How can I give rates to the records?

 

Neither do I, as a fact I believe no Collaborator or member should do it, as Tony said once, ratings without reviews are mainly for members with problems writing in English.

 

Iván

 

You know Rico I'm an enemy of the RWR, because I honestly don't trust them, i don't know if the user has even heard the album, I read the reviews, I can't care less for the rating, but it's not my call.

 

It's also true I wouldn't join a site in Japanese or Russian, because I would be loosing my time.

 

As you say in your quoted post, I never read the RWR, because it's silly, I don't even knoww the name of the person, only an Internet nick, so..........What's the point of knowing that I'm_a_styx_fan rated The Grand Illusion with 5 stars?

 

Iván

 

I think that ratings without reviews come in handy in cases where you know the reviewer's tastes either from reading other reviews or talking to them in the forums.  I think they also come in handy when you are unfamiliar with a reviewer of a particular album but you can compare their tastes with another common album.  i.e. There is no need for me to write the 510th review of Close to the Edge, but since it is such a landmark album it might be a good idea to tell people that I think it is a 5 star album even if I don't have a new and creative way to write about it.  I have no idea if anybody else uses this comparison method or not, but I know that on occasion if I read a review on the front page from someone I am not familiar with and it intrigues me I will look to see what else that person has reviewed to see how their tastes compare with mine.  Obviously, a review with words will tell me more, but a rating might suffice in this instance too. 

 

 

If I am naive enough to believe the reviewer is following the PA review guidelines set forth on the review page then RWR's mean exactly this.

 

5 star = prog rock masterpiece

4 star = excellent addition to any prog collection

3 star = good, but not essential

2 star = fans/collectors

1 star = poor/for completionists only

 

 

As I have said numerous times in numerous threads, I do feel that a well-written review explaining the reason for a rating is far more valuable than a rating without a review.  But what I am saying here is a rating without review is more valuable than no rating at all.  My tastes aren't in line with many people here on PA, but there are a handful of people that are brothers from another mother or from whom I was separated at birth as we have similiar tastes.  For those people, it might be interesting to them to know that I think the Umphrey's McGee albums are all 4-star albums, or that 1 is a 5-star, 2 are 4-stars and 1 is a 3-star.   Sure it would be better if I had a review that said that the music made me feel a certain way, and this particular song blew my socks off, but until such time that I get around to writing that review, a rating without review would make a decent "temporary" placeholder.  Sure this rating may only be of any value to a select few people.  However, those who know my tastes from either reading my blog, or talking to me in the forums, or just seeing all the things that I am listening to in the What Are You Listening to Now?, thread there is that possibility that they might want to know what I think about some obscure album that they ran across and they remember seeing me listen to it.  And of course, they could always PM me or ask me in the forums what I really thought about it, if they know that I have heard it. 

 

For users who don't know me from Adam a rating without a review is probably virtually worthless. But for example, the album from Tin Scribble currently has 0 reviews.  One of these days I will and I should write a review for it.  If I were to add an RWR with a 4 star, that would mean that there was at least one person who thought that it was an excellent addition to a prog collection.  If you were to investigate my reviews further and see that I gave Opeth all 5 star RWRs and Genesis all 1 star RWRs, you would probably immediately come to the conclusion that my 4-star rating for Tin Scribble didn't mean that it was a 4-star for you, or at least it might make you skeptical about my 4 star rating. 

 

It certainly isn't an exact science, but neither are ratings with reviews.  I've certainly read raving 5-star reviews here on PA for albums that I felt were complete rubbish, and 1 star reviews for albums that I thought were quite excellent.