Member interaction takes place within the comments of postings. Most interaction takes place when opinions on a certain topic differs. Below is an example of such an occurrence.

On Tuesday, March 29 2005, a post called "Ars Technica Builds Make Magazine's Steadicam" was commented on where members of slashdot offered their comments on the review of Make Magazine, as well as their own insight into the publication. In case you are wondering what Make magazine is, it is a publication which contains "geeky" projects that you can build following instructions. A particular comment about this article interested me. Member lukewarmfusion posted a comment after reading the the article and watching the video Ars used to document their project.

"From the article:

For those stuck on dial-up, here is a quick summary of our results:

* Both "handheld" shots were very shaky with the electronic stabilization performing only marginally better.
* The "steadicam only" shot was a significant improvement over either "handheld" shot.
* Turning on the electronic stabilization made the "steadicam" shot even smoother.

Despite all of this, we found that there was still a little bit of shake in the picture. We expect that a little practice with the steadicam could have vastly improved our shooting technique. All in all, we would say that this project was a big success!

I saw the video. It was a little better, but the combination of the two made it much better. Unfortunately, it's still far too shaky to consider it useful for any indie film that doesn't want to be branded with the Blair Witch style. So why would you go to the trouble?"

To view the video which lukewarmfusion was referring to, click on the image below.

This comment went on to create quite an interesting dialogue where even the Ars writer added comments about his own article, stating

"I realized today that there was a small problem with our video test: we weren't following any subject. Most steadicam shots are either following a subject or moving around a subject within a few feet of the camera. As you saw in the test, there was no subject. Consequently, even the tiniest movements seemed to make the whole world shake.

The other half (as I mentioned in the review) was that we didn't practice much with the steadicam. I imagine with a little work, we could have gotten a really nice shot. One of the areas that could have used some practice was paying attention to how the side bar is held (since it controls the side-to-side motion). You'll see in the last shot that overall it is very smooth, except that there is a little side to side movement."

I think it is great that such a place exists where both the reader and reviewer of geek publications can come and discuss their views. Something that I found interesting about the interaction and behavior of the members of slashdot is the way in which they treat each other. I was honestly thinking most comments would be trolling or some what verbally abusive attacks on each other. However for the most part it seems that member posts are just more blunt and "on topic" rather then searching for a n00b to bite. One thing that I believe helps aid this attempt at keeping comments on track is the scoring system. For example one member posted this comment about the Ars article:

"Arstechnica and its members, especially in their forums, are sub par. What did you expect, originality and quality?"

The score for this comment was -1, noting that it was most likely posted by a troll, another indicator that slashdot gives to warn u of a weak comment is by letting people post with the "anonymous coward" screename.