Inq Rant Hardware Sites "Docile Ass-Kissers"

[WaltC]

As others have pointed out, all product reviews are opinions. The difference among them (at times a quite substantial difference), is that some reviews justify their opinions and some reviews simply don't. A justified opinion is far closer to being a fact than an unjustified opinion, imo.

The problem with this particular Inquirer opinion as I see it is that it fails to justify any of the opinions it reaches. It would have been far more convincing had the Inquirer bothered to list, say, a half-dozen (or better still a dozen or more) opinions taken from various hardware reviews published by various sources as examples of the premise the Inquirer piece advances. It's one thing to simply state "All hardware reviews are paid for by the manufacturers" but it's quite another to go on to list specific examples of such misbehavior anecdotally as a proof of the contention.

Quite aside from whether the Inquirer opinion might ever be correct in some cases, the Inquirer seems to be promoting itself somewhat brazenly by saying, "We aren't like that," when the very fogginess and vagueness and timidity of the Inquirer piece itself indicates exactly the opposite, doesn't it?...

 

[Geo]

Everybody notice Dave's new sig?

 

[Geo]

Read the "Our Sponsors" section here, second section down:

http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NzU4

Am I imagining things, or is that a little more forthcoming on the "under the covers" arrangement than usual? Could Charlie's rant actually be having a little impact on sites communicating more on these issues?

 

[trinibwoy]

Read the "Our Sponsors" section here, second section down:

http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NzU4

Am I imagining things, or is that a little more forthcoming on the "under the covers" arrangement than usual? Could Charlie's rant actually be having a little impact on sites communicating more on these issues?

Nope, I think it's just another plug for Newegg and a little reminder to use their links if you want to check out the stuff in the article.

 

[Geo]

Reference point: http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=22173

I am putting this post over here, because I do not wish to hijack that thread any further in that direction than I did, and hope that none of you will either.

Further, I don't think Josh is a bad guy or irresponsible by his own lights and experience. He proved he is a good guy by forthrightly answering my questions.

I do think, however, that he is exactly what I said --acting in a sick paradigm, "the generally accepted perspective of a particular discipline at a given time". When someone who is trying to do their best perceives that they would be committing "professional suicide" to even show their audience the questions they wanted to ask and were not allowed to ask, that is just terrible, and calls into question (in my mind at least) whether there are any journalistic standards in this "discipline" at all.

Y'know, you guys (webmasters of these sites) have an asset too --us. The IHV's talk to you because through you they talk to us. It really isn't your charming personalities (tho of course you are all as handsome as Ben Affleck and as witty as Oscar Wilde. No question. ) Maybe you have a little more power than you think you do to expect and require that you be treated like professionals rather than allow yourselves to be treated (at least at times) like lackeys.

 

[ninelven]

erased

 

[Tim Murray]

The problem is that there is always going to be someone who will kiss ass for free hardware (or money in the form of lots of advertising). With regards to these smaller sites, they're not going to be able to really push the issues with IHVs unless they're willing to totally risk losing whatever contacts they have.

B3D can do what it does (and therefore, what makes it good) simply because it is so technical compared to any other site that reviews 3D cards. There's a huge trickle-down effect associated with B3D, where things discussed or reported here will slowly move into other much larger forums (occasionally even /.). With the exception of Ars Technica, I'd think, there are no other sites out there remotely like this. The rest of the large sites are your cookie-cutter "we review hardware using very standard metrics and offer buying advice to people who are primarily gamers" sites; they don't have the inclincation to disrupt any of their IHV relationships, and they probably don't even realize when they're being lied to most of the time ([H] has gotten much better about this; their recent bits on SLI have seemed pretty fair).

So no. Unless we see a massive shift in the online reviewer psychology, we're not going to see companies really get pounded anytime soon.

 

[Reverend]

There's a huge trickle-down effect associated with B3D, where things discussed or reported here will slowly move into other much larger forums (occasionally even /.). With the exception of Ars Technica, I'd think, there are no other sites out there remotely like this. The rest of the large sites are your cookie-cutter "we review hardware using very standard metrics and offer buying advice to people who are primarily gamers" sites;

I hope this isn't meant as your criticism of such sites.

they don't have the inclincation to disrupt any of their IHV relationships

Who has such an "inclination" ?!?! IMO, if such an "inclination" even exists, B3D/Dave certainly isn't Anand or Tom or Kyle. Oh c'mon...

, and they probably don't even realize when they're being lied to most of the time ([H] has gotten much better about this; their recent bits on SLI have seemed pretty fair).

Possibly correct on the first part, but it can't be proven; such sites ("they" as you say it) don't have the same amount of interest in 3D technology as, say, Dave has. And that could probably be the main difference.

The other probability is that their contents are targetted to serve the majority and that is how their content are shaped. Something that does not apply to B3D (I'm talking about the word "majority" here).

So no. Unless we see a massive shift in the online reviewer psychology, we're not going to see companies really get pounded anytime soon.

"Massive shift" can be subjective. B3D appeals to a certain sector of readers; the other websites appeal to another sector. B3D and the other outlets have (probably) different target audiences (and more importantly, focus or interest) as specified by each outlet's head honcho.

You can "pound" IHVs all you want but what you want isn't necessarily what the majority of video-card-buying public wants either.

Each media outlet has a focus. Understanding that focus is important. Don't read (or force yourself to read) what you don't want to read.

 

[Jawed]

Good call Geo.

Jawed

 

[Rys]

I agree with Reverend here. I think we can all agree that B3D presents down-to-the-bone technical analysis of 3D hardware better than any other website out there, but that doesn't mean the editors at other sites aren't any less interested in, or have any less understanding of (look at 3D Center for an example of a site that understands 3D like B3D does), those raw details.

B3D just publishes whatever it likes, and won't really live or die by the number of readers that consume their articles (in my opinion). It seems to assume a level of understanding about 3D in its articles, and if you don't possess it, it's not going to dumb it down for you.

However, for the vast majority of the rest of the sites that cover 3D hardware, we've got an audience to please that isn't highly technical, and we do assume a certain (lesser) level of understanding. So we can't drop unfiltered analysis of hardware on them without significant explanation of what the concepts and terms that we're presenting means. So we effectively have to dumb it down. That doesn't infer any lesser understanding of what's going on (although that might be the case ) by the guys writing the copy, they just have to present things differently.

The 'cookie-cutter' sites are that way for a reason. B3D stands above that because it's not pushing for large amounts of traffic to sell ads to make money to pay the bills. Nobody at B3D is writing for it to make a living.

As for not having the inclination to disrupt our IVH relationships, of course we would like to keep the level of support from the IHVs that we enjoy. But that absolutely does not mean we won't write them up if needs be. We (and I'm talking about my own site here) can survive without reference hardware to write about on NDA launch day, if that happened to be the case that we wrote someone up and they cut us off.

We'd just turn to our board partners for support and pretty much carry on without a problem. We'd just be slightly later than other sites in publishing something. These days, a little longer spent on the article without the pressure of NDA expiry times would arguably produce better copy. Dave missed NDA expiry on SLI by miles, but his article is as good as any other as a result, because he had the extra time to spend. Is B3D worse off for missing that NDA expiry? Because that's all we'd have to suffer if we wrote someone up and they cut us off...

Our readers wouldn't be bothered. The only person that'd be miffed would be me, because I enjoy the privilege of a reference board and the confidence by the IHV that I'll look at it properly. It'd make it slightly harder to get all the details I need on the hardware, but then I'd just come to B3D and read, for whatever I was missing

The hardware review site world is a whole lot different to what people perceive it to be. We're not tied to IHVs at all. If it's serious enough, we'll print it, and to hell with the resulting lack of reference board support and the odd .pdf with some details.

 

[Jawed]

I just wanna say the Hexus SLI investigation articles were in a different class to the rot that got published by the usual suspects, back when SLI was new. There was a clear example, if any was needed, of the bilge pumped out by the "big sites".

Jawed

 

[Geo]

So no. Unless we see a massive shift in the online reviewer psychology, we're not going to see companies really get pounded anytime soon.

I am *not* asking for the kind of adversarial relationships of, say, a Connie Chung/Gary Condit interview! I don't doubt that Josh's questions he wanted to ask were reasonable and enlightening and not "When did you stop beating your wife?". Further, if he publishes his "no answer" questions and the community perceives them to be "When did you stop beating your wife?" then he's the one who would suffer from public opinion, not the IHV.

And, y'know, an IHV has a right to not answer a question, just like you or I do if someone asks us. When you get to the point where they are preceived to be willing to retaliate for someone disclosing that they were even asked then you've crossed a pretty ugly bright line IMHO.