Unfortunately, nothing happened. The premier community geek site for Mac users has not changed, improved, or done much of anything in years. It is based on an ancient version of slashcode, the software that powers Slashdot. There have been countless advances in Slashcode and the Internet since the last time MacSlash did anything significant to its site other than adding more advertisements. We have had Mac OS X, iPod, Google’s IPO, and MySpace since I joined MacSlash. Slashdot itself has changed a lot and continues to try new things while MacSlash is stuck in some time in the past where internet communities were geeky and experimental. Successful Mac community sites spring up every year, further decreaing MacSlash’s user base. I don’t know what the owners have been thinking over the years. Perhaps they are bored and moved on to better things. Maybe they are too indecisive to continue in some direction. Any direction would be better than not moving at all.
All of this leads to the state of MacSlash today. The website now has pop-up ads and a tiny community of readers who actually comment on posts. Posts come at most every few day, most of which are mundane questions directed at the readership. Slashdot answered the need for a modern version of MacSlash by creating an Apple section. Portions of the MacSlash community shook their fists, but really, Slashdot did everyone a favor and pointed out directly how little Macslash offers while presenting a simple, successful alternative.