First off, these forums on the Internet are a great part of the Internet for community building and direct person to person collaboration on things we care about - our Hondas, our CR-Vs, or whatever is our interests.

Secondly, the moderators normally are volunteer-based efforts to keep the garbage and focus correct and are valuable in building these communities. So a shout out to the mods of this forum and thanks for your efforts.

I'm not a hard-core forum user, but when I do get some valuable information and know-how from car forums, I appreciate it. So I will subscribe and become a member to thank the contributors for their write-ups, how-to guides, etc. I also feel like I want to give back.

In 2023 I was a lurking member of crvownersclub.com and felt the same way, and started participating more. At first it was great and all of the positive aspects of these forums were experienced. Unfortunately, I noticed the Dark Night was censoring another members' posts for some reason. I questioned why the censorship, the other member had started a great restoration project on a 2005 or 2006 CR-V and was sharing a lot of great info. This other member hadn't caused an issues that I could see. Then I found out the other member was banned entirely and all their posts mysteriously disappeared.

I asked about what was going on and saw my own posts starting to get censored by The Dark Knight, and then I was temporarily banned for some reason. I was ready to just abandon the site, but I had a contact in the firm that owns that forum as an Internet asset. I contacted my informant who looked into the matter a bit. What I learned was that the owners are often a bit afraid of crossing the lines of moderators (even abusive ones) and they weren't able to do much. I found out The Dark Knight worked to ban my account entirely.

So my experience matches the others here. Something is really wrong with that particular moderator, and it's actually damaging to the company's financial interests in crvownersclub.com. Fortunately, there are plenty of other forums in the Internet where I participate, and I also have 100% free access to crvownersclub.com content (at least the uncensored content) whenever I want it, so the moderator accomplished nothing.

I post this story to record and corroborate what others have experienced here.

 

First of all, I have no idea why you quoted a year old post when your comment had only relevance to the topic and not me.

Secondly, I am well aware of how businesses operate private internet
forums and where the money stream comes from. I have been active on a sister site of the subject forum since 2010 and never had an issue. The Canadian Company that bought the forum group about 8-10 years ago did it for profit.

When profitability drops, attention is paid and when necessary, changes are made. The cause of that attention was the users voting with their feet.

Things you should have known.
The subject authoritarian was not a moderator, he WAS the administrator.
A huge difference.

Since the change of command. The subject forum appears to have become a place where conversations can take place without unnecessary interference.

Coastie05 is the new admin and while the old guard are still members, they no longer have access to the posts. The new group does continue to keep the ship upright which is necessary for a number of reasons.

I have resumed posting there as it is focused on CRV’s which is my only interest.

Rather than dredging up old news do consider a revisit and let sleeping dogs lie.

Over and Out