After discussing this with dorrmann in another thread, he suggested I bring this up here in a separate thread in this section of the boards. As the argument seems to be pretty sound, I'll largely be cutting and pasting the argument he had no disagreement with in the other thread where it was initially posted.
Currently there exists a blanket rule where discussing any forum's actions in any negative way is against board rules. For the most part, I completely agree with this rule and I completely agree with the intention behind it as well.
However when it comes to Mattycollector.com's forums; that's where I think there's a bit of a loophole though that needs looking at. I could understand if it was say "seibertron did this" or "pop culture network ......" (and to clarify those are just examples, not me trying to infer anything about either forum). In that case, dragging in issues from those forums serves no purpose other than to potentially start a board war which ultimately helps noone.
However Mattycollector.com is different, and this is where I feel some common sense needs to be applied with that rule. The forum largely exists as a vehicle for Mattycollector.com to interact directly with fans. Again, if it was something relating to say the "vintage MOTU" thread where a discussion got heated, I could understand it being off limits here as in that case it's the same thing as those previous examples.
However that's not where the problem lies - it lies with the customer service aspects of the forum. We now have complaints being hidden, with threads where people saying they're done with the line are being given vague renames and moved to less conspicuous places (which honestly looks more like a mod carrying out marching orders by DR than a mere independent mod decision) and questions which are too inconvenient being moved into the "valley of the lost" of the feedback section.
As such, it goes beyond mere mod decisions on a private forum to Digital River's approach to customer service. Surely in this case, common sense should be applied and anything relating to customer service on those forums should be the exception rather than the rule.
I'd ask that the forum staff look into making this amendment with the forum rules.
You're still getting into a situation centered around their rights on a message board. What is their reason for removing/editing/deleting/moving any posts? And regardless of their reason, that's their right to do so. Especially if they are moving stuff to a section they have created specifically for that sort of thing, even if it's to the dissatisfaction of some users because they feel like things are being swept under the rug.
Like with any forum, when a users signs up they acknowledge that forum's leaders, admins, mods, etc have a right to edit or remove any post or thread they want to for any reason. Therefore, this is something that needs to be taken up with them on their own forums, by contacting an mod or admin there.
If the Matty Collector forums were the only place to handle customer service issues, I'd probably tip my hat to you on this one. But as it is, you have other options. There's calling DR and people can contact Mattel through their Customer Service portal.
If you don't get a response to your satisfaction there on the forums, you can try contacting Mattel directly and see if you can find someone else to talk to.
