I receive a lot of email expressing concern about the rating system here at Ektoplazm. Most of this comes from label owners and artists who closely watch the ratings and find evidence of ‘sabotage’ when their initially high rating begins to drop. This is only natural; the first people to rate a release are often family, friends, and fans–many of whom might not even download the release before showing their support with a five star rating. Higher ratings increase exposure but they also raise expectations. As a result, releases with high ratings are often subject to ‘corrections’ as time goes on.

Some time ago I instituted a new policy wherein releases would not enter the Ektoplazm ‘best rated’ charts until a one month grace period had passed. The charts are supposed to represent some of the best music on the site (as rated by visitors like you) and the inclusion of new releases–with their rapidly fluctuating ratings–continually skewed the charts this way and that. Releases at the top of the charts are also more subject to corrections. As such, new releases were often being heavily down-voted, perhaps without reason, just because they were beating out old favourites. Now new releases enter the charts after a month of voting has already evened out the numbers somewhat–but there still exists a tendency for new releases to be more highly rated than older releases. The result is a routine correction slightly more than one month after posting when ratings typically slide a bit.

The rating system is such a simple thing yet it has generated more controversy than any other feature on Ektoplazm. I originally installed the rating system to capture the opinion of the silent majority–all those people that download music but don’t comment. Ratings also make it easy to scope out some of the more favoured releases at a glance. By design, rating is completely open and democratic. Anyone can rate. Unfortunately, this leaves the system open to abuse. Increasing security is an option–but at what cost? The whole point is to provide a quick and easy feedback route for the masses. Instituting membership for rating would be completely counterproductive to that goal.

I have been betting on the law of large numbers to even the playing field. So what if a few goons mess with the system? Most releases receive enough votes that it doesn’t really matter. This is true most of the time–scan the ratings and you won’t find anything that is too improbable or unlikely. It sort of goes without saying that there is nothing even remotely scientific about this system but I tend to find releases I favour near the top of the charts more often than not.

On the subject of sabotage: I have access to the raw numbers on the back end and can generally get a sense of who is rating what. This ability has enabled me to catch a few individuals engaged in behaviour that I personally find rather tactless. Here I refer to the practice of label owners and artists voting up their own releases (which is totally cool) and then voting down everything else to make their stuff look better. Typical scenario: I see five star ratings for a handful of releases associated with one artist or label and dozens of one star ratings for everything else in the same order as the releases appear on the best rated charts. Let me stress that this kind of thing makes me very disinterested in supporting the projects of these labels and artists in the future! It is rude and insulting and–most of all–completely unnecessary. Same goes for artists and labels repeatedly switching IPs to spam the ratings of their releases. Do this and you will be penalized.

Since these issues regularly come up I have devised a simple set of guidelines for label owners and artists with music on Ektoplazm:

1. One person = one vote! Do not try and game the system. No scripts, no bots. You will be found out.
2. Do NOT rate other releases poorly just to make yours look better!
3. Try not to take the ratings so seriously. It isn’t the end of the world if you score 85% instead of 88%.
4. You are welcome to encourage friends and fans to vote for your releases (and leave comments, of course). This is also your promotional platform, after all!
5. It is no big deal if you end up with a poorly-rated release. Fans are fickle and there is a strong bias for and against certain styles of music around here…

I should probably stress that third point for everyone reading: try not to take the ratings so seriously! This is not a popularity contest. (See stupid graph above for a contrasting opinion.) The ratings on this site are designed to guide visitors to content they might like; they are not objective measures of musical value. Releases with high ratings are not necessarily better than releases with low ratings. Plenty of good releases are near the bottom of the chart and vice versa–although this is, of course, just my opinion. (Presently you will even find some releases I had some personal involvement in at the very bottom. I am not losing any sleep over it.) If anything, the number of votes is as good a gauge of audience interest as the actual rating!

Anyway, for such a simple matter this sure can get out of control! Hopefully I don’t need to return to this subject in the future. If anyone reading is still steamed up about a bad rating I suggest reading how to give and take constructive criticism and what record reviews really say about your music. Now go forth and rate fairly!

Photo credit: laverrue.

The results of the Ektoplazm Free Music Survey 2009 are in! Big thanks go out to the 385 visitors who responded to the call in the month of January. The survey had two main parts: one section for voting on the best release of the year and another section designed to gather some feedback about the Ektoplazm web site and netlabel. Here I present the results of the first section–the best free psytrance (and whatever else you find here) of 2009 as voted by Ektoplazm fans like you!

Best EPs

#5: PharaOm – Awakening Bodhisattva [Underground Alien Factory Records]
#4: Dissociactive – Underwater Lab [Sun Station]
#3: Amygdala – The Sprawl [Ektoplazm]
#2: Kino Oko – The Doggy Bag [Digital Diamonds]
#1: Anakoluth – Beyond Reach [Cronomi Records]

Honourable mentions: Mukti – Magick Mother, SoulCraft – Zen Spirit, Faradize – Darknight Castle, Kemonoid – Squishy Fish, and Hypnagog – Dreaming In Pieces.

Best Compilations

#5: Telepathik Nonsense [Wonk#Ay Records]
#4: Art From The Heart [Old Is Gold]
#3: Helicon Vedas [Helicon Sound System/Om Veda Records]
#2: Entities [Croatian Psytrance Community]
#1: Under The Moss [Forest Freaks]

Honourable mentions: Energies Around, Rest In Pieces, T.O.U.C.H. Samadhi 001, Entheos Audio Archive 3.0, and The Future Of Light.

Best Albums

#5: ManMadeMan – Children Of The Light [Ektoplazm]
#4: Disco Hooligans – Clear Skies [Ektoplazm]
#3: Jikkenteki – The Beginning Is At The End [Ektoplazm]
#2: Cybernetika – Atropos [Independent]
#1: SubConsciousMind – Intermezzo Extended [Ektoplazm]

Honourable mentions: Proton Kinoun – Apeiron, Xamanist – Initiation, Freeform Human – Arnika, New Age Hippies – Entrance, and Trebolactiko – Deep Channeling.

There you have it! 2009 was another fantastic year for free psytrance and I think it shows in the quality of releases listed above. Hopefully there are a few in the list above that you haven’t heard and now feel compelled to discover!

This is actually the first time I have surveyed visitors to assemble this list; if you have a look at the Best Free Psytrance of 2008 you can see that it consists of my own personal highlights. I would like to give credit to Volker at Digital Diamonds for introducing me to Google Forms, the system used to operate the survey. Basing this list on community input makes way more sense than filtering through everything myself!

I will have more results from the Ektoplazm Free Music Survey 2009 to post very soon (update: those results are now available here). The next part will consist of your feedback, what styles you want to hear more or less of, media preferences, and some announcements about what sort of changes can be expected to the site this year (all based on your comments of course). Thanks again to everyone who participated and I hope 2010 is every bit as good (or even better) than last year’s bumper crop of awesome free music!

Is your favourite 2009 release listed here? Do you agree with the results?