Dying forum

Well, the forum is dying. I've been visiting a lot of dying forums lately for information, and found that the few posters there never do get their questions answered. I'll try to help those who remain here...

I blame Tom. THG used to be a site full of radical fringe hardware modification as such, now it's a politically correct review site. Doesn't even cause a stir in the hardware community. Recycled news isn't cutting it.

<font color=blue>By now you're probably wishing you had asked more questions first!</font color=blue>

Perhaps you are correct or perhaps it is the market. For most there is no reason to buy the fastest thing out there just to surf the internet. Even for me a machine twice as fast is going to take 3 hours to code a movie instead of 6 and either way I'm going to work/bed until it is finished. When the times start getting around 30min I'll feel compelled to up grade but for most 1GHz or 2GHz make a no difference.

Give me fuel, give me fire, give me that which I desire.

If they went back and did some hardware mods and such, there are pleanty of people in their late teens with lots of knowledge and good motor skills who would probably want to try moding their hardware when they don't have the money to upgrade.

<font color=blue>By now you're probably wishing you had asked more questions first!</font color=blue>

<pre>thanks for the kind words, your check is in the mail.</pre><p><b><font color=green>I have to be somewhere so I am here.

<pre>sigh!</pre><p>
<b><font color=green>I have to be somewhere so I am here.

Just tellin it like it is man.

If my baby don't love me, I know, I know, her sister will.

You're completely right it seems it is going downhill for THG and his community.

THG problems:
1. Articles about not interesting things
2. Where are those OC'ing and modding articles (I remember that the first OC Guide I read was at THG, and at the time I had the ASUS A7V133 mobo they also published a nice voltage mod guide, WhereTF are those).
3. WhereTF is Tom?
4. Update some parts of your site... some thing are really outdated (ie. THGC FAQ).

THGC problems:
1. Slow
2. Apperantly to much flaming and trolling
3. Knowledge is moving away.
4. Ever heard about the expression 'keeping up-to-date'? It looks like this forum isn't managed by anyone. Fredi WhereTF are you?

I have a suggestion:
<b>Lets all send mails to comments@tomshardware.com with complainments... lets throw it right into their face.</b>

My watercooler contains so much water that the moon has influence upon it .

Exactly, if they don't listen to one or two people, maybe they listen to a couple of douzens.

My watercooler contains so much water that the moon has influence upon it .

This has become a sad place. I have learned a lot from THG in the past. Once, when I had surgery, I moved my computer to my coffee table because that was where I basically lived for 5 days. I read every article on the site. Besides my side hurting from the staples, my brain hurt from all of the stuff that I never knew.

I remember the 440BX overclocking guide and a whole bunch of other stuff.

Now guys like Fatburger, PooBaa, etc. are practically non-existant and with them their knowledge and humor.

It is a sad day for THGC.

<b>"If I melt dry ice in a bathtub, can I take a bath without getting wet?" - Steven Wright</b>

I just send my mail to THG... it contains the links to the 2 complainments thread (Crashman's and mine) and a revised list of my first post in this thread.

My watercooler contains so much water that the moon has influence upon it .

Fatburger was also upset because you were one of the complainers about the forum, and did nothing about it.

His deal was that he had to ask you 7 or so times before you finaly did pm Fredi.

I really think if everyone want a change badly, everyone really need to pm/email/spam Fredis pm box.

Ofcourse if Fredi gets nothing but 4 complaint emails, he dismisses it and does nothing about it.

If he gets few hundred, he will do something about it. If not, he deservers to be ....well ...spanked! well, no, Tom should just send his check to me

I'm more or less with you Crashman. However, I think it really is a matter of two issues:

<b>1) The THG Main site (the place we all <i>used</i> to love):</b>

THG has just been going down the tubes. Articles <i>still</i> aren't being edited in the least before they're published. (Or if they are, they really need to sack their editor and get one who has half a clue when it comes to technology.) Patrick Schmid still writes crap. And I haven't seen any sort of a mod article (unlocking your AXP, modding your IDE controller card, etc., etc.) in ages. Also I'm guessing that THG has a roll of new interns or something because all of these names I don't recognize are putting out yawnable articles.

The whole feel of THG has gone from 'underground grotto and hardware specialist heaven' to 'PR fluff-bunny love farm'. Now, maybe part of that is just the IT industry lately. It's been a somewhat ho-hum world. Even still, an article like 'How to make your GeForce4 4200 run like a 4400 and beyond' or 'How to put an active cooler on your northbridge to eliminate your OCing bottleneck' or even a halfway decent article taking the 'goo' PC one step further would make one hell of a difference to the feel of THG.

On top of that, when was the last time anyone even felt like THG folk were even listening to them? Every email I've ever sent has been promptly ignored. Every 'tell us what you think' statement has been completely superficial as far as I can tell. It seems like the only time any emails ever made an impact on THG was when Omid Rahmat got flamed for his "Second Hand Smoke - Stop Smothering AMD!" column.

<b>2) The THG Community: (related to THG, but seperate)</b>
THGC has been getting progressively worse and worse. Some of the good educated folks are just getting bored and/or fed up. Thus they post less and/or leave. Meanwhile newbies run rampant posting the same old stuff over and over. Honestly, would it KILL THGC to put text at the top of every page saying "Search first and if you don't find an answer or appropriate thread <i>then</i> post?" Would it KILL THGC to create a "Computer" section put ABOVE the "CPU" section for people with general computer problems to post to?

And then there are the problems like moderation. Some people feel that there should be stricter control on what is and isn't allowable to be put into posts. (Swearing at the minimum.) More important to me (but not to other people) though is simple filtering of the posts into their appropriate sections. And most important of all is when people are just plain being ___holes and detracting from THGC instead of contributing to it, delete their accounts and/or block them.

Personally, my opinion is that this is a privately-owned server and service, so 'freedom of speech' is completely unimportant. It's a community based on what is supposedly a professional website and therefore should be treated as such. Get rid of the swearing. Get rid of the ___holes. Get rid of the NC17 and higher topics/conversations/etc. If people want that kind of ____ then they should be going to a more appropriate forum to post/read it. THGC <i>should</i> be a place where kids at school and people at work can turn to for technical answers and information. It should <i>not</i> be a place banned/filtered for its content or placing viewers at risk of being picked up by employee-monitoring software. Simply, THGC is extremely unprofessional and if it wants to keep any of the posters worth reading, it should change. No one says THGC has to become unfunny, unlovable, or just plain Nun-With-A-Ruler strict. Just make it passable as something even remotely related to being professional.

Anywho, that's my rant. I will now extricate myself from my soapbox and try to unwedge the saddle horn from my high horse out of my arse to climb back down to join everyone else for a rousing game of Twister.

P.S. I'd actually email this to, well, <i>everyone</i> at THG if I thought that for once they might actually take the time to read one of my emails. Since based on proir experience I <i>don't</i> believe such will ever happen, I'm leaving it in this thread.

<A HREF="http://www.nuklearpower.com/comic/171.htm" target="_new">The corpse you find may be your own.</A> - Black Mage

I heard from Scamtron that Fredi is on vacation this week... but maybe it is better not to send the complainments mails to Fredi but to comment@tomshardware.com... maybe other people also view those mails.

My watercooler contains so much water that the moon has influence upon it .

"The whole feel of THG has gone from 'underground grotto and hardware specialist heaven' to 'PR fluff-bunny love farm'.

I couldn't agree with you more nor say it in as such a manner as you have expressed it.

"Search first and if you don't find an answer or appropriate thread then post?"

Yahiko81 posted something similar in the memory section that I intend to bump as long as it is needed. I suggest that each of you do that in your respective sections. If the "Management" won't do it, let's take the bull by the horns. We are "do-it-yourselfers" aren't we? Then let's do it here and make this place what we want.

"Simply, THGC is extremely unprofessional and if it wants to keep any of the posters worth reading, it should change. No one says THGC has to become unfunny, unlovable, or just plain Nun-With-A-Ruler strict. Just make it passable as something even remotely related to being professional."

Thank you again!

Has anyone recently ever received a reply from Fredi? I did about a week and a half ago. So he does exist and is not some Kyser Sose' type fictitious character.


<b>"If I melt dry ice in a bathtub, can I take a bath without getting wet?" - Steven Wright</b>

I think it's got a lot to do with the PC culture these days. It used to be what you did with the machine that mattered. Now it's what machine you own. Who has the best specs and what brand components you have. People are more interested in finding out and proving what components are the best rather than making what components they have work the best.