Originally posted by Spittie
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Guess I can write my opinion too?
First, let me take a moment to thanks you Michael. It doesn't matter how much I/we complain, we're here because Phoronix is a one-of-a-kind that's not replaceable by other sites.
I really appreciate your vast coverage of everything linux-related and more.
Then for the complains and stuff, I'd love to see more quality and less quantity, mostly when talking about reviews and such "big" articles (I'm fine with tons of short news posts where I can just read the headline and decide if I'm interested. Maybe add a "source" link to the bottom, so finding the original blog is not a pain?).
You do some good reviews, but others really feel just like a dump of PTS tests. I'm even fine with dumps like those, but treat them as a dump. I don't need to read the same as I've just saw in a graph. So maybe just post one/more pages with those, a link to OpenBenchmarking and call it a day? This way you should have more time for good reviews, but still put out the same amount of stuff.
I'd like to see you explore new ways to monetize other than having annoying ads everywhere and begging for a premium account every other post (In fact, please stop. You want to beg for premium accounts? Add a box at the bottom of every article saying "want to support Phoronix? Buy a premium account!", I'd like it more than the current solution).
You're always benchmarking gpu and cpu, so I wouldn't mind a link to Amazon/Newegg with your referrer when you're talking about those. But just a link please, let's not start with whole paragraphs like "If you're enjoying this article, you can always buy X card over Amazon with this link, and over Newegg with this other link".
Also, for premium accounts, you can think about a pay-what-you-want model with a minimum price and different tiers. I don't know what you could offer for the various tiers, but it could be something like "$2 or more - Access to the premium forum, $5 or more - Read articles in a single page, $10 or more - No ads". One of my favorite site (http://techreport.com/) is doing something like this, and it seems to be working out somewhat decently for them.
As for actual content, I'd love to see more BSD stuff. I'm not an huge fan of it, in fact I'm just a newcomer with no real opinion (yet), but it's interesting to see more platforms compared than just Linux and Windows.
I also love the open driver benchmarks, but only when done "right". I have no need for benchmarks of 13 gpus if I can't compare them to a previous release, catalyst on linux and/or catalyst on windows. I'd much rather see benchmarks of less gpus, but with more data.
Oh, as an addendum to the site suggestions, if you can, try to "standardize" a testbed. Having different hardware every time makes it hard to compare old benchmarks with newer, and so I'm much less likely to search/open old articles to compare (= less page view).
Oh x2, also tweak a bit the PTS graphs. Sometimes they just need a bit of manual love, for example when comparing older/newer releases of some gpu, place the old/new result of the same gpu near.
First, let me take a moment to thanks you Michael. It doesn't matter how much I/we complain, we're here because Phoronix is a one-of-a-kind that's not replaceable by other sites.
I really appreciate your vast coverage of everything linux-related and more.
Then for the complains and stuff, I'd love to see more quality and less quantity, mostly when talking about reviews and such "big" articles (I'm fine with tons of short news posts where I can just read the headline and decide if I'm interested. Maybe add a "source" link to the bottom, so finding the original blog is not a pain?).
You do some good reviews, but others really feel just like a dump of PTS tests. I'm even fine with dumps like those, but treat them as a dump. I don't need to read the same as I've just saw in a graph. So maybe just post one/more pages with those, a link to OpenBenchmarking and call it a day? This way you should have more time for good reviews, but still put out the same amount of stuff.
I'd like to see you explore new ways to monetize other than having annoying ads everywhere and begging for a premium account every other post (In fact, please stop. You want to beg for premium accounts? Add a box at the bottom of every article saying "want to support Phoronix? Buy a premium account!", I'd like it more than the current solution).
You're always benchmarking gpu and cpu, so I wouldn't mind a link to Amazon/Newegg with your referrer when you're talking about those. But just a link please, let's not start with whole paragraphs like "If you're enjoying this article, you can always buy X card over Amazon with this link, and over Newegg with this other link".
Also, for premium accounts, you can think about a pay-what-you-want model with a minimum price and different tiers. I don't know what you could offer for the various tiers, but it could be something like "$2 or more - Access to the premium forum, $5 or more - Read articles in a single page, $10 or more - No ads". One of my favorite site (http://techreport.com/) is doing something like this, and it seems to be working out somewhat decently for them.
As for actual content, I'd love to see more BSD stuff. I'm not an huge fan of it, in fact I'm just a newcomer with no real opinion (yet), but it's interesting to see more platforms compared than just Linux and Windows.
I also love the open driver benchmarks, but only when done "right". I have no need for benchmarks of 13 gpus if I can't compare them to a previous release, catalyst on linux and/or catalyst on windows. I'd much rather see benchmarks of less gpus, but with more data.
Oh, as an addendum to the site suggestions, if you can, try to "standardize" a testbed. Having different hardware every time makes it hard to compare old benchmarks with newer, and so I'm much less likely to search/open old articles to compare (= less page view).
Oh x2, also tweak a bit the PTS graphs. Sometimes they just need a bit of manual love, for example when comparing older/newer releases of some gpu, place the old/new result of the same gpu near.
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