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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literally a rapist said:
really?

so your crack team of administrators who act on the ban recommendations of moderators such as aatrek carefully review cases and don't just rubber stamp half a dozen bans in less than a minute exactly like posted here?

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or here?
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wow you know what we really are totally wrong about this one guys. no one ever got banned by aatrek, their cases were evaluated by the greatest choices for a comedy internet forum: unmarried frumpy catladies willing to work for free.
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Could you please provide a url and I'll look into it.
 
Dynastia said:
Why does it matter so much to you guys? I've always thought Something Awful was a shitty forum full of the most obnoxious people on the internet, so I did the sensible thing and didn't visit it, didn't pay ten bucks, didn't post on it, didn't spend the next six years of my life crying about it's decline in an offsite hugbox, and didn't lecture Lowtax about he could make it more personally appealing to me the second I saw an opportunity to yell at him.

I mean, it's Something Awful. It's obnoxious and shitty and full of obnoxious shitty goons. Everybody knows it's obnoxious and shitty and the only people in the entire world who think it was ever good are obnoxious shitty goons. Is being an obnoxious shitty goon really this important to you that you have to cling to it for years after the rest of the obnoxious shitty goons decided they had no room for your particular brand of obnoxious shitty goonery?
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roflmao
 
Dynastia said:
Why does it matter so much to you guys? I've always thought Something Awful was a shitty forum full of the most obnoxious people on the internet, so I did the sensible thing and didn't visit it, didn't pay ten bucks, didn't post on it, didn't spend the next six years of my life crying about it's decline in an offsite hugbox, and didn't lecture Lowtax about he could make it more personally appealing to me the second I saw an opportunity to yell at him.

I mean, it's Something Awful. It's obnoxious and shitty and full of obnoxious shitty goons. Everybody knows it's obnoxious and shitty and the only people in the entire world who think it was ever good are obnoxious shitty goons. Is being an obnoxious shitty goon really this important to you that you have to cling to it for years after the rest of the obnoxious shitty goons decided they had no room for your particular brand of obnoxious shitty goonery?
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That's what I've been saying for nearly two decades now (except the mean part about the forum being shitty and obnoxious!). Unfortunately the folks you're addressing seem to lack basic logic skills that would help them realize "if I don't like a site, I should stop visiting and talking about it." You can make posts like yours, pointing out common sense, but some folks are simply not receptive to it. I've somehow personally wronged them and it's their crusade to make me pay for my grievous internet sins, and I doubt they'll ever stop posting about me and SA for the remainder of their fulfilling lives.
 
Lowtax said:
That's what I've been saying for nearly two decades now (except the mean part about the forum being shitty and obnoxious!). Unfortunately the folks you're addressing seem to lack basic logic skills that would help them realize "if I don't like a site, I should stop visiting and talking about it." You can make posts like yours, pointing out common sense, but some folks are simply not receptive to it. I've somehow personally wronged them and it's their crusade to make me pay for my grievous internet sins, and I doubt they'll ever stop posting about me and SA for the remainder of their fulfilling lives.
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Lowtax, credit where it's due.

I had a somewhat unimpressed impression of you when I first showed up, but you managed to gut it out and actually aren't half the loser the SS people think you are.

However, let's be as gracious as possible to them: They insist you are a lazy jackass who tard rages over stupid shit and can't act mature in front of critics.

Maybe that has been true. However, you've taken it on the chin pretty hard here, haven't flipped the hell out even a quarter as bad as I expected, and have even shown you have a sense of humor and that, despite what they claim, you aren't a beehive of tard rage waiting to be poked.

Hell, they are trying so hard to piss you off they look like manbabies here by working so damn hard to piss you off, and even if they have a good case, they are doing a shit job of proving it.
 
Lowtax said:
Yes, every person who was banned on the forums was banned by Aatrek, the TV forum moderator, and the rules and posting standards he created. Despite the fact he never banned anybody, nor had the power to, I am clearly putting people down for not meeting his posting standards.

I know the whole "pedo mod" thing is your central rallying cry, but try to keep things in perspective here. You guys invoke his name every change you get, when he had very little to do with the forums. If what you posted is what you sincerely believe, can you please explain to me where I "put people down for not meeting the posting standards of a guy who raped an 8 year old child?"


Throw me a URL and I will look into it ASAP.
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Haier, Genespicler and the GBS china thread have had a hard time. But I did some digging and look you even approved a probation for "transphobia" did you review the probation? or just rubber stamp it?



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Lowtax said:
That's what I've been saying for nearly two decades now (except the mean part about the forum being shitty and obnoxious!). Unfortunately the folks you're addressing seem to lack basic logic skills that would help them realize "if I don't like a site, I should stop visiting and talking about it." You can make posts like yours, pointing out common sense, but some folks are simply not receptive to it. I've somehow personally wronged them and it's their crusade to make me pay for my grievous internet sins, and I doubt they'll ever stop posting about me and SA for the remainder of their fulfilling lives.
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Honest from the heart question here. Have you encountered any criticism the honestly made you stop and think and go "hey that guy has a point"

Or is everyone just an asshole?
 
northstar747 said:
Haier, Genespicler and the GBS china thread have had a hard time. But I did some digging and look you even approved a probation for "transphobia" did you review the probation? or just rubber stamp it?
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Rubber stamp.
northstar747 said:
Honest from the heart question here. Have you encountered any criticism the honestly made you stop and think and go "hey that guy has a point"
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I've listened to and acted on criticisms countless times if I believe it has merit. However, I instantly dismiss anything anybody says to me if they clearly have some grudge or attitude towards me and aren't able to speak to me or present their criticism in a non-confrontational way. I've never claimed that I haven't ever made any mistakes. I've never claimed I know how to run a business. Heck, I've never claimed I even know how to run a forum; I just learned shit as I went along. I'm more than willing to accept any mistakes I've made and try to rectify them, because running the forums isn't some ego thing for me (which is why I've been away from them for so long), and I'm well aware I don't always make the ideal choices and decisions.
 
Lowtax said:
And I'm not really sure what I've done here that's autistic
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Nothing much. that's my point.

Aside from having the usual accusations of poor management and bad decisions thrown at you that anyone who does anything in the public eye gets, you seem mostly normal. As normal as anyone else who comes here for a laugh.
 
Lowtax said:
That's what I've been saying for nearly two decades now (except the mean part about the forum being shitty and obnoxious!). Unfortunately the folks you're addressing seem to lack basic logic skills that would help them realize "if I don't like a site, I should stop visiting and talking about it." You can make posts like yours, pointing out common sense, but some folks are simply not receptive to it. I've somehow personally wronged them and it's their crusade to make me pay for my grievous internet sins, and I doubt they'll ever stop posting about me and SA for the remainder of their fulfilling lives.
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What if we DO like a site, and are sad to see it decline?

What you fail to understand, time and time again, is that we are your customers, your userbase, and when we say we don't like the direction the forums are going, you attack us for being carefags, and if we say we don't care, you say were are bitter assholes who can't let it go.

To borrow a smilie from SS:
jesse.png


Lowtax said:
Rubber stamp.

I've listened to and acted on criticisms countless times if I believe it has merit. However, I instantly dismiss anything anybody says to me if they clearly have some grudge or attitude towards me and aren't able to speak to me or present their criticism in a non-confrontational way. I've never claimed that I haven't ever made any mistakes. I've never claimed I know how to run a business. Heck, I've never claimed I even know how to run a forum; I just learned shit as I went along. I'm more than willing to accept any mistakes I've made and try to rectify them, because running the forums isn't some ego thing for me (which is why I've been away from them for so long), and I'm well aware I don't always make the ideal choices and decisions.
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Jesus Christ, you've "run a forum" and "run a business" for almost 20 years! At what point SHOULD you "know what you're doing?"
 
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Dog-O-Tron 5000v5.0 said:
What if we DO like a site, and are sad to see it decline?

What you fail to understand, time and time again, is that we are your customers, your userbase, and when we say we don't like the direction the forums are going, you attack us for being carefags, and if we say we don't care, you say were are bitter assholes who can't let it go.

To borrow a smilie from SS:
jesse.png
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He doesn't give a shit because you already gave him your ten shekels, goy boy.
If you get banned, there's a possibility you're a cuck who'll pay ten simoleons a second time.

Therefore, it's in his interest to ban as many people as possible.
It will also mean less money spent on storage and bandwidth.
It's a great business idea, provided you have no soul.
 
Lowtax said:
Rubber stamp.

I've listened to and acted on criticisms countless times if I believe it has merit. However, I instantly dismiss anything anybody says to me if they clearly have some grudge or attitude towards me and aren't able to speak to me or present their criticism in a non-confrontational way.
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I can think of at least a couple of instances where this has been true. You sorted out the Loosechanj saga after admins had ignored it for years and you reversed the Wayne Gretzky perma. Hell, people weren't even particularly non-confrontational about those issues.

I think a couple of things have set up a kind of loop, though. When you've stepped in to resolve issues the membership has breathed a huge sigh of relief and thought that finally SA is back on track, and then been disappointed when you've withdrawn again and the forums have once again started to feel like fiefdoms subject to the whims of individual mods. Everybody ends up getting jaded. The membership loses its optimism. The mods feel like they can do no right. You feel like goons can never be pleased. Everyone ends up pissed off with everyone else all of the time.

I guess for me a central issue is that you have faith in the mods/admins but the membership often doesn't. To thrive, SA needs mods/admins in which the membership also has confidence. While I commend your actions with respect to Loosechanj, it always bothered me that while those actions acknowledged that something needed to be done about him, you left in place the same admins who had ignored the issue for 6 years - if they'd been good admins, you would never have needed to intervene in the first place.

I don't think QCS is a very effective mechanism for the review of mod/admin actions and I don't know how to create a better one. Everyone running to daddy Lowtax over every issue isn't the solution either. I do think that it would be good to focus on creating a process in which users have confidence, though.

Many forums have a "letters to the staff" link. It lets users communicate with multiple staff about an issue without risking of the types of pile-ons which happen in QCS (which still feels very much like FYAD's playground). Maybe it's another option you could try for developing an environment where users feel their concerns are being listened to. Hell, maybe you could even have a "talk to Lowtax" thread like that so users have a way to bring things up with you directly.

Also, I know that you're not a fan of GBS-RSS threads but they draw a massive amount of posters both from GBS and the other subs. They don't usually turn to shit until new information starts slowing down. They used to work well in the past when mods would lock them at that point and tell people to PM to have them re-opened if anything new happened. Can we consider returning to that strategy?
 
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Lowtax said:
Throw me a URL and I will look into it ASAP.
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I got banned a week or two ago and thus cannot provide you with a direct link. Combing SS though I can give you the genesplicer quote on why he gassed a goldrated and very popular thread though...

Quote from: genesplicer" post="458718544
It boils down to "don't be a dick." And being racist is being a dick. I closed the other thread, because it had degenerated into a thinly-veiled "white people are superior to these silly Chinese" sort of thing. As long as you keep it civil and funny you are good to go. Use this thread to act in a way that Stormfront would approve of, and it will go the way of the other one (along with a few bans.)

/modrant
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That was in response to the thread having a story about how someones chinese father in law got abducted by indians and taken to the local reservation
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Perhaps someone who isn't currently banned can give you the link (or you can always unban me.)

If you want another example of unfair moderation, look at the last version of the Hellthread, which was gassed and told not to restart due to "transphobia" despite not being transphobic at all. There was not a single thing in it that I would have been surprised to see you, yourself, post on your twitter account and yet it was supposedly so bad that we were not permitted to have one since. Its not like Hellthread even led to any problems, a few select mods just hated its existence so much that they used any excuse they could find to shut it down.
 
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