The rules and registration fees are in place to prevent the crapfest you run into on many other popular messageboards. Here's a for-instance:

On Fark, if you put something retarded about being the Weeners in an articles' thread , it gets filtered or sent down the list. Oh so clever ways of getting around it may or may not be moderated. Social repercussions are almost nil.

On SA, Not only will there be calls for the head of the "Boobieser" on a platter, there will be an almost immedaite smiting of the offender. Said banhammer-smiting will require that the fool suffer the penalty of having to pay to come back, so dumbass trolls quickly tire, leave for good, and post on Fark about how the moderators are unair.

Above filtering only proves my point more.

There are some benefits to SA registration.. SA has a GREAT MP3 board.

My friend is a SA member.. however, I prefer Fark.

RogerClemente

Journey? DIE!

--

BTW, I'd quicker pay $5 a month here than $10 total there.

Ditto VG

Nope.
I happen to read both Fark and SA.
I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one.

For every amazing poster on the SA Forums, there are another hundred who are blindly in love with Lowtax, think broken English is the funniest thing of all time, think they're the greatest people on the Internet, run phrases into the ground until they're told to stop then laugh at the ones who didn't and got banned and make me want to cry.

But I'd say it's worth 10 dollars for the amazing posters.

OMG WE OWN FARK BECAUSE WE PAY TO COMMUNICATE WITH EACH OTHER!

Short of getting involved in this asinine argument, will someone who does happen to have access copy and paste the damned story so that we can read it? I mean I know its more fun to argue and all, but c'mon now.

Squiggle: As I told Kane, you may say that, but the official forum rules tell a completely different story, and I'm not gambling 10 bucks on the remote possibility you're right.

Judging by the SA Commandments, I think that the who ever mirrors the thread or posts it somewhere else will get banned for allowing us non-payers to read it.

Since it's so funny, see?

"Sharing your thoughts regarding shortcomings of the current moderation team, either real or imaginary."

Wow, what a load of horse jizz. I like SA immensely, but dude, that's just ridiculous. All that does is keeps a shiatty mod shiatty. And honestly, some of the other rules both suck and blow.

It's funny that SA runs Truth Media, and some of it's forum users are exactly like the people they make fun of (well, at least the SA apologists (great phrase by the way Tuna, 10 points for you) that have shown up here)

Heh heh... The person, I mean. Not the who.

So, are we going to see some cut-and-paste action, or just some more whinning about what Joe Blow chooses to do with $10/month?

Speaking of which, anyone have $150 I can borrow?

If anybody's interested, here is an Awful Link of the Day who posted a retort. It's vaguely amusing, but mostly stupid.

AChimp: Call it a 'free sample', then. I doubt I'd have paid for TotalFark if I hadn't seen the sample page Drew put up. If the SA forums are funny as they say, then a $10 lifetime membership would be a bargain. I can totally see where Rich is coming from wanting to limit bandwidth and get members to contribute a little bit to his costs, but paying without seeing it first? I'd feel so dirty. Like paying for pr0n... *shudder*

I agree with you completely, ChernobylOne.

The SA forums truly are some of the funniest people i've ever met, and a one time 10 dollar charge is pennies for all the entertainment you get out of it. And I wouldn't stress about the rules too much.. only way your going to get banned is if you truly do something infantile and childish... but more likely than not you simply earn yourself a custom title that is so bad its funny. Or if you do something illegal that could get SA shut down.. yeah your probably going to get banned.

The SA forums are a unique place, and just about the only thing on the interweb that holds my attention. A lot of forum goons are idiots, but even the idiots are often entertaining. I don't think Lowtax likes me, and I feel no need to kiss his ass. I recently corrected him on a nitpicky little point, and he thanked me - I don't know if he was being sincere or sarcastic, but he didn't ban me for correcting him.
SA has been an out of pocket venture for Lowtax from day 1. You don't like it? Fine. You do like it? Then Lowtax is paying to entertain you.
I joined the forums just before they started charging. I nearly got banned early on for being an idiot. That taught me to think before I post. Since then I have donated a fair chunk of change to the site. Servers cost money. Bandwidth costs money.
To my knowledge, SA and its forums still cost more than they make. I don't think Lowtax is making money from the site. If anyone deserves to make a buck off the interweb, it's Lowtax. I think he's still losing money on the deal. But SA is an empire now - one I'll gladly defend or fund as necessary.

Hey, don't get me wrong, I love SA the site, and I'll gladly donate to keep it running. I just won't buy a forum membership, because, if I'm going to BUY something, I expect to be able to ENJOY it, not be pinned down by pages upon pages of draconian rules which seem to be there simply to quash dissent. I'm a dissenter, more often than not, and I don't take kindly to being quashed (just ask K3nshin or Vital Zero).

And again, same old story, same old song and dance: You guys might SAY that that's not the case, but, since I can't actually SEE the forums, all I have to go on is the forum rules--and the forum rules completely contradict you. So, I'm not going to join the forums. So knock off the proselytizing.

Why doesn't Fark tell who submitted articles so we can bash his head in for being a dumbass and enabling voting when he was at it.

SA is great, and I appreciate all the work that Lowtax puts into it. The rules for the forums, though, are completely whacked. Why can't you criticize the mods? That's like saying you can't question your god.

I hear good stuff about the forums, and then I hear bad stuff about the forums.

The bad I hear, however, really cancels out the good when I can't see for it myself, especially when I can be entertained at other message boards for free, like I-Mockery.

?
:(

I visit a few other forums where the mods are equal to the posters. Yes they ban people who are dik-diks *Space Moose joke....C'mon someone else must find that funny* but simply arguing with them wont get you banned *unless it blatantly offensive*

Allso they can take a joke, telling them they have a bad haircut wont get you banned.....just a insult right back atcha.

All and all a much friendlier place to be.

The rules are in place so the divine hammer of lowtax can come down on any idiots who make it known they are idiots who do not need ot be there. If your getting the impression that ban happy admin are running around smashing any criticism they see, then you are mistaken. But im not here to sell the forums on you .. they sell themselves. If you dont want to pay 10 bucks one time to see them, then don't! If you don't want to be there, then just dont go. Simple huh? But i do have to laugh at people who pay to see the reject links on here at 5 bucks a month, then say paying 10 bucks one time to be in the sa forums is a ripoff.

For awhile there they were allowing people to view 3 of the forums for a free sample including the photoshop forum, looks like they have ended that.

Oh, and they'd probably get banned if they cut and pasted whatever the link was to.

ChernobylOne Actually I've checked several times and found I could go onto the a couple of the forums for free and look around.

Without a doubt, some of the funniest post's I have ever seen. I'm planning on paying the 10 in a day or two. The funniest one I saw was one where people read angsty Livejournal's aloud, and posted the mp3s. I had tears in my eyes.

"one of the major things I didn't like about SA though, aside from the omnipotence of mods, was that the reaction of most members, even when longtime community were banned, was HAHAHAHAHA and no one cared...."
Vesuvius..there is NO community at SA, just a bunch ASSHOLES who occasionally are funny. I've been hanging out there for a long time, using a CC# I harvested off the site before LOWTAX figured out how to secure the place.

No community? your joking .. right?

the rules only reflect somethingawful.com's temperament, not lowtax bein mister hitler or something.

when you see what they do to other peoples forums/guestbooks you can understand that he needs to b pretty clear about that shiat

SA's forums have the most common sense rules I've seen. And they're god damned hilarious.
If you want that much freedom to be an idiot, go to some CS board.

Also, AChimp: do you hear any bad things from ACTUAL MEMBERS? They're the only ones who have the experience to tell you if it's bad or not, someone who looks in from the outside isn't the best source for information.

"07-21-02 02:07:17 PM Vilerat
No community? your joking .. right?"

Err no I thought I was pretty straight foward about what I wrote but let me read it again...

No comunity...a bunch of assholes...occasionally funny..Nope that is correct..I wrote there is NO community only a bunch of assholes who are occasionally funny...

Yeah vilerat that IS WHAT I wrote...

I know a few people who used to post there; they say good stuff, and they say bad stuff. And, I used to lurk on the boards before they were subscriber-only.

Hey archfeld!
Just because you werent old enough to join the cool club dosent mean you need to dog us out to the other people kiddo.

LOL Vilerat :). The chess club thought they were cool too Vilerat, but that did not make it so. As to age well thanks for the vote of confidence. I vaguley remeber being motivated by peer pressure back before I developed a mind of my own...sometime in the 60's I think. Like I said I do belong to the forums, not under this name of course, and I still stand by my review. Not a community, a bunch of assholes, not everyone of course, who ARE occasionally funny. Fark has a community, SA has a conglomeration of people drawn by Lowtax's obnoxious style and most of them reflect that. BTW Vilerat I have not even dogged you..If I had YOU WOULD KNOW Kiddo :)

Dont like the rules of the SA forum but want to see all the halarity? Simply, dont post. Just read.

Im still puzzled by the lack of community comment. I frequent CE and theres STRONG community there. each different forum in there has its own community and they are all pretty close. I cant help but think you are pulling these comments out of thin air.. Yeah we have some assholes, but i dare you to say Fark does not have the same. We at least do a better job of filtering out the trolls.

"Sharing your thoughts regarding shortcomings of the current moderation team, either real or imaginary."

On Fark I can (hypothetically*) badmouth the (hypothetical*) dumbass moderator who posts a (hypothetical*) link that requires $10 to view and if FlyingSquirrel is right, is barely mildly amusing.

What would happen on SomethingAwful if I did that?

(*of course I'm not badmouthing the Fark mods cus as someone who's not a TotalFark member, I'm getting what I'm paying for)

Jesus Fark! More drama.

Vote for me because I am both an SA goon and a Farker.

Go back to FYAD! I claim this forum in the name of CE!

Lowtax likes me.

And it's a one time $10, please stop telling people that it's $10 a month, because it's not.

Cait Sith is and was one of the most despised moderators in SA history.

BUT HE'S MY HERO

In that case, and drawing from what you've already posted here, I think I can speak for all of SA when I say that the SA forums are better off without you.

So when is someone going to post something ON-TOPIC, such as the text of the guy being an idiot? Or I don't know, maybe deleting this post/thread on account you have to pay to get in, (anyone remember washingtonpost.com?)

Vote for me. NOW!

The 10 bucks was well spent. The humor is fresh, and always exciting, and the gimmicks are few and far beetween. Its a damn shame most of the farkers here just don't get it.

Interesting forum rules over there. Even the movie theater will give me back my ten bucks if they kick me out.

Bonobo62: Apparently SA not only will not give it back, but you are invited to pay another ten and come back in....hmmm, nice guys huh?