Rateyourmusic

Rude, authoritarian, ignorant staff, seeming to be possessed by some bizarre ideology, imposed by methods of coercion and exclusion. With their Kafkaesque behaviour and cryptic rules, they create an atmosphere of fear and uncertainty. The site itself is well designed and minimalist. Although they are trying to change this in a campaign that has been going on for years. It seems to target niche communities. Its democratic system of contributions may deceive you to believe it is an independent cool project, but the site is far from democratic. I would say they developed a strange ethical system straight out of a $#*!'s or Huxley's dystopia where robots have taken over the government and the law if enforced by Judges Dredd.

My case: Member since 2011 to 2020 I was a very active contributor. Banned twice. First time for decorative use of swastika in title of my popular list dealing with folk metal for which I was featured as a helpful user by the community itself. These bands use such iconography. Perfectly natural pagan thing. Not my concern that some bands are NS. I cut myself off from this ideology in the description, but allegedly I used some problematic language. It was named by the staff "a nationalistic/supremacist dog whistle" and I was directly refused a "benefit of the doubt". After what I have done for RYM. I agreed to delete that. I was not given the opportunity. Yep, they are really rude Facebook's staff rejectamenta. First time since 6 years, since publishing the list, anyone said something even remotely linked to NS was the RYM staff. Yep, total ignoramus, as well. Second account, ban for claim that a script for a film is $#*!ed, posted in film's comment box. Truly unreal regression to kindergarten. It appears they have an unpublished index of forbidden words. Asked why they do not forbid the word "slave" as well, due to its offending half of the Europe etymology I received a condescending response. So I made another account. Banned for bypassing the ban. This time I do not have an alibi. I still would use the site, because it is the best in my opinion and it helped me get through the hard times in life, but the staff sabotaging it in some mad stupor. Not worth of anyone's time.

After being a contributing member since 2006, I was banned from Rate Your Music. I had between 30,000-40,000 contributions there. I'm always searching for new-to-me music.

As most regular users, I had pics and quotes matching my personality on my personal page. Never trolled anyone. Didn't post on people's boards.
Their admins are going nuts with cancelling "unapproved opinions". Their killing themselves with this nonsense.

My sin: One of the quotes on my page was, "it's not enough to not be communist, you must be anti-communist as well".

I know of several other examples of long-time, good-standing contributors getting suspended or banned for ridiculous things. It's turning into a big clique of robots.

I used to use this website a lot. I did not use it well, though. I would give high ratings to all Lifehouse albums and low ratings to stuff I disliked. Your mileage will vary.

The number one rule listed on their site is this:

1. Treat other users with respect

We want RYM to be a place where anyone can feel welcome to contribute. We expect members to be welcoming to other members and respect all members' views and opinions, even when disagreeing.

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Once, when I used to use the site, a member wished death on another member on the message boards and he was only given a one day ban, while other members have been given longer, and sometimes even permanent bans for no valid reason. If they don't give someone a permanent ban for wishing death on another member then no one should get a permanent ban. How does it make someone feel welcome to contribute when they only give someone a one day ban for wishing death on another member?

This site also rammed their political views down people's throats. I logged in one day in 2020 and the first thing I saw was a long list of radical political organizations, complete with links, that they wanted users to get involved with. It seemed they cared more about politics than music.

I'd been a user of RYM for over a decade. But I just can't stand it anymore. If I were rating the RYM of 2014, I might give it a 3 or 4. But today, in 2024, it's devolved significantly into a very ugly and oppressive place, worthy of the worst possible rating. And this is because the mods and admins have become unbearably strict and authoritarian. They keep adding more draconian rules that suck all the life, variety, and individuality out of the site. Rock music is probably the most popular genre on RYM. But ironically, the anal-retentive and humorless owners & mods are the least "rock and roll" people on the planet.

There used to be a lot of cool and interesting contributors to the site. People who had fun and engaging profiles, compelling and/or humorous reviews, and uniquely thought-provoking lists. But now almost all those people are gone (and their lists & reviews deleted). Many of them were banned for petty and arbitrary reasons. And the rest of them have voluntarily abandoned their accounts after years of increasing harassment from the fascistic moderation team.

Lets look at the review system, for example. Ostensibly, anyone can join RYM and write their own personal reviews of any album, single, or film. But over time, almost all of the best and most interesting reviews would get unpublished or deleted. This is because the rules for what counts as an "acceptable" review on RYM became ridiculously strict and rigid. It's literally to the point where the most famous professional rock critics of the 70s/80s/90s (Lester Bangs, JD Considine, David Marsh, etc) would not have their reviews accepted on RYM. Too much creativity and individuality. No, can't have that! In order to be acceptable to RYM standards, your review must fit inside the most bland, sterile, cookie-cutter box. It's gotten so bad that if you look at the RYM reviews that are still visible, you'll see that most of them could have been written by Chat GPT. It's pathetic.

But whatever you do, don't you dare complain. This is because the main owner (Sharifi) and his moderation team are the most petty and vindictive people on the internet. If you complain, they retaliate and bully you. They attack your character. They gaslight you. They constantly accuse you of "bad faith" just for wanting the freedom to be yourself. Or they send their friends to troll your page with abusive comments. Then they punish you with warnings or suspensions based entirely on their false allegations. It's disgusting and inexcusable. Verdict: This site sucks. It sucks because of the dictatorial attitude of it's owner and admins.

Message to the owners: Stop banning the most interesting members. Stop unpublishing the most interesting reviews. Stop deleting the most interesting lists. Stop trying to force the entire community into cookie-cutter mini versions of yourselves. Let a diversity of styles and opinions flourish, instead of suppressing them. Then, and only then, you might eventually have a site that's worth coming back to.

I love RateYourMusic. The community is the nicest, and the ratings are based. Perfect site that introduced me to good music. Relatable community.

I love this site and have been a member since 2004. By the people for the people setup. You rate 1-5 stars on albums (or individual tracks). Artist profiles are populated with full discographies, with recommended titles (meaning enough people rated favorably) showing up in bold. Their lists are also some of the best around; there are individually curated ones by users, as well as auto-generated lists based on rating/weight that get published for each year/genre. It goes pretty deep. This site is upgrading to the name Sonemic, along with it's film and video game offshoots, Cinemos and Glitchwave, respectively. Been wanting to visit their office in Seattle for a while now. Can't recommend enough!