Banned from Development Forum

SiDay

Hi

I would like to complain against my ban from the development forum.

The original poster asked "What is your favourite CMS" and encouraged everyone to post.

I posted, quite truthfully, that I had not found anything better than wiccle and iwiccle - this is 100% true. I did not recommend them, claim they were the best or make any outrageous claims for them. I am the Business Development Manager for the company that provides them - it transpires that I should have mentioned this but I did not want to be seen to be advertising - I did not mention the website, the company's name etc.

When someone asked for me to clarify my position I immediately said I was the BDM for the company and provided more info. Why was no-one else asked to clarify their involvement with Wordpress, Joomla etc.

I was very surprised that I was banned from the forum, when I asked the Moderator why he wrote back to say that I had claimed that I said that our products were "the best" this is a categoric and demonstratable lie. I said that I had not found anything to beat iwiccle which is the absolute truth.

The rules of these forums are very arcane, I was not trying to "pull the wool" over anyones eyes and think that I should be reinstated to the forum with an apology from the moderator for lying about what I said.

Simon

Beruthiel

You were pimping your place of business.
We charge for advertising on this site.

Evil Phil

A demonstratable lie? Please demonstrate.

Evil Phil

You know what, ignore my previous reply. The situation has been dealt with, no pointing in starting a row.

SiDay

I am sorry but I can't let this go because the accusation is that I have done something dishonest. This is not the case - I answered a question which basically required posters to express an opinion - that is exactly what I did no more, no less.

If I were allowed a signature that would have been added to the post and would have had my company details on them. For reasons of your own I am not allowed a signature because I have not made enough posts. I did not attempt to hide my involvement with the company but since no one else in the thread had been asked what their connection was to the products they recommended I did'nt think it necessary to mention it.

I am proud of our products and obviously want to promote them but I am sure that most people that answered the particular thread had a vested interest in the product that they mentioned (whether they be resellers or users whose career prospects would be enhanced by the spread of the product). This does not in any way make their opinions or mine invalid.

If I have inadvertently broken your rules then I apologise, but I feel that a permanent ban for a one off, marginal offence is over the top. More importantly your moderator claimed that I had been dishonest - this is not the case and I require an apology.

Best Regards

Simon

Evil Phil

You are the business development manager for the same CMS product your were recommending on the development forum.

I have'nt found anything to beat iWiccle and Wiccle.

iWiccle is a great open source CMS for creating social networking sites and more. It is very easy to use and provides great functionality.

Wiccle is its commercial "big brother" which will allow a non-programmer to produce sophisticated Web2.0 sites with the minimum of fuss.

They are produced by an Irish Webtools developer.

The Irish Webtools developer in question is your employer. You stand to gain directly from people acting on your recommendation. Can you not see a conflict of interests here? If you can't the mind boggles as to why not.

Can you not see why keeping this one fact from the OP and other posters would be considered dishonest? You're a business development manager, you obviously have some level of business cop-on.

You've been pimping on other forums as well, that's why your post was reported to us in the first place.

As I said in my pm you really should read the forum charters on this site to avoid this situation in future.

The ban remains.