Dropping the Rating System
Printed From: Progarchives.com
Category: Site News, Newbies, Help and Improvements
Forum Name: Help us improve the site
Forum Description: Help us improve the forums, and the site as a whole
URL: http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=135326
Printed Date: July 27 2025 at 02:46
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 11.01 - http://www.webwizforums.com
Topic: Dropping the Rating System
Posted By: TSoP2018
Subject: Dropping the Rating System
Date Posted: July 25 2025 at 03:55
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Not a bad idea also for ProgArchives: https://www.dprp.net/features/2025/dropping-the-rating-system |
Replies:
Posted By: Hrychu
Date Posted: July 25 2025 at 04:02
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I can dream but the geekiness level of the aging Progarchives community makes them too stubborn to let go of the numeric ratings. Alas. I also wish Prog Polls would wither away one day in favor of more elaborate discussion about which album or band one prefers. The countless fruitless discussions, like this:
I'm kinda tired of this cliché, honestly. ------------- 
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Posted By: Grumpyprogfan
Date Posted: July 25 2025 at 05:26
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Nope. It would exclude those who don't want to write reviews and want to rate only. There are many people here that English is not their language and they can't write reviews, so their opinions would no longer count. Also, there would no longer be "top" lists which are useful for me and someone new to prog. DPRP reviewers usually rated everything 9 or 10 out of 10, so it makes no difference that they no longer do it. |
Posted By: richardh
Date Posted: July 25 2025 at 06:06
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This is well worth taking on board regardless of whether PA loses the rating system or not. I would just hide all the ratings so that lists can be generated for ease of use but the number is rendered unimportant. The lists don't even need to be ranked but perhaps could be shown in alphabetical order or order of release. COPIED DIRECTLY FROM THE SITE: Pros and Cons So we decided to take a look at the pros and cons of having a rating with every review and see what other options we could think of. As we did with every change we made to the site. On the pro side of a rating system, we found that people would have a quick summary of a review. When you read a lot of reviews from a certain reviewer, you get to know their taste and can therefore compare to your own and get a quick impression from a single number. The negative side started with the same point as for the positive side: people would have a quick summary. The danger is that some people only look at the rating. That's not what we spend all that time listening and writing for. But more importantly, all the other points on the negative side focus on the meaning and value of the rating. We realised that there is a danger of rating inflation. When a reviewer finds the second album better than the first, they are inclined to give it a higher rating. But what if the next is even better? A higher rating then has less meaning. If we use a rating, that single number should reflect something, mean something. We quickly realised different reviewers had different ideas about that, even with a proper description. A 6 means different things, based on the reviewer. In our system, a 6 was still a nice album, although hardly anybody saw it like that, and a 6 was often taken as an insult (most likely because of the rating inflation mentioned above). The discussions following a certain rating (even higher ones that were not regarded as high enough) have taken a lot of useless time. When a reviewer likes an album, they will rate it with a high number. When they do not like an album but they think a lot of people would like it, they might still give it a high rating anyway. This means the objective and subjective parts of a rating are not consistent. A rating is given by a single reviewer in a single point in time and in a certain mood. Someone's taste can change (mine certainly has), and their mood changes even more often. So ratings are very likely to change. If you're really interested in what other people think of an album, having a weighed average of a lot of people makes a lot more sense than just one. You're welcome to check out RateYourMusic or Progarchives, of course, where they do averages from more people. Our process of reviewing is just completely different. Which is perfectly fine, of course. Looking in the past, new reviewers have had a tendency to hand out a 10 rather quickly. We've all been there, and most if not all the reviewers I've talked to about this all have regrets on some of their 10s. What I thought was an absolute future classic at the time, didn't stand the test of time at all, or was surpassed by a better album. |
Posted By: Valdez
Date Posted: July 25 2025 at 06:32
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How about only rating if you write a review as well? ------------- https://bakullama1.bandcamp.com/album/maxwells-submarine |
Posted By: Hrychu
Date Posted: July 25 2025 at 06:38
The truth is, Progarchvies is written English, the world's current Lingua Franca. You might whine about Eurocentrism, Colonialism, Anglosphere Imperialism, yadda yadda, all you want, but you can't change the simple fact that English is the de facto Lingua Franca of the world wide web. All the band biographies, menu text, forum guidelines on this website, the Progarchives, are in English. If somebody failed to learn English, the Lingua Franca, (which, trust me, allows for many opportunities and helps in communication between people from all over the world and it's not just for agruing with other nerds on Progarchives) on a basic enough level, so they can't express whether they like some album or not, then sorry. That person should not be on an international website in the first place, and instead perhaps focus on a local space, designed and optimized for the speakers of whatever their native language is. I think that Progarchives wouldn't lose anything valuable without a few ordinary/uneducated people (or bots?) leaving a vague numeric-based quasi-opinion. If anything, it will gain from it, getting rid of the fluff. -------------
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Posted By: Floydoid
Date Posted: July 25 2025 at 06:39
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For a long time now I've been of the opinion that the ratings/reviews system should be restricted to members with a status of at least Forum Senior Member. This could help prevent potential abuse of the ratings system, and make the ability to award ratings an earned privilege and not an automatic right. I do believe however that you should be able to rate albums without necessarily writing a review. ------------- "Christ, where would rock & roll be without feedback?" - D. Gimour |
Posted By: TSoP2018
Date Posted: July 25 2025 at 06:42
| At least this would be a better option than the current situation, where anyone can click on any releases, giving a rating, without knowing or even having listened to their music. |
Posted By: Guldbamsen
Date Posted: July 25 2025 at 06:52
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I find it verging on the absurd having to assign a numerical value to art…which incidentally was the hardest thing for me to do back when I wrote reviews; slapping a rating on X album. Feels so weird to me. On the other hand, implementing this on an old site like Progarchives seems impossible unless you start over. ------------- “The Guide says there is an art to flying or rather a knack. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.” - Douglas Adams |
Posted By: Grumpyprogfan
Date Posted: July 25 2025 at 06:55
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Posted By: Hrychu
Date Posted: July 25 2025 at 06:57
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Posted By: Finnforest
Date Posted: July 25 2025 at 07:06
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Not gonna happen here. Been discussed before. I believe Max loves the ratings. But try not to lose sleep over this issue. The upside is that the ratings are weighted so that they mean little unless you contribute. Ratings with reviews are weighted much more than just ratings. Ratings from collabs who have worked on the site are weighted much more than non-collabs. I think I remember hearing that the ratings without reviews are weighted so low as to be essentially insignificant in the average rating of an album. Max set up the ratings using "weight" so that the serious contributors have the greatest impact on the average ratings, not the drive-by clickers. I should emphasize the above thoughts are just based on my sketchy memory of past discussions. If what I wrote above is incorrect in 2025, chalk it up to my memory's failings or my lack of paying attention on official matters that have changed since my "plugged in" days.  ------------- https://www.youtube.com/shorts/sQD8uhpWXCw" rel="nofollow - It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood...Road Rage Edition |
Posted By: yam yam
Date Posted: July 25 2025 at 07:57
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^ Spot on, Jim. Rating only: Weight = 1 Review by basic members of the site : Weight = 10 Review by PA Collaborators : Weight = 20 |
Posted By: lazland
Date Posted: July 25 2025 at 10:23
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I understand why Max & others like the rating system on a site such as PA. For those albums where a significant number have reviewed/rated, it is a pretty good guide to how they are perceived or thought about in the community. I took a decision not to have scores on my website from the off. DPRP are simply playing catchup! Of more concern to me is allowing all and sundry to post reviews. IMO, the first ten reviews submitted by a new member should be vetted before being published. ------------- Enhance your life. Get down to www.lazland.org Now also broadcasting on www.progzilla.com Every Saturday, 4.00 p.m. UK time! |
Posted By: Nogbad_The_Bad
Date Posted: July 25 2025 at 10:43
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You can all talk about this as much as you want but it's extremely unlikely Max is going to change anything so I'd suggest we all learn to live with it. ------------- Ian Host of the Post-Avant Jazzcore Happy Hour on Progrock.com https://podcasts.progrock.com/post-avant-jazzcore-happy-hour/ |
Posted By: Floydoid
Date Posted: July 25 2025 at 10:56
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^ Yes indeed, and any fundamental change to the ratings / reviews system is going to be practically impossible to implement. ------------- "Christ, where would rock & roll be without feedback?" - D. Gimour |
Posted By: Psychedelic Paul
Date Posted: July 25 2025 at 11:23
You won't be surprised to hear I like PA's rating system just the way it is. After all, no one takes my ratings seriously anyway - least of all me - thereby making them ripe for mockery, especially when it comes to underrating Frank Zappa's many albums.
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Posted By: Steve Wyzard
Date Posted: July 25 2025 at 15:18
| I actually like & enjoy PA's current rating system, but I will once again take the opportunity to insist it would be greatly improved if all ratings from those who haven't visited the site in, say, 15 years were eliminated. Why is my vote today considered equal to the vote of someone who may be dead, or who just stopped by the site for a brief period, voted, and then vanished? |
Posted By: omphaloskepsis
Date Posted: July 25 2025 at 15:31
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The rating system is the main reason I frequent PA. That said, disposing of the rating system would save me money. |
Posted By: TSoP2018
Date Posted: July 25 2025 at 23:53
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In my opinion, a rating should be combined with a review or a short comment. Allowing compulsive rating without any rules or limits makes the rating system itself worthless. For example, if I'm not a fan of Primus, then I can give 1 to all their releases without explanation, and that's ok? |
Posted By: Cristi
Date Posted: July 26 2025 at 00:01
Who says there aren't any rules?!  Compulsive rating?! I don't know what it means. Rating an entire discography a 1 star is rating abuse. Same for rating it 5 stars. Because both things do not make sense. 
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Posted By: TSoP2018
Date Posted: July 26 2025 at 00:59
with "compulsive" I meant in bursts... a lot of ratings during the same day, too many to be objective. In any case, if you are happy, I'm happy. |
Posted By: Cristi
Date Posted: July 26 2025 at 01:05
ok, thanks for explaining.
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Posted By: TSoP2018
Date Posted: July 26 2025 at 01:11
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Just a suggestion: only rating a maximum of 3/day rating and review no limit Simple, no? |
Posted By: Sean Trane
Date Posted: July 26 2025 at 01:47
Yup, their way to have a bad rating was to ignore it and not review/rate it at all. 
PA takes care of that in a way. Reviews count 10x more than a review-less rating.
This is tooooooo tempting, but I will resist
Again, PA takes care of this issue, with the weighing factor. Registered or PA-accredited Collabs reviews are worth three times the outsider reviews. At first, it can seem a little unfair, but generally good reviewers are noticed and invited to "join up".
Again PA took care of this by not making it a strict quality rating: our 5 stars system is about the album being of a usefulness (or "essentialness") to include it in your collection. Hardly perfect, because the 197th album of TFK, Buckethead or King Gizzard will simply not be "essential" to a good prog collection - unless that's the only album of theirs you/they own.... in which case, one can wonder just how qualified the reviewer is. ------------- let's just stay above the moral melee prefer the sink to the gutter keep our sand-castle virtues content to be a doer as well as a thinker, prefer lifting our pen rather than un-sheath our sword |
Posted By: Sean Trane
Date Posted: July 26 2025 at 02:31
In the halcyon days of PA, much debate went on behind the curtains about the rating system. Including not only the rating scale, but worthiness of the reviews as well and we came up with this weighing scheme (10/3/1) We even implemented a 0 stars rating (which either meant avoid at all casts or simply n/a (not applicable) or n/o (no object)), which lasted one year. We also implemented that the rating space should come below the review space (still the case nowadays) For years, we also asked M@X to implement the half-star ratings, but he claimed it was not possible under the software used for the database. AFAIAC, while not really looking at the ratings, it has the merits to set apart the good/excellent albums from the bad/cruddy ones very quickly and therefore saves much time, effort and money. ================== For me, outside colours & tastes, the main problem is that we don't rate the same way.  Personally I rate upwards or downwards from an average album (which should be 5/10 or 2.5/5 or 7/15 in the Gnosis scale >> in any case, it should be the middle value). Most of our personal and collective ratings should be espousing the Gauss bell (look it up) and extreme ratings (5 stars or 1 star) be almost exceptionnal. Now of course, most of us will not be taking time to rate average albums (I try/tried to do so in Gnosis) and only concentrate on what we love or loathe. That trend alone is skewing the stats rules foundations. The majority are average or medium releases, and should be ranked as such. 5  albums ratings should be - if not rare - carefully used, simply because "masterpieces" are not to be found around every street corner Of course, in terms of arts, can normal statisticians maths rules applicable? Obviously no... but our top lists systems is based on this statistics bible. Which is why I simply don't even look at these top lists (though I do have an idea of what's on it), but I'm in the clear minority in this isue. =============== The odd contradiction on my part is/was that my fave "prog" site is/was a ratings-only site, but there it was the pannel of raters that interested me most, because the members were somehow carefully selected on their seriousness and general or specific tastes (neo and metal fans were not part of the pannel). So yes, in a way, it was a closed circle and the older members' updating visits were getting rare (still alive?). Gnosis' main attractiveness was (IMHO) its collective force, though the individual raters' rates were easily consulted. But the site's rating side is down (for one year now), and the chances of its 20/25 years-old software being transferred to someting more actual are dwindling (only one person left to administer it) every month or so. . ------------- let's just stay above the moral melee prefer the sink to the gutter keep our sand-castle virtues content to be a doer as well as a thinker, prefer lifting our pen rather than un-sheath our sword |
Posted By: Mellotron Storm
Date Posted: July 26 2025 at 23:16
I remember the discussions about having half star ratings back in the day, which I liked the idea of, but to start that years after this site has been established didn't seem like it would work to me, unless you started over. I love PA worts and all. ------------- "The wind is slowly tearing her apart" "Sad Rain" ANEKDOTEN |