Ideas for Metal Academy

I've been putting some thought into how we can improve Metal Academy, and wanted to run a few ideas by the community.

I'm thinking of introducing the ability to rate album covers, and then having a Gallery section where the best covers are shown in all their glory (you'd of course be able to filter by clan, genre, year etc.). I figure it could be really popular, as anyone can rate an album cover, even if they've never heard the release. The only question would be whether I should only allow members to rate covers of releases in their selected clans, or just leave it open. A few of you mentioned in recent threads that the thing that makes the site unique is the clans, so it makes sense to really dive into that and see where we can take it. This could be another way to do that, but I'd like to put it to the community and see what you think.

Speaking of clans, I've been tinkering with the idea of making certain things only available to members of a clan. The Clan pages as they are could remain open to all so that anyone new coming to the site can see the ABOUT CLAN section and the RANDOM CLAN RELEASES to help them understand the site, but only members of the clan could then click to go through to further pages. As for what could be on these locked down pages, well I have some ideas, but I'm sure it could be built on. The MEMBERS list would be there, and I'd make the latest reviews, ratings and releases for the clan a focal point. There could be a bunch of links and stats relevant to the clan activity, and I could even move the clan's forum into it if people thought that was a good idea. Basically you could visit your clan pages to see everything to do with your chosen clans, rather than having to go to all the various parts of the site and running filters (that would all still be available obviously). The downside is that site members might have a passing interest (or strong interest) in clans they're not part of, so denying them the ability to see everything might be frustrating. Thoughts?

As suggested by a couple of people, I'm thinking to add a Monthly Features section where the chosen releases for the month are really highlighted. I'd attempt to add a forum-like discussion section for each feature so people can comment on them, and potentially display the current ratings and reviews for them. The current Feature Release threads in the Forum would be removed if we went ahead with this.

Now that I've entered full release dates for the majority of releases on the site, I'm considering having an anniversary section (Today in Metal type thing). Rather than celebrate every release anniversary for every day of the year (there'd be absolutely stacks for every day of the year), I'd instead focus on the major milestones. This one might be well suited to the locked down clan pages discussed above. I had my artist make the icons in preparation a while back. Here are some examples...

I'll stop there for now. I have other ideas too, but let's focus on the ones I've already listed above. Any feedback would be incredibly useful and appreciated, and if anyone has any other suggestions (related or not), we really want to hear them. My hope is that we'll all work together to make Metal Academy even more kick ass.

Cheers,

Ben.

I agree with the majority of the ideas.  Especially a fan of the anniversary and album cover rating ideas.  Some of my favourite album covers are on albums I haven't heard or actually dislike the content of but I think this needs to be an open thing and not limited to clans.  Generally the idea of closing things to only members of a clan doesn't feel right to me.  I find this site a great resource for exploring new genres and sub-genres so kind of like that "openess" if I am honest as it is one of the main draws for me.

I'm with Vinny regarding limiting clan activity to members only, in that I think it would be counter-productive. The reviews, forums etc. are great places to expand into musical genres you may not usually listen to. I myself aren't a member of either The Horde or The Guardians, but have more than a passing interest in bands that would feature in both of these and wouldn't like to feel I was being excluded from any interest in those bands. I do really like the clan concept though, so maybe smaller items like the anniversary releases could be available only to clan members. 

Love the rating album cover idea! I don't think it should be limited by clan though. Clan is for music taste, and an album cover can be liked or disliked by anyone completely regardless to their taste in music. Just do as you have with the album charts and make it sortable by clan for those who want to.

Thanks for the responses so far. I'd like to play devil's advocate to make sure we make the right decision.

While I'd like to agree with SilentScream213's comment that "an album cover can be liked or disliked by anyone completely regardless to their taste in music", I'm just not convinced that it would play out that way. The artwork is very different across some of the genres for a reason. Metal fans that love a certain style of music are for the most part attracted to the style of artwork that goes with it.

Case in point...

If I'm a huge fan of power metal, but REALLY don't like death metal, I'm probably not going to think very highly of the artwork found on the majority of death metal releases. Let's go with a really well-known cover like Cannibal Corpse's Tomb of the Mutilated. There will undoubtedly be death metal fans that rate that cover 5 out of 5 and think it's awesome, but how many site users that aren't into the more extreme genres of metal would consider it to be a good cover? The same logic could be applied the other way. How do you think those same death metal fans will rate the cover of power metal albums like Twilight Force's Heroes of Mighty Magic?

Of course there is one other option: I implement a Site Rating and Clan Rating for album covers, the same way I did for releases. Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure you'll all agree with that idea. 

I thought the Site Rating and Clan Rating for album covers was implied. If it's not too difficult to do I think that's ideal!

If I'm a huge fan of power metal, but REALLY don't like death metal, I'm probably not going to think very highly of the artwork found on the majority of death metal releases. Let's go with a really well-known cover like Cannibal Corpse's Tomb of the Mutilated. There will undoubtedly be death metal fans that rate that cover 5 out of 5 and think it's awesome, but how many site users that aren't into the more extreme genres of metal would consider it to be a good cover? The same logic could be applied the other way. How do you think those same death metal fans will rate the cover of power metal albums like Twilight Force's Heroes of Mighty Magic?

As a fan of album covers in the "epic" category and avoiding any of the gory ones, I would give covers from power metal bands like Twilight Force high ratings but leave alone covers from death metal bands like Cannibal Corpse. Though there are some melodeath bands with covers that I would consider epic, like Amon Amarth's Twilight of the Thunder God. You might already know this from an earlier thread, but I also enjoy abstract covers from progressive metal bands like Between the Buried and Me and dark but not too graphic covers from metalcore bands like Bleeding Through. In my opinion, those deserve 4/4.5/5-star ratings!

I'll echo my support for Macabre and Sonny's thoughts on "gating content" per clan. I can't lie, I do like the idea of exclusive content for the clans that you choose, it would make the site feel more personal I think, but choosing what content to gate is extremely difficult. It can't be too important, but it also can't be worthless either. 

Rating album art would be an awesome addition since I think people who are rating music to begin with just want more things to rate. An anniversaries page would be a neat addition as well. 

Thanks for the work on the monthly features too!

Of course there is one other option: I implement a Site Rating and Clan Rating for album covers, the same way I did for releases. Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure you'll all agree with that idea. 

You nailed it here fella.

I agree that a clan and site rating option is the best way to go for rating album covers. This would also make for an interesting comparison between, for example, what devotees of grindcore consider a classic cover and what the wider metal community think of the same cover. In other words, would you rate a cover purely on it's own merits as a piece of art or by how appropriate it is to the album it adorns?

Almost as a side thought, I would be interested to know how important fans think album covers still are. Obviously growing up with vinyl records and physical record shops, the covers of albums were particularly important in capturing your attention as you flicked through racks of records, but is this still the case in the modern world of streaming and downloads? I'm still an old vinyl junkie and must admit there are still some crackers out there, but what does everyone else think?

Almost as a side thought, I would be interested to know how important fans think album covers still are. Obviously growing up with vinyl records and physical record shops, the covers of albums were particularly important in capturing your attention as you flicked through racks of records, but is this still the case in the modern world of streaming and downloads? I'm still an old vinyl junkie and must admit there are still some crackers out there, but what does everyone else think?

Cover art isn't "important" in the sense that it never effects my score of an album, but aside from that, I love good cover art. Not only is it more art to enjoy in itself, but it can also help create a general mood for the album; if you listen to music with an image already in mind, it can alter your perceptions of it. Memorable cover art can also make the album itself more memorable. Even though people don't browse vinyls/CDs much anymore, there's still a ton of online browsing being done and more often than not it'll be a good cover that catches my eye and makes me want to listen to an album.

I've become a vinyl person as well to support bands/artists and to have something physical, which I think is important. I've always liked vinyl over CD's just because the cover art and such is larger, so I'm with you in how important album art can be. 

I think it's gone by the wayside though, with only die hard fans or music enthusiasts really caring about the presentation of an album. Most popular music just has pictures of the band themselves or some low effort collage for the most part. I think a cover art rating system would be a hit among the people who would take the time to seek out a site like this though, especially since it's a relatively low effort rating system. 

I love the monthly feature concept & think it would really work to open provide further input into those monthly discussions. Plus is might reduce my workload a touch too as I potentially wouldn't have to paste in an explanation of the relevance of the thread every time for new players.

The album cover ratings concept isn't something that I'd use all that often in all honesty as I've never really cared too much about recording my feelings on anything but the music. I can see how appealing it is for others though & would encourage it's inclusion purely as a differentiator as I've never seen another site that does it.

The today-in-metal concept is pretty cool however it does sound like you'd need to facilitate this every single day Ben. Or could you automate it by choosing the releases in advance maybe?

I like most of the ideas that are being presented here Ben. I think that the discussion on whether or not album cover ratings should be limited to people within the clan does make some sense as Ben describes; an album cover such as Tomb of the Mutilated will certainly be controversial for those who might not be as well versed within the extreme metal subgenres.

Beyond that, I find it counter-intuitive to hide new releases within the clans behind walls based on the clans that we decided on when we joined the website in the first place. I really enjoy the sonic palette of atmospheric black metal, and I really like writing reviews for them, but because I could not select four clans from the beginning, The North was the odd one out for me. Denying users access to other clans sounds like tribalism to me.

Case in point, the clan challenges. I really enjoy the current format of the forum clan challenges: one album a month from each clan that I may have never heard before, or revisit albums that I had not heard in a while. Most recently, I discovered Falkenbach through the clan challenge and really enjoyed it. If featured releases were placed behind exclusive content walls, I may have gone the rest of my life without knowing Falkenbach existed! Adding them to the front page or the front page of each clan group however, could make them more accessible and perhaps get more people involved in the conversation and I don't see anything wrong with that.

In addition, I'd like to suggest that band v. band/album v. album should be added to the front pages as featured content as well. I really like the idea of holding music side by side and seeing which of it stands out as either more culturally significant, or just better music in general. 

I have another idea to suggest, Ben. Another member just joined the Metal Academy, named Dani. Nothing wrong with that...except there's another member named Dani!

It can be quite confusing to have two members named Dani, in case one of them is good and the other is evil (not black metal evil, just bad evil). There's a reason why there can't be two accounts with the same name in email websites like gmail and MMORPGs like RuneScape, and that's because they don't wanna cause massive confusion. On top of that, as all of you here know, one of the site's founding brothers is similarly named, Daniel! I'm not judging any names, I'm just saying that if two or three people have the same name, they should have a different username to not confuse people. So my suggestion is: Ben, please PM the two members named Dani and ask them each to change their username, either by changing it to something different, adding another part of their username (for example, "Dani Filth"), or their full name (unless they wanna keep it private). Then once they changed their names, please implement a new rule saying that new accounts can't have the same username as other accounts. OK thanks!

I'd guess that they're actually the same person Andi. Can you check that please Ben?

I've sent an email to the new Dani to see if he also created the other account.

I'll also see about making it so that two accounts can't have the same name.

I've locked in my developer for some time in July, so that gives me plenty of time to played around with designs for new functionality. Please keep the ideas coming!

I've sent an email to the new Dani to see if he also created the other account.

Quoted Ben

Do the email addresses give it away?

I've sent an email to the new Dani to see if he also created the other account.

Quoted Ben

Do the email addresses give it away?

Not in this case.

Danigate has me on the edge of my seat. 

Is Danigate an attempt by rogue government agency bots to try to influence our free and fair Hall of Judgement voting?!

I'd still like to see a clan filter option on the METAL ACADEMY LISTS page as I'd like to expand it in the future & think it's already pretty cluttered.