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Why did they get rid of the top fifty band list? |
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AFlowerKingCrimson 
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Joined: October 02 2016 Location: Philly burbs Status: Offline Points: 18301 |
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 Topic: Why did they get rid of the top fifty band list?Posted: November 27 2024 at 17:25 |
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On this website on the front page there used to be a listing just above the subgenre list (I think) that had the top 50 most searched prog bands on this site. It seems to have disappeared maybe back in June I'm guessing. I first noticed it a couple of months ago or so but I think it disappeared before then. When did they move it and also why?
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Logan
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Site Admin Joined: April 05 2006 Location: Vancouver, BC Status: Offline Points: 35948 |
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Posted: November 27 2024 at 17:48 |
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I don't know why M@x did away with it. It might have been putting too much strain on the server, especially with all the bots (and scripts) involved, and that can lead to some manipulation to get bands into it. I don't recall seeing it for over a year, but I don't visit there that frequently. Here's a snapshot of it from 2023. https://web.archive.org/web/20230703023856/http://progarchives.com/
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moshkito
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Joined: January 04 2007 Location: Grok City Status: Offline Points: 17529 |
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Posted: November 27 2024 at 18:35 |
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Hi, In all honesty, I much prefer that it did not list "top" anything ... as it tends to soften the attention on the bands listed further down the listing. I think that the idea, might have been a good one, to make sure that all bands got better attention than the ones listed as "top" ... I'm quite alright with the preferences, but a numerical listing with your "favorite" at the top, again, hurts the rest of the list ... I started listening to one list, and only got to about 10, before I quit ... too many things that were ... copies, let's say ... with nearly the same "sound", and "ideas" for what "prog-rock" is. Not to mention of some old rehashes from a few known bands. I would like to see some more folks with different and totally eccentric/eclectic listings ... so that some of us folks, have a different choice of things to listen to.
Edited by moshkito - November 27 2024 at 18:37 |
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Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told!
www.pedrosena.com |
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Easy Money
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Honorary Collaborator / Retired Admin Joined: August 11 2007 Location: Memphis Status: Offline Points: 10618 |
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Posted: November 27 2024 at 19:45 |
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I think it had something to do with current bands purposefully clicking on their page so they could be in the top fifty. Some of the top fifty bands were looking pretty suspicious as to how they got there.
Edited by Easy Money - November 27 2024 at 19:46 |
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MikeEnRegalia
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Posted: November 28 2024 at 00:56 |
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Maybe the top of the list is really better than the tail end? In any case, in a space where there are thousands of "competitors", ending up in the top 50 should not be perceived as hurtful by any reasonable artist.
Talk about double standards. First you complain that people only focus on the top entries in the list and then you do the same?
Dude, it's your choice! If you do not make it, you only have yourself to blame. Seriously, you can't scroll down the list?
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Jared
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Joined: May 06 2005 Location: Hereford, UK Status: Offline Points: 19333 |
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Posted: November 28 2024 at 01:45 |
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It's got to take some dedication by an artist to want to spend time manipulating our system, in order that the 12 forum members who visit, might see their band's name hidden amongst the other 49 more familiar ones and by chance decide to click on them out of mild curiosity?? If they are prepared to put in the effort for so little pecuniary reward in return, we should be giving them a medal!
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Music has always been a matter of energy to me. On some nights I believe that a car with the needle on empty can run 50 more miles if you have the right music very loud on the radio. Hunter S Thompson
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Cristi
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Crossover / Prog Metal Teams Joined: July 27 2006 Location: wonderland Status: Online Points: 43739 |
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Posted: November 28 2024 at 02:03 |
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Manipulation or not, i thought it was a good thing that new bands or newly added bands ended up in that list, it was a chance for them to be discovered.
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moshkito
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Joined: January 04 2007 Location: Grok City Status: Offline Points: 17529 |
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Posted: November 28 2024 at 07:39 |
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Hi, I, just about, listen from the bottom up ... but it's hard to not notice the lists ... they are not my preferred idea ... but it doesn't mean it is not right or OK to post it ... it's just not my "thing".
Mike, if I could create a list that made sense I would ... the problem is, that I can not separate the many different things at all ... to me the music is an endless movie, and I can not separate different chapters, or ideas in it. And a jazz album, right next to Kate Bush, right next to Klaus Schulze, right next to Korgis ... and I can see it now ... Mike's comments ... and Mosh's list doesn't make sense!
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Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told!
www.pedrosena.com |
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moshkito
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Posted: November 28 2024 at 07:44 |
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Hi, This is where I would not be sure that they had a "chance" to be noticed, or discovered ... since, from my experience from meeting many writers way back when, including famous ones, and later a lot of musicians ... none of them thought that someone, or something, was important ... they all concentrated on their work, and knew that they could not influence, or think about a list here and there as more important than the rest. I kinda worry that many folks, that are internet-drunk, think that anything that is posted on the Internet is important, and we know, how much stuff is fake, bad news, and on top of it, gross lies that are being ignored in so many elections in the USA. It only makes it harder to appreciate a list, in my book ... and that has nothing to do with Mike's work at creating a list or anyone else's. In general, the artist has to worry about their work, not the list ... and we have to make room for that!
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Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told!
www.pedrosena.com |
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Cristi
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Crossover / Prog Metal Teams Joined: July 27 2006 Location: wonderland Status: Online Points: 43739 |
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Posted: November 28 2024 at 07:47 |
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Not at all what i meant.  As usual you overcomplicate things up to 11.
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Sean Trane
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Posted: November 28 2024 at 08:48 |
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Something I've suspected... either bands or fanboys. It's something M@X would've tolerated (I think), since that accounted for traffic/activity on the site. ========== However, I believe (nothing sure) this band page link disappearance had something to do with loading page speed... It (disappearance) happened more or less around the time when posting had become complicated/difficult for a lot us and a solution was finally found - even if the DB frontpage and the forum are theoretically +/- independent.
Edited by Sean Trane - November 28 2024 at 08:50 |
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let's just stay above the moral melee
prefer the sink to the gutter keep our sand-castle virtues content to be a doer as well as a thinker, prefer lifting our pen rather than un-sheath our sword |
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richardh
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Joined: February 18 2004 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 28070 |
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Posted: November 28 2024 at 09:06 |
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I'd forgotten about it until it got mentioned in this thread. In general I would like to see a list of bands based on ratings. It could cover all their albums (so would Genesis and Yes actually be that high ultimately?) .I get fed up with seeing the same list of prog albums all the time. God, if a website ever confirmed the notion that prog is dead then it has to be this one!
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Logan
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Site Admin Joined: April 05 2006 Location: Vancouver, BC Status: Offline Points: 35948 |
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Posted: November 28 2024 at 11:25 |
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Haha, the front page (not the forum) does geta huge amount of action, but so much of this site's action is from bots and you even get bot-on-bot action, which sounds kinky. I've known people who created scripts that would keep clicking on something with less personal gain. It's not like one has to do it manually every time. I think there has been lots of abuse when it comes to trying to get an album as the most popular album on the homepage "MOST POPULAR ALBUM (last 24h). I think that is based on page hits too? If so, then trying to manipulate the 50 popular albums would also lead to it being the most popular album of the day. if you look at the webarchive screen shot from lat year that I linked to, Big Big Train is the second highest listed popular of the 50 and its album Ingenious Device is the most popular. Not surprising at all, mind you. But I think the impetus might be more about trying to get it as that top album. Some people do go to great lengths for recognition. of course we have had much ratings and reviewing abuse from people to try to prop up albums. While I remember people complaining about this, I do think the issue was more (or really) about streamlining due to server load, time-outs... |
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Floydoid
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Joined: April 02 2007 Location: Planet Prog Status: Offline Points: 1554 |
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Posted: November 28 2024 at 11:54 |
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The site certainly seems less sluggish and suffers fewer server time-outs since that feature was disabled.
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'We're going to need a bigger swear jar.'
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AFlowerKingCrimson
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Joined: October 02 2016 Location: Philly burbs Status: Offline Points: 18301 |
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Posted: November 28 2024 at 11:59 |
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I agree. Most of the really well known bands (PF, Genesis, Yes, King Crimson, GG, VDGG, etc) were always there but the others (mostly newer) would come and go. I would often click on the ones I wasn't familiar with. It could be a good way of discovering new bands. It's too bad some people (members of some of those bands) apparently abused it. |
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moshkito
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Joined: January 04 2007 Location: Grok City Status: Offline Points: 17529 |
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Posted: 16 hours 10 minutes ago at 21:23 |
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Hi, In my ISP days, I lived with an Admin, and he knew his work, and still does it at a very high level. At the time (1998/2004) the bigger issue was that email was getting invaded by a lot of spam, and in the end, it could not be "stopped", even though most of it was spoofed silly ... and then some and a lot of European places were some of the locations where a lot of it came through ... the problem was that if you filtered most of that down, the mail server would bring your mail to you some 24 to 48 hours later ... until a better way to take down the viagra (for example) spam was found. The only thing I could not understand, was how something that could not be "validated" and was "spoofed" was allowed to get through ... it is much better today, but 20 years ago ... it was not fun. Abuse ... is another story, and I don't know, or have ideas of how to handle it. Nowadays, "abuse" is thought to be very good political ideology that brings folks to the forefront and gets them elected in America, as there is no alternative publication that has enough credibility to stand up to the abuse ... as an example, how can we criticize some folks for doing this and that when Microsoft and Apple do the same thing on their computers ... only that one is "accepted" and the other is NOT. Until we resolve that issue, I doubt we can fix it.
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Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told!
www.pedrosena.com |
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Hrychu
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Joined: November 03 2013 Location: poland? Status: Offline Points: 5369 |
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Posted: 16 hours 6 minutes ago at 21:27 |
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Edited by Hrychu - 16 hours 6 minutes ago at 21:27 |
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On the day of my creation, I fell in love with education. And overcoming all frustration, a teacher I became.
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moshkito
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Joined: January 04 2007 Location: Grok City Status: Offline Points: 17529 |
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Posted: 5 hours 17 minutes ago at 08:16 |
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Hi, I'm curious ... why delete the whole thing when you could EASILY tell that one person did this ... ban the email address, and person, and remove all the numbers! Instead we get something done that likely hurts a lot of honest musicians and folks ... sure that person is going to get a gmail address, or hotmail ... lock those addresses out automatically!!! And force the person to have a proper email address ... Based on my ISP experiences, I always thought that too many reactions were knee-jerk reactions ... though I'm not an admin, and am not exactly in that area ... so the comments might not exactly be the right ones. One of the sites that was heavily spoofed, was a hub in Italy back in the day ... and I suggested lock the place out ... and was told, that would be an issue for a lot of the Internet traffic as they were the main route from Africa and the Middle East to Europe ... I thought that taking them down, would force them to clean up their thing, but it wasn't going to happen. So spoofing through them got worse for 5 more years, and then it finally started coming down some ... spoofing is still around, but mail servers are not going to be able to deal with it ... some thought IP6 was gonna help, but in the end? Same thing ... and a lot of folks STILL don't want to use IP6. |
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Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told!
www.pedrosena.com |
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AFlowerKingCrimson wrote: