Something should be done about reviews!

All:

As Easy Livin notes, the admin group is indeed aware of the problems, and we are trying to figure out the best, fairest way to deal with them.  Please be patient.  In the meantime, I will try to address some of your specific issues when I get home this evening (I am currently at work).

Peace.

They should be more humorous

This is my favourite one and it was deleted....

EMERSON LAKE & PALMER (ELP) - Works Vol. 1
Review by Karnevil Nein! @ 5:38:47 PM EST, 4/5/2005

  —   I really love this album,from the ham-fisted keyboards to the twee vocals and from every over-blown piece of orchestration right up to the masterpiece of mirth that is Pirates. Long years in the making,due to ego clashes and arguments about makeup,Elton John being part of the recording process then not and finally producer Pete Waterman being replaced by Little Jimmy Osmond,the band finally got this meisterwerk out into the public consciousness.Once out there it was a smash,spending 16 weeks at Number One in Albania and going Quadruple Platinum in Belize. When one listens to Emerson's Piano Concertos one is immediately reminded of Les Dawson's egregious masterpieces of the early 70's.I can think of no higher praise than that. I find that "The Enemy God Dances With The Black Spirits" fills me with nostalgia,or should that be neuralgia? I'm not sure-but I know that Mrs Palmer should have decided against that shiny red kit for young Carl's 6th Birthday.Pirates-what can I say?I nearly choked to death the first time I heard this 13 minute epic.It sounds like the ungodly product of a demonic union between WS Gilbert and The Village People and is breath-taking in its excruciating awfulness and willfull over-ambition.There is nothing like a great Prog Rock Album and this is nothing like a great Prog Rock Album

 

 

 

 

 

Some people!

All:

For the record, I did not delete the ELP review, so please don't look at me...  Indeed, I also think it's rather...quaint () and would have kept it.

Now, let me address some of the specific comments made here.

Re Gentle Ronnie's initial comments:

"Moderators should be more active."  I will chalk this up to your relative newness.  First, until recently, I was the sole moderator for the site.  And if you don't think I was "active" enough, I think that even those members who don't necessarily support me (or at least agree with me much of the time ) would come to my defense as to how active I am, and have been.  Indeed, some members undoubtedly wonder when I have the time for a "real life."  We now have a few additional moderators, and I daresay that, within the confines of their individual schedules, they are as active as they can possibly be.

The problem of "inappropriate" reviews is something that was never contemplated at first.  Thus, even though we now know that something needs to be done, the problem is so systemic at this point that the process for tackling it and the time it will take to do so is daunting.  Still, the admin group is trying to work out a way to do so as quickly and efficiently as possible.

"Users should be willing to contribute and report every review that doesn't match the standards" and "Those standards for reviewers should be made."  The admin group, along with the site collaborators, is currently discussing this very issue: what the "standards" (or, more accurately, guidelines) for reviews should be.  We are very close to a final decision here.  Once that decision is made, it will become policy, and will not only be posted in the announcements (for current members), but new members will be required to "sign off" that they have read them and will abide by them or face possible deletion of their review.

Re Mike's comment about "reviewing the genre" rather than the band or album, while that may occasionally be the case, I still think that most reviewers (especially the "one-offs" like those who joined just to give Octavarium 5 stars) are reviewing the band and album, just not very well.  He is right that most of those reviews "lack maturity."  However, as I have noted elsewhere, this lack of maturity is much more widespread than simply DT fans: the largest influx of new members are 15-20 (and sometimes even younger) and thus, for the most part (but not in every case), they simply do not have the necessary "tools" (academic, intellectual, etc.) to write a truly cogent review.  It is enough for them to say "I really love this album.  Petrucci is the world's greatest guitarist.  And the songs are really good.  So I give it 5 stars."  Clearly, this is unacceptable, and those reviews will be deleted (if they have not been alerady), and such reviews will not be permitted in the future.

Re Dragon Phoenix's comment that "I'm getting tired of reviews stating, 'This is not prog, this should not be on the site," there is nothing wrong with stating this per se - as long as the reviewer actually reviews the album and gives some reasonable idea why s/he does not believe it is prog.

Re DP's and limeyrob's comments about an album being given a low rating simply because the reviewer does not feel that the album belongs here, that is, indeed, inappropriate.  However, I'm not certain that it happens frequently enough to be a serious concern.  Still, it is something we (the admin group and moderators) need to watch for, and we encourage members to alert us when they see it.

Re Mike's comment that "I'm pretty sure that the 5 star / fanboy issue is a general one, it is not limited to Octavarium, Dream Theater or even prog metal. It happens for any other album, too. How many 5 star reviews exist for Genesis albums, which were only written to compensate for some 1 or 2 star review ?"  This is actually a bigger problem then low ratings for the wrong reasons.  As a matter of policy, the admin group is united unanimously and strongly against the deliberate (mis)use of ratings either to "compensate" for other reviews or to simply increase or decrease an album's overall rating.  Indeed, not only do we discourage this practice - from new members and veterans alike - but anyone found to be engaging in it will be summarily ejected from the site: no warning, no "three strikes you're out."

Re MO's and salmacis' comments about Certified's approach to reviewing, and richardh's response, all of you are correct.  Ultimately, as richard points out, "The only valid criteria for a satisfactory review is that you must demonstrate that you have heard the album at least once..and thats it. Then you say whether you like it or not in so many words. End of story."  However, that does not mean that we should not - or, indeed, cannot - seek to have reviewers provide more than just their subjective "feelings" about an album.  That is why the admin group is seeking to create "review guidelines."  We are hoping that the guidelines we institute will be "solid" enough to get reviewers to offer more than just "feelings," while being "open" enough not to seem overly restrictive or daunting.

You probably will not believe me when I say that threads like this - and your various comments, both impassioned and analytical - are extremely important to the admin group.  Indeed, that was why I left this thread where it is: because it is threads like these that help the admin group to come to decisions about various things.  This does not mean that we will always agree with everything every member says, and simply change the site accordingly.  However, as most of the veteran members know, the admin group tries - and, we believe, most often succeeds - in truly "listening" to the members, and has made many of its decisions based on member input and feedback.

Keep the discussion going, since new ideas, thoughts, comments, suggestions, criticisms, etc. will lead us to continue to better understand what is working, what is not working, what needs tweaking, etc.

Sincere thanks to all of you for this very important and well-focused discussion.

Peace.

Excuse me for getting it wrong, but the site is about Prog Rock, isn't it?

Or do we not care any more, and anything goes?

The 5 star rating is NOT about how much we like the music, MORE it's about how much of a Masterpiece of Progressive Rock it is. The 4 star rating is likewise NOT out of 5, but representative of an Excellent addition to ANY prog music collection.

If I've got that wrong, I need new glasses or I'm on the wrong site.

Essential: a masterpiece of progressive music (31%)

Excellent addition to any prog music collection (31%)

Good, but non-essential (25%)

Collectors/fans only (6%)

Poor. Only for completionists (6%)

Certif1ed wrote: Excuse me for getting it wrong, but the site is about Prog Rock, isn't it? Or do we not care any more, and anything goes? The 5 star rating is NOT about how much we like the music, MORE it's about how much of a Masterpiece of Progressive Rock it is. The 4 star rating is likewise NOT out of 5, but representative of an Excellent addition to ANY prog music collection. If I've got that wrong, I need new glasses or I'm on the wrong site. Essential: a masterpiece of progressive music (31%) Excellent addition to any prog music collection (31%) Good, but non-essential (25%) Collectors/fans only (6%) Poor. Only for completionists (6%)

that's a very good point. i believe most people (i'm guilty too) tend to review the albums out of five stars without taking into consideration the guidelines under the rating options. they are helpful too, and i'm glad progarchives.com uses them.

Man Overboard wrote: Cert, how good of an addition to a prog collection it might be does not have much to do with how "prog" it is...  else we'd all have tons of Magma albums.

You misunderstand completely.

I'm just saying the review should discuss the progressive aspects, as those are what Prog fans are interested in.

On a metal site, a review might say "Brutal riffs, extreme dive-bombing guitar solos and bone-crunching drums make this an album to really mosh out to. X's vocals scream like a banshee and dive to the pits of hell with awesome death grunts, and with lyrics like "Worms creeping out of long-dead corpses" you just can't go wrong. Death metal at its most devastating. Bubblegum pop this ain't".

I've only laboured the point in recent reviews, as I'm agreeing with the sentiment of this thread entirely - I'm sick of fanboy or hateboy reviews - a little objectivity would be nice, and how better to be objective than a brief discussion of the music in terms of its progginess, since this is a prog rock site.

It doesn't mean we should all listen to Magma (although what's wrong with that... ), but simply that we should pay attention to passages that jump out and make the music enjoyable from a prog perspective - especially things that other reviewers either haven't noticed or picked up on. Read some of Gatot or Peter Rideout's reviews - they don't labour the point, but you pick up on the proggy aspects due to their very personal and readable styles.

Certif1ed wrote: MikeEnRegalia wrote: BTW 2: You recently asked me why I consider [Meshuggah] prog: Well, they created their own unique way of using polyrhythms to simulate odd signatures when in fact almost all of their songs are 4/4. If they did that on one song, it would just be cool, but they are really trying to consistently implement their own style. An individual approach to rhythm is a single progressive aspect, and not enough for prog rock, IMO. I could write an album using Mellotrons on every track - but it might not be prog.

That is something I hate abot forum discussions: You give one example to prove a point, and in the reply it is assumed to be the only argument there is. It's pathetic.

MikeEnRegalia wrote: Certif1ed wrote: MikeEnRegalia wrote: BTW 2: You recently asked me why I consider [Meshuggah] prog: Well, they created their own unique way of using polyrhythms to simulate odd signatures when in fact almost all of their songs are 4/4. If they did that on one song, it would just be cool, but they are really trying to consistently implement their own style. An individual approach to rhythm is a single progressive aspect, and not enough for prog rock, IMO. I could write an album using Mellotrons on every track - but it might not be prog. That is something I hate abot forum discussions: You give one example to prove a point, and in the reply it is assumed to be the only argument there is. It's pathetic.

It's always difficult to interpret what isn't said when there is only type on a page and no body language.

However, it was a reasonable assumption on my part, as rhythm is the only standout aspect, so that was the only example that could be used, AFAICS.