Something Awful Forums
The Something Awful Forums (usually abbreviated as the SA Forums) is a set of limited-access highly-modified message boards system on the popular humor website Something Awful, with a large userbase (48,000). The forums are ranked (as of September 2004) by Big-Boards as the 7th most popular on the net, in spite of a registration fee being charged for access. [1]. 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 strictly moderated. The community is international, but mostly comprised of American males in the teen to 20s age range.
While a selection of forums is usually available for read-only anonymous browsing, it costs $10 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 $5 or $10 each, such as gaining permission to search the forums, putting an image and custom text under your or someone else's username (often to demean them).
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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) - Created by Lowtax in the fall of 2003, SAS is a place where goons can discuss sports issues ranging from the NBA to WWE.
- 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. However, 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 person can do on the forums (other than hacking the forums), and will almost always result in the user being banned permanently.
- Coupons, Rebates, Freebies, & Great Deals - Often abbreviated to just Coupon. This subforum of SA-Mart is the place to obtain exactly what's in the forum's title.
- Debate and Discussion (D&D) - a forum generally used to discuss politics and current events, created on September 11th.
- The Crackhead Clubhouse (TCC) - A haven for users of recreational drugs, and discussion of them. No buying or selling of narcotics is allowed, however.
- Automotive Insanity - a forum for vehicle enthusiasts
- The Film Dump - a fairly new forum, dedicated to film reviews, and specifically not 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 - a forum dedicated to the discussion of anime
- The Firing Range (TFR) - a forum specifically for firearms. T 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 - a forum used for discussion of pets, originally a subforum of GBS. Many can find caretaking advice, pet selection tips, and humorous pet stories/pictures/movies in there.
- 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 - true to its name, is a forum used to discuss television, and was created October 2004
- Batman's Shameful Secret - Created November 2004 for discussion of comic books
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Bannable offenses
The administrators of Something Awful view the forums as a center for comedy that needs to be constantly pruned. To prevent the degeneration of the forums, simple things that might be viewed as funny, such as quoting a post with only the word "what" in response, or answering a computer question with any variant of "install linux, problem solved," would cause an immediate ban (suspension of one's account), and therefore the cost of $10 to re-register. This might seem harsh to an outside user, but as a technique to keep the forums clean it has apparently worked well. A full list of bannable offenses are listed in the SA Forums rules, as well as descriptions of the kinds of punishment (like permanbans, hellbans, and probation).
External links
- The Something Awful front page
- The Something Awful forums - Usually, you will not be able to read the forums without purchasing an account, but this varies from week to week based on the webmaster's mood.
- A short history of events on Something Awful