Something Awful and Friends - The roller-coaster train-wreck embarrassing downfall of a Web 1.0 giant and its tick offspring like from Cloverfield

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Lowtax said:
That's the issue I've been struggling with for years upon years. Around 60-70% of the code for our forums has been custom written, so it's unfortunately not as easy as just upgrading to the newest version of vB or whatever forum software is popular. All the custom code would have to be rewritten completely, and in a way that all the databases would be importable to the new software.

Perhaps I could try getting in touch with various forum software developers and see if they'd be willing to look at our current setup and code, and see if they could customize their software to include those features in exchange for advertising or something. It's just difficult because the forums have had custom code added to it / changed for nearly a decade now, so there's a lot of things both minor and major that would need to be rewritten.
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Null will do it for $12,000 and probably won't even leave you crippled and penniless in a third-world nation.
 
Bosnian Wizard said:
To be fair, how many websites can people remember that were popular in the early 2000s that are still even vaguely relevant now, let alone forums and content aggregators which generally have a shorter shelf life? Honestly, it just seems like the natural cycle of any website for it to eventually get shit and lose popularity.

I don't want to sound like a cliche, but in the Web 2.0 era, where it's easier than ever to kick start and sustain an internet career using Twitter or Youtube or Tumblr or any other major impersonal social networking site, and where there is Twitter or Tumblr or Reddit or a million other niche forums that have people willing or even happy to put up with your sperging about any random topic, is there really a place for the Something Awful of old? Will it ever get the level of traffic to sustain the amount of good content it used to have? I don't think so.

I'm honestly not trying to be a dick here, but maybe it would be better for everyone to just say 'it was good while it lasted' and move on, rather than trashing about trying to find someone or something to blame for what was an inevitability. All good thing come to an end.
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That's exactly true. there are a LOT of sites that used to be extremely popular but are now nearly dead because everyone is flocking to the few major sites... most of them, all that's left are the old die-hards from the site's heyday, and most of the old users have grown up... and younger people are more interested in Facebook and such. SA is just another one of the sites that are affected.
It's exactly like how a lot of people today are moving to the city from rural areas. The internet is just a different place than it used to be, that's all. It's a shame to see forums you used to frequent when you were younger become ghost towns or get shut down completely, but that's life.
 
Lowtax said:
That's the issue I've been struggling with for years upon years. Around 60-70% of the code for our forums has been custom written, so it's unfortunately not as easy as just upgrading to the newest version of vB or whatever forum software is popular. All the custom code would have to be rewritten completely, and in a way that all the databases would be importable to the new software.

Perhaps I could try getting in touch with various forum software developers and see if they'd be willing to look at our current setup and code, and see if they could customize their software to include those features in exchange for advertising or something. It's just difficult because the forums have had custom code added to it / changed for nearly a decade now, so there's a lot of things both minor and major that would need to be rewritten.
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I think that'd be a big help to the forums. I don't have the numbers in front of me but as much as some other forums seem to be taking off, SomethingAwful does feel like it's stagnating with its current userbase. A facelift and subsequent content boost could bring in some much needed new blood.
 
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Rhysuu said:
Sorry I guess I didn't phrase myself correctly, edited the post. What I meant was that forums aren't dying, they're clearly here to stay despite Twitter, Facebook, etc. taking over. SomethingAwful doesn't have to die either if it renovates a bit.
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Agreed, but there's two huge roadblocks I have to determine how to navigate around:

1) Forums software needs to be upgraded, no question about it. But not only will the customized database migration be tricky, more than half of the code has been written or replaced by us, so there would be a lot of work done to replicate those features.

2) Say what you will about the hellish days of SJW rule, but around that time (and before it) is when creativity seemed to peak. Then Zack did that Halloween thing where all rules were abandoned in GBS, and it has transformed into a place where there's generally not much effort or pride in creation. There's much more white noise and shitposts than there was during the horrific SJW reign of terror. I've been considering a lot of different options to deal with this, including making current GBS a subset of FYAD and creating a new GBS, where the original rules are actually enforced, and thread shitters get the boot.

Both of these are fairly monumental issues, but I believe they're both solvable. Hopefully. Maybe.
 
Lowtax said:
Agreed, but there's two huge roadblocks I have to determine how to navigate around:

1) Forums software needs to be upgraded, no question about it. But not only will the customized database migration be tricky, more than half of the code has been written or replaced by us, so there would be a lot of work done to replicate those features.

2) Say what you will about the hellish days of SJW rule, but around that time (and before it) is when creativity seemed to peak. Then Zack did that Halloween thing where all rules were abandoned in GBS, and it has transformed into a place where there's generally not much effort or pride in creation. There's much more white noise and shitposts than there was during the horrific SJW reign of terror. I've been considering a lot of different options to deal with this, including making current GBS a subset of FYAD and creating a new GBS, where the original rules are actually enforced, and thread shitters get the boot.

Both of these are fairly monumental issues, but I believe they're both solvable. Hopefully. Maybe.
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I dont know, i felt the creativity seem to fall from gbs when CYOAs were first damned to a life in TRADGAMES. sure photoshops were still a thing, but thats only one outlet. i do realize that shit has come back in some form or another, especially with Atma's threads.

Anyways. the problem during those days were never the rules, just the culture that seemed to have popped up
 
Lowtax said:
Agreed, but there's two huge roadblocks I have to determine how to navigate around:

1) Forums software needs to be upgraded, no question about it. But not only will the customized database migration be tricky, more than half of the code has been written or replaced by us, so there would be a lot of work done to replicate those features.

2) Say what you will about the hellish days of SJW rule, but around that time (and before it) is when creativity seemed to peak. Then Zack did that Halloween thing where all rules were abandoned in GBS, and it has transformed into a place where there's generally not much effort or pride in creation. There's much more white noise and shitposts than there was during the horrific SJW reign of terror. I've been considering a lot of different options to deal with this, including making current GBS a subset of FYAD and creating a new GBS, where the original rules are actually enforced, and thread shitters get the boot.

Both of these are fairly monumental issues, but I believe they're both solvable. Hopefully. Maybe.
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I was looking last night at another old forum I used to post on which went from free to a paid model and now back to a hybrid model. From 170,000 registered members, it now has an active userbase of <5,000.

It's over 10 years since I stopped posting there, but I noticed that people are still complaining about the same things they were a decade ago - shitty customised software which can't easily be upgraded, "bad" moderation, and the fact that so many "golden age" posters have left without being replaced by new content producers.

It's not just SA which is grappling with this issue. Perhaps looking at what hasn't worked for other forums from the same era can help save some mis-steps.

GBS was an awesome place at its best, so I'm happy that you're thinking about how you can make it vibrant and entertaining again. It's a tough forum to find balance in. Some of its best content has come from spontaneous derails and GBS RSS, so strict enforcement of the rules can be a blessing or a curse depending on how it's used on a thread by thread basis. It would be good to see the e/n and TCC-lite shit cleared out, though.

Ask/Tell could probably use a revamp, too.

I also think the issues of 1) how to encourage those who've already paid their tenbux to contribute more and 2) how to attract new people willing to pay tenbux need to be addressed differently even though they're related.
 
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@Lowtax how long is the paywall supposed to last every time it's set up? Until you guys get ten thousand dollars or something?
 
From what I've been told from several oldschool posters that have been around for at least a decade and change, the biggest issues SA's had in more modern times are analogous to what many other forums have had to deal with as time marches on and paradigms shift without the clutch. They described it thusly:

SA's always had kind of lassez-faire moderatorship (ain't nothing wrong with this), but a combination of secondary factors quickly led to the sort of hugboxing, clique-warring, and general idiocy that we saw on a lot of platforms.

Because of how SA as a whole works, it was a bit slower to react to this pattern of behavior; historically, for example, if there was a political sperg-fest, some swung banhammer swings and maybe a nuking of the worst offenders on a given subforum usually kept the worst offenses at bay. How SA handled election season was widely considered both elegant and hilarious and a pretty good, if measured way to keep the usual chimping from getting out of hand.

All of this sort of hit a snag when the more ridiculous shit started emerging from the crucible around 2010-2012, when several groups of users, including several mods that were openly complicit, basically decided that the bulk of SA was to be their own personal clubhouse and damn the consequences towards using it as their own personal autism outlet. SA had dealt with shit like this before - there's always been those users who have pumped like thousands of dollars into unbanning themselves - but never quite in the numbers that were seen here - and never so aggressively. Suddenly, SA had shit that mandated immediate admin response on a routine basis, and it forced multiple house-cleanings to even begin to scratch the surface.

Would you say this summary is accurate, @Lowtax?

I'm interested in hearing your take on it, being someone who's basically seen all that shit before and then some.
 
Jaimas said:
From what I've been told from several oldschool posters that have been around for at least a decade and change, the biggest issues SA's had in more modern times are analogous to what many other forums have had to deal with as time marches on and paradigms shift without the clutch. They described it thusly:

SA's always had kind of lassez-faire moderatorship (ain't nothing wrong with this), but a combination of secondary factors quickly led to the sort of hugboxing, clique-warring, and general idiocy that we saw on a lot of platforms.

Because of how SA as a whole works, it was a bit slower to react to this pattern of behavior; historically, for example, if there was a political sperg-fest, some swung banhammer swings and maybe a nuking of the worst offenders on a given subforum usually kept the worst offenses at bay. How SA handled election season was widely considered both elegant and hilarious and a pretty good, if measured way to keep the usual chimping from getting out of hand.

All of this sort of hit a snag when the more ridiculous shit started emerging from the crucible around 2010-2012, when several groups of users, including several mods that were openly complicit, basically decided that the bulk of SA was to be their own personal clubhouse and damn the consequences towards using it as their own personal autism outlet. SA had dealt with shit like this before - there's always been those users who have pumped like thousands of dollars into unbanning themselves - but never quite in the numbers that were seen here - and never so aggressively. Suddenly, SA had shit that mandated immediate admin response on a routine basis, and it forced multiple house-cleanings to even begin to scratch the surface.

Would you say this summary is accurate, @Lowtax?

I'm interested in hearing your take on it, being someone who's basically seen all that shit before and then some.
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no, not really. here is what hurt SA the most, more than the supposed cat ladies or sjws or other random things people point to. that big outage that we had a couple of years ago caused a loss of about 1500 daily users. those people never turned after that 2 month span of time when the site was just flat-out down or really slow and unresponsive. we know this because we actually had user count and bandwidth graphs to point to it. now add this on top of the fact that people grow up and the kind of humor that you thought was hilarious when you were in your late teens or early twenties is no longer really that funny and you have the declining userbase on SA. now look at bigger sites like reddit or whatever other shit that provides essentially the same thing as SA and you know that SA can never realistically catch up to that or even really get back to where it used to be. no amount of house-cleaning of mods or users or subforums will change that.
 
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