Manufacturer sponsored reviews Aey or Nay?

Folks,

What do you think about Manufacturer sponsored reviews of products (both overt and covert) having a place on these forums? Although the advertising rule catches the overt ones, do you think somebody posting benchmarks and pushing their product is acceptable?

Personally, I don't like it as I believe in community based reviews, but I'd like to hear what you ladies and gents have to say.

Please do not turn this into a rant against any specific company and remember that your opinion is just that, an opinion. Do not expect any rules or policies specially formulated to accomodate this opinion (mine included). The staff will make policy announcements if they see it fit.

Edit*
I was having massive timeout problems which resulted in errors in this post, hence the repost with a nice poll

Guys I'm really sorry as I have posted this atleast four times due to timeouts killing the poll part. No. I'm not a N00b and I know how to make a poll

Personally, I would take member reviews any day over a manufacturer sponsored review. Manufacturer sponsored reviews I see as just another way of advertising.

IF someone does anyway, they should, right at the beginning of the review and preferable in big red bold letters , make it perfectly clear it is sponsored.

I don't see what the point in a company sponsored review would be, I mean the reviewer will most likely end up with handpicked parts and a financial incentive to recommend the product. It would not show us what the average part that most of us will buy can do. But what I would like to see instead is an organization that checks out and verifies reviewers so that the average consumer can know who to trust.

Making it perfectly clear that it is a manufacturer sponsored review is pointless, it's like putting a label on it that says don't pay any attention to this information. You might as well not bother reviewing it if it's not objective.

I only want reviews that I can be sure the reviewer has no reason to favor the product either way. This could be a problem with real fanboys who would review an ATI card better than a Nvidia card because of their personal preference, but I hope the members here wouldn't want to do this.

Screw it I dont care I ussually dont buy anything until it has been out atleast a month ussaully alot longer.

bigtoe, onepagebook, etc have been posting reviews on xs for so long now... how come ocf gets it's panties in a twist? if anyone could show that there was actually anything wrong going on then it would be pretty clear... but you can't which means you're basically crying over nothing and you choose to throw out a wealth of information based on the possibilities of some slight number inflation. extreme overclockers always get better results than people who aren't. you should not except to match people who spend so much more time and money then you. you have to assume that they have worked really hard to get those results. if you can't see it and touch it, take it with a grain of salt.

p.s. why in the vendor discussion section?

Well, it is not entirely pointless for manufacturers to come out and say, "hey we gave him the parts". There are descripencies between the retail product and the handpicked one,but it is nice to know in what direction things are heading. When UTT was itroduced, people were quite surprised by the introduction of official high voltage RAM, to the mainstream market. Sort of a technology demonstrator.

crimedog:
OCForums is not xtremesystems. Maybe you should look up on the Blue line issue, where people expecting UTT chips ended up being disappointed. It was either a miscommunication or a blatant spin operation, but the result was the same. All this came about due to sponsored reviews. There is no denying that there is a lot of information to be garnered, but would the information be lost if it is a declared sponsored review? I don't think so.

I think you are seriously underestimating the power of the community. There are hundreds and hundreds of enthusiasts who are quite competent a la OPB or bigtoe. Heck we have quite a few of them, here at OCF (you being one among them). The other 99% of the competent enthusiasts don't have the visibility of experts such as bigtoe or OPB. I am in no way trying to demean OPB or bigtoe, they are among the best of the best, but remember that there are quite a few who are just as good.

WOW look at those results. . I feel at home seeing them. . .

However Define a sponsor if you can ?

Personally I consider Company sponsered any relationship that a end user or review site benifits from..

And or when items are released to reviewers and not available to the greater public.


If a company gives a coupon to a person,Allowing him or her to buy there product with it from any retailer who offers it , and requires it to be returned to the manufacture after testing i would , Under these conditions consider it not company sponsored . .

NAY

If you want a manufacturers review, then look it up on the manufacturers website. Sponsored reviews will just end up being a commercial for the product. You will never get an honest review. And you will never hear a truthful review which says "this product sucks, don't buy it". How do you think Thermaltake has survived for so long.

sponsored reviews = paid off to give better than actual results

id take unsponsored and member reviews over paid ones...

I also am not a believer in company sponsored reviews. With a company sponsored review, the parts in question are sent to the reviewer and who knows if they are hand-picked, cherry parts. Testing with hand-picked parts isn't truly representative of what is actually coming off the production line like you or me are going to end up with, so why bother letting them get free advertising on non-representative samples. They only way I would consider a company sponsored review to be valid is if they do like diehrd said and instead of just sending the parts to the person for review, they send some sort of voucher or just reimburse the reviewer the cost of the parts. That way the reviewer can order the parts to be reviewed from the online e-tailer or B & M store of his choice, which would truly be representative of what anyone else is liable to receive. You might not have the reviews done as soon this way, since you have to wait for the parts to get into the distribution pipeline, but there are plenty of websites like Anandtech and HardOCP that cover this anyways. I look at those reviews as "preliminary reviews" due to the fact that the parts under review aren't yet available to the general public and are sent to these folks too.

For these forums, company sponsored reviews have no place except if done through vouchers or reimbursement of the reviewer, IMO.

crimedog said:

bigtoe, onepagebook, etc have been posting reviews on xs for so long now... how come ocf gets it's panties in a twist? if anyone could show that there was actually anything wrong going on then it would be pretty clear... but you can't which means you're basically crying over nothing and you choose to throw out a wealth of information based on the possibilities of some slight number inflation. extreme overclockers always get better results than people who aren't. you should not except to match people who spend so much more time and money then you. you have to assume that they have worked really hard to get those results. if you can't see it and touch it, take it with a grain of salt.

p.s. why in the vendor discussion section?

Click to expand...

Well said Crimedog.

It seems as though there is a lot of cynicism on these forums; most reviews from manufacturers have no such hidden agenda and people have little-to-no-proof to substantiate their claims.

Also, you were very smart to note that people like BigToe and OPB, who work for certain companies, also provide a plethora of help and advice to the community in general. Hell, BigTone (aka Tony) has played an tremendous role in the development and design of the entire DFI NF4 and ATI lineups....and has even gone so far as to mod bioses that some of us would consider to be the best around.

Personally I think that an unfair sense of skepticism has taken place here. I'm not for cherry-picked reviews and/or products myself, but that does not mean that such things would happen in every such review. I think that it would be best to treat things on a case-by-case basis; in other words, give people some slack until they prove us wrong.

Also SN, you're poll is somewhat skewed - some of us could care less where the review comes from provided it offers up some good information. Half of the choices available are silly and have no relevance to the topic. If you want to get more honest answers, make your poll more fair.

deception``

Maybe you could provide a few suggestions on how to make it fair?

You may not care where the results come from, but many others do. As I was saying repeatedly, this isn't meant to demean the good work of people like OPB or Bigtoe, but just being used to guage the response of members here regarding a specific issue.

How can you say that reviews from manufacturers have no agenda other than pushing their products? What is the motive of any business apart from profit? Nobody is running a charity, I presume . I have nothing against profits, heck I''m willing to pay for a good product which performs as claimed and to that effect I maintain a healthy degree of skeptisim. If you choose not to, that is your call.

Super Nade said:

Maybe you could provide a few suggestions on how to make it fair?

You may not care where the results come from, but many others do. As I was saying repeatedly, this isn't meant to demean the good work of people like OPB or Bigtoe, but just being used to guage the response of members here regarding a specific issue.

How can you say that reviews from manufacturers have no agenda other than pushing their products? What is the motive of any business apart from profit? Nobody is running a charity, I presume . I have nothing against profits, heck I''m willing to pay for a good product which performs as claimed and to that effect I maintain a healthy degree of skeptisim. If you choose not to, that is your call.

Click to expand...

What I am saying is that the average reviewer receievs no sort of monetary compensation for what they do. Yes, there are things to be had on both sides of the equation, but that does not necessarily mean that it will or should compromise the integrity of a review.

All I am trying to say is that you have absolutely no ground with which to assume that most reviews involve cherry-picked products. Until you do, this argument holds very little merit. Let me re-iterate once again - I personally gain most of my own knowledge from forum memebrs as well, but that does not mean that every review is skewed against us.

Question - If I were to write a review for a website, would that automatically make it less credible than if I were to write the same review on this forum?

A better example of a fair poll: Manufacturer Reviews?

1. Yes, I enjoy them

2. No, I don't like them at all

3. I prefer member reviews, but they're ok

4. I don't care either way

deception``

I dont think its a good idea. As a reviewer one of the things i like is comming to other forums and seeing what REAL people are getting with retail parts. This helps me keep my reviews honest. I also dont think that it would always be clear that a review is sponsered. If they want their reviews done they should either send their stuff to a review site or overclockers.com should get back into it like they used to do and put out the quality reviews that got me started here. If members of the forums were to do proffesional reviews and post them on the front page of OC.com well... im all for that.

hibner said:

NAY

If you want a manufacturers review, then look it up on the manufacturers website. Sponsored reviews will just end up being a commercial for the product. You will never get an honest review. And you will never hear a truthful review which says "this product sucks, don't buy it". How do you think Thermaltake has survived for so long.

Click to expand...

In response to this:
http://www.legitreviews.com/article.php?aid=183
http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NTEy

infinitevalence said:

I dont think its a good idea. As a reviewer one of the things i like is comming to other forums and seeing what REAL people are getting with retail parts. This helps me keep my reviews honest. I also dont think that it would always be clear that a review is sponsered. If they want their reviews done they should either send their stuff to a review site or overclockers.com should get back into it like they used to do and put out the quality reviews that got me started here. If members of the forums were to do proffesional reviews and post them on the front page of OC.com well... im all for that.

Click to expand...

I understand where you are coming from 100%. However, I think this is in a response to this thread, which was innocent and not technically a review to say the least:

http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=422649

deception``

Well i did read that post when it first came out and i have to say, i found it very uncomfortable. When i read a review site i expect certin things, I also understand that their finachal well being is dependent on getting products to review. If they want jobs they have to keep companies happy, if all you do is tell people how much their products suck then the company is going to pull its advertising and stop sending you products. Then your site dies from lack of material.

On the forums i EXPECT that people have recived stuff in the same manner that I would go buy something, either online or via a retail store. These people are not dependent on the support of a company and thus are less suspect. Does that mean its an honest review? no not always but I can at least know they are less likly to be motivated by profit.

Comming as a semi insider on this i can tell you the presure to say good things about a product is HUGE, at times almost overwhelming. Thankfully i dont get paid for any of my work, and i like it that way. It lets me stay more objective, or at least feel more objective. If person XYZ wants to write reviews, then they should work for a review site. And if company ZYX wants their produt reviewed then they should support a review site. Forums like this one are for people who are enthusiests, or do this as a hobby, this is not a place for marketing or sponsership. If it were they would alow us to post advertisements.

// something else i want to say, if reviewers want to post links to their reviews in the context of a response, Im all for it. What i dont like about that post is its not clear that He is a reviewer. I have always made it clear that i work for legitreviews, and i will continue to do so as long as Im welcome here and there.

I say Yay, then members can get some freebies

deception`` said:

I understand where you are coming from 100%. However, I think this is in a response to this thread, which was innocent and not technically a review to say the least:

http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=422649

deception``

Click to expand...

But I think you are missing something..That ram was given free to the person to review it..He was not told to review it here or anywhere. Disclosing that makes a world of difference as do the lower concerns.

Is it a pre retail part ?

Was it sent from the maker directly ?

What controll do you have to be sure it is not pre tested ? Or hand picked from certain yield values ?

Was it free to you ?

Do you have a relationship to the company ?

Even if it was pre retail.hand picked.ect it dont make the reviewer a scam artist or dishonest.

But disclosure of these concerns makes people feel at ease,,And thats invaluable,,And exactly why the poll is so heavly one sided.All we are looking for is honesty the more ya give us the wider our arms open .

diehrd said:

But I think you are missing something..That ram was given free to the person to review it..He was not told to review it here or anywhere. Disclosing that makes a world of difference as do the lower concerns.

Is it a pre retail part ?

Was it sent from the maker directly ?

What controll do you have to be sure it is not pre tested ? Or hand picked from certain yield values ?

Was it free to you ?

Do you have a relationship to the company ?

Even if it was pre retail.hand picked.ect it dont make the reviewer a scam artist or dishonest.

But disclosure of these concerns makes people feel at ease,,And thats invaluable,,And exactly why the poll is so heavly one sided.All we are looking for is honesty the more ya give us the wider our arms open .

Click to expand...

almost all of those questions were answered quickly in that thread. this is a fad at ocforums so there's no reason to expect a reviewer coming here to know that he will be hounded for all this information. it was a preview, so pre-retail. he is a reviewer, no connection with mushkin. mushkin reps have stated numerous times that they do not hand pick ram for reviewers. of course it's free, you don't buy pre-retail ram from mushkin. if you're not comfortable with reviewers getting free parts then i guess you should only read reviews by people you trust.

you guys need to give this a rest. if every review of ram that is posted gets badgered by a mob of ethical zealots then why should people post reviews here? if you can prove that something unethical is going on here than do so. if not, DO NOT BADGER THESE POOR PEOPLE TRYING TO SHARE THEIR RESULTS. you are wasting their time and patience.

S_N i looked into the blue line matter. as far as i'm concerned a mushkin rep tried to spread the info on cheap UTT and got burned (once again, only at ocforums) because some of the old blue line was mosel IC's, which he had revealed. i don't want to bring up a dead matter, but it definetly had nothing to do with Charlie recieving a set of blue line and getting 270mhz 2-2-2.

p.s. tony i like the new girl, hope she didn't stink up the place