Affinity for Reviewers

Greg W wrote:     Then let me explain by referring you to a band called Acuity. There are approximately 3 reviewers on this cd. The total would come out to 8 stars divided by 3 reviewers, which should come out to 2.66, however it shows 1.79. Why is that? Could it be that the elitist Collaborators have decided their reviews mean more than us commoners. It would seem that way to me.   The elitist collaborators decide NOTHING, this options are taken by the owners and administrators team, they are who decide who is a collaborator and who's not and what policy the site is going to follow.   Then I thought, well maybe they don't count those reviews done by people who only rate it without an essay. So, I did the math again and it comes up 2.5 stars, and yet it says 1.79. So how much importance have the collabs given themselves? Is it 2 times the amount. No, that works out to be 2 stars. Actually it seems to be 3 times the amount or very close to it. That kind of honesty? No thanks, I'll read the Guest reveiws, thank you very much.   The Collaborators have proven to be reliable and most important, they are responsible for what they write, if a Collaborator writes crap, the Adms will find him/her while a guest reviewer is not easy to find always.   Collabotarators (mostof them) use their real names besides the nick, so that is more responsability and the site knows who they are, while a guest reviewer can change nick 25 times and rate an album 25 times, something that has happened already.   But again Collaborators are not giving more importance to them, we have no decision on the policy of the site,   Read the Prog Reviews reporting thread and you will find more than 90% of the reviews deleted are from guest reviewers, very rarely a Collaborator writes a review that has to be checked.   Collaborators have written many reviews before being called to work for the site (Free work BTW), so there are reasons to trust more in most of them.   Iván

Edited by Ivan_Melgar_M - September 06 2007 at 22:39

Greg W wrote: ( I used the term generically. Of course I am referring to the admins as well.   Yes, but Collaborators decide nothing and Administrators sacrifice a lot of quality time wityh their fanmilies to be here.    ( If it is a crap review, just delete it. Don't worry about chasing them down)   Do you volunteer to check all the reviews daily? Only two Adms are in charge of checking thousands of reviews, so it's not easy to search them all despite the effort they do.    ( I fail to see the point here. Is that supposed to reflect honesty? Once again, it doesn't matter. If the review is crap,just delete.)   Againm, it's easy to say delete them, but it0's hard to read each and everyv review every day.   ( Either way, someone is resonsible for it, collabs or not, I don't find it fair)   Well, that's the policy of the site, we can't decvide anything, we have to accept because at the end we are all guests of the owners.   ( Yes, but the ones that remain have been deemed legitimate and therefore don't deserve to have their reviews lessened in value)   No that nmmeans only a few flawed reviews have been found.   So they have the time, and people such as myself do not.   Well, we do a lot of sacrifices to collaborate here, the decison of the Adms and the owners is to give us some more confidence because we make this extra effort.   And believe me, it's not easy for anybody, Icome from my office and instead of spending quality time withj my family I'm here chating with HT to check the new bands, Bob is in a cold hotel room, witth his lap top helping us and James keeps awake until 5 or  6 am to chat ith us.   Some collabs have very narrow tastes and rank many such stuff that is good as posh, just because they are incapable of expanding their horizons or are  unable to get into certain genres.   That's another reason to give the Collaborators more trust, most of us don't dare to review or rate anything we're not familiar with. I never rated a RIO or Post Rock album,i simply don't understand them, almost 50% of my reviews are about Symph bands because that's the area I'm more familiar with.   I, myself cannot get into KrautRock and if I review them, I would have to give them 2 stars or less...would that be fair?...no. SO I would never rate any Krautrock as I am unfit to do so as I just don't get it. So, as far as trusting one  group of people over another,   Well, in my office I have personel that i trust more than others, they have clearence to check documents the others can't even open, the trust is gained with time and work.   I disagree as tastes vary and I think Collabs would be more apt to give bad reviews on music that doesn't suit their tastes over others. Or , I should say, those reviews are likely to stay inside here because they were well written.)   That's part of it, Adms and owners choose Prog Revioewrs because they like their style more, the owners own the site, they can decide who to trust more.   BTW: lately i don't review very much because I'm busty with the Symphonic Team, and I never asked or cared about the weight of my reviews, i write them because I enjoy writting them, despite they weight 1 ior 10.   Iván

Greg W wrote: Well, in the end the powers that be may make all the decisions of what is valued or not, but I still have freedom of choice of what reviews I choose to read. I was mwerely trying to explain WHY...   Greg

Well your thoughts came over very poorly and made you appear bitter and twisted,I'm sure that wasnt your intention Greg.
There are many reasons why the overall rating system favours Collabs/Prog Reviewers amongst them:

*Reward for service to the site
*Incentive for members to "move up the ranks"
* to fight the practice of guests giving inflated scores to albums to give them more prominence


I am sure Greg understands this, he just likes to rock the boat occasionally.

Yes each one of us has our favorites no doubt Greg but as collective whole we are very diverse. (One of the reasons it takes so long to come to some conclusions)  But from each ones varied experience and taste we represent a broad spectrum of progressive rock music.  It is very true to say the sum is greater than the parts in our case. As long as we leave egos behind us we do good service to the site and its readers.

Greg W wrote: What do you mean Tony? You were one of those guys with narrow taste in music I was referring to...... There are fanboys, yes, but even Collabs are fanboys to someone, so albums tend to be inflated at times anyhow.

Well anyone giving 4 stars to Acuity's album seriously needs their own credentials scrutinising....

That singer is atrocious....

Greg W wrote: What do you mean Tony? You were one of those guys with narrow taste in music I was referring to...... There are fanboys, yes, but even Collabs are fanboys to someone, so albums tend to be inflated at times anyhow. I will say Collabs take their reviews more seriously and at least try to remain impartial. Many Guest Reviewers need to be watched like a hawk, but those reviews that are accepted should play more credence. 3X or thereabout seems a bit high. That is all.   You were right about one thing. I do like to rock the boat. That felt good. Like old times.

You may be somewhat right about collabs/admins being partial to certain bands, but there is evidence of them being objective regardless: Tony is a well-known (don't deny it Tony!) Rush fanboy, but the mean average of his reviews of Rush albums is only 3.2 stars. Easy Livin' has been known to sing the praises of Mike Oldfield, but his 30 reviews add up to an average rating of only 3.3. I arguably have written more about Kansas than anyone on these archives, but my 29 reviews add up to only a 3.1 average rating of that band.    So I think there's at least some evidence to indicate we are capable of objectivity.

As for Acuity, 14,997 members here have never commented on them, and of the three reviews one was a coolab who explained in detail why he gave it one star; one gave it three with no explanation at all; and you gave it four stars three years ago with a comment on this very thread that this was probably inflated.

From my seat in the bleachers it seems as if the rating system is working pretty well.

^^yes, excellent reviewing by Febus.  I've been planning on getting into Barclay James Harvest, one of the "big" bands I've yet to explore, and I began reading his reviews as they appeared on the homepage, seemingly everyday.  As a result, "BJH Live" is on my order list followed by Once Again and EiEE. 

It takes a certain kind of perspecitve to systematical review an entire catalogue that way.  Very good

Shakespeare wrote: Shakespeare wrote: There's this one guy on here, I don't see him often, but his reviews express exactly my feelings. Shakey? Shaxpoo? Something like that.... You wouldn't be referring to me, by any chance?

Yeah! YOU! You rock, man!

I've always wondered: Who the heck is Drain-O??? He's rated like 2345345556777 albums, and has given very few (if any, I don't know) reviews. I need a personality to match the screen name!