[Techsoda] "Anandtech forums on trial: The corruption runs deep."

[mnewsham]

They allow drug threads to roam freely though

To be fair, I think *almost* all of the "drug" threads have been about marijuana either medical or recreational, ~20 US states currently have some form of legal medical marijuana and two states currently have legal recreational marijuana. Is everyone who wants to discuss this supposed to show proof of residency in such a state, or a photocopy of their medical marijuana cards? Seems silly.

Now if we were talking about cooking meth or something stupid like that and there was a whole thread on the process and how to safely do it, that I would say warrents a lock and some infractions/bans.

 

[Zenmervolt]

Make it a gift instead of a salary.

Speaking as an attorney who specializes in tax law: LOL.

For one thing, business entities cannot give "gifts" under current tax law. Even if Anand called it a "gift" the fair market value of the money and/or property received would still be income to the moderators and they'd need to report it.

For another thing, even if business entities could give gifts, that would be a monumentally stupid way to organize this from the entity's point of view. Businesses get a 100% deduction for wages paid to employees and contractors. They would not get that deduction for a gift to an individual (since, in this example, there's no way to characterize the payment as a charitable contribution).

ZV

 

[olds]

Has Kyle or Tom picked up on this yet?
/snicker

 

[SpatiallyAware]

He could easily make it a contract or consultant position with a flat fee. There's no worry about $/hours or any of that. I'm guessing he already has writers on staff for the main website, it's no different than that. Or are those "volunteers" also??

Only downside is anand would (GASP!) be forced to pay taxes on the money, as would the contractors. This would help the modern progressive handout train so I don't see the issue.


I could imagine some hesitation if he wasn't making bank off the site. But there is no way that this place is not netting him a huge profit. It's one of the most trafficked forums on the internet. It's in the top google result for almost any informational topic. All it costs him is a minor amount of bandwidth and to pay whoever maintains the DB aspect of the site. Shit they don't even allow internally hosted images..... I would hazard to guess all costs added up is around $500 / month? And I would guess he's making bare minimum $10k / month off the ad revenue, very possibly 2x-3x that.

The people dedicating their time to this place deserve to get paid and it would improve the forum. Very possibly enough to increase traffic enough to cover his costs.

But no matter, paying these people is the right thing to do. It's been around long enough to create enough traffic to justify the costs. It's pretty shitty to expect these people to devote their lives into this with no pay but still expect a "professional" environment.

 

[JEDIYoda]

Has Kyle or Tom picked up on this yet?

Kyle who?
I`m joking but truthfully Kyle is only a legend in his own mind!!

 

[Zenmervolt]

He could easily make it a contract or consultant position with a flat fee. There's no worry about $/hours or any of that. I'm guessing he already has writers on staff for the main website, it's no different than that. Or are those "volunteers" also??

Only downside is anand would (GASP!) be forced to pay taxes on the money, as would the contractors. This would help the modern progressive handout train so I don't see the issue.

The people being paid would have to pay taxes on the income, yes. That would be exactly why I said that they would have to pay taxes on the income.

AnandTech (there's no flipping way Anand is operating this without some form of limited liability entity in between himself and the site), however, would not pay taxes on the money. AnandTech would get a deduction for the amount of wages paid.

If they were set up as W2 employees, then AnandTech, as an entity, would be responsible for withholding and the employer's half of payroll taxes, but that's still covered by the deduction.

By not paying that money as wages, AnandTech retains it as earnings for the entity and has to pay taxes on it already.

In any case, my intent wasn't to suggest that it wouldn't be possible to pay moderators, only that the "solution" of making it a "gift" was absolutely asinine given the tax code.

ZV

 

[waggy]

Kyle who?
I`m joking but truthfully Kyle is only a legend in his own mind!!

pretty much.

 

[Imp]

Wow... Quite a write up in the link. So, it's the forum moderators that bug people, not the quality of its members? The latter is the one that is pushing me away.

 

[OCGuy]

Who bumped this thread? Did we learn nothing from Terry Shaivo?

 

[homebrew2ny]

I have not been a member here very long but I have been a daily reader since joining and I can honestly say I do not know who a single moderator is, let alone see any of them interrupt a thread. Maybe I am missing something?

 

[videogames101]

holy shit silicon wars, i thought your posts here were crazy, but wow

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

I have not been a member here very long but I have been a daily reader since joining and I can honestly say I do not know who a single moderator is, let alone see any of them interrupt a thread. Maybe I am missing something?

Try to be more observant grasshoppa. They are all around, watching, waiting...
:biggrin:

 

[DrPizza]

The *only* issue I have with the moderatorship on this site is their inconsistency on dealing with illegal matters. They close piracy stuff quickly. They allow drug threads to roam freely though. There is a thread on the first page with users going 160mph+ on the road. Per their own forum rules, topics of this kind should be closed immediately.

If I was stupid enough to do stuff illegally, I surely won't post about it publicly. Nor would I even try to defend my illegal activity with "everyone does it" or it was a victimless crime. Lots of crap gets a free pass, some users get a free pass.

Discussions about piracy ARE allowed. Encouraging piracy is not allowed. Helping people to pirate (giving links) is not allowed; nor is asking for links/help. If you see any drug threads that say something to the effect of "hey, if you order from this site online, you can get some really good shit!" then please use the report post button. If I recall correctly, the main part of that 160+mph discussion was on a motorcycle that no longer exists. Therefore, it doesn't appear (to me) that it's particularly encouraging anyone, or providing instructions for someone to do so (that bike is no longer manufactured). Though, I cannot be certain that a discussion on such didn't happen after I had read through that thread - we certainly don't read every single post; hence the utility of the report post button for members. That thread was merely something that happened in the past that a member was posting about. Many other "illegal activity" type threads have been locked; and some have been removed. (I.e., you may not even realize that illegal activity type stuff has been removed.) Further, several admins have contacted various law enforcement agencies as a result of posts made here in the past; the information has sometimes been used by law enforcement. I don't think I'd classify those posts as petty (one was a post about intending to murder someone; he's in jail.) -Admin DrPizza

 

[Ichinisan]

... Further, several admins have contacted various law enforcement agencies as a result of posts made here in the past; the information has sometimes been used by law enforcement. I don't think I'd classify those posts as petty (one was a post about intending to murder someone; he's in jail.) -Admin DrPizza

Is the murder assistance thread still visible to the public?

 

[DrPizza]

Is the murder assistance thread still visible to the public?

http://canlii.ca/en/on/oncj/doc/2010/2010oncj63/2010oncj63.html
(Not sure if I should bold the following or not, as I'm posting as a member from an admin point of view, rather than this is an official type of post):

I think Harvey and I both wish we had seen the post several hours earlier - when there would have been time to alert the authorities in Canada of what was about to go down. Both of us had independently tracked down the person who made the threat here & were simultaneously on the phone with the same police department in Canada. That threat had been made on numerous forums across the Internet over the course of a short amount of time prior to the attack. It appears that the staff at only one of those forums (Anandtech) took the time to try to help.

 

[Jodell88]

Hmm I vaguely remember that thread. Just remember, if you do illegal shit and post about it here, Harvey WILL find you. :biggrin:

 

[OverVolt]

[jonstewart]The corruption! ... So Deep...[/jonstewart]

 

[Anubis]

Was that sarcasm? I totally missed it.

no that actually happened

 

[Red Squirrel]

Speaking as an attorney who specializes in tax law: LOL.

For one thing, business entities cannot give "gifts" under current tax law. Even if Anand called it a "gift" the fair market value of the money and/or property received would still be income to the moderators and they'd need to report it.

For another thing, even if business entities could give gifts, that would be a monumentally stupid way to organize this from the entity's point of view. Businesses get a 100% deduction for wages paid to employees and contractors. They would not get that deduction for a gift to an individual (since, in this example, there's no way to characterize the payment as a charitable contribution).

ZV

Wow that's kind of retarded. That makes things pretty hard then. Though, what about special occasions like Christmas or birthdays? Sometimes managers will give gifts to employees or w/e. I guess there's probably an amount to how much it costs though. This is where bitcoins would come in handy. :biggrin: Kind of sad though, that they make it hard to be generous.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Try to be more observant grasshoppa. They are all around, watching, waiting...
:biggrin:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkf95onRgcc :awe:

 

[Newell Steamer]

My baby!! Anandtech Forums took my baby!!

 

[JM Aggie08]

Before you leave ask to see a copy of your dossier, oh wait they don't exist

Never ceases to crack me up. I picture some sad, pathetic, broken man in his filthy-ass room. Behind his severely broken-in desk chair is a white board. Upon said white board are the names of members with dates and citations of previous infractions, some of which are so old that the dry-erase marker has begun to fade.

Internet forums - serious business.

 

[PokerGuy]

Holy too much time on your hands batman!

I've never had any problems with forum moderation here, but the guy does provide all the detail and backs up his assertions. Granted, you're only seeing one side of the story, but getting infractions and bans for posting the same thing as others who get no infractions is dumb. Some of the posts he showed by moderators are definitely out of bounds.

I'll give the guy credit for being thorough and backing up his claims with screenshots.

 

[DigDog]

I'll give the guy credit for being thorough and backing up his claims with screenshots.

Claim
screenshot

proof.

not that hard, see?

 

[rudeguy]

Discussions about piracy ARE allowed. Encouraging piracy is not allowed. Helping people to pirate (giving links) is not allowed; nor is asking for links/help. If you see any drug threads that say something to the effect of "hey, if you order from this site online, you can get some really good shit!" then please use the report post button. If I recall correctly, the main part of that 160+mph discussion was on a motorcycle that no longer exists. Therefore, it doesn't appear (to me) that it's particularly encouraging anyone, or providing instructions for someone to do so (that bike is no longer manufactured). Though, I cannot be certain that a discussion on such didn't happen after I had read through that thread - we certainly don't read every single post; hence the utility of the report post button for members. That thread was merely something that happened in the past that a member was posting about. Many other "illegal activity" type threads have been locked; and some have been removed. (I.e., you may not even realize that illegal activity type stuff has been removed.) Further, several admins have contacted various law enforcement agencies as a result of posts made here in the past; the information has sometimes been used by law enforcement. I don't think I'd classify those posts as petty (one was a post about intending to murder someone; he's in jail.) -Admin DrPizza

The problem is that many "illegal activity" threads are not locked. The problem is that many posts that are out of bounds by anyone with any sense of morality are not locked. The problem is that thieves, racists and criminals are allowed to post whatever they want if they are one of the selected few. But then if someone who is on the shit list posts something even near the out of bounds marker, they are dealt with very harshly.

People are not and have never been treated equally here. Many of my friends have been banned, pushed out or ran off simply because the mod staff didn't like them on a personal level. The mod staff will bring up and repost things that happened years in the past but if a member does it, its a callout and they are banned. God forbid someone speak out against the mods here! They will surely be shunned!!!!

I stuck up for the mods for years. Even after getting perma banned. I defended them because I liked most of them on a personal level. But that has changed. I cannot defend a crew who use their mod powers to settle personal vendettas. Its almost as if the mod crew want the masses to fear them. Then when someone comes along who will not bow down to them, the ban stick comes out.

I look forward to my impending infraction for discussing this outside of MD.