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Linux.org.ru (also known as opensource.ru), commonly abbreviated as LOR, is the second most visited Russian website about Linux, BSD and other Unix-like operating systems and their userland. The site targets Russian-speaking audience from different countries of the former Soviet Union and from all over the world. Site is well known as a kind of russian slashdot.
Organisation of the site
The web-site can be roughly be divided into three most notable sections: news, screenshots and forum. Any reader can create discussion threads in any section of the site, although news and screenshot sections are pre-moderated whilst forum section is post-moderated. It should be noted that only the creation of the threads is pre-moderated in some sections, but posting comments to any thread in any section of the site is always post-moderated, although the moderators may limit certain users from posting comments based on their score (see below).
News articles are submitted by regular readers as the web-site doesn't employ any staff writers. Every submitted news article is placed into a somewhat hidden queue of unconfirmed materials, where moderators approve each article individually, after which the article appears on the front page of the site for a couple of days, until newer articles replace it. After the article is posted, any user can make comments of the topic, although offtopic discussions are quite common. The procedure for the screenshot submission is quite similar.
The web-site also includes other less lively sections, like documentation, polls and links, but the majority of it is rather outdated. The infamous poll on the main page has not been changed for almost 3 years, and now it is present mainly for historical reasons.
The news and forum sections of the web-site are extremely active and are the place of hot verbal battles between all kinds of Russian IT intelligentsia. Common discussion topics include operating systems, Linux distributions, programming languages and science.
The site was launched in October 1998 and originally ran on FreeBSD. In December 2002, the web-site operating system was switched from FreeBSD to a Linux distribution. As of early 2006, the forum had more than 1.2 million posted messages.
The Spirit of LOR
LOR is so famous in RuNET because of so known "Spirit of LOR".
Moderation
LOR user can become a moderator if he meets certain conditions. Moderators have rights to approve/delete news articles and screenshots, delete user comments which do not conform to the site rules. They can also ban users and set the score threshold (see below) for discussions. Recent deleted comments can be seen by registered users, with the information about who exactly deleted it. As moderators are themselves active users who often take part in heated discussions, they are often accused of being biased and subjective.
Score system
Every LOR user has a score, which is visible only to himself or moderators. Score is awarded for participating in forums and adding news. If a moderator deletes one's comment, his score is decreased. For every 100 points user is awarded a star which is shown next to the nickname. User, whose score is below the threshold set by moderator, cannot participate in the discussion. Very low score can lead to a ban. Score system is rather sophisticated and not directly related to the number of posts. This had led to some controversy, as active users often have a poor score.
Trolling
As many other popular websites LOR is often attacked by internet trolls. For example, recently, LOR was repeatedly flooded by the unknown individual who signed his posts as Toozeg (hence the name -- Toozeg nights). He created repeated forum topics with abusive headings, mainly directed against moderators. The name Toozeg itself comes from the distorted name of the infamous LOR user Ty3uk, who became a cult figure on the site, but most likely he is unrelated to this events.
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