Who is the owner of BAexpats.org? Why does he delete posts and allow people to make up fake posts?

[StatusNomadicus]

Both websites seem to be doing that

criticize earlyretirement and see if your post is deleted. then go to the other forum and post something controversial, mention Igor's moderation, or criticize 100 years of communism and Big Government, and report back to us

i had the same problem on Reddit; i got banned from r/AmerExit because i said Australia lost points in my opinion for locking-down so crazily and forcing vaccines.

bad ideas are best put out in the open for all to see and make fun of, not moderated/censored

 

[Canada Goose]

criticize earlyretirement and see if your post is deleted. then go to the other forum and post something controversial, mention Igor's moderation, or criticize 100 years of communism and Big Government, and report back to us

i had the same problem on Reddit; i got banned from r/AmerExit because i said Australia lost points in my opinion for locking-down so crazily and forcing vaccines.

bad ideas are best put out in the open for all to see and make fun of, not moderated/censored

Ha! I don't dare post on the other forum with the same screen name. It sounds like there are legitimate fears of long-time posters there of getting banned so they don't want to use the same name. I saw that email that @Cariba posted that @earlyretirement said was 100% not edited. I have NO doubts that what people are posting is true. People have been posting about Igor on Twitter for over a decade.

@StatusNomadicus I totally agree with you about Reddit. The same thing happened to me! In Canada we had a brutal lockdown too. I was lucky and escaped to Mexico so I spent much of COVID there while my friends and family were "locked up" in the hellhole that is now Canada. I didn't get a vaccine and I just bought a fake COVID vaccine card and filled it out so I could travel. Down in Mexico no one cared and no one used masks.

It was laughable that people actually thought that little blue mask was actually doing anything. Many friends that got the Covid vaccine have severe health issues now. Coincidence? I think not!

I agree about bad ideas. Or even people you totally disagree with. Let it play out. My motto is you can think someone is an idiot but at least they have the benefit of the doubt until they start speaking or writing! The old forum has a lot of stupid posts but I appreciate it as I know which posters are not smart.

 

[earlyretirement]

@earlyretirement is there any way to see ALL your posts at the old forum? Wow, I just found out about this saga recently. I didn't know what the old forum meant. Now I do! I signed up but I clicked on your name there to easily read all your reports but Igor must have blocked the link so no one can easily read all your posts. Do you know if he deleted those posts?

I don't think so. I believe Igor has blocked the ability to do that. It's a good example of the type of guy he is and to his lack of character. When you click on my handle it takes you to some nonsense post about Dinosaurs. He doesn't recount the true conversation (I have an email chain too) of me questioning his crazy moderation and all the complaints I was getting about him.

I do plan to put ALL my posts on this forum. But as I mentioned, I have a lot of more important things going on now. I hired 3 people so far and I will hire more to manage this website and market it. I honestly think it's scalable and you can easily do one for any city. I will post an update once all my posts are added to THIS new forum.

Of course, many of them will be old and might not be relevant now as laws and things are constantly changing. But I still think it's cool to look back on history. Fortunately, Igor has NO claim of ownership to my own posts or anyone else's posts either. And I'm free to post them. To my knowledge, Igor has added almost no value at all to the forum besides publishing it. The way I heard the story, it wasn't even his idea for the forum. He lied to me about that too.

Also, as a reminder to the most active users of BAexpats.org we pre-reserved your usernames so no one could "poach" them. Please contact me if you'd like to claim your identity and we can send you a new email and password.

steveinbsas

Ceviche

Rich One

Bajo_cero2

ajoknoblauch

Gringoboy

perry

French jurist

citygirl

camberiu

scotttswan

sergio

PhilipDT

gracielle

Napoleon

Ries

ElQueso

Joe

GS_Dirtboy

Dublin2BuenosAires

antipodean

ben

ghost

Quilombo

 

[FuturoBA]

@earlyretirement is there any way to see ALL your posts at the old forum? Wow, I just found out about this saga recently. I didn't know what the old forum meant. Now I do! I signed up but I clicked on your name there to easily read all your reports but Igor must have blocked the link so no one can easily read all your posts. Do you know if he deleted those posts?

Not sure if you're looking when signed in, but I'm able to see old posts being signed out (and only way to see the forum as I've been banned)

 

[earlyretirement]

Not sure if you're looking when signed in, but I'm able to see old posts being signed out (and only way to see the forum as I've been banned)

Hmm. I'm not sure. Other people told me this. I'm also banned from the site and Igor has blocked my IP address. No matter. Many of his members of the site have migrated over to my new site and more coming each day. And several have permitted to repost their old posts too. Igor does NOT own ANY of this content.

His days of being a dictator are almost over. If you look at most dictators, they usually have to flee the country, or have to flee to another country in exile. I'm not honestly sure what Igor's game plan is. He admitted to me it's just a hobby. When it's a "hobby" you can delete whatever posts you don't agree with personally or politically. Like I said, it's his forum and he can do what he wants. But I'm going to let people post about their experiences about his moderation.

 

[Betsy Ross]

Several users from the BAexpats.org have requested to claim their identify. Some are posting under the same name. Some are telling us they want to use a different name because they fear Igor or other administrators will punish them for also posting on our website.

We always believe in free speech. People can disagree and the world would be a boring place if everyone thought the same thing.

We got this email from an actual user of BAExpats.org. We will not post anyone’s identity but I feel it’s important that people read what kind of emails we are getting. This is an actual unedited email from an actual user of BAExpats.

"Thanks for setting me up with my old username. Thank you Carina!!

I saw you mentioned this site recently on Twitter. That is where I find more news, business and industry information. Overall, it is always more serious site for me. I know Twitter can be many things, but for me it is the easiest to only follow those types of accounts.

It is strange on that old ba expats site. It was a bit more free in the early days, though never ideal. That admin rejected and punished anyone for even suggesting the smallest detail. I am used to more open online communities where internal discussions about the inner workings of the site are encouraged. There should always be a thread/forum for members to suggest ideas or discuss site problems between each other. Meta.StackOverflow.com is just one great example of members feeling they have a small part. Another example is how every opensource project has that same philosophy.

I appreciate you asking to bring my identity and posts, though at this time I am not ready to do that. Either there are irrelevant or outdated posts, and also the privacy of other members who I replied or they replied. Perhaps in the future if you have a UI for me to browse, and checkmark the ones I agree with."

@Cariba,

Thank you for posting this and also for respecting the privacy of the members of both forums. This is my conundrum as well. I noticed the exact same behavior by the owner/Admin. It has subsequently gotten worse each year I've been a member of that forum. I also found out about this forum on Twitter. It seems like most people coming over are from your Twitter post.

 

[earlyretirement]

@Cariba,

Thank you for posting this and also for respecting the privacy of the members of both forums. This is my conundrum as well. I noticed the exact same behavior by the owner/Admin. It has subsequently gotten worse each year I've been a member of that forum. I also found out about this forum on Twitter. It seems like most people coming over are from your Twitter post.

Thank you so much @Betsy Ross for participating in OUR forum. I say OUR because, unlike the owner of BAExpats.org, I view this forum as a collective approach where we all share great content on Buenos Aires.

Thanks so much for being part of our community. It is both valued and appreciated.

 

[Jeb Spencer]

Great forum. Found you guys on Twitter when you were first posting the saga of why you were starting this forum. So far you sound pretty true to your word. You even posted about you buying the domain name and all the steps. Pretty interesting how quickly this all happened like you said it could happen.

 

[RN in BA]

I'm not sure about your dispute but I'm thankful you created this forum. It's great!

 

[Johnny]

Long time lurker. First time poster. I love this forum. Look forward to many years contributing now that I purchased an apartment there!

 

[Silvia]

It is a pet peeve of mine too when owners or Moderators of a website edit my post without listing a reason. I don't like that. I don't recall it happening to my posts on the old forum but I don't post anything too controversial. However, I have talked to people that it has happened to.

I don't think the owner can legitimately try to argue that he isn't doing it. I have talked to many people that it has happened to. Plus no way all of this is made up. The Twitter posts go back over a decade!

I hope on this forum as well if a post is edited, there is a reason why it's edited. I have seen disagreements here but so far Moderator or other members have stepped in to kind of police it, Everyone should be respectful and forums are ok.

I predict that the Admin/owner of the old forum he will either stop it and improve or he will just shut down the entire site if he can't do what he wants to do which will be a shame as it has been around so long.

 

[earlyretirement]

I am locking this thread for now. I think member's points are made on the issue. For as much as I disagree with Igor on many issues, I don't think he is a bad guy. I disagree with many things he did including deleting my posts and the way he handles things Moderating but there are so many important things going on in Argentina let's all focus on the important stuff.

I don't doubt his love for Argentina. I hope this new forum pushes him to be better with his forum too. I believe both forums can co-exist (even though this new forum is the funner, cooler, better version).

Thanks to everyone participating in this new forum.

 

[earlyretirement]

Also, people mentioned to me there is a thread on the old forum about people saying their post was copied. I can't control what people post to this site. Keep in mind there are many people from that forum posting on this forum and they changed their names as they are afraid of Igor deleting their posts or banning him from that forum.

If you feel a post was posted to this site and it's the same as your post, just contact us. Please have ready to prove you are who you say you are and give us your member name on BAExpats.org. As you can imagine, it's a mess if anyone just wants to say a post is there.

Send a copy of the URL of the post you claim is your material and a URL of the post on our site and I will request the Admin to delete it. We are in the process of bringing 1,500+ posts I posted on the old forum and we are restoring all of them to this new forum.

Also, consider a LOT of people don't like Igor or his moderating methods, so they may be posting on our site just for the kick of it. There is no way we can cross-check all posts. But I'm more than happy to delete them if you feel like your anonymous post is harming someone being on this forum.

Also, keep in mind I'm reposting 13+ years of my posts on that forum. Those belong to me. I will include questions or posts asked that I'm responding in that thread. The entire idea of these forums is to help people with information. If you feel your post is so worthy of a copyright trademark, maybe post under your real name instead of Pizza Boy or the like. But regardless I am happy to remove it. Just send me the requested URL's and I will remove it.

But as mentioned, feel free to contact me directly if you feel your post is being copied here and I'm happy to delete it if you can prove it is you and it bothers you that your post might help others that have questions about Buenos Aires. We have posters and lurkers from 45 countries now. Thanks to all of you.

 

[StatusNomadicus]

Moderator Note: I moved this post from another thread as I felt it is relevant to this discussion. I have not edited it at all.


@IrishLad to follow-up about the other forum's silliness, since the thread here is locked (understandable, it's sorta off-topic and i totally understand if you Mods need to erase this reply), I have been arguing with earlyretirement here on this forum about everything from crappy NYC pizza (yes, it sucks) and how I hate the decline of Paris (yes, sorry! what a ruined city like Portland and Seattle and NYC and Detroit and Chicago and Stockholm), and zero of my comments have been censored/modified/erased.

NOW, contrast that to how "admin" AKA owner Igor censored my test post about offering to remove content on this new forum (attached TEST.png)

"Buenos Aires Expats Community
mon_serrat
Oops! We ran into some problems.
You have been banned for the following reason: Spam. Please contact the administrator if this was done in error.."

i used a different VPN country, offered a solution to that thread's problem, and didn't type this new forum's domain name in...and within seconds of posting it, the account was banned for "Spam" - why, because someone found the new forum first?

i thought i was a loser for posting so much, but damn! that Igor guy just sits on the forum and Gestapos every little thing. there's very little chance he detected it was a test, since i typed differently, liked many posts before i replied to a thread, and used a different email. just a little research about the censorship that i spent 10 minutes on, to test for you guys.

if there's one thing that boils my blood, it's people in power limiting the choices and freedoms of others. super sad. but i really hope the long-time users that helped me on the other forum move over here, like "Nikad" and "Steveinbsas" because though i disagreed with some of what they said, they offered really good info.

censorship audit, complete