Ideas for Metal Academy
Here's an idea. When someone wants to "officially" submit a review specifically for the challenges, they can press a "submit for acceptance" button and a mod can review it later. This can separate the actual reviews from the commentary. And of course, it would only be for clan challenge albums. The only drawback I can think of right now is that there are currently two mods for that kind of thing.
Forum Themes
Right now every Forum page looks the same, It would be cool if their were forum themes so that each clan board had a diferent look and feel. Alternatively you could offer users a drop down to select a theme for the whole site.
That’s not a bad idea actually. I like the idea of giving each clan its own feel. We’d have to have the cost vs reward investigated though as anything that’s done to the site comes with a price tag.
On the Discord/chat topic, I think we might need a much bigger pool of active members to make it worthwhile. Unless you think it could be a draw card to bring people to the site? Are there other live chat resources that are metal-specific?
Forum Themes
Right now every Forum page looks the same, It would be cool if their were forum themes so that each clan board had a diferent look and feel. Alternatively you could offer users a drop down to select a theme for the whole site.
Members of specific clans should discuss which aesthetics must be represented first before settling on a layout. We'll need a thread for this, though.
Forum Themes
Right now every Forum page looks the same, It would be cool if their were forum themes so that each clan board had a diferent look and feel. Alternatively you could offer users a drop down to select a theme for the whole site.Members of specific clans should discuss which aesthetics must be represented first before settling on a layout. We'll need a thread for this, though.
I was thinking just do a big watermark of the clan logo. Maybe change the color of the text to match the color of the logo? Start simple like that and tweak from there.
That’s not a bad idea actually. I like the idea of giving each clan its own feel. We’d have to have the cost vs reward investigated though as anything that’s done to the site comes with a price tag.
On the Discord/chat topic, I think we might need a much bigger pool of active members to make it worthwhile. Unless you think it could be a draw card to bring people to the site? Are there other live chat resources that are metal-specific?
There should either be a free service available or something fairly cheap. I've coded themes many moons ago and it was not difficult or time consuming. You just linked the image you wanted for background into a line of code, and then turned the font to it's HTML Color Code: https://www.computerhope.com/htmcolor.htm
That's assuming HTML is still how these things get coded though... MANY MANY MOONS ago.
Here's a concept I quickly threw together for a Fallen-specific shading to start with, using one of my previous posts.
Here's a concept I quickly threw together for a Fallen-specific shading to start with, using one of my previous posts.
Yeah, it looks really good. Nice one.
Here's a concept I quickly threw together for a Fallen-specific shading to start with, using one of my previous posts.
Good shit Rex!
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.
Not seeing a negative.
Thanks guys!
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.
Not seeing a negative.
I suppose such a visceral reaction deserves reasoning. I probably wouldn't leave at this stage of the game-I only have 5 albums to go. Since the original suggestion is on a different page I'm reposting it here for easy reference.
"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.
Let's not sugar coat it, this is aimed at me and any other future members would churn out rapid reviews, conveyor belt style. I don't perceive it as an attack, it's a reasonable and genuine concern. So I will now put forth my counter argument:
The feature that sets this apart and makes it so appealing from other options is the clan system, and I personally believe the potential of that system has barely been scratched. The idea of belonging to and unlocking clans is supremely attractive. To Unlock a 4th clan as things are right now, you are going to need to do 75 reviews. You have limited autonomy in the selections, and it is mandatory that you review every album. Now, an album is roughly an hour long, so this is 75hours of someone's time. Most people where I live work a 40hour week, so to put it into to perspective this is 2 weeks of a full time job just to hear every track. Add the time to write the sort of in-depth review that is clearly desired, even though there is no rubric, rules, or template in place to cultivate it, and you might even double that amount of time. I am blessed to have that sort of recreational time, because I am financially well-off and my job does not run through the summer time. Most people are not in that position, most people are struggling tremendously-I was among that walk of life until about 2 years ago. Even as it is you're looking at about a months time to do this if you really want people to sit down and listen to each and every single track.
I have a couple of things that I benefit from in this endeavor; I have much more free time than most people, I have been a Metalhead for coming up on 2 decades, and I am the kind of person that reads walls of books on the subject, and had sought out most of the landmark albums of the major sub-genres. I save a lot of time because I have deep familiarity with most of the list albums going into the project. For example in the first decade of black metal list, their are 25 albums. I am already intimately familiar with 19 of them before I start. Even with these advantages its a grind. I'm trying to power through them to get to what I really came here for-Hang out with fellow metalheads, and listen to things I haven't heard before.
What your suggesting would make this process take even longer. You want people to write quality reviews, and to interact with reviews others put forth? I agree that would be ideal, but work comes before pleasure. Let them get the homework out of the way as quickly as possible so that they can go play with you. Do the math on this. 75 reviews at 4 per 24 hours. 75/4- would take 18 days assuming you were able to do 4 every single day.
It isn't my style to complain without offering some solutions of my own; I'm not trying to tell Dan and Ben how to run their site-it's their time, money, and effort. It's their baby. I am just solution oriented here.
I propose reworking of the clan system and taking an all or nothing approach:
You either pick just 1 clan and lock that in-ensuring that it is a careful decision and each clan has the most devoted members (talking to Dan about this privately this seams like the desired result), and you need to do 25 reviews that adhere to some kind of clan acquisition rubric that we would develop in order to get it.
or
You open it wide from the get go and let people choose between having anywhere from 1 clan designation all the way up to all 9. The benefits of doing that is that you give users autonomy right from the start and we get to move right into having a good time-and people reading the review would know if it's coming from an all-arounder type source, or if it's coming from a die-hard of that particular sub-genre. I obviously gravitate toward this idea, but I'm self-aware enough to know I'm in the minority with this perspective.
or
You leave it as is it, and accept it for better or worse, but what I would absolutely not do is demand more time from people.
People do not like being told what they have to do, especially people who belong to a counter-culture. If you came to this site and were met with an assignment: You must write 75 reviews of albums you do not get to select and you must do it a way that satisfies every other user on the site. Would you agree to do this?
Just to clarify, Zero, you don't have to complete any challenges before you rate or review other releases as the clan challenges are completely optional. Members can completely ignore the challenges if they wish, although at this stage, it is the only way to unlock a fourth clan. I only unlocked my own fourth clan late last year and I have been here since 2019!!
I do understand what you are saying about the fixed nature of the clan challenges though. I have always myself quietly favoured a set number of reviews for a clan, whether it be 20, 25, 30 or whatever, but on whichever releases the user chooses themselves.
Just to clarify, Zero, you don't have to complete any challenges before you rate or review other releases as the clan challenges are completely optional. Members can completely ignore the challenges if they wish, although at this stage, it is the only way to unlock a fourth clan. I only unlocked my own fourth clan late last year and I have been here since 2019!!
I do understand what you are saying about the fixed nature of the clan challenges though. I have always myself quietly favoured a set number of reviews for a clan, whether it be 20, 25, 30 or whatever, but on whichever releases the user chooses themselves.
That's what I'm saying. If you want the best from people you need to empower them to make choices. Like I am trying my damnest to squeeze something of value into some of these modern era Death metal reviews, but sucks is sucks, and mediocrity is worse.
I suppose such a visceral reaction deserves reasoning. I probably wouldn't leave at this stage of the game-I only have 5 albums to go. Since the original suggestion is on a different page I'm reposting it here for easy reference.
Let's not sugar coat it, this is aimed at me and any other future members would churn out rapid reviews, conveyor belt style. I don't perceive it as an attack, it's a reasonable and genuine concern. So I will now put forth my counter argument:
The feature that sets this apart and makes it so appealing from other options is the clan system, and I personally believe the potential of that system has barely been scratched. The idea of belonging to and unlocking clans is supremely attractive. To Unlock a 4th clan as things are right now, you are going to need to do 75 reviews. You have limited autonomy in the selections, and it is mandatory that you review every album. Now, an album is roughly an hour long, so this is 75hours of someone's time. Most people where I live work a 40hour week, so to put it into to perspective this is 2 weeks of a full time job just to hear every track. Add the time to write the sort of in-depth review that is clearly desired, even though there is no rubric, rules, or template in place to cultivate it, and you might even double that amount of time. I am blessed to have that sort of recreational time, because I am financially well-off and my job does not run through the summer time. Most people are not in that position, most people are struggling tremendously-I was among that walk of life until about 2 years ago. Even as it is you're looking at about a months time to do this if you really want people to sit down and listen to each and every single track.
I have a couple of things that I benefit from in this endeavor; I have much more free time than most people, I have been a Metalhead for coming up on 2 decades, and I am the kind of person that reads walls of books on the subject, and had sought out most of the landmark albums of the major sub-genres. I save a lot of time because I have deep familiarity with most of the list albums going into the project. For example in the first decade of black metal list, their are 25 albums. I am already intimately familiar with 19 of them before I start. Even with these advantages its a grind. I'm trying to power through them to get to what I really came here for-Hang out with fellow metalheads, and listen to things I haven't heard before.
What your suggesting would make this process take even longer. You want people to write quality reviews, and to interact with reviews others put forth? I agree that would be ideal, but work comes before pleasure. Let them get the homework out of the way as quickly as possible so that they can go play with you. Do the math on this. 75 reviews at 4 per 24 hours. 75/4- would take 18 days assuming you were able to do 4 every single day.It isn't my style to complain without offering some solutions of my own; I'm not trying to tell Dan and Ben how to run their site-it's their time, money, and effort. It's their baby. I am just solution oriented here.
I propose reworking of the clan system and taking an all or nothing approach:
You either pick just 1 clan and lock that in-ensuring that it is a careful decision and each clan has the most devoted members (talking to Dan about this privately this seams like the desired result), and you need to do 25 reviews that adhere to some kind of clan acquisition rubric that we would develop in order to get it.or
You open it wide from the get go and let people choose between having anywhere from 1 clan designation all the way up to all 9. The benefits of doing that is that you give users autonomy right from the start and we get to move right into having a good time-and people reading the review would know if it's coming from an all-arounder type source, or if it's coming from a die-hard of that particular sub-genre. I obviously gravitate toward this idea, but I'm self-aware enough to know I'm in the minority with this perspective.
or
You leave it as is it, and accept it for better or worse, but what I would absolutely not do is demand more time from people.
People do not like being told what they have to do, especially people who belong to a counter-culture. If you came to this site and were met with an assignment: You must write 75 reviews of albums you do not get to select and you must do it a way that satisfies every other user on the site. Would you agree to do this?
To clarify, whilst it was not just aimed at you (I even called myself out in the post if you had taken time to read it properly) it most certainly was not sugar coated.
Reading your post, it seems to be your opinion that people who work, or don’t work, are well off, or are not well off either way still end up without time to enjoy listening to music and writing cohesive thoughts on it - therefore they probably wouldn’t join the site to do any review just join to talk in the forums, which you absolutely can do without degrading the integrity of the clan challenges by just doing reviews “because you have to” (which you don’t). Why try to squeeze anything out of the reviews at all? Just don’t do them. It doesn’t limit your activity on the site. It is just bizarre.
On your suggestions, I think there is a lack of middle ground in your options. 1 clan is far too limiting and 9 just makes the concept of the clans pointless. Again, nobody is demanding more of your precious time from you, in fact less of it, a lot less of it is the only “ask”.
Finally (even I am boring myself on this now), yesterday I decided to work my way through the Groove Metal challenge in The Pit. It is my least knowledgeable sub-genre and therefore one I feel I need to gain more understanding of. I work more than 40 hours a week and consider myself in healthy financial position (having also come from a much less fortunate position). It might take me months to complete the challenge given I work away a lot and even when not away work still takes up to 12 hours of my day usually. I am off work this week but I am not battering my way through the challenge to get it done. Your choice is different and I guess I will just have to agree to disagree on the matter.
I think this is what it boils down to. You work through things at a more deliberate pace than I do, and I respect that, all I really want from you is mutual respect. Not everyone is the same, we don't have to be. If you have comment or concern about a review I have written, then respond to the review and I'll address whatever you bring to the table. If you have personal things to sort with me hit the DMs. I do not wish to cloud up the forums with this sort of thing-it's not the place.
Here's a concept I quickly threw together for a Fallen-specific shading to start with, using one of my previous posts.
This looks great
Here's a concept I quickly threw together for a Fallen-specific shading to start with, using one of my previous posts.
This looks great
Thanks!
I think it's time I cleared things up a bit here. The clan feature is the basis for the entire site. What we want to build are communities of the most passionate fans that are dedicated to the genre sets their clans contain & are, therefore, able to autonomously perpetuate regular healthy discussion, well-educated & respectful ratings & reviews & high-quality recommendations for their clan-mates. It's my firm opinion that no one has a comprehensive enough taste in metal to achieve that for all nine clans & I was actually against allowing a fourth clan if I'm being honest open & transparent. Ben & I are capable of awarding ourselves all nine clans if we wish but we've never even considered it because it erodes the value of the clan philosophy. In fact, there was a year there where I dropped one of my four clans altogether & went with only three because I felt that my passion for that clan wasn't complete & over-arching enough to ensure that my ratings weren't tainting the overall clan ratings. Some people choose to only go with one or two clans from the start for the same reason & we've also seen some of our most active members swap or even drop clans at times too as people generally see what we're trying to achieve & buy into the philosophy.
The clan challenges are there for those few committed members to really indulge themselves in while everyone else enjoys the other clan activities. They weren't meant to be easy & aren't for everyone. They're a "challenge" after all. If we're an Academy then these are our Masters degrees. They're fully intended to test the member & are a showcase for our entire community of that person's suitability for the clan in question. A suitable potential clan member will generally find the challenges to be very rewarding & get a sense of accomplishment after finishing them a month or more later, often receiving congratulations from the wider community for their efforts. Where we see people struggling with a large portion of the material in a challenge then that's a pretty decent sign that they aren't a good fit & should probably choose an alternate one because they're potentially going to have a negative effect on the clan ratings. We don't dictate to people on what three clans they can choose during their Academy enrollment but if their attempt to secure a fourth clan does not show the required level of understanding, respect & commitment to the clan then we reserve the right to block it (which we have done on rare occasions). People have tried to create their own clan challenge lists in the past too but that's defeating the purpose so we haven't allowed it. We feel that we've offered enough variety of options in the existing lists (more than I'm comfortable with actually) that if you can't find something that fits your taste profile then you probably should be looking at other clans anyway.
And finally, the clans are used in so many more ways than the challenges. They enable you to nominate the monthly clan feature releases & to contribute to the monthly clan Spotify playlists with some of our more actively contributing clan members even being charged with programming them. They also allow people the right to vote on genre-tagging in the Hall of Judgement (a very important tool that's way underutilized) & "like" their fellow clan-member's reviews. And most importantly, they enable our well-informed members to contribute to creating the cultural environment we always hoped to create with fans of some of the more divisive subgenres (like slam death metal, power metal or melodic metalcore) being able to identify the cream of those sounds without having to worry about every release being down-rated by people that have no business even listening to that release in the first place. They contribute to a member's site identity & enable their peers to understand their unique taste profile so that they can help to bring exciting new music to their attention.
So... the moral of the story is that I'd like people to keep this in mind when choosing to attempt a clan challenge for entry into a fourth clan. It's important that you select the clan that you have the widest interest in to ensure the integrity of the clan system. Niche interests are no doubt very passionate but that's not ultimately what will enhance the value of the clans. On the contrary, there's the potential to degrade it. It's also important that the wider community can see that any aspiring member is giving the challenges the time & respect they deserve as clan membership is a privilege that some people place a high level of value on.
It's my firm opinion that no one has a comprehensive enough taste in metal to achieve that for all nine clans
See, this is the kind of thing where all the fibers of my body keep poking at each other until I say, "Challenge accepted."
Nevertheless, the moment I saw the clan selection screen, I thought to myself, "Sweet! Classification and identity!" For the most part, I think four clans is the max we should go with for now because we're still a bit of a small community. We all have certain forms of one genre or another that we're the most passionate about, like how my favorite brand of EDM is breakbeat whereas I struggle with house. Having said that, the struggle intrigues me to improve, so I fully accept and even love the whole clan challenge system, not only as a way to test our dedication to our identities and loyalty of it therein, but also acts as a way to in part actually live the attitude spoken about in many metal albums, considering we can't slay dragons and command evil spirits. On top of this, the idea of focusing on specifics gives us the ability to fully comprehend something for the purpose of writing the best reviews possible. Having said all this, I learned the difference between "favoritism" and "discrimination" years ago, and would like to finish at least one of every clan challenge once I gain my fourth clan as I am a bit greedy and want to understand as much about music as possible.
We all have certain forms of one genre or another that we're the most passionate about, like how my favorite brand of EDM is breakbeat whereas I struggle with house.
This is exactly my point & what we're trying to tap into. I feel that I have one of the most diverse metal palates you'll find but there's no doubt that I prefer death metal over heavy metal. That's not to say that I don't know a shitload about heavy metal, have releases that I genuinely love from that genre & could talk about it for hours on end (like I did on the Metal Academy podcast for years) but the fact remains that I'll always reach for a death metal record over a heavy metal one. We want our The Guardians clan members to be the ones that reach for the heavy metal record first (along with their other clans of course). Most of our member's activity tends to be focused on a couple of preferred clans too which suggests that four clans is more than enough.
We all have certain forms of one genre or another that we're the most passionate about, like how my favorite brand of EDM is breakbeat whereas I struggle with house.
This is exactly my point & what we're trying to tap into. I feel that I have one of the most diverse metal palates you'll find but there's no doubt that I prefer death metal over heavy metal. That's not to say that I don't know a shitload about heavy metal, have releases that I genuinely love from that genre & could talk about it for hours on end (like I did on the Metal Academy podcast for years) but the fact remains that I'll always reach for a death metal record over a heavy metal one. We want our The Guardians clan members to be the ones that reach for the heavy metal record first (along with their other clans of course).
When using the releases pages or charts, I almost always sort by clan rating now rather than site rating for the exact same reason. I have sometimes stepped outside my comfort zone and checked out and rated releases from clans I don't much care for, say for a monthly feature or whatever, but if I rate it low because it isn't my cup of tea that doesn't make it a bad record and people can rightly ignore my rating input. By checking out releases based on clan rating it means I can see what albums people who are knowledable about a given genre consider the best in said genre, so if I dislike them, then it probably means it is down to my taste profile rather than poor records and that style is not really for me.
Four clans is plenty, any more would see a dilution of the site's founding and unique principle. I just wonder if there is some ambiguity for people joining the site around what they can or can't do. Is it clear enough to someone joining anew that they can still review and rate releases from other clans and post on other clans' forums, listen to other clans' playlists and comment on other clans' monthly features or do they shy away because they feel restricted by the clan system when, in truth, the only meaningful restriction is Hall genre voting?
See, this is the kind of thing where all the fibers of my body keep poking at each other until I say, "Challenge accepted."
There's a common phrase that says "Jack of all trades, master of none" & I think it pretty accurately describes my position on the topic.