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Type of business | Limited liability company |
---|---|
Founded | November 16, 1999; 20 years ago |
Headquarters | Pleasant Hill, Missouri, U.S. |
Founder(s) | Richard Charles Kyanka |
Key people | Richard Kyanka Zack Parsons David Thorpe |
Industry | Internet |
URL | somethingawful.com |
Alexa rank | 5,277 (August 2017)[1] |
Aug 01, 2017 EVE allows you to discover, explore and dominate an amazing science fiction universe while you fight, trade, form corporations and alliances with other players. These forums have been archived and are now read-only.
![Eve online free to play Eve online free to play](/uploads/1/2/6/2/126233309/661162262.jpg)
Something Awful (SA) is a comedywebsite housing a variety of content, including blog entries, forums, feature articles, digitally edited pictures, and humorous media reviews. It was created by Richard 'Lowtax' Kyanka in 1999 as a largely personal website, but as it grew, so did its contributors and content. The website has helped to perpetuate various Internet phenomena,[2][3][4] and it has been cited as an influence on Internet culture.[5] In 2018, Gizmodo placed it as 89th on their list of '100 Websites That Shaped the Internet as We Know It'.[6]
The website has been involved in a number of notable events. These include a conflict with the Spam Prevention Early Warning System, a Hurricane Katrina relief fund being caught in PayPal's red tape,[7] an exhibition boxing match between Kyanka and movie director Uwe Boll, and the creation of the Slender Man.
History[edit]
Something Awful was created by Richard 'Lowtax' Kyanka,[8]who controls the site and is supported by other contributing writers and administrators.
Kyanka started Something Awful several months before leaving his previous job, after using his 'Cranky Steve' persona to write a comedic website update deriding the attitude and work performance of a fellow Planet Quake administrator. He moved the 'Cranky Steve' personality he had created to the Something Awful site in 1999.[9] In the years immediately following Something Awful's launch, several sponsors, including GameFan and eFront, failed to compensate Kyanka as promised for advertising on the site.[10][11]
In 2001, the site began charging an activation fee (currently US$9.95) for forum access.[12] Only members can post messages or threads; to encourage new registrations, the forums are only intermittently viewable by unregistered users. The site and forums draw continuous income from fees for new accounts, forum upgrades such as custom avatars and access to the forum archives and search features, and merchandise sales.[12]
Spam Prevention Early Warning System[edit]
On July 20, 2003, the spam filtering organization Spam Prevention Early Warning System (SPEWS) added an entire class-B subnet with the Cogent ISP to their spammer list, since Cogent was hosting a known spammer that SPEWS found difficult to block.[citation needed] Something Awful was added to the list in the process, disrupting its ability to communicate with its customers who were using SPEWS. Upon appeal, SPEWS initially refused to delist SA. The Something Awful administrators responded by telling their users to post their support in the Usenetnewsgroupnews.admin.net-abuse.blocklisting. However, that group and news.admin.net-abuse.email were flooded with off-topic posts and trolls from Something Awful users, incensing SPEWS advocates. The SA administrators claimed that SPEWS was attempting to hack the Something Awful server. Forum users responded by threatening to perform a distributed denial of service attack on SPEWS, although this type of behavior was strongly discouraged by Kyanka and assistant editor Zack Parsons.[13]
Hurricane Katrina charity[edit]
As the website's servers were located in New Orleans, the site temporarily went offline in August 2005 during the flooding from Hurricane Katrina. After the site was brought to a semi-functional state, Kyanka set up a link to a PayPal account where people could donate money to the survivors of the hurricane via the Red Cross. Kyanka put in $3,000 of his own money,[14]and promised to give some free merchandise to anyone who donated more than $10.[citation needed]PayPal froze the donation account, then stated that they would unfreeze the account once it was provided with proof of shipping from aggrieved buyers. Due to the nature of the collection, there were no actual 'buyers', and it was impossible to provide proof of shipping for donation.[15] Eventually, Kyanka contacted a customer service representative over the phone, and asked to have PayPal donate all of the money to the Red Cross. However, he was told that PayPal would only give the money to United Way of America due to their business affiliation; Kyanka initially agreed, but after receiving several emails from readers detailing alleged corruption and inefficiency within United Way, he changed his mind and told PayPal to refund all of the money to the individual donors. PayPal refunded the money, but did not refund exchange and handling fees for international donors.[14]
Shooting deaths[edit]
In 2005, William Freund sought advice in the Something Awful gun subforum about purchasing Hevi-Shot brand ammunition[16] several days before embarking on a 'shooting rampage', during which he killed two people before committing suicide. Freund had stated in the thread, which was closed before the killing spree, along with his ability to post comments being revoked, that he intended to use the ammunition to defend his Halloween pumpkins from vandals.[17]
Uwe Boll fight[edit]
In June 2006, Kyanka accepted an open challenge from German movie director Uwe Boll, who had offered to fight critics of his movies in a series of 10-round boxing matches. Something Awful had posted a humorous review that was critical of one of his films.[18][19] The event took place in Vancouver, British Columbia on September 23, 2006; after being knocked down several times and eventually forfeiting the fight in the first round, Kyanka claimed that he had been told by Boll, a trained amateur boxer, that the fight would be just for show. To that effect, Kyanka purportedly acted like a silent film comedy character during the fight rather than seriously attempting to fight Uwe Boll.[20]
Sean Smith death[edit]
Sean Smith, a leading member of the Something Awful alliance in Eve Online, was killed in the attack on Benghazi, Libya on September 11, 2012. Game players later paid respect to Smith by renaming space stations after him.[21]
Site content[edit]
The frontpage article series Golan the Insatiable is the basis of an animated series of the same name that premiered on Animation Domination on Fox on July 27, 2013.[22]
The Slender Manurban legend was created on a thread in the Something Awful forum.[23]
Forums[edit]
The site is home to a collection of Internet forums running a highly customized version of vBulletin, charging a one-time registration fee of US$9.95 for posting privileges and full access to the forums, with additional user account and forum features available for purchase at prices ranging from US$4.95 to US$29.95.[24]
The forums have spread several Internet memes, such as all your base are belong to us.[3] The forum's users refer to themselves as 'Goons'. A weekly activity is 'Photoshop Phriday', where users will modify existing images to create parodies through the use of image-editing software such as Adobe Photoshop.[25] The website also highlights some of what its administrators believe to be exceptional forum threads in the Comedy Goldmine feature.[26] A forum member also launched 4chan,[27] and the Let's Play phenomenon originated in posts on the Something Awful forums.
In 2014, the American Folklife Center announced that Something Awful was one of the sites it would be archiving as part of its efforts to compile a history of digital culture.[28]
The 2015 video game Dropsy originated as a 2008 CYOA thread on the Something Awful forums.
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ^'SomethingAwful.com Site Info'. Alexa Internet. Retrieved 2017-08-24.
- ^'Tourist of Death'. Archived from the original on December 22, 2010. Retrieved November 24, 2006.[unreliable source?]
- ^ abJohnston, Rich (February 28, 2001). 'All your base..'Guardian Unlimited. London. Retrieved November 24, 2006.
- ^'All Your Base Are Belong To Frogstar'. Archived from the original on October 20, 2006. Retrieved November 24, 2006.
- ^David Thorpe, Kevin Pereira (July 5, 2005). Somethingawful.com, Pink Five, Chris Gore (television). G4 television.
- ^100 Websites That Shaped the Internet as We Know It
- ^'PayPal Blocks Hurricane Relief Funds'. systemshock.co.za.
- ^Lynch, Steven G. 'Rich 'Lowtax' Kyanka'. Retrieved May 10, 2007.
- ^Kyanka, Richard (May 10, 2005). 'Here's Mud In Your Eye, Batman'. Retrieved May 10, 2007.
- ^Dan Knight (October 11, 2000). 'Something Awful & Express.com'. Low End Mac.
- ^Tim Johnson (March 13, 2001). 'eFront: What Went Wrong?'. The Duke of URL. Archived from the original on February 2, 2002.
- ^ abJeremy Turnage (2006-01-23). 'Something awfully funny'. Archived from the original on 2007-02-25. Retrieved 2007-02-13.[unreliable source?]
- ^John Leyden (2003-08-08). 'Something Awful going on with SPEWS'. The Register. Situation Publishing Ltd.
- ^ abFarivar, Cyrus (2005-09-08). 'PayPal Freezes Out Katrina Aid'. Wired. Retrieved 2018-05-27.
- ^Demerjian, Charlie (2005-09-04). 'All your donations are belong us'. Retrieved 2018-05-27.
- ^'Something Awful forum post'.(subscription required)
- ^Kimi Yoshino (6 November 2005). 'The Cyber World Shut Out O.C. Loner Too'. LA Times.
- ^Kietzmann, Ludwig (2006-09-25). 'Uwe Boll does something awful to another critic'. joystiq. Retrieved 2007-03-12.
- ^Chris Baker (2006-12-01). 'Raging Boll'. Wired. Retrieved 2007-03-12.
- ^Tillson, Tamsen (2006-09-24). 'Boll K.O.'s crix in the ring'. Variety. Archived from the original on 2007-06-09. Retrieved 2007-05-10.
- ^Beckhusen, Robert (2012-09-12). 'Diplomat Killed In Libya Told Fellow Gamers: Hope I 'Don't Die Tonight''. Wired. Retrieved 2018-03-28.
- ^Byrne, Craig (February 28, 2013). 'FOX Announces Season Finale Dates & Summer Premieres'. FOX. KSiteTV. Retrieved March 1, 2013.
- ^Blistein, Jon (February 19, 2015). 'Images From Slender Man Stabbing Suspect's Notebook Surface'. Rolling Stone. Retrieved March 8, 2015.
- ^'Something Awful Secure Purchase System'. Retrieved 2009-04-18.
- ^'Photoshop Phriday'. Something Awful. Retrieved 2008-02-02.
- ^'Comedy Goldmine'. Something Awful. Retrieved 2008-02-02.
- ^Jerry Langton (2007-09-22). 'Funny how `stupid' site is addictive'. The Toronto Star. Retrieved 2008-07-16.
- ^Getting serious about collecting and preserving digital culture, by Nicole Saylor, at Folklife Today (at the Library of Congress); published June 5, 2014; retrieved December 15, 2014
External links[edit]
- Fuck You And Die: An Oral History of Something Awful, a 2017 oral history conducted by Vice
Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Something_Awful&oldid=951387438'
Some people would put links in their bio leading to forum posts from GMs saying something like, 'yeah, bumping is not an exploit' then point people to those links when someone complained about them bumping the person.He was basicly laying down the 'new law of the land' and saying anyone with links to old dev/gm statements should change them.Something like:Bumpee: Dammit, quit bumping me out of range or I'll report you!Bumper: The GMs have said bumping is not an exploit, look at the link in my bio.Bumpee.Bumpee: WTF! Screw this game! /ragequitBumper: Yum. Basically it's PVP. They found something which they enjoy and turned it into a RP sort of career. Just as others suicide gank and others engage in non-consensual PVP in low-sec and 0.0 with people running PVE activities.I have a friend who runs 12 EVE account which mine. He works from home and is able to run these accounts most of the day until his family comes home in the evening.
Practically 10 hours a day, mon-fri. He had been out of the game for a year or so and was unfamiliar with 'bumping' and how aggressive suicide-gankers have become. When he re-subbed I mentioned it to him and straight away he choose to skip ice mining and move to a more remote high sec system to mine, roughly 6 jumps from a trade hub. Within that first day a few people had thrown catalysts at him and failed because he was running a decent tank at the expense of mineral efficiency. Then a few days of that went by and the bumping started. He chose to pack up and move to a very remote high sec location dozens of jumps from trade hubs. Two weeks have gone by and almost nobody has bothered him.
The only cost to his efficiency is now the extra time for hauling. He never complained and never considered a cut in efficiency for more tank as a bad thing. It was just a situation within EVE which he had to adapt to.In contrast I have another friend who runs 3 accounts for mining and a 4th in a boosting orca who came back a few days ago. I gave him the same info as the first friend about the current state of mining. He chooses to stick with his old habbits, runs max yield hulks and mines near a trade hub. He does not AFK either and lost 2 of his 3 hulks the first night back. He flipped out, re-bought his hulks and again stuck with the same habits.
Again he was ganked by cheap catalysts. Soldati. So he finally gave and swapped to macks with some tank.
Now he gets bumped. When I asked him why he doesn't just join our other friend in his low pop area he explained that he would either have to pay to have his minerals moved or spend a excessive amount of time moving it him self. Somehow he doesn't see that friend1 has no problems. All he sees is that friend1 is sacrificing too much and that people are harassing him in his PVE activity.Which friend is right?
Are the suicide gankers the problem or are the bumpers running outside the 'rules' of harassment? Maybe a combination?
All I see is one friend making enough to PLEX all 12 accounts with little risk and join me in PVP with left over funds while my other friend has already quit playing.What do I know though? I run incursions which currently 'suck' after being nerfed to the 'ground' to make my PVP ISK.
I pull in from 120mil per hour to 200mil ISK per hour depending on the group and FC. I've never been harassed or ganked (though some have been ganked jumping through 0.5 systems in officer fit pirate BSs) making this so far a very minimal risk activity. I certainly wasn't making that much doing anoms in null sec while constantly watching over my shoulder to local. I flip between 4 groups. One is open to everyone and noob friendly, one is more elitist, one is german and the last is armor. We also have a private group for VGs when nothing else is running.Between the 4 groups it takes no time to find a HQ fleet.If I get in the one I like most I sit until it ends. For anyone who cares, this has been floating round for a while now (particularly thanks to James315) and the GMs have finally come to a decision as to the 'legality' of bumping.'
![Eve Online Forum Eve Online Forum](http://cs.mg.co.za/crop/content/images/2016/10/03/gautrain2.jpg/800x450/)
On November 28th 2012, CCP Falcon created this thread on the Crime & Punishment Forum for the discussion of Miner Bumping with a view to clearing up any questions regarding the legitimacy of this type of gameplay.The thread was closed on December 5th and the discussion regarding this tactic has been long and detailed. After speaking with Game Design and discussing the contents of the thread among themselves for quite some time, the GM Team has come to the following conclusion:CCP considers the act of bumping a normal game mechanic, and does not class the bumping of another player’s ship as an exploit. However, persistent targeting of a player with bumping by following them around after they have made an effort to move on to another location can be classified as harassment, and this will be judged on a case by case basis.We would also like to stress that if a gameplay activity is classified as being “within the rules” this does not mean that we endorse, sanction or back player activity. We simply see this as emergent gameplay that has occurred due to the nature of game mechanics.As such, any players who have any notes to this effect within their in game biographies should remove words of this nature immediately.'
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