I have received quite an upsetting news from CPF moderator few days ago. My main PART 13 thread has been deleted by error during CPF maintenance and is apparently unrecoverable..... It's quite sad actually. All those reviews and information posted by hundreds of members in PART 13 thread (which had more than 20000 hits) is lost for good. I'm glad I keep all my reviews on my own website. (also tells me that I better backup my website often as well)
Anyways, there is another point which was upsetting me.
To reduce re-typing, below is what I wrote in Part 12 thread at CPF:
http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showpost.php?p=3262210&postcount=448
- Some of you may have noticed that PART 13 of this thread disappeared and we are back to PART 12......
- I have been told by the moderator that they had some thread routing issue which deleted the PART 13 thread. (Unrecoverable as well!!)
- So we are now back to PART 12....
- All those helpful posts, great reviews, new flashlight information and news are all gone!!!
- Those who have posted nice reviews in PART13, I hope you had backups..... =(
Basically, we have lost ALL the posts/reviews that was posted in my thread between DEC 14th 2009 to JAN 28th 2010.....
- Also, you may have noticed that this thread is now a sticky of the General Flashlights forum instead of the LED Flashlights.
- I'm actually quite unhappy about this move as what we discuss here is 100% LED flashlights.
- Just coz we call these budget flashlights, it is just being filtered as not being fit to stay in the LED flashlights section..
- Anyways.. As many of you will know, myself and few other members here post all their reviews at my website www.jayki.com
- Feel free to check out the new reviews / ask questions there if it's not already here.
- I will try to maintain this thread and update the main post once the new PART 13 thread is created. (as this part 12 thread is already way too big..)
UPDATE: DM51 @ CPF has moved the thread back to LED Flashlights forum where it belongs.
Jay
Don
- 2010.02.02
- 16:47:07
And now you have to log in to see it at all. Hopefully this is a permissions error rather than by design. I'm kind of surprised it got created as they appeared to be adamantly opposed to such a move recently. Perhaps afraid it might get more traffic than the rest of the site. Requiring login to view one of the busier parts of the site is just silly. If it stays that way, one suspects malignity, not just a mistake.
Don
- 2010.02.02
- 19:37:45
Took me a while to find it
http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/forumdisplay.php?f=130
As a subforum of LED lights - but it won't let me read any of it without logging in. It is not necessary for the the rest of the site, so why here?
Here's what it says.
"This forum, the Budget Lights forum was created for a number of reasons. The main one being the sheer number of budget or "cheap" lights threads/posts being created. This will be a trial run. If it works out it may become permanent with adjustments made along the way. All of the policies both written and unwritten will be enforced in this forum. If this looks as if it will turn into an advertising forum for the "discount houses", it stands to be closed.
This forum will eventually have a different set of permissions than the other CPF forums and will require anyone viewing or posting in it be logged in. This will hopefully reduce the possibility of abuse of this forum and help keep it open.
Please help us keep this forum open for all so CPF remains THE place to go for all we need to know about our hobby! 
Relevant threads will be moved here over time."
NOT impressed. And just what are these "unwritten policies"? Let's give the cheapskates a place we can control perhaps?
jayki
- 2010.02.02
- 21:46:00
I noticed that you are still NOT allowed to post any links to any "retailer" links even if that retailer is the ONLY seller of that light. That really makes it hard to HELP others sometimes considering many of these flashlights do not have any actual websites of their own also. My thread at CPF was a very rare thread where mods actually allowed some linking. Well, for me at least as they have never removed my posts with DX/KD links. I have zero intention to advertise for DX or KD or any other site. It's not like they give me anything in return. I just recommend and post links to the lowest price or the best place to buy whatever flashlight I like. I'll be doing that at least in my websitge here if it's not allowed anywhere else. You guys can all do it as well. I welcome ANY helpful/useful info. =)
Anyways, I still see it as progress for CPF users. It's definitely better than being confined to a single thread like before. =P
For things that you feel cannot be discussed fully at CPF (due to retailers links etc), feel free to use my site the way you please. =)
I have asked for the mods at CPF for a possibility to create a sub-forum within the LED Flashlights forum for the budget lights. I have been advised that they will consider this proposal. This would be a huge improvement over discussing 1000s of flashlights in a single thread @ CPF. =P