Sideffect... Posted October 23, 2012 Share Posted October 23, 2012 It's been a long time that I had this thought and because of this lovely topic, http://www.psynews.o...w/#entry1001967 I was thinking it is time to spread the idea more Dolmot started it good, and see how psynews feels about it. I doubted of posting this in Dolmot's topic, but it's a bit too long imo... and I didn't want it to end wasting his topic... the statement is almost the same, but the more attention, the better I hope In the original review section, the first review section of psynews, users posted an album, wrote some short lines about a release, and people started to debate about the album/compilation/ep. Some wrote long reviews, some a few lines, but the good thing was that almost each release was represented. Sometimes the info was very tiny, what said enough about this release, not being that good, or it just had little fans... Nowdays users only want long detailed reviews (I guess, correct me If I'm wrong), but we all know > 90% off the psytrance listeners don't have the capacity, time, effort to write such a long and detailed reviews. That goes for all music genres. Maybe some people would like to open a topic about a certain release and are only capable of writing a few lines because they aren't writers but are a bit afraid that their review won't be considered as a review and change their mind, following the topic doesn't open. (again correct me If I'm wrong) There for lot's of good releases stay under the radar, like mentioned in the topic I linked above, and I think that's a shame. It would be great to see, that fan's of a release can open a review with just some lines, even it's it's still "I love this album, it's great' and that's it. (well maybe a bit more, but you know what I mean) At the other hand, we may have reviews that are just, "this album sucks" "this albums is great" etc... In the old review section that was often the case, but It had it's charm imo... And more opinions were represented... maybe we can accept that as reality... Some guidelines with minimum input would be great. A review could be just like this for example I think that would be great, and the debate goes on... At the other hand, the review section will be more filled with useless post. (then again what is useless) But I believe that the review section will be more approachable. And we have to accept that at this moment psytrance isn't that popular anymore (I don't mind at all ) so we have less input... What do you guys think? I'll add a poll and see how it goes... Maybe some of you are thinking, nobody ever claimed that it's not ok to open reviews like that. but why don't we see them (maybe I'm overlooking something, again correct me If I'm wrong) It's just a thought, an idea, to increase the debate about releases, but more categorized and not only in random topics. If it's a good idea we can add it to the review guiding lines, and motivate people to start opening more topics about releases. Feel free to debate Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anoebis Posted October 23, 2012 Share Posted October 23, 2012 The more reviews, the better imo... Even a "pure gold, fantastic melodies and deep floating synths" tell me a lot... Because after a while you know which members opinion is valuable for you as you may have the same taste Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sideffect... Posted October 23, 2012 Author Share Posted October 23, 2012 The more reviews, the better imo... Even a "pure gold, fantastic melodies and deep floating synths" tell me a lot... Because after a while you know which members opinion is valuable for you as you may have the same taste I couldn't have said it better myself. It would be great to have more approachable review guidelines and more opinions. Not that I'm unsatisfied now, psynews is doing great, especially compared to other psy websites when it comes to valuable info. Otherwise I wouldn't be here Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kathmandu Posted October 23, 2012 Share Posted October 23, 2012 yah and also i think its good to have reviews of music one does not like Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sideffect... Posted October 23, 2012 Author Share Posted October 23, 2012 yah and also i think its good to have reviews of music one does not like correct, if it's done with respect and not just bashing the artist, that would be suitable, it's up to the fans of the album to disagree and debate and so we go on and on... Then again it's harder to write review guidelines for that, for instance (example), If I should write a review about each album I don't like, I could write a 100 reviews a day, so what about that? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CoLoUr DoTZ Posted October 23, 2012 Share Posted October 23, 2012 I also prefer many short reviews from diferent people to a long one. I just don´t have the time to all that reading. Also comparing many people´s opinion gives always a better idea of the album. That said, I like to thank Trance2MoveU and others reviewers for all the hard work done in the reviews section. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BraneFreeze Posted October 23, 2012 Share Posted October 23, 2012 I recommend that all reviews (short or long) stay in the review section, and not get scattered into other forums. One of the great things about this site is the ability to find reviews of older albums fairly easily. I also think short reviews are a good idea. I love the reviews by T2MU, but the rest of us might be able to cover more releases and make a few suggestions, even though we're not as clever, if there was a little more flexibility on the review format. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rotwang Posted October 23, 2012 Share Posted October 23, 2012 Maybe some of you are thinking, nobody ever claimed that it's not ok to open reviews like that. Actually, the rules do say that it's not OK to open reviews like that: 6. The new psynews staff has decided that first review, or first post, should always be longer than normal. This doesn't mean an essay by any means. A nice example of a short but still informative review would be this which is around 400 words long without release details. People come here to read about the release, to get some information how it is and stuff like "this release is killagrgrhrhrg" won't tell them anything. After the first post you can post mini-reviews and discussion if you so wish, but no derailing of a thread is allowed. If you feel so strongly about something that does not generally have much to do with the release, please make a thread in an appropriate section and stop posting in the review thread. Not saying I agree with the rules, just thought it worth mentioning. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sideffect... Posted October 23, 2012 Author Share Posted October 23, 2012 Actually, the rules do say that it's not OK to open reviews like that: Never checked those rules properly to be honest but since I have no warning points I guess my reviews are ok Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prog4all Posted October 23, 2012 Share Posted October 23, 2012 When it comes to reading, personally I much rather have longer reviews. Unless it's a 2 track EP or so. Especially when I have the album myself I like reading how others experienced the entire album. With short reviews in this section you risk that people go overboard and make them way to short. In these cases you might as well make a topic title of the album and the sentence: "So, what do you guys think?" This way you risk having a lot of topics about albums with almost no proper additional information in it. I'm not saying that this will happen all the time, but posting a short review is actually an opportunity for the next one to make it even shorter. Sometimes I'm not in the mood to read longer reviews. But if it's about an artist I like or an album I was thinking of getting, your damn sure I will read it. That's just me though. So I'm not against short reviews, as long as people give enough information and not just make it 1 sentence. I am for keeping all of them in the review section though. I think the beautiful thing of psynews, is the fact that almost every review topic has some effort in to it and provides some information. And the more thread starters write, the more there is to agree and disagree about. Also I wouldn't mind seeing some more negative reviews either. The reason I don't have a lot of negative reviews, is because I will only get an album if I actually find it worth the money. So I think we should find some way to balance things. It doesn't have to be a very long review, but also 3 sentences and a picture is a bit to short in my opinion. I wonder what the members think who have written a lot of reviews, like 2TMU. After all, they have put the most work in to the review section. So I can imagine them not always wanting super short reviews, as they put a lot of long work in to reviews there self. On the other hand, I can imagine them embracing more reviews on this site to get this site even more active with more viewers. It's an interesting discussion. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trance2MoveU Posted October 23, 2012 Share Posted October 23, 2012 This is a good topic. I think the most important thing is to educate and entertain when it comes to a review. If I really like an album the more in depth I will go. Now that takes time and with all the releases out there, there is no way to get to everything. So I'm in favor of shorter reviews especially if it means more releases are covered. Remember good things come in small packages. That leads to more debate and more participation and then this place can be the hub of psytrance information it should be. I will say this. If I get an album that I think will be good and it turns out not to be...I'm licking my chops a bit. That's when the funny comes out to play. Mdk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Veracohr Posted October 23, 2012 Share Posted October 23, 2012 I think short reviews are fine as long as they say something substantive, not just "this is good" or "this sucks balls". I don't read reviews much, but when I want to read some comments to get an idea of a release, I usually skip over the long initial posts and go for shorter comments in the responses. I don't have the patience, I'm usually just looking for a quick nudge in one direction or the other, and if I decide to take the time to listen myself I'll make up my own mind. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sideffect... Posted October 24, 2012 Author Share Posted October 24, 2012 Indeed a minimum of characters should be required. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blubber Posted November 15, 2012 Share Posted November 15, 2012 old and new combined - what does it mean? only few sentences but combined with picture and tracklist? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sideffect... Posted November 17, 2012 Author Share Posted November 17, 2012 old and new combined - what does it mean? only few sentences but combined with picture and tracklist? That's up to the mod's actually. The signal is obvious and presented. We'll see how it turns out, no stress I believe those review rules are a bit outdated, I don't know who wrote them but they are good, but it seems to me they are written in a timezone when we had plenty off reviewers compared to today... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dolmot Posted November 17, 2012 Share Posted November 17, 2012 Alright, there's some confusion on the purpose of that "short review" topic. I've been asked about it, more or less directly, so let me elaborate a bit. (As a side note: regardless of the ultimate purpose of that thread, surely we can agree that it's not the place for meta-discussion on review philosophy. Post that in here or start a new topic.) The primary problem is that plenty of releases get no attention whatsoever. One reason is that the proper review topic rules, no matter how well-intending, form a considerable barrier to posting. You can ask for a cover pic, a track listing and a long review but more often than not they're not materialising. I guess this topic we're in right now is attempting to address that. Meanwhile, there's another reason. Plenty of releases are a bit off-topic or uninteresting. Who's going to jump through the hoops only to state that "this is yet another cheap compilation, didn't buy it"? The review topics are biased toward five-stars, because those are the releases people end up buying, listening thoroughly and hyping. Occasionally we get a negative initial post but not too often. Or maybe people just don't have much to say. Consequently, it's easy to remain entirely unaware of most new releases out there. Sometimes I have the energy to browse the news lists of various shops. More often I don't. Label blurbs are 100% useless. Everything is advertised as the second coming of the Christ and the most omgest dancefloor stormer ever. In reality, it's probably just mediocre junk. We need honest opinions and pointers for informed browsing when the time is limited. I had a few different visions of that topic. One was something like "recommend stuff here". However, I suspect it would have instantly turned into yet another zero-word YouTube spam thread. I'm tired of waiting for a dozen applets to load (if they load at all on mobile platforms etc.) only to get some obnoxious shite blaring until I can catch the pause button. Or maybe we would get copy-paste lists of 200 titles or "try IFO". I may be pessimistic or realistic here. You decide. Nevertheless, the point was to get quick tips on recent or obscure stuff, which isn't getting noticed elsewhere. If people become aware of it first, there's a better chance that someone will bother really reviewing it. It won't happen if nobody has heard about the release in the first place. For a quick pointer, it's OK to say that "this feels mediocre" or "this is crap". Well, maybe slightly more than that would be helpful but you don't have to go into details there. It's enough that the audience gets an idea of the basics such as artist, label, genre, approximate style and quality. Also, it helps if you can tell why it is good or not. A title or a link alone won't do that. So you can read it as "post a quick heads-up on stuff that's not been noticed yet". Or "recommend something". Or "counter-recommend something". The current wording is there only to encourage posting a few informative words too, instead of slamming in that YouTube blob and/or your own affiliated stuff and walking away. Sure, it would be nice to get those tiny efforts directed into full review topics, but I'm not sure whether it's going to happen. For off-topic releases it's not even a desirable option. That's why I think it's justified to have a drive-by topic for random findings. It's not supposed to be any high quality archive. Just a topic for finding out, what might be fresh or rotten right now. The word "review" is essentially just bluff to get a few actual words in. That's all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sideffect... Posted November 18, 2012 Author Share Posted November 18, 2012 Maybe it could be handful to pin your topic, Then again I think as long as people post short reviews, they will debate them (what is the purpose) and it'll go very fast off topic.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blubber Posted November 18, 2012 Share Posted November 18, 2012 The review topics are biased toward five-stars, because those are the releases people end up buying, listening thoroughly and hyping. i don't see that. especially in reviews which have more replies, people talk about what they like more and what they don't like at all. and if you read the reviews from the busiest reviewer alive (thanks a lot, btw) you can't see a lot of five-stars Nevertheless, the point was to get quick tips on recent or obscure stuff, which isn't getting noticed elsewhere. If people become aware of it first, there's a better chance that someone will bother really reviewing it. It won't happen if nobody has heard about the release in the first place. For a quick pointer, it's OK to say that "this feels mediocre" or "this is crap". Well, maybe slightly more than that would be helpful but you don't have to go into details there. It's enough that the audience gets an idea of the basics such as artist, label, genre, approximate style and quality. So you can read it as "post a quick heads-up on stuff that's not been noticed yet". Or "recommend something". Or "counter-recommend something". The current wording is there only to encourage posting a few informative words too, instead of slamming in that YouTube blob and/or your own affiliated stuff and walking away. if the intention of the "post a short review" topic is to share some simple first thoughts about releases i would definitely change the topic title. in "recommend whatever or sth", i don't care, but delete the word review! because the title and the thread themselves undermine the review section. look, there are 3 mentions of the new digicult album, and the first mention isn't even a short review - add a picture and it fits the review rules. and on top, T2MU reviewed this release one month before. i mean, why to bother to write proper reviews when people comment it elsewhere?? so, at least to me, the short review topic sends the signal "don't bother about the review section, wanna share some thoughts? - go here!". proof? - most of the albums mentioned there with more than ten words were already reviewed (no offense Sideffect, but i don't understand why you haven't posted them in the proper section?!?) so, my vote: change the "short review" topic in sth like "recommend sth", "share first impression" or whatever and don't write more than one or two sentences. if you want to write more (which means it is more than just a thought) open a new topic in the review section and don't care about picture and tracklist, you can edit it later. to me, discogs or psyshop link is enough for the beginning. thus, don't oppose the review section, change their rules! that said, i have to vote for yes???!? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sideffect... Posted November 18, 2012 Author Share Posted November 18, 2012 (no offense Sideffect, but i don't understand why you haven't posted them in the proper section?!?) No offence taken, I didn't check/know there was a full review, I should have searched, my mistake indeed... Then again (the digicult) it isn't a review at all, it's an experience to recommend, that's not how I review at all... A review is more then only an experience to me... I've posted some other albums/comp's today and probably some of them are also reviewed, but those are old. What I wrote is an opinion 5-10 years later... So I prefer it, in that topic, at the moment... EDIT: I'll put a link to the original psynews reviews under the short reviews, that seems like a good short time solution Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prog4all Posted November 18, 2012 Share Posted November 18, 2012 Couldn't agree more with Blubber. I see a lot of reviews in the short review topic that could easily work as a topic in the review section. This way we can actually talk and discuss these albums properly, and go on for 3 pages if we want. To me every new 'short' review is one loss to the original review section. I mean, the only thing you guys are missing in the short reviews are a picture and a download link. These things are very easy to copy and paste and you got yourself a review topic that easy. That said, we could loosen up the rules from the review section just slightly to make it a little more appealing to post. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.