Anandtech forums on trial: The corruption runs deep.

[BrightCandle]

What is happening at Anandtech both and out of its forums is a bit frightening.

 

Anand has sold quite a chunk of website space to AMD on the front page with the AMD link. If you follow that link you will find AMD marketing combined with Anandtech articles without a whole lot of distinction or clarity as to what is who's content. As far as selling ads go this is quite concerning.

 

One of the things I noticed was the very day that link went up on Anandtech's front page an AMD rep appeared in the Anandtech forums and against all the discussions and rules given to him by the forum moderators posted a direct chunk of marketing into the Video card and graphics sub forum. That post stayed until so many people complained about it that finally the moderators removed it. He got a slap on the wrist for that one but then if you look at his history he mostly just posts marketing and it usually gets left alone. When Mantle was released stalhart actually pinned the post on the forum right at the top. Yet people weren't allowed to talk about Mantle in there, good or bad, they were not meant to discuss or post about bugs etc, its purpose was just to let AMD post a link back to their site at the top of VC&G.

 

Since then the forums have been a mess, politics left and right and alienbabeltech has documented a series of AMD undeclared shills in the forums (against the forum rules). It exposed the AMD advocate group and their involvement in the forums. The mods have just gone nutts ever since this happened, locking threads left and right. At one point I thought they were suppressing Nvidia technology threads as over a month period any thread about new nvidia tech got locked, it was like 99% of them and the forum was full of AMD. Then the opposite happened and they finally shut down some really bad topics on AMD technology. The moderation on the forum is a mess and you can find examples of bias in both directions.

 

More concerning to me is the impact that link had on the AMD reps and their belief they could now post what they want in the forums, and they have mostly been allowed to, even stickied. So its not fair to say that Anandtech and the forums are separate entities, one is clearly influencing the other and the moderators that run it. 

[Misanthrope]

What is happening at Anandtech both and out of its forums is a bit frightening.

 

Anand has sold quite a chunk of website space to AMD on the front page with the AMD link. If you follow that link you will find AMD marketing combined with Anandtech articles without a whole lot of distinction or clarity as to what is who's content. As far as selling ads go this is quite concerning.

 

One of the things I noticed was the very day that link went up on Anandtech's front page an AMD rep appeared in the Anandtech forums and against all the discussions and rules given to him by the forum moderators posted a direct chunk of marketing into the Video card and graphics sub forum. That post stayed until so many people complained about it that finally the moderators removed it. He got a slap on the wrist for that one but then if you look at his history he mostly just posts marketing and it usually gets left alone. When Mantle was released stalhart actually pinned the post on the forum right at the top. Yet people weren't allowed to talk about Mantle in there, good or bad, they were not meant to discuss or post about bugs etc, its purpose was just to let AMD post a link back to their site at the top of VC&G.

 

Since then the forums have been a mess, politics left and right and alienbabeltech has documented a series of AMD undeclared shills in the forums (against the forum rules). It exposed the AMD advocate group and their involvement in the forums. The mods have just gone nutts ever since this happened, locking threads left and right. At one point I thought they were suppressing Nvidia technology threads as over a month period any thread about new nvidia tech got locked, it was like 99% of them and the forum was full of AMD. Then the opposite happened and they finally shut down some really bad topics on AMD technology. The moderation on the forum is a mess and you can find examples of bias in both directions.

 

More concerning to me is the impact that link had on the AMD reps and their belief they could now post what they want in the forums, and they have mostly been allowed to, even stickied. So its not fair to say that Anandtech and the forums are separate entities, one is clearly influencing the other and the moderators that run it. 

 

What's baffling is that PR rep from any company was given/allowed a forum account at all. 

[Yoinkerman]

Eh I don't mind this. I feel like its more newsworthy than a lot of things. Every day is post after post of "someone at a company said something" or "some nobody at a blog wrote an article" that inundates "news".

[silberdrachi]

What's baffling is that PR rep from any company was given/allowed a forum account at all. 

 

Why shouldn't they be allowed to have an account? I think there are a lot of valid reasons for them to have one. Just like our forum has a lot of company people on it that responds to problems or questions all the time.

 

You just need to make sure your mod staff is top notch and stops any BS from spreading quickly. (Thank you mods)

[Misanthrope]

Why shouldn't they be allowed to have an account? 

 

Because it lends itself to uncomfortable situations like the one we're talking about? If it's their job to constantly spam about their company they would quickly drown out any real discussion on the products. Companies have PR events like CES to showcase their stuff and we have press like Linus to objectively cover the news about their products, if you try to directly contact your customers it can only end up hurting your company because of either actual or appearance of impropriety.

 

Or do you seriously want advertisers to personally target you in your social groups? Would you like car manufacturers to butt into your personal twitter or facebook conversations? Is there no single part of our lives that can be free from constant marketing bombardment? 

[Yoinkerman]

There's a big difference between marketing reps and general reps. I've mostly seen either support reps who just provide support or just a general rep (usually from a smaller company) who is just a regular forum member. I trust Linus and Slick to be able to put the clamp on any funny business with company reps.

[geforceftw]

Some reddit moderators do stuff like this

[silberdrachi]

Because it lends itself to uncomfortable situations like the one we're talking about? If it's their job to constantly spam about their company they would quickly drown out any real discussion on the products. Companies have PR events like CES to showcase their stuff and we have press like Linus to objectively cover the news about their products, if you try to directly contact your customers it can only end up hurting your company because of either actual or appearance of impropriety.

 

Or do you seriously want advertisers to personally target you in your social groups? Would you like car manufacturers to butt into your personal twitter or facebook conversations? Is there no single part of our lives that can be free from constant marketing bombardment? 

 

Do you feel like its being shoved down your throat here? We have reps all over the site posting on topics and talking to other people. They actively solicit the user base for ideas and check to see what we are doing with their products and their competitors products to see how they can improve their own. I think that is literally the perfect relationship between us and the companies. They get their information, and we get what we want.

 

I think you are really blowing this out of proportion, and its honestly the job of the mods to sort this out. And in the case on Anandtech it just looks like they got a shit mod and its up to the admins to decide how to handle it. If you have that much of an issue with a forum mod and feel something needs to be done, make a post about it and then send a message to the admin. That's their job. If you feel like it isn't being handled then you leave. Its as simple as that. If it turned out Josh from Fractal (or anyone else, just picking the first name i thought of) was screwing around on our forums like that i have faith in both our mods and our admins that it would be handled quickly and quietly. There is no reason to say that ABSOLUTELY no one working in the industry that we all care about can post here, they are the exact people that we want to get MORE information. Both getting information from them about new things, and giving them feedback about stuff they are doing.

 

There are thousands of tech forums around, if you don't like the way one is being handled you move on to the next one.

[carolkarine]

As it stands, I feel as if there are maybe two forums with little to no bias towards amd or nvidia or Intel. That would be overclock and here. However, I feel as if this forum, while not becoming more biased, is much more immature and unprofessional.

On the whole, toms has a heavy Intel and Nvidia bias - two years ago on my first build they told me to get an I3 3120 and a 660 from nvidia, even though benchmarks told me that an fx6300 and a 7870 would beat that out while being cheaper. Really? Teksyndicate's forums are known for being amd biased but I've never been there so I cant say. Anandtech is apparently biased depending on the month.

Overclock is older and much larger, which is why I think it's less biased. This forum is newer and growing much faster, and as a result I think I get the impression it's more immature - we don't have the user base to make new accounts unnoticed.

[Scionyde]

Because it lends itself to uncomfortable situations like the one we're talking about? If it's their job to constantly spam about their company they would quickly drown out any real discussion on the products. Companies have PR events like CES to showcase their stuff and we have press like Linus to objectively cover the news about their products, if you try to directly contact your customers it can only end up hurting your company because of either actual or appearance of impropriety.

 

Or do you seriously want advertisers to personally target you in your social groups? Would you like car manufacturers to butt into your personal twitter or facebook conversations? Is there no single part of our lives that can be free from constant marketing bombardment? 

 

I get and agree with what you're saying, to an extent. Still, there's not much to stop a PR rep from creating a forum account and promoting their products under the guise of a regular user. I think I'd much rather have transparency where it's clear that somebody works for a company, so you can judge the content of their posts accordingly (like the users here from Digital Storm and Cooler Master).

 

So, I'm okay with it, as long as there's no special treatment/permissions given to them.

[Misanthrope]

I get and agree with what you're saying, to an extent. Still, there's not much to stop a PR rep from creating a forum account and promoting their products under the guise of a regular user. I think I'd much rather have transparency where it's clear that somebody works for a company, so you can judge the content of their posts accordingly (like the users here from Digital Storm and Cooler Master).

So, I'm okay with it, as long as there's no special treatment/permissions given to them.

Thats a big if though, its just better to not mix and match at all.

[Misanthrope]

There is no reason to say that ABSOLUTELY no one working in the industry that we all care about can post here, 

 

I didn't say that they can't, I said they shouldn't. For me is not as simple as saying "oh they stay out of the way and they can be helpful" simply because I would like everybody to be comfortable saying "Oh boy this Fractal case is a piece of shit, what a fucking rip off" I know that it is unlikely that a comment like that would be moderated away (except for the language perhaps, though it shouldn't) but it's the cyber equivalent of trying to honestly talk about products next to company employees: there's just no way that people are going to be truly honest about how they really feel, they will try to keep some semblance of civility and restrain out of general decency and in my personal opinion that's wrong, civilities and good manners get in the way of honest opinions, rants, and proper venting. If somebody has a problem with a sound card to the point that they want to scream "I hate this fucking piece of shit, you motherfucking thieves I want my money back!" I wanna hear about it, the unrestrained and uncensored version because I happen to think that angry and inflammatory opinions are the most honest.

So no it is not ok. However it's also what I think, not what goes on. It is also my fucking problem if I decide to stay and chat despite of what I consider improprieties, as long as I don't break forum rules by personally attacking people or anything like that I don't appreciate people like you with a moderator complex telling people "shut up and leave". If I give negative feedback it's my problem and I shouldn't be asked to leave just because I don't kiss everyone's ass here and I don't agree with everything that goes on, moderation or PR reps included. 

[Lyons]

Lol, I started reading through the record of the thread, and thought it was gonna get good. Then I finished reading...

 

 

Nice 'news' thread OP.

 

(see profile pic)

[Askew]

The particular incident isn't what worries me, it's that a moderator/moderators of a large forum with many trustees have the seemingly unchecked freedom to do something like that, the fact that the posts are older makes it worse IMO because it shows that the individuals are still active there and nothing has been done.

[Guest]

Just glanced over the discussion regarding whether it is illegal. It is not illegal for us to censor your content on this website or for Anandtech to do that on theirs. Forums like these are private, not state or publicly owned and thus using them means that you agree to abide by  the code of conduct on them. If that dictates that the administration team can edit your content at any time, then that is something you have to deal with.

[Jim Dotcom]

Siliconwars...... Is that you?

 

No this is me.

 

As it stands, I feel as if there are maybe two forums with little to no bias towards amd or nvidia or Intel. That would be overclock and here. However, I feel as if this forum, while not becoming more biased, is much more immature and unprofessional.

On the whole, toms has a heavy Intel and Nvidia bias - two years ago on my first build they told me to get an I3 3120 and a 660 from nvidia, even though benchmarks told me that an fx6300 and a 7870 would beat that out while being cheaper. Really? Teksyndicate's forums are known for being amd biased but I've never been there so I cant say. Anandtech is apparently biased depending on the month.

Overclock is older and much larger, which is why I think it's less biased. This forum is newer and growing much faster, and as a result I think I get the impression it's more immature - we don't have the user base to make new accounts unnoticed.

 

Half of the problem at Toms is the moderator Mousemonkey.  He's as corrupt as they come and I may write an article just on him (obviously it'll be a lot smaller).  You can see him over at ABT boasting about it being his "killing field" (banning and abusing AMD fans with the help of his friends is what he means).

 

http://alienbabeltech.com/abt/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=24247&p=101604&hilit=+killing+field#p101604

 

"keeping AMD guys around for his amusement" - http://alienbabeltech.com/abt/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=24247&p=101594#p101594

 

See how corrupt they are when they think they can boast about it freely?  This is MUCH more common that some of you here might believe.  I'm embarrassed to say that I don't know what the situation is like here at LTT but going by the comments from some in this thread you seem very lucky to have impartial mods - this is the exception rather than the rule.  Anandtech and Toms are utter cesspools of bias and corruption - it's all been driven by anti-AMD propaganda (check out that ABT thread if you can stand it - I read all 180-odd pages at the time, tried my best to tell them how paranoid they all looked but just got insulted so didn't bother hanging around any longer).

 

As for this being "news", I'm not sure about that.  Still, I'm glad some of you found it interesting and it makes me glad to see the outrage because for me their behaviour is outrageous.  I just can't understand people who flippantly dismiss it because they aren't there.  That's just burying your heads in the sand.

 

It's about corruption, not fanboyism.  Corruption should be rooted out in all walks of life - yes even on forums.

[carolkarine]

No this is me.

 

 

Half of the problem at Toms is the moderator Mousemonkey.  He's as corrupt as they come and I may write an article just on him (obviously it'll be a lot smaller).  You can see him over at ABT boasting about it being his "killing field" (banning and abusing AMD fans with the help of his friends is what he means).

 

http://alienbabeltech.com/abt/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=24247&p=101604&hilit=+killing+field#p101604

 

"keeping AMD guys around for his amusement" - http://alienbabeltech.com/abt/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=24247&p=101594#p101594

 

See how corrupt they are when they think they can boast about it freely?  This is MUCH more common that some of you here might believe.  I'm embarrassed to say that I don't know what the situation is like here at LTT but going by the comments from some in this thread you seem very lucky to have impartial mods - this is the exception rather than the rule.  Anandtech and Toms are utter cesspools of bias and corruption - it's all been driven by anti-AMD propaganda (check out that ABT thread if you can stand it - I read all 180-odd pages at the time, tried my best to tell them how paranoid they all looked but just got insulted so didn't bother hanging around any longer).

 

As for this being "news", I'm not sure about that.  Still, I'm glad some of you found it interesting and it makes me glad to see the outrage because for me their behaviour is outrageous.  I just can't understand people who flippantly dismiss it because they aren't there.  That's just burying your heads in the sand.

 

It's about corruption, not fanboyism.  Corruption should be rooted out in all walks of life - yes even on forums.

 

good lord that thread is revealing.

[Jim Dotcom]

good lord that thread is revealing.

 

Yes - one of the guys in it huffnpuff or whatever is Rollo - a guy who used to be part of Nvidia's stealth marketing program "Nvidia Focus Group" and now claims to be rehabilitated.

 

Keysplayr used to be a moderator at anandtech...while being a member of the same Focus Group - you can still see it in his sig.

 

Now they are all claiming that AMD is doing the same thing...it's absolutely nuts and they genuinely have no idea how paranoid they look.  When presented with clear evidence that AMD's program was nothing like what they thought it was, they basically just insulted me and ignored the evidence.

[Tam3n]

Well things like this happen ...I don't care too much. I'd probably just leave the forum.

 

Also sometimes the first posts to articles can reek of someone just wanting to promote a product...

 

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7492/the-geforce-gtx-780-ti-review

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7465/nvidia-announces-geforce-gtx-780770-price-cuts-gtx-780-ti-launch-date

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7436/nvidias-gsync-attempting-to-revolutionize-gaming-via-smoothness

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7457/the-radeon-r9-290x-review

 

In the end, miners still know that AMD cards are the way to go and couldn't careless about anything else as long as their cards keep crunching numbers at good KH/s in practice.

[Almercenary]

Bit-tech and LTT is where it's at, bit-tech for builds, LTT for everything else. This also shows just how corrupt the tech industry is. We should be grateful Linus isn't takin payed reviews...yet

[LogicalDrm]

I fail to see how this is General tech talk. So far its been about mod abusing their power on another tech forum. Its not about differencies between two graphiscs card manufacturers or even fanboyism. Talking extensive about those would be derailing conversation anyway. Furthermore I don't see point discussing such thing in here anyway. Corruption is harsh word to for incorrect reasons behind moderation. If there would be proof that those mods are taking money or gifts for censoring posts they don't want to see, then we would be talking about corruption. Now it just seems to be some rotten eggs amongs mods of another forum. Something we can't do anything about and would be better to be handled by those who can.

 

Personally I don't even care. Mods trolling users is more common than you might think. Usually what I've seen its harmless teasing on known users and done byt smaller group of mods, not all of them.

[Admire]

Ok the people in here are failing to realize the gravity of this.

This is NOT about faboys arguing over the internet. It's about admins of very influential tech sites like Anandtech that abuse their powers to intentionally censor AMD pro commentors.

Read the damned article before you post for goodness sake.

 

Ohhh the conspiracy.  Its probably all part of the NWO too.

 

You really need to read some law books if you think this is illegal...

 

LOL! "Your Honor!......You would not believe what happened on anandtech forums yesterday.......Prepare to bang that hammer of yours"

 

 

 

 

 

I think we should stop throwing around words like corruption and systemic censorship here. There are no proof what so ever to support this. Powerhungry mods? Sure.....Fanboy mods? sure. But corruption is a whooooole different level and implies that people are being paid to do this.

[jaqiefox]

This kind of crap is why I have totally abandoned my accounts at long time tech forums that have degenerated in various ways, like hardocp, anandtech, et cetra.

 

When a place goes to seed, I leave it and do other things with my life... when I happen across a forum that seems cool, I try it there.  There are far more important things in life than internet forums, but they are nice sometimes to take a load off and discuss stuff when not corrupt or such.

[daemonowner]

The persecution complex is strong in this one.

 

Grow some balls and don't defend your posts with talk of free speech. You have the right to make the post, but that doesn't mean you aren't sensationalist, wrong and childish.

[jaqiefox]

The persecution complex is strong in this one.

 

Grow some balls and don't defend your posts with talk of free speech. You have the right to make the post, but that doesn't mean you aren't sensationalist, wrong and childish.

Was that a reply to me?

 

If it was, you are being self righteous, arrogant, and extremely ignorant.

I never said a single thing about free speech or defending my posts.

Also, no "you" do not have any rights on forums, they are not public property, as was explained before.  You do not even have the right to post, you are given that privilege directly or indirectly by the owner of the forum until and unless they decide to revoke it.  None of this has a thing to do with rights or free speech.

 

In short, your post shows in spades that [again if this was directed to me] this is a very clear case of pot and kettle.