Today I made a major change: In order to get a little bit more information about the bands into the PF database, at least one release tagged with progressiveness and main genre is required in order to add an artist to a PA genre chart. I hope this is not asking too much, and in exchange we (usually me, personally) will add external links and videos to the artist and the releases.

What do you think? 

Any band can be listed on Progfreak, users decide whether the music is progressive. So that's no problem at all. 

Can you reload the page? I've done some major changes today, including pagination for the list of completed bands and a view that lists all the artists across all charts. Available here:

http://progfreak.com/pa/chart/all" rel="nofollow - https://progfreak.com/pa/chart/all

Thanks! 

Mr ProgFreak wrote: ... Today I made a major change: In order to get a little bit more information about the bands into the PF database, at least one release tagged with progressiveness and main genre is required in order to add an artist to a PA genre chart. I hope this is not asking too much, and in exchange we (usually me, personally) will add external links and videos to the artist and the releases. ...

Hi,

( I might not be exactly/totally on par with the OP ... so you know!)

I've said before that almost all bands should have at least a 2nd album before being considered for inclusion ... however, 50 years later, there are so many bands left out, that we have to add them somewhere along the line, since they did not exist beyond that point, and we could not have known that.

My only concern, is the desire to add a band because you can tell they mean it, and then in their 2nd album, it is all just a bunch of pop songs and not a single long cut! ...

As for the back and forth from PA, I can not say much, although I would suggest some communication to be satisfactory to both sites, as long as we don't fall into ... the competitive elements of it all ... I'm bigger than you are and I make this call ... ppppdffffffttttt ... kind of thing.

I'm not a fan of "charts" of any kind, unless you create a chart that shows all the styles and designations for the music (that's 2 different charts btw!!!) ... so folks get a better idea where/how these things are defined and decided ... and this is a side issue I think about with PA as it seems things are simply given to this group or that group and that's the end of the story ... I suppose that it is likely to happen with such a large quantity of material being offered, but, again, we could "force" some improvement by demanding a 2nd effort for the band ... or artist, not defined by one thing, which at times is more curious and exploratory that it is meaningful to the idea and concept of "progressive".

I don't even know how to discuss all this ... the process in each area is so obscure, and so difficult and ignoring music history and its development, that a lot of things that are defined as X, Y or Z, simply are badly placed and shown, and I think it tend to lower the standards of the music itself, and eventually take people away from a wider taste for music ... yet another "designation" for zheul is not a good idea ... this time tomato zheul, or kitchen zheul ... and I would not even consider listening to either of those!

I don't think you understand of the PF collaboration with PA, what's the purpose and so on... 

As to the specific point: If the PA genre teams would like that, I could make it mandatory that artists require at least two progressive releases in order for them to be added to the charts. But that would be for them to decide. It would make me happy, since it would mean more data being added to the PF database 

I don't know, Pedro. Tomato Zeuhl sounds mighty tasty to me.

Hey Mike! Sorry to say this, but since the new update, for whatever the site has been running really slow for me, especially in "cover matrix" mode, which frequently gives me this error message, including with my collection, too:

Having just added a band I have an issue with this, we get bands suggested by people for inclusion that are then added to PF and then assessed to see if we are going to add them to PA. Requiring an album to assessed for progginess before they can be evaluated by the team is the wrong way round. No team members have made an assessment at that stage. If you want a progginess assessment for bands then it should be a requirement for add the rating before bands can be 'Cleared' or 'Added'.

Make sense?

Have you tried reloading the page? I have a script that alerts users to reload the page when the frontend code has changed, but sometimes it stops working ...

Yes, I will change it accordingly, makes sense. My goal here is simply that as you, the team members, are using the charts, the PF database also gets filled with a little more info than just the bare artist names. I don't want to impose any rules on how you are actually using the charts which interfere with how you are evaluating the artists. 

Hi,

Not fair. I made the comment that today we're finding a lot of bands that just did one album, and appreciating them, which caused a doubt in my mind, although myself, and Guy Guden, we went out and found the music and did not worry about their being one or two in their catalog, but some things were easier to follow ... for example, when SEVENTH WAVE was released, it ended up getting SECOND HAND an immediate listen, and it was added to the current listing of the show.

I, honestly, don't want to represent anyone, simply because of the attitude that you are showing ... which, while I accept it, is really somewhat disrespectful, because in essence you are denying my own points and views regardless.

PA has its great side ... but it also has its bad side, by "Admins" that continually disrespect their friends, and folks that post, right or wrong ... even if at 72, I accidentally mention Idi Amin in the wrong section!

But in essence, and the worst part, is that you are "denying" someone that has been "there" right from the start, simply because I can not agree in full to all the PA this and that which you have personally. Which makes your post personal, and not appreciative of all the listenership and talent out there in the posts.

Sorry PF ... the post was honest, and seeing/hearing the thoughts behind the single album idea is great for me, and did not require a left foot to the balls!

If you feel disrespected that is on you. This discussion is not about you or anyone else not on the genre teams.

So I've just removed the requirement and instead there's now an info text that reminds team members that there's no release with minimal tags. They can then decide whether they want to take the time to add them or not, and I will not judge them either way.

Sorry for the trouble! Prog on 

I think i did that. I realize now it's the wrong way. I won't do it anymore.

Someone explain to us how to add links on the new PF. 

Just put in the base text information & Mike will handle the links in PF. I suggest that the links are put in the genre team thread on PA so that the team members can access from there if they want to get them before Mike puts them up on PF.

Something like this :-

Nogbad_The_Bad wrote: New band Ultraphauna ULTRAPHAUNA is an intercontinental band of art-rock veterans playing the music of Timba Harris (violin, trumpet) and Dorothy Wave (vocals, synths). Toby Driver (bass) and Joel Murray (drums) are featured on their debut album No No No No. The band’s rich pedigree includes Estradasphere, Secret Chiefs 3, a.P.A.t.T., Kayo Dot, Extra Life, Gyan Riley, Grails, Tzadik Composer Series, and many more Debut release out today (4/17) https://ultraphauna.bandcamp.com/album/no-no-no-no" rel="nofollow - https://ultraphauna.bandcamp.com/album/no-no-no-no

ok, I'll try that. 

I also put the suggestion threads and listening links in the team threads. 

Another option for me (which I am pursuing) is simply adding all the releases which are being added to PA, in a semi-automatic way. That would also open up an interesting option for the genre charts: If all PA artists are in the PF database (e.g. for all the PF artists we know whether they are on PA or not), I could provide input to the genre charts: A list of all the artists tagged as progressive which are not already on PA.

Working on it 

It's this one

https://www.discogs.com/master/163967-Locomotive-We-Are-Everything-You-See" rel="nofollow - https://www.discogs.com/master/163967-Locomotive-We-Are-Everything-You-See

Would seem reasonable that a minimum of one album is added when the entry is added as we need one album to review.

An unrelated question: In the Prog Folk/Rock genre, would you say that most of the bands are mostly Rock with Folk influence, or the other way around? I'm wondering how to tag them, either as "Progressive Folk" or as "Progressive Folk Rock". 

Unfortunately, I honestly think there can be a case made for both! Some bands definitely come from the folk traditions (The Pentangle, Steeleye Span, Malicorne), some want to give their folk music a rock edge (Spirogyra, John Martyn) or their rock music a folk edge (Jethro Tull). 

BTW: I'm working on enabling everyone (or at least collabs and pa genre chart members) to add external links. I realize that you are used to doing it yourself, please bear with me. :-) 

I still don't know how to add links to the bands. 

oh, so it's not that i was incompetent , it's not even an option for me to add listening links. 

Ok, we added a new band in the PM chart, can you please add the bandcamp links then? 

I'll add an email notification so that I can be more responsive. I can add these links quickly, the problem is noticing when you add a band.

ok 

Please let me know if you encounter any problems. 

In regards to the comment about "one and done" ... I'm not exactly against it, with one exception. 50 years ago, the chances of doing something like that were not very good, due to studio costs and all that, plus you had to play the stuff, instead of simply using a VST to mimic yet another instrument.

Today, the "one and done" thing is easy to do, specially when you can take many "examples" from folks trying to find out what we all think about their music, and you can just see the DAW ... and the instruments played ... and what many of us might consider the general lack of direction in regards to the music ability, anyhow.

50 years ago, creating something "new" was very different since there was no airplay for it, and the only chance you had was word of mouth and friends ... and sometimes, lucky ... a friend on the other coast. Today, you have the Internet, and you can showcase your little tune to the whole world, and allow everyone to comment, and love it or hate it, it's not a great way to do it, since it all has to come from you, inside you, with you, by you ... not from the comments, which tells you a MAJOR DIFFERENCE between the work from many folks 50 years ago, as opposed to today.

"One and done" 50 years ago, makes sense, from a historical perspective, but today? It does not, since we can immediately determine the ability and talent level, which was not possible in those days, as so much of the material was very experimental, and different from the main stream works. 

However, 50 years has not been kind to the compositional styles and methods, since all you are finding are copies of copies and copies of nothing ... thus, "one and done" for today, I would not specifically close it down, but I would make it clear ... we want to hear more! 

I am not sure that I made this clear before, and while there maybe differences between one site and another, I like the idea of one site making an attempt to join up things to make them better ... I happen to dislike the way RYM is setup ... with no forums, and the comments being strictly about the band and its work, which we could use, however, many bands do not even survive 10 replies past the top 5 or 10 bands! Which means that not enough folks have listened to it well enough to be able to make a comment ... or they would have one, that is not a simple one word saying ... absolutely nothing about the music!

There are a lot of little things that could be improved, but the generic, mass appeal, or the "one and done" that someone has applied to me, is a false comment, on something that was not investigated and asked a little more about ... which sometimes specifies the talent and ability level of the folks involved. Some here love to trash Mosh for anything including the fly that fell into your soup .... ohhhhhh, let me shed a tear! And maybe make a song!

Personally i hate the new domain name. Progfreak was unique and memorable. Are you trying to be rate your music?

I can't sign in nevertheless.

I've been on for ten years now and never wrote down my username and password.

And there's no contact info on the site :/

If you hit 'Give Feedback' in the top right you'll get a quick response. That's what I've been doing.

RYM wasn't that big back when I started PF. We always had similar feature sets. The main difference is that I am just one developer doing things as a personal interest and for the love for music, whereas RYM was/is a business. It's all about ad revenue, and this also applies to PA (to a great extent). I want TYM to be(come) better than RYM in some aspects. Being just one developer I could never implement all the features that RYM offers, and that's not what I'm trying to do. But I think I can do a lot, and I'll keep at it and see where it leads.

There is a contact form, you can write to [email protected], you can contact me here. What gives?

Besides: You've been on PF for about 8 years and in all that time you didn't rate one album. So apparently the "unique and memorable" domain name didn't do much for that.

"Restricted purview"? There's a lot of things TYM members can do on the website which PA members can't. You can also become a curator at TYM (haven't announced it publicly yet), giving you more rights to edit artist/release/track entries. In any case, if you have a complaint, I cannot do anything about it unless you let me know about it.

I figured it out. I used on old browser and all my info was retained there so i can now sign in.

I don't rate albums without reviews. If you go to my profile on PA or RYM you will see i only rate albums i review.

BTW: To fix your log in problem properly I can change your email address to something useable (if you PM it to me), then you can use the password reset. The main problem with reactivating old accounts is them having been created with junk adresses.

Wow. I honestly didn't know we could rate and review albums on ProgFreak. I figured out my problem. I just used an old browser and it had my exact username and i then spontaneously remembered my password!

Love it when that happens :) 

Honestly i just like the name ProgFreak better :)

It's your site so do what you must to keep it going!

As I mentioned in the forum at TYM, I will keep the progfreak.com domain alive (stay tuned), and I am always looking for a better name. These are simply very difficult to come by.

Ultimately even a cool name like Progfreak doesn't help - as exemplified by silly puppy, many will happily use PA, RYM and who knows what else  in parallel, and still give PF the finger. The solution for me is to not give a f**k about it (to put it bluntly) and just do what I think is best, as many of you have suggested.

What makes my site unique? Why do you use it (if you do)? What could make it better? I'm listening! Also when it comes to the genre charts. 

Mr ProgFreak wrote: One good example: progressivemusic.com is available! I would take that in a heartbeat. But it costs 90,000 EUR ... such a shame. Someone purchased the domain a long time ago and is holding it hostage, waiting for someone to cash them out.

90,000K? lol to the domain holder; good luck and god speed to him or her xD

I'm going to bed, soon, so I'll respond later with a a more elaborate response

One big problem is that RYM DOES exist, as does the Progarchives, the Metal Archives, and dozens of other sites. The fact that RYM is so enormously large is why it's so hard for the other sites to compete - it can do everything that pretty much every other site does, and it's flashier (although I think it's ugly af), with unmatched social features - that's what they have going that no other site going to be able to match. Ever - and that's because of two reasons - RYM already has such a large community, and that community itself isn't as large as it may appear in the sense of member retainment. The typical user on that site is a teenager. There are not as many adults proportional to its size as the other sites, such as the Progarchives, which is not really a good thing. The other reason is social media. Forums have decreased in popularity since Facebook, Myspace (RIP - I was never old enough to actually use that site before it died lol), Twitter, etc. have essentially taken over our lives (although to be fair I do not own a single social media account, hence why I still use forums). Reddit and RYM, nowadays, act more like social media than any (other) music database.

In any case, RYM is horrendously moderated, as is Reddit. The Metal Archives. The larger the site, the worse the moderation is - and there's likely a correlation; just a like a larger, more powerful government tends to be more corrupt, "Reddit/RYM Mods" are basically the online equivalent. So I would consider the small community on the Progarchives, TagYourMusic, Metalstorm, etc. to be a blessing.

I will admit that I do use TYM over many of the other sites because of the tagging capabilities and the collection features, but the forum and community on the Progarchives is better than on TYM, which is why I use this site - and TYM will likely never be able to obtain a community as large as the Progarchives, largely because the Progarchives already exists. Just like the MetalMusicArchives will likely never reach the popularity of the Metal Archives, because the latter exists already. I don't know where I'm going with this but I digress, I guess. Nighty night!

http://web.archive.org/web/20110112211850/http://rateyourmusic.com/" rel="nofollow - http://web.archive.org/web/20110112211850/http://rateyourmusic.com/