Megorious

After I wrote about The Upper Crust the other day, I received all sorts of responses from the different communities I posted on. I received more than 2000 hits, which means I got the word out to some extent. Another boycotter of The Upper Crust suggested that I post about my experience on Chowhound, so I did. About fifteen times.

My original post got a couple of responses but within an hour of being posted was deleted. So I posted again. Deleted. Again. Deleted. And so on… Eventually my account was banned so I started another one. I just kept cutting and pasting and they kept deleting and deleting. I even commented in an older thread about The Upper Crust but those got deleted too.

UPDATE:
I did some online research this afternoon, apparently Chowhound has a bad reputation when it comes to removing all sorts of content. It’s a highly censored site that contradicts the very purpose of its community.

Slashfood: Banned from Chowhound?

Even before Chowhound became a part of the Chow network, users frequently had problems with deletions. Controversial posts and less than glowing reviews of certain restaurants were deleted without explanation and some users found that their posts were deleted with a high frequency, regardless of the topic.

Chez Pim: The Incredible Shrinking Chowhound: censorship at work again?

Mr.Photobiker is apparently so sick and tired of the unsatinary[sic] practices he’s observed from his windows above the restaurant’s courtyard, he took a bunch of photos to expose those practices and posted them on Chowhound. The photos were damning -if they indeed came from the courtyard of said restaurant- showing workers cutting meat on the cement floor with only a tiny piece of wood or a piece of cardboard box as the cutting board, and cooking right next to the overflowing garbage -complete with rats-on-wings pecking happily at the refuse.

The tenacious Mr.Photobiker tracked down all the threads in CH that mentioned Yucatasia, and posted a message and a link back to his website.

Miraculously, by the time… I tried to pull up the posts on Chowhound…they’ve all disappeared, with no note or notation to tell us where they’ve all gone to.

becks & posh: Chowdown Confounds - When You give to a Community & it Slaps you in the Face

Although there are no clear guidelines as to what is acceptable and what isn’t on Chowhound, this statement suggests that they will delete “confrontational, spammy, commercial, and digressive” posts. As you would expect from me, my post was not even remotely close to any of these things.

Because I do not know why I was deleted - I am not sure how to continue from hereon in. Time is precious. Maybe they are planning to delete all my future posts. Who knows? I can’t run the risk of wasting my time trying to find out by putting effort into trying to give my time to a community that simply shows me their scissors and goes snip, snip, snip. No worries.

Gastronomie: I am so sick of Chowhound

Sadly, I have discovered that this is patently untrue. In fact, attempting to change one’s opinion about a previous review is, apparently, unacceptable. On a recent thread asking for opinions on Lulu vs. Tres Agaves vs. Chowhound, I responded to update something I had previously written about Coco500.

At some point thereafter (not sure when, exactly), my comment was deleted. I suppose it’s because I said that service had improved, where all the other posters were still quick to bash it.

(Gastronomie has another post about Chowhound here)

Even better than all of these posts that expose the censorship of Chowhound, is the community Eater. Eater welcomes all varieties of feedback and doesn’t censor the opinions of their community. In fact, Eater is the antithesis of Chowhound and offers this decree to those censored by Chowhound:

At the start of the year, during this time of reflection, it occurs to us that it’s been ages since the fine folks at Chowhound have been called out for their Nazi-like censorship practices. Here and now, we make this decree: any Chowhound post you’ve had removed from their boards we will be happy run in-full here*.

*Within reason, obvs.

Eater, which is strictly for New York City, has several other posts about those censored by Chowhound.
• Banned On Chowhound: Thou Shalt Not Derail the Morimoto Express
• Banned on Chowhound: Chowhound Explains! (Sort Of)

This Blog entry was posted Friday, August 3rd, 2007 at 10:04 am.
Tags: Chowhound, Upper Crust