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【ABOUT US】

　[ about linking and quoting ] 　[ about average ratings ] 　[ major sources ] 　[ staffs and contributers ]



About Us:


　　ArcRyte is designed to quote, link, and introduce various sites on the web that are mainly focusing rock music as its core content. We have been influenced vastly from predecessors such as rottentomatoes.com and metacritic.com. We collect information all over the world, from professional websites to general blogs. The reason why we made ArcRyte is because we have seen so many commercialized (adhered to affiliates), dishonest (including religiously fanatics that lack or never allow critical thinking), and closed (hardly dig or link to other unknown websites and enjoy pussy relationships with resemblance) Japanese music websites that rarely give decent or dense information nevertheless appear at the top of search results.

　　The website's name derived from Hollywood's famous theater "Arclight," therefore we do not classify genres into subdivisions as long as the subject can be discussed on the field of rock music. We also do not distinguish the borderline of major and minor.

　　Since the main function of this website is hyperlinking, we link any kind of www materials unless it is password locked or obviously stated as "Members only." In terms of quoting English articles, we sometimes ask our contributing writers to translate the text as close as its original so those uneducated Japanese readers can follow up the content (we only ask this work to those skilled English readers in order to avoid mistranslation). However, if we could not find the translator, which is somewhat a difficult part of the process since there is no payment, we quote the main point of the article.

　　With regard to reviewing, for my case as an example, here are some criteria:

  1. Does it have the strong, individual color?
  2. Does it convey its own worldview, perception, and (or) message?
  3. What about lyrics and album covers?
  4. Does it maintain consistency and coherence regarding of all elements?
  5. Is it genre breaking?
  6. What about its point of view and expressing ideas?
  7. Is it amusing, pleasing, sympathizing, or surprising?
  8. Most important of all, did I find anything that is worth discussing for?

　　Those are my main criteria for reviewing. I try to make it as objective and contextual as possible like analyzing paintings or films, however I do not emphasize the following elements into consideration: sound production, playabilities, catchiness, or name values. Which means that, even though it is well produced, played, and praised, I cannot guarantee to give decent ratings (in my measurement, it is above 6.5 out of 10.0) since I am a consumer and not an advertising billboard. Moreover, if the subject is unreasonably praised among a large majority (which often happens in Japan because most Japanese people do not have a specific religion therefore the majority of them are brainwashed easily then foreigners think), my instinct cries out: this is a bomb. Like Pitchfork's review of "Lateralus," I refuse propaganda because I am listening to music. Therefore, the hypocritically indoctrinated Japanese band like Sambomaster will either be ignored or severely excoriated.
　　The criteria above do not apply perfectly to our contributing writers, yet, we try to choose those who have certain abilities to criticize and analyze music.

　　In quoting, linking, and introducing other websites, we emphasize the quality of information rather than the name values (not surprisingly, most Japanese readers judge the article's quality by the writer's reputation instead of what actually is written); therefore, we definitely take one or more of the following criteria into consideration:

  • Is the reviewer reviewing (not scanning) the material?
  • Does the reviewer have original words?
  • Does the reviewer's words hit the point?
  • Does the review's review "alive and breathing?"
  • And most importantly, is the reviewer honest?

　　When cross-reviewing the material, we calculate the average rating percentage by using the following methods:

  • Change the number into 100; for instance, if the score is 3 out of 5 then it is going to be 60, and if the number is 4 out of 7 then 57
  • If the rating scale is more than 10.0, which mostly seen on heavy metal reviews (especially in Japanese sites due to the heavily influece of Burrn! magazine), we resolve it into our scale; 100-95: 100, 94-88: 90, 87-84: 80, 83-79: 70, 78-75: 60, 74-70: 50, 69-60: 40, 59-40: 30, 39-26: 20, 25-2: 10, 1-0: 0 (note: Japanese website's calculation differs from this. See below)
  • For the letter grade, we resolve it into the following; A: 100, B: 80, C: 60, D: 40, F: 20, and plus and minus are regarded as 10 points add/subtract therefore A- and B+ equals to 90
  • After getting all resolved numbers, we simply calculate and find the average; for instance, if we get 5.5 (=55), B+ (=90), and 82 (=70) from three different reviewers, the average is 55 + 90 + 70 = 215 / 3 = 71.66 = 72%

In calculating "Overall," which is just below the "Average Rating," we,

  • define the value (d) by multiplying 3% to empty spaces. For instance, if the album is reviewed by 4 reviewers there are 5 spaces available (without some exceptions, 9 is the maximum), therefore 3%×5=15%=(d)
  • subtract (d) from the Average Rating, for instance 78%=78-15=63%
  • change subtracted Average Rating % into 10 scale, such as 63%=6.3

　　Thank you for taking your precious time to read the statement above. I hope you will use this website as one of your resources.




Major Sources:

http://www.google.co.jp/
http://search.blogger.com/



Staffs and contributing writers: