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[i_am_ben]

Perhaps you should ban talking about reset era. Frankly, Neogaf is starting to turn into that guy that won't shut up about his 'bitch ex-girlfriend'.

This place has become utterly defined by reset era. It's starting to get the reputation as the place you post on when you're banned from reset era.

 

[wondermega]

Perhaps you should ban talking about reset era. Frankly, Neogaf is starting to turn into that guy that won't shut up about his 'bitch ex-girlfriend'.

This place has become utterly defined by reset era. It's starting to get the reputation as the place you post on when you're banned from reset era.

It's true. I'm tired of hearing about it. Good luck to folks over there, I hope that people get what they need from it. No doubt it will go through growing pains in its first year as well, hopefully they can get through that and these two forums can exist rather independently. Likewise people here need to move on. I think maybe banning discussion of it would be a bit harsh/counter productive to gaf's new direction, but at least lingering on the topic should be discouraged. I suppose within a good year, this stuff will normalize.

 

[AfricanKing]

Perhaps you should ban talking about reset era. Frankly, Neogaf is starting to turn into that guy that won't shut up about his 'bitch ex-girlfriend'.

This place has become utterly defined by reset era. It's starting to get the reputation as the place you post on when you're banned from reset era.

No need to ban it to be honest , when new people start to join in mass era will just become a thing of the past. That's what separates us from them, banning topics is an insult to the user base your pretty much telling them their not smart enough or competent enough to hold an argument or conversation.

 

[Bill O'Rights]

Perhaps you should ban talking about reset era. Frankly, Neogaf is starting to turn into that guy that won't shut up about his 'bitch ex-girlfriend'.

This place has become utterly defined by reset era. It's starting to get the reputation as the place you post on when you're banned from reset era.

ResetERA is just a website. It's nothing special and has no status that would warrant banning discussion about it outright. We're not going to stifle discussion, its what got the site off track in the first place, and I believe the reverse policy was one of the first edicts laid down over there.


If users return to neoGAF, they are welcome. We hope they find the new environment more stimulating, less passive aggressive and more tolerant. We're quite happy with that reputation. ResetEra is cultivating an 'enhanced' reputation shall we say, that we would like to steer clear of here. Indeed, the reason ResetEra is part of current affair discussion is because of disgusting practices like the Subnautica incident, ridiculous and superfluous bans, witch hunt of the week etc. but that's not just here, that's on a lot of sites that syndicate video game topics.


wondermega is right. Eventually it will stabilise and become less relevant. It's still quite fresh in itself. It's up to the community to steer the ship, we're just here to right it when it heads towards a few rocks or a mutiny is on the cards

 

[Orpheum]

I really like it here now. Sure there are less threads overall, but the discussions seem to be much more open minded. Although i don't reply that often i really enjoy reading most of the threads. It's going in the right direction.

 

[Chip Chipperson]

Pick up a new Adderall script, dude? Jesus christ. 4000 words saying absolutely jack shit

Regardless, the site is definitely better than it was before.

 

[Musky_Cheese]

No need to ban it to be honest , when new people start to join in mass era will just become a thing of the past. That's what separates us from them, banning topics is an insult to the user base your pretty much telling them their not smart enough or competent enough to hold an argument or conversation.

ResetERA is just a website. It's nothing special and has no status that would warrant banning discussion about it outright. We're not going to stifle discussion, its what got the site off track in the first place, and I believe the reverse policy was one of the first edicts laid down over there.


If users return to neoGAF, they are welcome. We hope they find the new environment more stimulating, less passive aggressive and more tolerant. We're quite happy with that reputation. ResetEra is cultivating an 'enhanced' reputation shall we say, that we would like to steer clear of here. Indeed, the reason ResetEra is part of current affair discussion is because of disgusting practices like the Subnautica incident, ridiculous and superfluous bans, witch hunt of the week etc. but that's not just here, that's on a lot of sites that syndicate video game topics.


wondermega is right. Eventually it will stabilise and become less relevant. It's still quite fresh in itself. It's up to the community to steer the ship, we're just here to right it when it heads towards a few rocks or a mutiny is on the cards

 

[Chip Chipperson]

I really like it here now. Sure there are less threads overall, but the discussions seem to be much more open minded. Although i don't reply that often i really enjoy reading most of the threads. It's going in the right direction.

Pretty much. The less traffic and posts is a bit jarring, but the more relaxed atmosphere compensates for it.

 

[WaterAstro]

I've always thought people leaving were wrong because of their inner-sjw made them think illogically. The hivemind doing what's popular because big celebrity names are at fault. If #metoo really outed everyone for stupid mistakes and faux pas, then half the world should be in jail for having relationship issues. Taking a quick look at that site, it feels like they're more interested in making money.

I don't care about those people who think like that. What we have now is a fresh start, and I never panicked about anything going down. NeoGAF will grow again in time.

I do hope there's more transparency in moderation. I felt like I was temp banned one time because everyone was posting calling for my head rather than being banned for an offense.

 

[WinterIsComing]

All I can say is that this site is now something entirely different, and for the better.
Yes, we need more content, more new threads, more people replying. But also, yes, we're on the right track to get that. Juniors won't be juniors forever. The atmosphere is nice enough for people to come forward and speak their minds, that post count and/or time trial will rise/pass.

Baby steps.

I was a lurker for years, and when I finally registered and got my account approved, was in the peak of all the bad stuff that OT had. So, naturally, I wouldn't even dare to post. Someone could get a "good morning" the wrong way and ban me. Nowadays, nothing like that happens. See how this was in the first weeks of December, and look at how it is now... and that was only 2 months ago. I believe that maintaining this steady growth, along with the new lines of moderation, it can become a great place to be a part of. That was my belief when all the shit happened and the main reason I stayed, even though there was about 10 new posts in OT every day, and it's great to slowly realize that I was right about it.

 

[KevinKeene]

The one thing I'm really curious about:

The old community left, because they believed Evilore assaulted some woman. Now that it's clear he didn't ... what are they angry about? Why not come back? Why can't Chris make his usual media-create threads here?

These people have zero justification to stay away from NeoGAF. If they so do, it just show how pre-planned everything was.

 

[JDB]

The one thing I'm really curious about:

The old community left, because they believed Evilore assaulted some woman. Now that it's clear he didn't ... what are they angry about? Why not come back? Why can't Chris make his usual media-create threads here?

These people have zero justification to stay away from NeoGAF. If they so do, it just show how pre-planned everything was.

Why would they switch back? Especially people who mostly frequent community threads have little to gain coming back here since almost all the threads are dead.

 

[highrider]

Nice. Good to hear traffic is picking up, it’s been noticeable on the user end for sure. The difference in the quality of the forum is night and day. Sounds like you have a good attitude going forward. Build it right, and they will come.

 

[Sephzilla]

The one thing I'm really curious about:

The old community left, because they believed Evilore assaulted some woman. Now that it's clear he didn't ... what are they angry about? Why not come back? Why can't Chris make his usual media-create threads here?

These people have zero justification to stay away from NeoGAF. If they so do, it just show how pre-planned everything was.

It was never about just that.

 

[Musky_Cheese]

It was never about just that.

Rather vague. I can only assume that it’s a bunch of nothing.

 

[Mr. Grumpy]

I will post more here sometimes over the next few days but i just wanted to catch this first.

I would like Evilore and company to consider allowing (case by case) Gaffers who prove they aren’t here to cause issues but are not above the post count necessary, to be able to create threads.

On a certain level this is already in place as the team can and does discuss members who have stood out positively or negatively through their posts and we will change the membership level of people if it's deemed to be fit do so. That does also include moving people to a membership band with less privileges if it's deemed to be of benefit to the community to do so.

What I would say is that if somebody in good standing wants to recommend another new member to have extended privileges to create a thread, or something like that, then they're more than welcome to make that recommendation to us and explain why they believe that it should happen and we can then look at what they've contributed, the tone of their posts, etc.

There are a lot of things like this being discussed at the moment and the best way of implementing this because XF 2.0 for far more customisation along these lines, maybe something along the lines of the Like button or even a voting button or something like that. There are many ways to proceed with this but at the moment...just let us know.

There are far more non team members here than team members and I know everybody in the team tries to be on when they can but obviously you lot have the advantage in that there are far more of you so the team doesn't see every single thing that happens every single day.

 

[kylecoley182]

**********

 

[Musky_Cheese]

**********

 

[GrizzleBoy]

The one thing I'm really curious about:

The old community left, because they believed Evilore assaulted some woman. Now that it's clear he didn't ... what are they angry about? Why not come back? Why can't Chris make his usual media-create threads here?

These people have zero justification to stay away from NeoGAF. If they so do, it just show how pre-planned everything was.

I think there have been a lot of interesting views about why people decided to join reset that ignore many things that happened during the madness.

The site went offline.

Then OT was nuked and large communities no longer had anywhere to post.

Then there was talk about a ban on social/political/"doom and gloom" topics.

Then OT came back, still with the idea that certain things were going to be things to not discuss anymore. Off topic community was still MIA.

With off topic being MIA, people set up discords for people to actually continue their community discussions.

A lot of shitty people started posting shitty things with little to no repercussion, coupled with many people celebrating the proposed outlawing of subjects they didn't want to hear about anymore.

Many people likely felt that for some reason, their communities were being thrown under the bus for a situation that pretty much nothing to do with them.

An alternative appeared that was going to allow people to have their communities back and with no talk of calling people's concerns or interest "doom and gloom".

So thats now where the communities have settled now. I don't see how it's right to again having them shoulder fault for a thing they had no control over.

Most like myself, probably never had any Ill will against Evilore at all, weren't part of the group who immediately judged, but felt that the response to the allegations was throwing them under a bus for some reason.

The most popular threads on this part of the site, now consist of many people who take part the most, now pretty unanimously agreeing (or at least largely unchallenged) that reset and its posters are "crazy", "authoritarian", "cancer", "they, "them", "look at what reset is doing", "resetenema", "their leaving was necessary" and any other number of ways of saying that they're happy not to have the monolith of reset here because it's better now.

It's probably important to remember that nobody who went to reset due to the removal of their long established community discussions actually asked for it. Nobody asked for OT to disappear and come back with new rules that alienated them.

There are 0bviously many who certainly did want to stop posting on GAF, but I heavily doubt the majority wouldve left had OT and community not been nuked because of things that were nothing to do with them. It's kind of weird now to see people assert that it's now their fault if they don't feel obliged to return.

Asserting that people not rejoining or staying away as linked to anything being planned is quite wrong imo.

/lots of words

 

[Musky_Cheese]

I think there had been a lot of interesting views about why people decided to join reset that ignore many things that happened during the madness.

The site went offline.

Then OT was nuked and large communities no longer had anywhere to post.

Then there was talk about a ban on social/political/"doom and gloom" topics.

Then OT came back, still with the idea that certain things were going to be things to not discuss anymore. Off topic community was still MIA.

With off topic being MIA, people set up discords for people to actually continue their community discussions.

A lot of shitty people started posting shitty things with little to no repercussion, coupled with many people celebrating the proposed outlawing of subjects they didn't want to hear about anymore.

Many people likely felt that for some reason, their communities were being thrown under the bus for a situation that pretty much nothing to do with them.

An alternative appeared that was going to allow people to have their communities back and with no talk of calling people's concerns or interest "doom and gloom".

So thats now where the communities have settled now. I don't see how it's right to again having them shoulder fault for a thing they had no control over.

Most like myself, probably never had any Ill will against Evilore at all, weren't part of the group who immediately judged, but felt that the response to the allegations was throwing them under a bus for some reason.

The most popular threads on this part of the site, now consist of many people who take part the most, now pretty unanimously agreeing (or at least largely unchallenged) that reset and its posters are "crazy", "authoritarian", "cancer", "they, "them", "look at what reset is doing", "resetenema", "their leaving was necessary" and any other number of ways of saying that they're happy not to have the monolith of reset here because it's better now.

It's probably important to remember that nobody who went to reset due to the removal of their long established community discussions actually asked for it. Nobody asked for OT to disappear and come back with new rules that alienated them.

There are 0bviously many who certainly did want to stop posting on GAF, but I heavily doubt the majority wouldve left had OT and community not been nuked because of things that were nothing to do with them. It's kind of weird now to see people assert that it's now their fault if they don't feel obliged to return.

Asserting that people not rejoining or staying away as linked to anything being planned is quite wrong imo.

/lots of words

Thank you for your respectful perspective.

 

[JDB]

I think there had been a lot of interesting views about why people decided to join reset that ignore many things that happened during the madness.

The site went offline.

Then OT was nuked and large communities no longer had anywhere to post.

Then there was talk about a ban on social/political/"doom and gloom" topics.

Then OT came back, still with the idea that certain things were going to be things to not discuss anymore. Off topic community was still MIA.

With off topic being MIA, people set up discords for people to actually continue their community discussions.

A lot of shitty people started posting shitty things with little to no repercussion, coupled with many people celebrating the proposed outlawing of subjects they didn't want to hear about anymore.

Many people likely felt that for some reason, their communities were being thrown under the bus for a situation that pretty much nothing to do with them.

An alternative appeared that was going to allow people to have their communities back and with no talk of calling people's concerns or interest "doom and gloom".

So thats now where the communities have settled now. I don't see how it's right to again having them shoulder fault for a thing they had no control over.

Most like myself, probably never had any Ill will against Evilore at all, weren't part of the group who immediately judged, but felt that the response to the allegations was throwing them under a bus for some reason.

The most popular threads on this part of the site, now consist of many people who take part the most, now pretty unanimously agreeing (or at least largely unchallenged) that reset and its posters are "crazy", "authoritarian", "cancer", "they, "them", "look at what reset is doing", "resetenema", "their leaving was necessary" and any other number of ways of saying that they're happy not to have the monolith of reset here because it's better now.

It's probably important to remember that nobody who went to reset due to the removal of their long established community discussions actually asked for it. Nobody asked for OT to disappear and come back with new rules that alienated them.

There are 0bviously many who certainly did want to stop posting on GAF, but I heavily doubt the majority wouldve left had OT and community not been nuked because of things that were nothing to do with them. It's kind of weird now to see people assert that it's now their fault if they don't feel obliged to return.

Asserting that people not rejoining or staying away as linked to anything being planned is quite wrong imo.

/lots of words

Yeah, I think the way the entire thing was handled didn't exactly shine Evilore in a very bright light even ignoring the actual allegations. Personally I didn't really have much of an opinion on Evilore, he didn't have much impact on the day to day experience on GAF. The primary reason to switch was that basically everything that made GAF good in my eyes switched over to ERA so why stay on GAF? The threads I subscribed to were either locked off or dead on GAF while they had tons of posts on ERA. The questionable stuff Evilore had done in the past and the allegations and handling of the controversy last year certainly added more reason to switch over, but I'd be lying if I said it was the primary reason. The miserable state of GAF in the wake of the split also only made that decision easier.

 

[Sephzilla]

Rather vague. I can only assume that it’s a bunch of nothing.

The #MeToo incident in my opinion seemed like the straw that broke the camels back, because there were other things/actions that already had people on edge.

More specifically, Evilore responded to everything back in October and November in probably the worst way possible. He should have simply stated "these allegations are not true and that's all I'm going to say about it" and left it at that. Instead he opted to throw the entire moderation team and probably more than half of GAF's active userbase at the time under the bus and attempt to nuke half the site in the process. He created animosity where there wasn't any and basically forced people to find a new place to simply converse, and by the time he backpedaled and brought back OT and OT Community the damage was already done. And since he and a good contingent of NeoGAF's new smaller userbase are seemingly still unable to get over it (ResetEnema, really?) doesn't exactly encourage people to come back or exist on both sites simultaneously.

 

[Musky_Cheese]

The #MeToo incident in my opinion seemed like the straw that broke the camels back, because there were other things/actions that already had people on edge.

More specifically, Evilore responded to everything back in October and November in probably the worst way possible. He should have simply stated "these allegations are not true and that's all I'm going to say about it" and left it at that. Instead he opted to throw the entire moderation team and probably more than half of GAF's active userbase at the time under the bus and attempt to nuke half the site in the process. He created animosity where there wasn't any and basically forced people to find a new place to simply converse, and by the time he backpedaled and brought back OT and OT Community the damage was already done. And since he and a good contingent of NeoGAF's new smaller userbase are seemingly still unable to get over it (ResetEnema, really?) doesn't exactly encourage people to come back or exist on both sites simultaneously.

Thank you for expanded opinion.

 

[Phoenix RISING]

Why would they switch back? Especially people who mostly frequent community threads have little to gain coming back here since almost all the threads are dead.

Also, a lot of people suicided their accounts in protest. Scope that "Will the Switch be successful" thread for a good graveyard experience.

 

[KevinKeene]

The #MeToo incident in my opinion seemed like the straw that broke the camels back, because there were other things/actions that already had people on edge.

More specifically, Evilore responded to everything back in October and November in probably the worst way possible. He should have simply stated "these allegations are not true and that's all I'm going to say about it" and left it at that. Instead he opted to throw the entire moderation team and probably more than half of GAF's active userbase at the time under the bus and attempt to nuke half the site in the process. He created animosity where there wasn't any and basically forced people to find a new place to simply converse, and by the time he backpedaled and brought back OT and OT Community the damage was already done. And since he and a good contingent of NeoGAF's new smaller userbase are seemingly still unable to get over it (ResetEnema, really?) doesn't exactly encourage people to come back or exist on both sites simultaneously.

But he didn't throw any mods under the bus. Bishoptl and besada had abused their position and were removed due to that. Other mods probably didn't believe that Evilore was innocent in his false-#metoo case and threw him under the bus, instantly creating resetera instead of believing in his innocence.

How can you twist this so maliciously? :/

 

[Kacho]

Tyler (and GAF) seem much more chill now. Glad to see the place is in the process of recovering.

 

[PhendranaMama]

Is just over 200 users online at a time sustainable?

 

[prag16]

The #MeToo incident in my opinion seemed like the straw that broke the camels back, because there were other things/actions that already had people on edge.

More specifically, Evilore responded to everything back in October and November in probably the worst way possible. He should have simply stated "these allegations are not true and that's all I'm going to say about it" and left it at that. Instead he opted to throw the entire moderation team and probably more than half of GAF's active userbase at the time under the bus and attempt to nuke half the site in the process. He created animosity where there wasn't any and basically forced people to find a new place to simply converse, and by the time he backpedaled and brought back OT and OT Community the damage was already done. And since he and a good contingent of NeoGAF's new smaller userbase are seemingly still unable to get over it (ResetEnema, really?) doesn't exactly encourage people to come back or exist on both sites simultaneously.

This is very much revisionist history.

No, his response wasn't great, or prompt I guess. But he mainly threw those two mods under the bus, not all the mods. He shut down OT because it was flooded constantly by the microsecond with porn bombs and other assorted account suicides, personal attacks on him, death threats, and so on and so forth. The site almost had to come down to allow some of the dust to settle. And after that he STILL had to employ contractors to keep things "clean" in terms of porn and other inappropriate bullshit.

So to say he created animosity where there wasn't any is pretty disingenuous in my opinion. This new large scale comprehensive forum was up and running in just DAYS with such a high level of coordination that I don't blame KevinKeene for thinking it felt kind of preplanned. And Grizzle's timeline recounted above isn't quite right. A lot of those steps happened much quicker (and some simultaneously) than his rundown makes it sound. Evilore has already given a pretty accurate rundown of the chain of events where I'm sitting multiple times (though he left out rambling private message he sent to mods which didn't cast him in the best light.. but it was a stressful time and people make mistakes).

Mentioning resetera here isn't a sign of an inferiority complex or whatever people are implying. The two sites are inextricably tied. (And those who think the level of discourse in their OT and the current moderation practices are perfectly healthy... you've spent too much time in the 2014-2017 gaf echo chamber.) As was said, the way to move past all that is to give this place some time to forge its new identity. Onward and upward.

 

[Lionel Richie]

That was an awesome and very inspirational read, I absolutely adore stories about sheer resilience since in my eyes that's the one quality that built our civilization as a whole. When people were creating that other forum, I remember reading a lot about how GAF wasn't a site, it was the people in it. But I don't think they really meant it judging by how quickly they throw people under the bus for any perceived transgression. Because it's not about people, I frankly even doubt it's about standing up for an ideology. It's about virtue signalling, it's about getting some street cred with a crowd that doesn't accept anything less than 100% commitment. And that's obviously by design. A large portion of the current left oriented discourse obviously shifted from economics (because honestly it's hard to look at our current world and say with a straight face that capitalism doesn't work and socialism does) to downright human decency. And human decency isn't graded in greys, oh no, it's absolutely you're with us or against us. And that is my point, it isn't about "human" decency, because talking to actual humans or understanding them or not going batshit crazy to be the first in line to point the finger at them takes time. And effort. And decency.

And that makes me sad because we as a generation don't talk anymore. Since there are racists in the world, everything that you do that can be taken as racism means you're absolutely racist. It's like Bruce Wayne said, if there's even a 1% chance of someone being an asshole you have to take that as an absolute certainty. Except that people didn't realize that wasn't a heroic speech, but rather a villainous one. You won't know if someone is an asshole until you truly talk to them, but you can't truly talk to them lest they are indeed assholes, so when does this vicious circle ever end?

So honestly, any community that restricts information for any moral reason eventually cannibalizes itself. And I hope I don't sound like an over the top for all you've done to your bodies kind of dude, I'm well aware that while a videogame forum means a lot to us (and evidently much more to the people running it), humanity as a whole will largely continue the same regardless of what happens to these places. But when you persevere with your beliefs and refuse to simply being stoned to death by any mob regardless of how big it is, you're siding with the winning side. So I'm happy to engage in any conversation instead of simply being dismissed as a bigot by anyone who doesn't even know me, and I'm always happy to see people sharing that feeling.

 

[Musky_Cheese]

This is very much revisionist history.

No, his response wasn't great, or prompt I guess. But he mainly threw those two mods under the bus, not all the mods. He shut down OT because it was flooded constantly by the microsecond with porn bombs and other assorted account suicides, personal attacks on him, death threats, and so on and so forth. The site almost had to come down to allow some of the dust to settle. And after that he STILL had to employ contractors to keep things "clean" in terms of porn and other inappropriate bullshit.

So to say he created animosity where there wasn't any is pretty disingenuous in my opinion. This new large scale comprehensive forum was up and running in just DAYS with such a high level of coordination that I don't blame KevinKeene for thinking it felt kind of preplanned. And Grizzle's timeline recounted above isn't quite right. A lot of those steps happened much quicker (and some simultaneously) than his rundown makes it sound. Evilore has already given a pretty accurate rundown of the chain of events where I'm sitting multiple times (though he left out rambling private message he sent to mods which didn't cast him in the best light.. but it was a stressful time and people make mistakes).

Mentioning resetera here isn't a sign of an inferiority complex or whatever people are implying. The two sites are inextricably tied. As was said, the way to move past that is to give this place some time to forge its new identity. Onward and upward.

When old Gaf brought up 4chan constantly, did anyone think it was because of an inferiority complex? Or Gaf was envious of 4chan? Same thing for reddit or others. To me, it’s low grade trolls. As I’ve said before, Gaf can discuss Gaf history. And discussing the good and bad allows Gaf to learn.

 

[br0ken_shad0w]

This is very much revisionist history.

No, his response wasn't great, or prompt I guess. But he mainly threw those two mods under the bus, not all the mods. He shut down OT because it was flooded constantly by the microsecond with porn bombs and other assorted account suicides, personal attacks on him, death threats, and so on and so forth. The site almost had to come down to allow some of the dust to settle. And after that he STILL had to employ contractors to keep things "clean" in terms of porn and other inappropriate bullshit.

So to say he created animosity where there wasn't any is pretty disingenuous in my opinion. This new large scale comprehensive forum was up and running in just DAYS with such a high level of coordination that I don't blame KevinKeene for thinking it felt kind of preplanned. And Grizzle's timeline recounted above isn't quite right. A lot of those steps happened much quicker (and some simultaneously) than his rundown makes it sound. Evilore has already given a pretty accurate rundown of the chain of events where I'm sitting multiple times (though he left out rambling private message he sent to mods which didn't cast him in the best light.. but it was a stressful time and people make mistakes).

Mentioning resetera here isn't a sign of an inferiority complex or whatever people are implying. The two sites are inextricably tied. (And those who think the level of discourse in their OT and the current moderation practices are perfectly healthy... you've spent too much time in the 2014-2017 gaf echo chamber.) As was said, the way to move past all that is to give this place some time to forge its new identity. Onward and upward.

Nuking the OT is still a very poor decision no matter how you spin it. That was essentially erasing years of history and communities.

 

[Musky_Cheese]

Nuking the OT is still a very poor decision no matter how you spin it. That was essentially erasing years of history and communities.

Ok. I think if you read all of what Evilore has said, you will see he has taken accountability and blame. He’s given transparency that we asked for regarding the events.

He’s only human. Any mistakes that were made can’t be undone. But acknowledgement and reflection allows for changes in the future.

I don’t hold anyone to expectations I don’t hold myself to. I am human. I make mistakes. Evilore is human. Our mods are human. Gaffers are human. Have reasonable expectations for them.

Imagine a death penalty for anyone who’s made mistakes. Humans would be extinct.

 

[prag16]

Nuking the OT is still a very poor decision no matter how you spin it. That was essentially erasing years of history and communities.

Yeah, not saying it was necessarily handled well. But I can appreciate he was in a tough spot, with the mod mutiny combined with the constant porn/shit attacks.

 

[Sephzilla]

This is very much revisionist history.

No, his response wasn't great, or prompt I guess. But he mainly threw those two mods under the bus, not all the mods. He shut down OT because it was flooded constantly by the microsecond with porn bombs and other assorted account suicides, personal attacks on him, death threats, and so on and so forth. The site almost had to come down to allow some of the dust to settle. And after that he STILL had to employ contractors to keep things "clean" in terms of porn and other inappropriate bullshit.

So to say he created animosity where there wasn't any is pretty disingenuous in my opinion. This new large scale comprehensive forum was up and running in just DAYS with such a high level of coordination that I don't blame KevinKeene for thinking it felt kind of preplanned. And Grizzle's timeline recounted above isn't quite right. A lot of those steps happened much quicker (and some simultaneously) than his rundown makes it sound. Evilore has already given a pretty accurate rundown of the chain of events where I'm sitting multiple times (though he left out rambling private message he sent to mods which didn't cast him in the best light.. but it was a stressful time and people make mistakes).

Mentioning resetera here isn't a sign of an inferiority complex or whatever people are implying. The two sites are inextricably tied. (And those who think the level of discourse in their OT and the current moderation practices are perfectly healthy... you've spent too much time in the 2014-2017 gaf echo chamber.) As was said, the way to move past all that is to give this place some time to forge its new identity. Onward and upward.

Nuking OT and OT Community at that time was a bad move, as was lengthening the time between when users could send out private messages when it was known that communities were trying to send out discord invites in order to keep things together. And the timing and abruptness of how OT and OT Community both came back came across as blatant attempts to pander to the userbase that was leaving for ResetEra

 

[Chip Chipperson]

Is a user base of 200 sustainable?

 

[wondermega]

Nuking the OT is still a very poor decision no matter how you spin it. That was essentially erasing years of history and communities.

It sucked but did you see what was happening at the time? The mods were completely gone and their was a huge site-wide panic the likes of which had never occurred before. There were constant account suicides and people posting all sorts of disgusting shit everywhere. The ship was sinking and the captain had no crew. Yes maybe things could have been handled differently, but there was clearly no protocol for it. Just totally out of control, on top of all that I think they were getting ddosed as well. It sucks that that component got lost the way that it did - I REALLY miss the once active retro communities on this site - but it looks like they were able to salvage elsewhere, and that's really what matters most. This place will rebuild, it will just take time.

 

[Kadayi]

On a certain level this is already in place as the team can and does discuss members who have stood out positively or negatively through their posts and we will change the membership level of people if it's deemed to be fit do so. That does also include moving people to a membership band with less privileges if it's deemed to be of benefit to the community to do so.

Do you have any plans for dealing with serial bad actors? Because based on a few threads I've read and been involved in we seem to have a few posters who are less interested in having an honest frank discussion on a subject and more interested in playing 'chase me, chase me'. I certainly wouldn't want to go down the road of enforcing groupthink or a consensus, but if people are going to participate in a discussion they need to be prepared to engage with it on an honest level.

 

[EviLore]

Off-Topic looked like this on October 21st:

We were under constant DDoS for around two days, which is what took the site offline. By then most of the mods had left, and there were a lot of offers to help via PM but since some ex-mods had gotten so leaky and I was concerned about everyone's privacy while this crazy witch hunt was going on, and anyone new would be volunteering for D-Day, I decided to call in some contractors instead, but they took a few days to hire people and get structured for 24/7 coverage. We needed 24/7 coverage. Didn't have much choice but to lock Off-Topic in the mean time since the few mods that were left had so much BS to deal with, whereas Gaming wasn't in full self-destruct mode.

External contractors got up and running finally, I told everyone on the team to take a break for a couple days since it had been an ordeal, and then we tried to figure out what to do with Off-Topic. I hated what it had become, so I just wanted to start over with it one way or another. When everyone stopped shitting the bed so much and it was mostly people left who were just bummed out about losing the archive and all that and petitioning to get it back, I did so.

Btw, this was my one official statement on the site, since some people apparently have their own narratives running:

Hi.

An allegation of sexual misconduct has been made against me by an ex. It's not true, the individual making the accusation isn't credible, the story doesn't reconcile logically with the facts, and there's plenty of evidence and witnesses to corroborate that. It'll be a process.

All allegations of this nature are serious, of course. I first got word of it on Wednesday when a screenshot of a Facebook post was handed to Voat. I immediately talked with my mod team about the contents of the screenshot and clarified that it was baseless and explained some of the details concerning my former associations with her, and tried to ensure any concerns from the team were addressed fully and transparently to everyone's satisfaction. On Thursday I heard that she had deleted the accusation from Facebook, and wasn't entirely sure how to proceed from there or how this would all play out in the public space at that point. Then, Friday morning, the screenshot made its way to NeoGAF and chaos ensued.

I was in the process of writing a statement that entire day to address formally address the allegation, but the community had erupted in a flash that morning. While the moderation team was trying to restore the peace, accusations and threats concerning the screenshot started shifting to them as well by association with me, and I was asked by my team to do something to fix things and get the heat off of all of them at least. I was beyond exhausted by that point, though, stretched too thin in the time since the post had first appeared and seeing unprecedented events unfold on NeoGAF. I was slow and weak. I failed to handle it quickly enough and let the team down. Before I could finish a statement and get it out there, understandably some mods hit their emotional limit, expressed concerns about the community coming after them, and decided to leave. A few people resigned, and many more quickly followed for similar reasons, citing stress and harassment. The site started breaking under load spikes leading up to the first resignations, too, and then flatlined altogether, so issuing a statement at that time on NeoGAF itself became impossible for the time being, and my attention shifted toward the moderation team's future.

Since that whole mess, lasting from Friday morning through Saturday, before we formally went offline for maintenance and repair and restructure, we've just been trying to figure out the best course of action for NeoGAF going forward. And as stories began being published by various outlets, I issued some comments to the press, since everything coming out was proving to be sensationalized, opportunist, and unprofessional.


We've all become increasingly stressed and weary this year in ways even I'm not accustomed to by now, and discussions on heated news, political issues, and social issues on the off-topic side of the site have become areas no one has wanted to moderate in the open for fear of backlash or just general exposure to the inevitable toxicity. I've gone in there myself to take the heat, since it's very much my responsibility to do so before anyone else's, but there's been little headway, mostly just more anger and resentment and a lot of bans. I don't think this necessarily reflects on our community; more so the tone of the entire internet this year with regards to heated issues.

That's all going to inform the way forward for NeoGAF as we refocus on what the main goals are supposed to be for the site. The mod team will talk about more specifics on what that will entail below.


One last thing. The NeoGAF mod team is here for this community; all of you. You have no obligations to respect me or believe anything I say about my personal life one way or another, but if you're going to be here and participate on NeoGAF, respect the mod team by following the rules and behaving. The team is diminished at the moment and the folks who stuck around care very much about this community and its future. Be considerate of them. That's non-negotiable.

Thanks.

 

[KINGMOKU]

The #MeToo incident in my opinion seemed like the straw that broke the camels back, because there were other things/actions that already had people on edge.

More specifically, Evilore responded to everything back in October and November in probably the worst way possible. He should have simply stated "these allegations are not true and that's all I'm going to say about it" and left it at that. Instead he opted to throw the entire moderation team and probably more than half of GAF's active userbase at the time under the bus and attempt to nuke half the site in the process. He created animosity where there wasn't any and basically forced people to find a new place to simply converse, and by the time he backpedaled and brought back OT and OT Community the damage was already done. And since he and a good contingent of NeoGAF's new smaller userbase are seemingly still unable to get over it (ResetEnema, really?) doesn't exactly encourage people to come back or exist on both sites simultaneously.

This is incorrect. You already know this as well.

Disregarded.

 

[Musky_Cheese]

I see posted every now and then how Evilore should have done... whatever.

I would have done things different than Evilore. When the incident happened and most of the site turned on me, I would have shut the site down. Walked away and said fuck you. Then again I would have sold the site when offered 10 million, walked away, and danced.

Obviously he cares about the site. The people on it. Even tho must didn’t care about him or the site.

So for people who simply just left, I would doubt they would have done anything. Considering they had nowhere near the passion for the site or it’s people like he did.

 

[SLoWMoTIoN]

How about not leaning to one side or the other entirely? The site seems to be doing better now IMO.

 

[GrizzleBoy]

Hmm.

Just incase my previous post is seen as some false narrative instead of a rebuttal to a poster that it was, I'll make another post.

I made quite a lengthy post just addressing the assertions that people who decided to set up communities elsewhere either planned to do it, don't care about GAF etc.

I explained that discussions about political and social topics were going to be outlawed.

I explained that many people felt forced out or felt that they were being thrown under the bus for a situation they had nothing to do with.

I explained that people who didn't even jump on the "fuck evilore" bandwagon, who wanted to wait before judging anybody, who stayed silent regarding the entire allegation, were somehow also tangled up in everything with fingers pointed at them.

When the forum came back online, my first post was:

So damn happy to see GAF isn't dead.

Only an idiot would want all the amazing OTs in both gaming and community side to disappear.

Only to see this:

Even people who had no Ill will toward GAF or Evilore, came back and foumd that things that they enjoyed or were important to them were now banned in the name of basically generic hobby chat.

OTs people put hard work into and communities of people who liked to talk with one another were gone and instructed they weren't welcome to come back

So not only did a lot of posters feel like they were falling under a bus for a situation that had nothing to do with them, they were also directly being told that their interests were no longer compatible with GAFs future.

This was compounded with many posters coming out in celebration of the total social/political discourse ban, despite their problem with OT supposedly being that they previously wanted to contribute and felt they couldn't. Celebrating the death discourse they supposedly wanted to be included in was eye opening.

So in light of this situation, people made the decision to make communities elsewhere. They were basically told they had no choice

This changed later on, but by then.....

Like I said before, putting it all down to people being spiteful, scheming toward GAF or even having a problem with allegations about Evilore ignores many of the things that actually led up to communities ending up elsewhere, and that it's important to remember that many people made their OTs elsewhere on the internet because they were told they can't be here anymore.

And again if you want people to return, you might do that by not oonsistently denigrating them as whatever you don't like about another place on the internet as though they're some kind of monolith.

 

[Kotzen Ducha]

His #metoo was weak. It reminded me of the Aziz situation. Misread cues and signals or perhaps regret on her part.
There was no egregious sexual misconduct. A miscommunication at worst.

Can't really say how I would have handled it because I've never been in that situation, but it's not like he called her a disgusting pig or anything.
He apologized and tried to move on. The tolerant left of REEEEsetera are such sanctimonious jerks.


TYLER-

I'm excited to see where you take this place. It's already more tolerable, more polite, and more readable than it has been since I left in 2006.
Why don't you and I do an MMA smoker against each other to raise funds and awareness of neoneoGAF. Live stream it with all donations going towards a charity.

 

[WaterAstro]

The one thing I'm really curious about:

The old community left, because they believed Evilore assaulted some woman. Now that it's clear he didn't ... what are they angry about? Why not come back? Why can't Chris make his usual media-create threads here?

These people have zero justification to stay away from NeoGAF. If they so do, it just show how pre-planned everything was.

They made their verdict before seeing all the evidence, and then they became ignorant to anything after.

It's how SJW works.

 

[synchronicity]

I can't make informed commentary on what anyone I don't know personally has or has not done - and even then, I can only know what I witness. What I can say is that if I found myself in a position of being accused of something I did not do and was being attacked by large groups of people (online or otherwise), being vilified while knowing that the accusations were untrue, it would take some real strength to cope with that sort of defamation avalanche, no matter how much fortitude you may have brought into the fight.

 

[GrizzleBoy]

They made their verdict before seeing all the evidence, and then they became ignorant to anything after.

It's how SJW works.

See post no.92.

 

[prag16]

See post no.92.

Resetera was already almost launch ready a couple days after the shitstorm. Gaf was barely back up and running and still facing constant troll attacks.

Of course most people didn't actively participate in the bullshit, they just went where the community went. But that vocal minority, oh boy. An embarrassing amount of current era regulars immaturely exited this site via vile posts that were deleted.

And it's definitely more than a little curious that era was launch ready so fast with a full staff and competent back end, etc. I'm not saying the mutiny was premeditated, but everything happened VERY quickly, and it's almost a miracle gaf even still exists after the exodus and accompanying war.

 

[Corrik]

Hmm.

Just incase my previous post is seen as some false narrative instead of a rebuttal to a poster that it was, I'll make another post.

I made quite a lengthy post just addressing the assertions that people who decided to set up communities elsewhere either planned to do it, don't care about GAF etc.

I explained that discussions about political and social topics were going to be outlawed.

I explained that many people felt forced out or felt that they were being thrown under the bus for a situation they had nothing to do with.

I explained that people who didn't even jump on the "fuck evilore" bandwagon, who wanted to wait before judging anybody, who stayed silent regarding the entire allegation, were somehow also tangled up in everything with fingers pointed at them.

When the forum came back online, my first post was:


Only to see this:

Even people who had no Ill will toward GAF or Evilore, came back and foumd that things that they enjoyed or were important to them were now banned in the name of basically generic hobby chat.

OTs people put hard work into and communities of people who liked to talk with one another were gone and instructed they weren't welcome to come back

So not only did a lot of posters feel like they were falling under a bus for a situation that had nothing to do with them, they were also directly being told that their interests were no longer compatible with GAFs future.

This was compounded with many posters coming out in celebration of the total social/political discourse ban, despite their problem with OT supposedly being that they previously wanted to contribute and felt they couldn't. Celebrating the death discourse they supposedly wanted to be included in was eye opening.

So in light of this situation, people made the decision to make communities elsewhere. They were basically told they had no choice

This changed later on, but by then.....

Like I said before, putting it all down to people being spiteful, scheming toward GAF or even having a problem with allegations about Evilore ignores many of the things that actually led up to communities ending up elsewhere, and that it's important to remember that many people made their OTs elsewhere on the internet because they were told they can't be here anymore.

Regardless of it all, the metoo incident was the cause. And the outrage was Swift and mighty from the onset. People were talking about the demise of Neogaf on GameFAQs within hours of the allegation hitting. I remember us debating if he actually did anything wrong at all based upon the information coming out, while on NeoGAF we were watching countless of people toss out insults to him, profess him guilty, and suiciding their accounts.

Maybe the entire site did not implode totally due to the instant judgment right away. Maybe some went in the aftermath. However, the cause was that someone made an allegation and people rushed to judge.

It is many ways comparable to the police shooting in Charlotte and Milwaukee. There was a rush to judge the shootings as racist police shootings of unarmed innocent men, which led to rioting and looting.

However, the truth was far from that. Both cases were of an African American cop shooting an African American man in possession of a gun. One of which was a criminal that was in pursuit of and another was a man acting erratically with a gun.

In this case, the shooting was the metoo allegation. The riots were the reaction of the posters here before evidence came out.

These are not normal, rational actions.

And those led to the demise of things here.

The actions to try and stop the carnage (police force / shutting down parts of this site) may have hurt, but were deemed necessary to stop the entire destruction of this entity (city / website).

 

[WaterAstro]

See post no.92.

People already decided to leave before any of what you say.

And what kind of communities are you talking about? I only know straight-up locks happened for some sports OTs. We have tons of of opportunity for political discussion. I don't see Trump threads getting locked.

 

[GrizzleBoy]

People already decided to leave before any of what you say.

And what kind of communities are you talking about? I only know straight-up locks happened for some sports OTs. We have tons of of opportunity for political discussion. I don't see Trump threads getting locked.

Some decided to leave before.

Some hadn't decided to leave, but didn't feel welcome or that they felt free to discuss what they wanted to, due to new forum rules.

If you read all of my post youll see where it was announced after the site came back online that OT and the community OTs would be nuked, stsrt fresh, and that social and political discourse would not be allowed.