Inappropriate Ratings

Easy Money wrote: Maybe if an album is added before it goes on sale we should delete the addition rather than wait for the inevitable reviews that will have to be deleted. Seems to me we are going about this backwards.

Yes, I don't understand why we can't quickly solve this continuous problem. 

We either have a rule not to add albums until sale date (and quickly delete any that are added before the release date), or, we give up this other rule that says you can rate/review until that date.

Two options....let's pick one and move on!  Otherwise we'll driving Admin nuts with this same complaint until the end of time. 

Errm... yeah, right. That could work. Except that it looks a bit silly for 'The Ulmatimate Prog Rock Resource' to not be amongst the first to list an album on its site. Not very ultimate if others don't follow the same policy.

You have to figure that the ratings/reviews of people who pirate and listen are either going to be blatantly fanboy (5 stars) or blatantly hater (1 star) reviews for the most part. It might just be best to put a disclaimer saying we don't try to filter out all reviews before the release date, so take them all with even more grain of salt.

Anyone who's looking up the album before the date will know to disregard one star reviews (even more so for ratings) if they have any common sense.

And if there are well-thought out reviews of the album in any range that seem to be a fair appraisal of the album, there's really no reason for disregarding it anyway, before the release date or not. The chances of the tracks being wrong are not that high, and someone who couldn't figure that out before reviewing the album would probably not write a well thought-out review anyway. Disregard once more.

Not very many people review from CD quality tracks, anyway, and even more people listen to album rips of various bitrate quality, and that doesn't change after a release date.

The point is, we should filter for quality of reviews, before the release date especially. Just because an album was leaked 3 weeks before release doesn't mean that album isn't still a 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 star record.

You guys are missing something here. When an album is added to PA, there is prompt at the bottom of that album page that encourages you to write a review or rating for that album.

I think it is illogical to ask someone to write a review and then delete it.

Well don't be mad Jeff.  Just don't post reviews of albums until release date, as per the rules.  

Sure Jeff, we're past that one now, we all agree to put the album up early, but just realize it comes with an automatic encouragement to write a review, so people shouldn't be surprised if the album gets reviewed.

harmonium.ro wrote: snobb wrote: On their label site it was announced yesterday this album is officially on sales from Friday,Nov 12. http://www.profoundlorerecords.com/ So, all ratings (and even reviews - we have review)made before that date looks as not very legal? Yes, I didn't know this when I posted. They made the album available already because of the leak.

Yes,you right. But it doesn't change the situation - pre-Friday review and ratings all were done before official release date (happily from yesterday it not a problem anymore)

Edited by snobb - November 13 2010 at 11:19

I see the Agalloch reviews/ratings are still there.   Are they going to be removed?  Or are we going to change the policy to allow reviews prior to official street date?

Something has to give.  You can't have published rules that everyone just ignores.  If the rule sucks and everyone hates it, then lets change it.  Otherwise, let's enforce it. 

IMO the problem with such ratings (and sometimes reviews) is that often bands and/or their staff are watching PA, which is the case of Agalloch (especially considering they were interested to get a promo review from PA), and we don't want to look as a place where those who pirate gather. The best solution would be to close the rating/reviewing service until the release date and only allow real promo reviews upon request. And regarding the strong marketing done with promo items, I hope none of you actually believes those Agalloch ratings come from promo copies...