Support NeoGAF

[GrizzleBoy]

Better forum features

This part is probably one of the most underrated/non discussed part of it.

It was a new shiny toy (with animated avatars at one point) and to be very honest, felt like what a huge forum like GAF should offer in 2017/2018.

People were going nuts just over the alert feature lol.

 

[Dr. Claus]

So it's obvious this GAF has basically halved in popularity and frankly a lot of what is left is on the right wing end of the spectrum, and by
"right" I mean this new age angsty alt right sort of stuff. "Liberals stop doing X" and "[Insert obviously heinous thing] isn't that bad tbh" "Does Trump deserve a Nobel peace prize" (is this real life?) etc.

Please explain to my why I should take your post seriously when it fails to grasp the basic idea of the general population of what Gaf currently is and seems to serve nothing more than to rile up the community. Alt-right? Where is this seen? The vast majority of the people here are left-leaning (with a few right, but they are hardly considered alt-right in any fashion) and discussion is primarily open for both sides to debate.

As for the actual background information for "ShowerGate", Evilore himself (and others) have already spoken about this at length in this thread so I won't bore you with repeating what has already been said.

 

[Corronchilejano]

They went somewhere else so they could continue their harassment campaign against people they didn't like. Daniel Vavra is the current target.

You are now making up stuff as you go.

 

[David___]

I'm just surprised all the legendary neogaf posters left at a snap of a finger.

Herd mentality if you ask me.

I wish well to this site.

If I was a content creator/active poster and saw that at a snap of a finger that all the content I would make would disappear if it could be used as a scapegoat to save the owner then I wouldn't even bother coming here anymore, accusations being true or not.

At the same time, even if I would have stayed, I wouldn't want to wait 10 mins-x amount of hours for someone to engage with the thread and it only lasting maybe half a page or two before it dies.

So no, it isn't herd mentality at all. He just managed to piss off enough people for different reasons for it to make a difference

 

[camelCase]

Calling this place an alt right haven is a bunch of whining. It's natural to have dissent when the other forum is filled with a bunch of sincerely hateful people. Non super liberal opinions being discussed shouldn't make you think everyone here is a right winger, there is no arbiter of what liberal progressives should or should not be following but for some reason anything that doesn't constantly flame conservatives is automatically regressive and bad.

Old gaf, it was impossible to have such opinions because there were mods who in bad faith were banning people over political differences. Do you prefer that to having the occasional thread that praises trump? I only saw 1 thread that praised trump btw, funny how that 1 example seriously colored your impression when anywhere on the internet(read: era) you can find n-thousand stories about how he's an asshole, and a racist, and whatever else. Not doubting that he is, I don't follow politics.

Literally everything about this place is better than it was. Numbers are growing slowly and surely back to what they once were and people can speak their minds instead of receiving permabans for saying Bohemia without PoC isn't racist. And for the record, there is so much less politically charged shit here than other the other site. The awful disgusting things I see people wishing on others there. I never rage out on gaf anymore, I open the other forum and in minutes I'm steaming at how another human being could possibly be so vindictive, hateful, and so many other things. There's something this forums doing right to not have so much of that.

 

[Dunedain_Ranger]

Glad I stayed. I’ve never been one to pass judgment until facts rolled in. Gaf was in such a bad place and I’m liking where it’s at now.

 

[Shouta]

While I miss the overall activity levels of the last few years, it's been a sort of blessing for me. I've really re-engaged with my hobbies these last few months in a way that I hadn't in quite awhile. I've also enjoyed reading the discussion that's been happening here, far more so than anything I read prior. Kudos to the folks spending the time to engage with each other, particularly strange headache for a lot of great posts.

 

[PSYGN]

I'm glad the ones who left, left. They were an annoying bunch who slept by their pitchforks.

 

[camelCase]

You're not being very helpful for anyone with trying to sweep everyone under one comb. He's clearly saying that a lot of people left because of OT being an important part of the community and seemingly stopping of OT made people move due to the uncertainty and not ill will towards EviLore.
Chill man, there's no need to aggressively judge people like that. Nothing good will come out of it and it seems like you're just venting your own frustrations.

That's true but reset is entirely a product of people venting their own frustrations, and seemingly always at someone else's expense

 

[RokkanStoned]

I'm glad the ones who left, left. They were an annoying bunch who slept by their pitchforks.

Again, as pointed by users G GrizzleBoy and ssolitare (and partially D David___ , though I view him as underestimating the rioters' role in this in his post), not all who left did so with their pitchforks up in the air. People had other reasons in the moment to feel uncertain and seeking out wherever they could find their communities and some sense of stability. So don't dismiss everyone in one swoop, we should be better than that.

 

[camelCase]

Again, as pointed by users G GrizzleBoy and ssolitare (and partially D David___ , though I view him as underestimating the rioters' role in this in his post), not all who left did so with their pitchforks up in the air. People had other reasons in the moment to feel uncertain and seeking out wherever they could find their communities and some sense of stability. So don't dismiss everyone in one swoop, we should be better than that.

Websites go down sometimes. The reasons you gave for people leaving that were purely not political were not reasons to jump ship and never look back. The site was back up in days. If that's too much for you to handle that you have to go somewhere else and give a bitter goodbye then what will we miss them for?

I don't see the problem with just making an acct there. But to shun gaf completely, that makes you deserving of being "combed as one." The fact of the matter was that people were leaving left and right with suicide bomb bans.

 

[RokkanStoned]

Websites go down sometimes. The reasons you gave for people leaving that were purely not political were not reasons to jump ship and never look back. The site was back up in days. If that's too much for you to handle that you have to go somewhere else and give a bitter goodbye then what will we miss them for?

You're not the arbiter of what are legitimate reasons to jump ship, more so, you can't represent the mental state of those leaving in the moment. More so, it was pointed out what happened to the OT as being a large part of the reason why a lot of people were further pushed to leave.
There's no reason to be pissy about people leaving in a polite manner, for their own personal reasons in the uncertain environment they perceived. Better to just say that it's a shame and that despite the wrongs that happened, we appreciated them when they were here and would rather have not seen them leave. Then you can blast those who grabbed the pitchforks and left juvenilely and strike down upon them with great vengeance and furious anger.

 

[Deleted member 12837]

Websites go down sometimes. The reasons you gave for people leaving that were purely not political were not reasons to jump ship and never look back. The site was back up in days.

This is revisionist. Gaming was back up in maybe a few days, but it took OT longer, and even then it was a while before they reversed the decision to allow political discussion and also to bring back the post history (that last part was the most important to me).

Not to mention that many/most of the larger communities are gone, and they aren't coming back. They might get built back up, but that takes time. When I look through my "Watched threads" now on GAF, there's been pretty much zero activity since The Split. Yet most of those threads have been restarted on Era and have daily if not hourly or constant activity.

 

[David___]

Websites go down sometimes.

And there's usually communication stating as such through an alternative channel like twitter, or announced beforehand if it was normal maintenance on the site itself. GAF went down and was silent for a weekend only for the first thing of any sort of communication on the matter to be gaslighting and scapegoating that came from an article by Waypoint

Again, as pointed by users G GrizzleBoy and ssolitare (and partially D David___ , though I view him as underestimating the rioters' role in this in his post), not all who left did so with their pitchforks up in the air. People had other reasons in the moment to feel uncertain and seeking out wherever they could find their communities and some sense of stability. So don't dismiss everyone in one swoop, we should be better than that.

fwiw I was mainly talking about it from the perspective of people who make the OTs/consistent posters pov. There could be some overlap with the rioters but I don't see it being the majority. For example, I saw BruceLeeRoy made a post that had sincere appreciation for the site and of the fond memories he had making the MGS 4 OT

 

[camelCase]

Still, why leave in a polite manner if not for some political difference? When I used to post at NG it went down for a full week in 07 in some redesign and the whole place didn't fall apart.

I don't see why one has to take such a hard stance on leaving or staying.

 

[RokkanStoned]

Still, why leave in a polite manner if not for some political difference? When I used to post at NG it went down for a full week in 07 in some redesign and the whole place didn't fall apart.

I don't see why one has to take such a hard stance on leaving or staying.

For a lot of people GAF was literally dying in their perspective and the road map for the future with mods gone, disruptive posts on the forum and no OTs seemed bleak. It's easy to underestimate how dependent some people had become to an online community like GAF and their panic in the moment where it wasn't just something going down for redesign, but rather revolt within and accusations being thrown and big community personalities promoting leaving for a new community.
It's the context that shapes what's different from site going down in 07 and going down in 17, as well as a 10 year gap.

People just goes where stability and popularity seems to go, some probably hedged their bets on both, but once ResetEra started, the larger activity made them lean towards it. There's no need to throw people that just sought to do no ill under the bus, when they just made the individual best choice for them in the situation.

 

[David___]

Still, why leave in a polite manner if not for some political difference?

I mean, there's some political influence, but there's a large gap between "I didn't like how you handled this" vs "Fuck you ______________."
Some people didn't like the fact that he was even accused, sure. At the same time some people didn't like his response. Some people just wanted to go to where their communities were going.

When I used to post at NG it went down for a full week in 07 in some redesign and the whole place didn't fall apart.

Did all mods there literally resign at the same exact time before it went down for a most likely disclosed-before-hand- time?

 

[Vicetrailia]

Still, why leave in a polite manner if not for some political difference? When I used to post at NG it went down for a full week in 07 in some redesign and the whole place didn't fall apart.

I don't see why one has to take such a hard stance on leaving or staying.

I wish there was a way for you to go back and read what people were saying about how upset they were for OT being scapegoated, wiping out the OT history and temporarily suspending it, and initially deciding to ban political discussion to reform this as a games primary site. That did damage, amongst other things. Before the site came up and OT got punished, people didn't know that the site as dossed, they just thought EviLore was trying to control the situation by silencing everything because things were moving so fast.

All of that is like a blur to me now though.

 

[camelCase]

For a lot of people GAF was literally dying in their perspective and the road map for the future with mods gone, disruptive posts on the forum and no OTs seemed bleak. It's easy to underestimate how dependent some people had become to an online community like GAF and their panic in the moment where it wasn't just something going down for redesign, but rather revolt within and accusations being thrown and big community personalities promoting leaving for a new community.
It's the context that shapes what's different from site going down in 07 and going down in 17, as well as a 10 year gap.

People just goes where stability and popularity seems to go, some probably hedged their bets on both, but once ResetEra started, the larger activity made them lean towards it. There's no need to throw people that just sought to do no ill under the bus, when they just made the individual best choice for them in the situation.

Ok sure. And for the record I do read reset for that reason, it's nice to see hot takes as well as the volume of replies and how a thread will evolve with that quick iteration time.

But there's no guarantee reset doesn't end up the same way, and in some ways it already is. I defy anyone to look at the front page OT and not see utter turmoil occurring. The volume of evidence that the community just as cannabalistic as gaf was, is astounding. Isn't that the way gaf was dying, or was it something else?

 

[Helen Keller the Musical]

If you laugh at this GIF you are a clear alt-right supporter.

Lefties are obviously anger filled by seeing such treatment of women.

What is tossing? A potato chip?

 

[camelCase]

I wish there was a way for you to go back and read what people were saying about how upset they were for OT being scapegoated, wiping out the OT history and temporarily suspending it, and initially deciding to ban political discussion to reform this as a games primary site. That did damage, amongst other things. People didn't know that the site as dossed, they just thought EviLore was trying to control the situation by silencing everything because it looked so bad.

I was there and reading all of it and thought little of it. I didn't see the big hubbub or why people scare about off topic being scapegoated (the entire forum was scapegoated? don't really understand that). I guess I would be annoyed if I had a post history worth sneezing at, and it was somehow deleted

 

[Deleted member 12837]

I was there and reading all of it and thought little of it. I didn't see the big hubbub or why people scare about off topic being scapegoated (the entire forum was scapegoated? don't really understand that). I guess I would be annoyed if I had a post history worth sneezing at, and it was somehow deleted

Not just personal posting history. All post history. Over a decade’s worth of discussion, advice, tutorials, links, knowledge. Potentially all gone. And it wasn’t possible at the time to recover most of it from archive.org or Google’s cache either.

 

[camelCase]

I mean, there's some political influence, but there's a large gap between "I didn't like how you handled this" vs "Fuck you ______________."
Some people didn't like the fact that he was even accused, sure. At the same time some people didn't like his response. Some people just wanted to go to where their communities were going.


Did all mods there literally resign at the same exact time before it went down for a most likely disclosed-before-hand- time?

Why did everyone resign? The mods

And to 404ender isn't all that history back up, or is it gone?

 

[Deleted member 12837]

Why did everyone resign? The mods

And to 404ender isn't all that history back up, or is it gone?

Yes, it's back now, thankfully.

Initially when OT came back empty, there was a thread where you could request the restoration of a particular thread, if you could provide a link to the thread that you wanted back (or a good enough description that a mod could find it). I give credit that they offered this at all initially, but it didn't go far enough. A petition thread was started to bring back the entire OT, which eventually was granted on November 1st (the site originally went down on 10/22 and empty OT came back on 10/26 -- 6 days is a long time in terms of letting people believe they were never getting old content back).

Knowing what we know now, I completely understand why they hid all of OT initially. There was a lot of awful stuff that needed cleaning up. But none of that was communicated well at the time (there was a lot of radio silence).

 

[camelCase]

Yes, it's back now, thankfully.

Initially when OT came back empty, there was a thread where you could request the restoration of a particular thread, if you could provide a link to the thread that you wanted back (or a good enough description that a mod could find it). I give credit that they offered this at all initially, but it didn't go far enough. A petition thread was started to bring back the entire OT, which eventually was granted on November 1st (the site originally went down on 10/22 and empty OT came back on 10/26 -- 6 days is a long time in terms of letting people believe they were never getting old content back).

Knowing what we know now, I completely understand why they hid all of OT initially. There was a lot of awful stuff that needed cleaning up. But none of that was communicated well at the time (there was a lot of radio silence).

There was a lot of confusion among the community, I agree. What was the awful stuff that needed cleaning up might I ask? I mean there was a lot of hate/dogpile threads but those got locked just as anything, IIRC.


There's plenty of great posters at the '3ra though and I don't doubt they have their reasons for completely abandoning this place, whether it be laze, apathy or worries that their history is gonna go down the toilet. It's a great gaming forum and it's bc of that community

 

[Dr. Claus]

Not just personal posting history. All post history. Over a decade’s worth of discussion, advice, tutorials, links, knowledge. Potentially all gone. And it wasn’t possible at the time to recover most of it from archive.org or Google’s cache either.

While it would have been a tad disappointing to lose certain threads from launch to around 2011, I would argue very little of value is lost if nothing was saved between '12 to '17. The "advice" and "knowledge" that you refer to was laughable at best and painful at worst, at least during that time frame.

There was a lot of confusion among the community, I agree. What was the awful stuff that needed cleaning up might I ask? I mean there was a lot of hate/dogpile threads but those got locked just as anything, IIRC.

There's plenty of great posters at the '3ra though and I don't doubt they have their reasons for completely abandoning this place, whether it be laze, apathy or worries that their history is gonna go down the toilet. It's a great gaming forum and it's bc of that community

I don't see it. I am sure there are some good posters, but they are buried under the miserable mire of vitriolic children going on witch hunts and silencing people with dissenting opinions. That loud majority are better gone and forgotten and nothing of value was lost when they left.

 

[foxdvd]

For a moment I got a bit caught up in the hype around the "incident" ... as time went on I started to realize that no one outside maybe 2 people on this earth, will ever know what happened. This was not a situation that had enough information to attack one person. What little information finally came out actually supported the accused more than the accuser.

Because we were left with so little evidence, we have to look at what neogaf and the owner has done over the years. People want to point to two past "mistakes/issues" with someone, but then ignore the massive online reach that person has created and allowed to nourish under his control. Neogaf, besides being a gaming forum, was definitely a strong voice for liberal thinking.

It was Neogaf that helped me really see into the minds and hearts of transgender people. I am a grown man in my 40's who grew up in a different time, and one thread in particular here had me smiling, interested in transgender life and at times in tears.

It was Neogaf that really took the lead in pushing down ignorant opinions about the way people treat women in the industry. People who spit these attitudes were kicked off quickly. Pro-equality opinions were pushed to the front and prospered.

It was Neogaf that reached out to me when I talked about an issue with my daughter, and how her mother (my ex) could not accept her being gay, and tried to get the church involved in "praying" the gay away.

These and many countless other examples show what the heart of the owner is. Maybe it was the thousands of people and moderators that put in all the work, but it was the owner that allowed it, and pushed it in that direction. Other forums in the past have NOT allowed or pushed these ideas.

With that kind of history and legacy, you need to really show me that he has done harm before I am ready to put him on a stake.

 

[Deleted member 12837]

While it would have been a tad disappointing to lose certain threads from launch to around 2011, I would argue very little of value is lost if nothing was saved between '12 to '17. The "advice" and "knowledge" that you refer to was laughable at best and painful at worst, at least during that time frame.

Horse shit. This could not be further from the truth. This makes you sound like someone who didn't look anywhere outside of the 1st page of OT at any given time. This is like making sweeping statements about a place like Reddit, but only having spent time on /r/all and the default subs.

There are threads full of long, informative posts, guides and links on all sorts of topics. Fitness. Nutrition. Dealing with depression. Dating advice. Limited edition screenprints. Arcade PCB collecting. Backing up and archiving ROMs from physical media. Cooking. Traveling to Japan. Living in Japan. Fountain pens. Fantasy football. Creative writing. Home theaters. NASes. Film making. Coffee. Tea. Beer. Wine. Every TV show and movie you could think of. Retirement investment. Gardening. Advice for first-time home buyers.

You get the idea.

What you're describing in the quoted portion and the rest of your post was a slice of GAF. I'd argue a relatively small and specific one.

What was the awful stuff that needed cleaning up might I ask?

The stuff that EviLore has written about in this thread and others. Account suicides full of hate and vitriol. Lots of porn and super NSFW images. Floods of spam.

 

[Vicetrailia]

While it would have been a tad disappointing to lose certain threads from launch to around 2011, I would argue very little of value is lost if nothing was saved between '12 to '17. The "advice" and "knowledge" that you refer to was laughable at best and painful at worst, at least during that time frame.



I don't see it. I am sure there are some good posters, but they are buried under the miserable mire of vitriolic children going on witch hunts and silencing people with dissenting opinions. That loud majority are better gone and forgotten and nothing of value was lost when they left.

I see you as simply being divisive. They have a much larger audience, so their content will be more diverse 99.9% of the time.

 

[Dr. Claus]

Horse shit. This could not be further from the truth. This makes you sound like someone who didn't look anywhere outside of the 1st page of OT at any given time. This is like making sweeping statements about a place like Reddit, but only having spent time on /r/all and the default subs.

There are threads full of long, informative posts, guides and links on all sorts of topics. Fitness. Nutrition. Dealing with depression. Dating advice. Limited edition screenprints. Arcade PCB collecting. Backing up and archiving ROMs from physical media. Cooking. Traveling to Japan. Living in Japan. Fountain pens. Fantasy football. Creative writing. Home theaters. NASes. Film making. Coffee. Tea. Beer. Wine. Every TV show and movie you could think of. Retirement investment. Gardening. Advice for first-time home buyers.

You get the idea.

What you're describing in the quoted portion and the rest of your post was a slice of GAF. I'd argue a relatively small and specific one.

The stuff that EviLore has written about in this thread and others. Account suicides full of hate and vitriol. Lots of porn and super NSFW images. Floods of spam.

And yet, I rarely saw those. I would read OldGaf and I (and many others, given the notoriety that Gaf had as an authoritarian left echo chamber) all saw similar things. Apologies that I did not have the same experience as you, but the majority of threads were filled with the same hateful rhetoric, witch hunts, and authoritarian left agendas from my POV. The few "good" threads were buried under the immense weight of the hilariously ignorant "knowledge" and poor "advice" that was given.

From what I (and many others) have seen and experienced, I would argue what you are claiming is only a small portion of what GAF was.

I see you as simply being divisive. They have a much larger audience, so their content will be more diverse 99.9% of the time.

Over which part? Sorry, a tad confused. Era is no different than Gaf considering they are mostly the same community and I see the same exact things there that I saw here prior to the split.

 

[It's Jeff]

For a moment I got a bit caught up in the hype around the "incident" ... as time went on I started to realize that no one outside maybe 2 people on this earth, will ever know what happened. This was not a situation that had enough information to attack one person. What little information finally came out actually supported the accused more than the accuser.

Because we were left with so little evidence, we have to look at what neogaf and the owner has done over the years. People want to point to two past "mistakes/issues" with someone, but then ignore the massive online reach that person has created and allowed to nourish under his control. Neogaf, besides being a gaming forum, was definitely a strong voice for liberal thinking.

It was Neogaf that helped me really see into the minds and hearts of transgender people. I am a grown man in my 40's who grew up in a different time, and one thread in particular here had me smiling, interested in transgender life and at times in tears.

It was Neogaf that really took the lead in pushing down ignorant opinions about the way people treat women in the industry. People who spit these attitudes were kicked off quickly. Pro-equality opinions were pushed to the front and prospered.

It was Neogaf that reached out to me when I talked about an issue with my daughter, and how her mother (my ex) could not accept her being gay, and tried to get the church involved in "praying" the gay away.

These and many countless other examples show what the heart of the owner is. Maybe it was the thousands of people and moderators that put in all the work, but it was the owner that allowed it, and pushed it in that direction. Other forums in the past have NOT allowed or pushed these ideas.

With that kind of history and legacy, you need to really show me that he has done harm before I am ready to put him on a stake.

I think somebody should write out this post in fancy calligraphy letters and frame it.

 

[longdi]

Evilore big PR mistake is my view.
A timely simple explanation would've done it. That will flush out those white knight millennials while satisfying the more mature crowd. I don't think it is fair to pin EL as the culprit and the girl got away like she is so innocent naive.

I never get why the rapists and shower meme, and account suicides by pornography. Those are kinda childish.

 

[Deleted member 12837]

And yet, I rarely saw those. I would read OldGaf and I (and many others, given the notoriety that Gaf had as an authoritarian left echo chamber) all saw similar things. Apologies that I did not have the same experience as you, but the majority of threads were filled with the same hateful rhetoric, witch hunts, and authoritarian left agendas from my POV. The few "good" threads were buried under the immense weight of the hilariously ignorant "knowledge" and poor "advice" that was given.

From what I (and many others) have seen and experienced, I would argue what you are claiming is only a small portion of what GAF was.

That's on you, bud. Many of these threads had thousands or tens of thousands of posts in them. The Fitness thread was on it's 9th (!) iteration (because the other 8 had maxed out in post count) and currently sits at 12K. It hasn't had a post in it since November though (the community left). The entire first page of OT Community is full of them. They weren't exactly hidden.

If you're going to participate in an online forum/community and can't be bothered to even do a simple Google search scoped to neogaf.com for various topics that interest you beyond the random discussion of current events that flows through Page 1 of OT, I don't really know what to tell you.

 

[Musky_Cheese]

For a moment I got a bit caught up in the hype around the "incident" ... as time went on I started to realize that no one outside maybe 2 people on this earth, will ever know what happened. This was not a situation that had enough information to attack one person. What little information finally came out actually supported the accused more than the accuser.

Because we were left with so little evidence, we have to look at what neogaf and the owner has done over the years. People want to point to two past "mistakes/issues" with someone, but then ignore the massive online reach that person has created and allowed to nourish under his control. Neogaf, besides being a gaming forum, was definitely a strong voice for liberal thinking.

It was Neogaf that helped me really see into the minds and hearts of transgender people. I am a grown man in my 40's who grew up in a different time, and one thread in particular here had me smiling, interested in transgender life and at times in tears.

It was Neogaf that really took the lead in pushing down ignorant opinions about the way people treat women in the industry. People who spit these attitudes were kicked off quickly. Pro-equality opinions were pushed to the front and prospered.

It was Neogaf that reached out to me when I talked about an issue with my daughter, and how her mother (my ex) could not accept her being gay, and tried to get the church involved in "praying" the gay away.

These and many countless other examples show what the heart of the owner is. Maybe it was the thousands of people and moderators that put in all the work, but it was the owner that allowed it, and pushed it in that direction. Other forums in the past have NOT allowed or pushed these ideas.

With that kind of history and legacy, you need to really show me that he has done harm before I am ready to put him on a stake.

Thank you for sharing. Gaf opened my eyes to many issues I wouldn't have been aware of. It certainly is a global community.

Evilore big PR mistake is my view.
A timely simple explanation would've done it. That will flush out those white knight millennials while satisfying the more mature crowd. I don't think it is fair to pin EL as the culprit and the girl got away like she is so innocent naive.

I never get why the rapists and shower meme, and account suicides by pornography. Those are kinda childish.

Evilore has said as much. It's easy to say he should have done this. But we aren't putting ourselves in his shoes. With hindsight, it's easy to figure out what simply should have been done. It's impossible for us to understand what Evilore felt during the events.

It was childish. So many in Gaf thought they were righteous and superior. And when it came time to show that. To show us all how mature and amazing they were, they acted no differently than their enemies. They acted no different than you'd expect the God Hates Fags people if they were on the site.

Not just personal posting history. All post history. Over a decade’s worth of discussion, advice, tutorials, links, knowledge. Potentially all gone. And it wasn’t possible at the time to recover most of it from archive.org or Google’s cache either.

I assume I am just not comprehending what's being said. People left because they were worried years of content would be gone? Sounds like I shot my self in the head because I was worried I was going to die today. I am not trying to be confrontational with you. I just don't understand the logic.

If it was that important to them, you'd think they'd try to fight for it. But they left because they were worried it would be gone... so they left it behind???

 

[Dr. Claus]

That's on you, bud. Many of these threads had thousands or tens of thousands of posts in them. The Fitness thread was on it's 9th (!) iteration (because the other 8 had maxed out in post count) and currently sits at 12K. It hasn't had a post in it since November though (the community left). The entire first page of OT Community is full of them. They weren't exactly hidden.

A few things:

• Quantity does not equate to quality. You can have 15,000+ posts in a particular "community", however if it all boils down to a "circle jerk" (for lack of a better term at the moment) should I care about that community or consider it a worthwhile addition/something that should be saved? Probably not.
  • As an aside: If those threads were gone, why couldn't they be rebuilt? There have been multiple iterations of many community threads so why not just make a new one? I am confused by the logic being pushed here, and Musky_Cheese seems to think the same.
• Many of the "communities" were filled with the same people who pushed their authoritarian left agenda, that pushed ignorant "knowledge" and silenced people who would counter their "advice" with scientific rigor (at least within the 20-30 communities that I had spent time reading over the past number of years).
• While there were definitely a few communities that maintained a decent population with quality posts, they were, in my experience, the minority.

If you're going to participate in an online forum/community and can't be bothered to even do a simple Google search scoped to neogaf.com for various topics that interest you beyond the random discussion of current events that flows through Page 1 of OT, I don't really know what to tell you.

For some reason I feel like this is highly condescending and arrogant, apologies if that was not how you meant it to come across. I spent a good 10 years lurking on GAF. Assuming that I only ever looked at page 1 of OT in all that time and my experiences are null because they don't match with yours is rather asinine. I know what I have seen and what I have experienced. Given the prevailing notoriety that GAF has (or had?), the majority of people seem to have experienced the same. I don't really know what to tell you at this point.

It was childish. So many in Gaf thought they were righteous and superior. And when it came time to show that. To show us all how mature and amazing they were, they acted no differently than their enemies. They acted no different than you'd expect the God Hates Fags people if they were on the site.

That is because they weren't mature nor were they amazing. They were children playing as adults and tried to ruin something to make themselves feel superior.

 

[Future]

People left because they were worried years of content would be gone? Sounds like I shot my self in the head because I was worried I was going to die today. I am not trying to be confrontational with you. I just don't understand the logic.

People left partially because all conversations they had were eliminated. There was no OT to discuss anything anymore, and threads with previous discussions were eliminated. A community was essentially destroyed. Sure it can be rebuilt. And it was, somewhere else

Many of the "communities" were filled with the same people who pushed their authoritarian left agenda, that pushed ignorant "knowledge" and silenced people who would counter their "advice" with scientific rigor (at least within the 20-30 communities that I had spent time

...

Given the prevailing notoriety that GAF has (or had?), the majority of people seem to have experienced the same. I don't really know what to tell you at this point.

I strongly disagree with this. Show me some authoritarian left in the OnkelG cooking threads for example. I feel like even using the term “authoritarian left” is used like an enjoyable catch phrase to describe everything here and laugh about it in some tribalistic manner and it is untrue. Sure the mods represented some portion of that, but it’s not like every damn discussion on the site was about forcing ideology down everyone’s throat.

Problem with this site now is this is actually the majority of the discussion these days. Rather than actual community discussion on a wide range of topics, it seems like all the popular discussions are those that involve debate between the left and the right.

 

[Harlock]

In the end, I feel much more happy using the forum now.

 

[black_13]

#metoo movement was way too hot and people were ready to abandon or shame anybody even if they had a bad date or mis-read signs. From the bit I read about it was honestly nothing to abandon a site for. I'd honestly put it in the same category as the Aziz Ansari thing.
Lotta.great replies in this thread including evilore and I am glad the hive mind mentality has left gaf and I hope it stays the same. And it feels like we can have honest discussions now.

 

[J Bro]

Abusive person: Help I'm getting gamergate harassment, no evidence though

"Fuck all of them"

Resetera: *constant vile shit towards people like Daniel Vavra and Tim Soret*

"Y-you can't generalize!"

:thinky emoji:

 

[Kamina]

In the end, I feel much more happy using the forum now.

This sums up my feelings nicely.
Just as EviLore wrote on the first page, the mod team is great, and most people here are very reasonable to talk with. I quite enjoy my time and like to share my opinions with this community because i feel it is accepted as such, rather than punished if it doesn't match the community’s general opinion.

 

[Musky_Cheese]

Deleted

 

[Deleted member 12837]

People left partially because all conversations they had were eliminated. There was no OT to discuss anything anymore, and threads with previous discussions were eliminated. A community was essentially destroyed. Sure it can be rebuilt. And it was, somewhere else



I strongly disagree with this. Show me some authoritarian left in the OnkelG cooking threads for example. I feel like even using the term “authoritarian left” is used like an enjoyable catch phrase to describe everything here and laugh about it in some tribalistic manner and it is untrue. Sure the mods represented some portion of that, but it’s not like every damn discussion on the site was about forcing ideology down everyone’s throat.

Problem with this site now is this is actually the majority of the discussion these days. Rather than actual community discussion on a wide range of topics, it seems like all the popular discussions are those that involve debate between the left and the right.

Man this is just...so spot on. I was getting ready to prepare a response and this hits every point I'd want to make.

I also chuckled at the idea of the "authoritarian left circle jerk" ruining a thread about SNES game collecting or fountain pens or retirement advice or cooking.

 

[WaterAstro]

A crazy person took advantage of the social media #MeToo climate and used it to damage Evilore's rep.

That's how I see it.

 

[NickFire]

Problem with this site now is this is actually the majority of the discussion these days. Rather than actual community discussion on a wide range of topics, it seems like all the popular discussions are those that involve debate between the left and the right.

It's like when a new mode or map launches for a game. Everyone flocks to it because its new and different. And actual debate between left and right was missing until the new mods came in. Over time it will get boring. My guess is by E3 most people will have it out of their system (the newness factor), thanks to the influx of news we get leading up to and from E3.

 

[J Bro]

No, you don't understand, when only extreme left opinions were allowed, everything was cool, like that time Palmer Luckey's girlfriend was driven off of twitter.

 

[KOMANI]

It’s innocent until proven guilty. A shame that people like to jump the gun, even after Kotaku put out an article a day later where they have the accusor admitting that after the incident, they dated. That alone made me question the allegation.

I don’t know the founder, I don’t really care either, but I’m certainly not going condemn someone because I’m told to. I like facts.

 

[Heath V]

Some decided to leave. Others decided to act like cunts and try and burn the place down and destroy the site.

Correct, I witnessed it live. At least over here things can be discussed, they ban left and right at the other place if you don't agree with the echo chamber. It's absolutely pathetic, mods should be embarrassed.