Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Tech Report (2nd nomination)

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was no consensus. Black Kite (talk) 23:36, 25 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The Tech Report

[Hide this box] New to Articles for deletion (AfD)? Read these primers!

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

Article is about a random tech site which contains reviews for products that were also reviewed on multiple other similar sites, not really notable for anything significant according to Google Search and other search engines and cannot be improved in any way. Current version of the site does not even contain verifiable information about site owners or about its history or any information beyond "reviews" and articles about "deals" with referral links to online shops (here's an example of referral spam links https://techreport.com/news/34670/bargain-basement-32-gb-of-ddr4-3200-ram-for-125-and-plenty-more/). The only 2 reliable third-party sources that mentions it is Ananandtech which briefly mentioned that the owner of the site has stepped down and ExtremeTech which noted TechReport's benchmarking method article here. Long story short: fails WP:GNG, has no useful verifiable info from reliable third-party sources other than brief mention that the site owner has stepped down and brief mention of benchmarking method. Omgwtfbbqsomethingrandom (talk) 21:37, 11 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Keep: due to extra sources found by a very helpful new editor Foxieauxy below, which I have already incorporated into article, I would like to change my own vote to "Keep" since I believe this article now has enough sources to determine its notability. The article still requires clean-up but this has no relevance to this nomination.Omgwtfbbqsomethingrandom (talk) 03:22, 20 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Note to a closing admin: when counting votes, please be aware of the fact that an attempt at vote brigading was made by a former contributor of the site at TechReport's own forums, the archived link is here in case this forum thread will be deleted: http://archive.fo/h15he Please note the time of this post at TechReport forums and the time of first "Keep" vote.Omgwtfbbqsomethingrandom (talk) 05:39, 19 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Computing-related deletion discussions. Shellwood (talk) 22:02, 11 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Internet-related deletion discussions. Shellwood (talk) 22:02, 11 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Delete: I can't seem to find any reliable third-party coverage for this website. So, delete as per nom. Cosmic Sans (talk) 13:46, 17 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, I'm a longtime reader of the site. What constitutes "reliable third-party coverage"? The Tech Report was one of the first independent hardware review sites on the internet. Notably, the site invented and popularized the concept of frame-time-based benchmarking which is used in some form by most hardware review sites that are popular today, such as Gamers Nexus. You can see here: https://www.gamersnexus.net/guides/2354-scott-wasson-interview-on-amd-tech-frametime-tests where GN talks to site founder (now AMD employee) Scott Wasson about his invention of the technique. (Also: third-party coverage.) This article is the original article in question: https://techreport.com/review/21516/inside-the-second-a-new-look-at-game-benchmarking/ The site has new ownership recently and the new owners are utter morons, but that doesn't remove the site's historical importance. If it weren't for The Tech Report we'd all be wandering around thinking multi-GPU gaming PCs were a good idea. Foxieauxy (talk) 20:34, 18 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

If you are curious what constitutes "reliable third party coverage" - I highly suggest reading about General Notability Guidelines by clicking on WP:GNG. After that, I recommend using Google search to find reliable, significant third-party sources that mention TechReport. You provided a link to Gamers Nexus - that is good, unfortunately it contains a YouTube video interview and such things are generally not reliable sources per WP:NOYT, not to mention the fact that Mr. Scott Wasson (whom I love dearly and been following on Twitter for many years and went to BBQ with, all of which has no relevance to encyclopedic value of this article) has departed TechReport long time ago and being interviewed as a person not associated with the site, and multiple times in this video Mr. Scott Wasson says phrases such as "The work I did" or "I was doing database benchmarking for servers" (when talking about where he got an inspiration to implement frame pacing measurement into GPU benchmarks), without using words like "we did" or "TechReport did" so I believe that YouTube video interview would be more suitable (if we will disregard that YT videos are generally not acceptable as a source on Wikipedia) for a separate article about Mr. Scott himself (since he attributes everything to himself) ;-) And TechReport is not being mentioned in ANY form in the text of that GamersNexus article you linked to. If you would be able to find more reliable sources (preferably not YT videos or forum posts or TechReport's own posts, for the reasons stated at Notability Guideline) that mention the significance of TR in great details - you are welcome to add them to the article, I would only be happy to see that because I could not (I tried, and I know how to do that - I've been using interwebs since 1996).Omgwtfbbqsomethingrandom (talk) 05:01, 19 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Keep: This is one of the oldest and most reliable tech sites on the web, it's been going for 20 years and maintained a high journalistic and review standard since then, challenging game and hardware vendors and keeping the industry honest. As pointed out above, the most notable contribution it made was to introduce a new and critical method of reviewing the GPU which resulted in ending the viability of SLI and CrossFire in the GPU market and these technologies' retirement by NVIDIA and AMD respectively. Concentrate2 (talk) 21:06, 18 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Concentrate2, I understand that this might be an emotional topic for you since you wrote so many passionate words about TechReport, unfortunately your subjective opinion about "high journalistic and review standard" is irrelevant since it is not supported by any reliable third-party sources ;-) Same goes about "honesty" and other nonsense which is basically a WP:PUFF (I suggest clicking on this thing if you do not understand what I mean). I highly suggest finding something other than that, something that would be backed up by reliable sources and not an opinion of anonymous Wikipedia editor, which have no encyclopedic value and which is exactly what WP:NOT is talking about (I also suggest clicking on that policy link). Same suggestion goes for other people coming from TR forums after their attempt at vote brigading this article by bringing attention to the fact that it is being nominated for deletion and asking forum users to "join forces" to keep this article - please discard your personal emotions of being a long-term part of TR community and try to think from a position of anonymous user who just want to find useful, factual information about TechReport (and not, say, about Mr. Scott Wasson), based on existing Wikipedia policies and rules. As I mentioned in my reply to other user, perhaps you'll be able to find a significant coverage about TechReport by CNN, PC Magazine, CNET, Nvidia's or AMD's published articles or in some published book, but until you do - I would suggest to refrain from purely emotional votes. Omgwtfbbqsomethingrandom (talk) 05:01, 19 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

You appear to be projecting your own emotional involvement by claiming I have such, given your above statement about how you "love dearly" the founder of this website you want deleted from Wikipedia, you have been following him on Twitter for many years, and have gone to the Tech Report BBQ's. That's prima facie evidence of your own personal relationship and involvement and so is a conflict of interest WP:APPARENTCOI. It's also unusual that you admit that you are on, reading, and linking here to new posts on the website's user forum, as this strongly suggests you are more involved with that website than you implied in the deletion proposal where you described it as just "a random tech site". I also don't like that you assume my gender. Concentrate2 (talk) 08:53, 19 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Concentrate2, I do not believe you understand what WP:APPARENTCOI means or implies. I do not, and never had, any financial interest in TechReports, nor am I an owner of competing business. The mere fact that I stated that I follow Mr. Scott on Twitter or has talked to him elsewhere or respect his work has absolutely no impact on my reasons for nominating this article. If you cast aside your baseless assumptions, you will see that I have nominated other articles for deletion in the past, as well as participated in votes for many others articles at AfD page. I do apologize for assuming your gender and I will remove all mentions of it. Now can we please get back to the actual issue here? Omgwtfbbqsomethingrandom (talk) 21:37, 19 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Omgwtfbbqsomethingrandom thank you for the change to your own vote to "Keep". Apologies if my understanding of WP:APPARENTCOI wasn't correct, I thought that it included having an apparent existing releationship with the subject of the article, and particularly that not declaring that relationship could reasonably be said to undermine the primary role as it gives the impression of lack of neutrality. And that should be particularly important when proposing deletion. Concentrate2 (talk) 09:56, 20 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Just Chilling (talk) 22:23, 18 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

What is the argument here? That TR isn't "notable"?
Isn't this kind of a Catch-22? You won't find businesses talking about the relevance of their competitors. I think you're expecting something that simply would never exist.
You claim to have looked for other sites linking TR and make the hilarious claim that you've been using the internet since 1996, as if that has any bearing on anything. I don't believe you for a microsecond. Did you really look? TR has been referenced a thousand times over by other sites, which you could find if you had even attempted to check:
PC Perspective

...by the way, Samsung was so taken by the SSD Endurance Test that they made a music video out of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tS6JJN7j-gQ

Hexus.net, largest UK hardware news site

Anandtech (you know, the biggest English-language hardware site in the world?)

You can find similar results from Tom's Hardware, The Guru of 3D, and Hard|OCP—despite the latter having a personal grudge against TR. You take a patronizing tone and discard our remarks as "emotional" but fail to address the completely reasonable and reasoned arguments that we've made, nor even do the most basic research which you claim to be so good at.
What's your personal involvement; why do you want to see the article removed? It clearly satisfies the notability requirements as linked at WP:GNG. Foxieauxy (talk) 08:53, 19 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for trying to find more sources. Most of those are, unfortunately, unusable because they mention the site very briefly but I will integrate useful sources into article. You are also welcome to do it yourself. Omgwtfbbqsomethingrandom (talk) 21:44, 19 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

References in manufacturers' promotional materials: AMD Radeon 7790, Nvidia ION Platform, Intel Core i7, EVGA TV Tuner card. Other stuff: Article syndicated on Ars Technica. 77.138.85.77 (talk) 14:48, 19 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for finding additional sources. Unfortunately they are very brief mentions which basically say "this site exists" and do not really help establishing notability of this site, per WP:GNG, and the Ars article is just a direct reprint of TechReport's own article. If you will find better sources - I would be happy to incorporate them. Omgwtfbbqsomethingrandom (talk) 05:27, 20 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Not that it matters now that the deletion was rescinded, but won't a reprint in a notable publication establish notability? And why don't review quotes indicate notability in the eyes of those manufacturers? 77.138.85.77 (talk) 12:38, 20 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Foxieauxy, do you have some kind of connection to The Tech Report? Cosmic Sans (talk) 14:49, 19 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I mean, I've spent more time writing forum and comment posts on that site than most people will ever write in their lives, even if they attain a liberal arts degree. But no, I don't have any particular connection to the site aside from the community. But that's just the thing; TR's users are a community. I got a bit rankled earlier when the original comment was making its ignorant, flimsy arguments for deletion and I apologize for that. It's ridiculous, though. It's like someone walked into the general store, founded in 1889 before the city was even incorporated, and told us it's not going to be listed in the phone book (or Google maps or whatever) because it looks dumpy next to the Walmart and Albertson's that just opened nearby. I became furious at the description of Cyril's concern about the site being deleted off Wikipedia being characterized as "brigading" in an attempt to discredit our concern. Two or three posters with legitimate concerns does not a "brigade" make, nor does "brigading" even make sense here.

By the way, there's more noteworthy events even than just the SSD Endurance Experiment and the genesis of "Inside the Second". As Nordichardware notes, TR was the first site to break the news of AMD limiting Opteron shipments due to the TLB erratum, first to provide more detail about the nature of the workaround, and first to quantify its considerable performance impact. Bit-tech links TR's results here.

I could go on and on but frankly I think I've made my point. Foxieauxy (talk) 20:01, 19 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for finding more useful sources, I will incorporate them into article. Omgwtfbbqsomethingrandom (talk) 22:42, 19 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.