I know I'm not supposed to ask where my post went, but....

[linguist]

I recently posted to the New England board that I had learned that a rather interesting restaurant in New Haven had been sold, and that its future was unsure. The owner of the restaurant posted a reply confirming that the restaurant building had in fact been sold; saying that the restaurant itself would continue for a while, and that they were planning to open two new restaurants in the area soon. This seemed to me to be quite relevant information for Chow Hounds in the area, and neither my post nor the owner's seemed to me to come close to violating any of the etiquette policies. Nonetheless, my thread was deleted almost immediately after my short acknowledgment of the restaurant owner's confirmation of my information. The next morning (today) I posted once again with the basic information ... and this post was removed within minutes of my having made it.

This is all quite incomprehensible to me. In the past, when a thread I had posted to was removed it was pretty clear to me that it had gone seriously off-topic and wasn't providing useful information. That's just not the case here.

From the outline given above, can anyone suggest why my posts have been removed, at least so I can avoid similar errors in the future? There's clearly no point in my repeating the actual posting, because it will presumably be removed so quickly that no one will see it....

[kattyeyes]

Hi there. I have a feeling it was removed because you speculated (keyword: speculated) that the particular building had been sold and was looking for new owners. IIRC, you said something like "I heard it from a good source." I saw both your post and the reply (which was interesting)...but I've gotta say, it it was my restaurant, I wouldn't want a post like that up on a site like this (restaurant isn't doing well, looks like it's up for sale). I also don't know if the reply was removed because it would be considered self-promotion...though I think it's only fair if someone posts a restaurant is closing (and it really isn't) that the owner should be able to correct the error. In any case, maybe that's why the whole thing is gone. Just my two cents from someone who saw both posts. ;)

[linguist]

Well, I made it clear that my speculation was based on reasonably reliable information (from another, sympathetic restaurant owner). And I should have thought that the fact that the owner of Bespoke (well, at least someone who claimed to be the owner) confirmed my information would have validated it.

[The Chowhound Team]

Hi linguist,

Please check your email -- we sent you a note about the post in question.

[The Chowhound Team]

Chowhound's goal is to help people find great chow right now. Gossip and speculation about restaurants' future plans doesn't help anyone eat better. In addition, such rumors can have serious negative impact on business, so we try to be very careful and err on the side of caution when it comes to such posts. If you've got specific factual information from a trustworthy source that you can publicly quote about a restaurant closing, and you want to give the hounds a heads up so they can get to the restaurant before it closes, that's fine, but please, avoid posting based on rumors and hearsay.

In this situation, the owner of one of the restaurants did reply to confirm and clarify the situation. While we're really not the place for restaurants to convey information about their future plans, we'd have allowed it in this case since the post that they were closing was already likely seen by many people and we wanted to be fair to that owner and allow him to clarify the situation, which was that he was NOT closing his business.

However, you mentioned two restaurants as possibly closing. We didn't feel it was fair to the other restaurant owner to leave your post up, possibly negatively impacting his business.

Our intention on Chowhound is not to be at the cutting edge of restaurant news and gossip, since there's a very fine line between helpful information and harmful gossip. We know that means we're not the best source of hot tips on openings and closings, but we're OK with that.

[linguist]

You had this thread locked for a while, but it seems to be open again, so I will try to respond to your message. No doubt my response will be deleted as quickly as my other posts have been.
I did mention two places in my original posting. In both cases, this was on the basis of information from a restaurant owning friend who is looking for a larger space in which to open a more ambitious restaurant, and thus is quite familiar with what is and isn't for sale in New Haven. Note that I did NOT say either was closing: just that the premises were for sale. And that information was based on sources more reliable, if I do say so, than an article in the New Haven Register, a paper whose reliability in these parts hovers somewhere between that of the Weekly World News and the National Inquirer.
My report was confirmed, in the case of Bespoke. My attempt to repost this information was immediately deleted, despite the fact that if I recall I mentioned only Bespoke, and not the other place. Nonetheless, you managed to delete that posting within ten minutes of my writing it.
I can understand your need to screen out blatantly defamatory or grossly offensive posts. I do not appreciate the grade-school-hall-monitor mentality that seems to be at work here otherwise, though. I'm sorry not to have found the community of mutual respect I thought this was.

[The Chowhound Team]

As we noted above, the potential damage to a restaurant's business is such that we take a pretty hard line in this area. Generally unless the information is confirmed by the restaurant or published elsewhere, we're going to remove it. While your second post took pains to confirm the rumours about Bespoke, you did still mention the other restaurant.

[linguist]

So wouldn't it have made more sense just to ask me to edit out the mention of the other place (whose sale is no less clear, but remains unconfirmed in the same way), rather than just bludgeoning the whole thing away along with the potentially useful information that had been developed?

[The Chowhound Team]

Since our edit window is only 2 hours, it's not really practical for us to ask for edits in that way -- it's something we reserve for situations where there are replies that would otherwise have to be removed as well.

[linguist]

This was of course exactly a situation in which your deletion of the entire thread caused replies (notably, that from the owner of Bespoke) to be removed as well. Your principle would thus seem to dictate asking for an edit in this case, rather than removing the thread.

The 2 hour edit window suggests an image of nuclear-tipped missiles headed our way, where life as we know it will cease unless policy-contravening posts are eliminated quickly. Nonetheless, posts that suggest that a place may be closing without giving much in the way of evidence DO persist on CH, and civilization is not thereby disrupted. I would note in particular the inane thread at http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/667042 suggesting that a Krispy Kreme may be replaced by a Sonic, based apparently entirely on reference to an article in the New Haven Register. If you actually look at the article in question, you will see that their "evidence" consists solely of an unattributed statement by someone in the local real estate business. When I tried to point this out, my post to that effect was also deleted; I have no idea why. But in any case, and especially given the notorious undependability of the NH Register, the story about Krispy Kreme closing is not at all stronger than mine (and unlike my story about Bespoke, unconfirmed: Krispy Kreme staff have denied the place is closing, and yet the thread lives on). In fact, casual search turns up half a dozen or so threads with (undeleted) posts of the "I went by X and it looks like it's closing" variety just in the past couple of months on the New England board alone.

So, I remain unpersuaded that deleting my posts in these cases served a necessary end. I agree that there are some things that need to be kept out: the blatantly defamatory and the grossly offensive, as I said above. But in other cases, a gentler hand is surely called for, if Chow Hound is to serve the purpose of promoting discussion and the flow of information among "those who live to eat."