Kuro5hin (K5; read "corrosion")[1] was a collaborative discussion website founded by Rusty Foster in 1999, having been inspired by Slashdot.

[6] All content was generated and selected by the users themselves, with the exception of site news written by the administrators.

If the story reached a predetermined threshold score, it was posted to the front page or to the relevant section, depending on the proportion of "FP votes".

[1] The site was powered by the Scoop collaborative system, originally written by Foster himself,[11] with the motto "Technology and Culture, from the Trenches".

In July 2000, the site was temporarily closed due to comment spam and denial-of-service attacks.