Cake Central Message Board Melts Down Over Budget Bride Blog Comments
Just five days ago, I posted an item, titled: I got married! I’m an expert with one wedding under my belt.
Read the entire post and its comments. I spoke generally about how with the advent of blogging, one can find wedding advice from any measure of amateurs. One of this blog’s readers, DJ June Hoffman suggested I read a post 10 Ways to Save on Wedding Music on the Budget Bride Blog.
I read that one, and after a little browsing, I viewed an item on catering that had major misinformation: 10 Ways to Cut Back on Catering. (I believe that post may have been removed, because I couldn’t not find it, today. I’ll check again). I went ahead, and made my post.
Soon, I noticed a great deal of website traffic to my blog from a site I did not recognize, CakeCentral.com. As it turned out, a planner had forwarded a link about my post to a baker, and then it was reposted on the Cake Central message board. Turns out there was yet another post on making Sugar Flowers 5/28/09) that lit up the message board like a Christmas Tree.
The Cake Central message thread became rather animated (It’s a private board, one shouldn’t repeat any particular comment). What was more surprising was the number of bakers that posted comments on the Sugar Flower thread on the Budget Wedding Blog. There are 26 public comments, still viewable, today.
I visited the Cake Central message board today, to see if there was any more discussion. Ominously, the entire thread (four pages worth) had been deleted. Despite its contentious discussion, I thought it was a discussion worth having. When one considers the fact that the Budget Wedding Blog still had comments posted, publicly, I thought it odd that the Cake Central message board would censor its members with a meat ax. And, without even an explanation. Did someone or several someones vioilate the message board rules. It would be nice to know, so lines weren’t crossed in the future.
It’s important to disagree, sometimes vehemently, but as agreeably as possible. I hardly think contentious disagreement is reason to silence all discussion.
Don’t you agree? Readers are more than welcome to post praise and criticism on The Wedding Marketing Blog. If you don’t think I’m being fair or open-minded, write a comment… and tell me why.
Sometimes you and i will examine the same facts, and will reach different conclusiosn. That’s OK, too.
That’s what makes horseraces.
Andy Ebon
The Wedding Marketing Authority
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Honestly? Being an experienced Cake Central person, I tend to think that sometime last night, after you went to bed, people started name-slinging at each other and the thread degenerated into hysterical hissy fits. Possibly the one avidly hateful poster from the other blog got in there, even; it’s happened before. And the discussion is no more at that point. You never get it back on track.
I wish they would just lock a thread with a final post explaining why it was locked instead of deleting, but I guess that’s too much work for so few mods.
Sorry I missed it (just kidding)…
Having had to monitor message boards, myself, I’m familiar with discussions getting out of hand. Usually, I found that contacting the offending parties directly and modifying or deleting their post (if absolutely necessary) would do the trick. It’s not as simple as deleting an entire thread, but it doesn’t appear so arbitrary.
Just my take… and I appreciate yours.
Andy