In the yearly poll DPRP gives its readers the opportunity to tell us what they think of the pages in general and how they rate the various sub-pages. We also ask for suggestions of improvements. This part of the DPRPoll Results looks into that evaluation.

The average number of visitors per day increased from 2173 in 2002 to 2826 in 2003!
Below you can find the table of how often the poll participants visit DPRP:

We asked the participants to give an overall rating of DPRP on a scale from one (very bad) to ten (excellent). On average, the pages got a rating of 8.8, which is quite an increase compared to 2002's 8.4.

Let's have a look at how the people felt DPRP had changed in 2003:

So in total 60% of the participants thought we have improved over 2003? Thank you, we like to think so too. It is no secret that we had quite a dip in 2002, and that the future of DPRP wasn't looking all that bright at the start of 2003, but with some major changes in personnel (especially in the reviews department) we managed to create a steady output throughout the year.
Always interesting: the people who thought DPRP got worse in 2004 still rated the site with a 7 on average. Fortunately some of these people provided good feedback on how we could improve the site (see below).

Below you can find how the participants of the poll evaluated the various sections of DPRP:

Unfortunately once again we had to do without Counting Out Time, Forgotten Sons and a World Gigs guide. This is partially caused by the transfer to the new domain. In last year's poll we happily announced we would be on the new domain by May 1st, however, as it turned out the provider we had chosen wasn't as good as initially promised. At the same time we got in touch with the company E-sound, who were keen on hosting our site and they gave us an offer we simply couldn't refuse.
So we spent most of the summer on transferring the partially finished 'new' site from one server to another, and then the rest of the year organising everything to be ready for the transfer on January 1st.

Now that we have the transfer out of the way, and most of the site has been changed to a new layout, we can focus on these sections again.

Last year we asked the participants what should be improved or changed about DPRP. The most mentioned remarks were:

• More CD Reviews (mentioned 21 x)
• The content of CD Reviews (mentioned 19 x)
• Earlier CD Reviews (mentioned 15 x)
• The content of the site in general (mentioned 11 x)
• More updates of the releases page (mentioned 11 x)
• More gig guides (mentioned 11 x)

One of the goals we set for ourselves in 2003 was to increase the number of reviews and to eliminate the backlog we had after the poor year of 2002. With some major changes in the reviews team, the combined efforts resulted in a total number of 398 reviews of 345 different albums. We'd like to think that we've achieved our goal. Only 3 people asked for more reviews in this year's poll, so that proves this particular item solved.

The content of our CD reviews and general content of the site will always be subject to debate, and was actually even more an issue in 2003 than it was in 2002! It will be dealt with in the section below.

Last year many people wanted us to have reviews follow closer to the release date. We did our best to do so this year. Sometimes we received an album well in advance and therefore could publish the review in the same week as the release date. However, writing a review takes up at least a month, taking in mind the delays caused by posting off the album to the reviewers, and the time a reviewer needs to digest the album.
Pretty much all the roundtable reviews we did were published in the same week as the release date, with one or two exceptions. However, to do so we still depend on the record companies. If we receive an album in time before the release date (and with many albums we do) we can publish the review in time. A few people mentioned it again this year, and we will do our best to have reviews published as closely to the release date as possible in 2004.

As for the gigguides. Well, we failed there, as there still isn't a UK, European, US or wherever gigguide. However, on this very same page a year ago we did ask for help on this matter. We need new team-members to maintain such a page. Not a single soul responded to last year's call, so here we go again: if you'd like to help out and maintain one or more gigguides, please drop us a line!

Improving DPRP

This year the participants in the DPRPoll 2003 mentioned the following things most often as potential areas for improvement.

• More Counting Out Time (mentioned 23 x)
• International Gigguides (mentioned 18 x)
• General content and types of music reviewed (mentioned 14 x)
• less focus on prog metal (mentioned 13 x)
• More critical reviews/lower ratings (mentioned 12 x)

Well.. the message is quite clear, isn't it? More Counting Out Time and more International Gigguides. Two sections we had every intention of updating and improving during 2003, but we just didn't get to it (caused by reasons stated above)

As for the general content and types of music reviewed, it will always be difficult to please everybody, but at least we try. We intend to keep our definitions of prog as widely as possible, although this inevitably means we will also review stuff that may not appeal to everyone. One man's treasure is another man's junk. We do however tend to keep the 'damage' to a minimum and create separate specials for these reviews, like the four prog metal specials we did in 2003, or the guitar special we did at the beginning of this year.

A fair few people complained that we had focused too much on ProgMetal in the past year. This somewhat brought a smile on our face, as for the past three years many people have criticised us for ignoring the metal side of prog too much. With only one specialist ProgMetal team member, at this time, he couldn't keep up with the stream of releases that were sent to us. So in response to this in December 2002 we made a call for ProgMetal reviewers and over 70 people responded! Five of these people joined the team during 2003 and although a couple fell by the wayside, those remaining have been very prolific.

What may have appeared to be a over-concentration on the ProgMetal genre was merely the enthusiasm of those reviewers, but it was not so much an overall shift towards the genre, but rather an addition to what we already did. DPRP has not changed its views or policies, merely expanding its horizons. During 2004 we hope to expand these horizons further, answering those calls to encompass more from the RIO and Canterbury styles; Art Rock, Prog Fusion and many many more.
It all comes down to offering more choice - without losing sight of our goal.

Finally, regarding the more critical reviews and/or lower ratings for the reviews. Finding a balance between shorter and more concise reviews and more detailed critical analysis don't necessarily go hand in hand. Therefore we are constantly searching for a happy medium. In general the reviews attempt to seek this middle ground although individual reviewer's enthusiasm for a particular album / artist may sometimes result in a higher rating. It has always been our belief that the words written in the articles cast more importance than that of the numeric rating which is only meant as a guide.

Click here to read all the feedback and our answers.

Click here to return to the DPRPoll 2003 mainpage.

Click here if you wish to see the full results of the poll.

Click here if you also want to see the list of prizes and winners.

You can also check out what the DPRP Team voted for themselves.

For comments about the poll, please e-mail The DPRP Team.