There is a link to the user agreement on the footer of every page of the site. The user agreement pops up in a window the first 10 times you go to post. (yes, disabling javascript will avoid this reminder)

Please remember that the “She” that didn’t respond to your questions was not a moderator or otherwise employed by FatWallet. If you are at a store and ask another shopper a question and that customer is rude, you can’t hardly blame the store management for the rudeness of another customer. Sure, you can blame management for not having the question answered before you ask it… User agreements always seem to have so much that needs to be covered that nobody reads them.

When posting in the hot deals category of fatwallet, we have a reminder in big letters above the text entry box of that category’s rules…. people still choose to ignore them.

Tim

My suggestion:
Let anyone (as long as its not offensive or in bad taste) post as long as they aren’t promoting something. Rather they are reporting it. I don’t think it will fly, but since you asked…:)

Thanks for your response.

Best
Janet

There’s been a mix up here, and I’d like to set the story straight. My name is Paige, and I lead the moderation team on FatWallet. First, the person you corresponded with via private message was a user, NOT a member of the FatWallet staff. All private messages from staff come from “Moderator” or have the FW staff avatar. I think I can say with confidence that no member of our staff would speak to anyone in the manner you describe.

The person you encountered was one of the many outspoken members of our community. Many of our users who have been active in our forums for a long time feel a deep sense of pride and ownership in their posts and the forum as a whole. Because as moderators we are not able to read every post on the forums we rely on our users to alert us to posts that violate forum guidelines. Several users, including the one you encountered, alerted our moderation staff to your post.

Now, on to what we did do. After receiving alerts from several users, our on-duty moderator deleted your post for violating forum rules. When you signed up for the forums you agreed to abide by our User Agreement which states: “You agree you will not post promotional information for a website, entity or entity with which you are an affiliate, employee, owner, or otherwise receive any benefit from.” Because you admit you work for Cymphonix, the company sponsoring the giveaway, your posts were removed. Our community is driven by consumers, smart shoppers who know how to get a good deal. We know that to protect the quality and integrity of our forums we must ensure that our forums stay consumer driven.

Though we can be strict when enforcing forum rules, we place a high priority on being fair and consistent. We do our best to always treat users with respect, even when they don’t give us the same. I hope you can understand why we removed you posts. We did not do it to be mean spirited, but because we value and want to protect our community. As Tim mentioned, I appreciate that you brought this issue up so we have the opportunity to discuss what happened. We’ve always got an open ear for suggestions and are eager to improve

~Paige

Best
Janet

Yes, were a corporation – Lawyers and taxes and all that good stuff that goes along with building a business to support our mission. (Serve consumers with knowledge, value, and guidance)

I just came across your post, and haven’t had the opportunity to fully investigate what has gone on yet, but I will make sure there is an investigation to make sure everything was handled as it should have been.

Thanks for sharing your experience, glad to hear it actually. I’d much rather hear a complaint and be able to do something about it than to never know that someone was not happy.

Tim