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Barbelith Reviews

  
 
Spatula Clarke
23:15 / 17.08.02
I've had a Big Idea. Because I've got to be up for work in four hours' time, I'm going to take a shortcut and present it to you in the form of discussion between myself and our very own Ellis:


Eek Randy says:
Barbelith Reviews
Eek Randy says:
Using Blogger, we set up a site devoted to album reviews
Mark says:
nice one
Eek Randy says:
We write the reviews as a unti, as a collective
Eek Randy says:
At the end of each review, there's a link to the board for people to discuss it
Mark says:
cool
Mark says:
you could do that with music and comics too
Mark says:
or just intregate it into the zine
Eek Randy says:
The reviews site contains no counter-argument, that's reserved for individual blogs or the Underground
Eek Randy says:
Yes
Eek Randy says:
That's what I was thinking
Eek Randy says:
One site for each Spectacle forum
Mark says:
ya
Mark says:
all good so far#
Eek Randy says:
It'd need an editorial team, but that team's powers would be limited to cleaning up spelling errors
Eek Randy says:
Opinions in reviews wouldn't be touched
Eek Randy says:
It'd start off with a few contributors, building up to whoever wanted to join in as the thing gained momentum
Eek Randy says:
Editorial tema also required so that we wouldn't end up with two or three reviews of the same release
Eek Randy says:
Damn. I've forgotten my other ideas
Eek Randy says:
I had all this planned out on my hour's walk home...
Mark says:
would you want barbelith.com/reviews
Eek Randy says:
How do you mean?
Eek Randy says:
Sorry, I'm suddenly a bit slow
Eek Randy says:
was so wired half an hour ago...
Mark says:
for the site
Mark says:
if it was linked to barbelith
Mark says:
would you want the barbelith web address?
Eek Randy says:
Yeah. You know how in personal blogs it puts the name and time at the bottom of each post?
Mark says:
yup
Eek Randy says:
The Blogger code could easily be altered to include a link there with the words 'Discuss this review'
Eek Randy says:
Then, if anybody starts up a discussion thread, the link could be altered by editors so that it goes direct to the thread
Eek Randy says:
That what you mean?
Mark says:
cool
Eek Randy says:
Shit
Eek Randy says:
How to put this into a thread and make it sound coherent, rather than the ramblings of a madman
Eek Randy says:
?
Eek Randy says:
It's my Big Idea!
Mark says:
write it all down in rought
Mark says:
and then edit when sober
Mark says:
and then post
Eek Randy says:
Good idea, but I'll prbably change my minds when sober
Eek Randy says:
I'm not even all that drunk
Mark says:
haha
Eek Randy says:
Which is odd, seeing as I haven't drunk for about nine months
Mark says:
i plan to be in 10 minutes


Like I say, I've got more ideas, but they've decided to hide themselves for the moment. I really think we could do this, though. Fuck, I really think we should do this. It's about time Barbelith started branching out a bit more. I'd love moriarty to bring his big Comic idea back to life, for example. There's so much untapped potential in this place.

I desperately need sleep. Apologies for the rather ramshackle way the idea's been presented. I'll try to expand on it after work tomorrow.
 
 
Seth
23:18 / 17.08.02
I'm in. I practically review anything I really love for this place anyway.
 
 
moriarty
23:21 / 17.08.02
I abandoned the comic reviews idea when we stopped new members from joining. There didn't seem to be much point otherwise. Now that the floodgates are opened once again, I'd love to restart it. Your idea sounds so much more feasible than mine. I'll help out where I can.
 
 
Spatula Clarke
23:23 / 17.08.02
I love you both! Marry me!

Actually, I think there was something in that booze...
 
 
Spatula Clarke
23:41 / 17.08.02
I practically review anything I really love for this place anyway.

A good point, and one I meant to address. Personally, I keep meaning to write reviews for this forum, but hold back because I'm wary of swamping it with threads that nobody replies to. And yet it's been kind of dead on its feet over the last month or so. This, I feel, could maybe inject some more life into it while also bringing some new blood to the place as a whole.
 
 
The Return Of Rothkoid
23:53 / 17.08.02
I could well be up for this. Hmmm.
 
 
The Strobe
08:20 / 18.08.02
I'm in. That is, if you'll have me...
 
 
rizla mission
09:14 / 18.08.02
Brilliant idea. I'm totally, totally in. Yes. Definitely. Good. Let's do it. And so forth.
 
 
Tom Coates
12:50 / 18.08.02
I hope people don't mind - but I'm going to move this to the Policy to start off with. Secondly, Cal and I have had a project like this in mind for quite a while anyway. I don't know whether we'll get around to it, but basically the idea was to do something a bit like haddock review only with a built in editorial process (a bit like the current moderation scheme).
 
 
Spatula Clarke
15:30 / 18.08.02
Another of the things I was going to say about the reviews was this:

No marks. Ending a review with '?/10' or '??%' is pish. The text within the review itself is worth 300% more than some arbitrary marking scheme (do you see what I did there? Do you?).

Would we want to have the reviews posted anonymously? That was what I was refering to when I said we should write them "as a unit", but I'm changing my mind the more I think about that one. Barbelith's all about individuality.

Contributors would get in contact with one of the editors and ask if they could write a piece on a specific album (I'm just using 'album' as an example - as has already been said, the basis of the idea could work with any of the Spectacle forums), rather than being allocated stuff to opine about. It makes the logistics of the exercise far simpler.

There's a broad range of talents on the Underground. There'd be a need for non-reviewy people, too. Example: we've got graphic designers here who could make each reviews site look fantastic (the Fool, for one).

Is the project Cal and yourself were considering still a going concern, Tom? Should we hold off on this? I'd suggest that, even if the answer to those questions is 'yes', we could use this thread to expand upon the whole notion of Barbelith Reviews and maybe also to look at other ways of spreading our nefarious influence into the homes of the innocent.
 
 
w1rebaby
15:41 / 18.08.02
I like the idea, and I think integrating it with Blogger would be good - a lot of people here have accounts already, it's convenient, and it's very easy to learn if you're not familiar with it. I'm not super-familiar with Blogger, but would be possible to have people post entries as draft which are then reviewed and published by a moderator?

I don't think anonymous reviews are good, nicknames help to personalise them and also let people get a feel for whose opinions they are more likely to agree with.

If there's any CSS/HTML/other web-fu stuff that needs contribution, I volunteer.
 
 
Spatula Clarke
15:48 / 18.08.02
The other plus point for including the reviewer's name is that it means that you know who you're dis/agreeing with when it comes to discussing the review.

As for moderating posts, I really don't know if it's possible with Blogger. Team blogs obviously have a slightly different setup than individual ones, but I'm scared of trying to fiddle with the Collective blog in order to find out what's possible in case I fuck it up or get Mr Coates mad at me. The other option is to write a review and then email (or PM) it to an editor. That editor then fixes any screwy links, punctuation or spelling and whacks it up on the site. The reviewer includes their name at the end as simple text.
 
 
moriarty
16:03 / 18.08.02
Just a few things that we were going to do on the comics review project. Not sure if they're applicable.

The original idea for the comics review had author links so you could get to a page of that person's recommendations. That way, if you know your tastes are the same or different to a reviewer, you could see what else they like or ignore them. This would be better than a "If you like this work, you'll love this other one" which is highly subjective. "If you're looking for other comics like Hothead Paisan, go to my review of Strangers in Paradise."

Every initial review was to be positive, because there didn't seem much point in recommending something and wasting time typing it all out for something that you didn't like. Secondary reviews could be negative, to counter the inital review, though these secondary reviews would not reference the inital review. Arguing over a review was going to be confined to the board itself.

There was going to be a minimum word count to weed out the weak. Also, there would be links to discussions on the board (as was suggested in this thread already) and any samples or relevant websites for the reader's enjoyment.
 
 
netbanshee
16:27 / 18.08.02
For a possible angle at viewing this concept, Everything2 might be something worthwhile to look at. Not quite a review or blogger per se, but it's sort of like an open-source encyclopedia to fill in gaps on concepts, words, and ideas. But in the sense of a review, it allows an thorough and moderated way of getting to all the dirt behind something.
 
 
w1rebaby
16:31 / 18.08.02
Definitely links to other web resources (what's the point of hypertext otherwise?) Also, an "other reviews by this author" section would be useful, to get an idea of someone's preferences. I don't know the technical setup of the Collective blog but it should be feasible - you could do it in Movable Type no problem.

I don't think all initial reviews should be positive, though. There's a place for "warning" reviews - "don't go and see this, it's shit!" It would also mean that bad things never got reviewed at all.
 
 
moriarty
17:12 / 18.08.02
I'll admit to being an accentuate the positive type. I don't understand the need for warning reviews, but that's me. If there's enough positive reviews (tempered by other opinions) then there would never be a need to tell someone to avoid something. The idea behind the comics review site was so that we need never answer the question "What's good to read out there?" ever again. Obviously, this new review idea could be a totally different animal.

And of course bad things would get reviewed. Define "bad". If Flux did a review of David Boring, I would follow up with a negative review, and he'd do the same if I wrote up Lynda Barry.
 
 
w1rebaby
19:22 / 18.08.02
Well, I see warning reviews as being useful for people who aren't coming from a complete position of ignorance. They're thinking "I've heard about this, it sounds good, I wonder what other people thought about it." If others had initially thought the same thing but found it very disappointing, it would be useful to know that.

And if all reviews have to start off positive, if nobody like a certain piece the review will never get started. That wouldn't be an issue if there was a wide enough range of opinion, but it's not unbelievable that something would be considered either mediocre or bad by everyone who experiences it. Who's going to start a good review of Titanic that you can disagree with?
 
 
moriarty
19:37 / 18.08.02
File under agree to disagree, I suppose. This is all theoretical, anyway. I just saw it as being a resource where people can see what else is out there that's good, either under what we as a collective wish to promote or examine (New X-Men, The Filth) or things that fell through the cracks (Wash Tubbs, Little Orphan Annie). Titanic doesn't really fit into the equation.

If we're allowing shockingly negative reviews, I'll gladly volunteer for the first crack at the Invisibles.
 
 
Tom Coates
21:17 / 18.08.02
Ok - my feeling is that we should use this thread to talk through some of the potential ideas that people on the board have, and in about a week I'll review it with Cal and see if we can sketch out a spec for a review section (or decide if we're going to have time to do it). At that point we can decide whether or not to do this centrally or to go for something based around Blogger...
 
 
Solitaire Rose as Tom Servo
02:35 / 19.08.02
I would like to review comics and TV shows. Really, I would.

And what are we doing about new articles for the webzine?
 
 
The Return Of Rothkoid
06:44 / 19.08.02
I'd vote for something that's un-blogger, if only because it's probably better to be tied to something closely related to the board's software, rather than someone else's bag of tricks. While importation might be easy (or not) further down the line, it could be a good idea to hold fire and see how Tom/Cal plan the thang out...
 
 
Tom Coates
06:54 / 19.08.02
Re: updating the webzine - you'll have to talk to Sleazey about that!
 
 
Murray Hamhandler
19:09 / 19.08.02
I'm already in the process of prepping reviews for my zine/site. So I'm in if we'll be doing a review thing here.
 
 
netbanshee
22:31 / 19.08.02
I'd look into reviewing Art/Design/Fashion stuff for review. This could be shows, exhibitions, bodies of work, specific artists, or current incarnations of concepts. I may have some net art in mind at the moment. I'm more of a new media person so I'd most likely walk that route.

Also, don't know how customizable a blogger can be as far as look and feel, but I would mind developing some graphics/interface for the Barbelith Reviews section if it does come to be. PM me for some examples of my work.
 
 
Spatula Clarke
12:46 / 01.12.03
Just bumping this because of this.
 
  
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