Talk:Something Awful/Archive 3

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Extending the Forums section

I really feel this has to be done. Would a brief description of the forums, the forum subculture and how it operates really hurt?

Any suggestions?

Considering how much the Forums means to the site, it seems like a good idea, but I see a reliable sources problem - how much third-party coverage of the Forums is there? Without that, most of our info on the forums comes from ourselves, and that's not allowed. And secondly, there's sort of a truce going on now between the people that like and dislike SA, and maybe stirring that hornet's nest isn't a wonderful idea. -- Korranus 03:23, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree that, as time rolls on, giving apropriate weight in the article to the SA forum is both warranted, and probably a good idea. It appears that the forums have become the main engine for the site, with the public front page and content representing just a small snapshot of the activity of the site. Modifying the article to better represent how the forum plays its very central part in the workings of the site would most likely represent a good retuning of the wiki entry.Dxco 04:25, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Merging Richard Kyanka's article

I believe Richard Kyanka should be merged into this article.

Rationale:

• There is significant overlap between the two articles
• Most of what isn't overlap is sourced via primary sources through web updates or forum posts
• This is a minor celebrity and WP:BLP must be taken into account, particularly towards privacy and the article as a potential target for trouble

Precedent

• Eric Bauman and Neil Bauman were merged and redirected to eBaum's World
• Max Goldberg was merged and redirect to YTMND

Process

• Get rid of overly personal details, such as marriage, family, and the origin of the nickname. Keep content succinct- ie, "Kyanka, after dropping out from Vanderbilt worked at wherever and hated it and created Something Awful". Perhaps create a "Collaborations" section to mention stuff like Mega 64. Thoughts? --Wafulz 04:00, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

• Support. Keep his personal life, daughter, and wife personal, he is not important and does not need to be scrutinized and have his wiki defaced every other day. 24.168.87.6 18:49, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support. I can't see why not. -- Hoary 08:43, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support. He's only notable in relation to Something Awful, really. GeeCee 16:13, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose. Lowtax, between his involvement with Rifftrax, Uwe Boll, non-SA websites, and personal popularity is not just related to SA, unlike Bauman and Max who are entirely notable for their sites. Kuralyov 19:56, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
  • The Rifftrax involvement was very minor- he did some guest commentary. Uwe Boll is alread in this article, and his involvement in other websites has tended to be minimal. It's basically a string of minor achievements glued together. Additionally, the vast majority of his article can/has only been verified through primary sources. --Wafulz 20:11, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
• Strongly oppose to the point where I might be bold and revert it back if you do it. This article has already been condensed to the point where it's basically useless, and this would only make it worse. In fact, this article should probably revert back to a year ago. At least then, it was useful. You guys need to stop cutting these internet culture articles. It's an incredibly terrible idea. If you want this to be a good article and to rise above B-Class status, it needs more content and subarticles, not less. - Stick Fig 22:19, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
  • A year ago the article was made up of long overly-detailed lists about every single link on the website, every contributor, and random forum memes. Lots of the material was written from personal experience and was essentially original reasearch. The only reason this article isn't a good article is because I've been involved in it, so I can't upgrade its ranking. Remember, an article's usefulness and verifiability are not directly related to its length. --Wafulz 23:28, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Lowtax himself thinks you've gone too far and that this article sucks. I say that the memes were incredibly valuable because the site is largely about the culture around it.

Don't give me the usefulness/length argument, because it doesn't fly with me. I edit stuff down for a living, and there's a difference between editing down content and removing crap haphazardly. You can cut stuff down in a way that captures the essence of the content.

This article used to capture the site. Now it doesn't at all. Taking an entire large article about the largest paid-entry forum on the Internet, one that's often culturally relevant and used to have a much larger article, and cutting it down to a sentence is disgraceful. I feel like I should actually lower this article's class, not raise it. - Stick Fig 00:06, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

• Comment - I'm not sure what bearing Lowtax's personal opinion has on anything. You seem to be presenting it as if it's the de-facto final word on the issue, when in fact I doubt most people would find their Wikipedia biographies "ideal". Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a collection of autobiographies. --Action Jackson IV 02:28, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Did you actually read the link? He was complaining about the Something Awful article, not his own biography. I'm not saying he's the final word on anything, but I'm just noting that the guy who runs the site doesn't think the article describes his site properly. Isn't that problematic? Isn't it weird that there's more play given to fairly minor things in the site's history like tax evasion but little mentioned about why the site's culturally relevant?

In a lot of ways, the Lowtax merge is a symptom of a larger problem, which is that the article describes the site poorly and skips over fairly large aspects of why the site's important.

Think of it this way: The site probably has as big an audience as some TV shows, and many TV shows have wiki articles that narrow down specific characters and episodes. SA has a sort of culture around it that's completely ignored for some odd reason. Things like FYAD are treated like fancruft as opposed to integral parts of understanding the site's sense of humor. - Stick Fig 04:03, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

WP:COI. Just as an encyclopedia is not the place to explain exactly why Schindler decided to save the Jews, a site's sense of humor should speak for itself, and not require crufty, glurgey fanfiction in an encyclopedia to "understand". Let's not get carried away into an off-topic bickering fest. I can see that you're definitely a fan of the site, and I hope you don't misinterpret what I'm saying as "Something Awful's humor is so obtuse as to require crufty, glurgey fanfiction to 'understand', and therefore the site itself is barely worthy of inclusion in such a fine encyclopedia as Wiki" - au contraire. I'm saying that it doesn't, which makes FYAD minutae and forums memes even more redundant. This stuff you mention is good for an off-site wiki (ED, and I believe there's a wiki of some sort entirely devoted to Something Awful), but not for Wikipedia. --Action Jackson IV 04:56, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Comment: Petition to have the words "crufty" and "glurgey" forcefully removed from existence forever RightClickSaveAs 06:10, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Oppose - Glurgey is best word ever. JuJube 06:15, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

• Stick Fig says: I edit stuff down for a living, and there's a difference between editing down content and removing crap haphazardly. Editing down content is good, and removing crap is good. Haphazard removal of crap is a poor alternative to systematic removal of crap, but it's certainly better than no removal of crap. Taking an entire large article about the largest paid-entry forum on the Internet, one that's often culturally relevant and used to have a much larger article, and cutting it down to a sentence is disgraceful. The last time I looked, the article was a lot longer than one sentence. And to what is this website "culturally relevant"? I've never heard of "Something Awful" other than as cited in innumerable AfD affairs; I suppose it's culturally relevant to WP AfD, but to what else? -- Hoary 02:45, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

I was talking about the forums, which used to have their own article that was fairly large. In a lot of ways, Something Awful the site and the Something Awful Forums are two completely different things and the forums have a culture of their own.

Oh, and also, what sort of insular existence do you live where you've never heard of SA? You didn't just pick up the internet recently, did you? - Stick Fig 03:52, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Please keep it civil. This statement is bordering on a personal attack. Just because somebody happens to have not heard of Something Awful doesn't automatically mean they've been living under a rock. --Action Jackson IV 04:58, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

The Guardian doesn't seem to have mentioned "Something Awful" in this sense, despite having 74 hits for Slashdot. Perhaps I should be reading a different newspaper. Meanwhile, my insular existence is ecstatically happy, Stick Fig; I proffer the tenderest of regards for yours, too! -- Hoary 05:13, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Stick Fig speaks my mind. Wafulz and Drat are really on a crusade to delete everything related to SA on Wikipedia. Evidence: the fact that my long and actually descriptiove My Tank is Fight article was speedily deleted by Drat, supposedly because the original article was voted to be deleted back when it was a single sentence before the book came out. And then there is the fact that the vote to delete the Mega64 articles, again led by Drat, resulted in a keep...and guess what happened to them anyways? Doom House, Awful Forums, and Fragmaster all deserve their own articles, as well. Guaranteed, if this goes through, it'll only be a few months before SA itself is merged into 'Internet culture' or something. Kuralyov 03:41, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

My Tank is Fight was deleted because it failed to present any non-trivial (in other words, not mere press releases or five sentence mentions) from reliable, wholly independent sources. The best anyone seemed to give was "It was on the top 20 list on Amazon for a while!". So what? And how do you verify that? Coverage from independant, reliable third parties is a core requirement for these sort of articles. Mind you, I actually bought the book; just haven't had time to read through it. As for the Fragmaster article deletion, I did indeed vote to delete it during the third and final nomination. Again, there was little to no outside coverage, just stuff from/relating to sites he works/worked for. I personally think the guy is hilarious. I voted keep during the first nomination, under my old username, DooMDrat, but I was less experienced then. I didn't vote on that WP:POINT second nomination by that RabinicLawyer nutter. And as for Mega64, there is again little evidence of non-trivial outside coverage.--Drat (Talk) 05:32, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm hardly on a crusade with the one merger I've performed. The awful forums were merged because the only verifiable part of the article was talking about the popularity, which fit in very nicely with this article. The rest was bizarre stuff like trying to define what BYOB and FYAD were supposed to be, and often a link to that forum's particular wiki. Any information that was not externally verified (ie not original research) is still available on the SAclopedia. Could you please assume good faith from this point onwards Stick Fig? It's bad enough you had to create a thread on GBS about it. --Wafulz 05:51, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

• Support. Based on precedent and Kyanka's lack of notability in terms of non-SA activity. --Jacj 23:14, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose As stated above, Kyanka has been active in several non-SA ventures and the article is needed to detail those. Xukuth 00:56, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose for the reasons stated above. Pw33n 01:01, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support based on the precedents given and the fact he is only known due to Something Awful. Drfarkio 01:05, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support based on the fact that all of his other endeavors were a result of Something Awful Papajohn56 01:23, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
• OpposeSaying that he carries no weight outside of SA is like saying an author carries no weight outside his own novels. Somthing Awful has affected much of the internet world...and much like a novelist is listed seperately from his books, Kyanka should summarily be listed as seperate from something he created. He founded and runs the website, he isnt the website itself. He has been a major influence of a massive subscriber base, more people than many individuals who are given their own pages affect.
• SupportKyanka is not a novelist he is a website administrator. Virtually nothing of note that SA has done has been done in any significant way by him personally. Bgeer 02:05, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support Agreed, based on the reasons already discussed. 220.253.46.163 02:08, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

• Weak Support, with reservations -- while it is wholly and patently absurd to block information like his birthdate, marriage, and the origins of his nickname (doubly so for "privacy concerns" - holy moley, is he a webmaster, or a member of the witness protection program?), there's no reason this can't be reduced to a single "succint" (or even "succinct") paragraph in the main Something Awful article. His history with PlanetQuake can be mentioned as a "pre-history" within the SomethingAwful article, as it's only notable within the context of the beginnings of SomethingAwful and the early writings within. --Action Jackson IV 02:12, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
• Strongly Support because of the reasons above. Richard Kyanka's sole claim to fame is SomethingAwful and every other "notable" thing he has done relates to SomethingAwful in some way. 70.119.155.196 02:20, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
• Strong Support - Outside of his activities with and relating to Something Awful, Mr. Kyanka has done little that would meet the guidelines of notability, and as such could easily be merged into the general scope of the Something Awful article. EloH 04:05, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
• Strongly Support. In 100 years, I sincerely doubt that anyone (at this juncture) would remember Richard Kyanka. As well, based on what I've searched for before posting this comment, I cannot find any evidence to back up any claim that he is deserving of a page of his own. This could almost be considered a vanity page. ContivityGoddess 04:40, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
• Strongly Support. Lowtax is not a notable character; his "other accomplishments" are not even footnotes in the related topics (PlanetQuake, RiffTracks, UweBoll") and are directly due to Something Awful's popularity; thus, his article should be merged with the only thing he is known for. As mentioned above, he is not a novelist and most of Something Awful's current work isn't his own, it is from users of his forum or from paid writers. I suspect the only people supporting keeping them separate are fans or groupies. Be warned--this is little more than a vanity page for a figure on a popular message board, where "Lowtax" now currently operates the most. Lord Kenneth 05:21, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support, this is the normal way of handling things for popular websites. Shii (tock) formerly Ashibaka 05:22, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support merge. Unless significant independent, blah blah blah coverage can be shown, especially stuff wholly unrelated to his well known projects. Me, biased? Hell, I'm thinking of getting the Doom House DVD.--Drat (Talk) 05:32, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support per Action Jackson IV, Richard Kyanka has not done enough to save the Jews. --Afed 06:10, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support - Mr. Kyanka has little notability except within a small number of online communities. There is no information on this page that is of significance separate to the SomethingAwful article. -Quinine 06:50, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support, per nominator and other editors above. Cumulus Clouds 10:13, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support for all the reasons listed above. Mr. Kyanka lacks even a modicum of notability outside of Something Awful. Evilgrug 14:16, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support Outside of his website, he isn't a particularly notable figure, and most of the article is deeply intertwined with the Something Awful one. Merge. MezzoMezzo 15:23, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support I can't think to add anything that hasn't been said already above. Stevekl 14:00, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
• Neutral I wouldn't be opposed to Richard Kyanka redirecting here, but am also not entirely comfortable with the idea that an article on Kyanka could only consist of "fancruft". :/ JuJube 06:15, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

This vote has been brought to the attention of the SA forums

A heads up, this attempt at a merge has been featured on the something awful forums here, watch for an influx of sock puppets. --Supdawgz 00:58, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

• It concerns the community. What are you suggesting? --Pw33n 01:04, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
• Notice Stick Fig's post. It really should be noted that Lowtax has only done the other things as a RESULT of SA.
  • Thread's been closed. Oh well. --Wafulz 05:43, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
• I find it unbelievable that Stick Fig is posting things such as 'I don't know about you guys, but I've grown to hate Wikipedia.' because of its rules. He wants his favorite website to have huge articles posted about it on Wikipedia, yet he hates it because of its rules. Why does he continue to use wikipedia other than to advance his own agenda, I wonder? EloH 05:52, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Let's keep the personal drama to a minimum. As far as I'm concerned the thread is closed and that's the end of that. --Wafulz 06:03, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
    • I'm sorry I got into this, to be honest with you. Because now as opposed to creating dialogue it just created drama. Apologies. - Stick Fig 06:15, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't know if this is important to the argument, but Lowtax says "They have my full and complete blessing to remove my entry, Something Awful's entry, and anything else associated with us." boffy_b 19:53, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Why would it have any relevance? Achromatic 17:04, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

I think it's to keep the dumber forum members from aimlessly flooding Wikipedia and vandalizing it. I've seen it happen before. It all ends in tears. --Wafulz 17:05, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Petition to add the Enlightened Nipponese language to the SA forums article

The Something Awful Forums (エリック・エストラーダ, Somutsing Aufaru Foramu, trademarked SOMETHING AWFUL LLC, commonly abbreviated SA).—Preceding unsigned comment added by IdiotKing (talk • contribs)

• Support --Liface 05:34, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose for moral reasons_{before anyone spazzes out this is a joke okay}--Wafulz 05:43, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support Because the majority of the 'Something Awful' cult following is from Japan. EloH 05:50, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
• Strongly Support This is a strong part of the "Something Awful" "culture". Why isn't it already in? Lord Kenneth
• SupportSonic Hog 01:38, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
• Tentatively ScrotalMushiMushi 01:38, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

My Tank Is Fight?

Why is "My Tank Is Fight" redirected to the Something Awful page, when nothing on that page has to do with that book?

I was actually hoping to have a separate page, which talked about the book itself and had links to some of the things discussed in the book. --Zemyla^t 20:48, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

It was deleted/redirected about four months ago Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/My Tank is Fight! (2nd nomination). --Wafulz 22:17, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Forum Upgrades

I believe the forum section could benefit from a list of the upgrades that are available in the user forums. 203.132.67.88 03:24, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Why? This info is useless to non-forum-members, and we don't need to advertise it.--Drat (Talk) 04:35, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, that would essentially constitute a product list- if they want to find out, they can just visit the site store. --Wafulz 04:35, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Knowing how much you're going to spend to get the functionality you want before you spend anything is useless? 203.132.83.27 08:10, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Good Article nomination review

GA review (see here for criteria)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS):

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   a (fair representation): b (all significant views):

5. It is stable.

   

6. It contains images, where possible, to illustrate the topic.

   a (tagged and captioned): b lack of images (does not in itself exclude GA): c (non-free images have fair use rationales):

7. Overall:

   a Pass/Fail:

Conclusion

I've placed the nomination On Hold for no more than seven days, pending the suggestions below being addressed. Good work so far, and good luck with future edits. Ragards, LaraLove^Talk/_Contribs 05:36, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Suggestions

This article reads somewhat one-sided. I noticed there was a revision made (by User:McCaine) with much more information that seemed to address the issue of GA criteria four; NPOV and "all views". However, those changes were reverted. I did not feel that this article contained as much information as it could and reading through his edits validated that concern. Therefore, I recommend the article be expanded.

The link McCaine provided was a revert to a much older version of the article that was pretty well deemed as inappropriate by several editors. That information was almost entirely cruft supported by forum thread links (ie primary sources). I don't believe the article would benefit from an enormous list of content and contributors, nor from a dump of original research. The views that were taken out were not sourceable. --Wafulz 12:29, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

I think her point is valid; we need to keep the cruft down, but the current edits as is are a bit too aggressive. Explaining what FYAD or BYOB is to people isn't necessarily cruft; explaining in-jokes and forum personalities like bigpeeler and Esco, yes. I think most readers will probably be more curious about FYAD than the long-ago-in-Internet-years SPEWS incident.

It also strikes me as odd that the current edit doesn't note the other fairly well-known personalities that write for the site. Long lists are bad, yes, but so's not covering stuff at all. You can find sources for Kevin "Fragmaster" Bowen, Dr. David Thorpe and Zack Parsons emphasizing their notability in the site's history.

We need to find a balance between letting the fancruft take over and making the article so svelte that major aspects of the site are getting ignored. There's a lot of really good stuff in the McCaine edit that I'd rather go out of the way to find a source for instead of taking it out entirely.

Until then, I think it's too soon to go for GA status on this page. - Stick Fig 02:41, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Notability about personalities on the site can't be asserted from within the site- there's a pretty clear problem with this. I don't see how we can explain stuff like FYAD or BYOB without simply using original research, nor how we define the "major" aspects of the site without some sort of external coverage. For a subject like this, the major aspects are not plucked out of editorial consensus on the talk page- it's the secondary coverage that determines this.--Wafulz 04:35, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

So, we can't cover the fact that Fragmaster turned one of his characters into a short film that the guy he was parodying starred in? Or the fact that Zack Parsons wrote a book? Or how about the fact that Dr. David Thorpe was on TV pitching SA in a funny interview?

While we're at it, here's a quick second-source definition of FYAD.

You're not trying hard enough. Be less exclusionist about your choices here and figure out a way to get them in without finding a quick way to say no. - Stick Fig 04:35, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

When did Thorpe get taken out? I didn't even notice.... The other two, I'm not so sure about because they haven't received external coverage that I'm aware of. Also, there is no way we're using urbandictionary as a reliable source for anything. --Wafulz 12:40, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't know. It seems like your standard is almost too stringent on the use of outside sources. This article has like a million redirects linking to it and almost none of them are actually covered in the article. As funny as the Thorpe thing is, he's not really as notable as Fragmaster or Parsons have been, both of whom have a longer history with the site and have been with it since the beginning (though I believe Fragmaster has since left).

Think of it this way: If this were an article about a TV show, if you were telling people what was going on in the TV show, you'd actually reference the show. Same concept here. By holding the content of the article to such a high primary source standard, you're missing out on essential things. - Stick Fig 13:53, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Regarding the forums, I see no reason why this (from the McCaine edit) can't be added back into the article. It explains what the forums are, isn't speculative, doesn't go into cruft, and actually does a good job of explaining the subculture. And it seems to cover a large portion of the concerns brought up by both the GA critiquer and myself.

The forums were created on November 16, 1999, by Richard "Lowtax" Kyanka. They run on a heavily modified version of the vBulletin software; recently forum administrator Radium, who is responsible for most of the site's technical aspects, has begun to replace modules of vBulletin code with his own software, named Titan, which is designed for the exclusive needs of the Something Awful forums. Members of the site are called "goons".

The forums cover a wide span of topics, including video games, technology, political debate, sports, entertainment, drugs, guns, and pets. There are also forums to organize meetings between members, known as Goonmeets, as well as forums to trade goods and services. Within most of the forums, there are subforums that deal with more minor topics that generate moderate discussion within the parent forum (for example, a sports forum with a subforum dedicated to fantasy teams). The three main forums, which are also the most popular, are General Bullshit, which is analogous to the "off topic" forum, Fuck You And Die (FYAD), and BYOB. Previously, a fee was charged for users to gain access to the forum archives, which contain older threads from all of the forums, but access to the archives were recently released free of charge.

Am I wrong for thinking we could make this work? I suggest we also get some feedback from a third party on this if there's disagreement. - Stick Fig 14:19, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

We could incorporate that with some tweaks. Then again, I just realized I wrote that exceprt anyway. Does Radium still maintain an official development blog? --Wafulz 14:52, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Ha. You guys are a trip. Listen, here's the thing about primary sources. For this article to merely exist, there isn't as much of an issue with primary sources. However, to achieve GA status, there needs to be a significant percentage of reliable, third-party sources. Now, Urban Dictionary--although third-party--does not meet that reliable requirement. Same goes with message boards, for the most part. Reading the information about the boards from the boards, that seems appropriate to me. As for Amazon. I didn't actually look at the page, but typically you want to avoid sites selling whatever you're referencing. In this case, a book. Their description has the potential to be biased in order to promote sales.

As for choosing between including information with a primary source or excluding it for lack of a secondary or tertiary sources, you have a catch-22. A lack of non-primary sources leads to notability issues. Even with clear notability, it's disqualified for GA for lack of adequate citation. If information is excluded, there isn't broad coverage of the topic. With lack of all-views, it's disqualified for GA. My best suggestion is to utilize various search engines for sources.

There are instances where it just isn't possible for an article to meet GA standards. World Wrestling Entertainment articles, for example. Wrestlers are bound by contracts not to speak of events. Events are copyrighted to the point that no outside coverage is allowed. No reproduction in video, audio or print.

Just do what you can. I'll be back to check. LaraLove^T/_C 15:50, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

The following are specific issues listed by headings:

Lead paragraph

The lead is too short. The guideline states, "The lead should be capable of standing alone as a concise overview of the article, establishing context, summarizing the most important points, explaining why the subject is interesting or notable, and briefly describing its notable controversies, if there are any."  Done

• "Something Awful has also been involved in some conflicts over its history, such as an eventually satisfied tax warrant against the site, a confrontation between between the Spam Prevention Early Warning System and forum members, which almost led to a DDoS attack by Something Awful's forum members, and having a Hurricane Katrina charity Paypal account valued at US$27,695.41 frozen and caught in beaureaucratic red tape." Needs to be reworded. This is too much for one sentence and it's a little too specific. It needs to summerize what is in the body. "... conflicts of its history" doesn't read right. "conflicts through the years" or something like that would be better. The details of the "almost DDoS attack" can be removed. The exact amount of the paypal account can also be removed. You want to include the basic information, but you want the reader to want to read the article. The lead should be able to stand alone, but it doesn't have to give so much detail.

History

• "...earned him cameo placement in geek culture, including ... the comic book Smallville[6]." - Reference, as I read it, is only speculation from posters on the SomethingAwful.com message boards. This isn't a reliable citation of fact.

Removed the speculative sentence. --Wafulz 16:51, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

• Uwe Boll fight: "This eventually resulted in an exhibition boxing match between the two in which Boll was declared the winner." - Reference. (Note: I googled "Kyanka Uwe". Finding a good ref shouldn't be an issue.)

 Done

Controversies

• SPEWS controversy: What ended up happening? This reads like half the story. I looked at the reference and think it's worth mentioning the rest.
• Unpaid taxes: "...after his move to Lee's Summit from Seattle, WA." - Lee's Summit? It's not mentioned previously in the article. This should specify that he moved to Missouri. Also, wikify city/states.

References

• 4 needs to be formatted.

 Done

• 7 needs to be formatted.

 Done

• 20 needs to be formatted.

 Done

Images

• [Image:something awful logo.pgn] needs fair use rationale.

 Done

Notes

As the above issues are corrected, please strike-through the suggestion and place {{done}} at the end.

Thank you and best regards, LaraLove^Talk/_Contribs 05:36, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

GA hold expired

Unfortunately, the necessary changes were not made before the hold expired. However, once the issues are addressed, the article can be renominated. If you feel I have reviewed in error, you may request a review. Thank you for your work so far and good luck with future edits. Regards, LaraLove^T/_C 04:55, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Possible citations

Check these for use in the article for the ridiculously challenged statement of forumers beign referred to as "goons".
Movementarian article
SA 'Goons With Spoons' subforum
SA recipe Wiki page
SA spin-off site, topic title "Hocus or other goons getting SA usernames from IP addresses?"
Regards, LaraLove^T/_C 05:57, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

The citation is about where the term originated, not that it exists. About half the citations already in the article refer to them as goons. --Wafulz 13:54, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

The current citation uses a link to inside the forums and User:William Graham is justifying it by comparing the SA Forums to a scholarly journal. While they're both pay-to-see, I think comparing the two is like apples and oranges; and furthermore, making a reader pay to see a reference link violates the whole free-information idea of Wiki. Why not replace it with a {{fact}} tag until we find a better, freely available source? --Korranus 04:42, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

TV IV

What is TV IV and why does it link to Something Awful, as far as I can tell the text has no mention of this "TV IV" —The preceding unsigned comment was added by LordBoreal51 (talk • contribs).

See the third AfD nomination of the article. --Dreaded Walrus ^{t c} 08:04, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Forums viewable by nonmembers?

The article states that the forums are viewable by people who are not paid members, but they cannot post. However, I can't seem to view the forums unregistered. Occasionally I am able to view them, but only for a little while. Sometimes the "main" forums are not viewable and the rest are not.

Is this some kind of regular feature that should be described in the article, or is something wrong with my browser?—Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.82.196.239 (talk • contribs)

I think it just changes from time to time.-Wafulz 03:37, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Is there any kind of rhyme or reason to it?

Not really, generally at the end of the month Lowtax won't let the unregistered users view the pages. To urge more people to join so he reaches his monthly earning quota. Ioloroberts 07:59, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Something Awful Forums entry

What's with the removal of the entry on the Something Awful Forums? Wasn't the consensus in 2004 to keep? I'm not seeing any more recent. --Jonathan Drain 11:53, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Talk:Something_Awful_Forums#Notice. Basically there weren't sufficient sources to keep it as a separate article, so we just merged it. --User:Wafulz (unsigned)

Hold on, hold on. I see two sentences on the forums in the main entry - less than before the "merge" "consensus". What's taken place is a deletion under any other name. I see no notice on either talk page suggesting that a vote was taken, nor a notice that a merger took place; this merger was rushed through in a few days without the vote of earlier editors, and poorly excuted. You yourself managed to find at least fifteen references within forty-five minutes -- surely there's a noteworthiness in here somewhere that warrants, as users have said, cleanup? --Jonathan Drain 13:04, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Those links, as Wafulz states in the original post, are about the website itself, rather than specifically about the forums. --Dreaded Walrus ^{t c} 13:14, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, yes, but upon closer inspection I notice that several references actually refer to the forums at Something Awful, and not the humour website proper. The articles on All Your Base refer to the forums, as does the link on Tourist Guy, and the Apple lawsuit was over a forum post rather than. The Katrina issue dealt largely with the donations of forumgoers rather than stray visitors. The name Something Awful is used to refer both to somethingawful.com and to its forums, which may cause some confusion, and I would risk saying that the forums have become far more popular than the website itself. A journalist would be forgiven for believing that Something Awful was a forum first and a humour site second.

My primary complaint is that User:Wafulz here has rushed into a merge, but that in failing to actually merge the article at all, nor allowing sufficient time for other editors to make that merger, he has essentially performed a deletion without the usual preparation of a second vote for deletion. --Jonathan Drain 15:42, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Actually I merged a lot more. Other editors shortened the material considerably.-Wafulz 15:45, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes. One of those being here, by an admin, Shii. --Dreaded Walrus ^{t c} 16:11, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Kyanaka/Soimething Awful never criticized PayPal

I'm asking other people to join the discussion over in PayPal on the talk page. Basically, one user (crossmr) is trying to delete any explicit mention of Something Awful's criticism of PayPal AND is denying that Something Awful even criticized it. For all of the criticism, he is allowing just one sentence saying that some customers complain about their service.

-Nathan J. Yoder 03:40, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't have time to join, but stubbing legitimate criticism to one vague sentence is questionable at best.-Wafulz 03:55, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

'Geek' vs. 'Nerd'

"Kyanka's status as the webmaster has earned him cameo placement in nerd culture..."

'nerd' used to be 'geek'. i changed it. geek is not nerd. look it up. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dfunk1967 (talk • contribs) 07:03, 29 September 2007 (UTC)