Why, Hwbot, just why!?
Why the rule change happened, one can only guess or try to understand by reading through all the forum posts and chat messages. That is, if they are still there. Unfortunately, the mods don’t take kindly to any criticism of their decisions and after using blatant excuses to justify the crucial rule change, eventually proceeded to delete posts in the chat room and the forum containing negative feedback.
My forum post declaring my withdrawal from the competition and asking for my submission to be removed from the competition was also deleted from the thread. This sadly also isn’t the only case of “censorship” as multiple other peoples’ critique (some very famous overclockers among them) about the handling of this situation and the declaration of the rule change, also got deleted from the forum thread, apparently by the Hwbot moderators. Sadly, I did not screenshot these forum posts before they got deleted, so I cannot provide any evidence for this specifically.
Now what do G.Skill, who sponsor the competition and its eventual 40000 USD prize money, say to this? Well, after most of the dust had settled, “Hiwa” joined the chat with the mods redirecting any remaining questions at him. He is also a professional overclocker who works for G.Skill and to my knowledge was heavily involved in the organization of the competition. He then just restated what the Hwbot mods had already said, all bios files are now legal, regardless of when they were uploaded. Furthermore, he did not even acknowledge that there was, in fact, a change in the rules.
One can only speculate why this all happened the way it did, but there is certainly a fishy smell to the behavior of the moderators and organizers of the competition. A possible theory might be that Asus (and/or other vendors) didn’t get their bios ready in time for the competition, so they asked G.Skill, who in turn asked Hwbot to change the rules to make it legal after the fact. But of course, this is purely just speculation!
What is certain, however, is the disappointment in large parts of the community about how the situation was handled. For me personally, this was not even the first time feeling that disappointment, as with previous Hwbot competitions very similar, shady situations had occurred. Rules were changed and submissions made legal after the fact. However, with it becoming a recurring issue and with the monetary stakes being so large this time around, I felt like I had to speak up in a more public manner to draw the community’s attention to the issue; and to warn possible participants of what they might face.
Hwbot at its core is a great website and sharing and comparing your benchmarks scores in the leaderboards is really fun. I personally also love the idea of overclocking competitions, fighting as an individual or as a team, within a certain set of defined rules, against each other to test who is the most skilled overclocker. But as with any competition, there must be clear rules and the rules must be enforced by an impartial party. Unfortunately, it has become obvious to me and many others in the community that Hwbot can not currently live up to this basic standard.
German Overclocker Roman “der8auer” Hartung, who purchased the Hwbot website a few years ago, has thus far remained completely silent on the issue. This “hands off” approach might be intentional, as many moderators were already on-board long before he bought the site. However, situations like the one outlined today begs to ask the question if this way of running Hwbot is might be too “hands off”.
For me personally I have made the decision to no longer take part in any Hwbot competition for the foreseeable future. Even after giving the platform, that I love at its core, multiple chances, I was disappointed over and over and I simply can no longer trust the moderators to be impartial or faithful to the community. Calling someone “overdramatic” because he clearly voices their opposition about breaking the basic standards of a competition, in my book simply shows either how factually unqualified or ethically corrupt the person acting as the referee actually is.
PS: As a Formula 1 fan this reminds me of the 2021 season finale where the FIA race director changed rules on the last lap of the last race and with that skewed the outcome of the whole championship. For those who don’t know how the story ended: The result stood, but the FIA race director was sacked.
Update, 08/03/23, 9:22: Usually it is good practice in journalism to ask for a statement beforehand, but as the feedback regarding previous competitions from participants (myself and others) also came to nothing with Roman, I decided against a direct request this time around. Though, if there are any statements or new developments, we will of course include those as an update in this piece.
Update 08/03/23, 13:43: I also want to add some more words. First of all thanks to Roman for the statement and for taking care of the issue. Yes, I should have contacted him directly and in specific regards to this topic, which I did not. The reasons for that I had already explained in the last update. Also I am not a professional journalist, but still it was an error on my part and I do own up to it. Apart from that, the statement gives me hope and I am looking forward to how this and future competitions will pan out. And as far as I can tell, many other community members will feel the same way.
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