Updated | UserBenchmark gets banned from major subreddit due to drama generation

Update 18 April: UserBenchmark has now also been completely banned from the r/Intel subreddit. The subreddit r/AMD has gone with a restriction for the controversial benchmark with an AutoModerator issuing comments and a link to a wiki explaining the restriction.

Original story:

UserBenchmark has been banned from an important subreddit on the hugely popular social news site Reddit. Discussion about the controversial benchmark and links to the UserBenchmark site are not going to be allowed in the r/hardware subreddit anymore. The moderators have selected numerous reasons for the ban (see screenshot below), which seems to have been overwhelmingly positively received by members.

The benchmark has faced considerable criticism in the past and has responded in a less than ideal manner to accusations of bias and favoritism toward Intel parts. We recently published an article about the peculiar UserBenchmark scoring for an Intel Core i5-10600 in comparison to an AMD Ryzen 5 3600 where the Comet Lake CPU was awarded a higher bench percentage even though its total test score was lower than that of the Matisse processor. Such discrepancies have contributed to the argument against the benchmark's current scoring system.

With such fanatical competition often existing between loyal supporters of Intel and AMD, it is impossible for such sites to please every visitor. However, UserBenchmark has been known to go on the offensive at times, such as commenting that “an army of anonymous call center shills posing as AMD fans accused UserBenchmark of impartiality” and remarking on the page for the AMD Ryzen 7 4800HS that “AMD should focus on delivering a platform that offers performance where end users actually need it rather than targeting inexperienced gamers with the same old 'moar cores' mantra [sic].”

It is possible further bans could occur over the pages of Reddit, with the r/hardware ban for UserBenchmark already sparking considerable discussion at r/AMD, which has nearly 400,000 members. The benchmark site has explained its weighted scoring system in the past and tried to make it clear that no brand sponsorship is involved in its testing procedure. But with this current Reddit ban and possibly more in the future, now might be the right time for some damage control and friendly PR exercises.