In a way, the slashdot effect (or slashdotting) is akin to a denial of service (DoS) attack, where a website is interrupted or knocked off line completely by traffic in excess of its server's capability. This occurs when a link to a previously obscure website appears on a popular site and thousands of people try to follow the link at once. According to Wikipedia, the term derives from the popular Slashdot website, which provides excerpts of material and posts links to the sites from which the material is pulled. Based on that, slashdotting could have just as easily been called "drudging," insofar as the Drudge Report as been the cause of precipitous increases in traffic to other web sites.
