To everyone who replied: Thank you.
I get what some are saying about keywords like [a certain online retailer that is named after a river in South America] and such, and even the political post I made months ago being locked, but if there's an internal function that would prevent me from posting for either of those reasons, I would assume (being a software engineer) that it would happen immediately upon posting and would generate an error message, or notification that my post has been queued for review.
The fact is, the post was visible for about 30 minutes, and then it was gone. Poof. No notice, no message, nothing. Therefore, I find it hard to believe it was an internal anti-spam software function. It was manually removed. Furthermore, I never mentioned [a certain online retailer] in my post. I mentioned voltage, dashcams, and wiring. That's it. There were no "buzzwords" (that I can readily identify, but I'm open to correction), no links, no pictures, no product endorsements, no name brands, etc.
However, even if there was something of that nature in my post, you'd think the admin would at least have the courtesy of messaging me; "Hey, I know it seems silly, but for [insert a reason here] we avoid using [that] word..." I got nothing. And yet, this post wasn't taken down, and neither was the duplicate post I made in the interior mods section.
The admin has definitely seen this thread and declined to comment. I was hoping after 24 hours I'd at least see a "Oops, sorry, I deleted your post by accident, my bad" but again, nothing. It's a total mystery.
While I certainly respect a forum needing to have rules, and needing to moderate with discretion (and keep spam under control) and even advertise to pay the bills and put some beer money in their pocket, I am extremely uncomfortable being in a forum where not-so-obvious words are considered infractions, and even the most benign infractions can get your post removed entirely without explanation. If the admin had sent me a quick note (either an apology for nabbing the wrong post, or an explanation as to what I "did wrong") we wouldn't be having this conversation.
It seems to me that the person who posted the comment about the admin only caring about pushing his merchandise is closest to the mark. I do see a lot of promotion here, and I'm not against that. But I'm not feeling the "love of the vehicle" vibe that OUGHT to go along with it. And I'm certainly feeling the thumb of oppression and tyranny here, where the admin is clearly on a power trip and doesn't feel the need to at least hold himself accountable for his indiscriminate actions. I'm getting a big ego vibe out of this, almost like a "Oh well, I deleted your post either accidentally or for some obscure, nonsensical reason, and I don't owe you a lick of explanation. I am the all-powerful god of this universe, and you will deal with it and buy my products".
So at this point, I'm going to tidy up my account (I have some questions I need to answer in the other post I made) and then I'll be logging out of this account and not returning. We have enough tyranny in this world, I don't need more in a car forum where I asked a damn wiring question. Maybe I'll even start my own forum for Telluride owners and run it the way it should be run.
Good luck everyone. If you stick around here, you're going to need it.
