Support NeoGAF

[digital]

The future of NeoGAF will be a return to what many of us have come here for, a place where we can gather together and enjoy our shared hobby of video games . . . However, the focus will be on the many other hobbies we may have like TV, movies, anime, writing, music, etc. Political and social discourse will not be allowed in the new Off-Topic. Those types of discussions greatly added to the harsh and unwelcoming atmosphere of Off-Topic, which pushed many users away.

Fuck off you hypocritical sick fuck.

We've taken action to protect these people by making moderation anonymous. There will be no more red-names that single them out nor will there be a list of who is one.

Lol, even cesspool subreddits have better moderation than what's stated here.


Well NeoGAF Gestapo, BAN ME; I used ad block while I was here, lol.

 

[Betty]

GAF without OT isn't even GAF for me.

It's gone 'for now' not forever.

 

[MrToast]

I believe Evilore. Not sure how you can believe a claim with no evidence or proof. Hope 2018 is merrier for gaf

Agreed 100%. A lot of people jumping to conclusions will soon regret leaving.

 

[Wamb0wneD]

The immaturity of all these account suicides is a big hint as to what will fester on ResetERA, I'm afraid.

Seriously. Some were actually disgusting. If people want their "progressive" echochamber where evilore appearently raped somebody good for them, I don't want to be part of a place like that.

 

[Basoes]

What I don't get is it takes EL so long to come up with this announcement. If you post this 2 days ago you could have saved the majority of GAF's user base.

Also need I point out that most of this (traffic lost) is from you refusing to let people discuss it in this forum?

was that user base even worth saving? If they left like this, then they were more harm than good

 

[Aces&Eights]

Perfect post. And fuck everyone who is just bending over and keeping on. This place has problems and they start at the top. Until the disease is gone, the forum will never be a place worth being.

Yet here you are.

 

[Mahadev]

Where the fuck are all these juniors coming from?

NO PLEASE WE CAN'T LOSE THE MEMBER WITH 108 POSTS!!!

They're accounts the idiots from discord are using to brigade the forum. It'll keep happening for a while until they're out of accounts.

 

[L Thammy]

So no ones going to question the mods all leaving in droves due to "stress and harassment"? How is this not a red flag?

I've already seen mods post about how they got harassment outside of NeoGAF due to being NeoGAF mods, even when there wasn't a hot button issue going on. I don't think that is necessary a red flag - although I'm not sure EviLore is the person I'd want to hear the mod's motives from right now.

 

[DeadlyVirus]

For a moment thought Half-Life 3 was out by the amount of time GAF was down...


Wish it had been that ;P

 

[DJChuy]

Hopefully OT will be here when the Justice League reviews drop in. Should be fun when it ends up being rotten.

 

[puebla]

To those who want the old OT GAf:

S
L
A
E
N
T
.com

Sports, Film, Box Office, Anime, Comics, etc GAF all moved there.

Thank u. Also will checkout Reset Era

 

[Hilbert]

Adios NeoGaf

 

[OrangeJulius]

I have not done what he has done. And I hope to never cause to distress to another person in the way he did.

Dude, she literally slept with him afterwards and remained friends for a time. He read some signals wrong while drunk. He fucked up for sure. Nobody was raped or murdered. In a more sane time, both of them would've laughed it off nervously the next day and gone about their life.

If this happened just ten or fifteen or so years ago it woudn't of been a big deal to anyone, to Tyler, to her, and likely most of all the GAF community at large.

But everyone has to be a victim now for social brownie points, so carry on.

 

[lingpanda]

I'm going to assume the majority of the nuke accounts are those that primarily resided in the OT side of things?

 

[ramuh]

They're accounts the idiots from discord are using to brigade the forum. It'll keep happening for a while until they're out of accounts.

Ya, just let the fires burn a while longer. And we will finally have GAF back whew. Good riddance to all those seppuku accounts.

 

[FinalStageBoss]

So where's the new forum ? Cus I ain't sticking around this shithole tbh

 

[Arozay]

OT was a political circle-jerk, half of it was basically redundant but scheduled maintenancing the whole thing is very WWII of you. Oh, and respect the mod team, whoever they are...

Was it after the 2010 period that people on here became obsessed with being acknowledged as painfully progressive? Maybe GAF just needs a diversity consultant. (lol)

This is a lot to take in, I'm off to have a shower. (bi for now)

 

[andythinkpad]

EL you owe it to the community to keep the old Off Topic threads accessible. I am talking about you owe it to the GAF community. You can run your shitty ad all you want.

 

[ieptbarakat]

What the site needs is more accountability and transparency, a lot of the negative stigma neogaf has comes from moderators shutting down dissenting opinion and using modbot as a way to avoid being criticized for it.

If you really cared about your public image you should at least have an moderation event tracker page which shows who was banned by whom and why, which moderator shut down which thread, as well as ending the use of modbot for anonymous moderation.

Trust goes both ways.

Edit: At the time of posting this I didn't realize the staff page was hidden. Great, now there is an indiscernible amount of people capable of shutting down any dissenting opinion or user without any public accountability whatsoever. Instead of pushing to make the site more open you're digging down deeper into the hole you already got yourself into.

I don't have anything else to say on this matter because it's clear that you don't value transparency.

 

[hardcastlemccormick]

I believe Evilore. Not sure how you can believe a claim with no evidence or proof. Hope 2018 is merrier for gaf

So, then, you basically don't believe any claim of sexual harassment ever?

Wow, this place turned to shit faster than you could have ever expected.

Dude, she literally slept with him afterwards and remained friends for a time. He read some signals wrong while drunk. He fucked up for sure. Nobody was raped or murdered. In a more sane time, both of them would've laughed it off nervously the next day and gone about their life.

If this happened just ten or fifteen or so years ago it woudn't of been a big deal to anyone, to Tyler, to her, and likely most of all the GAF community at large.

But everyone has to be a victim now for social brownie points, so carry on.

Wow, brownie points, huh? Last I checked talking about sexual harassment on the internet still garnered shit flinging, accusations, and harassment. Not unlike what is manifesting in this thread, funny enough.

I can never figure out the motive one might have to have for falsely accusing someone of sexual harassment or worse. Like, you do realize the society we live in means most of the time it gets ignored or worse, right? Or are you really just that delusional?

That's a rhetorical question, by the way.

 

[Stimpack]

Judging by the quality posts of those being banned, few will be missed.

 

[MrToast]

Perfect post. And fuck everyone who is just bending over and keeping on. This place has problems and they start at the top. Until the disease is gone, the forum will never be a place worth being.

This place isn't perfect, but there's no need to be that hostile.

 

[EGOMON]

I really don't care what Taylor did or didn't in his personal life I joined this community because video games is my hobby and I loved interacting with other fellow gamers, am glad the site is back.

 

[HeWhoWalks]

Fuck you Evilore, ugly ass white trash.

Oh yeah, this is quite appropriate. /s

If some of you "hate" this place so much, and want to ridicule a man without even the slightest shred of tangible evidence, then take off. Many of us still appreciate what GAF has to offer.

 

[CrazyHorse]

At least apologise for the Spain incident in the OP.

 

[Simo]

I'm here for the community, Not Evilore or the mods. The community. This whole thing has been handled poorly. What a mess.

Same here. I've been coming to GAF for near 15 years now. I might not be a crazy active poster but I always enjoyed the Gaming and OT side for movie talk and what not.

That said i do hope the mods that left might come back. I mean I enjoyed some of their contributions to discussions especially duckroll.

 

[Phased]

Looking forward to most of these primarily OT accounts burning themselves out with account suicides over the next couple of days.

Maybe some sanity will return after that.

 

[D4Danger]

are you going to reply to any of these posts or is everyone just wasting their time?

 

[xk0sm0sx]

I'm not going to shitpost, I just want to give a reasonable opinion.

Evilore, adjusting the site's direction to change the mood of the forum to reduce the toxicity is one thing. But the reason this site exploded this time was not because this forum is too left-leaning or too right-leaning. It's your (Evilore) moderation policy. You simply silenced replies and threads that attempt to bring it up, you thought your users do not deserve a thread questioning a scandal about the owner of their forum, you thought your users do not deserve even a simple "I'll be preparing a statement" reply, you thought you could silence everyone's questions and thoughts by simply deleting threads.

Well this is what happened: Speculation began to happen everywhere, and a rape accusation is a bad thing regardless of everyone's political leanings, and you, by keeping silent and deleting threads, made everyone suspect you were guilty. The whole internet began swarming into the forum.

This should have been a simple issue, give a simple statement, be sincere in answering everyone's questions, and the issue would just blow away since it was just an accusation. This wasn't even worse than the amir0x's saga, where you did a similarly terrible job by giving a weak statement then locking down the thread so everyone's perception simply became: You and the mods are trying to protect amir0x.

So I'm not seeing how changing your forum policies are going to help in any way. The problem here is your tendency to silence things when it's not going your way. Try changing that instead.

 

[SpacLock]

Thank god. We're back, boys.

I love how many people just started jumping on some random persons side over this just because of some recent movement. Some people are just ridiculous.

 

[ShironRedshift]

You've got a pair, Evilore, I'll give you that. And for what it's worth I haven't always been a huge fan of yours, but I tend to believe you in this. Yes women deserve to be believed etc etc, but that doesn't mean we should be engaging in witch hunts, and totally throwing away innocent until proven guilty. And there's plenty here based on what we know so far to cast some serious doubt on whether actual harassment really transpired there.

I think getting rid of the OT side is a good move. And honestly it may be better off if that is made permanent. (EDIT: I'm reading a bunch of people complaining that various OT thread were a great refuge for various disadvantaged groups. That's obviously great, and it sucks to throw the baby out with the bathwater, but if a gaming forum is the only place people have to turn, then that's kind of a bigger problem that it's not really Evilore's responsibility to solve, even as much as he'd like to.)

That said, I don't know if anonymous moderation is a good thing. This may cause more issues than it solves if not handled extremely carefully. One of the issues with moderation in the past was zero transparency resulting in the perception (and reality) of power trips and knee jerk biased moderation. Now there will be even less accountability. If the tone of moderation continues as it was in the past, this is concerning. Even less transparency and accountability than before, which seemed impossible.

For all gamefaqs's faults, and how poorly moderated it can be in certain respects, at least nothing in the previous paragraph could really be leveled at their mod team, and they at least have a functioning appeal system.



Oh no, God forbid anything beyond a left wing echo chamber is tolerated around here!

This type of attitude was a big part of why the OT side was so damn toxic to begin with. This type of attitude is part of the problem. Bringing some sanity and balance into what often became a vitriolic echo chamber is a good thing, not a bad thing. (Granted I haven't read every post you may be referring to, so what I just said obviously doesn't apply to obvious and overt offensive shit.)


I'm hopeful that things will be better this time, and am willing to give this place another chance. Cheers.

So isn't the solution just better moderation then? How's it make sense to just entirely nuke it?

 

[Portugeezer]

HAHAHAHAHAHA oh man

It's been so long I thought Dennis was Derrick.

Wait, then who's Dennis? I thought I was being compared to Derrick

 

[Kaiterra]

NTGYK, Dennis is a banned poster who would've probably come back yesterday (today?) if he got to be a mod.

You've known all these years he's a scumbag yet you stayed on as a member posting regularly. Why didn't you say something before?

I have zero respect for people like you. You're just a drama queen jumping on a bandwagon.

Nah dude I've been consistent over the years saying where I can that the site would be better off without him for a variety of reasons, but that was also before these latest allegations which I didn't actually know about. And I still largely trusted a lot of the rest of the leadership and prominent posters. There was enough of a community and he was separated from the day to day of the site enough that it was possible to ignore up to recently.

On the other hand, you're the one who's still gonna be posting here, so if you agree being a part of this community makes you a bad person, fucking have fun with that lol

 

[Docpan]

The concept has and always will be the following:

Come for the Gaming News, stay for the OT discussion. By shutting down the off topic discussion and restructuring the future of what we are and are not allowed to discuss, you’ve effectively killed the future of this community. Thanks a lot - this was easily the best thing going on the internet and I think everyone here would agree. I don’t see why your personal problems need to get in the way of that.

 

[crabspite]

just want to say that peeps riffing on details of the sexual assault in question to piss off malka should probably look at whether their actions actually show respect the victim and women in general.

also evilore retire

 

[blankempathy]

I've already seen mods post about how they got harassment outside of NeoGAF due to being NeoGAF mods, even when there wasn't a hot button issue going on. I don't think that is necessary a red flag - although I'm not sure EviLore is the person I'd want to hear the mod's motives from right now.

And yet they stayed on until now. What made them all quit now is that harassment already existed? Why quit now when their friend would need them most? Theres clearly more to this story.

 

[Corronchilejano]

Evilore, I hope you actually understand how dissonant that post of yours reads against a lot of the things NeoGAF stood for before this happened.

On a lighter note, where's Lionel Mandrake?

 

[Yukinari]

I was told many times that i shouldnt buy a game because one guy said bad things otherwise id be supporting racism.

So yeah gaf why are you still supporting Evilore? You support sexual harassment?

 

[Poltergust]

It's gone 'for now' not forever.

Even if it does come back, its topics will be limited and so many people have left...

Sure, OT may return, but it won't be the same.

 

[UnemployedVillain]

So I don't know if this is the most appropriate thread, but any BCT members in here? I heard there was a discord channel, but never found out what it was before the OT boards were closed

 

[ramuh]

are you going to reply to any of these posts or is everyone just wasting their time?

Why would he? He put his statement out there.

I think what we need is a breather. And let all these alt and main suicides to happen. It will only clean the place up a bit.

 

[AndrewDean84xX]

Judging by the quality posts of those being banned, few will be missed.

So you'd rather side with the dude that thinks it's ok to cover up his sexual harassment actions. Or those willing to turn a blind eye to the allegations.

Says more about those staying. I'm just trying to promote a better forum not created by sexual deviants that like to prey on drunk women.

 

[andythinkpad]

was that user base even worth saving? If they left like this, then they were more harm than good

I was speaking in his angle. I rarely play games nowadays so I don't fucking care myself.

 

[MegaManTrigger]

I have to say, the response is incredibly tone-deaf and lacking any semblance of awareness. I get that Evilore has no obligation to give out the full story (especially if this ends up in court), but the problem is in saying that someone's account of the story is not credible or lacking facts, comes off as very empty because you can't really respond to them. At least not until a court case is opened and discovery is revealed to the public. All you could have said really is that "I cannot comment on the allegations right now, but I continue to proclaim my innocence and will defend my reputation at all costs." It sounds incredibly cookie-cutter and PR, but at least it works and doesn't sound like you're surefire about something that ultimately might be a crapshoot. On the chance that you go to trial and lose, your current stance would make you look even worse than you already are right now (given that people haven't hesitated to bring up the past to compromise who you are, this is probably one of the biggest issues that people ITT and in the internet have with you rn).

The decision to nuke off-topic also doesn't really make sense to me. In my two-years of being here, I've noticed that the problem always seems to be centered around the inability to be able to have a civilized conversation about a certain topic without bans. Now I'm not saying that all topics are like that, because inevitably you will always have trolls trying to enrage one or both sides, but I've seen certain viewpoints get banned when they were tame simply because it was contrary to the dominant ideas. It stifles participation and gives the impression that anyone can get banned for voicing their opinion, which in turn skews the conversation to be akin to an echo chamber.

Additionally, if the focus of new OT is going to be on shows/movies/books/music etc., how will you discern which topics get to be discussed? Mr. Robot is an enjoyable TV show that is HEAVILY political, would it get banned from discussion simply because it's political? Kendrick Lamar has very political lyrics, would that get banned? It's something worth thinking about.

 

[Dirtybrowntaco]

lol it's all too obvious what group your staunch defenders belong to.

 

[commedieu]

Finally.

It will be weird not having a pack of minorities go chimp on you for voicing different opinions. But we will adjust.

 

[Rokal]

The way this is all being handled is inexcusably bad, it's just a master class in bad executive decisions. There isn't much community left here, but removing the Off Topic forum because the owner of the website allegedly did something disgusting several years ago -- and was identifies -- is punishing the community for disgusting decisions that the owner of the website made.

Evilore, the Off Topic forum did not make you make the wrong decision or do the wrong thing 2 years ago or 5 years ago. The Off Topic forum did not make Amir0x download child pornography. Yes, the Off Topic forum exposes risk for your business (these three issues are examples of that risk), but the reason your business is a business is largely because the site has both a gaming discussion area (which I think is the initial draw for most members) and then an off topic area (which most members also chat in). I think most people here became members to chat about videogames, but then naturally, you chat about other things you're interested in -- sports, movies, music, or the really specific topics like the Black Culture threads, developer/programming threads, or the communities like WrassleGaf or NFLGaf. Punishing those communities because you or your former staff are exposing your business to risk with poor choices is not the right way to handle this.

There have been a number of high profile sexual assaults in the news lately, and while most folks are talking about Harvey Weinstein, Liberty Mutual -- the investment firm -- has also recently fired two employees for sexual misconduct at the workplace. It wouldn't be right for Liberty Mutual to say, "We're not having the company Christmas Party, because Christmas parties is what got us into this mess in the first place," or "We're not going to participate in social out reach because social out reach has made us look like hypocrites with these sexual assaults." No, because it's not The Christmas Party or the Social outreach program that's causing the problem: It's bad, hurtful, or illegal decisions made by you or by some former staff members.

You've always had a reputation for making brash decisions, and most of these have not faired well for you. Poorly thought out statements about Amir0x that bent the truth, came too late, and just weren't handled correctly; decisions to ban certain topics from being discussed; decisions to ban certain members or former staff, and scores of others. This, though, is clearly the worst decision and it shows in inability to accept fault. This decisions seems to simply be another projection: "I've made bad decisions in my life and business, and so the business must be punished." That doesn't make any sense, it's selfish and delusional.

You have an opportunity to make the right decision. Obviously you feel like this site is your baby and "it's your's," but this business exists in spite of you, not because of you. It can be hard for a CEO or business owner to give up something that they think is theirs, many CEOs resist this and are befuddled when their board ousts them for a business that they themselves launched. The right thing for you to do would have been to announce that you're taking an indefinite leave of absence from NeoGaf. Revenue from the site would be put into an escrow account to cover expenses and hire staff who would manage it in your absence. A board of staff (moderators, admins) would be formed to hire staff who would manage the site and support the community. Those would be base level decisions which would ensure, at least, some integrity with the site which would keep at least some members around. The site would persist and could possibly bounce back, ultimately you wouldn't be punishing your customers or your business for your own bad decision. Instead, you made the wrong decision with how this was handled and then continually made the wrong decision with how you're going to move forward with this, instead of holding yourself accountable, you're punishing the community that has made your business successful.

It shows an utter lack of self-awareness which then also undermines any integrity that you're trying to preserve against allegations like the ones you're facing.

This deserves to be quoted again.

 

[The Sum of Zero]

I'm here for the community, Not Evilore or the mods. The community. This whole thing has been handled poorly. What a mess.

Exactly how I feel.

 

[Geno Breaker]

Well, this was a fun series of events. All it took for this shithole of a site to go into utter chaos was a sexual misconduct allegation. That's just how bad this place has gotten with its political extremism and views on men and sex. I'm not saying that Evilore is innocent or anything, I don't believe that for a second considering this isn't the first time he's been a little too eager for some ass. For a while now, this place has been a hivemind of radical leftist drivel, where the slightest right leaning opinion would bring about immediate grounds for permanent banishment from the site. I don't remember the last time I saw a legitimately conservative thought posted here with the user unscathed.

I hope the reaction from the internet has opened the eyes of some users here. Everyone fucking hates you. NeoGAF outside of NeoGAF is a laughing stock. 4chan hates you. Reddit hates you. Twitch hates you. Even Tumblr hates you. Tumblr! The land of over 9000 pronouns. This is quite literally the North Korea of discussion boards. The only tears shed for NeoGAF have been tears of laughter over how fucked this place is. You only have yourselves to blame, especially you Evilore, since you're the one who allowed the mods to become so ban happy and so corrupt. You made your bed. It's a bed made of spikes and surrounded by an angry mob of crazed liberals. Now fucking lie in it.

I've been done with this site for a while now after realizing that there's no turning back for it, so I really don't care what happens to this account. To all of you users here who still have some semblance of decency, leave now and look for a new forum. GAF sucks, Evilore sucks, I hope this plane crashes with no survivors.

Peace out, fags.

>anime avatar of a little girl

Poetry tbh

Man this whole situation is a mess. Honestly I'm probably going to leave depending on how the alternative site turns out but I pity this site as I really liked it. Tyler, you should really change your attitude and you're gonna have to do a lot to convince those who are (rightfully) pissed off and alienated to come back.

 

[D4Danger]

Why would he? He put his statement out there.

because it's a discussion forum and people are asking questions and providing feedback

what's the fucking point if it's one way traffic?

Last time people had questions though the OT got nuked. Doesn't bode well for the future.