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Dean View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Dean Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 13 2013 at 15:15
I can't be arsed chasing hints and inuendo. If you have an accusation to make then make it, otherwise keep it to yourself.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote octopus-4 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 13 2013 at 15:18
^ I still don't see anything strage, even with the hint. He has joined yesterday, rataed a number of albums and written two reviews. I think the one of BBT is meaningful I don't know the Nemrud's album so I can't say, but even that review is not against the site's rules. 

You can always send a PM to the reviewer and have a "peaceful" discussion. Just click on his profile and send him/her a message.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote aapatsos Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 13 2013 at 15:25
^ yes nothing obvious from the review, he backs up his opinion

there is an issue with the Psychoanorexia album but Olav gave one explanation somewhere on this (or another) thread
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Horseradish Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 14 2013 at 13:31
Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:

I can't be arsed chasing hints and inuendo. If you have an accusation to make then make it, otherwise keep it to yourself.


I guess this thread may not be completely appropriate for the nature of my accusation, since it is only indirectly linked to the actual review, but I will make it anyway. Something similar has already been mentioned in the thread "Inappropriate Ratings" by user "brobin", but I guess there is no harm, if I share my own opinion on the matter.

The accusation is: ratings (which includes reviews) for Psychoanorexia are being rigged; bringing it up, as well as bringing the competition down. 

Here are some facts (all publicly avaliable):
- if the ratings with reviews wouldn't have weight = 10, then Psychoanorexia would have a rating of 2.9. Just to show how much of a difference do these reviews actually make.
- The 3 reviews, that didn't award it 5 stars have been made by users that have been on this site for a few years.
- The rest of the 27 reviews gave it 5 stars. They have been made by users who joined after the release of the album.
- Here are some additional facts about the 5 star reviewers: ~17 have only used their account for ~10 days (from registration to the last visit). 20 users wrote 1, 2 or 3 reviews. Out of 37 reviews, that weren't about Psychoanorexia, 15 were about its nearest competition (bringing their average down); and as far as I can see almost every rating without a review is also bringing down the competition (mostly with 2s and 3s).

Originally posted by aapatsos aapatsos wrote:


there is an issue with the Psychoanorexia album but Olav gave one explanation somewhere on this (or another) thread


He responded in the "inappropriate ratings" thread, saying the reviews have been possibly made by fans "to show support" because of a "heated sh*tstorm" of comments that were made in connection to a review from a german zine. Now, I agree with fans showing support for their favourite artists, but there are a few quirky things about this situation:
- if people were against the unprofessional opinion of a single german reviewer, why would they show their disagreement by going on another site, giving only 5 star reviews and sabotaging the competition (thus doing pretty much what they were against).
- if this was indeed only a reaction to that german review, why are these 5 star reviews still steadily coming in?


At the end, I would like to point out that I'm not accusing any specific person, but I do belive there is strong evidence of foul play. Also, I believe that whoever is responsible isn't stupid and realises the importance of not being too obvious; and the amount of effort that is being put into this, means that everything is very deliberate, aiming for the long term and being careful that actions against it would not be taken.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Windhawk Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 14 2013 at 14:21
Originally posted by Horseradish Horseradish wrote:


At the end, I would like to point out that I'm not accusing any specific person, but I do belive there is strong evidence of foul play. Also, I believe that whoever is responsible isn't stupid and realises the importance of not being too obvious; and the amount of effort that is being put into this, means that everything is very deliberate, aiming for the long term and being careful that actions against it would not be taken.


Well, if it is foul play you can rest assured about two things.

1. It's not instigated by the artist.
Besides being totally out of character, he's a family man with a full time job making music on the side. Instigating such a process with wife, kids and a job to cater for is, to put it that way, unrealistic. Besides, as noted, it would be totally out of character.

2. It's not instigated by the label.
His label is a one man affair, and unless I'm much mistaken this is also a situation with someone having other obligations besides the label stuff. He's also got a few other releases to promote, and a concert set-up to work with. And a festival coming this fall that still needs a bit of organizing.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Dean Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 14 2013 at 16:01
This whole affair stinks to high heaven. Being impartial, I think both "sides" are guilty of abusing our rating system. If it wasn't a mountain of work for me to deal with it I'd delete the effing lot.
 
This has successfully demonstrated that our ratings and charts are little more than a joke. Well done Schwanzköpfe.
 
 
When Mr "brobin" responds to my question about algos, blacksmith77, giles.on, grey.l, hamelprog, ivan.prektovic, lunasol, marrakesh, nahoum, origin of symmetry, pimko, powell86, ragingbull, seaoflight, sonicS, telen76 and titus1984 (we can now add "ombres" to that list) I may consider doing something about it.
 
 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Horseradish Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 14 2013 at 19:07
I don't belive there are 2 sides here. If somebody wants to avoid suspision, he would want to avoid going into extremes (i.e. giving only 5s), meaning he would try to aim for an even distribution of ratings. But one could ask: isn't this counterproductive? Not in the slighest. Firstly, as pointed out, it tries to emulate more of a "natural" distribution; secondly, the strenght lies in reviews and not blank ratings (these users don't have a single review on them, and if you think about it, even if there were twice as many of such users, they together would only count for 3 "review ratings"); and lastly (but most importantly) we must keep in mind, that the Average rating is only a part of an album's rank, the other one being the number of ratings - this is why it's not enoungh to just rise the quality of ratings, but also their quantity.

I checked all the (non review) ratings - out of 184 ratings, about ~120 have been made after the release of Psychoanorexia. That is almost 65%. Out of these accounts, only 4 had any reviews on them. And I can only imagine, that QWR would have been quite lower without them.

@Windhawk:

As I've already mentioned, I'm not accusing anyone directly. But despite the fair points you've made, it proves nothing. Not that it really matters, since it's probably impossible to find out who is behind this.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Dean Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 14 2013 at 19:46
Originally posted by Horseradish Horseradish wrote:

I don't belive there are 2 sides here. If somebody wants to avoid suspision, he would want to avoid going into extremes (i.e. giving only 5s), meaning he would try to aim for an even distribution of ratings. But one could ask: isn't this counterproductive? Not in the slighest. Firstly, as pointed out, it tries to emulate more of a "natural" distribution; secondly, the strenght lies in reviews and not blank ratings (these users don't have a single review on them, and if you think about it, even if there were twice as many of such users, they together would only count for 3 "review ratings"); and lastly (but most importantly) we must keep in mind, that the Average rating is only a part of an album's rank, the other one being the number of ratings - this is why it's not enoungh to just rise the quality of ratings, but also their quantity.

I checked all the (non review) ratings - out of 184 ratings, about ~120 have been made after the release of Psychoanorexia. That is almost 65%. Out of these accounts, only 4 had any reviews on them. And I can only imagine, that QWR would have been quite lower without them.
 
As an Admin I can read IP addresses of all the people who rated the album regardless of how clever they think they are being (clue: they are not), so I can assure you with the utmost confidence that there are two sides at play here and they are equally stupid. I could not give a flying fart what the ratings could be or should be by your calculation based upon your guesswork, the stats are f-ked up beyond repair because of the selfish stupidity of (probably) 2 or 3 people who are having a public pissing contest over who is the biggest dickhead.
 
 
 
So again I ask Mr "brobin" to come here and respond to my questions about algos, blacksmith77, giles.on, grey.l, hamelprog, ivan.prektovic, lunasol, marrakesh, nahoum, ombres, origin of symmetry, pimko, powell86, ragingbull, seaoflight, sonicS, telen76 and titus1984.
 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Windhawk Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 14 2013 at 21:00
Originally posted by Horseradish Horseradish wrote:


As I've already mentioned, I'm not accusing anyone directly. But despite the fair points you've made, it proves nothing. Not that it really matters, since it's probably impossible to find out who is behind this.


I've notified Thomas about the situation now, so if he knows or suspects who may be active he'll take action. We discussed something along similar lines back in April, when the sh*tstorm I referred to took place at a German site. That particular sh*tstorm has been deleted now - just checked that particular site - and suspect that this may be the reason for what's going on here now.

As well as some blogs and comments here and there such as this one that may well be the reason for why this is now the battleground of choice.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Atavachron Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 15 2013 at 01:21
^ That's a pity, it's a good if whiny article.   I write a similar column at GEPR and I never feel the need to cite particular venues.

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Horseradish Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 15 2013 at 04:35
Originally posted by Dean<div></div>As an Admin I can read IP addresses of all the people who rated the album regardless of how clever they think they are being (clue: they are not), so I can assure you with the utmost confidence that there are two sides at play here and they are equally stupid. [/QUOTE Dean
As an Admin I can read IP addresses of all the people who rated the album regardless of how clever they think they are being (clue: they are not), so I can assure you with the utmost confidence that there are two sides at play here and they are equally stupid. [/QUOTE wrote:




I disagree, one side is obviously more stupid, since it doesn't know that reviews count for 10 normal ratings.

All the cynicism aside, I'm glad it's now at least publicly enstablished that there is in fact a problem here. Too bad we will have to wait for Godot... erm


I disagree, one side is obviously more stupid, since it doesn't know that reviews count for 10 normal ratings.

All the cynicism aside, I'm glad it's now at least publicly enstablished that there is in fact a problem here. Too bad we will have to wait for Godot... erm Mr brobin to show up and get everything moving.

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Dean Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 15 2013 at 05:36
Originally posted by Horseradish Horseradish wrote:

Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:

As an Admin I can read IP addresses of all the people who rated the album regardless of how clever they think they are being (clue: they are not), so I can assure you with the utmost confidence that there are two sides at play here and they are equally stupid.


I disagree, one side is obviously more stupid, since it doesn't know that reviews count for 10 normal ratings.

All the cynicism aside, I'm glad it's now at least publicly enstablished that there is in fact a problem here. Too bad we will have to wait for Godot... erm Mr brobin to show up and get everything moving.

That there was a problem was never in dispute. The accusations levelled against the artist however, (by innuendo and insinuation), were unfounded and unnecessary. There is nothing linking Thomas Thielen, his management or his record label to any of this, circumstantial or otherwise.
 
And I don't expect to ever see Mr "brobin" on this forum again to be honest.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Windhawk Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 15 2013 at 14:09
After having taken a look at some of the havoc caused by the sad, sad people who have used this site for a battleground - one of them alone having had fun with almost 1200 albums (!) - is it possible to divide the ratings at some point? Where "official" reviewers and collabs ratings are separated out and other ratings/reviews is given a secondary slot? It won't stop the abuse, but at least it'll make the site look a tad better, and make rating wars such as this one at least slightly less "tempting" by those with that peculiar interest.

I'll also note that the click and rate function, while a nice service, is a helpful tool for those morons spending hours of their empty lives to cause this havoc.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Atavachron Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 15 2013 at 20:48
^ yes Click&Rate is outliving its usefulness

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote bonestorm Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 16 2013 at 20:04
Originally posted by Windhawk Windhawk wrote:

Where "official" reviewers and collabs ratings are separated out and other ratings/reviews is given a secondary slot?


One would hope it doesn't come to that.  The great thing about this site is that it's community driven, not the domain of a select few.  If the reviewers who aren't "official" feel that they are relegated to obscurity and no longer have a voice, I wonder if they will continue to post reviews.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Windhawk Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 16 2013 at 21:12
There is that. But when we have users mentally sick enough to haphazardly rate/review thousands of albums in a day for possibly dubious reasons, there's something about the trustworthiness of the figures that becomes problematic...
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote aapatsos Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 17 2013 at 15:56
at least it seems that the reviews for Psychoanorexia were somewhat true, here is a review from a non-troll Big smile
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Dean Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 17 2013 at 15:59
Ermm dave-the-non-troll.
 
 
I like it...
 
 
 
 
 
 
LOL
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote aapatsos Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 17 2013 at 16:09
^ hey, never meant to make it sound that way... ShockedLOL
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Windhawk Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 17 2013 at 17:30
Originally posted by aapatsos aapatsos wrote:

at least it seems that the reviews for Psychoanorexia were somewhat true, here is a review from a non-troll Big smile


Once my long review of this one is up on progressor, I'll toss in a few words to the stars I've given it here too.

It's not an album everyone will like, just to note that down for the record, but rather one of those productions that will come with a higher percentage of 1 and 5 star ratings than ordinary in the first place.

One where the dividing line between like and dislike is a tad firmer than ordinary if you like.
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