VHJ: Mailbag: More Email Support on THG Byline Scandal

Hi... I maybe naive to be surprised by this.. I tend to evaluate people by the professionalism they show.. and by the site Tom's Hardware is keeping up... I'm not the only one who thinks they are doing a great job... until now... I've heard of quarrels between sites... I try to stay out of it... but this is not a quarrel between sites.. I'm disappointed about Toms.. you have my support... Your work is your work and to claim authorship on them is not right...

Hi guys,

Just FYI – from here on out I am exercising my right as a consumer and have deleted any bookmarks pointing to THG / Anand and other similar sites.

I know it’s not much, but at least they won’t be able to count my browser’s page hits in their usage statistics.

Best wishes,

Cheers - Danny

Subject: Support for Van Smith

Dear Dr. Pabst,

As a hardware enthusiast and a devout reader of "Tom's Hardware Guide" for several years, I was surprised and saddened to hear of your actions regarding Van Smith's article bylines.

It does not matter why he quit/was forced to quit/was fired -- I don't care -- Removing credit for authorship retroactively is a dishonorable and dishonest act. Denying the truth and evading proper response is even worse.

I will no longer read THG, and will no longer recommend it to my friends, co-workers and employers as a source of "Hardware Wisdom" as long as this matter is not resolved to my satisfaction.

Yours,

Tal Rotbart

===================================

Subject: Van Smith's Articles remaining at THG

Subject: Other evidence for your authorship of articles at thg

Dear Mr. Smith,

made curious by your articles about the removal of "bylines" from articles written by on thg you I searched Google for the name "Van Smith" and it came up with this link:

http://hardware.articlecentral.com/authors.asp?authorid=29

I think this doesn't leave many questions open regarding the actions of Mr. Pabst. The site above collects and rates links to hardware articles and they have links to your articles from thg in their archive.

Hopefully this incident will affect this man's business. I don't think he understands anything else than that. There is still no comment on this affair anywhere on his site.

Aside from this, it's unbelievable how much the quality of thg decreased over the last year. It seems that Mr. Voelkel is now something like a favorite there. I remember one completely unacceptable article about P4 and RDRAM being totally superior to everything else without providing proof of that. Since I'm reading more article from this guy, even on the English thg site, I removed thg from my favorite list some time ago.

I still wonder how this decline in quality is possible.

Best regards and keep on the good work,

Jens Schaefers

P.S.: Sorry for my rather poor English, but it's not my native language.

Hi! Van,

Listed below is a copy of letter I recently sent to Tom's Hardware Guide:

"I've been reading THG for a number of years. However, the changes which have occurred over the last year or so, cause me serious concern. The editorial quality and objectivity at Tom's Hardware Guide has been on a downward spiral. The recent incident with the reattribution of Van Smiths article at THG is only a symptom of the lower quality of work and review currently being performed at THG.

In short, Tom's Hardware Guide has broken trust with all its readers and advertisers.

Thus, until steps are taken to correct the integrity problems, I will no longer read articles published by the current THG staff or any affiliated writers/sites/publishers, etc. Please remove me from the Tom's Hardware Guide mailing list."

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Mailbag: More Email Support on THG Byline Scandal

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