Ideas for Metal Academy

I think we both pretty much said the same thing at the same time Xephyr. I know where Daniel's coming from, as he made the decision to leave The North due to his low ratings for Folk Metal releases having an impact on the Clan Ratings. I did point out that he had an alternate path though, which was to simply stop reviewing Folk Metal releases when he clearly doesn't like them. I can't say I understand why anyone would want to purposely and repeatedly subject themselves to subgenres that they know they're going to despise, but he seems to be a sucker for punishment.

I look forward to his retort.

Sounds to me like we're in danger of over-complicating matters here. I actually agree with Daniel that you can have too many clans and challenges and I applaud his decision to opt out of the North. I myself was caught up in the clan challenges without stopping to think if I even wanted a fourth clan and now I have given it some thought I've realised that I really don't as I dislike too many sub-genres of both the Guardians and the Horde (one of which my 4th clan would have to be) to make a meaningful contribution to those clans. I also agree that if a main clan challenge feels like a nightmare to you then you're probably barking up the wrong tree. I'd rather now review or comment on releases that have actually made an impression on me (positively or negatively) than to churn out reviews on stuff I could care less about.

One small issue I have with the clan challenges is that due to the nature of the charts on MA, the albums in the challenges have a disproportionate advantage in the charts as more members are encouraged to review them.

I'd also like to state that while I agree with a lot of Daniel's comments above, I don't agree with this one:

"I never intended for people that don't like classic death metal to join The Horde, for people that don't like doom metal to join The Fallen or for people that don't like black metal to join The North, etc."

When I designed the system, I simply wanted members to join the clans that they feel most affiliated with. If someone is passionate about Folk Metal, but cares nothing for Black Metal, then they should still consider joining The North. There's no reason why they have to listen to or rate/review Black Metal albums to be part of that clan. In fact, I don't like to think of each clan as having major and minor genres. In most cases there's a genre that's more popular than the others, but that shouldn't lessen the other genre's positions. 

I'm surprised to see you say that Ben because I feel very strongly that this is in essence what the clan arrangement is about for me. I don't ever want to be dictating what people should or shouldn't listen to or rate so there should be no reason why we'd discourage someone who isn't into black metal from experimenting with it & recording their feelings in the form of a rating. What we are trying to do is give their rating less of a weighting by not having their rating contributing to the clan ratings score.

In my mind, each clan DOES have a primary subgenre that everything else stems from. If you look at the various clans you'll see that we've subconsciously or unknowingly bunched subgenres together that all relate to one mother subgenre. (The Fallen = doom metal, The Gateway = alternative metal, The Guardians = heavy metal, The Horde = death metal, The Infinite = progressive metal, The North = black metal, The Pit = thrash metal, The Revolution = metalcore, The Sphere = industrial metal.) This is actually why we lumped them together in the first place. Let's be honest, it's the death metal components in grindcore that link the two subgenres. In fact, if we use the example that Xephyr used above, the only reason we lumped folk metal in with black metal is because the majority of folk metal releases utilized the black metal sound as the base sound for which to add their folk elements over. Sure there are exceptions but if you can't stand black metal then you are significantly less likely to enjoy most folk metal.

Now, if we're going to say that we intended it that someone would join The North but have no affiliation with the root subgenre then you're essentially saying that it's OK for someone to dilute our ratings system. People WILL rate releases from subgenres that they're not immediately interested in because people like to experiment & expand their knowledge of metal music. I know you don't do this but I really enjoy it & I know that several other prominent Metal Academy members (like Xephyr for example) do too. Sometimes it pays off & sometimes it doesn't. But we need to remember that of the defining & classic releases included in The North, around 80% of them reside in the black metal spectrum & we see much the same thing in some of the other clans too (The Pit, The Sphere, The Infinite, etc). In my mind it makes zero sense for someone to not have an appreciation for 80% of the classic releases of a clan & still be contributing to the clan ratings scores. It defeats the whole purpose of the clan arrangement in my opinion. I can understand if someone who joins The North doesn't like folk metal because it's not the root subgenre. In the same way, I can understand someone who joins The Pit not enjoying groove metal but I can't justify the other way around. At its core The Pit is essentially ABOUT thrash metal & the other two subgenres are simply off-shoots (despite speed metal having come first from a chronological point of view). If it weren't for thrash metal we wouldn't have been connecting speed metal & groove metal together. It's the glue that links them & is completely dominant from a commercial & critical point of view as well as from pure weight of numbers.

One small issue I have with the clan challenges is that due to the nature of the charts on MA, the albums in the challenges have a disproportionate advantage in the charts as more members are encouraged to review them.

I actually think it's the other way around. The less ratings a release has the more likely that it hasn't been shit-canned by someone & that's why we see some strange inclusions at the top of the charts that only have the bare minimum quantity of ratings to qualify yet all have come from obsessive fans that rate it extremely highly. This will disappear over time as we up the minimum rating requirements for the charts.

If we've got the clan genres right (and I personally think we have), then it’s my belief that the system should allow people to join whatever clans they feel most affiliated with and rate/review whatever they want to across the site. In the long run, the system automatically corrects for Academy attendees downrating releases in clans they don't belong to, while sheer numbers should counter the odd Academy attendee that downrates releases in their own clan(s).

One small issue I have with the clan challenges is that due to the nature of the charts on MA, the albums in the challenges have a disproportionate advantage in the charts as more members are encouraged to review them.

I actually think it's the other way around. The less ratings a release has the more likely that it hasn't been shit-canned by someone & that's why we see some strange inclusions at the top of the charts that only have the bare minimum quantity of ratings to qualify yet all have come from obsessive fans that rate it extremely highly. This will disappear over time as we up the minimum rating requirements for the charts.

I thought we were all "obsessive fans" here, that's one of the main attractions of the Academy for me. I for one hope MA's charts don't merely reflect the charts of RYM and the likes where only the most well-known and obvious albums rule the roost. With a minimum rating threshold which is currently one sixth of the most-rated album's number of ratings (Ride the Lightning's 30) as long as no one is cheating (as was exposed recently) then surely any album on the chart deserves it's place.

I think we need a bigger window for typing private messages. With the way it currently is I find that I have to keep arrowing up with the cursor to review what I’ve already written which is really annoying after a while.

It’d also be cool if threads with posts you’re yet to read showed up in bold so that you can easily see what you need to catch up on. I used to enjoy that feature on the Terrorizer forums.

I don’t pm that much in all honesty but agree that the updated threads need to be more visible.  My biggest bug bear still is having to scroll all the way back to the top to navigate to another page or section when I am at the bottom of a page, a navigation bar at the bottom of the page would be great if that could be done.

It’s also be cool if there was a way that you could see that you have private messages waiting for you from within the site. Currently the only way you’d know is by an external email & even when you’re in the message section you’d have to go into the individual conversations to see if there’s anything new there. Perhaps a number could show on your profile name it the top of the main page & any conversations with new messages could be bolded in a similar way to my forum thread suggestion?

Just a minor thing, but it might be nice if the hall voting buttons came up with some sort of "Are you sure?" pop-up to confirm, just since your votes in them can't (as far as I'm aware) be undone once cast. I haven't had it happen to me, but I could see someone accidentally clicking the wrong option.

Just a minor thing, but it might be nice if the hall voting buttons came up with some sort of "Are you sure?" pop-up to confirm, just since your votes in them can't (as far as I'm aware) be undone once cast. I haven't had it happen to me, but I could see someone accidentally clicking the wrong option.

I like that idea, Tymell. Can we please also have that sort of pop-up when leaving a page with a forum thread that hasn't been posted or a review that hasn't been updated, and when deleting an existing forum thread or review? There's nothing worse than writing a lengthy thread or review and then having it disappear before you can save it because you accidentally either delete it, go back a page with the backspace key (on some browsers), or click the close button on a tab or window.

I agree Andi. In fact, I did it only this afternoon.

Since I got a new mouse with a back button right near my thumb I have lost reviews numerous times this past few months.  Now taken to writing in Word and pasting over when done.

Since I got a new mouse with a back button right near my thumb I have lost reviews numerous times this past few months.  Now taken to writing in Word and pasting over when done.

I use Notepad.

I'll look into what can be done with the Hall voting. Perhaps we can make it so people can change their votes? I don't really see why we shouldn't allow that. Thoughts?

I don't think there's any way to control browser behaviour though. If you click back in the browser or close a window, I don't think the site can do anything to save you. Maybe I'm wrong? Have any of you seen that elsewhere?

Ben, is there any way to make reviews private whilst compiling them, then making them public when they are finished. I often end up editing them time and time again and find it difficult to write a review in one sitting as time is often limited. I have a private list on RYM where I mainly compile reviews at the minute.

I'm sure it's possible. I'll ask my developer when I next get his attention (that is proving difficult at the moment).

I'll look into what can be done with the Hall voting. Perhaps we can make it so people can change their votes? I don't really see why we shouldn't allow that. Thoughts?

I don't think there's any way to control browser behaviour though. If you click back in the browser or close a window, I don't think the site can do anything to save you. Maybe I'm wrong? Have any of you seen that elsewhere?

I have seen numerous sites (usually in my day job so more corporate based than MA) where you get a "If you leave this page changes will be lost!" style pop ups.  A lot of CRM's have these so I am not sure how easy it is to code them into a site but would think it could be done.

Hi Ben, I thought we had it in this thread about the time it takes to get to the home screen to login but I can't see it now.  If I go for the home page of the site it takes a shade over 20 seconds to load, then I input my login details and that's approx another 10 or 15 seconds before I am logged in.  All in all it takes nearly 35 seconds to access and log into the Metal Academy - that's a long time in this age of immediacy.  I would say that it could be one the reasons for the low uptake on the site.  I mean we all know it is worth the wait but not everyone else has that insider knowledge.

To get around this I usually access the Forums page and that is virtually instant in coming up as it avoids the home page and everything that loads up with it.  If I want to check out the latest reviews are recently added bands though I still have to go to the homepage.

Any plans to improve this performance issue this year?

I too am getting really long load times on my shitty laptop and on my tablet - I would say more than 20 seconds, maybe even double that. I've begun entering the site via the forums too, especially on the tablet where I can stay logged in. I hadn't thought of it before, but that could be a contributor to people not sticking with the site, we all know how impatient people can be nowadays. 

Yes, I'm well aware that the homepage takes too long to load. My developer has a number of ideas of how to improve the performance, but simply hasn't had any availability to work on Metal Academy for the past 6 months or so.

I've just written to him again, asking whether he has any time. I've also asked if he knows someone else that could assist with this specific issue, if he still doesn't have time.

Fingers crossed. I'm sure it annoys me even more than you guys, as I have to wait every time I add a new release. I also agree that the lag could be the main reason why newcomers don't stick around.

We'll get there, I promise!

Hi Ben, do you think it would be feasible to allow searches on the releases page for albums with multiple genres? What I mean is, would it be possible to select say, death metal and black metal and only show releases that are tagged with both genres, not just either of them. RYM (sorry for bringing them up again) has a tick box for "must contain all genres" thus, in the above example, allowing the search to return results for blackened death metal releases. I feel this would add a degree of flexibility when searching for clearly defined, yet not officially tagged genres: blackened doom, progressive death metal, deaththrash for example.

Looks like we have the double member name issue again. Ben, please PM the two members named Dylanconover 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 try again to implement a new rule saying that new accounts can't have the same username as other accounts. OK thanks!

It's clearly the same person Andi & it won't be anything they've done intentionally. Ben & I were discussing how these double entries are happening this morning actually with the most likely cause being poor internet connections of the users in question or internal caching issues with the database. The examples we looked at this morning showed no double-ups in the back end though so we'll have to keep any eye on this topic.