For those of you reading the blog on a mobile device or feed-reader, you might want to know I've added three new polls to the site. These relate to the ratings and the style of review I write. I just want to assess what you think about the content, to decide whether I'm on the right track or I should make some changes around here. Since I've built up a moderate audience for a blog run almost entirely by one person (with the exception of the occasional guest review), I would assume that you like the way I do things. Or maybe you like it,
except (fill in the blank). Feel free to comment on this post if you have anything to say about the topic.
I'm going to be moving this week, and will have my Internet access cut off for at least a few days. I have content set to publish automatically until next Friday, and hopefully I will have access again by that time. In the meantime, I won't be able to comment, and I won't be able to inform labels/promoters when the reviews are up.
P.S. I used to work for a moving company, and I most definitely did
not pack that beat-up looking box in the picture.
I don't mind your rating system as long as it sums up your review.
ReplyDeleteI don't like that you say, "I give it # out of #". Just type the score or figure out how to include stars. It's just a little peeve I've developed since I started reading your blog. No biggie.
i've avoided the urge to add numbers to ratings because i think they're generally meaningless. describing music is not a quantitative experience. however, if i were to do so, i'd go with a system of -3 through 3, with 0 being an average album. though i'd probably have to explain that approach over and over again.
ReplyDeletei hate when people use a system of out of 10 or 100 because school has taught us that 70 means average. so that means there's a wide swath to differentiate crappy albums and all the good albums get crammed together between 8 and 9.
but clearly i've put way too much thought into that.
I like your style, dude. Nothing wrong with the blog. Keep it up! More beer! More non-Metal! MORE METAL!!
ReplyDeleteI personally use an A-F grading scale on my own stuff (as you know), since I think "C" conveys much more clearly what I mean than attempting to find the appropriately corresponding number. As somebody else already noted, "average" in most people's minds tends to fall well above the middle on a numerical scale, so that can cause some confusion. The writer might use 5/10 to mean average, and a readers thinks of 7/10 as average, so they won't understand clearly what you're trying to convey.
ReplyDeleteAll that being said, I think anybody who reads your blog very often has a pretty good feel for what you mean by a given rating, and I do think having some kind of rating system is useful.