Something Awful Forums: Difference between revisions

The Something Awful Forums (usually abbreviated as the SA Forums) is a limited-access highly-modified message board system on the popular humor website Something Awful, with a huge userbase (the 30,000 member mark was reached mid-April, 2004, and reached 43,500 by the end of August). The forums are ranked (as of September 2004) 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 reflect the website in that the main currency is comedy and irreverence. Sarcasm, revenge and laughing at overly emotional people are the most popular forms of entertainment, although goons are still human and are not afraid to criticize people for being too mean. The surreal humour of most front page stories is reflected in the "FYAD" forum described below.

There is a small group of veteran banned users who hold a grudge against the administrators of the forums and think that power is too often abused, while others believe the forums are deftly moderated. The forums are renowned for this same moderation which keeps them largely troll-free and are a haven for many different types of people who share a similar sense of humor. Although the community is international, it is mostly comprised of American males in the teen to 20s age range.

The entire forum contains several subforums dedicated to, among other things, goon-created art, (successfully moderated and flame-free) political discussion, consumer deals, trading, sports and computers. The main difference between these forums and other message boards dedicated to similar purposes is that with such a large userbase none of the forums are ever "dead" and all have a topic turnover rate, even though oftentimes controversial issues or things particularly pleasing to the goon mind will span hundreds of posts.

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). 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.

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.

General discussion forums

GBS (General Bullshit)

General Bullshit, almost always abbreviated to "GBS" to save time typing and to be less offensive, is very similar to any of the "Off Topic" forums found on virtually every message board system on the Web. GBS frequents can start a thread on anything, usually without being dismissed by the rest of the community. As well as the conglomeration of news and links found on most "Off Topic" boards, GBS is also host to many non-official Photoshop competitions and improvisational joke threads.

FYAD (Fuck You And Die)

Fuck You And Die, almost always abbreviated to "FYAD" for the same reasons as described with GBS, is unique to Something Awful. In FYAD, most all posts are nonsensical and mock the common, teenage Internet user, either directly or indirectly. Chatspeak and message board jokes are taken to ridiculous extremes, and catchphrases are frequently invented, some of which are described in the "Common Abbreviations and Phrases" section below. Something Awful's weekly Weekend Web articles, a compilation of asinine or otherwise humorous things said on message boards, are put together in FYAD.

FYAD has been described as being simultaneously the least intelligent, as well as the most intelligent forum of all of the Something Awful Forums. This peculiar designation comes from the unending parody that takes place within; the parody of other, more juvenile BBS services is so ubiquitous and unending that FYAD's own status as a purely parody-based forum becomes blurred, eliminating the distinction between parody and actual stupidity. Thus, from this confusion come many who do not understand what FYAD is actually "about", and such people either try to combat their own mockery, or act aloof in the face of such mockery. Many posters who have confined themselves to the other forums of Something Awful have decried FYAD as being childish and superficial, either because of personal taste, their own agressive (or, perhaps, masochistic) disposition, or ignorance. These people are said to not "get" FYAD, and are told, without fail, to leave. In this sense, FYAD is a masquerade of gigantic proportions, so immense that the intent of the forum member's actions becomes irrelevant. That said, GBS, when attempting to imitate FYAD, has been famously described as "like your grandfather speaking jive."

Most FYAD frequents hate GBS with a passion, because in addition to being one of the sort of communities that they love to mock, it sits, conveniently, one click above FYAD in the forums list. When someone is not funny enough for FYAD, or has betrayed FYAD sensibilities in some fashion, they will be told to "go back to GBS," or something along those lines. The distinction between GBS and FYAD posters is made particularly obvious by the "post count" system used in the forum. Whereas in all other forums, a post would add to your post count, in FYAD, one post is detracted from your post count for every post made. In this way, FYAD posters are, first, able to tell which of the two main forums, GBS or FYAD, a given user visits, and second, are able to distinguish the intent of the poster, eg. parody or idiocy. Also, individual posters are easily distinguishable by their avatar, or in vBulletin terms, custom title.

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.

The webmaster, Rich "Lowtax" Kyanka, is a frequent of FYAD, in spite of the fact that he destroyed the forum early on and did not resurrect it until they attacked GBS with shock sites. He has stated that it is frequently funnier than GBS. Such sympathies have also been expressed by several of the other administrators.

Although GBS and other forums might decry FYAD as being full of idiots, the forum occasionally pops up as a "voice of reason" - decrying GBS practices like "goon justice" (harassing someone who has done the forums/a member of the forums wrong) and, at one point, saving a poster's life. Punker99 posted a suicide note in GBS, which was gassed - but not before a FYAD regular caught sight and posted a thread about it. His IP was contacted, and the paramedics saved his life. As the catchphrase goes, "FYAD saves lives - GBS ruins them."

FYAD, in its earliest inception, was meant to be a rule-free, no-holds-barred arena for brutal verbal slugfests and horrifying images. Goons such as Redeye, Dvlos, Ruthless1, 3MTA3 and Brock Landers exemplified the style of classic FYAD, with their creative streams of invective dominating the forum. In the beginning, you went to FYAD to tell people, "fuck you, and die," a construance of the phrase "fuck off and die." It developed into its current state in relatively recent times.

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.

FYAD has disappeared at various times, and on others, has been given moderators, which has certainly subverted its original purpose. After a wave of goatse.cx postings in GBS, Lowtax created an "All about goatse.cx" which soon turned into FYAG, the "G" standing for goatse.cx.

Though moderation of FYAD would give the appearance of control, the moderator positions are, more often than not, appointed to FYAD members who wish to "invis," or essentially delete, the threads of posters, particularly ones who would ordinarily post in GBS, who are considered unfunny. In FYAD, such a moderator is usually called an IK, or "Idiot King," but several other names have been given to them as well, among them, Bat King, Boat King, and Laser King, which were mostly named eponymously for the first user to take the title. Idiot Kings have been chosen by a variety of ways in the past, notably, by forcing the present IK to choose the next in the line of IK's, although this lead to the creation of "dynasties" whereby one IK would pass the crown to another of his own accounts. New Idiot Kings are currently appointed by a game of chance, in which the winner is made king, and the loser is banned and has to pay $10 to re-register. A notable exception to the roughly one-week limitation on the reign of an IK is the user Moof, who has remained an IK for a period of several months. These people are intended to be representative of FYAD culture, and are made flagships of FYAD ideology through the IK appointing procedure.

In spite of the general lack of control over FYAD, Lowtax prohibits the posting of any illegal or pseudo-legal image content in FYAD, even if it's considered a particularly funny image. In such a case, a person posting an image featuring a man forcing his penis into a raccoon's mouth was banned, in spite of the general regard for the image as being very humorous. In an exception to this rule, a regular (unusually) of both FYAD and GBS, Albrot, reenacted with real pictures of himself a famous animation in which a (drawn) nude boy with bunny ears and a small heart plastered across his anus dances seductively.

The more "official" explanation of FYAD, a joke in and of itself, is as follows:

FYAD is the cool place to hang out. You can find most of the cool people
there. In FYAD you can just chill and do whatever and totally relax.
"Take it easy" is the FYAD motto, for example, that's how laid back it is
there. Show up if you want to have a good time. Another good reason to
show up is if you want to hang out with friends.

It has been noted that an overly wordy description of FYAD is antithetical to the meaning and purpose of FYAD in and of itself. Therefore, an alternative means of understanding FYAD, in abbreviated fashion, has been provided below. It comes in the form of the "FYAD flag," a collection of rotating images that aptly illustrates "FYAD humour" more eloquently, perhaps, than this summation. It is included in the "External Links" section.

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.

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.

Hot Topic Forums

These subforums will appear from time to time in GBS and D&D. When a certain topic of discussion, usually political in nature, gives becomes very popular, a forum may be created to contain discussion of it. Previous Hot Topic forums include "Hot Topic: Iraq War (in D&D)", "Hot Topic: Theo Huxtable (in response to HT:IW)" "Hot Topic: Michael Moore (in GBS)", and "Hot Topic: Election 2004 (in GBS, and still there as of this writing).

Specific-topic forums

Serious Hardware/Software Crap (SH/SC)

Often abbreviated to SH/SC, this forum is 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.

Trolling in this forum is more frequent than in most of the forums, particularly relative to the much more active GBS forum. This is most likely due to the rhetorical division between hardware and software-competent and incompetent computer users, across which there is a great deal of derision.

Most of the permabanned users from this forum now reside in #buttes on ZiRC, described in the IRC section below.

Strangely for a hardware forum, SH/SC has its own brand of comedy based around computing and though it is infrequent, SH/SC threads have been known to make it to the Comedy Goldmine.

Games

Video games are represented here. 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 after a torrent of sports related threads in GBS, SAS is a place where goons can discuss sports issues without massive trolling from some GBS idiots.

Every sport from the big 4 (NBA, NHL, MLB, NFL) to Soccer (football) to WWE Wrestling is talked about.

SAS is the proud home of the legendary NFL gameday threads (a thread for each week of games leading up to the Super Bowl).

SAS also has two subforums, Fantasy Island, for discussion of Fantasy Sports and Poker In The Rear, created by admin OMGWTFBBQ after he tired of seeing poker threads clutter up the front page of SAS.

SAS is moderated by two dedicated moderators, Albrot and sba.

SA-Mart

The bazaar of the Forums, 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 the first word. This subforum of SA-Mart is the place to obtain exactly what's in the forum's title. The denizens of Coupons have been humorously derided as being cheapskates in the banner ads of the forums and in GBS.

Debate and Discussion (D&D)

This is the forum where discussion of politics and current events most often takes place. Debate and Discussion's roots lie in September 11th, when a new forum was created to accommodate all the discussion about the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and other U.S. targets. Originally titled Current Events, the name was eventually changed in a flurry of forums modification. A play on words of Dungeons & Dragons, also shortened to D&D. This forum's sometimes aggressive tendencies have meshed well with FYAD in the past, though the "cooperation" can be perceived as a long-standing in-joke. FYAD's image bar, prominently located at the top of every page of the subforum, has in rotation an image of an overweight man with a great deal of body hair; the overlayed text reads "[w]e got your back, D&D!"

The Crackhead Clubhouse (TCC)

Abbreviated often to TCC. A haven for users of recreational drugs, and discussion of them. No buying or selling of narcotics is allowed as that is illegal activity.

Automotive Insanity

After noticing how numerous car threads were in GBS, the Something Awful forums moderators decided the topic deserved its own forum. The discussion forum "Automotive Insanity" was born. True to its name, "AI" is a paradise 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. The Film Dump is a marvelous way to get a certain perspective on films you don't usually find from conventional reviewers, and most reviews are followed by pages of debate.

Creative Convention

One of the less frequented forums, Creative Convention is used by the more demiurgic members of the forums, 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

Image manipulation by use of image editing programs such as Photoshop has spawned a wide following at Something Awful. This Creative Convention subforum is used to house entries to the weekly Photoshop contests, Photoshop Phriday and Goldmine Tuesday.

Anime Death Tentacle Rape Whorehouse

A much-maligned section of the SA forums, ADTRW is dedicated to the discussion of anime. Considered to harbor posters of a more intelligent caliber than most anime forums, ADTRW is nonetheless mocked regularly, in large part spurred by Lowtax's well-documented disdain for ADTRW.

Some regulars in the ADTRW community run a site, Studio ADTRW, dedicated to fansubs of anime and manga.

The Firing Range

The newest (as of 4/24/2004) discussion forum came to being at the whim of Lowtax. Citing that gun threads seemed out of place in GBS, he created a forum specifically for firearms. The creation was received well, and a dedicated moderator is already in place. TFR posters are encouraged to stay away from controversial topics as D&D was created specifically for debate.

Pet Cemetery

Pet Cemetery (formerly Pet Island but renamed after a spate of pet deaths) is a former GBS subforum, but was recently upgraded to a full discussion forum complete with moderation. Created after GBS was under siege of post pics of your cat to cheer me up threads Lowtax created Pet Island. Pet Cemetery is by far the most benign forum seeing as most Something Awful goons find no reason to start fights when they have cute pictures of kittens to share. Pet Cemetery is a good resource for caretaking advice, pet selection tips, and humorous pet stories/pictures/movies.

Musician's Lounge

Musician's Lounge is a haven for the amateur artists that inhabit the forums. The forum itself is similar in style to Creative Convention in terms of use and posting etiquette. Posters are advised to keep and open mind and respect others' tastes in music. The forum is used mostly for critiquing and general advice for aspiring musicans.

The TV IV

TV IV is a thread for discussing what's on television. It mainly housed appreciation threads and weekly threads regarding a certain show or set of shows (the "Adult Swim Schedule For Week of dd/mm" being the most popular of these threads, and its regular appearance in GBS being one of the main events that spurred the creation of the TV IV.)

The Mad Moderators

This forum is home to two threads: one is a list of "Painful Posting Trends", in which mods keep track of recent cliches and bannable offenses. The other is a list of current moderators of specific forums. Note that only moderators are able to post in this forum.

Special-purpose forums

Comedy Goldmine

The absolute best of the best of the best threads. Threads that are voted up to the "Gold" rating may receive the blessing of being moved by a mod to the Comedy Goldmine archive where all users may see it. Currently the Goldmine goes back to October 2001; the archived Goldmine goes back to when the forums started using vBulletin.

Comedy Gas Chamber

Threads that have been deleted by the moderators are sent here and have been said to be "gassed". They have been judged not to be up to the standards of SA. Most of these threads are often silly things (i.e. troll postings, one-liners, gimmick posts, and the like).

The Leper's Colon(y)

This was formerly the forum that contained posts by administrators listing the users who had been banned, permabanned, or automatically banned by the forums software (this is an attempt at so-called forums Darwinism; instead of preventing users from seeing administrator-only features, they are kept visible and users' accounts are automatically banned if they attempt to use them). The banning system has recently been upgraded and moved to a new page seperate from any of the forums, and this has now disappeared. Though this special page retains the same name, it is not a forum in the sense that it has threads and posts. Both the forum and the special page are interchangably referred to as The Leper Colony or The Leper's Colon.

The Forum Archives

Given the large quantity of posts made on the Something Awful Forums, it would be very detrimental to the forum server to keep them all in the main database. Thus, threads which have remained dormant for a long time are moved to the Forum Archives, in which these threads are freely searchable. Accessing the Forum Archives requires one to purchase an Archive Account for $10.

Something Awful Forums culture

The Something Awful Forums community has many in-jokes, including:

• Fenslerfilm G.I. Joe parodies - Dadaist renditions of public service announcements. Spawned such catchphrases as "Porkchop sandwiches!" and "Hey kid! I'm a computer!"
• Geno - Many S.A. goons pitched in a giant attempt to cause confusion and comedy on online games such as "Habbo Hotel" and "Coke Music". They called themselves "Genos", dressed their characters in all gray, and pretended to be members of a religious cult. On "Coke Music", they pretended to drink poison and ascend themselves. On "Habbo Hotel", they are still going by some accounts.
• Leonard "J." Crabs - Something Awful's imaginary demented lawyer, employed when a real lawyer is not necessary to dismiss half-hearted legal threats by non-goons.
• Goatse - Another Photoshop fixture, the hands are seen grasping other circular objects, such as a donut, a galaxy, et cet.
• Esco - A teenage boy, permanently banned from the forums, who became a forums legend for a thread where he declared his teacher was "pretty cool". His post was made into an MP3 recording by a forums veteran named Fragmaster, who many revere as a God. Forum member Macbeth then created http://axacution.ytmnd.com, which combines Fragmaster's voice and the "famous execution picture" to parody Esco's thread.
• Euronymous - Originally a normal member of the forums, he eventually displayed obsessive behavior and was permanently banned for attempting to attack the website. It is rumored that he hacks other people's accounts so that he can continue to view the forums.
• Yakety Sax - Once, someone declared on the forums that the theme song to Benny Hill, "Yakety Sax", could make anything funny. In a manner of hours after this statement was made, an extremely irreverent video was posted combining Yakety Sax with sped-up September 11 footage. This immortalized the statement and the video on the forums. The original thread can be seen here.
• Killdozer - Marvin Heemeyer and his armored bulldozer have captured the hearts of many forum members. Within hours of Heemeyer's rampage, a thread was started for goons to show their support, describing Heemeyer as a man who embodied the "American Outlaw" spirit.
• Yorba Linda Water District - Before Euro was permabanned he searched on Google for korn.jpg and discovered a gigantic and unsettling photo of a smiling old man, Arthur C. Korn. He looked at the URL and found the Yorba Linda Water District web site. Before long, FYAD was renamed "Yorba Linda Water District," and the giant images of Korn and his colleagues Michael J. Beverage and Mark Abramowitz, among others, were posted all over the place. YLWD drama ("I hear Summerfield is plotting a coup against Beverage") and erotic fanfiction dominated FYAG for a couple of days.

Common abbreviations and phrases

• :10bux: - The $10 required to register an account, or do anything else. Sometimes this refers to getting your account banned from the forums and having to pay to reregister.
• animu - A pejorative misspelling of anime. Sometimes used self-depreciatingly.
• b& - banned
• :coal: - A misspelling of :cool:, ideal for use on message forums where the emoticon :cool: is actually used.
• FYAD - Fuck You And Die (forum)
• :gb2fyad: - Go back to FYAD (used on GBS)
• :gb2gbs: - Go back to GBS (used on FYAD)
• GBS - General Bullshit (forum)
• Hay guys - "Hay guys, what's going on in this forum?" A mockery of clueless new forum-goers who attempt to make friends with the entire forum at once.
• how do i shot web - A catchphrase about Spider-Man created in FYAD during late 2002. It is not from a poorly translated comic.
• [img-timeline] - The Something Awful Forums at one point had "image macros" that replaced phrases such as [img-timeline] with commonly-needed humorous pictures indicating, in this case for example, "welcome to last week, that's already been done". They were horribly abused and removed, and today [img-timeline] means not only "that's already been done" but also "that's been done so many times it's like [img-timeline]". Posting [img-timeline] will result in the poster either being banned, or being given a custom title that is a picture of a transvestite with the text "I'M A FUCKING JACKASS! I POST IMG-TIMELINE!" superimposed.
• Interweb - A misspelling of "Internet" that pokes fun at people who don't understand computers. Allegedly originated on the Something Awful Forums. Featured recently in a Verizon DSL commercial. Has also appeared in skits by the Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie comedy troupe.
• ITT - In This Thread (e.g., "ITT we are all Christian conservatives") Using this is now a bannable offense. Also was used in a serious manner like "ITT I answer your question" still it is bannable or at the very least sent to the gas chamber.
• kekekeke - On Korean keyboards, "ke" only takes one character to write, and is often repeated over and over as an onomatopoeia for laughing. On Something Awful, it is used sarcastically. Pronounced "keh" as in "kettle" rather than "kee" as in "key".
• LOLZ - This nonsensical abbreviation is "Laughing Out Loud" plus a misspelled plural "z". It signifies often sarcastic laughter.
• Manbabies - An allusion to the children produced from homosexual sex. The concept was derived from the phrase "I'll give you my babies" or "I'll give you my first born!". However, due the fact that the forums consist of mostly lonely teenage men, the phrase "manbabies" was created. When a thread is given a rating of gold, often the phrase "you can have my manbabies" is shouted.
• :monocle: - On the Something Awful Forums, this is an emoticon of a person so surprised that his monocle pops off. This originated in an issue of Fragmaster's Fireman Comics.
• moon language - A self-mocking term usually referring to the Japanese language or any other non-English language.
• OMG ZERG RUSH - In the game StarCraft, the "zerg rush" is a tactic where hundreds of units are made at the beginning of the game and immediately attack.
• Roofle(s) - A pleasant way to pronounce "ROFL", or "rolling on the floor laughing"
• tl;dr - too long; didn't read. Bannable. Mostly used for E/N threads that boring and long and so someone would come in and say tl;dr for a long time this was acceptable but now is bannable due to abuse of the phrase in other thread.
• what - A catchphrase of sorts with origins in FYAD. It is generally used as a response to an overly lengthy, or complex post, particularly where those that respond to the post are asked to contribute something. It is bannable to use this in most forums, at least when it is the entire content of the post as is the intended usage.
• ZOMG - This nonsensical abbreviation is "oh my god" plus a Z on the beginning which doesn't mean anything. It is a sarcastic way to say "Oh my God!" See the tongue-in-cheek ZOMG FAQ by Matthew Milan and 2nd Lt. James Curbo, who first used the phrase in January 2003. The phrase became popular on the Forums and, like many other SA phenomenons, has spread across the Internet like wildfire. (It should be noted that while the phrase has been used in isolated USENET post before, the phrase was not popularized until Milan and Curbo's invention of the phrase, which itself was not inspired by any previous usage.)
• Megathread- Making one thread about 1 subject instead of there being 20 different threads. Examples include the Doom 3 megathread that answered most questions in the first post.

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 perfectly. It is also a technique that stops the excessive repeating of stale, overused catchphrases.

Notable exceptions include several users, such as Esco mentioned above, who continued to pay $10 every time he was banned until he had donated over $150 to the forums, and then was permanently banned by Lowtax. All of Esco's payments were reversed through Paypal, claiming that he had "unauthorized access" to the account, so SA never received a dime from him.

The posting of CG or otherwise drawn pedophilic images, though technically legal as determined by the Supreme Court, is considered a bannable offense as well. Such images carry an association with Something Awful's anime forum, ADTRW, where the posting of such content was relatively frequent until an administrative decision was made to ban goons who did so. This was made on the basis of Lowtax's possible responsibility should he come under fire for, if not condoning, hosting pedophilic imagery, and also the general disdain for sexual deviance on such a level.

To keep the level of intelligence at a decent level, the forums also include a few tricks and traps, where you will automatically get banned for falling into these. What keeps things fair is that these traps are clearly spelt out in the forum rules. This makes sure that trolls and similar types of people who can't be bothered to read the rules tend to get banned fast. The most well known is that when posting a new thread, you simply aren't allowed to use two certain tags for your post.

As well, there are certain extraneous rules that have gained fame within the community: the Toxx Clause, named after a user of the same name, dictates that any user who posts a thread where they promise to fulfill some obligation if their thread garners an adequate number of posts, will be banned if they do not follow through with their promise.

Permanent Bans

Permanent bans, usually referred to as permabans, are the permanent termination of a person's ability to hold an account on the forums. If a person is permanently banned, they are not allowed to register another account, even if they pay the registration fee, and if another account owned by that person is found, it will be banned on sight. Only the most grievous offenses incur permanent bans, such as posting of underaged pornography, scamming other users out of money or goods, attempting to hack the forums software, or being repeatedly banned and reregistering only to repeat past behavior. You can also recieve a permaban from "neither duck nor goose" on the duck duck goose thread, but these are usually much more lax at getting a new account than previously mentioned offences.

Hellbans

Sometimes when an administrator is feeling particularily sadistic, he or she will Hellban a user. This user may post as normal, but their posts are only visible to themselves (and administrators).

Probation

Implemented late September 2004, Administrators can now put users on Probation. During this time, the user won't be able to post new threads or replies. Getting put on probation more than likely means the user will be banned the next time they break the rules. Users placed on probation are listed in the Leper's Colony and will have their custom title changed stating that they are on probation and how many hours until they are allowed to post again.

The custom title (avatar) previously purchased by the user would originally be lost; they would have to re-purchase it if they wish to have it back. A feature was implemented, however, that would automatically restore the custom title of a user on probation once the probation period is concluded. According to Lowtax, he decided to implement this because he has grown sad at the number of folks being banned and he hopes that this will slow down the number of entries to the Leper's Colony.

IRC channels

ZIRC (irc.zirc.org ports 6660-6669 & 7000) is the network on which most SA related IRC channels can be found. The Something Awful Forums has had an often contentious relationship with its unofficial counterparts on IRC, and IRC was, for a while, regarded as a place of intrigue and plotting, at least until the majority of those involved in the ill-fated "IRC Illuminati" were banned from the forums. Regardless, many forums users continue to use IRC and several channels loosely correspond to specific SA forums.

• #sa - About as close as any channel comes to being the de-facto Something Awful channel. The channel is generally fairly inane, but nonetheless it houses roughly 100 users.
• #somethingawful - Despite the name, this channel no longer has anything to do with Something Awful. It was originally the closest thing SA had to an official IRC presence, at least to the extent that the site's administrators were once known to pop into the channel from time to time, but has since changed. Discussion about Something Awful is generally unwelcome in this channel, and those who engage in such are usually banned. For all intents and purposes, it is mentioned here only for historical record.
• #gbs-fm - GBS FM, an unofficial Internet radio station for Something Awful.
• #ai - Automotive Insanity
• #crackhouse - The Crackhead Clubhouse
• #shsc - Serious Hardware/Software Crap
• #buttes - This was originally formed during a dispute with the ops of #shsc over a spamming bot. Though that dispute is long in the past, many of the more prolific denizens of #shsc now make this their primary home. This channel also hosts a disproportionate number of permabanned members, leading some to believe it is a center of intrigue and plotting, though "mockery" is the primary currency. #buttes denizens often mock SA's users, particularly those of GBS, it is for this reason that the channel is now keyed and access is primarily granted through referrals by known users.
• #sports - Sports Argument Stadium. Channel used to be known as #sas until the user "Jota" tried to take over the channel. Many of the other channel members, not accepting this change of power, relocated to #sports where Jota is no longer opped.
• #partyhard - Channel for the Traditional Games subforum
• #musicianslounge - Musician's Lounge
• #currentevents - Debate and Discussion
• #oregoons - Goons from Oregon.
• #onebutan - Macintosh version of #shsc

In addition, The Alliance of Randomly Themed Servers (irc.pyoko.org port 6667) hosts #adtrw, which is for Studio ADTRW translation work, and #raspberryheaven, which is where ADTRW discussion occurs.

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
• The "FYAD flag" rotating image bar featured at the top of every page in FYAD - Be warned, this features many images which some may find offensive or lewd.