CmdrTaco Resigns From Slashdot, Sends Shock Waves Through Geek Community

Rob “CmdrTaco” Malda has resigned from his 14-year post at the helm of geeky news aggrigator, Slashdot to allow the site to develop further. He is not currently working on any new plans.

Co-founder and Editor-in-Chief Rob Malda, better known as CmdrTaco, posted his letter of resignation on the website, which has always gone by the motto “News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters”.

An excerpt from his note:

“After 14 years and over 15,000 stories posted, it’s finally time for me to say Good-Bye to Slashdot. I created this place with my best friends in a run down house while still in college. Since then it has grown to be read by more than a million people, and has served Billions and Billions of Pages (yes, in my head I hear the voice). During my tenure I have done my best to keep Slashdot firmly grounded in its origins, but now it’s time for someone else to come aboard and find the *future*.”

While he states in his brief that he doesn’t yet have future plans set, he does admit that the changes to the internet in the last couple of decades are what have helped push him to his descision:

“The internet has changed dramatically since I started here, and that’s part of my reason for leaving. For me, the Slashdot of today is fused to the Slashdot of the past. This makes it really hard to objectively consider the future of the site.”

Rob started up the technology and science news site as a hobby 14 years ago, whilst studying a computer science student at Hope College with classmate, Jeff Bates (also known as Hermos). Though when it started, the orginial name of the then-blog was actually “Chips and Dips”.

Using their coding knowledge, the pair created a place where vistors can share and comment on news stories–each story posted becomes a discussion topic. Rob always remained at the top, even when Slashdot was sold to Andover and then Geeknet Inc., though changed his job title several times, from the serious “Editor-in-Chief” to titles such as “Lies and Misinformation”.

Rob says Slashdot has posted over 114,000 stories to date, and he believes there will be plenty more added going forward, even without his presence.

You can still get in touch with CmdrTaco at his usual contact address, or his Twitter or Google+ accounts. As sad as it is to see him go, GeekTech wishes Rob a happy future, whatever his plans may be.

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