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Discussion What was the issue that caused a massive exodus at ResetEra over here?

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Super Mega Man

Super Mega Man

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I've been a lurker, and occasional poster at ResetEra ever since the sit was founded in 2017 itself a product of a massive exodus fom NeoGAF. Routinely the Nintendo official thread, and especially the Nintendo Direct hype thread gets tons and tons of posts for days before we even have a proper date and is constantly on top. But this time it was different. The Nintendo OT hadn't had a new post at all since the Direct was announced and the Direct thread got only a fraction of activity it normally gets. Me and many others wondered hat happened until someone asked and got a response: apparently there was a feud with the mods that cause a massive exodus of NintendoEra and SalesEra members and many of them f not most allegedly came over to here.

My question is simple: does anyone know what happened? What caused this?

You see I would've asked this over there myself if I hadn't been banned again for something incredibly petty and stupid. The second I learned about this site I came over here since I've been looking for a proper replacement for Era thats not a haven for racists but also not the den of misery and tyranny over at Era. I cannot tell you how many times I've seen someone getting banned, reading the mod reason for the ban, and shaking my head in incredulity. Anything that doesnt fall precisely withing their very narrow worldview you'll get a month long ban for "dismissing concerns about racism" or what have you. And don't you dare question their methods or its an instant ban, perhaps even a permanent one.

The relentless banning of members for the most insignificant shit and mods causing these exodus cannot be good for the longevity and growth of that place.
 
Herb Alpert said:
In short, mostly Moderation issues
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I have the "short" already. I want the "long" version.

I've been able to gather but can please anyone elaborate? The moderation over at Era is a relentless exercise in frustration but what caused such a massive exodus mainly from NintendoEra members? The difference during this Direct cycle ver at Era was night and day and impossible to ignore with so many ppl missing.
 
I do believe we should be free to openly discuss this, and clue each other in, if we're in the dark about things, but just know that this thread may get locked.

I'll just say this: I still use Era, and consider it a solid place to discuss gaming, but I absolutely agree with, and understand people's grievances with the moderation there. Moderation issues were, essentially, the cause of this migration.
 
The incredibly dumb handling of MC threads Moderation sparked something that spread unto Nintendo community, as there was some overlap between them.
 
I believe in addition to moderation, there was also the general negativity toward Nintendo and the Switch. Especially ports with reduced settings/ fps compared to other consoles.
 
They literally banned every single Nintendo fan at Neogaf. One by one in systematic fashion. Resetera is pretty much a similar mentality but they try to appear a little more tolerant even thought the vibe is quite hostile. Sony generally runs the forums.

There are even a few posters here who I believe post here just to troll us, but I don't say anything. Console wars, serious business.
 
Aurc said:
I do believe we should be free to openly discuss this, and clue each other in, if we're in the dark about things, but just know that this thread may get locked.

I'll just say this: I still use Era, and consider it a solid place to discuss gaming, but I absolutely agree with, and understand people's grievances with the moderation there. Moderation issues were, essentially, the cause of this migration.
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I too still visit it because as a news aggregator is a good source to visit but the constant misery porn they post started to get in my head. Even uncomplicated endearing threads would uickly take a turn for the worse the second someone too high on their own farts would come and say something like "arent we supposed to hate X because they did this shit thing 10 years ago?".
 
My understanding of it was...
  • Not being accommodating to Nintendo hype threads
  • Sale of the site removing its independence
  • The stuff others said about moderation
(But that's just my assumptions and ideas from a distance)
 
I don’t think banning people for dismissing racism is something ERA’s mods did wrong and it’s a dangerous path if Fami doesn’t uphold the same standards.

The mod issues that drove us to Fami were a completely different situation
 
Phendrift said:
I don’t think banning people for dismissing racism is something ERA’s mods did wrong and it’s a dangerous path if Fami doesn’t uphold the same standards.

The mod issues that drove us to Fami were a completely different situation
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Let me be clear: my comment was more about many many MANY ppl getting banned for "dismissing concerns about racism" for the most vanal reasons. They overused that to the point of ridiculousness. If someone deserves it by all means please ban them, but more often than not it'd be anything that steps a tiny step out of bounds and you're gonna get accused of "dismissing concerns" and banned.
 
Super Mega Man said:
Can you give a quick example of poor moderation handling in these threads? What would they do that caused so many ppl to leave in droves?
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A salesera regular, Chris, was being antagonized in one of the threads and retaliated and the mods banned him and not the person who was antagonizing him. Only then to find out later one of the mods said in discord that they were happy to finally get Chris banned and that they’d been waiting on something to get him for, iirc.
 
Super Mega Man said:
I have the "short" already. I want the "long" version.

I've been able to gather but can please anyone elaborate? The moderation over at Era is a relentless exercise in frustration but what caused such a massive exodus mainly from NintendoEra members? The difference during this Direct cycle ver at Era was night and day and impossible to ignore with so many ppl missing.
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In general, Resetera is a very toxic place, which is often the logical end stage of catch-all social media with no focus (Facebook / Twitter / Reddit are also exceptionally toxic).

In Resetera's case, their moderators and administrators facilitate a draconian environment. Step out of line even slightly with the pre-determined groupthink and you are the immediate recipient of an unreasonably-lengthy ban.

I'm a woman, and I was permanently banned from Resetera for "concern trolling" in a thread discussing sexism in video games. When you wield the banhammer too liberally, you end up with lots of needless casualties and brain drain, because many of the people who get unfairly banned over the years are often solid contributors with a lot to offer the forum.

Concentrate that over years of sustained and growing toxicity, and eventually too many people leave, people get tired of it, and the forum needs a reset. In this case, there wasn't one single exodus into a new place that could easily run into the same issues, but rather a variety of mini-exoduses into more dedicated forums (Famiboards for Nintendo-themed, Install Base for sales-themed, XboxEra for Microsoft-themed, etc.)

Hopefully this time we won't have Resetera 2.0 (or NeoGAF 3.0) anywhere, but because there are more splinter forums (and associated Discord groups) now, the fate of our communities now no longer hinges on one site's shitty leadership.
 
Super Mega Man said:
I too still visit it because as a news aggregator is a good source to visit but the constant misery porn they post started to get in my head. \
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If era stirs up some feelings that don't you don't jive with, I suggest not visiting it at all. The internet is a flexible enough place to avoid relying on one place alone.

I'll just say this: I still use Era, and consider it a solid place to discuss gaming, but I absolutely agree with, and understand people's grievances with the moderation there. Moderation issues were, essentially, the cause of this migration.
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I'm in this boat. It would be nice for Famiboards not to be linked at times with ERA, but considering it's origin and legitimate grievances... and, well, internet boards having beef w/ other communities is a tale as old as time.
 
Hermii said:
I believe in addition to moderation, there was also the general negativity to Nintendo and the Switch. Especially ports with reduced settings/ fps compared to other consoles.
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At the end of the day, I think this is fair to be vocal about, though. Some players prefer higher framerates and visual fidelity. It just comes with the territory of a generalized gaming enthusiast forum. Many of these people are Nintendo fans themselves, who simply lament the state of things, regarding the Switch. It's all just video game talk, really, so I think it's dangerous to develop "persecution complexes", regarding our favorite systems, and such.
Kreese said:
They literally banned every single Nintendo fan at Neogaf. One by one in systematic fashion. Resetera is pretty much a similar mentality but they try to appear a little more tolerant even thought the vibe is quite hostile. Sony generally runs the forums.

There are even a few posters here who I believe post here just to troll us, but I don't say anything. Console wars, serious business.
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I think this is going a bit overboard. Era definitely doesn't systematically ban Nintendo fans. Heck, I recently made a post that served as dismissive commentary toward a particular Sony exclusive, and was met with many replies that either vaguely, or definitively aimed to declare that Sony exclusives are always met with excessive negativity, on the forum. I found that utterly ridiculous, of course, being that the overwhelming majority of posts about said exclusives lean positive, but it went a long way in showing me that, if you kind of create this bubble around yourself, and hyper fixate on the few negative comments you see, you truly will believe everyone else is against that thing you enjoy.
 
Phendrift said:
I don’t think banning people for dismissing racism is something ERA’s mods did wrong and it’s a dangerous path if Fami doesn’t uphold the same standards.

The mod issues that drove us to Fami were a completely different situation
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Racism is wrong, but I like how the discussion here is mostly based around videogames.

I don't agree with ResetEra's take that if you're not fighting against racism and other discriminatory issues 24/7, you're just as awful as the rest. It's extremism. I post here to chill out and step away from the worlds problems, not dive back into them.
 
i had to delete my Era account because the second they announced the site sale, they started sending me emails to confirm my credentials every time i signed in. it was crazy. but it just sped up my inevitable plan of moving off it completely.

i still lurk there for news - and cause fami is blocked at work :(

little did i know during my time there they were being pretty unprofessional towards different sub groups, I was lucky I just happened to be in the nintendo era discord so it was quick and easy for me to get out. but the same thing happened with xbox era.

edit: for the record i dont think we should be making threads about Era and just leave it be.
 
Aquamarine said:
In general, Resetera is a very toxic place, which is often the logical end stage of catch-all social media with no focus (Facebook / Twitter / Reddit are also exceptionally toxic).

In Resetera's case, their moderators and administrators are extremely toxic and facilitate a draconian environment. Step out of line even slightly with the pre-determined groupthink and you are the immediate recipient of an unreasonably-lengthy ban.

I'm a woman, and I was permanently banned from Resetera for "concern trolling" in a thread discussing sexism in video games. When you wield the banhammer too liberally, you end up with lots of needless casualties and brain drain, because many of the people who get unfairly banned over the years are often solid contributors with a lot to offer the forum.

Concentrate that over years of sustained and growing toxicity, and eventually too many people leave, people get tired of it, and the forum needs a reset. In this case, there wasn't one single exodus into a new place that could easily run into the same issues, but rather a variety of mini-exoduses into more dedicated forums (Famiboards for Nintendo-themed, Install Base for sales-themed, XboxEra for Microsoft-themed, etc.)

Hopefully this time we won't have Resetera 2.0 (or NeoGAF 3.0) anywhere, but because there are more splinter forums (and associated Discord groups) now, the fate of our communities now no longer hinges on one site's shitty leadership.
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Holy shit are you me? Ok not me but with the exception of you being a woman your testimony sounds eerily close to mine.

A month or so within my tenure I got a month long ban as my very first actioned post (no warning for me first, no week long ban, straight to a month) for daring to say I refused to be negative about Zeldas chances of being playable in BotW2 until we knew more about the game. This is the post that got me that ban verbatim:

"Yes they do. Everyone does. It’s never too late for someone to make a change. I refuse to be this pessimistic which is something this forum doesn’t need more of. As of July 2021 we don’t know Jack about this game and to mock it for its treatment of its female lead at this point is irresponsible and childish. Trust me, I’ll pass the pitchforks and stand besides you if, after the game has come out, Zelda got the short end of the stick yet again. But at this point? Yes. Everyone deserves the benefit of the doubt."

That was enough for "Dismissing concerns of sexism, hostility". Then months later caught a month long ban in a thread about how Smash was "anti black" for telling a poster that called Asian coded characters like all the Fire Emblem ones "white". And my third and final ban as because I dared to call out an Era thread that was discussing whether Barret from FFVIIR was "black enough" and called said thread disgusting which got me a "Dismissing concerns on sexism and colorism".

Its all so exhausting.
 
Kreese said:
Racism is wrong, but I like how the discussion here is mostly based around videogames.

I don't agree with ResetEra's take that if you're not fighting against racism and other discriminatory issues 24/7, you're just as awful as the rest. It's extremism. I post here to chill out and step away from the worlds problems, not dive back into them.
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Which reminds me I rolled my eyes everytime I saw the official Nintendo thread at Era and would always end with something completely unrelated in the title like "support Afghan Women" or "Free Palestine". Not because I dont support those causes (far from it), but it goes with what youre saying; You're either fighting for social justice 24/7 or you're trash. Dont take this the wrong way but adding "stop Asian hate" at the end of a Nintendo OT whose contents have nothing to do with said racial issue does nothing to change things. Its all performative wokeness. And don't even get me started on the ban baiting and members who love to report ppl for the stupidest things. All the need is catch a mod on a good day and they'll get their report turned into a ban. Ugh




I must apologize for this thread and my passionate replies. I realize now I've been bottling up these frustrations for months not being abe to comment them with anyone that would give a crap because of course discussing these problems in Era was a big no no.
 
the problem with resetera is it is run by a cohort of neoliberals who view any challenge to american hegemony as a capital offense and that anything to the left of hillary clinton is evil tankie communism funded by putin, and if you disagree with the way the people run the site you're a privileged white male

the problem with resetera is not cracking down on racism
 
Resetera can be great but I have seen a lot of trolling and thread derailing there without penalties while Asian gamers got permabanned for not being offended by some videogame depiction. I used to go there for the succ HW thread but it was moved here and it is so much better now.
 
Mekanos said:
the problem with resetera is it is run by a cohort of neoliberals who view any challenge to american hegemony as a capital offense and that anything to the left of hillary clinton is evil tankie communism funded by putin, and if you disagree with the way the people run the site you're a privileged white male

the problem with resetera is not cracking down on racism
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As a lurker and ocassional poster from 2017 I couldnt possibly disagree with you more. Era has many many problems but saying they dont tolerate anyone "left of Hillary" is a blatant fucking lie. They have an (un)healthy amount of hardline communists but the vast majority were openly and passionatley supporting Bernie Sanders during the 2020 election cycle. Countless polls showed this. So youre either making stuff up because you havent visited Era too much or you're arguing in bad faith.
 
Blomqvist said:
Resetera can be great but I have seen a lot of trolling and thread derailing there without penalties while Asian gamers got permabanned for not being offended by some videogame depiction. I used to go there for the succ HW thread but it was moved here and it is so much better now.
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"succ HW" thread?
 
ResetEra is an incredibly toxic forum. For the sake of my mental health, I left the site eight months ago. I’m turning 40 this year. I don’t have the stomach for that shit anymore.

Famiboards is a nice site, but after NeoGAF and ResetEra, I’ll leave here in a heartbeat if things start to go south. Discussing video games should be a pleasant experience (for the most part, as I certainly believe there’s a place to talk about industry problems and challenges).
 
Beard said:
ResetEra is an incredibly toxic forum. For the sake of my mental health, I left the site eight months ago. I’m turning 40 this year. I don’t have the stomach for that shit anymore.

Famiboards is a nice site, but after NeoGAF and ResetEra, I’ll leave here in a heartbeat if things start to go south. Discussing video games should be a pleasant experience (for the most part, as I certainly believe there’s a place to talk about industry problems and challenges).
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I used to be a stuanch NeoGaffer for years and caught maybe two bans there over the years, both deserved, neither longer than a month. But in Era it took me months to catch 3 including a perm. Its all so exhausting. Sometimes I too only want to distract myself with silly videogame talk without being feel bad for not fighting for social justice every waking hour as I analyze every minute detail so I can come back and make a thread about how actually Super Mario Odyssey was racist against Mexicans because Mario wears a sombrero and a poncho (remember that shit?).

For the record I'm Mexican and if I had it my way I'd make every Nintendo character wear a sombrero!
 
Super Mega Man said:
As a lurker and ocassional poster from 2017 I couldnt possibly disagree with you more. Era has many many problems but saying they dont tolerate anyone "left of Hillary" is a blatant fucking lie. They have an (un)healthy amount of hardline communists but the vast majority were openly and passionatley supporting Bernie Sanders during the 2020 election cycle. Countless polls showed this. So youre either making stuff up because you havent visited Era too much or you're arguing in bad faith.
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I'm a hardline communist who has been on ERA for years, you don't know what you're talking about whatsoever.
 
did-everyone-try-the-chicken-i-thought-the-chicken-was-lovely.gif
 
Super Mega Man said:
I used to be a stuanch NeoGaffer for years and caught maybe two bans there over the years, both deserved, neither longer than a month. But in Era it took me months to catch 3 including a perm. Its all so exhausting. Sometimes I too only want to distract myself with silly videogame talk without being feel bad for not fighting for social justice every waking hour as I analyze every minute detail so I can come back and make a thread about how actually Super Mario Odyssey was racist against Mexicans because Mario wears a sombrero and a poncho (remember that shit?).

For the record I'm Mexican and if I had it my way I'd make every Nintendo character wear a sombrero!
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I’m all about fighting for social justice and have absolutely zero issue with it being a part of video game forums and communities.

But it can be done without constant toxicity and assuming every single person who doesn’t 100% agree with everything you say on certain issues is operating in bad faith. That’s the problem with Era.
 
Mekanos said:
I'm a hardline communist who has been on ERA for years, you don't know what you're talking about whatsoever.
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I do know. You were greatly exaggerating at best. Sanders won countless polls over there. Saying most were Hillary centrists is a categorical and provable lie.
 
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I can say why I post more here than at resetera; I feel more free to say anything here. Anything for me included

  • I want a port of that game (often to switch)
  • I like sonic games
  • I like Shenmue
I was never banned, but I was warned because I complained how playstation had so little focus on japanese game developement left, in a way that could be seem as derailing. I don’t think anyone would bat an eye at that here (I own a ps5, I want more first party japanese games).
 
Meta commentary generally irks me out a bit so I won't spend much time in this thread but while Era's moderation left a lot to be desired I don't think "performative wokeness" (this term leaves a bad taste in my mouth within the context of the post it was brought up in btw) and the forum's general stance on racism were outright bad things. I'd much prefer that, even if not every ban is justified, over "haha let's just talk about video games and nothing else lol stop banning people for wrongthink!!" which can go downhill really fucking fast on online forums. (Not saying this forum is like that at all) I say this as someone who dipped on Era during the whole Cyberpunk debacle so I know how shit it can be there for the record.
 
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Beard said:
I’m all about fighting for social justice and have absolutely zero issue with it being a part of video game forums and communities.

But it can be done without constant toxicity and assuming every single person who doesn’t 100% agree with everything you say on certain issues is operating in bad faith. That’s the problem with Era.
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I guess youre right. I as exactly like you but Era went so hard to one extreme that they soured me too.
 
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Leica said:
Meta commentary generally irks me out a bit so I won't spend much time in this thread but while Era's moderation left a lot to be desired I don't think "performative wokeness" (this terms leaves a bad taste in my mouth within the context of the post it was brought up btw) and the forum's general stance on racism were outright bad things. I'd much prefer that, even if not every ban is justified, over "haha let's just talk about video games and nothing else lol" which can go downhill really fucking fast on online forums. (Not saying this forum is like that at all) I say this as someone who dipped on Era during the whole Cyberpunk debacle so I know how shit it can be there for the record.
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I actually agree with you. But, like I said, they went so balls to the wall to the extreme it felt like a caricature sometimes and soured me and now I'm saying some dumb stuff as I try to unbottle these frustrations I havent been able to discuss with anyone for months.
 
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it's not ideal but these sorts of discussions are usually improved by laying out specifically what you said

vague allusions to you disagreeing with the libs will concern some
 
People continually want to make the problem about "wokeness" or whatever when the problems are structural:

  • The forum is simply too large for a couple dozen volunteers to cover effectively -- moderators largely aren't based in the communities
  • Narrow focus on civility
  • As a corollary to those two points, a culture of trolls who know how to toe the line effectively and goad others into catching bans
  • The eventual hardening of the moderation staff into a tight clique due to high turnover, a legitimate campaign of harassment from outside bad actors, and a distant owner
  • The inability to admit or apologize about any staff actions or mistakes
  • Thus a culture of circling the wagons, and automatically treating criticism as hostile or in bad faith

Thus you saw staff making the same mistakes over and over, and wondering why nothing ever changed, and why single issues continually snowballed into blowouts.
 
Super Mega Man said:
Which reminds me I rolled my eyes everytime I saw the official Nintendo thread at Era and would always end with something completely unrelated in the title like "support Afghan Women" or "Free Palestine". Not because I dont support those causes (far from it), but it goes with what youre saying; You're either fighting for social justice 24/7 or you're trash. Dont take this the wrong way but adding "stop Asian hate" at the end of a Nintendo OT whose contents have nothing to do with said racial issue does nothing to change things. Its all performative wokeness. And don't even get me started on the ban baiting and members who love to report ppl for the stupidest things. All the need is catch a mod on a good day and they'll get their report turned into a ban. Ugh
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okay so bad news but the people who made those threads pretty much founded this site

sorry about that
 
Situations like the cyberpunk debacle wouldn't have happened if Era was as left-leaning and as strict on that worldview as you say. It's incompatible with the reality present on the site. That site is very center-left to center as it comes. Obviously this is different from thread to thread as there are various communities, but moderation tends to be as lib as it comes. I still post there a lot but it's a shame to see how some situations are handled, a major one being how that sales thread was handled leading to the exodus of Nintendo-era
 
yeah i don't like where this is going. era's "wokeness" wasn't the reason this forum started. there were other issues, and i think most people here have moved on. i don't think it's good to linger on what happened or era's problems, those shouldn't be our concern anymore.
 
Raccoon said:
okay so bad news but the people who made those threads pretty much founded this site

sorry about that
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If I can say what I said and not catch a perma ban because of it then this place is already by default a better forum than Era because it means you can have different opinions. Let me be crystal clear that I also support all of that too but I found adding those few words at the end of a Nintendo thread title pointless and ot of place. Thats all.
 
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