It looks like someone review-bombed the album Cruel Country by Wilco. Over 40 one-star reviews in one day, that can't be right. Also, upvoting all negative reviews and downvoting all positive ones. Hopefully this gets looked into - that kind of behavior shouldn't be allowed or encouraged on this site.
We're taking a look at this.
Where are you seeing over 40 one-star reviews added in one day?
As a Wilco fan myself, I was anxiously anticipating this release but (personally) find it to be a bit undercooked and not exactly the "Being There Part II" that was alluded to by the pre-release hype. Is it necessarily some kind of manipulation of the star rating by one user?
It's possible that it's not being manipulated, I suppose, but I've been checking in every day on the user ratings and reviews. Before reporting this, I'd left a review that had about 20 upvotes and 3 downvotes on June 2. The following day, it had 20 downvotes, the album itself had 40 more reviews, the average user score had dropped one whole star, and a half-star review that had been buried at the bottom of the pile with over 25 downvotes had been put up at the top of the user reviews.
It's possible that multiple people simultaneously decided to leave negative reviews and ratings, but I find it very hard to believe that so many people in just 24 hours would all leave the exact same half-star rating, nearly double the user rating amount, and go through the user reviews downvoting all positive reviews and upvoting all negative ones - especially since the general consensus among reviewers prior to June 3 was that the album was a decent, enjoyable, 4-star affair.
I don't know if there's a way to see the history of the number of reviews and ratings - I tried checking the wayback machine, but it didn't seem to show the user ratings or reviews in its data. But in any case, I appreciate the reply - not sure there's much to be done without doing some deep digging, it just bums me out because whatever happened on June 3 doesn't necessarily reflect how people honestly feel about the album.
I've mentioned "gaslighting" before, and now CAM is bringing this to your attention.
I truly think, still you've got a wolf in the den at allmusic.com as I got 48 thumbs down overnight in a flash. What's up with that? My suggestion to the IT department is to model their reviews and comments after LINUX's google music sections. (We all know who says what you see). I know this can be extremely sensitive material, and maybe should be elevated to someone who understands coding and IT internal issues maybe? We all love music and will continue to post as long as democracy is observed and appreciated fairly. We all don't believe the big lie, or the big con either going on in America you see, and maybe that would be the "motive" for the hacker, since their was a political feeling in the new WILCO album as well. (I am attempting troubleshooting ideas for your site). Who knows, maybe putin and trump WILL take over the world, and justice will end after all. LOL Sincerely, Murf
Personally, someone gaslighted me 48 times, (on the WILCO site new album), all the way to last place. I have brought up this topic before, and there is SURELY something nefarious going on CAM. I concur that someone is being destructive to the WILCO site and many others. This may directly affect the democracy system in place for Allmusic.com site for reviews directly too. Maybe they should model their system around how google music system is layed out perhaps? That way we know who is who when comments are made and destructive people can be called out you see. Cheers! (I knew I wasn't the only one noticing this). Good post CAM!
CAM, we both got gaslighted simultaneously, and that led me to believe that someone inside the IT department is cooking up trouble and sabotaging our reviews. Zac assured me that this is NOT the case, so a hacker is probably present that can bypass their coding system to cause this damage you see. Your thoughts? Murf
See, that's what I thought, but I got told off by the people at the site on a separate Reddit post. From what they told me, the people who left reviews are active users. But that doesn't REALLY answer my question about the ratings and downvotes, which are what I was really talking about - not reviews.
By the way, in that time period where both you and I got downvote-bombed (which was June 3) not one person left a review. Not one. Which means that if it WAS a group of random people who all suddenly felt compelled to rate Cruel Country 1/2 stars and downvote every positive review in a 24-hour period while doubling the number of user ratings, that not ONE of them was angry or disappointed enough to leave an actual review.
Honestly, I've seen this kind of thing a few times before. I remember it happening with the entire Grateful Dead discography, where HUNDREDS of albums suddenly had 20 extra half-star reviews, all within a 24 hour period. I don't know if it's a hacker or disgruntled employee, though - my guess is that someone has a whole bunch of alternate accounts and uses them to efficiently bomb albums of their choice without leaving reviews or anything.
Regardless, there's not much to be done about it, and the people at Allmusic seem pretty convinced that it's NOT review-bombing, despite how bizarre it looks. I don't really know either way. All I DO know is that in the week after its release, Cruel Country was doing all right as far as user ratings and reviews went. The general consensus during that time was that it was a perfectly enjoyable four-star affair with a handful of really strong tracks - not that was the worst album that anybody has ever released in the history of music. And considering that its user score is doing perfectly all right on other sites like Rateyourmusic and Metacritic, I really think it's just an Allmusic thing.
But...what can you do? Listen to Cruel Country and enjoy it, I guess, since you and I and almost everyone else who ACTUALLY rated it knows that it's a very good album.
Gaslighting is the 2022 word of the year. Here's what it is and how to address it. (msn.com)
Very cool beans, eh? Murf
