"AMD's role in Stealth Viral Marketing - Q&A" source ABT link inside

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ArchAngel777

Diamond Member
Dec 24, 2000
5,223
61
91
Well, the problem is that we have no real way to confirm who we are. It wouldn't necessarily be a good thing to require that either. In order to have constructive, interesting conversation on forums, it's not needed that we know each other's names, for instance. However, knowing each other's names would also be useless information. There's also virtually no way of knowing if a person is working for a particular company. After all, what's the different between having a conversation on a forum, and having a conversation in a bar? No information about the other person is required in either case, and the end result is that you can't entirely trust anybody.

I understand what you are saying, but I don't quite agree that they are the same thing. Anyway, this probably isn't the place to debate such a thing. It is only a matter of time before it is implemented anyway. The internet will be unified at some point and yes, that does bring with it, its own problems, but, then again, so does leaving it the way it is...
 

Grooveriding

Diamond Member
Dec 25, 2008
9,147
1,330
126
Do you read Chinese?

No I do not speak Cantonese. What I can and do see is the succinct and to the point nature of the post there. Not a ranting diatribe ad nauseam expanding the first several posts of the thread and filling pages with innuendo and attacks. Not a thread that invites the members of the forum to speculate and character assassinate the members of another forum where the very thread containing the idiocy is being linked to and sanctioned as allowable.

Or are you just taking it on blind faith that what other's are claiming, without demonstrating proof, to be fact enough to parrot as if it were proven? Perpetuating a witch-hunt, joining the mob while raising your pitchfork high into the air...

I believe you truly do not get the irony, the hypocrisy, of your outrage expressed over the implications that ABT and Apoppin were painting you to be a shill and yet you are right there in the thick of it supporting accusations in kind against individuals in another forum on a Chinese website. Individuals who have been tried in the court of public opinion, the very same court that you nearly fell victim to yourself.

I believe you do no truly understand what it is to be the target of trash like this and have said trash be sanctioned and allowed to continue. As well the corresponding response you have as the target of such unsubstantiated garbage. Myself and several others have been quite restrained and done our best to go the 'best not to dignify' route. I am still a firm believer in standing up against any sort of unjustified assailment against myself or others. You thought we should just shut up and take it while it was perpetuated there and allowed, by you, to continue here ? That by standing up and expressing outrage we ourselves are showing a bias ? Laughable.

At no point would I ever fall victim to any claims and I have in fact been hoping for him to have been provided with some means to identify anyone he suspects by name and make the mistake of using a name in his rantings.

I would welcome the opportunity to put him into the poorhouse if he made any claims that impugned upon my character in a context addressing my real name.

I see little difference between the pretext of either discussions in these sister threads.

What I do see is that the discussions themselves are effective tools in exposing pre-existing bias and prejudice that reside within certain members of this forum.

And for that information I think it was worth leaving both threads open. It has been enlightening to me at a personal level. I have learned much, as well as being reminded of just how biased and blind people can be even when it hits as close to home as possible.

This I agree with, it has been excellent in highlighting the continued agenda the OP of this thread perpetuates on this forum with ample latitudes extended to him to do so. As well I welcome the information that troll threads are allowed in order to experiment upon this forum to enlighten us to 'perceived bias' Truly a valuable and positive entry into VC&G here at Anandtech.

In short, for someone so eloquent and generally coming across as quite capable of deconstructing and understanding data, I am mystified at your ability to gloss over the details and lump two completely different situations into a singular package.
 
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lifeblood

Senior member
Oct 17, 2001
999
88
91
This is something I strongly feel he has a responsibility to do.
I think this was a perfectly allowable article to link to by Keys. I don't read ABT unless Apoppin linked to it. The fact that some rather ugly accusations were being made against this forum makes it worth knowing about.

At this point, however, I'm just going to quit reading. I've pretty much dismissed Apoppins claims. I don't take any one persons word for anything, I've found that the advice I get from this forum is generally reliable. I don't want to get splattered by mud in this fight.
 

Maximilian

Lifer
Feb 8, 2004
12,604
15
81
Could someone sum up what's going on in say 20 words or less?

The lazy/tired would appreciate it :awe:

Looks like AMD wanted ABT to be a shill site and they didnt go for it or something. Why the fuss?
 

blackened23

Diamond Member
Jul 26, 2011
8,548
2
0
Could someone sum up what's going on in say 20 words or less?

The lazy/tired would appreciate it :awe:

Looks like AMD wanted ABT to be a shill site and they didnt go for it or something. Why the fuss?

Yeah. Anyone who says something positive about AMD is a shill and ATF has been infiltrated. Moulder is on the case as we speak
 

Idontcare

Elite Member
Oct 10, 1999
21,110
64
91
This is something I strongly feel he has a responsibility to do.

I asked him not to. I told him that I wanted this thread to sink or swim based solely on forum interest in the subject matter.

If the community could not care less about ABT and Apoppin, or talking about it here versus on ABT, then the thread would sink off the front page provided it wasn't kept alive for sake of thread-crapping/personal attacks.

Hence the mod fair-warning on that.

Keysplayr honored his side of the agreement. And the thread stayed alive mostly because were, more often than not, interested in discussing the relevance of the topic material itself.

Idle thought: if anyone other than Keys had started this thread, how long would it have taken before it got locked?

No longer or shorter than the Chiphell thread. This decision was also made at time-zero when these threads showed up.

The drama in this thread may be elevated because of the OP, but that has nothing to do with the decision on keeping it open (or when to close it).

We don't censor individuals, we censor content. Right now the content on which the premise of both threads are founded is arguably comparable, (unproven unverified claims of viral marketing shenanigans going on by either AMD or Nvidia) and hence both threads have remained open.

It really is no more complicated than that.
 

Will Robinson

Golden Member
Dec 19, 2009
1,408
0
0
Well IDC I don't understand how you continue to equate these two threads as having equal merit.
The first was about the owners of a reputable website banning what (in their opinion) was paid for viral marketing at their site over a long period whilst the second was a thread insinuating a stealth campaign here by AMD....and started by a fully paid up,card carrying member of the NVDA Focus Group.
 

bryanW1995

Lifer
May 22, 2007
11,144
32
91
Well, the problem is that we have no real way to confirm who we are. It wouldn't necessarily be a good thing to require that either. In order to have constructive, interesting conversation on forums, it's not needed that we know each other's names, for instance. However, knowing each other's names would also be useless information. There's also virtually no way of knowing if a person is working for a particular company. After all, what's the different between having a conversation on a forum, and having a conversation in a bar? No information about the other person is required in either case, and the end result is that you can't entirely trust anybody.

Not true. You can trust me, I sell used cars! And new of course. :)
 

bryanW1995

Lifer
May 22, 2007
11,144
32
91
Excuse me, i aware there might be a loss in translation here, but this is ridiculous as far as sane behaviour goes. Do you expect him to lay low to divert attention away from himself? What exactly is the hipocrisy or the irony in standing up and saying: look at these people accusing me of being some ringleader shill?

Did he accuse them first? no.

He nearly fell victim to the same court? what in Gods name is this about? Excuse me for backing up someone who is perceived by most people here as a hardware entusiast with a leveled opinion and balanced view.

I think ill leave this forum and join apoppins now, there must be some truth to his "ATF is full of AMD kneejerking crowd" when you fall into such a hollow defence against someone who as said above was the focus target for this crap.

I do not think that "most" means what you think it does.
 

f1sherman

Platinum Member
Apr 5, 2011
2,243
1
0
Do you read Chinese?

Have you read the chiphell thread firsthand, pm'ed its OP to determine the level of due process he went through in determining and verifying that those he has accused of being Nvidia viral marketing are in fact what he accuses them to be?

Or are you just taking it on blind faith that what other's are claiming, without demonstrating proof, to be fact enough to parrot as if it were proven? Perpetuating a witch-hunt, joining the mob while raising your pitchfork high into the air...

I believe you truly do not get the irony, the hypocrisy, of your outrage expressed over the implications that ABT and Apoppin were painting you to be a shill and yet you are right there in the thick of it supporting accusations in kind against individuals in another forum on a Chinese website. Individuals who have been tried in the court of public opinion, the very same court that you nearly fell victim to yourself.

I see little difference between the pretext of either discussions in these sister threads.

What I do see is that the discussions themselves are effective tools in exposing pre-existing bias and prejudice that reside within certain members of this forum.

And for that information I think it was worth leaving both threads open. It has been enlightening to me at a personal level. I have learned much, as well as being reminded of just how biased and blind people can be even when it hits as close to home as possible.

This is just great...
Like WTF is going on here? These concepts ^^ are so simple yet it seems they elude the bulk of posters.
So here you have to be an Administrator, just to be rational? :eek:
 

FredGamer

Junior Member
Jul 27, 2011
7
0
0
http://alienbabeltech.com/abt/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=24247&start=140

Apoppin said:
We didn't talk about viral marketing then, but i followed up the next week with a phone call.

On the phone we talked frankly about my concerns over the posters at ATF slandering ABT and our articles and AMD's PR guys admitted that "we saw the posts" but reassured me that "we don't care about what anyone posts" on the forums.

So here we have the owner of a tech site who used to employ someone in ATi's viral marketing department, who has posted articles about the viral marketing firms AMD has employed, and tell us he has recently been arguing with officials at AMD about the conduct of their viral marketers on AT VF.

And all of the people you would most suspect as being AMD viral marketers clamoring to remove the thread, or discredit Apoppin.

LOL- yeah, nothing to see here, it's all probably some crazy plot by Rollo....

Ooops- that's me, and I have to say I'm dissapointed.

This is the sort of thing that has made posting on the tech forums not much fun at all for years now.

It's why so many of the forums are dying, along with the shift to consoles by the young, the recession making even $300 video cards seem a luxury, and social media taking the place of forums.

And so much hatred and animosity. For my part in it all, I offer my apologies to anyone on this site who is not associated with this site, or AMD/ATi.

I don't think computer gaming is dying- I think the forums as a community of enthusiasts who actually cared about each other are. People remember that I lied about my involvement in AEG, which I am sorry for, but they forget what the forums used to be.

We used to take up collections for people who lost their jobs or had sick relatives, we gave people parts or gave them deals on parts if they were down on their luck.

Not so anymore. These days you can't get past the cacophony of fanboys paid or otherwise tripping over themselves trying to earn free handouts or be considered for them.

On NV focus group: has three members these days. Two of us died. A handful quit. One got hired at NVIDIA. There has never been anyone "supporting us" openly or clandestinely. I doubt the NVIDIA focus group puts 20 posts a week on the board these days, unless I feel like posting.
Leviathan only posts on NVForums, Keys only posts here, and I mainly post on NVNews and Toms. Not much of a "marketing machine".

On AEG: Some of us did want to disclose our relationship with NVIDIA. I personally took a lot of flak for flaunting my relationship with NVIDIA, some thought I was a publicity hound. I suppose I was, it was fun being an "industry insider".

On NV Focus Group: If I had $10 for every time NVIDIA asked me not to talk about ATi's finances, flame ATi, or in general be a jerk to ATi, I wouldn't be going to work at the software company tomorrow. Contrary to popular belief, I was probably the LEAST influential of the group. In general, my battling with the ATi virals and fan boys did not win me friends at NV. I've never worked for NVIDIA, I've worked in software training/support/QA/implemenation for a long time now. Before that I was in advertising (pharmacy) and before that I was mainly picking up my degrees.

On the supposedly banned people:
I got Nemesis1 banned by forwarding PMs he sent to a then 16 year old member saying he would hunt him down and beat him bloody, or slit his throat. I got him banned as a re-reg because he barely speaks English and was pretty easy to spot. I got another guy banned for flaming me a lot, part of which was accusing me of being in AEG. (he actually got banned for things a little more hostile than saying "you're in AEG Rollo!")

And that's it. As it all started here, this is where I wanted to clear the air.

I wish you all well in these troubled economic times, and thank you for the good times and friends I've met here and elsewhere. These days career and family are my priorities, so I resigned from Focus Group.

-The Poster Formerly Known as Rollo
Ex- NV Focus Group

-The Poster Formerly Known As Rollo



Secondary accounts for RBM purposes are not allowed.

Administrator Idontcare
 
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MrK6

Diamond Member
Aug 9, 2004
4,458
4
81
http://alienbabeltech.com/abt/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=24247&start=140

So here we have the owner of a tech site...

-The Poster Formerly Known as Rollo
Ex- NV Focus Group

-The Poster Formerly Known As Rollo
You got banned because you're a shill and a disgrace to the good name of this community. How obnoxiously pretentious of you to come here and attempt to point fingers and discredit others to drag them down to your level. Your history discredits you forever, the fact that you could come here every day and knowingly and willingly spread misinformation and falsities as long as that check kept rolling in is a black mark in this community's history. Any "feel good story" you try parasitically siphon from isn't going to change that. It just shows what a pathetic group ABT'ers are if all they can do is come over here to stir up trouble.

Honestly, I've held my tongue for most of this but something needs to be done now. This is one of the few tech forums where regularly threads are derailed by this fanboy and shilling nonsense. I'm not calling of a witch hunt, but it is very difficult to make a thread, recommend a purchase, be excited about hardware, or try to prove a point without being called a shill/fanboy/etc. Furthermore there are blights to this forum that consistently derail threads, post flamebait topics, and push agendas, but it's not OK to call them out on it, and yet nothing is ever done about it.