Chowhound

It has been about a year since I and most of the other people who posted regularly on Chowhound's Chicago Board departed to LTHForum.com. Us foodies now have various opinions of our old hang-out. A lot of people could care less about what happens there. To a large part, I agree with that sentiment. It was clear to me and a lot of other posters on Chowhound, that the 1,000's of posts we made that added value to the enterprise were hardly appreciated. The view essentially was, someone else will just take your place. Have they?

My bone is with Chowhound. What bugs me is, there are people out there like me that want to grow as foodies, want to be with people who pang as they pang. The want to be with their tribe. Chowhound just does not serve them well. One of the biggest liabilities of Chowhound is that there is no way to create identity. People can be who ever they want, even from day to day. The only defense a system like Chowhound has, is to have long time posters who are willing to be accountable, be who they are.

Honestly, it was this post on Chowhound that drove me to blog on Chowhound (and it is a post already moot). Someone trying to give a tip on Chinese food suggested a long dead restaurant. I read the post and I did not know if the post was serious or a troll. And it just summed up, to me, so many of the issues with Chowhound. Wonder about the motive of the poster, and Chowhound would step in, correct the poster, and you get attacked for not allowing alternative viewpoints. The whole Chowhound system fails to do what it claims to do, be a resource for people who live to eat.

I am glad I know about other sources. I just want others to be as lucky.