I'm not saying there should be any laxness in how these claims are verified. That is in no way inherently tied to discretion, except, again, among people with a naive Interpretation of it.
And I don't not want proof, I want both the accusers and the aggressive skeptics popping up to lay off until proof can (or can't) be presented in conscious and constructive way.
What I don't want is every little smidgen of involved parties' private texts and interactions aired indiscriminately to every random schmuck on the internet - out of the immediate fervor of witch hunting and/or hasty attempts to prove to the world they aren't lying.
Also of note: this all spiraled out of a joking subtweet. People who might actually have something to say wouldn't have had time to prepare their case before the rest of the internet picked up the scent of half baked drama and ran with it. Assuming they are out there, cut those people some slack.
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"Outright rejection until even cursory proof is provided, is the only way to prevent harm, and to prevent the incentivization of witch-hunting"
At this point that's just fueling it. (What are your references for effective anti-witch-hunt tactics?)
If NR had been fired or blacklisted by Polygon with no evidence, then I can see the argument to fighting back and demanding proof. That's a very concrete, visible failure of the people who were in a position to demand proof and had the responsibility to be skeptical.
Or if a substantial or formal public accusation was presented that was somehow lacking or being misconstrued/exaggerated, then we would be in a position to say the information explicitly being presented to us is insufficient or misleading.
But at the point where the issue is still being looked into (it was a tentative suspension, not a punitive one) and no concrete claims have been put forward, it's just people getting pointlessly riled up about hearsay- on both sides.
Rumor mongering sucks, but until that culminates in any sort of real accusations/consequences that can be addressed realistically, it's not really something you can combat. Especially not in the way you're suggesting.
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TLDR
I'm with you on not accepting claims without cursory proof, but I'm not going to go so far as rejecting them either. Both seem like unnecessarily aligning myself with no concrete information simply because everyone else is.
And I don't see why not assuming he's a predator without evidence, means I should believe the accuser is lying until evidence is provided. That just seem like redirecting the bias. It's "innocent until proven guilty" not "framed until proven guilty".