Massman Posted June 17, 2013 Share Posted June 17, 2013 Okay, I've closed the previous thread since it was obviously going nowhere. The problem is the following: "How can we, as a community, embrace the increased external funding for our hobby and passion and use it for the benefit of the community?" External funding for overclocking comes in many forms and shapes. The one we know best is the sponsorship with hardware, but getting sponsorship for a group event falls under the external funding as well. I call all this "external" because none of the money involved in overclocking, the leagues or competitions comes from HWBOT. It comes from 3rd party corporations. That means we, HWBOT, do not have much direct influence on the money flow and we can only re-organise the structure of the rankings and competitions to make it flow differently. It is very important to understand that hwbot has no control over the sponsorship and any of the funding attached to overclocking that appears at HWBOT comes mainly through the members of the community. Also important: the money will flow wherever those with benefit and gain think it is most important. So, even if you would make an entirely "sponsorfree" version of hwbot, you would still have vendors trying to get to #1 on the rankings. In the end, no matter where the overclocking community goes, it will be the community that figures out how to deal with the increased external attention and funding for their passion. Let's use this thread to think about the future of overclocking in a world where corporations are willing to spend money on it. We have seen seven (or more) overclocking activities at Computex this year and most of them were actually a lot of fun for the overclockers. We will not tolerate any form of personal attack or bad language in this thread. Unlike usually, this thread will be strictly monitored. Too many bunnies and you get a time-out. First, we should focus on defining what we talk about. What are the types of "external funding"? - hardware support - binning opportunity - paid bills (eg: ln2) - secret oc event - oc competition (eg: moa) - paid transportation to events - sponsor community gathering (eg: AOCM) - ... Where does the community want to see funding flow to? and How can HWBOT help to achieve that? In my opinion, as much funding as possible should flow to events like AOCM and EOS. These are overclocking gatherings where the central focus is having fun and share the hobby. It is not about PR, marketing or world records and actually the events we all have the best time at. The Gigabyte OC Gathering post-Computex was pretty much the same. No records mandatory, just free beer/pizza and ln2 to relax. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
I.M.O.G. Posted June 17, 2013 Share Posted June 17, 2013 I don't think HWBot needs to control the flow of funding, and I think there is little it can do to exert control. Transparency is good, but it is a problem currently. There isn't any framework provided for this at HWBot, and there should be. Can improve this several ways: 1. Members can disclose affiliation There should be a way to disclose your affiliations. Don't know anything about overclocking and you see AndreYang's profile on HWBot? Awesome results, but no indication that he is any different from anyone else. There should be a place where vendor employees can show who they are - "Asus Employee". Or "Overclockers Admin". Or "HWBot Manager" We list only the person's team currently. There should be a field where users can fill out any industry business relationship, that is displayed on the user's profile. 2. Members can disclose hardware/bill sponsorship There should be a way to show what was given to you and it should be possible to reflect the nature of the gift - it was a straight sponsorship gift, if it was a sponsored loaner item, if it was a review sample, it was a prize that was won, etc. If someone provides LN2 or LHe. These should be listed in the profile somewhere. 3. Members can disclose event participation There should also be a way to show what you have been part of - HWBot should define events that are reported to them, or known industry events, then members can reflect they took part. This would include sponsored events - MOA, etc. It could also include team meetups and promotions, if they are reported to hwbot. It could also include media events - new hardware launches, etc. It could also include binning opportunities - a retailer let you do an event and bin 50 CPUs, a vendor flew you to HQ and you binned 100 CPUs to set a record, etc. It should be possible to reflect if you were just an attendee or a participant (viewing a demo or performing a demo) This doesn't even have to be enforced. Simply the ability for people to disclose things on their profile would be a huge step forward, and unless HWBot makes it possible, there isn't anything members can do to be transparent with others in the community. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
El Gappo Posted June 17, 2013 Share Posted June 17, 2013 1. Members can disclose affiliation There should be a way to disclose your affiliations. Don't know anything about overclocking and you see AndreYang's profile on HWBot? Awesome results, but no indication that he is any different from anyone else. There should be a place where vendor employees can show who they are - "Asus Employee". Or "Overclockers Admin". Or "HWBot Manager" We list only the person's team currently. There should be a field where users can fill out any industry business relationship, that is displayed on the user's profile. This would be very nice. Just something like the "team partners" spot on pro cup team pages (which has disappeared, is it coming back? ) would be nice. Selectable on your profile and individual submissions... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GENiEBEN Posted June 17, 2013 Share Posted June 17, 2013 IMOG summed it up pretty good, the only problem I would see is #3 which, if I understood correctly, expects HWBOT to have a list of all events going on at the time or in near future. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thebanik Posted June 17, 2013 Share Posted June 17, 2013 Like IMOG's suggestion very much. Except for point 3, rest of the 2 points seem to be easily implementable as well. Also Why does hwbot want to flow the funds of sponsorship through itself? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Massman Posted June 17, 2013 Author Share Posted June 17, 2013 Also Why does hwbot want to flow the funds of sponsorship through itself? Maybe I didn't explain myself entirely clear. We don't want to control anything directly, but we have the ability to "steer" the flow into certain directions by changing rules and/or focus on different things. For example, a couple years ago we switched from single vga to single gpu focus. This made people focus a lot more on the single GPU than on multi-gpu. HD 4870X2 was the most popular card before HD 5870. In that same way, we can focus more to competitions by increasing the visibility and importance of overclocking results of contests. Or put more focus on events, for example. The idea is to affect the flow in a way it will put more attention to things the community like rather than what marketing wants. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Massman Posted June 19, 2013 Author Share Posted June 19, 2013 Great suggestion, IMOG. I'll add that to our development backlog. Also very interesting to see how many people actually turn up when something has to be discussed seriously instead of just whining and suggesting impossible ideas . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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