No Commodore but real USA
I used to try to post in their old forums and also tried to be fair about my suggestions and improvements they could make.
I say ‘try’, as a large percentage of my posts were edited or deleted entirely. It became pointless to even post on their forums, as one had to dance around certain subjects very carefully, then hope one’s post didn’t simply just vanish.
I can understand editing obscene, vulgar or combative posts, but that isn’t what commodore’s forums are about. They are about increasing sales for them, and when someone says something like their computers may be overpriced, or perhaps they should include an Amiga-like OS on their Amiga system, they tend to not like that very much.
It’s really incredibly silly and makes an open discussion impossible. I also was always baffled by the ‘rah rah’ posts, where CUSA would make a somewhat lame post, like ‘super secret announcement coming!’… or ‘COS will now have even more screen effects!’… and they’d get odd followup posts gushing over their ‘non-announcements’, and like half a dozen thank yous per post. I am guessing they were mostly just employees doing those followup posts, but it made their forums look even less professional than they already were.
I never took screenshots or anything like that, if that’s what you are asking. And since the forums aren’t there anymore, it’s not like I can point to my previous posts on the forum. You don’t really need proof of censorship on their old forums, as it was common knowledge. I recall one moderator stating that even his posts had been deleted at one time or another. Everyone who used that forum eventually realized that posts were censored.
My basic experience was something like this…
I recall someone posting constructive criticism on a thread when the amiga minis first came out. He went of his way to say his post was meant as constructive, but he had some issues with the pricing. I followed up in agreement, also comparing prices to iMacs and Alienwares, saying how it’s even more expensive than them and if they want to be competitive, they really need to lower their prices.
Next day entire thread was gone. Myself and the other poster put up a thread asking why a thread on constructive criticism was censored — and also pointing out that we were polite, no arguing or anything like that. And our thread on censorship was also deleted entirely.
As for other situations… I recall a thread about their OS or why AOS should be ported to CUSA… several posts were deleted from that one, including a rant against Barry from someone with a moderator tag (I could at least understand deleting that specific post). Basically any posts that pointed out the fact that their Amigas were lacking in Amiga-like features or were too expensive, had a good chance of getting edited or deleted entirely.
My last post was in a thread with an eager pro-cusa person, where I was trying to stress than their Amiga should have some unique features (either software or hardware) and not simply be a run of the mill PC with Linux installed. I was polite, but that post got deleted too. After that, I just said goodbye and good luck…
On the Edge: Spectacular rise and fall of C=USA 