Why was this thread closed

[JeffP]

http://www.pnwmas.org/forums/showthread.php?p=122528#post122528

 

No good reason for it to be closed. Valid questions have been asked.

[RoseCityAquarium]

censorship is the American way!

[JeffP]

that's bull#%@!.

[ClayTheSavageFraser]

YEAH!! WHY? I AM HAPPY THAT WE CAN CORRESPOND WITH EACHOTHER!! ESPECIALLY WHEN IT COMES TO ILL DEALINGS!! EVERYBODY NEEDS TO KNOW WHO THEY CAN AND CAN'T TRUST!! I WILL NEVER DEAL WITH THE GUY. I WOULD HOPE THAT WE CAN KEEP THIS FORUM AND OUR INTERACTIONS RESPECTABLE AND PROFITABLE FOR ALL INVOLVED!! I HAVE BEEN SO HAPPY THAT I DISCOVERED EVERYONE HERE! I HAVE SAVED MY SYSTEM, BUILT AN AMAZING REEF AND MADE SOME AWESOME FRIENDS!! I AM PROUD THAT I AM A HIGH INTEGRITY PERSON AND SO FAR ALL WHO I HAVE MET HAVE BEEN ALSO! I WOULD EXPECT THAT HOLDING EACHOTHER ACCOUNTABLE IS HOW WE MONITOR AND KEEP ARE RESPECTABILITY!!

 

THANK YOU TO ALL WHO HAVE HELPED ME, SUPPORTED MY IGNORANCE WITH KNOWLEDGE AND HAVE FED MY UNCONTROLLABLE APPETITE FOR BEAUTY AND THIS HOBBY!! I LOVE THIS HOBBY!!

 

SUNSHINE AND SMILES,

 

CLAY "THE SAVAGE" FRASER

[Vancop]

If this is the store that was in Vancouver, I stopped by there yest...and was told by the neighbors that it was closed ?? Said all he has seen there were the building owners recently. Looks closed ??

 

Is this the same ??

[CCR]

i i ALSO READ THAT THREAD. It's too bad that a LSF is having problems and things turn sour but to have closed the thread was NOT justified. Questions where being asked. Information shared.

[Benny503]

Mod... please explain whay thread closed. I believe that thread closed for some good reason but we haven't get the explanation yet.

[JeffP]

the mods 'took a vote' on it and determined it had run its course. How, I fail to see - but being a private club with moderators who hide behind "moderator1" titles, and a forum which has a proven history of allowing sponsors dictate what can be said about them in a forum (threads allowed to be deleted, altered, etc when a sponsor is given honest criticism) - it's not hard to believe.

 

I've been PMing with 'moderator1' and he/she suggested that everyone who had purchased a raffle ticket without refund, or who is waiting to hear about their salt purchase start a thread about it. Since I am in neither of these two situations, I won't be starting it.

[Chief]

It had run it's course when The Fish Tank People business closed and Doran gave up his sponsorship. I suggest anyone that is still owed refunds or merchandise seek legal council. Continuing to post about refunds will not get them any faster.

 

The reason the moderators are anonymous is a decision the Board of Directors made a long time ago, and continue to support to this day. The moderators are unpaid and donate their time to help make this an enjoyable family friendly site.

 

That being said, we will not be able to make everyone happy all the time. We can only do our best to make the right decisions. No one on the Moderator staff makes these decisions on their own. We open a discussion before a thread is closed, edited, or deleted.

 

Feel free to PM one of us if you feel we have made a bad decision. We are not perfect, but please understand if we do not change our decision, we are acting in what we feel is the best interest of the club.

 

Jay

[CA2OR]

censorship is the American way!

 

(whistle) .

[CA2OR]

I think that there is a fine line between these things. I do feel that we should be able to discuss our experiences with open honesty, otherwise there is no point. I mean how many threads were closed, edited, or deleted when they went something like this " just went to (whatever LFS) and got a great deal"? None. For obvious reasons, but just the same. At the same time the sponsors are what help keep this site running. So you have to please them as well. But it is in my opinion that if you don't want to get flamed on a site related to your business, then provide better business and you wont have to worry about it. I have had nothing but good experiences with Doran and refuse to allow this to change my opinion of him. At the same time this was definitely an eye opener to say the least. I guess I should just stay quiet about this stuff as I believe that people should be held accountable for their actions, service, advice, or whatever. Sponsor or not. Otherwise we can just go along with all sponsors are equally knowledgeable and fair priced. But we all know that just isn't so.

[COReefer]

I say that this is a CLUB forum and not a shopping forum. The sponsors of this site get really CHEAP advertisement, a place to show off their goods. I think the members of the CLUB should come first and if a member of the said club has a bad experience with the sponsor, it should be told. With that being said, I have never had such a bad experience that I felt it should be told. I have been in a few stores and was completely ignored but that's about it. Those stores didn't get a dime from me btw. That's just how I feel. If I had the experience that jeff had or the others that haven't seen their refunds, I would be upset and would let people here know.

[CA2OR]

But you can't. The problem with that in my opinion, is that we allow our sponsors to say, do, advise, or act however they want without having to worry about the consequences. At the same time you can get flamed on a thread without the same protection. In addition you can give or receive negative rep points for no reason, or sometimes even personal reasons. Those aren't moderated. Yet you pay the price for your actions. They don't. I have neg rep points right now from something that isn't even true.

 

Hard to be honest when you have to watch what you say. I don't say their names on here, but have no problem PM'ing it to people when requested. But I will say that since I had no forwarning on some of the sponsors I in turn had some very bad experiences with some and now I am VERY skeptical when making purchases out here. Sad to have to admit this but most my money is still spent in So Cal. I do hope that one day that will change, but with WAVES closing I am down to just 2 stores here. And one is too far away from me to get regular business. Not that I would have saved any shops out here but I have spent almost, if not over 2k in the last 3 months and can you guess how much of that was local? I will say it isn't zero but it sure isn't half

[COReefer]

you do make a good point. Like I said, I will handle the sponsors with my wallet. There are two stores in the portland area that I have been too where I have been treated decently. That is davy jones and rose city. Bob and nick are two good guys and I will do business with them. The first time I came to portland on my tour of fish stores, I went to about 7 different stores in 1 day and spent money in 1 and that was bobs. none of the other guys spoke to me and the few that did were really rude and I just choose not to do business with them. I do wish, however, that we could more freely voice our opinions here without getting flamed. Every lfs owner here has a couple of buddies here too. So you aren't getting blasted by the owner, you are getting it from other directions as well

[CA2OR]

But again, I DO hold others accountable. No I am sure to get dinged for all of that. When I was working on computers, if I gave bad advise I had to pay the piper, there was no way around it and I accepted that. You have to. Must be nice to not worry about that.

[CA2OR]

I totally agree COReefer. I am tired of getting ignored at stores. I am very picky and work hard (but not hard) for my money. I will not just toss it around because it is the "right" thing to do. I don't know about you guys, but doing what I feel is right and spending money in places that I have confidence in is the "right" thing to do. Local or not. Again, I would love to spend my money locally as I do agree that the only way to keep this hobby going out here is to put money into it. But again, I am in agreement with you here to, I am only a customer, so I can only reward or punish in one way. Just a reminder to LFS's out there, us customers are sort of a requirement to stay in business. Might wanna take that into consideration. I have not been to all the LFS's out here, but have read or heard about most. And threads like this are quite bothersome, especially in an economy like ours. Money is tough so you may wanna pick up your game here to get people to spend some with you. <- this comment is NOT intended to be taken as an insult. I am NOT directing this towards anyone in particular. I am NOT directing this to any stores I have not been to.

[COReefer]

I understand. When I worked at the store here in redmond, the best thing I could do is talk to the people, ask them about their system, what they like. If you can get a guy talking about himself, he'll spend money with you. People love to talk about this hobby, probably more so than any other hobby I have been in. If I walk in your store, you can get down off of the ladder from cleaning tanks and have a conversation with me. If those guys that ignored me knew that I had a fairly fresh 150 gallon display that I was trying to stock with some different, more interesting stuff, I'll bet they would have talked to me.

[CA2OR]

EXACTLY. I can't tell you how close that was to what I was typing.

[CA2OR]

This is kinda like the whole "national security" response we get from our government when they wanna dodge a question regarding decision making. You have no idea the trouble I had at the airport trying to fly back corals. CORALS. How are my corals a threat to national security? Please explain.

[Vancop]

I thought I heard a pin drop ?? yup...I did hear one !

 

Well said ........but as a suggestion, maybe attach a post indicating that the thread is going sideways and if it continues if will be closed...rather then an abrupt closeure with no explanation. An immediatley closure can offend the very people who stared or partisipated in the thread ?

 

JMHO

[Chief]

I thought I heard a pin drop ?? yup...I did hear one !

 

Well said ........but as a suggestion, maybe attach a post indicating that the thread is going sideways and if it continues if will be closed...rather then an abrupt closeure with no explanation. An immediatley closure can offend the very people who stared or partisipated in the thread ?

 

JMHO

 

That is a very good idea. We could post a warning before we go into deliberation.

 

Jay

[Rick]

Though it probably would not have made too much difference in this instance I have seen a few times when a simple warning that things are getting out of hand may have been all that was necessary.

 

Another thing that I would like to see even more is for the closing post to include a valid reason other than just a statement that it was closed. That would help prevent the integrity of the club from being brought into question. (That way we would know decisions were made in the interest of the club as a whole)

[Alterego]

I think that saying anything about "censorship" is irresponsible. Read the rules of admission to the site. The moderators have the right to close threads that are flaming and in that particular thread, there were people piling it on. The posts were not removed, that could and would be called censorship. You can still read the thread and I for one am glad that the moderators are taking a higher hand in moderating the site.

 

I don't post very often, but I log on almost daily. The difference is easy to see.

 

But, what really gets my goat here is that there are many folks who use the forum that are non paying members and they have the same rights as the paying members to post anything that they feel like posting. So, what really is the benefit of paying for a membership?

 

I say, quit the complaining, tell your story and let it alone. We are all just reefers here, and the fact that we can spew politcal rhetoric around is way off the reason this site was founded. I think we should not allow any tyoe of political views to be posted on this forum. RC doesn't allow it, neither does TRT or the others.

[gradth]

I really think the bigger issue is people jumping on the "Oh you got screwed over, I should say what I think about it even though I have no real experience' bandwagon. Yes some people ahd some bad experiences with Doran and his store, but again, we only heard there sides of the story. Personally I had nothing but good experiences with Doran until what ever happened in his life that made him have to close the shop. I have had much worse experiences at all the local shops around town that I have frequented, yet I still go to them. No store is perfect, no owner is perfect. Bottom line is a store owner is trying to make a buck. Had three different owners from 3 different well known stores in the area tell me it was ok to put a clown tang in a 55 gallon tank. Why, because they wanted to sell me a fish. I took there advice and I paid for it later. That being said, that fish went to a good home in a tank that it belonged in.

 

As far as "censorship goes" , its a private forum not some place that the Bill of Rights has a place. It seems to me that the Mods shut it down before it turned into another flame war about Doran, mostly by people just jumping on the bandwagon. Im not defending Doran, sounds like some got a raw deal, but this is not really the place for it. The store is closed, it sounds as if Doran is having some personal issues of his own. Best of luck to him and his family. Hopefully everyone gets what they need.