Dream Theater release date

Easy solution guys.  Ban Dream Theater and Porcupine Tree from progarchives.  They're causing too much trouble.  

I suppose re-iterating the request for any technical expertise that might help PA stop these reviews from being posted is too much to ask.

Don't ask admin or collabs to supervise album reviews 24 hours a day. 7 days a week, for months on end. that  is not a reasonable way to do it.
And y'all should know that PA also cannot program a blanket "no album to be added" web fix, as this would lead to legit albums being barred also. Even getting a specific album denied would not deter someone to mispell the title.
So please, either come up with something doable, or live with it.
The very fact of a review being posted DOES NOT increase the illegal downloads in any way. Those who want it already know where to look. And PA is not it.


Edited by debrewguy - June 19 2009 at 10:50

I just downloaded the regular version from Amazon MP3 ... my goodness, if Roadrunner keep this up, what's next? A 10 CD limited edition?

^Well... don't tell nobody but I kind of do that....

I think I'm going to add and review DT's next album, I mean, the successor to Black Clouds. It hasn't been announced and I have no info but what the hell, it may bring even more visitors to PA!!!

^^

Mr ProgFreak wrote: ^ sure - but how do we find that out? Unfortunately there isn't a global website that lists this kind of information.

Presumably we find out the release info the same way we find out all the other release info, it's not the work of genius. If we can discover the track listing, the label, the running time etc etc etc it's not a leap of faith to add the release date. Then however list's the album adds in the release date to the info and no reviews are eccpted prior to that date, other than of course the official reviews which should be ok'd by an admin.


Pre-release rating/reviews are damaging to the reputation of the site, and they encourage dubious practice. I picked up on the DT release because it's so big, but it could have been one of any number of releases it's a problem.

W x

I've no idea how we would find that out, but if we were to use one I think the earliest one would be the way to go. There could still be abuse, but then again there always will. Using the last release date wouldn't be fair for the ones buying it at the first one.

How about using the earliest release date?

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.