After reading all these comments I would want to take all of my sites out of ************, but so far they have been great with helping us get our sites out on the web. The internet speed has been fast and I have not experienced any down time yet. I am not an employee of the company, but I did feel compelled to write in from all this negative attention that most of you have been writing.

************ has contacted me by phone when I placed the order with a live voice unlike most hosting companies and has had a lot of patience with us. I have been very satisfied with their hosting, and I plan to transfer other sites over in the near future.

As a result I would encourage anyone to try out their hosting to see for themselves.

Sincerely,

Mark

A new member posting a very good review about a company that is filtered out... makes you suspicious.

I don't know the whole story of this host, but I'm sure they have some satisfied customers, otherwise they would have been out of business long ago.

If you're happy with them, stay with them, but keep in mind the warnings of the members of this board that will inevitably follow this post...

*Drum roll*

On such a matter Lawrence, I'd disagree partly with your sentiment. Because the Net is so vast and the majority of people are not necessarily knowledgeable about the pitfalls of hosting (unlike the rest of us who regularly reside here), I can guarantee a large number of people fall hook, line and sinker for whatever looks professional and sounds professional (with the marketing term 'unlimited bandwidth' being such an instance).

Thus, many companies fall into this 'should be out of business but still run because we have 5 billion potential customers who are none the wiser' category. We all know which ones fall into this category.

Point taken BC.

BC .. :D

Yes Carloth? ;)

Tought on those bad hosts aren't you ;)

I would not whant to be in your list .. hehe :D

Nah, you're on mah 'extra special' list :stickout

Seriously, bad hosts deserve all the discredit they deserve until they improve (and keep) their practices..

Hehe ..

And absolutely, people need to be aware of bad hosts, they burn the customers and then when good hosts get them, they are allway weary of you and jump at the first sight of problems (even when it's only minor stuff)

It appears that free speech does not exist in this forum? I have to admit that I am new to this chat talk, but I was shocked when my web hosting provider was blotted out by you people from my comments yesterday. Perhaps if that is the case then maybe everyone should get the same treatment?

My comments are not to sell the product or the company, but simply to speak my opinion of a web hosting company that has been a good match for my company. Perhaps in the future you should label this site, "WebHostingTalk for my friends and companies I Like" instead of a general FREE open forum that it is not.

Thank you for at least allowing me to mention my name and comments.

Sincerely,

Mark

Hosts which practice unethical business practices do not get the privalage of having their name advertised in any way.

Mark,

You clearly know as little about free speech as you do the host your purport to promote. Free speech includes the freedom to not discuss issues and specific things and does not carry a responsibility to cover all of them.

Fredom must include the ability to say "no" as well as "yes" or it isn't freedom at all.

Sorry, but this is not a public park or government facility. This is a privately owned site. You have freedom of speech in public places, but if you come in my house and begin to cuss my kids just see how much freedom you have. My point is, that as a privately owned board, the owner has the right to censor as he/she (actually, its a he, but I am trying to professional here) see's fit. And frankly, though I do not speak for the owner, if you do not like the way things are run around here, then leave. You will not be the first to do so, and probably not last either.

Mark -

I agree that there is bias on this board, but it's not out of reason. It's based on past experiences, good and bad, and you must remember that the members of this board cannot be considered as one body, biases exist for different members and lean different ways.

I'm sure that the name of your host is censored for good reason. Censoring it is the lesser of two evils. A forum with over 1000 members can easily burst into disarray in flame wars when a controversial issue is raised, such as the activity of your hosts.

Also, appreciate that as a new member your views will be taken with a grain of salt. Many of us know the host that's being discussed here I would think.

OK, great, you're happy with this host. Many are not.

Fair enough it is the persons private whatever who has this place for you all to post, moderate, etc. Fairness though in giving an explanation in the first instance explaining why this action was done in censoring the post would seem not only fair to the person who made the initial post but show common courtesy to the person posting as is expected of the person or anyone for that matter posting in this forum and bulletinboard.

Very well.

Allow me to begin by saying that the moderators would be extremely appreciative in future if you could e-mail the moderators directly instead of posting on the forum whinging as to why it was asterisked out in the first place. I would have thought that it might have clicked in your mind that the host in question may have more than offended the board to the point that they deserved to be banned and filtered out in the first place.

This particular host is known for :

1. Attempting to 'replicate' this very forum in its form (same categories, same 'topics', etc., nearly even the same color theme). So in one sense he's already breached copyright rules.

2. He is known to have consistently spammed one of the moderators on this forum.

3. He has consistently tried to bad-mouth some other hosts (Saturn Services being one particular case) without proof. He has also consistently tried to sneakily advertise his company (which is in direct violation of our forum guidelines). His attitude towards other users is also not exactly tolerable.

4. His business practices are so bad to the point that he feels the need to copy other hosts' sites, graphics and layouts and replicates them for his own needs. He's already been caught out on this board 4 times and shows no sign of abating.


He has annoyed WebHostingTalk moderators and the rest of the forum members to such a point that drastic action has had to be taken and as a result, he is permanently banned from the forums and all mention of this host is filtered out. He belongs in the WHT 'Hall of Shame' (reserved for only the most truly horrifically bad hosts).

I trust this will give you an idea as to why this host was filtered out in the first place.

Before I go, however, let me use a 'prison analogy' to put this in perspective.

In real life, a person commits a crime; he is guilty as charged; he is sent to prison, right?

Here on WHT, a person does all of the above in breach of our forum guidelines; he is guilty beyond reasonable doubt, thus he is permanently banned from our forums and his company name is filtered out. Simple as that. So don't come back running at us with free speech, because your concept of free speech is very different from what the real world's idea of free speech is.

<end rant>

Ahhhhhhh, I do feel much better now :)

This is going to sound like a really dumb question but could we maybe have a "Hall of Shame" forum for those hosts that have, at one time or another, ripped us off, spammed us, or done something else unethical in the past? At least this way, members to this board looking for a new host would be able to learn from our mistakes.

By the way, Mark, misspelling the last name of one of the greatest power hitters in the game of baseball does the person a discredit. It's McGwire. (He probably also wouldn't appreciate having his own name tied to such a lousy host either.)

Another thing you may wish to consider, Mark, is that you are a new member to the board starting an allegedly random thread regarding the quality of a particular host. To the admins, who have proven beyond the shadow of a doubt that they are intelligent, rational people, this will appear to be an advertisement based on their past experiences (especially, from the sounds of it, with this particular host.) Now I personally don't know the name of the host, but if people like BC and Lawrence and others don't like the host, that's plenty good enough for me.

Humm, we should at least have a page somewere with theses hosts and the reasons why they are in the "hall of Shame"

I dont know about a hall of shame simply for the reason that some hosts have made past mistakes and some correct these mistakes and run good business, they should have to have their name advertised in the hall of shame for life, if they correct their practices.

Also provides a forum for someone with an axe to grind. Or a someone to attack a competator.

Originally posted by cbaker17
I dont know about a hall of shame simply for the reason that some hosts have made past mistakes and some correct these mistakes and run good business, they should have to have their name advertised in the hall of shame for life, if they correct their practices.

I would agree that there are companies out there that do make an honest effort and make mistakes along the way, but I personally feel that with the general good judgement of the admins and members alike, a forum like that would make sense. And if they do straighten themselves out and can establish that they are trying to make right, then yes the threads related to them could be removed.

As it pertains to Jaiem's comment that it could be used for personal grudges: if one were to post a complaint against X host, for example, and 20 people replied that X host was a quality host, then one could logically conclude that X host was a quality host. Besides, anyone who would post a personal grudge post would likely do it without any real logic to back it up. Again, that's just one humble man's opinion but...

While I agree with both sides, I think blocking the name of the company who has done this horrible thing, should not be *** (i.e. Exterminated) out.

If you was on here looking for hosting companies and searching the Internet like most new people (i.e. Me) I could stumble on to this **** see no mention of **** on here and come to the conclusion that hey this is a new company or 1 of 100,000 not even seen or mentioned here.

You all see the name of this company and it is instantly bagbited, attacked, bletchered, smashed, bashed, barfulosed, and destroyed to the point of anyone even thinking about it would think more then twice.

However I do tend to see some fancy companies which I have had dealings with and was less then pleased, yet they are much talked about with good mentions.

It's a Doggie Dog world, watch where you step it could be a soft mushy spot

Well,

While I understand the rational behind "banning" (if there really is such a thing on the Internet) a host from this board, I do think that there are some people (like myself) who are still somewhat new here... and actually have no idea what host is responsible for these heinous actions BC has mentioned...

Having an area somewhere on the board which clearly stated, "These hosts are beyond reprehension and are banned from WHT for reasons of horrific body odor, a general sense of badness, and an overwhelming, radiating aura of icky-poo-poo."

This would save neophytes and newbies to the board from mistakingly signing up for services with the hosts.

*Note* I'm not talking about the board actually dissing the company specifically outright (god forbid someone wield the ugly "right" to S - U - E)... just an explanation that the host, and postings about/from/to the host are not allowed here.

Neil

Or there could be a pointer to some outside site like dogvox, which has a web hosts that suck page. Maybe the mods could even suggest to Rob (the owner of that site) that he add whichever host it is to his list. Or have Deb include it on her page. Etc. There are a number of ways to get the information to people who need it.

Yes, I'm back. Miss me? I made a new year's resolution to try not to be such a smart*** (<---self censoring!) :)

hi all,
I do belive that dealing with hosting companies are one of the hard groups i have ever dealt with. With a service that it not really tangable or shippable fraud is a big consern of mine. I just finished real estate classes dealing with fair trade paractices and this post caught my intrest because of a topic we discussed of the real estate broker grapevine with agent slander. I think this baord is a great palce and have learned alot in the last couple of weeks. but I think a topic should be started to allow banned hosts to have a say and respond with a disclamer on the topic. this would give a bad or dishonest host a chance to redeem its self. They could bow down to some of us and give us a free year of hosting while we review their services and maybe pardon them.
Again I restate that this board is great I just changed to a host i found from the board

Your post reflects a great deal of naivete about people in general. You can't change people's attitudes. Many of these horrid hosts aren't about to change the way they do business any more than a serial killer is going to turn into a child care worker.

Some have proven to be unrepentent and have been banned as a result. Removing the ban would accomplish nothing but the notoriety and disruption that got them banned in the first place.

Originally posted by Newbie
While I agree with both sides, I think blocking the name of the company who has done this horrible thing, should not be *** (i.e. Exterminated) out.

Just so you know, there are *very* few hosts on the censor list. The ones that are there (4 I think), are there because they attempted to spam the board to such a degree that we are forced to censor the host name, URL, and in some cases the IP address of the host's site so that spam attempts are futile.

I can't tell you exactly when this host is on the censored list, but I'd imagine it has something to do with either self promotion or replication of web sites (including this one), or a combination of both.

This is kinda straying away from the original topic and can be continued in the general forum if so desired.