Reviews.......?useless

Quite right Peter, and in fact I have been doing that. I can't stop those reviews appearing, but I check every new review within a day or so. Any which do not comply with the guidelines or which do not make sense, I  edit leaving them as rating only reviews, or delete completely and e-mail the reviewer inviting them to submit a compliant review . I'm also retrospectively going through all the old reviews to weed out the ones which simply should not be here.

A number of the members are helping me with this in the "Inappropriate reviews" thread, and their help is really appreciated.

It's worth saying again here though. If anyone notices an inappropriate review (one which does not comply with the guidelines), especially an older one, either add it to the "Inappropriate reviews" thread, or drop me a PM.

Thanks!

Inappropriate reviews thread => http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=3317

Peter wrote: Of course, really crappy/garbled reviews could be deleted, with a form PM that says: "Sorry -- your review was not up to Archive standards."

Peter, when I stated out on moderating the reviews I had a standard e-mail which said pretty much just that (PM's can't really be used as there's often no connection between the reviewer name and the forum name).

I found though that I was getting quite a few angry and hostile responses. I rapidly changed the e-mail to a much more conciliatory text (still saying I've deleted the review though!), and it's had a much more constructive effect.

cobb wrote: Very good breakdown Sean, but when playing with your paintbox remember it may be a grey background that your message is displayed on, depending on which alternate background color your post arrives on in the query result. I'm still trying to get my eyes back in focus after reading the green.

(Sigh.)  I have no new solution to the "too many stars" thing, except my old, oft-repeated, but always roundly-dismissed one: drop the stars altogether, and let the reviewer's words do the talking! Many reviews elsewhere are written this way. Music can't be mathematically quantified in 20% increments, anyway.

Of course, that suggestion will be ignored, as always ("But Peter, the stars are valuable for the attention-span impaired!") and the problem of albums being casually over-rated by those who can't even write a coherent sentence will persist. 

Of course, really crappy/garbled reviews could be deleted, with a form PM that says: "Sorry -- your review was not up to Archive standards." That is how you build a database of respectable, useful, quality reviews. Do we REALLY need thousands upon thousands of reviews that are all but unreadable, and which would have no hope in hell of being printed in any paper-based music mag?

And why, in heaven's name, do we retain reviews that are obviously written via a computer translator? Merely for their "humour" value?  Bah!

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Re the hard to read coloured text, Cobb, yes, the writer should take the time to select a legible font and colour, but when he doesn't, simply click and drag your mouse over the hard to see text and voila -- there it is, much easier to read!

Try it here.Or here. Or here. Or even here!

A lot of people only rates the albums they love, and they feel like giving 5 stars to them. Sometime, they rate an album they absoltely hate with 1 stars, review, or no. I guess they rarely really takes the time to talk about the albums they do like a bit, or not to much.

Or maybe some just doesn't have a wide knowledge of prog, so everything they rate is everything they know (so the best). Some who know over 1000 albums can easy categorize each albums he know (like Mr. Chantraine, over this post).

You can't make people vote the way you want them to vote. So why even try to enforce that? It's necessary to remind people to think again before choosing the 1 or 5 star ratings, but other than that there's nothing anyone can (or should) do.

It doesn't matter anyway, because in the end the average rating reflects the popular opinion. And for 5 fanboy reviews at least 1 or 2 "hateboy" reviews will be made with 1 or 2 stars, resulting in an average rating in the area of 4 stars. And if not ... well, then I suppose the album might be really that good.

it may be my opinion, as to which albums are truely great, but given that there are a limited number of old 70s bands in prog rock, and that each of them has a (sometimes) disputed heirarchy of albums, it shouldnt be that lesser works by a band aquire 5 stars. Take the pink floyd for example. Now however you look at it dark side of the moon was their apex. Because; it set a newlevel for others to aspire to, it was a quantum leap forward from all that had gone before, and lastly (perhaps unimportantly) it was commercially sucsessful. Later albums, wish you were here, animals and the wall were great creations, but their root was dark side of the moon, the seminal floyd album. A similar state of affairs exists with In the court of the crimson king, which some might say was the first truely prog album. Although you may prefer red, The court was the template for, and inspiration for an entire genre of music. Do I need to continue?

We have been here before but it is worth reiterating a 5 star album really has to be special. I believe the reviewer has to provide something in their review to justify it. And 5 star for new releases, means to me the reviewer has he (possibly her) head up their arse. Prog rock in particular needs time to be digested and then time determine whether it has the element of timelessness.

Somebody had evidently been busy because of a number of reviews earlier this week on the site front page, that one person gave 5 stars to every album. 5 stars at Progarchives' review pages should be far more meaningful, than say 5 stars awarded at Amazon. The UK magazine Jazzwise also has a 1 to 5 star rating system, and in it 8 years of existence I only remember seeing 2 albums receiving the full accolade of 5 stars (and the magazine review 30+ albums every month). However, there the 4 star award  is subdivided  into "4 stars"  for fans of the artist/band, "4stars, strongly recommended" for fans and folks who don't know the band.

BTW the inclusion of Francis The Mute in Q/Mojo's Prog Top 40 during this summer, along side proven long term classics, showed the chart had weaknesses.

^ Do you mean Certif1ieds review?

He's a respected reviewer, even if I hardly ever agree with him!

Sorry, 5 stars seems fair for such a benchmark prog album! Its possible to give Octopus 5 as well, whats the problem?