE, though I would like to believe they are online from their place of work and have no choice. If so, please switch jobs quick!
• Many Linux users… no surprises there. Many of those were “Ubuntu”:http://www.ubuntulinux.org/ linux users; seems like Ubuntu is popular with the slashdot crowd.