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Remember when the mods deposed Lowtax in a palace coup and sent him into exile? That was wild lmao Does anyone actually have a coherent narrative on how it all went down? Like, not the causes or his fate or whatever, specifically the actual struggle for control over the site. All I ever saw was panic, people trying to feed posters into their little spinoff sites, and a bunch of mod posts on the process I can’t find any more. It seems like the sort of thing that should be recorded for posterity, you know?
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Nov 17, 2021 01:52
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There's a forums lore thread in Ask/Tell where you'll find your answer.
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Nov 17, 2021 02:26
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Closer to hostile take over by non-owning CEO than coup imo. Though I guess you could argue that Jeff's control of the forum's coercive apparatus (loyalty of most mods & admins) could be fitted into a civil-military relations framework. In this essay, I will
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Nov 17, 2021 02:58
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You're looking at the whole thing wrong if you start with Lowtax getting deposed. The struggle for control over the site started earlier, when Koala's March and her co-conspirators tried to coup the forums. Though that coup eventually failed, and Koala's March left, her co-conspirators largely remained in power. The coup attempt also energized the most "politically active" forums posters, convincing them of the need to defend the values of the forum - no matter what side of the KM coup they had originally been on and what they saw those value as. The revelation* that Lowtax was an abusive piece of poo poo was thus dropped into a reality where forum coups were on the table, and where the admins could expect to be able to mobilize the loudest parts of the forum's population to spread the word and force Lowtax into either selling the forum (easy) or losing a significant chunk of the users and the moderation team (requiring annoying effort to fix). *To the forum's population at large. How are u posted:There's a forums lore thread in Ask/Tell where you'll find your answer.
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Nov 17, 2021 06:09
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Posting before this is locked Anyway Jeffrey of antifa killed lowtax That my theory.
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Nov 17, 2021 06:12
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A Buttery Pastry posted:You're looking at the whole thing wrong if you start with Lowtax getting deposed. The struggle for control over the site started earlier, when Koala's March and her co-conspirators tried to coup the forums. Though that coup eventually failed, and Koala's March left, her co-conspirators largely remained in power. The coup attempt also energized the most "politically active" forums posters, convincing them of the need to defend the values of the forum - no matter what side of the KM coup they had originally been on and what they saw those value as. The revelation* that Lowtax was an abusive piece of poo poo was thus dropped into a reality where forum coups were on the table, and where the admins could expect to be able to mobilize the loudest parts of the forum's population to spread the word and force Lowtax into either selling the forum (easy) or losing a significant chunk of the users and the moderation team (requiring annoying effort to fix). One thing that's worth noting is that Lowtax had admitted to being completely, totally broke and unable to financially maintain the forums. His bank account was negative and the Patreon didn't even cover the expenses. So he sucked it up and begged for money. Goons, being prone to making terrible decisions, upped it over $10,000 a month which more than covered the costs and let him live pretty comfortably. Not long after that the shitstorm followed and the Patreon dropped back down to like $1,000. That was when he was forced to sell as the message was clear; all the people that donated would refuse to donate as long as he was still around. Maintaining the forum was a financial impossibility and he was immediately unpersoned. He'd been disillusioned with the forums for a very long time before that so I don't get the feeling that it was a difficult decision for him. The SA Patreon hasn't recovered so who the gently caress knows what happens next.
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Nov 17, 2021 06:15
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ToxicSlurpee posted:One thing that's worth noting is that Lowtax had admitted to being completely, totally broke and unable to financially maintain the forums. His bank account was negative and the Patreon didn't even cover the expenses. So he sucked it up and begged for money. Goons, being prone to making terrible decisions, upped it over $10,000 a month which more than covered the costs and let him live pretty comfortably. Not long after that the shitstorm followed and the Patreon dropped back down to like $1,000. That was when he was forced to sell as the message was clear; all the people that donated would refuse to donate as long as he was still around. Maintaining the forum was a financial impossibility and he was immediately unpersoned. He'd been disillusioned with the forums for a very long time before that so I don't get the feeling that it was a difficult decision for him.
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Nov 17, 2021 06:33
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A Buttery Pastry posted:Jeffrey has come out and stated that the forums easily pay for themselves. Lowtax was literally just lying to get goons to give him money. Which is not to say that the drop in Patreon income might not have put him on a path to insolvency, since he's apparently not the most financially responsible person. Maintaining the forums financially was never an issue; maintaining his lifestyle of being a lazy rear end in a top hat eating expensive cookies was. He seemed more cripplingly depressed then actually lazy to me. Not that I know anything about crippling depression or anything.
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Nov 17, 2021 06:41
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ToxicSlurpee posted:He seemed more cripplingly depressed then actually lazy to me. Not that I know anything about crippling depression or anything. Wasn't he hosed up on booze and pills even long before the back surgery poo poo? I think he mostly just ran into the same problem tons of peope who win the lottery do, where the need to work to make money going away and leaves them with nothing to fill it but a bunch of bullshit and they end up miserable. Not that I think work is the only thing of value people can do with their lives, obviously, but it's demonstrably true that it does provide some sort of structure or purpose to a lot of people's lives, and our society isn't particularly built around the idea of finding those things elsewhere.
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Nov 18, 2021 03:00
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Sinteres posted:Wasn't he hosed up on booze and pills even long before the back surgery poo poo? I think he mostly just ran into the same problem tons of peope who win the lottery do, where the need to work to make money going away and leaves them with nothing to fill it but a bunch of bullshit and they end up miserable. Not that I think work is the only thing of value people can do with their lives, obviously, but it's demonstrably true that it does provide some sort of structure or purpose to a lot of people's lives, and our society isn't particularly built around the idea of finding those things elsewhere. The whole situation is pretty complicated, really. People want to see things in black and white but it is rarely that simple. This is why I find it frustrating that there's so much LOWTAX = BAD floating around. He wasn't all bad. Nor was he all good. Whether we like it or not these forums exist because of him. Even then though the guy was clearly hurting and the incessant attacks he had to deal with from the shittier elements of the internet certainly couldn't have helped. The motto is, after all, "the internet makes you stupid."
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Nov 18, 2021 09:39
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Lowtax wasn't ousted, he simply lost interest. The place he made for his friends no longer had his friends in it. That's not uncommon, a lot of forums I used to visit 20 years ago all lost their regulars and either became empty or replaced with some other community.
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Nov 18, 2021 18:08
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I think I was a mod at the time and remember my little corner was like "INITIATE EVACUATION PROCEDURES" where everyone is going for the escape pods in case Lowtax went crazy and tried to suicide bomb the forums software. Like a combination of System Shock and Spaceballs.
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Nov 18, 2021 19:27
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ToxicSlurpee posted:The whole situation is pretty complicated, really. People want to see things in black and white but it is rarely that simple. This is why I find it frustrating that there's so much LOWTAX = BAD floating around. He wasn't all bad. Nor was he all good. Whether we like it or not these forums exist because of him. Dude did have years of questionable behavior and a strong pattern of domestic abuse under his belt. Like, it’s possible to acknowledge that people are complex, that they have good and bad sides to their personality, while ultimately making a judgment depending on how the scales are weighted. There comes a point where, however much pain he’s in, the pain he causes to others outweighs it.
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Nov 18, 2021 19:36
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BrutalistMcDonalds posted:I think I was a mod at the time and remember my little corner was like "INITIATE EVACUATION PROCEDURES" where everyone is going for the escape pods in case Lowtax went crazy and tried to suicide bomb the forums software. Like a combination of System Shock and Spaceballs. I definitely recall every subforum trying establish their own Escape Discords during this time, even joined a few of them
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Nov 18, 2021 19:44
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D&D, GIP, and AI all had escape Discord/slacks ready to go, most of them are still active.
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Nov 18, 2021 19:56
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CommieGIR posted:D&D, GIP, and AI all had escape Discord/slacks ready to go, most of them are still active. Smaller sub forums and even threads did too. The photography subfourm of hobbies still has the discord going as does the Nintendo thread from games. IIRC there was even a webpage setup that started to collect invite links to various Goon discords in order to keep the community together
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Nov 18, 2021 20:16
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Dr. VooDoo posted:Smaller sub forums and even threads did too. The photography subfourm of hobbies still has the discord going as does the Nintendo thread from games. IIRC there was even a webpage setup that started to collect invite links to various Goon discords in order to keep the community together Yeah the forums were on the verge of suddenly and permanently dissolving. Freakazoid_ posted:Lowtax wasn't ousted, he simply lost interest. The place he made for his friends no longer had his friends in it. That's not uncommon, a lot of forums I used to visit 20 years ago all lost their regulars and either became empty or replaced with some other community. Well, he lost interest maybe 10 years ago or more and became an absentee landlord who would maybe storm in once a year to deal with issues he was otherwise paying no attention to in order to make them worse for everyone and then disappear again, which among other things is part of the reason we have had a revolving door of moderators for a long time. He was absolutely ousted, his Patreon and whatever went down to nothing inside of a couple of weeks. The site's heyday was pre-Reddit and I'm not surprised to learn he received a buyout offer at that time. I only learned what happened to him yesterday because I don't really read GBS.
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Nov 18, 2021 20:49
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I was active in the Tradgames forum then, I remember swarms of people invading it to shill their favorite websites. One of them startes gaining traction before the mods took control, what was it, Bread + Roses?
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Nov 18, 2021 23:06
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Falconier111 posted:I was active in the Tradgames forum then, I remember swarms of people invading it to shill their favorite websites. One of them startes gaining traction before the mods took control, what was it, Bread + Roses? Yeah, Bread + Roses. I distinctly remember there was a furry forum, and I said to myself "maybe I should just be offline".
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Nov 18, 2021 23:11
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lol, just lol that Lowtax shot himself instead of supporting his kids and trying to do better. Fuckin piece of poo poo, rip in piss. also burned through his forum buyout cash first to make sure his ex and children wouldn't get anything. Edgar Allen Ho fucked around with this message at 01:36 on Nov 19, 2021 |
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Nov 19, 2021 01:33
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Edgar Allen Ho posted:lol, just lol that Lowtax shot himself instead of supporting his kids and trying to do better. Fuckin piece of poo poo, rip in piss. is there a thread with all of this poo poo in it or is it just rumor i probably shouldn't read it but I want to
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Nov 19, 2021 01:38
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Jaxyon posted:is there a thread with all of this poo poo in it or is it just rumor the source of "lowtax shot and killed himself after getting caught by a judge and ordered to pay child support burning all his money spite his ex-wife" was from his ex-wife and is in the GBS thread
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Nov 19, 2021 01:44
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From everything I've ever heard about Lowtax, I'm sure some severe depression was involved, to be layered over the series of abusive relationships and general self-destructive behavior.
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Nov 19, 2021 01:46
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Jaxyon posted:is there a thread with all of this poo poo in it or is it just rumor It was confirmed by police. https://www.pcgamer.com/richard-lowtax-kyanka-founder-of-something-awful-and-onetime-king-of-the-internet-goons-dead-at-45/
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Nov 19, 2021 01:59
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ZDR had a big pile of crypto because he's a sysadmin IRL. Once you get your RHEL you forfeit your right to pay in anything other than Bitcoin, and, well, the rest is history. For extra credit: If ZDR bought Bitcoin at like $2,000 and Vicodin is $10 a pill from Rich's dealer, calculate how long until economic pressures cause Lowtax to succumb to selling the forum given he has an opiate addiction Obama2 fucked around with this message at 22:33 on Nov 20, 2021 |
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Nov 20, 2021 22:30
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Obama2 posted:ZDR had a big pile of crypto because he's a sysadmin IRL. Once you get your RHEL you forfeit your right to pay in anything other than Bitcoin, and, well, the rest is history. But posts big SA history posts
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Nov 21, 2021 00:44
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WAR CRIME GIGOLO posted:Oct 21st 2021 reg date Its an obvious rereg 
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Nov 21, 2021 01:12
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What? No way 
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Nov 21, 2021 01:14
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Anyone suddenly stop posting recently? Low tax had to have alts right?
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Nov 21, 2021 01:32
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astute observation. imo Everyone who hasn't posted since Lowtax killed himself is guilty of being him until proven innocent.
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Nov 21, 2021 01:37
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Lowtax's alt account volkerball was banned years ago
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Nov 21, 2021 01:42
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WAR CRIME GIGOLO posted:Lowtax's alt account volkerball was banned years ago volkerball was funnier than lowtax
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Nov 21, 2021 04:02
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ITT we remake the Michael Keaton vehicle White Noise but with Lowtax instead of Batman and forums accounts instead of radio waves.
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Nov 21, 2021 04:23
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GhostofJohnMuir posted:volkerball was funnier than lowtax I love the man and wish he was unpermad Volker if you have an alt account please reach out friend
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Nov 21, 2021 04:38
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WAR CRIME GIGOLO posted:Lowtax's alt account volkerball was banned years ago Wondered what happened to them, now that you mention it
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Nov 23, 2021 14:40
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