I consider myself moderately liberal and I agree on this perspective. You go into certain threads and see a gang of the same liberal users that have been on there for years posting on the same subjects. This usually means, why bother posting at all because a throng of people will attack any views that might only mildly disagree with the majority consensus. Granted, I do agree with a lot of the views, but certain issues are out of control: Gun control, race issues, women, sexuallity, and anime!

I like the site but I really need to stop getting banned. I've been banned so many times that my bans are now 4 months each. I use this site as my back up. It's the closest thing to neogaf.

There is definitely a cult of personality on the forum around certain "celebrity" users who can pretty much get away with anything scot-free.

The most direct evidence is a short-lived topic where the banned user Jado screenshotted a private-message conversation that showed how a NeoGAF mod basically admitted to promoting favoritism, elitism, and banning disliked users for petty reasons:

http://abload.de/img/modbiash7knh.png

The elitism is ultimately toxic as it has led to a growing opposition against NeoGAF...and a whole bunch of cynics who would like nothing more than to give them the finger.

...which in turn makes NeoGAF more insular and elite. It's a vicious downward spiral that they could ameliorate if they didn't have such ridiculous account-approval times and stringent, one-sided moderation.

If vgchartz required a paid email and mod approval, see how many of us would start acting superior to the lowly presantry of other game fora.

But I agree with everything you said, if you were one of the more calm and rational posters, I wonder how many people there are discontent yet afraid to speak their mind directly, I bet there's quite a few if an old time poster like Jado would ban his account like that. I reckon if there was an alternative people would flock over.

Yeah, the approval for NeoGAF takes too long, but it's too easy at VGC. We have the opposite issue with lots of alt-accounts.

And I understand that "high-level" people don't find the Chartz attractive because of the unreliable numbers prominently placed on the front page and other problems like the amount of ads without an ad-blocker.

That is really funny as I am very aware of Angelus Errare and Seanspeed. You cannot really not be if you go there for long enough, with how much they post. Not this ShattenJager guy. The 6-7 moderations and you're out unless a complete well known user is pretty ridiculous considering what the mod wrote. If he writes like that in PMs, I can only imagine the biased stuff the mods most write privately all the time. Thanks for sharing.

I could comment on vgc, and a lot of what you wrote. Not looking to write an essay. Though I do think there are a lot of good points in the rest of what you wrote on vgc. 

On the other hand, mods here are rather quick to ban people (not a critic, just my observation, and it's usually temporary anyway).

It is full of stupid people.

Can't stand the layout.