I've been lurking here for a while, mostly reading the Phil threads, saw that I couldn't access them anymore and decided to register an account.
I've been a member of various iterations of GAF since the late 90s. NeoGAF has been through many iterations from IGN Snowball to EZBoards to Gaming Age directly and then to NeoGAF. There might be a phase or two I'm not remembering. I'm not proud that I've been a member for nearly 20 years but hey, it is what it is. For several years, I was a regular on the GAF IRC channel, which used to be the way Evilore (Tyler Malka) would pick new moderators and administrators. The IRC channel was a way for Evilore to hold court to see who would kiss his ass the best. Shamefully I kissed ass pretty hard and was almost rewarded for it as I was on a mod shortlist that got sent to me by someone who used to be administrator. This was nearly a decade ago, not sure how the procedure works.
The root cause of the board's decline into what it is now can solely lie on Evilore's shoulders. The board always leaned left but you were occasionally allowed to have a moderate or right wing opinion. However Evilore wants to turn NeoGAF into a multimillion dollar machine and one of the easiest ways to get there is to pander to the "acceptable" elements which is embracing full left wing social justice warrior politics. Evilore himself is quite conservative but he will put money ahead of his beliefs 10 times out of 10. He wants to be a multi-millionaire from GAF. However after several PMs with mods and admins that I know from way back, it seems like Evilore will fall very short of his dream. Not deterred, he still thinks that NeoGAF could be the central hub for gaming industry discussion.
About a decade ago, NeoGAF seemed to be on track. There actually was a decent gaming journalist and developer presence but in Evilore's determination to increase his revenue base, he often sided with trolls and low quality shitposters, which drove out those elements. I'd say 2008 was the last year where there was a strong gaming industry presence on the board. Now it's the joke of the industry.
Another point to mention is that NeoGAF has always had a pedophile problem. The board had a knack for being a honeypot for some of the strangest people I saw hanging around video game forums. Debates about pedophiles vs. ephebophiles have been raging since at least the early 2000s. There is a key difference and that is when a pedo got outed, the pedo was ridiculed. Now, the pedo is considered a victim and the moderators are more likely to protect the pedophile than ban him. It seems odd to me because the mods and admins get furious at being considered a pedophile haven. I consider pedophiles to be like cockroaches, if you see one, chances that's not the only one. There was an old section of the community boards about anime figurines that barely concealed what they thought about having sex with underaged girls. Community threads don't get policed very often since it's a group of cliques. The figurine community was discovered on a NeoGAF offshoot and the moderators had to taken action. Banning the figurine thread of course didn't eliminate the problem, it just pushed it underground.
I have tons more stories that I can share. Long story short, NeoGAF is a joke. Looking at traffic stats, it seemed to have peaked in 2013 and has been on a SomethingAwful style decline ever since (slow and gradual yet noticeable). NeoGAF moderators and administrators are so quick with the banhammer (GAF term) that he is irreparably ruining the forum by permabanning due to pet issues. Evilore in his mid 30s. NeoGAF will probably give him a nice upper middle class income ($75-100k) for the next several years but its future is pretty grim overall. Like SA, I think the damage is irreparable due to the sharp leftward turn of the board's politics since I'd say 2011 or so.
on't google it NSFL) when the forum is famous for dogpiling in weev avatars in recent years.
