The Forum Newsletter!

What's changed since our last time together, dear viewers? Well, Michael Jackson is still playing non-stop on radios (though rumour is he's been pro-creating, even in death - Some dead celebrities release new albums, he releases new children), the summer invasion is strong and trolls are stinking up the place.

At least you have the 17th issue of the Forum Newsletter to remind you how shitty forum life is!

The Forum News

Nazi Fumigation

is deaddeaddead, by which we mean bannedbannedbanned, permabanned to be exact. Details, you ask? According to her journal she has linked to on Storm-Artists, "I was banned for 'inappropriate comments, racism, and HOMOPHOBIA'". Specifically, the word fag.

Now, we all know people act irrational when their only source of entertainment flies away. Some dAramatic llamatic quotes from her journal:

"So I am now banned from dA for exercising freedom of speech."

"I was simply banned because they didn't want me and made up and shit excuse to ban me."

"In short, NAZIS AREN'T ALLOWED ON DA, REGARDLESS OF FREE SPEECH."

The Complaint Where it all Went Down: [link]

Dave's Here, Man

=HisnameisDaveyoufool couldn't even wait another issue to return to the Complaints Forum since we announced his departure last issue.

Welcome Dave back, or simply check out his returning complaint.

Mattyohh... Oh why did you do that?

*Mattyohh has been given a one-month suspension, and I've got to warn you - !Miniskirt is "I am appalled with Matty's suspension"!

The comment that got his suspension, according to !Miniskirt, can be found here: [link]

Some (miniskirt) think it's an unfair suspension since "You can say stuff like that to any average user and the person that said the comment gets away, of course. However, say the slightest thing demeaning to ANYONE with power on that site and instead of ignoring it like most average users and plain MEMBERS do, admins have to go out in some sort of way and ban/suspend them".

It's up to you, dear forumer, to make your own decision on the matter (partially, in reality no one cares what you think). If you want my unbiased opinion (that probably has some bias, probably a lot), I think it was a pretty lame insult that was totally unneeded and, in the end, a deserved suspension. Maybe not such a long one, but who am I to complain? Aside from a Complaints regular.

#TheComplaintsTavern: Destroying Forumers Since Recently

There's been a growing trend ever since #TheComplaintsTavern came to play.

#TheComplaintsTavern Population
Complaints Forum Population of Regulars
Complaints Forum Posts of Good Quality
Threads & Comments sent in to The Forum Newsletter.

It seems you all suck at the war on the pickles (chat users). So, if we can't beat them, we simply have to join them. Run on over to #TheComplaintsTavern today before you get sucked in by all the noobs in the actual forums.

Plus, they have contests and ranks in the chat.

The Forumer Profiler with =CittensCollar!

Will not be brought to you today. =CittensCollar decided to instead interview her cats, but when no English-language response was generated, we were unable to do anything with her submission.

Tune in next month for an actual segment brought to you by =CittensCollar!

The Complaints Tavern has a Contest and WE Feature it!

Why would we do such a thing for those pickles? Well, pickles or not, it displays a lot of our forumers creating Forum-Themed creations all in hopes that it will become the mascot for The Complaints Tavern. Plus, I entered, so it must be a good contest!

The contest is closed now, and judging will take place for the next ten days or so.

All the entries can be found in =SylverKitsune's collections!

Forum Phenomenums with =bohobella!

Forum Phenomenums, here to explain the regular, repetitive and hard to explain phenomenums of the forums we so love. From the latest memes to the oldest trolling in the books, here it's covered.

Today's subject is touchy, and it's not about perverts. It's about the deviantART Nazi Population (shall we call them the dA NP? No).

My best friend has often pondered about this with me - During her brief month on the forums, she was surprised there just so happened to be such a large Nazi population in the deviantART forums, and why would they come here? My argument has always been that Hitler painted pretty flowers.

However, one must really look at the pattern: Aside from obvious trolls that are obvious, our regulars who also fall into the Nazi category act as more or less your "friendly neighborhood nazi" character. They are harmless sweethearts who would love to tell you about how they don't HAAAATE jews, simply think the world needs to be more pure, over a nice cup of coffee and grandma's cookies.

In short, they get your love and trust before slowly breaking it to you that they're a super special Nazi, and then out comes the swasticas. As soon as your local lovable dA Nazi has a swastica avatar, you know that just increased their pageviews - Now they get a lot of lulzy hate comments, too.

So, think about it - What gets more pageviews? A picture of Mr. Parrot, your Parrot, or a hateful symbol*? And how fun is it to mess with people's heads, being the kind, gentle, caring and lovable version of something associated with hate and holocausts?

_{*We here at The Forum Newsletter respect the fact that the swastica can also be a religious symbol and not Nazi-related, but we also know if you were about to call us out on that, you're just trying to be difficult. You know what use of the sumbol we're talking about.}

Senior Senior's Adventures with `littlefishey!

Hello Babies.

So this is the second instalment of my guide to the forums, specifically the circus that is Deviants. And as we are all now painfully aware, the kids are on holiday and the threads are getting so inane that by mid-week this week I was seriously considering scarpering and hiding out in Twitter for the next two months. I even posted this news in my journal, something I later regretted as I found myself back scouring for threads with less than 20 replies. This makes me a liar.

We've seriously had threads posted about 'The Game', yes, you remember that, it was mildly interesting five years ago. Only mildly, then it was just boring and now it makes me want to remove eyes. In the last thread I told the OP to 'fuck off and stay fucked off' to which I got the reply 'this will not be tolerated <--- Reporting deviant'. Whoever you were (and I genuinely can't remember your name) thanks, but I'm still here. What is more... look, honey, I'm in the newsletter. I've had to resist the temptation to lay into people for simple crimes like replying to my posts with 'oh ok', which wastes both my time and theirs. I mean, what is the point of even trying when all you get is two words, each with two letters... and they reuse the letter 'o' twice? Is your pretty little head so devoid of any thought that you can't do any better than that? Luckily last time this happened @Vlei stepped in and allowed me to vent the seething at him.

He can't be there all the time... and I have to take a deep breath and try to remain calm, because the trouble with this time of year is that everyone who is about is so damned young. Which is why the latest forum trend is such a minefield, this trend is virginity. Now, being my grand old age means that virginity is a distant memory, in fact if I had accidentally been with child that first time, the resulting bundle would be older than some of the people who are posting on the virginity threads now. So far we've talked about who is and who isn't, whether you would prefer to marry one, virginity being very special and people asking why we're all obsessed with virgins. Which is a very good question. Trouble is I can't talk to children about sex without feeling very uncomfortable, and although I have plenty to say I have to bite my tongue and "pull out" (pardon the pun) before I say something regarded as 'mature content'. Perhaps we should have that as a setting on our replies, just so that you can be 'adult' without informing some 13 year old of a bizarre practise that they probably shouldn't know about till they reach 21.

But people, can we not steer clear of all these 'sub navel' subjects? Does the summer make you all frisky? Is the heat boiling your hormones? Does having a few weeks away from your teacher make you lose all your inhibitions? I can't believe I'm saying this, but perhaps we should be discussing vampires and the on going battle between Coke and Pepsi in our affections. Dull as these dead horses are, at least they're about as far away from sweaty, neurotic, nerdy teenage sex and genitalia as you can possibly get.

Until next time, babies... Keep it clean. Thanks.

Interview!

's interview with =bohobella !

Bohosmella, when did you join deviantART?
In the good ol' 2004s, when I was a hobbit humper named ~FurryFeets - Definitely not a furry, I assure you, it was a thirteen-year-old's attempt at being cute, clever and relevant to hobbits.

Hobohella, when did you start foruming?
I can't remember when I started to lurk - I always loved reading the Complaints forum, I probably didn't lurk in my initial year but in one of my later accounts I surely did lurk around. I made some posts in Thumbshare with my ~Nelzeph account, and in September of 07 I made my first Complaint.

Bobobella, how'd you end up writing this here newsletter?
`conorschild gave it up - I couldn't believe why he would do such a thing! Now I can, but that's not the point. ~mangachu picked it up and soon learned it wasn't the job for him. I took over.

Robobella, have you made internet fwiends here?
Naturally. You are all my lovelies, I can't name you because then I forget =Insubordinance and @martypunker, and then they get mad at me and I have to make giant font apologies!

What forum do you regular, popobella?
Complaints, though I like to sprinkle myself all over the forums. You'll see me in Deviants sometimes, Help with Life and Suggestions even more.

Bohob, why haven't you been around much lately?
For one, I've been on deviantART for five consistant years - Everyone needs some downtime!

For another, I work and I'm starting art school in under a month.

Thirdly, I have the Sims 3.

However, never fear, because while you can't see me all the time, I'm always there, lurking in ur shadowz. I still log on once a day or at least try to, and I can still waste hours away simply lurking when I should be catching buses/drawing/Simming.

HoboFella, is it true you forgot to interview someone for this month's newsletter and resorted to a skitzo, last minute interview?
LIES AND SLANDER.

That is all I have to say!

Alicia in Forumland, by *MPMG

~Chapter 2
In which clothes are optional and freak-outs are plenty.

A teddy bear was groping her.
A teddy bear had broken her computer, dragged her into the screen, and was now groping her.
Alicia would have pinched herself, but unfortunately the bear had already taken care of that. The dull ache on her right arse cheek certainly proved that this wasn’t a dream. Maybe she’d gone insane? Was there some sort of test to check if you had suddenly gone mental? Being pinched by a six foot teddy bear clearly didn’t cut it.

Feeling a paw trying to sneak onto her arse again, Alicia decided that the question of her possible insanity had to wait until later.
The bear leered at her and tried to undo the buttons on her pyjama top. Until way, way later.

“Let go of me!” Alicia smacked at the furry (possible) figment of her imagination.
“Don’t be like that, baby,” the bear pouted. Mentally chalking one up for team insanity Alicia backed away. Or she tried to.
They were standing on a bridge, above a stream of greenish water, and after only one step backwards she was pressed up against the waist high railing.

“Careful, honey," the bear cautioned. "You wouldn’t want to fall into the data stream. Who knows where you'd end up.” It inched closer until Alicia could see herself mirrored in its black button eyes. “Now...” the bear drawled and put its paws on the railing on each side of her body. “Since you’re not going to sleep after all, why not lose the pyjamas.”

Alicia stared at the bear. The bear stared back and nodded encouragingly at her, all the while grinning in a very disturbing manor.
“Oh, hell,” Alicia said and swung a leg over the railing. Taking a deep breath she threw herself into the not-water-after-all. Data stream? What was going on here!?
As she was swept away she heard the bear screaming from above.
“You can run, my dear, but you can’t hide! I have connections with the search func-”

As the current dragged her further away from the furry pest Alicia pondered what would be worse.
If this was some sort hallucination that certainly didn’t say great things about her subconscious. But if this whole insane experience was real...
Her train of thoughts was derailed as the river suddenly flushed her up on solid ground again.
Coughing and spluttering, she tried to make sense of where she was. It didn’t work.

“Where am I?”
“Artistic nudes," came the answer. "So while the wetness is a good start, you better lose the clothes. Or get your ass to another category.” The speaker was a very beautiful woman, lying down on the ground in front of Alicia. Totally naked.

“Artistic nudes?” Alicia asked and tried really hard not to look at anything in particular.
“Duh,” the woman said and rolled onto her stomach.
“You mean, like on DeviantArt?”
“Again, duh. You know, you really should get naked before someone reports you for being a miscat.
Alicia wished people (and bears) would stop taking offence at her pyjamas. It was a perfectly good pyjamas, if a bit wet, and nothing to get upset about.

“Why does everyone here keep telling me to get naked?” she asked and glared down at the woman.
Again, if this was her subconscious, it wasn’t a good sign.

“Don’t tell me this is your first trip online.” The woman raised an eyebrow mockingly. “You do know this is the internet?”

“Well, I’m not doing it.” Alicia crossed her arms over her chest.
“Sorry, hun, them’s the rules. Nothing I can do. It’s not like anyone made you come here.”
“That’s not true. A bear dragged me into this place.”
“A bear.” The woman frowned. “Tell me, sweetie, how old are you?”
“I’m turning 15 in a month.”

Any reply given was drowned in the screeching coming from a strange looking figure that suddenly appeared in front of Alicia.

“NO UNDERAGE NUDITY!” the * screamed. “It’s a direct violation of FAQ #249!”

“Calm down," The woman rolled her eyes. "As you can see she’s still decently covered, if a bit moist.”

The * didn't appear to be listening.

“And where is your Mature Content Filter!? You can not see this without a filter!”
“Oh, shut up. Since she’s underage she can’t really see this with a filter either.”
“Quiet, or I will have you removed,” the * said with a threatening flick of one, well, whatever it was.
“You and what admin, small stuff?” sneered the woman.
They glared at each other. Or the woman glared. But even without a face the * managed to look impressively pissy.

Alicia tried to discretely edge away from the fight brewing. But the problem with that otherwise excellent plan was that she didn’t really know where to go. Except back into the stream. Alicia eyed it doubtfully. The green not-water-after-all glittered back at her.

“Do NOT flash your breasts at me!” the * wailed in the background. Then the not-water covered Alicia's ears and all was blissfully silent for a while.

Special Moments of the Forums

The best and just plain special comments & threads of the month!

My country 'tis of thee,
Wal-Marts and apathy,
of thee I sing.
Land where the Elvis died
land where the chicken's fried,
land where the Hummers ride, we have no King.
by =mngamojemo
I'm here to destroy this womanly website once and for all. by ~MisterSoldierToYou
Animal Cruelty by ~Rosalieeee
You could have a flock of fairies fingering fanfares on fantastically fine faggots. by @OpalMist
Yeah, the Complaints forum is a cult... by *Agent-Sarah

Baaaaaw, my favorite section is too short and condensed into one big section: This is what happens when you don't contribute!

Plz Account

Timmy's Pick of the Month:^{Powered by `timmy64} Men.

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...

School's back in session and we weed out the teenagers. The few who don't care about their failing grades and lack of a social life will remain.

Until next time, happy foruming!

_{We *LOVEintheSNOW}