Should HWBot be divided into a two class structure?

[[GF]Duke]

IDK even without sponsorship i think i'd want to compete in the pro league. Would there be requirements? Would it be something thats earned? How about making the pro-league something that people would want to be in by rewarding with a different (maybe Higher) point structure. Rather than forcing people to go pro.

[|ron]

Let's just focus on step 1 first. Having a system where people can lose their place in an "upper league" and drop back to the "lower league" is a much more complicated issue than splitting up rankigs. Yes, even more complicated

 

Pieter, can't it be done by choosing a fixed recursive time in which the rankings are analyzed and, for example, the first 50 in overclockers rankings are in the pro-league with the other guys will be in World league?

For example, every 6 months, the rankings will be scanned, the split of clockers between the two leagues will be adjusted based on who has gone up or down in the rankings in that previous 6 months.

It's the same for Soccer here in Italy... we have "Serie A", "Serie B" etc...

In A you have teams like Milan, Juventus, Inter etc... that Series is made up by 20 teams: who of them arrives in 17, 18, 19 and 20th position at the end of the year, goes in Serie B. At the same time, the first 4 teams of serie B will be promoted in A for the next season.

 

Dunno if I well explained the thing...

 

Oh, obviously, when a clocker passes from a category to another, his points will need to be recalculated based on the new submission rankings... but I think that this is an operation that your server can work out... can it, Frederick?

Edited June 8, 2010 by |ron

[Massman]

Technically and theoretically, it certainly is no problem. I think not only within the staff this topic has been discussed many times, but also at many overclocking meetings. It's also, I think, a possible route for overclocking to take in a non-specified timeframe. That's not the issue.

 

Please sit down and have a look at all the extra things you need to take into account:

 

- How many people do you allow in the leagues

- Based on what criteria can they enter the league

- Based on what criteria do they drop from the league

- How can we control submissions when serious business is on the line

- How to integrate vendor interests in overclocking into this

 

(I'm especially worried in how to prevent people from cheating if all happens from home and how to make this league interesting for non-overclockers to watch)

 

We don't have to start running before we can stand-up. This kind of competition requires a LOT of thinking and it's simply something that HWBOT is not capable off at this point in the competition. Splitting up PRO and Amateur ranks is already a very big step for the overclocking community ... let's make sure that this step is done properly before we add new ideas and features to it.

[icebob]

Good move Massman, now my question will we allowed to join the pro league on a voluntary basis or we'll have to get sponser first?

[steponz]

hey Mass anyway we can get demo of what is new? When you change it of course... and maybe have it in place with the old stuff.. to ease transition and to also get comments... This way it would ease the big transition..

 

I have done this for clients before.. to make it less of an all or nothing approach....

 

Here's my 2 cents again.. lol

[stummerwinter]

Massman you don't know who the sponsored people are ?

Are you kidding us man ?

 

Considering that sponsored for overclocking differs from getting 1 review sample every now and then, it's quite easy...

 

Let's see if I can guess some...

 

HiCookie

Andre Yang

Nickshih

SF3D

K|ngp|n

elmor

hipro5

kinc

hiwa

stummerwinter

youngpro

Deanzo

Vivi ( at least until a few months ago )

 

I didn't read the whole thread, just to step in here...

 

I'm against splitting up the ranking, because:

 

- how to control who is pro or not?

- will there be a group of people to decide this?

- how much suplier given hardware disqualifies you from non-pro?

- rumors/accusing will get more non-pro, where people have to prove not getting support

 

For me personally it would be disaponting competing against the real big ones, I personally get only more or less mainboard support (extra where 2 PSUs, and some VGAs only for testing/selecting). Stuff like ONE CPU (selected one out of five non pretested CPUs) in the last two years and some VGAs, memory where some kind of compensation for hard work on exibitions, and this ist hard work and costs a lot of time in preparation these...

 

I spent this year thousands of euro out of my own pocket, so for me I would step back to non-pro and give up support from ASUS...

 

So, from my point of view, don't split, I would not change anything, I think, it would get worse...

 

I missed one thing...

 

A lot of people complained about unfair old hwbot-ranking/point system, but now, are there real changes in the top rankings? The only thing I see that much more effort (money + time) is needed to stay in Top10/20 compared to last year...Some are new, some are out of this top...

 

Missed another thing:

 

Hiding informations will increase too! Actions like the one from hipro and Kinc will getting less and less because pros will NOT share their informations. I really appreciated the things by both did last days...:celebration:

 

Third thing missed:

 

Have a lock back in the last lets say two years...The key is NOT getting hardware support from a manufacturer, the key is having direct access either to INTEL getting selected CPUs or get a lot of them (which way ever) and have luck to select a real good one...Even in bot 2.0 the CPU is still the key (accept 3D03 and maybe 3DV with GT)...

Edited June 9, 2010 by stummerwinter

[Massman]

First of all I want to stress this: I am replying here as 'Massman' and not 'HWBOT'. I'm also not informing you on the latest developments in the project, but just thinking out loud and presenting my view on the suggestions

 

Just so that you guys know ...

 

Good move Massman, now my question will we allowed to join the pro league on a voluntary basis or we'll have to get sponser first?

 

That's a good question and certainly a topic that we need to think about. My opinion is different from the one of other staff members as I believe that we shouldn't be forcing anyone to join the league or not to join the league. Ideally, all the people who are seeded heavily would move by themselves to the league and we'd not have this issue.

 

I think that this 'pro league' should be seen more of a 'marketing league', by which I mean that this league overclockers play who receive hardware to be used for marketing a product. This, in other words, excludes those people who get a mainboard once in a while for review, as a gift or just to get feedback. There's a distinct difference between being a PRO overclocker and a power user, I think.

 

In the staff forums, SF3D made a good (and more importantly: doable) suggestion to rate PRO scores the same way you'd rate the 'amateur' scores, without both affecting each other. Team rankings wouldn't be affected then, which is good. Still thinking about the hardware points ... this may be a little bit more tricky.

 

As for joining the PRO league ... I'm not sure about this either. I think there should be some minimum requirements to join as we don't want newcomers to join just because they want to.

 

hey Mass anyway we can get demo of what is new? When you change it of course... and maybe have it in place with the old stuff.. to ease transition and to also get comments... This way it would ease the big transition..

 

I have done this for clients before.. to make it less of an all or nothing approach....

 

Here's my 2 cents again.. lol

 

Nothing has been done in terms of coding, so nothing to show yet.

[Monstru]

I don't know if it is just me, but I come home for ~ 2 weeks travel and hussle with Computex, and I find HWBot divided into all sorts of threads regarding pro leagues, ES, non ES disputes, hardware sharing and all that, and I find this really weird. I think constantly impproving something is a great road to perfection. One should be carefull though, too many drastic changes might not have the same effect

[|ron]

I don't know if it is just me, but I come home for ~ 2 weeks travel and hussle with Computex, and I find HWBot divided into all sorts of threads regarding pro leagues, ES, non ES disputes, hardware sharing and all that, and I find this really weird. I think constantly impproving something is a great road to perfection. One should be carefull though, too many drastic changes might not have the same effect

 

You're right, sometimes it's better to change gradually than to break totally with the past and then saying "oh, it's a shit, let's turn back where we were" :banana:

... and I think we're discussing all those things to let Frederick and you do the right changes.

[Gautam]

I didn't read the whole thread, just to step in here...

 

I'm against splitting up the ranking, because:

 

- how to control who is pro or not?

- will there be a group of people to decide this?

- how much suplier given hardware disqualifies you from non-pro?

- rumors/accusing will get more non-pro, where people have to prove not getting support

 

For me personally it would be disaponting competing against the real big ones, I personally get only more or less mainboard support (extra where 2 PSUs, and some VGAs only for testing/selecting). Stuff like ONE CPU (selected one out of five non pretested CPUs) in the last two years and some VGAs, memory where some kind of compensation for hard work on exibitions, and this ist hard work and costs a lot of time in preparation these...

 

I spent this year thousands of euro out of my own pocket, so for me I would step back to non-pro and give up support from ASUS...

 

So, from my point of view, don't split, I would not change anything, I think, it would get worse...

Pretty much completely agree with you on everything. I think that an "amateur" class could help people who have no industry contacts whatsoever though, but not much more. Otherwise the top 10, 20, etc won't change.

 

And that's the other thing people are missing. The problem is not with who can be in the "pro" class. The "pro" class should be open to everyone. After all, most of the people complaining about things not being fair would rather be in the "amateur" class I'd think. Having to compete against the likes of Andre, hicookie and Nick should be enough of a natural deterrent for most from the "pro" class.

 

The problem will arise in the "amateur" class, where gray areas like reviewers that get some freebies might want to be in it, but it wouldn't be fair to people who pay for everything, etc. If everyone will want to be in the pro class, then there's no reason to have one. The reason to make two classes is because people are upset that things aren't "fair".

Edited June 9, 2010 by Gautam

[icebob]

I think the big thing is what are the manufacturer think about it? Did you guys already talk to them about a "pro" league?What were their initial thought? If they don't want to think about it, I think the debate is closed. And on visibility purpose, will it be better to be seen as # 30 in the pro league, or #1 in amateur, cause I think if the manufacturer agree with 2 league there will be more motivation for the amateur to work his arse off to get up there so he have some visibility, and maybe a chance to move up

[knopflerbruce]

If you have a pro class and an amateur class, where the pro class is the "everything goes"-league, and they choose to join it, then they can't really whine about the rules, as there already is a league for the ones who don't like mfg support and uberbinned engineering samples.

[stummerwinter]

The problem will arise in the "amateur" class, where gray areas like reviewers that get some freebies might want to be in it, but it wouldn't be fair to people who pay for everything, etc. If everyone will want to be in the pro class, then there's no reason to have one. The reason to make two classes is because people are upset that things aren't "fair".

 

But these rumours will come asap when a amatuer-class starts. How will you controll it? Only by trust? That's something we allready see doesn't work...

 

If somebody get only a little support, what would they prefer (not everybody), beeing Top 5 amateur or Top 30 pro? I'm allready through something similar in sports, even for phsychologial/personal reasons it better to be top in a lower class then end of the ranking in a higher league, trust me, have seen this many times...

 

I think the big thing is what are the manufacturer think about it? Did you guys already talk to them about a "pro" league?What were their initial thought? If they don't want to think about it, I think the debate is closed. And on visibility purpose, will it be better to be seen as # 30 in the pro league, or #1 in amateur, cause I think if the manufacturer agree with 2 league there will be more motivation for the amateur to work his arse off to get up there so he have some visibility, and maybe a chance to move up

 

At the end manufacturers dont' care if they get enough publicity...

[Hondacity]

why did i miss this thread....voted yessssssssssssss

 

At the end manufacturers dont' care if they get enough publicity---BS

 

i wonder who will rank top 10 ...no sponsors

 

i wonder who'll rank worst 10 ..with sponsors ..hahahahha

[Kal-EL]

Hypothetically:

 

Those who worry about being categorized into the "PRO" league unfairly because they only recieve one stick of ram every six months from a manufacturer, I say this, you're already competing in the "PRO" league right now. We already compete (not really competition) with Nick, Andre, Hi guys and others right now as it stands, its no different now. Your current ranking will either get better as the field narrows in the pro league or stay the same, not get worst.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

 

• 
  Does splitting the leagues have pro's and con's, yes. Does doing nothing make everyone happy, yes and no. However, I think the majority are discontented with the current situation.
  
• 
  How a new split category performs will be entirely up to the willingness and capabilities of hwbot and its staff. We can't expect them to bend over backwards and take on un-realistic tasks like watching each and every 30 minute benching videos that verify hardware specs. Only hwbot can say what is un-realistic and what isn't as only they know what they are capable of regulating or willing to regulate.
  
• 
  There would not be some of these problems if the opt-out "do not participate in rankings" feature was used by well backed by manufacturer overclockers. If the top 10 or 20 overclockers could be polled to find out what really matters to them. Points? Cups? Benchmark Standings? Point Standings? or are they mainly concerned with pushing they're manufacturers goals and objectives? After all when people look at the rankings for an individual benchmark their awe is who's on top or in the top three. Manufacturers are only concerned with seeing their product marketed atop the rankings, they would still be happy here as well. Are these guys after raw competition?
  
• 
  Also consider the goals and objectives of Hwbot itself. I'm not sure specifically what those goals and objectives are but the majority of us make the assumption that they exist to serve us. Define "us". Is it the majority? the minority? the manufacturers? the pros? the joes? I'd love to see a specific response this question, a mission statement of sorts.
  
• Personally, I'm interested in seeing overclocking and extreme overclocking continue to grow and expand to people that ordinarily wouldnt experience the joy of overclocking. Its good for manuf's, joes, pros, everybody
  

Most of the time people just grin and bear it when they see something they don't like without saying a word. This doesnt solve any problems and just festers silently as people walk away from the competitions.

[Massman]

The mission statement can be found on the 'about hwbot'-page:

 

HWBOT aims to turn overclocking from a hobby into a worldwide, competitive sport. Just as any sport, we think this should be divided into a professional and amateur league.

 

The continuous ‘overclocker league’ is the amateur league. Anyone can join, and become noticed by achieving a high rank. Currently you will not get into the top 100 without extreme cooling (LN2) and knowledge.

 

Officially recognized competitions will be the ‘professional’ league. These competitions are funded by a supporting manufacturer, and organized either by HWBOT or the manufacturer itself. A media partner, like OC-TV is would cover these events. The end ranking of these officially recognized competitions or events are used to assign points to the contestants, Formula 1 style. Overclockers do not need to attend each event, but the more they attend the more points they can gather. These points are used to create the professional ranking, which is reset each year. Next to the rankings, HWBOT can be an excellent resource for overclocking related information.

 

We offer a very extensive database, including specifications and detailed overclocking information of more than 1350 processors, 800 processors and 1300 motherboard models, thanks to the 400.000 detailed overclocking submissions by our members.

 

First of all, HWBOT is designed to fit the needs of the community and not the manufacturers. That's the reason why I agreed on spending my day working for this site ... to make it better for the community. For those who don't realize: I'm not paid to sit here all weekend and discuss in topics like the ES. I do because I want to. Maybe the best way to explain that we are build for the community: more than once we got the proposal of working with paid memberships on HWBOT and every single time we declined. This means that no one has to pay a single dime to be part of HWBOT. Given our tight financial situation, I think that says enough.

 

Now, concerning the sponsorship issue. I think the split up will be on voluntary basis for most of you at the beginning (maybe some criterium like #boints to keep out newcomers), because it's difficult to draw lines. It feels like some of you pretend that PR benching is the very easy task, whereas it still is hard work. It's not just click 'n' bench ...

 

Also, please let's not believe in the fairy tale where the amateur league will be completely free from all free hardware. In the end, I can lend a few nice memory sticks to my friend and let him bench with it to achieve nice scores ... and there's nothing wrong with that. Also (in my situation), I have the support from a performence-minded PC shop in Belgium, which allows me to bench hardware I don't have to pay (note: I don't GET the hardware, but I can BENCH it once in a while), which also gives me the upper hand. Sponsorships come in all forms and is simply uncontrolable. The biggest problem is quantity of hardware ... getting one untested chip, even for free, is the same hard work as buying one untested chip. If you get a free chip from you girlfriend as present, it doesn't mean you're sponsored.

 

From what I've seen, many refer to the easy RMA process for the sponsored guys (read: just get a new card). Well, I think that people who pay for their hardware have a much easier RMA process than any of the sponsored guys! Really, manufacturers HATE it when you kill hardware, even if you just broken a world record with it ... you need to come up with a very good explanation if you want to get a new card to continue benching. For the regular guys, it's just a matter of cleaning up and sending it back to the shop.

 

At the end manufacturers dont' care if they get enough publicity...

 

Very true.

 

At the moment, they try to get publicity through the normal rankings. The aim is to still give them a way to reach the community with their overclocking results (after all: it's still nice to see all the top results gathered in one place), but not have them affect the points and ranking of the normal folks (which actually include 99% of the community).

 

An upper league could solve this issue.

[BenchZowner]

Somebody mentioned something about listening to and asking the manufacturers...

No, if HWbot is what the about us/mission page says, the manufacturers should be ignored, and do what's best for the community ( not a way to get more sponsors, or mfc interference ).

 

For the ones with hopes of getting sponsored by a mfc... if they split the rankings the mfc's will just pay attention to the top 5-10 of the pro league and that's it.

[Hondacity]

no they wont...they love numbers..they'll get more people ...sure gigabyte sponsors hicookie...and they send hw to hwbot crew....and they send stuff to team.au i'm sure gb usa will find more guys in the usa...or not..lol

[Massman]

and they send hw to hwbot crew

 

Quite frankly ... HWBOT doesn't get ANY hardware from manufacturers. Everything you see from me is either through Madshrimps or directly to me (because I did the work for Madshrimps).

[Hondacity]

i meant madshrimps lol...sorry

[Patch]

Minority "no" voter here.

 

It may seem like it's time for a pro league, but it's not.

 

There's no prize money to speak of in this sport.

 

Where's the advantage to the overclocker to be in a "pro" league compared to the current system?

 

Where's the advantage to the manufacturer as opposed to the current system?

 

At this point, the whole idea is reactionary to complaints about the hwbot point and glory system not being fair to the average guy. But if you think there's angst and bickering now about manufacturer support, you're all in for a big surprise when you start actually trying to draw lines to define it and separate overclockers based on it. The prevailing "we all know a pro when we see it" definition I'm seeing described isn't going to fly at all.

 

As a non-sponsored guy what do I have to gain from splitting the league? Not a thing.

 

As it stands, I have the opportunity to compete with team mates, friends, and the whole world. I'm free to obtain, mod, and kill whatever hardware I can in pursuit of a score and some glory. Being relegated to an amateur league carries no tangible or psychological benefit.

[K404]

 

There's no prize money to speak of in this sport.

 

So? I dont think ANYONE started overclocking because £/$/E/Y signs lit up in their eyes. We're at a transitional stage, where it could happen. Do we want to get the groundwork in place for when it DOES (because it WILL) happen... or leave things ticking over and have a bigger mess to deal with when things do become pro?

 

 

 

Where's the advantage to the overclocker to be in a "pro" league compared to the current system?

 

Recognition? less bitching about ES reults? I dunno.

 

 

Where's the advantage to the manufacturer as opposed to the current system?

 

Every time I try to think of a response to this... I keep coming back to.... "who cares?" The manufactureres give gear to who they give gear to. There is NOTHING HWB can do that would stop companies giving out hardware to attract attention. They could deliberately try and sabotage it. They cant. I've never been asked by a company "whats your HWB ranking" They give it to guys who will get the gear noticed. HWB is a platform to do that. The number of people viewing the submissions make that successful, not the categories of benchmarker, IMHO.

 

 

 

As a non-sponsored guy what do I have to gain from splitting the league? Not a thing.

 

Higher global ranking? Sure, the majority aren't sponsored. Do they want to become so? A higher global ranking gives them a better chance to shine and get people noticed. If someone really just does this for fun and has no aspirations... if its just a way to unwind at the end of a working day.... good for them. Why do they care about amateur and pro leagues at all? As long as theres an accurate set of hardware rankings for them to guage results.

 

As it stands, I have the opportunity to compete with team mates, friends, and the whole world. I'm free to obtain, mod, and kill whatever hardware I can in pursuit of a score and some glory. Being relegated to an amateur league carries no tangible or psychological benefit.

 

IMHO, these two points dont sit well together. If you do it for fun, fine. Why would you care about phychological benefits? It sounds like you arent interested in benching in *that* kind of competitive way.

 

We're ALLLLLL in the amateur league at the moment. What are the tangible and psychological benefits RIGHT NOW? The reasons you might not like the result of a split should be the same reason you shouldnt like it right now.... IMHO

Edited June 10, 2010 by K404

[BenchZowner]

I said that the manufacturers should NOT have a word in how the HWbot league/leagues will be arranged and run, neither on HWbot's point system.

 

Never said to stop offering them the opportunity to run their competitions through your system.

 

There's a thin red like between allowing the manufacturers to use and enjoy the benefits of HWbot and allowing the manufacturers to interfere and in the end control HWbot and its rankings.

[Insane_Tech]

Completely agree with Benchzowner, but I don't think that manufacturers have had the chance to interfere in hwbot rules etc in the past... neither I think that Frederick or Pieter will allow them to act that way in the future... I hope

[HITandRUN]

NO just because there is no way to control anybody, what stuff they bench and where they have it from. People which are not sponsored need to stop crying and just get over it. Bench for fun because this it what it was when you started with it. Let the big dogs have fun and maybe one day you get picked up and become one of them.

Edited June 10, 2010 by HITandRUN