About 3 years ago Internet Brands purchased a car forum that I had belonged to since 2001. After the purchase they put two of the existing administrators in charge with absolute power to run the forum any way they wanted (Before the purchase the private owner of the forum was there to oversee how the forum was managed). Once they had complete immunity and absolute power these two admins began running the forum like dictators. Long time members who had never had an issue were banned for even the slightest perceived infraction of the existing rules, and new rules were written as saw fit to allow them to ban any members they didn't like.
Just like here on RCU there were also increasing issues with server crashes which got worse and worse over time.
I know a number of emails were written directly to Internet Brands to complain about the administration issues (not sure about the server problems), the response was always to refer them to the forum administrators (the same ones who were the focus of the complaint). We concluded that Internet Brands was completely uninterested in what the members of their forum had to say, they didn't want to deal with them or have anything at all to do with the day to day running of the forum. I think they are just in it for the advertising dollars, the members who make a forum what it is are completely insignificant.
I am still a member of that car forum but I have not posted in over a year, and only logged in to read a thread or two when someone sent a link. There are literally hundreds of other current and former members who feel the same.
I hope IB doesn't do the same thing to RCU.
