For several days the hardcore gaming forum NeoGAF has been inaccessible, but the site is now operational once more. This follows allegations of sexual misconduct against its owner Tyler 'Evilore' Malka, which resulted in a mass walkout of moderators and a significant number of banned accounts before the site was taken offline.
Malka has at last issued a statement on the matter, although it speaks only briefly about the accusation. It instead focuses on why the statement took as long as it did to materialise, as well as what has been happening with NeoGAF itself during its downtime. Here is the statement in full:
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.
Thanks.
The site's Off Topic board is now gone, leaving just Gaming in an effort to renew the forum's focus on video game discussion. However, it may take a while for things to settle down; at the time of typing, there are still numerous threads containing posts requesting bans and people lashing out at Malka.
The issue at the heart of all this remains unresolved.
[source neogaf.com]
Comments 16
The Internet: Judge, Jury and executioner. We haven't really moved on from the mob rule of hundreds of years ago really have we?
It's still a complete mess right now, but it's fascinating to watch how it unfolds. Very interested in seeing how many users stick around.
Booooorriiinggg
Denial. Any guy responding to these type of allegations with words like logical and rational and facts is completely missing the point and is just making things sound like excuses and a cover up. It's not about facts, it's about feelings, feelings of oppression and helplessness and worthlessness. Men's facts don't necessarily correlate to women's feelings as facts are quantifiable but feelings are qualitative, same facts can have different feelings, one is objective and one is subjective.
He's in denial if he thinks saying "These are the facts, it's all bogus." is ever going to end this. Might as well pay her $32 million because he's innocent.
@rjejr I think all that needs to be said on this is that both sides of the story need to be heard. It's one issue with social media et al. Both these people need to be heard by a court in private. This man shouldn't be dragged through the mud before a fair trial. Being who he is, this would hurt him more than most. There must be reasons behind his allegations, but it isn't for us to decide his fate, or guilt.
Another social media non-issue. Yay...
@Shellcore My reply wasn't meant to be about his guilt or innocence, just that he's in denial if he thinks he can make that 1 comment and think everyone will just read it and say "Oh, he's innocent, nevermind, let's all go back to normal." Hard to go back to normal from this under any circumstances, but his comment doesn't give me any hope that he has any idea what's going on. He used the word "ex". He might as well have said "My crazy ex-girlfriend." as it's implied. Most people use the word "ex" in a negative sentence, probably 9 times out of 10, to imply there is something wrong with that person, like making mother-in-law jokes. Like he broke up with her b/c she was insane so everything she says must be fabricated. It reads calculated to me, not heartfelt.
Who knows, maybe she is crazy, maybe she did make the whole thing up as a way to get back at him for something, it probably happens. But in 2017 it's best to proceed cautiously, and slowly, you can't just says "she's an ex, she's nuts, as you were". Denial.
I mean come on, the guy basically said "fake news". It's almost like he's trying to make things worse.
"I issued some comments to the press, since everything coming out was proving to be sensationalized, opportunist, and unprofessional."
He seems more concerned w/ the website than the situation. 90% of his comment is about the website returning to normal. Denial.
"we've just been trying to figure out the best course of action for NeoGAF going forward. "
"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."
Even if it's all a fantasy, and the woman comes out and recants her story, it will still take awhile after that to get back to normal as some people will say she was either threatened or paid hush money. NeoGAF is 1 big forum for people to spout out nonsense, it will take time for this story to pass, true or false.
I’m kinda starting to appreciate this site more + the fact you’re willing to talk about this since in a way this has nothing to do w PlayStation whatsoever which this site mostly is about but I don’t mind it either way but makes it more interesting
Plus this subject is quite a heavy one!
@rjejr It makes complete sense for 90% of his comment being in relation to the website though. Guilty or not, as far as NeoGAF is concerned it's his job to steer the ship in the right direction and he has a responsibility to his team and users to do that. I mean, what would you expect him to do? Admit guilt and shut down? I'm genuinely confused as to what you think an appropriate response would be.
@kyleforrester87 Well much shorter for one. And it's hard to say what his response should be b/c I don't know how guilty or innocent he is, but standing behind the wheel of the Titanic while it's sunk on the bottom of the ocean, well that's not the time to be saying "Don't worry folks, dinner was delayed a bit, but we'll have your food out to you shortly."
If he's completely innocent - well then there shouldn't have been that much to say, just laugh it off, apologize for the unnecessary interruption to the site, and move on.
If he's completely guilty - dont' worry about the site, he's got bigger problems, like fleeing the country so something.
If he's mostly innocent - well then he needs to take some time off to think about whats' he's done and not worry so much about the site.
If he's mostly guilty - well then he needs to apologize, quit the site and let somebody else run it if he cares about the site so much.
All I see is him blaming a crazy ex and trying to pretend nothing happened by going on and on and on and on and on and on and on and trying to get things immediately back to normal when that obviously ins't going to happen.
Go back and reread that entire post. Slowly, every word. He never apologizes. And I'm not talking about apologizing for something he didn't do, the allegations, but the website he cares about so much was down b/c of him, or his ex if you want to blame her. His ex. His workers were overwhelmed b/c of allegations against him. But he never says he's sorry for the website being down. Never apologizes to his workers for all they went thru. He takes some responsibility, says his workers shouldn't pay the price for him, but he never apologizes to anyone. He plays the victim - he's tired, he's overworked, he's taking heat. But not 1 single "I'm sorry", just how hard it's been on him. Poor him.
If he's going to take the heat, he should have at least said he was sorry to the mods. That would have been my response. Guilty of sexual harassment or not, it's his site, they are his workers, site was down. I'd own up to it being his fault as it was his ex and apologize to both the mods and the users for the weekends mess. Just say "Sorry", it's 1 5 letter word, it was a very long comment, he could have squeezed it in somewhere. Maybe his lawyers told him not to, makes him sound guilty, but he could have said sorry to the mods.
Here's my response.
Dear employees and visitors to the NeoGAF website,
I'm sorry to everyone for the events that led to the site being down this weekend. I'm sorry to my mods for having to deal with an overload of work this weekend, I'm sorry to the users who come to NeoGAF to talk video games that the site was down do to no fault of their own. I apologize to everyone involved for something that took place in my personal life that overwhelmed the business side. I'm going to take some time away from the site in the hopes that NeoGAF can slowly return to being the best place on the internet to discuss video games. Please, if you are a user of this site, do nto direct any anger you may towards me towards them. The mods are only doing their jobs to make sure you, the users of the site, have the best experience possible. That's what this site has always been about, the users, the video game players. I'll address my personal issues in another venue in the hope that NeoGAF can get back to being the great place that it was. Again I'm sorry, but please, I'll thank you in advance for making NeoGAF an enjoyable, and respectable website for the gaming community.
Something short and apologetic like that. I took 2 minutes, and I don't even know what I'm apologizing for, he had all weekend, and it read like he spent it with lawyers.
Not the first time he's sexually harassed people, mentioning the Spain incident resulted in a ban.
If it turns out to be true, I can't help but see some irony. Guy is one of those typical white knights who screams 'misogyny!' at everything and here he is pulling this kind of crap. Not all the facts are in, that's true, but seems pretty obvious he's a hypocrite and that there was some wrong doing here.
@rjejr How do you know he didn’t apologize to the workers? Just because he didn’t mention it doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. People need to quit assuming things because that’s when false narratives start getting pushed around. And judging his level of guilt by what he said in a formal statement? Come on dude. That’s not how it works. Real evidence needs to be gathered before guilt is placed. Who said that what his ex said was the truth? Is there evidence to support or not support her claim? The internet is always so quick to judge someone rather than gathering info and evidence before passing judgement
@Cowboysfan-22 "How do you know he didn’t apologize to the workers?"
I never said he didn't, he probably did. All I commented on was the very long - "we're back up, it wasn't my fault" - post that he wrote. I didn't commented or what he may or may not have said to anyone else.
And I never said he was guilt of anything, I don't know, I wasn't there, I was just reading a long post on commenting on what I read. That's why people write posts, to read them. If he didn't want me to read it, he shouldn't have posted it in a public forum. And reading it, I thought about it and took what I could from it.
"Real evidence needs to be gathered before guilt is placed."
When's the last time anybody ever saw "real evidence" in a "he said, she said", situation? Unless there's stains on a dress there usually isn't any evidence, just hearsay, that's the way these things work. And from everything I've read around the internet all weekend, I'm going with "where's there's smoke there's fire" on this one. Not sure how much of a fire, could be a cigarette butt, could be northern California, but I'm not getting all warm and fuzzy inside reading his comment.
@rjejr I agree with a lot of the points you are making. The message he put out reads so calculated to me
@bbtothe "reads so calculated to me"
All of these types of comments always read calculated to me. My actual problem is his calculation was defensive, to make himself the victim, rather than be apologetic for the weekends chaos.
And I do completely understand his reaction. Whether what was said about him happened or it didn't, he's upset either way, b/c either his dirty laundry got aired in public or he's being slandered, and as a result his site was taken down and fairly or not his name dragged thru the mud. So yeah, he's upset, I get it. I just would have made my first public post about it empathetic towards others involved and less about me. There's plenty of time later for clearing his name and bad-mouthing the ex.
If he were married to her he'd know it's best to ALWAYS apologize first, then clear the air second. That's what I teach my kids too. We can talk abut it all you want, all the hardship and unfairness in your life, but first apologize. Easier to discuss things when everyone is calm and forgiven.
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