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IMO Length of Reviews should be 500 words or less.

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Dr. Occulator View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Dr. Occulator Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: IMO Length of Reviews should be 500 words or less.
    Posted: Yesterday at 14:32
I don't know if anyone agrees with me or even thinks about this but I find some of the reviews of prog albums to be mind-numbing long!
I feel someone should be able to do a very insightful review at 500 words or less.
If I start into a review & see it goes on & on while I scroll the pages then I don't read it.
Does anyone else feel this way and would it be a good idea for the administrators to advise on an adequate length of a review.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote octopus-4 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: Yesterday at 15:10
It depends. Unfortunately since the advent of the web we are getting less used to read. Reviews, as well as journal articles or even e-mails are contestualised. We read the first lines trying to guess the whole content, but sometimes we are completely wrong.

The length depends on the writer. One can get bored after few lines or read a 300 pages novel in 2 hours. Of course you can't occupy the whole home page, neither if you are a Nobel prize winner for literature (like Bob Dylan ...)
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Hrychu Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: Yesterday at 15:14
I think it's fine the way it is. What I'd like to see implemented is giving the reader the option to sort reviews from newest to oldest, so that the old ones (a lot of which aren't up to today's standards) are at the bottom.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote progaardvark Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: Yesterday at 15:40
I think it would be neat for someone to write a review where they use every single English word one time. I think that would be around 170,000 words and might take about 10 hours to read.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Syzygy Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: Yesterday at 15:46
I don't have an issue with longer reviews, but in general I find 300-500 words is enough for most albums. I admire those who churn out lengthy track by track analyses, but I rarely have the patience to wade through them.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote MikeEnRegalia Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: Yesterday at 15:53
I'm a big fan of short "blurbs". At AP the maximum length for those is 300 characters, which forces reviewers to be really concise. I also enjoy reading lengthy reviews for releases which I know well, but when I am looking for new releases, I prefer blurbs or shorter reviews that focus more on why someone likes the release than on describing the music in much detail.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote moshkito Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: Yesterday at 17:06
Hi,

Tough subject, and it ends up being about the person as a writer and how that person sees the music.

I'm not a great fan of the current trend of "NO READING" that comes with the Internet, and lots of folks think that a blurb is better, and I won't disagree with Mike on this ... a well stated blurb goes a long way, however, I tend to think that at times there is something missing ... it feels just like the state of the art in music ... everything has to be short and sweet and end the story.

The downside of short and sweet, is that we do not always find out who/what the person/artist is really about, and it is much easier for a blurb to misinterpret the whole thing, than a more detailed and complete review.

I come from the time of the "movie reviews" and how many well known folks have done in terms of reviews ... I find it weird that the Internet has no room or attention for reviews and in many cases won't even bother to find out if they are good/bad/interesting ...

I, believe or not, do not write for length at all ... but I like to let go and just write and sometimes it is long and other times short, and it was a situation where a decision was made to make it so and so and so and so!

The sad days, for me, is that it is hurting the art form a lot ... more and more folks want the simplified Cliff Notes version of a review so they don't have to read, and reminds me of my days at University when we had to read about 10K per quarter for almost all literature classes, or a lot of the classes where information was a major issue ... and nowadays, regardless, you're not going to learn a whole lot about the depth of a piece of music in a blurb, I don't think ... it will get the general feeling and idea, but not the more complete thought and idea about the work. On top of it, even more significant is the idea that a long piece of music is going to have issues here, because so many folks like the simplified version ...

Reminds me of the old days in FM radio history, when the long cuts got LP's cut up in parts so the DJ that never listened to music anyway, could play their favorite part, and ignore the whole thing ... let me tell you that seeing this for CTTE and TAAB is very distasteful and (for me) insulting to the artist ... and I want my review to me on par with the art, and for me a blurb is difficult, though I have been using them on JMA.

I, rarely, do piece by piece reviews, and tend to find how they all fit into one album, instead which would be more interesting for me.

Edited by moshkito - Yesterday at 17:08
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Logan Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: Yesterday at 18:21
I think people should be able to write long reviews if that suits their style and feelings more. One can read the reviews or not. I commonly like reviews on the shorter side, but some of the most interesting, heartwarming and entertaining I have read have been essay length. Some people like ones that are just straightforwardly informative, and I can like those too, but quite often the ones I've loved cause an empathetic reaction in me in having sense of how the music makes the reviewer feel and might take me on a little journey into their experiences and psyches. I also tend to enjoy reading through quite long posts to seeing the very short ones. If people were paid to submit reviews than I would expect stricter controls on what the publication thinks the consumer will appreciate. Ultimately, I like to see a variety of lengths and styles, but I tend to like the reviews (and posts commonly) that I find more thoughtful and personal at places like this.

Edited by Logan - Yesterday at 18:37
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote kenethlevine Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12 hours 31 minutes ago at 11:13
Well said Greg, I concur
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote rushfan4 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12 hours 5 minutes ago at 11:39
Originally posted by progaardvark progaardvark wrote:

I think it would be neat for someone to write a review where they use every single English word one time. I think that would be around 170,000 words and might take about 10 hours to read.
Very interesting. 170,000 seems quite manageable. I thought that there were millions of words in English. LOL I assume that this 170,000 count doesn't include all of the different versions of the words. i.e. a word like define is only counted once, so it doesn't include versions like defined and defining, etc...


I had never really thought about this before. A Google search stated the 170k count that you mentioned. The Webster dictionary had this:


How many words are there in English?

There is no exact count of the number of words in English, and one reason is certainly because languages are ever expanding; in addition, their boundaries are always flexible. Consider such words as "cannoli" and "teriyaki," which come from other tongues but are established through use, context, and frequency as English. There are many other thorny considerations that complicate the task of counting individual words and tallying up the language in that way. For example, are all of the inflected forms of a word–for instance, "drive," "drives," "drove," etc.–one word or several separate words?

Similarly, there are twelve different words with the spelling "post" entered in Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged; they all have different parts of speech or derivations. Should these twelve be considered one word for the purposes of our reckoning? Some scholars would insist the distinct forms of "post" only be counted once, but others consider each one a separate word that should be counted individually.

Another puzzle: should "port of call," another Webster's Third entry, count as a word, even though each of its components is entered separately?

It has been estimated that the vocabulary of English includes roughly 1 million words (although most linguists would take that estimate with a chunk of salt, and some have said they wouldn't be surprised if it is off the mark by a quarter-million); that tally includes the myriad names of chemicals and other scientific entities. Many of these are so peripheral to common English use that they do not or are not likely to appear even in an unabridged dictionary.

Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged, together with its 1993 Addenda Section, includes some 470,000 entries. The Oxford English Dictionary, Second Edition, reports that it includes a similar number.


Edited by rushfan4 - 12 hours 1 minutes ago at 11:43
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