Rant Is it me, or is Bit-Tech more boring since it got bought?

Well I believe that are a lot of things going on at the moment including recession, first american black president and the new site owners, there's a lot to think about and let's keep posting guys.

P.S: I join to the community saturday, but I read a lot of things here, for about 2 or 3 year's ,I start visit here when our brazilian mod comunity, have mentioned this as the best forum for modding and hardware stuff.

 

Dare I say... maybe the forums are more boring because CK hasn't been posting as of late? ;P

 

EXACTAMUNDO!

I knew something wasn't quite right, too much ying and not enough yang

 

Well, I think that lately I have been reading more of the articles, so would disagree. The news sections, while less cutting edge, has seen some interesting tid bits lately. The reviews of straight hardware are down, but the small reviews of accessories and associated tech are up. I assume that is because the hardware releases are slowing as the industry slows.

But BT has always, IMHO, been 80% forums and 20% filler. So if there is anything to be said about the forums, then we all need to look into the mirror. I have seen the photography and software development posts increase. And it looks like mods are up, too. If anything, then serious and general have tanked a tad.

I think it would be gratifying to see the community here work together on a few projects. Be it software, or a mod, or anything. But to see the talent that hangs out here working on something, that would be cool. And given the ease with which collaboration can be co-ordinated online these days, I'm surprised that it hasn't happened already.

But in the ends, it's us that make that choice.

 

Being bought hasn't really changed anything internally for Dennis, except that we can know work with bigger and better equipment when we want to and can collaborate with CPC. Unfortunately, it has meant we've been very busy moving and so on these last few weeks, so we haven't been as active on the forums as we might have been perhaps.

For my part, the gaming section always quiets down in January, because no good games are coming out. That's why I'm working on a few special items for the future - so stay tuned and if you have any ideas then let us know.

However, it's worth pointing out that we haven't stood still. Since Dennis bought us we've trialled video on the site, we've launched a whole new blogs sections complete with developer blogs and recurring features and we're also doing stuff with the modding section behind the scenes. We're bringing new writers in and we're getting more people involved in writing for us, as well recruiting new moderators to handle the forums. We've even updated the forum software in the last six months.

Things may be quiet in terms of launches and announcements right now, but we're still the same old bit-tech and we're still very willing to listen to our readers and all that, so if there's something you want to see that we're not covering (or even something you want to submit, be it article, mod or news tips) then you can always contact us and bounce ideas around. Trust us, things will get a lot more exciting again in the next few weeks.

 

I think that bit has diverged too much now, it used to be a modding centric site, now it's a hardware review site (which it does very well) with the modding content effectively hidden on the forums.

 

I agree bit has changed, but for the better maybe.

Where else can you go to find quality guides, with decent monthly updates to the buyers guide. Yes CustomPc mag has been doing it for years, but it seems more of an advert rather than whats best.

The front page needs better linkage to the modding, after all thats what drew me into the forum as i was searching for projects all those years ago.

Think it was macromans li lian, with HDD activity LED mod....

 

Modding is on my agenda of things to fix - I know it's been crap the last few months, but that's down to a number of things beyond my control. I'm addressing them, though - it's just taking a bit of time because my list has some pretty big things that need to be sorted first, so please bear with me.

For what it's worth, there's been a lot going on behind the scenes in the last few months - I've not been writing as much if you've noticed and the team has been writing more - that doesn't mean I've not been putting the hours in. I've been told on several occasions "not to work so hard" and often get strange looks when I say I worked all weekend, but I can't stop working hard and long on something I still consider 'life'... even though I have no real financial interest in the site any more.

There are a few higher-level things that need to be sorted before I can get to modding, but it is very much near the top of my list of parts of the site to fix. There are some areas that can be improved without those higher-level things kicking in though - for example, you may have noticed a few more authors popping up recently and part of that is getting a bigger team together to bring more content to you, which will in turn enable the core team to bring more comprehensive coverage than we have been able to do in the past. One area where you should see a notable improvement from this week is in our news coverage, as I've just hired another news hound who is starting today.

I saw someone mentioned IntelliTXT above - yes, I know it sucks and anyone who has read the thread in the feedback forum will realise that I have the readers' interests very much at heart. I needed the data to make my point though and now that I've got a decent amount of data, I'll be working on putting a report together this week based on the gathered data for presentation early next week.

With regards to hardware and games - we can only look at what's out there and frankly there isn't an awful lot because tech companies are shedding jobs quicker than you can say "Gosh that's a lot of redundancies". It's also the quietest time of the year right now because everyone is recovering from Q4 and CES. Products are being cancelled, delayed, etc because the market is pants - you saw Nvidia's revenue was down by 60 percent and that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Tim

 

There is simply nothing really new comming out anymore.

Graphicscards? 99% come with reference pcb and the drivers ati / nvidia made.
Mainboards? they are getting very samey as well, a picture of the layout would pretty much do as a full review.
Cpus? just minor changes
Ram? just more of the same
Cooling? just more coolers that are a pain to mount due to their size and still can't beat the thermalrights.
Games? mostly sequels

In short, even if new stuff comes out, most of it simply isn't really exciting anymore.

 

This is the thing, the industry has stagnated quite a bit. Or maybe it's just because I'm less interested in hardware I can't afford. I used to religiously follow reviews of new hardware, but now I couldn't tell you what the best buy is. I think this sort of thing has happened to a lot of us, as we've developed more commitments for our money and time.

I think we need more howtos, modding content, and similar stuff. I'm sure a lot of people read the graphics card/case reviews, but I'm sure 100x as many read the "build your own server" piece. I miss the old days where we had guides on how to do little electronic bits for mods, etc.

I also think the forums have stagnated a bit, compared to how they used to be. It's gotten better since the recent changes, consolidating a lot of the separate forums, but it still doesn't seem as good as it used to be. Maybe this is down to me though, and my personal interests.

None of this is specifically anybodies' fault. It happens to a lot of communities. Starts off small, with a core group of members. The forum gets larger, and one by one the original posters drop off until there are barely any of them left, instead there are a lot of people that post less, which dims the sense of friendship and community.

Edit: oh, and a lot of threads in GD are just 4chan-lite. I thought we were better than that.

 

badger, badger, badger, badger, badger, badger, badger, badger, badger, badger, badger, badger.

MUSHROOM.

 

Quoted, for no other reason than the fact this man speaks of the truth

 

TBH, the quality of the front page stuff has dropped off in the last few weeks, but I'd put that down to the move of the Bit-Tech offices at the mo...

However, we currently have no modding what-so-ever on the front pages, which is what Bit-Tech was all about....

 

Well, this being my baby...

I once thought I'd never say it again, but if Tim (and the other staff) agrees, and the community provides a suitable subject, I'll write another Linux howto guide kinda thing-y...

 

I have to agree with some of the above, it would be nice to see some more community lead initiatives.
Gliders "build your own server" piece was a great example.

There was a time where I put up a couple of guides myself (overclocking, dual/single channel comparisons etc), this is something I would encourage more from our membership.

 

That would be awesome.....

 

You know we're always open to new submissions and ideas from the community, whether they go on the front page or in the forums. Contact us.

 

Well, every few months there's a noticeable influx of noobs, and it usually gets the long-standing members' backs up a bit, makes everything more tense and argumentative. Contrary to popular belief it's not the noobs themselves who cause it by their conduct or anything - at least not these past few months. Starting november, loads of new people arrived. Then there was the forum revamp, which rattled up the 'serious' and 'general' forums and their inhabitants. Then American politics reached an all-time peak of interestingness. The combination made things a bit explosive for a while, but the tone seems to have settled a bit. Even 'serious' is visitable again now

edit -almost missed this:

I agreed a bit ago, but I'm ambivalent now. On the one hand, it's only one or two threads max, and you don't have to visit them. On the other hand...they're kinda ghey, and lower the tone all around (I think). I assumed the chan thread would die after a week or two like the 'image wars' and similar other threads always do, but it's just refusing to. At least it's something bright for office-workers to browse when 4chan is blocked by their proxies.

 

One thing I have noticed in the project logs is that there are a lot of projects that are becoming more technically challenging. This means a slower pace and a definite 'wait for parts' cycle.
I've been here lurking and as a member for about 4 years and our projects have gone from a simple case window, fan and paint job to full scratch builds and highly detailed work. This takes time.
Yes, I agree there a a lot of newer members here but there is also an influx of quality.

john

 

I would bet that's simply because the people left doing the modding are the hardcore type rather than the weekend tinkerers.