I am 99.99% sure that the group chowhound_rants_deletedposts is a trap set up by people associated with Chowhound
foodyDudey
to stop and ask yourself a few questions:
1) who is the moderator of that group? (he has responded to people
with the names Mike Smith and Dave Smith and used the email address
communis...@gmail.com when emailing someone about 3 months ago)
2) why are they anonymous?
3) is it someone who posted on CH, or someone who works for CH?
Believe it or not, today I was banned from the
chowhound_rants_deletedposts google group. Yesterday when I tried to
post, there was no SEND button, instead a button saying "SEND to
MODERATORS" was displayed. Today when I tried to respond to a post,
I was told that I was banned. Now how could that be if that was
supposed to be a free-for-all group where anything goes? If a
fellow poster on Chowhound set up that group, I can't imagine them
banning someone who was unhappy with CH, we were all there for
basically the same reason. So what is the other possibility? It's
the one I have been postulating myself ever since that group was
created, and that is it was set up by CH insiders to let disgruntled
posters post freely, and then they could analyze what you said at
their leisure and finally decide to ban you from CH if they saw the
need to. At least you would only be ranting in a small space that
nobody else would even see, you can't even find read that group or see
the posts if you search for it on Google, you have to actually belong
to it! Compare that with this group, which you will find with
Google and be able to read even if you don't sign up for it.
Now what do you think may have gotten me banned? Well I can only
guess but I thing that my mentioning of starting another food forum
was a part of it, but I think it was was due to a post I made on
Chowhound on Feb 2.
I responded to this post: http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/685085
(my response has been deleted)
My post said:
You may want to call Such a Treat and ask if they can help.
http://www.suchatreat.com/
I had only heard of Such a Treat since it was mentioned on the
Chowhound_rants_deletedposts group, and am not affiliated with the
owner. I just figured it was an option for the person looking for a
cake.
Then I find that the next day, I can not post and have been banned.
There's no other reason I can think of so I now think that my initial
thought about this rants group being a trap are correct. I'd
suggest moving over to this forum until my alternate to Chowhound is
up and running. It's delayed, but it will be running at some
point. It's probably not a good idea to post in the rants group
unless you want the Chowhound Community Manager and friends to read
what you are saying.
foodyDudey
ducky
I'm still surprised about being banned, but in reality I knew
something fishy was up with that group since day one...
You're right its incredibly odd that whoever is moderating that board
is controlling it at will without ever having to answer to any of the
users. That's why I guess the best I can hope for is that people
discover this group instead of that one, or resort to posting on
RedFlagDeals instead. I'm not wasting my time with anything
officially Chowhound-related or moderated by anyone from there. It's
just gotten ridiculous.
As far as "Mike Smith" or "Dave Smith" or whatever fake names that
"admin" is going by, he certainly is nobody that's ever made a
worthwhile post in my entire time on the forums/group..
Live and learn I guess, goes to show you think twice before spending
time contributing to a forum or post where its going to go
unappreciated
Cheers.. I'll save the messages from now on for on-topic, food
related posts so peoples inboxes don't receive this stuff.
-ducky
Boodah
board
is controlling it at will without ever having to answer to any of the
users."
It's not odd if it's someone associated with Chowhound, that's exactly
how they operate.