Talk:Adequacy.org
Original copypasta
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Adequacy.org&oldid=1417420 (Anonymous, November–December 2002):
Some might describe Adequacy as a free-er version of The Onion. They, unlike the Onion, took reader submissions openly. But they were much subtler than the Onion, for one has to be incredibly narrow to find the Onion believable, while one was never sure if the Adequacy was pulling your leg or showing you the way to eternal salvation. Furthermore the Onion rode a one-trick-pony of satirizing the writing style of newspapers and magazines in the pseudo-intellectual pop culture pinnacles of Time, Newsweek, or one of the dozens of "local" rags that were really owned by Multinational newspaper conglomerates like Gannnett, made largely of reprints off the newswire services. This pony was 'furious victorious', for generations of US kids had grown up under the cage of the money-controlled poverty of information brought about by the conglomeration of the newsmedia in the 20th century. As the internet finally opened daybreak on the souls of millions, they cheered the ravages the Onion placed on their jailkeepers as birds might cheer a cat being smashed on the road.
However this focus limited the onion, its authors unable to branch out sometimes, forced to keep churning away fake horoscopes (an idea perhaps stolen from The Bug), stat shots, or any number of other satires on US Today or the New York Times. Adequacy authors did not share this limitation. They could do anything. Some parodied public service announcements, editorials, or most especially, parodying enthusiastic web board posters, or simply writing crazy rants. A better description of Adeuquacy might be comparison with the work "A modest proposal", a satirical 18th century work that suggested eating babies: the satire of said work being often lost on many readers who from it recoil in disgust.
Recoil in disgust might be a frequent reaction among Adequacy readers, except that a much much more frequent reaction would be to take the story absolutely seriously, log on, and post several dozen paragraph-rants about how horrible the story was, how reprehensible the morals of the author, how devoid of even the most basic ability to reason, etc etc etc. This was often considered by the Adequoids to be a mark of high honor and success. I must point out, however, that many of these posts were probably fakes too, designed to illicit "oh you idiot" diatribes from people who felt superiorly "in" on the original satire (but were in fact, out on the second.) But how could one really tell? That was the fun of it. Or maybe the horror.
Theoretically one such story, about how AMD processors are a favorite of 'hackers' for their low cost: a low cost brought about by hand-manufacturer by child laborers in sweatshops, brought the wrath of the actual AMD people, as the last quote posted on adequacy.org before its total demise was something akin to "we will destroy you and put your editors in jail", signed by an AMD official.
On the other hand, that may very well have been a joke too, for one can never be sure on Adequacy what is reality and what is illusion. Often the notion of "reality" had gotten a little boring for the authors, as they frequently decided that no matter how horrible it was, just pointing that out to people would not accomplish anything. So why not twist it so oddly that people had to notice?
A few pages of adequacy can be found on 'the internet archive'. For example: http://web.archive.org/web/20010924214222/http://adequacy.org/