"Some bigger site mentions something slightly related to our site in a subdivision of their page where few people will notice it"

No offense or anything :)

Sounds like you should take a look at the traffic slashdot generates. If you get mentioned anywhere in one of those subsections (such as the popular Ask Slashdot section) consider yourself lucky and warned for a flood of hits.

Think before posting.

In case you didn't notice, Adam was being a bit sarcastic in his comment. :)

Howver I believe what Adam was trying to say is, that ticalc.org is making such a big deal over something that isn't that important.

People ask questions about TI graphing calculators all the time, is this one special because its on slashdot?

The answer to that is yes.

Sure, it may be more special if it's on slashdot, but it doesn't make it applicable to the content of this site. I know slashdot gets a bazillion hits per day, but that doesn't mean ticalc.org needs to go give them some advertising just because they did something that slightly applies to their site (but not really).

Adam,

Ticalc.org is a vertical news site with a focus on TI calculators. News about TI calculators and news regarding their interaction with Linux is certainly something I am interested in, and they should be covering. This focus at ticlac.org is a narrow one, and the poeple who visit expect a little breadth and depth. I certainly do when visiting.

I'd suggest you take a look at some popular internet sites, Sharky Extreme, Anandtech, News.com etc... You'll notice that all of them, including slashdot link to other revelant and interesting stories on the net. When the New York Times mentions linux, 9 times out of 10 /. or Linux Today mentions that fact. Anandtech.com links to reviews other people are doing.

Regarding giving slashdot 'advertising'? Any site that refuses to link to other sites because they don't want to give them 'advertising' or exposure is not only silly (what's the net about anyways) but also negligent in their responsiblites, which should lie to the visitors of a site.

I'd suggest problems with a story being posted get sent directly to the maintainers of a site, in this case ticalc.org. They can look at their server logs to see if traffic has been dropping or check to see if there are tons of complaints and make a decision accordingly.

And if it is absolutly necessary to post publicy, at least post something worthwhile.

If someone had just released a new linking program for Linux, then I could see making a big deal about it.

But I believe Adam's original point was, slashdot only _mentioned_ TI graphing calculators, and plus it was in the form of a user asking a question about them. It wasn't like anyone who works at slashdot was giving any news about graphing calculators or any opinions about them, which would be more significant.

I don't know where the advertising thing came into this thread. Obviously, slashdot doesn't need advertising from ticalc.org. It wouldn't do much anyway. :)

TI <-> Linux stuff is a relativly unexplorered area in general. It was an interesting question, and since ticalc.org is a vertical news site, I'd say pretty much anything that sorta relates to calculators is pretty much fair game, that's why we are here... There certainly isn't so great a volume of news articles that there is a tradeoff, the slashdot story makes it at the expense of a TI announcment kind of thing.

So really, no harm, nice diversion, and good to see calculators even just mentioned on slashdot :)

>> since ticalc.org is a vertical news site,

Don't you mean a "virtual" news site? If not, what's a vertical news site?

There news news like the New York Times, and then there is vertical news, like a news site dedicated to just calulators, kind of like vertical applications such as data collection for telephone salesman, which belongs in a vertical market, the telecomunications one...

I don't think its very nice to put that guy's e-mail in the news article for everyone to e-mail him. I'm sure he won't appreciate getting 100 e-mails tonight.

(Please don't remove this comment.)

Him putting his e-mail address on /. doesn't help much either, Bryan. They get more hits than we do :)

--BlueCalx

No offense or anything, but "Ask Slashdot" is not exactly the same as news item on their front page.

And still, its not nice to add to the "effect".

Bryan, do you have any idea what the traffic level of slashdot is? Do you have any idea what the point behind the Ask Slashdot section is? I have been a slashdot reader for literally years, and if you think for one second that A) the 'effect' is bad or B) That ticalc.org will make a large difference in the effect you'd better have another think coming.

The point of Ask Slashdot is to get help on a particular problem. The more responses the better, especially from an informed community such as ticalc.org.

Perhaps it's time for a 'hide comments from' feature, already seen at slashdot.

I never said the guy didn't know what he was getting himself into by asking slashdot to post such a question on their site.

My point is, the guy didn't ask ticalc.org to post his e-mail. After reading his question, its probably safe to assume that he doesn't even know ticalc.org exists (before he asked it).

It seems like ticalc.org is taking the position of "Well, the 'damage' has already been done, so it won't hurt much more to post the guys e-mail on our site." I was just trying to comment on the fact I think thats rather irresponsible.

"Damage?" The guy asked his question because he wanted help, and by asking it on Slashdot he must certainly know he'll get a landslide of it. I reckon the most knowledgeable answers will come from TI enthusiasts, many of whom will find out he needs help from our site, and thus we're sending some good information his way. He might even become more interested in all this after seeing the large following he probably didn't know about before.

That is all. :)

Chris

"Damage" meaning.. "well, this guy is going to get flooded with e-mails anyway, so there isn't any harm in posting his e-mail address on our site." That's what I meant to say. That's the impression I got from Nick's comment above.

Sure, the guy wanted some questions answered, and I'm sure he got them answered - since I see two of your fellow staffers responded almost immediately.

BTW - He doesn't /need/ help from /your/ site. :)

Nah, not from /our/ site, but he got it anyway. ;)

Hmm, actually, I wouldn't mind if some Linux programmers would take note and make a kernel module or program or something cool that would allow transfers. The different models are not very different. A good data transmission engine would be able to very quickly convert between different variable formats on the fly.

Yes, such a program or kernel would be cool.

Wow, this gets partisan fast, I'd forgot what all this site stuff was like :)...

But he got a little extra help from our site here, which couldn't have done anything but help.

PS - I must say this new layout is clean, fast and pretty sophisticated. Nice job.

Thanks--clean, fast, and sophisticated was what we were shooting for. ;)

But we offer it.

--BlueCalx