Collaborators’ TOP 20

JrKASperov wrote: threefates wrote: I don't!!  ELP is way underrated, BSS should be in the top 10 and Trilogy is missing.  That in itself is a sin!! No.

No what?

Thanks, MAX@.

Well, regarding your second question, I think my opinion is known, but I also understand Easy Livin's concerns.

Is there some way we could protect against the spamming that Easy Livin thinks may be a possibility? For example, only include star-ratings from non-Collaborators if there is an associated review of at least a certain length? Only disclose the results to members of the forums?

Whatever is done, I think it would still be useful to have the Collaborators' TOP 20/50 as a separate list, if for no other reason than to give some recommendations to newcomers from the 'official' site reviewers. But as we've seen in this thread, the Collaborators tastes do not appear to be an indication of the tastes of the larger population.

When I get time I'm going to think about the algorithm. But I'm convinced that averaging is not the best way to do it: it does not make sense to me if an album has, say, ten 5-star ratings (average = 5 stars) and then someone adds a 4-star rating (average = 4.91) and the album drops in the ratings. Easy Livin might counter by saying that adding e.g. a 2-star review should not raise an album in the ratings, and he might also be right. But if Album1 has more 5-star and 4-star reviews than Album2 (as in the example I quoted in an earlier posting) then, to me, even if Album1 has more 2-star and below ratings, Album1 is the more popular. I say this because more people like Album1 than Album2, simple as that. But I'll give the algorithm some more thought.

MAX@ wrote: "Should we count all ratings by collaborators and non-collaborators ?" MAX@

I still say no to that one Max. I know at first it seems a bit elitist, but I retain my concerns about spamming when it becomes known that all votes count. (And rest assured it would, the bulletin boards on the various band sites would soon have notices on them saying "vote for our band"). Until we collecively come up with a reasonably foolproof way of doing it, I say stick with what we have.

Fun, it is!

But, as I think we both agree, the comparison of averages is problematic:

Album 1 has 20 5-star ratings => average = 5-stars

Album 2 has 60 4-star ratings => average = 4-stars

Which of the above two albums is more popular?

I think the number of reviews needs to be a factor. And I think that the more people/reviews are included, the better (i.e. the bigger the sample, the more interesting and representative the result).

I need to think some more about this (interesting) problem!

Easy Livin,

If you look at my original suggestion for the TOP 20 (see hyperlink below) you'll see that I discussed the algorithm and mentioned the problem of extreme cases.

http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=697

One of the reasons I ruled out just using averages was for the reason you point out. (Another reason is that it does not allow differentiation between the hundreds of albums that would have the same average rating.)

If you look at "Train Of Thought" you'll see that it *is* popular:

33 5-star ratings; 9 4-star ratings; 11 3-star ratings; 5 2-star ratings; 8 1-star ratings.

Compare that with "Dark Side Of The Moon":

28 5-star ratings; 2 4-star ratings; 3 3-star ratings; 1 2-star rating.

So, from the above, to me "Train Of Thought" *is* more popular than DSOTM whichever way you look at it. And addressing your comment about the number of people who have rated it, the fact that more people have rated it is, in itself, a possible indication of popularity.

When I checked the "real" TOP 50 list in June, it was a good reflection of popularity, i.e. the 'extreme case' scenario seems not to occur in practice.

threefates wrote: I don't!!  ELP is way underrated, BSS should be in the top 10 and Trilogy is missing.  That in itself is a sin!!

No.

James,

I think the TOP 20 (which can be expanded to a TOP 50 by clicking on a link at the botom of the list) *is* important. Not to you or me perhaps, but to new visitors to this site who are looking for information on the genre and would like to discover more about it. It is conceivable that someone visits ProgArchives who has little knowledge of the genre but wants recommendations on which albums he/she should buy to 'get into' the genre. The TOP 20 list is a good - and simple - place to start.

That's one of the reasons why I suggested a TOP 10 to MAX@ in the first place, although I wanted it to be based on *all* of the thousands of reviews posted in the ProgArchives, not just Collaborators' reviews, but was overruled on the basis that spammers might try to influence the rankings. I find the Collaborators' TOP 20 much less interesting than a TOP 20 derived from *all* reviews posted, because it's much less indicative of the true popularity of albums. Back in June this year the TOP 50 based on *all* reviews, not just Collaborators' reviews, looked like this:

Column 1 : RV
Column 2: Nb. of rates
Column 3: CD ID
Column 4: CD TITLE

477 159 3777 Train Of Thought
336 84 1827 Close to the Edge
288 72 1510 Selling England By The Pound
264 66 1829 Relayer
260 65 1672 Scenes From A Memory Metropolis Part II
244 61 1662 Images And Words
244 61 2 Foxtrot
224 56 1440 Dark Side of the Moon, The
224 56 1825 Fragile
212 53 1828 Tales From Topographic Oceans
204 51 1511 The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway
196 49 1443 The Wall
196 49 3 Nursery Cryme
192 48 1903 In the Court of the Crimson King
188 47 1911 Red
184 46 1826 The YES Album
184 46 328 Mirage
180 45 329 The Snow Goose
180 45 1441 Wish You Were Here
180 45 1442 Animals
168 42 1512 Wind And Wuthering
164 41 1433 Piper at the Gates of Dawn, The
164 41 2019 Thick As A Brick
160 40 2448 Trespass
160 40 3070 2112
160 40 330 Moonmadness
160 40 5 A Trick Of The Tail
156 39 1438 Meddle
156 39 3076 Moving Pictures
156 39 2177 The Power To Believe
156 39 2018 Aqualung
152 38 3073 Hemispheres
148 37 1513 Second Out
144 36 1437 Atom Heart Mother
144 36 1995 In Absentia
144 36 1909 Larks' Tongues in Aspic
140 35 1914 Discipline
140 35 2022 A Passion Play
140 35 1666 Awake
140 35 1623 Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence
140 35 327 Camel
136 34 1905 Lizard
136 34 1872 Brain Salad Surgery
132 33 1754 Script for a Jester's Tear
132 33 1831 Going for the One
132 33 3075 Permanent Waves
128 32 1833 Drama
128 32 1863 Tarkus
128 32 621 The Seventh House
128 32 890 Misplaced Childhood

It's much more interesting - and representative - than the Collaborators' TOP 50 in my opinion.

Anyway, back to my original question at the beginning of this thread, I'm glad to see that most of you agree that Collaborators ratings should not be counted in deriving the TOP 20 unless the rating is accompanied by a review.

And to diddy, who asks "...what should a 20 year old proghead tell THEM about Foxtrot just to name an example?" I would say: "Anything you want!" In my opinion reviews should focus on the music and how you feel about it, so that anyone who does not know the album (well, or at all) can decide whether or not it is worth getting. You don't need to be an expert in GENESIS or have been to GENESIS concerts to review "Foxtrot". So don't worry, diddy, write your review of Foxtrot and any other 'great' albums. Tell us how the music moves you, what it makes you think of, how it sounds to you, etc. Us old farts are also interested in the opinion of youngsters!