I seems to me HE will be biased towards anything ProCooling puts out. I wouldn't be suprised to see just the opposite results pH gets in his tests. The worst part is more people would probably belive his work because it isn't as complicated to (mis)understand.

Interesting point unregistered. Might change my answer in that thread you started...

Ack! Don't do it! He'll test malleability before/if you get it back. :eek:
Seriously - this stuff is harder to read than foreign language tech stuff after I've run it through Systran.
Slightly related - my wife teaches English as a second language. One of her students (just beginning, not lots of English) and I have had several interesting conversations - because we are engineers in the same area, so we had a number of technical words in common.

probably needlessly stirring up shit but...
 

I felt I had to respond directly to allegations of bias as MY interpretation of those statements were that I was making up test results to suit mfgrs. Here is my reply to that thread:

"After rereading your post Liquid3d I feel that I should respond somewhat more strongly. Let's not mince words here; you have publicly accused me of biasing my reviews. Can you clarify? This is to me a fairly serious allegation. Are you saying that I made up the test results? DO respond. I have all of the original timestamped .csvs from my equipment and then the spreadsheets where analog numbers were tabulated. I have nothing to hide. "

jmke do liquid3d's allegations reflect the official stance of Mad Shrimps.be? I WILL air this out as publicly as possible if the validity of my testing is being called into question.

Finally.... some action :dome:

You guys are brutal!...but right
 

I've been watching this thread develop all day from my work computer with much amusement. I definitely know I'm on the right forum for tech proficient posters given the shellacking the kid got over his crap review. But you guys are brutal to the extreme!

IMO, the first thing I look for when coming across a waterblock (or even aircooler) review is to see if they even bothered to mention the ambient temp in their test environment. Without that, the temps posted are meaningless in regards to actual thermal ability of the cooling gadget. If I'm in Antarctica in a blizzard, I'm gonna get better CPU temps from my ThermalTake OEM cooler than my tits up Cascade rig sitting outside of a tent in the Sahara...c'mon testers!

The fact a significant plurality of testers don't even mention the ambient, is a testament to genreral clueless nature of cooling knowledge out there, even in the "enthusiast" community.

I like phaestus's reviews because he measures the D/T, with water in temp as the starting point. I don't even need to see how hot the CPU die gets with that information. But I can see a guy who looks around for reviews which just mention the CPU die temps getting confused looking at "The Chart" here.

:D













..... :dome: :dome:

I think it is probably wise to distance yourself from his statements. His writing skills are slowly improving (DO get a native English-speaking editor though eh) but I see little sign of technical progression.

Here is a helpful hint: rather than discussing the inherent inaccuracy of thermal monitoring, why not develop a calibration strategy for all the temperature mesurements and then quantify the uncertainty? Error bars are a good thing (for honest people).

I can see why he'd be angry at some members of our forums from past experiences. I do not understand why he chose now to publicly attack my credibility (without cause). As far as I can recall I have tried to be helpful to those with an eye to testing and questions on how to improve their methods. I have little tolerance for those with no interest in improving and with hidden agendas though.

jmke
I do not frequent your site so have little perspective of its tenor or purpose,
but you might ask why another mfgr - observing the hatchet job of l3d - would want to expose their company to that kind of pr ?

do you understand the problem ?
l3d fancies himself qualified to discuss and criticize the design of wbs
but he is an incompetent fool without insight or understanding
-> so why would I consider such misdirection helpful for the publics recognition of my product and its attributes
- so if l3d has messed up the presentation, then . . . .

no jmke, I do not agree
if l3d is writing for you, and his comments are posted on YOUR forums, then he is YOUR writer, and YOUR site is responsible for giving him a soapbox

review products will not be sent by Swiftech to MadShrimps unless I have reviewed the proposed writers' qualifications

so pH is biased eh ?
jwke, I suggest your site formally and explictly disclaim that allegation

*gone* *

What does it matter if they are on your site or not. Fact is they are OUT THERE! That should be enough for you not to use his reviews. It isn't like the people that read YOUR site don't read OTHER site's. YOUR responsible for the credibility and qulaity of the information on YOUR site. Doesn't matter if it is freelance or not.

my appologies jmke, I should have spent more time on your site before posting
(site seems ok, serious, a contribution I suppose)

l3d's libelous comments are not on your site, and you cannot be responsible for what is posted elsewhere - agreed

you might question your association with a reviewer so ill qualified

my 'pre-qualification' of reviewers is something that I have initiated in response to this specific escapade

That was why I asked jmke; Procooling has certainly had issues with writers going off the rails on other forums before and so it's best to be clear whether a writer is speaking for the site or not.

??
if it is on a site, that site is responsible
the confusion I guess is that the comments are not being made on jmke's site (at least that I saw with a quick scan)

my perception of jmke's "problem" is that l3d is now associated with that site, AND l3d is now well known to be a WCing incompetent

*gone* *

I believe that libelous is in fact a reasonable adjective to describe liquid3d's comments on truextreme.com

I also now notice that he is a moderator of that forum and so this issue is not just some random person spouting off but a more official statement from an organization.

jmke:

I posted this as a defense of the procooling forums over at truextreme. Perhaps our regulars will refine or elaborate on some of my comments but I believe it speaks for us as a whole:

"The procooling forums has the overall attitude that it does for two primary reasons. First of all, there are a LOT of people there with technical degrees (a lot of practicing engineers and a few Ph.D research scientists though they do not advertise as such). Surprisingly, these people are not particularly welcome at most other cooling/overclocking bbses. Consider the way most forums work: someone with decades of experience in the application of thermodynamics to engineering problems gets chastized or banned for not agreeing with some 15 year old kid's analysis of heat transfer. The prevailing attitude is in this thread too: "too many thermo majors" (btw I dont believe thermodynamics IS a major at the university level).

The second reason for Procooling's prevailing attitude is the "expert status" that is implied by posting a review on the web for thousands to read. Presumably you are posting this review from a standpoint of knowing what the hell you are talking about. For this reason I don't typically review video cards or CPUs or HDDs or other computer hardware that I'm not really qualified to evaluate in detail. When you e-mail out poorly conducted tests to the world at large for them to post at news, then don't get upset when people point out issues. Learn from your mistakes or not; life is full of choices.

I look at the comments on web reviews at Procooling as being comparable to the peer review process that takes place when you try to get something published in a journal or magazine. Procooling's members are, after all, the peers of all other water cooling enthusiasts."

JD just got served :D

I think that the word choices in L3D's reviews detract from the review's overall effect. It sounds like he does not know what he is doing (could be part of the problem) and therefore (mis)uses uncommon diction to bolster his points. I can see how he might have a natural talent for writing, but in any mass review of a product, the emphasis should be put on content rather than the writing talents of the author. When the author camouflages a lack of scientific procedure and knowlege with a machine gunning of synnonyms there is a problem.

l3d's comments are libelous - false statements of fact abut a person broadcasted to others in written form. His comments fulfil all the requirements for libel:
- The statement is defamatory (could hurt the reputation of both pH as an individual and of procooling as a site)
- It has been published to at least one person other than the libeled individual (in this case, the entire internet)
- It directly identifies the libeled individual
- The statement is untrue (that Procooling falsifies test results - presumably pH has the evidence to show this is not the case)
- The statement was reckless, negligent, or known to be false (the toughest to prove, but in this case, reasonably likely)

Of course the juristiction issues and the costs would make this more trouble than it is worth to persue legally, but it would be sensible for jmke to either sever connections with Liquid3d or for L3d himself to retract the accusations publically.

jmke has nothing to do with this from a legal standpoint as his site wasn't involved and liquid3d is a freelance writer. TrueXtreme would be on the hook (I don't know who runs it or anything though). Yes I can produce timestamped test results as I mentioned; everything's on the up and up for Procooling. Perhaps not up to ISO standards but more than enough to prove that I haven't falsified anything. You are 100% correct that it is more trouble than it's worth to pursue.

I agree that it does reflect upon the qualification of liquid3d though. Publicly posting false statements is a pretty serious handicap to credibility.

*gone* *

There is an apology up.

I do not accept that as an apology. He spends a couple hundred words explaining why be believes I am biased and just says he has nothing but circumstantial evidence to back it up and so others are telling him to apologize. My reply is over there too.

jmke there is a large difference in stating "your review was crappy because your conclusions are not borne out by your testing methods" and saying "your reviews are technically very good but are biased towards a particular company". The ONLY way for l3d's comments to be true are for me to be making up test results. I do not think this is a minor issue; he is directly attacking my credibility without a shred of proof. I am happy to produce all the raw data from waterblock testing, but would expect there to be some consequences for l3d when his comments are proven to be libelous.

Well, its good to hear that I'm not the only person who thought that was a hollow apology. This community (and by that I refer to all computer enthusiasts not just Procoolers) has a long memory - I know many people still don't take Tom's Hardware or [H]ardOCP at their word anymore since their reviews were accused of bias. Reputation is pretty much all a site has to differentiate it from its peers, and I can see why people get defensive when their methods or skills are questioned.

This whole situation is unfortunate - I don't think Procooling members started this thread to try and drive L3d and [M] away from waterblock reviews, rather I believe they were just having a laugh at the ridiculously convoluted verbiage present in L3ds review and pointing out some of the unsubstantiated claims he had made. Originally, all that L3d needed was an editor with a firm grasp on English grammar, but now he's dug himself into a hole.

My earlier comments to jmke re: severing ties was perhaps interpreted wrong -
I am not suggesting that your site is in any way legally responsible for his comments, but in the sometimes unfair eye of public opinion, continuing to publish reviews by him without a complete and unconditional retraction of his accusations could be viewed as supporting him in those accusations.

Everyone makes mistakes, but pride does come before a fall - once you open your mouth without thinking, its often very hard to swallow your words without looking foolish... I know I've been caught in that situation. However, in this case, it would be better for L3d to retract his statements now (note I say retract, not apologize) than to have him proven wrong later, which could do nothing to help his reputation or that of your site.

Oh well if nothing else I got a new signature out of this :)