Will there ever be an added .5 star rating? - Progressive Rock Music Forum

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Easy Livin View Drop Down

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Posted: October 23 2007 at 10:03

Never say never Peter

Peter

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Posted: October 23 2007 at 18:38

Easy Livin wrote:

Never say never

Isn't that by Romeo Void? Just what are you trying to tell me?

I might like you better
If we slept together
But there’s somethin
In your eyes that says
Maybe that’s never
Never say never

Hmmm... odd song choice, Bob's Yeruncle. Are you trying to suggest there's another, EASYier way to get what we want around here?

"And, has thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'
He chortled in his joy.

Easy Livin View Drop Down

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Posted: October 24 2007 at 04:06

Well I'm certainly not "sleeping" with you in order for you to find out!

No hidden message intended, but past experience has shown that things can change and move on quickly in these parts.

mystic fred View Drop Down

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Posted: October 24 2007 at 04:28

maybe this could work better... 5.0 Essential: a masterpiece of progressive, Prog-related or Proto-prog music. 4.5 More Excellent addition to any prog/related music collection, or any damn Rock music collection for that matter!
4.0 Excellent addition to any prog /related music collection
3.5 A little bit better, but again non-essential 3.0 Good, but non-essential
2.5 Collectors/fans only. 2.0 Some ardent Collectors/fans only.
1.0 Poor. Only for some completionists 0.5 Worse than Poor. Only for obsessive completionists with money to waste on Ebay.

Edited by mystic fred - October 24 2007 at 04:42

Prog Archives Tour Van

Easy Livin View Drop Down

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Posted: October 24 2007 at 10:08

Love the sig too!

andu

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Posted: October 24 2007 at 13:39

how about

mystic fred wrote:

5.0 Masterpiece 4.5 Exceptional
4.0 Excellent
3.5 Very good 3.0 Good
2.5 Mediocre 2.0 Collectors/Fans only.
1.5 Poor. Only for completionists 1.0 To be avoided

That's my own scale Smile

Raff

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Posted: October 24 2007 at 13:45

andu wrote:

how about

mystic fred wrote:

5.0 Masterpiece 4.5 Exceptional
4.0 Excellent
3.5 Very good 3.0 Good
2.5 Mediocre 2.0 Collectors/Fans only.
1.5 Poor. Only for completionists 1.0 To be avoided

That's my own scale Smile

Mine as well! Clap

Though I've never given a 1-star rating so far... None of the albums I own is so bad that I would give it less than 3.

Peter

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Posted: October 24 2007 at 14:05

andu wrote:

how about

mystic fred wrote:

5.0 Masterpiece 4.5 Exceptional
4.0 Excellent
3.5 Very good 3.0 Good
2.5 Mediocre 2.0 Collectors/Fans only.
1.5 Poor. Only for completionists 1.0 To be avoided

That's my own scale Smile

I like it!

The words are minimal, as they should be, with prog-specific references removed.

I really feel the need for half stars. I find there are many, many 3-star-range albums, with some marginally stronger efforts (from the same band, for example) that need an ability to reflect that in the rating, but still do not merit an entire 20% jump to the "A" (or 4+) level.

As a teacher who daily has to rate writing, and assign grades, I would find a 20-percent increment scale, with five options only, to be very limiting and inadequate.

For academic work, I prefer assigning percentages (via a detailed rubric), where I actually get 101 increments -- which can also be represented as broader letter grades.

For reviewing albums, however, I don't need to be nearly so precise, as we are largely dealing with the subjective, emotional realm, but I still like 10% increments.

(Because, again, I find myself WANTING them when rating -- as do many others, judging by the frequency with which we see reviews that start with something like "3.5 stars, really.")

Edited by Peter - October 24 2007 at 14:11

"And, has thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'
He chortled in his joy.

ZowieZiggy View Drop Down

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Posted: October 26 2007 at 16:30

I find that 2.5 - "mediocre" is a bit harsh. What about "Not Bad" or something approaching ? At the end of the day it sits just under "good" and "mediocre" does not really show this.

ZowieZiggy

Chris H

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Posted: October 26 2007 at 16:35

I don't know if this has been brought up and I don't really feel like looking, but if we do implement .5 star ratings, every reviewer will have to go back and change his/her rating and reviews if they feel and extra .5 star would be justified, and that would be a little time consuming, tiresome and pointless.

Just speaking as a reviewer, and I'm sure the reviwers with 10 times the reviews as me will agree.

Beauty will save the world.

andu

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Posted: October 26 2007 at 17:49

ZowieZiggy wrote:

I find that 2.5 - "mediocre" is a bit harsh. What about "Not Bad" or something approaching ? At the end of the day it sits just under "good" and "mediocre" does not really show this.

Good idea

Though "mediocre" does not mean "bad" but is just a synonym for "medium", I would agree on not using it, as it seem to make a bad impression.

Anyway, I kinda don't support my own system. Why? It's because that though I trust it a lot and find it precise enough, I know that it has developed only and directly because of the way that the current stars system made me think a lot. The current system is so flexible that it surely stimulates elaboration and creativity into approaching music - I'm sure everybody should take advantage of this. Otherwise, I feel that gaining the .5 option will lead reviewing into searching for motivations for more and more precise ratings, instead of trying to write enlightening reviews. So I use my system for personal purposes and will use it in my reviews, but I wouldn't see it implemented. Smile

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Posted: October 26 2007 at 21:14

What about Bellow Average........It's exactly the same, but sounds less harsh.

But I still continue with my option:

5 Stars: Essential: a masterpiece of Progressive Rock. 4.5 Stars: Essential but doesn't reach the status of masterpiece 4 Stars: Excellent addition to any Prog collection
3.5 Stars: Very good, most peope will find it an excellent addition.
3 Stars: Good, but non-essential 2.5 Stars: Average
2 Stars: Has it's moments, get it at your risk 1.5 Stars: Poor, only for die hard fans.
1 Star: Extremely poor, not recommended

Iván

Edited by Ivan_Melgar_M - October 26 2007 at 21:21

ZowieZiggy View Drop Down

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Posted: October 27 2007 at 21:17

Reply to Zappa88 (whom I salute BTW. Long time we didn't mail each other).

You wrote : "I don't know if this has been brought up and I don't really feel like looking, but if we do implement .5 star ratings, every reviewer will have to go back and change his/her rating and reviews if they feel and extra .5 star would be justified, and that would be a little time consuming, tiresome and pointless".

Just speaking as a reviewer, and I'm sure the reviwers with 10 times the reviews as me will agree.

A few weeks ago, in this same thread I wrote :

"If you have written 900 reviews like me, it might take about 450 minutes to do so (considering that I would edit 25 % of them and that I would spend 2 minutes per review).

If I consider the time spent to write the original reviews, it is peanuts. And fewer reviewers have wrote more".

In the meantime, I am now heading thousand reviews and I still feel the same. I would take advantage of year-end to do this if available. By then, I guess that three days will be needed since I would probably reach 1,200 . But this isn't a problem.

Cheers and god night. It's now 3:15 AM in Belgium. Oh no, only 2 AM (daylight saving time offers me one more hour to sleep. Hurray).

Take care Zappa88.

Daniel.

ZowieZiggy

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Posted: October 27 2007 at 21:21

With all the improvements being made, this would trump them all in usefulness. This is necessary and I can't wait until this happens.

<font color=white>butts, lol[/COLOR]

Fight Club View Drop Down

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Posted: December 06 2007 at 14:07

Recently posted in another thread:

"Hey when are we finally going to be able to have half-star ratings? There are so many times when I think an album isn't quite a 5 star masterpiece, but deserves more than a 4. So what are we supposed to do about that? I'm sure a lot of other people agree.

Plus, I don't know about all of you, but there's so many albums that I really enjoy that I need more than 2 ratings to distinguish ones I think are above the level of "good."

micky

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Posted: December 08 2007 at 08:39

Fight Club wrote:

Recently posted in another thread:

"Hey when are we finally going to be able to have half-star ratings? There are so many times when I think an album isn't quite a 5 star masterpiece, but deserves more than a 4. So what are we supposed to do about that? I'm sure a lot of other people agree.

Plus, I don't know about all of you, but there's so many albums that I really enjoy that I need more than 2 ratings to distinguish ones I think are above the level of "good."

in answer to the post....that is what your review itself is for... the stars are guides... the review itself is the means to differentiate those grey areas... half stars won't take out the grey areas... in a year people would be asking for a 20 point rating system because they feel they can't express... with a rating... the difference between a 4.5 and a 5. That is why we write reviews...

The Pedro and Micky Experience - When one no longer requires psychotropics to trip

aapatsos

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Posted: December 08 2007 at 09:09

I believe that the current system is fair enough, even if it does not promote detailed ranking (i.e. 0.5 stars).

andu wrote:

5.0 Masterpiece 4.5 Exceptional
4.0 Excellent
3.5 Very good 3.0 Good
2.5 Mediocre 2.0 Collectors/Fans only.
1.5 Poor. Only for completionists 1.0 To be avoided

I agree to a high extent with this ranking but I think it's ''Good, but not essential'' Wink

Edited by aapatsos - December 08 2007 at 09:09

Rivertree

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Posted: December 08 2007 at 09:18

micky wrote:

This is exactly how I'm thinking about it, micky Thumbs%20Up

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Posted: December 08 2007 at 09:41

I've probably said this somewhere before, but it's a little too late to alter the ratings scale as most people use the scale as outlined and would have to go back and re-evaluate their old ratings. People are already free to fractionalize their ratings and add qualifications in the review.

Released date are often when it it impacted you but recorded dates are when it really happened...

ZowieZiggy View Drop Down

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Posted: December 09 2007 at 18:41

Let's get a poll amongst, let's say the hundred most prolific reviewers and see what comes out. At the end of the day, this is a subject which is theirs since "that is why they write reviews".

The question of posted reviews is not important. The ones who want to change them will do so (and I belong to these). It will take several days of my time but it does not really matter since I volunteered to do so.

Once in a while it is good to have other changes than pure cosmetics.

Cheers,

Daniel.

ZowieZiggy