Site Suggestions

It's something I've always wanted to do. Unfortunately it would require completely rebuilding the search function, so comes at more cost than I can currently manage. I'll do it one day, but in the meantime, Daniel's solution works well enough. I'd also like to search for releases that ONLY have a particular genre or subgenre.

That's fair comment Ben. With an acceptable work around there is really no need to run to excessive expense.

I did the best I could with this at the time, but I agree it's not ideal (particularly with long lists). I'll revisit with my developer at some point and see if there's a better way of doing it.

Excellent idea, Morpheus! Having a similar feature to RYM so you can only see suggestive album covers when you're logged in and have certain filters off, with the ability to turn those filters on to hide specific topics, might get more people on to the site with no fear of anything they may be sensitive to, and therefore might boost the website's popularity. It might certainly help me a bit, as I'm still living with my sometimes suspicious parents. I know Cannibal Corpse and other standard/brutal death metal bands would get the hidden album cover treatment for their violence and gore. Same with the first few Type O Negative albums (pair of naked women about to kiss, close-up of the frontman's a****le, etc.), which is a good reason I stopped listening to that band besides my break from gothic/doom metal. So what do you think of Morpheus' idea, all?

Not a fan.  I simply skip over/hit the back button on anything I see I don't like (I find most of the depiction of women on metal album covers unpleasant but simply ignore them).  Do you really think Andi that the reason why MA isn't crawling with users is because there are some album covers that are offensive?  Creating a cottage industry out of album cover content (which I imagine can soon become a laborious task for admins) is precisely the wrong thing to do on a site that needs more members, surely a more open and transparent site is what would attract people. 

Let's stop believing that everyone else out there lives by our values, needs and wants - there are some out there who would actively seek such artwork as described on this thread (for whatever reason).  I am not saying it is wrong to be offended by violence, fascism, sexism, gore etc just that I believe that it is my own responsibility to decide if I want to look at it or not.

In all seriousness, I am with Vinny on this one - anything that smells of censorship raises suspicion in me. Filters of this kind just remove the need for any kind of personal responsibility for what we see and look at. Life isn't always pretty and neither are metal album covers. Metal is often a genre that likes to go for the "shock" factor and those of a sensitive nature need to bear that in mind.

Like Vinny, some of the depictions of women in particular on some metal covers I find particularly unpleasant, but I don't expect Ben to have to look at them all in order to keep the site's content comprehensive then have myself pretend that they don't exist by filtering them out.

I think the members of a clan are probably best to judge if a release belongs in that clan. If moving a release out of a clan results in it being moved to non-metal there is surely nothing stopping someone else from submitting a further Hall request for it to be included elsewhere if they feel it deserves inclusion in a different clan. I would have thought this would be a very rare occurence as usually Hall requests are quite well considered before being submitted.

If a release is tagged as some kind of extreme Horde genre such as gorenoise or grindcore for example, yet the Horde members don't believe it has enough metal to qualify - maybe it is just harsh noise or extreme hardcore punk - I don't think most non-Horde members would really have enough knowledge of those extreme non-metal genres to judge it's merits accurately. So, what I am saying is, I think things are best left as they are.

In short, yes. If there's no available data, or at least very little data, to help me allocate a genre or clan, then I will trust the requesting Metal Academy attendee's judgement. This occurs from time to time.

That said, I will always use RYM genre data when it is available. In other words, I won't accept requests from Metal Academy attendees to add a new release to a different genre / clan to what RYM users have voted, when there is adequate data available. That's what the Hall of Judgement is for.

I hope that makes sense.

It would be cool to see pages for albums on the list challenges have a small section denoting which list it's on, specifically above or below the user lists section.

Good call. I've been meaning to ask Ben about exactly that as it probably affects me more than anyone given that I've submitted so many Hall entries that I can't remember which ones were mine & which ones aren't.

I feel like part of this problem would be alleviated if this site had something like older forums where you can see which topics/forums have new posts because they're in bold. If one topic happens to dominate, like some Hall of Judgment threads, or say, this thread, well, one knows where the other posts are.

This works, as a former Tez forumite, like Daniel, I found that feature useful.

It's an interesting suggestion thanks Vinny. I assume that the idea will also encompass the polar opposite functionality so that I can filter the forums to show only my beloved genre-tag related threads? :) Would the ability to simply filter out the Hall of Judgement forum suffice?

Yes, appreciate this needs to work both ways so me not seeing endless reams of classification threads need not be at the expense of more...passionate members 

Anything that can be done to save my eyes from the horror of genre-tagging/judgement halls etc would be appreciated.

Lemme share with you some Metalforum usernames: Goatmaster General, Relentless Oblivion, Sheol, Surgical Brute, Macabre Eternal, True Belief and Father Alabaster.  You'd think they'd have something better down for the ranks, especially if we implement them here where there's a clan system.

Actually, I wouldn't mind if each clan had different names for the ranks.

This has been on my list for a while. Next time I work with my developer, I'll see what we can do. I'll PM you all when it's done. 

Ok, let's do it then. :)

I have to admit that the Hall situation is frustrating. I do think it's something the site needs, so it's disappointing that we haven't attracted a large enough membership to make it really tick. I also have to admit that I struggle to stay on top of all the submissions (I'm currently close to 5o behind!). I guess there's not a lot of encouragement for me to put in consistent effort in that area when very few submissions go past a couple of votes.

Daniel and I have been talking about it though, and I think I'm going to hand him the keys to manage the whole process. I'd rather not lower the amount of votes required, but since submissions can be completed manually, I think we just start calling them successful or unsuccessful when it looks like a forgone conclusion. For example, if a submission has around 6 yes votes and 0 no votes, I think we just need to call it successful and move on, at least for now.

At least it was a good album!

The best! Funnily I have been considering it for some time, but most regulars are familiar with it I think, so I've stuck with less well known ones.

I don't know how you put The Sphere clan into metalcore here, but please fix this, Ben.

PS: The Eyes of a Traitor, that name is like Queensryche's "Eyes of a Stranger" with a twist of vengeful betrayal.

This is amazing Ben.  Thanks for sorting.

I kept my list private for a few weeks, Vinny, then made it public with no issues. I too see duplicate entries on your list. Have you tried remaking it anew and seeing if the same happens again?

Will try it again later.  Weird morning as one of my posts on my other forum has shown up blank despite it all being there earlier.  Different browser too.  Fucking Gremlins.

I came back to this old thread to share my Revolution playlist promotion video that could help spread the word about the playlist and Metal Academy:

Ben, please add these new albums:

The Word Alive - Empire

The Word Alive - MONOMANIA

The Word Alive - Pardon Me

Maylene and the Sons of Disaster - II

Maylene and the Sons of Disaster - III

Maylene and the Sons of Disaster - IV

Memphis May Fire - Memphis May Fire

Jamie's Elsewhere - Good Bye Rocket Man St. George Is Under Fire

Jamie's Elsewhere - Guidebook for Sinners Turned Saints

Jamie's Elsewhere - They Said a Storm Was Coming

Jamie's Elsewhere - Reimagined

Jamie's Elsewhere - Rebel / Revive

Blessthefall - Hard Feelings

Hi Ben, I realized that when I have private message email notifications on, the email title reads "You received a private message from Xephyr", even though it was someone else sending it. Inside the email itself it's correct, saying "You received a private message from insert account name here", maybe a mix-up in the code for the email subject lines?

Thanks.

Thanks. Will check it out at some point.

Agreed, I fell off of doing them because of end-of-year stuff and just not thinking I've had too much to share, which is kind of not true.

I'll definitely hold myself to contributing again. 

I think on a site with limited members already (not meant to sound harsh) I would not see the point in further division of the existing clans.  Look at The Sphere which is I agree a defined genre of metal that has the lowest activity of the clans.  If you take out Viking Metal and Folk Metal and Trance Metal/core (whatever the fuck that is?) you're just diluting the coverage of these sub-genres and potentially limiting exposure to them across the site.

I grow tired easily of "boxes" talk so I am probably in my own "box" (the irony) in terms of what seems to be a very passionate subject for other members but in all honesty I just don't care that much about what fits into what genre/sub-genre.

Hi Ben, would it be feasible and do you think there would be any mileage in a comment  box for each album, as they do on RYM? I ask because there are a huge number of releases without reviews and it would give those who perhaps don't particularly like, or want, to write lengthy reviews a chance to give some feedback on a release that may be unreviewed. It could also be another channel for discussion or debate without making a forum thread every time a different album presents itself for discussion. Just a thought.

Yeah, I've seen that happen myself. I'll try to sort, but might be tricky. The link is recording what page Sonny was on when he wrote that reply. The reply happened to push over to the next page, but that happens after the link is created. I'll see what can be done.

Ben, is there any possibility of being able to see all the forum posts from, say, the previous 24 hours with just a click? I seem to miss any number of posts because the Previous Posts lists only shows about ten. Something to consider for future updates.

Great feedback here guys & I think there's a lot of merit in these ideas. I'll speak to Ben when he gets back & see if we can make it work in some capacity.

In a similar vein to the clan challenges, how about a band name patch for any user who had reviewed all the (studio) albums from a particular band? Obviously only bands with a certain minimum number of releases would qualify, but there are plenty of metal bands who have released 10+ albums, so maybe that would be a good starting point and as these are generally the better known acts, Maiden, Sabbath, Priest, MDB, Darkthrone etc then most visitors to a site like MA should be more than familiar with them. The same could apply to metal labels like Nuclear Blast, Profound Lore or Avantgarde, say 25 or 30 reviews from a label would qualify the reviewer to a label patch.

In all honesty, RYM is the only place you'll see the term "atmospheric sludge metal". They're really just referring to the post-metal genre which they added only relatively recently & now have competing against atmospheric sludge in a pointless trade-off between two subgenres that are essentially the same thing. There are very few releases that are labelled as post-metal that aren't also tagged as atmospheric sludge. I think it should all fall under post-metal & reside in The Infinite.

Hi Andi. There is a possibility of allowing a fifth clan in the future but it's not on our radar at this stage. If we ever do it we definitely won't be allowing a sixth.

But in saying that, I think it's important for everyone to remember what the purpose of the clans are before we discuss adding any more additional clan options. The reality is that the actual individuals involved don't benefit at all from being a member of an additional clan. The whole clan concept means that it's the overall site that benefits from having only well informed people being part of each clan & therefore giving the charts & overall ratings more meaning. Also, I challenge anyone to tell me that they're fanatical about five different clans. You'll find that 99% of the time there are only portions of some of those clans that appeal to them. For example, if you became a member of The Fallen because you love Drone Metal & are partial to a bit of Stoner Metal here & there, there's every chance that you'll rate releases from the other subgenres that are covered under The Fallen & give negatively slanted scores which will in turn dilute the clan ratings system. Particularly if you're completing Clan Challenges. It was for this reason that I gave up my membership of The North despite holding black metal as one of my favourite subgenres. 

So what I'm trying to say is that I recommend that everyone keeps the best interests of the site in mind when choosing their clans. Look at the overall subgenres that are included under each clan & choose the ones that are the best fit for your personal tastes. It really doesn't matter if you like a subgenre that's covered by another clan as long as you are well informed & enthusiastic about the clans that you ARE a part of. You can always complete additional challenges from other clans at your leisure anyway.

Will get that fixed.

I think it's fine personally. I like the lists are just kinda thrown in there the way they are as an overall picture of the challenges and Metal Academy lists. I feel like the clan challenges aesthetically fits the broad spectrum of just what is a challenge from a top down view for anyone just jumping in to see the massive undertaking that a challenge is and how many different ways to go about it there are. Also since there are only 10 lists in the Metal Academy lists page so far it also seems fine. Maybe once there are more it can be seperated a bit the way you are describing it, but I feel as of right now it's unnecessary. 

I do have a suggestion for linking to the Clan Challenges from their appropriate clan homepage.

-Add Challenges: link1 link2 link3   in the About Clan section at the bottom

--- Or possibly have a separate box between the About Clan and Random Clan's Releases 

- Also can add the Spotify playlists you're creating as well included next to the challenge (Thanks again :) )

Hi guys, is it possible on the releases search pages to have a tick box enabling you to search for releases you have already rated, similar to the one excluding releases you've rated, thus allowing you to see things like a list of your rated releases from a given year etc.?

I've obviously never clicked on one as that bug has alluded me. I'll get it sorted.

You can already see how many releases are related to each clan on the Homepage. You want that replicated on the Clans homepage (not necessarily each individual clan's homepage but the page you get when you click Clans)? I'm sure that wouldn't be difficult.

As for also showing how many you've rated...maybe...I'll check out how easy it would be.

So I've finally figured out how to trigger a problem that's been annoying me for some time now. If you post on a forum thread, you are correctly redirected to the latest page of that thread & can see the post you've just made. BUT.... if you then EDIT that post you will be taken back to the very first post on the very first page of that thread & will have to then click to the latest page & scroll down to see your edited post. This is clearly a complete deal breaker & is obviously the reason that we don't have 2,000,000 members by now. I've alerted Ben to the problem & we'll look to have it rectified at some stage.

OCD? Me? I don't know what you're talking about. Minor details are not important to me at all.

Um...you put two spaces between "discrepancies" and "between". Just sayin.

Thanks Ben for clearing that up.

So I kicked this off yesterday with the first round of features & ended up going with some high quality but generally overlooked old-school releases. What are your thoughts on those selections? I'll be looking to jump around from different periods & from different subgenres each time.

Ben has suggested that he'd much rather see new features being announced on a more regular basis i.e. fortnightly or weekly. I thought I'd start off with monthly so as to make sure that everyone had enough time to get involved & to gain your feedback on the whole concept. I mean I don't want people to feel pressured or rushed. This is meant to be fun after all. If people really get behind this early on & the consensus is that we'd like it more regularly then I can look to accommodate that idea moving forwards. Let's see how we go to start with.

Agree w/ Sonny.  A couple of paragraphs are great for me.  

Reviewing is almost like a guitar solo...easy to go on and on after everyone stops listening.

I think Ben's intention is to get away from some of the RYM reviews, like one I saw for a metal record that just said "This is music for people who still  ride bikes to school" or something like that.  Not a review.

Maybe one day. I decided early on to leave them out for a few reasons. Firstly, there's a lot of confusion around them, with a lot of sites listing completely different things about them. Secondly, it would have resulted in me focusing almost exclusively on 70s and 80s heavy metal for a LONG time with little reward, delaying the true value of the site. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly to me, a lot of them have no artwork or it's next to impossible to find good images for them. As I hope you can tell, the visuals of Metal Academy are just as important to me as the content. I wanted this site to be the best looking metal site there is, and literally spend hours every day hunting down the very best images I can find for every release. I fear that adding singles would detract from the result.

Never say never though.

When at a clan page it would be great if there was a link to their forums, possibly a "recent thread post" on there too.

Also maybe a non-clan area for New Releases or other 'unknown' genre albums that just don't seem to fit where people can vote on genre's like the hall of judgment, maybe a separate section within the hall of judgement?  Would love to hear others opinions on this as well, maybe an even better idea! 

Too metal for hellfire perhaps?

Thanks for the feedback Shezma. I'll have a think about how I might make genre coverage clearer during the registration process. It's wrong of me to assume that everyone has complete knowledge of RYM's branching genre tree.

Hmmmm...I think I have an idea...

Thanks Ben!

Oh OK, that makes sense, thanks Daniel. Those automated accounts shall not pass!

If it's still happening for you, I highly recommend you use Chrome and see if that helps. Over 70% of internet users use Chrome, whereas only 4% use Edge.

Yeah, the font size would shrink if press backspace in a review that's already blank, so I have to refresh the page. Please fix it, Ben!

I believe this little problem has been fixed now. Let me know if you disagree.

Cheers.

It's fixed now. Thanks so much, Ben!

I came here to suggest exactly this. Clicking through all the numbers of pages to get back to specific letters of bands was a little tedious as I was alphabetically filling out my ratings over the last week.

This feature has been added. Check it out and let me know what you think.