Chowhound Vent

I like Chowhound. I use it a lot for restaurant recommendations, to see what other Torontonians are up to, to see what questions people have. It is really interesting and I quite enjoy it. I also enjoy the fact that it is a real resource for the "foodie" community in North America and I sense around the world. The motto on their opening page of the webiste reads:

Welcome to the Chowhound community and its voracious devotion to hyperdeliciousness! Food-lovers worldwide gather here to swap expert tips about restaurants, foods, stores, and bars, as well as cooking, wine, beer, cookware, and more. To get started, browse or search for topics of interest. To post, you'll need to sign up (it's free!) and create a simple profile. Dig in ... and be prepared to get very, very hungry!

Anyway, on to the vent. I posted about this little challenge the following post on Friday:

Subject: 1001 Foods to Taste Before You Die

Ive started a little project that I thought I might need some help with over the last little while from my fellow Chow Hound readers and contributors. I have decided to try and taste all of the things mentioned in the book "1001 Foods to Taste Before You Die" and to Blog about the experience with the help of family and friends. I know that over the next little while I am going to need help in finding some of the ingredients in Toronto. Anyway you can check out the start of the project at the link below and I am sure that I will be hear asking for your help in discovering where I can get the weirder things on the list. i look forward to any thoughts or ideas that you have on my little project.
Happy tasting!
http://1001foods.blogspot.com/

You can track your posts online and see what people think and comment on. I went t0 look yesterday for the post to see if anyone had read it and I couldn't find it. This morning I found this in my inbox from your friends at Chowhoud:

Hi steph, you've been sent the following by a Chowhound moderator:

Sorry, but we've removed your post (below). Chowhound's mission is to be a trove of opinions and information, rather than a nexus of outbound links to opinions and information. We understand that there's a fine line between sincerely asking hounds to give input on info which happens to be elsewhere and plotting to steer our large audience elsewhere for promotion/ self-promotion. The problem is that we have far too many users and far too little time to draw this distinction. We need to stave off the considerable desire to use our loud microphone for promotion. You can see more on our guidelines for bloggers and other journalists, including the appropriate ways to include your blog URL on Chowhound, in our Etiquette: http://www.chowhound.com/topics/367605#2259234 If you have specific questions to pose to Chowhound posters, you're welcome to post them, but please refrain from non specific announcements about your blog. Thanks!

--The Chowhound TeamChowhound.com
For Those Who Live to Eat

I have to say that I was kind of shocked. I'm not sure if I had a right to be, but there you go I was. I felt that I would be asking for help and I think that this will be something that some of their readers will be interested in. So there you go. Banned from Chowhound. Little do they know that this is still going to be my outlet to sourcing many of the things that I need to taste!!!