BluRayHiDef
Banned
Hi BRHD. Alright, let's give things another shot. I'll unban and merge your accounts.
Thank you VERY VERY MUCH! I really appreciate this. I'll be much more considerate about what I comment from now on.
Hi BRHD. Alright, let's give things another shot. I'll unban and merge your accounts.
I had been watching/reading interesting previous threads as a lurker from 2015-2018. The reason I didn't make an account sooner was due to all the flack going around. I never buy into slander and even the Wikipedia page had some slander. At any rate, by not allowing NeoGAF to be shutdown permanently -- you saved one of the last great gaming/nerd forums. Now, it's become so much better and safer. I like how politics has it's own designated section for members only (thereby minimizing trolls to post trash threads...et al). So many great webpages from the late-90's/early-2000's have already disappeared. Thanks for maintaining this page and it's reputation as the best gaming forum for the past decades.Hi folks. As NeoGAF gets back to a more healthy, grounded, rational place, I've been asked by several folks about their account status. We all know a big clusterfuck happened last October/November, but there's a lot that went down actively against the interests of the site and the community that the present sysadmins and I did not know about. Our old platform had terrible system logging and there was one shortfall in particular that ended up causing problems: permanent bans were on an unsortable list that couldn't be checked over expediently to see if something was amiss. We relied on manual ban recording by mods and admins and general communication, and I vetted those aspects and the non-broken temporary ban list in the admin panel, and referred to the very inefficient raw moderation/system logs when something seemed fishy.
Mods and admins are human. I select NeoGAF mods carefully, but sometimes they don't turn out to be good fits when they take on the role. And sometimes, it turns out, one will work in secret and lie to everyone and sabotage the forum in various ways if the opportunity presents and they get emotionally tilted. That happened.
In 2016 US election primaries season, it appears some bias entered the picture on the moderation team regarding pro-Hillary sentiment and anti-Bernie sentiment that ended up with many of our reasonable Bernie supporters banned under suspicious justification. A lot of this happened in the "PoliGAF" subcommunity thread, however, which was very active but not something I kept enough tabs on since it was more like a chat room at times. Throughout the 2016 election season, Republican/conservative leaning voices were shouted out and baited by the community itself and some members of the mod team into getting banned, in part because of the lead-up where the forum was turning bizarrely aggressive with its Hillary support after incubating in that PoliGAF community thread. NeoGAF became one of the top 5 referring urls in the world to HIllary's campaign website according to Vice News. This was...weird.
Then the election happened and Trump won. One of my ex-admins, bishoptl, got angry about election-related matters and actively sabotaged the forum. He logged his bans that were justifiable within the site rules, and generally gave people appropriate ban explanation messages in those cases. However, he also banned several hundred more people in quick succession, out of anger, for *not being angry enough* about the election. He didn't log these bans administratively, he generally told the users something along the lines of "fuck off" in the user-facing message, and he lied to me at every turn when I was mobilizing to find out what the hell was going on with Off-Topic that seemed to be depriving it of all maturity, reason, sense, and moderate opinion suddenly. Finally I saw something suspicious enough play out that I checked the system logs, and everything revealed itself plainly. We were descending into madness because all the sane people were being stealth banned en masse by bish. I reviewed approximately 100 of the stealth bans one by one and reversed ~90% of them per the actual rules governing the site. But discourse here was already falling apart and our old platform sucked for communicating with users during mod actions, so people started account suiciding after I reversed the bans -- rightfully pissed off about the unjust nature of them. It was all a mess and I focused on trying to be a voice of reason on GAF itself and get the mod team onto a more neutral page going forward instead of going through the remainder of the bish bans.
Anyway, fast forward to last October's big drama. Angry mobs aren't rational actors. The people tasked with calming down angry mobs in a non-violent, just manner....well, sometimes they spray the crowd with rubber bullets and concussion grenades instead. Recently it's come to light that at least one of our ex-moderators mass stealth banned reasonable voices during the October drama who were saying nothing inappropriate and just arguing for a bit of calm. This changed my perception of events, too; it sank my heart to see my community apparently so willing to burn this place to the ground and say horrible, untrue things. But...a lot of the reasonable people were being actively silenced by rogue moderation. This came as quite a shock, but made sense immediately when I found out who it was. It also explained why about 75% of my PMs were supportive and yet it seemed like everyone on the forum itself was screaming for death and destruction. This was not a coincidence.
After that, too, we had an overstressed skeleton crew here and I knew there had been bad actors in the mix during everything, since private conversations under NDA had been leaked and so forth, so I brought in pro contractors for a while to moderate the forum while we regrouped and got some much needed rest. They weren't, shall we say, big on nuance or critical thinking. They were more following a simple flowchart and using a sledgehammer, so a lot of people got permed for relatively benign things and I don't know that it actually helped matters any in retrospect.
Way too many people lost their accounts unjustly. I apologize for my part in it. It was a difficult time and we didn't have great tools on the old-ass platform to detect foul play, and besides that the political circus in the United States introduced significant bias into the site moderation here.
I've pulled the rest of bishtoptl's post-election permanent bans, and the permanent bans performed by the ex-mod who stealth banned over 100 regulars simply for not participating in the witch hunt going on last October (sigh, what a wretched way to be), as well as a big chunk of the October/November permanent bans site-wide that were not performed up to our typical standards. I will review each ban personally, one by one, and reverse them as appropriate.
If you or someone you know has been banned unjustly, especially if it was around the time of the October 2017 drama or the post-election drama around Trump/Hillary time, or any other politically charged time like that, care will be taken to ensure fairness to you, so feel free to disclose it to me. I have a list of several hundred accounts from the known saboteur mods I will begin reviewing now and update with the results in here. If you would like your account reviewed and don't currently have NeoGAF posting access, email support@neogaf.com with Ban Review Request in the title and your account name in the body and I will add it to my list. Or tweet @NeoGAF with the same info.
If you ended up re-registering already and have a second account in good standing here that replaced your banned account, no worries, we're not going to punish for punishment's sake. Just mention it in this thread or PM me if you'd prefer discretion, note what your old account name was and anything you'd like to note about the circumstances, and I'll review your situation personally. In many cases I will be able to restore your old account and merge it with your new account so that you retain everything new and get your old account and post history reintegrated, too.
If you foamed at the mouth and said some stuff in all caps that wasn't very pleasant around drama-central, well, maybe PM me with some words about it. Time has passed and it was an intense situation where a lot of people were behaving irrationally. Some folks I've know on here for a long time participated in unfortunate, hurtful behavior. I'll tackle all that case by case too and I will hear everyone out. No guarantees in those cases, 'course.
We had at least a couple aggressively malicious actors internally that drastically changed outcomes at key moments in NeoGAF's recent history. Hundreds of bad bans happened directly against the policies and interests of the site and community. Things are chill here again and operating as intended and people are starting to want their accounts back. Time to undo some damage. Sorry for the mess, but let's get housekeeping.
I had been watching/reading interesting previous threads as a lurker from 2015-2018. The reason I didn't make an account sooner was due to all the flack going around. I never buy into slander and even the Wikipedia page had some slander. At any rate, by not allowing NeoGAF to be shutdown permanently -- you saved one of the last great gaming/nerd forums. Now, it's become so much better and safer. I like how politics has it's own designated section for members only (thereby minimizing trolls to post trash threads...et al). So many great webpages from the late-90's/early-2000's have already disappeared. Thanks for maintaining this page and it's reputation as the best gaming forum for the past decades.
Wait watBrap is back
Hello, I'd like my junior status removed. I believe it was because I posted a thread saying buying Nintendo Switches to sell them for a markup isn't morally wrong and explained why I thought that. What's the word they use to describe that again? I forgot. Pretty sure that thread was deleted.
They said we know about b/c. Even though we don’t.
They said we know about b/c. Even though we don’t.
Supposedly I’m supposed to add some context, but I can’t as I don’t know thier plans. Hence why I raised the question.
Can anyone here point me to it, so I can add it to my op?
This seems locked for no good reason, and a discussion worth having.
If anyone other then me made the same OP it would likely be open right now.
I should have left it as was, but the more I thought about it the more I wanted to add.
They said we know about b/c. Even though we don’t.
I did neither in the Op of that thread,. and I think my “history“ of “console warring” is very tame compared to what people are doing to each other today.Maybe the thread was seen as bait, seeing as you have a history of console warring and disingenuous commentary?
Oh no, what happened to the man? He was good and such a professionalVFXVeteran spreading FUD like usual.
He can always fix his stance regarding the whole teraflop situation.Oh no, what happened to the man? He was good and such a professional
Shame.
Oh no, what happened to the man? He was good and such a professional
Shame.
honestly the guy just likes to bicker with console gamers... especially PlayStation ones. He only shows up to slang mud at hyped fans.It really is when our industry professionals go bad on us.
People are always looking at what they say because we always want to know more about the industry. Then sometimes these professionals let their biases affect their comments and they as start giving us misinformation on purpose. It really is shame because he was given a chance to his claims.
fix what stance, i'm reading what he said now and it seems fineHe can always fix his stance regarding the whole teraflop situation.
It's up to him at the end of the day.
It seems to me someone who probably didn't understand the conversation reported it as bait due to the whole variable clock that is console war bait. No idea which mod issued the ban but its seems like it wasn't read carefully. But if he was given the opportunity explain and didn't I see why they thought a ban was needed.fix what stance, i'm reading what he said now and it seems fine
Why VFX was banned?
Not sure who would think VFX is an Xbox fan, he’s a PC guy all the way I thought? Also BS you can’t even speculate that a variable GPU freq is actually variable, when they already said it was variable.
I would even add that in the linked post to his ban he said "~9TF on average" which would come along with a console not being utilized 100% all the time, just like the Xbox will end up.
The 9tf comment being bannable is ridiculous when you read some of the bullshit that is said about the xsx.
Cause it wouldn't make sense for him to get silenced, yet you have people running around rampant and spreading misinformation all the time, with no repercussions.
This feels weird to even quote myself, but here is what I said in that thread.Mod of War: Remastered
Bill O'Rights
As you can see many people are confused about VFSVeterans ban and they want clarification on why it was done.
Seems like there's two sides to the argument. Some people say he was speculating and shouldn't have been banned while others are accusing him of making false claims.
Just need to know what's the case here with his 9TFs comment.
90% efficiency would yield 9.2TF. 90% is 9 times out of 10. This is the upper echelon of efficiency, compared to low utilization. 95% of 10.3 is 9.78.
97% of 10.3 is 9.99. so being "~9TF" is far from unreasonable. As matter a fact, it's more than likely in the ~9TF range majority of the time, if not always in that range because of variable clocks.
This will be my last post about this as I'm moving to the bans thread, as this is off topic.
This feels weird to even quote myself, but here is what I said in that thread.
~9TFLOPS on average
This feels weird to even quote myself, but here is what I said in that thread.
Appreciate that sir. AlsoJust wanted to point out that people have issues with the ban and I also didn't want the conversation to continue in that other thread since this is the place to talk about bans.
Did you just call him an AUTIST?! Ban this man!! Lol jpHe's a highly knowledgeable autist and stickler for the truth,
Appreciate that sir. Also
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Saying that the average is 10.2 is different than saying that the average is 9TFs.
I still don't think it deserved to be gang-reported. Getting kinda tired of the roving plastic box gang warfare bullshit.
Did you just call him an AUTIST?! Ban this man!! Lol jp
People that report don't make the final decision though. From what I've read from his comment it seemed like it could have gone both ways.
This is kind of why I think 9 teraflops and two years of no Xbox exclusives shouldn't be auto strikes against you.
Sometimes there's room for debate, sometimes people are mistaken, etc. Those things should be sorted out amongst posters.
If someone is wielding those things as a cudgel to constantly console war, sure, but is that really VFX Veteran? He's a highly knowledgeable autist and stickler for the truth, if a bit favoritist towards the PC. He's certainly not an Xbox fanboy.
This stuff feels more like an excuse for people with a grudge to get someone removed, which I almost guarantee happened here.
How do you feel about someone saying the XsX audio chip is the same as the one in PS4 and Xbox One? Or that the XsX has a weak SSD?
Hold on now.I still don't think it deserved to be gang-reported. Getting kinda tired of the roving plastic box gang warfare bullshit.
Hold on now.
He also bombed a thread stating all ps5 games come to pc , stated no point buying a ps5 as you can enjoy horizon 2 in pc at a much higher fidelity. He was serious and look now horizon demon souls etc ARE ps5 exclusive titles. At least for a long time.
Point is he constantly is gunning for ps5 users like mentioned all ps5 titles come to pc etc but never ever did i see him treat the xsx the same way.
In my opinion he has a track record to a pc or xbox warrior
Hold on now.
He also bombed a thread stating all ps5 games come to pc , stated no point buying a ps5 as you can enjoy horizon 2 in pc at a much higher fidelity. He was serious and look now horizon demon souls etc ARE ps5 exclusive titles. At least for a long time.
Point is he constantly is gunning for ps5 users like mentioned all ps5 titles come to pc etc but never ever did i see him treat the xsx the same way.
In my opinion he has a track record to a pc or xbox warrior
I never looked at him as an insider but as a vfx guy who knows his stuff in THAT industry.This is a fair point. (although I dont remember him saying all games I thought he said a lot)
I think the term vetted here has been an issue for VFX as he is in the industry but hes not an insider. He is basing his opinion off of what he heard and hes not a journalist trying to get multiple sources to confirm a report, hes just going off of what he heard from someone inside. Is it his job to make sure what he hears is right? Is that what vetted means?
I never looked at him as an insider but as a vfx guy who knows his stuff in THAT industry.
But he is always popping up in ps5 threads going from weak hardware dont expect much from it to all that way to maybe not all but most ps5 first party titles including horizon 2 come to pc.
When i said to him its likely but a few years from release like even now he said no they come in less then a year and he was very certain on that we should just stop dreaming
He had a different tone in the demon souls thread maybe due the fact it wont come to pc?If he took that turn, fair play, don't let annoying warriors turn you into one too, but I've never seen him be out of line.
He recently even defended the Demon's Souls trailer, using his expertise, when people were questioning it being CG.
If that's being a fanboy, he's doing a poor job, literally promoting the competition and such.
A 'vetted' poster on Gaf has always meant that the average poster respects and looks up to them as a member of the industry. In return, that Vetted member should be the height of professionalism as they represent a company in the industry.
Shit posting, throwing your toys out of the cot and swinging your dick around like you're the moral authority on all things console, isn't a professional or respectable look.
Vfx, has without a doubt shown his unprofessional side more than once and more often than not in Ps5 threads when talking about power of exclusives going to PC.
He should make a choice; be vetted and remain professional and impartial, as best as possible within our own unconscious bias, or, make a new account and shit post to his hearts content.
Either way, this ban might be a newspaper to the nose, rather than his company getting shitty with him.
That said, I'm a fucking retard, so don't put much stock in to what I say.
Banning him was too harsh. At worst, a thread ban would have been sufficient, in my view. Then again, I'm not a mod, and I don't follow all of his posts. But I simply want to add that, mods need to try and avoid adding fuel to the fire. The last comment made was unnecessary, and I'm talking about the bold part here....Even though VFX loves to bicker his comment wasn't wrong that he was banned for. He wasn't talking about the console war bait that is the variable clocks in any capacity and it seems that's what the mods banned him for.
Also saying you are "waiting for the Xbox fan was banned fairly" is petty. Guy isn't even an Xbox fan.
He is far more professional than a ton of other posters on here. I understand his word holds more weight as he is vetted but nothing he said "needed" vetting if you understand the conversation.
Seems extreme to me. But that's just my two cents.
I am not doubting he comes off as abrasive
He had a different tone in the demon souls thread maybe due the fact it wont come to pc?
But he was proffesional in that thread and i was pleased and respected his answers.
The other one though.....
A 'vetted' poster on Gaf has always meant that the average poster respects and looks up to them as a member of the industry. In return, that Vetted member should be the height of professionalism as they represent a company in the industry.
Shit posting, throwing your toys out of the cot and swinging your dick around like you're the moral authority on all things console, isn't a professional or respectable look.
Vfx, has without a doubt shown his unprofessional side more than once and more often than not in Ps5 threads when talking about power or exclusives going to PC.
He should make a choice; be vetted and remain professional and impartial, as best as possible within our own unconscious bias, or, make a new account and shit post to his hearts content.
Either way, this ban might be a newspaper to the nose, rather than his company getting shitty with him.
That said, I'm a fucking retard, so don't put much stock in to what I say.
were offered the chance to back up this claim with evidence or stop the FUD. We await the 'xbox fan banned unfairly' comment."
Banning him was too harsh. At worst, a thread ban would have been sufficient, in my view. Then again, I'm not a mod, and I don't follow all of his posts. But I simply want to add that, mods need to try and avoid adding fuel to the fire. The last comment made was unnecessary, and I'm talking about the bold part here....
"You were warned days ago about the 9TF comment. You're an industry professional - and like every other member - were offered the chance to back up this claim with evidence or stop the FUD. We await the 'xbox fan banned unfairly' comment."
That is basically trolling, and it seems more like a power play than anything else, because they can do it without consequence.
Whether you like me or not doesn't matter. What matters is what I've said.
1) I told you about the PS5 power levels (~9.2TF) over a year ago - you told me I was crazy.
...provide technical documentation or evidence real world testing and benchmarks where the PS5 GPU is running closer to 9TF in production for the majority of the use case
97% of 10.3 is 9.99. so being "~9TF" is far from unreasonable
36 CUs at 2.23GHz is 10.3 Teraflops and we expect the GPU to spend most of its time at or close to that frequency and performance
Running the CPU at 3GHz was causing headaches with the old strategy. But now we can run it as high as 3.5GHz. In fact it spends most of its time at that frequency
It will run at a slower clockspeed, but not too much lower. To reduce power by 10%, it only take a couple percent reduction in frequency, so I'd expect any downclocking to be pretty minor
Banning him was too harsh. At worst, a thread ban would have been sufficient, in my view. Then again, I'm not a mod, and I don't follow all of his posts. But I simply want to add that, mods need to try and avoid adding fuel to the fire. The last comment made was unnecessary, and I'm talking about the bold part here....
"You were warned days ago about the 9TF comment. You're an industry professional - and like every other member - were offered the chance to back up this claim with evidence or stop the FUD. We await the 'xbox fan banned unfairly' comment."
That is basically trolling, and it seems more like a power play than anything else, because the mods can do it without consequence.