Articles from Tomshardware.com should be banned due to continuous conflict between r/hardware rules and questionable quality of their articles.
Posted by AYasin@reddit | hardware | View on Reddit | 223 comments
Preface:
I wrote the following post 7 days ago but it is automatically removed. I contacted the mods, after days of back-and-forth they said 'they believe it was removed because of the twitter link'.
I decided to repost it due to recent AMD 9800X3D 'failures/deaths' Reddit megathread post. People in this sub I believe have the same sentiment.
I hope this won't get auto removed again.
It is my observation that articles originating from Tom's Hardware are becoming more and more unreliable as time passes. Some of those articles (if not most) are based on unconfirmed rumors, originating from short tweets. They write articles out of those without adding anything substantial. They convert the source into paragraph long article by adding filler words.
Those articles fail to satisfy some of the standards of r/Hardware; and they fail to comply with some of the rules of this sub. By being a known website of many years, they produce a lot of content and quickly. By the extension of it r/Hardware gets filled with content from Tom's Hardware at a similar rate. This has the potential to manipulate conversations based on unreliable articles.
Therefore, as a whole, articles from Tom's Hardware should be banned.
r/Hardware's Standards
It writes in bold on the sidebar on of r/hardware on Old Reddit that:
The goal of /r/hardware is a place for quality hardware news, reviews, and intelligent discussion.
"Quality" is the adjective used here for news and reviews. Tom's Hardware in my opinion do not publish quality news.
Some Rules
Here are related rules of this subreddit.
Original Source Policy
Content submitted should be of original source, or at least contain partially original reporting on top of existing information. Exceptions can be made for content in foreign language or any other exceptional cases. Fully paywalled articles are not allowed. Please contact the moderators through modmail if you have questions.
Rumor Policy
No unsubstantiated rumors - Rumors or other claims/information not directly from official sources must have evidence to support them. Any rumor or claim that is just a statement from an unknown source containing no supporting evidence will be removed.
"Content submitted should be of original source, or at least contain partially original reporting on top of existing information." says one rules Therefore shared articles must at the very least (1) contain the source information and (2) additional reporting on top of that.
"Rumors or other claims/information (...) must have evidence to support them." says another rule. This on is self-explanatory.
An example
Recently this post linking to this article by Hassam Nasir is posted on this sub. It is flaired as Rumor. Title of the post is the same as the title of the article:
RTX 5090 supplies to be 'stupidly high' next month as GB200 wafers get repurposed, asserts leaker
This article's title's has a definitive statement. Yet the article has nothing definitive. It alleges, supposes; and finishes with adding nothing substantial. It doesn't proves or disproves the claims of the source. By the way, the source to this 2460 character long article is this short tweet:
The supply of RTX5090 will be stupidly high soon. Scalpers will cry so hard😂
by @Zed__Wang on Twitter.
Link: x(dot)com/Zed__Wang/status/1890608126329586017
This article is not a quality article. It doesn't contain the source information in full, it only mentions it and provides a link. It does add some text on top of that but that is not additional reporting. It is also an unsubstantiated rumor.
This post is currently 5 hours old and is on the top of r/Hardware (in default 'Hot' view). It got 171 comments. It creates engagement, rightfully so with regard to what it says on the title. In reality, there is no substance.
I can report this singular post, but there is an infestation. And as a community, we should demand higher quality standards for this sub from the moderators. We deserve it.
I am not an active Redditor on this sub, but I frequently visit here, read people's opinions.
Regular-Climate1585@reddit
TH (Tom's) was great when the net first started. Not their absolutely horrible. The person moderating their comments section is way beyond an absolute control freak. S/He never approves my posts but did one single time. And then decided to delete it because it was not "on topic" enough. Their extreme moderation will open them up to a civil suit at some point which section 230 defenses will not immunize. And, yes, their articles are extremely poor quality now. Questionable "truth" as well.
I have told my news feed app to never recommend them to me again. It's great that, since then, I found this thread. Independent validation. Thanks for your post, OP.
AYasin@reddit (OP)
While it is upsetting to see reputable publications shut down (see Anandtech), it becomes infuriating when they lower quality standards while using their once-reputable name as a facade (see Tom's Hardware, Cnet).
Gatekeeping as you described can be punishing to us yet it keeps bad actors out and away too. This also happens at some parts of Wikipedia to protect some articles. I would be sad if Wikipedia would remove their article protections and punish their gatekeeping community editors because I believe gradually it would decrease overall quality and credibility of their articles.
Thanks for sharing your anecdote.
DeltaSierra426@reddit
Yeah, unless something is a [reliably] "confirmed" rumor, there shouldn't be any articles that just regurgitate what videocardz or any other rumors-focused site posts.
AYasin@reddit (OP)
I diagnosed an infestation and proposed a solution: A total ban. To back up back solution, I couldn't delve into how often they publish slob; because enough of it was ending here.
Also your suggestion (but on post basis) is already here and everywhere on Reddit. An upvote/downvote system. That system can be and is abused by bot, trolls, people with no regard to a subs rules etc.
Cheesqueak@reddit
Dude. Toms has ALWAYS been garbage tier. They did some garbage pro intel bullshit back when the AMD Athlon was out performing the p3. AMDs all catch fire and burn!!!!!!
Regular-Climate1585@reddit
I remember that. Made me nervous to run my Athlon system. Those guys are jerks. Surprised they weren't ever sued by AMD. Check this out from 6 years ago... https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/s/uhXp39M5Mh I remember that, too!
Both-Election3382@reddit
A lot of places like GPUz and toms hardware are a mix between useful stuff and garbage regurgitating of reddit/social media posts/rumours. They should have higher standards but a lot of these Writers on there need money/work i guess.
Regular-Climate1585@reddit
No, TH (Toms) is nothing but click bait and trash now.
U3011@reddit
Tom's has been a questionable source as long as they've been around. They were bought twice in the last 15 years. Each purchase degraded the quality of the website. The infamous Piltch "Just Buy It" article was the beginning of a steeper decline than prior.
This past summer Anandtech bid adieu to their articles. That was a gut punch but Anandtech had been ailing for several years up til that point. There's very few websites that public in depth reviews these days. Everything is on video now.
Even Notebookcheck has gone down over the years. For my fellow old farts, we're slowly panicking because we never though these dark days would come. Most of us are juggling a busy like, kids, families, and other adult stuff and can't sit down to watch a 40 minute video.
Regular-Climate1585@reddit
No, not on day one. But probably on day 2. TH is a cesspool of stupid filth now. They were my fav. on day one.
Gippy_@reddit
Yup, written articles just don't make money. It's just Techpowerup that really gets traction, and that's it. GN and HUB (via TechSpot) have written articles but those are funded from their videos.
HardOCP used to be the one site that everyone looked up to 20 years ago. But nobody pays attention to its spiritual successor, The FPS Review, which is still around and run by some former HardOCP staff.
AK-Brian@reddit
TFR is quite solid. I've been visiting it regularly since it was spun up, but user partitipation in comments is always pretty light. This absolutely helps keep it, as you say, drama free, but also gives everything a bit of a sterile feel. I'll occasionally link to a review of theirs from time to time, as they're often left out of review roundups when new products launch.
TechGage used to be another under-the-radar source for productivity benchmarks and content creation focused hardware reviews, but it abruptly went dormant (and the siterunner's socials were scrubbed) at some point towards the end of 2023 and I've hesitated to speculate on why. Rob Williams did some good work there.
Gippy_@reddit
I loved HardOCP because they were GN before GN. They weren't afraid to call out companies. Remember HardOCP vs. Infinium Labs because they rightly called the Phantom console a scam? Or how they saw Corsair PSUs slowly turning to shit in 2014 before everyone else and gave multiple poor reviews to them? TPR reviews play it way too safe these days (9/10+ to multiple 50-series cards???) and that has hurt their cred.
Gwennifer@reddit
Guru3D's Hilbert is still kicking around, and Liliputing is still almost exclusively written content, as is Phoronix. I do think if you viewed this subreddit as "exclusively PC gaming hardware" then yes, your sources are drying up as that market segment consolidates.
New-Investigator-646@reddit
Awful ai generated seo bs
logosuwu@reddit
Ban Dylan Patel (semianalysis) while we're at it lmfao. 90% baseless speculation that derives clicks from this subreddit (not to mention that he literally started off by violating the self promotion rule, spamming his blog)
ChampionshipSalt1358@reddit
Oh my god please ban dylan he has been a source of so much misinformation on this sub going on years and years and years. He's a real d bag in real life too.
Dogeboja@reddit
What are some good examples of this?
steak4take@reddit
See that Dylan? People know you well. The wheel of karma - let it roll.
FinancialRip2008@reddit
this whole comment tree will just get hidden once one of them notices.
AYasin@reddit (OP)
https://web.archive.org/web/20250225014342/https://old.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/1ixgas1/articles_from_tomshardwarecom_should_be_banned/
innerfrei@reddit
You can bury your tinfoil imo, we are many mods, we saw the thread as soon as it was posted, why should we hide this comment tree?
Plus this whole discussion on the conflict of interest of dylan522p seems a non-problem.
Post of Semianalysis on the sub in the last year? 2.
Last post from Dylan on the sub? 2 years ago.
What are we even talking about here...
AYasin@reddit (OP)
Let's not stretch the argument. It is only human.
I earnestly want you to think not as a moderator but as someone who doesn't know who the moderators are. I have seen so many mods on other subs who use their power to ban/silence dissent; promote their business etc.
Under the assumption Dylan's position as a mod is conflict of interest, it is not out-of-ordinary seeing users expecting such outcomes.
innerfrei@reddit
I understand your point, that is fair. I would still expect a quick check by the user that wanted to start the witch hunt before writing a comment like that, but I get what you mean and I also don't expect all users to be up to date with the latest news of what the mods are doing and so on.
AYasin@reddit (OP)
Witch hunt? By me? That's just mean. I didn't even start the conversation about Dylan and semianalysis. I know neither of 'em. So I gain or lose nothing by their downfall, or by their success.
Also it is a good practice to archive things once in a while.
innerfrei@reddit
No no, not you, I meant the first message from logosuwuJun.
bizude@reddit
Believe it or not, most of the time the moderators on this sub aren't that petty. Source: I used to moderate this sub.
FinancialRip2008@reddit
only takes one.
bizude@reddit
That's true
FinancialRip2008@reddit
dude, the one i saw was just some guy citing support for his unpopular opinion. it looked like just friendly chatter to me. genuinely blew me away.
dawnguard2021@reddit
and hes a mod on this sub
bizude@reddit
To be fair, Dylan doesn't really moderate anymore. He's more of a moderator in name only now.
PM_ME_UR_TOSTADAS@reddit
Is he the guy that resigned for no apparent reason, only to still be a moderator?
innerfrei@reddit
No that is the guy you responded to, which is in fact not a mod anymore.
Strazdas1@reddit
Yes, thats the guy who announced his departure and never left.
Thorusss@reddit
Well. That it should be not problem to remove him.
Frexxia@reddit
That seems like a conflict of interest
DZCreeper@reddit
Reddit has no conflict of interest rules. Companies like Nicehash outright fill their own subreddits with staff and suppress negative feedback. The only thing the admins seriously enforce is companies who try to advertise without paying.
Lifealert_@reddit
You can have a conflict of interest, regardless of whether or not you are breaking a 'rule' or TOS.
MiyaSugoi@reddit
They agree. They're just saying that reddit doesn't even have any rules against this obvious issue.
Lifealert_@reddit
Ah, I see it now thank you.
inyue@reddit
Wasn't this guy that made a drama post explaining nothing announcing that he was leaving the mod team or something like that? Or was another guy? But I 100% remember a known mod doing that recently on a popular hardware related sub.
kikimaru024@reddit
No, that was Albert Thomas (the CPU cooler reviewer).
inyue@reddit
Bizude right?
bizude@reddit
I'm still around. I might start talking about things much more important than hardware soon.
ChampionshipSalt1358@reddit
Oh of course he is lol
spiral6@reddit
I have him at -30 karma because of the awful information and takes he has.
akshayprogrammer@reddit
Could you give some examples please. I thought semianalysis stuff is generally high quality
hwgod@reddit
The recent DeepSeek post would be a great example. He has a strong habit of presenting pure speculation (at best...) as "professional analysis". Can look back on some of his technical articles (e.g. MTL run-up) for other examples of that. IIRC, he strongly insisted MTL would use ODI and 3nm.
bizude@reddit
I don't think you'll get any examples given. His work at SemiAnalysis is top notch. He isn't perfect, but he's darned good at what he does.
auradragon1@reddit
Agreed. I'm looking for examples instead of joining the stupid mob mentality that is Reddit.
fullmetaljackass@reddit
Yeah, and looking at his post history he's barely even active anymore. He hasn't submitted anything to the sub in over two years, and only comments on reddit every month or so.
dylan522p@reddit
Our rule was less than 10% of posts, and I never was above 1% of posts here. And I haven't posted here in a long time because quality keeps sliding here unfortunately. Cope on it being speculation. You can see the website and see it's clearly not.
fastclickertoggle@reddit
Yeah quality keeps sliding because of people like you posting political propaganda masquerading as "facts" in this sub. Your comment history from years back is horrible.
dylan522p@reddit
Again you can just go back then it was vast vast majority tech and myself and nekrosmas were trying to ban all political posts but people didn't like when we did that
logosuwu@reddit
You literally posted shit like "CHINA STEALS ARM" when it was just one guy with the company chop refusing to hand it over, then deleted the article when the Chinese courts arrested the guy LMFAO. If that isn't a politically motivated article then I don't know what is.
logosuwu@reddit
Lmao you really think everyone is gonna forget how at one point in 2021 over 50% of your submissions in a month was to your blog? We aren't that stupid.
dylan522p@reddit
No it wasn't the rule was comments and posts and I never had even 1% of my comments and posts about it. You can just look at the stats yourself lol
logosuwu@reddit
It was over the 10% rule nonetheless lmfao. Wasn't hard finding instances of you spamming your blog everywhere.
As for speculation, 4 years ago you claimed that YMTC will flood the market and drive out other NAND manufacturers. How has that speculation panned out?
Vushivushi@reddit
Unfortunately the asshole made it and is actually a reputable source.
You can dislike him for his time on Reddit, but his firm SemiAnalysis actually attends industry events, talks to engineers, collects supply chain information. The work they do is so valuable that they have institutional customers.
They don't do unbiased reporting, so stop being surprised when you find yourself disagreeing with takes in their articles.
The semiconductor industry can be really insulated, I'd rather we not turn away one of the few sources that actually puts people on the ground.
logosuwu@reddit
That's like saying Charlie Demerjian is a reputable source. Just because you have people paying for it and because you attend events doesn't make you reputable.
InevitableSherbert36@reddit
I support a ban on their news articles, but I think their reviews should still be allowed.
plantsandramen@reddit
Their GPU and CPU hierarchy articles seem to be good quality, at least I'd read that a few times
National-Ordinary-74@reddit
Guru3D for any GPU related info … Tom’s testing is very much in question … why are they testing high end GPUs at 1080 and trying to evaluate a difference?
GamerNexus or der8auer have far better and more details information and testing … they make Tom’s reviews/testing look like kindergarten kids.
hackenclaw@reddit
go techpowerup instead.
Strazdas1@reddit
TPU has good GPU hierarchy butu the CPU database is really annoying to navigate.
plantsandramen@reddit
I will check them out, thanks!
AYasin@reddit (OP)
Mods ( u/Echrome u/Stingray88 u/stapler8 u/innerfrei u/Nekrosmas u/dylan522p u/SemiAnalysis u/PcChip u/MasterHWilson u/dweller_12 ) please join the conversation.
And stop hiding some comments. I've seen at least two comments disappear. One of mine, one of another Redditor.
innerfrei@reddit
Hey there, we are following the thread but we usually try not to influence threads like this one, we like to see what the user base think. We will act accordingly after the dust has settled and enough users have seen the thread.
I see only a couple of comments that were deleted, one from us, one from Reddit for...harassment? Whatever, in any case I see all the comments you posted as online and readable.
AYasin@reddit (OP)
I would like it if you guys are a part of conversation, as member of the community. Anyway, I respect your stance.
Let me explain which comments I refer to. Yesterday there was (1st example) a reply directly under this one. That was written by someone named UpsetKoalaBear. Anyway, I wrote my reply, but couldn't send it, got an error (something like 'there is nothing to reply').
I copied the comment by UpsetKoalaBear which was still visible to me, put it on top of mine with a note saying "this message seems hidden now; here is the deleted message and my reply to it". I posted (2nd example) it as a reply to my comment. Also here is link to said 2nd example of hidden comments.
Well minutes after posting it I felt ashemed for using someone else's message without permission. He/she could have removed it, and maybe they no longer wanted anyone to read it. So I contacted UpsetKoalaBear about it. They said it is okay for me to use it, but they said they didn't remove their comment. So I suspected mods of r/hardware removed it.
Couple of hours ago, I noticed my comment (the 2nd example one) was also not visible when I was browsing on my phone, where I wasn't logged in.
There could be an critical error on Reddit's infrastructure but I thought that's a slim chance. Comments are also visible there on our profiles. Messages removed by admins or mods can be differentiated as far as I know, and said messages were just invisible.
So I wrote "And stop hiding some comments. I've seen at least two comments disappear. One of mine, one of another Redditor.". That's the story. Weird. ^Wow, ^that ^explanation ^took ^some ^space.
innerfrei@reddit
Ah yes now I see them, thanks for pointing them out, I missed them when I checked. They both got caught by automod by mistake!
Tasty-Traffic-680@reddit
Their SSD reviews are a fantastic resource
Creepy-Evening-441@reddit
Were.
Like many news outlets they have let go serious technical journalists and replaced the with less experienced less technical “writers”. It is barely worth following today.
Tasty-Traffic-680@reddit
They run a standardized test suite and compare results to other common drives. I don't see how that's not of any value. They include sustained write speed and power consumption/efficiency testing as well which many others forgo.
Creepy-Evening-441@reddit
I am disappointed in the choice of drive that they try to compare to each other. Running an IOPS or FIO test on entry level SSDs is like running a dyno test on a moped. Also some of the test settings I find lacking as well as the choice of CPU being used. Because NVMe drives are PCIe devices they can be dramatically different on different CPUs. Frequently the articles seem to be either limited by budget, imagination or deep knowledge. And the quality of journalistic quality and integrity seem degraded from years ago. Build up the brand sell it out and squeeze it for cash.
thegammaray@reddit
I think we should ban by author rather than type of article. Paul Alcorn is typically phenomenal, including his non-review articles like his early Lunar Lake coverage or his early Zen 5 coverage. Jarred Walton is solid too in my experience.
Affectionate-Memory4@reddit
Agreed. Their reviews are solid. Their rumor mill news articles though, good riddance.
perfectdreaming@reddit
How can the mods filter for that?
Banning Tom's Hardware is pretty simple, put a ban on the domain. However, letting in specific articles would require manual review to approve.
I imagine the mods already have a lot on their plate.
Gwennifer@reddit
Tom's reviews that are notable enough to be submitted to the subreddit aren't actually posted every day. It's not good for reddit's upvote algorithm to let a post sit in an approval queue but this subreddit is pretty moderated and low flow despite the number of subscribers.
DoorHingesKill@reddit
Don't need a filter. Users will see it's news from Tomshardware, report it, it goes to the mod queue, a mod removes it and perma bans whoever posted it.
Strazdas1@reddit
No need to permaban people for rules that are often not clearly defined. Most people will change thier habits with a warning if they know whats expected.
pmjm@reddit
Seems that every review's url ends in "-review". Should be easy to automate for that.
Protonion@reddit
Configuring AutoModerator to remove posts that (don't) contain certain words is as easy as it is to ban domains. And since the post title has to match the article title, they can simply set AutoModerator to remove any tomshardware post that doesn't have "review" in the title.
Sure, it will probably lead to a few posts making it through if the title happens to have "review" in it for some pther reason, but it should handle the vast majority of cases automatically.
EdzyFPS@reddit
Wjyz when you can get the same reviews from better sources.
Nuke the full site and don't look back.
Chris00008@reddit
Their aio reviews are horrendous. They look credible at first glance but the data could as easily be made up. They have a rotating set of competing products and strategically drop some comparisons to make the reviewed product look better.
I believe their reviews are essentially paid advertizesments.
PotentialAstronaut39@reddit
I think it would be a perfect compromise.
Their reviews are still newsworthy.
RemingtonSnatch@reddit
Yep. Nobody tops their reviews.
National-Ordinary-74@reddit
Tom’s Hardware is NOT the place to go for information regarding computing hardware.
I was banned for a comment that they deemed political … but the entire Tom’s Thread was political (Snowden saga with his comments about nVidia VRAM) and it was started by Tom’s admin. Tom’s starts a political thread and then expects everyone to dance out it without being political? If Tom’s doesn’t want politics on their website, then don’t post articles that are political.
A moderator warned me and seems to think he/she/it has the ability to “threaten me” and ends his threat with “Clear enough for you”? Seriously unprofessional. So I reported the moderator and let the moderator know I reported him/her/it and returned the same rude remark “Is that clear enough for you?”.
And immediately I was banned. The problem with their ban system is that it doesn’t even allow one the opportunity to logout as everything comes back banned. There is no way to contact someone to tell them to remove my account and all my posts (not giving Tom’s my “for sale” account details). I had to search for an email address “community@tomshardware.com” and send a request which I’ve still not heard back from. Tom’s is clearly violating “right to delete” CCPA and other EU GDPR. FYI, I ”was” a member since 2008, way before 99% of the moderators on that forum.
To make a long story short, I’m filing a lawsuit against Futur Plc (owners of Toms Hardware) for US and EU “right to delete“ violations. Couldn’t care less about the ban, their moderators clearly have some psychology issues they need to face.
Exciting-Ad-5705@reddit
Banning an entire source for clickbait articles is unwarranted especially when you're leaving the almost entirely clickbait videocardz unbanned
Rude_Thought_9988@reddit
I'm down as long as GN gets banned as well. Tired of seeing all the GN drama nonsense.
innerfrei@reddit
GN now moved the drama to another channel, to keep GN for reviews and hardware news, you can rejoice I guess.
Exciting-Ad-5705@reddit
Their recent uploads still have clickbait drama titles
REV2939@reddit
Don't forget to mention the absolute conflict that a mod of r/hardware also writes for Toms Hardware. The other issue is the blatant selective application of rule "Original Source Policy" when majority of the toms articles are just rehashing the source themselves but those posts never get removed but they banned videocardz for that issue. Double standards are disgusting especially when a mod here is financially incentivized by toms hardware.
This post will get shadowbanned, removed, and/or I will be banned for calling this out. Watch.
innerfrei@reddit
Who is writing for Toms Hardware?!?
IanCutress@reddit
As someone who worked for the same publisher, the goal is always to get on top of Google search results, accuracy be damned. TH has a habit of hiring non-Technies to fill editor roles. The publisher is always willing to pay less and overwork more. Lots of other behind-the-scenes idiocy (The EIC who wrote Just Buy It is still in charge). The desire to second source news is out the window because it gets in the way of speed of publishing, which is the main KPI for news. The same publisher also runs PC Gamer, Laptop Mag, TechRadar. All show the same attention to 'news' because it's all the same playbook. There are good writers at Tom's, though the mishandling of unconfirmed-as-true statements or really, really bad headlines that bait-and-switch. I regularly call them out. It's been three years since I worked at that publisher. Have to wonder what their AI strategy is these days.
Malatesta@reddit
No need to wonder, as it's been posted publicly for many months.
"At no time can AI be employed to:
Joezev98@reddit
While we're at it, I really don't see the added value of those videocardz articles that just regurgitate some reddit post about someone's molten gpu.
Just crosspost the original reddit post, because that article that got written in 5 minutes isn't adding any value.
ArguersAnonymous@reddit
In this day and age, many sites reputable in regards to other content are forced to regurgitate hot takes for clicks. Domain bans are useless here; this subreddit on its own unfortunately lacks the manpower to force a change by boycott. There is no easy substitute for proper moderation and readers actively self-policing rule adherence because they know the rule exists for a reason.
Thorusss@reddit
Agreed. Toms Hardware or videocardz? ignore.
Techpowerup? Well, that might be something.
https://semianalysis.com/? Give me more
LkMMoDC@reddit
Second this. I've seen quite a few videocardz articles get edited and the post deleted to hide the mistake. They never make a public statement that there was an error.
EbonySaints@reddit
True, but unlike certain other people, cough MiLD cough WhyCry tends to acknowledge errors often enough. They responded to one I pointed out about Arrow Lake and they were quick to acknowledge it and correct it.
It's a rumor mill at the end of the day, but it's at least fairly okay from what I have seen over the years. Maybe just mandating a post flair for rumors would be a decent compromise.
empty_branch437@reddit
HUB Steve was on mild podcast
spacerays86@reddit
Well they just did so good luck with that statement. Once is enough to invalidate it.
They added buildzoids findings to the 5090 burnt astral article
kikimaru024@reddit
VideoCardz updated their recent post about the dead RTX 5090 with buildzoid's comments.
bizude@reddit
That's one of the reasons VideoCardz articles required approval when I was a moderator here.
RxBrad@reddit
Videocardz constantly posts "rumors" that directly contradict rumors they post only hours previously.
Deep90@reddit
I would be fine with "reddit post" articles being banned if they don't contain any other sources or knowledge on top of them.
arandomguy111@reddit
But you gain automatic legitimacy with your own URL or youtube channel.
Whirblewind@reddit
Because of course this brainrot ban is causing only problems for legitimate posts.
GuitarDesignReviews@reddit
Tom's Hardware has never been the same since the death of Thomas Aquinas in 1274. That's my 2 cents.
djashjones@reddit
This group should be renamed to "Gaming Hardware". Most post's are gaming related anyway.
battler624@reddit
as long as we dont remove bizude content :)
bizude@reddit
Thanks for the compliment, it's nice to see my work appreciated
Dreamerlax@reddit
Which site do you write for?
bizude@reddit
I usually send my work to Tom's Hardware
Reddit_is_Fake_@reddit
How about everyone uses the upvote/downvote system instead of arguing over banning this or that?
jumpyg1258@reddit
You mean use reddit as it was originally intended as a tool for public moderation?
Lalaz4lyf@reddit
Because the fact is most people just engage with the title. There is no real way to change that. Plus, I imagine that bots could manipulate the votes without much effort.
unixmachine@reddit
Quality is subjective. You may think it's bad, others may not. Any kind of ban is stupid and offends people's intelligence. You're simply trying to dictate the discussion.
AYasin@reddit (OP)
No, and no. This proposed ban is warranted.
No I'm not trying to do that. I want to rules to forced. Your argument is not valid and it's been discussed on this comment section before.
I agree with the linked comment. Please read it, and its parent comment.
unixmachine@reddit
The argument is terrible and you are trying to be imposing, even in this response of yours, it seems to be your default behavior. Again, this is subjective. You are just imposing your view as a rule. Speaking of which, rules should be for things like civility, politeness, and not about censoring things.
AYasin@reddit (OP)
Rules are not for censoring. I'll add the title of each at the bottom. Please read them.
I wonder, what would you do if someone doesn't obey the rules? And even make a habit of it? What do you propose mods to do?
Why are there no cat photos here? Because it is against the rules. What would mods do if you start posting 1 cat photo per day. I believe you'll get a ban. Would that be so wrong? No. Because that would be warranted.
Here are the rules of /r/hardware
unixmachine@reddit
The rules are simple and straightforward. On a hardware sub, it's kind of obvious that posting pictures of cats shouldn't be posted, and understandable if they're removed.
However, removing a hardware news site just because "you think" their content is bad is censorship.
gcbofficial@reddit
Bam censorship of any kind
trojan2748@reddit
I don't think reddit should be banning shit. Just don't click on it if you don't like it.
Recktion@reddit
They already started doing it. You can't post articles that use website conflicting with mods personal political views here.
MiloIsTheBest@reddit
Regardless of whether or not I think that your framing of the Twitter fiasco is correct, I do think there's a lot of merit in what this discussion is actually about, which is ensuring the quality of the posts and not having this sub be an unverified rumour mill.
trojan2748@reddit
Define quality. One mans junk is another mans treasure. I can't stand toms hardware, but I dont' think it should be banned. That's tiny dick energy.
Strazdas1@reddit
No, junk is just junk, even if some people dont recognize it.
MiloIsTheBest@reddit
Well, quality can be defined by the credibility of the sources, and whether or not something is news backed by hard facts or a rumour that is just someone spitting in the wind.
The idea that you just can't define quality is a completely useless sentiment. You can very easily draw a line between a source that can back up its claims, either from official statements or from testing numbers with screenshots and one that says that they've 'heard' that something will happen, or whose articles lean heavily on 'people are saying' or 'there are expectations that...', which don't have any details or sources and are using purely rhetorical techniques to fill page space.
innerfrei@reddit
Can you give me an example?
Recktion@reddit
So mods remove articles that have Twitter links because they don't like the owner of the websites political affiliation/views.
A lot of other subs are doing this too btw.
bizude@reddit
That was never the case, the ban happened before the change of management. Twitter was originally banned from this sub because spammers would often use it to share affiliate links in a sneaky manner.
Source: I used to moderate /r/hardware
Recktion@reddit
Alright then I'm wrong. I was assuming because of many other subs banning twitter for censorship and OP telling us the mods took his post down for having a twitter source.
It does make OPs post being taken down rather ridiculous though.
bizude@reddit
That's understandable, the moderators of this subreddit aren't always the greatest at communicating with their community ;)
In some ways, yeah. OP should have already known it would be auto-removed. But we're all human and sometimes make mistakes, right?
spellstrike@reddit
I don't want to be sent to any website where I am required to login.
Recktion@reddit
I generally agree with this. But that's not the reason you can't have Twitter links. It's specific to that site, and other sites doing the same are allowed.
istarian@reddit
It's fine to refuse to allow posts that link directly to Twitter, but highly unreasonable to demand that the site linked to also never link to some other site.
Really pathetic behavior if you ask me.
Recktion@reddit
Censorship because you don't like someone's views is pretty pathetic to me imo. And this is coming from a federal worker whose jobs is at risk from the person being censored as well.
ClearTacos@reddit
This "just scroll past it" approach is terrible for algorithmically driven pseudoforum like Reddit.
People don't read articles and just blindly upvote based on clickbaity or incorrect headlines - most of them don't even know which sub they're upvoting things in, they just scroll the feed on their phone, see something that makes them mad or validates their preconceived notions and upvote.
Upvotes then make these posts rise to the top and encourage posting of said clickbait/ragebait. Soon you'll do nothing but keep scrolling past increasingly more garbage as decent content was driven away because nobody bothered scrolling far enough to get to it, and it didn't make its way to anyone's feed.
AYasin@reddit (OP)
I agree. Let's not forget it is written in Reddiquette "Please don't (...) Editorialize or sensationalize your submission title.", which sometimes translates to a sub rule, which then (inadvertently?) feed this click-bait article title boom.
MiloIsTheBest@reddit
I think that a sub lives and dies on the quality of its curation.
I've seen so many subs be for and about specific topics become diluted first by things that only tangentially match the criteria, and then ruined by an influx of things that don't fit, just because they're easy content to hit /r/all.
If it's important to keep the quality of the information this sub collates high, then it's important to actively remove or block sources that routinely don't match that standard.
FreeJunkMonk@reddit
If only reddit had some kind of voting system where people on a subreddit could democratically decide which posts get to the top
But oh well, the only answer is for a small number of annoying whiners to censor things on everybody else's behalf
AYasin@reddit (OP)
In democracies people under a certain age cannot vote. People. A certain age.
This doesn't apply here. Here a bot army of 3 days old accounts can decide what goes up or down on a subreddit, hell on r/all as well.
Here are some rules on subreddits. I propose they be forced. Nothing more. You didn't need to mock.
istarian@reddit
That's not a purely arbitrary age limit though, but rather a requirement that only people who have reached the age of legal majority (I.e. society considers them to be an adult responsible for their own speech, behavior, actions, etc) are allowed to vote.
The age of an account has no correlation to the age of whoever owns it.
Strazdas1@reddit
the equivalence would be if you could effortlessly spawn a bunch of your clones 3 days before the election.
Strazdas1@reddit
No democracies online. Admin is the final dictator on every site.
Strazdas1@reddit
if only reddit system worked. Case in point, your post.
Joezev98@reddit
If only reddit had a system where a small number of reliable community members could get the privileges to remove rule-breaking posts...
But oh well, the answer is for everyone to read low-quality slop so they can downvote it and hope it doesn't get upvoted anyway by people who don't read past a headline.
bizude@reddit
Let's not forget that it is all to easy for things to be inorganically upvoted or brigaded
ChampionshipSalt1358@reddit
Freedumb fighter
slither378962@reddit
Yes, that is one continuous conflict. Provide a voting system, but then say the mods need to step in and say which posts are subjectively good enough to stay up.
avboden@reddit
I don’t see any need to gatekeep on preconceived notions of quality or not quality. If an article is bad people can discuss why it’s bad if they want to
panckage@reddit
The subreddit used to have only quality posts. The signal to noise ratio has gotten low since then. Please don't make it worse
Tasty-Traffic-680@reddit
No shit. The quality of journalism overall is swirling the bowl. What do you want us to do about it? Make r/hardwarebutjustgoodarticles?
MiloIsTheBest@reddit
Um, yes
AYasin@reddit (OP)
Who wants to get the honour? r/hardwarebutjustgoodarticles sounds good to me.
MiloIsTheBest@reddit
Oh, well I actually want that to be this sub, not a literally different sub. I thought the suggestion was metaphorical.
Strazdas1@reddit
Nah, in an old reddit fashion it we should just create hardware2, get 1% of the traffic, then make half the posts complaints about the original subreddit.
AYasin@reddit (OP)
I do too. I think an
/swas needed earlier.FinancialRip2008@reddit
/s/hardwarebutjustgoodarticles ?
Strazdas1@reddit
There is an increasing need to gatekeep based on quality everywhere online as more and more infiltration spam is created by bots.
GOOGAMZNGPT4@reddit
The biggest failure of reddit, sitewide, is that is a #1 source of misinformation, malinformation, speculation, bias, and hate and it has zero self-awareness.
Then when confronted with a either mirrors or refutation - there is no self-reflection, there is no adjustment, there is no re-examination - no, the response is 'authority, please ban this for me, as I lack the ability to moderate for myself and control the content I choose to consume, nor can I critically examine textual sources or understand nuance'.
Reddit is literally a caged in digital playground of humans rolling around in shit, and the redditors are shitters that keep on shitting filling the pen to the brim, while asking dad to clean up their shit for them with authority because they lack independence, and they can't smell their own shit but are exceeding sensitive to other peoples shit and it always seems to be driven by a bias or vendetta.
If this sub allows politics, political reddit crusades, banning of first party sources, and china posts which are habitually locked - then the hardware forum should allow hardware sites that have hardware posts from hardware enthusiasts that post on hardware forums.
The users role is to vote and comment, not to wield moderator power by proxy to ban every pile of shit you can't be asked to scroll past.
callanrocks@reddit
Ok
ItsMeSlinky@reddit
The lack of gatekeeping is what give these tech tabloids clicks and keep them in business.
istarian@reddit
If clicks alone keep them in business, discouraging traffic by way of Reddit isn't going to have that much of an impact.
AYasin@reddit (OP)
I don't think anyone here want to burn their business to the ground.
It is my understanding that people want cleaner looking subreddit with less click-bait articles with same/more amount of discussion amongst ourselves.
FinancialRip2008@reddit
we want to reward quality reporting and have clickbullshit damage a reporter's credibility.
...if that burns a business to the ground... maybe it should burn.
Medical_Musician9131@reddit
The issue most people dont read beyond the headline so they’ll see that and run with it
avboden@reddit
Nah, the issue is everyone in this sub wants to be even more snobby than they already are. This is a sub of enthusiasts primarily, i'm really not worried about people just reading the headlines. It's not damaging anything.
FreeJunkMonk@reddit
That's the entirety of reddit in general and always has been.
And if people aren't reading beyond the headline for one source then they aren't doing it for others, either.
Medical_Musician9131@reddit
Correct
The point of OP is that the headlines coming from these articles are unreliable. It’s essentially disinformation being spread as truth. If higher quality articles were the only ones allowed then at least you’d have more trustworthy headlines.
AYasin@reddit (OP)
Websites generate profit using the clicks on their articles from sites such as this one. Why would they profit continuously for value they rarely provide?
And can't we generate content? Isn't the meaning of "social" in social media that?
FreeJunkMonk@reddit
Why should you get to decide who does and doesn't provide "value"?
>And can't we generate content? Isn't the meaning of "social" in social media that?
Hardly any of the posts on this sub are independent research.
MiloIsTheBest@reddit
He's making an argument. The mods are the ones who decide. I think he's done an excellent job of outlining why these kinds of articles don't meet the criteria already required by the sub.
AYasin@reddit (OP)
I don't decide whom does or doesn't provide value. I only asserted a proposition that is if a website should profit continuously for rarely provided value if that is the case.
It is up to people here to decide and discuss.
Lastly, before you assume anything else, I'll make it clear for you. I believe they (websites, news outlets) should not. I also believe Tom's Hardware is no longer provide value here or anywhere else on the internet with their news articles. These are my subjective views. This doesn't make me an authority.
nerpish2@reddit
It’s a waste of time to discuss how bad garbage smells. We would be better off without it at all.
only_r3ad_the_titl3@reddit
yeah a short while ago they had a article how prices in Europe were % over MSRP, like the 5070ti being 1000 Euros, so 33% above MSRP. When European prices include taxes. That is such a basic error
laacis3@reddit
https://www.trustedreviews.com/explainer/what-are-silicon-carbon-batteries-the-next-gen-battery-tech-explained-4415742 take down trustedreviews too while we're discussing this.
They say silicon-carbon battery replaces lithium-ion. The explainer from Honor's website they're sourcing this even clearly state it does not replace lithium-ion.
gurugabrielpradipaka@reddit
More rules less enjoyment. I'm a poster here and in other communities. I'm simply tired of rules and more rules. In the end we'll have any news sources to resort to. Some communities have so many rules and bans that it's simply mission impossible to post something.
imaginary_num6er@reddit
Is Tom’s Guide allowed?
hwgod@reddit
Aren't they basically a more clickbaity/pop-tech spinoff of Tomshardware?
imaginary_num6er@reddit
Yeah but they're not "Tom's Hardware"
ET3D@reddit
Tom's has some pretty good articles. Some of them are IMO much better than articles on other sites. I see no reason to single out Tom's because it also posts rumours.
People are interested in rumours. r/Hardware has a rumour flair and a bot which posts a message to ensure that people treat this as a rumour. I see no particular reason to disallow rumours and certainly no reason to block a site which also has articles with actual content.
I don't see the problem with this title. The title is a definitive statement which says "asserts leaker". This should clarify to everyone that this is a rumour, not anything official. I see no reason to report it. It might end up false, as many rumours do, but it's still interesting, and that's why there's discussion, so people can say why they feel this will or will not happen, and what they think of it.
It's also the later tweet response by that person: "It will be in about one month, I guess. At least the AICs get tons of GB202 now." And should I now claim that you shouldn't post because you made a wrong assertion? And also posted an article longer than Tom's to make that wrong assertion?
It's true that Tom's adds a lot around these, but I think that makes it a good article. It discusses the issue, instead of only parroting the tweets.
doscomputer@reddit
meh, one bad article or some rumors aren't reason to ban an entire site
its not like the sub is flooded with toms posts or something, and besides we still get MLID/Adoredtv type posts here too, and videocardz for that matter
vegetable__lasagne@reddit
Should be banned just because of the amount of ads they spam on their site.
dehydrogen@reddit
Navigating the Internet without adblock in 2025 is wild.
berryer@reddit
I'm always surprised when I find people just rawdoggin' the internet like that
PaulTheMerc@reddit
Especially in like hardware, pcgaming, pcmr, tech subreddits, etc.
roflcopter44444@reddit
But how will I know about the one secret cure to nearsightedness the optometry industry is hiding from us ?
bogglingsnog@reddit
It's hard to find any actual content underneath all of the ads. I didn't realize how bad it's gotten!
JoshuaJoshuaJoshuaJo@reddit
This is the only valid reason. Fucking hate tom's adware (they got decent benchmarks tho).
EVRoadie@reddit
Haven't looked at their benchmarks, but Techpowerup's are fairly useful.
ledfrisby@reddit
My favorite part of Tom's reviews is the GPU hierarchy, as a quick back-of-the-napkin way to see roughly where all these cards stack up. It's just so convenient.
Ty_Lee98@reddit
It's starting to be outdated or it is outdated considering we don't see 50 series or the B series gpus from Intel. Not sure how long it takes for them to update this graph.
Deep90@reddit
I wonder if they are waiting for AMD cards?
Ty_Lee98@reddit
That would probably make sense yeah. Only waiting for two cards though...
FinancialRip2008@reddit
...and 33% of the gpu manufacturers
braiam@reddit
And 40% of latest gen products.
bogglingsnog@reddit
Both of those product lines are changing week to week with driver updates though
ledfrisby@reddit
Yes, they need to update it. I imagine they will in due time, possibly once the whole generation is released. In the meantime, it's still a pretty useful reference for stuff like used cards.
plantsandramen@reddit
I find that comparison to be useful too, I reference it commonly.
ltcdata@reddit
Firefox + ublock origin
FinancialRip2008@reddit
you'd think it'd go without saying on this sub, but...
Limited_Distractions@reddit
I definitely would like to see the quality standards increase, although it might have to just end up being talking about more varied subjects because at the end of the day there's only so many "quality" angles you can take on ultimately unsurprising and predictable products
peternickelpoopeater@reddit
What about macroumrs 9-5 mac, etc etc
AYasin@reddit (OP)
I have my own reservations on 9-5mac, which I used to follow them on my RSS feed. Having an RSS feed you can follow how many meaningless articles they ^shit post.
Yet they are not as popular as Tom's on r/hardware as far as I see. Hence this post is about Tom's, and its articles only, not reviews.
AYasin@reddit (OP)
Well it seems I wrote a whole ass of a reply only to parent comment to be deleted. Here is the deleted comment by /u/UpsetKoalaBear
My reply for interested parties:
I meant reservations in a bad way. Say as in "Oh boy, I don't trust them too. Don't let me start now." I might have not chosen the correct word. English isn't my primary language.
I agree with the sentiment but not with supposing a total ban would be as damaging. I believe their reviews should be allowed; but not their articles. Because they lost their credibility in my eyes, not because supposedly 100% of their articles are shitty.
Last four paragraphs contradict each other in some ways. You say modern journalism has changed ^I ^don't ^agree ^with ^that ^sentiment, and explain how so. Majority of it is in your words "a matter of sifting through the countless false stories to try and find something reasonably credible".
Later you don't expect mods to sift through much much smaller number of articles. Why? Why can't they do it? There are many of them, how hard is it? How hard to automate a bot to enforce rules?
And you propose we need community moderation? Hello! Mods are community moderation.
I avoid discussing the credibility of Wed__Zang because of two things. (1) You seem more knowledgable on this issue. (2) Our topic is Tom's Hardware, and how it generally doesn't provide anything more than some mere tweets (remember them when they were 140 chars long?) with their paragraphs long articles.
UpsetKoalaBear@reddit
Tom’s Hardware also posts quality between the meaningless shit. In addition you can’t have reservations on 9-5mac whilst also advocating for a ban on Tom’s Hardware.
They were the ones who broke the ROP story to the mainstream about the 50 series after seeing a forum user post about it and testing themselves.
This problem is seemingly endless and exists within a multitude of subreddits apart from this one. It has to do with news websites publishing pure speculation in between their quality content.
There’s no real way to moderate this but I think purely blanket banning Tom’s Hardware would be just as much of a detriment as it would be good.
Wed__Zang who you use in your example as Tom’s Hardware posting speculation is credible. They have broken several news stories and leaks already. He leaked the 4080S and 4070Ti Super prices prior to launch, he leaked the 5090D, 3060 8gb, and more.
Modern journalism has changed as well, it’s no longer just a journalist with contacts in the industry or insider knowledge as often times nowadays those same insiders post themselves on to twitter and such. The majority of modern journalism is a matter of sifting through the countless false stories to try and find something reasonably credible.
I think trying to blanket ban every news website that posts speculation would literally ban every single news site.
I get not allowing articles that simply link to a twitter post, that can be nipped in the bud, but the problem is you will need community moderation as the mods aren’t going to click on every single post to make sure it’s not just an article about a tweet. The likelihood of that being a consistent method of stopping those posts is very slim.
qazedezaq@reddit
Yes, please! Tom's Hardware is absolute garbage nowadays. Their news articles, although written by real humans, look like they've been written by ChatGPT version 1.0, it's staggering how terrible their tech "journalism" has become.
qazedezaq@reddit
Absolutely! Tom's Hardware is absolute dogshit nowadays. Their news articles, although written by real humans, look like they've been written by ChatGPT version 1.0, it's staggering how terrible their tech "journalism" has become. They even copy and publish literal Saudi propaganda with no shame what so ever, LinusTechTips did the same thing, but it's not like anyone views that channel as anything other than tech slop anyway.
KneelbfZod@reddit
Isn't that what downvoting is supposed to do?
SmilesTheJawa@reddit
I agree and think Techspot deserves the same treatment. Their recent misleading article with "Seagate HDD fraud" in the title is a perfect example of how far they've fallen into the ragebait tactics.
SikeShay@reddit
Great write-up, I generally agreed with your sentiment about the quality of their articles.
However a counterpoint is that their clickbait articles do generate a lot of engagement on an otherwise (sometimes) slow sub. Which in turn often leads to quality discussion I don't want to miss out on.
NKG_and_Sons@reddit
I'd rather have very few threads rather than reading some potentially interesting title only to join the thread and see yet another "Tom's Hardware posted nonsense" comment at the top, yet again.
As OP says, it basically goes against the rules. Low effort threads and comments from users get moderated, too. Why not a moderate a website more strictly when it's clearly been spamming zero effort content just because its name meant something years in the past.
AYasin@reddit (OP)
I agree with your counterpoint. If a ban does occur;
maybe same engagement happens on user created discussion posts,
or maybe another click-bait article website fills the vacuum a ban creates,
or maybe engagement and discussions decrease.
I would prefer the first one in an ideal world but second/third possibilities seems more likely to me.
cellardoorstuck@reddit
Journalistic integrity is gone across the board - look at TPU handing out their best awards to every Nvidia gpu, just so they get paid.
Not much is left sadly...
Extra-Advisor7354@reddit
Absolutely. Tom’s is worse than VideoCardz at this point.
martylardy@reddit
Wait.. so what blew up now? 🤣
MayoFetish@reddit
Tom Shardware did what?
DIYEconomy@reddit
* WHAAA, that's not what "or at least" means.
qwertyqwerty4567@reddit
Ok but it's not MLID therefore it won't get banned. Only MLID hate is permitted here
AutoModerator@reddit
Hello! It looks like this might be a question or a request for help that violates our rules on /r/hardware. If your post is about a computer build or tech support, please delete this post and resubmit it to /r/buildapc or /r/techsupport. If not please click report on this comment and the moderators will take a look. Thanks!
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.