Bad Move, Eden Fantasys

Update: There have been more posts on this topic, if you care to read up on them.

• What the fuck, EdenFantasys?
• Problems with Eden Fantasys, Take Nine-Thousand
• A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing
• Money, ethics, and real sex-positivity
• The Mamma Nazi
• Eden Fantasys: Not A Place I Trust
  
• EdenFantasys.com Debacle
• Community Announcement: Contributor Leaving

And, of course:

• Problems with EF
• Update on EdenFantasys.com Problems
• My Take on the Eden Fantasys Drama
• A Tale of Intriguing Timing

And more, worse, problems with EF and their ethics:

• Edenfantasys’s unethical technology is a self-referential black hole
• EdenFantasys’ Black Hole of Links

I respect any company’s right to run their business the way they see fit. However, there are times when I have to look at that company and say, “What you did is in bad taste.” There’s the “bad taste, but innocent mistake” variety of bad moves, and there’s the “no coming back from this” variety of bad moves. Eden Fantasys, I’m afraid, has committed the latter.

Most of you do not know this, but I boycotted EF for over a year. I refused to review for them or be involved with them because of the way they treated AAG and Essin’ Em. Yet, I’d heard good things about the community, and chose to hope that maybe the kinks had been worked out. I signed on.

In that time, I’ve promoted EF every chance I get. I’ve given them a great deal of business. One of you fabulous readers just spend $700 there this month with my affiliate code, and I want to kiss you for it. I contribute to their Eden Cafe blog. I just got hired doing seminars and was planning on opening a personal store of recommended items and sending the (very rich, very eager to spend money) attendees of my seminar to my own personal store to purchase the items I recommended to them– from Eden Fantasys.

A line was crossed this week, and it’s one that I think is inexcusable, and one that I do not think (at least in my eyes) there’s any way to come back from or make excuses for. Epiphora was not only banned from the community, the staff took out a separate forum thread to announce her banning and to publicly humiliate her. Piph was not given a warning. She was not given a reason for being banned, beyond the “overall negativity” that was cited in the forum post.

The way I see it, Epiphora expressed her opinion openly and honestly, and it may not have always been what the staff wanted to hear. But the point of forums is to incite discussion, disagreement included, and I saw Epiphora using those forums for exactly that purpose. I also saw her contribute valuable knowledge and advice. From what I can tell, Piph’s opinions were not popular with the people in charge, and instead of privately warning her, sending her a personal message, or discussing it with her in any way, shape, or form, the people running EF decided to publicly announce, via a forum post, that she was banned. Without first telling her, warning her, or handling it in any way.

Reasoning was not specified to Piph or the community beyond her general “overall negativity,” of which no specific examples were cited, and the “numerous complaints” that were received regarding her, again with no back up, proof, or flagged posts to back said complaints up. I am disappointed and appalled with the way EF handled this, and as a site that is what they are due to contributor participation and blogger promotion, I feel that there were many better ways of handling this situation.

As it stands, I no longer feel comfortable promoting Eden Fantasys, and every link to their website will be removed from this blog. Shame for them, isn’t it? Because if I had set up that personal store like I was in the process of doing, they stood to make several thousands of dollars based on my seminars and promotions. Looks like I’ll have to find a different site to give my stamp of approval to. I have one review left to do for them, and then I’ll be done.

Shame on you, Eden Fantasys.