Auto Insight and Gongos--Venting and a warning

I've previously solicited for our members to consider joining the Auto Insight community/survey site. I just wanted to give some follow up and express some concerns.

Over the past several months it's become apparent that the moderation there is very fickle and inconsistant. While the actual surveys and 'for points' discussions continue to be fairly interesting and sometimes very interesting the open forums are a complete chaotic mess. For the most part it's like Fred's House of Politics with a few spammers thrown in. For a time there were some interesting and engaging discussions and I went out of my way to post interesting articles and address questions as they came up regarding hybrids, alternative energy, etc.

However, there are 3 or 4 members who took it upon themselves to report me for pretty much any small slight they felt I'd given them (and they were slight)...the moderators would eventually (sometimes weeks later) slap a warning and sometimes a brief suspension on both the reporting party and the party that the report was made about. The would give no specifics as to why they were chooseing the action they chose, only quoting the 'conduct policy'.

In any case, over a month ago I posted for some advice on how to rebut a post by someone there. Meanwhile one of the guys there, that for reasons I completely don't understand, took it upon himself to register here and start digging for dirt and found that thread and reported me. So now 5 weeks later I get a vague warning for violating the site's privacy policy, ask for clarification and they point me to that. I tell them that's ludicrous and get myself banned (really kind of glad though I wish I'd have just kept taking their money with the surveys and abandoned the idiotic forum).

Anyway, I've communicated with several other site members a few of which have participated in other gongos forums and, apparently, this is the standard MO...lousy moderation then ridiculous shot-gun action when someone complains without any consideration of circumstances or context.

So, I think, given the chance, I'd still partcipate in gongos survey sites, but never in the open forums there despite their encouragement for community members to do so. YMMV, and perhaps if you're passive enough you'll never stir the pot enough to upset anyone. But I wanted to make folks aware of what might be expected.

 

autoinsight is one of the forums run by gongos.