How can I give rates to the records? - Progressive Rock Music Forum

Ivan_Melgar_M wrote:

rushfan4 wrote:

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

Until there we agree, please don't over simplify, but in a RwR the only thing that matters is the GENERAL AVERAGE, not who gave the individual rating, because all votes are worth the same, the responsible people as you and the fanboys who come to vote for their favorite band, so i will never know who rated which album for a valid reason if there's not a review

But as you mentioned the ratings without reviews are given less weighting so depending on the number of reviews the manipulation of the average rating could be minimal. Obviously, the lesser the number of reviews the more the opportunity for manipulation.

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.

That's where I disagree, for me a rating alone is worth almost nothing, because for one Rushfan who does an honest rating, we have ten trolls or fanboys.

Personally, I know of one collaborator who has the majority of his numerous ratings without reviews and as a result of exchanging PMs and talking to him in the forums I am quite comfortable with his tastes and his ratings. I agree that this is an isolated case, but since I spend so much time here talking with so many different people this would apply to some additional people if they were to just do ratings without reviews. Obviously, mine is a different situation then someone who just discovers PA and is looking at specific albums for the ratings and reviews and doesn't know any of the people here.

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.

Well, if somebody specifically is searching for your ratings, well, that could be a reason.

It could happen.

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.

The common visitor or the member who never joins that thread won't ever know it, includinng myself

Agreed.

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.

Not necesarilly, because i don't know the reasons why you rated Tin Scribble with 4 stars, maybe it's a valid one for me and i also like the album, I'm sure that if you rate Opeth high (I like the music, hate the growls), we won't agree, but if you rate Symphony X high with good reasons, i will probably give the album a chance.

I can't argue with that either, but the idea was that by looking at other albums in common that I have rated it might give someone who isn't familiar with me an idea of what my tastes are. And your right, my reason for giving a Genesis album a 5-star rating might be because I really, really like More Fool Me so much that I have to give it a 5-star even though I could take or leave Firth of Fifth. (hypothetical not reality).

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.

THAT'S EXACTLY MY POINNT.

If I read a 1 or 5 stars rating without review, I don't know the reasons, i don't even know if you even heard the album or just love the band, as a fact i know nothing about you with a simple rating

If I read a terrible 5 stars review of Foxtrot (even when I love the album) and says a lot of aberrations, i won't ever care again for that reviewer, but now with valid reasons and arguments enough.

If I see a guy writing an excellent review about Opeth saying for example "I don't like the growls, but the music is so outstasnding that I can resist the growls", I will trust this person, because I believe Opeth music is great, the voice is what i can't stand. probably the Opeth guy will have more in common with me, but i wouldn't know that until I read a review.

I once read a review of Nursery Cryme from a girl who said something like "Peter is so sexy that i have to rate it with ten stars"...As you will guess, I won't trust that person and most likely we have nothing in common (I assure you, I don't find men sexy ).

I assure you that I don't either, but I do have a thing for Peruvian attorneys who write in blue.

So, in my case, I hardly care who rated an album if there's not a review tio support it, and the site guidelines seem to point that way, because rwr weight almost noting.

I respect that and to this point I have not done any ratings without reviews here on PA. At times though I think it would be a service to "my fans" (hahaha) to "temporarily" put ratings on albums until such time that I get the bug to write. And to think that I could have wrote 3 reviews in the time I spent chatting in this thread.

Cheers

Iván

We're not so different in our views here, other than my thinking that there is a small place on here for ratings without reviews, but agreed that they have very limited uses.

Peace,

Scott