How does PA rank albums?
Printed From: Progarchives.com
Category: Topics not related to music
Forum Name: I Have A Question For You......?
Forum Description: Ask any question on any subject: if the admin team or any of our members can answer it we will.
URL: http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=47024
Printed Date: December 01 2024 at 23:40
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 11.01 - http://www.webwizforums.com
Topic: How does PA rank albums?
Posted By: acheron
Subject: How does PA rank albums?
Date Posted: March 12 2008 at 02:31
|
I always assumed it was a simple average of the votes ie. (# of 5 star votes x 5 + # of 4 star votes x 4 +...+ # of 1 star votes x 1) / total number of votes but then i noticed on the review for the Black Sabbath reunion DVD that its 1.09 rating does not = (1 vote x 2 stars + 1 vote x 1 star) / 2 votes = 1.5 stars. i also checked out that Jean Luc ponty album today and calculated ( 1 vote x 5 stars + 4 votes x 4stars+ 1 vote x 3 stars + 1 vote x 2 stars) / 7 total votes yields 3.71 stars I also calculated the rating for a few albums with hundreds of votes and got the same value as the rank on PA so there has to be a weighting system for each star value such that the rank converges to a simple average as the sample size (number of votes) increases. So then i decided to figure out these weights and found a lot of inconsistencies. For example: The band Maad has one album, and its rating is 3.09 stars. It has 1 4star vote and 1 3star vote. Now any other band on PA with 1 4star vote and 1 3star vote should have the same ranking right? well no, a lot of them don't, for example the band Kaamos' album 'deeds and talks' has 3.77 rating with 1 4star vote and 1 3star vote. I solved like 30 linear systems of equations to get weight values for 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 star votes, and the values were not consistent at all. So what gives??? how am I supposed to trust these ratings when they are inconsistent??? |
Replies:
Posted By: Ricochet
Date Posted: March 12 2008 at 02:52
|
The "technicians" here can give the best answer, but what I know myself is that, instead of the very simple average, PA follows an algorithm by which normal reviews are counted as 1, Prog Reviewers' reviews are counted as 3 and Special Collaborators' reviews as 10 (or is it the rates without ratings that are 1, the normal reviews that are 3 and the PR/SC that are 10?).
------------- 
|
Posted By: bhikkhu
Date Posted: March 12 2008 at 09:24
|
The answer is, don't trust ratings. Trust what you like. ------------- a.k.a. H.T. http://riekels.wordpress.com" rel="nofollow - http://riekels.wordpress.com |
Posted By: tuxon
Date Posted: March 12 2008 at 12:04
|
In general my opinion weighs heavier than others opinions, so there you have it.
from my understanding a rating without a review weighs less than a rating with a review, and collaborators ratings weigh a little more also, which may seem a bit unfair, but that's because life isn't fair.
|
Posted By: Failcore
Date Posted: March 12 2008 at 20:23
| Yea collabs are weighted so much it discourages others from writing reviews. I don't even bother most of the time because I know my opinion wont be counted for crap. |
Posted By: tuxon
Date Posted: March 12 2008 at 20:32
I somewhat agree with that, personally I would only distinguish between ratings with or without review.
the fact that Collab reviews are displayed at the top of the list of reviews is distinguishing enough, certainly since most people go by reviews rather than ratings anyway.
|
Deathrabbit wrote:Posted By: bhikkhu
Date Posted: March 12 2008 at 20:33
That's not true. In most cases there aren't near as many collab reviews as regular members. The weighting is heavier, but not to the point where other reviews have no significance.My review of "Foxtrot" would hardly effect the rating at all. Besides, you review albums because you want to, not for the rating. ------------- a.k.a. H.T. http://riekels.wordpress.com" rel="nofollow - http://riekels.wordpress.com |
Posted By: micky
Date Posted: March 12 2008 at 20:42
if you are worried about all that crap... and not what you actually have to SAY about the album.. your review would have been worthless anyway don't you think...... ------------- The Pedro and Micky Experience - When one no longer requires psychotropics to trip |
Posted By: NotAProghead
Date Posted: March 12 2008 at 22:11
Maybe the rool, invented by some persons, is unfair? Why life is guilty and why the rool can't be changed? It's not a USA constitution. ------------- Who are you and who am I to say we know the reason why... (D. Gilmour) |
Posted By: micky
Date Posted: March 12 2008 at 22:17
seeing how promotions to Prog Reviewer and Colabs is NOT a popularity contest.. but based on ...ahhhh.. your damn skills as a reviewer and your knowledge of prog. Silly me... reason enough they should... and DO... count more. If I had my way though... and have proposed it to empty auditoriums in the collab area  .. is eliminating ratings altogether. It is what is written that matters... not an arbitrary rating.. usually given with NO other thought given than to whether someone liked the album or not... and who really gives a sh*t about that. We want to know about the albums.. not whether some guy who none of us knows, likes it or not. bah..... ------------- The Pedro and Micky Experience - When one no longer requires psychotropics to trip |
Posted By: Ivan_Melgar_M
Date Posted: March 12 2008 at 22:35
Why you make the review?
In my casw, I can't care less for rankings, never did and never will, if SEBTP or CTTE or Thick as a Brick are in first place...I don't give a damn. I don't like, SEBTP as much as any Gabriel era Genesis, I don't like any Yes album as much as I like Gothic Impressions, but I know this won't change easilly because this albums are iconic and Gothic UImpressions not.
I wouldn't like Hybris more than how I already love this album if ot was in N° 1 or less if it was in N° 200.
Your review is posted in the front page in a determined moment as any reviewer or SC, and you are allowed to share your opinion as much as any Administrator in your review, if this is not enough, you have the forum, so how does this affect your review?.
Now, the algorythm is confidence issue, the Adms know the reviewers and SCs, so they trust in us, not because we are better, but because they know us, if you knew how much crap is deleted or how many attempts of manipulating the charts have been made (people writing with 5 or 6 IDs or people giving 0 to every top album and 5 stars only to one), you would also be careful.
Iván ------------- 
|
Posted By: Soul Dreamer
Date Posted: March 12 2008 at 22:41
|
Well, not to stir up the discussion again...that was some months ago and in another forum...but I think the current algorithm is not very good, certainly less then Mike's former algorithm, and it depreciates the number of reviews (with or w/o >200 words) far to much, and gives fictional scores to albums which are not much reviewed as a side effect..... ------------- To be the one who seeks so I may find .. (Metallica) |
Posted By: Ivan_Melgar_M
Date Posted: March 12 2008 at 22:57
|
Sorry Soul Dreamer, it's not 200 Words, it's 200 CHARACTERS:
I Love my teddy bear I love my teddy bear I love my teddy bear I love my teddy bear I love my teddy bear
I Love my teddy bear I love my teddy bear I love my teddy bear I love my teddy bear I love my teddy bear
I Love my teddy bear I love my teddy bear I love my teddy bear I love my teddy bear I love my teddy bear
I Love my teddy bear I love my teddy bear I love my teddy bear I love my teddy bear I love my teddy bear That's how 200 characters look...Do you believe it's too much to ask for a review about a whole album?
Iván -------------
|
Posted By: Soul Dreamer
Date Posted: March 12 2008 at 23:02
Sorry, my mistake  , I meant 200 characters... That review would be removed as "inappropriate" quite soon thow, I think....------------- To be the one who seeks so I may find .. (Metallica) |
Posted By: micky
Date Posted: March 12 2008 at 23:10
hahhaha.. are you sure about that Have you read most Genesis reviews ------------- The Pedro and Micky Experience - When one no longer requires psychotropics to trip |
Posted By: bhikkhu
Date Posted: March 12 2008 at 23:23
Please Micky. My Genesis reviews are much more objective. I Love Peter Gabriel I love Peter Gabriel I love Peter Gabriel I love Peter Gabriel I love Peter Gabriel I Love Peter Gabriel I love Peter Gabriel I love Peter Gabriel I love Peter Gabriel I love Peter Gabriel
I Love Peter Gabriel I love Peter Gabriel I love Peter Gabriel I love Peter Gabriel I love Peter Gabriel
I Love Peter Gabriel I love Peter Gabriel I love Peter Gabriel I love Peter Gabriel I love Peter Gabriel
And the other guys are pretty O.K. too.    ------------- a.k.a. H.T. http://riekels.wordpress.com" rel="nofollow - http://riekels.wordpress.com |
Posted By: micky
Date Posted: March 12 2008 at 23:28
hahhaha.... not bad.... most objecive Genesis review I've seen in a while 
------------- The Pedro and Micky Experience - When one no longer requires psychotropics to trip |
Posted By: Ivan_Melgar_M
Date Posted: March 12 2008 at 23:56
There are other elements Rico:
And some more I don't know. Iván -------------
|
Posted By: Proletariat
Date Posted: March 13 2008 at 00:08
|
While I do think that the ratings may be slightly biased I really don't care, and while I wish it weren't so hard to notice non-collab reviews I try not to worry about it, all my reviews were born out of boredom anyhow.
The only thing that I find slightly annoying is that some collabs reviewers seem to have their positions for I don't know why, there ought to be a merit system for becoming a reviewer/collab rather than the arbitrary way that they are chosen now........ but I am content to stick to the forum ------------- who hiccuped endlessly trying to giggle but wound up with a sob |
Posted By: kenmartree
Date Posted: March 13 2008 at 00:39
|
[QUOTE=Ivan_Melgar_M]Sorry Soul Dreamer, it's not 200 Words, it's 200 CHARACTERS:
I Love my teddy bear I love my teddy bear I love my teddy bear I love my teddy bear I love my teddy bear
I Love my teddy bear I love my teddy bear I love my teddy bear I love my teddy bear I love my teddy bear
I Love my teddy bear I love my teddy bear I love my teddy bear I love my teddy bear I love my teddy bear
I Love my teddy bear I love my teddy bear I love my teddy bear I love my teddy bear I love my teddy bear Me and my teddy bear, we got no hair but we don't care. Me and my teddy bear we love to play and play. Cause they've taken the pain away Ok I did get to 200  and I love Peter Gabriel! |
Posted By: Ivan_Melgar_M
Date Posted: March 13 2008 at 01:04
This one has exactly 200 characters:
In the Symphonic team we seen many like this one, if you don't believe me, ask Micky, Raff, HR, Gecko, Bob and every member who has worked with us.
What is worst, we've seen similar aberrations as bios.
 We replaced the bios, but nothing can be done with the reviews. As you must have noticed, this could be any album, the reviewer may or may not heard the album.
I believe the limit should be raised to 800 characters, it's only one big parragraph.
Iván -------------
|
Posted By: ShW1
Date Posted: March 13 2008 at 02:57
|
Reading all your point of views here, I'll refair to it generally: Obviousely if you write a review, you are willing to influence the rating. Its like voting, you want your vote to influence on the final results. With those ranks of about 10,000 for a collabs/PR, and about 0.0001 for the rest, its realy hard to influence on the final rating. Personally, I dont pay much attention anymore on the ratings: I look for the percents that are given, and then "low" it a little bit, assuming that peaple that rate/review would frequently have a positive opinion about the album, but other opinions could exist also...
I assume that another method to solve the problems of impropriate rating/reviews could be taken, rather than the existing ones. Without the nessecity to read everyone's review, to decide if he/she is a 'decent' member or not.
On the one hand, I could say that these issues, along with reviews representation, are not that important. but on the other hand, such things in general would result in less and less enjoyment for visiting and surfing in this site.
|
Posted By: MikeEnRegalia
Date Posted: March 13 2008 at 03:05
Seeing how this discussion is going, I invite people who like ratings only and/or short reviews to submit those on my website, and post the lengthy reviews here. 
------------- https://awesomeprog.com/users/Mike" rel="nofollow">Recently listened to: 
|
Posted By: tuxon
Date Posted: March 13 2008 at 22:32
I might just go and add some more ratings, if only I could access the acount once more
forgot my name and password. It's a pretty nice site btw.
|
Posted By: keiser willhelm
Date Posted: March 14 2008 at 02:36
|
my only issue with the reviews is that mine, me being a being non collab non-reviewer, have little chance of actully being read. i like my reviews. i like what i wrote. i want others to like it or at least hear my opinion. thats why i posted it. I wish that, instead of the current viewing system (collabs and reviewers listed on the left in full, the rest to the side, minimized) that there was some sort of random draw to display a random review or two about the album. That at least would make me feel a little bit better about spending the time to write a review. maybe someone will get something out of it. im trying to focus on some unheard of's so my opinion can start to matter! apart from that little issue, i think the wieghts are fine. ------------- http://www.last.fm/user/KeiserWillhelm" rel="nofollow - What im listening to |
Posted By: Raff
Date Posted: March 14 2008 at 03:36
| @ Keiser Wilhelm: this may surprise you, but I often read non-collab reviews, especially before I start reviewing an album, in order to get as complete a view as I can of people's opinions. Personally, I have never been in favour of the current layout of reviews, but my opinion was probably not enough to change anything. |
Posted By: Nightfly
Date Posted: March 14 2008 at 06:25
I know what you mean and I agree to a point but I wouldn't go as far as doing away with ratings altogether; they're quite useful for an at a glance view of the more popular albums by an artist but what I think would be a good idea is to do away with ratings without a review, after all how easy is it just to pick a number on a dozen albums with relatively litlle thought about the content. Sometimes I'll start a review with a rating in mind and by the time I've finished,after much listening and thought I've awarded it a star more or less than originally intended.
Something that I think is worth changing is when a review is acompanied by This is the first review of this album caption at the top of the review. That's quite useful to know but it only appears if the album hasn't been rated at all. I've reviewed a number of albums myself that actually are the first review but because they have been previously rated only this doesn't come up. This is not about basking in the glory of being the first reviewer but it's basically misleading.
I think Prog Reviewers and Collaborators should carry more clout with their reviews but perhaps not quite as much as they do at present. Perhaps if I'm ever promoted to Prog Reviewer I'll change my mind
 |