Been married 12yrs due to a goon meetup. RIP Lowtax, -Bad games crew
Richard “Lowtax” Kyanka, creator of Somethingawful, has died
231–240 of 370 posts
Re: Richard “Lowtax” Kyanka, creator of Somethingawful, has died
#232I'm old so I remember when SomethingAwful was like 4chan and reddit combined for its time. I never actually registered an account on the forums, I was busy on other sites. My biggest issue with the SA forums is how they abused their users("Goons"). Basically. Imagine having to pay $10 to register a 4chan or reddit account and being banned for silly and ridiculous rule infractions but then being allowed back on if you…
> Basically. Imagine having to pay $10 to register a 4chan or reddit account and being banned for silly and ridiculous rule infractions but then being allowed back on if you registered another account("10bux"). Flip side, the paid account system means that banned trolls coming back under a different username doesn't happen nearly as often as it would on other platforms. It still does for sure, there are a couple of p…
>I certainly can't say it didn't happen, there were definitely some less stable mods and of course the subject of this thread was the top admin for most of the forums' life, but my experience tells me that your friend was likely not entirely honest with you about why they got banned.
Keep in mind I am talking about something that happened back in 2003. I long ago lost touch with this person. He was SA's biggest cheerleader and he couldn't believe I didn't have an SA forums account since I am a huge computer nerd that spent countless hours on multiple forums in those days and SA was the "place to be" back then.
He actually did show me a screenshot of the post that got him banned and I couldn't believe he got banned over that. No profanity, calling people names, nothing that got you banned from most forums. He was just calmly explaining why he thought a movie he had just seen that day wasn't very good in his opinion. He did register another account since his whole online life was based on SA at the time. By the time I thought about maybe registering an SA account it was already on the way out as being the center of internet culture.
One thing I could never figure out back in the day was SA's burning hatred of FARK.com. I used to go there just to skim the news and check out the comments. Apparently admitting liking FARK on SA was a big no no and would get you relentlessly mocked.
Again this is all ancient 15+ year old drama at this point.
Re: Richard “Lowtax” Kyanka, creator of Somethingawful, has died
#233Earlier quoted context omitted.
> To assume that the alleged victim is lying would be incredibly harmful > many more people would refuse to make an accusation if they weren't going to be believed Of course. That's the point. Why should people be able to accuse others of serious crimes without one shred of evidence? Are people innocent or guilty by default? That's what this boils down to. > There are significantly fewer false allegations than real o…
Are people innocent or guilty by default? When it comes to investigating a crime, it's neither. It's not up to the police (or the public) to determine guilt; that's a job for the court. The job of the police is to investigate what happened. When a crime is reported to the police they must believe what the victim is saying until they have a damn good reason not to. If they started with a presumption of the victim maki…
> When a crime is reported to the police they must believe what the victim is saying until they have a damn good reason not to.
> If they started with a presumption of the victim making a false allegation very few domestic abuse crimes would ever get investigated, let alone prosecuted.
I agree that these crimes must be investigated thoroughly. Is it really okay that men can be arrested based on allegations though? I don't think that should ever happen unless guilt is proven.
> Domestic abusers already claim they're being accused falsely.
I don't deny that. The guilty will lie to protect themselves, this is a fact. However, claiming false accusations does not imply guilt. It could be true. The possibility cannot be dismissed.
> If the police and public assumed they were telling the truth they would get away with it much more, and they already get away with it a lot.
Are you prepared to sacrifice innocents to make sure all these slippery abusers are punished? Stopping an abuser or making sure the innocent are not wrongfully punished, what's more important?
> That's the abuse that people should be much more concerned about.
Does the suffering of innocent men not matter? It certainly doesn't seem to bother the people I've talked to. I've always thought this was pretty interesting.
Re: Richard “Lowtax” Kyanka, creator of Somethingawful, has died
#234I'm old so I remember when SomethingAwful was like 4chan and reddit combined for its time. I never actually registered an account on the forums, I was busy on other sites. My biggest issue with the SA forums is how they abused their users("Goons"). Basically. Imagine having to pay $10 to register a 4chan or reddit account and being banned for silly and ridiculous rule infractions but then being allowed back on if you…
> Basically. Imagine having to pay $10 to register a 4chan or reddit account and being banned for silly and ridiculous rule infractions but then being allowed back on if you registered another account("10bux"). Flip side, the paid account system means that banned trolls coming back under a different username doesn't happen nearly as often as it would on other platforms. It still does for sure, there are a couple of p…
Vilerat banned me once for calling Hamid Karzai a restaurateur. I never figured out why that was worth one.
Re: Richard “Lowtax” Kyanka, creator of Somethingawful, has died
#235He leaves behind a complicated legacy. It's important to note that credible allegations of domestic abuse lead him to sell SA in the past year, and this can't be set aside. At the same time, SA's influence on the modern internet can't be understated. The 'image macro' of early SA (maybe created by Lowtax himself, from what Fragmaster says in his video in the link) is the direct ancestor of today's common meme image--…
Never heard of this guy or SA until this post but I think it's depressing that we feel guilty celebrating this guy's accomplishments without being like "oh but it has to be mentioned he treated people in his life terribly and might have been an objectively awful person".
Maybe there is a subconscious belief that only "good" people deserve success and praise? I just find this so naive because if you've lived long enough and gotten to know yourself and other people you realize how complicated and flawed each and every one of us are.
Re: Richard “Lowtax” Kyanka, creator of Somethingawful, has died
#236I don't think we'll be seeing a black banner on HN for this one, even though his controversial history is probably highly relevant to the growth of Internet society and culture. Is there specific criteria for who gets a black banner and who doesn't?
I guess the ones from Khorasan will have to do.
Re: Richard “Lowtax” Kyanka, creator of Somethingawful, has died
#237Earlier quoted context omitted.
Actually, no, saying somebody "died of suicide" is preferred language[1]. It's important when reporting on suicide deaths not to glorify suicide. Copy cat suicides are a real risk. Words like "successful" have a harmful effect. In fact, the media often doesn't state the cause of death, to prevent copy cats. On the other hand, you don't want to dæmonize depressed people living with suicidal thoughts. "Committed" would…
"killed himself"
What is your point? That clearly isn't typical terminology for news reporting.
Moreover, I explained it is bad terminology, for it trivializes and normalises suicide.
Re: Richard “Lowtax” Kyanka, creator of Somethingawful, has died
#238Earlier quoted context omitted.
>one would have known before the ruling whether or not the allegations described an instance of DV I'm not defending/attacking any person here, since I haven't read further details, but if one goes to court to have something "obvious" decided upon, and then one writes for strangers about it, many (I think even most) people would absolutely use the same wording she used. "The judge confirmed X." I think you're looking…
That would be another possible interpretation of the phrase, but I think it is the less plausible one due to other contextual cues in the above text. In fact, the following quote appears on p. 128 of the same thread, posted by the same account: >with me, Rich did not get physical. Which, in my view, definitively settles the issue in the favor of my previous comments. The imputed "suggestion" was, in fact, the case. I…
So you don't think psychological abuse is domestic violence?
Do not have kids, please.
Re: Richard “Lowtax” Kyanka, creator of Somethingawful, has died
#239Earlier quoted context omitted.
His relationship to the community was also complicated. I stopped visiting SA 10 years ago, but even back then he'd do something unpopular like ban someone for something petty, then when people called him out on it he'd rage-quit the forums saying they were a cesspit, and focus on the front page articles for a while. Famously his rules regarding moderation of anime content caused the creation of 4chan(!). I don't kno…
Basically every ex-SA user I know of describes it as simply as "He's treated like a piece of dirt, because that's what he is." In their words SA largely became successful in spite of Lowtax, not because of him, and this is very easy to miss to anyone who wasn't there from what I can tell.
> In their words SA largely became successful in spite of Lowtax, not because of him, and this is very easy to miss to anyone who wasn't there from what I can tell.
And I think this is still wrong. Having been there from the beginning, SA certainly became successful because of his posts and sense of humor. He is directly responsible for some of the earliest viral content and memes.
_Staying_ successful, on the other hand, is CERTAINLY in spite of him.
Re: Richard “Lowtax” Kyanka, creator of Somethingawful, has died
#240I'm old so I remember when SomethingAwful was like 4chan and reddit combined for its time. I never actually registered an account on the forums, I was busy on other sites. My biggest issue with the SA forums is how they abused their users("Goons"). Basically. Imagine having to pay $10 to register a 4chan or reddit account and being banned for silly and ridiculous rule infractions but then being allowed back on if you…
> Imagine having to pay $10 to register a 4chan or reddit account and being banned for silly and ridiculous rule infractions but then being allowed back on if you registered another account("10bux"). IMHO, that's one of the best features of the forums. I first joined in 2003, didn't read the rules, posted garbage, and got banned. I ended up making a new account avoid having the embarrassment of being banned. Later on…
I remember their sysadmin posting from the colo facility while the post-Katrina chaos was going on.