More Chowhound Shenanigans

Culture, Media, General Culture, Chains, General Discussions
1

This morning I posted a brief tally of new posts over at the trainwreck that’s known as Chowhound. Here’s my OP:

Since the “Change”, it’s been obvious traffic has slowed to a crawl. Management isn’t sharing, so I’ve decided to track posts on select boards on my own. I’m trying to track “total posts” as reported by CH on the following boards:

General (+3)
Home Cooking (+12)
Cookware (+3)
Not About Food (-1 WTF?)
Gardening (0)
Wine (0)
Beer, Etc. (0)
Food Media (0)
Site Feedback (+49)

For the last 24 hours, there have been the number of posts shown in parentheses–67 TOTAL. And 73% of new posts have been on Site Feedback.

The OP was pulled down, and this is what I got from Marssy:

Hi kaleokahu,

We’re sorry, but we have removed your post since keeping up with the numbers in a manual way will lead to inaccurate data and would confuse our readers.

We really understand that you do not like the new design and that you are upset, but your constant negative behavior and purposely misuse of the tag structure, e.g. adding the spatula tag to your posts, is leading to extra administrative work that we cannot longer afford.

We kindly ask you to continue participating on Chowhound in a constructive manner.

Thanks for your understanding,

Marcela

So I’ll keep tracking for awhile, but it’s pretty interesting that Marssy says about their own numbers will “confuse” readers.

For anyone who wants to count/play along, the totals, starting yesterday at 9AM PST were:

General 35,484
Home Cooking 78,274
Cookware 15,744
Not About Food 6,378
Gardening 885
Wine 5,903
Beer, Etc. 1,575
Food Media 11,350
Site Feedback 8,249

Aloha,
Kaleo

2 Likes
2

Dude, seriously the “spatula” tag, really? Even I have some lines that I will not cross.

5 Likes
3

Yeah, imagine the legions of paid administrators who had to deal with that! And BTW, “Spatula” was not my idea…

5

Sorry, what’s this mean?

6

Someone on CH actually asked me (in the UK section) where everyone had gone. Of course, my reply was Hungry Onion, and next time I looked… gone, gone.

One thing I noticed is that all of a sudden there were a few new people asking questions. I have a feeling they could be plants. :slight_smile:

7

Oh, it’s pretty obvious that there are some shills. I won’t name names, but there are a few who try the old “It must be working OK, or else you couldn’t post!” tripe. Then there is also a small group of poor codependent types for whom nothing could happen that would ever make them leave.

2 Likes
8

not to mention a few recurring characters that simply have to be someone being paid to stir shit and make up posts to drive traffic

4 Likes
9

I think it’s very telling that you were not automatically suspended or worse, as would have happened a few weeks ago. TPTB must have noticed the down turn in responses in certain high voltage threads.

“They paved paradise and turned it into a parking lot.”

They have no one else to blame but themselves.

12 Likes
10

Why is a spatula bad?

1 Like
11

2 sites have sprung up in the last couple weeks, as a reaction the ch shitshow. tptb over there will NOT allow any mention of either, while in the past talk of egullett or wherever were not a problem.

dunno what they think they are solving by censoring so harshly.

1 Like
12

The spatula isn’t bad, just ridiculous. Shortly after go-live of the new design, there were complaints about the sheer number of tags. Spatula and Chives were two of the ridiculous ones mentioned. So a few of us (ahem) them started a thread extolling various spatulas and melon ballers. It was a weekend, so the thread actually stayed up for more than 24 hours. Marssy sent me (ahem) them a very stern e-mail regarding my (ahem) their trolling of the boards. Really, it was the funniest thread I had participated in since the infamous banana board.

Then I noticed a smattering of avatars were being changed to spatulas.

8 Likes
13

They are obviously running scared.

I recently was tasked with getting Octobers DOTM on home cooking up. I posted the info on several associated threads so those interested could find it. Marsy “hearted” all my cross posts (which she had never done before) - guess it was a thank you for trying to elicit responses.

1 Like
14

Thanks gaffk! I missed that completely. I’d wondered why I was suddenly seeing spatula’s as an avtar. Assumed it was now a new default.

1 Like
15

Bravo Kaleo! I am shocked she didn’t dismiss you out of hand.
Still, sad to see the demise of CH but I’m awfully happy so many have found their way here and I’m thankful for ckshen setting it up.

4 Likes
16

Thanks for calculating this. I’ve been curious what the numbers are looking like.

And please for the love of god keep going with the spatula tag. That’s hilarious. If she scolds you again tell her you don’t mean to do it, you’re not sure how to use the tagging feature.

9 Likes
17

Out of curiosity I too had tracked the number of posts from a subset of the boards beginning on September 18. The post numbers are illuminating, but something went wrong with the Cookware count between 9/18 and 9/22 so I’ll post here the change in “total posts” since 9/22 and the totals you reported for the boards I tracked - my numbers represent the change in total posts for the two week period from 9/22 and 10/6:

General (+31)
Home Cooking (+107)
Cookware (0)
Not About Food (+6)
Food Media (+28)
Barbecue & Grilling (0)

I’m surprised you didn’t get banned, but I do interpret Marssy’s reply to you as a final warning - one more strike and you’re probably out.

18

It’s really the only explanation - they noticed the disappearance of posters (and content), and now are trying their hardest to keep that ship running… pathetic.

19

OK, for the last 24 hours, the number of new posts over the previous 24 hours is:

General (+3)
Home Cooking (+2)
Cookware (+8)
Not About Food (0)
Gardening (0)
Wine (0)
Beer, Etc. (0)
Food Media (+4)
Site Feedback (+1)

For the week:

General (+5)
Home Cooking (+14)
Cookware (+11)
Not About Food (-1 WTF?)
Gardening (0)
Wine (0)
Beer, Etc. (0)
Food Media (+4)
Site Feedback (+50)

I will be out of commission tomorrow at 9A PST. Would someone please log the numbers for me tomorrow?

Aloha,
Kaleo

20

Do you have numbers for the Restaurants board? I am under the impression that what little activities that are left are happening on that board.

21

No, but I will start tracking that board as well. Yelpification in progress?