pof [Plentyoffish] is a fascist site, admin will delete one for any reason, I swear the admin reads the people’s mail on the site. Favoritism rules in the forums. Admin puts down users publicly in the forums. Interesting site but is poorly run from a clienteles point of view. Mods are more than likely paid, it is probably only said the mods are volunteers to prop up the facade that the admin is running the site altruistically.

The forums are censored and pruned arbitrarily. Site moderators are heavy-handed. Threads and individual posts vanish with no warning or explanation. New people sign on, begin to get to know each other, start having fun, and then the moderators scold and banish people for not following rules. Or for asking questuons. Or for speaking up against the unfriendly tone. The result is a hard-core set of regulars who help as minions and snitches, tattling on other users. The best and brightest notice what is happening then leave in disgust for more amicable surroundings. It’s like a bad chat room combined with your favorite neighborhood dive. It’s a great place to waste time if you enjoy rancor and pettiness.

John, thanks for your comment. You’ve obviously had a bad experience with PlentyOfFish!

I seriously doubt the administrators read private mail on the site, unless they are investigating a complaint such as spamming. I haven’t used the forums, so I can’t comment about them. I do know that it’s a very popular site.

Whereas the site is free, the staff (all two of them, as far as I know) make a large amount of money every month from on-site advertising, so your comment about the staff representing themselves as altruistic is probably true.

Does anybody else have any experiences, good or bad, with PlentyOfFish?

Paul, your comment was caught up in the system for a while. It’s a shame that people seem to be generally having bad experiences with the PlentyOfFish forum.

I have been using the site for three years now. I haven’t found who i am looking for yet. The site from a mans point of view consists mainly of a great number of divorced women with children, which is alright if that is what your looking for, but i am not. So i use it mainly for the forums for now, which cover a variety of topics. The only advice i can give you is to follow the rules on the forums or your profile can be deleted. I find the moderators have favorites, so you dont stand a chance in a debate with them.Also those favorites wont hesitate to snitch on you, so make friends with them, if they will let you. If you dont become a favorite be careful what you say. As for me, i am not a favorite, i like to speak my mind.

Thank you, Pete! It’s good to hear these real opinions, especially if the PlentyOfFish forums contain a lot of censorship. It’s a real shame that this is obviously the case; the only comments I have had to my article above have been about this; and I hope it’s something that Markus Frind will seriously seek to address. I’m sure he’s losing out on popularity and revenue with his site because of it.

Also, if the site mainly contains divorced women with children, I agree that that will not be attractive to the bulk of men. I wouldn’t be looking for this type of woman.

David just to add. I want everybody to know what happened to me. I was in a debate in the forums with a divorced woman with kids over an issue. The next morning my profile was deleted. I was given no notice, no reason, no opportunity to check my mail or delete it or respond back to mail . I opened up another profile under a name close to the one i had and i found out my profile was deleted by a moderator who happened to be a divorce women with kids. She gave me no explanation to this day. Imagine your mail delivery person , taking your mail box away with your mail in it, thats basically the same what happened to me on that site. Its an invasion of your privacy and no courtesy for the user.That just shows that the majority of divorced women with kids rules on that site.

The people complaining above were banned for creating a lot of fake profiles and nearly 50 complaints from users, putting them in the top 10 all time pests. You can see they tried to spam wikipedia and alexa to and basically every site on the net that allowed posting.

There is no staff, and the handful of moderators have no power other then deleting forum threads and preventing users from posting. Nearly 80% of the threads deleted per day are done by the million + mini mods. Ie 7/10 of them need to agree on deleting a thread before it gets nuked.

All in all my approach is the only way forums work on dating sites. Its no big coincidence that all free dating sites to date have copied my forums and TOS to a letter. Also lets put some perspective on this, several hundred thousand people access/use the forum a month of those less then ~15 get banned a month. Also there are only 4 moderators who watch 200+ forums in their spare time, given the 10’s of thousands of posts per day does anyone really think they even review a tiny fraction of it?

First of all Markus, my profile was not deleted because it was fake and/or because of spam. My profile was very much real and serious, but it doesnt matter anymore now. You say your moderators have no power except for deleting threads and preventing postings…..well to me that is a lot of power and you can basically shut someone out. Now POF [PlentyofFish] is a good site but needs improvement when it comes to moderators. Maybe you dont see the favoritism and abuse of power that goes on. Not to long ago i read on the site that a male moderator was abusing a female user by sending her pictures of his penus.I know the pictures were deleted and the moderator was removed and banned from the site when it was found out. But what concerns me is the stuff you dont know about. I would like to suggest that you change moderators frequently and use some that are single ,never married, no kids ….these kind of people have less worry and problems, that they wont take it out on POF users.Do away with your mini mods as they are the ones that are destryoying POF.Someone should also provide an explanation as to why a profile was deleted because i am sure mistakes also happen and there is always two sides to a disagreement. And lastly check up on your moderators to see if they are ganging up together on users, nothing worse then an abuse of authority.Good luck with the site i hope it lasts.

It seems to me that there will always be problems running a site as large as PlentyOfFish, and perhaps the only comments that have been posted here have been from those people affected. Has anyone had some good experiences with PlentyOfFish? Perhaps you would care to add to the comments!

Many thanks, Markus, for adding your own comment here.

it seems to me that this site has some issues when it comes to the im, i havent been on for about 2-3 weeks and then yesterday went on to check and see whats up and who’s new and chat with some of my friends, well, to no avail i couldn’t get a response from any of the ladies in my area, never had that problem b4, so i called a friend and had her sign on and then tried to im her, nothing, she was getting no pop up window, so then i had her try to im me, still nothing, so we put each other on favorites list after that she could im me and i would get a window but if i started the im she still didnt have anything come up, seems to me like the women could start the im and i could respond back, but if i started the im, she would have nothing pop up, something seems fishy, no pun intended, so in other words, whether if had a woman on my fav or not i cant get a single woman to respond anymore like i used to with no problem, they are not seeing any im i send them, ive seen in the forum that other guys are havin the same problem, its not my computer or programs causin this cause i had a female friend get on my computer and when she logged in she has no problem but when i log in still cant get any responses from the women, nothing comes up on there side, i have my pop-up blockers off, still no response from these woman, what gives???

The dating part on plentyoffish is fine. You can meet people you want without paying a dime. BUT, the moderators on the forums abuse their power. They delete profiles of users, even someone who has been their for years without any warning. My profile got deleted because four users complained I was under 18. When in fact, I am about to turn 20. There was no way I could prove my age. That would not have done any good either because my profile was already deleted just based on hear say without any warning. There are also what you can call “regular posters gang” whose words are taken to be as truthful because the lick the feet of the “mod gods” . Also, if you ask why your profile was deleted , there is a very good chance of your profile being deleted without warning or you not be able to make any forum post for as long as 30 years.
All in all, I’d have to conclude by saying that, if you become a sycophant, you can post on the forums as long as you want and can even break rules. But if you try to rebel, you are out without any warning.

Thanks.

I did forget to mention something else. One of the moderators did contact me and sent me a threat mail. He lives in a state close to mine. He emailed me once, disagreeing with something I had said on the forums. I deleted his mail without responding because someone had already warned me to not argue with the mod gods ever. He sent me a second email which was very much sexually explicit. Which in the real world could be called “sexual harassment”. Well….I deleted this mail again. So, the next thing I know, I’m banned from the forums for 20 years! There was no reason given at all. And it was done by the same moderator that sent me that email! I did not make a complaint to the admin, because I was already told by a friend on pof [PlentyofFish] that it would not help and my profile would probably get deleted if I did that.

The only thing I want to say is, there is a lot of favoritism on that site. It’s almost like living during the second world war in Germany. Too many [censored] and [censored] there.

My advice would be to never venture into the forums. Just stay on the dating site and meet people. If you join the forums , you will get addicted and when you get addicted , you eventually will have to turn into a sycophant. If you are someone who speaks your mind, STAY OUT OF THE FORUMS FOR YOUR OWN GOOD.

Raksha, thanks very much for your comment about your experiences with PlentyOfFish, but please keep your comments in perspective. Use analogies by all means, but comparing the forum to what happened during the second world war is not going to be very accurate or helpful, and could upset people; that’s why I’ve had to censor your comment. However, I appreciate the weight of your obvious strong feelings on the matter.

It seems to me that your most appropriate courses of action on having received the emails would have been to contact the police, given the nature of the emails you appear to have received. If you were felt that you were harrassed sexually, then this certainly should have been done. The net is part of the real world.

Be assured that I appreciate the advice you offer the readers, and hopefully it will benefit them.

Very nice work of Markus he made a site and made some money, it is really great that someone does it all by himself (or with a little help)

I also made a site to get in contact with people, date,… all by myself called Me Tarzan You Jane http://www.MeTarzanYouJane.eu

And no I’m not a company, and yes I also started this to learn some aspx. I normally programmed asp but wanted to change to a newer more powerfull language.

The site has it’s share of members in Europe but the rest of the world can also follow now because everything is translated in english.

So guys and girls if you want some real honest site, no fake entries, blogs on the internet just real stuff then support me and sign yourself and your friends up. All free.

Not happy, then contact me via the site and let me know what bothers you and most of the time in the past after hearing something I also implemented new wishes or enhanced the site.

I’m sorry for making references to censored words. I think I got carried away. Therefore, I apoligize. Anyway, my point is, the dating part of plentyoffish is fine. But the administration have to do something about the moderators who love playing God there. When someone tries to speak against them, they get banned. There is no freedom of speech there no matter how much you follow the given rules. I agree with Pete with whatever he said.

Thanks.

I’ve read these posts about POF [PlentyofFish] with tears running down my face. And Markus, if you believe what you say then you’re on a different planet to the rest of us. It would seem like everybody here is wrong and only Markus is right. (bear in mind that Markus is the owner and claims to earn $10,000 a day from Adsense ads) POF is badly run by heavy handed moderators with dual standards. One set of rules for them (and thier friends) and another set for everybody else.

PlentyOfFish was a waste of time as far as I’m concerned. I believe there are bucketloads of fake profiles on there, and I turned out to be one of them in the end.

I’m a guy. I joined up with a totally honest profile, waited the three days before you’re allowed to post in the forums, and got posting. I ‘got-to-know’ lots of people over a three month period but I never received a single PM message from a female in all that time.

I then registered a second account, same details as my male account, but as a female. I waited the three days before being allowed to post. In those three days I had over 1,000 PM messages from males, most just wanting sex, and it was impossible to read the forums because of the constant IM message screens that kept popping from more guys. As far as I’m concerned it’s a waste of time.

I saw lots of people deleted for the same fake reasons you’ve just mentioned, multi accounts (I had two but mine weren’t deleted), advertising links, porn and all those untruthful reasons that show up in a deleted person’s profile search. I know some of those people from other forums and it’s just not true. They are real and behave properly on other sites.

Wake up.

It’s a real shame about PlentyofFish.

If you’ve had a problem with PoF, perhaps you could do me a favour? If you’re still looking for a date, I’ve just started my own free dating site, and it could really use some profiles! Cheeky monkey dating is the name of the site. I’ve submitted a press release that will get published today, and it should get the site some real traffic soon, so it may well be worth your while doing this.

It might also interest you to know that I’ve written a list of free online dating sites from a blog post that I found on the web recently, so feel free to sign up with those as well.

Probably the best free dating site on which to list is going to be OkCupid, and I have written an OkCupid review here. It’s got a lot of profiles in it, but I have to say that it’s a little weird in its approach.

Hi David, thanks for the reply. I took a look at Cheeky Monkey and I’ll make up my mind a little later. These free dating sites can be very good and may well be the future. Nobody likes all those pop-ups and posting restrictions on paid sites. I wish you all the luck in the world with it.

I just hope these posts have been useful to you in deciding how to moderate it. POF may well be the biggest at the moment, but the bad moderation could well be it’s downfall. There are many more sites popping up these days. I’m registered with a few and the best ones are those that are fairly moderated. They could well steal POF’s thunder.

i have had mainly good experiences with POF since ive joind the site i have lots of new friends and have been on a few really good dates. i give 2 thumbs to plenty of fish.

Thanks Jess, it’s good to hear that the site is working for some people.

My name is Mike and I own ezdate123. In my opinion Plenty of Fish is the best online dating site on the web. I support Markus and admire his approach. We have recently followed his lead and made ezdate123 totally free as well. I like the concept of free in todays economy and thanks to Google all of this is possible. It is a win-win for everyone… The best to Markus, his members and the online community… Mike

Hello Mike. It’s not only Google that makes it possible to run a free dating site; you can sell advertising space to others to make up the money as well, by any number of means.

PlentyOfFish proves that the free dating site model works, and works well. It generates revenue for the site owner, and is not subject to the usual problems of the large paid dating sites where most of the profiles listed have been posted by people who are not subscribers and will never be able to reply to you. I often think that the paid dating sites are selling a dream. They’re very good at it, but it’s still a dream, just the same.

I’d like to wish you the best of luck with your site. I corrected your URL for you in your comment submission.

They keep deleting my profile…I have no idea why…

GAME OVER!

I have to say I agree that someone reads our emails and has deleted my account for no reason. I have not harrassed anyone of any kind or created duplicate accounts. Today I recreated the very same account and it was deleted ASAP with no email of any sort. I’ve used this site for almost three + years with no wrong doing. My ex-girl friend and I have used POF and both of us have been deleted with no reason. I find this really concerning. I asked Markus and no-reply was never reponded to. I agree that POF has its faults but there should be some light into why an account was deleted. All my profile are real and time-date stamped.

I read somewhere recently that Markus removes profiles that he considers to be inactive. The number of comments people have added here suggests that he is being a bit too aggressive in his approach. Markus, if you read this page again, perhaps it’s worth considering back-pedalling on the aggressive removal of profiles. It’s up to you, of course; it’s your service.

The profile I submitted in order to review the service is still live. I’ve logged onto the service occasionally with it, so perhaps that’s why it’s still live. I’ve never received any mail through it, but perhaps my profile description isn’t attractive enough to tempt people. (Perhaps it helps if you send mail, and of course, being male puts you at a disadvantage when it comes to most online dating agencies.) Having said that, a similar profile on certain other dating agencies has produced a lot more activity.

On Cheeky Monkey Dating, I will probably remove the profiles of people who abuse the system (I’ve already had to deal with two spammers). I’d like people to enter a decent description. Right now, I’m letting almost anything through because I need people to use the service, but if it takes off then I will apply a minimum standard to the profile description requirement. It is nice to see some legitimate mail passing through the system, though.

i would like to say that this is a good site but when you get deleted for no reason it said that i uploaed nudity i was in bed sleeping and some of the reasons for being deleted are in qwestion ex. being rude haresment how would you know if some one is making a fasle statement about you i feel that im a victom of this i had done nothing wrong on this site and enjoyed it everymuch and would wish to have it back and i never abused the rules so please take this inconsideration thank you pete ammonn

I’ve seen people of liked and disliked POF vehemently. The stories about forum abuse does seem be cause for concern. I’ve created what I believe is a good site that can achieve that balance of harmony. It just launched recently, so I hope you can visit and help it grow. Thanks!

[Ed: Link removed. The link did not take you to a dating site.]

the reason penty of fish is free is because no one in the right mind would pay to use his site. most profiles are fake and most members lie about themselves just to make themselves look good. i give the site a f-

paid dating sites work because people more of a insentive to be truthful, only a fool will pay to join and make then create fake profile, you can tell in a very few contacts if their profile is fake, most of penty of fish are.

Plenty of fish has a lot of duds on their site and I had to kiss a few toad before meeing my prince. Thank you POF, I have finally met the man that I hope I can spend the rest of my life with. Our relationship has taken us both to a wonderful friendship as well as a love relationship. Hope everyone will continue until with this site. That wonderful person is out there and can be found on your site.

I was banned by Brawnydog for my humour. I used a play of words in response to one of the thread’s question: help me create a company name for my dog walking service; I suggested Jen’s Bitches & Pussy’s Services Inc. Now, I thought that was funny, but Brawnydog said it was inappropriate and banned me for 30 days. Apparently he got a complaint from the original poster who has children reading the threads! She thought those comments were inappropriate for young children reading posts on an online dating forum. Yes, I did respond back to Brawnydog pointing out, by pure coincidence, that he used those very words on his own profile. I told him he was a hypocrite and an asshole….so he bans me for life.

My surprise in all this is how little esteem the mods hold of their membership. In my business, every client counts and we have to use very
carefully selected words just to say “no”….but POF staff members treat us with
disdain - “get with the program or you’re GONE!” - I mean, is that tone neccessary? Even one MOD described my posts as very funny and he
made an effort to post his pleasure on another thread while I was
under a profile of Lazyboy. Yet, with other MODS, I was treated like
crap.

Regarding the ‘fake profiles’: YES!…there are multitudes of fake profiles.
Gorgeous people! But, you can, only occasion find many of the pics
have been lifted from the net. In my opinion, 99% of people do not
post and maybe 1% do…..it’s the posters that get treated the worst.

I’m asking…..do we take too much of the resources? Is it this reason
why the average life span of a poster is akin to a fruit fly?

This is nothing more than a rumour that moderators and the admin read email, and was started by those who cause no end of trouble on the forums. Disruptive members are removed after 3 warnings.

The moderators have zero access to profile accounts. I’ve also seen another rumour going around on some of the copy-cat sites that some member was stalked by another on POF and that member’s personal information was retrieved and sold by a POF Moderator. This is BUNK. This is absolutely not true, moderators do not have access to this information. The lies are spread by the plethora of troublemakers the mods have to deal with.

The site’s forums are for everyone, yet there are so many who use these forums to spew,and then once they are silenced, they accuse the moderators of being “heavy-handed”. They do not see the moderator inboxes of complaints against the person(s) whose posting history is reviewed and if a pattern is established (a pattern of rankled, disruptive, trolling, flame-baiting and/or outright offense posts aimed in general or at specific members) their posting priviledges are removed. It is precisely these people who then go around slandering and libelling the moderators who essentially put a stop to them.

The moderators have long lists of rules that they must follow when suspending someone or banning someone from the forums. They reserve the right to restrict a member’s access to the forums if they are causing a disruption, but ALL account deletions go through the Admin and not the moderators. Moderators can make recommendations based on the information they do see (such as post history, if this member has multiple accounts, etc) Not following these rules can pull them up on the carpet.

Moderators are not paid. They are charged with keeping the forums a hospitable place; something that would be impossible if those on the web who are complaining about being banned were still allowed to participate. Moderators receive countless emails thanking them for intercepting a flame-war in progress, and moderators reveal nothing to anyone but other volunteers and the Administrator regarding the account status and actions taken on any accounts.

In addition to moderation, they must scan profiles for copyright infringement, unappropriate or offensive images, report them, issue warnings to the member and follow up. Moderators never have the option to delete the profile without review by the Administrator, and they have never had the option to make such a call on their own nor do they have access to emails but does have measures in place that does NOT include someone accessing emails that help aid the site in reducing the number of spam/scam emails.

Those who complain about being banned have been warned previously or have caused a disruption that was severe enough to warrant immediate banning. It is difficult moderating any site, let alone one the size of POF. These accusations are sour grapes from those who could not follow the rules. Some of these accusations are outright lies. I have been a member of POF for 3 years and am on there solely for the forums since meeting my fiancé on the site in 2004. Over this time I have come to know some of the moderators, including some that are no longer moderators, and I have seen a pattern emerge with the wave of bad apples that come and go. They are, in my opinion, given a chance to participate in the forums but they to their own damage to themselves by their conduct. They are banned from the site, they recreate new profiles only to be caught and then as a result ALL of their profiles are deleted from the site, then they gripe and complain over the internet about “unfair” treatment.

They did it to themselves.

Personally I believe that the forum should be treated separately than the main dating site. If a member causes trouble in the forum, that is a reason for limiting their access to the forum. It is not a reason for limiting their access to the main site, in my opinion. If private mails are going out to other members that are of an unsuitable nature, that’s another story, of course, but removing a profile from an individual because of their forum posts seems wrong to me.

There seem to be quite a few people that are aggrieved by the policy of the site, if the comments written here are true.

The forums on pof are nothing but full of dictatorship. If you stay there for a couple of months and notice very carefully, you will realize that it’s the same bunch of older folks participating day in and day out, breaking rules and chatting and yet not getting banned at all. These people also happen to have testimonials on their profiles by one of the mods. Oh and about the brawnydog thingie, yes, I have a huge problem with him too. He bans people he does not like without a single reason. The admin deleted my friend . And I have no clue how to find him. We were just starting to talk, and did not even have each other’s personal email address. If the admin itself becomes a stumbling block in people’s budding relationships, how can you expect to find anyone from this site? Honestly, I’m really very sad he deleted this guy I liked because a bunch of old people hated his brutal honesty. I wish that site was fair but it is not and I don’t think it will ever be. Atleast not untill markus comes back to the earth.

Markus should really take a close look at the behaviour of the moderators. Has anyone but me noticed how those mod’s girlfriends break rules and still never even get a warning? That site is so full of corruption. It’s not going to last long. I personally like okcupid more because it caters to the younger folks and does not have stupid, corrupted people as moderators. The forums on POF would be great fun if the moderators were fair. I think only 3 moderators out of them all are. That too not always. But, atleast these 3 reply to the emails you send if you are having problems. The others don’t even care….esp Brawnydog….he just deletes emails without reading and so does that Trappedon bayst and Tickettoride. I think Pandy and Late are fair moderators. They did ban me but it was for valid reasons. But the others are very unfair! They should be removed from the mod’s chairs.

Wow. First of all I just want to say thanks to the owners of flirt-coach.net for having this website. When I typed in “plentyoffish.com (POF)” and the word “complaints” into a search engine to find a place to post my complaints about plentyoffish which was not on their website (since they censor complaints), this was one of the first sites to come up. I also want to say thanks to the folks who started POF because overall, my opinion of them is very good as a whole. Currently, my profile at POF is still up as “onyxblue.” I say that because if you place my username in the POF forum search engine you will see that few people have spoke about POF with as many compliments as I have, many, many times. However, without question the primary problem on POF is like many people have said, the heavy-handed censorship of posts and deleting of threads. It is sad. I also must agree with what several users said about divorced women with children who disagree with you, and then follow you around on other forum threads instigating. Yes, that is very true. If you look at the thread titled “Plentyoffish, Now with Flowers” you will actually see one repeatedly cursing at me (simply because she disagreed with me), and she later followed me around to other threads insulting me, despite the fact that I stated I would no longer reply to her. But there is another topic here which should be mentioned that has not been brought up n regards to POF being a free site only sponsored by ads. And that is the fact that if you request that POF make a new feature like “free virtual flowers” or “free virtual winks” the admin and moderators will lock, delete, censor and/or move your thread to a forum where no one visits. Don’t believe it? Type in “virtual flowers” in the forum search engine and see how many threads you find out of the millions of threads and posts. One (if they haven’t deleted that yet). And they locked that one when many people began to agree that they wanted them. There were others but moderators delete them when many people start requesting that feature. Many people have repeatedly requested free virttual flowers and free virtual winks but POF continues not to allow it. Why do they do that? Very simple. Within the last month they revealed their new “creditcard, pay-per-priviledge flowers” (also known as ‘Real Flowers’) feature. Even though their motto is “put away your credit card” in order to use that feature, you need to take out your credit card. They deny people who are not so financially priviledged the ability to send free virtual flowers, so they can promote their newest pay-per-use feature. Thats sad. On 10/4 Marcus, the admin is quoted as saying” “Virtual gifts etc are pointless. Its a gimmick paid sites use to try and get people to pay so they can message someone. If I allowed that stuff a lot of women would get spammed with useless messages. It would probably outnumber real mail 2 to 1.” Did I ever get a response to that? Yes, but not directly. Instead the next time I logged into the forum I discovered that I was banned until 7/4/2009! Unbelievable! Above, M. Barton said people get three warnings but that is not true. Nat at all. However, one of the moderators told me my ban might be lifted, so we’ll have to wait and see. I still have access to my profile, so I guess it is good that being banned from the forums still lets you have access to your profile. You know what I think would be a good idea? To have a separate POF place where all the POF users could go to talk that is completely “uncensored” by moderators. just so that we can suggest new POF features (r at least try to find a way that users and heavy-handed moderators can co-exist harmoniously) without having our threads, deleted, locked, censored or banned by Marcus or POF moderators. Lots of chatwebsites have this, and many more forums have this. Many indymedia websites (such as Portland, Oregon) have a place where censored topics are places so that people can still discuss those topics, especially when they criticise indymedia. Anyway, thanks flirt-coach and thanks to POF for existing because I still haven’t found a better dating site than POF yet.

I also think it is important to share with you the response I gave to Markus, the admin, regarding the free virtual flowers. Especially because above Markus said “Also lets put some perspective on this, several hundred thousand people access/use the forum a month of those less then ~15 get banned a month.” I don’t think thats true. Am I to believe that I am one of only 15 who got a 3 -year ban from the POF forums ….one of 15 banned during the month of October 2006… for simply talking about virtual flowers? A 3 year ban? I never cursed at anyone, never eveen used all capital letters, never yelled, and even frequently complimented POF. On 10/4 Markus, the POF admin, is quoted as saying” “Virtual gifts etc are pointless. Its a gimmick paid sites use to try and get people to pay so they can message someone. If I allowed that stuff a lot of women would get spammed with useless messages. It would probably outnumber real mail 2 to 1.” I have also heard POF moderators say the same thing but I have told them the same thing. Here is an excerpt of my response: “Like many, many of the long time POF women and men have said on this thread and many other forums and other threads, virtual gifts are not pointless. I agree with you that many sites have used it as a gimmick, but POF could be one of the many sites that do not use it as a gimmick. As you well know many dating sites uses ‘IM’ messages and ‘email within the dating site’ as gimmicks as well (because you can only use those features usually if you pay a lot of money). However POF is now one of the many sites that do not use IM and emails as a gimmick so you could do the same with virtual flowers or at least virtual winks (but I think virtual flowers are better recived because you can choose from a variety of beautiful flower pictures and even initialize them sometimes so people print them out). I have to disagree with your second sentence completely though. Women would not get spammed if you allowed it. Do you know why? Because if you allowed, the way in which you allowed it should be created as follows: You could initially, automatically have it in off-mode to start off with (default settings) so that people who think it is gimmick (or who think they will get spammed) never, ever have to use it and never have to recieve virtual winks or virtual flowers unless they specifically know how to go through ‘the hassle’ to turn it on. And even after they turn it on, theycould place ‘restrictions on who can send them virtual winks’ much like the restrictions on mail in POF (which is a great feature by the way). This is very much like the IM message service. I recommended a friend of mine to sign up for POF and she started getting so many IM messages from so many guys that it was like pop-up spam. But then I told her to simply turn off her IM feature and she no longer recieves IM messages. So as you can see, it would be very, very easy to apply this same exact feature to virtual winks and free virtual flowers. Thanks for allowing this conversation to continue.” Even though I said thanks for allowing this conversation to continue, later the exact same day, Marcus replied and said “As for posts about virtual flowers, enough This is the thread for REAL flowers.” This is the kind of censorship you will see all over POF. You can’t even talk about virtual flowers without having someone want to censor you. To be honest, I want to end this comment by saying…please… someone make an alternative to POF, which has many of the same wonderful free-of-charge features as POF but that has no heavy-handed censorship of forums. A place where people might be able to discuss something so controversial and taboo as…. free virtual flowers… a place where people can disagree out loud with people without having their threads deleted, censored, moved or locked. If you know of any like that please email me. My email address is onyxwildfire@gmail.com. Thanks everyone.

Thanks for a very detailed and informative review. I can see A lot of work went into it.

I completely agree with you onyxblue. What pains me is the fact that the moderators are a bunch of puppets who run around under the control of a few 40+ women on pof. They deleted one of the most articulate, honest and intelligent person on pof. Anyone remember mrgordongecko? Yes, they complained against him and had him removed? Did the admin investigate anything? No, not at all. He just listened to these bunch of whiny women and deleted his profile. I’m so sad about this that I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Oh and it’s a lie that only 15 people get banned. That’s utter, complete lie. I know of atleast 30 to 40 people who get banned everyday for 3 years. Also, the 3 warning issue is wrong. They never warned me the first time they banned. The brawnydog guy banned me. Do you know why he banned me? Because I said, “quit being whiny and move on” to one of his friend’s forum thread. This woman has a testimonial on his page and vice versa. Obviously they were friends, he became unfair, took his side and banned for 3 years. No warning, no nothing. Just complete 3 year ban. To be honest, I think that man is the black spot on pof. I know many people on there who hate him and don’t approve of his rules. He is a power hungry joker. The admin needs to seriously take a close look at his attitude and behaviour.

angry women…divorced for a reason…sounds like vancouver.

David wrote:

“Personally I believe that the forum should be treated separately than the main dating site. If a member causes trouble in the forum, that is a reason for limiting their access to the forum. It is not a reason for limiting their access to the main site, in my opinion. If private mails are going out to other members that are of an unsuitable nature, that’s another story, of course, but removing a profile from an individual because of their forum posts seems wrong to me.

There seem to be quite a few people that are aggrieved by the policy of the site, if the comments written here are true. ”

When a member cannot follow forum rules, they are restricted from posting in the forum and their profile is not deleted unless the site picks up on multiple accounts, recreated accounts to circumvent a suspension from the forums, or complaints are sent via email to the administrator about spam emails coming from the suspended member’s profile.

People are not deleted solely for being unable to behave themselves. Most, if not all of the griping here is coming from adults who cannot behave themselves on a forum and who simultaneously have a problem with the concept of they being guests in Markus’ house, using a free site, given rules to read (but neglect to follow) and flame other members. I’ve seen this happen over and over and over. Sorry, but POF has seen its share of troublemakers and these same troublemakers troll the net defaming the moderators and Markus because they rightfully were turfed for their bad attitude.

Raksha said:

“Markus should really take a close look at the behaviour of the moderators. Has anyone but me noticed how those mod’s girlfriends break rules and still never even get a warning? That site is so full of corruption. It’s not going to last long. I personally like okcupid more because it caters to the younger folks and does not have stupid, corrupted people as moderators. The forums on POF would be great fun if the moderators were fair. I think only 3 moderators out of them all are. That too not always. But, atleast these 3 reply to the emails you send if you are having problems. The others don’t even care….esp Brawnydog….he just deletes emails without reading and so does that Trappedon bayst and Tickettoride. I think Pandy and Late are fair moderators. They did ban me but it was for valid reasons. But the others are very unfair! They should be removed from the mod’s chairs. ”

If you garnered the attention of 2 or more moderators for your behavior on a site that has in excess of 10,000 posts daily, then it is you, Raksha, who was the problem.

Onyx wrote:

“I also must agree with what several users said about divorced women with children who disagree with you, and then follow you around on other forum threads instigating. Yes, that is very true. If you look at the thread titled “Plentyoffish, Now with Flowers” you will actually see one repeatedly cursing at me (simply because she disagreed with me), and she later followed me around to other threads insulting me, despite the fact that I stated I would no longer reply to her. ”

As it is stated over and over in the forums, email a moderator or list the violation in the help forum “Report a Violation” thread and these people will be taken care of. There is a moderator that nobody ever speaks of that I go to for help and she has always been fair - but she’s quiet and does a lot of stuff behind the scenes. It’s Babylonia, and I’ve never heard one bad thing about her and I’ve gone to her and she’s been impartial - even giving me crap for responding to a flamebait. If you have issues with the forum and you feel legitimately flamed, go to the report thread or contact Babylonia or Pandy and they will help you. Trust me I have been flamed so many times and sometimes I have flamed back in anger (before I had the wherewithall to sit on my fingers). I’ve received warnings and one 1 day ban last year for getting into it with a single mum over the same stuff you talked about, but I think I’ve stayed out of trouble because I conduct myself on the forums much the same way I would conduct myself in real life. So many people forget to do that. There is something that happens to people once they get behind their screen that turns them into monsters and so much of what I see on the web about the “mods” is plain B.S. and sour grapes. Sorry, but as a long time member of the forums, I’ve seen a lot to know that this back talk about the mods and admin is NOT as one sided as these naysayers would want everyone to believe.

Raksha,

You are a liar. You do not know 30-40 people who get banned daily for 3+ years, and Brawnydog did not ban you because you held a dissenting opinion from a friend of his. It does not work that way and you know it. It did not happen that way either and you know that, too.

It’s just amazing how the stories become exaggerated in order to build a case for oneself.

Regarding Markus’ comments on why profiles are deleted, and why users are banned. Check out my blogs on MySpace. It tells you why I was banned from the forums for 14 years, and when I questioned that, my profile was banned. Presumably for the same reason.

On top of that, my roommate and friend since Junior High is also banned from the forums, and she’s never posted a thing. Why? Apparently one of Markus’ wonderful mods feels that she isn’t a person in her own right, but since our profiles are similar, we must be the same person. Who cares about the truth?

Arbitrary, over-zealous, unprofessional. Three words to describe the PoF moderators. It’s all in my blogs. In case my site doesn’t show up on the reply, it’s http://www.myspace.com/tia67
Go give the PoF related blogs a read.

The site is a joke, the admin and moderators are so unprofessional as to go to other message boards and take comments made there and use them as reasons to ban users on PoF. Hell, being on the message boards that I created is enough reason to delete some proiles, apparently. One person on another message board had her profile deleted. She had never broken a rule on PoF, and had never said anything about the site on the other board, but the day after brawnydog was banned from that message board, her profile disappeared.

In reference to another person commenting that they don’t read personal email messages on that site, they must. There was no other way that “brawnydog” could hae known about the other message board, it wasn’t posted anywhere, and word was passed among friends through private emails on that website. There’s no other possibility.

Competition, also completely free, is in the beta stage now, and will grow quickly, I’m sure. We’ll see how PoF fares once users know that there’s another place to go for the same purposes, and more, where they are treated like adults.

M.Barton: So says, miss Brawnydog’s puppet. I think I have a fair idea who you are. But, I’m 100% sure you are one of those 40+ forum gropie on there. Or you are Brawnydog himself. The only thing I agree with you is the fact that Pandy and Babylonia are fair. Everything you said besides that is full of crappola. You don’t know a thing. I’m sure you sugarcoat your responses so much and kiss the moderator’s asses so much that you never ever get banned. Look in the mirror before talking about justice and injustice. That site is unfair and it will remain so until the bullheaded admin comes back to the earth.

Thanks for the insightful response ,Tia. I’m glad I’m not the only one who thinks the brawnydog man is a jerk. He is very unfair and has let the power go to his head. I doubt anyone likes him. And those that do are his puppets ofcourse.

I want to thank everyone who spoke up about the injust manner in which POF treats people. By speaking up you enable more people to avoid the poor treatment which we recieved, you encourage more computer programmers to make an alternative to plentyoffish faster and you encourage more victims of POF to speak up so that the truth can get louder and louder which is how justice also become inevitable.

Thank you Raksha and thank you Tia and everyone else. M. Barton replied to my former post by saying: “As it is stated over and over in the forums, email a moderator or list the violation in the help forum “Report a Violation” thread and these people will be taken care of.”

Thats not possible because as we have tried to tell you and everyone else, if a moderator gets one complaint (especially from bitter divorced women who roam the POF forums) they (ticketoride) will ban you from the forums for 3 years without warning, and without ever answering your emails to them. What is really ironic is that when you click on “Help” on the POF sites this is what it states word-for-word: “No questions requarding site functionality, reasons for deletions etc will be answered. Read the FAQ or ask your question in the forums.”

If you get banned from the forum, how are you to ask your question in the forum? Answer: you don’t, they don’t care about you,. they only care about making money from ads and from their new credit-card flower feature.

M. Barton states “… If you have issues with the forum and you feel legitimately flamed, go to the report thread or contact Babylonia or Pandy and they will help you. Trust me I have been flamed so many times and sometimes I have flamed back in anger (before I had the wherewithall to sit on my fingers). I’ve received warnings and one 1 day ban last year for getting into it with a single mum over the same stuff you talked about, but I think I’ve stayed out of trouble because I conduct myself on the forums much the same way I would conduct myself in real life. So many people forget to do that. There is something that happens to people once they get behind their screen that turns them into monsters and so much of what I see on the web about the “mods” is plain B.S. and sour grapes. Sorry, but as a long time member of the forums, I’ve seen a lot to know that this back talk about the mods and admin is NOT as one sided as these naysayers would want everyone to believe.” What i said is not one-sided. I quoted Markus’s response to me word-for-word, remember? That makes it two-sided. So please tell the truth. You are also forgetting that there is a very easy way to prove what I am saying: Step #1. Go to the POF website. Step #2. Click on “Search” at the top of the screen. Step #3. Move the search scroll bar from “thread title” to “user name.” Step #4. Type in “onyxblue.” Step #5. You will see not one, not two, but over 40 different forums in which I posted comments about different subjects and you will see that I was always polite, never cursed, never called anyone names, never even used capital letters and I was still banned. I have heard many people mention the heavy-handed nature of moderator ‘tickettoride’ and they are absolutely correct. My profile is up but he is the one who banned me from the forum for 3 years. Some how you, M. Barton, who have spoken to people even here on flirt-coach in an extremely rude manner (using everything from abbreviated profanity to outright calling people a ‘liar’), received a 1-day ban (from a humane moderator), but ‘tickettoride’ gave us 3-year bans, and he didn’t even bother to give me a first warning (which is common from what I hear).

M.Barton calls people a liar who speak up about POF injustice yet M. Barton says “Trust me…I’ve received warnings and one 1 day ban last year for getting into it with a single mum over the same stuff you talked about.” You want people to believe that a divorced mom attacked you like she did me, when you spoke about the “same stuff” I did, which was creating an alternative to the new pay-per-use flowers on POF. Now, how could that be the truth, when you were attacked “last year” (as you said) but POF just created the pay-per-use, credit-card-needed flowers feature in October 2006? And yet everyone should believe everything else that you’re saying?

M.Barton would like people to believe that the massive number of people who are injustly kicked from the Plentyoffish site are isolated incidents but actually it gets worse everyday. Amazon.com has a product review site of plentyoffish and you will see most of the reviews about POF are extremely bad and extremely detailed. Its important to realize that only people who have made a purchase with their Amazon username can post reviews. See those reviews here: http://www.amazon.com/Plenty-Fish-Free-online-dating/dp/B0000A00RG

So when Markus, M. Barton and others tell people that only a few people are complaining, and when M. Barton states that only a few people are complaining, it is not the truth. I agree with Tia that Competition websites are being tested and I hope they prosper quickly. There is even a brand new not-for-profit opensource social networking system (an alternative to myspace) called ‘Mugshot’ which I hope more computer programmers will customize so that sites like plentyoffish cannot continue to treat people like sub-humans just because Markus is not using even a fraction of his $10,000 a day in google ad profit to employe some humane moderators to make sure people are treated in a fairly human manner. Again, I would like to thank flirt-coach for giving us the chance to speak out and I would like to encourage computer programmer to make an alternative to plentyoffish. I would rather be networking with other people instead of having to let people know which social dating site to avoid at all costs, even if it is mostly free (except for the creditcard flowers feature). Thank you.

Our alternative is up and running in beta form. When it’s completed, and ready to go live for the public, I’ll post it here if that’s permitted. If not, it will be on my MySpace website in one of my blogs, at that time.

Plenty of Fish.. They’re not the only game in town anymore who are 100% free. Let’s see how long they last when other sites have administrators and moderators who are human, and have compassion and common sense, and who’s policy is to treat others fairly.

Thanks for your input, Tia. Though, I went to your myspace page and tried to read the blogs, and it said I have to be a member of myspace to read it. As much as I want to read what you have to say, I would never sign-up with myspace and there are a lot of other activists and people who feel the same, so I would like to recommend that you get another blog (like livejounal) that doesn’t require people to subscribe to it, in order to read your blog (not only would it help people read what you have to say, but it would also show up in search engines easier to get the word out).

No offense to you, but I think its worth noting on this PoF review, that I find myspace at least 100 times worse than Plentyoffish. At least plentyoffish allows non-subscribers to read (but not reply) in their forums, and they aren’t owned by Fox news, the world’s most extremist-right wing, war-promoting news media multi-national corporation (see the documentary ‘outfoxed’ to hear it from Fox news employees themselves), and they don’t have big flashing ads recruiting people for the military service in Iraq like myspace. As stated above, I still think Plentyoffish is the best dating site I’ve ever seen (especially because it was once 100% free-of-charge until Markus began his creditcard, pay-per-priviledge, more-money-to-Markus flowers feature in Oct 2006) but I think basically Markus has done some beautiful and incredible work by creating that site and it is truly and inspiration to others. Though, I think he needs to start using all the money he is making to actually pay some moderators (the word ‘volunteer’ on a website making that much money is a polite way to say ’sweatshop worker’..which is why AOL ‘forum volunteers’ sued AOL in a class-action lawsuit for a union see http://www.internetnews.com/xSP/article.php/127431 ) so that PoF volunteers can take the time to treat people humanely instead of just having volunteer moderator like tickettoride who don’t care who they are deleting.

Its also worth noting that the “the US Department of Labor [investigated] America Online Inc for its use of unpaid labor” so I wonder when they’re going to investigate Markus and the Pof admin? See article here: http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0CGN/is_3671/ai_54750523

Also Tia, since your site is in the Beta mode, I sure hope it has all the wonderful features like Plentyoffish, you know like instant messaging, turning words of interest into links which link people (livejournal.com also has that and it is built on an opensource system so maybe you could get it from there), mail restrictions so only people you want can contact you, fans, favorites, and letting people read profiles and forums without being logged in or a subscriber.

Most sites don’t do that which is amajor reason why I can’t stand most sites. Also free dating sites don’t have a ’search’ word feature for their forums which they definiteley should have. I notice PoF has not deleted my profile yet, so I think PoF definitely has potential, but mostly their forums management needs improvement. Thanks to flirt-coach for making these conversations possible (because PoF deleted all crictisms of their site, which is all rather counter-productive..as it only makes their critics go elsewhere to discuss these issues.) Ever notice how all the truly altruistic, opensource communities (like Mambo, Drupal, Red Hat Mugshot, Livejournal., etc.,) are able to openly discuss their flaws and then improve them, but sites like PoF (where Markus and maybe one or two others are making all the money) censor and delete all critics thus causing people to have submit reviews elsewhere? Its worth noting. Thanks everyone for listening.

love for all,
-onyx blue

We don’t have instant messaging, exactly. We have a chat feature, where you can create a private room as well, so there will be rooms with multiple users in them, and people can also go to private rooms to talk, instead of having to add people to their MSN to get to know them. The IM on PoF was horrible. I had it turned off, couldn’t stand it.

We have a “buddy list” for adding your friends, a “hot list” for adding your interests, a “banned list” for blocking contact from specific users. There are some “Forums” that are only for registered users, as well as there being some “more general” forums that you don’t have to register to use. We will be looking into the “interest” link, or at least a “keyword” search for profiles.

As far as MySpace goes, I’m completely non-political, so I’m not overly concerned who owns it. Don’t care if they’re left leaning or right leaning. My friends have spaces on there, and the site suits my needs, so I’m good wth it. As far as the blog goes, I’ll look into creating one somewhere else so that more people can read the things I’ve posted about PoF.

PoF would have potential if it were run by people who were willing to discuss issues with their “clients” instead of simply deleting those who ask questions. As it stands now, it’s fine if all you want to do is post a profile and shop the catalogue. Just don’t try to get to know anyone on the forums. It won’t happen, because you’ll be banned for “chatting”.

I’ll post the URL here for the new blog when I create it.

Raksha says:

“M.Barton: So says, miss Brawnydog’s puppet. I think I have a fair idea who you are. But, I’m 100% sure you are one of those 40+ forum gropie on there. Or you are Brawnydog himself. The only thing I agree with you is the fact that Pandy and Babylonia are fair. Everything you said besides that is full of crappola. You don’t know a thing. I’m sure you sugarcoat your responses so much and kiss the moderator’s asses so much that you never ever get banned. Look in the mirror before talking about justice and injustice. That site is unfair and it will remain so until the bullheaded admin comes back to the earth. ”

Yeah, and you are trying to convince the rest of the ‘net world that it was YOU who was unfairly treated? LOL. You are a liar. You know it and I know it. You have no idea WHO I am, however entertaining your accusations are.

It’s just too funny that only those who have a record of causing problems on the site get up in arms when they are banned from participating.

Thanks for showing your true colours, Raksha. The forums are much better without you.

Good luck, Tia. You’ll need it!

Onyx,

Your story IS one sided, and it isn’t the truth. Raksha is an outright liar claiming that s/he knows of multiple people being banned daily. Utter B.S. You people think you can twist your experiences and defame people without consequence when you forget there are those of us who witness the bad behavior going on within the forums. We see people get booted for good reason, not ‘any’ reason.

This whole review is nothing but a bunch of sour grapes and the attitudes that got some of you booted from POF clearly show in here as well.

Good riddance!

“M.Barton calls people a liar who speak up about POF injustice yet M. Barton says “Trust me…I’ve received warnings and one 1 day ban last year for getting into it with a single mum over the same stuff you talked about.” You want people to believe that a divorced mom attacked you like she did me, when you spoke about the “same stuff” I did, which was creating an alternative to the new pay-per-use flowers on POF. Now, how could that be the truth, when you were attacked “last year” (as you said) but POF just created the pay-per-use, credit-card-needed flowers feature in October 2006? And yet everyone should believe everything else that you’re saying? ”

Wow, nice attempt at twisting words there, Onyx! The “same stuff” referred to arguments with a single mum on “single parent status”, not about your silly issue with the virtual flowers. As for you believing me, and you can trust me on this, I couldn’t care less. I know you (and Raksha especially with his/her claim on the 30/40 people daily being banned) are full of it.

Is that your issue? Virtual Flowers? And the rest of “us” on the WWW are supposed to believe you were the one unfairly treated at POF, meanwhile the vast majority of people have had zero problems?

Could it be that you didn’t behave yourself and are a bit miffed at being shown the door?

There are simple rules to follow. Every single action taken against you and your account are documented and stored. Every.single.action. This includes moderator correspondence and moderator actions. They must detail the action, why, and provide backup (i.e., copied posts, emails, complaints from other members with their proof, etc). They’d bury you in their records.

Tia,

Aren’t you the same ~Tia~ who doesn’t get mad, but “Get’s Even”? Aren’t you the same member of a certain board who, along with other members, discussed placing “rogue thread titles” , even “dozens or more” once a certain member (who shall remain nameless but his initials were ~boB~) was “reinstated” from a forum ban? Wasn’t this the same group who snickered over a NO HOLDS BARRED onslaught to spam the forums, spam inboxes, and wreak havoc because you were disgruntled, and with no regard to your fellow members? I was even spammed to join your so-called site, and this is how I know you aren’t being entirely forthcoming here.

Shall I copy and paste your own posts and the posts I quoted above to prove what I’m stating? Quotes such as “14 people so far in the other place. Everyone is welcome there. There are a few who have the information, get in touch with one of them and pass the information to your friends as well.” - ~Tia~

Hmmm….spam much?

Your “get even”, and your co-hort’s “NO HOLDS BARRED” barrage got you deleted - just as any website would do (and likely ban your collective IPs as well). It had nothing to do with you having a message board and everything to do with you and others taking your threats and violating the site’s TOS.

Yet you wonder why POF has the rules it does? Do you honestly think POF hasn’t seen this before? It’s because of people who do this that these rules were implemented. How can you possibly cry injustice when you and others who were simultaneously banned from POF for disrupting the forums, all in an attempt to antagonize the moderators and the admin to the point of completely removing you from the site, are on record for participating in? You were not unfairly treated. You were treated and dealt with exactly how the TOS outlined and exactly how others before you were dealt with for violating the site’s rules.

From someone who knows and can prove you’re only telling a grain of truth sandwiched in between embellishments, I cannot believe your audacity. If you are going to provide reviews, please do so with integrity. You openly spammed the forums yourself, ~Tia~, first by spamming inboxes, then openly spamming the forums. Both are violations to the TOS that you agreed to when you joined this free site. Spamming is not allowed, period, so what makes you and the other Nova Scotia Justin Case’s, Polly G’s and ~Tia’s~ exempt?

There were those of us who were sick and tired of the Nova Scotia forums being overrun and WE went to the moderators to fix it. There is more to this story that you very conveniently, and to your benefit only, have left out.

Shut up, Bucs girl or whichever puppet you are. You just called me a liar but do you know that you are lying through your teeth in all of your posts?! Every single action is stored and recorded, you say?! Give me the damned proof of that. Actually give all the people proof of that. We may not be able to complain on that nasty site, but it’s democracy on the rest of the internet world and you’re damn right we’ll speak against it. Every document stored , my foot! The admin reads/ deletes emails concerning forums and accounts. The mods do not reply with the exception of few and when you voice your concern, you get banned. I am so laughing at your “every info is stored” bit. Because that is the most outrageous lie if there was ever one. Pick a banned username from the past and see if you can dig up the info and the history. You can’t because it simply does not exist anymore. Even the regulars on those forums have opened up their new internet where they get to post like adults without getting banned. Most people are sick of it and slowly leaving. This new site formed by regulars already has over 300 members in 2 months. Goodluck to you plentyoffish, on keeping your site going on. I doubt it’ll stay. It’s going to collapse soon. You can’t be a dictator and rule for much longer in today’s world.

Raksha was a toxic fish who was culled from the gene pool.

Thanks, POF!

“Shut up, Bucs girl or whichever puppet you are. You just called me a liar but do you know that you are lying through your teeth in all of your posts?!”

Very mature reponse on a review board. I must say your pithy rebuttal removes all doubt in the face of another’s mention of fact. If a dating site is being proactive in removing people with your attitude from its site, then perhaps that is the dating site serious people ought to patron.

Sounds to me like they are doing online singles a service. Sign me up.

How else do you expect a 19 year old to respond you dumbass? Immaturity is my right, atleast I’m admitting to it. It’s not your right. You’re probably a 40 something old person just like the ones that smelly site is full of . Honestly, if you are under 30 and have a mind of your own, don’t even think of joining that site, and even if you do, never venture into the forums. The older catty women will eat you up since they don’t like anyone young and beautiful taking their places. That place is a soap opera. Don’t believe me? Join it and see for yourself! That place is rampant with older, whiny, single mothers. And if not them, then all you can find there is overweight people who can’t type a damn worth of a sentence. But, they stay there, why? Because they kiss the mod’s asses. Especially after the way I’ve been harassed and banned from that site, you should be thankful I’m not opening up all the damned closets. Sign up on that site all you like, but chances are you’re already there and you’re one of the mods obviously. So who cares about your review.

I actually agree with Tia, Onyx and Raksha. The moderators are a bunch of power hungry people. I’m sorry what happened to you Onyx and Raksha. That happens to most people who raise their voice. I too had problems with the moderator known as Brawnydog, BTW. I think he is known for harassing younger women, especially those under 25.

JustWOW: You contradicted yourself in your consecutive posts. You said “Raksha is a toxic fish” in the former post and in the latter, you said. ” POF is doing a great job. Sign me up”……….Wow is anyone ever lying? LoL. You’re one of the moderators, are you not? How would you know Raksha or anyone if you have not even signed up on that site? Could you please quit lying. We’re having a serious review here.

Intersesting topic

Theres lots of Free Online Dating sites on the internet such as match

It is interesting that a request was made to ask one person to quit lying, meanwhile I’ve detailed a post directly contradicting another reviewer’s account of what happened to her, complete with quotes she herself typed out, and it is completely ignored.

Any attempt at a serious review has already been quashed. In my opinion, a viewer of this review will see the type of forum chaos other members created on the local forums. The moderators listened and I feel that Plenty of Fish has been successful in addressing other members’ concerns. Many of us were dissuaded from participating in some of the forums for precicely this type of activity displayed by certain members, interspersed throughout the various global and local forums. It was, in all honesty, becoming an unfriendly place for those of us who would venture in to threads to only find ourselves reading pages upon pages of posts riddled with snide innuendos, veiled attacks, and iddle chat that should have been taken to email at others . It felt like entering a virtual highschool clique.

If a serious review was really the focus of those posting here, the flame baits would have been ignored. Instead, we have a myopic view of those who would much rather spew insults for dissenting opinions. You’ve also contradicted yourself in that vein, Sillyrose. Furthermore, I don’t see anything but an attack in the post by JustWow, so I’m not sure what it would be that he/she is lying about. Why even bother? Seeing that Raksha has also donned his/her share of attacks on here (loved the Nazi comment, however hyperbolic), is it any wonder that it would get to this stage?

Anyhow Sillyrose, I do not agree with you, and I don’t agree with you because I was witness to the event I spoke of in my earlier posts. I’ve nothing against you, Raksha, JustWow or anyone else who has spoken their opinion. I am expressing my own, and with clear recollection of what I saw transpire.

If anyone needs to stop lying, it is the poster who claimed she was banned for having an alternate site and not because she and others partook in the systematic spamming of the forums and the NS crowd.

Finally, I hardly believe any moderator of that site would bother to venture into this ‘discussion’. I don’t see where they would have the need to defend their protocol when it is sanctioned by the owner of the site. Their concerns are the site itself and I imagine with all of the action there that they are responsible for moderating, they probably are too busy to address the comments of those they have already removed from the site.

I have enjoyed my membership at Plenty of Fish and I am grateful that the service was free and that it put me in touch with some of the most interesting people I have met (outside of work). So I’ll go on record to say that while it has its share of hiccups and a lot of drama does seem to go down, I find much of the claims unfounded considering my experience, and have the site to thank for some of the neatest people I can now call friends.

Non-sense, pure Non-sense.

The lies do not get any thicker than this, as with just about everything that is posted here.

I have seen the inception of this Forum, when it was till run like a Chatsite, and People were complaining about being freely ganged up on by organized Trolls, and requested we institute Rules.

Furthermore, only the ‘Admin’ or Site Filters delete account, and what most complainers will not mention here in their Efforts to slam the Site, is that they flagrantly broke the Rules of the Site in each and every Instance.

You found out? How?
More Lies … endless Fabrications.
Moderators do not have ‘Delete Profile’ Functions.

You would have to be able to see through my Eyes to know what complete Garbage is posted here.

I only want one profile on POF but after deleteing my profile thinking I had met Prince Charming I can not add another. The program deletes each new one that i add. Its very discouraging as ‘he (prince charming) is still on there. I guess he knoew how to hide his profile. He apparently makes the women deletes theirs and its his revenge.

I tried to send at least 10 emaisl to customercare at POF and no one does ‘care’.

I am a decent woman - mid age with a disabled child at home (thus no time to go out and look for a realationship). I was so happy on POF but now cant get back on. Why do you punish those who ‘delete’. Was that not the ‘honest, respectful’ thing to do if you were going to date exclusively?

Kat,

Try recreating a profile and immediately going to the help forum and posting there on this issue. Also, contact the forum moderator profile via email to inform the moderators of this problem and give them the url to your post to let them know you also posted in the help forum.

The only reason one would be consistently deleted is if the system filter caught multiple profiles or if you were spamming through emails or on the forum itself.

I am the POF moderator, Pandy, who has been referenced in posts above.

I’m not going to do a line-by-line rebuttal of all the charges leveled against POF on this thread, but I will say that they are serious misconceptions in some cases, outright lies in others.

We ARE volunteers, we do keep records of every suspension, and each suspension has a direct correlation to TOS or the forum rules.
The Forum_Moderator account on POF is a collective inbox for all moderators and it is open to all users at all times, and no email there ever goes unanswered. Moderators and Admin answer every question and concern to the best of our ability. Of course, this information is cleverly hidden within the site rules, so I’m sure that many who are in ignorance of this fact.

I find that some things that are true in life are also true in forums.
People don’t always have the emotional maturity to accept the consequences for poor behavior as their due, and must look around for a scapegoat… and/or take some action to vent that anger. This is to be expected, and I hope prospective POF members take this into consideration before being put off by these negative testimonials.

Most of the users who are bitter about having been suspended have no IDEA why they were really suspended because they were too angry to listen when we notified them of their voilation, and they never bothered to read the rules for themselves (presupposing that if they were “nice” they were fulfilling all requirements). In this kind of scenario, some people find it easier to think “moderator is picking on me” than “My behavior is unacceptable, and I need to modify it”.

As a user here has previously stated, there are a handful of moderators and millions of users on POF… in order to continuously catch the attention of moderators, there is a serious problem with that user’s postings.

I am happy to answer any questions or concerns that any user or potential user might have, just look me up on the site, and shoot me an email

To Whistleblower:

Yes, I’m the same Tia. You know very well that others on my message boards were the ones who were saying they were going to spam the forums. You know very well that I posted to those comments on my boards telling them that wasn’t the way to do it, that creating competition was a better form of revenge. That spamming PoF’s forums wasn’t going to do anything except cause trouble and lower them to PoF’s moderators’ level. Whistleblower, otherwise known as “Brawnydog”, you know that not once did I condone that type of behaviour from my members, and said so on my boards more than once.

Also, how is it possibly spam for me to post ONCE saying that people could contact others if they want information about a website. As far as spamming inboxes, how the hell did I spam inboxes when the only people I contacted and told about my message boards were friends of mine? Sorry, you’re offbase there.

If I were deleted for spamming inboxes, then PoF owes me an apology. In actual fact, I sent the website address to a maximum of 10 people through PoF, if that, since most of my friends were told via MSN.

I still feel that it is a TOTALLY unprofessional way for ANY forum moderator, volunteer or otherwise, to take information from one message board and use it to “punish” people on another website completely, which Whistleblower freely admits to doing. Sad state of affairs that, and proves the “power-tripping” attitude that he, specifically, has.

Your comments, by the way, were not ignored, I simply have better things to do than check this website on a daily basis in order to rebut your childish fallacies.

It was extremely interesting to me how my profile wasn’t deleted until I questioned whether Markus knew that “brawnydog” had actually been taking information from one website to use as punishment on another. Suddenly, within two hours of my asking him that, my profile was deleted. Not when I allegedly “spammed” the forums with my one post that was quoted above, and not when I allegedly spammed inboxes with my message board URL (sent only to a maximum of 10 real life friends I met on that site), but when I questioned whether or not the “boss” knew what kind of unprofessional, childish, petty behaviour “brawnydog” was displaying on his behalf.

As far as Pandy’s comment above about people being bitter because they have no idea why they were deleted, it doesn’t always have anything to do with not listening. It also has a lot to do with never being told anything. Like one specific friend of mine who had never said anything in forums on either site to get her deleted, and never received a single warning for any purpose, but woke up one morning to find her profile gone. Yes, she was very bitter, and had no idea why she was deleted, but not because she wouldn’t listen. It was because the PoF moderators/admin never bothered to say a damn thing to her.

I haven’t anything personal against the mods/admin with the exception of brawnydog. I take his lack of professionalism and underhanded form of punishment personally on behalf of any of my friends on my message boards who were deleted or banned because of information taken from one place and used on PoF for that purpose.

Whistleblower, you aren’t a whistleblower when you twist situations to suit your purpose. Too bad you don’t have the balls that Ticket and Pandy have. Post under your mod name, brawnydog, take responsibility for your posts under the name everyone knows you as. *laughs*

I agree wholeheartedly with Tia. Wow….whistleblower is actually Brawnydog? Who would have thunk? I too have to publicly say this: I have no problems with anyone on POF other than the moderator known as Brawnydog. He is unprofessional, he is underhanded and very power hungry. He also takes out his personal grudge on people who don’t agree with him.

Oh and yes I agree. Tickettoride and Pandy posted under their POF username. Why don’t you have the balls to do so too, Brawnydog? Why are you hiding under a different name to post all these nonsense. Atleast learn something from them, be a man and post under your original name, Brawnydog. What are you so afraid of? Tell the entire world, how underhanded, unprofessional and stupid of a moderator you really are, why don’t you? But, I doubt you’d say that, eh? No matter what, you are going to deny everything you have done to all these people complaining here. We maybe unable to complain there for fear of getting banned. But, no one is stopping anyone from doing so here.

Regarding this little bit that Pandy said:

“As a user here has previously stated, there are a handful of moderators and millions of users on POF… in order to continuously catch the attention of moderators, there is a serious problem with that user’s postings.”

I was on that site, posting in forums, talking to friends through email, for well over a year. I was NEVER banned, and had NEVER “caught the attention” of any moderator until I created my own message boards to be able to continue to post and communicate with those of my friends who were banned. One for saying nothing more than “Where the hell did all the threads go?”

My first, and only, forum ban came AFTER brawnydog chose to be on my message boards and use things said there to punish people on PoF. The accusations above are amusing to me. I never spammed any inboxes with any URL, nor did I ever threaten to spam the forums at PoF with anything. My one post regarding the fact that I had another place to post was deliberately vague so as not to be spam, or “self-promotion”.

My comments about getting even were taken out of context, and used to the alleged advantage of the person known as brawnydog to make himself look like he’s not the power-tripping moderator he’s being accused of being.

I still find it hard to believe that someone who wishes to be known as a guy running a website in a professional manner would condone such behaviour as using things that people say on a completely different message board to create reasons to punish them on PoF.

It simply shouldn’t matter what anyone says or does anywhere else, if they behave in a responsible manner on PoF and follow the rules there, which I did. There’s nothing in the rules that says you can’t tell your friends about another website you go to, as long as it’s in private emails and not on the forums. It’s not like a message board is competition! *laughs* No matter how you look at it, the reason for my receiving a 14 year suspension from the forums was weak at best. Underhanded and ridiculous is much closer to the mark.

Let me clear up a few misconceptions:

*moderators do not have access to deleting profiles. Only admin has access to that function, but there IS an auto filter in place that deletes profiles based on a variety of different keywords one of which was the website of the aforementioned “spinoff” site as it became obvious (through many deleted postings) that this site was harvesting POF members for the gain of their website. I’d hazard a guess that this explains the “vanishing” profiles of your board mates.

*The user “whistleblower” is not Brawnydog. I appreciate the user’s words in defense of this site, but his/her syntax and word usage is not that of the POF moderator known as Brawnydog. Another good example of the detractors here shouting out erroneous conclusions without facts to back up their claims.

*Users who were suspended/deleted from POF were done so legitimately… even HAD POF users been penalized for trashing POF on another site, we’d have been well within our rights as per our terms of service , which states:

[quote]The Service contains information which is proprietary to us, our partners, and our users. We assert full copyright protection in the Service. Information posted by us, our partners or users of the Service may be protected whether or not it is identified as proprietary to us or to them. You agree not to modify, copy or distribute any such information in any manner whatsoever without having first received the express written permission of the owner of such information.[/quote]

and

[quote]CODE OF CONDUCT

You agree to use the Service in accordance with the following Code of Conduct:

a. you will keep all information provided to you through the Service as private and confidential and will not give such information to anyone without the permission of the person who provided it to you;

b. you will not use the Service to engage in any form of harassment or offensive behavior, including but not limited to the posting of communications, pictures or recordings which contain libelous, slanderous, abusive or defamatory statements, or racist, pornographic, obscene, or offensive language;

c. you will not forward chain letters through the Service;

d. you will not use the Service to infringe the privacy rights, property rights, or any other rights of any person;

e. you will not post messages, pictures or recordings or use the Service in any way which

i. violates, plagiarizes or infringes upon the rights of any third party, including but not limited to any copyright or trade-mark law, privacy or other personal or proprietary rights, or

ii. is fraudulent or otherwise unlawful or violates any law; and

f. you will not use the Service to distribute, promote or otherwise publish any material containing any solicitation for funds, advertising or solicitation for goods or services.

g. you will not use the Service to distribute or up load any virus, trojan horses or do anything else that might cause harm to the Service, Plentyoffish systems or to other members’ systems in any way.

h. you will not post or transmit in any manner any contact information including, but not limited to, email addresses, “instant messenger” nicknames, telephone numbers, postal addresses, URLs, or full names through your publicly posted information
[/quote]

The users who spoke of POF moderators, practices, and moderation style violated our TOS, leaving themselves open to a valid termination of service.
This is irrespective of the fact that POF reserves the right in it’s TOS to terminate service at any time without notice if it is in the best interests of the site. I believe this is standard practice on most websites.

Many users of the spinoff site who eventually lost their privledges were noted to defame POF moderators by name (including myself), this I saw with my own eyes.

How could any of us possibly have known of your site, Tia???
Errrrr….. perhaps it was the dozens of posts advertising “come to banned camp” …or perhaps a web search on the terms “POF” “PANDY” might have done it (as that’s the way I randomly found your little site, in addition to finding the erroneous information posted here). Yet another example of your reaching erroneous conclusions and stating them as fact.

I’d suggest to those who employ words in this thread such as “unprofessional” and “unfair” take a look at their own unethical practices of mining users from another site with