UPDATE! NeoGAF Owner accused of sexual abuse, site officially back up and statement

UPDATE 4 - Now a statement from Tyler Malka (Evilore) see below

UPDATE 3 - Site now officially running

UPDATE 2 - Site is now down again, showing 502 gateway error.

UPDATE - Site appears to be working now, however, it's completely empty. We may still get a statement but will update when a post is made.

Hi.

An allegation of sexual misconduct has been made against me by an ex. It's not true, the individual making the accusation isn't credible, the story doesn't reconcile logically with the facts, and there's plenty of evidence and witnesses to corroborate that. It'll be a process.

All allegations of this nature are serious, of course. I first got word of it on Wednesday when a screenshot of a Facebook post was handed to Voat. I immediately talked with my mod team about the contents of the screenshot and clarified that it was baseless and explained some of the details concerning my former associations with her, and tried to ensure any concerns from the team were addressed fully and transparently to everyone's satisfaction. On Thursday I heard that she had deleted the accusation from Facebook, and wasn't entirely sure how to proceed from there or how this would all play out in the public space at that point. Then, Friday morning, the screenshot made its way to NeoGAF and chaos ensued.

I was in the process of writing a statement that entire day to address formally address the allegation, but the community had erupted in a flash that morning. While the moderation team was trying to restore the peace, accusations and threats concerning the screenshot started shifting to them as well by association with me, and I was asked by my team to do something to fix things and get the heat off of all of them at least. I was beyond exhausted by that point, though, stretched too thin in the time since the post had first appeared and seeing unprecedented events unfold on NeoGAF. I was slow and weak. I failed to handle it quickly enough and let the team down. Before I could finish a statement and get it out there, understandably some mods hit their emotional limit, expressed concerns about the community coming after them, and decided to leave. A few people resigned, and many more quickly followed for similar reasons, citing stress and harassment. The site started breaking under load spikes leading up to the first resignations, too, and then flatlined altogether, so issuing a statement at that time on NeoGAF itself became impossible for the time being, and my attention shifted toward the moderation team's future.

Since that whole mess, lasting from Friday morning through Saturday, before we formally went offline for maintenance and repair and restructure, we've just been trying to figure out the best course of action for NeoGAF going forward. And as stories began being published by various outlets, I issued some comments to the press, since everything coming out was proving to be sensationalized, opportunist, and unprofessional.

We've all become increasingly stressed and weary this year in ways even I'm not accustomed to by now, and discussions on heated news, political issues, and social issues on the off-topic side of the site have become areas no one has wanted to moderate in the open for fear of backlash or just general exposure to the inevitable toxicity. I've gone in there myself to take the heat, since it's very much my responsibility to do so before anyone else's, but there's been little headway, mostly just more anger and resentment and a lot of bans. I don't think this necessarily reflects on our community; more so the tone of the entire internet this year with regards to heated issues.

That's all going to inform the way forward for NeoGAF as we refocus on what the main goals are supposed to be for the site. The mod team will talk about more specifics on what that will entail below.

One last thing. The NeoGAF mod team is here for this community; all of you. You have no obligations to respect me or believe anything I say about my personal life one way or another, but if you're going to be here and participate on NeoGAF, respect the mod team by following the rules and behaving. The team is diminished at the moment and the folks who stuck around care very much about this community and its future. Be considerate of them. That's non-negotiable.

It has been announced that Owner of NeoGaf, that goes by the Alias "Evilore" has been accused of sexual abuse to female game developers. When they started to post the threads about him, a ModBot has started to lockdown the threads as well as ban the women who are speaking out about their abuse from Evilore. NeoGAF will soon put up a statement to address the allegations

About NeoGAF: It's a forum designed for all game developers, journalist, and fans come together as a community for discussions. They have been the forefront for surprise game announcements, leaks, and rumors.

NeoGAF thread of the ModBot

Tweet about NeoGAF

NeoGAF on lockdown (multiple threads deleted) as woman comes forth about site owner Evilore being a sexual abuser. "statement coming soon"

— GamesNosh (@GamesNosh) October 21, 2017More info on what's going on with NeoGAF

NeoGAF's Evilore accused of sexual assault. A NeoGAF thread and Facebook post revealed this. https://t.co/5sh9efQ9KLSite on lockdown. pic.twitter.com/YjDLkXXV4r

— Nick Monroe (@nickmon1112) October 21, 2017I did a 5 part series going over the controversies of NeoGAF. Including the moderators, and Tyler Malka himself. https://t.co/2KP2Uon92q

— Nick Monroe (@nickmon1112) October 21, 2017Moderators like Besada are fleeing the sinking ship pic.twitter.com/4b7DfjqT8z

— Nick Monroe (@nickmon1112) October 21, 2017

This isn't new though so I am sure nothing is going to happen.

Are you sure? After the allegations of Evilore came out, all 4 of their mods stepped down.

Hmm, wonder if this will get people to come back to Gamespot.

Wow..........

Eh. Clown circus.

Why am I not surprised?

I am.. they're soo big on social justice.

Sites dead atm.

https://imgur.com/a/eBPYm

So how active is Gamespots OT. Havent really posted here at all since 2013

"sexual abusers" are everywhere, but not every "sexual abuser" is a rapist, a woman hater, and so forth.

Fun fact: you can go on the sex offenders registry for pissing in public (indecent exposure); how many of you have done that before?

With that said, every single instance should be taken seriously, addressed...just not blown out of proportion or taken out of context. This has little to do with NeoGAF, most of the people on there, the game industry, and so forth.

You have to wonder if people primarily upset of the morality of it, or are hysterically forming a line at the prospect of someone on a pedestal getting knocked down.

One admin left apparently

More like all of them from what I just read on Twitter.

I don't think he'll be getting away this time.

One rumor I saw on Twitter. Is Evilore claimed to be in a love triangle with the woman from Texas (the shower incident) to the mods. They didn't buy it, and left Gaf.

Either way. He's been preparing a PR statement on the matter. And whatever was discussed in private, certainly didn't go well with the mods/admins who left. Only a matter of time before women's rights groups get a hold of this developing story.

I'm a member there and I can say this: That site is unusable now, it has so many failed paged load errors and takes way too long for pages to even load. Not only that, but I read just about all of the mods are gone from there.

It may as well be a dead site if they can't fix it.

You might as well stay here! I hate how of an echochamber Gaf has become! Not to mention that they know that Evilore has been accused of sexual assault before. They still act like they high moral ground.

Yeah, you're right about that. Also, the site is more broken than old Gamespot even.

GAFs slower to load than a c64

NeoGAF was working fine earlier today, but now the page won't load. Tried on different devices. nothing. Check several "site down?" sites.

Then went looking on Twitter, other places and finally saw the news. I don't care about their personal / legal issues, I just wanna read the gaming forum.

ROFL, you're actually right about that, I mean, wow, it takes ages to do anything there now.

Dont want the site to shut as ive been there since 2013. Would be strange to start posting regularly here again.

Come back to us! We are better than NeoGAF now! At least we're not an echo-chamber

Used to be a great forum but this hypocrite turned it into a joke.

Agreed!

Now, NeoGAF is on fire.

Mods like Kagari openly shilled for Sony. Pathetic.

Is that where everyone went? I wasnt as active when this place died, but dang neogaf was trash years ago

Didn't that Mod banned people that talked about the Wii and Xbox 360?

Lemmings cows and sheep still a thing or not?

I hope @tagyhag comes back to me.....

That's the one.

As someone who was banned for no reason, I think I’ll just keep my thoughts to myself. Place is a cesspool

rip GAF

Yes! But no one takes the meta game seriously anymore.

@FireEmblem_Man: Good lol

I like gaf but got absolutely destroyed when I posted I was joining team Invisible for a splatfest. Stopped posting after that.

I'll only post here on GS now, and even then not often. Gaf is totally offline now.

Yup , Even the gamespot Staff went to neogaf instead of staying here after the redesign.

Jeez

Also nice new sig, it fits your posts in PG more lol

That site is finished.

I got perma-banned from there for saying I mistook a shot of Serena Williams's swole back muscles for a muscled up guy... I sht u not! ... banned from a site owned by a manchild that leaked nudes of a girl, grabbed another's privates at a party for "dominance" and had a convicted pedophile as a pet mod backing him up...

I can't stress how good that place was once, but around 2012 was when it went to hell. You still saw glimpses of old GAF in communities and when discussing old games but besides that, all the quality posters had long left.

Id miss WrassleGAF

Yes, please stay here! I need you to help me own those that still can't recognize the Switch success! Especially Mario Odyssey coming out next week

Site is now offline.

I can say that I never applied to be a member of Neogaf. That forum takes itself way too seriously (it's video games) and it has become a bigger echo chamber then I can remember (And I am a liberal who despises Trump, his cult of personality, and his supporters with a passion). Plus I hear the mods are insane and extremely biased when it comes to EVERYTHING.

GS popularity is awful now but I'd still rather post here then gaf by a mile.

Somewhere out there Denis Dyack is laughing at this shitstorm.

I like GAF, but I do not usually post on gaming side. I usually post in various OT communities or OT itself there. I'm not going to comment on this news directly until more info comes out. I hope the full story related to this news come out soon. If the allegations are true Tyler should step down.