# Rob Malda on Reddit (u/CmdrTaco)

Part of Founders and CEOs on Reddit, researched with Autumn (https://www.autumn.ai) from public sources. Updated 2026-11-07. Interactive version: https://www.autumn.ai/resources/founders-on-reddit/rob-malda

Rob Malda: Founder of Slashdot.

- Reddit account: [u/CmdrTaco](https://www.reddit.com/user/CmdrTaco/) (AMA only)
- How we know it's theirs: [His 2012 r/IAmA AMA, posted from this account](https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/wplvf/)
- Where they post, in the records we retrieved: r/IAmA (20)
- Known activity in the posts we found: 2012 to 2012
- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rob_Malda

## Moments

### u/CmdrTaco in r/IAmA, Jul 17, 2012 · Funny

Replying to the post "IAM Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda, Founder of Slashdot, AMA.".

> First Post.

Full thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/wplvf/iam_rob_cmdrtaco_malda_founder_of_slashdot_ama/c5fbwfg/ · 1,188 points as of Nov 7, 2026

### u/CmdrTaco in r/IAmA, Jul 17, 2012 · The why

Replying to a redditor:

> Rob, of all the recurring memes that have existed on /. over the years, which do/did you find most irritating? And why?

> 'First Post' was actually really irritating to me, because there would be a dozen or more of them on many articles.  This made the REAL discussion a significant hunk of scroll away to read.
>
> A number of users wrote bots designed to get the First Post, which created a lot of unnecessary load on our servers in an era when we were pretty starved for resources.
>
> We solved that for a few years by writing a script that posted an automatic 'First Post' to stories before readers actually saw it.  And then a few minutes later, we would remove the robot created post.
>
> This worked for awhile, but then readers started noticing comments were disappearing, and the system was explicitly designed to never delete a comment...  but by then the 'First Post' game had died down, and the moderation system became highly effective at sending them down to Score:-1 almost immediately.

Full thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/wplvf/iam_rob_cmdrtaco_malda_founder_of_slashdot_ama/c5fc2ov/ · 236 points as of Nov 7, 2026