Post by tream October 28, 2004 (21 of 63)
|
|
zeus said:
Too late. I just implemented this.
I think it detracts from the community nature of the site and is simplistic-it is not even as good as Parker's rating system for wines, which has led to an international standard of over oaked fruit bombs (but I digress):
I would much rather see two things:
1. an ability to provide feedback and dialogue directly to the review itself.
2. A way to combine comparative reviews.
You are Zeus of course and will do as you please, but personally I don't like it and see little value.
|
|
|
Post by zeus October 28, 2004 (22 of 63)
|
|
tream said:
I think it detracts from the community nature of the site and is simplistic ...
I've been thinking this over for some time. Yes, it's simplistic and runs the risk of being used for agreement or disagreement, rather than "helpful" ... whether it steers you to great discs or provides background, insights etc. On the positive side, it is feedback and an encouragement to express whatever views cogently. It's not my intention to alienate contributers here so we'll see how it goes. Amazon, obviously my model for this, usually has pretty good ideas.
|
|
|
Post by seth October 28, 2004 (23 of 63)
|
|
tream said:
I think it detracts from the community nature of the site...
Good point, but maybe it will stop people from posting reviews that are really just responses/disagreements with other reviews. That kind of stuff is what the forum is for.
|
|
|
|
|
|
tream said:
1. an ability to provide feedback and dialogue directly to the review itself.
I think there IS this ability in this site. You just click on DISCUSS or whatever that link is, and you can discuss the album, and any reviews that are there -- and you can quote whatever you like. I don't see ANY reason why I would ever want to see a debate argued out over any particular album within the body of its Review page.
I feel the "helpful review" feature is the appropriate level of feedback to someone's review. As Zeus pointed out, Amazon was his model for his implementation. Amazon wouldn't have spent the thousands if not millions of dollars in modifying their global sites with this feature unless use-case scenarios and research cried out for and justified the expenditure. Note that Microsoft's and Norton's knowledge base, for instance, also have "did this article help you?" on their support articles. In a lot of ways, having this feedback system in place is validation that a site is helping people.
You may not think it's useful on Amazon either, and thus, I hope you can just ignore it here as you might well do on Amazon.
|
|
|
Post by brenda October 31, 2004 (25 of 63)
|
|
flyingdutchman said:
Yes, but can we do w/o the following kind of reviews from people who obviously have no idea what they are writing?
Vivaldi: Four Seasons etc. - Carmignola/Sonatori de la Gioiosa Marca
dear flying, I don't see what harm this review did. Sure, it's not very helpful to long-time Vivaldi lovers but it may well come from someone just getting into classical music (which we want to encourage, surely) and/or whose english isn't very good (and I notice that the reviewer is based in Canton, China). Making such a fellow site user a figure of fun isn't very nice (and borders on racism in this case) - it could turn a person off the site, or off expressing their newly developing tastes and views or off trying to communicate in english. If I was the contributor you picked on, I'd feel upset and give up immediately. And judging by his profile, he gave up immediately after posting this review, and hasnt been back since.
Can I make a plea for greater tolerance of others' levels of musical or technical knowledge please, - this kind of post is a bit too aggressively male (forgive my sexism) and it's this kind of thing which nearly put me off registering in order to leave my first review. Believe me, leaving that first review takes some screwing up of courage and confidence if you're not an alpha male.
I'm surprised this site's webmaster hasn't had a word to you about your post. I thought this was a "collegiate" site, - please help make it so. No more slanging off at colleagues.
To catboy (the author) of the original review, - if you're still visiting the site, can I apologise on behalf of site users other than flying dutchan and hope that you'll eventually feel able to use the site without fear of this sort of thing happening again.
|
|
|
Post by brenda October 31, 2004 (26 of 63)
|
|
zeus said:
I've been thinking this over for some time. Yes, it's simplistic and runs the risk of being used for agreement or disagreement, rather than "helpful" ... whether it steers you to great discs or provides background, insights etc. On the positive side, it is feedback and an encouragement to express whatever views cogently. It's not my intention to alienate contributers here so we'll see how it goes. Amazon, obviously my model for this, usually has pretty good ideas.
dear zeus and tream, I just wanted to say that I agree with tream. Re. the post left by flyingdutchman, which I have just responded to, the author of the review he derided had five "not useful" clicks against the review. This could be really discouraging to someone leaving their first review and who has problems with english or with very new musical interest or with confidence. It's unsubtle and dosn't help the author improve his or her reviews. I agree with tream that it seems very unwelcoming and competitive. I hate to sound like a warm and fuzzy female on a site like this, overwhelmingly male dominated as it is, but it's this sort of potential for point-scoring aggression that turns me off accessing web sites about some of the things I love like recorded music and some aspects of computing. I'm glad to say that choral singing and gardening sites are NOT like this (even though choirs can be quite catty in real life).
I really had to screw up my courage and confidence before leaving a review as I'm ndither a gung ho person nor a professional musician or reviewer. To be immediately exposed to a "ratings" system is quite unecessarily intimidating, especially when people like flying dutchman feel that it's okay to pour additional scorn on people with less knowledge than himself.
Ratings are one thing in the competitive world of business and professional performance but quite another in the amateur/enthusiast world. Can we please stick to rating sound and performance and not people ??????
|
|
|
Post by brenda October 31, 2004 (27 of 63)
|
|
tream said:
I think it detracts from the community nature of the site and is simplistic.......You are Zeus of course and will do as you please, but personally I don't like it and see little value.
dear tream, I agree with you completely (although I have no idea what parker's rating system is) and have left a post to zeus saying so.
|
|
|
Post by brenda October 31, 2004 (28 of 63)
|
|
seth said:
Good point, but maybe it will stop people from posting reviews that are really just responses/disagreements with other reviews. That kind of stuff is what the forum is for.
dear seth, I have enjoyed your pithy comments in the last week or so, but wonder, given your obvious tolerance, why you would want to stop people from posting reviews of any kind? I only started posting reviews because my responses to some discs were very different to those of their reviewers. Should I stop posting too? Can I gently remind you of what you said in an earlier post on this thread: "these are consumer reviews after all. It's not like any of what people write is printed in a newspaper or magazine".
|
|
|
Post by pann October 31, 2004 (29 of 63)
|
|
"it could turn a person off the site, or off expressing their newly developing tastes and views or off trying to communicate in english. If I was the contributor you picked on, I'd feel upset and give up immediately. And judging by his profile, he gave up immediately after posting this review, and hasnt been back since".
Thank you Brenda. I have to agree with you 100%. My English is not very good. I was seriously thinking about quit posting on this forum in fear of being ridiculed. I enjoy reading different views, but why should I take the risk of being ridiculed. After all, music listenning is just an entertainment; so why bother. So far, nobody is doing this to me, but I see it's coming.
As a young student attending graduate school in the US, some of my classmates equate crumsy English to stupidity, until I proved otherwise with all As but one B. That was 32 year ago, I never forget.
It is 2004 now, there are still people not thinking this forum is globe.
So, please make this site as open, tolerate as possible to all and make this site a fun place.
Thanks, Brenda, for letting in a breath of fresh air.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Ha ha. It is surprising how few people put anything in their profiles about their audio system. I think of SA-CD enthusiasts as almost by definition audiophiles, and audiophiles, in my experience, anyway, like to talk about their audio systems.
Well, I took your cue and updated my profile. Honestly, when I first accessed this site I just was checking out the reviews and did not pay much attention to the profiles and did not notice most of the information that you could post there. Now that I am becoming more involved, I figured I might as well update it :)
On a side note, I tend to agree with Brenda that the rating system detracts from the site. I think the purpose of Amazon is quite different from ours. I think it was their way to deal with clutter since for some items there are simply way too many reviews. I do not feel this is a problem on this site - rather we should be encouraging more music lovers to speak out.
|
|
