How Did You Get Here? - New Members - Forums : Best Ever Albums

MadhattanJack
I mean, metal is okay, but...

Gender: Male

EyeKanFly wrote:

10 years ago I was looking for comprehensive lists of the best albums ever, and BEA appealed to me because of the combination of critics list and user-generated lists, rather than AM which is just an amalgam of critics' lists and RYM which is just user-generated (I believe... I may be misunderstanding how the "overall" charts are generated on any of the 3 sites, but this was my perception of how the charts were generated and that influenced my sticking with BEA).

I don't know how many of us realize this, but BEA is actually the only site of its kind that does Google correctly.

For some idea of what I mean, start with my own favorite band — just type "what's the best xtc album?" into Google. Presumably one of the main purposes of BEA is to answer that question for whatever recording artist you happen to have just been introduced to (which is to say, you don't already know the answer). So for the moment at least, the first three results on Google are all opinion pieces by individual critics, all basically entitled "XTC Albums Ranked From Worst To Best." But that's not what I asked, is it? Then there's the BEA link, which gives an answer to the question without my even having to click anything else, and also looks more authoritative for doing so. That's followed by the RYM link, which lists singles, not albums — maybe that's Google's fault, but it's not like you're ever going to get Google to correct anything they do; you have to figure that stuff out yourself. And after that, more opinion pieces — all of which, again, have to be clicked on in order to see the answer.

I assume this is a deliberate design choice that AM made, and thankfully has continued to support all along — it might reduce the amount of click-through the site gets from casual readers, but for people who actually want answers, i.e., most people, it's a clear win over all other similar websites. It also seems to me like a better approach for bringing in "higher-engagement" types, more of whom are likely to also become members at some point. (Though I could easily be wrong about that last bit.) That's what brought me here, anyway.

albummaster
Janitor

Gender: Male
Location: Spain
Site Admin

MadhattanJack wrote:

I don't know how many of us realize this, but BEA is actually the only site of its kind that does Google correctly.

For some idea of what I mean, start with my own favorite band — just type "what's the best xtc album?" into Google. Presumably one of the main purposes of BEA is to answer that question for whatever recording artist you happen to have just been introduced to (which is to say, you don't already know the answer). So for the moment at least, the first three results on Google are all opinion pieces by individual critics, all basically entitled "XTC Albums Ranked From Worst To Best." But that's not what I asked, is it? Then there's the BEA link, which gives an answer to the question without my even having to click anything else, and also looks more authoritative for doing so. That's followed by the RYM link, which lists singles, not albums — maybe that's Google's fault, but it's not like you're ever going to get Google to correct anything they do; you have to figure that stuff out yourself. And after that, more opinion pieces — all of which, again, have to be clicked on in order to see the answer.

I assume this is a deliberate design choice that AM made, and thankfully has continued to support all along — it might reduce the amount of click-through the site gets from casual readers, but for people who actually want answers, i.e., most people, it's a clear win over all other similar websites. It also seems to me like a better approach for bringing in "higher-engagement" types, more of whom are likely to also become members at some point. (Though I could easily be wrong about that last bit.) That's what brought me here, anyway.

The site basically has to be 'made for Google' to rank highly. Unfortunately, searches for the top album by some artist are not hugely popular search terms even though BEA does fairly well for those. In reality, searches for the top albums of a particular year are more competitive (and get a lot more traffic), but BEA scores less well on that front. It's something that's monitored fairly regularly, but short of a complete site-overhaul, it's difficult to do much about; and to be honest, even though Google is important, it's more important to retain visitors once they arrive and BEA has quite a bounce rate (outdated design etc), and getting people to register is the next hurdle once someone has arrived (even though the site costs nothing). Registered users are vital for keeping the site content fresh, which keeps the content relevant and more enticing. The site has been extremely lucky to have many amazing people register over the years, and that's really the main reason the site is still alive after almost 20 years ( Shocked

).

BorderFreeAndrew

Gender: Male

LTSings wrote:

tigercap wrote:

After being a contributing member since 2006, I was banned from Rate Your Music. I had between 30,000-40,000 contributions there. I'm always searching for new-to-me music.
As most regular users, I had pics and quotes matching my personality on my personal page. Never trolled anyone. Didn't post on people's boards.
Their admins are going nuts with cancelling "unapproved opinions". Their killing themselves with this nonsense.
My sin: One of the quotes on my page was, "it's not enough to not be communist, you must be anti-communist as well".
A user at both sites recommended this. I searched alternatives and believe this to be the closest to what I'm looking for.

I used to be on RYM too. They are totally unfair and they push an agenda.

I can definitely vouch for the accuracy of what LTSings and tigercap report. The owner/admins of RYM have blatantly obvious double standards in how they moderate and enforce the site's ever-more-Draconian rules. It's as if they are purposely trying to turn the site into a monoculture where only users who share their militant Left-wing and elitist views are welcome. No viewpoint diversity allowed. If you dare to express views contrary to the snob dogma, you will be harassed, trolled, and bullied until they can come up with a BS excuse to ban you from the site.

And almost anything that's popular or "mainstream" gets hate-rated into oblivion on RYM. Based on what I see in the charts, BEA seems to have a userbase that is much more reflective of the general music-listening population. For example, on BEA you can have popular/mainstream albums like "Hot Fuss" by the Killers as high as #196 on the overall chart. On RYM, that album doesn't even break the top 10,000. Probably because most of the people who like such music have already been banned or harassed off of RYM years ago.

MadhattanJack
I mean, metal is okay, but...

Gender: Male

BorderFreeAndrew wrote:

The owner/admins of RYM have blatantly obvious double standards in how they moderate and enforce the site's ever-more-Draconian rules. It's as if they are purposely trying to turn the site into a monoculture where only users who share their militant Left-wing and elitist views are welcome. No viewpoint diversity allowed. If you dare to express views contrary to the snob dogma, you will be harassed, trolled, and bullied until they can come up with a BS excuse to ban you from the site.

And almost anything that's popular or "mainstream" gets hate-rated into oblivion on RYM. Based on what I see in the charts, BEA seems to have a userbase that is much more reflective of the general music-listening population. For example, on BEA you can have popular/mainstream albums like "Hot Fuss" by the Killers as high as #196 on the overall chart. On RYM, that album doesn't even break the top 10,000. Probably because most of the people who like such music have already been banned or harassed off of RYM years ago.

I agree that cultural snobbery tends to be more prevalent among left-leaning people (right-leaning people tend to be more socially snobby) but the way I see it, a lot of what you're saying here is down to the fundamental design concept. BEA is all about rankings, not ratings, and you can't affect an album's ranking by giving it a bad rating — whereas on RYM, you can.

So if we assume that the impulse to "hate-rate" an album is similar to the impulse to bash that album's fans in a public forum, then it makes sense that people with those impulses would gravitate towards RYM, and conversely, get frustrated here on BEA and leave (or maybe just not join up in the first place). After a while, I'd expect that to have a positive cumulative effect on BEA's internal culture, and a negative effect on RYM's, blah blah blah, making it much easier to moderate the BEA "community" than RYM's (though the smaller size of the user base has a lot to do with that too, obviously).

Maybe I'm wrong, and call me crazy if you like, but that makes more sense to me than the notion that RYM is deliberately trying to advance some sort of partisan political agenda (irrespective of its relevance to popular music) and then making users suffer for failing to go along with it.

BorderFreeAndrew

Gender: Male

MadhattanJack wrote:

I agree that cultural snobbery tends to be more prevalent among left-leaning people (right-leaning people tend to be more socially snobby) but the way I see it, a lot of what you're saying here is down to the fundamental design concept. BEA is all about rankings, not ratings, and you can't affect an album's ranking by giving it a bad rating — whereas on RYM, you can.

So if we assume that the impulse to "hate-rate" an album is similar to the impulse to bash that album's fans in a public forum, then it makes sense that people with those impulses would gravitate towards RYM, and conversely, get frustrated here on BEA and leave (or maybe just not join up in the first place). After a while, I'd expect that to have a positive cumulative effect on BEA's internal culture, and a negative effect on RYM's, blah blah blah, making it much easier to moderate the BEA "community" than RYM's (though the smaller size of the user base has a lot to do with that too, obviously).

Maybe I'm wrong, and call me crazy if you like, but that makes more sense to me than the notion that RYM is deliberately trying to advance some sort of partisan political agenda (irrespective of its relevance to popular music) and then making users suffer for failing to go along with it.

I don't think you're crazy. I just think you haven't witnessed what I'm talking about firsthand. As someone who spent 16 years on that site, I both witnessed and experienced the biased moderation all the time. For example, when there is a conservative or anti-woke release on RYM (which, unlike BEA, includes a lot of singles as well as films), the comment box will often be filled with extreme left-wing vitriol towards the artist and/or subject. But if someone chimes in to defend the release or present the alternate political view, even if they're following the community rules, they will be targeted by the mods and accused of "starting arguments" or "stirring up political drama". Intentionally or not, this creates a culture where militant far-Left/woke users are allowed to attack and vilify the rest of us all they want, and spew all the political bile and venom they want, but the rest of us just have to remain silent and take the abuse. Because if we dare to express a word in our defense, or make a positive comment about an artist or film the woke mob hates, we're the ones who get punished.

Then there's Tigercap's example, which I quoted above. Plenty of RYM users have overtly Marxist and/or Anarchist political statements on their profile pages. Some even use photos of old Marxist/Maoist leaders as their avatars. But Tigercap had one little quote against Communism on his page and the admins perma-banned him. LTSings (also quoted above) got perma-banned because she privately complained to the RYM admins in 2020 when they temporarily put a list of radical leftist political organizations complete with links on their homepage. As for me, I got perma-banned last November simply because I left a benign positive comment on a Timcast single. It didn't break any rules, but I was told it was "disruptive to the community" and somehow I should have "holistically" known that. For the record, I'm not even a conservative. I'm a center-Left moderate who simply appreciates free speech and viewpoint diversity. Apparently that's intolerable to RYM's admins.

Anyway, I'm not trying to launch a political debate. There's a separate forum for that. My point is about fair and honest community moderation. RYM clearly doesn't have that. I'm hoping that BEA does.

As for your point about the different design concepts re: rankings vs ratings, that makes a lot of sense. And it alone could explain why mainstream/popular music fares much better on BEA than on RYM.

CA Dreamin

Gender: Male
Location: LA

I never joined RYM because I didn't care for their system of ratings generating overall lists. TBH I don't rate albums anymore, so I would be useless there anyway. I just tag albums as 'listened' here on BEA and occasionally update my lists. Further, BEA's system of aggregating individual lists seems fairer and more accurate.

But now having read these anecdotes about RYM and their mods, I'm even gladder that I never wasted my time there.

musicoed

Gender: Male
Location: SPb

EyeKanFly wrote:

I realized today that my 10th anniversary of being on BEA was 9 days ago!

Unlike some who came here from RYM, I actually discovered RYM through BEA. I vaguely recall finding BEA through AcclaimedMusic, but I think the link was rather roundabout and I may have stumbled upon BEA on accident (attempting to look up "best albums ever" and putting the words in a different order and finding this site!) ...

This comment was the reason for my investigation.
Yes, I also have an anniversary, today is 5 years of my joining!
In this regard, I visited in May 2018 to embellish this story with details.

So, on the calendar 14/V-2018.
I was interested in a fresh Finnish release that cracked the RYM list.
Litku Klemetti - Taika tapahtuu (20/IV-2018).
I wanted the album itself, not the ratings page.
But the link was the only one, I had no choice.
However, I noticed a familiar font and color on the title sign (best ever...).
I used to be a heavy user of the UK Top 40 (every hit) site.
It even seemed to me that these are parts of the same platform.
So I signed up the same day.

Since 2008, I have purposefully searched the Internet for just such forums.
No, I didn’t accidentally find this site, this site eluded me by accident for 10 years.))
By this time, I was actively using at least three music platforms.
But gradually this resource came to the fore.

I was only interested in the current 2018 list.
However, my beginner level did not give me the rights to this chart.
It was very reminiscent of a computer game - a strategy.
I had to come up with higher rank lists that I didn't have.
Points were required to advance to the next levels.
I had to focus on unknown releases.
Each new track and cover had to replenish my account.
But I didn't activate the last (non-obvious) stage of the release download.
At the same time, the registration of the tracks took place without a cover.

In 10 days, I collected the required amount of 2,500 and moved to level 6.
I got so carried away that I spent the last 24 hours without sleep and earned more than 800 points.
Stars usually don't allow such meaningless overloads.

Yes, it was Thursday 24/V-2018, Friday albums night was ahead of me.
On this day, a Russian release came out, which changed my priorities for two years.
I also noticed this date on the front page of the forum the other day.
"Most users ever online was 9,424, 05/24/2018 16:36"

Neilwade

a friend of mine recommended me this forum,
Actually I joined today and this is my first job.

MadhattanJack
I mean, metal is okay, but...

Gender: Male

Neilwade wrote:

Actually I joined today and this is my first job.

Admittedly, the pay could be better.