Bellcurves

fandango wrote: I think the only answer is for all of us to give very great thought before assigning a '1' or a '5' to an album.  Lets face it if you are used to giving out '5's liberally, where do you go if an album completely bowls you over and changes your life forever?  Sadly, this chart doesn't go all the way up to 11! '0's ought to be banned altogether, as no album in this archive is worth of such censure; its just disrespectful. My personal preference would be have a 1/2 star sytem, as I have rated all my albums at home, with the vast majority coming between 3 and 4.5 stars.. but I appreciate that might be a bit complex and controvertial.

I don't think anyone could disagree with you about giving alot of thought to assigning a 1 or 5. I did a review on Close to the Edge that I have heard heaps of times and seen heaps of reviews on but I still had to think for a fair while about giving it a five. There will come a time, no doubt, in the years to come when some of our favoured albums at the top will be threatened (some already are)

I just don't understand what was happening with the ratings because at one stage Octavarium ( I really like DT by the way) had jumped to number 13 or something and then it went down to 49. How does that work???

With all the discussion on PA about people assigning ones and fives to the same band and that some reviewers may be rating without much thought, is it possible to have some kind of system that eliminates fairly, at least some of the top and bottom end scores to give an overall picture. For example if a band has scored 100x5 - 15x4 - 0x3 - 1x2 and 5x1 then the lower scores would appear to be an aberration which would be somewhat unfair to leave there so for each 1 a 5 is eliminated etc so it would be 95x5 - 14x4 - 0x3 - 0x2 and 0x1 ( Something like that anyway)

Or is this what is done already. It is kind of like the way Uni's tend to use a bellcurve except I don't think the way they do it is entirely fair. Some uni's will limit the amount of HDs in a course, based on statistical evidence.

This is only a suggestion obviously and I hope any discussion would be accepted in the manner in which it was intended. To improve what already is a very good site.

I think I have discovered  a new psychological illness as well:

Post traumatic flame disorder