Date: Mon, 18 Sep 2000 01:40:02 -0400 From: Rusty Foster <rusty@kuro5hin.org> To: lwn@lwn.net Subject: Kuro5hin.org re-launches today 09/18/2000 10:00 AM PDT After nearly two months of downtime, today marks the re-launch of Kuro5hin.org (pronounced "corrosion"), a popular news and discussion site that was taken down by founder Rusty Foster on July 26th after several days of scripted spamming and denial of service attacks. The site is an attempt to create a self-organizing web community, by allowing any reader not only to submit news and editorial items and comment on them when they are posted, but also to decide what submissions should be posted, by voting on each submission. All stories are written, submitted, chosen, and discussed entirely by the readers themselves. Site administrators merely make sure the software and servers run smoothly, and fix the occasional grammar mistake. First launched in January of 2000, the site ran smoothly until late July, gaining over 4,000 registered users, serving nearly 1/2 million pages a day, and becoming a favorite gathering spot especially for the Linux and Free software communities. But starting July 23rd, the story submission queue and the comments began filling up with nonsense posts generated by a script, and submitted too fast for site administrators to keep up. Rusty decided to take the site down until measures could be put in place to prevent this kind of abuse. It took somewhat longer than anticipated, since Rusty was in the middle of a move to California at the time, but the site finally went back up at 10AM Pacific time this morning, with a host of new features, including anti-script defenses, a collaborative user trust system called "Mojo," and a redesign which introduces sections for News, Media, Freedom & Politics, and more. Running on new servers donated by VA Linux Systems, and colocated at the New York facilities of VHosting.com, the all-volunteer staff of Kuro5hin.org believe the site will be better than ever. Co-administrator Dylan Griffiths said he missed the users most, "who are a wonderful crowd of caring generous people. I'm really happy we're back finally." For more on the July attacks, see the Slashdot stories "Kuro5hin Forced Down By DOS" (http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/07/26/1155243) and "Kuro5hin - Bitter and Hopeful" (http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/07/26/2027241), or the Register story "Script kiddies fell Kuro5hin" (http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/archive/12197.html). Kuro5hin.org is online at http://www.kuro5hin.org/ -- Rusty foster rusty@kuro5hin.org http://www.kuro5hin.org/