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[WhiteLotus]

hey if you want to understand this stuff, do what i do, go read anything you can on it. I didnt understand shaders for about 3 years and finally made myself learn them. Thats my advice to you

i do, wiki is a great source.

 

[PVTCaboose1337]

I personally like the short news articles. If I want to understand more, I just click the source link.

Also, Btar and Malware are generally the only people I see news from and they do a great job. The writing is professional, but not too hard to read. My only complaint is there are some "slow days" when no news is posted, and I have to go check another site... We just need more people to do the news.

 

[btarunr]

If I was to rank each news poster on how well I think they do the job, Btarunr is in first place. Purely because in my opinion Malware's news it often just too long-winded, but at the same time covers EVERYTHING you need to know. Maybe Btarunr is just more suited to my level of experience? I don't know.
Also I haven't seen Jimmy2004 for some time. Does he still contribute to the news in any way?

I also would like to add a response to Btarunr comment about the Intel turbo news. I read it, four times - and still it made no sense to me. That isn't me not understanding what you wrote, that's me not understanding every single piece of technological jargon. I like to see myself as an experience amateur. So in some news articles I do not post purposefully at risk of making myself look like a complete idiot, and I believe others (although most likely wouldn't admit it) do the same.

About some comments being unfit for the front page - maybe give the author and all mods to "hide" such comments - unless such a thing already exists.


Another thing I have seen is that many comments repeat the one before it because time delay when both users posting at the same time. On terrorizer.com (metal forum) they allow you to preview any new comments that may have been posted between the time you clicked reply and submit. Maybe such a thing could be implemented here?

Thanks, WhiteLotus, you brought up a vital point about LoE (level of experience). I've had mixed views about our community's general level of experience. Often it has happened that news with too much tech jargon wasn't received well. Maybe because the demographics are such that not all people understand too much tech. I'll keep that in mind when doing write-ups.

Jimmy2004 isn't part of the news anymore, last I heard. Bad comments are soft-deleted by me instantly and a explanation is sent to the user(s) by PM.

I personally like the short news articles. If I want to understand more, I just click the source link.

Also, Btar and Malware are generally the only people I see news from and they do a great job. The writing is professional, but not too hard to read. My only complaint is there are some "slow days" when no news is posted, and I have to go check another site... We just need more people to do the news.

Slow days are when there's nothing "latest" and worthwhile to post. The other sites you check probably have older (by a day/two) articles and you find something new to read. Apart from Malware and myself, we also have alexp999 doing the news, so there's sufficient staff that should be handling news. Apart from us, W1zzard is another active newsie, whenever he comes up with some inside news (which only he can), he makes it a point to post.

 

[btarunr]

As for the length of news, I like every article to be long and full of details. I obviously don't want to read it all, but when I see a headline about something that catches my interests I want to know as much as possible. For example, I saw an article the other day about how overclocking Nehalem (sp?) will be different and more in depth, and I really enjoyed reading all of it. It was a long, detailed filled article. Sometimes I see headlines that interest me a lot, but they hardly have any information and leave me wanting more.

See the dilemma? Some like descriptive news, some don't. As for deleted posts, you'd really not want to see them on the homepage if you were in my place. I can show you some examples protecting the users' identity if you want.

 

[OrbitzXT]

What's wrong with the system now though pertaining to the length of articles? Take the article I mentioned earlier for example...

http://www.techpowerup.com/69106/Overclocking_Nehalem_Brings_in_New_Set_of_Challenges_Tweaks.html

On the front page when you're reading that, you get this...

Boon for some, possible bane for others, Intel Nehalem provides the overclocker or performance enthusiast to be more precise, with a whole new set of performance tuning features. For enthusiasts, tweaking the many components of a PC is entertaining and sometimes adventurous as expensive hardware is at stake, and to get the most out of it is definitely fun, to say the least. Enter Nehalem, and the enthusiast finds a whole new method of tweaking the processor, using what is called "Turbo Mode". Let me explain schematically.

Most enthusiasts looking to set overclock records and lodge record scores with single/dual threaded benchmarks or simply games avoid quad-core processors. The Core 2 Duo E8600 for example is very popular among overclocking and Super Pi enthusiasts. The reason quad-core chips are avoided is that when you increase the frequency and voltage of current quad-core chips, you're doing so for all four cores, when running the game or benchmark suite, the active core sweats it out, while inactive cores simply feast on the higher voltage / FSB settings thereby pushing up the thermal envelope and limiting the overclock:

That's fairly short, it has some information in it, it's an easy quick read. Then if the reader finds it interesting they can open and read the full story which is much longer and has a lot more detail inside that I personally found interesting. If someone doesn't find it interesting enough that they want to read that much then let them move on and stick to the smaller paragraph or two just describing the news briefly.

 

[btarunr]

Like Alex said, huge chunks of text affect readers. Again, when things are summarized in a para before going into the details, we could get over this. Usually it's pics that splice text, for articles without it, it becomes chunky. I'm working on one that will by up by evening, EST. Let's see how that pans out.

 

[mlee49]

What is the scope of the news covered? I see articles varying in range from topics covered, but I also see reviews for in ear custom headphones and I'm questioning what exactly does Techpowerup focus on? Is it truely the latest in hardware and gaming?

What else would be considered tech "News" for it to be posted here? I would like to see more 'tech' related news.

 

[btarunr]

What is the scope of the news covered? I see articles varying in range from topics covered, but I also see reviews for in ear custom headphones and I'm questioning what exactly does Techpowerup focus on? Is it truely the latest in hardware and gaming?

What else would be considered tech "News" for it to be posted here? I would like to see more 'tech' related news.

We're trying to figure that out as well. With the scope of our reviews broadening, so is our news on them. The news covers the computer hardware, gaming and software industries from the perspective of a computer enthusiast (and not exactly a gadget freak), a person to whom spending on and consuming his niche of technology is a way of life. I can't remember if in the last eight or so months, we covered any news that wasn't tech related.

 

[alexp999]

We're trying to figure that out as well. With the scope of our reviews broadening, so is our news on them. The news covers the computer hardware, gaming and software industries from the perspective of a computer enthusiast (and not exactly a gadget freak), a person to whom spending on and consuming his niche of technology is a way of life. I can't remember if in the last eight or so months, we covered any news that wasn't tech related.

Thats my idea when I cover news too. I only do gadget stuff if it is a real breakthrough, or something which I think would interest a computer enthusiast.

 

[lemonadesoda]

It would be nice if there was less verbatim copy and paste of Press Releases, esp. of stuff which is attracts attention (and comment) for truth-stretching. It dilutes the quality of the TPU newspostings to allow that stuff to remain in as searchable bytes on the TPU servers.

It is also getting increasing hard to differentiate EDITORIAL COMMENT from our great and hard working newsposters from material that has just been clipped from a Press Release.

I enjoy reading what the newsposters summarise or make comment on. I think their insights are informed and useful. But I dont enjoy having to wade through press release copy. Especially trying to work out what is C&P and what is not. After all, the press release is always linked to at the bottom of the newspost.

Why has TPU news posting adopted this approach? It used to be much tighter. Short and sweet. If there was text, it was stuff the TPU guys had written and was insightful.

What would be GREAT would be to have the Press Release in a quote, just like I quoted above. There are quote boxes, HTML tags, php tags, and code tags. How about a press release [PR=link][/PR]tag that the newsposters could use? In the tag could be the link to the original press release. That way, anything you guys wrote would be outside of the box and clearly the stuff we want to read. Nice and tidy. All searchable text (and ad revenue generating links) still there, but confusion removed, and much tighter news forum.

 

[btarunr]

Press-releases are direct communications from the companies. They are bound to have exaggerated facts, superlative tones. Eg:

XYZ Tech ltd, a worldwide leader in...

Often facts are also distorted. This problem is more chronic now than ever...

GPUZilla, inventors of the graphics processing unit...

..and I admit it does no good. The readers today are more discerning than ever. We're coming to terms with the fact that people don't like a news article, press-release or not, to be so superlative and praising of a company or group, that it ends up looking like free proxy-marketing. There is one way of tackling the issue: To prepare a full-fledged report based on the the news poster's interpretation of a press release, and following it up with the press-release itself (with heading). I'm going to try an experimental way of posting press-releases this weekend: displaying the news post on the home-page (after a Read full story marker) and using a page-break (to fill the "second page" with the PR verbatim). When you read it from within the forums, you'll see it as just a one long news-post. I haven't talked to the admins about this, but I'm hopeful we'll at least get to experiment.

 

[lemonadesoda]

Sounds good

 

[mlee49]

Suggestion:

When an on going News topic has multiple front page(threads) it would be nice to have the previous threads notified.

Example: The dual socket Evga board has had 3 news posts already with great discussion to many subscribers, bumping those threads to notify said subscribers of newer developments and a new thread would be awesome.

The newer news articles link older threads/news posts anyways why not notify those existing subscribers with a post?

 

[btarunr]

The Related News feature addresses most of it. I make it a point to link back to older posts that are most relevant to the story. Each story has a link back to the older one (if it's relevant). Yes, a post in the older thread can be done. Let's try it on a community basis. When you find something newer posted by us, post a link in the older thread.

 

[Fitseries3]

so is it bad that i post pics in which i feel are on topic for each news post, when i find them, in the news thread?

 

[btarunr]

so is it bad that i post pics in which i feel are on topic for each news post, when i find them, in the news thread?

Not at all. Sometimes I append good ones to the news article.

 

[DonInKansas]

What is the scope of the news covered? I see articles varying in range from topics covered, but I also see reviews for in ear custom headphones and I'm questioning what exactly does Techpowerup focus on? Is it truely the latest in hardware and gaming?

What else would be considered tech "News" for it to be posted here? I would like to see more 'tech' related news.

Suggestion:

When an on going News topic has multiple front page(threads) it would be nice to have the previous threads notified.

Example: The dual socket Evga board has had 3 news posts already with great discussion to many subscribers, bumping those threads to notify said subscribers of newer developments and a new thread would be awesome.

The newer news articles link older threads/news posts anyways why not notify those existing subscribers with a post?

What is it that makes you dig up his thread every January, mlee?
News posting methods are never gonna make everyone happy. Some just want the main points with a link to explore if they want, Others want it all up front. Maybe a brief synopsis with the rest in spoilertags?

 

[Fitseries3]

my only complaints are...

1. news doesnt get posted on weekends all the time.

2. news about everything that is sent in is not always posted... or not posted in a timely fashion.

now im not saying this to target you btarunr. i know people have lives away from the computer. you do a very fine job at posting news. i also know that not everything is worthy of being posted. there is probably alot more to the reasons why things dont get posted or take a few days to get posted.

im just saying, in general, my 2 statements above SEEM to be somewhat true.

 

[btarunr]

1. We don't have to post news in the weekends. The odd time when something like a new driver release comes up, time can be taken up
2. Not all news submissions deserve posting. Some deserving ones do get posted.

 

[Fitseries3]

i'd be interested to see the daily hit count to see if less people visit on TPU on the weekends due to little to no news. just curious.

 

[btarunr]

i'd be interested to see the daily hit count to see if less people visit on TPU on the weekends due to little to no news. just curious.

Hit counts, etc., frankly, does not pertain to anyone in the public domain. It would be better if you voice your comments/feedback as a reader.

 

[Fitseries3]

darksaber mentioned he thought it would be nice to see more variety of news.

perhaps we should broaden the subject area a bit.... i know lots of people that would love to see more on phones.

linux news seems to be far and few between. there is quite a bit of linux news, although not always postworthy, people who are interested in linux would probably be thrilled to see a bit more on the topic.

in the past few months you have been posting more watercooling news which a lot of TPU readers are thrilled about. perhaps someone such as myself should be more apt to notify you of the watercooling news.

i still feel like we are not seeing all the news we could be seeing.

not a complaint here but i have yet to see very much on CES. i know w1zz and DS are on the way home and/or resting but i would have hoped to see something, even if only 2-3 things, posted by now. other sites have been lacking as well but anandtech did manage to post a summary of the highlights of CES.

as i said before... im not complaining and im not attacking anyone here. i just think we would see far more interaction from our readers if there was 1. news on the weekend, 2. broadened topic range 3. more on topics we already post about. im just thinking site improvement here.

 

[btarunr]

How much do you benefit from Linux news, Fitseries?

We're a hardware site. Our target audience is people like you (enthusiasts, benchmark-junkies, gamers). What to post and not to post has been fed to us. It's that "what not to post" which is a selling point, and working to our advantage.

TPU doesn't aspire to become a FoxNews. If we did, given our reach, there would have been an advert every 500 pixels.

Thanks for the feedback.

 

[Kreij]

While I agree that TPU should not be the "FoxNews" of the tech world, I still think that it would be nice to have a gaming news section and a software news section. Not displayed on the front page like the tech news, but perhaps a link there so people could get to those news sections.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[btarunr]

While I agree that TPU should not be the "FoxNews" of the tech world, I still think that it would be nice to have a gaming news section and a software news section. Not displayed on the front page like the tech news, but perhaps a link there so people could get to those news sections.

Just my 2 cents.

When TPU claims it stands for "The Latest in Hardware and Gaming", it's important to understand the context in which "Gaming" was used.

There's the "Gaming" which sites like IGN.com, or Gamespot stand for, and then there's the "Gaming" which sites like PC Hardware & Gaming (a German techsite) stands for. We're of the latter kind. PCGH deals with "gaming" in a hardware-centric perspective. When it talks about a new game, it talks about how it's looking like on xyz hardware, and how you should tune up your box to play it best. That's the "gaming" we stand for as well, and it's the sole reason why a "GamePowerUp.com" (which stands for "gaming" in the IGN.com context), was contemplated.