Maybe the real NeoGAF was the friends we made along the way...

[Kyougar]

Another eye-opening moment for me, that Gaf was going down the drain was the "funny Mass Effect Andromeda" Thread.
We had fun laughing our asses of off the hilariously bad animations and bugs. No one was harassing anyone, just calling out the ineptitude of such a high profile developer/publisher shipping such a game.
Then there was one tweet from someone, where a female employee of Bioware was called out for her animation work and the tweet was posted in the thread. BAM! Modbot closes the thread because of harassment. I mean, wtf?

[agrajag]

.. so this thread is litchurally GAF now, huh? Like when you imitate something too long, you become it, is that the lesson?

you reached this conclusion by observing a bunch of gaf expatriates posting gaf things?

[Lothar]

Courtesy of the SA forums.




https://twitter.com/FFireworker/status/921841771595943938
https://twitter.com/FFireworker/status/921850410842894336
https://twitter.com/FFireworker/status/921852277945708544
https://twitter.com/FFireworker/status/921910200558342146

[thehunter116]

.. so this thread is litchurally GAF now, huh? Like when you imitate something too long, you become it, is that the lesson?

Well all we need is the admin here to go touch a girl in the shower and the circle is complete.

[exGAF]

Returning to the discussion about Besada's protection of minority groups: I think this is a good foil to discuss the broader challenge of moderating a large, responsible forum like GAF.

In the broadest abstract, I actually agree with Besada that minorities need to be protected. The tyranny of the majority is a real thing, and at the very least we need to offer some protection to disadvantaged or small groups so that they aren't simply overwhelmed. The idea, out of context, is sound, in my opinion.

But there are a couple specifics I feel most of the other moderators (not just Besada here) were missing, or at least which I think were important:

1) The most important kind of minority is not a racial minority or a religious minority, but an intellectual one. Often these go hand in hand (i.e. different religions have different intellectual bases), but they are not identical, and if I had to pick one type of diversity to defend first and foremost (I'd like to defend them all, of course) it would be intellectual diversity. It often seems that many people focus exclusively on more superficial types of diversity, and that seemed to be the case with several other moderators, to me.

2) What defines a minority is significantly context dependent. For instance, I am a white guy living in America, so at the moment I definitely do not qualify as a minority. But if I were to move to China -- as my sister has -- then I would rather quickly find myself as a minority, and the same tyranny-of-the-majority rules apply, where my sister is often ignored or overlooked because she is not naturally Chinese. As an example. Similarly, on GAF, conservatives were a minority, and I felt deserving of some protection simply because their voices were being drowned out. It didn't even have to be mean spirited drowning out -- if one person advocated a conservative position, he would often get 8 retorts back from liberals, simply because there were so many more liberals than conservatives. Even if none of those people was inherently trying to "pick" on the conservative, the end result must have been exhausting if you happened to hold political views that were not majority GAF opinion.

So I ultimately agree that protecting minority rights is important, just like Besada felt. I just think that means different things at different times. If I were moderating FoxsNews.Com forums, I would probably have found it necessary to reach and give special protections to liberals. If I were moderating MensHealth.com, I would probably feel obliged to make sure women who happened to post on that forum feel comfortable. Being a minority is context dependent, and most importantly can include being an intellectual minority. This, in essence, was a consistent sticking point between me and much of the other moderation staff.

minority here. ethnic and religious. i didnt need to be protected because of those 2 things if dogpiling would have been frowned upon. that was the issue. many users were allowed to dogpile on others regardless of level of differing opinion. if the opinion was literal hate, any forum which wasnt 4chan would ban that but if you werent PURELY within the slipstream of the collective thread opinion, you would be banned for being neutral. being neutral or aloof or not interested in politics of a situation or not interested in picking fights is not, should not be bannable offense. this is what ticked off most of the folks who were not the actual haters but who got run over by friendly fire.

and every one was triggered by everything moving. A word was different and everyone was piled on. it was a snake eating itself.

Yeah, near the end NeoGAF felt like everything was racism. It got ridiculous.

[Frankie_baby]

Anyone know if salesGAF have found a home anywhere yet, its npd day tomorrow and i really dont want to grate my eyes on vgbolloxzzzzzzz

[agrajag]

build your entire existence around a video game forum brehs

 

[demi]

.. so this thread is litchurally GAF now, huh? Like when you imitate something too long, you become it, is that the lesson?

Well all we need is the admin here to go touch a girl in the shower and the circle is complete.

[radioheadrule83]

It all started going to shit the moment the more oppressive political consensus / consensii started seeping in to gaming threads. I would often agree with the consensus, in terms of socially progressive matters, but wielding those views like a bludgeon in threads where people just wanna talk about games? It would become "I want to shit on X or Y because of Z political / twitter bollocks". Gamergate was a cataclysm. It had a real counter-reaction on GAF.

As much as I have gleaned some enjoyment out of the shitstorm, reading 4/v and 8/v/ celebrating it as a victory for anti-Social Studies Warrior causes and all that shit is fuckin sad. PDP is a fuckstick as well. The sooner his 'fame' ends the better.

[Interficium]

Then there was one tweet from someone, where a female employee of Bioware was called out for her animation work and the tweet was posted in the thread. BAM! Modbot closes the thread because of harassment. I mean, wtf?

The female employee was a nobody support animation person who had nothing to do with why your stupid toy wasn't animated well enough for you.

The Andromeda thread, and conversely you, are both shining examples of why absolutely nobody is mourning GAF today.

Rest in piss you stupid fuck.

[nudemacusers]

I would like to state for the record, for anyone viewing, at no time have i ever been successfully convicted of being a nazi. please direct further questions to my lawyer, who despite his jewish heritage, is quite well-read on the subject of libel and slander.

You have shit taste in fashion brah.

MODS HELP!!!!!!!

Demi don't care

Really need the mods to step up and address the anti-fashionist sentiment I keep encountering here and elsewhere in the gaming community

[Opiate]

anyone know what happeend to BishopTL? did he know? he bailed out long ago. Same with EatChildren.

Apparently, he was permabanning posters he didn't care for incognito. EL found out and he was demodded. Technically he was an admin, so higher than a mod.

EatChildren just got tired with mod duties I think.

I’m still curious about the bish situation, if anyone wants to clear it up. He ALWAYS did mass bans and didn’t record them, from way back when I started modding. It was obvious if you even glanced at the ban log or poked around in the user database. I figured he was just allowed to do that. So did he do something else or more extreme to get de-adminned?

EL said that all banning needed to be cleared with him, though? He also said Bish was doing this for years, so maybe he was not aware until recently?

That definitely was not the case. The process of banning was this:

1) You ban the person. Up to you, as a moderator, to determine severity, etc.
2) In the mod forum, you catalog the ban. I banned XYZ for 20 days, for this post. Link post.

That's it. Very occasionally, someone would say, "that ban seems wrong to me," or something like that, but it was rarely if ever Evilore, as he was not engaged in day to day moderation duties -- and when he did decided to take part, his hand was often very heavy.

I was already gone when Bish left, but I can tell you that he was particularly and emphatically opposed to my banning certain people for attacking even remotely conservative posters. He was also especially willing to forgive posters who may have flown, let's say, a little off the handle, if they happened to espouse beliefs he shared. Again, I cannot say if this eventually led to his exit, but I doubt I was the only one to experience that friction. I noted before that there was definitely tribalism among the GAF mods, but he was especially notable, being highly protective of "his people" (whether we're speaking ideologically or otherwise) and very quick to ban people who were from other tribes.

Do you feel like shit now that you're aware that everyone outside Neogaf despise it BECAUSE petty and despicable moderation practice, not be allowed to voice opinion without fearing ban hammer from basement dweller moderators and all that ?

I'm a muslim, I work in fashion with woman only, left and all and even I never dare to make an account there.

I don't. I felt the moderation team made the site the powerhouse that it is (or, rather, was). There was a reason that it was the most popular gaming forum by a large margin, and I absolutely believe that the moderation team (mostly not me, mind you) is considerably responsible for that. It doesn't mean we were everyone's cup of tea, of course. And I obviously have some criticisms myself, as demonstrated in this thread. But despite my criticisms, I very much felt like it made the least-toxic gaming forum for a long while, from at least 2008-2012.

[KarpalaJoe]

Another eye-opening moment for me, that Gaf was going down the drain was the "funny Mass Effect Andromeda" Thread.
We had fun laughing our asses of off the hilariously bad animations and bugs. No one was harassing anyone, just calling out the ineptitude of such a high profile developer/publisher shipping such a game.
Then there was one tweet from someone, where a female employee of Bioware was called out for her animation work and the tweet was posted in the thread. BAM! Modbot closes the thread because of harassment. I mean, wtf?

Lol right, remember the Nintendo employee who was fired because she had a second job. Everyone jumped the gun so fast, 90% of gaf member lined on the girl side, saying she wasn't guilty of anything etc. Everyone who said to wait a little before spitting on Nintendo were banned so fast... We learned later that she was an escort or something and made some thesis defending pedophilia and pedocriminality during her studies. The meltdown was glorious.

What a guilty pleasure neogaf was, you entertained guy like me for so long...



 

[Blair]

Really all it comes down to is the owner. You will always get mods who play favourites and pull bullshit, especially on a forum that aggressively opposes any kind of transparency (PM A MOD BTW) but the buck stops with the owner.

Evilore would come in time to time to tell everyone how he thinks a forum should be run (we need to be able to talk) as if he didn't fucking own the site. Then when anyone meekly told him he was in charge he would nuke their account. Baffling strange man.

[Rman]

build your entire existence around a video game forum brehs

 

GAF had a lot of lonely and depressed people. Suicide threads were very common.  Didn’t some guy said he was gonna kill himself because the site cratered yesterday?

[Bravotyler]

Finale Fireworker was the guy who typed up an essay about how he bullied and humiliated some kid for years and never felt any remorse about it. He should have kept in touch with that one mod who wrote about his fantasy of violently murdering someone.

[Averon]

Who was worse? Lime or Rinsfury?

[Raist]

http://www.usgamer.net/articles/neogaf-goes-dark-after-sexual-assault-allegations-against-founder

[TypicalVoatShitlord]

[agrajag]

build your entire existence around a video game forum brehs

 

GAF had a lot of lonely and depressed people. Suicide threads were very common.  Didn’t some guy said he was gonna kill himself because the site cratered yesterday?

I guess. I mean, I'm lonely and depressed. We have a depression thread on here too. But those guys are on a whole other level.

[Sirge]

Returning to the discussion about Besada's protection of minority groups: I think this is a good foil to discuss the broader challenge of moderating a large, responsible forum like GAF.

In the broadest abstract, I actually agree with Besada that minorities need to be protected. The tyranny of the majority is a real thing, and at the very least we need to offer some protection to disadvantaged or small groups so that they aren't simply overwhelmed. The idea, out of context, is sound, in my opinion.

But there are a couple specifics I feel most of the other moderators (not just Besada here) were missing, or at least which I think were important:

1) The most important kind of minority is not a racial minority or a religious minority, but an intellectual one. Often these go hand in hand (i.e. different religions have different intellectual bases), but they are not identical, and if I had to pick one type of diversity to defend first and foremost (I'd like to defend them all, of course) it would be intellectual diversity. It often seems that many people focus exclusively on more superficial types of diversity, and that seemed to be the case with several other moderators, to me.

2) What defines a minority is significantly context dependent. For instance, I am a white guy living in America, so at the moment I definitely do not qualify as a minority. But if I were to move to China -- as my sister has -- then I would rather quickly face at least some of the issues a minority faces, where my sister is often ignored or overlooked because she is not naturally Chinese. Again, just an example. Similarly, on GAF, conservatives were a minority, and I felt deserving of some protection simply because their voices were being drowned out. It didn't even have to be mean spirited drowning out -- if one person advocated a conservative position, he would often get 8 retorts back from liberals, simply because there were so many more liberals than conservatives. Even if none of those people was inherently trying to "pick" on the conservative, the end result must have been exhausting if you happened to hold political views that were not majority GAF opinion.

So I definitely agree that protecting minority rights is important, just like Besada felt. However, I think "protecting minority rights" means different things at different times. If I were moderating FoxsNews.Com forums, I would probably have found it necessary to reach and give special protections to liberals. If I were moderating MensHealth.com, I would probably feel obliged to make sure women who happened to post on that forum felt comfortable. Being a minority is context dependent, and most importantly can include being an intellectual minority. This, in essence, was a consistent sticking point between me and much of the other moderation staff.

I agree with all of this.

Can't help but think that you were too damn intelligent and level-headed for that forum. You understand nuance and clearly plot out your thinking from A to Z when necessary - something almost no one else on GAF was capable of. I do wonder what it would have been like if you had been in charge. Totally agreed with you regarding Fiction, too. In the end Gaf became a place where immediate emotional reactions won out over any kind of difficult discussion. That's fine when debating video games - who cares - but when talking social and political matters it's poison.

/dicksucking

[VomKriege]

Ok  I know I'm a huge hypocrite but the thread is turbobollocks right now. Maybe we can set up a welcome thread for new users where they can vent a bit and close this one until THE STATEMENT drops.

Shit reads like 4 different terrible GAF OffTopic threads rolled in one.

[Opiate]

Not just neutral, but not sufficiently militant.  Eg. That thread where some got banned/demodded because they didn’t think beating people up was a good idea comes to mind.

Absolutely, and this process escalates ceaselessly until something breaks down. As the insufficiently pure are purged, the definition of "insufficiently pure" edges upward, and the next tier is brought to the gallows. You can actually see this process demonstrated rather readily in the Republican party right now, where centrist Republicans are gradually being eliminated and increasingly conservative replacements are being chosen in their stead. This particular cycle is very nasty, and I suspect there must be a name for it in social sciences.

[Sai]

Returning to the discussion about Besada's protection of minority groups: I think this is a good foil to discuss the broader challenge of moderating a large, responsible forum like GAF.

In the broadest abstract, I actually agree with Besada that minorities need to be protected. The tyranny of the majority is a real thing, and at the very least we need to offer some protection to disadvantaged or small groups so that they aren't simply overwhelmed. The idea, out of context, is sound, in my opinion.

But there are a couple specifics I feel most of the other moderators (not just Besada here) were missing, or at least which I think were important:

1) The most important kind of minority is not a racial minority or a religious minority, but an intellectual one. Often these go hand in hand (i.e. different religions have different intellectual bases), but they are not identical, and if I had to pick one type of diversity to defend first and foremost (I'd like to defend them all, of course) it would be intellectual diversity. It often seems that many people focus exclusively on more superficial types of diversity, and that seemed to be the case with several other moderators, to me.

2) What defines a minority is significantly context dependent. For instance, I am a white guy living in America, so at the moment I definitely do not qualify as a minority. But if I were to move to China -- as my sister has -- then I would rather quickly face at least some of the issues a minority faces, where my sister is often ignored or overlooked because she is not naturally Chinese. Again, just an example. Similarly, on GAF, conservatives were a minority, and I felt deserving of some protection simply because their voices were being drowned out. It didn't even have to be mean spirited drowning out -- if one person advocated a conservative position, he would often get 8 retorts back from liberals, simply because there were so many more liberals than conservatives. Even if none of those people was inherently trying to "pick" on the conservative, the end result must have been exhausting if you happened to hold political views that were not majority GAF opinion.

So I definitely agree that protecting minority rights is important, just like Besada felt. However, I think "protecting minority rights" means different things at different times. If I were moderating FoxsNews.Com forums, I would probably have found it necessary to reach and give special protections to liberals. If I were moderating MensHealth.com, I would probably feel obliged to make sure women who happened to post on that forum felt comfortable. Being a minority is context dependent, and most importantly can include being an intellectual minority. This, in essence, was a consistent sticking point between me and much of the other moderation staff.

I agree with all of this.

Can't help but think that you were too damn intelligent and level-headed for that forum. You understand nuance and clearly plot out your thinking from A to Z when necessary - something almost no one else on GAF was capable of. I do wonder what it would have been like if you had been in charge. Totally agreed with you regarding Fiction, too. In the end Gaf became a place where immediate emotional reactions won out over any kind of difficult discussion. That's fine when debating video games - who cares - but when talking social and political matters it's poison.

/dicksucking

hey its a pointless internet forum

hope this helps

[injurai]

I would like to state for the record, for anyone viewing, at no time have i ever been successfully convicted of being a nazi. please direct further questions to my lawyer, who despite his jewish heritage, is quite well-read on the subject of libel and slander.

You have shit taste in fashion brah.

MODS HELP!!!!!!!

Demi don't care

Really need the mods to step up and address the anti-fashionist sentiment I keep encountering here and elsewhere in the gaming community

Is this the antifa I keep hearing about?

[OpinionatedCyborg]

(Image removed from quote.)

spoiler (click to show/hide)

i made this up but i desperately wish it were true

[close]

[Rman]

build your entire existence around a video game forum brehs

 

GAF had a lot of lonely and depressed people. Suicide threads were very common.  Didn’t some guy said he was gonna kill himself because the site cratered yesterday?

I guess. I mean, I'm lonely and depressed. We have a depression thread on here too. But those guys are on a whole other level.

Yeah, I'm not bagging on them. I've been in those dark places too, but it was super common.  I do fear for those who put tons of emotional investment in GAF.  The Internet is just not the place to get those needs met.

[TVC15]

Finale Fireworker was the guy who typed up an essay about how he bullied and humiliated some kid for years and never felt any remorse about it. He should have kept in touch with that one mod who wrote about his fantasy of violently murdering someone.

I have a name, ya know.

[VomKriege]

Also just me but I dunno if I care about stuff written on Slaent, even by some of the posters we made ample fun of. Good for them if they fit in. Slaent seems fairly chill.

Anyway u do u

[Nervousxtian]

I actually liked Opiate's weird world-view (though I'm not going to bat for no peds, sorry bro... not worth it)   More so he looked deeper than surface issues.   He didn't care as much if he was insensitive if he was basing his views on actual facts.   He was always one of the more fair mods.    Others were just protecting their own.    I just hated how everything became about race, and if you didn't echo-chamber in the thread you were banned or dogpiled and at that point.. what's the point of even allowing the thread to exist.   

You could tell in the last year that Evilore resented what the site had become.. but letting people like Besada and Bish pilot the ship meant it was going to crash hard anyhow.   

It's strange I liked Gaf because it was heavily modded, but I also completely disagreed with how unfairly it was modded.     Let's be honest, there was about what 20 posters who stirred shit up daily and never seemed to get a perm that if they did would have made the whole site better.

There's not coming back from this though...  Tyler rightfully made a lot of enemies in the industry and the internet net through the years... and it's funny as hell the thing that brings him down is the same shit that he would have banned someone for in an instant.   

[KarpalaJoe]

anyone know what happeend to BishopTL? did he know? he bailed out long ago. Same with EatChildren.

Apparently, he was permabanning posters he didn't care for incognito. EL found out and he was demodded. Technically he was an admin, so higher than a mod.

EatChildren just got tired with mod duties I think.

I’m still curious about the bish situation, if anyone wants to clear it up. He ALWAYS did mass bans and didn’t record them, from way back when I started modding. It was obvious if you even glanced at the ban log or poked around in the user database. I figured he was just allowed to do that. So did he do something else or more extreme to get de-adminned?

EL said that all banning needed to be cleared with him, though? He also said Bish was doing this for years, so maybe he was not aware until recently?

That definitely was not the case. The process of banning was this:

1) You ban the person. Up to you, as a moderator, to determine severity, etc.
2) In the mod forum, you catalog the ban. I banned XYZ for 20 days, for this post. Link post.

That's it. Very occasionally, someone would say, "that ban seems wrong to me," or something like that, but it was rarely if ever Evilore, as he was not engaged in day to day moderation duties -- and when he did decided to take part, his hand was often very heavy.

I was already gone when Bish left, but I can tell you that he was particularly and emphatically opposed to my banning certain people for attacking even remotely conservative posters. He was also especially willing to forgive posters who may have flown, let's say, a little off the handle, if they happened to espouse beliefs he shared. Again, I cannot say if this eventually led to his exit, but I doubt I was the only one to experience that friction. I noted before that there was definitely tribalism among the GAF mods, but he was especially notable, being highly protective of "his people" (whether we're speaking ideologically or otherwise) and very quick to ban people who were from other tribes.

Do you feel like shit now that you're aware that everyone outside Neogaf despise it BECAUSE petty and despicable moderation practice, not be allowed to voice opinion without fearing ban hammer from basement dweller moderators and all that ?

I'm a muslim, I work in fashion with woman only, left and all and even I never dare to make an account there.

I don't. I felt the moderation team made the site the powerhouse that it is (or, rather, was). There was a reason that it was the most popular gaming forum by a large margin, and I absolutely believe that the moderation team (mostly not me, mind you) is considerably responsible for that. It doesn't mean we were everyone's cup of tea, of course. And I obviously have some criticisms myself, as demonstrated in this thread. But despite my criticisms, I very much felt like it made the least-toxic gaming forum for a long while, from at least 2008-2012.

What bubble do you live in ?

Gaf was popular because it was the place to get the news the quickest and famous guy posted there on the gaming side (Durante), that's all. It has strictly nothing to do with your croisade against everyone who did not share your weird vision of the world.

If you think it has to do with shitty moderation practice, you are completely delusional.

[RowRow]

Ok  I know I'm a huge hypocrite but the thread is turbobollocks right now. Maybe we can set up a welcome thread for new users where they can vent a bit and close this one until THE STATEMENT drops.

Shit reads like 4 different terrible GAF OffTopic threads rolled in one.

People aren't respecting Demi's wishes to not turn this place into GAF.

We're going to need lots of dickpics to appease him.

[thehunter116]

I would like to state for the record, for anyone viewing, at no time have i ever been successfully convicted of being a nazi. please direct further questions to my lawyer, who despite his jewish heritage, is quite well-read on the subject of libel and slander.

You have shit taste in fashion brah.

MODS HELP!!!!!!!

Demi don't care

Really need the mods to step up and address the anti-fashionist sentiment I keep encountering here and elsewhere in the gaming community

Take your colorful garments and sleek suits outta here.

[Occam]

Not just neutral, but not sufficiently militant.  Eg. That thread where some got banned/demodded because they didn’t think beating people up was a good idea comes to mind.

Absolutely, and this process escalates ceaselessly until something breaks down. As the insufficiently pure are purged, the definition of "insufficiently pure" edges upward, and the next tier is brought to the gallows. You can actually see this process demonstrated rather readily in the Republican party right now, where centrist Republicans are gradually being eliminated and increasingly conservative replacements are being chosen in their stead. This particular cycle is very nasty, and I suspect there must be a name for it in social sciences.

French Revolution?

[clothedmacuser]

(Image removed from quote.)

Him telling people to step out of their bubble.

 

[Shaka Khan]

My biggest regret is believing in the community and leadership so much that I had endure ads for years.

[thehunter116]

(Image removed from quote.)

I mean...there are some valid points in there.

Although I'd say ALL fandoms can be pretty damn toxic. I'm looking at you Halo fandom.

[Raist]

Not just neutral, but not sufficiently militant.  Eg. That thread where some got banned/demodded because they didn’t think beating people up was a good idea comes to mind.

Absolutely, and this process escalates ceaselessly until something breaks down. As the insufficiently pure are purged, the definition of "insufficiently pure" edges upward, and the next tier is brought to the gallows. You can actually see this process demonstrated rather readily in the Republican party right now, where centrist Republicans are gradually being eliminated and increasingly conservative replacements are being chosen in their stead. This particular cycle is very nasty, and I suspect there must be a name for it in social sciences.

French Revolution?

Mods pls

[Opiate]

What bubble do you live in ?

Gaf was popular because it was the place to get the news the quickest and famous guy posted there on the gaming side (Durante), that's all. It has strictly nothing to do with your croisade against everyone who did not share your weird vision of the world.

If you think it has to do with shitty moderation practice, you are completely delusional.

You're welcome to think that, and there is certainly an argument for the position that GAF just got lucky. I do not agree, however. I can go in to detail if necessary, but I fear many are already rather bored with my verbosity, which has clearly not been assuaged by the passing of time.

[D3RANG3D]

 

[Blair]

(Image removed from quote.)

I love it when that little community uses the "NO U" approach

Literally obsessed with being a pathetic protected user clique on a shitty videogame forum but everyone else are the losers right

No mother besada to protect them anymore lol

[Occam]

Is there any work in progress to create a new GAF that won't just repeat the sames mistakes as NeoGAF?

[injurai]

What bubble do you live in ?

Gaf was popular because it was the place to get the news the quickest and famous guy posted there on the gaming side (Durante), that's all. It has strictly nothing to do with your croisade against everyone who did not share your weird vision of the world.

If you think it has to do with shitty moderation practice, you are completely delusional.

You're welcome to think that, and there is certainly an argument for the position that GAF just got lucky. I do not agree, however. I can go in to detail if necessary, but I fear many are already rather bored with my verbosity, which has clearly not been assuaged by the passing of time.

out with it

[Raist]

Was there a statement?

Yes.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

503 Service Unavailable
Our apologies for the temporary inconvenience. NeoGAF is currently down for scheduled maintenance. Please be patient while the site is down.

[close]

[T-Short]

I remember the short lived NeoGAF podcast with Dcharlie, Blackace, and Sporsk.

That may have been pre-NeoGAF.  It was the GAFCast and it started with Chris Kohler too.  When Blackace took over he asked me what I thought of it and I told him that Sp0rks didn't seem to fit in very well.  He left soon after that.   

I edited that podcast! That's also how I got modded, coincidentally.

[Makai]

Cerium spinoff update

@everyone We understand that there is a great deal of frustration regarding Evilore and the current state of our communities. However, constantly making jokes about the events surrounding Evilore only serves to continue our association with him. It also contributes to clutter in the chat and may make victims feel uncomforatble. So from this point forward, any comments pertaining to Evilore/Tyler Malka will be deleted and repeat offenders will face a ban. Thank you.

[Interficium]

It begins.

[jacob.armitage]

Ok  I know I'm a huge hypocrite but the thread is turbobollocks right now. Maybe we can set up a welcome thread for new users where they can vent a bit and close this one until THE STATEMENT drops.

Shit reads like 4 different terrible GAF OffTopic threads rolled in one.

It does, but gloriously so.

[agrajag]

Yeah, I don't buy this "GAF was popular because it was a socially engineered perfectly curated user experience" nonsense. It was a fun forum that had a few industry insiders and a fun off topic forum where people could just shoot the shit. Even in its hey day, heavy handed moderation was prevalent, like when dragona went on her mass purges and a lot of good posters were lost. Or when they started banning benign memes like caturday.

[seagrams hotsauce]

What bubble do you live in ?

Gaf was popular because it was the place to get the news the quickest and famous guy posted there on the gaming side (Durante), that's all. It has strictly nothing to do with your croisade against everyone who did not share your weird vision of the world.

If you think it has to do with shitty moderation practice, you are completely delusional.

You're welcome to think that, and there is certainly an argument for the position that GAF just got lucky. I do not agree, however. I can go in to detail if necessary, but I fear many are already rather bored with my verbosity, which has clearly not been assuaged by the passing of time.

please don't dawg your walls of text are ambiensauce and u type like a dickhead. need to get one of these to put next to ur monitor when u go off

[KarpalaJoe]

Is there any work in progress to create a new GAF that won't just repeat the sames mistakes as NeoGAF?

It won't happen imo because it will always attract the same kind of members : people that feel very insecure about other world view and need a safe bubble to live in. It will always ends being the same Neogaf of those past years.

[Pills Here]

I hope loundninja manages to hit his PSBlog KPIs this month.

[Nervousxtian]

What bubble do you live in ?

Gaf was popular because it was the place to get the news the quickest and famous guy posted there on the gaming side (Durante), that's all. It has strictly nothing to do with your croisade against everyone who did not share your weird vision of the world.

If you think it has to do with shitty moderation practice, you are completely delusional.

You're welcome to think that, and there is certainly an argument for the position that GAF just got lucky. I do not agree, however. I can go in to detail if necessary, but I fear many are already rather bored with my verbosity, which has clearly not been assuaged by the passing of time.

For sure the moderation was a key to it being successful.    It did a pretty good job of eliminating a LOT of the shit posting.    Take one look at the pages from yesterday when people didn't fear being banned from a dying site.       

The problem was that the whims of some of the mods, and the group-think and protecting of certain tribes meant that the moderation was anything but perceived as fair.    People who are dancing on Gaf's grave probably for the most part deserved when they were banned, but a good portion of them didn't.      The lack of transparency about it as well was troublesome.. especially during the Bish ban-hammer era that basically eliminated any conservative viewpoints, and gave the BCT free reign to shit up everything they wanted with no fear of reprisal.     People actively baited people into bans.. and the mods let it happen.

Most of that took place after you stepped down, but some of it still was taking place when you were there.     I think the unfairness and lack of transparency was the biggest issue.

[Jansen]

I can't believe I have to live in a world where opiate can post here but Creepy Stalker can't.

The Darkest Timeline indeed.

[Kyougar]

Then there was one tweet from someone, where a female employee of Bioware was called out for her animation work and the tweet was posted in the thread. BAM! Modbot closes the thread because of harassment. I mean, wtf?

The female employee was a nobody support animation person who had nothing to do with why your stupid toy wasn't animated well enough for you.

The Andromeda thread, and conversely you, are both shining examples of why absolutely nobody is mourning GAF today.

Rest in piss you stupid fuck.

What is wrong with you? Nobody in that thread harassed anybody. The Tweet was from someone not posting in the thread, and was posted to shame the people in the thread, that posting funny broken animations and creepy heads is harassment of the developers and the individual animators. And with that the thread got locked because it was harassment.

YOUR response/thinking is exactly why NeoGaf imploded, EVERYTHING was harassment. You couldn't discuss issues or make fun of anything because it could be against a woman or minority. And the thread was the quintessence of this motto. Some mod didn't like that something or a game wasn't shed in the correct light and then there was some tweet digging of someone harassing someone specific from the developer and bam, the whole thread that had nothing to do with the tweet is a harassment campaign.

[kg]

Not just neutral, but not sufficiently militant.  Eg. That thread where some got banned/demodded because they didn’t think beating people up was a good idea comes to mind.

Absolutely, and this process escalates ceaselessly until something breaks down. As the insufficiently pure are purged, the definition of "insufficiently pure" edges upward, and the next tier is brought to the gallows. You can actually see this process demonstrated rather readily in the Republican party right now, where centrist Republicans are gradually being eliminated and increasingly conservative replacements are being chosen in their stead. This particular cycle is very nasty, and I suspect there must be a name for it in social sciences.

I shouted into the void about that very phenomenon but there was little desire from the moderation team to take action against a couple dozen prolific posters who kept feeding the Jacobin purging feedback loop.

Though why I wasted some time each day at work engaging with such mediocrity wasting their own time to fight discrimination on a videogame-centric message board (way to make a difference in the world  ) for no gain made little sense. Habits are annoying like that.

[Averon]

GAF was popular because, back in the hey day when it was still part of Gaming-Age, it was the go-to place for news, rumors, and reviews. Over time, it formed a few decent communities where people can go and be chill. When places like Reddit and 4chan gave people those same communities without all the bullshit GAF brings, it was only natural that GAF will start to wane in popularity. The only thing GAF had over other places are news and rumors, but even that was waning with more and more rumors and news breaking on /v/ or Reddit.

[etiolate]

[Occam]

Cerium spinoff update

@everyone We understand that there is a great deal of frustration regarding Evilore and the current state of our communities. However, constantly making jokes about the events surrounding Evilore only serves to continue our association with him. It also contributes to clutter in the chat and may make victims feel uncomforatble. So from this point forward, any comments pertaining to Evilore/Tyler Malka will be deleted and repeat offenders will face a ban. Thank you.

Who/what is Cerium? Deleting posts, banning users right from the get go to set the right tune? Awesome. Fascism, go!

[injurai]

Yeah, I don't buy this "GAF was popular because it was a socially engineered perfectly curated user experience" nonsense. It was a fun forum that had a few industry insiders and a fun off topic forum where people could just shoot the shit. Even in its hey day, heavy handed moderation was prevalent, like when dragona went on her mass purges and a lot of good posters were lost. Or when they started banning benign memes like caturday.

I always heard it was the a forum for video game designers. The first thread I ever saw was behind the scene renders and concept art for some game, which reinforced this impression. Eventually I do think the OT's reputation took over because a lot of the keyboard warrior types openly admitted to not coming for gaming. There was even pride in not coming for gaming which seemed to set them apart from the "came for gaming, stayed of OT types."