Spoiler reviews

I have just seen that another (the 2nd recently) 1* review has been given to a certain album which has drastically reduced its overall average score and single handedly dropped it 30 places down the chart. No review, no criticism, just a 1* rating. I believe that a small few are trying to manipulate the chart by giving bad ratings to certain albums to drop them down the chart, presumably to push their own favourites up.

This rating contrasts almost totally with the others, 69% of which give it 5*. Whilst everyone is entitled to their opinion, I think that a small change in the algorithm used to calculate chart positions might prevent this tactic.

In ice skating, to prevent cheating by one judge, the top and bottom scores of the 9 given for each contestant are disregarded when calculating the overall score. Would it not be posiible to slightly amend the algorithm to disregard say, the lowest 2 and highest 2 ratings when calculating averages and chart positions?

It would, for example, beneficially affect bands like DT who tend to have fanboys who would give a fart by the band 5* and a few detractors who will give them 1* no matter how good their output. Any chart should reflect real ratings by thoughtful individuals; this might be a step towards achieving this.

 

 

Giving ratings without a review should not be possible anyway IMO. Anyone who really has an opinion on an album can write a review; 50 words, it doesn't take long does it? And it would also prevent the kind of abuse described by Tony from happening.