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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OwO What's This? said:
I have, yes, they're ridiculous, but it's what gave me the idea of having safe zones and then a more lawless discussion 'battleground' outside of them. If you're already going to be letting people have safe spaces, you might as well make sure everyone is represented.

This is all hypothetical shit that could never happen of course - FAU comes from a groupthink that thinks all Trump supporters are fascists.
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SA in its present form needs to be nuked.

The only safe space from safe spaces is the farms and you're already here, so I don't see the problem.
 
OwO What's This? said:
The problem isn't just with the D&D moderators, though. If every D&D moderator was removed from power, the majority of the users that already inhabit that subforum would self-police in the exact same manner.
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Over-hauling the rules and installing even-handed moderators would drive those users out of DnD, though - and that's the only way it can become a decent forum. They only post in DnD *because* it's a hugbox. If it's no longer a "safe space", most of them will stop posting there. Their presence is what keeps people who want to have actual good faith discussions and debates about politics out of there. There is zero reason to look for solutions which accommodate them (or their conservative counterparts).
 
repentance said:
Over-hauling the rules and installing even-handed moderators would drive those users out of DnD, though
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I'm not so sure about that, honestly. Having read some D&D in the past week, I think they would go fucking berserk if you tried to get rid of the safe spaces overnight like that.

I'd think there would need to be some sort of imperfect compromise first before a full overhaul can be done.
 
Elite Fart Analyst said:
Lowtax killed the latest thread talking about it without clarifying anything.
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Just wait for his article on how screeching at Notch was a joke and he can crack his knuckles, really sit down and start planning out a first draft of that post he's been working on explaining it.

He needs to set aside some time to really get in there, once things at work slow down.

"A true master will consider their options and have the entire endeavor planned before sitting down at his digital easel to paint everyone a literary masterpiece."

R Kyanka, 2043. On Being the Universe's ultimate answer to cuckoldry
72: 486-892.
 
Most revenue at this point has to come from av changes. Everybody who wants to be there is there, and everyone has plat or archives or both, so there can't be that many new accounts or upgrades happening. I've paid $10 to change someone's av, and within a few hours someone (not him) had changed it back. There's $20. There's a guy on AI that used to spend hundreds of dollars a month changing peoples' avs, though I don't know if he's still at it. He is a pizza delivery guy in his late 30s-early 40s so maybe it becomes like an addiction where you start shifting your priorities around?

I was a longtime AI lurker and when that Mad Max movie came out they all bought avs from it. Mods can issue them for free if they want to, I don't know if that was the case there. Many of the GBS and other regulars buy themselves or otherwise get new avs once or more a month. To be honest I think the pay-to-play avatar/search/archives functionality is pretty ingenious way to make sure you get continuing money, as long as you keep the forums a place people actually want to post. I'm still not used to the idea that I could just go set a picture and use search here without having to pay.

Also I don't know if it was mentioned but if you get banned you pay your $10 to reregister, but then you have to pay another $10 for plat (which allows private messaging and search) and another $10 for archives, even if you had them before.

sorry for the wall of text but I thought some more explanation may be helpful.
 
OwO What's This? said:
I'd think there would need to be some sort of imperfect compromise first before a full overhaul can be done.
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Nah, imperfect compromise is why SA never gets fixed. Lowtax can rule by fiat. He doesn't have to accommodate *anyone*. Who cares if people reeee? Who cares if they leave?

Nothing damages the forums more than the fact that Lowtax never develops a clear vision and sticks to it. The same dramas just keep playing out over and over again because of it. It would honestly be better to turn the place into LF, or Stormfront lite, or some Libertarian haven than to keep maintaining the pretence that it's somehow neutral. If you're going to have a bias, then do so unapologetically. If you're going to maintain that you're neutral and even-handed, then put in the effort to live up to that.

I actually don't think SA has enough to offer as a whole to justify trying to change it any more, so the path of least resistance (which is the path Lowtax inevitably takes) is to let it become even more of a safe space. There are plenty of other places where people can and will go if the pretence that Lowtax is ever going to "fix the forums" is abandoned.
 
Everyone who was shadowbanned status: Still shadowbanned.

Regular bans also require you to rebuy your avatar, as well as archives and plat. Buying an av for someone else costs more than buying one for yourself does too.
 
Can you imagine Lowtax in a real job with this attitude? Like, imagine any other small business owner responding this way to problems with their business and the sole support for their family.

It's no surprise that Lowtax melts down when people questions his parenting. If I knew my children needed scholarship for school despite the fact I own a business once valued at millions I'd feel like a fuck up as a parent too.

I'd say I hope he set money aside for them before but that would require the kind of basic ability to plan and reason Lowtax clearly lacks.
 
Power Word Birb said:
It's no surprise that Lowtax melts down when people questions his parenting. If I knew my children needed scholarship for school despite the fact I own a business once valued at millions I'd feel like a fuck up as a parent too.
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I don't really think it's fair to go after his parenting when we have absolutely no clues or context of what his parenting is like other than us getting to watch his kids deliver sick burns to him on YouTube. (Which owns to be honest)

Shrangus said:
Everyone who was shadowbanned status: Still shadowbanned.

Regular bans also require you to rebuy your avatar, as well as archives and plat. Buying an av for someone else costs more than buying one for yourself does too.
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Wait wait... so if you have a normal account, bans cost you $10, but if you have upgrades, bans can cost you up to $30?

In other words, their biggest supporters are punished harder than everyone else???
 
OwO What's This? said:
Wait wait... so if you have a normal account, bans cost you $10, but if you have upgrades, bans can cost you up to $30?
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Yes and no, it's fucked up because of Radium's spaghetti code.

Avatar, platinum (i.e. PMs and search) and basic account access are 5, 10 and 10 respectively and all have to be repurchased after a ban. Archives access is a separate purchase but doesn't have to be re-purchased after a ban, allegedly because of the stupid way archives servers were initially set up. No idea about no ads but who the hell would buy no-ads?
 
a crotchety old wizard said:
Yes and no, it's fucked up because of Radium's spaghetti code.

Avatar, platinum (i.e. PMs and search) and basic account access are 5, 10 and 10 respectively and all have to be repurchased after a ban. Archives access is a separate purchase but doesn't have to be re-purchased after a ban, allegedly because of the stupid way archives servers were initially set up. No idea about no ads but who the hell would buy no-ads?
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You have to rebuy archives now, they must have 'fixed' it.

My account was bought for me, and my avatar and archives were bought for me by different people cause I'd made them drawings/game mods/funny things. I got banned for the terrible crime of catchphrase use in gbs, despite the fact that those catchphrases were meant to be becoming bannable the next day. I had to rebuy all that shit again myself. I wish I hadn't.
 
OwO What's This? said:
Wait wait... so if you have a normal account, bans cost you $10, but if you have upgrades, bans can cost you up to $30?

In other words, your biggest supporters are punished harder than everyone else???
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Yeah, $35 to completely restore a full account to functionality after a ban.

That adds some context that might be missing for neutral lurkers. For SA to continue based on the model it has existed on for almost 20 years then things like actively cannibalizing your own membership with years of bad moderation are running a real risk of getting rid of it, as a thing, altogether.

It's not exactly a hypothetical slapfight at 4Chan or reddit or something about moderators being dicks in a no stakes internet spergout with people shrieking about "THE COMMUNITY." SA is a special snowflake and anyone that would want to continue reading it has a vested interest in calling out lowtax on being made of bitch and his moderators for being terrible.

Anyone else that doesn't care about SA should be prepared for the autism gravity shocks for when it finally dies. People will probably commit suicide they are so attached to it.
 
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Worth noting that they could get away with that shit easily when it was the funniest place on the internet. In the beginning the moderation was done on the basis of curating funny shit, not enforcing little PC bubbles or personal agendas. People would put up with getting banned because it was Lowtax doing, and like him or not he has a good eye for comedy.

I also don't think it's fair to attack his parenting. He's a good guy, and his kids are insanely funny and sane for their age/amount of internet exposure.
 
Shrangus said:
I also don't think it's fair to attack his parenting. He's a good guy, and his kids are insanely funny and sane for their age/amount of internet exposure.
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I don't think anyone is saying Lowtax is a bad dad, period, but I think saying "Lowtax your refusal to take an active role in running your God damn internet comedy forum business LLC is landing the whole enterprise in an early grave" and thus by extension, his ability to pay for the college education of his children. Until they start offering full-ride scholarships for LP superstars this seems a slight problem
 
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