Hi,

I came back after a really long time of doing other things in life (like finding a job, raising a family, you know), but metal won out in the end.
I did post several reviews on the site in early 2000's, and just today submitted another in honor of recent 10 year anniversary of "Xystus" metal opera, "Equilibrio". At the same time, I decided to edit the title for 1 of my old reviews ("Dark Moor" Gates of Oblivion), as it was named in reaction to another review that seemingly is not even on the site anymore. However there I was rejected. I get that it may have seemed as someone just hacking the account after all this time. But I assure you that this is the true Big G that started and authored it, doing a cameo appearance.

I hope for resolution of this small issue once I put the old review back up for approval.

Best regards,
Giedrius Linge (aka Big_G)

Well, I turned back to the rejected review and I found it was in fact done on the grounds of style - all perfectly understandable, except for the funny fact that exact same review was once accepted by the Staff and graced "Metal-Archives" for 15+ years! I would be glad us not turning revisionist now because of an ill-advised try to correct the title.

But I will keep the advise for (potential) future reviews.

With all due respect, Giedrius Linge

Greetings, Big_G.

When a user edits their review and sends their review back to the queue, or if a user brings an existing review to our attention, we have the opportunity to take a look at it again and re-judge it. Sometimes that is necessary as mistakes in moderation can happen, and a review that shouldn't have been accepted was previously accepted. I'm afraid in this case, this particular review of yours is structured in a way that goes against our rules for acceptable reviews. Specifically, I rejected your review since we generally discourage track-by-track reviews, especially for full-length albums. This is something that has been in our rules from the very beginning:


Back when MA first started out, there wasn't really an established way of doing things, and undoubtedly that led to some mods back then accepting some reviews in error. The fact that your review has been on the Archives for 15 years does not negate the fact that it really shouldn't have been accepted in the first place, and it's our error for not having caught it sooner.

Let this be a good opportunity to take a look at that review and see if there's a better way you could structure it so that it isn't just a rundown of each of the tracks. I can tell from your recent review of "Equilibrio" that your skills in reviewing have improved significantly over the last 15 years, so that you no longer rely on a track-by-track structure. It's a much more holistic review, and one that is definitely acceptable by our standards (I have already approved it!).

In the meantime, don't feel disheartened by this. By fixing your review so that it is acceptable for us, you're not only helping to improve it to satisfy our needs, but more importantly you would be improving it for your own sake, based on the skills you have learned in the last decade and a half of your life. Who knows? Maybe you have more to say about the album now than you did back then. Please consider taking a crack at it.