Members Porkchop Xpress Posted December 27, 2005 Members Share Posted December 27, 2005 What is that and why is it stickied? Looks like a fine review about a pretty cool amp kit, but why the sticky and cross-post? Just wondering. It seems weird and out of place. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil O'Keefe Posted December 27, 2005 Share Posted December 27, 2005 Please check out this thread for more information about the Pro Review concept. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members NITEFLY182 Posted December 27, 2005 Members Share Posted December 27, 2005 Much like a review in a magazine that the company advertises in, I am very skeptical of any "sponsored review" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil O'Keefe Posted December 28, 2005 Share Posted December 28, 2005 Fair enough... but UNlike a magazine review, YOU can directly participate. That's a very significant difference!Suppose I write a Pro Review of a effects pedal, and gush about it. And the majority of people who have purchased that pedal think it's crap. THEY can post their contrary opinions on it, and it becomes part of the overall review. That keeps ME honest!I get paid to write the magazine reviews I do. On my forum - both here on HC and when it was over on www.musicplayer.com - I occasionally write reviews for free, as a public service. But I'm not going to write tons of reviews for free - that takes time, and time is money. The folks who write for the magazines don't have the time to put the serious effort and time into a review for free all the time without compensation. You're not going to get someone of Craig Anderton's caliber to do reviews of tons of products for free, and rather than make it a "pay per view" feature that the READERS would have to pay for, we make the company pay for it. And, here's the important part - their payment for the review doesn't guarantee them a favorable review - only ACCESS, and we still reserve the right to post our independent opinions without them having a veto in the matter. And again, because it's all in the open and interactive, YOU have a say in it too. Unless you are questioning your own possible biases and ulterior motives.... My advice is to check out a few of the Pro Reviews that have already ran and see what you think - then make your judgements. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members NITEFLY182 Posted December 28, 2005 Members Share Posted December 28, 2005 Ive seen them and I think its a cool idea but it will be difficult to cover a wide range of products in any reasonable amount of time. I dont see myself making use of this new feature at all. Good luck, however. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Porkchop Xpress Posted December 28, 2005 Author Members Share Posted December 28, 2005 So, who are the "Pro's" and are there going to be reviews on effects, too? Just for the record, I like reviews of any kind. It just seemed out of place to me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil O'Keefe Posted December 28, 2005 Share Posted December 28, 2005 Originally posted by NITEFLY182 Ive seen them and I think its a cool idea but it will be difficult to cover a wide range of products in any reasonable amount of time. I dont see myself making use of this new feature at all. Good luck, however. That's another reason for making them sponsored. In addition to providing payment for the pro-level, experienced magazine reviewers, it cuts down on the sheer amount of reviews we'd be asked to run if they were all being done for free. And even with that in place, we're getting a very large number of requests for more info on, and requests / signups for Pro Reviews, so in that respect, you're correct - there's still going to be a lot of time involved for the reviewers (we're not going to skimp on these things - the depth and detail we can put into them vs limited space we have available in our magazine reviews is one of their other benefits of the online Pro Reviews), but I don't think we're going to run short of things to review either. But in an effort to be fair to smaller companies with cool products they'd like to have reviewed, Craig is working on some sort of sliding scale thing or similar approach to allow them access to the process too. Thanks for your well-wishes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil O'Keefe Posted December 28, 2005 Share Posted December 28, 2005 Originally posted by Porkchop Xpress So, who are the "Pro's" and are there going to be reviews on effects, too? Just for the record, I like reviews of any kind. It just seemed out of place to me. Well, the guy who came up with the concept of Pro Reviews is Craig Anderton. You might have heard of him... he's worked on several major and indie label records in various capacities, has written for and / or edited EQ, Guitar Player, Electronic Musician, SOS, etc. etc.... and has written a lot of classic books, designed some effects over the years, etc. etc. Pretty well known guy (even considered legendary by many people) in this industry...I'm one of the other Pro Reviewers. I've never been a "toot my own horn" kind of guy, and I have nothing even remotely approaching Craig's stature, but I've co-written books, written several magazine articles and reviews, and work full time as a producer and engineer, and use the type of products I review "in the real world" on a daily basis. Beyond that, you'll have to get someone else to brag about me, because I've just never been very comfortable doing so. And yes, effects are welcome topics for Pro Reviews. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Porkchop Xpress Posted December 28, 2005 Author Members Share Posted December 28, 2005 Is Anderton THE Craig Anderton, as in "Digital Projects for Musicians by Craig Anderton" Craig Anderton? If he is, he's like the Godfather of DIY. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members TheAtomicJeff Posted December 28, 2005 Members Share Posted December 28, 2005 Originally posted by Phil O'Keefe I get paid to write the magazine reviews I do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil O'Keefe Posted December 28, 2005 Share Posted December 28, 2005 Originally posted by Porkchop Xpress Is Anderton THE Craig Anderton, as in "Digital Projects for Musicians by Craig Anderton" Craig Anderton? If he is, he's like the Godfather of DIY. One and the same. And yes, I'd say that your description of him is dead-on accurate. Except the title of the book I think you're talking about is "Electronics Projects for Musicians". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil O'Keefe Posted December 28, 2005 Share Posted December 28, 2005 Originally posted by TheAtomicJeff Sorry to burst your bubble, but yes, I do get paid for it when I write a magazine review. It's not MUCH, but it is payment. No one that I have ever heard of has ever gotten rich by writing magazine reviews, and frankly, I can usually make more than I get for doing them with an afternoon's worth of work in the studio... so "money" has never been my primary motivation for doing them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Wilbo26 Posted December 28, 2005 Members Share Posted December 28, 2005 Sounds like a good concept to me. Its hard to find quality reviews on the internet. My main source, and I suspect I'm not alone, has been the HC user reviews for some time now, and those are rarely in depth, well written reviews that you can take very seriously. I can understand people being wary of sponsered reviews though, but since people are able to comment on the product along with the actual review, it would be pretty easy to spot an obvious plug from a manufacturer so I don't think that would be a problem. Good luck and keep up the good work! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members TheAtomicJeff Posted December 28, 2005 Members Share Posted December 28, 2005 Originally posted by Phil O'Keefe Sorry to burst your bubble, but yes, I do get paid for it when I write a magazine review. No bubble bursted, Phil. I already knew pro-reviewers were paid. I also know that bad reviews of a product result in non-revenue for advertisers, hence it's in the best interest for everyone affiliated to provide a good review if everyone wants to get paid. This is why I'm just a little suspicious of moderator-sponsored reviews in general (nothing personal against you). You defend the sticky in question by saying reviews will be accurate/non-biased due to contributions from actual forumites but the facts are that bad reviews at the HC review database have mysteriously disappeared in the past. Other threads sometimes mysteriously disappear. Post counts mysteriously disappeared. Forgive me for my mistrust of the moderated actions that have occured here lately but when you add all this up it just kind of smells fishy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil O'Keefe Posted December 28, 2005 Share Posted December 28, 2005 Originally posted by TheAtomicJeff No bubble bursted, Phil. I already knew pro-reviewers were paid. I also know that bad reviews of a product result in non-revenue for advertisers, hence it's in the best interest for everyone affiliated to provide a good review if everyone wants to get paid.Well, maybe for someone who makes their living off of writing reviews and articles, but it's a sideline thing for me, and I'm not about to toss my credibility and reputation out the window for $200 or whatever, just to write a "good" review of a non-deserving product. There's too many GOOD products out there to review, and so there's no temptation for us to do that. And if a company doesn't like that idea or can't get behind our honesty, they can go jump in a lake for all I care. This is why I'm just a little suspicious of moderator-sponsored reviewsDo you mean " manufacturer sponsored" reviews? The only "mod-sposored" reviews I do are the ones I do for free - either ones where forumites have asked for my opinion, or where I've put them up for free as a public service because I purchased the product early on in its lifecycle, and there was a lot of public interest in hearing about it or whatever. in general (nothing personal against you). Nothing personal taken. You defend the sticky in question by saying reviews will be accurate/non-biased due to contributions from actual forumites but the facts are that bad reviews at the HC review database have mysteriously disappeared in the past.I honestly don't know all the details on that... I have heard bits and pieces of things, and IIRC, some of that is due to slander, or those bad reviews being traced to direct competitors who have ulterior motives in posting the negative review, or other potential "legal" issues. Other threads sometimes mysteriously disappear. And for that you USUALLY have other forum members to blame. Many a good thread has been sent to "thread jail" by the mods and admins due to the actions of a few forum members - posting porn, starting flamefests, outing of personal / ID information (social security, credit card and driver's license info, home address and phone number - etc.) We can't let the rules violations just "stand". You might think the thread is rolling along just fine when you sign off for the day, only to return the next day to find it "missing". What you DIDN'T see is what happened while you were away from the computer... and we frequently don't make a public explaination or case out of it. Post counts mysteriously disappeared.No mystery there. We had a problem, and we screwed up, and we 'fessed up. See Dave Bryce and Craig Anderton's comments about that in the sticky re: post counts at the top of the forum. Forgive me for my mistrust of the moderated actions that have occured here lately but when you add all this up it just kind of smells fishy. I understand your concerns. We're human, and we'll make mistakes, but when we do, we'll own up to them and try to fix them, and always try to do better as we go along. Again, other things are just enforcement of longstanding rules (which generally predate the MF purchase of HC, and are unpopular with the "we wanna do whatever we want on a forum someone else owns, without any rules being imposed on us" crowd), and we've generally tried to leave the forums with no "assigned" moderator alone as much as possible... but there are some things we can't, and won't allow to continue, even on those forums. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members DaSkip Posted December 28, 2005 Members Share Posted December 28, 2005 Well said Jeff.....this card would have been best played prior to the changes. I'll read the reviews and reserve judgement for now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Brian Marshall Posted December 28, 2005 Members Share Posted December 28, 2005 I think the end result of this will be whatever HC makes of it. I'll admit when i saw the amp review sticky, i thought it was a little wierd. I have talked to richard guy (guytronics) on the phone a few times, and have plenty of respect for him... It just seemed wierd that there was a sticky that was just a link to a thread in another forum... It may have been better to ALSO sticky a thread that explained what the pro-review thing was all about. I can tell you that a number of people have left this forum in the last few weeks that I really enjoyed having arround. It seems the forum is being re-postured from its once "controlled anarchy" to something else. I suppose, to me, it's not really clear where it is actually going. I am sure that with the money being thrown in to the harmony central by the deep pocket owners, there will be more traffic in the future via advertising, and increased web presence. Personally, now that I know what the pro-review thing is, I actually like the idea. I know that HC makes its money from advertisements, and many companies spend a lot of money here promoting products. I could see the same conflict of interest you might see in a magazine for positive reviews, or at least to not print negative ones, if the item in question is made by a company who is spending a lot of money advertising. I just hope we dont end up seeing negative posts deleted like we have in the user-review section. If we do, people here will jump all over it I'm sure, and the whole idea could lose credibility pretty quickly. For the nay sayers, I should tell you that HC offers quite a bit to the smaller manufacturers. Free press releases on HC are streamed to hundreds of other sites. The forums are still relatively unmoderated. Off topic posts are tollerated with in reason, and there is still a sense of community where you can have conversations rather than a strictly business atmosphere. I actually like the weekly spam thread, plus there's always the classifieds. Then there is always the main site, with links and information on everything musician related. Personally I am just glad this place is still being run by people who care about music... Imagine if this place was bought by AOL or Yahoo or something... eeek Brian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Porkchop Xpress Posted December 28, 2005 Author Members Share Posted December 28, 2005 Originally posted by Phil O'Keefe One and the same. And yes, I'd say that your description of him is dead-on accurate. Except the title of the book I think you're talking about is "Electronics Projects for Musicians". Yeah, that's what I meant, I have no idea where the "digital" thing came from. Well, that is pretty cool, I'm suprised he doesn't hang out in the FX forum more often. Didn't he design the Funk Machine? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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