Yeah, I was getting ready to leave GAF even before all of this because I wasn’t liking what the overall tone was doing to my mental health. I was finding my posts becoming more snarky and angry over time. I’m much happier with the atmosphere here. It’s more relaxing.
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Totally agree! I think of myself as being fairly “woke”, yet in just a couple days on here I had a few people point potentially offensive stuff I was writing out to me that I hadn’t considered (I don’t know if I was just too used to the GAF style of online discourse or what). I love it! I love that everyone is just looking out for each other and committed to making this a great place to be.
Also absolutely loving how responsive and engaged the mods are, it’s brilliant (@M_o knows what I’m talking about 
)
I really want the arrival of the GAFers to be a net positive for this place and this community, and I for one am going to work towards that. (E: starting with the PC thread, come join us! /plug 
)
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Relaxing and quite a bit warmer.
We all will.
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Love this post. I think that no matter how progressive or conscious one tries to be, when you are focused on one outlet or source or whatever, you are going to have blind spots. Listening to the Waypoint podcasts and reading posts on this forum have definitely shown me that leaning so heavily on GAF gave me blind spots for sure.
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I don’t think this place will replace NeoGAF as my main source for news, but I do think I’ll be popping in from time to time to see some interesting videogame related discussion. Whole situation is pretty disappointing though, I feel like NeoGAF has been held hostage by Tyler Malka, and for that reason I’ll never feel comfortable visiting that site again. This place is chill though.
Glad a bunch of you have been enjoying it here. I’d be happy for you all to stay if you want.
Since some husk of NeoGAF is up, maybe try messaging your friends/favourite commenters there (or at least noting down their usernames to look-out on other sites). I hope you get back in contact with your friends.
I’ll say one thing - the communities on GAF felt really close-knit, especially GAFIA.
At least most of us went out all together, feels better that way.
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So far I like Waypoint alright, but the main thing I don’t understand is how you handle news. Like, there was a thread about the SMTV trailer that was locked with the reason, I think, that you guys don’t just do news or something? I’m not sure I really understand how you keep up with current events. Or maybe you just… don’t? I dunno
Which thread are you referring to? The SMT5 thread I’m seeing is still open
Beautiful article, it explains things succinctly and clearly, and documents the events that occurred and the lead up to the initial closing of the site.
It’s a bit frustrating to see people raise eyebrows at the fact she slept with him at a later date, but many people are unfamiliar with how abuser-victim relationships go or the headspace you’re in when you’re a part of an abusive relationship, but I hope others can understand that this does not indicate the initial incident was completely unwarranted, and actually lends more credence to the initial allegations – not detracts from them.
It’s also frustrating and a bit terrifying that so many places that seem to champion basic human decency are littered with scumbags in positions of power, and as a result end up creating more victims, while hiding behind the facade of being a champion of people’s basic rights. I understand this is a common tactic taken by predators, the “wolf in sheeps clothing” incident, but when you’d always hear about it, it seemed so far away. It was something you were conscious of, and had to be on your toes about, but in certain spaces, like NeoGAF, you felt as if you could let your guard down a little bit, because it was “safer” than the rest.
I don’t fault the community at large, as there were many wonderful people on the site, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a bit shaken, and beginning to question other figures in my life which appear at first glance to be a beacon of light in the ever growing darkness of this world, bracing myself each day lest I learn news of horrible truths they had been hiding for years, only coming to surface when a victim finds the courage to speak out and say something public. I know as a general rule you should always be vigilant and keep an eye out for shady dealings, but it is exhausting to always be suspicious and critical of every media figure, taking an off hand comment and wondering if they misspoke, or if they let slip a glimpse of their true self.
Fortunately Waypoint seems to be a wonderful place, and knowing the staff at hand it seems like those worries can be abated, as this place has been nothing but kind and inclusive, which is very much in line with the tone Patrick, Austin, Danielle, & Co. have set from the inception of the website, so at the very least, there is this small community within which to take a reprieve from the horrors of the world at large, before wading back onto the battlefield of life.
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That thread got closed because the OP just posted a link to the trailer and screenshots and no discussion, I think. The discussion could have been merged with the other thread going now since there were good posts after though. But that might be hard to do, I dunno.
I am pretty sure we can post about new stuff, there just needs to be content to the post and at least a prompt for discussion. Not that bad imo.
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You are prolly referencing the GAF-style news post about the announcement and not the more impression-based “what do you want to see” thread.
My guess is that since this is not a news-aggregate site, that threads need to be topical in regard to our gaming experiences rather than just news blurbs.
This is one of those differences that GAFfers will need to get used to here.
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Those are mostly people who insist on talking about how fun games are and get mad if they have to pay any mind to equality and other social issues. As long as games are fun for them and them alone, all is well in their world.
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Ah, well, okay. I think I get it then.
If you dare go back to check on GAF, the first page of Gaming is made up entirely of this. It’s a terrifying wasteland of shitposting and privileged “I don’t see what the problem is why can’t we just play games” fuckery.
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I don’t understand the confusion or the blow back on the victim. If something made her uncomfortable, then it made her uncomfortable. The point of this all is to let other women know they’re not alone in feeling that discomfort. Great article. This type of $#*+ drives me insane. Who cares about the mindset of the accused when they did something to (for loss of words) “bum” a girl out? Jesus.
*Great article dude.
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Really did not see this coming, even after Amir0x. GAF’s been my only gaming forum since 2011 or so but I’m not going back. To be honest Gaming could be a bit of a cesspit if you made the mortal mistake of liking a game that’s “bad” or defending a developer that’s “lazy” but the moderation was still better than 99% of gaming forums. Shame.
Neogaf without Off-Topic just isn’t the same. I love those pop culture, politics and world news threads. You learn something from someplace almost everyday. Reading those allows you to develop a sense of empathy to your fellow gamers.
Anyway, excellent reporting by Waypoint peeps on the current situation at Neogaf. I hope whatever skeleton moderator crew they still have there maintain the strict rules against bigotry. I hope they are up-to-date with the ever-changing dog whistles and obfuscation tactics used by internet dregs. Neogaf mods are not perfect but by and large, they are a cut above the rest compared to the ones you’ll find in other gaming sites.
I also hope that the women, POC’s and LGBTQ’s of Neogaf find a replacement place where they don’t have to contend of people trying to be cute and get a rise out of them EVERY.DAY.
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Somewhere like here perhaps? 
To clarify: I’m suspecting that the mass arrival of GAFers has probably made the forum skew more cishet (and likely white) male than it was previously, so it would be cool to get some extra diversity on top of the existing userbase (more diversity in general is always a good thing anyway).
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Looking forward to listening to the podcast soon, but insofar as Malka’s “official” statement on the forum follows his interview statements in Patrick’s article, it looks as though he’s leaning hard into the childish hand-waving of reality. Former GAF mods have clearly gone on the record stating that they left the site due to Malka’s predatory sexual history; what’s the use denying that when the truthful information is so easily accessible? Then resorting to invisible moderators and silencing all political discussion? Again, it’s Trumpian in its way.
Speaking of Trumpian, this whole intersection of gaming and the alt-right continues to fascinate me, and the current saga of GAF is such a bizarre case study in that. In spite of Malka’s (seemingly hands-off) ownership, the site became this sort of symbol for progressiveness in gaming; within a weekend, its community appears to have quickly devolved into something like a more authoritarian version of an alt-right Reddit sub.
Related (and I know I’m generalizing here), is anybody else noticing how much of a red flag “let’s not politicize this” has become lately? It’s really starting to become a security blanket for folks with some repugnant-assed views.
Edit: A ways into the Waypoint Radio episode, but I’m glad to hear that it gets into the alt-right gaming community’s involvement in all of this. Like the podcasters, the first news I saw on this issue was from the alt-right, exploiting the victim’s account of sexual abuse as leverage to celebrate a victory over progressivism. To paraphrase the podcast, for the alt-right community, “sowing chaos equals advancement of the cause, even if that cause has no end” – well said.
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