Seriously though, I can't really fathom this site without reviews. If that actually was considered, at least have a sub-forum where people can post their own reviews (as threads, and maybe some discourse can arise from it).

[edit] Bad typo

I can. Wikipedia doesn't need reviews, and neither should we.

The only use I have for reviews are for deciding which of a newly-discovered band's albums I should check out first, judging by the number/average rating of reviews. Otherwise, I really don't give a crap about other people's opinions of music.

If Wikipedia had reviews it wouldn't suck so much.

We'll delete reviews over my dead body!

You just don't want to have do all the return to senders... : D

Good to see that dismember_marcin is back! I rarely pay attention to reviews on this site anymore, I just prefer reading from a magazine because staring at the computer for too long annoys me. Plus it hurts my eyes! But he's always been a standout because of his style is so passionate and excited. I've also discovered a ton of great bands from him...

These recent ones from him are surprisingly competent. He does have good taste and reviews nice obscure death metal, but most of his submissions were rejected due to incoherent grammar. His "stream of consciousness" style is kinda fun, but he flubs it more often than not since he has such a shaky grasp of English.

I can understand that. He certainly was no English major, but I prefer his style over the work of retards like Kruel or Noctir. Granted I have no idea what his rejected work was like...

Derigin, there are actually some practical advantages to not having reviews on Metallum:

1. No review queue:
   It's no secret the band/report queues get bogged down at times, and think of how much time is spent reading/rereading long-winded, analytical opinions of albums. If every mod staffing the reviews instead spent their time managing reports or band submissions, it'd most likely keep both intact.
      
2. Separation of opinion and fact:
   We accept reviews based on their clarity and insightfulness, not the accuracy of the author's opinion. Obviously, we can't police the latter, and it can even become misleading at times. Anybody who's read a bitterman review would agree that an author's thoughts of a release can be so ridiculous as to actually present a misleading impression of a recording. People can't be kept from forming stupid opinions, but that doesn't mean we should juxtapose it from actual fact.
      
3. No risk of plagiarism:
   Several times we've banned users who've managed to plagiarise another reviewer's content, even if it involves translating it from another language. Don't you agree it'd be nice to spare ourselves the mental overhead of looking into a submitter's background, backtracing sources, and otherwise staying paranoid because of a few dickheads?
      
4. Objectivity:
   Guidelines of metalness notwithstanding, nearly every criticism I hear of the site involves reviews in some form or another. The fact we have a reputation as being elitist arseholes stems largely from the presence of opinionated, self-important reviews popping up alongside what should be entirely unbiased fact. By exterminating reviews, we express our integrity as a source of neutral, encyclopaedic information.

Yes, I understand losing reviews would be a shock at first. But in a few years time, users would take it for granted.

Hell, some might even be surprised that we had reviews in the first place. "Can you believe the site didn't accept any band without a physical release at one point?"


We could easily automate that process. It wouldn't be difficult to run a script to send each author their review as it's getting dropped.

The reason wikipedia doesn't need reviews is because it is expected to have a good summary of a band's entire career. If MA were to get rid of reviews, in my opinion they should have in depth bios for every band that is updated whenever a band does a significant style change or whatever. But dealing with THAT could be even more of a headache than the reviews are/were for the mods.

How? Anybody can submit a review, but it takes a user of veteran status (somebody familiar with the rules) to modify a band's biography field.

In fact, this would actually add incentive for users to contribute more detailed (and hopefully unbiased) descriptions of band histories. Which, naturally, benefits us as an encyclopaedia in the long-term.

Yes, it is expected to have but it usually doesn't have a good summary of a band's career when it comes to changes in style. I remember a few years ago seeing Evanescence labeled as gothic metal, then it was put under the alternative metal category and now they are simply described as rock. Also, it looks like Amaranthe is power/melodic death/metalcore according to Wikipedia. If Wikipedia had reviews, I think these things would be a bit more thoroughly explained and the site would gain a bit more credibility when it comes to music.

Keeping that in mind, it might end looking something a bit like BNR metal. Band info then a brief bio type description (without the bias that BNR had sometimes). Might be something to at least consider. I mean, I like having reviews here, but all of my reviews are cross-posted at The Metal Observer. And there are still plenty of other outlets that allow tons of reviews (that aren't the Amazon/Youtube description types) like RateYourMusic and Sputnik.

BNR was kinda cool when I was really getting into metal back in the mid '90s, but it's hard to imagine MA going in a similar direction.

Hi!

I recently found a band called Cabal. The band's album Miadian has only one review. It is by FuckinBill. The review has some grammar/typo mistakes, the first mistake is about its and it's.
See for yourself:



I recommend a correction of it and also recommend mods to check other reviews written by him.

Are the admins considering this hollow, soulless and shallow type of MA? Just wondering because I think that far less users would spend their time on a no-reviews MA version. The reviews have always been a feature that made MA stand out among other similar sites such as BNR, anyway...

Hopefully not, I first got into this site because of the reviews, and I wouldn't see much point coming here if that was taken away.

Giving 97% to De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas kind of loses its value if you give the same score to Carnifex in the same breath.

I fucking hope it's not considered, I'd be ready to resign if the reviews are deleted.

Personally I can't imagine MA without the reviews. I don't even know where else to go for solid reviews for albums and I always use the reviews to check out new albums before I buy them.

Edit: I made a stupid post in response to a farce you presented very convincingly. It's gone now, and you've had your joke.

Umpteenth edit: Just realized I'm getting butthurt over something stupid. It was a good joke, and definitely the most elaborate I've seen since I've been here. Peace out.

I think that's a bit of an extreme response there seeing as how they can just choose to not handle the reviews que .

I get the dissenting opinion and it actually does make sense, it's just that reviews are so ingrained into MA that it would be sad to see them go. For me they breathe life into what would otherwise be a dull and hallow entity. Not saying MA isn't great, not at all, but I doubt I would use the main site very much if I couldn't read the reviews. There's certain reviewers here that have taste that lines up with mine so well that I know whether or not to buy stuff based on their opinions, and I think it's probably that was for a lot of people. Plus reviews add a sense of community to the site which I've always been attracted to, that's why I frequent the forums as well. I like discussing metal (and other things) with, mostly, like minded people and the reviews are a giant portion of that.

In my mind the reviews don't take away from the site's bias-free encyclopedic nature any more than the forums do. If you're going to get rid of the reviews for THAT reason, it only makes sense the forums go with them. But I certainly don't want that, I love the forums.

Don't know how other reviewers would react, but I will start a solo project as soon as the reviews are removed. Believe me, you don't want to hear it! Guess alone this is reason enough to keep the reviews. You have been warned

If Diamhea is overwhelmed by the review queue workload, he should just have Napalm_Satan's status upped from scribe to review queue mod.

I can't help feeling this is simply sarcasm from your part but I think it'd be useful to have Napalm work the review queue. Can you even imagine what kind of rejection messages he'd send?

I could take the reviews or leave them. The only time I really use the site is to look up a new band someone told me about or to simply look something up about one I already know (I feel like THAT is the original intent of the site). I very seldom write them anymore, unless if I listen to something that I have a VERY strong opinion on, or the few rare cases that a band contacted me asking me to review their release (that being the case with my last review). And every now and then I come into the forums to laugh at some of the arguments, after all, that's how I stumbled across this. So I wouldn't be opposed to removing the reviews.

http://www.metal-archives.com/reviews/C ... 666/344429

Wow, uh, well, I don't agree to put it lightly.

Haha, I was just thinking the same thing, Empyreal. Yikes

Sweetleaf, I'm can't overstate how glad I am that it isn't up to you.

I appreciate Alhadis taking the time to make a case. From this user's perspective, it would be a waste. It's a major source of context, information, and insight. It's one of the parts of the site that makes it most useful. I wouldn't mind if the minimum standards were raised somewhat, but whatever.

It's easy to underestimate how much work it takes on the part of the mods to keep this place presentable, so I'll just say thank you. I wish I had time to do more.

I do get the argument that maintaining the reviews (chucking bad ones, filtering new ones, etc.) is a huge pain in the ass. However, as BH already said, it adds to the archive's ability to inform. For instance, both Emperor and Darkthrone are listed as 'Black metal' (for most of their career for the latter, anyway). And yet I am right in saying that In the Nightside Eclipse isn't quite the same as Transilvanian Hunger, right? How would anyone know that without listening to it first if the reviews were removed? And for sure, some views represented in reviews are quite biased and odd, but by reading multiple reviews, all with differing opinions, a prospective listener can get a good mental picture of what the album sounds like. Seeing as the archive rarely describes the sound of a band, reviews are the go to for something like that.

That's true, you wouldn't know without listening first. But why do you HAVE to read about it before listening? Why not just go to youtube and listen?

I think long ago, someone made that point. In this day and age, it is so easy to get ahold of music and listen to it with the touch of a button. Reviews aren't really needed. They can be fun, sure. But not needed. Again though, not for or against them.

Why should one HAVE to listen to something because they couldn't find out everything they need to know on an information database for music? Sure, they can do that, but as far as I am concerned the fact that they needed to leave a database of music to learn the most crucial thing about said music (how it sounds) would massively reduce the usefulness of the MA to many. If one values the site having as much relevant information about its entries as possible, then that is a very good reason to keep the reviews around. And as Derigin said earlier, some music isn't accessible these days. A review for an obscure demo tape by that kid's band back in 1983 is most likely going to be the only insight into that demo's sound beyond 'heavy metal'.

Hey, for an actual example, my own and Roffle's reviews for Abiosis are probably some of the few descriptions of their music available, especially given that only one Soundcloud page hosts their demo (who knows what could happen to that with time?) and it is not on Youtube and certainly not physically obtainable. If the reviews go, then no one will ever know what they sound like, beyond 'death metal'.

It is so easy to hear almost anything, but that creates another problem that makes reviews still necessary - you can hear almost ANYTHING. There is just such an overwhelming surplus of music to hear and so many bands to check out, that the reviews help figure out what to check on Youtube in the first place.

Another thing is, for me at least, figuring out if I should listen to something or not isn't the main reason I check out reviews in the first place. I like going and reading reviews of albums I already know and hopefully gaining new insight and perspective and maybe even be entertained along the way.

Let me add some more wood to the fire. If reviews ought to go then so would the "similar artists" tab, because if we're talking about being objective and factual, I mean...

Why cant we limit reviews to I dunno 10 per album? That means a loot less crap to deal with, since most new reviewers review only the most known albums. This clears another issue, the reviewers that have been reviewing for a longer time tend to review a large variety of albums and because of their experience, they are also writting better.
Which means less shit to deal with.

Also I have heard that some of mods are complaining about stuff they have to do - it is simple, nobody is getting paid for any of this and if you cant/wont (idontfuckingcareforwhatreason) dont do it.

But beside that, I respect the mods for doing that things for us.

Yes! I find this really entertaining to do. Even for albums in which I have no doubt about what I think of them, I still enjoy reading what the other reviews, both good and bad, have to say. I think that having the ability to get other listeners' insight into something is pretty valuable (if not valuable, then at least entertaining), and reason enough to keep reviews around.

I can see it from a tired mod's point of view, but that's about it. It's a completely intuitive aspect. Granted, I wish most of them were better, but not having access to the plenty of good ones would tragically suck.


Second this. I really like reading reviews for albums I know fairly well. I also get a lot of direction from good references in them. Metantoine is always going to have better references than the YouTube sidebar!


No way. Imagine if reviewer 11 actually managed to expand on the topic, but was barred. If I were reviewer 11, I would sad.

Hey, thanks dude. Gonna continue until I've done all of the full-lengths. Going in reverse order only seemed appropriate for one of my favorite bands. I don't usually bother with reviews for well-known, well-reviewed stuff, but I had a lot to say about each of the albums that I felt wasn't necessarily explained well (or well enough) in the existing reviews. Plus, maybe reviewing things people actually listen to will draw some attention to some of the more obscure stuff I've reviewed that deserves more listeners!

Moderating the reviews isn't really a problem, hasn't been for several years. The problem is all the worthless drivel that idiots submit. For a while, these were simply handled by leaving them in the queue for months. When I first joined the staff, there were some Metallica and Opeth reviews that had been sitting in the review queue for six months, because the staff, like the general public, couldn't care less about them. Now they're accepted pretty quickly, bashed for a couple days, then forgotten about, while doing nothing but diminish the credibility of the site.

Let's not also forget that really a good amount of the reviews are from other people's blogs ex: From the Dust Returned, Lair of the Bastard, other webzines, and likes of Metal Observer. The amateur stuff aside, the more professional and the ones of higher quality already have a home, the site is just a secondary receptible.

If anything, we can keep like, the review helping threads and stuff just to help people, but we don' really need people's test stuff. Hell, you could get paid for some of these reviews instead of just submitting them.

Sure some done by veteran/inactive users will be affected, say, Ultraboris's MoP review or some special exceptions, like the Cirith Ungol reviews done by the band's drummer, but it isn't like we can't keep those as special exception just in general.