LinusTech

Internally this is a living document, and may change as we move forward, but as part of our push for further transparency, we are publishing it in its current form to help our community better-understand how we classify errors and what action we will be taking to rectify them. Types of errors Flubs: the host simply misspoke Incongruencies: information within the video is not in agreement (e.g. host says “$45” while the product page shows “$47” Bad spec: a table or MOGRT contains incorrect information (e.g. “48MB” instead of “96MB” Bad data: a graph or visualization contains data (generated by us) that is erroneous, misplaced, or spurious. Bad info: a statement or representation in the video that is misleading or factually inaccurate Types of error correction Proactive (before the video is posted) Video pickup: the segment is re-shot with both audio and video Human audio pickup: new audio is recorded for the segment (visuals have coverage) AI audio pickup: new voiceover is generated. In the best case this uses a voice model that sounds like the host. However, using a robot voice can still work. Text on screen: the editor overlays clarifying or correcting text This will not be received by viewers who are not (or cannot) watching the screen Reactive (after the video is posted) Video Replace: replacing the video with a new version without re-uploading This relies on YouTube and takes some time. There are fairly strict guidelines around the use of this tool and strong justification must be provided for all changes. This is preferred to a re-upload, but there is likely a soft-limit on how often we can use this resource. Re-upload the video: Set the original, erroneous video to Private and upload a new version. This will have algorithmic effects, but must be done if replacement is not an option Pinned comment: add a comment describing the correction. This will not be received by viewers who do not check the comments (common, especially for those watching on a Smart TV) and should only be used for low-severity errors. Assessing & Responding to Errors If any of the following types of errors are discovered prior to filming (e.g. during script review) , fix them before the shoot. 1. Very Low Severity - The statement could possibly be misunderstood, but it’s generally true and most people would be fine with how it’s currently presented. - eg. The host says, “One of DisplayPort’s main advantages over HDMI is its higher bandwidth,” but this is only true when comparing certain generations of the standards. HDMI 2.1, for example, has much higher bandwidth than DP 1.1. Action: no action 2. Low Severity - The statement is incorrect, and we should try to clarify it better in the future, but we can leave it for now because it doesn’t meaningfully impact a viewer’s purchase decision or general knowledge. - eg. The host says, “This monitor features moderate pixel response times and contrast because it uses an IPS panel”, but the panel manufacturer is actually AUO, rather than LG, so it’s not an IPS panel - a term which is trademarked by LG - but rather an IPS-type or IPS-like panel. Action: Pinned comment Note: Pinned comment text must be approved by the Community Coordinator before being posted. 3. Medium Severity - The statement is incorrect, and a minority of the audience could be upset or misled, even if it doesn’t really affect the outcome of the product evaluation for the majority. - eg. The host says, “This GPU has AMD’s AMF video encoder, which is basically the same as NVIDIA’s NVENC,” but while the stated functionality is the same, NVENC offers better image quality, which could be important to a small minority of buyers. Action: Video replaced if possible according to YouTube policy, otherwise pinned comment and above fold mention of the issue in the video description If doing a video replace, a pinned comment should communicate this is coming and note the expected changes. This comment should be un-pinned when the video replace is complete. Note: Pinned comment text must be approved by the Community Coordinator before being posted. 4. High Severity - The statement is incorrect, and a significant portion of the audience could be misled or make a poorly-informed purchase decision. - eg. The host says, “This is a great gaming monitor,” when in fact, the monitor is a 60Hz VA display that, while ‘fine’ for playing games, lacks important gaming-centric features that could be easily had for the same price, making it a poor choice. Action: Video replaced if possible according to YouTube policy. Otherwise, set unlisted and disable monetization until corrective action can be taken. If doing a video replace, a pinned comment should communicate this is coming and note the expected changes. This comment should be un-pinned when the video replace is complete. Note: Pinned comment text must be approved by the Community Coordinator before being posted. 5. Very High Severity - The statement is VERY incorrect—basically the opposite of correct. There is no charitable interpretation that could make this anything but completely irresponsible. - ex. The host says, “Most games require only one high-performance core to perform their best,” when that hasn’t been true for over a decade. Action: Video removed or remade

This is a really cool idea, but one that may not be practical. 1. they don't provide this gear. It literally doesn't leave the labs of either the chip-makers or their NDA'd partners 2. ... it's not representative of the experience an end-user will have anyway, making it academically interesting, but practically-speaking kind of irrelevant.

no

If you're new to the channel, I understand why you might not know this, but we are extremely committed to improving our accuracy to the point where we are building out a $10M+ facility jam-packed full of equipment and engineering know-how. It's taking time, and this kind of aggressive expansion has been a learning curve for us, but to frame our recent actions as "sacrificing accuracy" is misleading at best. We need to make a lot of process changes to get to the point where everything is water-tight. That's a big part of why we added our new CEO Terren to our leadership team, but once again... things take time. He's been full time on the job for less than a single quarter and he's getting up to speed on all the things we are doing right... and yes... all the things we are doing wrong. Trust me, we know. But we are making major investments in improving all of this and we won't stop.

We are using this, like everything else, to continue to drive ourselves to do better. Got some really exciting stuff in the holster A really good one - and the video where I actually FOUND the 3090 Ti that we were supposed to send back to Billet... grrr... - is kind of an undercover boss vid where I go and work in our logistics department for the day. This is the kind of thing I'm finding more time for in the new role and is already making a difference to some of our practices.

We talk constantly about how we intend to move forward and make better content. It's just taking longer than any of us would like. If everything had gone according to plan, we'd have our camera range, theater room, and acoustic chamber done like 6 months ago. Instead our warehouse is torn apart right now because they had to reinforce our roof in order to support the heat pumps that we've been trying to get procured since last summer. The real world is messy, and the more cooks you have in the kitchen, the more room there is for error. With that said, if all you want is a non-ambiguous statement that we're going to keep trying to get better, then here it is. We're going to keep trying to get better. Gary did a wonderful 'state-of-the-union' update for the company this morning about recent milestones and what we have in store. Those investments will keep flowing, and I promise that they will be a win for consumers and the tech industry. For now, it's hard to do because I'm frustrated by the timelines too, but all I can do is say, "Stay tuned. it's upward from here and we're really excited."

Getting all the details before publication is *NOT* the opposite of journalistic integrity. This isn't about being on a side... There's no war. You don't need to fight. You need to slow down and think....

Billet sent us a quote. I don't know or care how they arrived at the value. If they're good, I'm good. As for what steps we're taking, you're talking about an outlier issue that has happened once in 10+ years of operation. There won't be a new SOP to ensure we don't accidentally auction stuff. We just need to tighten up some documentation.

We have nothing to hide. Looks like I was at least halfway right on this one. Production timelines can be a nightmare.

There won't be a big WAN Show segment about this or anything. Most of what I have to say, I've already said, and I've done so privately. To Steve, I expressed my disappointment that he didn't go through proper journalistic practices in creating this piece. He has my email and number (along with numerous other members of our team) and could have asked me for context that may have proven to be valuable (like the fact that we didn't 'sell' the monoblock, but rather auctioned it for charity due to a miscommunication... AND the fact that while we haven't sent payment yet, we have already agreed to compensate Billet Labs for the cost of their prototype). There are other issues, but I've told him that I won't be drawn into a public sniping match over this and that I'll be continuing to move forward in good faith as part of 'Team Media'. When/if he's ready to do so again I'll be ready. To my team (and my CEO's team, but realistically I was at the helm for all of these errors, so I need to own it), I stressed the importance of diligence in our work because there are so many eyes on us. We are going through some growing pains - we've been very public about them in the interest of transparency - and it's clear we have some work to do on internal processes and communication. We have already been doing a lot of work internally to clean up our processes, but these things take time. Rome wasn't built in a day, but that's no excuse for sloppiness. Now, for my community, all I can say is the same things I always say. We know that we're not perfect. We wear our imperfection on our sleeves in the interest of ensuring that we stay accountable to you. But it's sad and unfortunate when this transparency gets warped into a bad thing. The Labs team is hard at work hard creating processes and tools to generate data that will benefit all consumers - a work in progress that is very much not done and that we've communicated needs to be treated as such. Do we have notes under some videos? Yes. Is it because we are striving for transparency/improvement? Yeah... What we're doing hasn't been in many years, if ever.. and we would make a much larger correction if the circumstances merited it. Listing the wrong amount of cache on a table for a CPU review is sloppy, but given that our conclusions are drawn based on our testing, not the spec sheet, it doesn't materially change the recommendation. That doesn't mean these things don't matter. We've set KPIs for our writing/labs team around accuracy, and we are continually installing new checks and balances to ensure that things continue to get better. If you haven't seen the improvement, frankly I wonder if you're really looking for it... The thoroughness that we managed on our last handful of GPU videos is getting really incredible given the limited time we have for these embargoes. I'm REALLY excited about what the future will hold. With all of that said, I still disagree that the Billet Labs video (not the situation with the return, which I've already addressed above) is an 'accuracy' issue. It's more like I just read the room wrong. We COULD have re-tested it with perfect accuracy, but to do so PROPERLY - accounting for which cases it could be installed in (none) and which radiators it would be plumbed with (again... mystery) would have been impossible... and also didn't affect the conclusion of the video... OR SO I THOUGHT... I wanted to evaluate it as a product, and as a product, IF it could manage to compete with the temperatures of the highest end blocks on the planet, it still wouldn't make sense to buy... so from my point of view, re-testing it and finding out that yes, it did in fact run cooler made no difference to the conclusion, so it didn't really make a difference. Adam and I were talking about this today. He advocated for re-testing it regardless of how non-viable it was as a product at the time and I think he expressed really well today why it mattered. It was like making a video about a supercar. It doesn't mater if no one watching will buy it. They just wanna see it rip. I missed that, but it wasn't because I didn't care about the consumer.. it was because I was so focused on how this product impacted a potential buyer. Either way, clearly my bad, but my intention was never to harm Billet Labs. I specifically called out their incredible machining skills because I wanted to see them create something with a viable market for it and was hoping others would appreciate the fineness of the craftsmanship even if the product was impractical. I still hope they move forward building something else because they obviously have talent and I've watched countless niche water cooling vendors come and go. It's an astonishingly unforgiving market. Either way, I'm sorry I got the community's priorities mixed-up on this one, and that we didn't show the Billet in the best light. Our intention wasn't to hurt anyone. We wanted no one to buy it (because it's an egregious waste of money no matter what temps it runs at) and we wanted Billet to make something marketable (so they can, y'know, eat). With all of this in mind, it saddens me how quickly the pitchforks were raised over this. It also comes across a touch hypocritical when some basic due diligence could have helped clarify much of it. I have a LONG history of meeting issues head on and I've never been afraid to answer questions, which lands me in hot water regularly, but helps keep me in tune with my peers and with the community. The only reason I can think of not to ask me is because my honest response might be inconvenient. We can test that... with this post. Will the "It was a mistake (a bad one, but a mistake) and they're taking care of it" reality manage to have the same reach? Let's see if anyone actually wants to know what happened. I hope so, but it's been disheartening seeing how many people were willing to jump on us here. Believe it or not, I'm a real person and so is the rest of my team. We are trying our best, and if what we were doing was easy, everyone would do it. Today sucks. Thanks for reading this.

The simple truth here is that I don't know. This complaint about the video is the first I'm hearing of it. I've reached out to the SC team and the biz team to learn more about it. It's no secret we are going through some growing pains as we build out the labs and scale our production capabilities. This seems like an example of the kind of thing that we should be building some new processes around, but right now I don't know what those will look like.

As we said already, these posts get read and we are always looking forward to improve. The part that I felt was in bad faith was from you and it was when you seemed to suggest that we only took a deal promoting second hand products because of the money when that's not the case at all. We always do our best to sort the valid feedback from the invalid feedback internally, and I assure you we've flagged this and will work to create processes that help us avoid this kind of thing in the future. We don't always get it right, but we're always looking to improve.

We absolutely have heard your feedback that the deals we point out need to be good deals, but the second hand market moves fast compared to our brand partnerships/video production pipeline. Can't promise it'll always be perfect, but that's valid feedback and we'll try. However, the OP's post here was obviously in bad faith and doesn't merit a reply from me. I'm a HUGE advocate for buying second hand to save a buck and keep electronics in use rather than sitting idle or in a landfill. Always have been, and to turn this into some kind of "took the bag" narrative is donkey shit.

Contact support if you feel they wore out prematurely

Prolly not coming. They don't move as well as we'd like

I'm not sure I understand the first suggestion. As for why Toyota has press cars, it's because their dealership model means that the dealers own the cars, not Toyota. Some YouTubers work through local dealers as well and will include 'thank yous' as part of that arrangement.

If it's sponsored (money changes hands and/or brand has influence on content), we'll let you know, like always. If it's not, no disclosure is required, so I guess we can consider our policies, but we are well on the legal side already.

You seem confused. These regulations exist to prevent consumers from being misled by advertising that's disguised as editorial content. Anyone with a functioning brainstem can tell that an auto reviewer isn't buying every vehicle, so there's not much room for deception. Toyota provided the vehicles for us to make content about, but this isn't a sponsorship and no money exchanged hands in either case. We also didn't grant Toyota any edit privileges or any way to otherwise interfere with our creative process. A car to cover isn't a free product or service. It's just necessary to make the video, and frankly a pretty major inconvenience. Would you enjoy swapping cars every couple of weeks (re-pairing your phone, moving all your stuff around, re-shuffling your car seats) for work? It gets old. As for the rest of this list: received payment in money or commissions received free products or services received discounts received free trips or tickets to events a personal or family relationship There's nothing else to disclose. None of those things happened. The closest thing would be Alex's free trip to... their car to cover... the car.. then immediately a trip back up? That's not a gift. That's a burden... and again nothing to do with the spirit of the CCA. No marketing happened. There was no private Taylor Swift concert or whatever. It's a non-issue. You're not the first to accuse us of violating the CCA, and like the others, your accusation is based on assumptions of things we *could* be doing, but like always, we aren't doing those things, so *shrug* The good news is that you've latched onto a really important issue and there are plenty of low-hanging targets out there that you could be drawing attention to who ARE engaging in undisclosed marketing. I genuinely think finding them and shining a light on them would be really good use of time.

Theoretically twitter blue is what you're asking for with the authentication based on payment, but in practice.. well... *sigh* I haven't played much with mastodon but apparently it does what you're suggesting with the silos.

I dunno man. I used to feel like it could help reduce toxicity and nonsense (even if it introduced new problems) back when google was trying to authenticate everyone on G+ and YouTube... but Facebook is a flaming dumpster fire and that's basically validated at this point. As it turns out, most anonymous assholes and morons are still assholes and morons once you unmask them....

If a vapor chamber was the same thing as a water block with some water in it, we would call it a water block chamber. Of course, you don't have to take my word for it. That hybrid card is so affordable now you could simply buy one yourself to try it if you really think a vapor chamber (run at a vacuum and filled with a proprietary mixture that isn't water btw and with engineered internal surfaces for optimal fluid transport) is just a water block with some water pooled in it. Everything else you said was similarly wrong. We didn't raise a million in crowd-funding (not even close and I have no idea where you got that number) and we would have survived without it in large part thanks to the deal we signed with Vessel. We are entirely self-funded just like others in our space (if we aren't, then neither is gn since they have a donate link on their store which is functionally exactly the same thing without a slick campaign), you didn't come up with the idea of a luxe version of the backpack (it was thought of before we even finished development of the OG one and is based on materials recommended by our design partner), der8auer's name is Roman not Alex, the case that showed up did just show up when we requested something diff from the guy and our writer for thr project kept it as a surprise for me, etc etc etc I honestly can't tell anymore if this is just the universe's most dedicated long-game troll or if you actually believe what you're saying

Papajoe.... There's only a couple reasons I end up remembering the username of a random on the forum: 1. Really good, thought-provoking contributions over a long period of time. 2. The opposite. Which one do you think this is? Very knowledgeable people are trying to help you gain a better understanding of how all of this works. I'd suggest you listen to them.

Always love reading these kinds of stories. Thanks for sharing