SirPainsalot
Banned
Note: Read the thread before posting some snarky/dismissive reply
Let me preface this by saying I've heavily lurked GAF since around 2008 (can't remember the exact date). I got an account in 2013 pretty much solely for the additional features, like being able to browse profiles and the archives. The only time I actually posted was in this past week or so, when I've been mass posting some really low quality content across the forum in order to gain member privileges, so I apologize for that. And I genuinely enjoyed my time here lurking up until around 2012. There were a few issues sure, console wars are always a problem, but for the most part the forum was fairly decent up until now. However for the past few years the forum has been going to complete shit, and unfortunately, any criticism I've seen either gets ignored completely or has very little affect on the way the forum gets run. And now it's reached a boiling point.
For starters, the fanboyism here is out of control now. There's no excuse for stuff like the Uncharted 3 review debacle and the digital foundry threads. A prime example of this sort of shit is almost every thread about "The Order: 1886." They're always filled to the brim with users stating "Whatever! I still think it'll be awesome! Why do you have to troll and shit up a thread?!?" in response to (mostly) valid criticism. Hell, there was even a "hype" thread created with the sole purpose of stifling criticism and hyping up the title. This is basically the case for almost every major release these days on GAF, with the latest dedicated thread become more and more vicious towards those holding dissenting opinions.
Moving on, the quality of posts is absolutely horrible as well. Snarky drive-bys and overly passive-aggressive posts are some of the absolute worst and infest the forum; it seems like people care more about trying to get a good "zinger" in instead of actually discussing the topics at hand. And while Gifs are great here and there, posting a condescending tumblr gif instead of actually rebutting to someone's argument is something that's commonplace here. And the thing about all of this is, these issues have been brought up repeatedly and very little action has been made in an attempt to curb them. Beseda said a few days ago that low quality posts such as "Agreed" or "This" would be bannable now. Well, I'm sure glad to see that rule is being enforced thoroughly. This point ties into my complaint about the lack of a report system, but more on that later on.
But moving onto the moderation now. Oh boy, where do I even start?
With a owner who seems to be more focused on sick burns and snark rather than actually contributing the community, we're surely off to a fine start. One example I want to bring up, in particular, is of Evilore completely dismissing someone's opinion, banning them, and telling him to fuck off all for being a brony. Now I'm not particularly fond of bronies either. However, banning someone solely because they're a brony and telling them to "klop on another site" is downright abhorrent, especially from the owner of the entire site. Thankfully it seems Tenumi has been unbanned. However, it's safe to assume this only occurred because the image went somewhat viral and sparked a bit of an outrage. And this isn't even getting into the sexual assault, blatent sexism and the allegations of selling a user's content without their consent, and then proceeding to change the TOS afterwards
As for the moderators, the problem is the "holier than thou" attitude I've seen come from them. A significant margin of posts from moderators always seem to "one up" regular users. And I don't mean in terms of quality, I mean in terms of "My opinion is better than yours" type of thing. It's hard to point to specific examples since it's an overall attitude, but I'm not the only one who's noticed this. It's also clear that a a fair chunk of the moderators have certain agendas and that's respectfully fine, there's nothing wrong with having agenda by itself. However, when you start actively pushing your agenda by silencing those you disagree with, that's crossing the line. For instance, when users like Lime only get a 2 week slap on the wrist for calling a person she disagreed with a house nigger, while people like Arsalan get permabanned for "not being a good fit for gaf", there's a problem. This is just the tip of the ice berg. Actions like this have been going on for years now and it's been getting downright insulting. Also, let me say that this doesn't apply to every mod on the site. There's a few very cool and chill guys who aren't related to this at all.
And I've been trying my best to avoid the GamerGate stuff here (the whole thing's a complete mess with idiots on both sides), but that thread is an utter disaster. Kudos to GAF for actually allowing discussion in the end, but I implore you to read through the first 20 pages in that thread and take note of the banned users and what their opinion of Gamergate is. I don't agree with some of the stuff they said either, but most of them were breaking any rules in the slightest. Disagreeing with someone doesn't give the moderators legitimate excuse to ban them. And because of that, the thread is a giant echo-chamber/hugbox. If you want an example, just read through my posts from a few days ago. Personal opinions aside, it's telling that literally nobody in that thread shared similar views in the slightest and that I was hounded upon by almost every single member participating in that thread. Hell, I even got a PM from one user saying I should stop posting because, if I continued, I would probably get banned since everyone with a dissenting opinion either got banned or is afraid to post. Also, The Fine Young Capitalists getting their GAF account rejected is a little suspicious, considering in all my years lurking here I've never heard of someone getting their account flat out rejected.
I know one of the first things people are going to say is "if you have a problem, just email them instead of taking it here." And in fact, I have brought up similar issues through the support email. However, I've never received a single reply, and after EviLore openly mocked and posted the personal information of users who sent in emails, let's just say I'm little hesitant to do so again. And while I could PM the moderators, these complaints would fall on deaf ears no doubt. And the next thing people are going to say is "well you're bitching about all these problems but have no solutions." Well in fact, I actually wrote up some suggestions below. These are just some bare minimum suggestions, just scratching the surface of the underlying problems this forum has. Completely fixing GAF would be a monumental task, but you gotta start somewhere:
Anyway, I'm know I'm most likely going to get banned for this alongside this topic getting deleted. I'll probably be called some tinfoil hat EvilLore hating conspiracist, or some other bullocks, by half the posts. And if don't get banned, then this topic will probably just get locked after a few pages with a mod saying to message them if you have any concerns (which will then fall on deaf ears regardless). But outside of a few member-only functionalites, I can go back to lurking just fine.
I'll close out with this: When an account dedicated to pointing out the shitty posts of GAF has to quit due to the shitty actions of the moderators/administrators, you know there's a problem.
Let me preface this by saying I've heavily lurked GAF since around 2008 (can't remember the exact date). I got an account in 2013 pretty much solely for the additional features, like being able to browse profiles and the archives. The only time I actually posted was in this past week or so, when I've been mass posting some really low quality content across the forum in order to gain member privileges, so I apologize for that. And I genuinely enjoyed my time here lurking up until around 2012. There were a few issues sure, console wars are always a problem, but for the most part the forum was fairly decent up until now. However for the past few years the forum has been going to complete shit, and unfortunately, any criticism I've seen either gets ignored completely or has very little affect on the way the forum gets run. And now it's reached a boiling point.
For starters, the fanboyism here is out of control now. There's no excuse for stuff like the Uncharted 3 review debacle and the digital foundry threads. A prime example of this sort of shit is almost every thread about "The Order: 1886." They're always filled to the brim with users stating "Whatever! I still think it'll be awesome! Why do you have to troll and shit up a thread?!?" in response to (mostly) valid criticism. Hell, there was even a "hype" thread created with the sole purpose of stifling criticism and hyping up the title. This is basically the case for almost every major release these days on GAF, with the latest dedicated thread become more and more vicious towards those holding dissenting opinions.
Moving on, the quality of posts is absolutely horrible as well. Snarky drive-bys and overly passive-aggressive posts are some of the absolute worst and infest the forum; it seems like people care more about trying to get a good "zinger" in instead of actually discussing the topics at hand. And while Gifs are great here and there, posting a condescending tumblr gif instead of actually rebutting to someone's argument is something that's commonplace here. And the thing about all of this is, these issues have been brought up repeatedly and very little action has been made in an attempt to curb them. Beseda said a few days ago that low quality posts such as "Agreed" or "This" would be bannable now. Well, I'm sure glad to see that rule is being enforced thoroughly. This point ties into my complaint about the lack of a report system, but more on that later on.
But moving onto the moderation now. Oh boy, where do I even start?
With a owner who seems to be more focused on sick burns and snark rather than actually contributing the community, we're surely off to a fine start. One example I want to bring up, in particular, is of Evilore completely dismissing someone's opinion, banning them, and telling him to fuck off all for being a brony. Now I'm not particularly fond of bronies either. However, banning someone solely because they're a brony and telling them to "klop on another site" is downright abhorrent, especially from the owner of the entire site. Thankfully it seems Tenumi has been unbanned. However, it's safe to assume this only occurred because the image went somewhat viral and sparked a bit of an outrage. And this isn't even getting into the sexual assault, blatent sexism and the allegations of selling a user's content without their consent, and then proceeding to change the TOS afterwards
As for the moderators, the problem is the "holier than thou" attitude I've seen come from them. A significant margin of posts from moderators always seem to "one up" regular users. And I don't mean in terms of quality, I mean in terms of "My opinion is better than yours" type of thing. It's hard to point to specific examples since it's an overall attitude, but I'm not the only one who's noticed this. It's also clear that a a fair chunk of the moderators have certain agendas and that's respectfully fine, there's nothing wrong with having agenda by itself. However, when you start actively pushing your agenda by silencing those you disagree with, that's crossing the line. For instance, when users like Lime only get a 2 week slap on the wrist for calling a person she disagreed with a house nigger, while people like Arsalan get permabanned for "not being a good fit for gaf", there's a problem. This is just the tip of the ice berg. Actions like this have been going on for years now and it's been getting downright insulting. Also, let me say that this doesn't apply to every mod on the site. There's a few very cool and chill guys who aren't related to this at all.
And I've been trying my best to avoid the GamerGate stuff here (the whole thing's a complete mess with idiots on both sides), but that thread is an utter disaster. Kudos to GAF for actually allowing discussion in the end, but I implore you to read through the first 20 pages in that thread and take note of the banned users and what their opinion of Gamergate is. I don't agree with some of the stuff they said either, but most of them were breaking any rules in the slightest. Disagreeing with someone doesn't give the moderators legitimate excuse to ban them. And because of that, the thread is a giant echo-chamber/hugbox. If you want an example, just read through my posts from a few days ago. Personal opinions aside, it's telling that literally nobody in that thread shared similar views in the slightest and that I was hounded upon by almost every single member participating in that thread. Hell, I even got a PM from one user saying I should stop posting because, if I continued, I would probably get banned since everyone with a dissenting opinion either got banned or is afraid to post. Also, The Fine Young Capitalists getting their GAF account rejected is a little suspicious, considering in all my years lurking here I've never heard of someone getting their account flat out rejected.
I know one of the first things people are going to say is "if you have a problem, just email them instead of taking it here." And in fact, I have brought up similar issues through the support email. However, I've never received a single reply, and after EviLore openly mocked and posted the personal information of users who sent in emails, let's just say I'm little hesitant to do so again. And while I could PM the moderators, these complaints would fall on deaf ears no doubt. And the next thing people are going to say is "well you're bitching about all these problems but have no solutions." Well in fact, I actually wrote up some suggestions below. These are just some bare minimum suggestions, just scratching the surface of the underlying problems this forum has. Completely fixing GAF would be a monumental task, but you gotta start somewhere:
- Moderators and admins need to improve, drastically. Forcing your own personal agendas onto users by banning them is completely biased and idotic. And this needs to get repeated again: someone gets a 2 week slap on the wrist for outright racism while someone else gets permanently banned under the vague condition of "not being a good fit for gaf" after posting disagreeable statements. Not to mention the constant attempts of shitposting and "sick burns" also contribute nothing to this forum. And while I realize objective moderation is impossible, any improvement would be better than what it's like now.
- Crack down hard on fanboyism and low quality posts. There's no excuse as to why the first pages of topics are always filled with "zingers" alongside low quality, condescending gifs in reply to actual discussion. Digital foundry threads are a fucking mess and review threads for big-name releases almost always turn into something vicious (just look at the Destiny stuff).
- Remove moderators/admin titles (AKA the red names) from posts that aren't related to moderation. Reddit does this with their moderators and it works out great, no parroting around someone's opinion/giving their opinion a special focus solely because they're a moderator. Modbot isn't a replacement, mods/admins shouldn't have to hide behind an anonymous face to get their action across, they should be held accountable if they screw up.
- Implement an actual report system. NeoGAF is literally the only forum I've ever been on that doesn't have a report system. I've seen excuse of "If this offended post wasn't noticed it's because we missed it" which is fair. However, a report system fixes that issue completely. Even places like 4chan and reddit, with millions of users daily, have report systems in place. If you're concerned about false flagging, then simply penalize the reporter. And no, PMing mods about offending posts does not count as a report system. That's a backwards-ass solution to a problem that could easily be remedied by having an official system.
Anyway, I'm know I'm most likely going to get banned for this alongside this topic getting deleted. I'll probably be called some tinfoil hat EvilLore hating conspiracist, or some other bullocks, by half the posts. And if don't get banned, then this topic will probably just get locked after a few pages with a mod saying to message them if you have any concerns (which will then fall on deaf ears regardless). But outside of a few member-only functionalites, I can go back to lurking just fine.
I'll close out with this: When an account dedicated to pointing out the shitty posts of GAF has to quit due to the shitty actions of the moderators/administrators, you know there's a problem.