To me, life’s always been simple: Black & White. Get busy livin’, or get busy dyin’. Unsurprisingly, I see no difference on the Internet.
There are people making it better and people making it worse.
To me, BA Expats (marketed: Buenos Aires Expats – Online Community of Expatriates and guide to living in Buenos Aires, Argentina) is one of those who moves the Internet backwards.
By disallowing members of their forum community to post certain keywords (like their investors competitor names) they withhold information from the community. How can you be a “Buenos Aires Expats guide to living in Buenos Aires” when you don’t even allow the people who live here to share their experiences with each other openly? Stop lying.
I asked about it on the forums and how did they react? Well naturally, they canceled my account. Lame.
I’m all for capitalism, but moreso than anything, when you run a website with an online community you must be open to the communities discussion, allowing free-flow of information. These are the members that make up your community. If you want to tout your business and not allow others to do so then that’s one thing, but if you’re not allowing the actual community to share with others their experiences… Then to me you’re not helping, you’re hindering.
Tags: argentina, ba, ba expats, baexpats, bsas, Buenos Aires, expatriots, expats
Hmm…just saw your ‘roommate’ thread on that forum…saw that you’re around my age and from the same city (missed out on the Olympics, I see), so I looked up your profile and hit up your site just to see this post! lol
Please keep updating this blog if you can, if only to prepare and encourage/inspire/motivate me to make the move to BA myself!
Good luck and hope BA treats you well!
ML
Ha! Hi Marquelle, yeah it’s unfortunate. As corporate as the info is on the site, the Forums were (I thought) quite helpful and unbiased… I don’t blame them for making money, I just can’t believe how moody the admin was over my questioning why one bar was taboo to post about? Call it like it is, if you are a revenue generation site, then claim that.. but marketing yourself as a “Buenos Aires Expat Guide” and having an ulterior motive is weak.
fuck em. start your own site and steal their visitors.
I too am appalled at what has happened with that site. I recently tried to go back to connect with people living here and found my account cancelled without explanation.
I certainly hope that another site might be started to replace them.
..If you question the administration in any way, you will be banned. If you complain too much about Argentina, you WILL be banned. If you offend the owners in any way, you will be banned.They appear to have software that picks up on key words, or a lot of ad-men. When banned you will find your account cancelled without explanation. Sometimes I think this is a government sponsored site. It is suspicious in any case. In addition, the owners will advertise their own agendas without blinking an eye. There are numerous, numerous, expats who have been banned from this site.
..a heavily moderated and cliquey site.Some of the members appear to be cloned in order to better facillitate their semi-nationalistic ideologies,(rah!rah! Argentina!)and realty projects. Dubious website but sometimes useful for cooking tips.
Ha ha, just got banned for daring to ask why they deleted a post that gave an opinion their choice of restaurant for an expat meetup was very expensive! Thought that was hilarious!! So much for “community”, unless it’s the old soviet style “community” they refer to. Funny!!
Ha, Dave R, I was moaning about the price of their resto choice just yesterday, I didn’t dare post as have been banned thrice and am in my 4th incarnation. Catch me if u can!
Oh, and there is another site as an alternative now, though it’s hopefully a little more than “just” a forum: http://baexpathub.com
Cheers.
Hmm… my previous comment didn’t appear? Anyway, it was just to point out a very funny development on the matter: http://beertangosex.com/musings/from-a-seed-sown-of-pettiness/#comment-87
Cheers.
Joined up to baexpathub already. Much better site. I hate the moody miserable people on baexpats. The new site has a much nicer design too. BTW I have been kicked off of there too! It’s a big club.
I totally agree that BA expats its biased, discriminatory and it misrepresents itself. The site is more monitored than Argentina during the military government, the manager allows personal friends to post adds on housing and horseback riding, yet canceling the account of many that do things for free. If he wanted to make money out of everybody then he should be transparent about it. It is embarrassing that some foreigners come to this country, Argentina and set up practices that are just a disgrace. I can guarantee that things are managed in a very shady way that st least in thenUSA would be considered highly discriminatory.in a nutshell there are other places to st information about Argentina that will steer you in the right way. Expats on Facebook is one.
Agree with all the comments. For some reason, most likely delusions self-importance, these people seem to have lost touch with reality. Just read a lot of the rants by the owner. He frequently posts his personal delusions as facts and woe betide any poster that disagrees. They have banned most of the interesting posters and prohibit the most interesting discussions, the content is becoming increasingly dull in my opinion. The most ridiculous thing about the site are the phoney stats about how many users are actually on line at a given time, always at least 50-80 phantom visitors at any given time. I guess the purpose of this is to make people think this site has more visitors and is therefor more influential, important or something. Very silly but very telling about the integrity of these people.