Acorn Domains Now Deleting Posts

Good ole Helmuts has been active this morning, attempting the internet version of book burning and censorship. Why is he going to war with his members? How does this benefit him and Acorn Domains?

I've been sent screenshots of the posts, likely because the sender knew they would soon be deleted. They were proven right within the hour. The posts, as you can see below, ask very good and respectful questions.

In this age of blogs, WhatsApp, and email, what exactly do you achieve by deleting posts? You aren't stopping people from communicating or spreading the message; you're simply aggravating them. The first thing people like me are going to do when we hear of censorship is highlight it, so what's the point?

Funnily enough, this is how I got started in the domain world. Around 2005, someone deleted one of my critical posts from a forum. Then I found out later that others who had also posted warnings had also seen their posts deleted. Those posts would have saved me using this chap to fix my car, censorship cost me money.

My first reaction was to try and buy their domain name, when I found it had already taken, but had expired, I called Nominet asking why the name was showing as expired but wasn't available. They said that I had no chance of getting it because there are these people out there called domain catchers who would catch it in a split second- that was genuinely the start of my journey. If it wasn't for that censorship, I wouldn't be here annoying people today :-)

I've had a quick look over there, the owner is trying his best to convince people that he's deleted hateful content, but as you can see from the screenshots, that's just ridiculous. It's for your saftey, don't be scared - haha.

The title of this post says "now" deleting posts, but he's been doing it for a while. His recent "ask me anything" thread resulted in comedy when he banned someone for asking a question he didn't like, the one about him reading members private messages.

In the grand scheme, does it really matter? The main question is, after this, why are you still using Acorn Domains? You are arguing with someone who has openly deleted your opinion already. No matter what you say, you reward will be an excuse from him whilst he grins at the interaction.

Surely this must be the final nail in that coffin of this forum? You know any topic of interest will be deleted. You can only raise issues that aren’t inconvenient to the owner and his small group of friends. He decides what you can and cannot say - no thanks.

My advice is to just ignore this band of people, punish them with silence, and the truth is, people aren’t stupid; they vote with their feet. The former owner of UKDNF saw the writing on the wall for Acorn a few months ago, and, to his credit, built a fantastic alternative. He demonstrated that if someone created a polite, censorship-free zone, domainers would flock to it and support each other. When UKDNF was active, Acorn didn’t have two active members to rub together. Hilariously, that didn’t stop someone from calling for a private paid section.

Helmuts and his small band may have a very temporary victory in forcing UKDNF offline, but it’s only a fleeting win. Regardless of alternatives, people won’t return to Acorn—it’s tainted. Speaking of alternatives, Denys has signaled that he’s launching a new domain forum. Denys is a great guy, very pro-free speech, and can take criticism on the chin. David has an alternative on DNF.co.uk—David is also very pro-free speech, a strong character and in-truth probably loves the tough feedback. If anyone else is launching an alternative, please let me know, and I'll include it.

Whatever comes of this, it won’t be a resurgent Acorn Domains. It will result in those active in the UK domain space having more disdain for those involved than ever before.

As for Domain Summit, deleting the posts of your natural attendees is definitely not the way to attract more visitors.