Prog Archives weighted rating system

On the one hand this system is excellent as it minimizes the impact of people throwing crazy ratings around without and writing to justify their decision and rewards people that spend time writing about their opinions on the album. 

Yeah, we don't need everybody to write a detailed review of how the album was built and presented historically! If two or three people put it in its context, that's enough. Part of the beauty of this body of reviewers is that all sorts of different angles are used while writing. I read through ten reviews, chances are I will get one detailed historical review, a few based on what people find themselves liking or disliking on the album, a few comparing the music to other musics, and so forth. Just because you don't feel like you fall into this "more literate" category doesn't mean that what you write won't be as or more powerful for a number of readers!

Besides... reading that above paragraph, you have no room to claim a lack of literary or expressive talents. Just give some reviewing a shot! At first, you'll write fairly lame ones. Everybody does. But then you'll find your rhythm and your style, and you'll be contributing so much more to the site than simply more weighted opinions.

^ Good observation Marty. And I concur about your reviews 

Arrrggghhh. I have written a very long, difficult review only to have it disappear when I tried to post. Then I started messing around with the rating system by giving a list of albums one star to see if the ratings changed (trying to understand if I was just prohibited from reviewing). This prompted a deservedly concerned private message, and now I can't find any method to undo the arbitrary ratings! 

MMA has half star system. It's really nice but personally we need to start going to quarter stars if you ask me.
It's just too difficult to choose between 3.5 and 4 sometimes!
And I've been thinking of writing shorter reviews actually. More an emotional and not analytical thing.

Then again, I am a progger and love the self indulgence and over the top, and since I still don't see any real impact, (unless the album has like 3 reviews) I'm gunna keep it verbose!

Gandalfs Mother wrote: ...  Often this means that I will only give an album a rating and not a pointless 100 word review, as a result my opinion is either 5 or 10 times less important than others according to the websites system.  ... This is merely an observation.

Edited by moshkito - August 18 2010 at 20:36

Nathaniel607 wrote: Marty McFly wrote: Yeah, some people told me that they like my short reviews exactly because they're short. I'm not so good on writing longer reviews, so this is why I'm writing 150-300 word long ones. By the way, weight of left column is 10, right column 5 and rating only 1. So your review is only 2 times less weighting than of Collaborator, not 5 times. That's good, isn't it ? Interesting! Yeah, I think long reviews in genereal usually go on a bit... I reckon 100-300 is good for a short review and 300-500 medium and 500-700 long.

Thanks. Long reviews are important. For example I love Klaatu's Hope album. Well, especially title song. So I want to read everything I can about this particular song and I can do that only from these detailed reviews. To see how it affects other, or is it just me in love with this song.

Gandalfs Mother wrote: On the one hand this system is excellent as it minimizes the impact of people throwing crazy ratings around without and writing to justify their decision and rewards people that spend time writing about their opinions on the album.  I always see these lengthy well written reviews that put the album in context and give history and talk in length about each song whereas I never seem to be able to find enough to say about an album other than which songs I like and don't like which is pretty boring. Obviously some people are more literate and expressive than others.  Even if I really love an album and want to review it I really don't know what to say and find it hard to write much more than "This is excellent! Listen to it for yourself and find out..." Often this means that I will only give an album a rating and not a pointless 100 word review, as a result my opinion is either 5 or 10 times less important than others according to the websites system.  This is merely an observation.

100 words isn't that many, your post is 183 words and three short paragraphs, that's 45% longer than the minimum length required for a review.