Popular gaming forum NeoGAF is in the midst of a sexual scandal from which its recovery is uncertain. Site owner Tyler Malka, who is no stranger to such misconduct, was accused by Texas filmmaker Ima Leupp after he allegedly got naked and stepped into the shower with her.
Malka has flatly denied the allegations, noting that, “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.”
Despite his declarations of innocence, the NeoGAF community has been shaken to its foundations with nearly a dozen moderators and thousands of users abandoning the forum. The message board was shut down briefly last weekend but is back online.
The mass exodus sparked a handful of former NeoGAF users to start a new gaming forum called ResetEra. It is set up similar to NeoGAF with a section to discuss gaming and an “off-topic” alternative called “EtcetEra.”
The forum already has nearly 8,000 members and almost 1,000 threads containing over 62,000 messages despite having only been online for about 39 hours. In fact, when I tried to hit up the board, it took a significant amount time for the browser to load it (presumably due to server traffic).
The staff of the new forum wants to cut ties to NeoGAF in every way. Cerium, one of the founders and admins of ResetEra, issued a statement after opening the doors to the site.
“After discussions among the staff and with the community we have decided that we want ResetEra to be a truly fresh start. We'd like to look to the future and leave any baggage behind. Towards that end we ask you not to post any threads about NeoGAF or its owner and avoid linking to the site. This is in no way an attempt to shut down free discussion, but instead a way to avoid unnecessary complications with other parties. If you must, there are other ways and venues to express yourselves but please get it out of your system before coming to ResetEra. We have a great opportunity here to build something new with a blank slate. Let's press reset!”
NeoGAF is not dead yet but with Malka continuing to run the show and the allegations unresolved, the forum's future is unclear. Likewise, ResetEra has yet to prove itself although initial interest seems high with over 300 new members joining in just the time it took to write this article.
https://www.techspot.com/news/71601-former-neogaf-users-launch-rival-gaming-forum-resetera.html
