Hall of Judgement - Non-metal judgements

Just a thought that occurred to me while browsing the current Hall of Judgement submissions.

As I understand it, your eligibility to vote on a submission is based on both the current Clan(s) of the album and the proposed future Clan(s) if the submission were accepted. So, if I'm a member of The Pit, I get to vote on any submission regarding an album that is currently part of The Pit AND any album that is proposed to join The Pit, even if it is not currently in it.

So, this made me wonder: should Judgements regarding moves to or from Non-Metal status be open to everyone? Since we are all either part of the "Non-Metal Clan", or not part of it. We're all equal members of that "Clan", as it were, all equally knowledgeable about that side of it.

If an album currently in The Gateway is proposed to join The Pit, anyone in either Clan gets to have a say. But if that album is proposed as Non-Metal, only Gateway members get to vote on it.

Hmmm.... it's an interesting idea. Personally I think that members of The Gateway are best positioned to decide on whether a release fits inside that clan rather than Non-Metal. For example, if you only know extreme metal then you may think that ANY heavy metal release isn't metal for example (which may sound silly but I've definitely encountered those people before). Then again, a move to Non-Metal is one of the rare examples where we have a vote that includes not only a move OUT of a clan but also a move INTO another category. We would usually do that in two votes unless it would leave the release in limbo without a clan at all but when it does happen it's not dissimilar to what you're suggesting.

What does everyone else think?

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.