Chowhound Board Nazis Redux - [Crazies]

Posted by Chubbypanda at 10/10/2006 08:50:00 PM

Following my initial post on having my Frenzy Sushi review deleted on Chowhound, I received the following email from the Chowhound moderators:

"Hi Chubbypanda, you've been sent the following by a Chowhound moderator:

We wanted to explain why we removed your posts on Frenzy Sushi. As a veteran user (we enjoy your postings!) we wanted to provide the courtesy of this private, confidential explanation.

You posted: "Tell John that you saw the review on Chowhound, and that I sent you." This first-name relationship means you're not an unbiased party, and Chowhound intends to be a resource for unbiased consumers to share opinions. When you are known to restaurant management, you are likely getting out of the ordinary treatment that the average diner wouldn't receive and your opinion is no longer impartial.

We do understand that you, a savvy diner, truly like this place and thus feel it's worth posting about regardless of your relationship. We don't doubt it! But we ask that posters recuse themselves from posting when there's even the possibility of a conflict of interest. You, as a site veteran, share our interest in staving off insiderish postings. Our tips are only reliable as a result of vigilance on our end and restraint on our users' end.

The Chowhound Team
Chowhound.com
For Those Who Live to Eat"

They make a good point. To make a full disclosure, I visit Frenzy approximately once a month or so, and can be considered a "regular". While I met Chef John Arteaga through his food at Frenzy, through my numerous conversations with him while dining there, I can be considered to have a more intimate acquaintance with him than a regular diner. Therefore, I can understand that Chowhound might interpret this relationship as a conflict of interest. However, I stand by the integrity of my work. On no point in my review did I exaggerate the depth or quality of Chef Arteaga's cuisine.

I appreciate that the Chowhound moderators took the time to email me an explanation of why my post was deleted. While I would like to have received it earlier, my searches on Google have led me to believe that even getting an explanation is out of the norm. So, enough with my prima donna act already. I accept their explanation. They did their jobs, and I'm fine with that.

However, as that sexy wise-man Kirk from mmm-yoso!!! sagely points out in his comment to my Chowhound Board Nazis - [Crazies] post, what I post on Chowhound becomes their intellectual property. Therefore, I have my reservations about posting any more reviews on their site. While I'll continue to read and contribute to their discussions, I would like my content to remain my own.

For further reference, please see the CNET Terms of Service governing Chowhound. I direct your attention in particular to the following section:

"Grant of License.

When you post or transmit Content on or through the Site you grant the Site and CNET Networks, their affiliates and partners a nonexclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, sub licensable, royalty-free license to use, store, display, publish, transmit, transfer, distribute, reproduce, rearrange, edit, modify, aggregate your Content with other Content, create derivative works of and publicly perform that Content for any purpose on and through each of the services provided by the Site or on other sites owned by CNET Networks or its affiliates or partners. This license shall apply to the distribution and the storage of your Content in any form, medium, or technology now known or later developed.

We have the right, but not the obligation, to use your name, city and state in connection with any use of your Content.

Use of the Site and the Site Content

All of the Content available through the Site is protected by our copyrights or trademarks and the copyrights or trademarks of our partners and/or users. You may not use, store, display, publish, transmit, distribute, modify, reproduce, create derivative works of, participate in the transfer or sale of, publicly perform, or in any way exploit any of this Content, in whole or in part, outside of the specific usage rights granted to you by CNET Networks as part of the services we provide."

Read a certain way, this could be taken to mean that once one of my reviews is posted on their site, it becomes their property, and I don't even have the right to display it on my blog. Thank you, but no thank you.

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12 comments:

  1. Tokyoastrogirl said... 10/11/2006 10:37:00 AM

    Screw the chowhound "moderators." They honestly think that a board full of LA restaurant-goers don't contain a bunch of people who frequent a restaurant a bunch of times??? I mean, what true food lover doesn't have a favorite restaurant? OF COURSE going to a place on a regular basis MAY familiarize you to the chef and/or management but that doesn't mean that you can't be objective!!! Those self-important "moderators" need to shut it. Seriously.  

  2. Anonymous said... 10/11/2006 08:28:00 PM

    The beginning of the end for Chowhound.

    - Eddie  

  3. Bacon Press said... 10/12/2006 06:35:00 PM

    I think someone mentioned this somewhere before, but if you really had the intention of sharing a biased opinion on Chowhound about a restaurant and you were the owner or friend of an owner, knowing their policy, wouldn't you just omit that fact?

    I mean, I'm sure it happens all over Chowhound's board. I'm sure the anonymous "Chowhound Team" does it.

    They just don't like it when someone is honest about it.

    How stupid is that?

    Seriously, they remind me of obnoxious bureaucrats.

    They probably work in Government somewhere.  

  4. Chubbypanda said... 10/12/2006 10:19:00 PM

    TAG,

    Well, the mods have valid points and you and I definitely have valid points. The real stickler is their attitude towards members. Hopefully the email I received is a sign that they recognize that their previous high-handed attitude has alienated portions of their user base.

    Eddie,

    I'm sure Chowhound will continue on for quite some time, fueled by the vitriol and self-satisfaction of a number of it's more cliquish members. Best we just understand the nature of the beast and temper our interactions with it accordingly.

    As a side note, I need to make some haggis after reading your last post. Too bad I'm the only one I know who will eat it with me (my cat notwithstanding). =/

    Bacon Press,

    Whoa, good buddy! That's a lot of anger I'm sensing. I should probably let you know that I'm a bureaucrat (tech sector) and at work I'm considered part of "the Man". =b

    However, you make excellent points and I thank you for your support. The Chowhound policy does seem to encourage a certain amount of two-facedness in it's members. As with most bureaucracies, I imagine change will be slow if it comes at all. Pity.

    - Chubbypanda  

  5. ChristianZ said... 10/16/2006 12:48:00 AM

    I long ago came to the conclusion that the mods at Chowhound are operating with nothing more than a brain stem . . . if that, and there is no point reasoning with them. Best to ignore them and their site altogether. Before the CNET days they told me I couldn't link to my blog even though their site guidelines say people can. I pointed out that other people did it and didn't have their posts deleted and they responded with, "We can't punish every violation of the rules." So abiding by the rules is tantamount to violating the rules? There were numerous other instances that showed that they are simply subhuman . . . and I'm being nice. The only power they have is the power people give to them. One time I kept reposting something that they kept deleting that didn't violate any of their rules. I kept reposting it purposely to be a minor annoyance. Finally they wrote to me and asked me to stop posting it and I said, "If you delete something that doesn't violate your rules and you don't explain to the poster why you deleted it then don't be surprised when they post it again." They actually relented and accepted the clarity of my reasoning but soon reverted back to their Neanderthal state.  

  6. Julian Hsu said... 10/17/2006 03:41:00 PM

    I'm a former Chowhound poster myself. Over time, though, my interest waned, and a large measure of it was the fact that my favorite contributers seemed to be moving on to their own blogs or other forums (like the LAChowhounds Yahoo group, which was renamed SCARF by request of the Chowhound empire).

    I never even bothered to set up an account on the new Chowhound. Almost did, but the last straw for me was their lack of support for longtime posters who had their aliases taken in some kind of first-come-first-serve landgrab.

    Julian  

  7. Chubbypanda said... 10/18/2006 04:00:00 PM

    Christian,

    I hear ya good buddy. I think this quote from one of the Chowhound Team's posts sums up their attitude towards their users pretty well:

    "We have a ton of users and receive over 10,000 messages/week. And 10% of any crowd are jerks, 1% are major jerks, .1% are stone cold psychos and .01% are horrendously scary individuals. At our scale, these numbers are significant. Many of you are somewhat emotionally attached to the site. Consider the attachments of the emotionally disturbed, if you dare."

    I wonder which category those of us who dare to complain are lumped in to.

    Julian,

    My interest in Chowhound is waning even now. When I first joined, I found a wealth of new information. Now, I'm hard pressed to find new ideas or recommendations. At some point, you drain most of the value there is in the site and all that's left is an echo chamber where people parrot questions, recommendations, and opinions back to each other in a never-ending cycle. As I mentioned elsewhere, searching the site is like panning for gold in a stockyard drainage ditch.

    Moo.

    - Chubbypanda  

  8. Foodie Universe said... 10/18/2006 04:26:00 PM

    Chubbypanda,
    I think you're right on about the echo chamber of Chowhound. I used to love the site and post there frequently, but I rarely visit anymore. Oh, and I wonder if the stuff people posted in the pre-CNET days is their intellectual property, too?

    Sometimes I've had a post removed and re-posted it with very minimal changes and it stuck. I can't figure out why they remove posts sometimes. At least you actually got a response!  

  9. Daily Gluttony said... 10/21/2006 07:38:00 AM

    that's why i don't post on there anymore. sometimes i lurk just to get some quick ideas, but that's about it.  

  10. Chubbypanda said... 10/23/2006 01:09:00 AM

    Hey Foodie Universe,

    Yeah. I admit that it can be highly aggravating. I'm pretty much in lurker mode these days unless something catches my eye.

    Hi Daily Gluttony,

    I got some good help from Chowhound with wine selection recently. I think that as long as I use Chowhound for info and understand its substantial limitations, it'll be ok.

    - Chubbypanda  

  11. Anonymous said... 11/10/2006 06:28:00 AM

    Chowhound's censorship regime seems to be collapsing under its own weight. While some offending posts get deleted in seconds, others remain up for days and generate long threads of replies only before being deleted without explanation after a lengthy exposure. If the moderators can't stay on the treadmill they've created, maybe it's time to reconsider some of the site's ultra-strict policies.  

  12. Hugh said... 3/17/2007 05:09:00 PM

    After all that why is it some people post on the same restaurant more than twenty times on the Toronto board and are still posting about the same restaurant ? And nothing from the moderators ... Also why can't we respond or ask questions at the moderator interview ? What are they afraid of ? Nazis is the sorry answer indeed and does reflect on CNNET indeed and i would certainly worry about that world !  

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