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linking external reviews

Since you "don't have the staffing or bandwidth to implement other data sources at this time", how about letting users to link reviews from professional critics?  Because Xperi has downsized its editorial staff, you've allowed users to write user reviews.  But most users aren't as eloquent and as knowledgeable as professional critics, so many user reviews aren't professional quality.  Moreover, user reviews are more likely to be motivated by favortism or by personal hate.

By linking to external reviews from professional critics, Allmusic would still be the one-stop website for users to find professional reviews despite fewer being penned by Xperi.  It'd actually internationally expand Allmusic's user base, because Xperi's reviews are limited to English and about English albums.  Allmusic has a great need for professional reviews in foreign languages, especially ones about albums in foreign tongues.

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This is something we've discussed in the past. Other sites like Metacritic and AlbumOfTheYear aggregate reviews from other sources successfully, but I think those are all managed within the site (not from end users).

Our hesitation was always around not really knowing where the links end up, and not wanting to accidentally send users to a spammy or harmful site.
By allowing users to submit links that we would publish on AllMusic, we'd need to develop more moderation tools to try to prevent jerks that would game the system or place malware links.

It's a compelling concept but not without extra hoops for us to consider.

Thanks for the suggestion and we'll think on it.

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