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The Something Awful Forums (usually abbreviated as the SA Forums) are a set of limited-access highly-modified message boards on the popular humor website Something Awful, with a large userbase (53,000). The forums are ranked (as of September 2004) by Big-Boards as the eighth most popular on the Internet, in spite of a registration fee being charged for access. [1] (http://www.big-boards.com/highlight/466/). It runs on a heavily modified version of vBulletin. People who frequent the Something Awful Forums call themselves "SA Goons," or simply "goons." The forums are very strictly moderated, to no small amount of controversy. The community is international but mostly comprised of American males in their late teens and early twenties.
While a selection of forums is sometimes available for highly restricted, read-only anonymous browsing, it costs $9.95 to register a full account; this money goes directly to the webmaster, Rich "Lowtax" Kyanka, who currently makes a living from administering the forums. Many other forum features also cost between $5 to $10 each, such as gaining permission to search forum archives or putting an image and custom text under your or someone else's username (often to demean them for a specific mistake or bad post).
Main Forums
- General Bullshit (GBS) - similar to any of the "Off Topic" forums found on virtually every message board system on the Web. GBS frequents can start a thread on anything, usually without being dismissed by the rest of the community. As well as the conglomeration of news and links found on most "Off Topic" boards, GBS is also host to many non-official Photoshop competitions and improvisational joke threads.
- Fuck You and Die (FYAD) - the forum where anything is allowed, save for posting child pornography and openly mocking admins and moderators, the latter of which is nonetheless treated more leniently than on the other forums. Humor is mixed with many links to shock sites and shock images. Much in the same way Something Awful often satirizes the Internet, FYAD often satirizes other Something Awful forums. A short-lived version of FYAD, called FYAD 2.0, was created and allowed full use of HTML. However, after passwords were stolen using JavaScript, FYAD 2.0 was shut down within one day. FYAD currently contains a subforum known as FYAD Jr., to which members can be relegated as punishment.
Note that the actual name of FYAD may vary from time to time.
Specific-topic forums
- Serious Hardware/Software Crap (SH/SC) - a forum for the technical types. Many of the less technically inclined posters come here for computer advice, both for purchases and troubleshooting. Programming issues are also discussed here.
- Games - video games are the chief subject of discussion. Tips, requests, spoilers, and positive/negative reviews are rife. There are subforums devoted to traditional pen-and-paper and board games as well as private game servers.
- Sports Argument Stadium (SAS) - discussion of all popular sports such as wrestling and football. Includes subforums for poker and fantasy sports leagues.
- SA-Mart - a bazaar where anybody may buy, sell, or trade anything so long as it is legal. Posters may also link to eBay auctions. Feedback about posters' experiences with a particular buyer or seller can be posted in a subforum of SA-Mart. The administrators and moderators disclaim any responsibility for actions between the buyer and seller. Nevertheless, defrauding a buyer is generally considered the worst thing a user can do on the forums (other than hacking them) and will almost always result in the user being banned permanently.
- Coupons, Rebates, Freebies, & Great Deals (Coupons) - this subforum of SA-Mart is the place to obtain exactly what the forum's title suggests. It is known for being one of the least active discussion forums.
- Debate and Discussion (D&D) - holds more involved discussions on politics, current events and philosophy. It evolved from the Current Events (CE) forum, which was created for all the threads growing out of the events of September 11th, 2001. D&D posters tend to identify strongly as left-wing or libertarian; for some reason, traditional conservatives are more likely to be found in GBS.
- The Crackhead Clubhouse (TCC) - a haven for discussion of recreational drugs. No buying or selling of narcotics is allowed, however.
- Automotive Insanity (AI) - technical automotive discussion for enthusiasts.
- The Film Dump - a fairly new forum, dedicated to film reviews only (specifically excluding film discussion). Instead of the usual tags, all posts feature a 5-star rating system.
- Creative Convention - a forum for the more creative members or those who wish to enlist their talents. All manners of art, literature, photography, and even website design can be found within this forum.
- Photoshop Phorum - a forum specifically for image editing using tools like Photoshop.
- Anime Death Tentacle Rape Whorehouse (ADTRW) - anime discussion. Hidden from public view, because some threads are not worksafe and some of the administrators personally dislike anime.
- The Firing Range (TFR) - a forum specifically for firearms. TFR posters are encouraged to stay away from controversial topics as D&D was created specifically for debate.
- The SA Propesting/Fauxtesting Forum - forum for organizing propests/fauxtests. These are "fake protests" which often heavily disagree with the point of the protest it is formed around, or sometimes make no sense at all.
- Pet Naming Paradise - pet discussion. One can find caretaking advice, pet selection tips, and humorous pet stories/pictures/movies in there. The forum's name came after a wave of "What should I name my pet?" threads.
- Musician's Lounge - similar to the Creative Convention, it is a forum used mostly for critiquing and general advice for aspiring musicans.
- The TV IV - discussion of television programs.
- Batman's Shameful Secret - centered around comic book discussion and other related topics.
- Cinema Discusso - for serious film discussion.
- No Music Discussion - amazingly, for discussion of music.
Special-purpose forums
- Comedy Goldmine - a repository of the very best threads in all forums but FYAD. Currently the Goldmine goes back to October 2001; the archived Goldmine goes back to when the forums started using vBulletin.
- FYAD Goldmine - same purpose as the regular goldmine, but for FYAD threads only
- Comedy Gas Chamber - threads that have been deemed unsuitable or not up to standards by the moderators are sent here and have been said to be "gassed".
- The Leper's Colon(y) - formerly, the Leper Colony contained posts by administrators listing the users who had been banned, permabanned, or automatically banned by the forums software. (Features restricted to moderators and administrators are visible to all users, but instead of simply denying permission the software automatically bans users who use them. This system is informally called "forum Darwinism".) The banning system has recently been upgraded and moved to a new page separate from any of the forums, and this forum has now disappeared. Though this special page retains the same name, it is not a forum in the sense that it has threads and posts. Both the forum and the special page are interchangeably referred to as The Leper Colony or The Leper's Colon.
- The Forum Archives - threads which have remained dormant for a long time are moved to the Forum Archives, in which these threads are freely searchable. Accessing the Forum Archives requires the purchase of an Archive Account for $10.
Punishment
The Forums have an elaborate system of punishment for violation of its various rules and conventions. These occur on a daily basis, and are given out quite liberally in comparison to other "serious" online fora. All of these punishments can be given out by the forum admins for nearly any reason, and are rarely retracted or reduced. The punishments include:
- Probation - a user can be placed on Posting Probation by an admin for any period of time, but usually ranges between six hours and one month. A user placed on probation is unable to reply to threads or post new threads, but may do anything else normally allowed—including editing his or her existing posts. Examples of offenses usually given probation are:
- Posting replies consisting entirely of a catchphrase or an emoticon.
- Direct-linking to images without the hosting provider's permission.
- Flaming or trolling (at the administrator's discretion).
- Hellban - The reasoning for a hellban is unclear because it is done with no reference to a particular post, the hellban makes a users posts and replies invisible to other users of the forums, this is usually to stop users who post a lot with little or no content from being seen, it is infrequently used
- Ban - before Probation was created, the Ban was the most common punishment for breaking the rules. Anything punishable by a probation can still possibly result in a ban. "Ban" is a misnomer, as the user is not barred from re-entering the forums, but merely has to pay $9.95 to either re-activate his or her account or buy a new one. Bans result from offenses like the following:
- Re-posting a gassed thread without trying to fix what caused it to be gassed.
- Being insubordinate to mods or admins—attacking their conduct, ignoring their instruction or reversing their actions.
- Repeating probationable offenses, or committing them with heightened severity.
- Autoban - a ban given automatically by the server software. In all other ways, this is identical to a normal ban. The Autoban is triggered when a user who is not a moderator or administrator posts a thread with a tag that is reserved for moderator announcements—the "Hot", "Ban me", and flashing yellow "Attention" tags on most of the forums. Use of these tags by any user is allowed in FYAD.
- Permaban - a Permaban is the highest punishment able to be inflicted. An account which is permabanned cannot be re-activated, and by policy any new account registered by a permabanned user is permabanned upon discovery. Permabanned users often return later under pseudonyms and begin posting again, and are sometimes tolerated until they act up. Occasionally, an admin who issues a permaban later rescinds it, deeming the punishment too harsh. While permabans usually come from a history of bad or annoying behavior, there are actions which can result in an immediate permaban:
- Purposefully posting images depicting bestiality or child pornography, or links to sites containing such images.
- Tampering with or attempting to damage the forum software or website.
- Scamming or defrauding users via SA Mart.
- Restrictions - sometimes the admins place humorous restrictions on a forum user for being annoying. This can include being banished from FYAD, being locked into one of the forums (usually FYAD or GBS, but occasionally a random one like Coupons) or having his or her posts made invisible to everyone but himself or herself and moderators. These may also include replacement of the user's avatar or addition of a logo below it. Users who attempt to get around these restrictions via backup accounts are usually banned.
Charges
Forum registration is the main paid service provided by Something Awful. As of 2005, this is $9.95. There are also other services which SomethingAwful members can buy, including:
- Reregistering banned accounts ($9.95)
- Custom titles for yourself ($5.00) or someone else ($9.95)
- Changing your username ($7.95)
- Purchasing a banner ad that links offsite ($49.95)
- Purchasing a banner ad that links to a specific thread or section of the forums ($7.95)
- Removal of ads ($4.95)
- Change displayed registration date to September 11,2001 ($9.11)
- Add your own emoticon to the smiley list ($29.95)
- Sticky a thread in SA-Mart ($5.00 per day)
- Upgrade account to "platinum", which allows private messages, posting polls, attaching images, and searching the forums ($9.95)
- Purchasing a forum archives account ($9.95)
Until recently, PayPal had been the fund-collection method of choice for Lowtax, the lead Something Awful administrator. However, due to a breach of the PayPal Terms of Service, PayPal no longer allows Something Awful to accept payments. It is currently only possible to buy a forums account through the use of a credit card.
External links
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