It matters on many different levels. They are the biggest vaping forum in the world. You cant link to anything that deals with my name or this site. Simple things like giveaways all the way up to breaking news on new mods - not longer can be posted.
ECF represents itself as
the forum for the community, the oldest, the biggest. Most people on the internet understand forums, and rules of them. Content will be made by discussions, a back and forth, and with the exception of personal attacks and swearing and such, the content will remain, the discussions will continue without being edited. That is the expectation of all users and all readers, and many readers won't be logged in, or with even have login IDs. There are plenty of examples of users being "moved on" and banned from ECF for simple mistakes, but there is a bigger problem.
ECF (
http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com) bans, deletes, and controls content of what posters write. They ban people based on content.
I was banned because I disagreed and backed it up about what Bill Godshall, and CASAA were doing, and what the FDA can do under the regulations.
Banned for ideas.
For new readers, ECF represents themselves as the defacto standard of Vaping discussion forums. But what they are delivered is controlled content determined by the Oliver Kershaw and Chris Price, the owners. I have major issues with controlled content, in a discussion forum, being represented out as a Community.
I have plenty of personal examples, of
my OP threads with 13K views and 800 replies, being locked down. A similar sized thread being moved away into a locked down area, behind a password required login. This was done so thread posters would still see the replies, but it would be censored from Google. My first thread had the title changed, because retired1 moderator, a vaper of just 6 months, said they did not want Google results showing up with a title with BPA inside of Polycarbonate Clearomizers, and the consequences of Tank Crackers Juices.
Saying anything critical of CASAA is met with attacks, by Moderators called "CASAA Moderators" SonicDSL specifically.
Let me give another example of a ban I witnessed. A thread was created by me about Hayward CA, discussing whether they would Zone Out the 5 Vape Shops in the town, and ban all new stores. A vendor in that town said he would show up to the City Council. His posts were removed, and he was banned.....why?.....because he was a Vendor, Store owner, who was writing in a section not approved for Vendors, and he was not registered as Vendor as of yet with ECF.
I dared to address some of the pure out wrong information being written by Bill Godshall, and being Globally Stickied on all thread Categories, including stickyed where you have to click to get past them, even if not logged in. Here is a post by the site Owner Chris Price about Bill Godshall. Such devotion:
http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/fo...odshall-update-2014-06-13-a.html#post13434294
My problem is that
ECF bans content, and removes those who express ideas different that the site owners, and represents itself as a forum of the community. When in actuality they are a profit based organization, sucking in volunteer writers, editing their words and/or removing them, while sucking in vendors to have the privilege to speak. Speak up, and be banned.
But ECF is savvy to have even come up with a new term, so new users don't catch wind of the controlled message. No one shows as BANNED as is standard for nearly all forums. The authors just show up as "moved on". As if they just left, freely. And when you are "moved on", you can never see your PMs again, any contacts made are eliminated, they can not write to you, and you can never see what they wrote to you. Any time you spent doing something for the community and any friends or contacts you made....vanished and locked away from sight.
