204 lines
8.6 KiB
HTML
204 lines
8.6 KiB
HTML
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<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN">
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<HTML>
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<HEAD>
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<title>The Slashdot Effect LG #38</title>
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</HEAD>
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<BODY BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#000000" LINK="#0000FF" VLINK="#0000AF"
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ALINK="#FF0000">
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<H4>
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"Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little more fun!</I>"
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</H4>
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<P> <HR> <P>
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<center>
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<H1><font color="maroon">The Slashdot Effect, An Analysis of Three Internet Publications</font></H1>
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<H4>By <a href="http://ssadler.phy.bnl.gov/adler/adler">Stephen Adler</a></H4>
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</center>
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<P>
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<hr width="60%">
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<Blockquote>
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<Blockquote>
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<center><i>Abstract</i></center>
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<br>
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Apache httpd log files have been analyzed to show the <i>Slashdot
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Effect</i>. This effect is known as the spontaneous high hit rate
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upon a web server due to an announcement on a high volume news web
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site. Three papers were published on the Internet and announced on the
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high volume news web sites of slashdot.org, linuxtoday.org, and
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freshmeat.org. The hit rate plots as a function of time are correlated
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with the announcement times on these web sites. These correlations
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clearly demonstrate the magnitude and significance of the
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<i>Slashdot Effect</i>.
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<p>
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Author's note: Here
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is an <a href="./adler2.html">Addendum</a> to this paper
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which details the Slashdot effect on this paper.
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</blockquote>
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</blockquote>
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<hr width="60%">
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<p>
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Three papers were published on the Internet. One on October 20th, 1998
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titled
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<a href="http://ssadler.phy.bnl.gov/adler/fiw98/fiw98.html">
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<i>Fall Internet World 98, A View From The Show Floor</i></a>,
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one on November 14th, 1998 titled
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<a href="http://ssadler.phy.bnl.gov/adler/OSS/OSS.html">
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<i>Preserving the Information Ecosystem</i></a>,
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and one on January 28th, 1999 titled
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<a href="http://ssadler.phy.bnl.gov/adler/Stallman/Stallman.html">
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<i>An Ode to Richard Stallman</i></a>. Soon
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after these papers were published, Slashdot, Linux Today and Freshmeat
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ran announcements in one form or other regarding the availability of
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these papers. Within less than an hour, the hit rate to the system
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hosting these papers surged. This surge in hit rate on the hosting web
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server is known as the <i>Slashdot Effect</i>. The magnitude of the
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hit surge varied with each posting since not all three web sites
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posted the articles at the same time, if at all. What follows is a
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brief case study of the <i>SlashDot Effect</i> for each of these
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papers.
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<p>
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<hr width="80%">
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<p>
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<center>
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<a href="./gx/adler/fullTime.jpg"><img src="./gx/adler/fullTimeSmall.jpg"></a>
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</center>
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<p>
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To start, a plot of the hit rate in hits/minute is shown above for the
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past 4 months during which the three papers were published on the
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Internet. The time on the X axis is that of the Unix system time in
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seconds since Jan 1st, 1970 scaled down by a factor of 1000. The width
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of one bin of the histogram is show in a text field on the bottom
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right of the plot. The first recorded hit was 27/Sep/1998:21:02:08,
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and the last recorded hit was 31/Jan/1999:03:59:43. These two dates
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set the two limits of the X axis time scale. The Y axis shows the
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number of raw hits per minute averaged over the time of one bin
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width. (In the case of the plot above, averaged over 902.39 minutes.)
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The data is shown in raw hits/minute, since for each paper referenced
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by a viewer on the Internet generated several hits. One needs to apply
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a scale factor, which is the number of hits generated per paper, in
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order to measure the number of readers of these publications. Since
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the purpose of this paper is to show the <i>Slashdot Effect</i> and
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not to try and measure the number of readers of the papers, this
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scaling is not performed.
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<p>
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Vertical lines are drawn on the above plot to indicate the time of the
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posting by the three web sites. The red lines indicate the
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announcements by Slashdot, the green lines by Linux Today, and the
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blue lines by Freshmeat. From this plot, one can see clear evidence of
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the <i>Slashdot Effect</i>. What follows is a closer examination of
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each one of these postings, since this full time view of the hit rate
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to the server hides some detail of the this effect.
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<p>
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<hr width="80%">
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<p>
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<center>
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<a href="./gx/adler/fiw98Zoom.jpg"><img src="./gx/adler/fiw98ZoomSmall.jpg"></a>
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</center>
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<p>
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This plot above is a zoom in around the time of the announcement of the
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Fall Internet World 98 paper. The paper was first announced around 8am
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on the 20th of October and about 30 minutes later, the hit rate to the
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server surged to well over a 100 hits/minute. This was when the author
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first experienced the <i>Slashdot Effect</i>. Soon after, around 1pm
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of the same day, Linux Today announced the article. One can see a
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slight resurgence in the hit rate about 30 minutes after the Linux
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Today announcement.
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<p>
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<hr width="80%">
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<p>
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<center>
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<a href="./gx/adler/ossFull.jpg"><img src="./gx/adler/ossFullSmall.jpg"></a>
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</center>
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<p>
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The plot above shows the hit rate to the same server during the time
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that "Preserving the Information Ecosystem" was published and
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announced on Linux Today and posted as a Freshmeat editorial. Linux
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Today announced it on November 14th, and the Freshmeat editorial was
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posted on Nov 21th. The announcement of this article on Linux Today
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was only visible for about 12 hours on its front web page, where as
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the article was visible on the front page of the Freshmeat web site
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for several days. This is an indication as to why the Freshmeat
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announcement generated more hits than that of the Linux Today
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announcement.
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<p>
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<hr width="80%">
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<p>
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<center>
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<a href="./gx/adler/rmsMoreZoom.jpg"><img src="./gx/adler/rmsMoreZoomSmall.jpg"></a>
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</center>
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<p>
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The final plot above shows the <i>Slashdot Effect</i> with respect to
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the last paper titled "An Ode to Richard Stallman". While the paper
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was being written, notification of its existence was sent to members
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of the LXNY group and to the general redhat mailing list. Therefore
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the activity to the server started to increase before the Linux news
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web sites announced this article. On Jan 28th, around 1pm, Linux Today
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announced the article and published a text only version on their web site.
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Slashdot followed with an announcement of the article and a hyper link
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to the article at around 4pm. One can see the very impressive surge
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in hits after the Slashdot announcement in which the hit rate went
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from about 30 hits/minute up to over 250 hits/minute in about a 15
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minute period.
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<p>
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<hr width="80%">
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<p>
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In conclusion, the term <i>Slashdot Effect</i> has been referenced
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many times on sites around the Internet. With the publication of
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articles related to Linux and the Open Source movement, and the
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announcement of these articles to Linux related news web sites, one
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has a chance of documenting, in a controlled environment, this
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effect. The plots of the hit rate received by the hosting server
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clearly shows the existence of the <i>Slashdot Effect</i>. This effect
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varies in magnitude for different reasons. One reason being the
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interest of the readership in the content of the article being
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announced. Another reason being the form in which the article is
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announced. For example, the article titled "an Ode to Richard
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Stallman" was announced by Slashdot and Linux Today. Linux Today
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published the text of the article on their own web site, thus keeping
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many of the hits, by readers interested in this article, on their
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server. This strongly dampens the surge in hit rate to the system
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hosting the full article. On the other hand, Slashdot announced the
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article via a hyper link to the server hosting the full article and
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thus the local host received all the hits from Slashdot readers. The
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purpose of this article is just to document the existence of the
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<i>Slashdot Effect</i> and not to try and gauge which news web site
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has the predominant reader-ship.
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<!--===================================================================-->
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<P> <hr> <P>
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<center><H5>Copyright © 1999, Stephen Adler <BR>
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Published in Issue 38 of <i>Linux Gazette</i>, March 1999</H5></center>
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