I frequent the AskAboutMoney.com web forum, offering my advice on many topics from web design, web development, online marketing and even business management.

I don’t know about you, but my idea of a forum is a place where people from any walk of life can come on offer their advice, opinion or ask a question on any topic that the forum discusses. A good forum for me is where you can voice your opinion freely and unless you are completely rude, ignorant or offensive you should have no issues voicing your opinion.

I’ve only ever had one issue with AskAboutMoney.com in the past, where a question I asked was near instantly closed. After much deliberation with the moderator involved, I completely understood his position. My post was a legal question and they simply didn’t want to be seen as giving inaccurate information on a legal scenario. I didn’t agree with it, since it was a forum, but I completely understood the position he took.

Yesterday though, just showed me how ridiculous it gets when you have people with an ounce of power (moderators) for the first time in their lives, let it quickly go to their heads.

The title of the thread in question yesterday was “www.blacknight.com & www.letshost.ie” (Thread in full – click here) and the rest of the post went like this:

Any suggestions as who to use in hosting a new website?
Pros/Cons? Narrowed it down to these two -

www.blacknight.com

www.letshost.ie

Thanks

There were a few responses, most of them avoided the original question, which was “who to use in hosting a new website” and went on to recommend hosting companies which the original poster hadn’t asked about.

Since I’ve basically used all of certainly the main hosting companies over the years I’ve been doing this and having used both Blacknight and Letshost – I voiced my opinion with a simple yet accurate quote:

“Blacknight – without a shadow of a doubt. Premium quality service.”

I completely addressed the original poster’s question; who to use; and for what reason.

ClubMan, a moderator at AskAboutMoney.com sent me a private message and removed my post.

Let’s make it clear, above my posts there were people recommending Hosting365 who did not have any relation to this post other than that they are a hosting company in Ireland. Clubman removed my post and replaced it with:

“I am closing this thread because it is being exploited by people recommending service providers in which they have some vested interest.”

OK fair enough, we have done work for Blacknight in the past, but in reality, we are a bigger client of Blacknight’s than they are of ours. So I don’t see how I had a vested interest in this post. it was an honest opinion based on the years and many hosting companies I’ve used over the years.

But the big question remains… why didn’t he remove those posts that recommended Hosting365? At the end of the day, they had nothing to do with the original thread.

So was it because AskAboutMoney.com have a vested interest in Hosting365? Like, that’s where there website is hosted at the end of the day.

Bottom line is – I have no problem with posts being removed if there are people with a vested interest upping their business, but I believe if they stop one person, they should block them all. Maybe ClubMan didn’t have the b*lls to do this?

EDIT:

I just got a response from ClubMan….

Your company’s relationship(s) with Blacknight means that you have a vested interest which you did not divulge. This is a breach of the posting guidelines. End of story.

Ok so what he’s saying is that I can’t post a comment on any topic relating to anything to do with hosting unless I divulge in all cases that I have worked with Hosting365, Host Ireland, LetsHost, WebWorld, Blacknight…. etc etc ……

I don’t have a vested interest in any of these companies… I wish I did.

What a ridiculous response.

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