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SomethingAwful forums still have a fairly dedicated pool of members who post regularly. Some have been on there for as long as 20 years. I remember recently tal
by BadassFractal 7y ago
SomethingAwful forums still have a fairly dedicated pool of members who post regularly. Some have been on there for as long as 20 years. I remember recently talking to someone who met his wife on there a decade ago.
They're behind a paywall, with reasonably heavy moderation, so people generally behave ok, despite being anonymous. I guess the experience of being muted by a moderator in front of everybody for being an asshole is painful enough that most learn fast not to do that again.
Seems to me that any gated community of "underdogs" is going to attract a loyal following. It's harder to experience the same feeling in a place like reddit, where it's a free for all, there a lot more members, and someone's seniority is less obvious.
- Svperstar 7y agoThe problem with something awful is their early success went to their head. I was around in the late 90s when SA really took off and became the reddit/4chan of its day. I know people who used to be massive cheerleaders for SA forums who eventually got sick of the mods. SAs business model used to be banning people for minor infractions and they could then pay $10 to get unbanned. Something as simple as saying "I went and saw MovieX it was 7/10 I thought not amazing" could get you banned for "trolling" I'm out of the loop now as last time I even spoke to someone about SA was 10 years ago but when they were the top dog of internet forums it totally ruined the culture.
- BadassFractal 7y agoIt's not perfect by any stretch. I suspect that right now it's very far into its plateau of productivity, and very far outside of the Internet's spotlight, which made everybody calm down. Lowtax is also not really involved much anymore, so the entire site is effectively on life support.