# Something Awful

16 Hacker News commenters recommended Something Awful and 1 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 9 of 13 months; owners who said how long report a median of 20 years (3 owners). It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** A long-running forum that people credit to its $10 sign-up fee and moderation, which keeps out spam and keeps quality high.

## Why people recommend it

- $10 fee keeps out spam (5 comments): "The software and standards and moderation style is approximately unchanged, complete with 10 dollar sign-up fee to keep out the spam." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46757814)) "History also shows you can take a $10 fee and maintain quality on SomethingAwful for quite some time." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47341565)) "The :10bux: requirement did seem to do a good job of weeding out the lowest-level trash/spammers" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48063887))
- Consistent moderation and content standards (3 comments): "The software and standards and moderation style is approximately unchanged, complete with 10 dollar sign-up fee to keep out the spam." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46757814)) "it was moderated by dozens of actual humans who operated transparently" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45975305)) "enforcing good moderation and content standards" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48787621))
- Running for 20 years (4 comments): "Both sites have survived and continue to work well for their users." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48058979)) "SomethingAwful had a great system for this 20 years ago" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46942943)) "At least Something Awful is still around." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47770634))
- Approach actually worked well (2 comments): "Very surprisingly, it actually worked." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48334762)) "definitely made a huge difference" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47341463))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Hacker News](https://hackerapproved.com/p/hacker-news.md): 361 recommend
- [Reddit](https://hackerapproved.com/p/reddit.md): 261 recommend
- [Old Reddit](https://hackerapproved.com/p/old-reddit.md): 60 recommend
- [Slashdot](https://hackerapproved.com/p/slashdot.md): 32 recommend
- [4chan](https://hackerapproved.com/p/4chan.md): 28 recommend

## Where to get it

- [Visit the official site](https://forums.somethingawful.com/)

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Something Awful", https://hackerapproved.com/p/something-awful/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).