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Collaborator/experts reviews |
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CJG 
Forum Newbie 
Joined: February 23 2016 Location: UK Status: Offline Points: 28 |
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 Topic: Collaborator/experts reviewsPosted: January 02 2019 at 06:47 |
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When it comes to the current year charts, it is the collaborator/ expert reviews that have the biggest impact. With a weighting of 20 against a weight of 1 for an individual rating or 10 for a written review by a non-collaborator, the collaborator/experts are easily able to raise the profile of a worthy album that would otherwise be little known. This is a undoubtedly a good thing but does skew the current year charts until the force of non-collaborator numbers redresses the balance and you get a more representative chart as you do with the all time charts. I understand that colaborators and experts have their preferences but what I find surprising is that an album as important as The Tangent's Proxy, which has been out for nearly two months, has been completely ignored by collaborators and experts. Why should this be?
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TheGazzardian
Prog Reviewer 
Joined: August 11 2009 Location: Canada Status: Offline Points: 8667 |
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Posted: January 02 2019 at 07:06 |
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Because activity on this site is dwindling slowly, so the number of active collaborators who still review / rate albums is dwindling slowly, so the list is more susceptible to the tastes of a smaller and thus less representative group of people, who aren't interested in that album.
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CJG
Forum Newbie
Joined: February 23 2016 Location: UK Status: Offline Points: 28 |
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Posted: January 02 2019 at 09:18 |
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Thank you. That is clearly a contributing factor but cannot be the full story because I am forever amazed by the sheer number of obscure albums that PA collaborators find the time to review.
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TheGazzardian
Prog Reviewer
Joined: August 11 2009 Location: Canada Status: Offline Points: 8667 |
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Posted: January 02 2019 at 11:07 |
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Collaborators in general have been selected because they tend to explore more obscure music and can help shine a light beyond the music everybody already knows about. They often (but not always) tend to prefer music they've never heard of vs the 11th album by a band everyone already loves, especially if that band has not evolved in a notable way since their 10th album.
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grantman
Forum Senior Member 
Joined: December 03 2015 Location: CANADA Status: Offline Points: 732 |
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Posted: January 02 2019 at 11:29 |
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Since all or almost every record or cd stores have closed ,the incentive here , would be based on the reviewer, is for any music or bands newest or latest work ,i believe should be given a free copy or cd to review thus making word or mouth to promote the band, not just a video or a couple of songs, unfortunely the world of music in any form, is now becoming rarer and rarer to listen to ,one must invest in good listeners to ,gain anything in this youtube age,sorry but that just seems the direction it,s going. peace grant
Edited by grantman - January 03 2019 at 02:31 |
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Manuel
Forum Senior Member
Joined: March 09 2007 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 13250 |
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Posted: January 02 2019 at 13:02 |
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Hard to do know all the reasons for this to be happening. All of the above reasons have their merits, and I'm sure there are quite a few more. Things are quite different nowadays.
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The Dark Elf
Forum Senior Member
VIP Member Joined: February 01 2011 Location: Michigan Status: Offline Points: 13014 |
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Posted: January 02 2019 at 16:55 |
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Not being facetious, but why exactly do you think this album is "important". What is the basis for your assumption? Have they really released anything worthwhile in the past 10 years?
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...a vigorous circular motion hitherto unknown to the people of this area, but destined
to take the place of the mud shark in your mythology... |
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Sean Trane
Special Collaborator 
Prog Folk Joined: April 29 2004 Location: Heart of Europe Status: Offline Points: 20218 |
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Posted: January 02 2019 at 17:12 |
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AFAIAC,
I don't think the obscure nature of the music being reviewed is a
factor for becoming a collab.... At least not a first or second factor,
for sure. It's more to do with the quality of what's said But
yeah, what's the point of listening and reviewing the 25th Tangent or
349786th TFK album, when there is so much more different and "out of
aural comfort zone" to be listening to out there |
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omphaloskepsis
Forum Senior Member
Joined: October 19 2011 Location: Texas Status: Offline Points: 6319 |
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Posted: January 02 2019 at 18:19 |
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This^
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Aussie-Byrd-Brother
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator Joined: October 12 2011 Location: Melb, Australia Status: Offline Points: 7951 |
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Posted: January 02 2019 at 18:49 |
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And funny you single out that particular Tangent album, because it was literally the next review I planned to post (had it written for a week now), and it's up there now!
 But seriously, from the Collaborator Activity point of view, (and I don't know if others share the same ideas here) it comes down to a lot of things for me personally. Pretty much a winning combination of listening to an album enough times to really get to know it (not belting out a review while I'm listening to it the first time), finding enough creative inspiration to actually get the effort of writing a few paragraphs going... Also, it's very easy for the busier reviewers to simply...burn out. A mix of being at it too much, seeing their efforts on the front page washed away in an hour by an overexcited string of freaking Dream Theater reviews or simply hitting that dreaded `writers block' that can take a little bit of time to snap out of...lots of things that brings momentum crashing down. I work for the Italian Prog team on the Archives here, so I feel in many ways it is my responsibility to be getting to reviews quickly of the latest Italian releases, but lately the two big suppliers of Italian albums, AMS/BTF and Black Widow Records, have put their shipping prices up to such absurd amounts (34 Euro for between 2-4 CD's?!) is such a total dealbreaker that I often have to wait (in some case many weeks or even months) until other worldwide vendors get the titles in that have much more reasonable and affordable postage costs. In other words, albums I would like to be getting to much quicker and bringing attention to doesn't really happen as fast as I'd like, or as fast as the albums and artists deserve. (Also, down here in Australia it's the middle of a stinking hot summer, and I don't have air conditioning, so often sitting at a computer in a heat-addled daze is the LAST thing I want to be doing!  )
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Tom Ozric
Prog Reviewer
Joined: September 03 2005 Location: Olympus Mons Status: Offline Points: 15916 |
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Posted: January 02 2019 at 23:08 |
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I gave up reviewing coz I don’t make much sense anyway.......
 .......for what it’s worth... |
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Tapfret
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator / Retired Admin Joined: August 12 2007 Location: Bryant, Wa Status: Offline Points: 8581 |
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Posted: January 03 2019 at 00:15 |
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I was going to ask the exact same thing. Just counting albums with ratings and reviews (the search engine won't locate unrated albums) there were over 500 releases by PA bands in 2018. Not sure what criteria is being used to make The Tangent more important than any of the rest of them. I actually joined PA 11 years ago because it was a gateway to the obscure stuff. And from a reviewing and exposure standpoint, I'd much rather see the lower budget acts getting the benefit of the volunteer work. But honestly, I have seen nothing to hint at a bias one way or the other from collaborators/reviewers, present or past. |
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Quinino
Forum Senior Member
Joined: June 26 2011 Location: Portugal Status: Offline Points: 3654 |
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Posted: January 03 2019 at 02:26 |
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Michael, both labels have their own pages on Bandcamp, even if you don't buy digital you may stream the albums (like you didn't already know this - but others may not !)
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CJG
Forum Newbie
Joined: February 23 2016 Location: UK Status: Offline Points: 28 |
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Posted: January 03 2019 at 03:16 |
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Understand and I stand corrected in my original post. Thank you for an inciteful review.
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CJG
Forum Newbie
Joined: February 23 2016 Location: UK Status: Offline Points: 28 |
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Posted: January 03 2019 at 03:45 |
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Thank you for the interesting reponses. I have learned quite a bit about ProgArchives from this thread, my first. I hope that the site is not in slow decline because I think that prog is in decent health at the moment internationally with ProgArchives playing its part. I'm listening to Mir by Telegraph as I write, a delightful album brought to my attention by the sheer number of unweighted ratings on ProgArchives. It is a fine album.
In response to those that objected to my use of "important", all I can say is that any release by Andy Tillison is important. It is all a matter of taste and opinion but I know that Andy Tillison is one of today's most important commentators on social and political issues through his lyrics. But for me, the joy is his music. He is a master of melody within vast complex compositions that often require several listens to be fully appreciated. So I used the word "important" to prompt a response and accept that many would not agree. But there are many that would.
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3RDegree
Forum Senior Member
Joined: March 31 2007 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 129 |
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Posted: January 03 2019 at 04:37 |
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Another reason could very well be The Tangent are “above” sending their music to a collaborator here...or just haven’t gotten around to it.
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www.3RDegreeONLINE.com www.facebook.com/3RDegree "Defiling Perfectly Good Songs With Prog Since 1990"
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Sean Trane
Special Collaborator
Prog Folk Joined: April 29 2004 Location: Heart of Europe Status: Offline Points: 20218 |
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Posted: January 03 2019 at 06:36 |
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Yeah,
all of those (except being present on the front page >> never
cared about that) are indeed factors for a certain form of weariness,
and also the amount of time spent to review But in my
case, I stopped cold turkey after the theft of my laptop in the trunk of
my car. Had no back-up, and lost my novel-in-progress
Yeah,
I cringe when re-reading my reviews... Not so much at how I feel
about the album (generally I stand by it... especially for those stinking TFK
albums    ), but the grammatical mistakes, typos and sentence structures.
Well,
indeed, it's the opportunity to shed some light into obscure corners
(usually the older/70's stuff) that prompted me to become collab and
team-member, but at one point comes the Q: why am I spending so much
time for such little results? Have I not got anything better to do with
my life (like living it, for ex)? etc.. OK,
I've gotten many thanks for whatever it is I've done here, but the
grander prog public still has never heard of JDDG or Comus, let alone
more modern artiste like PG Six or Espers. |
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moshkito
Forum Senior Member
Joined: January 04 2007 Location: Grok City Status: Offline Points: 17420 |
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Posted: January 03 2019 at 06:41 |
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I have offered, before, to do reviews, but I wanted to be selective, as much as possible, specially when in a couple of instances, it was suggested that the albums to review, we actual dupe'd copies that were released in Mars and Venus, so the band could not get a nickel. AND, I happened to have been aware of this for a couple of bands, and ended up not reviewing anything after that. It simply was not fair to the bands in question. I have reviewed a few albums and posted them, but the general response to the reviews here, is often ... something that is really sad, since a person searching for ITCOTCK and seeing that there are 117 reviews, and the majority of them do not qualify ANYWHERE as a review, and should be moved somewhere else, into an area called "opinion", because it would be taking away from the album and the band. The harshest thing to see, for example, is TFTO, when a great review makes it nice, and the next "review" right under it, has 7 lines and calls it meandering trash ... and that's called a "review"? I agree that everyone's opinion is valuable in some way, and I do not wish to diminish that trashy review that much, but his comments need to be in an area where "opinions" are shared, not in a review section. AND, this is the problem with a "database" ... there is no one monitoring these things, and the general rule is that everything fits, regardless, and you end up with a lot of garbage in the middle of really neat and well done, reviews. The really good reviewer is not afraid to say that something is not great ... my examples would be something like GENTLE GIANT ... I like their stuff, but it is difficult to review without using the silly/bizarre and stupid "progressive" definitions, and say ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about the band and the music. It is not one of my favorite bands, but I will NEVER EVER not admit that their musicianship is probably the best in our whole/complete listing other than the King Crimson of these days. I think it's a matter of respect and love for the music. There are a lot of "progressive bands" that for my tastes are on the listing, but they do nothing for me, but I will never say that they are not worthy of their work, because if that were so they would not be there, or have tried. I have offered to help in this area, but there are many folks in PA that prefer to let things stay as they are ... I'm not sure that "cleaning up" is going to help, but basically, the listing is getting to long and repetitive, that it is just like another top ten out there, and as such, it will eventually die to the "forgotten top ten", because no one votes or listens to it anymore. All reviews should stick to the main listing of the albums ... period ... and not the re-releases of things, unless the "remastered" versions have something to offer, which, I would append to the main review, rather than create a completely different review. One example of this, and it is the hard part of all this, is Tangerine Dream, where some remasters are very different than the original LP's in the way they used to go around your ears ... in the LP's things always went left and right and right and left and then some ... in the remasters, these movements are behind your head and the sense that something moves across your head is not quite there, and for me, for example, took a heck of a lot out of "Mysterious Semblance for the Strand of Nightmares" ... and I'm not sure that this is good for the work itself, although I could say I have heard at least 4 different Turandot's and like them all, but none of them top off Renata Tebaldi. It is a topic that probably should be discussed, but before we continue, this place has to define ... DATABASE ... and ART .... because that is one thing I believe they are afraid to do.
Edited by moshkito - January 03 2019 at 06:42 |
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Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told!
www.pedrosena.com |
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moshkito
Forum Senior Member
Joined: January 04 2007 Location: Grok City Status: Offline Points: 17420 |
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Posted: January 03 2019 at 06:52 |
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The number of "collaborators" has dwindled because the very group here is not willing, to discuss and define who they could/should add to their listing. Not to mention that too many of those folks take things personally, and do not like one person or another, and continually find time to comment on that person, instead of accepting the different point of view ... and for this reason that person can not "collaborate" because he/she is not one of the kissers of the institution's main folks. These things will only last as long as the folks in charge want them to. Many can say that some of those folks are dwindling, and yes, many of us are getting older (I'm 68!), but heck ... guess what ... I got time on my hands! It is no secret and I think that it is in Sociology 101 at every school ... 1% of the folks control 99% of the money in the country ... and PA and database like things, have the same problem ... control by that 1% and sometimes, those folks change and it is then a democrat, and next year a republican ... and while we think things changed, in the end ... they are the same ... just forgotten!
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Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told!
www.pedrosena.com |
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Nogbad_The_Bad
Forum & Site Admin Group
RIO/Avant/Zeuhl & Eclectic Team Joined: March 16 2007 Location: Boston Status: Offline Points: 20789 |
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Posted: January 03 2019 at 07:59 |
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You don't want me reviewing it.
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Ian
Host of the Post-Avant Jazzcore Happy Hour on Progrock.com https://podcasts.progrock.com/post-avant-jazzcore-happy-hour/ |
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CJG wrote:
