I've used and known of Dice (sice it was a dialup BBS), Slashdot (before there were user accounts), and Sourceforge (when VA Research were kicking ideas around for how to host free software development). Knew the principles of the latter two personally.
All three of these companies were at one time useful, valuable to their respective communities, and had exceptionally high goodwill. All three squandered it.
I'm not saying it's impossible to return from a breach of trust such as that ... but it's awfully unlikely. There are reasons you don't cash in your reputation. It's almost always a one-time deal. And high-toned protestations that firms or pricipals have changed their ways are almost always not borne out. Spamford Wallace and Microsoft come to mind -- twenty and thirty years of dirty tricks later, they're still little trusted. IBM is a possible exception -- it's difficult to overstate just how loathed the company was at the end of the 1980s, and how much it had recovered by 2000 (much thanks to its role with Linux, Apache, and Perl).
It's looking as if rough weather is setting in to Silicon Valley, and among the mettle which will be tested are a slew of tech-heavy firms, many trusted with a great deal of personal information either intercepted from browsers and devices, or entrusted and offered directly by users. Temptation for existing or future business owners to cash in that trust will be high.
Slashdot and Sourceforge should stand as cautionary tales.
This is probably being downvoted as spillover from the other one, but if you had just posted this comment, it would have been fine. The other one was super not fine. I hope you see the difference.
I stand by my statements concerning Slashdot, DICE, and Sourceforge.
I had no idea what BIZX LLC was, and the press release DICE provided (linked from my post) gave no information. The travel / tourism information came from BIZX's own website: https://www.bizx.info/
As for the name, I call 'em as I see 'em. ".biz" as a TLD has negative equity so far as I'm aware, and BIZX is hardly an improvement on that. I'd suggest considering something more substantial sounding, specific, and trust inspiring.
I think the imagery you referenced in your post was a little non-sensical. But okay. Looks like you got quite a few likes and comments on that post so gold star for you.
BIZX have an admittedly inhereted credibility gap to bridge with Slashdot and Sourceforge. That's going to require both openness and getting well out in front of the message.
Why a principally tourism-oriented website management firm now has an interest in these two specific, storied, and as noted, tainted properties has some 'splainin' to do. The name doesn't much help. It's not awful, but it's definitely not great. There's little on the principles (I've found ... Rodger, is it? via LinkedIn and Bloomberg), and addressing why they're interested and what you're bringing to the table, and, since this is a business, are hoping to take from it, are valid questions for the community to be asking.
Go back to see what the discussion was at the time Dice picked up Slashdot and Sourceforge:
Among the comments: "Who the hell is going to buy sourceforge at this point? It's not even worth the intellectual property behind the scenes. Maybe someone like cnet who wants another distribution channel for not-quite-malware."
Again: I've had at least 17 years' association with Slashdot, and quite nearly as long with Sourceforge. I'm rather skeptical at this point that any private concern can manage them appropriately. It's an uphill battle.
If your intentions are good, best luck to you. Don't think it'll be easy, and there are many who may well be hoping to see you stumble. I'm not one of them, but I'm highly dubious of success.
Thanks for the well wishes. We're not primarily a tourism-oriented website management firm. In fact over 90% of our sites are technology related. Maybe you didn't read the press release.
