totally agree. kika was amazing.

I'm guessing that most of the new forum mods won't know who Kika is - before their time !

I would say Kika did help many, but often by providing templates for suspended (often repeated) sellers to get reinstated. The trouble with that is that the offending sellers didn't always change the methods that got them suspended, just kept getting suspended and reinstated. The possible consequence was that Amazon maintains many poor quality sellers, affecting Amazon's reputation and leading to increased governance of rules by Amazon to try (not necessarily succeed) to improve standards , making it harder for everyone.

She also ignored, was unaware or circumvented some rules. I recall her arguing that returned clothing did not have to have carriage refunded, despite the rules being quoted and linked.

Without Kika's dominance, (pre the current one, after which several valuable posters disappeared) I found the forum more rounded, less argumentative, with a wider number of participants and varied viewpoints, helping sellers to improve their methods (or give up) before getting suspended.

There are a lot of good things about Kika, but she is not perfect. She seemed to have an obsession about being the top poster in the forums and always being the absolute authority, never wrong, none of which, I don't believe, is healthy for her. Hopefully she has changed and learned to listen to and allow other points of view.

I don't think that's quite correct.

As I said, Kika possessed the intellect to understand Amazon's "processes" very well indeed - if she ever came up short, perhaps it was only in relation to local variations? Correct me if I'm wrong.

The truth is that there's a reason why Amazon has been repeatedly fined for anti-trust violations - because in its arrogance, it thought nothing of creating T&Cs that were not only excessively punitive, but deeply underhand and duplicitous. In other words, holding out a helping hand to new businesses, making promises to "help them grow"... and then slowly and steadily destroying them. That's pretty well the definition of anti-trust.

I ran a very efficient little account on here - I'd already been trading for over 25 years when I started selling on Amazon in 2010. I never even received one neutral or negative in 10 years trading on here. I was way more efficient than Amazon itself!! BUT that didn't stop Amazon from sending me hundreds of ridiculous emails, warning me of absurd restrictions and threats of suspension etc etc. For nothing - I was the very definition of a perfect seller.

As far as Kika is concerned, her ability to cut through all this bullsh*t was so exceptional it got up Amazon's noses. The bully doesn't like to be exposed, the bully always has cronies - so Kika was punished for being smart, for being straight, honest and true. Not only that, but she was insulted and abused by gullible posters AND Amazon employees.

The fact still remains that Kika should be welcomed back to the forum as part of Amazon's apology package, not least because she can actually help sellers with their issues. Rather more than Amazon's so called "seller support" can/

I totally understand your point about sellers who aren't up to scratch Apricot. I was a long term participant in eBay's member reporting program - incompetent and dishonest sellers do not deserve a place on any online selling platform. I never saw Kika trying to help those kinds of sellers - perhaps only occasionally spelling out the basics to them?

As I said, Kika was good at writing appeals to overturn suspensions, but there is an implication that the expertise comes from experience of breaking/circumventing/creative interpretation of the rules, being suspended for getting it wrong and getting reinstated many times.

We all know Amazon is a long way from being perfect and at the wrong end of the scale in relation to sellers. However, I don't believe Kika's help for sellers improved the situation, and probably make it worse, as in my previous post. Despite their imperfections, Amazon are immensely successful and huge numbers of sellers profit on the back of that success.

Kika could be as much of a bully with other posters. She was well known for taking posts down that contradicted her by flagging them. If she was so intimate with Amazon rules, or accept others (not so gullible, no one person can be an expert on all Amazon) may be right and take the opportunity to learn, then there wouldn't have been the arguments or suspensions from the forum. She was not the only one suspended.

Apricot - truthfully there were many innocent posters suspended long before Kika. Speaking personally, I was one of dozens "cleansed" simply for being a normal cheeky poster.

I never, ever saw Kika acting in any kind of bullying way - not at all. Neither do I remember her helping crooked or incompetent sellers.

I imagine you've wondered whether I know more about this rather sad affair than I'd care to share - you'd be correct. Please take my word for it, Kika is the victim here.

You may not realise that by suggesting Kika was some kind of bully, you're not helping anybody - not Kika OR Amazon. Please think about this carefully.

I'm an intelligent man and, for my sins, I've been a forum master on several (unrelated) forums. I've seen every kind of poster you can think of! It's so so easy to be glib on a forum, to sound off at somebody (we've all done it), but please be careful.

As the online media world is moving forward, you need to bear in mind that people really can find themselves in serious trouble for making damaging personal remarks.

Please don't take offence, I genuinely mean well here.

I do recall you and others "disappearing" from the forum many moons ago, not your exact circumstances. There was a time when there were many protracted arguments and you needed courage to post anything. The forum has improved dramatically since then, more so before the current version, but it is still improving. Posters are more likely to correct basic errors, take on board advice, even if they don't like it, and accept another point of view (with some exceptions). It's more of a collaboration than a battle now. Is this as a result of some getting banned? some fairly, others (like you) less so.

I believe you are reading too much into my posts. I didn't say she deliberately helped crooked or incompetent sellers, but that her help with reinstatement didn't discriminate between good or bad, giving bad sellers the tools to get bad/broken/poor products or methods back on the production line, which is detrimental to Amazon and sellers.

Regarding bullying, you brought this up, may I respectfully suggest you take your own advice, sorry, it had to be said.

I rarely, if ever, take offence at anything. Everyone is entitled to an opinion. I try to be objective, listen and prepared to accept I may be wrong sometimes, that's the way to learn and develop. If only some of the previously banned posters had this attitude, the forum would have been much better at the time.

You might want to reread my post. I was referring to Amazon and its employees - not posters.

Now read your later post: "could be as much of a...."

Draw a line under this please.

It could have been a template but I don't care because I recall Kika helped me defend against 3 fraudulent A-to-Z claims from a competitor who ordered £1500 worth of goods over 3 orders and filed claims without wanting to return the dozens of products. She is legendary and forever has my gratitude for her help. She was the only reply on my post that time too.