Gamers Nexus alleges LMG has insufficient ethics and integrity

[mobriskie]

6 minutes ago, soysauceonrice said:

How much time should GN invest?  How long does it take to send an email/text ?  Are we holding them to a higher standard, or are we holding them to LMG's standards ?

We know that Steve and Linus communicate so who's to say that Steve hasn't told Linus that they are missing the mark on their accuracy in the past and it was simply time to turn the mic towards the consumers (the ones who matter here because they are the ones saving $1000 for that new video card) and let them know that reviews by LTT may be inaccurate.   As a consumer and builder of custom PC's for 23 years now I rely on these reviews to at least help me narrow down which parts to look at and then from there I make my own decision in the final pass.   If LTT is not taking their reviews serious enough to try and be more accurate then someone needed to call them out on it.   Sad it had to be Steve....but it had to be someone.

 

However if you like misleading review content....who am I to question your choice of channels.

[DeatheTech]

3 minutes ago, Amaninacity said:

Supplying the part to be tested is different. They could have chosen a golden sample, rather than one representative of their internal testing. You would want to test on an unaffiliated card.

It's a cooling block. The card being a "golden sample" has absolutely no impact on thermal performance. You run the card at a standard wattage and clock speeds for testing and you measure the temperatures and compare them among the coolers being tested. They aren't making the GPU, so how would they make their cooling block look better than on any other card? This is literally the dumbest take I have heard in 200+ pages.

[monster_mm]

11 minutes ago, jooroth18 said:

Lets not bring floatplane into this lol, luke never asked for this!

Floatplane has lost about 5% of their subs

[Taylor Ford]

On 8/14/2023 at 2:33 PM, ImorallySourcedElectrons said:

 

I would imagine it's actually more than 500 USD, having an actual person with some training and a college/university degree work in a building tends to cost around $90-100 an hour. So you need someone doing the work, someone on the camera, someone doing sound, and preferably some sort of director present, so the shoot alone would probably end up costing around $2000, if you then need to manufacture a new mounting bracket, etc. you could easily lose an entire day and now you're looking at somewhere around $4000 to $5000. It also doesn't account for the fact that you might have a deal with sponsors that require the video to come out on a certain date, availability of working and recording spaces, etc.; which is to say that I understand not wanting to do another take. But it's indicative of general communication problems between billet labs and LTT, which compounds further with the block being sold at auction. The real question is how they respond after the screw up becomes known. I experienced this type of communication breakdown at both small start-ups and multi-billion dollar corporations, so I can totally see it happening at LTT as well.

I think the money issue can easily resolved by simply making another video that can take the following paths, 1.) address concerns and use the appropriate hardware and expect average viewership, or even better, 2.) invite Billet Labs up to the LMG labs, let them show the proper installation methods, how they manufacture it and understand their testing methods. I don't accept the 'money is an issue' argument because Linus had done way, way sillier things in the past. Remember that iMac Pro vid where they gone back and forth with Apple and eventually flown Louis Rossmann over to help fix it? or when they built the all-golden Xbox controller?  The way I see it is the audience at large wanted answers and follow-up, but Linus just blatantly ignored the outcry. Using production cost as an excuse is quite lame, doubling down on a product because he thinks it's unmarketable is poor practice. While miscommunication is clearly the culprit, the way Linus responded felt he's using LMG as a shield, he or the CEO should have personally followed up with Billet Labs. I don't think any efforts have been made to help locate the water-block, maybe a shoutout on Twitter/X and other platforms to whoever bought the block, buy it back and give it back to Billet Labs. While this may sound too idealistic, it's still better than 'give me a number, I'll write you a check' response that Linus did. 

On 8/14/2023 at 2:33 PM, ImorallySourcedElectrons said:

Accuracy of information is actually my main grievance with Gamers Nexus. Every time they dove into electronics manufacturing, I just cringed and wanted to start bashing my head on my desk to make it stop.

If that's the case, you should let Steve and his team know and offer them advice/leave them comments etc. 

 

Edited August 16, 2023 by Taylor Ford
added thoughts

[Im_a_Rhinoceros]

4 minutes ago, RevengeofProfKatz said:

Not going to bother commenting on anything else you said because much of this was discussed over 80 pages prior etc by multiple people including myself. But it should be noted, the SPJ is a fraternal organization, originally known as Sigma Delta Chi. It is not the same thing, or on the same level as the IPSO or RCFP, which do not require a journalist to contact the subject of a story in a matter such as this. And as far as I am aware, Gamers Nexus is not a part of the SPJ organization, and is not required to follow their laid out Code of Ethics, which unfortunately was designed in such a way that it can conflict with itself. Per my prior post, had Gamers Nexus been a member, and contacted LMG, it would have violated/conflicted with other requirements laid out in the SPJ Code of Ethics that I posted for general consumption, that revolve around:

1. Deny favored treatment to advertisers, donors or any other special interests, and resist internal and external pressure to influence coverage.

2. Avoid conflicts of interest, real or perceived. Disclose unavoidable conflicts.

3. Refuse gifts, favors, fees, free travel and special treatment, and avoid political and other outside activities that may compromise integrity or impartiality, or may damage credibility.

4. Expose unethical conduct in journalism, including within their organizations.

And as stated prior, this one in particular applies to Linus/LMG/LTT, since they have consistently failed to do so:
Abide by the same high standards they expect of others.


You can read the post here, but the basic gist of it is, even though they are not with the SPJ, Gamers Nexus checked off more boxes on the SPJ Code of Ethics than they were ever expected to do:
 

 

I”m aware it is a voluntary organization which is why I never said they were required to do it. I”m required to adhere to a strictest code of ethics for basically any job on earth in my day job. I understand how ethics guidance works. There is a reason why basically every story of allegation in every news source (at least in the US) includes either a response from the subject of the story or some wording to the effect of” X was not immediately available for comment”

 

Again, this doesn’t invalidate all criticism of LTT and they (and Linus in particular) certainly deserve criticism for decisions made, but it is just untruthful to claim that GN are either investigative journalists or that they don’t have a significant competitive incentive to shit on LTT.

[JJBart245]

im going to miss LTT

 

[bandainamcofan]

Just now, soysauceonrice said:

But theorizing about what COULD happen is the opposite of fact-based reporting.  If you are reporting the facts, you report JUST THE FACTS.  You do not go down the slippery slope of potential horrible scenarios that COULD happen.  

LTT auctioned the block. Competitors were in attendance. Competitors could have possibly bought the block. 

 

Nevermind the fact it wasn't even their property in the first place to sell. More and more deflection from the real issue at hand.

[m9x3mos]

2 minutes ago, soysauceonrice said:

Call up Linus/LMG and ask them who has the block.  How hard is this ?

It's pointless. Or do you think they know what company all attendees worked for or if they would turn around and sell it to others. 

On a WAN show, Linus had to have a taking to his team after he saw an attendee had a prototype backpack that an lmg employee gave away. 

[jooroth18]

1 minute ago, monster_mm said:

Floatplane has lost about 5% of their subs

And im included in that lol, but im retaining other subs to other channels as are many others.

[JeffreyLF]

1 minute ago, monster_mm said:

Floatplane has lost about 5% of their subs

How are people determining this? Source?

[jooroth18]

1 minute ago, JJBart245 said:

im going to miss LTT

 

Im still holding onto hope, their next response is what makes or breaks me.

[CantHelpMyself]

@LinusTech

As a person who is well known for only using 1 screw when it comes to your fans, I think it's a critical point for you to make sure it isn't loose. Otherwise.... Y'know, you might lose your fans. Which would be terrible. 

Might even look like this.

 

(Edited for grammatical errors.)

 

 

Edited August 16, 2023 by CantHelpMyself
Grammatical errors

[Thepyrodex]

12 minutes ago, Im_a_Rhinoceros said:

The average person isn’t watching 30 reviews on an item. They are clicking on the first search result in YouTube. Is LTT being served #1 or is GN? That’s the only relevant point.

The average person also isn’t buying a new 40 series card either so…

[Drazil100]

3 minutes ago, Cosmic Emotion said:

Well if nitpick then Linus could be completely off then and the other people take the blame lol. Linus's lie about Billet alone is an insane credibility loss. He should have thought twice before posting that.

All I am saying we all started watching LTT because Linus is legitimately knowledgeable about the topics he talks about. I am sure for every inaccuracy they haven't caught that Linus has corrected many more mistakes during script reviews that would have hurt the credibility of the channel.

 

5 minutes ago, P1ro said:

That's not how it works. You can't just absolve responsibility from Linus just because he wasn't the only person directly involved in these mistakes. Yes, it's not all his *fault* but it IS all his *responsibility* as the owner of the company, the person who was hands on in nearly all examples of issues, and certainly as the person who makes the decisions about how their content is created, reviewed and how errors are handled. That's how it works. This is all on Linus at the end of the day.

I am not trying to absolve him of responsibility. All I am saying is this situation is far more complicated then "fire Linus" would be able to fix. While his response was absolutely garbage and he DEFINITELY hurt the brand by making that comment on a reflex without talking to anyone else, he also has the biggest drive of anyone at LMG to fix this.

I think if Linus was fired or quit over this that it would do a lot of short term good for the company, but in the long run I think it would hurt them.

[Albal_156]

3 minutes ago, CantHelpMyself said:

@LinusTechAs a person who is well know for only using 1 screw when it comes to your fans, I think its a critical point for you to make sure it isn't loose. Otherwise.... Y'know, you might lose your fans. Which would be terrible. 

Might even look  like this.

 

 

 

I am sorry but I cannot see the Closed Captions on this video as they are too blurred. (Nevermind I loaded it up on actual YT.com and the captions are fine and you can see them OK. Just the embed being of lower quality. My apologies.)

Edited August 16, 2023 by Albal_156
Loaded video up elsewhere and there is no problem.

[Amaninacity]

1 minute ago, DeatheTech said:

It's a cooling block. The card being a "golden sample" has absolutely no impact on thermal performance. You run the card at a standard wattage and clock speeds for testing and you measure the temperatures and compare them among the coolers being tested. They aren't making the GPU, so how would they make their cooling block look better than on any other card? This is literally the dumbest take I have heard in 200+ pages.

The cooling block is being tested for its ability to cool the card. You need that particular test on a card the manufacturer never had. You wouldn’t test a cpu cooling block on a cpu the manufacturer supplied.

[Cosmic Emotion]

Just now, jooroth18 said:

Im still holding onto hope, their next response is what makes or breaks me.

This. Linus needs to reply at some point. This is a very serious situation and he really should take care of it.

[TheVaultboy]

Sorry Linus you are going to have to front up to some of this because regardless of any friendly or unfriendly rivalries between creators - at the end of the day you know that a lot of Steve's criticisms are warranted and I agree with what Steve said also about not reaching out to you also - keeping things q/t does not solve these problems.

It should be obvious buy now that Linus Media Group has grown to big, to fast and has become to rushed. You need to slow it down and make sure things are accurate - even if it means you are putting out less videos - at least at the end of the day they will be right.

 

 

[perryckd]

2 hours ago, Drazil100 said:

Steve never once said LMG is evil. Not one time. All Steve said is that LMG is a big cooperation now with big cooperation problems. It's very possible that Steve is drama baiting but he is doing it in a very fair and objective way. He isn't making things up or trying to misrepresent anything, he is stating facts and telling LMG that they need to do better.

 

just read the room. steve is not dumb to explicitly burn LMG. but as others have noted, guerilla nexus is going on the offensive first because of LMG labs upcoming

 

Steve plays his reputation on being some white knight and expert reviewer. both which i proved to you all, he is not. his 'expert reviewing ' is nothing that Linus labs can't outdo. You dont need phd masters to prod some measuring points here and there 

[Im_a_Rhinoceros]

6 minutes ago, RevengeofProfKatz said:

No, that is not what they said. They, Linus and LMG, have not offered to get the item back for Billet, and they blew Billet off literally until Gamers Nexus went live with their reporting.
 

 

You are wrong.

 

Also, we are talking about 4 days between emails (8/10-8/14) based on the first Billet statement you posted. Two of those days were weekends. That isn’t unreasonable.

[Skipple]

You have to wonder on nights like these, if Linus regrets not taking his $100,000,000 bag and going home.

[Cosmic Emotion]

2 minutes ago, Drazil100 said:

All I am saying we all started watching LTT because Linus is legitimately knowledgeable about the topics he talks about. I am sure for every inaccuracy they haven't caught that Linus has corrected many more mistakes during script reviews that would have hurt the credibility of the channel.

 

I am not trying to absolve him of responsibility. All I am saying is this situation is far more complicated then "fire Linus" would be able to fix. While his response was absolutely garbage and he DEFINITELY hurt the brand by making that comment on a reflex without talking to anyone else, he also has the biggest drive of anyone at LMG to fix this.

I think if Linus was fired or quit over this that it would do a lot of short term good for the company, but in the long run I think it would hurt them.

His history is not questioned. His future is. Has he done a great job so far? Mostly. This needs to be resolved, somehow, though.

[ChumleyTGT]

5 hours ago, Blademaster91 said:

Linus still represents LMG and is being the the face of LMG, unless he plans on handing over the job of CEO, and having someone else manage the PR then Linus is partly to blame and should publicly apologize for the Billet block issue.

Well if Linus though it wasn't worth $800 then why was it even accepted for review?

Also overclockers and enthusiasts spend way more than $800 on hardware, a full custom water cooling loop with glass or copper tubing isn't worth $1000, but that is what some of them cost because people buy them.

 

 

I believe Linus is on record saying he really did think they has something special with the fab quality and believed he could use the review as a mechanism to pressure them into making some more humble products with a similar approach to quality instead of putting out what he felt was to paraphrase an underwhelming but beautiful and well built Rolls-Royce of a watercooler. @Blademaster91

[Fart Champion]

Is this anyone elses first time feeling disappointed by Linus?

All he had to do was accept that there's too many mistakes for wanting to be taken seriously in the product data field. And repeat his feelings on the framework investment.

But no.........

Big sad

[Chairman Boofy]

2 minutes ago, perryckd said:

 

just read the room. steve is not dumb to explicitly burn LMG. but as others have noted, guerilla nexus is going on the offensive first because of LMG labs upcoming

 

Steve plays his reputation on being some white knight and expert reviewer. both which i proved to you all, he is not. his 'expert reviewing ' is nothing that Linus labs can't outdo. You dont need phd masters to prod some measuring points here and there 

lmao