nRollo has been banned

DerekWilson · 02-05-2009, 01:28 PM

Video forum regulars will be well acquainted with the situation, but last year we allowed Rollo to return to our community on the condition that he no longer hide his affiliation with NVIDIA and that he abide by our new guidelines and TOS.

Those who know the history remember that Rollo lied about being affiliated with NVIDIA much to the detriment of forum members and moderators.

Since his roll as an affiliate of NVIDIA was no longer tied to marketing, we were interested in having someone with inside knowledge of NVIDIA on the forums, and we had been extending reprieve to other previously banned members, we decided to give Rollo a shot to redeem himself.

Upon returning, Rollo abided (with a few hiccups) our guidelines. In general he has played nice and stayed within the letter of what we would allow. But he failed to regain the trust and respect of the community and reestablish himself here in a new light. The shroud of the past was ever present.

Aside from being a focus group member who evaluates things for NVIDIA and helps to provide information to those interested, Rollo is also an unapologetic fanboi. We've got plenty of those here on all sides of the aisle, but the aspect of the situation that stood in the way of Rollo pulling away from his past here.

As with all returning banned members, we reserve the right to revoke their posting status if we decide that the reinstatement is not working out. This has been our determination here. It is not AnandTech policy to ban members who have not violated the guidelines or the TOS, and no one who has not previously been permabanned needs to worry about arbitrary bannings.

I appreciate all of you who bore with the situation for so long. Thanks for giving it a chance. I do apologize for any undue stress I caused by allowing Rollo to return in the first place. I take full responsibility for the decision, and I hope the fact that we have taken this action will be the first step in healing wounds.

Thanks for taking the time to participate in our forums.

Alright, you guys have had a day to say your piece. Locking this down now, because a few of you don't understand the concept of what's considered on-topic and what isn't...

Stickying this notice for a few days so people who don't check in as frequently are aware of the situation.

- AmberClad (Video Mod)

SunnyD · 02-05-2009, 01:43 PM

Holy carp!

edit: 1st

moar edit: Question - so he was banned not because he was a focus group tool but because he was a tool in general? I'm just trying to get a handle on it - I personally felt he was doing too much "marketing" for NV, not really caring that he was biased anyway. His posts just always seemed to come off as sales pitches. Was it this, or was it more "typical" forum issues that gave him the boot?

toyota · 02-05-2009, 01:48 PM

I never really noticed anything inappropriate from him.

AzN · 02-05-2009, 01:49 PM

neither did I

dguy6789 · 02-05-2009, 02:03 PM

Rollo is probably the least troublesome of the three or so nvidia fanboys here that need to be banned.

CP5670 · 02-05-2009, 02:06 PM

Interesting development. I don't post that much here anymore, but thought this should have been done a long time ago.

Quote:

we were interested in having someone with inside knowledge of NVIDIA on the forums

I don't see what you were hoping to accomplish here. He obviously would never disclose such information since he was always under NDA, as he often said himself.

AzN · 02-05-2009, 02:09 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by: dguy6789
Rollo is probably the least troublesome of the three or so nvidia fanboys here that need to be banned.

Just because they are fanboys they need to be banned?

What is the world coming to?

Wreckage · 02-05-2009, 02:12 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by: toyota
I never really noticed anything inappropriate from him.

I'm guessing it's the old "squeaky wheel gets the grease" situation. As a lot of people were on his case. Same with Keys, but he is on better terms with the forum.

cliftonite · 02-05-2009, 02:16 PM

Thank you.

nismotigerwvu · 02-05-2009, 02:20 PM

Thank you

dguy6789 · 02-05-2009, 02:24 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by: Azn

Quote:

Originally posted by: dguy6789
Rollo is probably the least troublesome of the three or so nvidia fanboys here that need to be banned.

Just because they are fanboys they need to be banned?

What is the world coming to?

When people make a thread asking for video card suggestions, some of these people come into the thread and make it seem like AMD cards are trash and virtually unplayable without significant problems in most modern games. Flat out lying like that to someone who is looking for honest answers should be bannable, especially since they do it practically all the time.

Liking one brand over another is perfectly fine, but telling someone that one brand is unusable just to get them to buy another brand is silly.

AzN · 02-05-2009, 02:26 PM

I haven't seen nRollo do that. It all comes down to favoritism. A mod sees you in a wrong way. Poof. I've seen plenty people who do that all the time and no ban.

Skunkwourk · 02-05-2009, 02:27 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by: Azn

Quote:

Originally posted by: dguy6789
Rollo is probably the least troublesome of the three or so nvidia fanboys here that need to be banned.

Just because they are fanboys they need to be banned?

What is the world coming to?

I think it has more to do with his past, and in the eyes of the mods, his "unapologetic fanboyism" doesn't sit well in light of their willingness to give him a chance to redeem himself and regain the trust of forum members (although I don't know if that was ever a possibility here)

EDIT: Sometimes people need to exercise greater restraint and better judgment to make up for mistakes of the past, even if they're no longer doing anything wrong in the present. (For the record Im not endorsing his ban, this is just my take on the reasoning behind it)

dguy6789 · 02-05-2009, 02:30 PM

Like I said, nRollo was one of the least deserving of a ban of that group of people.

sisq0kidd · 02-05-2009, 02:53 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by: toyota
I never really noticed anything inappropriate from him.

Not really a fanboy of either company, but I agree with this statement.

SSChevy2001 · 02-05-2009, 02:59 PM

@DerekWilson
Thanks.

@Azn

nRollo went out of his way to find problems with ATi cards. He paid almost $200 for a 4850 just to show off ATi rendering problems.
FarCry 2 & Deadspace

dflynchimp · 02-05-2009, 03:05 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by: sisq0kidd

Quote:

Originally posted by: toyota
I never really noticed anything inappropriate from him.

Not really a fanboy of either company, but I agree with this statement.

I've been buying GPU's from both companies for a while now, and am a fan of both. I can see why the guy was banned.

He was blowing the problems with ATI hardware out of proportions, sometimes to the point of blatant lying. He was subtle about it, but there is no denying that his method of pushing for Nvidia hardware in suggestion threads was biased and not entirely truthful.

Take his main arguments against ATI's cards (micro stuttering, driver bugginess). I've used many generations of ATI cards in machines I've built or machines my friends had. I can say from experience that he was blowing things out of proportion, exagerating his claims of ATI's inferiority. Even though he had valid points against ATI's lack of CUDA or physX he was still laying it on thick.

Alot of the problems with GPU acceleration (multi-gpu scaling/performance, driver flaws) are not exclusive to either company. Both Nvidia and ATI have turned out crapshoots of drivers at some point in the past. Both of them have ALSO turned out some very competitive cards at competitive prices. I can never understand Fanboi-ism. Isn't the ultimate goal to get the best performance for the best price? If so why limit yourself to one company? (unless they were giving you free shit like nRollo's focus group plan)

However, I didn't think nRollo absoluted needed to be banned. Fanboi-ism is one of the most pervasive traits on the AT tech forums, and penalizing one of us would be unfair unless you penalized all of the fanbois (AKA half the population here). Besides, where nRollo was bashing ATI hardware there were more than enough people around to refute him and argue the otherside of the coin.

Capt Caveman · 02-05-2009, 03:06 PM

:beer:

Thank You!

JAG87 · 02-05-2009, 03:08 PM

At last. Took long enough.

IlllI · 02-05-2009, 03:11 PM

it was not blatant 'ATI suxx)rz!! nvidia rules#1' type posts. no, much more subtle than that. more along the lines of 'hey, lets post negative pr posts about our bitter rival company and possibly get people to think twice about buying their products!'

you never saw any equilibrium from him.

never posted anything negative towards his favorite company, and really who could blame him? they DID sign his paycheck afterall. in the same breath being so graceous to inform people here of different issues with rival products. how thoughtful of him.

reading the video forums for years you tend to pick up on these things. casual reader might not notice. but for me it was pretty easy to tell certain people have an agenda to undermine a company they have obvious bias towards (again based on reading the forum for a long time now, its easy to spot).

videogames101 · 02-05-2009, 03:14 PM

And so it ends....

(And by that, I mean I want nRollo back, because he always provided for the drama that made this forum great. And as an ATI fanboy, I always enjoyed a good argument with him.)

(Also, I cans see why eveyrone thinks he should be banned, but my problem is that I don't think that they are bannable offenses, so don't start telling me why he should be banned, because I already know)

geokilla · 02-05-2009, 03:29 PM

I don't think nRollo shoulda been banned. I visit AnandTech twice a day, but I don't post in all the forums. I do however see that he is a BIG fanboy, but he doesn't deserve to be banned. There's others out there that should be banned instead, but I won't be naming who. Some people really help the AnandTech community while others just walk all over them.

It is a forum, and forum will attract many different types of people. Imo, this should be a temporary ban at most.

zagood · 02-05-2009, 03:30 PM

Up until the physx and stereoscopic posts he's made recently I thought he was doing pretty good and I enjoyed a lot of his information (taken with a grain of salt of course). Seems lately though he's been really pushing these, so I can understand the timing.

I never thought he was a detriment to the forums and I think a ban is a bit harsh, but not completely undeserved.

-z

AVP · 02-05-2009, 03:30 PM

Anandtech will miss him.

PCTC2 · 02-05-2009, 03:36 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by: AVP
Anandtech will miss him.

Indeed. He may have been a fanboy, but we all have a bit of fanboy in ourselves. I never found him more annoying or deserving of a ban than any other member with an opinion. nRollo may have been obnoxious at times, but he still got some good points across.

oh, and I am not an nVIDIA fanboy, if any of you look at my sig. I just happen to own only nVIDIA at the moment. My workstation has an x1900XT and my ubuntu media box has an AMD 780G chipset, needing of a new graphics card (probably a HD 4830).

nRollo, farewell.