This whole situation is gross and depressing. I don't know and can't know what EviLore did or didn't do, or whether it was consensual or not, and am not going to render my opinion on it since it won't add anything to the conversation one way or the other.
But it should be plain to everyone that EviLore's response to this and other controversies has been incompetent, frustratingly opaque, and increasingly tyrannical. I can't deny that off-topic has gotten toxic of late; part of it is the general tenor of internet discussion, which tends toward the negative, and a lot to do with the reality of 2017. I've witnessed (and occasionally participated in) some difficult conversations regarding the troubling direction of the United States' domestic and international politics, the moral responsibility to resist Trump and which forms of resistance are to be considered proper and/or desirable, and, suddenly relevant to our current controversy, the new morality of sexual harassment allegations. Those discussions have been fraught, and have left a lot of people with bad feelings.
But I would rather that those conversations continue in an open forum, rather than be patronized to and told that I can no longer participate in said discussions for my own good -- as if my feelings, or yours, were ever taken into account when we know damn well that this decision was made for the benefit of a single individual, by that individual. The discussion of controversial topics among people who passionately disagree (even when those disagreements are coming from within the same ideological camp) is not something that comes naturally. It is a skill that must be learned. And I think this forum would be better off if that learning process is allowed to play out.
NeoGAF won't be the same without off-topic. This place has been my homepage for the past five years. Whenever there was a breaking news event, it's the first site I would check: from situations as dire as the firing of James Comey to the new Star Wars trailer dropping, the lightning fast pace of discussion meant that there was always someone ready to talk about it, at any time of the day or night. It was irreplaceable as a news aggregator and source of opinion, and I can honestly say that most of the people I interacted with were genuinely bright, funny, and insightful. And even when they weren't, there were still useful things to glean from the back and forth.
It breaks my heart to see the community broken like this over the selfishness of one person. But the site is moving in a different direction, and I guess I am, too. Thank you for the memories. Thanks for all the recommendations. Thanks for all the gifs! And thank you for reading this, if you did. You really didn't have to, it was nothing important.
