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A cool controversy has broken out on the world wide interwibble. As stories relating to the bizarrely named BAPCO Sysmark benchmark broke on the top news sites last week.
With accusations of plagiarism running riot, KitGuru decided to tap into its own supply of special sauces to see what's what. Has someone been sticking their un-welcome arrows in Charlie's bullseye? We had a chat with a top source in the Inquirer today.
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Ask 100 IT people in the street what BAPCO is and they are more likely to reply, “Some kind of bakery?” than “a company who develop a Trusted benchmark known, loved and used by everyone in the industry”.
Here at KitGuru, we vaguely remember Sysmark from the 1990s, but – until AMD's top spinner Nigel Dessau mentioned it in his blog – we assumed that it had gone the way of the Sinclair ZX/Dodo/Dido.
Google needed a reminder. When we checked, this is the listing we got.
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We'll get to the subject of the controversy in a second, but first shall we take a quick look at how Amazon-owned Alexa rates BAPCO's traffic? Frankly, site extolling the virtues of Zimbabwean goat farmers probably get more traffic than BAPCO's website.
The yesteryear benchmark's site seems to have received a HUGE boost from the stories run by Semi Accurate, Inquirer and others.
Not only that, it also got a huge surge from Canada. Why? Well, one possibility is that AMD super-spinner Nigel went to the site once or twice to check something and, as a result, BAPCO's Alexa score for the North American zone, shot through the roof.
Anyway, all of that preamble brings us to the root of the story. Kitguru ran with an editorial, but it was based on an AMD press release. This time we had no ‘insider' info, although a reader told us that Charlie had the scoop, so we linked to him later. Sauces close to The Inquirer claim that there was a multi-person conference call, with a senior AMD official, where the fact that nVidia and Via had left alongside AMD, was brought up.
Anyway without that conference call, Charlie's follow up piece would be extremely serious.
On the other hand, The Inquirer is claiming independent sauces. If there was a conference call with AMD, prior to Charlie hitting go, then it would be true that Inq-hack Lawrence Latif had correctly/independently sourced his story – and he would indeed be declared an upright man.
Man, we love this intrigue stuff – but how will this story pan out?
Truth is, no one knows – but here are some possibilities:-
- The Inquirer's owners (Incisive) decide to defend the honour of their writer and editor in the most energetic way possible, and choose to go legal. We'd be guaranteed (99.45%) that the letters sent would all end up being published on Semi Accurate and the story would continue to be played out in public. Might not give an immediate happy-happy solution for everyone, but it would be certain to sell a ton of (virtual) news ink
. - Incisive could say that they had copied huge chunks of Semi Accurate facts, published the same and lied about it – apologise and file new copy complete with links to Charlie's site
. - Charlie could independently decide that the story was less black and white than it originally appeared and write a huge front page retraction
. - AMD could confirm that there was a phone call, that they had mentioned the ‘Via and nVidia leaving' aspects of the story before anyone else had written the story – and assure Charlie of the same, which would allow the story to die quietly in the corner
KitGuru says: Whichever way the sauce spills, we're assured of the most interesting Inq intrigue seen for the best part of 2 years. The re-discovery of BAPCO and Sysmark is akin to Carter and Carnarvon stumbling upon Tutankhamen's tomb in 1922. From what we can tell, Charlie lives for the disclosure and explanation. The spirit of Magee will no doubt be watching [Whiskey? – Ed] and them that Hales from the Holy Land will also be following closely. The key question here isn't really “Will we discover the truth about the BAPCO story”, it's actually, “Will Incisive wise men discover the secret of real internet traffic”.
Comment below or in the KitGuru forums.
I like charlie, he is a character/
I think he broke the story, but who said inquirer weren’t told also? AMD is a big company, its possible someone leaked it to them too…
As you would expect, KitGuru sauces are from within the Incisive HQ building 😉
We can’t say who’s right or wrong just yet – but the story will play out soon enough
Well, the Inq does have a history of this kind of behaviour. Also, Madelaine’s story seems to be changing, Try comparing this KitGuru article with Charlie’s copies of the email correspondence with Madelaine.The Inquirer was originally claiming that they called AMD themselves. Now this article says there was a conference call. Things just aren’t adding up.
I would just like to point out that there is no such thing as a benchmark named BAPCO. BAPCO was a consortium that produced the benchmark named SysMark (with various iterations, the most recent being 2007 and 2012) which continues to be used at a number of review websites. Clearly, one of two things has happened in this article: 1) The author didn’t do the proper research before commenting on the situation (and is therefore guilty of being a bad journalist. Shame on you.) or 2) the author just doesn’t like Charlie and wanted to make him out to be the bad guy in this situation. Either way, it’s clear that this article is basically worthless.
How on earth did you take a ‘personal’ dislike for Charlie from this article? I have seen this site link to semi accurate many times. The article says that one of Kitguru spoke to someone inside the Inquirer who have said that they had a conference call with AMD who broke the news about the Nvidia and VIA story. How is this not good news? Kitguru haven’t claimed that the inquirer are right, they have said that someone in the inquirer said they didn’t steal an article.
I would assume that Semi Accurate heard from a similar source, so would it be impossible for the inquirer to experience the same situation?
While I appreciate that semi accurate have fans (I like the site myself). I think its important before trying to pass blame onto another journalist that the article is actually read properly beforehand.
I think the whole thing is actually rather stupid to be honest and I feel that it is a way for charlie to drive traffic to his site. I dont mind that, but I really don’t like people posting nonense, trying to defend him in some purile and pointless manner over nothing.
shame on you.
Basically worthless? What would happen if this source that Kitguru have is actually one of the bosses in the inquirer who have proof that a conference call actually did take place. Isn’t that a hard fact which would dismiss the whole event as basically ‘pointless’.
I am not defending the inquirer, it has gone down the tubes since mike and paul left years ago. Dont even visit it anymore, but I really do dislike seeing ‘blind’ fanatism over some loyalty to someone who actually ‘might’ be wrong.
Maybe the inquirer didn’t hear nvidia and via were leaving from AMD, but what if they actually did. Dont you think its important that at least the point is raised ?
Innocent until proven guilty. most developed countries have this as a law. Why should someone immediately blame someone else without actually knowing the facts?
I have read semi accurate many times, and its entertaining, but lets be honest Charlie isn’t best known for his lack of control or moderation of posting. THe whole anti nvidia 9 month binge on the inquirer would be testament to that.
I find this kitguru news piece interesting, why shouldnt they post that they spoke to someone in the inquirer who is denying it? I see no mention that kiguru say charlie is wrong and that the inquirer is right. I see an article based on a conversation with someone in the company who own the online website. Why is this not worthy of a news piece.?
I dont think Kitguru should have gotten involved. The whole thing is so ridiculously stupid. ive followed it from start to finish.
Its a way to get traffic to semi accurate. The inquirer in no way damaged semi accurate by posting an article on this, but they should just get confirmation from whoever told them and publish it on their site as a story. end the whole pointless debacle.
Also let me just add something – the press do have free speech in the UK. If kitguru speak to someone in the inquirer then they have ever right to publise a story on it. Why the hell wouldnt they? From my point of view, I think its a non story, because its a really stupid argument in the first place
Is Brother Michigan Charlies mother? I have seen Kitguru support and link to semi accurate many times in the past – absolutely no research there. I am stunned that he has interpreted this as an ‘anti charlie’ piece. I actually found semi accurate from this site earlier in the year.
From my point of view, if the inquirer, or someone high ranking has spoken to Kitguru about it, it is because they know a lot of people read Kitguru. I would assume that the inquirer are trying to get someone involved in their conference call to admit it publicly to end this. The problem I could forsee is that someone in the conference call might not want to be directly linked to it as they maybe shouldnt have known Nvidia and Via were going at that time. Has charlie named his source, I read through his rantings a few times and dont see a name anywhere? maybe I missed it.
rumor is that someone in AMD told charlie. isn’t it feasible that two people in the company knew? I can’t say ive read it all, but I tried to follow it from the links in this story.
It all just seems so childish to me from day 1. I do wish carl had written this article however, Jules tends to go way off track at times and it drives me batty
This is the only problem i have.
Charlie creates fanaticism. He always has. Even his followers seem mentally unhinged.
I say give everyone the right to speak, even the useless identity that is now the inquirer. If someone from the ‘incisive hq’ spoke to Kitguru, then let it be known.
Hackers speak to news sites all the time, it doesn’t mean it shouldnt be heard. Why shouldn’t ‘hacks’ or editors also have the right to be heard? The press have a right to let people air their views.
Sorry but I have to agree that Bapco has died as a real influennce a long time ago. Check futuremark’s traffic ranking. That’s not a benchmark but the site has a ranking inside the top 32000. I remember some of the old/dead magazines using Sysmark, like PC World in the UK but who reads that stuff? People who understand the technology demand much more fine grain detail and you can find that diversity on all the big sites with significant traffic. If Bapco has someone doing marketing then they must be jizzing themselves with these stories.
@Brother Michigan: At the risk of outraging the nice folks out there, I really like Charlie and can honestly say that I can’t imagine him lying. He’d have only gone with what he had been told by a trusted source. That’s why this whole story is so interesting.
@Shauni: That’s exactly it
@k0rn: Everyone on the inside is pretty certain what the sourcing was. Now we just need to let the story play out and see what happens
Parting thought?
Moving the characters to one side for a second, isn’t this the kind of intrigue, debate, claim and counter claim that made the original Inquirer great? Surely I can’t be alone in wishing for more of the same 🙂
Just wondering how the conversation must be going at the Inquirer? If they ignore it then a pretty strong accusation stays out there but if they respond then they have broken their policy not to mention SemiAccurate. Proper dilemma. Kelly Rowland would be proud
@Nick: If both sites had published and left it at that then there is no story. The tension comes from what Shauni mentioned with the Inquirer’s editorial policy being leaked. How can you defend yourself if you can’t mention your opponent. Might be wrong, but many of us think this will run and run.
If you check facts with Wikipedia etc, then that is research and everyone is OK with that.
Here at KitGuru, we got the same press release as everyone else and wrote up the original story here http://www.kitguru.net/channel/simon/amd-not-happy-with-sysmark-2012-benchmark/
If you scroll down, you will see that we were informed of Semi Accurate’s additional points through a forum post, so we update our story and linked Charlie as a professional courtesy. He had stuff we did not have, so it moved away from pure research into quoting the work of others – so we flagged it and linked them – which is our way.
If two sites got the same information around the same time, then you don’t need to link because each has their own unique research.
Interesting times ahead.
Is everyone missing the more deep rooted problem here?
Charlie, Mike and Paul all worked for the inquirer. They all have their own, very good news sites. with a good mixture of gossip and information. I read them all daily.
But I would also feel there is a more deep rooted management issue in this whole escapade. They all left for reasons of poor management. It is easy to see there are grudges, and im sure Mike and Paul feel the same.
The difference is that unfortunately Charlie has much less control over his emotions than either Paul or Mike. Didnt Mike sell the inquirer? so I doubt he is bitter. from what ive read Paul was shafted, but has managed to get a top quality news site built from the ground up. Charlie seems to be struggling to reach that level and instead of sending out a private email and posting one article reassuring people that he did source it, it has ended up like a bitching session on a forum.
He might get traffic short term, but IMO the semi accurate site has went down in my estimations. I want to read news, not rants from people with personal grudges.
Dont get me wrong, I understand why he would be annoyed, but looking back. didnt kitguru break the ‘AMD CEO leaves story?’. They didnt get the credit for that, and yet I didnt see a rant front page about how other news sites stole it……..
time to move on its done.
Yeah KG did break that news before anyone http://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/faith/bloomberg-confirms-kitgurus-story-that-dirk-meyer-is-leaving-amd/
It happens, with so many news sites, some just link a story, some just take the tasty bits and dont link, then another site finds the remade one and no one finds the true source.
Its not really a foundation to go ballistic online about losing credit for one thing. Its a big net and I would assume sometimes it happens by accident.
@Chris: We feel it’s about the fundamental ‘treat others as you want to be treated’, so we link wherever possible
Sadly, Charlie is his own worst enemy. He has always had legimate points, even when he was with the inquirer and writing about nvidia hardware problems. Those were real problems, but his style of ‘rant’ writing alienated many people from believing him as it sounded so personal. Almost as if someone in the company had slept with his mother.
I think he is a great journalist, but he needs reigned in by an editor. he would be taken more seriously under the wings of an experienced editor.
Anyone else imagining that there’s a league of extraordinary inquirermen? The knights of the old republic hunched around a table while the ghostly form of Emporer Magee appears as a hologram? Sith lord gives the command to attack the enemy base etc 🙂
You think Theo is in a dark cape somewhere waiting to be unleashed alongside Charlie and Sylvie? That should be filmed in 3D!
How many Horsemen were there again?
Ummm, Faith. You stated that your source about the conference call was from the Incisive HQ. Isn’t that like saying you just asked the Inquirer about their source? I’m sure that by now, everyone at Incisive has their stories matching up in case of law suit. Well, actually, there are only a small few that need to keep the story straight. Unfortunately, your source has either been fed information or needed to lie to you. There’s a key point that I’m sure your source didn’t convey. There was short term panic at the Inquirer for those involved. It’s an important point.