Got banned from my local gardening forum in Portland for calling out a rare plant seller who was clearly wrong about a variety

I posted a polite correction with photos showing the difference and the moderator removed my comment, then suspended me for 'disrupting the spirit of the group'. Has anyone else run into issues with forums silencing legitimate fact checks?

3 comments

3 Comments

tessa_kelly3d ago

Oh man, this brings back a story my friend Sarah went through last year! She's super into native plants and saw this seller listing a plant as "rare Oregon white trillium" when it was clearly a hybrid from a nursery down in California. She posted a friendly correction with side-by-side photos and links to the state's native plant society page, and the mod literally deleted her whole account the next day, no warning or anything. Turns out that seller was the mod's cousin or something, and the whole group was basically a front for their online store. My buddy spent weeks trying to appeal it and eventually just gave up and started her own little plant swap group instead.

alice2421d ago

Used to be the type who just shrugged and figured mods were doing their best, but stories like yours and @tessa_kellys friend Sarah changed my mind. Never really thought about how a single seller could basically own a whole forum if theyre buddy-buddy with the mods. The bit about the mod deleting Sarahs account with no warning hits close to home - that happened to me when I pointed out a seller listing a common hosta as some super rare Japanese import. It is wild how fast they shut down real talk just to protect someone they know. Makes me wonder how many groups are actually just storefronts pretending to be normal communities.

the_william8h ago

Nah, mods probably had a good reason you're leaving out to protect the group from drama.