How to become an editor and “inherit” a website? About penetrating persistence, a bit of egotism, way too much social media and various coincidences | The first 5 years

1 - Vom Foristen und Freelancer zum Journalisten 2 - Eins, zwei meins? Migration mal anders 3 - Alle(s) oder nichts: Neuer Unterbau und YouTube 4 - Die Community macht den Unterschied

Ok, today I’ll write an article for the weekend. On Fridays, the trolls are usually fed with fresh fish in special forums and the normal reader has already mentally slipped into rest mode. To then voluntarily unpack the heavy fare for the days off is quite unworldly. Unless it’s on fire. But it doesn’t really do that today, if you disregard the defective 6000 Radeons, which are supposedly driver-conditioned and have just slipped into rigor mortis without being asked. Of course, this also has to be tested and questioned, but it did not become a kind of assisted dying with laboratory protocol. We are all still looking, but for what exactly? Let’s see. Therefore, today there is just something different, because as a multiple migrant, there are also multiple anniversaries for the current period.

Again and again, I get questions about how it all began, how you can become an editor, how your own medium works and, above all, how you get a site to run the way it does. After all, already 5 years of self-employment and the prospect of a very late retirement, because reasons to continue there are certainly many. Of course, this has nothing to do with romanticized journalism, but rather with hard and persistent work, a lot of coincidences and opportunities that you have to recognize as such and take advantage of. And I’m happy to admit that for me, too, pure chance and a bit of luck were the best helpers from time to time. I like to keep my private life and especially my family out of the media, because in the end it’s nobody’s business. But writing about the last 15 years alone, in terms of my work as a journalist, tester and ultimately editor, could fill entire evenings.

Some of you may have noticed that I have deleted all forum accounts on third party sites over the last few weeks, including very old ones that I had used before I started actively working in the media. This has no specific trigger now, but it is the result of an inner struggle and many controversies about how I can use the increasingly scarce time as efficiently as possible. And with something like that, I’m also a bit selfish.

Why should I waste resources on third parties when my family and my website and YouTube channel are much closer to my heart than accounts on websites that sometimes even deliberately hide me in the source information? That’s a brief explanation of why I’m interjecting an editorial today. Facebook is now private only for friends, Instagram on Idle and Twitter only the Litfaß column for new articles. Funnily enough, such a self-imposed forum abstinence in other media even brings more traffic back to one’s own site, because suddenly also various statements in our forum are then quoted and linked there. I could have thought of that earlier.

Of course, you won’t find out everything today, but I’m taking the anniversary of my first own article 15 years ago and a continuing game review, which was also published at the same time as PhysX in four languages and three parts, as an opportunity to sort through the memories a little. Today, for once, I’m letting you in on a bit of that. And there will also be a few details that I’ve thought long and hard about whether it’s something for the public. But with a little bit of distance, you’re allowed to do that. Coincidentally, the current calendar period also includes the closure of Tom’ Hardware Germany, which dragged on from November 2017 then until March 2018, as well as negotiations with the then owner Purch from the USA for a takeover. These are all reasons for us to talk a bit more about the company. Not completely serious, of course.

From forum to editor

And how did it all begin? Completely unromantic, of course, as always. It was the year 2006, at that time I was still working as a senior programmer of a group of companies and developer of various software suites in the industrial sector (from CAD, over 3D visualization to the control of complex industrial plants, photovoltaics and shading analyses etc.) and at the same time I was the proud owner of a brand new Intel Quadcore Q6600 (the glued-together double-whopper) as well as a mainboard from Gigabyte.

The then P35 DS3 in the 1. Revision caused permanent boot loops with this CPU so that my odyssey through all the forums began and finally ended unnerved in the purchase of an Asus P5K, after I very persistently and strengthened by forum support, won the battle against the windmill wings of Mindfactory RMA. Despite the golden service spoon for 4.99 euros. Thus, I ultimately owe my current position to Gigabyte, even if the sad occasion was a richly unusable motherboard. And I have retained a certain grumpiness towards such rather unmotivated stores to this day.

At that time it was the forum of Tom’s Hardware Germany that helped me and to which I later sacrificed a not small part of my spare time for many years, including the Q6600 overclocking guide (2007) and the stickie about the VID myth of Intel CPUs (2008). Maybe someone still remembers. If not – I had another little reminder about this online in 2018, which I’m happy to link here:

Forums-Perle: Der Mythos VID (Voltage Identification Definition)

And it was more of a coincidence when the editor-in-chief at the time asked me if I wanted to write an article, more or less as a test. This was the beginning of my time as a severely underpaid freelancer and at the same time the last stage of my already rampant destruction of free time. I could afford it, because I had a decent job and the technology was purely a hobby. My first articles about the game “Cryostasis” are no longer available in German and fell victim to all the migrations, but there is still a part available on the US site(link), after all. The fact that the article was then stolen by a Russian fellow eater and published again under his name – forget it.

The whole thing then increased in scope to up to four larger articles a month, so that it played – first coincidence – directly into my hands that the tenant of the apartment opposite had virtually unrented himself by permanent non-payment. Then the (short) way was also free for an own area from office including test setups, photo corner, warehouse and of course my laboratory kitchen, which has already had many (often international) guests, because with me is always cooked for all guests themselves. Certain personal ties and expenses are now also simply part of good networking. In case anyone is wondering how I always get all this stuff (even in advance). And in the meantime I have also “rented” my way further up, because not only the corpulence had increased a little in the meantime.

The next cut was then 2016, also again the late autumn and winter – you already notice, there not only the leaves fall, but also the business curtains. All full-time employees were given notice by the owners (Bestofmedia) at the end of the year. What remained then, after a transitional period, was a news editor and me. Suddenly being able to call yourself editor-in-chief (of what, actually?) is a nice phrase that you’d be happy to include on a business card, but you were suddenly forced to produce content that far exceeded the scope of the previous four major articles plus news clutter per month. And then there was also the family.

As a freelancer, you can still organize your “free time” quite freely, but when responsibility for an institution is added to the mix, things get tight. Especially since I had become a father in 2012 and 2014 (rather late) and the two little pens naturally demanded their time. Of course. And now what? Job, recreational journalism or family, one was too many. Well, man is curious, often brave and sometimes a bit too brash. In the end, though, you have to choose something, and so I rather brashly decided on freelance journalism. Income-wise, of course, it was a bit of a step backwards at first with a framework contract, but the time with the children simply can’t be offset with money. And suddenly, virtually overnight, I became at least also the professional face for Tom’s Hardware Germany with much more time for my own articles. The time back then wasn’t even bad, by the way. But you ended up working for third parties and the preservation of a brand that doesn’t belong to you.