Who oversees the admins?

Who ensures the admins are equitable on this forum?

I had a posting closed, claiming to violate a posting policy, yet in all my years on here, I have yet to see any posted rules, so who decides.

It seems like it could be capricious and arbitrary applied and skewed towards vendors who support the board.

Please let me know before this gets deleted or closed for being "inappropriate" too.

So much for open and candid discussions on here.

TomB said:

Who ensures the admins are equitable on this forum?

It seems like it could be capricious and arbitrary applied and skewed towards vendors who support the board.

Please let me know before this gets deleted or closed for being "inappropriate" too.

So much for open and candid discussions on here.

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Original thread here: http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.php?t=212496

1) Starting 2 threads about it (This and the 'poll' thread) is not the way to go about it.
2) Brian was pretty damn clear, what didn't you understand about his reason for locking:

TDIClub is NOT responsible for how a vendor chooses to run its business. Using the forums this way to vent about a vendor non-issue is inappropriate.

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3) If you wanted to know why they didn't take Amex you should have contacted them. Why the hell would a bunch of guys in the Fuels and Lube section know or care why they changed?

So much for open and candid discussions on here.

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4) Open and candid would have been "Why doesn't TDIParts take Amex" You could have been a little different on the wording. "TDIParts doesn't take Amex, I'm not supporting them."

"Jeff didn't take my credit card, what sort of chip tuner is he, he's an idiot." "Aligator won't take American Dollars, what business man doesn't" "Bleached Bora won't take my AAPL stocks, any real business man would see that they are doing well." "Why won't the guy selling his car take paypal. I have tons of money in paypal, anyone who does business on the internet is an idiot for not taking paypal, I'm not buying his car." Would have been locked just the same.

I had a posting closed, claiming to violate a posting policy, yet in all my years on here, I have yet to see any posted rules, so who decides.

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5) This should help you.

Scroll ALL the way down to the bottom,there 's a line:
Contact Us | Privacy Statement | Forum Rules | Disclaimer

http://www.tdiclub.com/Disclaimer/ForumRules.html

Amen. A number of vendors on this site do whatever they can to keep their prices fair and reasonable. I will assure you that TDIParts is in this category.

I shop a lot. When I shop at small businesses that I really care about, I pay cash or check because I don't want them to be hit by the credit card charges that they will ultimately have to pass on to me.

I am glad you and your Amex won't use TDIParts anymore. I do not want to pay your fees. I do not think I am alone in my appreciation for the service that TDIParts does for this community.

Go to your dealer. They take Amex and a whole lot more. Good luck to you.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hat-trick

Bill

Ooo. You should start a poll about why a poll was closed. A poll which had nothing to do with the section it was in.

Odd thing is you responded to people in that thread but not here...

I ask because the post was closed due to "discussion about vendor business practices are not allowed."

Please point out in the rules where this is stated. It isn't and that is my question. How can we be held to a standard we were never told about? It seems too subjective a practice for an area for discussion (forum).

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Well there's the "big rules".
[3]No flaming of other members to incite or perpetuate a conflict or argument. ANY personal attacks or name calling will get you banned.
[4]No bombing forums or threads with pointless posts.

Then the "small rules".
[*]Try to post to the forum that is most appropriate for the topic being presented.

Those are the ones I can see immediately. And:

Besides I think it is a legitimate discussion. If I can't use the vendor then why not ask for others ideas? Isn't that the whole point of forums, to find what others are doing?

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If that's what you wanted, you could have VERY easily started a thread:
"Where can I get XXX product?" If some one responded with TDI parts, say you can't use them because of Amex. No, instead you decided to come out guns blazing: "I'm not supporting TDIParts" and "What a shame, I guess I won't be supporting them anymore. I thought real businesses took all the cards."

See the difference? You are 100% correct, a thread about where to get oil would be a legitimate discussion. Then you come back with:

Duh

Because I buy my oil there and if you search this forum you will find references to them on here as the source for the oil.

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How the hell were we supposed to know that? They sell a hell of a lot of other things also. I can think of a half dozen forums this would be "appropriate" in according to your standards.
Performance - They sell Turbos
Misc Upgrades - They sell other stuff
East Coast - Where they are located
Etc...

But the root of it is TDIparts, not what they sell.

Executive Summary:
If you wanted a new source for oil: "Where can I get X Oil?"
If you wanted to know why they don't take Amex: http://tdiparts.com/catalog/contact_us.php
If you want to get a thread locked: Post about boycotting a Vendor because they don't take your credit card in a forum that has absolutely nothing to do with vendors or credit cards.

This being Fred's TDI Club, Fred (aka VW Derf) oversees the administrator (BKmetz) and the moderators (bigger list, you can look it up), then we oversee you.

I'm still at a loss why you are so angry and upset a vendor won't take one kind of payment? It's not like we have a gun to your head forcing you to shop there. If it's such a big deal to shop at TDIparts get a Visa, and pay it off on time. That should help your credit score.

-Jason

compu_85 said:

I'm still at a loss why you are so angry and upset a vendor won't take one kind of payment?
-Jason

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That's easy. The response from the Administrator to the original poster was this:

"discussion about vendor business practices are not allowed."

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That poorly worded and hopefully incorrect decree quickly escalated it from a lame question about why a guy can't use AMEX to a matter of principle about members rights to discuss vendor business practices.

Locking the thread was obviously correct - it was the (hopefully) faulty reasoning that made it an issue. A movement of the thread to the proper forum would have been a lot smoother.

This of course begs the question, where does one go to discuss Vendor practices?

SuburbanTDI said:

This of course begs the question, where does one go to discuss Vendor practices?

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Most vendors have a contact e-mail/website.
I really don't see what there is to discuss about any vendors.

I stand by my actions and words and I will not change a thing. It was not poorly worded, I chose my words exactly. How the vendor conducts its business practices is a private matter.

A vendor makes a legitimate policy change in how it conducts its business, as every business has the right to do. This is no different than a business changing its hours, prices, products, etc. The vendor should know the impact of its decisions and accept the impact of that risk, i.e., inconvenience to customers. None of this has anything to do with TDIClub.

TDIClub does not manage vendors' business practices. We only require vendors to behave and not exploit the membership. It's in the vendor registration agreement that TDIClub does not resolve disputes. This works both ways. Complaint threads are not forbidden outright, but they are highly discouraged to avoid the very situation we just had.

Some vendor/customer issues that TDIClub won't allow complaint threads about:

messed up shipping

messed up billing

back-orders

wrong item shipped

etc.

Why? Because this stuff happens to anyone & everyone. It's part of life. Just because a vendor is registered to sell stuff on TDIClub doesn't mean there is a guarantee that there will never be a problem.

What the membership is suppose to do is contact the vendor FIRST and find out what's going on, just like one would with any business in the real world, not post a complaint thread on the forums. That's bad form.

What TDIClub WILL allow vendor/customer complaint threads about:

A vendor who refuses to resolve an issue.

This does not mean to the customers complete and unconditional satisfaction as this is not always possible. This means the vendor has to make a good faith effort to resolve a problem. The occasional irate customer is a fact of life.

Complaint threads are only allowed after all avenues of resolution have failed or the vendor is an obvious scammer like Dr_boost.

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BKmetz said:

I stand by my actions and words and I will not change a thing. It was not poorly worded, I chose my words exactly. How the vendor conducts its business practices is a private matter.

Complaint threads are not forbidden outright, ...


Complaint threads are only allowed after all avenues of resolution have failed or the vendor is an obvious scammer like Dr_boost.

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Seems pretty clear. Locking a thread in Lubes about Amex acceptance is also very straight forward - it was a lame complaint inappropriately posted.

But your statement above is not the same as the absolutism of before when you said:

"discussion about vendor business practices are not allowed."

There's a big differance between when you earlier said never and now when you say 'these are the steps'. But I was just trying to point out where the communication broke down.

OK, I see where the confusion is coming from. My context of "discussion about vendor business practices are not allowed." as stated:

BKmetz said:

A vendor makes a legitimate policy change in how it conducts its business, as every business has the right to do. This is no different than a business changing its hours, prices, products, etc. The vendor should know the impact of its decisions and accept the impact of that risk, i.e., inconvenience to customers. None of this has anything to do with TDIClub.

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The original thread was in this context, questioning an internal vendor policy that TDIClub has no control over and has no business involving itself in. That is the context I have answered in all along. A broader context of my statements was implied.

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Someone needs to take his grumpy pants off.

The original thread was useless, and so is this one.

The primary administrator of this forum is the owner, and the secondary administrator of this forum answers to the primary administrator. TDIclub is a privately owned and operated website. If you have a problem with the site is run, perhaps you should correspond directly with the folks who run the site instead of posting unfriendly rants all over the place. If after doing so, you still have a problem with the site and the way it is operated, then feel free to go elsewhere, or even start your own discussion forum. It wouldn't be the first time that a grumpy member has started his own website, and I'm sure it won't be the last. With that said, TDIclub remains.

I propose that we take a vote on the subject. After all votes are cast, they shall therefore be thrown away, since TDIClub isn't a democracy. Sorry, Charlie.

kitambi said:

I propose that we take a vote on the subject. After all votes are cast, they shall therefore be thrown away, since TDIClub isn't a democracy. Sorry, Charlie.

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Thrown away? But don't they have to be cut off first? I mean that's how you remove a cast, right?

Well, except for my Dad. He broke his leg when a tree he was falling barber-chaired on him (That's when you cut part way throught he tree and it splits upward then twists over and down. Yo uhave probably seen that on Axmen) and when he went to the Dr. he was told he needed, screws and pins and plates and all kinds of stuff. Well, Dad told him that he didn't have insurance, so the Dr. said, "A cast will do just fine" and Dad never went back to the Dr. He limped around and even cut more trees with his cast on until he figured he was healed up enough, then he got a five gallon bucket (probably an old bucket of Adams Peanut butter because that's the way he bought his Peanut butter - five gallons at a time and always Adams because it's a different kind of oil that you have to keep stirring. If you buy it in the jar, remember to put it upside down for three days before stirring it.)

Crap, where was I?

OH yeah! the five gallon bucket. He filled it with hot water and just soaked that cast off of his leg. Then he threw away the cast.

LOL @ Whitedog.

THE OFFICIAL TDICLUB FLOW CHART!!!!




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BKmetz said:

LOL @ Whitedog.

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Why not? Everyone else does. LOL

I work with a guy that actually tells stories like that. Today I asked him about a backhoe bucket and at one point he was telling me about going hunting or something. I'm not too sure because I was pretty zoned out by then.