Tyler Malka, NeoGAF’s owner, was accused of sexual harassment a couple days ago, and has been silent about it. The majority of the Admin and Moderation team has quit the forum, and the website has been down for the last few hours
Malka was accused of harassment before, in 2012, but nothing came from it.
If that’s the case then good.
Wow. I can’t say I’m at all surprised that the person behind forums like that is like that, but in this current state of mass awareness about the presence of sexual harassers in positions of power, I’m glad that action is being taken so quickly in these cases.
I did get some sweet, sweet schadenfreude and straight-up entertainment off some of the threads in there.
EDIT: Thinking on it, I want to add a “bravo” to the members of admin and moderation for immediately cutting ties. Maybe some of them only did it out of concerns for their own reputations, but either way, a nearly across-the-board immediate condemnation is more than I expect from gaming, and one of gaming’s darkest hives, at that.
To pull back the curtain just a teeny bit, we’re expecting a number of new users over the weekend, so we’d ask our users to be as welcoming as possible and for new users to check our rules and get in touch with us if they have any questions at all.
Damn, this is really shitty, and it’s good that the moderators/admins are taking a firm stand against it, but I wonder where all of the users are going to end up now.
Look out on the Twitter, it seems like a lot of people are wondering the same thing. Maybe Twitter will be the “spot” for now.
I do know a Discord was made by some of the mods to help people who wanted to stick together but that that also has had some issues with such a huge influx of people so fair warnings to anyone seeking that out.
I learned about not only Giantbomb, but became a much more progressive person during my formative years by reading GAF.
That site meant a lot to me and its weird to see it blink out of existence but that’s what happens when shitheads are given power! They abuse it. I hope the victim is okay and can at least find some solace in him losing his platform.
I hope those who were harrassed are getting support. I’m really proud of the mods/admins who decided to take a stand for them. I really hope this doesn’t turn into some huge mob searching for evidence.
Also, not only welcome to any new users popping in, but I do hope they find a supportive place to continue to talk online. I know a lot of people who had their own cherished communities on NeoGAF (some for years), and it must be tough to have that evaporate without warning.
Regardless, I have no sympathy for harassers.
I have a lot to thank Neogaf, it transformed me into a less shitty and more informed human being. The people were reasonable, kind (mostly) sure it wasn’t perfect, but a much better forum than most discussion spaces (and that goes for both offline and online). I’m fairly sure it will come back, I just hope under new ownership
I hope the smaller communities (especially the LGBT threads, mental health threads, et al) can reconnect. I primarily posted in the Giant Bomb thread and its loss is disappointing, but we already had a Discord to move to.
Interesting times ahead. Lots of us will be looking for a new sense of “community.” I personally dig the color scheme here more anyway…
I’ll be sad to see it go, GAF for all it’s faults was a place where bigotry was not welcomed by the community. The bulk of the members that have become aware of the issue have been condemning the owner and moving on. I’m surprised to see it described as one of the darkest hives in gaming, my experience was positive and several of the communities I participated in were filled with great people. Clearly there was more going on behind the scenes that a lot of members weren’t aware of though. I hope everyone’s able to find a good place that makes them comfortable.
This is bizarre. NeoGAF was a cornerstone of sorts for gaming forums and while I have always heard, uh, mixed things. It’s weird to think it’s gone. I’m sure some version of it will pop back up but worse and catering to the shitiest elements of it’s userbase though.
Still it sounds like it’s very much for a good reason and good on the people who took a stand. Hopefully they can make a better community somewhere
Man, Neogaf to me was another spot for interesting discussions on games but also willing to be silly without going too far. However, it better for the members of admin and moderation to get away from the site.
Jesus. Why are all the good things I like ruined by assholes? First cinefamily, now neogaf. I just want to watch a movie with a high Doug Benson talking over it then read about people bitching about Trump on OT.
Sorry, I almost mean “darkest hive” positively, but I was typing too briefly to find better words. GAF was deep to the point where you have to know a good deal about games to read threads and participate, but can also count on everyone else knowing about as much as you, which is fun. So, maybe *deepest is better.
The only dark part about it I saw quite often was hunts being conducted for who/what in the development team of a game to pin its failings on. QUITE often.
The smart ones already registered an account ages ago taps head three times
Man, I reformatted my PC, I didn’t back-up the file my GAF avatar was in… I was gonna jump on GAF to get it… Oh well, maybe it’ll come back up long enough for me to grab it at some point, lol.
What I’m wondering is: why was none of this picked up by games journalists back in 2012, when he was first accused? Did he cover it up very effectively, or was it something else? NeoGAF was already an incredibly big/influential internet gaming community back then, so I don’t seen why it wasn’t newsworthy/why it’s gone unexamined in the gaming press until now
