There is no incentive for this civil discourse so many "new" posters claim they're looking forward to.
Trey, welcome back to GAF. Thank you by the way for writing a very lengthy post on this matter. Multiple people have already replied, but i want to chime in and provide a honest response. Given that many people have replied already to you, this may sound like the exact
dogpile that is so disliked - But ill try my best to address every your point respectfully.
Now, to be fair, i understand that there is a significant amount of doubt for this
civil discourse thing. Although i arrived by a ban on the other place, ive lurked GAF for years and years, and are familar with its history. Yes, also with the stories of Evilore. And indeed, its those stories that casted doubt on his very lengthy replies, which easily could fill up a book if one wanted to.
But instead of solely believing his words, i wanted more to disparage my doubts. I wanted
actions. And so far, i can only say that this is going well. There is some very geniune effort here that you wouldn't do if you really couldn't care less about your community. That being said, how Evil approaches things, (which is rather direct and has a potential to escalate things further) is not how i would roll with situations. Yes, i can be
very dedicated to issues and sound really arrogant (As undoubtely i am now!) but i don't mean bad.
Right, i know Evilore has said things in the past that even today i personally would be dismissive of. But for me, i don't want spend my time constantly glossing over things people have said from the past. All i can suspect, and hope, is that such users have realized themselves that what they said is problematic, and either privately made amends with it to not do it again (Which nobody but the user can verify) and/or try to make an effort into doing this better and right this time around. Now this is something one can
verify. And whilst Evil's tone is still the same, by his
actions, not his
words, i can tell things are getting better.
Now, lets just assume Devil's Advocate here. Maybe Evilore is just doing all of this just go gain sympathy again and he will later let his staff go the same like OldGAF was, and making comments again that will at lengths be attributed to him. I wouldn't hold it against anyone if they think this.
But, its just that the actions of late speak louder than his words of the past. That is the measuring stick i am measuring GAF with at the moment. If it will go south again, i will voice my criticism on this. And if that gets flagged, and everything turns back to
the old days? Then all that is left that we can live by the conclusion some people already live by today. Namely that GAF never
really changed.
But in order for GAF to make a
change in the first place, it has to be
allowed to change. I hope that, despite your criticism, you can agree with this point of view. Personally, i am allowing it.*
*This may sound off as me being overly appreciative of Evilore and defending his every move - I do not. The fact of the matter is that i am not responsible for the
tone in which Evilore, or anyone else, delivers his commentary. This is a subjective matter, and one that can only be controlled by the person who makes said tone (In this case, Evilore).
GAF - beyond being a hallowed shell of its former self - seems to have an identity problem befitting the context which lead to its current situation. The core members of the original community: all the content creators, industry types, personalities, and consistent contributors have by and large left, aside from the owner of the site.
That very much is true. And although it does not matter
how that happened, it should be noted that a lot of these followed the route to a new place, simply because
everyone else was there. This is a classical thing you can even see with groups at school: Where people go, (most) people follow. Some remain.
It does not mean they all left because of
The Incident: They left because a group of members found an incentive (
The allegation) to do so. It didn't matter if it was true or not, the fact that there was
something to leave from is what triggered a lot of these to go. It could have been anything else than the shower allegation. Ofcourse, people also left because they got tired of OldGAF's moderation. I feel that these leavings are more justified, as these actually have a
valid reason to it. The people leaving over the allegation, well you could say that it was just one raindrop too many for them. Is that a
valid reason? Well, in their eyes, it was. Personally, i am less inclined to believe this part however.
All this in service of a righteous claim to rolling back the *SJW cuck* policies; a return to "civil discourse," where on the front page there are threads openly discussing the merits of removing the ability for same sex couples to adopt children. In this forum's zealousness to correct the sins of the past, it has enabled rhetoric that is openly hostile to minorities and oppressed communities - underrepresented but active in GAF's past, but virtually extinct in its current incarnation. But this is fine, because the wisdom is if they're cool they'll come, but if they don't then they're thin skinned and not rational any way.
Now, hear me out: I do agree that there are threads laying around with posts that definitely echo back to OldGAF, but the
difference in tone is that even such postings should be allowed, as conservative as they may be. I may disagree with it, but as long as i
confront the argument and not the poster, this is where a lot of issues arise. Because people don't disprove an argument, but question the poster of their sanity. The latter is what not really contributive in most situations, unless you have a user who is
known for this kind of thing. Even those users remain active and unbanned, but its just that they see less support than other users. I am sure you know a few of these.
I do also agree that moderator staff should take a closer look to these postings. Unfortunately, you didn't provide any postings that you would consider problematic. I definitely have seen these postings before, but for now, when a thread on moderator views is not really needed yet, it is best to write a PM to a staff member. Consider delivering feedback to them in a way that it convinces them to be discussed behind-the-scenes. Its a new moderation team after all, so why not approach them as
one of us?
Evilore is the common denominator. His pivot toward this more..."moderate" tone of discourse, replete with excuses and throwing his past modship under the bus, sets the stage for him to adopt the current neutral stance many tech leaders have fostered for their communities. After all, a dude who thinks black people are naturally less intelligent than whites is worth the same view count as someone who argues for trans rights. As long as he doesn't advocate for lynching blacks overnight, maybe he can get away with suggesting a return to poll tests in low income areas.
He's certainly adopted the attitude of his current userbase: in his many post mortem posts, he's decried the SJWs for taking discussion to an extreme. In this very thread, he throws around the term "retarded" in a tongue in cheek rebuke of political correctness, of I had to venture a guess. This is the reality of his *new* civil discourse, and the tone he wants for his forum.
This is what i was talking about with the Devil's Advocate stance. I don't disagree with you, Evilore has said things
in the past that i can't agree with it. But, and perhaps the birth of ResetERA was the trigger, people and forums should be
allowed to change. You can't just dismiss one's entire development towards achieving that
change by the virtue of a single post or the posts of the past. If one would do so, how is any
progression possible?
Welcome back again to GAF, by the way. I would appreciate it if you give my
rebuttal, or what else goes for it, a response. Thank you for sharing your views, by the way.
I don't know if it's possible, but it would be nice to see which mod warned you and be able to try to discuss some matters via PM.
Along that, ive also suggested to Evil a system that people with permbans are subject to an
evaluation system much like a parole board (I don't want to make it sound worse than it already is!) That way, even users with lengthy bans can come back. People change over time, learn new things. And if they remain unchanged, or the reason of motivation to unban is less than satisfactory, than a ban will be extended by a year. It just gives a bit more hope and transparency for those bans that are problematic but not so much that people need to be banned till the end of their lifetimes.
Redneckerz
re: bans, the Ban Justice project has brought a whole lot of suspect bans to light, and while XF2 has way better system logging and transparency in general, and we mostly have a clean slate with the current mod team and they were selected very carefully and personally by me back in November while the site was a pile of rubble, hah, rather than when GAF was at its high point (so I am firmly confident in the motives of the present team), going forward I don't want any shenanigans to ever be on the table again. As the site regains popularity and things get busier, I'm not going to necessarily be able to closely oversee every single mod action 24/7, but I don't want to use that as an excuse. Our internal moderation Slack is meant for cross-vetting bans and talking things through; formalizing that a bit more could be useful. I've been floating the notion that we can require bans to be formally co-signed by a second moderator at the time of banning, and then checked again on a weekly basis by myself or a senior admin to ensure fairness. We'll also implement a clearer, formalized appeals avenue of some sort, whether on the forum itself or via email as well. 
JordanN ? He really loves to think black people problems are their own fault, it's worried white people are not going to be majority in the future (in the USA, even if he's Canadian) and and he dismiss or ignore any single source you throw to him.
