(original) (raw)
This site has been originally designed in order to be interactive, for reasons I don't feel the need to explain. Suffice it to say that very frequently, I've been put to shame (well, honoured, actually) by receiving comments that were far more insightful, well-written, and entertaining than my own reviews (not to mention sometimes even longer, which is something I still find hard to believe.) Moreover, many of them helped me reevaluate my stance on albums, artists and even entire musical genres.
However, since my original goals have been straightened out by the circumstances, I am no longer interested in sacrificing quality for quantity. I am still very much interested in reader comments and welcome you to contribute, but I am not willing to post anything that comes tumbling into my mailbox, like I used to. The following guidelines, I hope, will be relatively simple and easy to understand.
The Unacceptable
I. FLAME POLICY: All the flames will be directed straight to the trash bin, without further consideration. I do not believe that occasional jabs at your idols (or, rather, at the music produced by these idols - who might be wonderful human beings for all I know) deserve such a pointless waste of my time as reading, cutting, pasting, catalogizing, and uploading all the "you fucking moron you" drivel. Please take this seriously - one direct ad hominem assault and your comment is forever missed, whatever useful info it might have contained. Besides, I have received such a huge amount of hatemail over these several years that I'm practically immune. You probably won't be able to break my heart as aptly as the lady that once proclaimed that "one Karen Carpenter nail clipping had more talent than you'll ever have", anyway.
If it makes you feel any better, I admit there ARE a lot of poorly written, subconsciously provocative, and ultimately crappy reviews on the site, many of which probably deserve their portion of flames (and have already gotten them). I am constantly busy rewriting and reediting these, and apologize for anything in there you might find offensive. However, I am not removing the old versions until they can be replaced with new ones; and anyway, I find it ridiculous for somebody to get riled over such an insignificant thing as a poorly-written early review of mine.
In case it is hard for you to distinguish personal disagreement with somebody from insulting that somebody, you might consider looking into the sidenotes by "veteran" commentators such as Jeff Blehar or Bob Josef, scattered all over the site.
II. WASTE POLICY: Uninformative comments will be read, but will hardly ever be posted. In other words, please don't bother with one-liners of the "this album is the best!" or "how can you listen to this garbage, it stinks?" kind. Such comments may have their use at polls or with other statistics-related procedures, but when posted on an actual webpage they merely clutter up the space. Please take at least a tiny bit of your time to try and explain what it is you like about the record/band, or dislike. I'm not asking for doctoral dissertations - but a couple lines of thought-provoking text is not much to ask for, either. Remember that people browse the comments sections to _read_the comments, not count the amount of positive vs. negative ones.
III. "Practically-oriented" comments (which aren't really comments in the main sense of the word) will also be disregarded. Since I am not the maintainer of the official fan club of any of the bands I review, I will NOT be providing you with lyrics, tabs, MP3s, CD copies, trivia, or personal information pertaining to any of them. And likewise, I do not guarantee that I will post any advertisements or anything that looks to me like traces of a commercial promotion campaign of said bands.
IV. "Question" comments. "When are you gonna review so-and-so?" "Where's your review of this-and-that?" Again, these are not comments, these are inquiries. I will not be answering inquiries, because if the inquiry is stupid, it will be a waste of time, and if the inquiry is reasonable, I probably wouldn't know the answer to it myself. (And no, I don't have a determinedly pre-fixed review schedule. However, my full collection is easily available for your perusal here).
The Questionable
Invitations to start discussions. Quite often, a comment that I receive is not self-sufficient, but rather serves as a pretext to start a musical discussion. If the comment is insightful, I will post it, but don't expect me to necessarily answer it. It will always depend on how much free time I've got on my hands, on how well I remember the material (believe it or not, I haven't got every Grateful Dead jam memorized in my head, and I won't be throwing everything away and rushing to dust off these records at your first call), as well as other factors. In short, if you expected me to give an answer and I didn't give one, please excuse me in advance. It wasn't because I didn't care.
The Recommendable
I. Music-related trivia and _mistake correction_is one of the main reasons why the site is interactive. With such an enormous load on my shoulders, there's a lot of "objective" information I fail to concentrate on, as well as plain old mistakes, both minor _and_harmful. Please don't hesitate to correct these. If the correction is made briefly, I will modify the review without posting the comment; if it is made within the context of a large comment, I will just post it as it is.
II. Everything music-related that does not fit into the "unacceptable" categories. And believe me, thre's plenty of it.
Essentially, these Guidelines are here with one and one purpose only: TO SAVE ME AND YOU EXTRA TIME. Please respect this wish.