Forgive me if a similar topic has been posted on another subforum. I felt that this was the most appropriate forum for the topic and wasn't able to find anything similar using the site's search feature.
Upon visiting the site today, I noticed the inclusion of another sidebar for "most popular album." I think this space could be better used for other ideas for several reasons.
It's not terribly difficult to see why this feature if a problem if you look at the album currently featured. Not to bash Dream Theater or any of the band's fans, but there has been contention in the past based on the overexposure of this band on this site's forums. Not only that, but the album currently featured is popular as a result of numerous reviews based on
unreleased, leaked content. I think that, in a sense, having a leaked album as the "most popular album" inadvertently encourages the site's users to download leaked content, which to my knowledge is blatantly in opposition to the ProgArchives' rules.
Why is a feature like this even necessary? It's not hard to find current popular albums just by looking at the forum sidebar or browsing the forum. There have already been eight topics created based on Systematic Chaos.
Further, I think having a link to encourage writing a review for the most popular album is flawed as it serves to perpetuate said album's status as most popular album. No other album on ProgArchives at the time receives the same exposure.
Instead of having a feature for the most popular albums, maybe instead we should do the opposite: have a weekly feature for the more obscure gems out there by less mainstream bands. I don't submit this as a original idea either. I realize that it's been discussed in the past, but for whatever reason it has been discarded. In comparison to the current system, it would require very little extra effort. I would tentatively recommend the following scheme:
- Set up a separate forum where only collaborators and perhaps prog reviewers could can post new threads similar to the current book/misc review forum.
- Have a weekly post on this forum where a specific album is discussed.
- For inclusion, an album must have less then twenty reviews and have either a >4.0 rating (easier) or be prior discussed by collaborators (more time-consuming, but probably more effective).
- The main page sidewindow could be nearly identical to the current "most popular album" except for minor text changes and the addition of a link to the appropriate forum thread.
Nearly every visitor of ProgArchives is aware that Dream Theater and Porcupine Tree are two of the most popular modern prog bands and that they're currently releasing new albums. I think a large constituent of this site's userbase uses the site to explore new, unfamiliar, and often obscure music. Thus, I think that the idea of discussing more obscure albums would be both more sensible and exponentially more useful to the users of this site than what has currently been implemented.
Maybe I should have made this two topics...
Any ideas?