Kuro5hin

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Some information in this article or section is not attributed to sources and may not be reliable.
Please check for inaccuracies, and modify and cite sources as needed.

Kuro5hin (K5) (pronounced "corrosion") is a discussion website running on the Scoop collaborative system. Its motto is "Technology and Culture, from the Trenches". It was founded by Rusty Foster.

1 Overview
2 Etiquette
3 History
4 See also
5 References
6 External links

[edit] Overview

All content is generated and selected by the users themselves with the exception of site news, that are written by the site administrators. Registered users can submit stories to the submissions queue. In the queue, users vote +1 FP (front page), +1, 0, or -1. If the story reaches a predetermined threshold score (originally at +95 and lowered from +70 to +40 in December 2006 due to the site's waning popularity), it is posted to the front page or to the relevant section depending on the proportion of FP votes. If it fails to make the threshold, other factors (such as number of comments and their ratings) can still cause the story to be posted to section. Otherwise, it is dropped.^[1]

One feature of the story queue is edit mode, in which a story is protected from voting for a period of time and the author can make changes. Comments can still be made on the story to suggest changes before voting begins. They are distinguished as being editorial or topical comments.

A further section is known as the diaries. They have no editing or moderation vetting and are essentially weblogs.^[2] They are the source of most of Kuro5hin's content by volume, though unlike the edited article sections, they are not widely syndicated.

[edit] Etiquette

New users to Kuro5hin often find there are several unwritten rules they are expected to follow. Many existing users say that new users should post some diaries and comments to the site before submitting a story. Users who have no comments and no diaries and who submit a story are often called nullos, originally given after an article posted by McBain in 2003.^[3]

Kuro5hin site administrators have on one occasion revealed the full name of a particularly malicious user, and are known to publish complaints and comments emailed by readers, usually to publicly ridicule and insult them. ^[4] ^[5] ^[6] ^[7]

[edit] History

Rusty Foster named Kuro5hin — which is, as noted, pronounced corrosion — as a pun on his first name. The number 5 was inspired by a character called Da5id in Neal Stephenson's 1992 science fiction novel Snow Crash. Dylan Griffiths (Inoshiro) was second-in-command as site administrator for some time, but more recently has been largely absent from the community^{[citation needed]}. Additionally, there are a number of other people with powers of story editing (although not comment editing) and site administration^{[citations needed]}.

The community also holds a (now dormant) wiki for Kuro5hin related material called "Ko4ting" (pronounced "coating" or "cavorting"). It houses information about the community, including a Greatest Stories Hall of Fame, Welcome/Introduction Guide, History of Kuro5hin, and a story directory.

In June 2002 Rusty suggested that he might be forced to sell or shut down Kuro5hin due to lack of funds, and he solicited donations to support the site.^[8] In response, readers gave more than $37,000 in donations and other support in less than a week.^[9] Shortly thereafter Rusty announced plans to create a non-profit organization known as the Collaborative Media Foundation (CMF) to manage K5.^[10] Since then, some users have been critical of a perceived lack of active management and functional improvements to the site. As of 2006, the CMF is not legally incorporated, and the site runs on bandwidth provided by sponsor voxel dot net, with ad revenues going directly into Foster's pocket.

The style and content of what is in part a magazine site has ebbed and flowed over time, at first resembling more the typical Slashdot geek fare. Following the Dot-Com Crash, the election of George W. Bush and the Iraq War, the site saw an an increase in politics articles. In early 2003 a fiction section was added.^[11]

In the second half of 2003 a large portion of the diarists abandoned Kuro5hin and started posting diaries on Hulver's site (commonly referred to as "HuSi"). Around the same time complaints about trolls increased.

On March 25, 2004, Rusty closed off new user accounts because of posting of a pornographic image of his wife. He later announced he was going to implement new user sponsorship^[12]. Many users believed that it would be the beginning of the end of Kuro5hin ^[13] ^[14] and some believed the whole scheme wouldn't work at all. ^[15] On July 13, Rusty reopened new user accounts and informed the community that he was abandoning the idea of user sponsorship.^[16]

On July 23, 2004, Rusty announced that he was going to alter the way editors modify peoples' diaries to make it more visible to the K5 community.^[17] This was done in response to the way that an unknown editor modified circletimessquare's diary.^[18] There was confusion over whether the diary was a troll, and a subsequent diary by curien underscored this further.^[19] ^[20] As of June 22, 2005, almost one year later, these changes to editor powers have still not been implemented.

On July 04, 2005, a minor scandal erupted over the publication of a front page article titled "Fuck Natalee Holloway" that was perceived to be ridiculing alleged rape and murder victim Natalee Holloway, with new users signing up to denounce the author and Kuro5hin administrators.^[21]

The concept of Liquid democracy was developed in 2003 in a k5 article ^[22].

On June 14, 2006, a cross-site scripting vulnerability was used to compromise cookies belonging to administrators. This access was then used to embed an Iframe redirect to Last Measure into every page on the site. The site existed in this state for about 15 minutes before being taken down entirely. After approximately 2 hours of downtime, the site was restored to its normal state.

[edit] See also

Advogato
Slashdot, often referred in Kuro5hin as "the other site". Many users valued the community-based management of the front page in Kuro5hin over the Slashdot system of professional editors.
Digg
reddit