KevinKeene
Banned
First of all, this is not a 'GAF sucks, ban me'-type of thread. If that's what I thought I'd quietly leave without being a drama queen. 
Nonetheless, right after I'm done posting this thread, I'll ask a moderator to ban me for 3 months. Part of this is purely personal - I've mentioned before that I suffer from depression and looking at my life, I mustn't spend so much time on this (or any) forum. At some point I need to stop being a worthless human cell mass and start doing 'something'. I'm already 32, so it might well be too late, but I don't yet feel like giving up. That's part one for why I'm taking a break.
The other part is the current tone/style within this community. I won't call out specific users, it wouldn't be sufficient anyway.
When OldGAF imploded, I was happy. I was delighted that all those terrible people like Lime, CrossingEden, ALinktothePast, and all the other ones responsible for all these shitty, forced identity threads (female Link! Yay no boob slider! Put him in jail because she said so! racist! Sexist! Transphobic! Problematic! Etc, etc) suddenly and finally lost their platform. From then, almost everything Evilore decided to do was the correct choice and NeoGAF, or NewGAF, became a place where discussion could take place again. No more ridiculous bans for minor, maybe slightly offensive things. Even the reduced size of the community has turned out to be almost a blessing - now you can actually follow threads/discussions instead of just getting hundreds of samey, shallow reactions that would often result in a dogpile if someone dared having a different opinion. Great!
But NewGAF right now doesn't feel so great anymore to me :/
I'll try to explain this impression in three points, hopefully it comes across:
1.) Basic forum asthetics are ignored
This is the least 'problematic' point, but its permanent presence still bogs down the feeling of reading and posting within an environment where quality discussion can happen: Sooo many thread titles are shitty, incompetent, elementary school-level constructs. People either don't seem to know about nominal style for headlines or they simply don't care. Entire sentences and more are used as titles, making the thread overview look like, I don't know, Reddit? Or worse. And then you have short titles, too, but without any poignant direction, like "This is a great game" (made up example, again, not calling anyone out). Like, decide what's the POINT of your thread and tell us! Both in title and posting. I've seen threads where even after reading the OP I couldn't say more than 'well, duh'.
To conclude this point: Please try to give your threads some form, people. It's only an internet forum, sure, but if you want quality discussion to happen, put in the effort to make your thread show some quality, too. Making a thread shouldn't be the equivalent of sitting in your room and shouting 'mom, I need my green t-shirt, where is it?!' loud enough so that she can hear you even downstairs.
Quality
2.) Basic netiquette
While "you are so fucking stupid" was on the worse end of the spectrum, I still see way too much way too insulting behavior used against each other. People entering a discussion, ignoring what has been said and make some roundabout 'you're all ignorant/ fucking commies/ cuck'. I won't talk about moderation here, who I think is doing a good job. It shouldn't be necessary to have mods teach people basic human decency. Just DON'T treat other people with disrespect (and sure, the occasional fun remark is okay - but it requires some social skills to know when such fun works and when not. Chances are it won't work when you were having a heated debate over some controversial topic up to that point).
At times it feels as if we're a bunch of carnivores trying to figure out the weaknesses of each other for the next attack. It's unnecessary.
3.) Do we really need all these shitty 'hot topics'?
This is what makes me feel the most uncomfortable and it has been getting worse recently. So many threads are made about some identity/outrage/feminist/etc topic, seemingly with the only goal of calling it out and make fun of it. As much as I hated OldGAF, if there's nobody here who offers opposing viewpoints, it feels ... off to have these threads. How many threads about transgender, homosexuals or feminists doing something ridiculous do we really need? Ffs, I fully agree that modern feminists are bad and all that contains. But at times the thread overview looks like there's an agenda being pushed, and not a good one. I don't care about left or right. But many threads simply give off a bit off an 'asshole-feeling'. Basically:
Now some will say 'make better threads if you're unhappy', but ... I've been making quite some threads I think. And I don't want to work on making NeoGAF 'better' all by myself, that needs to be done by all of us. Where are the cool science-threads about awesome new findings/experiments? Where's the 'I'm sitting on the toilet at my gf's parents and there's no toilet paper, help'-threads? Where's the 'I traveled to Tibet, here's my report full of amusing anecdotes'-threads? NeoGAF is missing these light hearted topics. The lower-than-before user count is a bad excuse when those other threads have no trouble being made.
Getting to the end.
So that's it. I feel exhausted and a bit put off by the current thread landscape. Maybe that's just me and is all 'tough luck' for me. But maybe you read the above and thought 'so true, I had that impression, too'. In which case I ask you to try and help improve the way we post on this forum and with each other.
Maybe use this thread to both reply to my text as well as to give your opinion on NeoGAF as is right now. I'll be gone for three months and hope to return to a more positive community.
PS: Fun poll included because polls are always fun!
Nonetheless, right after I'm done posting this thread, I'll ask a moderator to ban me for 3 months. Part of this is purely personal - I've mentioned before that I suffer from depression and looking at my life, I mustn't spend so much time on this (or any) forum. At some point I need to stop being a worthless human cell mass and start doing 'something'. I'm already 32, so it might well be too late, but I don't yet feel like giving up. That's part one for why I'm taking a break.
The other part is the current tone/style within this community. I won't call out specific users, it wouldn't be sufficient anyway.
When OldGAF imploded, I was happy. I was delighted that all those terrible people like Lime, CrossingEden, ALinktothePast, and all the other ones responsible for all these shitty, forced identity threads (female Link! Yay no boob slider! Put him in jail because she said so! racist! Sexist! Transphobic! Problematic! Etc, etc) suddenly and finally lost their platform. From then, almost everything Evilore decided to do was the correct choice and NeoGAF, or NewGAF, became a place where discussion could take place again. No more ridiculous bans for minor, maybe slightly offensive things. Even the reduced size of the community has turned out to be almost a blessing - now you can actually follow threads/discussions instead of just getting hundreds of samey, shallow reactions that would often result in a dogpile if someone dared having a different opinion. Great!
But NewGAF right now doesn't feel so great anymore to me :/
I'll try to explain this impression in three points, hopefully it comes across:
1.) Basic forum asthetics are ignored
This is the least 'problematic' point, but its permanent presence still bogs down the feeling of reading and posting within an environment where quality discussion can happen: Sooo many thread titles are shitty, incompetent, elementary school-level constructs. People either don't seem to know about nominal style for headlines or they simply don't care. Entire sentences and more are used as titles, making the thread overview look like, I don't know, Reddit? Or worse. And then you have short titles, too, but without any poignant direction, like "This is a great game" (made up example, again, not calling anyone out). Like, decide what's the POINT of your thread and tell us! Both in title and posting. I've seen threads where even after reading the OP I couldn't say more than 'well, duh'.
To conclude this point: Please try to give your threads some form, people. It's only an internet forum, sure, but if you want quality discussion to happen, put in the effort to make your thread show some quality, too. Making a thread shouldn't be the equivalent of sitting in your room and shouting 'mom, I need my green t-shirt, where is it?!' loud enough so that she can hear you even downstairs.
Quality
2.) Basic netiquette
While "you are so fucking stupid" was on the worse end of the spectrum, I still see way too much way too insulting behavior used against each other. People entering a discussion, ignoring what has been said and make some roundabout 'you're all ignorant/ fucking commies/ cuck'. I won't talk about moderation here, who I think is doing a good job. It shouldn't be necessary to have mods teach people basic human decency. Just DON'T treat other people with disrespect (and sure, the occasional fun remark is okay - but it requires some social skills to know when such fun works and when not. Chances are it won't work when you were having a heated debate over some controversial topic up to that point).
At times it feels as if we're a bunch of carnivores trying to figure out the weaknesses of each other for the next attack. It's unnecessary.
3.) Do we really need all these shitty 'hot topics'?
This is what makes me feel the most uncomfortable and it has been getting worse recently. So many threads are made about some identity/outrage/feminist/etc topic, seemingly with the only goal of calling it out and make fun of it. As much as I hated OldGAF, if there's nobody here who offers opposing viewpoints, it feels ... off to have these threads. How many threads about transgender, homosexuals or feminists doing something ridiculous do we really need? Ffs, I fully agree that modern feminists are bad and all that contains. But at times the thread overview looks like there's an agenda being pushed, and not a good one. I don't care about left or right. But many threads simply give off a bit off an 'asshole-feeling'. Basically:
Now some will say 'make better threads if you're unhappy', but ... I've been making quite some threads I think. And I don't want to work on making NeoGAF 'better' all by myself, that needs to be done by all of us. Where are the cool science-threads about awesome new findings/experiments? Where's the 'I'm sitting on the toilet at my gf's parents and there's no toilet paper, help'-threads? Where's the 'I traveled to Tibet, here's my report full of amusing anecdotes'-threads? NeoGAF is missing these light hearted topics. The lower-than-before user count is a bad excuse when those other threads have no trouble being made.
Getting to the end.
So that's it. I feel exhausted and a bit put off by the current thread landscape. Maybe that's just me and is all 'tough luck' for me. But maybe you read the above and thought 'so true, I had that impression, too'. In which case I ask you to try and help improve the way we post on this forum and with each other.
Maybe use this thread to both reply to my text as well as to give your opinion on NeoGAF as is right now. I'll be gone for three months and hope to return to a more positive community
. PS: Fun poll included because polls are always fun!
