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| Genuinely dumb or weird reviews.. https://forum.metal-archives.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=105305 |
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| Author: | LeMiserable [ Sat May 24, 2014 6:35 am ] |
| Post subject: | Genuinely dumb or weird reviews.. |
Just looking at this now, UltraBoris gave Like an Everflowing Stream (only) 78% but simultaneously called it a: "highlight in the genre, excellent stuff" and just overall praised it for its material, but still he gave it only 78%?? And I think i've seen him do it more times, praising albums while giving them only decent scores... What to do about this? There are more instances, it looks weird and it looks like its just there to bring the score down... |
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| Author: | Empyreal [ Sat May 24, 2014 7:16 am ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Genuinly dumb or weird reviews.. |
He had a different scoring system, nothing wrong with that at all. |
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| Author: | BastardHead [ Sat May 24, 2014 12:34 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Genuinly dumb or weird reviews.. |
Honestly, less people need to use that shitty school scoring system (where 60% is only a notch above failure and 70% is average) because that inflates most of the scores. I mean yeah, we can't regulate what scoring system people use because that's just retarded but it makes so much more sense for sub-50 to be bad and 50+ to be good. That gives equal amounts of variation on either end, instead of a really scrunched up region for what you'd call a good release and a massive variety of flavors of bad. Most people review things they like, so there are always going to be more positive scores, which is fine, but the most common scoring system just slants everything to be higher than what would make logical sense to me. Basically if you get confused, look at some of the author's other reviews and see how they do things, everybody is different, and if you disagree with their system, just shrug it off and keep it in mind. |
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| Author: | LeMiserable [ Sun May 25, 2014 1:17 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Genuinly dumb or weird reviews.. |
I know the scoring system is only a number and some people tend to rate it really weird. (e.g. 60% decent and 55% is bad) But really, 78% while calling an album excellent and an highlight of the genre really doesn't make sense to me... 78% =/= excellent, top of the genre, by ANY standard.. |
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| Author: | severzhavnost [ Sun May 25, 2014 3:07 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Genuinly dumb or weird reviews.. |
LeMiserable wrote: I know the scoring system is only a number and some people tend to rate it really weird. (e.g. 60% decent and 55% is bad) But really, 78% while calling an album excellent and an highlight of the genre really doesn't make sense to me... 78% =/= excellent, top of the genre, by ANY standard.. It could, if you don't have the highest opinion of the overall genre. Then the best that genre can do may only be 80% as good as your favourites. It depends, whether the reviewer tends to review an album in isolation or within its genre's peers. |
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| Author: | Diamhea [ Sun May 25, 2014 4:51 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Genuinly dumb or weird reviews.. |
The way I've always done it: 50% equals indifference, or equal amount of good and bad. Initially this seemed to result in too many 70s and 80s, so I modified it slightly to appraise bands for 'what they are' as well. Therefore I give some leeway to unproven acts and judge bands that have proven themselves in the past on a harsher basis, etc. I was apprehensive at first as this goes against judging the music alone for what it is, but I feel that the review itself does that anyway, so why not keep the scores interesting? If you are getting hung up on the scores you are approaching it wrong anyway... |
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| Author: | iamntbatman [ Tue May 27, 2014 7:04 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Genuinly dumb or weird reviews.. |
This thread is a goldmine: http://www.metal-archives.com/board/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=29824 I think I read through that whole thing shortly after joining the site. |
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| Author: | Rasc [ Sun Jun 15, 2014 10:13 am ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Genuinly dumb or weird reviews.. |
Well, if you take a look at most of his reviews, you'll see he'll usually give relatively "low" scores to albums he liked. What I never do myself is to use broken numbers. This may sound like an OCD, but I just don't see a big difference between a 70% and a 72%. |
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| Author: | BastardHead [ Sun Jun 15, 2014 12:27 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Genuinly dumb or weird reviews.. |
I just now noticed the crippling irony of the typo in the thread title. I think constantly rounding to the nearest five or what have you is lame and not taking advantage of the full system we have in place. Granted the scores themselves are the least important part and are more often than not completely arbitrary when it comes to most of the better writers here, but if I feel like a 75 is too high and a 70 is too low, you bet your ass I'm gonna use a 73 or something. Like we always say, everybody's scoring system is different, but that's some justification for mine. |
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| Author: | MrMcThrasher II [ Sun Jun 22, 2014 6:34 am ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Genuinly dumb or weird reviews.. |
The OP made mention of UltraBoris and that would lead into that ridiculous review of Master Of Puppets, where he gave it a 0% because of what he felt it represented and didn't base it off the music alone. THAT completely missed the point. |
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| Author: | Gutterscream [ Fri Jul 11, 2014 9:38 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Genuinly dumb or weird reviews.. |
BastardHead wrote: Honestly, less people need to use that shitty school scoring system (where 60% is only a notch above failure and 70% is average) because that inflates most of the scores. I sit here raising my hand as if back in school, a popper of the lunch bag where everyone goes 'ooooo'. Yeah, I'm one of these. Unfortunately for the bands, a 75 is only average for me even if it can be construed as a band getting 75% of their attempt correct, whereas 50 is half right, yet pretty crappy in my book. Sigh. It's just a harder curve. But I do have the grading system in my info box. I figured I owed people that in case my system eluded them. |
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| Author: | BastardHead [ Sat Jul 12, 2014 11:43 am ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Genuinely dumb or weird reviews.. |
The reason I don't like it is that it just gives like 20 or 30 shades of "good" and 70 shades of "bad". If I think something is middle of the road, unengaging but not something I necessarily regret listening to and it's just energetic enough to hold my attention but not strike me as anything special, it would score like 20-40 points higher for somebody using a different scale with the exact same opinion. I know everybody uses different scales and I'm totally okay with that, I just think the disparity is way too high and the bonus for simply not being terrible is way too much. Not to mention noobs are generally gonna review things they like anyway, so the plague of 90%+ scores for a vast majority of reviews will never abate. |
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| Author: | Empyreal [ Sat Jul 12, 2014 12:01 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Genuinely dumb or weird reviews.. |
Pretty much anything below a 50 is 'bad' for me. Stuff in the mid-50s and the 60s is mediocre and stuff in the 70s I like but not love. 80s are solid and 90 and above is obviously essential shit to hear. |
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| Author: | mjollnir [ Sat Jul 12, 2014 12:40 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Genuinely dumb or weird reviews.. |
Empyreal wrote: Pretty much anything below a 50 is 'bad' for me. Stuff in the mid-50s and the 60s is mediocre and stuff in the 70s I like but not love. 80s are solid and 90 and above is obviously essential shit to hear. That's pretty much how I do things. I am known to be liberal with the 100s but if an album is flawless, I like every song and the production is good....it's a perfect album for me. What can I say? |
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| Author: | yentass [ Tue Jul 15, 2014 6:49 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Genuinely dumb or weird reviews.. |
BastardHead wrote: The reason I don't like it is that it just gives like 20 or 30 shades of "good" and 70 shades of "bad". If I think something is middle of the road, unengaging but not something I necessarily regret listening to and it's just energetic enough to hold my attention but not strike me as anything special, it would score like 20-40 points higher for somebody using a different scale with the exact same opinion. I know everybody uses different scales and I'm totally okay with that, I just think the disparity is way too high and the bonus for simply not being terrible is way too much. Here's a point that's quite common against the detractors of the school scale which I can't, for the life of me, understand: the "watershed" score on a "full" scale is 50. The "watershed" score on a "school/academic" scale (i.e. the borderline between "pass" and "fail"), from what I've observed, usually fluctuates around 55. With that in mind, it's pretty evident that the discrepancy between both approaches is pretty minimal as far as scores go. Why, then, the prevalent conviction is that the school system inflates scores? Surely these 5 points don't make that much of a difference. |
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| Author: | BastardHead [ Tue Jul 15, 2014 9:41 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Genuinely dumb or weird reviews.. |
Because for the school system, "average" is 70-79, whereas with the other most popular scale, it's closer 50-59. An "average-good" score has a difference in roughly twenty points between the two systems. This means above average, or good stuff, is all smooshed into a twentyish point range with "not good", "boring", "bad", whatever having like triple that to work with. Now, it's not that most reviews here are positive (that's to be fully expected and not at all something I have an issue with (people are generally gonna review stuff they like)), it's just that I hate curved scaling because it tilts the field in favor of anything being listenable getting ten or twenty percent higher than what (to me) would be logical. I just like it when things are level. |
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| Author: | Kveldulfr [ Tue Aug 12, 2014 12:55 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Genuinely dumb or weird reviews.. |
Here the scale is up to 7 in school. While 4 is 'enough', only 5 onwards is considered decent (71% and above). It's a pretty shitty way to score albums IMO, a 70 should mean something solid and enjoyable for fans of the genre. 80-89 should be something from very good/remarkable to excellent and 90 and above for classic, mandatory staples of the genre. Maybe to give some sort of guidance at scores for reviews would help to fix the problem of too many 100% and 0% and level the overall average scores. |
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| Author: | AcidWorm [ Sat Aug 16, 2014 3:24 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Genuinely dumb or weird reviews.. |
Well part of the problem is going through school our brains are pretty much conditioned into grading things in that manner as we are exposed to the school grading system so much, and so regularly. I try to think of it in terms of stars out of 5, and then revert over. It makes it easier for me to see a good album (just good) as 3/5 which then translates to 60%. It helps prevent me from giving it a 70 or 75. I don't think it is possible to try to force people to use a similar scoring system. You can get annoyed all you want by people's systems but it isn't going to change so just accept it and as this site has said time and time again it is the content of the review that matters. |
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| Author: | bug_man [ Wed Sep 24, 2014 9:18 am ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Genuinly dumb or weird reviews.. |
MrMcThrasher II wrote: The OP made mention of UltraBoris and that would lead into that ridiculous review of Master Of Puppets, where he gave it a 0% because of what he felt it represented and didn't base it off the music alone. THAT completely missed the point. rating albums low for ideological reasons is actually cool as hell. personally ive never written a review but if i did i would probably give very little thought to the % because it's so arbitrary and stupid, i dont care what the number is, i want to know f the album has cool riffs or not. |
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| Author: | Beer Baron [ Fri Nov 07, 2014 4:31 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Genuinely dumb or weird reviews.. |
I was reading dismember_marcin's review of Taake's Noreg Vaapen and out of nowhere, it turned into an anti-semitic rant Quote: That jewish mentality of people involved in the scene and distros, who put ridiculous prices for the records just pisses me off and I will never let those greedy bastards earn some extra money, just because they say they wanna 25-30 euros for the record. Fuck you, jewish motherfuckers. I don’t care… I definitely didn't see it coming |
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| Author: | LeMiserable [ Fri Nov 07, 2014 4:45 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Genuinely dumb or weird reviews.. |
Yeahh....this is now officially turning into a substitute for the Review Discussion thread... |
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| Author: | hakarl [ Thu Nov 13, 2014 7:34 am ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Genuinely dumb or weird reviews.. |
LeMiserable wrote: Yeahh....this is now officially turning into a substitute for the Review Discussion thread... Yeah, maybe you should've posted in the appropriate thread instead of making a new one. |
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| Author: | LeMiserable [ Thu Nov 13, 2014 9:29 am ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Genuinely dumb or weird reviews.. |
Ilwhyan wrote: LeMiserable wrote: Yeahh....this is now officially turning into a substitute for the Review Discussion thread... Yeah, maybe you should've posted in the appropriate thread instead of making a new one. I wanted to initially, but I felt this needed a seperate thread in case of mass posting...or stuff idk. This will be a discussion without outcome anyway, maybe this should be closed, thought that's entirely up to the mods. |
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| Author: | soul_schizm [ Tue Nov 18, 2014 7:32 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Genuinely dumb or weird reviews.. |
LeMiserable wrote: Just looking at this now, UltraBoris gave Like an Everflowing Stream (only) 78% but simultaneously called it a: "highlight in the genre, excellent stuff" and just overall praised it for its material, but still he gave it only 78%?? And I think i've seen him do it more times, praising albums while giving them only decent scores... What to do about this? There are more instances, it looks weird and it looks like its just there to bring the score down... Metal_Jaw's review of Reign in Blood garners 71% and he calls the album bullshit. I guess we are getting into the meaning of XX percentage to different people again, but I'm having a hard time reconciling 71% and "bullshit" together. |
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| Author: | Apteronotus [ Tue Nov 18, 2014 9:21 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Genuinely dumb or weird reviews.. |
I just took a look at the "Reign in Bullshit" review, looked Metal_Jaw was just calling it bullshit by Slayer's standards and a step down from earlier work that Metal_Jaw liked better. I also checked his/her reviews for those release: 92, 88, 92. I don't think its out of line to call a jump down from "greatness" to 71 bullshit. |
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| Author: | soul_schizm [ Wed Nov 19, 2014 10:52 am ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Genuinely dumb or weird reviews.. |
Good points. |
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