Reviews discussion

Finnforest wrote: dtguitarfan wrote: darkshade wrote: Maybe it's time PA made me a collaborator.  Good luck. I was told "Prog Reviewer" status came about "more or less automatically" after a certain number of reviews...doesn't seem to be the case.... With all respect, openly stating that you purposefully break the guidelines of the rating system and/or manipulate ratings is probably not the way to be promoted.   Why would we give extra weighting to someone who gets off on breaking the site ratings guidelines?  Not that I have any say in who gets promoted.  Just an observation from a fellow member.

Jeez, you took that overly seriously.  I will have you know I give 5's out to albums I actually love.  I just happen to love music more often than most people, apparently.  I find it a little annoying, actually, when I come across these people who only give out 1 five star review in, say, a hundred, because they feel it's SUPPOSED to be rare.  EVERY album on this site has a few 5 star ratings.  So if I love something, I want it to do well, I want it to get attention, etc., I'm giving it a 5.  It's not manipulation - manipulation is when someone goes in and gives every album by one artist a 1 star rating.  Did you seriously listen to every album after finding out you loathed the artist?

Hey, if they don't want to give me Prog Reviewer status, it's their loss - apparently some people thing my writing is good enough as I'm now being published on a site where they DON'T just let anyone who wants post reviews on their site.  It would be nice if they did give me the status here, but I'm not gonna fight for it now.

dtguitarfan wrote: darkshade wrote: Maybe it's time PA made me a collaborator.  Good luck. I was told "Prog Reviewer" status came about "more or less automatically" after a certain number of reviews...doesn't seem to be the case....

Collaborator and Prog reviewer are two different things. I write reviews too randomly to be a PR. But I'm always willing to help make the site better by updating album/band pages, etc.

darkshade wrote: Maybe it's time PA made me a collaborator.

Good luck. I was told "Prog Reviewer" status came about "more or less automatically" after a certain number of reviews...doesn't seem to be the case....

Give it up, ds, we all know you are notorious prog hater Jeff Goldblum in disguise. 

Actually, I think it's the other way around, Failcore - as I understand it on PA every single band must be voted in. This slows things way down when most or all of the collaborators don't know anything about the band. On MMA we're kind of on the honor system - if you're absolutely 100% sure where a band goes you can add them no questions asked, and just report your activities. But if there's any doubt you're supposed to put it up for a vote. It's this way on MMA because there's a lot of work to do right now. Also, while it may look like we have a lot of collaborators, if you look at some of their profiles you'll see a lot haven't been active on a while, sadly. So, sometimes we are a lot faster than PA. Sometimes not so much.

Over at MMA, there is a different outlook I think. We only get a few thousand hits a day, so we need more attention. So we want to get the artists and albums up as soon as possible because if you get a review up close to the release date, the band posts a link on facebook or twitter or what have you, and there's potential for raising the number of hits the page gets. So by all means, take your time getting artists up over here.

dtguitarfan wrote: darkshade wrote: dtguitarfan wrote: Seriously, this makes me mad because I would've loved to have received a promo copy of this and if I had, I would've taken more time and put a lot more thought into my review: http://www.progarchives.com/Review.asp?id=763909 Agreed. The guy clearly listened to it once, with low expectations to begin with. Actually, I was talking amongst the collaborators over on MMA and it's highly possible that this guy didn't listen to the album at all.  I mean, I've talked to people who actually professionally write reviews and Roadrunner is NOT giving out promotional copies.  And if you read the guy's review, he says NOTHING.  Not a single piece of information that couldn't be made up without having ever listened to the album.

ExittheLemming wrote: ^ cheeky beggar. I've removed the offending sentence entirely so it will no longer count as a written review and sent him a PM (shame really as he's clearly a good writer and knowledgeable about music)

what makes you think that?

^ cheeky beggar. I've removed the offending sentence entirely so it will no longer count as a written review and sent him a PM (shame really as he's clearly a good writer and knowledgeable about music)

Citizen Cain - Skies Darken
this writer tries to be extra funny, just look at the last sentence ...
I'm not sure if this fails the guidelines, a doubtful behaviour at least ... I do hate such an approach