Peace,

I had posted a negative comment (several, actually) in a thread I created about a Thai restaurant near me. Some people wrote to say it wasn’t that bad, but there were never any glowing reviews. A couple of weeks ago, two really positive posts showed up within an hour of each other. I suspect that the owner saw (or was told of) the thread there and asked some regulars to post nice stuff. How else would one explain two really good writeups so close together after weeks of none?

There was also an interesting thread about a new steakhouse which had gotten some really bad writeups on CH, especially about obnoxious owners who did not take to criticism. All of a sudden there were some great posts, with people saying nice things about the owners. Those did get removed, I think they figured out something was fishy (and not with the food).

From its inception Chowhound has been the effort of a couple of dozen volunteers who have devoted a huge amount of energy, time and, in many cases, money to keep the website—which until about a year ago—had no advertising alive. Recently, Chowhound was purchased by CNET and there are now lots of ads, but still a lot of volunteers keeping the site as shill-free and positive as is possible. These volunteers rely on Chowhound’s readers and posters to help them keep the shills out.

If you think you see a shill, tell them. There is a link at the bottom of all posts that lets you file a very brief report about what you think is wrong with a post. I know from experience that the current crop of moderators (many of whom have been moderators for years) pay attention. Chowhound receives several thousand posts a day and no amount of staff can catch every error, but the readers can.

Yes, sometimes the rules seem unfair, but they are far from arbitrary. Those rules have helped build a solid, interesting and generally reliable website that is of value to thousands of people. But if you are one of the people who doesn’t like what is there I have one bit of advice: there are probably hundreds of websites that will be more to your liking, why not visit and contribute to them.

If you hang around message boards long enough, you start to get to know the personalities of different posters. I’m always suspicious of the new ones!

But this sort of stuff from the shills doesn’t nearly bother me as much as the trash being spread by the detractors. These guys are getting smart enough to not be 100% negative, but they know what buttons to push, such as describing a steak with a slightly spoiled aroma, or management that refuses to even hear out a major blunder (“they refused to take off the bill that salad with the dead cockroach!”) Given the choice, even a careful consumer such as myself would think twice before risking dining there.

CH should require more proof of identity from people who fall into either of these categories, or just delete their posts.

Maybe I should just stop posting, then!

To your point about shills — I think they’re usually pretty obvious, don’t you?

They don’t encourage links to other blogs, because it takes away traffic from their site.

If you had started a thread about Boe@324, even just to announce it, it would have been deleted because of who you are. But because you answered a query, it was allowed.

Restaurateurs are not allow to comment on posts, good or bad, about their restaurant. But if the hours, location or specific menu items are wrong, they can provide a correction.

My personal beef with Chowhound is that they don’t adequately police their site for obvious shills or damning comments about a place (i.e., a brand-new poster that’s either excessively praising a place with marketing-speak, or trashing every single aspect of their recent visit). A user like myself is allowed to report questionable posts, but I’ve only seen 3 of the dozen or so I’ve reported actually removed in the past 3 monts.

They’re not exactly fair, but it’s their site, and they can run it as they wish.