The NEW Forum Newsletter!

Welcome to issue 14 of THE FORUM NEWSLETTER! Due to finger injuries beyond my control, I've been obliged to pass the torch around. The newsletter spread her legs and allowed any regulars who volunteered themselves the chance to enter her - And thus, issue fourteen was the result.

We can only hope the newsletter didn't catch anything from her threesome with `Vlei and `Thebuild - but you'll have to read this month's interview to find out.

The lesson that you should learn, however, is key: Meat slicers + typing fingers = Suckage.

The Forum News

Have you been banned from your local tavern?

And are in need of a new tavern? =SylverKitsune has the scoop.

Greetings and Felicitations, forumer whore-umers. There is a new street corner for you to walk down in your fishnets, you crazy kids with your hip-hop musics and baggy pants and colored chalk! This wonderous place is called #TheComplaintsTavern,mod-u-lated over by yer very own =SylverKitsune and *Warlock258! And it wants YOU to get your asses in there to be snarky or joyful or insane as ye'd like. Why should ye join us? Well, taken from the very mouths of the members:
1)
2) BECAUSE WE FUCKING RAWK.
3) Because we're better than the HWL foo's.
4) Because we will rove you rong tiem.
5) Because Stalker Steve will get you if you don't.
6)Because it's party time!

JOIN US AT #TheComplaintsTavern . Join or... don't.

Forum Newsletter - New Segments June 2009

We'd just like to publically announce the arrival of several new segments to the Forum Newsletter, which will be seen on your doorstep (stop leaving your MacBook there) June 1st 2009.

dAmn Complainers' Corner
A small section dedicated to those from our beloved forums who've ventured off to the chats - specifically, #TheComplaintsTavern. It will basically be a little haven of the newsletter reserved for quotes that caused lulz in The Complaints Tavern.

3 Forumer-Run Segments
Up to three segments will be chosen from the five entries seen below in the CONTESTS section! Three new segments of varying topics could become a regular part of the newsletter.

Contest Board
The contest board will be up June 2009 - Though that's not too new. It will be unveiling contest winners.

Secret New Segment
=bohobella - yours truly - wants to spice up the newsletter. Really, writing the same segments over and over again gets boring, and not enough people enter contests to make it worth planning them out. I'll be opening a new, secret, unknown segment June 1st 2009!

Complaintopia ProBoard Ressurection?

Not quite. If you remember, the Complaintopia Proboard community was a nazi creation of !nihilSS, who fell off her rocker post-ban from deviantART. She is the proof that there is no such thing as these "nice, open-minded" nazi that our local nazi have always tried to be.

The Complaintopia Proboard community, with notable Complaints members such as Nihil and !rasput, eventually launched an 'assault' if you will on Complaints. Plenty of sock puppets were used and banned. It was a brief and rather poor attempt.

However, !nihilSS is clearly a nazi in love - with deviantART. There'd be no shocker here if she comments on this newsletter after reading this segment with another sock puppet. Well, being a dork on deviantART beats starting holocausts.

Recently we've gotten word of a Complaintopia Refugee Group, formed after the Complaintopia Board was banned for breaking almost all ProBoard rules.

Will more drama come? Let's watch as a nazi from beyond the grave tries to return to us.

Forum Newsletter Delayed - Everybody Flips

But hey, it's here now. So shut up.

Forum Feature

=river-grace!

's art is often confusing. Confusing in the sense that one might see it in one's message-center and think "hey, what is this Deviant doing uploading copyrighted photographs of mainly deceased famous people? That is not allowed!". But take a closer look. They are not photos. They are not photos AT ALL. They are amazingly realistic and gorgeous digital paintings! FEAST YER BLINK-CIRCLES:

Columist Contest!

Do you want your own segment in The Forum Newsletter?

The entries are here, AND IT'S UP TO YOU TO DECIDE THE WINNER!

BUT HOW DO I VOTE?! Well, once you read the entries...

VOTE HERE!

The entries, in order of submission...

`littlefishey - Senior Senior's Adventures

The concept:
I was picturing a sort of motherly, yet hate filled, review of the forums, a sort of senior senior's adventures in the forums.

It would be like taking your granny to a nightclub and I think it would work. I am a senior citizen as well as a senior member.

The Why:

Seeing as I am possibly the oldest and dustiest regular in deviants I have a lofty and jaundiced view of the kids who breeze in and out of there. You have no idea how often I read the threads and despair.

This is a little last minute, but I don't feel I do enough for the dA community as a whole, so I am willing to vent my spleen and share the bile. God, actually that sounds awful.

=CapnGarrett - You Know What Really Grinds My Gears

Capngarrett's Peter Griffin-style 'You know what really grinds my gears' segment.

...Or CG's PG-S 'YKWRGMG'S for short.

=biz3 - Taking The Piss Out of Threads & Issues

The concept would basically be a small column discussing (or taking the piss out of) a thread or two from some part of the forum, or just a recurring issue around devART (in a bit of a crude manner). Something tells me I'm not the only one with such an idea, but here goes.

The title? Good question. To be honest, I haven't really thought of any. And the ones I have thought of seem a bit, well... cheesy.

Why? Because it makes an awful lot of sense? Nah, just thought it'd be fun, and a great way to contribute at least a little bit to the entertainment around the


The sample;

Hello, new forumers and regular forumers! ... Or maybe you're just one of those people who happened to stumble across this newsletter - hello all the same.

So apparently the MN@ are an annoying bunch... or so says a bummed deviant who got a misplaced thread locked. Threads get locked all the time, so why the big issue out of it? Apparently, according to this deviant, it would've been way easier to just move the thread, rather than lock it - just a shame that the dA forums are set up in a way so that you can't move the threads; even if you just happen to be an MN@. No can do.

Should the dA forums be re-engineered to enable thread moving, or should those butthurt forumers, who've had their thread(s) locked, at least try to check if the forum section where they're about to drop their all so precious thread, actually is the right place to put it? I say, stop being lazy; at least the MN@ give you a pointer where the thread should be.

And stop being so whiny about it just because your precious thread got locked; it's not like someone just robbed away your chance of a lifetime or something. Move along already.

While on threads being locked; what's with all the constant necroposting? Did aching boredom drive you to do it, or did you miss how the last post was dated almost two years ago? Looks like we're being lazy at all ends here.

=CittensCollar - The Forumer Profiler

The Concept:
A forumer profile, in which we learn some in-depth information on members of the forum. I hope to get some information people might not know.

The Why:
I am Cittenscollar! Although I may be better known as the crazy cat lady of the forums. I think I’ll have a ton of fun learning about people, as a lot of the forumers are hilarious people. I hope to help people get to know each other better. I deserve the column because everybody loves cats? I hope I ween!

The Sample:
Are you one of the nearly 20 people who thought Makayo was a girl? I sure was. On top of his, as he puts it, “questionable gender”, there are many of things about Makayo that you may not know.

Joining dA in April, 2005, Makayo started his foruming career with a simple thread in the Welcome Center, and from there he found a home quickly in HWL. While he started a few threads of his own, he spent most of his time helping others in need. After a while, however, the repetition of the questions in the forums got to his head, and he suddenly found himself not caring about people’s issues anymore. He sunk away from forum life for nearly two years.

Now 18 and presumably much more mature, Makayo has reared his ugly head in the forums again. He had become what we now know him as – a self proclaimed jerk that we have all come to love. Instead of assisting people in HWL, Makayo spends his time lurking in the corners of Complaints, bringing perversion and randomness to the forums when needed. For example, in a thread about boobs, Makayo brings us this gem: “If you ever get tired of your bras, give me a call and I'll hold your boobs up for you.”

Makayo enjoys Complaints and the forums. He describes the forums as cheerful, but gets quite annoyed at people who can’t read the rules and seems particularly annoyed by thread titles in all caps. He never gets bored with Complaints and sees dA as a source of entertainment.
As far as art goes, Makayo does poetry, wallpapers and a bit of manga styled art. Makayo is more involved in dA as a community than an art website, it seems, and prefers to keep his art as a pastime as opposed to a career. When asked for a general thought on art, Makayo told me, “Art is what you make of it. Everyone has their own tastes.” A very profound outlook on art, Makayo!

Makayo lives in Ontario, Canadia_{yesthatwasonpurpose} and spends his non-internet time playing video games and trying “to convince myself I'm doing something useful with the time on my hands”. He lives in a house owned by three cats: two Siamese and a mutt named Timmy. He also has two Schnauzer/Poodle mixes, but they’re not cats.
As you can see, Makayo leads an interesting life and brings some nice insight into the forums. I hope you’ve learned some fun things about this fun guy who enlightens Complaints with his humor and perversion. Makayo offers us one final thought he would like the world to know: “

~MPMG - Alicia in Forumland

The Concept:
A forum fairy tale about Alicia, the girl who gets kidnapped by Pedobear and finds herself lost in Forumland. We get to follow her adventures as she battles with the Grammar Nazis and Weeaboos, as she narrowly escapes being locked in dAmn, and much, much more!

The title:
Alicia in Forumland

The Why: I'm 21 going on 22. Reasonable likeness to my avatar. Came to the site to improve my painting, stayed longer than I ever thought (usually get bored easily) because of the people. Come August I’ll be hitting my second year here, and I’ve been lurking, posting, fighting, lolling, and so on, in the forums for almost that long.

I should get the column space if you think people would like reading about Alicia and her adventures in the forums. I can promise that there's much fun to be had. Have you ever wondered where the dead horses come from? If Serious Cat and Ceiling Cat get along? What the going rate is for the Forum Whores? That and much more will be revealed!

The Sample:
Alicia sank down in the darkest corner of the Welcome Center. Maybe she could hide for a while, think of a plan, without the crazy waving smileys catching her. This place was completely insane. Why did that creepy looking bear bring her here? Shivering, Alicia wrapped her arms around her knees. She hoped that blue smiley was okay. It wasn't fair if the yellow ones had harmed it just because it tried to help her.
“Yeah,” Alicia sighed. “Help. That’d be good right about-”

“O HAI!”
Startled, Alicia screamed and tried to press herself into the text wall behind her. She then shot a terrified look back at the mass of yellow smileys waving in the distance. They remained oblivious, so Alicia returned her gaze to the source of the voice; the cat who just popped its head down from the ceiling.

“DUNT B SKEERD!!” the cat wailed and nodded enthusiastically. 'SRSLY. PEESFUL CAT COM IN PEES!”

The blonde girl stared suspiciously at the pale orange cat above her. It seemed pretty harmless, barely older than a kitten. The cat’s ears twitched, and Alicia could have sworn it tried to pull off an innocent look. Deciding that nothing could be worse than being pulled to pieces by waving smileys, Alicia took a deep breath and prayed she was doing the right thing.

“Can you get me out of here?” she asked the cat in the ceiling. “I’ll, I’ll owe you!”
“SO I HERD U HAS CHEEZBURGAR?” The strange looking cat stared hopefully down at her, long white whiskers vibrating with barely contained excitement.

Alicia blinked. Cheeseburgers? The cat wanted cheeseburgers? This just kept getting stranger and stranger.

“Sorry. I don’t have any.” At the look of absolute devastation on the cat’s furry little face Alicia felt like she’d kicked a puppy. Or maybe a slapped a kitten.
“I’m really, really sorry?” she tried.
“O NOES!” the cat exclaimed. Then it disappeared back into the ceiling.

“Wait, don’t leave me!” Alicia scrambled to her feet. After snatching a glance to see if the crazy wavers had finally remembered her presence, she went back to looking up the hole in the ceiling.
“No! Please! I'll take you to McDonalds! Anything!”

For a few seconds nothing happened. She could hear the gleeful shouts slightly gaining in strength behind her, but she didn’t dare to look back. “Help me!” she begged.
Another couple of seconds passed, slower than a snail in glue.

“HALPFUL CAT IZ HALPFUL!” A white paw popped down. A mostly white paw anyway. Something that looked a lot like ketchup had clumped the fur together down the right side. The paw waved at her to hurry up.
“IN B4 DEY SEES U! SRSLY!”

Closing her eyes tightly, Alicia reached up and grabbed the furry limb of her would-be saviour.
“Oh please, please, don’t let me regret this,” the girl murmured as she was pulled up and away into complete darkness.

“IZ CATURDAY. SO I HERD U LIEK CAEK?”

VOTE NOW! Winners announced June 1st!

Interview!

`Thebuild's interview with `Vlei

Thebuild said the following:

So going way back, when did you first start visiting the forums and what was it like?

I started in early 2006 on my original account, pretty much as a lurker at first. I wish I had some awesome stories of how I was BBQ'd as a n00b, but it never happened. Also, though I haven't been here as long as many, I'd like to say I get a chuckle out of the whole "it was better back in the day" schtick. So long as at least some of the people are great - as they were then and are now - who really cares?

When do you think you rose to become one of the more prominent regulars?

Whenever it was that, slowly but surely, people began to think to themselves, "Well, he isn't going away, dammit, and he hasn't managed to get himself banned, so ... *sigh* I guess we may as well talk to him."

So tell us a bit more about your cat, what is her name and is she really out to kill us all?

Her name is "Grand High Exalted Goddess of the Universe And Beyond", at least that's what she calls herself, though I am allowed to shorten it to "Great One", because she understands that I have limited intelligence and vocabulary.

She isn't planning to kill us all, exactly, but she does get hungry from time to time, and man, is that bad news for bystanders.

Do you feel like you have a big influence on the forum and its members?

Not really, no. Guys like `VernonX9000 have that devillish charm that can actually influence. I flirt more with the idea of being a "benevolent troublemaker". I do try to liven things up with threads that hopefully haven't been done as often, though, and I try to respond with my own words, instead of constant pop-culture quotes and plz accounts. For whatever that's worth.

How do you feel about garden gnomes and long eared rodents ?

I feel that both of them have a definite future in the fast food industry.

Do you ever find the forum affecting how you see or react to things in your day to day life?

Hmm, no, I can't think of an instance. I keep them pretty much seperate, actually. The day I say "No U" to someone IRL is the day I walk out in traffic.

Is it true that penguinburgers really provide you and me with all the nutrients and Omega 3 and 6 oils we need on a daily basis?

Of course. As four out of five doctors will agree, PenguinBurgers are a vital part of a healthy, balanced diet. I recommend at least one PenguinBurger daily, and three for *Ewig.

And finally does the thought of ~Dropbearplz's threats ever keep you awake at night in fear?

As we all know, ~Dropbearplz is something of an ineffectual furball whose mouth takes up 90% of his body mass. I mean, really, whose Achilles heel is bloody toothpaste?!

Nah, he doesn't scare me at all.

Oh, incidentally, I'm going on an extended vacation to Outer Mongolia now.

Best of the Forums!

Threads

Stop Spamming Me dA by ~Tallest-Schuler
The REAL gay marriage problem. by *Eman333
The REAL Real Abortion Problem by ~Unvalanced
Traditional has more meaning. by *alexandrabirchmore
it's spreading... huh? by ~Teo-Hoble
deviantART is NOT FREECREDITREPORT.COM!!!!!!!!!!! by =HisnameisDaveyoufool
All drugs should be legal. Right? by ~AliTheBandit

Comments

You must not be too familiar with the complaints forum here... I suggest you just sit back and watch the mayhem... by ~BountyHunterBetty
[this comment is only visible with a subscription. click here to upgrade to premium access now] by `timmy64
How does Nadya Suleman ward off the paparrazi? ...Gatling miscarriages. by =HisnameisDaveyoufool
It's Ku. Because they obviously don't have a "Klu" by ~embiearts
When your "getting high for the first time" plan involves chewing gum and not making direct eye contact, OF COURSE YOU ARE GOING TO HAVE A BAD TIME. by `AxD
Goddamn it, I'm still the burger by ~penguinburgerplz
Isnt he on sesame street? by *Spinewinder
On her scalp there were three parasitic mites, chagrined insectoid crusaders on an eternal mission by =HisnameisDaveyoufool
I have the ability to beat `Thebuild in an arm wrestling match by just saying a sarcastic and tad obscene gesture about his mother. by !manic-cure
[this comment is only visible with a subscription. click here to upgrade to premium access now] by `timmy64
How does Nadya Suleman ward off the paparrazi? ...Gatling miscarriages. by =HisnameisDaveyoufool
It's Ku. Because they obviously don't have a "Klu" by ~embiearts
When your "getting high for the first time" plan involves chewing gum and not making direct eye contact, OF COURSE YOU ARE GOING TO HAVE A BAD TIME. by `AxD

Plz Account

...and the worst.

Threads

Trolls keep bothering me! by ~FoxyFoxChick
Why it is time to turn the tides on Capitalist/Fascist Opression by ~Comrade-Leon
what is the most by ~1chick1
NEVER go to Heaven4WolvesII chatroom by ~Nintendogslover988
Apparently there's a notice against Heaven4WolvesII Ignore. They are a Troll by ~Delusional-Weirdo
One day I will rape the world! by !faceraperplz
Protip! Gifting to world leaders by ~Aeonicentity
Vegetarians vs Meat by ~diegoleadguitar




Timmy's Pick of the Month: His nose.

Odds & Ends

Past Forum Newsletters

A sticky created by lolly and updated by various staff members can be found here in the Deviants forum for all your past forum newsletter needs! Relive the memories you had of a time when `conorschild was still the master behind the news, and thank the staff for being so kind as to post them!

Forum Clubs!

If you want to keep up-to-date with some of deviantART's most popular forums, these clubs are a great place to start.

*DAPoliticalForum *DAComplaintsforum *DAMusicForum *DAReligiousForum

Submit comments & threads to the Newsletter!

Spot a hilarious thread or comment?
Think it deserves spotlight?
How about nominating a fellow forumer for the monthly feature?
Send a note to =bohobella and she'll see to it! Please include links to all threads and comments if possible.

When submitting threads, trolls, ban reports or comments try to include which it is: thread, ban, troll, comment or other, in the title of the note!

In the next issue...

(Finally) We announce the column winners!

Until next time, happy foruming!

_{We ~LOVEintheSNOW and =cassiedj, our regular formatters And a big high-five to `Thebuild, `Vlei, =SylverKitsune, `timmy64 and all who offered assistance for this month's issue.}