Talk:Something Awful Forums

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This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Something Awful Forums article.
Articles for deletion This page was previously nominated for deletion. Consider the following prior discussions before re-nominating:

Contents

[edit] Updates and improvements to this article required!

For those of you who have just joined us, this article was originally much longer and more detailed, but after much discussion, a Wikipedia entry on an Internet message board was deemed somewhat unencyclopaedic, recommended for deletion by a user (recommendation was overturned by a majority consensus) and later trimmed by the same user.

However, in comparison to the original writeup here, the new one feels boring (the user who trimmed the article wanted it deleted) and uninformed (the user who trimmed the article is not a Something Awful Forums member). It gives us a price list for changing someone's user title, but doesn't tell us why that's significant. It lists FYAD but not its negative post count quirk, it lists ADTRW but not its offshoots Studio ADTRW or 4chan, and the (admittedly extinct as of 2005) file forums are omitted from the list. Goonmeets are entirely stricken from the article despite the significance of large groups of people meeting at a convention for an internet forum, and there's no mention of the general subculture that arises from a relatively exclusive web forum; nor how unusual it is that not only are people willing to pay to join a vBulletin board (given that there are countless free vBulletin boards on the Internet), but enough people are willing to pay that Richard Kyanka is making a living from it. Things like the P-P-P-Powerbook scam have been omitted in favour of making a shorter (and hence less informative) article.

Although I've been a non-"goon" until now, someone bought me an SA forums account for Christmas. Now that I'm able to see what the fuss is all about, I find that it's not entirely amazing, but it does have some interesting aspects to it. This writeup at Wikipedia should reflect the most interesting aspects of the Something Awful Forums, and as the forums are paid subscription only, I would suggest that a responsible, well-informed and long-standing Forums member is the only person qualified to determine what should fill this Wikipedia entry. --Jonathan Drain 22:26, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

  • Congratulations on the SAF account. Might I add several small notes:
    • Forums that have thriving subcultures are nothing special. SA, in fact, severely lacks in this regard with a limited membership caused by the pay-to-register system.
      • You'd think, wouldn't you? The SA Forums have both high membership and activity - almost 4,000 users are online at the time of writing, only 69% as many as free board GameFAQs, despite the pay-to-register system. Even so, the pay-to-register system keeps out many children, trolls and low-quality posters, so if it was free like other forums it might have a correspondingly worse signal-noise ratio.
      • User Etaonish, I note that you are a non-member of this forum, so how can you form a reliable opinion on its content or its subculture status? I pose that you cannot.
      • Furthermore, I submit that an internet forum to truly form a subculture is something special, but merely not unique. --Jonathan Drain 00:29, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • If things like the PPPPowerbook scam are omitted in favor of a more concise, more encyclopedic article: I'm all for it. Not every article must be the length of a novel. It is certainly tempting and feasible to create massive articles that, while informative, do little other than to fluff egos and make goons feel more important.
      • Ah, but part of being encyclopaedic is being accurate and meaningful. I am not proposing to return the writeup to its previous monstrous state - as you exaggerate, 'the length of a novel' - I merely suggest that the entry should be expanded slightly to better characterize the Something Awful Forums. I would consider making such changes myself, and while I feel capable of making some of them, I am not a complete expert on the subject. --00:29, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • Forum articles require no lengthy treatment in Wikipedia. It is not the purpose of Wikipedia to be the repository of all human knowledge. Wikipedia is the collection of organized, useful knowledge. Wikipedia is not paper, granted, but Wikipedia is also not toilet paper. There are still standards as to what makes a good article. Stuffing small details into this article will only hurt SA's reputation. Things like these are better left to the help articles of SAF, which we can certainly link to. Actually copying over all the quirks, oddities, and notable users goes far beyond the scope of what Wikipedia is about.--Etaonish 00:26, Jan 1, 2005 (UTC)
      • I agree that the previous entry was unusually long, which is why I agreed with the decision to prune it. Now, however, I feel like I'm looking at a bare, wintery plant that could do with growing a few leaves. If this article is to remain on Wikipedia, it needs to properly represent its topic better while doing so concisely. I understand that you don't want to see the article end up like it was before being heavily pruned, but I'm not looking to return it to quite that level. Perhaps I could have explained more clearly; I don't want to copy over all the quirks and traits of SAF, merely a few of the most significant ones. A writeup on the Something Awful Forums isn't complete if it doesn't at least mention the kid who tried to commit suicide but was saved after he told the forums he was going to do it, whereupon they tracked down his details, called the emergency services and saved his life.
      • (I hate to nitpick, but the SAclopaedia is not open to non-forum members.)-- Jonathan Drain 00:29, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)
        • Keep in mind I have no veto power over the page. In addition, I bear no grudge against SAF: a long long time ago I was a member there. Having said that: some of your proposed additions seem remarkably similar in terms of detail to what was in the previous article. I would again advise not to incorporate non-encyclopedic, subjective, and distracting material that would not significantly harm the factual coverage of the SAF as a whole: but as you said, I am not a regular member of SAF anymore and cannot make absolute judgements. So go ahead and add what you want to, but I will leave the page on my watchlist and observe it to make sure it doesn't spiral into the land of fancruft.--Etaonish 03:19, Jan 4, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Should the Private Subforums Be Mentioned?

This article has been protected for a day or two by User:ChrisO to end the protracted edit war principally perpetrated by User:Octalc0de and User:silsor. The edit war revolves whether the article should mention the private subforums of the Something Awful Forums.

A few issues here:

  • Is the constant removal of any mention of these subforums a NPOV problem?
  • In the context of this article, is the information encyclopedic?
  • Is it a real problem keeping this information in the article, given that the subforums in question are being permanently closed in a month? And further, after 1/1/05, should this information be in the article for historical context? (as far as an internet forum is historically significant, that is)

My opinion is Yes, No, and No. I.E.: The details of every little subforum on this page is excessively detailed and borderline irrelevant. Ctz 20:18, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

There are several arguments I can see about this:
  • Does wikipedia have a policy that the wishes of private communities should be followed?
If so, then It should be removed. If not, even though SA wishes them to remain private, then they should be allowed on here
  • Does the information really belong in an encyclopedia?
This, I think, Is a probably not. It isn't really useful information, especially as it is now irrelevant - anyone who is a member already has access to them, and no-one else joining will be able to. Before there would have been more of a discussion, but now does having them in serve any useful or historical purpose? It also, is a forum on the internet - not something that needs really in-depth articles.
I'll type some more later - Xgkkp 20:33, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Wikipedia has no policy about wishes of private communities. Merely because the main reason for contesting the information is SomethingAwful's privacy wishes, I reactionarily feel that the information should be included. Is it encyclopedic? Is this whole article encyclopedic? I don't know. Andre (talk) 21:00, Nov 29, 2004 (UTC)
In that case the discussion should purely be on if the information is encyclopedic. However, I believe that recently the whole article was trimmed down, and history of other forums (as well as other internet forums) removed as being unnecessary and unencyclopedic, and in this case the forums in question will be gone soon nayway. Also, It won't do anybody new any good as they are blocked off. Note: I am a member of the Something Awful Forums and as such are very biased towards (and can't argue against) not keeping the content in question in. - Xgkkp 21:18, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)
If the BBS is encyclopedic enough to have an article listing some of the forums, then there's no reason not to list what are possibly their most popular forums. When the forums are off the website, then maybe we should revisit and take out the information. But right now the file-sharing forums are a very signifigant part of the BBS. - Lifefeed 22:21, Nov 29, 2004 (UTC)

It's not very encyclopedic, nor is much of the article, which is better handled in the SAclopedia. I'm starting to sympathize more with those who think this should be heavily condensed or truncated. --Golbez 22:04, Nov 29, 2004 (UTC)

Since these forums are currently unavailable to any who would now visit the board and since they will be removed in less than a month, I think the issue is best avoided entirely by removing the references. A quick look at the board suggested this to me as well as the fact that the user User:Octalc0de may be choosing to go against User:silsor due to a personal grudge against the website SomethingAwful which is not Wikipedia's purpose.

It is probably worth noting that Octalc0de did not take his permanent banishment from the Something Awful forums (for trying to get an account without paying for it if I remember correctly) very well, so: yes, he definitely DOES have a massive grudge. - Gimmick Account 16:21, Dec 6, 2004
I heard my name mentioned. I did not write the file subforums part of this page, and it was only after I was informed that the subforums bit kept being reverted did I revert it back. As Wikipedia policy states, deletions should not be done lightly: the deletions simply had no reasoning behind them and I was simply restoring what somebody else had written. True, there may exist a "grudge" that I have against Something Awful, but the facts still remain: I did not write the text, some other people agree with me, and also, nobody has offered any reasoning to why the file forums should be stricken from Wikipedia.
If the article as a whole is "encyclopedic", then the file forums are also "encyclopedic". We're talking about an Internet forum here, and listing some forums and omitting others because they are not "encyclopedic" is, for lack of better wording, a lame excuse. Octalc0de 23:56, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

This (like most revert wars, to be frank) is silly. If these forums are encylopaedic (and the VfD debate seems to have decided they are), then any relevant information about them should be included. We don't allow useful and relevant information to be deleted en masse simply because some people don't want others to know about it. And I'm afraid "this is covered elsewhere" is not an acceptable reason for removal - people should be able to read this article and have a comprehensive and thorough knowledge about the Something Awful Forums - that's what an encyclopaedia is for. Also, I have to say that, as an admin, my first instinct in reaction to this situation was "revert vandalism and protect", and although the situation is slightly more complicated than it seems at first, my opinion still stands - users cannot just delete information that they don't like or don't want to be here, regardless of their reasons, if such information is not in breach of Wikipedia policy. Such behaviour is detrimental to Wikipedia and is not tolerated. Proteus (Talk) 00:48, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

However, there is the problem that, at least for the next month, I can't see any way to avoid revert wars from unregistered users? - Xgkkp 01:21, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)
We'll deal with it the same way we normally deal with vandalism - warn and if necessary block those IPs doing it and, if absolutely necessary, and only as a last resort, protect the article for a short time. At any rate, the prospect of repeated vandalism certainly isn't a reason to remove legitimate information from the article. Proteus (Talk) 01:33, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I wasn't arguing that it was a reason to remove the information, and sorry if it appeared that was the case. However, under the argument about being encyclopedic, assuming that since the content in question will be referring to nonexistant material in a month or so, it should be removed at the beginning of next year anyway - otherwise, why not re-include all the removed content from the result of the votes for deletion discussion? And so, given also that they are no longer accesible to anybody who doesn't have access about them in the first place wouldn't it already fall into the same case as the rest of the deleted information? I don't see the point In adding content with full knowledge that it is going to be removed in a month's time. - Xgkkp 03:05, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)
If private information about an individual was posted - e.g. information about YOU, which you wanted to keep private, would you not have any problem with people posting it? The section was removed for a number of reasons. Privacy is the main issue, as those individual forums are meant to be a secret. But in actual fact they will become obsolete within a matter of weeks, and thus will have no place in the article anyway. Honestly. It's like people trying to defend someone posting the admin login/pw to wikipedia and acting surprised when someone complains. Trampled 02:34, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)
It has already been established that SA's rules on publicity fall under no bounds of the wikipedia policy, and as such not having it here on those grounds is not relevant. - Xgkkp 03:05, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

So far the only argument for keeping them is that useful information should not be deleted but as these forums can no longer be accessed I fail to see why they are still useful. - 06:15, 30 Nov 2004

Because they are, right now, a very signifigant part of the SA forums. And after they're gone they should still be mentioned, at least as an important historical footnote. Whether Lowtax wanted it or not, SA has become well known for its file forums. - Lifefeed 13:57, Nov 30, 2004 (UTC)

I don't see a reason for this article at all. The information is really only interesting to a select group of people, most of whom already know all about the forums. Wikipedia does not have similar articles documenting every subsection of every forum on the Internet. Why? Because no one cares. I suggest deleting this article altogether.

65.167.23.134 18:14, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Unfortunately, this article already was voted on for deletion, and there was a consensus to keep. I believe that the private subforum information contributes to describing the SA forums: very exclusive. Or at least these file forums are. Unless anyone can provide a better reason for excluding them, we should not. They are only as encyclopedic as the SA forums themselves. Even after they're gone, they'll be a useful historical footnote. Andre (talk) 21:55, Nov 30, 2004 (UTC)
Articles can be put on VfD again. I'm thinking about it. Or maybe I should just take my own advice and Be Bold. As for the private forums being notable, they aren't, to anyone outside SA. It's not like there's any fun trick to them, like the secret GameFAQs forums. --Golbez 22:03, Nov 30, 2004 (UTC)
The full name of the "be bold" policy you allude to is "Be bold in updating pages". Removing information because you think it is not notable is not "updating". Also, people generally don't appreciate the relisting of articles on VfD, so it's extremely unlikely you'll get this deleted by listing it again. And the very fact that we're discussing this suggests that these sub-forums are easily notable enough to be in the article, even if for no other reason than that members try so hard to keep them hidden. Proteus (Talk) 23:51, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)
It would not be the same person relisting on VfD; you'll notice I was a very vocal supporter of it. So I wouldn't shlomp that in as the same thing. Yes, members try to keep them hidden for various reasons - there have been arguments over whether or not to include social security numbers in articles, that doesn't mean they're encylopaedic. --Golbez 23:57, Nov 30, 2004 (UTC)
There is not any great attempt to keep them hidden. There is a requirement that one not talk about them because the community does not wish to attract people only for those forums. Since the forums are no longer available, they aren't really notable.
Have you even looked at the recent history of this article? If that's not a "great attempt to keep them hidden" then I don't know what would be. And I'm afraid the argument that things that no longer exist are no longer notable is so silly as to be almost laughable. On that basis you could say good bye to 99% of Category:History, for a start. This is an encyclopaedia, not a user guide. Proteus (Talk) 00:21, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Okay, then maybe we should include every single forum with it's own writeup, as well as all of the old forums that no longer exist, like FYAD 2.0. Afterall, we can't have a double-standard now can we? Or is the only reason you want the file forums to be mentioned to do with spite? 62.253.64.13 02:43, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I find myself increasingly agreeing with Proteus. Andre (talk) 15:31, Dec 1, 2004 (UTC)
If "the argument that things that no longer exist are no longer notable is so silly as to be almost laughable", then surely all of the forum information removed in the vfd debate should be re-instated? Perhaps this argument should be suspended until a months time, given that It's probably only going to happen then again anyway. - Xgkkp 15:47, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I've tried to refrain from participating in this debate, but I'll go ahead and do so anyway. I am vehemently against Proteus's view. My case is not that they should be removed because they don't exist: they should be removed because they are inherently insignificant. This insignificance is bolstered by the fact that they no longer exist. If they currently do exist, then they warrant a very brief mention at most. But since they don't exist AND were not significant to begin with, they need to be deleted. They have become HISTORY rather than CURRENT. Wiki should not cover forum history: only what is current about the forums. After all, the whole point of this article is to give a general overview to someone who is curious what SAF is about. --Etaonish 17:45, Dec 1, 2004 (UTC)
Re: After all, the whole point of this article is to give a general overview to someone who is curious what SAF is about. No, it's not. The article is not an advertisement for SA. It's a document on what is notable and important about the Something Awful Forums. I've been on those forums for a long time, and the file forums have always been very signifigant and very popular. The fact that they're leaving just means that they will soon be a very signifigant part of its history. - Lifefeed 19:36, Dec 1, 2004 (UTC)
Exactly...it's the same idea. However, it's what is notable and important to an outside observer, not what is notable and important to SAF themselves.--Etaonish 21:17, Dec 1, 2004 (UTC)

Must include; protect if needed. -- Ah, irony. From what I can see, the article is too long and detailed as it stands. If I genuinely wanted to know so much about the community, I'd visit it. Such a community is its own best introduction. A short description is plenty for Old Farts (like myself) who just want to know what is under discussion; we're grateful not to have to actually wade through the site in question. But anyone interestedin such will not object.

Besides a brief, summary introduction, the only content I would endorse is stuff that a visitor to the community will not ordinarily notice. Secrets of all kinds, dirty laundry, traps for the unwary, backend charges, anything Winston threw down the oubliette -- those things that the community wishes to hide, we wish to make public. Some communities are like a game of Mao; while it may take away from the amusement of those already in the know, I support such balloon-puncturing spoiler distribution.

If I had been asked to vote on "private subforums" content sight unseen, I'd have said, "No; much too trivial." But the simple fact that anyone has made a concerted effort to remove such information from WP makes its retention mandatory. — Xiong (talk) 06:47, 2005 Mar 23 (UTC)

That seems like a silly way of going about things. If I added a list of all 70 000 users on the SA Forums, and kept adding that to the page every hour, there would be a "concerted effort" by the rest of Wikipedia to get rid of that, because nobody wants a giant annoying list in the middle of the article. But that doesn't make having a list of every member of the SA forums "mandatory".
Personally, I think the mention of the file forums should be removed. Nobody really cares that an internet forum used to have a place where you could download files; that's not exactly a unique and special phenomenon. Unless something made the SA file forums unique, they don't really merit mention. Molimo 00:37, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] P-P-P-Powerbook!

Since it became something of an internet phenomenon (after being linked on slashdot, fark, etc.), I think the P-P-P-Powerbook should receive some mention.--Wasabe3543 07:50, 25 May 2004 (UTC)

    • Then mention it yourself!--81.153.165.114 22:59, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)
    • If it's so much of a phenomenon why does the link give a 404?
      • lol p-p-p-pwned

[edit] 4chan

The recent edit on the 4chan origins footnote was hardly a clarification. I realise that I have a certain degree of bias with regards to the origins of 4chan, but I think you'd be hard-pressed to say that one of the major reasons for its creation was not, in fact, to host pedophilic material. Its Japanese counterpart, 2chan, at least has a number of general image posting boards in addition to the porn-centric ones, whereas 4chan has hardly any. And though you could argue that not all materials posted can be moderated for age (a task that can sometimes, admittedly, be cumbersome), the Guro board was removed outright for its content, whereas the similarly fetish-themed Rorikon board was not. Furthermore, it's somewhat silly to insist on writing Moot's name in lowercase, and detracts from the overall professionalism of the article.

-- All of the 4chan admins I know of are opposed to lolikon and try to keep it in its board; the reason for the board's existence is to prevent its visitors from going to dedicated websites and acquiring an even more distorted worldview

-- I'll bite. To suggest that 4chan was created primarily to host child pornography is grossly inaccurate at best and an attack on the website's creators at worst. 4chan was created as an English-language version of the Japanese 2chan; 2chan blocks non-Japanese IPs from posting. However, with the boards' audience being primarily male teens and young adults (mostly goons, friends of goons and IRC junkies who found the site by clicking a link posted), it's not surprising that pornography was 4chan's main focus. The lolikon section (which outright bans any photographs of real people, just to be on the safe side of the law) turned out to be popular enough to warrant its own board. At least it keeps such content out of the other boards. --Jonathan Drain 19:53, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Registration gross

"Lowtax has likely grossed well in excess of 250,000 dollars in registrations alone, although this figure has not been confirmed."

"the 30,000 member mark was reached mid-April, 2004"

I'm guessing the second statement was added after the first. At $10 per registration he has obviously now grossed over 300,000.

The forums were initially free until roughly the 6000 member mark, so you're wrong. It would be 270k, but this is still rough.

42,543 members now, and still growing. Plus think of all the bans removed and other additions people have paid for. Lowtax isn't 'grossing' this money. It goes towards the servers too, as the site generates very large amount of traffic.

You obviously do not know what "grossing" means. A gross profit is all of the money made before expenses. His net profit on the site is probably relatively low, but he seems to live comfortably regardless. Also, I said "registrations alone" because I meant just that. The number of reregisters and archive and platinum accounts is unknown, so you can't very well figure that amount in.

According to Lowtax, the forums cost up to $2000 a month.

[edit] The Comedy Lolocaust

I think there should be something mentioning furries, and/or the Comedy Lolocaust, on this page. Whether this would go under information about FYAD, or about bannable offenses (or both), I don't know. Also, I don't think I have most of the story correct, as I'm going completely off of memory and didn't visit FYAD or the SA Forums at all for a long period in between. Here's what I can remember.

Long ago, the posting of "furrie" porn, or cartoon depictions of animals committing sexual acts, was not illegal in FYAD. When this happened, the poster was usually rebuked if they did not include a warning in the thread's subject text, and perhaps made fun of for their preference in pornography.

As time progressed, furry threads continued to be posted, mostly if not solely in FYAD. As FYAD is not intended to have any rules, the posters were not stopped, though they were taunted endlessly by the other members of FYAD. Lowtax one day decided, however, that furry porn would no longer be allowed in FYAD, setting in motion a chain of events later to be known as the "Comedy Lolocaust."

As the first step of the Lolocaust, Lowtax created a subforum in FYAD dedicated to the posting of furrie porn, called "The Furrie Concentration Camp." This kept all furrie threads out of FYAD and in one central location. The denizens of this subforum, along with any others proven to have furrie tendencies, were then given custom titles of a large yellow star with the title "Yiff" on top, a reference to a slang term for those who like furrie porn. Once all of the forum's furries were identified, they were then permanently relegated to the Furrie Concentration Camp, and finally banned, effectively ending the mass proliferation of furrie porn in FYAD.

    • Sounds like a great story. So why don't you post it yourself? That's what wikipedia is all about! (There's nothing to fear: if your story is incomplete, most likely someone will complete it, or if it is irrelevant, somebody will move it to a better place).--81.153.165.114 22:59, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)
    • Why are you so interested with this one event? Many events have happened at SA of varying importance and hilarity. This is just one of them, and I think you'd be hard pressed to find many regular forum members (myself included) that believe this one event to be significant above literally dozens of other similar events. Sorry, but I kind of think this should be removed from the main page. --80B 06:39, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

That's friggin' hilarious, I'd paste it into the article but it's locked. Someone add that, seriously. Hobophobic

What is FYAD and why do you thing "furry porn" or any porn in and of itself should be "illegal"???

 The Person above meant "against the forum rules," not "illegal." FYAD is one of the forums of Something Awful.

In reference to "Killdozer"

"However, it became overused and even with the failed conception of the Killdozer video game, it has become overused and retarded."

Someone should really change that... - Yossarian

victoly ^_^ Golbez 18:34, Oct 19, 2004 (UTC)

That doesn't do much to get rid of the impression that a huge flood of SA members came to vote -_- Clearly you saw it as a war. --Etaonish 23:39, Oct 19, 2004 (UTC)

Nah, I saw it as a good chance to say "victoly". Though at times, it resembled a war - and in my case, I wasn't an SA member who flooded to come to vote. --Golbez 02:26, Oct 20, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] So, following the VfD consensus

I'm going to go ahead later and heavily prune the article instead of deleting it. Any major objections? My plan:

General Forums (heavily condense/rewrite) Specific Topi Forums (condense into a list) Special Forums (condense into list) Culture (remove) Bannable offenses (rewrite) IRC (remove) --Etaonish 14:57, Oct 20, 2004 (UTC)


  • I Don't think that was the VFD consensus. Kim Bruning 14:59, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)

That was certainly not VfD consensus; as far as we should be concerned, VfD never happened. Now we discuss here about what to do. VfD cannot vote to prune, therefore there is no consensus to prune as of yet. I am not hostile to pruning - I am hostile to pruning without consensus, and that is lacking at the moment. Not to say it won't be lacking at a later moment. --Golbez 15:50, Oct 20, 2004 (UTC)

Well, I meant informally, it seemed even some of the Keeps wanted to prune. So that's why I put up this little notice. So, do you agree?--Etaonish 17:49, Oct 20, 2004 (UTC)

Ah. As soon as I ask for input on pruning, nobody responds, because SA is such a wonderful site that can do no wrong and therefore should be the primary thought of every person in the universe. The article is too short: it needs a lengthy biography of every forum member who has ever registered for the glory that is SA. Etaonish must be a SA-hating 12yearold AOL user, let us laugh at him with our brilliant sarcasm and Photoshop. -_- Is that your position? I've gone ahead and edited it: I've preserved all the important information, especially the infromation that someone might wish to know before they pay the ten dollars. --Etaonish 19:08, Oct 31, 2004 (UTC)

Uh huh. My input is that your consensus is imaginary and I've reverted the article. --Twinxor 21:35, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)
The VfD consensus is irrelevant: a significant number of people seemed to want a rewrite. That's not the main point: I still believe the article is needlessly long, going into excruciating details. I don't even go into as much detail about myself on my own page. --Etaonish 07:04, Nov 1, 2004 (UTC)
You've made your point very clear. It's wildly unpopular. Stop attacking the article. --Twinxor 03:42, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Attacking? I didn't remove anything of any importance. Besides, you're the only one who's making objections: I would like to hear some other points of view. And is there any way we can compromise? --Etaonish 03:49, Nov 5, 2004 (UTC)
The article has been reverted to it's original form. Vandalizing an article under the premise of 'rewriting' after failing a VfD is not a mature way to handle affairs. --Anon 04:40, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Because, of course, anonymous users are very reliable. If you're going to participate, at least have the decency to register, or if you already are registered, log in and comment. Besides, I didn't vandalize it. Vandalizing would be something akin to blanking the page. I *did* rewrite it, so the question isn't one of vandalism, but of the edits that I made. If anything, reverting my edits with no reason is vandalism. --Etaonish 18:31, Nov 5, 2004 (UTC)
Etoanish, I believe you are well-intentioned here, that the article as it stands has issues, and that your large edit did improve the overall article quality. But your finger was perhaps a tad heavy on the delete key, and attempting to remove so much material so soon after your VfD failed just isn't likely to go over well. Why not start small, and clean up some of the worst sections for now, rather than continue trying to push through the full slash and burn all at once? Keep some perspective -- this is an article about some Internet forum, not United States or chemistry. In your situation I typically move on to work on other articles, intending to come back in a month or so and see how things are going. Saucepan 23:43, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I've given this article breaks already. I ask you to actually COMMENT on my new version instead of saying OMG IT SUXOR YOU FAG DIE as one goon told me in an IM. Keep in mind the Wiki notice you see when you edit a page: If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly and redistributed at will, do not submit it. Work from this version: don't jump to the revert. If there's something that you feel deserves to be in the article, kindly post it here and we can discuss. Similarly, if there's something clearly wrong with it, describe it. I don't feel there's anything missing, however, because I've tried to be as fair and NPOV as possible. --Etaonish 03:53, Nov 13, 2004 (UTC)
Why are you so interested in this article if don't even have an account on the forums? You seem to have a strong personal vendetta and no one I have spoken to has been happy with your censoring. Maybe you should stick to articles you have some idea about, rather than articles you think you know about? Trampled 02:54, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

It feels really empty after all these edits. Kinda like a large bush that's been pruned down to half its size and with almost none of the leaves. The article was too large though, and did need the trim. At some time during the next few weeks I will look up the version from before VfD and see if there's anything that was removed that could do with being put back into the article, or any aspect of "the Forums" that isn't sufficiently covered. (I'm a non-Goon, so I only know of what I've heard of SA from goons and from word of mouth, and since I only mainly hear/remember SA things which are relevant and/or interesting to non-goons, it ought to help keep the article encyclopaedic.) --Jonathan Drain 02:56, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

  • Update: Someone bought me an SA forums account for Christmas. Now that I'm able to see what the fuss is all about, I find that it's not entirely amazing, but it does have some interesting aspects to it. This writeup at Wikipedia should reflect the most interesting aspects of the Something Awful Forums, and as the forums are paid subscription only, I would suggest that a responsible and long-standing Forums member is the only person qualified to determine what should fill this Wikipedia entry. --21:40, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)


[edit] Split this article

According to the edit page[1], this article is 38k long, and it recommends moving detail to other articles. I think maybe we should split off FYAD(Fuck You and Die (Something Awful Forum)), the culture (Culture of Something Awful Forums), and Bannable Offenses (Bannable Offenses of Something Awful Forums) into separate articles, with brief summaries here. In addition, IRC channels should be moved into another article (IRC Channels of Something Awful), with a "see also" link here. What do you guys think?

...I can't believe this. Split it? It's too big because it's TOO BIG, not because there's so much stuff that needs to be inserted in the article. No other forum in the world even has a Wiki article this big, much less multiple articles. Keep in mind Wikipedia is not supposed be the repository of all human knowledge ever created. There are server limits. --Etaonish 05:04, Nov 12, 2004 (UTC)

Server limits are unlikely ever to become an issue for human-created text content. Astonishing as it seems the first time one notices that there are ie. hundreds of Pokemon articles, they are all encyclopedic and their existence turns out not to hurt anything. It looks like Wikipedia is going to end up reflecting the interests of its contributors regardless of what prescriptivists might prefer.
Back on topic, I agree with the proposed split. The current article is getting too long for an overview article. Saucepan 19:19, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Pokemon is different though. The article is about an international phenomenon that has spread across the globe for several years now. SA forums isn't. I bring up server limits because otherwise it opens the door to a massive glut of hyperdetailed fancruft. I can write 10 articles on any forum, going into meticulous detail about every subforum that was ever created and every fad that ever existed. I can go into a lot of detail about Edward Fu, describing my life down to what I ate for lunch today. It's encyclopedic, sure, but useless crap all the same. In fact, I'm not even sure how SA forums are encyclopedic. The forums are no different that any other popular internet forum like IGN, GameFAQs, FaceTheJury, GaiaOnline, AnandTech, Gamespy, etc. which are constantly being pruned down. So there's really no reason why SA forums deserves to be singled out and treated with such insane detail while others are not allowed to do so. --Etaonish 21:03, Nov 12, 2004 (UTC)
You could, but you apparently haven't. If there are no contributors sufficiently interested in something to write articles about it then there's no point debating whether said nonexistent articles should be included. Saucepan 23:30, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I could, but I don't. I certainly have the capacity to write about myself, so I don't understand where you're coming from. SA is not being singled out as a target: it's simply being treated the same way as any other forum. We don't need every bit of human knowledge contained at Wikipedia. Who gives a **** about FYAD 2.0 10 years from now? Could you even conceive of a person heading to Wikipedia to ask, "I need to know about this FYAD 2.0 and Wikipedia is where I should get it"? --Etaonish 01:10, Nov 13, 2004 (UTC)
Yes. For example, a newbie on the SA forums might hear a passing reference to FYAD 2.0, and might want to know what that meant. And while we may not need every single bit of human knowledge on Wikipedia...well, we don't need Wikipedia at all if you think about it. I'm sure we'll still be able to continue our life processes without Wikipedia. But we ("we" meaning a group of people not including you) want stuff on Wikipedia. It would certainly be nice to record everything ever, wouldn't it? It's impossible to do that of course, but we can still try to get as close as possible.

And what's the harm in having more information? There are some things (vanity pages, adverts, etc.) that do not belong on Wikipedia, but a couple extra kilobytes (or even megabytes) here and there isn't going to crash the server or something.

Finally, if you really don't care about FYAD 2.0, then why don't you just leave it alone?

Vanitys, adverts are all deleted at VfD speedily. Thank you for proving my point. Besides, if you were a newb would you ask for help at the forums, or here? Jeez.--Etaonish 02:10, Nov 13, 2004 (UTC)
I might use here, to avoid being mocked for being a newb. And to get a clear, coherent, NPOV summary of events.

Article split, problem solved.

Personally, I would have supported condensing the page more than splitting it, but I've been abstaining mostly. Etaonish seems to have a holy war against this article and he's welcome to it, for now. --Golbez 17:49, Nov 13, 2004 (UTC)

It's a holy war only in the sense that this is first up and most obviously bad on my list of Forum FAQ's to remove.--Etaonish 19:49, Nov 13, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Condensing considered harmful?

I'm following a discussion in edit summaries where Etaonish and Anon contributor seem to disagree about this.

When the page size becomes reduced it might easily look like vandalism.

Hmmm, If condensing involves removing information, it seems a bit strange to me too actually. How about just splitting the page? I'll get out of the way and let you folks discuss :-)

Note that you don't need to log in to discuss on talk pages. I used to discuss a lot when I first started using wikipedia. Kim Bruning 20:05, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The whole idea is that there's a lot of crap in the old article that I summarized/cut down. Splitting isn't a solution.--Etaonish 20:35, Nov 13, 2004 (UTC)
Why not? If you ask me, "condensing" is not a solution. --(anon, unsigned)
Sign your comments with ~~~~. Hmmm, could you both explain to each other why the alternative is "not a solution", and why you think your preferred solution would work better? Kim Bruning 22:56, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Splitting doesn't solve the problem, which is the fact that there is too much useless information. Splitting just moves the useless information to another article. --Etaonish 00:01, Nov 14, 2004 (UTC)
I see, could you give me an example of such a piece of useless information? Kim Bruning 00:17, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • "There is much pleasure to be gained in useless information."--Bertrand Russel
Here we go:

"It has a huge userbase (the 30,000 member mark was reached mid-April, 2004, and membership passed 43,500 by the end of August)" - A demonstration of POV: 43.5K is NOT huge.

Well it's certainly large. so s/huge/large/ Kim Bruning

"These fees help pay for the costs of the servers which are naturally under large amounts of strain and transfer massive amounts of data, with anywhere from one to three thousand people logged onto the forums at any given time." - A misleading quote: the fees are Lowtax's salary. Server fees are max 2,000. He gets far more than that from registrations and ads and donation links splattered all over the site

Ok, so state that instead :-) Kim Bruning


"Many of the Photoshops that circulate the web are created by members of this forum, and many of the Internet fads such as All Your Base are accelerated and given an exponentially larger audience by goons. These often get old at the SAF before they hit the 'mainstream' and are looked down upon thereafter." - POV, uncertifiable, and in fact blatant arrogance.

s/photoshops/photoshop edits/
And I'll believe AYBABTU. Though okay, so rephrase as "many Internet fads such as ...." (leave out "of the" to make it much less arrogant). Kim Bruning


Sections like "The only time FYAD was down for an extended period of time came about after a flame war erupted between www.flame4cash.com members Redeye, Ruthless1, and Dvlos and the site administration. After it was brought back - months later - flaming was demphasized and it morphed into its current form."

Section 4 and 5. All useless. INDIVIDUAL USERS on a forum? Arcane phrases?

Which phrases in the above are arcane? flame war is probably an article. :-) Kim Bruning

IRC channels.

"The avatars of some particularly notable FYAD users become famous within the community through the copying of their style. FYAD regular Nefarious, known for his avatar featuring an animated skull wearing a tophat, and the words "I'm MAD about hats!" has been honored repeatedly through such plagiarism. Similar avatars include an animated Jesus character, and a Star Wars character who is "MAD about droids!" Even more famous, the avatar of the poster Vector, a relatively plain depiction of a cartoon face, has been morphed into various other faces for the use as the avatar of other posters, including clowns, ninjas, and monocle-wearing Victorian gentlemen. Though similar acts of honoring other posters in this fashion are not limited to FYAD, they occur particularly often in its often exclusive, back-patting atmosphere."


"1.3 FYAD V2.0

A sub-forum of FYAD that lasted only a day, this is notable as this was the only listed forum to have HTML enabled (there have been unlisted, hidden forums with HTML enabled before). This led to many threads being filled with gigantic pictures and scrolling text. The forum was closed for good after someone managed to steal 200 passwords using Javascript.

1.4 The Situation

A short-lived forum (5th - 10th May 2004), it was invented by the relatively unknown moderators, Crème Lift and Brej, to be the antidote to the supposedly suffering levels of comedy in GBS and FYAD, and to mock all the negative tendencies of the other forums. Some users in The Situation set their signatures to different black-and-white pictures which didn't relate to anything, but were usually interesting. Many of the pictures had words in them, saying such profound things as 'this is situation', and 'the situation is'. This trend caught on quickly. Not surprisingly, FYAD labelled it a 'poor man's FYAD', and the regular posters of GBS continued posting threads regarding various inanities."

Do we really need all this blather? Does anyone outside the community give a rat's ass?--Etaonish 00:23, Nov 14, 2004 (UTC)

The bits I haven't commented on I'm not so sure about, the ones I did comment on might be rescuable. :-) Maybe some other folks would care to comment? Kim Bruning 00:56, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Still, my revision has managed to reference a lot of this information and yet still be NPOV and objective.--Etaonish 01:14, Nov 14, 2004 (UTC)
Would you guys quit having an edit war and talk here first? Thanks! Kim Bruning 22:28, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I've told him repeatedly to do so but he still refuses.--Etaonish 23:54, Nov 14, 2004 (UTC)
Well, I really don't believe in try to negotitate when the enemy is already attacking me in the "war", but here I am. So, tell me Etaonish, why do you insist on removing content? And I expect a better reason than your arbitrary hatred of people who are fans of notable things.
Has it ever crossed your mind that I *don't* hate SA? I used to be a lurker several years back in 2000, in fact. My reason for removing content is because it is unencyclopedic. Just as we do not need Bush's article describing when he cuts his fingernails, we do not need the information I removed. In fact, the information degrades the quality of the article and lowers the standards of Wikipedia as a whole.--Etaonish 20:27, Nov 16, 2004 (UTC)
The FYAD 2.0 and Situation sections are unimportant and useless. Both forums existed for no more than a week. Ashibaka tlk 19:13, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I disagree. FYAD 2.0 was the first and only time regular users were able to use HTML in a forum. After the initial antics turned to password-stealing, the forum was closed down and the ability to use HTML in messages has never been enabled since. FYAD 2.0 is worth a mention if only for that. - Rob Hesketh

[edit] Merge and redirect

I was looking through the VfD archive for this, thinking maybe I should put it up, and came along this line:

"Keep. If Wikipedia can have a detailed article about Slashdot trolls, then why not the SA forums? 24.229.95.152 16:57, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)"

And I realized - The "SA Forums" can be adequately mentioned in Something Awful. Do you know how? By not going into unnecessary detail. The universe at large does not need to know about Sports Argument Stadium (the place to argue about sports!) or Debate & Discussion (for discussion and debate!) It simply needs to know the forums exist, and are the 7th largest on the web. In other words, we don't need nearly the precision we have now, except for the more famous ones, GBS and FYAD.

Are there any objections to a merge+redirect? Remember that I was one of the more vocal defenders of this article when it was up for VfD. So surely my words mean something, right? --Golbez 18:49, Nov 30, 2004 (UTC)

I approve of this idea -- especially if the individual subforums are not delineated. //kfx

There's a little schizophrenia going on in the previous response, but anyway... yes, the forums are only vaguely related to the front page, but there's still the same vein of sarcastic humor running through them. I just don't see the point of delineating the forums; "this is where we talk about sports" "this is where we talk about computers" etc.
I guess I'm saying we should return to the way it was before this article was split off the main article, except that the individual forums shouldn't really be listed. Just notes on the cultural impact of the forums on the web at large, the relationship between the forums themselves and between the forums and the front page, the harsh prevention of lameness, etc. --Golbez 23:00, Nov 30, 2004 (UTC)
This article used to be mostly in Something Awful itself, and contining a good bit of the history of the SA forums (which is essentially the history of something awful), and I was suprised when it was split. I liked reading about the history of fyad. Actually, I came here for the "good article" as I was reading up on it on a mirror and was like "Maybe theres better info at the real wikipedia". Frankly, I'm just shocked. There was some damn good info here. I mean, the history of fyad is interesting, as it's now called "SA's official knitting forum" or whatever. It also mentions FYAD 2.0, which is currently not mentioned (Thanks brevity). Due to the fact that history is now not part of the wikipedia, I believe I should go edit out the part where George Washington crossed the delaware, because really, that just lasted one day and wasn't that important. Grow up people. Don't delete the history. --TIB (talk) 04:54, Dec 6, 2004 (UTC)
Awwwwwwww, did a SA goon get upset because his dear forums weren't elaborated at great length on an online encyclopedia? You grow up. It's a freakin' forum for god's sake. I don't think it ranks nearly as high in importance as George Washington. Surely the goons haven't become THAT egotistic.--Etaonish 05:50, Dec 6, 2004 (UTC)
For someone who bitched and moaned because he wanted the article deleted, I find it funny that you'd say grow up. Pretty much everyone I have talked to since the edit has been disappointed. If you look over the debate over deletion, you are pretty much the only one for deletion, and one of a couple for editting it. So maybe YOU should grow up, and stop worrying about a page that doesn't even concern you. Go back to GameFAQs. Trampled 23:50, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Wow, Etaonish, now I understand your VfD fully. Please grow up before retuning to Wikipedia. --Golbez 02:17, Dec 18, 2004 (UTC)

I think you are wrong in deleting articles about internet subculture. Internet subculture is one of Wikipedia's specialisms - and I trust Wikipedia on these topics much more than I would on any political topic, for example. 81.187.43.179 00:17, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Think this article needs a re-write

After reading through some of the comments, especially by Golbez, I think this article should be re-written. Instead of specifying every single sub-forum (who cares that SA has a car forum?), I think we should focus on highlighting its unique culture. This is quit e a dramatic change, so people could post suggestions here about what kind of thing we should include. Trampled talk 17:15, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I find this entire debate extremely peculiar. A cultural history of SA is necessarily POV. Second, there is nothing so unique about the SAF culture that warrants special mention. In addition, the wikipedia article shouldn't be just "This member invented ZOMG" "This member invented this fad" "This member did this" "This member made this Gold topic". Unless the historical event is extremely significant (For exmaple, charging to use the forums was a major, objective change that can be reported in an NPOV manner) it doesn't belong in Wikipedia. Allowing that would open the floodgates to a whole stream of Wikicrap: every forum will be likewise tempted to include their own 'unique' cultural history. It's hard enough trying to keep the GameFAQs article under control, and I readily admit it's still crammed full of Wikicrap. Adding SAF's culture into the Wikipedia article would turn it into nothing better.
It is, however, possible to rewrite it so that instead of saying "The SAF is made up of highquality discussion" you replace it with "SAF members (goons) believe their forum to be of higher quality than others". Or something like that. Basically, avoiding 'is' and replacing it with 'SAF members believe that'.--Etaonish 18:31, Apr 14, 2005 (UTC)
I think that change is fine if you want to make it. I wasn't necessarily talking about specific threads, but the trends perhaps. The forums have changed dramatically over the years. Obviously the $10 had a big impact, but some changes have been more recent - I know FYAD is almost completely different from how it used to be. But there could also be mentions of the types of threads that are popular - the photoshop threads, goldmined stuff etc. I'm not really sure though, as I guess that would turn into a POV thing. I just hope other people can suggest some better ideas. Trampled talk 19:27, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Charity Activities

I added a section documenting some of the charitible work the forums have performed. These are not all of them, and without the website's own SAclopedia I don't have many dates or details, so any more knowledgable people can fix this section up. Ipsenaut 18:53, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Removing the specific information about sub-forums

Right now, half of the article is taken up with a list and specific descriptions of the dozens of individual forums and subforums in Something Awful. Really, I think that spending this much space on them is rather redundant- any reader who wants to see this list only has to go to the main forums page to see the official listing of all these forums and their purposes. Since that information is so readily available, perhaps it should be removed from the article? The exception I can see to this is FYAD, whch is not viewable by the public but which is perhaps the most unique part of the forums.

I won't make the changes myself until there's some consensus on the issue. Molimo 23:48, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Oppose. Wiki is not paper [2]. The forum descriptions are relevant to the topic and terse enough so that they do not make the article unweildy. Besides, if the aim of the article is to describe the SA forums, listing the forums and what they are for is pretty much required to be a complete and useful description. In general, the argument that "interested readers can simply visit [an external link, in this case the forums themselves]" is opposed to the Wikipedia No Original Research policy: if summarizing information available from the sources referenced is redundant and gratuitious, what are we supposed to have in an article that isn't original research? -- Tyler 01:17, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] There's no FYAD!

This article has a serious continuity error. The acronym FYAD appears several times but is never explained. I don't know what FYAD is other than an SA Forum, but someone should really add in a description (at least as much as what there is for the other forums) since there isn't another article here on it.

Re-added the FYAD section, which was deleted by an anon a few days ago. Twinxor t 10:01, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Where the hell is Happycat?

He should be in here. Despite the vote to remove the happycat entry, there should be a reference to him here, particularly re: internet phenomenons that SA forums have started (such as "all your base") Poodlemcmuffin 19:48, 01 February 2006 (UTC)

Is there any intention in the nonsense linking of this article? e.g: [image] [human] [concentration camp]

This is a travesty. Why isn't there a Happycat entry? Where is Happycat in here? The internet without a Happycat is no internet at all. All HTTP requests like GET should be now HAPPYCATGET. Please remedy the lack of Happycat. --mickrussom 02:22, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

please calm down sir Rubber cat 23:18, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to agree. Happycat redirects to this page, so there should be something on HappyCat. It's not nonsense either, it's an important part of what the SA forums are. 80.60.172.181 16:16, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

  • how is it that 'happycat' links to SA but there is no mention of happycat in the SA article

would someone please remedy this? :(

[edit] WDMA?

Other than the confirmed information about the BTB on something awful and the move to the first WDMA site (wdma.biz), does anyone know more about the site or the fate of it today?

  • Does it still exist?
    • We can only put verifiable information on Wikipedia Ashibaka tock 00:54, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
    • WDMA is/was, if anything, loosely tied to Something Awful. Lowtax has denied any association to it or any successors. I don't think their discussion is relevant to this article. Davewho2 04:56, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] References/sources template.

So what still needs citations? -Objectivist-C 02:32, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Looks good to me, although we should change the reference markup to use footnotes or something, because right now it just looks ugly. --Liface 03:37, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

I fixed the external links for the forum categories, though someone still needs to add one for the Community section. The fauxtest and other charitable activities sections need referencing too. -Objectivist-C 22:39, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, the big problem here is the pay-to-join thing. These statements are all correct, but are restricted-access websites citable? For example, the cite for "Members famously refer to their fellow forumgoers as "goons", a phrase which originated as an insult meant to imply that the members were subservient minions of Kyanka, the site's owner" links to the SAClopedia. It's restricted to members-only (I just checked). Is there a mention of this on the legal threats section? I looked earlier but couldn't seem to find which one exactly. --Doug (talk) 21:50, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
I could post a screenshot, I guess. --Liface 22:16, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
I don't see a reason why pay-to-access resources shouldn't be valid references. You have to pay for books and documentaries, yet those are allowed as references. Xombie 19:10, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

WP:V--

Facts, viewpoints, theories, and arguments may only be included in articles if they have already been published by reliable and reputable sources.

The dictionary is not a valid reference. Ashibaka tock 03:55, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Why? --Liface 04:31, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
Um... anyone can write in it, and it doesn't have to be backed up by facts. If the dictionary was accurate even about the website's own users, then you could use it to define me as a notorious pedophile, which would be libel. You can argue that it presents the individual opinions of the users which write the entries, but their opinions are just as good as mine, so if you write "In the opinion of some users, the hatred of furries has fallen out of fashion", then I can easily write "Other users believe that Lowtax is ashamed of his old anti-furry threads". This is basically the same problem as citing an unsourced blog for an opinion.
Additionally, archived threads are no good. They are, possibly, useful as a primary source of information about who said what, but you cannot generalize this into a statement of the website's "culture" without a reliable secondary source backing you up. So, if Lowtax says "furries suck" and 100 goons reply in agreement, that is information about the administrator and 100 of the website's 100,000 or whatever users, but it's not a description of a "culture". (See original research) Ashibaka tock 05:11, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The layout of this article

I think I mentioned a while ago that I didn't really like the way this article is written. The interest in the SA forums is on what they have done, rather than descriptions of each individual forum. Wouldn't the article be far more appealing if it contained the creations of the forums, trends they started or were taken in by, etc? I'm really thinking stuff like: P-p-p-powerbook, AYB, photoshops, gimmicks (skrewloose, hakan), honeypot threads, worst admin ever/umero mumba, E/N threads, judohobo, pizza matrix, chuck norris facts (if we must), the infamous permabanned users, the projects setup: gbstv, tviv, gooncon, waffleimages, etc. Trampled - talk 11:18, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

I am more surprised that "Hurricane Katrina" is the first topic, with the forums themselves after it. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Toko loko (talk • contribs).

Yeah, there should probably be a section with some of the more notable forums creations like ayb, p-p-powerbook, and that happycat thing people on this talk page seem so adamant about --Rubber cat 03:55, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What does BYOB stand for?

??? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 81.158.202.28 (talk • contribs).

Bring your own BYOB. --Liface 22:38, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Unlike FYAD, the origin of the acronym BYOB is unknown. I'm going to add a couple of lines to the BYOB part of the entry as it's a unique forum (very similar to FYAD in terms of laxness in the rules and also has a special template like FYAD, but disallows flaming and the like completely). I'll also link to the BYOBpedia, the BYOB wiki, in the External Links section. 70.118.112.83 19:15, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

It doesn't stand for anything duh!!!! --Rubber cat 22:49, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What is happycat?

I read that it's a video of a cat being burned alive. Does this happycat have anything to do with it? --BLuToRsE 02:04, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

No. Happycat is a picture of a cat found on a russian cat food package or something. YTMND then used that image to refer to "NEDM" or the burning cat video. --Liface 02:39, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What exactly is thread gassing?

These things should link to something explaining thread gassing.

Your thread gets moved to the Gas Chamber where it goes to die. --Liface 09:00, 21 September 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Internet Memes

Should there be a section on which internet memes started on somethingawful?

Sure. Reliable sources? Ashibaka tock 04:25, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Notice

If this doesn't get some evidence of following WP:WEB within the next 48 hours I'm AfDing it. Yes SA is fun. No I don't see anything indicating it meets our web criteria. JoshuaZ 00:59, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

I say just merge this into the SA article and cut out the less important/listcrufty stuff. There's quite a bit about the website in general though:
All your Base: [3] [4]
Another photoshop fas [5]
Lawsuit from Apple [6]
General article about internet forums mentions it [7]
Hurricane Katrina issue [8][9][10] [11][12][13]
On Attack of the Show (the video itself)[14][15]
SPEWS issue [16]
EBaum's conflict [17] (I know, not the best source, but the best I could find)
Uwe Boll [18]
There's also some stuff about the guy who posted there and committed a murder-suicide that appeared in a national newspaper, but I can't find it. The main article definitely needs cleanup though. --Wafulz 01:44, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
That seems reasonable to me. JoshuaZ 01:45, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
Should I bother slapping on a merger tag and waiting for rebuttals? I personally doubt this article is useful as anything other than a link farm or a copy of the SAclopedia (list of fads/terms/whatever). I can volunteer to do the merger myself. --Wafulz 01:53, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
Putting the tag on seems reasonable. JoshuaZ 01:55, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
I agree with merging this into Something Awful. There is no separate article on forums for other websites, so just merge it in, and add it under a section. --Dreaded Walrus 05:53, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
I agree with the merge proposal. An AfD would reach a keep/merge consensus anyways. --- RockMFR 07:02, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
Is anything happening with this article then? --Dreaded Walrus 19:25, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
It looks like it'll be merged, but usually you should allow a week after putting the tag up to generate discussion. Deleuze 23:38, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
Ah, thanks for that. :) --Dreaded Walrus 00:43, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
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