praey's Abstracter_Wound Empire review is chock full of wicked metaphors (a "note groaning like a twisted steel bridge about to collapse"? - priceless!)

Anyhow, reading it made me grimly feel like I did while reading/watching the post-apocalyptic tale of woe The Road (by the same cat who brought us No Country for Old Men)...

Since everyone's complaining about the recent quality of reviews, maybe we can try something. I'm not sure if it's been suggested before, so sorry if I'm retreading old ground.

There are already features of the website like making reviews join a moderation queue to be accepted and affording scribe status to consistently good reviewers, but what about a system that would actually show the reviews that people thought were helpful. Bastard_Head said that there were a lot of reviews he didn't write because others had already written it perfectly, so what if he were able to give that review a +1 to show others that he thought it was well-written. Then users would be able to see which reviews for an album come with a good reputation and would be steered towards generally more helpful or egalitarian reviews.

I understand the potential for trolling, but if it works in a similar way to the "Similar Bands" function, then each registered member would only have one vote and thus couldn't greatly alter the ratings. It would also give a very basic level of feedback to us review writers, which most of us don't get besides a few comments in this forum.

The short answer is that similar ideas have been floated probably a dozen times in the last six years or so since I've been a mod and the consensus always comes down to "It's too easy to abuse and too hard to police so it's not worth the headache". I do like the idea in theory to have an up/downvote system similar to Reddit or something, but the amount of noobs and butthurt individuals who would simply spam votes for the correct/incorrect opinions is just an inevitability.

The reason it works fairly well for the Similar Bands tab is because A) it's less visible and nowhere near as many people use it as much as they read reviews, and B) we catch almost everybody who does try to abuse the system because one of the only reasons anybody does it is because they're trying to "promote" their own band in some way and want them to be the highest voted artist on Iron Maiden's page or something.

Rating down or up reviews won't work because of personal bias. This is something which can be seen on sites with that option, like the Internet Movie Data Base. If a person writes a well-written and thought-out negative review of a classic with a positive reputation, those who really like this movie will rate that review down. They won't rate it down because it isn't well-written. They won't rate it down because it doesn't offer a fresh perspective. They won't rate it down because it isn't helpful. They will only rate it down because they feel insulted some criticized one of their favorite movies negatively. Knowing the metal community, the same thing would apply, and probably to a much greater degree. You said something positive about any In Flames record released after Clayman? Thumb down! You like Celtic Frost's Cold Lake? Thumb down! You don't like Iron Maiden's The Number of the Beast? Thumb down. Introducing such a system would only lead to conflicts and discourage any new writers who get negative feedback to continue contributing.

Just read caspian's review of Ne Obliviscaris' Urn and I must say it's quite terrible.



Experience has taught me that any review with the term ''gay'' in its description or even title is a quite childish and stupid affair. This is also the case here.



Talking to a thirteen-year old is fairly irritating? I hope you're not anyone's father. On the other side, I'm confident you could get along with a very immature teenager since you like to use the term gay for musical description.



Cool, you've combined a cancer and a penis joke in one. Classy. How old are you again?

you haven't see those "ur mum gay/no u" memes going around?

Regardless if those are the best points you've got, then thanks for your gracious concession of defeat.

To be defeated, there needs to be a battle of some sorts but I can't duel someone intellectually who seems to be unarmed, at least according to that review. But if that makes you feel better, you're welcome.

"I can't duel someone intellectually who seems to be unarmed" LOL man I can smell the mountain dew and doritos from the other side of the world. Might want to settle down there champ.

The only negative part about that review is the term "double kick" because nobody fucking kicks their drums fuck come on I want that term to die.

If a silly meme reference, (accurately) pointing out that it's hard to talk to smug know-it-all children when you're adult, and one juvenile dick joke is enough to negate the fact that literally every other word is in-depth musical description and explanation as to why he doesn't like it, then I've got news for ya: the one making the dick jokes isn't the childish one.

I just love how he nitpicked a bunch of random little words and turns of phrase as the sole reasons the review was bad - no mention of any of its actual content, meaning, etc. That's how you know you have no real argument, when you resort to semantics.

Bring back the Royal Seal of Gayness series.

I agree that that is what will probably happen. Most people would make the upvotes and downvotes based on musical preference.

The only system we have that controls the quality of the writing is the mods assessing reviews. When the mods accept a review, they give a point reference to it. I know it's a very dangerous way of describing the quality of the review, but what about leaving that visible to other users on the review itself?

The only other thing I can think of is that the whole idea of scribe status could be developed, so as to give a couple of levels for reviewers of consistent quality and of more experience, so that readers are also aware of whose review they are reading beyond mere username and "MA points", which mean frankly nothing to the casual user. Like a gold, silver, bronze kind of thing where maybe someone like hells_unicorn is gold and a brand new scribe would be bronze. That takes it out of the hands of random users and gives a kind of consistency to the thing, while also meaning that it's useful for any user of the site.

Um, at this juncture may I politely steer you all to Black Mirror's Season 3, Episode 1, on which this wry as fuck British Twilight Zone/Outer Limits paralleling TV series focuses on the nefarious perils of people (in some very scary and dystopian future which may have already arrived!) obssessively (and compulsorily) rating, on a 5 star scale (ho-hum), every damn thing in sight, from their morning friggin' cupcake and coffee to whatever anyone says or does, to the point where one's livelihood depends entirely on it - in other words, what makes MA cool is the fact we eschew that whole "likes" and "dislikes" claptrap which is slowly but surely taking over the World!!! (mouhahaha!).

Thing with this idea is that it gives the impression that some reviewers' insights are more valuable than others. Who's to say that all of my reviews are automatically better than another user's just because I'm a scribe? Not every review written by a scribe is fantastic - I'm sure most still have old reviews on the site that they're not particularly proud of.

The only upvote system I need are the kind words I get in these threads and in PMs. I honestly don't even care about my score or however many "points" I get.

Agreed! At the core of the matter, I think we can all agree we write reviews first and foremost for ourselves as hobbyists (to borrow the term from Five_Nails), but of course it's always nice to hear positive feedback in the threads and PMs;

Ha! When people in my immediate surroundings (any one of my 18 house mates...hurrr!) tell me I'm wasting my time contributing to the site and wouldn't I rather do something I get paid for yadayada I respond, to their bafflement, "hey man, it's a labour of love, my way of giving back yo - if you paid me, or if I expected a reward or a bone at the end of the day, the quality of my writing would suffer!...They mostly just don't get it, as they're simply not true blue music/metal maniacs (a wry - love that word btw - sidenote: half of the house here wants to learn guitar/be a rock star but think I'm some aggro devil worshipping shit eater for digging actual good music...go figure! They turn their noses up at metal but really, isn't that where it's at when it comes down to it? Speaking for myself, I can appreciate how some prefer more extreme genres but I'm more of the melodic trad/power metal and doom along with the occasional black thrash/grindcore venture (I think Carcass is the heaviest band I dig...but I could be wrong!...

I mean, I would argue that it's totally true that some reviewers' insights are just plain deeper, better written, and yes, even more valuable than others. Guys like Empyreal, BH, lord_genghis, Metantoine and caspian are miles above random webzine reviewer #149984, and fucking hell if we don't get faaaaaaaaar too many of the latter here. If you're a scribe, then yeah, that means that your average quality as a writer is good enough to be considered automatically better than that of yet another arbitrary schmo that thinks his regurgitated views on Metallica are a worthy addition to the site. If said arbitrary schmo eventually improves and ends up becoming a consistently reliable writer, then he'll get to be a scribe also, upgrading him from "some dude" to "trusted reviewer".

But of course subjective taste something something yadda yadda.

lol It never left, it is only that the list of albums that made the cut for said series have not been on my to-do list for a while. If I get around to reviewing some of Six Feet Under's middle era stuff you'll see a few more. On a tangential note, the new Ministry album is positively fucking terrible and I plan on ripping it a new asshole shortly. There will be no mention of politics on this one when it happens (I'm too bored by the subject to really care all that much), just a good old fashioned run-down about why I felt like I'd been stabbed in the temple multiple times with an ice pic after the first listen.

Yeah, a truly abysmal album; worse than the "Beer..." even. Jourgensen is simply losing it... or rather, he's lost it.

I was never really heavily invested in the personal dynamics of Jourgensen and company, but I hear the guy has been shooting heroine like it's no tomorrow for much of his life, which may account for the extremely awkward lyrics and overly randomized sampling on their latest hunk of auditory garbage. I did quite enjoy some of their older material, but ever since the 2008 split and subsequent reunion their output has been lousy.

I'm totally with this. It wouldn't discredit the writing of people who weren't awarded scribe status, because they would still be judged as good enough for the site's standards, but it would simply highlight the fact that this person is a "trusted reviewer" and they aren't going to troll the reader or waffle on about irrelevant things, while these reviewers also tend to have a larger body of work that readers can use as a reference.

Of course some reviewers' insights are more valuable than others - that's exactly why the website has a moderation process in the first place. However, this would simply give some kind of stratification within the accepted reviews as well. I don't think it could have a negative effect, because this kind of thing would push me to become a better reviewer, so that I can reach a level where the administrators of the site are consistently satisfied with my writing and deem it of service to mankind. This is what CHAIRTHROWER was talking about - it ain't about money.

It may be worth noting that, from our end, scribe status isn't viewed as a trophy or something - it is merely a way to lessen the workload for the review queue mods. I'm already considering another newcomer.

That may be true, but wouldn't it be better to turn it into a useful feature for the site? I don't think people are that bothered about any "rewards" the scribe status gives them, barring the convenience of scribes being able to publish reviews instantly. My point is that it would be helpful for readers, not that it would inflate the ego of the writers.

I'm not entirely against what you're saying, but in doing such a thing we'd also be giving more visibility to scribes over even the mods (outside of where they get a parenthetical (mod) next to their name on reports) to the layman. Right now the only way you can even tell if somebody is a scribe at all is if you're a mod in the first place because you can either see that the review was accepted by themselves (we have a little note telling us) or you can see the list for reference in the mod forum. I tend to personally view it as something of an honor because I've never suggested a candidate that I didn't also think was really good at what they do, but from a functional standpoint it's purely janitorial.

So the options are really to either make the scribes seem more immediately important than moderators to noobs (or revamp the entire site to show modship on everything outside of reports, profiles, and the ranking list to even it out), or just keep the ship sailing as it is and hope our users are smart enough to read and understand if a review is stupid but technically acceptable.

Part of me wishes we could do something like you're suggesting but frankly it's neither practical nor a priority. About the only thing I could see happening that wouldn't cause one of those problems is simply making Metal Scribe a user rank like how Metal Knight is (the systems were introduced at the same time) so you could see it on their profiles. And even then it wouldn't be obvious on the review page itself.

Another indication someone might be a scribe is when their latest review stands alone at a weird time of day, or there's a large discrepancy between theirs and a mammoth string of closely timed write-ups...I guess what I mean is, a reviewer who's yet to attain scribedom will sense what's up if he/she constantly peruses the daily reviews column...I remember in October, there was a two-three week period when reviews seldom went up (I suppose the mods have lives outside of MA!) except for token ones always be the same folks...

Good memory. I didn't have internet access for virtually all of October.

Wow, Hells, you did it... You crucified the new Ministry. Well done for sure although I find it a lengthy tractate for such a worthless album... Whatever we have to do to keep the fanbase away from those.

Thanks man, one of my flaws as a writer is that when I trash an album I tend to go a bit longer than normal. Generally this arises from a desire to justify an extreme score, and the same applies with reviews I've done that gave a perfect 100. I'm really of a mind that Al needs to hang it up, he has clearly run out of ideas and he should have let Ministry rest after the first split in 2008. That album was so painfully terrible I am still amazed I got through the whole thing more than once.

I didn't think we'd be getting into this, but of course the mods would be making the decisions about which reviews/reviewers to recommend. I mean, I don't think it matters who is "seen as important", just about providing the best possible service to metalheads using the site. In all honesty, when I was a new user of the website I had no idea who any of the mods were - it's not really about being a public face but about running a great site, surely?

Perhaps you think that because I've been allowed scribe status it's some kind of power trip on my part, but I'm aware that I would be a bronze (or silver at best) scribe, since my reviews tend to cover albums that are off the boil, don't add much new discussion, and aren't quite in line with the general trends of the site. In fact, I think it would give all scribes added pressure to write better reviews and would clear up some of the muddiness on the part of new or inexperienced users, who would have a way of finding reliable information quickly, which is after all the main function of an encyclopaedia.

On the other hand, it's clear that there is not much enthusiasm for this idea and I agree that it would probably take a lot of work on the administrators' part to make a change that may be considered minor. I'm prepared to let the subject rest for now. (Thank you for your patience during a week of ranting posts haha )

Did you two somehow coordinate writing reviews of Merlin's The Wizard on the same day?

Sadly we did not though it is pretty humorous. I actually wrote that review last month but couldn't find the band on the Archives at the moment and was too lazy to add them myself. I actually saw Chair's review just as he published it and that he'd added the band to the Archives, so I figured I might as well add mine in while I was thinking about it.

I hope I didn't steal Chair's thunder as his review is pretty solid. With all the band intersections we have, we might as well coordinate something like that intentionally.

I was actually flabbergasted Merlin had somehow unceremoniously slipped through the MA dragnet; as soon as I realized it. I was on that like a dog on a bone! It's actually pretty friggin' tough to add new bands to the archives, especially those in the stoner/doom camp as the mods are quite selective as to what constitutes actual "metal" as opposed to "rock"...Actually, I've a few stoned meadow of doom (the rad youtube purveyor) submits which came back to me for that reason; it also irks me the mods turn down bands which have yet to release a physical format or 30 minute + digital release (i.e bandcamp)...

Anyhow, no worries Twist, we amalgamated the thunder! (thanks too for the swell comment...)
The Wizard is actually quite refreshing as far as doom metal goes - the saxophones are definitely a nice touch!

Shoot! I just noticed I used the word "actually" three times - arrr!

(Groan) Make that four!

I feel like I do that. Sometimes I'll think to myself I've used a word way too many times when writing a review so I'll do a quick Ctrl + F to make sure.

Ah, good 'ol google - supplying snazzy synonyms to metal reviewers the World over! (although you have to be careful in your selection otherwise it detracts from what you're trying to say; you can't just blindly pick any old word lest it sounds goofy and/or misinforming).

While it's usually better to avoid repeating words, sometimes it can't be helped. Also, there are times when, wanting to make an impact, the repetition of a word is quite appropriate (knowing when or how is like a seventh sense?)...

"And" is a big offender I'm always on the look-out for (I tend to favour "as well as" a lot!).

My friend and fellow word nerd recently sent me this gem, a funky sounding replacement for "to break": "busticate"! (you just know I'll coyly slip it into a review one of these days).

as a wry side note, I once had a snobby know-it-all English teacher admonish me for using "it seems" (apparently, that's low class; one should rather employ "it appears") go figure!

I kinda liked Mr Matt's alternate reality in which Manowar's Fighting the World brought all of us metalheads, then splintered into numerous and sometimes disparate sects, together as one "army of might" to engage in battle against a greater foe, the media and the crusty old monsters who would take away our steel and force us all to cut our hair.

Yep I remember the day we all heard Fighting the World the first time, rubbing our eyes and seeing the light. A glorious time for sure, as the brotherhood was formed, and because of that, metal is still alive today. Power metal beyond power metal, the essence of true steel.

I like how he was honoured to listen to the album. What a great priviliege it is to be bestowed with the blessing of listening to that particular Manowar record. Wait till he hears one of the good ones then, he'll be ecstatic!

Seriously though, that review is a bit silly, but I don't see much wrong with it. As far as newbie reviews go, I've seen much worse.

I guess my review where I call Xandria 'paladins of light' or some shit like that is still in the review feedback thread somewhere. Thinking about it now it's quite hilarious . I spent about ten hours writing that shit. The only reason why it hasn't popped up in the Crappy Diem thread is because I never actually submitted it but I can't see how you could go any crappier than that. Eh, fun times from when I was a reviewer...

EDIT: Found it. https://www.metal-archives.com/board/vi ... 4#p2547874

Though I didn't read every word of his review, thanks bayern for pointing me towards Punish's "Panik" - that is some excellent stuff. Now to find a place to buy a physical copy...

According to TP's Gygax review, the Californians' second album includes members of Pentagram and Huntress?! Sounds like a snazzy mix...as well, worth noting is how Night Demon's new (stalwart) ax man played on the first album. Will definitely have to check this out.