The Critics: Banned on Chowhound Archives

Banned on Chowhound: How to Get Banned Special

Haven't seen this graphic in a while, ey? No matter, it's time for Banned on Chowhound, in which we right the wrongs suffered by you at the hand of Chowound moderators. Tried to post something only to have it BANNED? Maybe we can be of some assistance.

In almost all cases, getting banned on Chowhound is inexcusable. In a very few cases, however, we come across a Banned submission that is banned for good reason. Such as today, on the topic of Tailor. Even those fatigued by our Tailor coverage will want to read on, as this has little to nothing to do with Sam Mason's new soho eatery. Up first, The Story:

Just letting you know that Chowhound is policing Tailor reviews. I've never had problem posting reviews on Chowhound before, but after eating at Sam Mason's Tailor and writing about my largely negative experience on Chowhound I woke up the next morning to find that my post had been deleted.

Bullfrog and Baum are certainly earning their keep: everyone posting on e-Gullet certainly sounds like they've been rounded up and massaged into a state of willfull denial by B&B and I'm sure leaving such an unpleasant post about the place on Chowhound made someone over there drop an email to the board.

The banned material is up next. >>

Chowhound Continues to Censor Di Fara/DOH Posts Despite Growing Opposition, Boards Teetering on the Verge of Useless

There are 451 Chowhound discussions in progress on legendary Midwood pizzeria Di Fara, yet not one of them contains the key piece of information that the restaurant has been closed down by the Department of Health for an as yet unknown variety of health code violations. As became clear yesterday, Chowhound moderators have been instructed to remove all posts and topics that mention the DOH shuttering, because "Chowhound is a great place to discuss where to find deliciousness, but when it comes to serious issues like health violations (or issues that create health violations), we're not a reliable source for information."

One post on Di Fara has remained live, for the moment, and it reads as follows:

Di Fara temporarily closed

I think that for a board that is basically 1/4 dedicated to singing the praises of this restaurant and imploring people to go there, it is only right to mention that anyone who heads out in the next day or two is going to be disappointed. It seems sadistic not to post that important info. Even if the reason for the temporary shutdown is [redacted].

Yo, we have an idea. >>

Banned on Chowhound: Di Fara Lost Posts

Chowhound can ban commenters and delete comments all they want on their side of the tracks. Over here, we've pledged to to give those spurned by Jim Leff a voice, in this series, tagged The Lost Posts. In this edition of The Lost Posts we explore the case of Di Fara and its recent DOH shuttering. All posts related to the closure have been recklessly and inexplicably deleted. Let's be perfectly clear: Chowhound has refused to post news that Di Fara, one of the most beloved and discussed venues in Chow circles, has been shuttered by the DOH.

STATUS: Banned; Foul Play Certain

DESCRIPTION OF INCIDENT:

"Just wanted to let you know that the Chowhound moderators have been deleting all posts related to the DOH closure of Di Fara, including links to info on eater and Slice.

The original poster posted that he was surprised that there had been no discussion of Di Fara's closure. I responded, using links to eater and Slice, to the o.p.'s query about what "small things" made the DOH close it down. My response included the suggestion that a general lack of cleanliness might also have been involved, which prompted a few posts on that issue. (Nobody can dispute that Di Fara's is a not very clean dump.)

Then, another Hound said she had started a thread on Friday which included the same links I had used, and her thread was deleted. In response, I theorized that the moderators might not approve of a discussion about the restaurant's cleanliness. ("It's all about the chow!") I said that if that was the case, it was ridiculous since most people think cleanliness counts, and not many of us enjoy eating even great pizza in unclean conditions.

It appears that my theory about the moderators was correct because within a half hour, the entire thread was gone!"

Chowhound's response, next. >>

Banned on Chowhound: The Lost Posts V

Chowhound can ban commenters and delete comments all they want on their side of the tracks. Over here, we've pledged to to give those spurned by Jim Leff a voice, in this series, tagged The Lost Posts. In this edition of The Lost Posts, Volume V, we explore the case of what happens when you try to take down a big-time player like Shelly Fireman. Turns out you can't, really.

STATUS: Banned Without Explanation; Foul Play Suspected

PREFACE: "This showed up on my RSS feed. I went to look at it on Chowhound but it had been taken down. Ironic last sentence."

CONTRABAND:

Brooklyn Diner: Very Gross
I went to the outlet on W.43rd and Bwy/7th Ave. The place is very clean and the staff is extremely friendly. This is why I'm confused as to why the place sucks so bad. I was on my way to Times Square around lunch time and figured I'd give it a shot. I never read any reviews on this place before. I figured it was a tourist trap just from the location, but hey no problem some tourist traps aren't that bad. I ordered pigs in a blanket and crispy chicken salad with Black Forest Ham and Gorgonzola cheese with (I believe they state) a raspberry vinaigrettes. They piggys arrived luke warm.

As if in defiance of all odds, there is more ahead. >>

Banned on Chowhound: The Lost Posts IV

Chowhound can ban commenters and delete comments all they want on their side of the tracks. Over here, we've pledged to to give those spurned by Jim Leff a voice, in this series, tagged The Lost Posts. In this edition of The Lost Posts, Volume IV, we explore the case of bugs and other foreign substances chowhounders report having found. Turns out this kind of talk is verboten.

STATUS: Banned With Explanation: Chowhounders cannot be trusted; Libel prevention.

Contraband: Cafe Sabarsky/Cafe Fledermaus. My wife and I had a rare lunch together and because we were in the area, we went to Cafe Sabarsky. Unfortunately we didn't have time to view the Klimt paintings in the Neue Gallery upstairs, and were pressed for time for lunch, so we ate downstairs at Cafe Fledermaus.

Before I can talk positively about the food, I must set the record straight about this place. The service is horrendous. It is awful. It is pathetic. It is slow. It is sloppy. It is every negative adjective you can apply to waitservice.

The foreign substance revealed, next. >>

Banned on Chowhound: The Lost Posts III

Chowhound can ban commenters and delete comments all they want on their side of the tracks. Over here, we've pledged to to give those spurned by Jim Leff a voice, in this series, tagged The Lost Posts. In this edition of The Lost Posts, Volume III, we explore the creative editing techniques of the Chowhound moderators. It turns out they're allowed to call shill, but Chowhounders themselves cannot.

STATUS: Inexplicably Banned, Venue Favortism Suspected.

Contraband: "So I read the below post on CH just now, and called a shill a shill. I believe my exact words were: "Wow. Adventures in Shilling.... brooklyn edition." About a minute later that was removed. Then someone else responded to my post that had just been taken down (I managed to save it in the string below) and THAT response was also taken down.

Fun times!

This was on the Outer Borroughs message board."

The actual lost post, just ahead. >>

Banned on Chowhound: The Lost Posts II

Chowhound can ban commenters and delete comments all they want on their side of the tracks. Over here, we've pledged to to give those spurned by Jim Leff a voice, in this series, tagged The Lost Posts. In this edition of The Lost Posts, Volume II, to be exact, we encounter the story of Mara's Homemade. STATUS: Inexplicably Banned, Foul Play Suspected.

The Story: Recently a thread popped up on chowhound about Mara's Homemade; the question was "I'm going here on Saturday night, and the menu looks so big and everything looks good. What should I get?"

The first responder said, "You should get. . . . your party to go to somewhere else" and the second responder said "hahahaha. I've been there once and it was just ehhh..." I posted, "I agree with the above two. I thought it was overpriced and the owners very pushy." Only a few hours later, the posting disappeared...

One thing to note is that if you do a search on 'Mara' on the Manhattan chowhound board, you don't really get any negative interviews. Another interesting note is that Mara's Homemade responds to a large number of the negative reviews on citysearch. Perhaps the owners like to make sure that any negative reviews on chowhound are removed?

· Banned on Chowhound: The Lost Posts I [~E~]

Have you been Banned on Chowhound? Send your banned material this way. We're waiting with open arms.

Banned on Chowhound: The Lost Posts I

Today, we're going to start making good on our pledge to run posts in-full that were banned on the -- we're not going to use the word Nazi, but -- message board Chowhound. First up, a review of Brooklyn's Frannie's. STATUS: Inexplicably Banned.

Banned: I've been meaning to eat at Franny's in Prospect Heights for a few years now, ever since the owners had their column in the NY Times Dining In section. After hitting up the Brooklyn Museum today I did get around to stopping by with my girlfriend. It was, unfortunately, a disappointment. We arrived at 5:45pm (we both had light lunches and were quite hungry) and expected to beat the dinner rush.

Continue reading "Banned on Chowhound: The Lost Posts I"

Banned on Chowhound: Coffee Shops

The best part of Chowhound's rss feed is that posts inexplicably removed from the boards do not get instantly removed from the feed. Above is a prime example, which we were able to pull out of our RSS, after it was removed from the boards. If anyone can come up with a good reason why a request for a good coffee shop should be removed, we're all ears.

More broadly, let's dig back into Banned on Chowhound. At the start of the year, during this time of reflection, it occurs to us that it's been ages since the fine folks at Chowhound have been called out for their Nazi-like censorship practices. Here and now, we make this decree: any Chowhound post you've had removed from their boards we will be happy run in-full here.* Right this way.

· Banned on Chowhound: Thou Shalt Not Derail Morimoto [~E~]
· Banned On Chowhound: Chowhound Explains! (Sort Of) [~E~]

*Within reason, obvs.

Banned on Chowhound: Chowhound Explains! (Sort Of)

While the Banned on Chowhound murmurs continue to arrive in our inbox with staccato regularity, a Chowhounder posts on the SiteTalk message board inquiring about the banning policies.

Explains our tipster, "Jim Leff himself didn't respond, but his 'team' did, posting links to past comments on the moderation policy without adding anything new. So apparently the deal is that, once they conclude that the restaurant—or anyone affiliated with the restaurant—has been 'shilling', then no further posts concerning that restaurant are permitted, even if they come from long-time Chowhounders who are clearly not shills. To put it another way, they can't tell who's a shill, so they assume everyone is."

Makes a crazy kind of sense, no? Meanwhile, bonus Banned on Chowhound coverage after the jump: an email to a Chowhounder explaining why his posts about Amma were Banned on Chowhound way back in 2004. (N.B. the genius "opens the door for more shenanigans" policy.)

Continue reading "Banned on Chowhound: Chowhound Explains! (Sort Of)"

Banned on Chowhound: Brooklyn, Borough of Deceit

The fun, it does not stop. The special fun that comes from being Banned on Chowhound. When last we left the venerable message board, it had put the kibosh on posts mentioning Park Slope pizzeria Franny's. Now, Eater reader reports reveal the drama gripping the entire borough:

· This policy confused me as well when I first started posting to the Chowhound board. It was years ago and my boyfriend an I posted about Whim, which used to be on Degraw Street in Cobble Hill. We kept trying over and over and the post never seemed to appear. We thought it was our computer or browser or something. When we inquired we got a reply explaining the policy. I don't know if they have banned Mark Elliot's second restaurant Blue Star on Court Street as well. Seems that they don't want to get in trouble by accusing anyone but it does not restaurant people to defend themselves. Weird in a way...

· Blue Star, in Carroll Gardens, is a partially-banned restaurant on Chowhound. Marc Elliot's previous restaurant, Whim, was banned after he shilled for his restaurant on Chowhound while knocking a bunch of other restaurants in the nabe. It's a somewhat loosely enforced ban, and discussions of his new venture, the Jewish-style deli Nosh, have been deemed Kosher. (Such a bad pun.) There are some posts for Blue Star on the board, but a number have also been removed.

· Update: recent posts on Nosh were removed today, too, so I guess that both Blue Star and Nosh are banned as well.

· In Brooklyn two of the verboten are Franny's and La Villa, pizza places in Prospect Heights and Park Slope, respectively. I went over the proverbial line by discussing Franny's a while ago, and got banned myself. Phooey! Read about it here.

Oh, the humanity. Got the scoop on more restaurants Banned on Chowhound? Let us know.
· Banned on Chowhound: Banned in Park Slope [~E~]
· How I Got Banned from Chowhound [The Muk Report]

Banned On Chowhound: Banned in Park Slope

Please, sir, if it doesn't pose too much of a difficulty, stop the presses. The first addition to our new, unofficial Banned on Chowhound list has arrived! Drumroll please for this reader email:

I believe Frannie's Pizza in Park Slope is banned.

Zing! Poor Frannie—worked so hard all her life just to end up Banned on Chowhound. Actually, that's a lie. We don't know Frannie, and perhaps she (or the marketing corporation behind her) has earned this scorn. The scorn that can only come from being Banned on Chowhound.

Aware of a restaurant that has been Banned on Chowhound? Drop us a line and let us know. Meantime, after the jump, a Banned on Chowhound conspiracy tale that begins as follows: "Dear Eater: It gets curiouser and curiouser." And indeed it does.

Continue reading "Banned On Chowhound: Banned in Park Slope"

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