Suggestion: Discuss reviews on review page

It has been proposed before. I personally don't think it would be that beneficial. We have a lot of minds present on this site, many of them not sharing the same opinions. There's a big risk of agressive comments, when the review contains arguments of the opposite kind, when low ratings are awarded for some albums, when the reviews are poorly-written etc.

Plus, the focus is on the album, given the purpose of the review itself. Additional comments would already mean focusing on the review, and further comments to the comments would lead things even farther.

Sorry, but I can't see the good in it.

^ agreed. The same usually happens when reviews are discussed in the forum ... I guess that being able to rate reviews would suffice (like at Amazon.com, where you can simply say whether you found a review helpful or not).

Well, those responses didn't exactly show great belief in mankind

Desoc wrote: Well, those responses didn't exactly show great belief in mankind

What's there to believe in? People are ungrateful and take what they want without thinking about consequences. Nice people are a rare exception.

After being on the net for a bit over a decade now, my experience is that the possibility to be anonymous brings forth the worst in quite a few people - I have yet to see a net site opening up for general comments that hasn't been partially or wholly flooded with negative, aggressively stated opinion.

Wikipedia and similar sites are good because of -heavy- supervising, and a somewhat ponderous process in submitting data.

And there are a number of good reasons for most forums forcing the user to register.

One of them, which one would surely see a lot of if opening for general comments, are spam. Load, loads and loads of spam. And with the number of reviews to look after here, the amount of spam coming in that would have to be deleted would be enormous.

If you are web savvy, try opening a page, setting up a system for anyone to enter data and fill the page with content that makes it relatively easy discoverable by search engines - and watch events unfold ;-)

Okay, I don't have great hope in mankind (genetically inherited from Raff ), I'm a dystopian (not really), etc., but we'd better not follow this path in our discussion (the off-topic rant ).

I still believe that, despite a better interaction provided between site members (or is it visitors? - they usually outnumber the forum members), the focus on the album that's reviewed would loosen. And there's a slight overburden of the entire practically and aesthetically-built reviews page itself: imagine Close To The Edge having not just 600 reviews, but 40-50 comments on each review? Am I too pessimistic hearing "malfunction"? "The reviews are not made in a vacuum and should not be kept in a vacuum", indeed, but they're still the most direct way to focus on an album - and to make it the important subject of all. Blog-like interaction usually works ideally on the same thing - a subject initially discussed by someone, but ultimately discussed by all who replied. In this case, it's the reviewer who stands (I'm almost tempted to say trialed) regarded by the commenters.

Further on, like Windhawk implied, there are arguments and arguments. Personally, I'm not enchanted by the "nice writing" short-like positive comments as much as I hate to predict thousand of "you suck" nasty comments. And replies such as " X is my favorite rather than this one" are of almost no worth. I wish moreover for these comments' utility to consist out of valuable corrections, extra info offered or...intrinsic commenting into the details with which the original reviewer approched the subject. That could work, yet it just won't happen in everybody's case. The profit of this function will, thus, be slimmer than we'd hope.




Edited by Ricochet - February 20 2009 at 08:59

Desoc wrote: ^ OMG, I'm surrounded by dystopians! How can people with such fine taste of music be so negative to the humanity that has granted them the same music?

The T wrote: Desoc wrote: ^ OMG, I'm surrounded by dystopians! How can people with such fine taste of music be so negative to the humanity that has granted them the same music? Because usually the people that granted us that music was egomaniac people who didn't give a damn about anything else but the crazy ideas they had in their mind and put them in records....   Music is actually a symptom of the illness of man's eternal individualism. And thank somebody for that! But really... musicians seldom create their art for altruistic purposes....

Henry Plainview wrote: The T wrote: Desoc wrote: ^ OMG, I'm surrounded by dystopians! How can people with such fine taste of music be so negative to the humanity that has granted them the same music? Because usually the people that granted us that music was egomaniac people who didn't give a damn about anything else but the crazy ideas they had in their mind and put them in records....   Music is actually a symptom of the illness of man's eternal individualism. And thank somebody for that! But really... musicians seldom create their art for altruistic purposes.... How can people on the internet be misanthropic!? It's almost as if there is a reason they are on the internet...and not outside. ;-)  You've said it...   After such a devation, please... continue with this good idea that I support.... I'm all for people being allowed to comment on reviews.... I can't say I really see the point. Rating reviews could help sort out the exceptional ones on albums that have far too many reviews, but I doubt that anybody besides the reviewer would read the comments. And the reviewer probably wouldn't even bother to do that unless s/he is shallow and egotistical like me,Or like me (to a lesser degree) or like most of us... Who writes reviews without wanting them to be read? What REAL purpose could reviews have in the world? At least 50% of people I'm sure write reviews thinking only in themselves.... not possible cd purchasers  but that's not something we want to encourage. I would, however, like to see more discussion and criticism of reviews in the forums. That would be a good avenue of growth in improved reviewer writing because even if people read all the comments, nobody is ever going to care what some random user with 3 reviews thinks about your review.

Just for the record: I don't particularly like being called 'dystopian'. On the contrary, when I first meet a person I always tend to see the good in them, and this unfortunately has led me to a lot of disappointment, even serious suffering in the past. Having lived almost 50 years on this planet, I've seen the good and the bad, and I know how mean and cruel people can be. I visit two other sites fairly regularly, and both are based on much  more 'serious' issues than music, and the level of verbal violence and abuse sometimes is astounding. If some of you who are so optimistic about human nature saw what I've seen there, perhaps you would feel less secure in your beliefs.