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dtguitarfan View Drop Down
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Points: 1708 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 20 2012 at 06:49
Originally posted by Epignosis Epignosis wrote:

Originally posted by dtguitarfan dtguitarfan wrote:

Originally posted by Andy Webb Andy Webb wrote:


Originally posted by dtguitarfan dtguitarfan wrote:


Originally posted by Epignosis Epignosis wrote:

I don't like the insane number of five star ratings that come out of the woodwork in the week following new releases.  Really?

People enjoyed the album - why should that bother you?

Because the album probably hasn't been released yet and won't be for another month... (can be applied to almost every new album release)

He said "in the week following new releases" - this means the album has been released and thus people have had the opportunity to listen to it....


Enjoying an album is not enough to give it five stars.

Most of the albums I enjoy are not 5 stars.

Sorry, but that's crap.  The only measurement anyone can truly give of an album is their own personal enjoyment.  It's art - you can't objectively say "this is better than that because...", you can only say "I enjoyed it sooooo much, so I'm giving it this many stars."  That's the only truthful way to go about it, the way I see it.  Now, it may be that you are a very technical person, and so your enjoyment comes from paying attention and hearing technical things going on and thus you can say "I enjoyed this so much because I heard them doing this and that" but it's still just a measure of your own personal enjoyment.  You can't pretend to tell people that your measurement of an album's greatness is the only true measurement.
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Points: 32530 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 19 2012 at 17:37
Originally posted by dtguitarfan dtguitarfan wrote:

Originally posted by Andy Webb Andy Webb wrote:


Originally posted by dtguitarfan dtguitarfan wrote:


Originally posted by Epignosis Epignosis wrote:

I don't like the insane number of five star ratings that come out of the woodwork in the week following new releases.  Really?

People enjoyed the album - why should that bother you?

Because the album probably hasn't been released yet and won't be for another month... (can be applied to almost every new album release)

He said "in the week following new releases" - this means the album has been released and thus people have had the opportunity to listen to it....


Enjoying an album is not enough to give it five stars.

Most of the albums I enjoy are not 5 stars.
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Points: 16952 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 19 2012 at 15:09
He's referring to the overuse of 5* due to people's hype of the album. 
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Points: 1708 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 19 2012 at 07:56
Originally posted by Andy Webb Andy Webb wrote:


Originally posted by dtguitarfan dtguitarfan wrote:


Originally posted by Epignosis Epignosis wrote:

I don't like the insane number of five star ratings that come out of the woodwork in the week following new releases.  Really?

People enjoyed the album - why should that bother you?

Because the album probably hasn't been released yet and won't be for another month... (can be applied to almost every new album release)

He said "in the week following new releases" - this means the album has been released and thus people have had the opportunity to listen to it....
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Points: 34055 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 19 2012 at 06:55
maybe some reviewers are precognative to music and know that albums is 5 star even a half year before the relesase??

Edited by aginor - September 19 2012 at 06:55
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Points: 13298 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 19 2012 at 06:41
Originally posted by dtguitarfan dtguitarfan wrote:

Originally posted by Epignosis Epignosis wrote:

I don't like the insane number of five star ratings that come out of the woodwork in the week following new releases.  Really?

People enjoyed the album - why should that bother you?



Because the album probably hasn't been released yet and won't be for another month... (can be applied to almost every new album release)
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Points: 1708 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 19 2012 at 05:46
Originally posted by Epignosis Epignosis wrote:

I don't like the insane number of five star ratings that come out of the woodwork in the week following new releases.  Really?

People enjoyed the album - why should that bother you?


Originally posted by Epignosis Epignosis wrote:

Doing away with one star ratings is a bad idea.  It's just a value on a scale.  Get rid of it, and then the two becomes the new one, and the five the new four.  Whatever.

I don't think anyone is suggesting to get rid of them - I think their suggesting ways to stop people who are giving them out just to try to manipulate the scale, and one of the ways being suggested is to force people to justify their 1 star ratings.
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Points: 952 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 19 2012 at 02:55
I do like the 1 star = review, mostly because I like to read more detailed opinions and those are what I base my judgements on.

Of course, I think it's important to let folks contribute who are not English speaking.
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Points: 26138 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 18 2012 at 18:31
Also, I think star ratings are only really useful if you're looking at an average rating from 100+ different people.  If I'm new to Marillion, for example, and I go to the Marillion page, I might first look to see which album has the highest average rating, to get a recommendation of where to start, keeping in mind that averages with a small sample size are less representative of a broad range of opinion, and therefore less reliable.  Since most of the Marillion albums have received a lot of ratings from a variety of people, I figure that any one person's careless/abusive "1" rating isn't going to affect the average.  One person's ranking from 1-5 is only going to sway me if I know and trust that individual's point of view.  The review (if present) is really where the meat is.

So although there's potential for abuse, and it is a valid concern, it's really all in how you choose to use the numbers. 


Edited by HolyMoly - September 18 2012 at 18:32
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Points: 293 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 18 2012 at 18:19
Only problem with ratings system is it isn't fine grained enough imo. Assuming you only give 5's to absolute classics there are a lot of deserving 4.5's out there that get 4 from a lot of people who practise restraint (and I automatically assume that most people on here are restrained and thoughtful as they are prog rock fans Big smile).
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Points: 32530 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 18 2012 at 18:05
I don't like the insane number of five star ratings that come out of the woodwork in the week following new releases.  Really?

Doing away with one star ratings is a bad idea.  It's just a value on a scale.  Get rid of it, and then the two becomes the new one, and the five the new four.  Whatever.
https://epignosis.bandcamp.com/album/a-month-of-sundays
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Points: 5319 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 18 2012 at 16:57
Thanks for all the responses to a tired subject. I believe doing away with one star ratings is a good idea. This is the "help us improve the site " thread and I think it would help rating manipulations to be curbed.
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Points: 26138 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 18 2012 at 14:35
I just wrote a post detailing yet another idea to solve the inherent problems of the ratings system.  Then I immediately started a new paragraph which spelled out all the pitfalls of my own plan.  Realizing I'd just negated my own point, the post had to be dumped.  Just goes to show that as frustrating as the current system is, many potential solutions have repercussions that are even worse.

Edited by HolyMoly - September 18 2012 at 14:35
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Points: 8368 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 18 2012 at 14:04
Originally posted by Snow Dog Snow Dog wrote:

Originally posted by thellama73 thellama73 wrote:

There are only three reasons I will give an album one star:

1. It utterly fails to achieve its objective.
2. Severe defects in sound quality or other technical aspects to the point of being unlistenable.
3. Complete misrepresentation of the content in order to deceive people into buying it.

4. It is  a Dream Theater album.


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Points: 36022 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 18 2012 at 13:59
Originally posted by thellama73 thellama73 wrote:

There are only three reasons I will give an album one star:

1. It utterly fails to achieve its objective.
2. Severe defects in sound quality or other technical aspects to the point of being unlistenable.
3. Complete misrepresentation of the content in order to deceive people into buying it.


Those would be very good ratings guidelines (first two particularly) to have as a warning before someone rates an album one star.  It wouldn't stop most people, but....

I'd like to see the star descriptions changed.
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Points: 32995 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 18 2012 at 13:59
Originally posted by thellama73 thellama73 wrote:

There are only three reasons I will give an album one star:

1. It utterly fails to achieve its objective.
2. Severe defects in sound quality or other technical aspects to the point of being unlistenable.
3. Complete misrepresentation of the content in order to deceive people into buying it.

4. It is  a Dream Theater album.
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Points: 23104 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 18 2012 at 13:58
Originally posted by Logan Logan wrote:

Originally posted by dtguitarfan dtguitarfan wrote:

Originally posted by Logan Logan wrote:

I, also, would like one star ratings to require a review.  I find it exceptionally rare to hear an album that I would consider one star, and I strongly suspect that a great many of those one star raters (rating only) have never listened to the album..


That's an AWESOME idea!

I've seen people mention the wish for a tool that deletes ratings where a user rates every single album an artist has made with one star, and this is a great idea too. Shouldn't be to hard to program - as a programmer I am thinking the sql code wouldn't be too difficult (if the database uses sql - I have no idea).


Thanks. I think it's sql based (or at least I thought so before).  That tool would be a great addition


Apart from the fact that the computer stuff you guys are discussing is total gibberish to me, I strongly echo the notion of 1 star ratings having to be attached to a review. 
I don't review too may 1 star albums, and that's because they are uninteresting - life's too short and all that jazz. The ones I manage to write about are the ones that've let me down big time - or where they have an interesting concept to them that just doesn't get to shine through. 
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Points: 8368 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 18 2012 at 13:54
There are only three reasons I will give an album one star:

1. It utterly fails to achieve its objective.
2. Severe defects in sound quality or other technical aspects to the point of being unlistenable.
3. Complete misrepresentation of the content in order to deceive people into buying it.
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Points: 36022 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 18 2012 at 13:50
Originally posted by dtguitarfan dtguitarfan wrote:

Originally posted by Logan Logan wrote:

I, also, would like one star ratings to require a review.  I find it exceptionally rare to hear an album that I would consider one star, and I strongly suspect that a great many of those one star raters (rating only) have never listened to the album..


That's an AWESOME idea!

I've seen people mention the wish for a tool that deletes ratings where a user rates every single album an artist has made with one star, and this is a great idea too. Shouldn't be to hard to program - as a programmer I am thinking the sql code wouldn't be too difficult (if the database uses sql - I have no idea).


Thanks. I think it's sql based (or at least I thought so before).  That tool would be a great addition
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Points: 36022 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 18 2012 at 13:47
Yeah. it's going to be biased towards the extreme by many.  A good review, of course, doesn't just tell you if that person likes the album, it describes the music, and relates it to similar music.  If the reader is knowledgeable enough to understand what a really illustrative review is saying, then that reviewer should be able to see beyond the biases to see if it's the kind of music that person will like.  I've never, that I can recall, been steered wrong by a review in a blog.

As for one star ratings without reviews, I would posit that the majority of said ratings are based on insufficient listening to the album.  Maybe because I only listen to the prog archives type material that I decided to get/ search for, I almost never hear an album I don't really like.  I've heard lots of samples of music I don't like, but not full albums (although I've had some disappointments, none of those were one star worthy).  To me a one star album is one that one really feels has  strong analytical case for being objectively poor compared to others of its ilk.  It kind of bugs me when people bash music who seem to clearly not "get" the idiom.

 I love some music that I know is very amateurish, such as by The Shaggs.

What's really terrible is when people rate albums lowly due to a devious modus operandi which does not represent any analysis of the actual music, but is merely to prop up others.


Edited by Logan - September 18 2012 at 13:47
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