Crackdown on bad Tech Support Advice...

On June 17 2012 08:28 Moloch wrote:
I have a question related to all this: is it encouraged to report bad tech advice? As mentioned before, a lot of mods don't know if the advice is sound or not, and probably wouldn't want to take action based on a not-easily-verified claim about the advice given in the post.

On June 17 2012 08:28 Moloch wrote:
I have a question related to all this: is it encouraged to report bad tech advice? As mentioned before, a lot of mods don't know if the advice is sound or not, and probably wouldn't want to take action based on a not-easily-verified claim about the advice given in the post.

It's probably on everyone's mind, but I haven't seen it mentioned yet: it would be great if the tech support forum operated similarly to the strategy forum. Highlight the posts of the people who have shown they give good advice and regularly ban people from the tech support forum for bad posts.

On June 17 2012 08:41 JingleHell wrote:


Best you can do is refute horrendous advice. Occasionally, if something is obviously sarcasm without a disclaimer, someone will get a warning if it's reported, but that's the extent of it these days.

Ninja'd by GM, and apparently if we do it right, we can report it. Good to know.

I've said it before and I'll say it again on highlighting, it's not really a good idea for tech. In particular for troubleshooting, it could cause issues, since a lot of hardware troubleshooting is a process of trial and error, and it's very plausible that someone can get fixated on something they see too often, or be tired and overlook the obvious. It happens all the time, and the guy getting ignored because he isn't highlighted may just be the one who spots the issue.

And that poll REALLY doesn't know what it's asking for. That would be like if there was a religion sub board, making a poll for KwarK to be the dedicated banling for it.

For he is worthiest to be a commander, to be a judge, or to have any other charge, that is best fitted with the qualities required to the well discharging of it; and worthiest of riches, that has the qualities most requisite for the well using of them: any of which qualities being absent, one may nevertheless be a worthy man, and valuable for something else.

On June 17 2012 12:27 JingleHell wrote:
You make it sound like the Tech Support board needs a secret police squad.

On June 18 2012 02:12 EtherealDeath wrote:

not the hero we deserve but the hero we have

On June 18 2012 02:15 JingleHell wrote:


Terrible reference, since the hero Tech deserves is either the Punisher or the Scourge. Batman has too many rules.

Besides, it's more like this.

+ Show Spoiler +

Good men don't need rules.

On June 18 2012 07:02 Anacletus wrote:


You're a chipper, stylish, and always dapper guy. I have become quite fond of you. I am not asking you out on a date (yet) or anything, just giving my approval and such!

I think that the tech support could use some sort of upvote feature to downvote bad advice without necessarily have to call them uninformed or wrong.

On June 18 2012 07:12 JingleHell wrote:


Oh, brilliant, and then all the people who think that their "opinion" (better known as willful ignorance) can make AMD CPUs not a pile of shit can work together to make it even more insufferable.

On June 18 2012 08:09 Chargelot wrote:


I laughed so hard. Maybe AMD will pull through someday. Or maybe Intel will totally bomb one release and AMD will look good by comparison.

As for the secret police, I have my black bags and wire ties ready, you prepare the interrogation room.

On June 18 2012 08:27 NrGmonk wrote:
Well, this derailed quickly. If you guys want this problem to be fixed, then perhaps suggest more reasonable solutions?

On June 18 2012 08:27 NrGmonk wrote:
Well, this derailed quickly. If you guys want this problem to be fixed, then perhaps suggest more reasonable solutions?

On June 18 2012 17:34 beetlelisk wrote:
Isn't R1CH our tech guy?

On June 18 2012 17:54 Chargelot wrote:

R1CH is usually off on tech black ops, killing communists in the name of technological advancement. But on a serious note, he's a really busy guy, and probably doesn't have the time to read most of the tech support forum, never mind moderate it.

On June 18 2012 18:04 beetlelisk wrote:

He doesn't have to read it, just address reports. Is maintaining technical side of TL really that time consuming?

On June 16 2012 07:48 Filter wrote:
Do you think it's possible we can get a crackdown started on piss poor advice again? This is all you see in every thread there, and with 2500k's being babysit overclock chips it's getting worse. I know teamliquid is not a serious tech support website, but that section really needs some moderation and standards to bring it up to the rest of this website.

Temps?
Overclock will help!
Repaste all the things!
Thats how it's supposed to look

I mean, I saw one guy who had a dying gpu and people told him to stress test it and tell them the temps. Of course the gpu is going to die, there's ways he might be able to salvage it but not if he cooks it to get numbers.

I don't post much there, but I do sometimes. I do read it a lot though and the forum as a whole is turning into a total joke.

On June 19 2012 03:13 jacosajh wrote:


There is a good reason people will suggest this (although not always). If someone says, "my video card has been acting up recently"; without being there to notice and observe non-quantifiable differences in the "before" and "after" effect, and since most of these problems stem from overheating or throttling, it's not bad advice to suggest stress testing.

There's not much difference between playing a beefy game on max settings and stress testing; and at least you can verify it's not overheating and throttling.



Anyways, I think Jingle becoming a tech mod would be funny and should work; and highly reminiscent of how Chill became Strategy mod.

On June 19 2012 05:08 JingleHell wrote:


On the bolded part, a lot of that has to do with whether they mention panic temps at which point testing should be stopped. And on whether they discussed cleaning first. I don't disagree with stressing, but I know sometimes the phrasing can turn it into bad advice.

On the last bit, as much as I'd love to see someone doing the job, I'm not sure I would want the PMs from people I dealt with. I also doubt most of the staff would even begin to consider that an option, with my temper.

On June 19 2012 06:10 jacosajh wrote:


Like I said, highly reminiscent of Chill becoming a mod. Lol.

On June 19 2012 06:30 beetlelisk wrote:

I'm thinking it can be done the way it has been so far ie contribute and report until you get noticed. Except make your reports really detailed and explain in them why someone is posting shit. Back that up with links to some good tech sites...

Or let's do something different - let the contributors nominated here as tech support forum banlings form a sort of committee, create a thread "[D] warn/ban this poster for bad advice" in tech support and let the committee debate about wrong doings of other posters there.

On June 19 2012 09:33 HackBenjamin wrote:
Skyr or Jinglehell would make great tech mods - both have been around for a long time and have proven themselves countless times.

On June 19 2012 10:41 JingleHell wrote:


If I honestly thought I could be part of the solution, I'd be ok with that. But ignoring the part where I doubt the staff would have me, fixing bad advice would require harshness and severity of the kind that would involve a lot of tears, and given the fact that I've already got... a bit of a reputation, I think it would be a lot of extra drama if it was me, and not someone better qualified, like skyR, Myrm, or Wom.

On June 19 2012 14:20 mahnini wrote:
none of you currently complaining in this thread would make a good tech mod for the simple fact that these threads you're complaining about you don't post in at all. your job as regulars is to educate the less knowledgable forum-goers. i don't care if you tear some asshole a new one, in fact, i'd rather you do it than me banning him because it leads to more discussion and people can learn from it, but that doesn't mean the second some guy makes a mistake you should jump on his ass like it's some feeding frenzy. treat the guy like a human being first.

i'll admit that i haven't been moderating as much as i used to and i'll try to step up again (i have no where near as much time as i used to but ill make more of an effort to check regularly). pm me if you have specific stuff you want me to address, or better yet take two seconds to tell the guy he's wrong. you don't have to write a giant post, tell him he's wrong and throw him a link, most people aren't adverse to learning as long as you aren't being a dick about it.

On June 19 2012 23:19 mahnini wrote:
ok, i get what you are saying with the bad threads. it's definitely something that shouldn't happen. however, i still think the best way to handle bad advice is to point out the person's wrong and correct them. if you find the same thing being rehashed over and over take note and maybe we can work on a FAQ or something.

On June 16 2012 07:48 Filter wrote:
Repaste all the things!

On June 19 2012 07:56 Falling wrote:
To be honest, I can't remember the last time I've dealt with a Tech Report. I look at it and have no clue whether it's bad advice or not. The best I can hope for is paying attention to who are the true vets of Tech Support and act on their reports alone. I personally would love a Tech mod.

On June 17 2012 08:36 GMarshal wrote:

If you link me evidence in your report, I will happily moderate bad advice. My issue is when someone says "thermal paste from X is good!" and it gets reported as "idiot" and I have no idea what the hell thermal paste is, what X is, or why he is being reported.

On June 06 2012 05:35 NameRemoved wrote:
Not every processor is heat limited. You should test out overclocking before buying a new heatsink, as the overwhelming majority of motherboard blow-ups occur because people change from stock heatsinks to tower heatsinks. Motherboards are rated for stock, radial heatsinks that apply cooling to not just the CPU, but the whole board, while tower heatsinks ONLY cool the CPU, so you will get a rise (often deadly rise) in the CPU NB, RAM, and most importantly, the VRM.

On June 19 2012 23:19 mahnini wrote:
ok, i get what you are saying with the bad threads. it's definitely something that shouldn't happen. however, i still think the best way to handle bad advice is to point out the person's wrong and correct them. if you find the same thing being rehashed over and over take note and maybe we can work on a FAQ or something.

On June 19 2012 14:20 mahnini wrote:
none of you currently complaining in this thread would make a good tech mod for the simple fact that these threads you're complaining about you don't post in at all. your job as regulars is to educate the less knowledgable forum-goers. i don't care if you tear some asshole a new one, in fact, i'd rather you do it than me banning him because it leads to more discussion and people can learn from it, but that doesn't mean the second some guy makes a mistake you should jump on his ass like it's some feeding frenzy. treat the guy like a human being first.

i'll admit that i haven't been moderating as much as i used to and i'll try to step up again (i have no where near as much time as i used to but ill make more of an effort to check regularly). pm me if you have specific stuff you want me to address, or better yet take two seconds to tell the guy he's wrong. you don't have to write a giant post, tell him he's wrong and throw him a link, most people aren't adverse to learning as long as you aren't being a dick about it.

On June 16 2012 19:32 Chargelot wrote:
Phew, none of my posts were quoted.

I have the same general problems. A lot of threads about wanting to upgrade a CPU/Overclock CPUs basically turn into a "lol I'm 4.4ghz@1.23 volts!" (which is basically just an OC circlejerk). I have no problems with showing off cool OCs, but it never ever helps the OP.

A lot of the CPU heat problems can correctly be explained with the whole "repaste" thing, but I think if you're going to give advice, give complete advice. Like telling them to make sure they get all the dust out of their computer, and to even dust the fans, to ensure that fans are blowing in the right direction, to disassemble and clean their cooler (if appropriate, just did this with my 212+, there was a shit ton of dust between the fins), etc.

But I think in general, people are a lot more willing to listen to guys like Jinglehell who provide real useful information, and ask real relevant questions. It really comes down to whether or not they see it before they stress test a damaged GPU.

I was planning on doing a few things (haven't had time though, arg!) but again, it does come back to enforcement. If people aren't reading the TS Guidelines, they're not going to read a FAQ. I think there are some solutions that should be explored (i.e. highlighted posters) and might help, but more stickies alone aren't going to make a huge difference IMO.

That being said, some additional organization could go a long way to helping the forum. Some additional [G] threads could really help things out. Perfect example: [G] Hardware That Can Run Sc2 would be a thread that could clean up a whole load of pointless, repetitive, one-line question threads. I have and others have done our best to create some of these threads, but if you're someone in this thread whining and haven't taken the time to put together a simple [G] thread to answer one of these questions that continually comes up (you know who you are); you ought to shut up. Seriously. You're not helping, you're just whining.

On June 21 2012 23:11 jacosajh wrote:
I'm just on a rant now but I have no efen idea why everyone keeps saying to use the Computer Build Resource thread. You can say that about anything. Even simple questions simple answers would be included because it's all related. So what's the point? Tech Support would be one thread. If you apply this to everything, TL would be 2 threads. Tech Support and SC General Discussion. But wait, if you're asking about how to build a computer for SC, that would be SC GD too right.

I think another important consideration is for search results. It's a lot easier having divided threads enabling future help for other people without having to sift through hundreds of pages.

On June 21 2012 23:11 jacosajh wrote:
I'm just on a rant now but I have no efen idea why everyone keeps saying to use the Computer Build Resource thread. You can say that about anything. Even simple questions simple answers would be included because it's all related. So what's the point? Tech Support would be one thread. If you apply this to everything, TL would be 2 threads. Tech Support and SC General Discussion. But wait, if you're asking about how to build a computer for SC, that would be SC GD too right.

I think another important consideration is for search results. It's a lot easier having divided threads enabling future help for other people without having to sift through hundreds of pages.

On June 21 2012 23:21 mahnini wrote:

i'm of a similar opinion. if the thread is well thought out and the questions are more specific, i like having it in its own thread rather than among the thousands of other posts in the resource thread. not only does it make it easier for the person asking to find relevant replies, but its easier for people posting advice to follow any discussion that follows.

On June 21 2012 23:11 jacosajh wrote:
I'm just on a rant now but I have no efen idea why everyone keeps saying to use the Computer Build Resource thread. You can say that about anything. Even simple questions simple answers would be included because it's all related. So what's the point? Tech Support would be one thread. If you apply this to everything, TL would be 2 threads. Tech Support and SC General Discussion. But wait, if you're asking about how to build a computer for SC, that would be SC GD too right.

I think another important consideration is for search results. It's a lot easier having divided threads enabling future help for other people without having to sift through hundreds of pages.

On June 22 2012 19:41 beetlelisk wrote:
I think initial way to make a solution to this problem is very simple: someone has to create a thread where good contributors to tech support can be nominated and then polls for them made asking if people recommend those contributors' advice.
This is really simple and doesn't require to make anyone TL staff.
Once a poll has enough votes and enough votes for "yes, I do recommend advice of this person" the contributor is added to a list of recommended people.

Your thoughts?

On June 23 2012 02:09 jacosajh wrote:
The same thing happens in the CBR thread.

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=137554&currentpage=1138#22749

Except we have to sift through several pages of other questions, suggestions, revisions of suggestions, etc.

If that's how you all prefer it, then ok. It seems the majority of you guys like it that way. That's fine. It just iiritates the hell out of me personally.

On June 23 2012 02:15 jacosajh wrote:


The reason why this thread even exists is because some people think Tech Support needs cleaning up. The OP makes an emphasized point of how much bad advice is being given out. This suggests there are a lot of misinformed people in this subforum. Letting them vote on who's advice they would recommend would be a shitfest.

IMO, this is a major reason why Tom's Hardware went to the shithole. Like with a system like that, you might as well go to Yahoo! Answers for tech advice.

Mods are essential for keeping things clean because they need the authority to tell people to STFU. And it seems mahini has been conducting a massive purge recently, so I think all of this doesn't matter now.

I still think drive-by moderation in Tech is a terrible idea

Much love to the ProPoster, but the last thing Tech needs is more drive-by modding. Don't call for it.

On June 27 2012 08:25 Falling wrote:

Also found in ABL thread.
You really seem to have your nose out of joint with what moderation that has been done.

On June 15 2011 01:27 JingleHell wrote:
Ok, I hate to say it, but this is getting ridiculous.

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=233402 Didn't read the sticky guide, or he'd at least know what information needs to exist.

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=233377 Didn't even try to search.

Factor in people making anywhere up to five separate threads for one PC build, advice ranging from moronic to malicious, something needs to happen.

And if someone says "report it" I'll go ballistic. I lost my report button because people who don't understand the difference between good and bad advice are, for some reason, responding to reports in Tech Support and not doing anything about the stuff, so I was determined to be reporting too much.

Yet my blog post publicly mocking the same idiocy gets spotlighted...

On June 22 2011 11:19 JingleHell wrote:
I hate having to bump this thread again, but this topic doesn't seem to be getting the needed love. Stupid advice that can cost people a fortune, damage PC's, or cost a ton of time in reformats, along with people not bothering to even scan the front page, let alone search, lost me my report button.

But tell somebody it's stupid to talk about marketing projections like they're going to happen, and red text is all over the place?

On June 27 2012 08:45 Falling wrote:
Website feedback is one thing. I'm just a little irritated that you're coming on ABL thread and crapping on moderation. Also what do you think the vast majority of moderation is except so-called "drive by moderation." We get hundred and hundreds of the things during a day and I sure is hell not reading the entire thread every time there's a report. TL's a big place.

I agree there's a problem, but there's places to voice it and I don't think ABL thread is one of those places. Basically my round about way of saying what I say to newbie TL users "If you have a problem with TL moderation, take it to website feedback"

On June 27 2012 08:33 JingleHell wrote:


I've never made a secret of my feelings about modding in Tech support.

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=218677#11





If the issue doesn't get fixed, people will keep complaining, or give up completely. And if they give up completely, Tech Support goes to hell in a handbasket anyways.

Aside from mahnini in IRC, I haven't seen any mods actually willing to discuss my points on this, but apparently my attitude sucks, right? The question is, does it suck because I'm wrong (feel free to show me why), or is my attitude causing hard feelings because I'm actually right?

On June 26 2012 10:41 wo1fwood wrote:

I see I'm a little late to the party here.

To just re-emphasize I suppose from things that many have said already, I have found that recently I have become more than a little fatigued trying to answer basic questions to stuff that is easily accessible on TL to users. My technical expertise is very limited to very few areas, mice being once of them, and a lot of us have frequented and given lots of advice and help in the thread by TheToast. I've been noticing recently that other than myself, TheToast, JingleHell, IPSBlue, Medrea and others who used to frequent that thread (and gave pretty good advice) haven't been seen in a good long while, and I wonder if it's because we keep answering the same questions over and over, and over... Many of us have taken a lot of time to explain things to everyone so they shouldn't be asking these questions. I spent six months on a comprehensive write-up on the topic for instance, though admittedly it was for more than just TL, and recently I have found that I'm starting to get really disheartened that people aren't reading the OP of even TheToasts thread anymore, which leads to posts like this: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=174311&currentpage=70#1396.

There's so much cringingly bad misinformation in this post, notably in the third paragraph that I reported it. Also, in that thread there's a questionaire and almost 9/10 times the answer to the angle snapping question is "lolwut?". I'm not asking you to read my entire 17 thousand word article, but you can easily get to the angle snapping section in my thread and read up about it in under 2 minutes, is that so hard?

I guess mainly I'm personally feeling fatigued after working so hard to help people understand things better and a lot of people just aren't reading things. And I would surmise by the sound of everyone else this is present in the entirety of the tech support forum.

On June 27 2012 09:09 TheToast wrote:


Why is it all on the mods to fix the Tech Support forum. I know you are playing mafia for the first time right now, but if start playing it more often one of the things you will find is that the TL-Mafia forum is one of the best run, best moderated, most organized sub forums on TL. Really, without question. Yet GM and Flamewheel are the only members of staff that really have any hand in how the mafia forum is run.

The rest is all done by regular TL users who've come together to put together a coherent and well thought out plan to run their forum and how they can police themselves. Only when issues go beyond that do they call in a banling to deal with it. Of course GM is a mod now which makes things easier, but before that they had to rely on staff who didn't know much about the day-to-day goings on of Mafia.

I'm not suggesting that the two are analogous, but you can't just expect the staff to snap their fingers and fix it all. There has to be a collaboration between us and the staff to fix issues. Mahini has made some steps in the right direction, now we have to also.

Start working on more [G] Threads that explain issues in depth; if people aren't searching then let a mod know so they can deal with it. There is a shit ton of work in that thread (like dozens of hours over the whole course of its existence) and people recognize that; it's why it's become the default mouse purchasing advice thread on TL. Trust me, as the OP I've found that I've gained some defacto authority in Tech Support as I have the final say about what goes in the thread and what does not. That's just one way we can self-police ourselves.

If we're tired of people opening the same 3 threads and asking the same 3 questions without searching--then stop responding to them. Start directing them to where they can find the information and explain they need to search; then report or PM a mod to close the thread. That's another way we can self police.

As I said in my previous post, I agree that there needs to be more effort from staff to moderate the forum more closely. Mahini and others have clearly heard this (I think even Chill closed a TS thread earlier), but it takes time to get a system and standards up and running; we're not going to flip a switch and have perfect moderation. Give them some time, and start thinking about how you individually and all of us together can make the forum work better and run more smoothly. I've got some ideas of my own, and am working on a big [G] thread right now too. Think about how you can contribute JH, instead of just commenting from the sidelines.

On June 16 2012 16:14 NrGmonk wrote:
I think the problem is that there's not a tech support mod. Most mods don't know when people are giving bad advice.

On July 02 2012 03:25 JingleHell wrote:
He has a metric fuckton more supporting evidence than you do. This isn't even the case of "guy won't listen to evidence". Well, it kind of is, but not in the direction you want it to be.

I don't give enough of a shit about laptops to go figure out which one of you is right, but frankly, you don't come to feedback to try and un-lose a debate.

Tech's issues aren't 100% mods. They're a combination. And regulars getting lazy/sick of it/sloppy is part of the problem too.

Unless a mod knows laptop hardware specifically, which, frankly, is a clusterfuck, they're not going to be able to mod without more information, you clearly don't want to provide it, if they have to decide, it looks like the other guy is right, not you.

On July 02 2012 03:39 Filter wrote:


His evidence is like basing gpu performance on sc2 solely on the benchmark of an i5-2500k with excellent cooling based system when the system in question is an i3 system with terrible cooling. The performance in sc2 is obviously a lot more complicated than what the simple gpu benchmark suggests.

I guess if anything, the threads proof that modding that forum is basically impossible.

(Note: No disrespect to your knowledge, it's far superior to mine but when it comes to laptops and how they perform I have a lot of experience with them.)

On July 03 2012 07:54 Chargelot wrote:
I think we need a dedicated laptop thread (resource type thread). Then we will be on our way to a cleaner, safer battlefield tech support forum.

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=344810
Suggestiong he overclock his cpu, crank his preset to max settings and run at 1080p with a 4kbitrate. Without twitch partnership running a stream that high will result in a ton of people not being able to watch it who don't have the connection/system to handle that hardcore of a video encode.

I am trying to get the best quality you can possibly get as smooth as possible

You can probably use Slow and 45 FPS