Something should be done about reviews!

When the sticky thread regarding Dream Theater appeared, telling that all pseudo Octavarium reviews have be deleted, I was happy.

I was hoping that this would not only be a single act to stop the DT flood, but also meant that moderators would begin to actually spend time clearing up all other mess, which, I'm afraid, is 20% of all reviews, at least.

Unfortunately, that was merely a single act. It was aimed at DT fans who are too lazy to write a review, at people who don't know how to write good reviews and at bandwagoner websites("hey look, dudes, look at this site, go there and give [album] [score]". And that was it. Bad reviews keep being submitted, and the moderators not only stop looking for them, but even avoid the reviews that are reported multiple times(!) in the 'report abuse' thread.

I am very disappointed in this website. It is not as balanced as we we would all want to: you see an album that gets only 5 star reviews, in which people claim this is the best thing ever and buy to hear generic crap, while good albums die after a few "terrorists" give them 1 star reviews and get away with it.

To somehow challenge those terrorists, this must be done:

1. Moderators should be more active.

2. Users should be willing to contribute and report every review that doesn't match the standards(which, I point out, is not just a number of symbols, but the actual way of reviewing something).

3. And finally, those standards for reviewers should be made.

I am posting this in the general forum, to get more attention of the users, to describe the problem to those who do not see it yet and discuss it.

Cheers,
Ronnie.

Edited by Gentle Ronnie

It is important to realise that Octavarium is not the only album people are reviewing too. The problems are much deeper than you expect.

I'm getting tired of reviews stating: "this is not prog, this should not be on the site" (see two recent reviews for Nightwish-Once). What is here stays here, get over it. And if you don;t like it, don;t express it with a zero or one star review.

As I said: the review should give the reader an idea of how this album relates to other albums of the genre. If the reviewer doesn't think that the album is prog ... well, my personal opinion is that he shouldn't review the album then.

The admin team are indeed conscious of the issues with some of the reviews at present. We're currently discussing the best way to tackle them.

salmacis wrote: That's good to hear, Easy Livin', as for a long time there were relentless 'Octavarium' reviews, and worse still all were 5 star- odd, as personally speaking, I found there to be little genuine progressive content bar the admittedly excellent title track. Whilst it's a very good record, it's hardly 5 star quality, showing that most reviews were just fan-boy material. Equally interesting is the 'best DT albums thread' on Prog Polls, where there are barely any votes for 'Octavarium'.

I'm pretty sure that the 5 star / fanboy issue is a general one, it is not limited to Octavarium, Dream Theater or even prog metal. It happens for any other album, too. How many 5 star reviews exist for Genesis albums, which were only written to compensate for some 1 or 2 star review ?

Edited by MikeEnRegalia

I agree.  I think some people have the wrong mindset.  In his review of Images And Words, Certif1ed said reviews aren't about how much we enjoy the album, but how "prog" it is.  THAT IS RIDICULOUS.  I wanted to smack him with a trout.  I thought reviews were supposed to be our opinions on the albums, with subjective and objective points to supplement our opinion?  If we were reviewing by how "prog" something is, and not how much we actually enjoy it....  UGH!!!  That PISSES ME OFF.  

"the Rating system here is not asking you to state how much you LIKE the album, more to give it an objective measure in terms of its progressiveness." - Cert1fied

DANGEROUS THINKING. 


Edited by Man Overboard

Reviewing is a highly subjective thing.Objective criteria for reviewing would be already 'given' in that the band actually know how to play to a reasonable standard (otherwise why are they playing prog??!) so none of the bands on the archive can be bad musicians.Ever heard a prog band with bad musicians?? (and no one better say ELP otherwise they'll have me to deal with ) .The only valid criteria for a satisfactory review is that you must demonstrate that you have heard the album at least once..and thats it.Then you say whether you like it or not in so many words.End of story.

Few weeks ago I started a thread of my reasons to review an album. Since it was put in the non music section only few had read it so I will summarize it again. I review only an album that I feel I fully understand and I love it very much. I try to focus in albums that I feel are not known enough to get some more attention to that album. Do'nt get me wrong I reviewed only 4 albums.

What I'm trying to say is that there is nothing objective here. Not for me and not for most others. If one wants to read proffessional reviews one can take melody maker or any other music magazine. People want to share their feelings about the music.

Now, I know some of those are written poorly or not to the subject. What I do is stop reading it and ignore it. So there are some bad reviews. Do'nt read those. What happened ? A specific album will get a slightly better or worse place in the top 50 / 100 list ? Who cares ? It is not the list that makes us buy an album or not. It's only a list and it changes from one day to another.

This is not a reason to be so disappointed ! Let Maani & others concentrate on exposing us to some more good music and not being our babysitters !

salmacis wrote: I do understand where you are coming from with these points, and am willing to defer on the admittedly touchy subject of 'prog' and 'not prog'. Another issue I had with the whole 'Octavarium' debacle was how quickly the 5 star reviews were dolled out- the album had barely been out a day or two, and this ultimately affected the judgement of the ratings, as progressive music really takes more than a few listens to really get under your skin- I think this point was made by a few forum members previously- I think Sean Trane and Easy Livin'.

Many people had downloaded the album weeks before it was released - and I'm not talking about the Elements Of Persuasion fakes. But fanboy reviews are an issue, that's obvious.