EviLore/Mods saying there will be no more social/political discussion allowed on GAF while closing threads that are critical of NeoGAF's ongoing reputation (I'm not just talking about shitposts and account suicides either, of which there are a lot ATM) but keeping threads like the GAF will always support minorities/lgbt thread open are kind of emblematic that y'all didn't learn a damn thing about the criticisms about transparency, authoritarian and preferential modding, elastic policies, censorship against challenging opinions, and self-protective reflexes that have come to characterize modding on GAF in recent years.
And the firsts two posts in this thread reflect that. They fail to adequately acknowledge these characterizations that were anything but fringe opinions, fail to address them in favour of creating even less accountability for mods, and have the gall to even be condescending to the userbase and asking them to behave and respect the mod team after everything that has happened and users have endured over the past few years. Who would've thunk that a less accountable authority with unilateral power wouldn't inspire much confidence in the community it governs?
In the most dire of circumstances this forum has ever faced, you thought it was a good idea to do that, and expect people to believe that the welfare of the community is your top concern when you double down on, without question, some of the most frequent critiques people had of this site and EviLore? How do you expect anyone to respect an establishment that pre- and post-crisis stubbornly puts itself before the community it serves? WIth an owner that prides himself on it's autocracy?
These have been issues for years. You have have worked to silence these issues for years. You created an anonymous authority for mods to more easily be passive aggressive, subjective, and dismissive in their modding. A sexual misconduct allegation shatters the site and fragments users who, now no longer under threat of expressions of their concerns being cause for oppression towards them, cite these same issues over and over again during the recess. The site re-materializes and you fail to acknowledge these issues, because, oh man, it must just have been this last year that got us all fucked up.
I'm not upset EviLore took a couple days to make a statement, I just didn't expect that after all these losses the site has suffered for him (and the remaining/current mod team) to be so defensive, unsympathetic, placate responsibility, be condescending to the community, and make such a weak excuse for not releasing that statement to the community when there are clear obvious channels like Twitter to do so for times exactly like these.
And the worst part? Now that we can see this stubbornness/arrogance is still alive and well, all of this will probably continue to fall on deaf ears, and you have yet to give anyone confidence it won't. Hell, a post like this might have even gotten you a light ban (at the very least a certain lock) a week ago. Shit, it still might, even though I'm well within the ToS. I don't know what it will take if such a cataclysmic event for this site doesn't make you see what's been clear to and echoing throughout the entire community for years or reflect upon the decisions with the site you've made over the years. It's at that point where people begin to question whether you are fit to be a leader or decision maker, or you're incredibly out of touch with both what the community was and is relative to where you've been trying to steer it.
Without attacking or being inflammatory (because that's against the ToS, of course), what's it going to take to engender that much needed introspection, EviLore and co.? I'm not sure there will be anyone or anything left by the time what people are spelling out loud gets put on the page. Actually, that might be the saddest part. The damage to the communities is done. Maybe they were splintered by the events of the weekend, maybe they were sent to Community to die years ago, or maybe they were nuked in their entirety by the actions of a minority of users.
I've been on GAF for maybe 8 years and reading much longer, and have, like many others, built relationships and found a home in several communities; some of which you genuinely cannot find comparable others elsewhere online (e.g. FGC-GAF). Not that it matters, because it really doesn't, but I've got one of the higher post counts of any members I've seen, too. It's hard to go from that kind of investment in and daily ritual of GAF to having to suddenly disassociate from it, but honestly? I still had a bit of hope GAF would emerge from the ashes, confront those plain-as-day-issues at last, and pass the clearly tainted brand away from what has tainted it and some may argue slowly tainting it over the years as well. The OP pretty much dashed any last chances of that, and any confidence I once had in this site is now gone. Dunno how it's possible GAF will ever get me back but if it can, it definitely won't be like this, and probably not with EviLore at the helm.
