Online communities are shaped by the individuals designing them - from the actual building of the infrastructure to the design of the policy - and those that utilize them. There are a certain criteria of the HCI community prescribes as "best practices" when creating an online community. This research is focused on what happens when a community deviates from these norms. Are they sustainable? Can design decisions be more contextual and inter-depenednet? If they are, what type of third place does this create for users to engage? To investigate these questions we conducted a case study of the Something Awful Forums, one of the longest-running online communities in existence. We conducted interviews of moderators and general community members - both seasoned and new to the platform - to understand the impacts of design decisions on their everyday use.
