I agree. This is Amir's site, and he has every right to run it how he likes.
No, it is not what I like. It is what *you* all like. You like that I have no way of benefiting from a positive review by having a commissioned link to Amazon, etc. You like it when I don't review a site sponsor product and praise it to hell. Or protect them against membership. You like it that the site is uncluttered with no advertising. These all come at my expense where I am in the hole with the capital purchases I have made. And continued purchase of audio gear to test.
So please don't make it like I have decided anyone with the name Smith to not post here. We, together, have made a deal to have the most pure and independent audio site on the internet. There are consequences to this for both of us. But hopefully the benefit far outweigh the downsides.
I do think it is contrary to the stated goals of the site if he bans someone for posting reviews and asks people (only in the videos) to post comments on the video. In that specific model I don't think they are driving audience away from ASR, but rather allowing parallel dialogs as best suited to each individual question.
No one was banned because the post a video and told to go and post on youtube. Person was *finally* banned when our very last agreement to allow him to stay here, was violated. This agreement was clearly stipulated after another major dust up. That he not post partial content here and tell people to go elsewhere to follow the rest. After months and months of conflict, we had to make a decision and put this behind us. And we have done so.
So don't trivialize this. No other forum would have put up with a fraction of this. I post a link to my published articles on a site with zero advertising and I was banned permanently by AVS Forum for "spam." 25,000 posts and 10+ years of membership meant nothing. I accepted it and moved on. And here I am.
Here we have a reviewer that so much counts you all's support that he thought any action he wants to take needs to be OK with us. Well, it is not. I don't care if we get zero traffic without him. I am going to review products and have discussions with people who are hear to do the same. So don't go defending him when we have the data to back our position.