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Ars Technica

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Ars Technica's main page

Ars Technica is a technology-related website catering mostly to computer hardware enthusiasts. Started in 1998, it has grown into a popular site, covering technology news and providing editorial and analysis. The name "Ars Technica" is a Latin phrase, "(The) Technical Arts." The main content is a blog-style presentation of news stories, interspersed with advertising. Featured articles are less frequent but go into more depth than the news stories.

Ars Front Page

The Ars Technica Front Page features two main sections: "From The News Desk" and "Featured Articles." The News Desk generally consists of short articles featuring analysis of technology and science-related news, but may also showcase Ars Technica exclusive content. Mainly, these are full length articles reviewing new products or technical articles about emerging technology that would also appear as Featured Articles on the website. Postings on the News Desk should not be confused with other postings that appear on Journals.Ars, as News Desk entries receive greater editorial scrutiny.

Featured Articles are broken into two sections, Journal.Ars and articles. The bulk of the entries are a part of Journal.Ars, which are quick, blog-style postings of rumors and news about technology and the sciences. Journal.Ars doesn't face the same editorial scrutiny as the News Desk, and are often opinion pieces of the various members of the writing staff. Their main purpose is to prompt greater discussion from members of the Ars Technica OpenForum in the individual comment sections for each journal entry. There are four sections of Journal.Ars: Infinite Loop (Apple Computers centric), M-Dollar (Microsoft centric), Nobel Intent (science centric), and Opposable Thumbs (video game and technology gadget centric).

Ars Technica articles are further divided into reviews, guides, columns, and other articles. The content of these divisions often overlap and complement one another. The reviews are largely limited to video games, software applications, and operating systems, but hardware reviews (particularly of new iterations of the iPod) are not uncommon. The guides section is typically used only for the Ars System Guide; AskArs! is now defunct and other guides are rare additions, amounting to only a few additional guides per year.

Though presented separately, the columns (Linux.Ars, Mac.Ars, Science.Ars, and Ye Olde Games.Ars) are actually a subset of the general articles, and the columns are presented as general articles on the articles page. For example, the Linux.Ars column includes content contributed by members of the Ars Technica Linux community, as well as notable figures within the larger Linux community. The column sections should not be confused with similarly named divisions of Journal.Ars, though Science.Ars and Ye Old Games.Ars are now defunct in favor of their Journal.Ars counterparts. There are additional article sections that provide content not contained in the Ars Technica columns, including Technology and Culture, CPU Theory & Praxis, Hardware, and Paedia (itself consisting of CPU Theory & Praxis and Hardware articles). The content of articles often overlap the various categories, but the non-column articles tend to be more technical.

Of particular note are CPU Theory & Praxis articles written by Ars Technica co-founder Jon "Hannibal" Stokes. They are considered some of the most informative technical articles about CPU design and architecture available on the Internet.

Appearance

The Ars Technica website has had three major facelifts. The original site features a black background with white text, and was aesthetically simple [1]. This look lasted from the site’s beginnings until the first major redesign, which was finished in the fall of 2001. The new appearance retained the black background of the site [2], but more orange was brought into the design. Their current design went on-line in October of 2004[3], and broke with the past by going with an off-white background, although users can adjust the color scheme, fonts and width of the page to suit their preferences.


Ars OpenForum

Ars Technica also maintains the Ars OpenForum, a mostly-public internet bulletin board [4]. The OpenForum is primarily dedicated to discussion of technology issues, but everything from dating techniques to the latest political outrage is also thoroughly dissected in the more general areas of the Forum. Continuing on the Roman theme, references to Latin and Ancient Rome may be found in small corners of the site, such as the ranks and custom titles of the forum members.

Ars OpenForum contains both free-access and subscription-based areas. The free areas cover the gamut of technology discussion, with many specialized forums for specific operating systems and platforms. The subscription-based areas are generally for non-technology conversation. These areas include a forum for general conversation (The Lounge), debate (The Soap Box), and a forum on dating, sexual and relationship issues (The Velvet Room).

The OpenForum also has a large subculture in it. For example, a popular 'alternative' poll option is "Taco," in the same style as Slashdot's "CowboyNeal" option. See also TACOS, which stands for a mythical 'The Ars Community Operating System,' a frequent joke made in rehashed operating system debates. Many members of the community also identify as "Arsians," demonstrating a certain affinity for the community as a whole.

Criticism

Ars Technica

  • Over time, the site has increasingly focused on political issues, usually when related to science, and has taken a stance on many issues. This caused upset amongst some regular readers who value the site for some of its technical coverage but lack appreciation for biased or political statements on the front page (known to the Ars Community as "Soap Boxing," referring to the forum of the same name).[5]
  • In March of 2006, IP Democracy blogger Cynthia Brumfield accused Ars Technica’s Nate Anderson of quoting her work without full attribution [6], a charge which Mr. Anderson denied by saying that it was an honest mistake (see comments in her post, which include her assertion that one attribution seemed to have been added after her initial posting). It turns out that Nate had quoted Cynthia's text in a blockquote, making it visually apparent it wasn't his own work, and had simply forgotten the HTML link to the source. The issue was resolved quickly through email and Ars's managing Editor, Eric Bangeman, apologized for the error.

Writing Staff

Active Front Page writers

  • Ken "Caesar" Fisher
  • Eric Bangeman
  • John Siracusa
  • Jon "Hannibal" Stokes
  • Jonathan M. Gitlin
  • Charles Jade
  • Julian Marcone
  • Ben Kuchera
  • Clint Ecker
  • Jacqui Cheng
  • Adam Baratz
  • Ryan Paul
  • John Timmer
  • Jeremy Reimer
  • Anders Bylund
  • Matt Mondok
  • Nate Anderson
  • Peter Pollack

Past Front Page writers

  • Ben "Ator" Rota
  • Panders
  • Aleksey "Geon" Cherman
  • Loki
  • Josh "Semi On" Warner
  • Johnny "johnnyace" Brookheart
  • Peter "Yaz" Yang
  • Scott "Damage" Wasson
  • Andrew "andyfatbastard" Brennan
  • Wayne "Hat Monster" Hardman
  • Will Ryu
  • Carl Salminen
  • Matt Woodward
  • Adam Israel
  • Elle Cayabyab
  • Jorge Castro
  • Rian J. Stockbower
  • Fred "zAmboni" Locklear

Other content writers

  • Peter "DrPizza" Bright
  • Frank Monroe

See also

Ars Technica journals:

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