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What Why can't I find a USB-C hub with multiple USB-C ports? was looking for did not exist at all previously (except for one Dell hub). Yet, people posted many answers because USB C is confusing or they just wanted to be helpful and of course they totally failed because they answered a totally different question. Moderation also failed because these answers were not removed but I digress.

This is now all moot. One of the things the new Thunderbolt 4 hubs are capable of is when connected to a host which only has a USB C port with DisplayPort alternate mode capability, no Thunderbolt at all, is passing on the DP alt mode signal to downstream. Which is exactly what the question is looking for. This capability makes all answers, which boils down to "no such things but here's something else" anyways, completely obsolete. The answer is now: get a TB4 hub.

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/UsbCHardware/comments/mih0jk/usb_c_alt_mode_passthrough_hub/gt5njaz/

Since it's so chaotic I have not posted this there yet because I do not know how, do I edit the existing TB4 answer which does not have this backwards compatibility information? Do I post yet another answer?

I tried to edit the top answer https://superuser.com/posts/1414046/revisions and it was rolled back. Very frustrating!

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  • I failed to explain the problem then, let me re-edit.
    – user41259
    Commented Apr 3, 2021 at 4:53

3 Answers 3

Reset to default
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The question cannot be cleaned up and — while slightly chaotic — it is 100% fine.

The question is chaotic because the topic of USB C is chaotic. And many people who want dirt simple USB C hubs — not Thunderbolt 3/4 — do not see what you are saying is an answer.

What you are saying can be summed up in this incredibly rude comment to one of the answers:

“@Duvrai you are wrong. It does work with plain USB C ports.”

And my response comment to you explains it very clearly:

“@chx Yes. But a basic USB A hub costs less than $15 or so depending on where you get it. A Thunderbolt 3/4 hub costs about 10x that and provides additional functionality many people don’t need. I posted my answer recommending a $30-ish device that works for me. This is all I really need. For my purposes USB 3.1 transfer speeds of 10Mbps are fine. Anything else is wasted. And the $150-ish cost is definitely wasted for my needs. I just want a simple USB C hub for less than $20. USB A had it; why not USB C. And yes I know the technical issues but still.”

Screenshot below for reference:

Screenshot of the aforementioned comments.

Stating the problem is “solved” by people buying $150+ Thunderbolt 3/4 hubs when many are just looking for a $15 or less solution is not a reason to clean anything up.

Additionally you breathlessly state the following:

“I tried to edit the top answer https://superuser.com/posts/1414046/revisions and it was rolled back. Very frustrating!”

The rollbacks were by the original poster pkamb and your changes are honestly past belief: The golden rule of this site — and all Stack Exchange sites — is the original content poster’s content and intent always rules first. Even if you disagree with the content you can leave a comment clarifying things.

Small copy edits to posts is one thing. But what you did in revision 9 is past belief; screenshot below with your changes in green:

Revision 9 to the answer in question.

You adding five full new paragraphs clearly conflicts with the original author’s intent. If you disagree with the content, post a comment to the author and let them know. And heck, you have your own full answer here from October 2020. If you have new information please go and edit your own answer and add it there: Nobody will object to it. But to edit someone else’s content the way you did deserves a rollback to say the least.

In short:

If you have new information, edit your own answer to address it and not radically edit the content of others.

Who knows? You might get tons of up votes. But going around and insulting other community members and editing the content of others purely to suit your needs is not a way to gain respect.

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  • The question comes up extremely high on Google when searching for this and whether wanted or not, we have what we have and now it can't be fixed either. The existing top answer should be converted to a community wiki and kept up to date. Easy. The author doesn't matter. Information should be free.
    – user41259
    Commented Apr 5, 2021 at 5:40
  • 3
    @chx - Unless the author of the answer converts it to a community wiki what you want won’t happen.
    – Ramhound
    Commented Apr 5, 2021 at 11:31
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    For the record I frequently edit other answers, and accept most edits to my posts. The reason I reverted this edit (as well explained by Giacomo) was that the large amount of new info was very out of place in my generalist answer. I also reverted an edit 2 years ago (amusingly, made by Giacomo) but that was only due to markdown preferences. I'm not attempting to fully control this answer and reject all edits.
    – pkamb
    Commented Apr 5, 2021 at 15:59
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I have cleaned out a good few of the answers and have closed the question, for now.

The vast majority of answers completely sidestep the question as asked and rather than answering why USB C to multiple USB C is difficult or not a thing, simply say "hey I found a things that may or may not work but I didn't try it because money!". That is not what was asked and risks devolving into nothing more than a list of hardware recommendations.

If this question is asked again it might be worth adding a caveat that hardware recommendations are unwanted and that a real indication of technical reasons is what is being asked for.

We don't want a "disguised hardware recommendation thread" and the question, through no fault of the original asker, has become just that.

It should have been better moderated in my opinion, and cleaned up long before now.

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  • This is not adequate. The question comes up extremely high on Google when searching for this and whether wanted or not, we have what we have and now it can't be fixed either. The existing top answer should be converted to a community wiki, all others deleted, and my content restored because it's up-to-date -- while all others are not.
    – user41259
    Commented Apr 5, 2021 at 3:29
  • @chx - “This is not adequate.” - It will have to be adequate since the author has rollback your edit proposals. The existing answers will not be deleted, nor should they be deleted, they are accurate answers based on when they were submitted. My suggestion is to leave the answer you have been trying to edit alone.
    – Ramhound
    Commented Apr 5, 2021 at 3:55
  • They were not accurate when they were submitted either rather they were completely useless back then and still are. The Dell WD19 was the first USB C hub to pass on a DP signal to downstream, all others are not.
    – user41259
    Commented Apr 5, 2021 at 5:21
  • @chx It can be fixed if we want it to be but not by forcing your own content into current answers. If a new question were asked and properly curated against becoming the mess we currently have then the current one could be closed as a duplicate. The problem is that people coming from Google likely just want more of the current "here's the device you're looking for" answers which isn't what we want as a site. For now closing the question as not being the kind of content we want is the best way to tell people that this is not what we want here. We have Hardware Recommendations for that sort of thing.
    – Mokubai Mod
    Commented Apr 5, 2021 at 6:31
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    @chx from my perspective your answer is continuing the tradition of "bad" answers. You give a product name, suggest eBay as a potential source and completely avoid any attempt to answer the question of why. I cannot "restore" your edit and neither should I. It is up to the answer poster if they want to make it community wiki. Have you tried politely asking them if they would mind a more collaborative answer rather than simply barging them out of the way?
    – Mokubai Mod
    Commented Apr 5, 2021 at 6:38
  • OK if I write this up on hardware recs is it possible to get a pointer there from a more prominent place than a buried comment? Also how on earth would I ask anyone on this site when there's no DM?
    – user41259
    Commented Apr 5, 2021 at 7:28
  • You ask them by posting a comment. We may not have DMs but that does not preclude you from posting a comment asking if you can help improve their answer. If they answered in the positive then others could see a definite indication that both you and the original answerer agreed to go the route you did, if not then comments could be cleaned up without mess.
    – Mokubai Mod
    Commented Apr 5, 2021 at 7:58
  • @chx - Hardware Recommendation Stack Exchange is a separate community. What’s submitted there is separate from what’s submitted here.
    – Ramhound
    Commented Apr 5, 2021 at 11:29
  • Ive left the "can't be done" answer as it is at least closing the loop of this specific question being unanswerable and cleaned up a few of the others. The remaining answers might help a future visitor, but the "that guys answer worked for me" answers are gone.
    – Mokubai Mod
    Commented Apr 8, 2021 at 13:42
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What Why can't I find a USB-C hub with multiple USB-C ports? was looking for did not exist at all previously (except for one Dell hub). Yet, people posted many answers because USB C is confusing or they just wanted to be helpful and of course they totally failed because they answered a totally different question. Moderation also failed because these answers were not removed but I digress.

You are right. The community moderators and the moderator team failed. We failed to identify what commonly is referred as a “rollback war” and we should have identified it a year ago. The question and answer should have been protected in 2020 to avoid what has happened since.

Which is exactly what the question is looking for. This capability makes all answers, which boils down to "no such things but here's something else" anyways, completely obsolete. The answer is now: get a TB4 hub.

Only the author of the question gets to decide what the accepted answer is. I would argue that the changes to the accepted answer should have never happened in the first place since they significantly changed the answer.

A Thunderbolt 4 hub isn’t what the author of the question was looking for, it didn’t even exist, when the question was asked.

Since it's so chaotic I have not posted this there yet because I do not know how, do I edit the existing TB4 answer which does not have this backwards compatibility information? Do I post yet another answer?

You already have an answer. You should leave the accepted answer alone. Your edits have been reverted by the author of the question every single time except the last one. You are free to edit your own answer.

I tried to edit the top answer https://superuser.com/posts/1414046/revisions and it was rolled back. Very frustrating!

Your edits were reverted by the author of the answer. You should have edited your own answer instead of changing the words of the author or adding your own words to the answer. If you did not have the edit permissions you have, I and a lot of reviewers, wouldn’t have approved your edits.

If you continue to edit that answer out of a mistaken belief you are right, it will catch the eyes of a moderator, you should instead focus on your own answer. The next step to preventing changes to the answer is probably protecting it. That shouldn’t have to be the solution.

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  • A Thunderbolt 4 hub isn’t what the author of the question was looking for -- BUT IT IS!!! That's the whole point: if you want a hub for you USB C laptop which can pass the DP signal, buy a TB4 hub. This is non-trivial, unexpected and unknown. And editing my own buried answer achieves nothing. Sigh. I just want to share knowledge. Knowledge, that so far, is incredibly hard/impossible to find otherwise. This is what Google finds so this is where it needs to be added.
    – user41259
    Commented Apr 5, 2021 at 5:16
  • My answer has 1 upvote it might as well not exist among dozens of garbage answers. This is what Google finds, this is where the answer should be. What's so hard understanding in this? I can't control Google, I can't control people not upvoting. Information must be free.
    – user41259
    Commented Apr 5, 2021 at 5:25
  • @chx - Sounds like the real issue is Google. “Information must be free.” - The information is indeed free but that doesn’t mean you get to modify an answer you didn’t write. Your edits go against the intent of the author of the answer.
    – Ramhound
    Commented Apr 5, 2021 at 11:33
  • I somewhat agree with you that TB4 devices shouldn't be the top answer for that question, which is why I added TB4 hubs as a separate answer and only linked to it. But that TB4-specific answer was deleted as part of this cleanup.
    – pkamb
    Commented Apr 5, 2021 at 15:49
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    @pkamb - I am honestly torn, I am typically of the mindset that a question must be focused, which means a question asking for USB Type-C hubs cannot be answered by the suggest to use a Thunderbolt 4 Hub 2 and half years later. The fact Thunderbolt 4 is backwards compatible with USB Type-C is irrelevant detail in my eyes. I believe a new question should be asked, a new answered submitted, and the current question protected.
    – Ramhound
    Commented Apr 5, 2021 at 17:30

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