Good luck to everyone! Include your neck size for the shock collar you gotta wear when you get selected. The mods hate when you're late on deadlines...

What are the responsibilities and benefits of both positions?

@Shart - For benefits you get 50% off Applebee's for Contributors, 75% off for Staff.

Good luck everyone!!!

Good luck everyone!!! [2]

(I got rejected after writing 47 reviews with 96% approval so unless the standards have changed, you might need it)

Nobody should feel discouraged from applying because most often applicants are not "rejected", which is to say that the door remains open in the future even when someone else was selected ahead of you in the past.

I love the fact related reviews to this thread are "random.access.misery", "Fun's Over" and "Alive or Just Breathing".

someone negged all of my reviews so my score is way lower than it should. i dont really care but it might matter since I put in an application.

fr don't let my ancient salt bring anyone down. I've just aged into my yelling at clouds phase.

Is the Staff Best Albums of 2025 list coming?? Or did I miss it somewhere

"someone negged all of my reviews so my score is way lower than it should. i dont really care but it might matter since I put in an application."

don't wanna speak for the mod gods but just to ease your soul, your approval rating doesn't matter at all.

Does one of these let me use gifs for my avatar?

"don't wanna speak for the mod gods but just to ease your soul, your approval rating doesn't matter at all."

Yeah, approval rating has never really had a meaningful function on the site, other than to just make you feel good (or bad) I guess. But as far as I can tell, it's never factored into the promotions. Besides, the number disappears when you become contrib/staff anyway lol

Go brickhed!

Approval rating means absolutely nothing bros.

Thank god. Hawks 1’s my favorite albums

HAHAHAHAHAHA

Maybe one of these years I'll feel like I have enough time to commit to more regular reviewing and try to be a contributor, but 2026 doesn't feel like the year. I'd like to do it someday.

Also, I think I need to get more output under my belt too. More practice is always a good thing!

"But as far as I can tell, it's never factored into the promotions."
ight cool, i may have just read the post wrong. been thinking about "hey, would i be willing to review at least one new album a month?" and worst case scenario i just do it like commentary youtubers. i'm busy with school stuff right now but at least one a month is doable.

i also still have a bit of burnout in me, but not as bad as january.

burnout 3 or burnout paradise

Burnout 3 lol hell yeah

The one month question is designed to be an honest self-assessment to help you set a goal for yourself. Answering honestly even if it's less than one review per month will not automatically disqualify you. We have staff who weigh in less frequently but still blow us away with their quality when they do.

“But as far as I can tell, it's never factored into the promotions“

damn, you mean my 100% (on 3 reviews) isn’t gonna get me auto-promoted to chief overseer like I was expecting?

seriously tho good luck y’all!

imagine if users/contribs/staff were all determined relegation-style by their approval rating

moment it drops below a certain threshold, bam there goes your title

So whoever has the most alts would win, lol.

I say this as a loser with no alts ):

"We have staff who weigh in less frequently but still blow us away with their quality when they do."

yeah, i'm trying to focus over quality right now. quick write ups that i could bust out in a half hour is cool, but it doesn't make me proud of them much. sometimes i have an idea and it flows from there, but i'm not getting that on a review i'm working on right now.

"moment it drops below a certain threshold, bam there goes your title"

sounds like a thing pitchfork would do

sputnik is a cockroach

- sowing 2026

Should I have a drinking problem before or after I apply

Do I get free mayonnaise?

I would like the title of grand poobah

You can have Imam Emim and like it.

Imam & Emims

So why was my comment asking about the staff list deleted lmfao

that's weird lol

Especially since it was like 3 words lol, apparently it was a real nuisance to someone

I mean, I can tell you I did not delete anything. Must have been the mystery mod. 🤔

I'm abusing my imam powers already

It's chill I'll just stay away

you can blame me for it, I started the bad juju itt by mentioning approval scores

"Must have been the mystery mod."

That dude is so elusive, I swear.

Let me be something

Who says it's a dude

Pls

Do we have reliable and refreshable stats on the number of active users remaining? It would be so fun to visualize the time series as we inevitably near the heat death of the sputnikverse

2027 will be my year

My mother applied for dog catcher.

"Do we have reliable and refreshable stats on the number of active users remaining"

by my sources: 92 active, 834 lurkers. just trust me bro

I'm tempted to apply for contributor but also feel like my music knowledge is pretty limited to metal, country and some dance electronic lol

Site's always been more metal centric anyway, so not a bad thing. Better than no reviews

I want to start reviewing more traditional hardcore punk and electronic stuff myself. Too many albums that need reviews

Would like to start writing again, this winter has just sucked the life right out of me

Maybe I should start reviewing jazz

@nash yes, please, I for one would love to read about jazz. Need some help getting into the genre

look, I love metal, but anyone with knowledge in anything other than metal would be appreciated rn lol

jazz would be especially awesome

I have two unfinished reviews on my computer as a reminder of how utterly terrible I am at committing to anything, otherwise I could likely thrash out a couple of substandard jazz reviews myself lol

@Demon, I am certainly not a Guru of Reviewing, but what helped me a couple of times when I was stuck with a review was to listen to each song from an album individually and write my very brief impressions about each separate track in a Word file as I go through the album. Very brief, literally one to five words per song. Then the whole album would come together in my head. IDK if you need this or if I'm even explaining clearly enough, but I am bored at work again, so I need to bother people here.

^That's adorable.