VOAT Containment Megathread of Trash People for Trash People

[etiolate]

I hope to god this explains it to you

But I'm also not really sure what that has to do with him also secretly being a shitlord that was into some truly awful, illegal stuff? What if a beloved forum personality had been the one who turned out to be the pedophile? Is that on us?

He wasn't secretly a shitlord. He was openly a shitlord and awful human being. He was also a beloved forum personality. SUCH IS NEOGAF'S PROBLEM.

[Steve Youngblood]

I hope to god this explains it to you

But I'm also not really sure what that has to do with him also secretly being a shitlord that was into some truly awful, illegal stuff? What if a beloved forum personality had been the one who turned out to be the pedophile? Is that on us?

He wasn't secretly a shitlord He was openly a shitlord and awful human being. He was also a beloved forum personality. SUCH IS NEOGAF'S PROBLEM.

You left out "that was into some truly awful, illegal stuff." I also don't think he was a beloved forum personality.

[Momo]

neogaf applying it's rules consistently and not based of political affiliations?    What will we have to talk about then? 




 

[benjipwns]

I looked at Steve's post history using my leet private investigator internet relay chat ships in the ocean hacking skills and this last thread he posted in

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1397199

I can't wait for tomorrow. I feel the hammer is going to drop. With what he said in his interview today, and what Fox News is trying to sell people. Some are now saying if he colluded with the Russians, so what? Its not a crime!

Treason IS a crime last I checked.

I do think something's gonna drop. Can't wait.

Yeah, it does all feel like this one's gonna be huge, whatever the heck it is.

If it's confirmation that Trump personally colluded with the Russians though, I'm wondering what the answer will be as to how specifically he got caught. Audio recording? Flipped testimony/testimonies from someone like Flynn or Manafort? A paper trail?

Comey's friend, Benjamin Wittes tweeted a "TICK TICK TICK" on Friday (his usual means of foreshadowing a big scoop on a Trump scandal), saying the news was either going to drop then or Monday. It didn't drop on Friday, so it looks like we're in for it hitting the news tomorrow.

However, we don't know what the hell that news is gonna be. But it does feel like something's brewing...

Comey's friend. He has been right before. And been tweeting something is going to happen Friday(came and went), or Monday. Has to be tomorrow. He has credibility.

Why are you doing this to yourself?

Comey's friend. He has been right before. And been tweeting something is going to happen Friday(came and went), or Monday. Has to be tomorrow. He has credibility.


He hasn't been wrong before. Just saying.

Then I'll eat crow.

But my statement still stands on them saying if Trump colluded with the Russians that its not a crime, when it is so.

Comet's friend tweeted "TIK TICK TICK" on Friday, and at the time said something could drop Friday or Monday. Since it didn't drop Friday, maybe we'll see it tomorrow. Also to note, he did drop similar tweets before the Comey memos story and the story that the investigation had reached the current Whitehouse. I think he's credible.

So tomorrow is the day banderas.gif!

Personally speaking, I don't think whatever is coming is going to be "the thing that takes him down." Especially not anytime soon. Even if it were proof that he colluded with Russia. Even once that's out in the open, Trump won't leave the White House without a fight. Not unless he resigns out of sheer frustration.

All I'm saying is that whatever's coming tomorrow seems to be big. I could very well be wrong on that, but it's the vibe I'm getting from how Trump's camp has all been acting this weekend.

...are people really trying to down play Wittes in this thread even though every single "tick" tweet had been the precursor to a bombshell so far? Is this some next level version of the "nothing will come of this" defeatist attitude people have been using to try and derail threads?

This was five days ago.

[Momo]

I hope to god this explains it to you

But I'm also not really sure what that has to do with him also secretly being a shitlord that was into some truly awful, illegal stuff? What if a beloved forum personality had been the one who turned out to be the pedophile? Is that on us?

He wasn't secretly a shitlord He was openly a shitlord and awful human being. He was also a beloved forum personality. SUCH IS NEOGAF'S PROBLEM.

You left out "that was into some truly awful, illegal stuff." I also don't think he was a beloved forum personality.

You're very wrong here, just because you or I could pick him out of a lineup as a scumbag doesnt mean the top 10 usual suspect posters didnt revel in Amir0x's shit. At least absolutely no one that spoke out against him survived the banhammer - kinda the thing people are bitching about

[agrajag]

Steve Youngblood, how do you find time to moderate GAF with all these things going on in your life?

... This sort of reads like some GOTCHA! question when I feel like you know the answer. I don't find much time to moderate GAF.

Nah, not really man. I just found it amusing that you wrote such a long and detailed explanation of why you have no time to post here or be on the internet in general, yet there was no mention of GAF in your post. To me it's just curious why Lore would even have a moderator in his stable that has no time to moderate. I guess I always figured that being a moderator requires some sort of time commitment. Like numerous people have stated, no one is attacking YOU directly for the way things were handled. And I certainly appreciate it that you're the only GAF mod that values transparency enough to come talk to us directly, and you are obviously friends with many here and are generally well liked.

[railGUN]

I don't think for a second most, many or any mods knew Amir0x was a pedophile before yesterday.

But guess what? He is.

So, riddle me this - why can't a thread dedicated to this fact, exist on NeoGAF?

What is special about Amir0x that makes him immune to this discussion?

And if there isn't a reasonable explanation, why the fuck would you continue to volunteer for that place?

[cosmicblizzard]

I don't even think it's a completely unsalvageable situation.  People make mistakes and managing a large forum isn't easy.  Hindsight is 20/20 and all that.  There would obviously be issues and a reputation hit, but there are a lot of easy ways to mitigate the damage.  In addition to a clear and concise statement with a trigger warning in front, there should be a real discussion on where to go from here.

But there isn't.  There's a barebones statement with easily-proven lies in a buried thread and downplaying/deflecting.  Anything even hinting at an opinion on the situation from the staff and not how the mods are being attacked over it ironically comes from the anonymous modbot.  It just comes off as a "the leakers are the real issue!" situation, even though it's obviously different as I truly believe the mods didn't know about this.  But protecting themselves from mean words on the internet by making it about them seems to be more important than having any kind of plan going forward on how to make moderation and the site better by avoiding situations like this.

[benjipwns]

This was five days ago.

oh my god i just realized it's going to be even bigger than expected then if it's taking this long to drop!!!!

[Boredfrom]

Steve Youngblood did nothing wrong.

Heh. Just to be clear, that's not really what I'm after. I'm not here to have people give me deference or be grateful that I showed up or anything. I'm totally cool with people shitting on GAF moderation. You guys also don't need to embrace me as one of your own anymore. I'm barely around anymore. This place is blocked on my work computer as a games site. Even if it wasn't I'm swamped with actual work there that is responsible for paying the bills. When I'm not there we welcomed the birth of our second son two months ago and I don't get a whole lot of sleep at night. When I'm not having to help my wife out with the newborn, there's an almost-six-year-old that demands my attention in his neverending quest to figure out the systems of Minecraft. When things are actually calm, I either need to sleep or try to get done more work for my actual day job. In my downtime I pontificate ridiculous things like "should I upgrade my rig with a 1080 ti so that I can play some Tekken 7 in 4K resolution?" even though I don't actually have any free time to play anything that isn't Minecraft with my older son.

Sorry for that, I'm just explaining why I'm not really around here... or really even on the internet much in general.

Anyway, that nonsense out of the way, I feel like there are a few points of criticism here. Some people may think that we are unfair in terms of who we ban and who we don't. This may be fair. I'm not personally qualified to assess that as a person on the inside. I think by and large people try to do their best in the decisions they make for the community, but we are after all unpaid volunteers that are not formally trained in professional social media moderation. The selection criteria is basically "people current mods think are good posters." I am not going to attempt to silence people who think that we can or should do better. If enough of you feel that way, perhaps some day your voice will be heard and us shitty mods will be shitcanned and better ones will take our place.

Another point of criticism is "you all bungled the immediate aftermath of this news breaking." Again, this may be fair. I don't know. That day job I talked about above is not in public relations. The initial thread deletion was just about guarding against hearsay, and the later locks were just a belief that a statement had been issued and that there wasn't really a lot of productive conversation to be had. People disagree with that? OK. That's fair. I'm not going to take anyone to task that thinks this wasn't the best way to handle it.

The last point of criticism is just the stuff that ventures into the territory "they knew, they all knew and were complicit" or suggests we were intentionally trying to cover up for a pedophile initially or are continuing to do so now in shutting down the discussion. And this point is just ridiculous and hurtful. I am completely open to criticism that we may not be very good glorified internet janitors, but come on. I'm not trying to come across as in tears or as the person screaming "LEAVE ME/OTHER MODS ALONE!!!!" But it's just disappointing all the same.

Just two things:

1. Most people here will admit you are a decent person; many people here will also admit having shitty experiences with mods that even the "unpaid work" is not exactly a satisfactory answer . When people said "the mods knew" are saying "the kind of mods that will admit banning users because favoritism or allowing witch hunts threads to thrive because political believes".

2. This is the second time that a mod appears to be involved in pedophila. people are going to suspect regardless. Nobody is blaming you of anything but people are not exactly thrilled of being asked to give the benefit of doubt to a group, even if they are just volunteers (specially since is clear that some mods have actual emotional attachment to their duties).

Just to be clear, I'm not really asking people to give mods the benefit of the doubt or to praise us as great human beings. Like I said, I'm totally cool with people thinking that we are terrible at curating a community if that's what they really believe. I basically just chimed in because of the himu/etiolate line of attack. Maybe we're shitty moderators, but that's also a shitty thing to accuse us of.

It goes both ways, thought. There were people that got banned because benign stuff and mods were pretty happy to covering themselves, by deleting and editing stuff, for bad behavior (again, Besada is the big one). Users that are in relative good terms with some moods are allowed to shit talk posters in community threads. People are allowed to imply that posters are pesos in JRPGs bitching threads while in OT the same users do impassioned pleas to consider pedophila a mental problem that people should be sympathetic about.

Most probably that mods were not covering Amirox tendencies but sure as hell it looks that some mods can cover themselves or other users.

[agrajag]

For example, most of the BCT did not appear to be aware of his past transgressions. To them he was just a loudmouth ally, a try hard. An obnoxious fella, perhaps, but on the right side of history, you know? So he certainly wasn't a pariah in the latter years of his illustrious NeoGAF career. And that's part of the problem. He was normalized.

[agrajag]

I don't think for a second most, many or any mods knew Amir0x was a pedophile before yesterday.

But guess what? He is.

So, riddle me this - why can't a thread dedicated to this fact, exist on NeoGAF?

What is special about Amir0x that makes him immune to this discussion?

And if there isn't a reasonable explanation, why the fuck would you continue to volunteer for that place?

I think he kind of already answered it, he barely spends any time there. I guess some misplaced sense of duty to chaperone the manbabies of GAF. Mostly ceremonial.

[Momo]

It's simple though, no one was covering for Amir0x, it's more like they weren't interested in properly moderating him because of his (outward) leanings, which is the case for a few people. This isnt a moderation fail to me, it's clearly something implicitly allowed by EviLore not stepping in so you can hardly blame the janitors for doing what is expected of them.  tl;dr kinda wish neogaf got sold to ign, find it strangely funny that I got banned from there over this sale proposal

[I'm a Puppy!]

Steve Youngblood did nothing wrong.

Heh. Just to be clear, that's not really what I'm after. I'm not here to have people give me deference or be grateful that I showed up or anything. I'm totally cool with people shitting on GAF moderation. You guys also don't need to embrace me as one of your own anymore. I'm barely around anymore. This place is blocked on my work computer as a games site. Even if it wasn't I'm swamped with actual work there that is responsible for paying the bills. When I'm not there we welcomed the birth of our second son two months ago and I don't get a whole lot of sleep at night. When I'm not having to help my wife out with the newborn, there's an almost-six-year-old that demands my attention in his neverending quest to figure out the systems of Minecraft. When things are actually calm, I either need to sleep or try to get done more work for my actual day job. In my downtime I pontificate ridiculous things like "should I upgrade my rig with a 1080 ti so that I can play some Tekken 7 in 4K resolution?" even though I don't actually have any free time to play anything that isn't Minecraft with my older son.

Sorry for that, I'm just explaining why I'm not really around here... or really even on the internet much in general.

Anyway, that nonsense out of the way, I feel like there are a few points of criticism here. Some people may think that we are unfair in terms of who we ban and who we don't. This may be fair. I'm not personally qualified to assess that as a person on the inside. I think by and large people try to do their best in the decisions they make for the community, but we are after all unpaid volunteers that are not formally trained in professional social media moderation. The selection criteria is basically "people current mods think are good posters." I am not going to attempt to silence people who think that we can or should do better. If enough of you feel that way, perhaps some day your voice will be heard and us shitty mods will be shitcanned and better ones will take our place.

Another point of criticism is "you all bungled the immediate aftermath of this news breaking." Again, this may be fair. I don't know. That day job I talked about above is not in public relations. The initial thread deletion was just about guarding against hearsay, and the later locks were just a belief that a statement had been issued and that there wasn't really a lot of productive conversation to be had. People disagree with that? OK. That's fair. I'm not going to take anyone to task that thinks this wasn't the best way to handle it.

The last point of criticism is just the stuff that ventures into the territory "they knew, they all knew and were complicit" or suggests we were intentionally trying to cover up for a pedophile initially or are continuing to do so now in shutting down the discussion. And this point is just ridiculous and hurtful. I am completely open to criticism that we may not be very good glorified internet janitors, but come on. I'm not trying to come across as in tears or as the person screaming "LEAVE ME/OTHER MODS ALONE!!!!" But it's just disappointing all the same.

Eh, it seems to me if you have power over x thing you then have some responsibility over x thing. If you ban people for disagreeing with you or having a wrong opinion but then ignore the drug addicted pedo in your midst? Yeah, people are going to call you out on it. And yeah, I don't believe that the mods were covering for Ami, but he was an ass to everyone and had a bunch of bad history and a ton of drama. Yet, a slew of relatively benign people were banned. I don't find it at all surprising for people to be like "Hey, aren't you around to sorta STOP that kind of thing? And isn't it suspicious that you didn't?" The fact that it's not "your job" I totally understand...to a point. If you can go and ban someone because you don't like what they're saying, well then, you do sorta have responsibility to ban the toxic person right there even if you do like what they're saying. I don't necessarily think this is the case for all the mods most are just "sorta there", but certainly the ban happy/sanctimonious mods?  Yeah, I don't see a way they get a pass here.

I'm not saying all the mods on GAF shit the bed. But I'm saying in general moderation on GAF shit the bed.

Right. But again, I feel like we're sort of conflating two different things. There's a discussion worth having that it may have been worthwhile to permanently toss him some time ago. But I'm also not really sure what that has to do with him also secretly being a shitlord that was into some truly awful, illegal stuff? What if a beloved forum personality had been the one who turned out to be the pedophile? Is that on us?

Like I said, I'm not here to be GAF's press secretary and spin this as a win for us. I'm just saying I don't think it's unfair to suggest that you can think we are shitty mods without thinking we are pedophile apologists.

Steve Youngblood, how do you find time to moderate GAF with all these things going on in your life?

... This sort of reads like some GOTCHA! question when I feel like you know the answer. I don't find much time to moderate GAF.

Here's the thingo Steveo.We don't need to get into hypotheticals here. This wasn't a beloved GAF personality or someone who was unknown. It was Amir0x, someone that virtually everyone hated, was largely abusive to other users and had a history to bad drama. If it had been someone no one knew or someone everyone thought it was a nice person then I think everyone would be surprised and not insinuate the moderation was complicit. But that's NOT the case here at all. So let's not get into the "what if" discussions when we're talking about the thing that actually happened. I mean when Dennis got banned everyone was like "Yeah, that makes a lot of sense" Should've done the same with Ami.

[Steve Youngblood]

So, riddle me this - why can't a thread dedicated to this fact, exist on NeoGAF?

Ultimately, this isn't really my call to make. It's a judgement call. I see the reasons for and against. For: this is obviously news (to us at least) and it's something that we'd allow when it's someone like Jared Fogle. Against: shitty person or not we're talking about a forum person and not a legitimate public figure. Furthermore -- and I'll again note to you that this is not my call to make and I'm just giving you my own opinion as opposed to anything even vaguely resembling the official company line -- aside from the understandable "wow this guy sure is an awful piece of garbage" posts which would be absolutely deserved, it's hard to imagine it not also just doubling as some NeoGAF metacommentary drama thread.

I'm asking you honestly here: do you think that a thread on GAF wouldn't basically just go down exactly like this thread now or a voat thread? And if you don't, do you honestly think it's important catharsis that people be able to proudly deride amir0x as a worthless piece of shit on NeoGAF? These may seem like combative, rhetorical questions, but I'm asking them in earnest.

[parallax]

For example, most of the new BCT did not appear to be aware of his past transgressions. To them he was just a loudmouth ally, a try hard. An obnoxious fella, perhaps, but on the right side of history, you know? So he certainly wasn't a pariah in the latter years of his illustrious NeoGAF career. And that's part of the problem. He was normalized.

fixed that for you

[etiolate]

Steve, I think the main reason for there being a thread on it is for community awareness. Discussion and catharsis is good even if gaf is terrible at those things.

Bust mostly there needs to be what is basically a warning sign.

[Steve Youngblood]

Here's the thingo Steveo.We don't need to get into hypotheticals here. This wasn't a beloved GAF personality or someone who was unknown. It was Amir0x, someone that virtually everyone hated, was largely abusive to other users and had a history to bad drama. If it had been someone no one knew or someone everyone thought it was a nice person then I think everyone would be surprised and not insinuate the moderation was complicit. But that's NOT the case here at all. So let's not get into the "what if" discussions when we're talking about the thing that actually happened. I mean when Dennis got banned everyone was like "Yeah, that makes a lot of sense" Should've done the same with Ami.

OK, but again I feel like we're conflating two separate concerns and rolling them up into a kind of disingenuously bigger criticism. It may be a fair cop to say that we need to be fairer about how we moderate. But some out of left field possibilities like "asshole poster also turned out to be a pedophile" really seem unrelated to anything we are trying to do unless there's some reason to think that they might be pedophiles that we are missing. Say we had banned him a year ago. A lot of the biggest concern I'm reading is "wow, this guy used to be a moderator." That would still be true if we had shitcanned him when we arguably should have.

[Boredfrom]

So, riddle me this - why can't a thread dedicated to this fact, exist on NeoGAF?

Ultimately, this isn't really my call to make. It's a judgement call. I see the reasons for and against. For: this is obviously news (to us at least) and it's something that we'd allow when it's someone like Jared Fogle. Against: shitty person or not we're talking about a forum person and not a legitimate public figure. Furthermore -- and I'll again note to you that this is not my call to make and I'm just giving you my own opinion as opposed to anything even vaguely resembling the official company line -- aside from the understandable "wow this guy sure is an awful piece of garbage" posts which would be absolutely deserved, it's hard to imagine it not also just doubling as some NeoGAF metacommentary drama thread.

I'm asking you honestly here: do you think that a thread on GAF wouldn't basically just go down exactly like this thread now or a voat thread? And if you don't, do you honestly think it's important catharsis that people be able to proudly deride amir0x as a worthless piece of shit on NeoGAF? These may seem like combative, rhetorical questions, but I'm asking them in earnest.

Evilore has his ego threads. Honestly, the thread will be a shit show and even we will feel bad even if Amirox is a scumbag, some of us probably will be worried he will kill himself. But also, be honest, neogaf is not having a Amirox thread because the mod team (or, specifically,  Evilore)  is worried about being to dehumanizing.

[I'm a Puppy!]

Steveo, I understand you're not GAF's spokesman, and that you're not here to defend them and I don't want to make it seem like we're ganging up on you. But there are some questions out there and you're the only one talking. So by default you get them.

[benjipwns]

To me it's just curious why Lore would even have a moderator in his stable that has no time to moderate. I guess I always figured that being a moderator requires some sort of time commitment.

But like, is it really curious? I mean he found out about bish's antics months later. Somebody had to request multiple times before he got demodded finally, I forget who that was. I believe that's why Cyan, Stump and ModBot got promoted. There was a huge gap in the chain of command and responsibility and access to the actual tools of power.

Steve got put in, until he requests to drop out to somebody who could drop him out nobody's going to bother. And I'd personally rather have Steve moderating five or six threads every couple weeks vs. some of the others moderating the five hundred a day they do.

There's two mods who haven't been on the forum in over a month. Another couple basically stick to a few threads, popping out to the main section for news threads and such connected to those. Y2Kev basically lived in Hillary Clinton related threads for an entire year and spent long periods hibernating in the safe space of PoliGAF.

Look at More_Badass's NeoGAF career arc ffs. You think Evilore's following that?

It's the same management structure that leads to the ad team's great success except you have Stump's creation operating and some people who occasionally give a shit. Also some people who like smashing down the Russian gamergate infiltrators who try and undermine the forum like Amir0x.

[Steve Youngblood]

So, riddle me this - why can't a thread dedicated to this fact, exist on NeoGAF?

Ultimately, this isn't really my call to make. It's a judgement call. I see the reasons for and against. For: this is obviously news (to us at least) and it's something that we'd allow when it's someone like Jared Fogle. Against: shitty person or not we're talking about a forum person and not a legitimate public figure. Furthermore -- and I'll again note to you that this is not my call to make and I'm just giving you my own opinion as opposed to anything even vaguely resembling the official company line -- aside from the understandable "wow this guy sure is an awful piece of garbage" posts which would be absolutely deserved, it's hard to imagine it not also just doubling as some NeoGAF metacommentary drama thread.

I'm asking you honestly here: do you think that a thread on GAF wouldn't basically just go down exactly like this thread now or a voat thread? And if you don't, do you honestly think it's important catharsis that people be able to proudly deride amir0x as a worthless piece of shit on NeoGAF? These may seem like combative, rhetorical questions, but I'm asking them in earnest.

Evilore has his ego threads. Honestly, the thread will be a shit show and even we will feel bad even if Amirox is a scumbag, some of us probably will be worried he will kill himself. But also, be honest, neogaf is not having a Amirox thread because the mod team (or, specifically,  Evilore)  is worried about being to dehumanizing.

Dehumanizing to Amir0x?

[clothedmacuser]

I think it was just institutional memory that kept Amir0x operating for so long.  Evilore never seemed to support a perm and Bish and Besada liked him so he skated.  Steve said 9 seperate mods have banned him but they were never given any support to make it a perm and the higher ups ignored it. 

Was a mod really supposed to stick their neck out and perm a "known" member when El Papi, Bish and Besada tacitly allowed him to roam?  And now that E.L. has checked out and Stump seems to be so over it, the forum is operating on the idea of keeping things as they were 6 months ago.  And six months ago they thought to keep it running as it did 6 months before that and so on.  It's in zombie mode and I doubt anybody would notice if you reviewed the ban of mac and let him return to make more mirth about frozen bags of spaghetti.

[I'm a Puppy!]

Here's the thingo Steveo.We don't need to get into hypotheticals here. This wasn't a beloved GAF personality or someone who was unknown. It was Amir0x, someone that virtually everyone hated, was largely abusive to other users and had a history to bad drama. If it had been someone no one knew or someone everyone thought it was a nice person then I think everyone would be surprised and not insinuate the moderation was complicit. But that's NOT the case here at all. So let's not get into the "what if" discussions when we're talking about the thing that actually happened. I mean when Dennis got banned everyone was like "Yeah, that makes a lot of sense" Should've done the same with Ami.

OK, but again I feel like we're conflating two separate concerns and rolling them up into a kind of disingenuously bigger criticism. It may be a fair cop to say that we need to be fairer about how we moderate. But some out of left field possibilities like "asshole poster also turned out to be a pedophile" really seem unrelated to anything we are trying to do unless there's some reason to think that they might be pedophiles that we are missing. Say we had banned him a year ago. A lot of the biggest concern I'm reading is "wow, this guy used to be a moderator." That would still be true if we had shitcanned him when we arguably should have.

Yeah, some people would say that if he had been banned. But GAF could at least say, "Yes he was a mod but we banned him and he's no longer here." Again, like what you did with Dennis. But that's not what happened, and it didn't happen when a ton of people got banned for a lot less, and that makes it worse, and that's why people are questioning.

[benjipwns]

I think it was just institutional memory that kept Amir0x operating for so long.  Evilore never seemed to support a perm and Bish and Besada liked him so he skated.  Steve said 9 seperate mods have banned him but they were never given any support to make it a perm and the higher ups ignored it. 

Was a mod really supposed to stick their neck out and perm a "known" member when El Papi, Bish and Besada tacitly allowed him to roam?  And now that E.L. has checked out and Stump seems to be so over it, the forum is operating on the idea of keeping things as they were 6 months ago.  And six months ago they thought to keep it running as it did 6 months before that and so on.  It's in zombie mode and I doubt anybody would notice if you reviewed the ban of mac and let him return to make more mirth about frozen bags of spaghetti.

He had a perm warning. Had he gotten banned again and thus permed as per the rules. What do you think the odds are Evilore or Bish overturns it if there's no falling out?

[railGUN]

So, riddle me this - why can't a thread dedicated to this fact, exist on NeoGAF?

Ultimately, this isn't really my call to make. It's a judgement call. I see the reasons for and against. For: this is obviously news (to us at least) and it's something that we'd allow when it's someone like Jared Fogle. Against: shitty person or not we're talking about a forum person and not a legitimate public figure. Furthermore -- and I'll again note to you that this is not my call to make and I'm just giving you my own opinion as opposed to anything even vaguely resembling the official company line -- aside from the understandable "wow this guy sure is an awful piece of garbage" posts which would be absolutely deserved, it's hard to imagine it not also just doubling as some NeoGAF metacommentary drama thread.

I'm asking you honestly here: do you think that a thread on GAF wouldn't basically just go down exactly like this thread now or a voat thread? And if you don't, do you honestly think it's important catharsis that people be able to proudly deride amir0x as a worthless piece of shit on NeoGAF? These may seem like combative, rhetorical questions, but I'm asking them in earnest.

It deserves to go down like this thread. Yes. Absolutely.

Yes, people are owed that catharsis. For fucks sake, Amir0x was the most virtuous mother fucker on NeoGAF, who shit talked, baited people into bans and had his head so fucking far up his own ass. Dude was unhinged, truly. We're not talking about some benign junior with 40 posts who joined last year.

Discussion isn't limited to public figures - what the fuck is to be gained from that pregnant lady going Twisted Metal on the purse thief? Or some YouTube wannabe shooting her idiotic boyfriend with a pistol as a "prank".

Oh no NeoGAF might have to endure some meta-commentary. Oh woe is me. Mess with a bull, you get the horns and all that.

Despite beating his mom. Despite scamming NeoGAF out of 12 fucking grand. Despite admitting to possessing child porn, Amir0x is STILL being protected, to save poor NeoGAF from itself. Like what the fuck???

[agrajag]

Steve, can you answer me this? It is a well established fact that at least one prominent mod admitted in a private conversation to not being impartial in his moderation practices. He created a sort of affirmative action for moderating GAF where either minorities or people whose ideology aligned with his own were not scrutinized to the same standards as other posters. Because "their voices needed to be heard." Do you think this is an isolated case, or endemic to the moderation team on GAF? Because I find it hard to believe Besada was the only one, that with Bish banning anyone he disagreed with, or Dragona leaving mass graveyards in her wake.

[Dennis]

Can the moderators at least be bothered to go through and unban the members that were baited by Amir0 or, mass-purged by Bishoptl - something for which he was demodded?

[cosmicblizzard]

I'm asking you honestly here: do you think that a thread on GAF wouldn't basically just go down exactly like this thread now or a voat thread? And if you don't, do you honestly think it's important catharsis that people be able to proudly deride amir0x as a worthless piece of shit on NeoGAF? These may seem like combative, rhetorical questions, but I'm asking them in earnest.

Here's what I would do were I Evilore.  Make a locked sticky thread explaining what happened, make it PERFECTLY clear that no one on the team was aware of this, give reasoning of why there is currently no thread about it which may change in the future for the sake of closure, vaguely bring up Amir0x's past and admit that keeping him around for so long was a terrible idea, and finally assure everyone that things will change in regards to favoritism as well mod vetting and that the entire team will be talking about it in private IMMEDIATELY.  Then go in the mod chat and have an involved discussion on where to go from there.

But I know this isn't something EL would actually do because he really doesn't care about the direction the site is going in.

[Steve Youngblood]

Can the moderators at least be bothered to go through and unban the members that were baited by Amir0x or mass-purged by Bishoptl - something for which he was demodded?

Many of the latter were already reversed months ago. I think the former would just be kind of impractical for a human being to search for.

[clothedmacuser]

Can the moderators at least be bothered to go through and unban the members that were baited by Amir0 or, mass-purged by Bishoptl - something for which he was demodded?

I get the sense nobody really gives a fuck if someone was unfairly treated.

Hear! Hear!  A simple act of accounting would quell the angry mobs as a friend told me.

[Dennis]

Can the moderators at least be bothered to go through and unban the members that were baited by Amir0x or mass-purged by Bishoptl - something for which he was demodded?

Many of the latter were already reversed months ago. I think the former would just be kind of impractical for a human being to search for.

Well, the first part makes me feel better for those people at least.

[agrajag]

So, riddle me this - why can't a thread dedicated to this fact, exist on NeoGAF?

And if you don't, do you honestly think it's important catharsis that people be able to proudly deride amir0x as a worthless piece of shit on NeoGAF?

But that's like, half the threads on GAF. Post a thread with some god awful headline, followed by a million different variants of "OMG I can't even," rinse, repeat.

[Boredfrom]

So, riddle me this - why can't a thread dedicated to this fact, exist on NeoGAF?

Ultimately, this isn't really my call to make. It's a judgement call. I see the reasons for and against. For: this is obviously news (to us at least) and it's something that we'd allow when it's someone like Jared Fogle. Against: shitty person or not we're talking about a forum person and not a legitimate public figure. Furthermore -- and I'll again note to you that this is not my call to make and I'm just giving you my own opinion as opposed to anything even vaguely resembling the official company line -- aside from the understandable "wow this guy sure is an awful piece of garbage" posts which would be absolutely deserved, it's hard to imagine it not also just doubling as some NeoGAF metacommentary drama thread.

I'm asking you honestly here: do you think that a thread on GAF wouldn't basically just go down exactly like this thread now or a voat thread? And if you don't, do you honestly think it's important catharsis that people be able to proudly deride amir0x as a worthless piece of shit on NeoGAF? These may seem like combative, rhetorical questions, but I'm asking them in earnest.

Evilore has his ego threads. Honestly, the thread will be a shit show and even we will feel bad even if Amirox is a scumbag, some of us probably will be worried he will kill himself. But also, be honest, neogaf is not having a Amirox thread because the mod team (or, specifically,  Evilore)  is worried about being to dehumanizing.

Dehumanizing to Amir0x?

So you are worried that people are going to calling out mods and enablers?

[Steve Youngblood]

Steve, can you answer me this? It is a well established fact that at least one prominent mod admitted in a private conversation to not being impartial in his moderation practices. He created a sort of affirmative action for moderating GAF where either minorities or people whose ideology aligned with his own were not scrutinized to the same standards as other posters. Because "their voices needed to be heard." Do you think this is an isolated case, or endemic to the moderation team on GAF? Because I find it hard to believe Besada was the only one, that with Bish banning anyone he disagreed with, or Dragona leaving mass graveyards in her wake.

Haha. I mean, this is worded in such a way that you can't honestly expect me to give a satisfactory answer. This is a very leading question.

Anyway, like I said I'm not really here to try to win public opinion over to us as a great moderation group.

[clothedmacuser]

Besada

He was a shitty asshole of a person, who thrived on being obnoxious and in your face. I didn't like him before I was a mod, and I didn't like him after I was a mod. I was a user here when he scammed GAF and punched his mom. I'd have been okay if he'd been permed, but, like a lot of people who deserved to be permed, he was given extra chances, presumably because he went to rehab to try and improve. We have lots of old users -- people who have been here since before GAF was GAF -- and those old users accrue what appear to be ridiculous numbers of bans compared to modern users. It's because moderators try to take into consideration the frequency of bans, not just the number.

If guy A gets 3 bans in one year, and guy B gets 10 bans in ten years, guy A is a lot more likely to get tossed, regardless of the total number of bans. The process is holistic and includes looking at a poster's performance over a long time scale, not just one post. This is a thing a lot of people don't get. They look for the post that got them permed and say "this is much less obnoxious than that other thing" and completely ignore that it's their ninth ban for the exact same sort of behavior. And the thing is, if someone really tries to improve, we're usually willing to give them another chance. There are dozens of people using alts right now that we know about. And we've left them alone because some time passed and they grew up a little, and came back and didn't repeat their old habits. Some people can't manage that.

As a long time user, Amir0x was at the end of this process. I banned him last time for three months and warned him that if he acted like a shit head when he returned, I'd perm him regardless of how long he'd been at GAF. I've done that with a lot of older members that can't wrap their heads around the fact it's not 2001 anymore and GAF is not a hundred people who all know each other anymore.

This was, of course, before anyone had a clue that he was a fucking pedophile. Like a lot of our posters, we just thought he was an asshole. Like everyone else, we were wrong. It feels awful. It also feels pretty shit to see people using it as a way to attack people because they got banned off a video game forum and there's a lot of that going on. Amir0x was not popular before this, as anyone who ever clicked a youtube link from here ought to know, so it's become quite a holiday for those guys.

Which is part of the reason not a lot of mods really want to have a deep discussion about this. Because they're as bothered as you that he was among us. But they're not willing to take the blame for shit that someone else did. And they don't want to get dragged into the ranting and raging being done by the closet psychopaths who read GAF more carefully than I do so they can cry to each other about how terrible the place is a decade after they got banned. We don't get paid and we have no interest in putting up with that shit. If people want to talk about amir0x and their shock, that's one thing, but it's another when shitbags with an axe to grind use this hideous crime as a weapon.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?p=242230114#post242230114

Bullshit.  I was Permed for speaking up in a race thread and saying it's ok for others to not agree with everything the poli group BLM says.  You know my bans before that?  Calling a guy a fuck face in a thread about frozen spaghetti, posting a picture of a girl that I didn't realize showed pubes, telling Gaimeguy to stop being a pussy.

Bish permed me because he got high on his own supply.

[cosmicblizzard]

Here's the thingo Steveo.We don't need to get into hypotheticals here. This wasn't a beloved GAF personality or someone who was unknown. It was Amir0x, someone that virtually everyone hated, was largely abusive to other users and had a history to bad drama. If it had been someone no one knew or someone everyone thought it was a nice person then I think everyone would be surprised and not insinuate the moderation was complicit. But that's NOT the case here at all. So let's not get into the "what if" discussions when we're talking about the thing that actually happened. I mean when Dennis got banned everyone was like "Yeah, that makes a lot of sense" Should've done the same with Ami.

OK, but again I feel like we're conflating two separate concerns and rolling them up into a kind of disingenuously bigger criticism. It may be a fair cop to say that we need to be fairer about how we moderate. But some out of left field possibilities like "asshole poster also turned out to be a pedophile" really seem unrelated to anything we are trying to do unless there's some reason to think that they might be pedophiles that we are missing. Say we had banned him a year ago. A lot of the biggest concern I'm reading is "wow, this guy used to be a moderator." That would still be true if we had shitcanned him when we arguably should have.

Sure, it is rolling 2 concerns into one, so let's focus on the concern most relevant to the management of the forum itself.  "Asshole poster" shouldn't be a thing because the second "asshole" enters the equation, they shouldn't be a poster anymore.  Amir0x should not have been a mod in the first place.  And no, I don't expect you to do anything about that when you weren't even around back then, I expect there to be some kind of discussion on things like "asshole posters" going forward.  Whether they're on the "right side of history", whether they're arguing in poor faith, whether they're whatever the hell a poster can be in addition to being an asshole, the asshole part should disqualify them from any future discussion.

[agrajag]

Steve, I think the main reason for there being a thread on it is for community awareness. Discussion and catharsis is good even if gaf is terrible at those things.

Bust mostly there needs to be what is basically a warning sign.

A warning sign for what? That there is a former gaffer, currently, in prison, that is a pedo?

Or that he was a drug addicted, mother-beating, lying, bullying scam artist? Hopefully people don't need a damn warning sign for that, he is a walking warning sign.

[I'm a Puppy!]

Can the moderators at least be bothered to go through and unban the members that were baited by Amir0 or, mass-purged by Bishoptl - something for which he was demodded?

Dennis, let GAF go. She's not coming back.

[Dennis]

Mac was a good member of GAF so if he got unfairly banned by Bishoptl I think it would be nice and fair to see if maybe his perm should be reversed.

[agrajag]

Steve, can you answer me this? It is a well established fact that at least one prominent mod admitted in a private conversation to not being impartial in his moderation practices. He created a sort of affirmative action for moderating GAF where either minorities or people whose ideology aligned with his own were not scrutinized to the same standards as other posters. Because "their voices needed to be heard." Do you think this is an isolated case, or endemic to the moderation team on GAF? Because I find it hard to believe Besada was the only one, that with Bish banning anyone he disagreed with, or Dragona leaving mass graveyards in her wake.

Haha. I mean, this is worded in such a way that you can't honestly expect me to give a satisfactory answer. This is a very leading question.

Anyway, like I said I'm not really here to try to win public opinion over to us as a great moderation group.

Well, I think this is really what this is about, this is the crux of the issue, at least to me. There isn't much discussion to be had about Amir0x being a pedophile, or a cheat, or a bully, or a bad son. We all agree that he's awful. But trying to figure out why he was normalized on GAF, that is an interesting topic for me.

[I'm a Puppy!]

Besada

He was a shitty asshole of a person, who thrived on being obnoxious and in your face. I didn't like him before I was a mod, and I didn't like him after I was a mod. I was a user here when he scammed GAF and punched his mom. I'd have been okay if he'd been permed, but, like a lot of people who deserved to be permed, he was given extra chances, presumably because he went to rehab to try and improve. We have lots of old users -- people who have been here since before GAF was GAF -- and those old users accrue what appear to be ridiculous numbers of bans compared to modern users. It's because moderators try to take into consideration the frequency of bans, not just the number.

If guy A gets 3 bans in one year, and guy B gets 10 bans in ten years, guy A is a lot more likely to get tossed, regardless of the total number of bans. The process is holistic and includes looking at a poster's performance over a long time scale, not just one post. This is a thing a lot of people don't get. They look for the post that got them permed and say "this is much less obnoxious than that other thing" and completely ignore that it's their ninth ban for the exact same sort of behavior. And the thing is, if someone really tries to improve, we're usually willing to give them another chance. There are dozens of people using alts right now that we know about. And we've left them alone because some time passed and they grew up a little, and came back and didn't repeat their old habits. Some people can't manage that.

As a long time user, Amir0x was at the end of this process. I banned him last time for three months and warned him that if he acted like a shit head when he returned, I'd perm him regardless of how long he'd been at GAF. I've done that with a lot of older members that can't wrap their heads around the fact it's not 2001 anymore and GAF is not a hundred people who all know each other anymore.

This was, of course, before anyone had a clue that he was a fucking pedophile. Like a lot of our posters, we just thought he was an asshole. Like everyone else, we were wrong. It feels awful. It also feels pretty shit to see people using it as a way to attack people because they got banned off a video game forum and there's a lot of that going on. Amir0x was not popular before this, as anyone who ever clicked a youtube link from here ought to know, so it's become quite a holiday for those guys.

Which is part of the reason not a lot of mods really want to have a deep discussion about this. Because they're as bothered as you that he was among us. But they're not willing to take the blame for shit that someone else did. And they don't want to get dragged into the ranting and raging being done by the closet psychopaths who read GAF more carefully than I do so they can cry to each other about how terrible the place is a decade after they got banned. We don't get paid and we have no interest in putting up with that shit. If people want to talk about amir0x and their shock, that's one thing, but it's another when shitbags with an axe to grind use this hideous crime as a weapon.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?p=242230114#post242230114

I see Besada's position on this is as flimsy as his abs.

[Steve Youngblood]

So, riddle me this - why can't a thread dedicated to this fact, exist on NeoGAF?

Ultimately, this isn't really my call to make. It's a judgement call. I see the reasons for and against. For: this is obviously news (to us at least) and it's something that we'd allow when it's someone like Jared Fogle. Against: shitty person or not we're talking about a forum person and not a legitimate public figure. Furthermore -- and I'll again note to you that this is not my call to make and I'm just giving you my own opinion as opposed to anything even vaguely resembling the official company line -- aside from the understandable "wow this guy sure is an awful piece of garbage" posts which would be absolutely deserved, it's hard to imagine it not also just doubling as some NeoGAF metacommentary drama thread.

I'm asking you honestly here: do you think that a thread on GAF wouldn't basically just go down exactly like this thread now or a voat thread? And if you don't, do you honestly think it's important catharsis that people be able to proudly deride amir0x as a worthless piece of shit on NeoGAF? These may seem like combative, rhetorical questions, but I'm asking them in earnest.

Evilore has his ego threads. Honestly, the thread will be a shit show and even we will feel bad even if Amirox is a scumbag, some of us probably will be worried he will kill himself. But also, be honest, neogaf is not having a Amirox thread because the mod team (or, specifically,  Evilore)  is worried about being to dehumanizing.

Dehumanizing to Amir0x?

So you are worry that people are going to calling out mods?

I'm not trying to say "someone might call me out and I'd be sad and I don't want that." I'm saying I imagine it would largely turn into a metadrama thread. Though it's unpopular I'm sure, curtailing that sort of thing is consistent with the way things have been on the site since forever.

Maybe it wouldn't go that way. Or maybe with heavyhanded moderation we could force it to not go that way. But like I said the other side of it is just "what do you see as the benefit of this thread?" Now I get it. Some people have answered. I'm not trying to ignore your answers. You may have a point. I'm just not sure that the staff is convinced that a cathartic "amir0x sure is shitty and I hope he rots in prison" thread is needed.

[Dennis]

Besada

He was a shitty asshole of a person, who thrived on being obnoxious and in your face. I didn't like him before I was a mod, and I didn't like him after I was a mod. I was a user here when he scammed GAF and punched his mom. I'd have been okay if he'd been permed, but, like a lot of people who deserved to be permed, he was given extra chances, presumably because he went to rehab to try and improve. We have lots of old users -- people who have been here since before GAF was GAF -- and those old users accrue what appear to be ridiculous numbers of bans compared to modern users. It's because moderators try to take into consideration the frequency of bans, not just the number.

If guy A gets 3 bans in one year, and guy B gets 10 bans in ten years, guy A is a lot more likely to get tossed, regardless of the total number of bans. The process is holistic and includes looking at a poster's performance over a long time scale, not just one post. This is a thing a lot of people don't get. They look for the post that got them permed and say "this is much less obnoxious than that other thing" and completely ignore that it's their ninth ban for the exact same sort of behavior. And the thing is, if someone really tries to improve, we're usually willing to give them another chance. There are dozens of people using alts right now that we know about. And we've left them alone because some time passed and they grew up a little, and came back and didn't repeat their old habits. Some people can't manage that.

As a long time user, Amir0x was at the end of this process. I banned him last time for three months and warned him that if he acted like a shit head when he returned, I'd perm him regardless of how long he'd been at GAF. I've done that with a lot of older members that can't wrap their heads around the fact it's not 2001 anymore and GAF is not a hundred people who all know each other anymore.

This was, of course, before anyone had a clue that he was a fucking pedophile. Like a lot of our posters, we just thought he was an asshole. Like everyone else, we were wrong. It feels awful. It also feels pretty shit to see people using it as a way to attack people because they got banned off a video game forum and there's a lot of that going on. Amir0x was not popular before this, as anyone who ever clicked a youtube link from here ought to know, so it's become quite a holiday for those guys.

Which is part of the reason not a lot of mods really want to have a deep discussion about this. Because they're as bothered as you that he was among us. But they're not willing to take the blame for shit that someone else did. And they don't want to get dragged into the ranting and raging being done by the closet psychopaths who read GAF more carefully than I do so they can cry to each other about how terrible the place is a decade after they got banned. We don't get paid and we have no interest in putting up with that shit. If people want to talk about amir0x and their shock, that's one thing, but it's another when shitbags with an axe to grind use this hideous crime as a weapon.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?p=242230114#post242230114

 

I think Besada may have forgotten the part where he deliberately gives posters he doesn't like a rapid series of small bullshit bans so he can justify the final permanent ban.

"Look, they just wouldn't learn"

[Boredfrom]

I'd have been okay if he'd been permed, but, like a lot of people who deserved to be permed, he was given extra chances, presumably because he went to rehab to try and improve.

FUCK YOU ASSHOLE

Don't try to use this to wash yourself from wrongdoing. You know perfectly well that you thrive in giving favoritism to others.

[benjipwns]

Dragona leaving mass graveyards in her wake.

Oscar always called BS on this.

There were some now gone mods who did a lot of the tone policing that Evilore eventually got upset about and there were staff changes then.

There is at least one mod who watches the dogpiling (including plenty of that insulting users that's against the ToS) and then bans the dogpiled at a crescendo when they break because you can see it happen in real time. Is it besada, I dunno, MHWilliams maybe, Christine? Metroid fan but then so Dennis claims to be and we know what he's done, but it would be kinda fun to figure that one out.

Evilore doesn't even have 20,000 posts on the forum interestingly. He has fewer in thirteen year than NoblesseOblige has racked up in three years.

[agrajag]

I see Besada's position on this is as flimsy as his abs.

The only thing more disgraceful than fat-shaming Besada is ban-shaming Dennis, and you have done both. I say good day to you sir!

[archie4208]

http://m.neogaf.com/showthread.php?t=1399348

Plz help me validate my Zelda adapter purchase

Arms is awesome

[Cerveza mas fina]

clearly amirox is a very disturbed person, always knew he was cray cray but this is disgusting

[agrajag]

But seriously, Besada is the last person that should be listened to about ban-logic. He has been already exposed for the way he really operates.

[Trent Dole]

Still proud of my account suicide of I don't even know how many years ago now.
I probably need a new avatar here now.

[Atramental]

I wish my account suicide was a bit more thought out.

Instead I just ended up being extra snarky to Dax01 during my on-and-off FemAtra phase.

[I'm a Puppy!]

I see Besada's position on this is as flimsy as his abs.

The only thing more disgraceful than fat-shaming Besada is ban-shaming Dennis, and you have done both. I say good day to you sir!

Dennis was banned? ... Eh, that was probably a good idea.

[Boredfrom]

But seriously, Besada is the last person that should be listened to about ban-logic. He has been already exposed for the way he really operates.

This is the guy that threatens you with a ban if you not present proof of something, presents the proof and bans you anyway (and deletes every post calling him out or edit his original threatening message).

[agrajag]

On the plus side, look how much mileage Bore got out of this Amir0x fiasco!

[Rufus]

A (most certainly fruitless) moderation discussion. Eh.

Did bring more life into the place though. Small blessings. (Particularly small, considering the spark.)

[Himu]

So, riddle me this - why can't a thread dedicated to this fact, exist on NeoGAF?

Ultimately, this isn't really my call to make. It's a judgement call. I see the reasons for and against. For: this is obviously news (to us at least) and it's something that we'd allow when it's someone like Jared Fogle. Against: shitty person or not we're talking about a forum person and not a legitimate public figure. Furthermore -- and I'll again note to you that this is not my call to make and I'm just giving you my own opinion as opposed to anything even vaguely resembling the official company line -- aside from the understandable "wow this guy sure is an awful piece of garbage" posts which would be absolutely deserved, it's hard to imagine it not also just doubling as some NeoGAF metacommentary drama thread.

I'm asking you honestly here: do you think that a thread on GAF wouldn't basically just go down exactly like this thread now or a voat thread? And if you don't, do you honestly think it's important catharsis that people be able to proudly deride amir0x as a worthless piece of shit on NeoGAF? These may seem like combative, rhetorical questions, but I'm asking them in earnest.

It deserves to go down like this thread. Yes. Absolutely.

Yes, people are owed that catharsis. For fucks sake, Amir0x was the most virtuous mother fucker on NeoGAF, who shit talked, baited people into bans and had his head so fucking far up his own ass. Dude was unhinged, truly. We're not talking about some benign junior with 40 posts who joined last year.

Discussion isn't limited to public figures - what the fuck is to be gained from that pregnant lady going Twisted Metal on the purse thief? Or some YouTube wannabe shooting her idiotic boyfriend with a pistol as a "prank".

Oh no NeoGAF might have to endure some meta-commentary. Oh woe is me. Mess with a bull, you get the horns and all that.

Despite beating his mom. Despite scamming NeoGAF out of 12 fucking grand. Despite admitting to possessing child porn, Amir0x is STILL being protected, to save poor NeoGAF from itself. Like what the fuck???

I truly think segata was right and that ami has dirt on Lore. Given Ami has stayed in Lore's house.....

[Boredfrom]

A (most certainly fruitless) moderation discussion. Eh.

Seems to actually helped Steve out to sort things out with himself a little. Why call it fruitless?

[Propagandhim]

On a somewhat related note...how grateful are you guys, knowing you'll be sleeping in a warm bed and not a prison cot for several years?

Good night, y'all.

[I'm a Puppy!]

Eh, if having dirt on someone on GAF was enough to keep you from being banned I'd be the most ban-proof person out there.

I don't believe it for a second.