[Discussion] NeoGAF is gone

Pages

NeoGAF is down, gone forever?

Dead. Kaput. No more.

... I think.

I'm fascinated by this, but struggling to find a solid news story pulling the tweets floating around the internet - like this is the wild west internet of the late '90s - together into a complete report.

Anyway, apparently a lot has come out after sexual allegations were raised by the site owner. Basically all of the mods have left in response, and my own personal search has the site as a dead link.

I never had an account there and it always seemed like an insane asylum for actual discussion, but it certainly had a role to play with sourcing stories.

Thus, I have turned to what I recall as one of the most civilised gaming forums out there for any thoughts or news pieces about this. Or, you know, actual discussion.

(Mods: feel free to move or even delete this thread. I've not posted here in a long while, but this seemed a good place for this.)

I was a member for 4 years and visited pretty much daily. It was a far from perfect place but for me escaping the cesspool that reddit had become was good for my sanity. Even if GAF comes back online all of those mods leaving will make sure it’ll never be the same and I don’t think I’ll return. Hopefully I can find a place here. It’s going to suck missing all the fast-paced gaming news though.

Anyone looking for some background information:
http://www.usgamer.net/articles/neog...

Huh, I had no idea about any of the earlier stuff related to this guy and in general he sounds like a massive douche.

garion333 wrote:

Huh, I had no idea about any of the earlier stuff related to this guy and in general he sounds like a massive douche.

He always came across as a bit of a smug asshole, not that that was enough to call for the shutdown of the site, but reading a few of the allegations - that are still up - it kind of doesn't surprise me. Especially with how ingrained this type of sexual misconduct seems to be in our culture.

Trying to find anything concrete on what happened beyond the basic bulletpoints unfortunately keeps sending me to spiderholes of conservatives, gamergators and alt-righters waxing poetic about 'intolerance'. Seems like there were legions of these folks just waiting for this day, which is also gross in its own way.

I know Neogaf is not the most popular here, but they were actually pretty progressive in terms of their general political leanings, and although their moderation could be a bit heavy handed, they did a great job of keeping a lot of the current conservative toxicity in line and off the site.

Patrick Klepek put out a tweet asking for leads/saying he was researching it, and the fact this happened on a Saturday afternoon I suspect there will be more substantial stuff on Monday.

The only thing I really know about the Gaf is when a local gaming magazine forum was 'attacked' maybe a decade ago (Sweet Christmas I'm getting old) because some formatting for the forum was 'stolen.' So that's not a good light to see a community in.

It was a pretty hilarious time in retrospect. It was just after 300 came out so there was a whole Spartan meme that developed on our forum after we 'fought off' the mighty NeoGAF.

Wow, I spend a ton of time there only because of the sheer amount of discussion on things.

I actually got banned once, for making a simple joke about the lack of Xbox One games, it was hilarious. The over moderation was a bit much, but the amount of gaming information was great.

I suspect it will pop up in some other form.

It was a great forum for people that wanted to have deep and narrow discussions about particular games or particular types of games.

That's sad news. I sure hope the site isn't abandoned entirely.

The sheer volume of traffic over there made 'Gaf a great resource for discoverability.

I also appreciated that they had a zero tolerance policy for hate speech.

Kinda strange that all the admins would jump ship over the actions of one person. Like it's ironic, and not in a funny way, that they'd want to nuke it from orbit when most considered it a social safe-space of sorts. Guess it feels like 'Gaf is bigger than just that one dude and it's a shame to see it so quickly scuttled. Seems pretty impulsive.

I browsed Reddit looking for info and was pretty mortified (not exaggerating) at the accepted level of discourse over there. Maybe there's cool pockets in there, but what I read was pretty vile in tone & content. That makes 'Gaf going down all the more depressing as the two sites are the only ones I can think of that deal in that sheer volume of members and I'll really miss the immediacy and microscopic detail on gaming topics discussed on 'Gaf.

The sight wasn't perfect and it certainly did have immaturity issues, but man that's sad to hear.

Didn't have an account there but spend plenty of time reading. Good source for discussions on new and upcoming games. Seemed like a relatively civil place these days.

Looks like The Escapist is in dire straits too, although it's been years since I've popped in there so I don't know what the deal is. Any time a large gaming forum closes (if this is indeed the case) I get a bit nervous about the sudden influx of folks looking for a new home, but we'll be fine I'm sure.

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/QIYekMP.gif)

Not a lot of independent game communities left out there these days.

Aaron D. wrote:

Kinda strange that all the admins would jump ship over the actions of one person. Like it's ironic, and not in a funny way, that they'd want to nuke it from orbit when most considered it a social safe-space of sorts. Guess it feels like 'Gaf is bigger than just that one dude and it's a shame to see it so quickly scuttled. Seems pretty impulsive.

I browsed Reddit looking for info and was pretty mortified (not exaggerating) at the accepted level of discourse over there. Maybe there's cool pockets in there, but what I read was pretty vile in tone & content. That makes 'Gaf going down all the more depressing as the two sites are the only ones I can think of that deal in that sheer volume of members and I'll really miss the immediacy and microscopic detail on gaming topics discussed on 'Gaf.

The sight wasn't perfect and it certainly did have immaturity issues, but man that's sad to hear.

When that one person is the owner who set the tone, picked the mods and established the baseline for conduct, it’s understandable.

And yes, the brunt of the discussion I’ve found online has been conservative/alt-right folks celebrating the closure.

Only good thing about gaf closing down is nel coming home.

SallyNasty wrote:

Only good thing about gaf closing down is nel coming home.

Where else can one go for 50 page threads on the minutiae of loot boxes and how they intersect with Nazi punching?

Dammit.

Certis wrote:

Any time a large gaming forum closes (if this is indeed the case) I get a bit nervous about the sudden influx of folks looking for a new home, but we'll be fine I'm sure.

They'll fit right in!

Certis wrote:

Looks like The Escapist is in dire straits too, although it's been years since I've popped in there so I don't know what the deal is.

Yeah, The Escapist isn't looking good...

It is with regret that, to our knowledge, that all paid staff have been relieved of their duties, with the apparent exception of Yahtzee, The Escapist's streaming staff, and Encaen for a few contracted hours a month.

no great loss, the Escapist is currently a cesspit of gamergate types going by what I've seen in their forums every time I dare poke my head in there.

I was never a contributor on neoGAF but it was fantastic as a resource on almost anything to do with any game. It was tighter in scope and had strict moderation, which benefited actual discussion on the game at hand, and nothing more. It was like a valuable gaming encyclopedia.

I've never found a single online community that has not saw biased moderation, subtle or otherwise, that enabled their preferable tone of echo chamber to manifest on occasion. Reddit is the worst. Gamers With Jobs is the best. I found neoGAF to be mostly exempt from it all. Granted, I dropped in and out sporadically which may have created rose tinted glasses in this regard. Still, that was my experience.

The best thread I'd seen was called 'The Hug Button' - games where you could use a button to hug someone/thing.

Shadout wrote:

Didn't have an account there but spend plenty of time reading. Good source for discussions on new and upcoming games. Seemed like a relatively civil place these days.

its a shame it’s gone and it will be missed but I’m curious what will come from it. I should post more here again, I miss it.

1Dgaf wrote:

The best thread I'd seen was called 'The Hug Button' - games where you could use a button to hug someone/thing.

I’m gonna miss the drunken ramblings of 20-somethings going on about unrequited love.

nel e nel wrote:
1Dgaf wrote:

The best thread I'd seen was called 'The Hug Button' - games where you could use a button to hug someone/thing.

I’m gonna miss the drunken ramblings of 20-somethings going on about unrequited love.

I would appreciate you keeping our private conversations private.

Kotaku on what's been happening.

https://kotaku.com/neogaf-goes-dark-...

Echo chambers are bad and inevitably fail.

cheeba wrote:

Echo chambers are bad and inevitably fail.

=)

I can't cross stitch, so all I can do is quote you.

IMAGE(https://img0.etsystatic.com/135/0/11888135/il_fullxfull.881834868_9n6g.jpg)

Cheeba, you are a treasure.

cheeba wrote:

Echo chambers are bad and inevitably fail.

Fox News, Salon, etc. etc. etc. don't seem to have any problems existing.

This sounds more like a case of boring ol' hypocrisy. Seems like there's still more info that needs to come out before we draw any conclusions.

Chairman_Mao wrote:

This sounds more like a case of boring ol' hypocrisy. Seems like there's still more info that needs to come out before we draw any conclusions.

I do hope that something good comes from it. There did seem to be a good number of good people there, keeping it all in check, and it may turn out well if the mods that left band together to form something new.

cheeba wrote:

Echo chambers are bad and inevitably fail.

Just vague enough to almost be on the verge of a real insightful thought, here. Care to elaborate?

Spoiler:

My guess is probably not.

IMAGE(https://i.pinimg.com/originals/01/d9/9d/01d99d532049d58c0339de655ccafd74.gif)

Wow. Never used GAF because I found the threading impossible to follow, but it sucks for the community that built there. That being said, if the site admin was a douche, I hope he get fourteen kinds of syphilis.

Um, to any GAF-fers who need a new home, welcome, I guess?

Chairman_Mao wrote:
cheeba wrote:

Echo chambers are bad and inevitably fail.

Fox News, Salon, etc. etc. etc. don't seem to have any problems existing.

I'm not sure I'd call those echo chambers - or at least not like NeoGAF was. NeoGAF aggressively banned anyone for having different opinions. I know quite a few industry people are awfully pleased that NeoGAF is burning.

(Also, Salon exists solely because very wealthy people don't mind losing money with it. It has never made a cent of profit.)

CptDomano wrote:
cheeba wrote:

Echo chambers are bad and inevitably fail.

Just vague enough to almost be on the verge of a real insightful thought, here. Care to elaborate?

Spoiler:

My guess is probably not.

IMAGE(https://i.pinimg.com/originals/01/d9/9d/01d99d532049d58c0339de655ccafd74.gif)

I'd be happy to, but there's not much more to it. NeoGAF was an extreme echo chamber that banned anyone that gave even a hint of thinking differently from their accepted norm. That makes for an entirely uninteresting bore of a forum, IMO. I've never registered or posted there precisely because echo chambers like that provide little to nothing of value.

And echo chambers like that all seem to fail horrifically because when you police opinion so harshly, it's just a matter of time before you create a situation where certain sneetches have stars on their bellies and others do not.

Pages