Very interested to know what transpired. But will be even more interested in AMD's actual actions from here on out.

It's such a pathetic situation, really. With FUDdy, Eric Demers and Godfrey Cheng gone, and Makedon moved to APU, I thought there was a decent chance the FUD would stop (of course, Baumann is still active at AMD). It seems the viral FanATIc mindset is buried very deeply indeed inside ATi/AMD culture. If it hasn't gone away despite the departures above, I have doubts it ever will not matter what the CEO tries (short of sacking every last ATi employee left at AMD).

I can tell you (and AMD) who was behind your being blacklisted -- Dave Baumann.

Well, i don't want to continue with any investigation. It appears that the information that we have gathered has finally reached the right people at AMD. There are internal politics inside every company and i cannot predict what will happen. But it is in the open, it is being investigated at AMD, and hopefully they may be able to do something positive. They also now should realize that ABT is not an unfriendly tech site and that we always honored their NDAs.


Nope. Actually i do know who it is. And now his boss knows also.

And now i see this. Nothing was ABT's fault:


All that we were asking for in the beginning from AMD was for acknowledgement and reform. It has never been about product reviews.

We didn't get our message to AMD because someone INSIDE AMD PR decided to blacklist us - using a WEAK and false excuse that we did something wrong.. We did nothing wrong!

Chris Hook also asked for the name of their Edelman rep that acknowledged the VC&G shills' posts that i pointed out ("we don't care") and he may well look into seeing whether or not shills had a part in getting ABT blacklisted.
- Chris emphasized (speaking for AMD) - "We DO care!"

And no apology to ATF forum. This BS needs exposure and open discussion that could not be investigated there. And it was investigated on this forum. To individuals caught in the crossfire, yes - i do apologize for the disruption. But we did not cause it and NOTHING was our fault.



That is the problem with AMD fans. They were also expecting the Second Coming and got Bulldozer

- all we intended to do was to get this information to the right people inside AMD

Mission Accomplished. And thank-you to all of the ABT forum members who were so patient during this long investigation and especially to those who helped out.

And both of these posters need to learn to comprehend what they read. All false.

No actions that ABT took were sanctioned. No actions we took caused a legitimate blacklisting. AMD now knows this to be true. They asked for proof and i delivered.

What good does it do to correct you? You will lie boldfaced about ABT. You tried to infiltrate us. Nothing you say can be trusted - by anyone.

Mark so it was not AMD who blacklisted u but some random PR guy from AMD who probably had a score to settle?Did the higher management know about this?

No random guy. He is relatively highly placed in AMD PR and he is the guy that i met at CES in a last minute change. Every one of my emails to AMD - no matter who - got CC'd to him.

All i can *assume* is that he was hearing and believing the same reports from VC&G posters that know him, that the Edelman guy (my AMD contact) referred to. It was very clear to him that i was talking about AMD employees posting over there when he said, "we see their posts and we don't care".

Looking back, he might be referring to the "don't care" as not believing them; but it became clear to me that AMD was no longer listening to me - that they made up their mind as though i was prejudged as "anti-AMD" by my posts at ATF regarding my HD 7970 preview in December. And AMD's Edelman PR rep did not deny that AMD employees post at ATF. That is most telling to me. Like he knew and Chris didn't.

Higher management - Chris Hook - told me today that there was *still* a complaint noted against ABT - even though it was not charged against us at the time and it was completely resolved (I was told and so we thought). i also sent Chris the proof that we were given permission to post something that turned out to be in error and we took it down immediately - as soon as i got a panicked phone call from the PR rep that had given us the permission by mistake.

Now AMD management knows everything. ABT's side of it. They will decide what to do - if nothing. If they leave us out of the review process, that is fine too. We are a small site but with a very dedicated readership. And we are done with this experiment in writing a Forum investigative article. It is a success and we will certainly do more quality work together and ABT will continue to be responsive to the ABT membership.

well thanks for the clarification

My pleasure .. it has been long and tiring ... but i believe, ultimately worth it.

... i seem to be lucky more than twice today . . .

AND now i have MAJOR work to do

(benching, not playing games)

It's not a success yet, Mark. You must entertain the possibility that Chris Hook knows everything that transpired, and who did what even before contacting you. As the call for social media transparency heads viral (railven's thread is considered a major spread of the issue to me) and it is brought to the attention of Chris Hook, there is now a fire to put out. Now there is also the possibility that Chris Hook didn't know all the details of the situation.
All I'm saying is, be vigilant and expect anything. We are not done here until we start seeing employee or affiliation tags under forum members screen names or sigs.