406 Not Acceptable

I’ve found a website I won’t be visiting again, the forums of EMSI software – the developers of ‘a-squared’ an anti malware/spyware/whateverware tool. This is all thanks to their rather draconian forum rules, which make it nigh on impossible for a user to get any real help. As it is not possible for another user — who has experienced the same issues and knows how to fix the problem — to help the original poster without the permission from a moderator (read: staff member.)

Now I find that rather stupid. What is the point of actually asking for help on the forum? All users get in response is the usual ‘Please give Hijackthis log’, etc. from the moderators. Then when someone who knows the solutions posts, that post will be deleted and the user warned.

I only found the site as I had a nasty peice of software which was redirecting DNS requests. This made it impossible to update any tools (mostly security stuff is blocked e.g. Malwarebytes, Superantispyware, microsoft downloads,) or visit the websites of major security software developers. After some random google fun I came across a post on the EMSI software forums. The poster had the same problem. Sadly the post just contained numerous moderator requests for logs and those logs being posted. No working solutions were posted and the moderators/staff members seem stumped.

What a shame I had fixed the issue myself, and knew how to fix it. So I thought: ‘Hey, I’ll quickly register and tell the guy how to fix his problem.’ After my quick good deed I went back to failing some more at Ikea diy and falling over on my rollerblades.

I get up this morning and check to see if the guy had fixed his issue. My post was deleted and I got the usual moderators Private Message (being a moderator elsewhere I know too well what these are like.) I couldn’t believe they thought I was asking for help (I was posting a SOLUTION,) however, after paying more attention I noticed my post was deleted because I didn’t have the authority to post ANYTHING on the topic. I had to ask for permission to do so…

Now maybe I should have read the forum rules, but when you are a forum moderator elsewhere and had visited multitudinous forums over the years you feel your already know them. (Don’t swear, don’t advertise, don’t post links, etc.) I am shocked at the draconian set of rules enforced by EMSI software. Surely with that ruleset barely any problems will get resolved thus the users migrate to other malware forums and go on to use other tools?

I’ve given the poster my post by private message, so by the time this post gets indexed by google he should have read it and fixed his issue.

I won’t be visiting them again.