Ideas for Metal Academy

Actually, it does appear that they created the second account intentionally (used a different email address). I've deleted one of the two accounts for now.

If the user happens to see this message, please note that you cannot have multiple Metal Academy accounts. If you have any questions, please reach out to me (or the community at large).

Note that it can take a little while for the homepage to adjust since we turned caching on. So even though I've deleted the second account, it will still appear on the homepage for a while. Only really comes into play when something gets deleted, such as a forum post etc.

I have been wondering if there is any chance of a "Collection" feature with a button on each release that says "add to my collection" and then a link on each member's homepage to a "My Collection" page. I know a lot of people just d/l or stream their metal nowadays, but an avid collector like myself (and possibly Vinny) may get some good use out of it - I know I would like to be able to see my collection here on Metal Academy - and maybe it would entice new members to stick around a bit.

Also, in a similar vein, how about a "Wishlist" feature to allow member's to keep tabs on albums they want to check out?

It's certainly something I can discuss with my developer. Unfortunately he's very busy these days, so it can be hard to lock in time. I'll ask him what he thinks.

I have been wondering if there is any chance of a "Collection" feature with a button on each release that says "add to my collection" and then a link on each member's homepage to a "My Collection" page. I know a lot of people just d/l or stream their metal nowadays, but an avid collector like myself (and possibly Vinny) may get some good use out of it - I know I would like to be able to see my collection here on Metal Academy - and maybe it would entice new members to stick around a bit.

Also, in a similar vein, how about a "Wishlist" feature to allow member's to keep tabs on albums they want to check out?

They have this on Metal Storm and of course Discogs.  I think it would be a neat idea.  I have slowed down on the physical copies so far this year (he says with an Aosoth album about to be shipped from Season of Mist - ahem) largely due to other financial priorities.  Will always have a physical collection of some kind alongside streaming which is still my majority means of listening to music.

I have been wondering if there is any chance of a "Collection" feature with a button on each release that says "add to my collection" and then a link on each member's homepage to a "My Collection" page. I know a lot of people just d/l or stream their metal nowadays, but an avid collector like myself (and possibly Vinny) may get some good use out of it - I know I would like to be able to see my collection here on Metal Academy - and maybe it would entice new members to stick around a bit.

Also, in a similar vein, how about a "Wishlist" feature to allow member's to keep tabs on albums they want to check out?

They have this on Metal Storm and of course Discogs.  I think it would be a neat idea.  I have slowed down on the physical copies so far this year (he says with an Aosoth album about to be shipped from Season of Mist - ahem) largely due to other financial priorities.  Will always have a physical collection of some kind alongside streaming which is still my majority means of listening to music.

Yeah, I've had to slow down too. Prices have become a bit silly just lately. A couple of examples - a charity shop in town wanted £9 for My Dying Bride's For Lies I Sire secondhand, HMV want £55 for a vinyl of Jethro Tull's Aqualung and I just tried to order the new Lord Mountain CD from Bandcamp and the CD was £9 but postage was £20!! Got it for £13 off amazon in the end.

I have got (most of) my collection logged on both Discogs and Metal Storm, but I would really like to be able to have it here on the #1 metal website too. I really do think it might encourage some new members to return to the site as well, to update their collections.

I have been wondering if there is any chance of a "Collection" feature with a button on each release that says "add to my collection" and then a link on each member's homepage to a "My Collection" page. I know a lot of people just d/l or stream their metal nowadays, but an avid collector like myself (and possibly Vinny) may get some good use out of it - I know I would like to be able to see my collection here on Metal Academy - and maybe it would entice new members to stick around a bit.

Also, in a similar vein, how about a "Wishlist" feature to allow member's to keep tabs on albums they want to check out?

They have this on Metal Storm and of course Discogs.  I think it would be a neat idea.  I have slowed down on the physical copies so far this year (he says with an Aosoth album about to be shipped from Season of Mist - ahem) largely due to other financial priorities.  Will always have a physical collection of some kind alongside streaming which is still my majority means of listening to music.

Yeah, I've had to slow down too. Prices have become a bit silly just lately. A couple of examples - a charity shop in town wanted £9 for My Dying Bride's For Lies I Sire secondhand, HMV want £55 for a vinyl of Jethro Tull's Aqualung and I just tried to order the new Lord Mountain CD from Bandcamp and the CD was £9 but postage was £20!! Got it for £13 off amazon in the end.

I have got (most of) my collection logged on both Discogs and Metal Storm, but I would really like to be able to have it here on the #1 metal website too. I really do think it might encourage some new members to return to the site as well, to update their collections.

That Aosoth album cost me just as much for shipping as it did for the record.  Bonkers.

I have been wondering if there is any chance of a "Collection" feature with a button on each release that says "add to my collection" and then a link on each member's homepage to a "My Collection" page. I know a lot of people just d/l or stream their metal nowadays, but an avid collector like myself (and possibly Vinny) may get some good use out of it - I know I would like to be able to see my collection here on Metal Academy - and maybe it would entice new members to stick around a bit.

Also, in a similar vein, how about a "Wishlist" feature to allow member's to keep tabs on albums they want to check out?

They have this on Metal Storm and of course Discogs.  I think it would be a neat idea.  I have slowed down on the physical copies so far this year (he says with an Aosoth album about to be shipped from Season of Mist - ahem) largely due to other financial priorities.  Will always have a physical collection of some kind alongside streaming which is still my majority means of listening to music.

Yeah, I've had to slow down too. Prices have become a bit silly just lately. A couple of examples - a charity shop in town wanted £9 for My Dying Bride's For Lies I Sire secondhand, HMV want £55 for a vinyl of Jethro Tull's Aqualung and I just tried to order the new Lord Mountain CD from Bandcamp and the CD was £9 but postage was £20!! Got it for £13 off amazon in the end.

I have got (most of) my collection logged on both Discogs and Metal Storm, but I would really like to be able to have it here on the #1 metal website too. I really do think it might encourage some new members to return to the site as well, to update their collections.

That Aosoth album cost me just as much for shipping as it did for the record.  Bonkers.

It's no wonder Bezos is a f***ing billionaire - that free shipping is as hard to resist as crack-covered Pringles!!

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?

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?

I agree if we can have a filter that prevents me from seeing any more of those cutesy anime covers that seem to be becoming ever more popular among certain types of bands!

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.

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.

We need a place for live chat. Like an in-site chat room, or a discord with different channels for each clan. I can built the discord.

In all seriousness, I'm still not up to rejoining Discord. If any of you are up to starting a discord server or live chat room, go ahead, but I won't join.

I'd have to refuse, too.  I don't support toxic communities, or at least I try to avoid it as much as possible.  Plus, Discord's layout annoys me.

I've never used Discord, but toxicity online is certainly something I want no part of. I probably wouldn't get involved with a live chat room as I prefer to think out my posts beforehand and live chat, by it's instantaneous nature, may lead to ill-considered interactions which potentially feed into toxicity and misunderstanding. Good luck to anyone who does go for it, but it's not for me.

Why would a discord of just Metal Academy be toxic? Everyone here seems pretty chill and reasonable... it'd only be toxic if you make it toxic. If a Discord got started I'd join, I'm not interested in live chats, but it'd certainly be easier to have casual conversations.

As for site functions... two things I'd be interested in would be an actual weighting system to releases (more ratings=more weight, even if it was only a small amount. This could even be a toggle feature, if the community is split about it) and the ability to rate alternate album covers, such as on re-releases or odd examples where the album kinda has two official artworks (Like God Hates Us All does for censorship reasons).

Why would a discord of just Metal Academy be toxic? Everyone here seems pretty chill and reasonable... it'd only be toxic if you make it toxic. If a Discord got started I'd join, I'm not interested in live chats, but it'd certainly be easier to have casual conversations.

We're talking about other Discord servers being toxic. There wouldn't be anything toxic about a Metal Academy Discord server. But since those other servers have tainted my experiences there, I've sworn off Discord with no chance of ever returning.

As for site functions... two things I'd be interested in would be an actual weighting system to releases (more ratings=more weight, even if it was only a small amount. This could even be a toggle feature, if the community is split about it) and the ability to rate alternate album covers, such as on re-releases or odd examples where the album kinda has two official artworks (Like God Hates Us All does for censorship reasons).

Those site functions sound like good ideas. For alternate album covers, we can have a clean cover and an explicit cover for each release that has both, and only the clean covers would be visible to non-members so they have to create an account and log in to see the explicit covers. Then again, I'm a little worried about if we do that with the Scorpions album Virgin Killer, though that's not an issue right now since we've just established that album's not metal enough for the site.

Discord sounds awful even without the risk of toxicity.  Count me out.

As for site functions... two things I'd be interested in would be an actual weighting system to releases (more ratings=more weight, even if it was only a small amount. This could even be a toggle feature, if the community is split about it) and the ability to rate alternate album covers, such as on re-releases or odd examples where the album kinda has two official artworks (Like God Hates Us All does for censorship reasons).

I do like the weighting idea. It would be best if it wasn't too heavily weighted in favour of number of ratings though.

Review limit per "x" period would be my idea for submission.  How many members actually read the reviews that have been made since their last visit?  I know if I log in and there's a couple since my last visit (usually once a day as a minimum) I will take the time to leaf through what has been written to see if there's anything to pique my interest.  When I log in and the visible list is off the page and it is by the same member (and I have been that member at some point I am sure) I just leave the words to the sands of time or for someone with more patience than me to read through them.

Whilst I accept that reviews are a core part of MA there is a danger of them not really holding much influence if they are permitted to be shoved out like some conveyor belt-style operation.  I think established members are sensible about this (although not without exception either) and so it may be something to consider if the site does get busier with the additional marketing that is happening.  I think it makes the site look less active to some degree.  Personally, I have looked at many forums and thought "one person is posting here based on the last active threads" and gone off elsewhere.

Still of course nothing to stop the same problem if you have say a max of 4 reviews every 24 huors and nobody else posts once the member who last did their max returns with a fresh quota.  Still think it needs some control however.

To partially answer your rhetorical question and risking repetition, only read reviews for albums I've already heard.  And since I spend so much time looking up other genres (I am currently exploring more house music) I've been progressing on the clan challenges very slowly.

Review limit per "x" period would be my idea for submission.  How many members actually read the reviews that have been made since their last visit?  I know if I log in and there's a couple since my last visit (usually once a day as a minimum) I will take the time to leaf through what has been written to see if there's anything to pique my interest.  When I log in and the visible list is off the page and it is by the same member (and I have been that member at some point I am sure) I just leave the words to the sands of time or for someone with more patience than me to read through them.

Whilst I accept that reviews are a core part of MA there is a danger of them not really holding much influence if they are permitted to be shoved out like some conveyor belt-style operation.  I think established members are sensible about this (although not without exception either) and so it may be something to consider if the site does get busier with the additional marketing that is happening.  I think it makes the site look less active to some degree.  Personally, I have looked at many forums and thought "one person is posting here based on the last active threads" and gone off elsewhere.

Still of course nothing to stop the same problem if you have say a max of 4 reviews every 24 huors and nobody else posts once the member who last did their max returns with a fresh quota.  Still think it needs some control however.

If this becomes a thing. I will leave. 

If you press "see more reviews" then it shows the last 50 reviews to be posted. Surely that is enough for anyone!