Dream Theater release date

I am in agreement with Riccochet here. The thing is once you allow these pre-release reviews (that are 99.999999% illigitmate in their source)  you do 2 things.

1. you get MORE popular with the kind of people that illigitimately source music thus encouraging the same bad behaviour in others and creating a snowball effect.

2. you get LESS popular with musicians and bands who see PA as a safe haven for the type of people who want to give you a pre-release 1* review out of spite or fun, or the kind of people that don't care enough to wait for the release and source illigitimate copies.

What the hierachy at PA need to decide is which of these 2 options is best for PA.


W x

This is concerning. I remember all those pre-release reviews of Octavarium a few years back. I thought this issue had already been dealth with...

so, if we all think this way.............................................


it kind of begs the question WHY???

I accept that admins have discussed this in their private battle ground, but a word from the admins would be good here!


W x

with all the "review" teams, "genre" teams etc etc we have on PA, could we not restrict these pre-release reviews to admins only?  That way if anyone has a legitimate review copy from the promo whirl then they can do their job and review the album. And save fan or regular member reviews or ratings until the release date?

PA is being talked about in musician circles, and with these types of illigitimate super advance reviews from copies sourced from shady areas, some of the talk is beginning to be less than favourable.

I have the interests of the site, it's users and the musicians at heart and I would like to see everyone co-existing in a way favourable to all.

Surely there must be a way?

R x

^ Generating traffic is another reason that I was aware of even before you posted this ... being a webmaster myself, I know how the game works. I'm not trying hard to promote my own website - it currently only has a pagerank of 2 - but I know that when your goal is to be the top ranked website for a newly released album, you have to get some interesting content onto that site before others do (if you don't, search engines won't find the page interesting and other websites won't link to it). So, for that reason postponing the reviews obviously is a bad idea ...

Hey Mike

Mr ProgFreak wrote: One big reason for allowing reviews before the album is released is ... because all major sites allow it. That's also why bands and labels send promo copies ... they want some information about the album to be available at the time when it's released, and not a couple of weeks later. Are these sites actually reviewing sites, or just music sites - of various kind: from labels and shops to generic music database - where you can at most comment in the background of a release entry? Moreover, has there been many cases when a band send us promo copies, asking for reviews? I've only seen, in rare cases, Jim Garten, Angelo or some Collabs doing "pre-reviews" with a copy and a request from the artist himself. As I've said, I have no problem with news announcing DT's new and upcoming album, but there's a difference between spreading the news (and satisfying therefore the band, in the way you mentioned) and reviews (which are mostly fiction, panning/praising and what not). The difficult part is finding out which of those "preemptive" reviews is actually based on a legitimate promo copy. Since that is often not possible, given the anonymity of the web, I guess there's no way but to allow these reviews. The honest people, with promo copies, are a minority, it's so obvious. Meanwhile, Admins used to check with the reviewers if they own a legit promo or not, but it's tough to fight against big waves, like DT's 82 reviews (not counting the blank ratings, I think!). One possible solution for the archives could be to only allow reviews before the album is released. But any restrictive mechanism would require the exact release date, and AFAIK that information is not stored in the PA database. There's also no such thing ... release dates often vary from country to country, sometimes an album is released in Europe weeks, months or even years later than in the U.S., or vice versa. Before the album - or after? The first release date, out of the serie of many different ones, in different countries, could be counted as the limit between pre-reviews and reviewing already a hard copy (minus two-three shipping days, which is natural). Once, let's say, DT's latest would hit Europe, we can't restrict europeans to review the album. What I mean is that we can open the gates once the release date happens, while, before it, we can adopt the "no reviews allowed" attitude, even if it hurts the legitimate minority.

So, if we decide to not allow early reviews we have better quality, but less traffic. If we allow them, we have worse quality, but more traffic.

This sounds awfully similar to the situation the big prog bands were in in the 80s.

harmonium.ro wrote: Ricochet wrote: Mr ProgFreak wrote: ^ Generating traffic is another reason that I was aware of even before you posted this ... being a webmaster myself, I know how the game works. I'm not trying hard to promote my own website - it currently only has a pagerank of 2 - but I know that when your goal is to be the top ranked website for a newly released album, you have to get some interesting content onto that site before others do (if you don't, search engines won't find the page interesting and other websites won't link to it). So, for that reason postponing the reviews obviously is a bad idea ... Yes, it's called commercialism, we know. The only thing left to explain is why we'd need to diminish our professionalism and responsible attitude for that. That's not called commercialism, but S.E.O. (Search Engine Optimisation). It's a part of the modern Online Marketing profession, and it's a very respectable and professional activity per se. It is, though, quite some controversy around some of those who do it, because they tend to abuse it.

Fair enough, but it still focuses on profit, and when we're coming with complaints about illegitimate practices and we're told "it's for the profit", it's not right.

Good suggestion you made, sorry I cut it, for the context.

Ricochet wrote: harmonium.ro wrote: Ricochet wrote: Mr ProgFreak wrote: ^ Generating traffic is another reason that I was aware of even before you posted this ... being a webmaster myself, I know how the game works. I'm not trying hard to promote my own website - it currently only has a pagerank of 2 - but I know that when your goal is to be the top ranked website for a newly released album, you have to get some interesting content onto that site before others do (if you don't, search engines won't find the page interesting and other websites won't link to it). So, for that reason postponing the reviews obviously is a bad idea ... Yes, it's called commercialism, we know. The only thing left to explain is why we'd need to diminish our professionalism and responsible attitude for that. That's not called commercialism, but S.E.O. (Search Engine Optimisation). It's a part of the modern Online Marketing profession, and it's a very respectable and professional activity per se. It is, though, quite some controversy around some of those who do it, because they tend to abuse it. Fair enough, but it still focuses on profit, and when we're coming with complaints about illegitimate practices and we're told "it's for the profit", it's not right. Good suggestion you made, sorry I cut it, for the context.

S.E.O. is for gaining relevance (online relevance, which is more of a technical concept). Whether M@x uses the relevance for income or not, I don't know that. What if the income gained is used for storage & traffic facilities, is that also bad? I wouldn't jump to conclusions that fast.

Mr ProgFreak wrote: Ricochet wrote: Mr ProgFreak wrote: ^ Generating traffic is another reason that I was aware of even before you posted this ... being a webmaster myself, I know how the game works. I'm not trying hard to promote my own website - it currently only has a pagerank of 2 - but I know that when your goal is to be the top ranked website for a newly released album, you have to get some interesting content onto that site before others do (if you don't, search engines won't find the page interesting and other websites won't link to it). So, for that reason postponing the reviews obviously is a bad idea ... Yes, it's called commercialism, we know. The only thing left to explain is why we'd need to diminish our professionalism and responsible attitude for that. I don't really think that PA is a commercial website ... if anything, it's a nice project that M@x can show to possible clients (last time I checked, his company specialized in search engine marketing). But think about it: How could the admins enforce that no reviews are entered before an album is released, except for people who have a legitimate copy ? Who would determine all the release dates for the albums and enter them into the database? Who would talk to the reviewers, and what ways are there to determine whether their copy of an album is legitimate? We're talking about a lot of work here ...

I didn't said PA is a commercial website, I just think that the reason behind the policy and insisting on it when we have some controversial bugs isn't on the side of PA being a responsible and professional website.

Shutting down the pre-release project wouldn't generate many of the question you asked. I'll repeat for the third time that the only downside of it is upsetting the few who bought the promo copy (or the pre-order copy). We're more concerned about the many that fool with us, writing fiction, leaked incomplete impressions or intensely-subjective extreme likings (etc.)


On second thought, this is maybe pointless. Five years from now, we probably won't be able to tell the difference between the reviews that were written before the release of an album and those "normal" ones. And the impressions will be classified under "subjectivism", no matter what.

I just thought that, since this controversy sparks every single significant time, we could find a solution for it.