Banned from yet another forum.

It happened again I have just been banned from another forum. Last night on Saturday 25th March 2012. This time Windows 8 Forums have banned me from their two forums. Windows 8 Forums and Windows 7 Forums. The offense,I gave my honest opinion of what a poor version of Windows,Windows 8 Consumer Preview is.


I had been using Windows 8 Developers Preview which I found was quite usable. And I had recently upgraded to Windows 8 Consumer preview, but I did not like it. Because you cannot disable the Metro theme like you could on Developers Preview. And also I had so many problems with Windows 8 Consumer Preview that I uninstalled it and went back to Windows 7.

Anyway,I posted on the forum how terrible Windows 8 CP was and I made a joke and said they should call it WINDOWS 8 NIGHTMARES PREVIEW.Because being stuck with this version of Windows 8 is a nightmare because most people including myself won't be able to use it.

But on forums they don't have much of a sense of humor and a lot of the members were nasty to me. But I have dealt with these situations before. And even though some members were making nasty comments about me.I did not respond to them.

Eventually the situation got out of hand. And two members posted on the forum that they would leave the forum unless I was banned and called for me to be banned.

Here is the quote from a member of Windows 8 forums who I will not name.

Forum Member said-  
"As a paramedic I have to deal with nuts all day long. I cannot deal with nuts while I am working at my hobby on computers. This woman has posted unstable comments and has been encouraged to do so. And should be banned from this forum."

That member was banned on Tuesday from the forum for making that comment and that thread was locked. But the ban on him was lifted on Thursday. And that same member started a new thread about his ban being lifted. And he and another member made several nasty comments about me in their posts. Which I responded to explaining I had done nothing wrong.

The administrator of the site banned those two members again. And this time the ban was permanent.

And then on Friday I got a private message from the administrator apologizing for those members behavior. And he told me that he had found out that one of the banned members had joined another forum in which he was an administrator. And that he was trying to get members of Windows 7 and Windows 8 forums over to the new site.

The admin of Windows 8 and Windows 7 forums also told me in the private message that I could join their video chat on Skype. And gave me his Skype user name.

I replied back to him in the private message that I don't have Skype on my netbooks as it does not work well. But I have Aim and Windows Live Messenger and Google Talk and I gave him my user name for those.

All seemed to be well on Windows 8 Forums or so I thought. Until a few hours ago on Saturday night I went onto the website. And I saw that I had been banned from the forum. I found out when I saw "banned" under my user name. So I logged into my account to find out why I had been banned.

And I got this message-

Windows 8 Forums ban Message-

Too late you have been banned for violation of terms of service.

"You have been banned for the following reason:
No reason was specified.
Date the ban will be lifted: Never."

And when I logged into my account a Windows 7 Forums I got the same ban message. If you are banned from Windows 8 Forums you are also banned from Windows 7 forums. Because it is run by the same people.

I could not believe it.The night before,on Friday,the admin had invited me to the forums video chat,telling me that they would like to get to know me better. And now they have banned me for life from their two forums.

But it is not the first time I have had problems with a forum.Well it has been a bad week for me with forums. Earlier this week I got a warning from a moderator on Neowin forums in a private message. Warning me that if I wrote any more post about how I don't like Windows 8 Consumer Preview. My account would be restricted.

I was posting on another thread on Neowin forums also about Windows 8 telling them I don't like Windows 8 Consumer Preview. But they did not like it.

But Neowin forums are very strict. A few months ago I started my own thread about my being wrongly banned from Seven Forums. But against my wishes the moderators changed my thread from public view to private view.Meaning it was not visible on the web and only forum members who logged in could see it.

I got quite a lot of replies but then a moderator came along and locked the thread. And told me it was against the rules to post about other forums.

But the whole thing is silly. Because what is so offensive about my talking about my ban from Seven Forums that made them set my thread from public view to private View? And locking the thread was pointless because the thread could not be seen on the web or indexed in the search engines anyway.

As well as me being banned from Windows 7 and Windows 8 Forums, they have even banned a third member. Who they found out was a fan of mine. Well he had just been following my videos and blog posts. But they obviously found out and banned him.

And I have had my fill of problems on forums. I have had many of my threads changed from public view to private view by the admin or the moderators.I have my threads locked. So that I and other people cannot post on them. And I have had my threads deleted.

So with all of the aggravation I and other people get I now wonder if it is worth posting on a forum at all. I cannot tell you if or not you should post on a forum. And also if you are looking for help or just want a discussion you may not even get a reply to your posts.

I have said this before but I will say it again. You have absolutely no control over the forums. They can edit your posts. They can change your threads from public view to private view. They can lock your threads or the thread you are posting on. And they can delete your threads. And they can ban you.

And there is nothing you can do about it. So if you want to post it is better to post on your own blog or website. Then you have full control over your posts and no one can take them down except for you.