Metal Academy - requesting feedback
Given that Metal Academy is designed to be a community experience, I want to make sure that we give attendees the opportunity to provide feedback from time to time. With that in mind, I've put some questions below to get people thinking. If you want to provide any other feedback, go for it.
Feel free to leave your answers in this thread, but if you'd prefer to comment privately, send me a Private Message from your profile page. And please be honest. Daniel and I have pretty tough skin, and only want the best for the community and the site. Both positive and negative feedback is both useful and welcome.
- What aspects of Metal Academy excite you personally? In other words, what keeps you coming back?
- Are there any particular aspects that are of no interest to you whatsoever? Perhaps you don't care about rating covers, or anniversaries, or whatever...
- If we were to add one new feature to the site, what would you want it to be? Assume that we have endless funds and time. You can list more than one if you want obviously, the more ideas the better.
- Is there anything about the Metal Academy site that you really wish was different? Perhaps the Hall of Judgement is an interesting idea, but you think it's badly implemented? Maybe the way the Lists are presented annoys you?
Cheers,
Ben.
Well, for one, the feature on this website that I appreciate the most is the featured release tab. It has allowed me to hear a swath of albums that I would never even have considered to listen to on my own time. It also gives me an opportunity to revisit older albums to freshen up and see if they hold up as they did when I originally discovered them. I also enjoy hearing the opinions of others to see what makes them tick about a these albums as well. One thing that I would like to see improved upon is the addition of modern releases on occasion. I have a library full of music within the last five years that I adore, but are seemingly unheard of by many, and I'm sure that many others have records like this as well.
While the clan challenge lists seem intriguing, it is something that I would like to do, but I would never be able to find the time. However, I noticed that the "Critic List" and "Metal Academy Lists" are severely underutilized. I briefly spoke to Daniel in a PM asking about allowing for other users to be able to create their own lists. I specifically brought up the example of "Best of 2020" lists created by users. Of course, it does not have to be limited just to "Best of 2020" lists. I would leave that up to the discretion of of the individual users.
I will say that I think the Hall of Judgement is broken. Or at the very least, very few people use it. This could also be in large part to the very few "recurring students". I also think that because those recurring users are all in different clans, very few records ever make it to the fifteen vote minimum. Maybe we can reduce the vote count? I can think of other alternatives that I would prefer moreso, but it's a start.
That's all I can really think of atm. As I have said from the very beginning, my favourite element of this website is being able to discover lots of heavy metal music. I have heard more new records in 2020 than I have in any of the previous three years. I hope that my comments are a step in the right direction for this website for the remainder of the year, as well as into 2021.
Great feedback saxy. I'll have a rethink about my feature release selection process in an attempt to accommodate you there. Stay tuned.
The things I love about this site (that set it apart) are of course the gallery and ability to rate covers, as well as the many options for organizing albums in the Releases tab. Why has no other site ever implemented an "only releases I've rated" option? The clans and clan ratings also make sorting the charts super interesting. "Only releases without ratings" is a great way to find underground stuff and albums that need attention. I don't use most of the features unrelated to ratings/charts, but that's just because I'm a numbers guy and I love rating things and looking at other's ratings. The gallery again is just so much fun on it's own, I have never understood why no other sites have cover ratings. I would keep coming back even if that were the only feature haha.
I have two small suggestions. First, when sorting releases, there should be an easier way to select a span of time rather than manually adding every year. Even just adding an option for individual decades would be fine. Secondly, again in the releases tab, add an option in the sorting option to sort by cover rating! I'd love to be able to see all the covers I've rated organized by the site rating, as well as delve further than just the top 100 that the gallery allows.
You guys are doing great! Thanks for the awesome site and keep it up!
There are so many aspects that are exciting for me and have kept me in the site throughout the almost one and a half years I've been here, so here are some of them:
Forums - My favorite forums are the interactive ones where you get to share the metal music you like (or dislike in the "Stinkers Threads") with other members such as the "Track of the Day" threads, "Recommendation to Fellow Clan Members" threads, and the monthly Clan Playlists. Those threads allow me to share and recommend the metal songs and albums I enjoy, suggest tracks that can fit well with the clan playlists, and give feedback to both my suggested tracks and other different ones in the playlists, and they help me discover bands I haven't listened to before or have heard of but not yet fully interested. It's a total win-win!
Reviews - One of the crucial elements of any metal community website is, of course, reviews! I'm on quite a roll with reviewing albums from my current favorite bands and different releases that have been recommended to me. I actually have a few releases that I plan on reviewing next week (the two Coroner studio albums left for me to review, Twilight Force's Dawn of the Dragonstar, and HammerFall's Live! Against the World), and given how much fun I had reviewing approximately 523 releases (holy f***, that much!??), those next 4 releases should be a piece of metal cake!
Ratings - And yes, ratings are also included, review or no review. I enjoy both rating releases and covers, especially rating covers because of how unique that feature is. You can finally show how much you like or dislike a piece of art that has accompanied a metal CD, ranging from an epic viking battle that deserves a high rating (Amon Amarth) to a pointlessly offensive image with its sole purpose of making someone lose their lunch (early Type O Negative).
Anniversaries - A great way to celebrate the x5-year anniversaries of metal releases! And I think October really is THE month to celebrate metal anniversary Fridays, because besides those other two special Fridays, today we celebrate a bad-a**-whopping 28 releases in the Anniversaries celebration including two of my earlier favorite releases (Children of Bodom's Follow the Reaper and Amaranthe's Breaking Point - B-Sides 2011-2015 (the latter being mostly an acoustic album but I enjoy those last two songs that were originally bonus tracks in the deluxe edition of their debut album)). Excellent feature, but it does make some of us feel old. Not me though, the only thing that makes me feel old is when high-school-age teens have more metal talent than I wish I could (Alien Weaponry, anyone?).
Hall of Judgement - This is a very interesting idea, so that way a member can submit an album they think is different from the clan or genre the release is in with a valid reason and other members can vote YES or NO. My submissions weren't so easy or clear for the most part, but I still like that helpful feature.
And for any aspects I have no interest with... NONE!! I like them all, and I certainly care about rating covers and anniversaries for the reasons mentioned above. As for any new feature ideas or different changes, I have a few suggestions, Ben. The first few ideas are about the Gallery and I suggested them before but you never seemed to get around them. First off, PLEASE implement the ability to delete cover ratings! I know we talked about this earlier and you didn't think it was necessary, but that cover rating I changed my mind about I feel it's still haunting me, and what if I change my mind about a band and wanna get rid of my ratings for both its albums and covers? Am I gonna be stuck with a cover rating I thought I liked but didn't and wanted nothing to do with, for the rest of my life?! Anyway, next, I like that suggestion by SilentScream213 about editing the minimum of ratings for both charts and the Gallery to different options like 1, 5, 10, etc, better than having to stick with a set number. Can you please implement that if you still haven't planned on doing that? Same with the "Exclude release I've rated" option that's not in the charts yet, please add that too. And finally, this idea is for the Hall of Judgement, and it's in the long run; after a few more of the highest-voted releases get the 15 votes they each needed for the Hall to decide their fate (Vektor's Outer Isolation and Terminal Redux, Venom's Possessed, Voivod's War and Pain, and Coroner's Mental Vortex), whether we ask members who haven't voted for them yet to vote or just wait for them to vote, can you please add a separate section for the finished releases instead of being in the same place as the ones that are ongoing? The idea to put the finished releases in a separate section would make the Hall look less messy and easier to find releases to vote. Thanks Ben! You and Daniel are doing a great job building the site, keeping it interesting, and letting members help keep Metal Academy alive with suggestions, threads, reviews, and much more to come. Keep it up!
I completely agree with you on the topic of the Hall screen eventually getting cluttered with releases that have had their voting closed. I actually suggested we do something about that to Ben previously.
I'm not sure why you would need to delete cover ratings though. I can't see that it would add anything to the site when you can easily edit your rating. I don't really understand why you'd want to delete a rating when you can simply reassess your opinion & adjust your scoring accordingly.
If you accidently rate an album's cover art & decide that your rating doesn't reflect your true feelings on the image then surely you just take a few seconds to assess the artwork properly & then adjust your rating accordingly, don't you? Are you not able to edit your cover art ratings? Is that what you're saying? I'm not having any troubles doing it personally.
Given that Metal Academy is designed to be a community experience, I want to make sure that we give attendees the opportunity to provide feedback from time to time. With that in mind, I've put some questions below to get people thinking. If you want to provide any other feedback, go for it.
Feel free to leave your answers in this thread, but if you'd prefer to comment privately, send me a Private Message from your profile page. And please be honest. Daniel and I have pretty tough skin, and only want the best for the community and the site. Both positive and negative feedback is both useful and welcome.
- What aspects of Metal Academy excite you personally? In other words, what keeps you coming back?
- Are there any particular aspects that are of no interest to you whatsoever? Perhaps you don't care about rating covers, or anniversaries, or whatever...
- If we were to add one new feature to the site, what would you want it to be? Assume that we have endless funds and time. You can list more than one if you want obviously, the more ideas the better.
- Is there anything about the Metal Academy site that you really wish was different? Perhaps the Hall of Judgement is an interesting idea, but you think it's badly implemented? Maybe the way the Lists are presented annoys you?
Cheers,
Ben.
1. There's a consistent feed of new releases and bands added each week that help me to explore corners of genres that I haven't spread my wings over previously or simply shows me releases by artists I am familiar with but haven't ventured into the full discography of the band. I also love the playlists for the very same reason.
2. I really don't get the Hall of Judgement, in fact it bores the living bejesus out of me. Perhaps I am just not as focused on genres as some of the other members (and this is not a criticism of anyone who does enjoy the feature) but I really don't care if something is speed metal or thrash metal. It was fun for the first few months but nowadays I see little value to me.
3. Could we please have an action bar at the bottom of the page to navigate from instead of just at the top?
4. I don't have anything to add here. You guys have tread the fine line between making this a well-informed resource and community and it becoming a cottage industry of just trying to cram everything in. Your dedication shows in the content you develop and then maintain frequently.
I really appreciate each and every one of these responses. I will reply to each of them tomorrow.
Sorry I've only just seen this thread.
Personally, as I have long since lost touch with any of my metal-loving friends and I love to talk metal, I enjoy the interaction of the forums immensely. However, it is sometimes difficult to sustain a prolonged discussion, probably due to the small number of active participants. The advantage of the forums here as opposed to those on RYM (where I don't really participate any more) is that MA forum users respect other's opinions whilst not necessarily agreeing with them and, consequently, don't have some smart arse jumping in with a smarmy comment deriding the music and it's fans every time anybody mentions the word "metal", like some deranged Pavlov's dog. Obviously I also love to rate and review music too and like to see what others think via their ratings and reviews. Incidentally, I don't know if it's just me but I seem unable to "like" reviews anymore as nothing happens when I press the button. Also love the playlists which is certainly a unique selling point, as is the Gallery.
I'm afraid I'm with MacabreEternal on the Hall of Judgement in that I have very little interest in it as I dislike the whole genre/micro-genre labelling fad that seems to have invaded metal.
My main gripe with the site is that it doesn't do much to promote new metal releases and sometimes feels like it exists in a bubble. I have no qualms at all with focussing on metal's glorious past, but a nod to the current and future would surely be welcome. How about an Album of the Month feature, maybe nominated by members and chosen from those nominations in similar vein to the playlists.
The lists feature seems to me to be something of a missed opportunity and is something I would like to see expanded, allowing other users to contribute because at the moment they are only a spectator sport for most of us, allowing us no participation and as a consequence a feature it is difficult to engage with. As you can probably tell from some of my forum threads I love a good list, but the forums are the only place we can post them.
Reading this back it sounds a little harsh in places and I have no wish to appear negative as I really do enjoy the site and thoroughly appreciate all the hard work both Ben and Daniel put in to provide something worthwhile and I'm sure their dedication will ultimately pay off.
Good morning everyone. I've been hearing you in regards to your feedback on us not focusing on new releases as much as you would like & have subsequently made a change of direction in regards to the monthly feature releases. You'll see that reflected in this morning's November features which include three brand new releases mixed in with a few classics & unheralded gems from the past. I'll continue in that fashion moving forwards.
Well, for one, the feature on this website that I appreciate the most is the featured release tab. It has allowed me to hear a swath of albums that I would never even have considered to listen to on my own time. It also gives me an opportunity to revisit older albums to freshen up and see if they hold up as they did when I originally discovered them. I also enjoy hearing the opinions of others to see what makes them tick about a these albums as well. One thing that I would like to see improved upon is the addition of modern releases on occasion. I have a library full of music within the last five years that I adore, but are seemingly unheard of by many, and I'm sure that many others have records like this as well.
While the clan challenge lists seem intriguing, it is something that I would like to do, but I would never be able to find the time. However, I noticed that the "Critic List" and "Metal Academy Lists" are severely underutilized. I briefly spoke to Daniel in a PM asking about allowing for other users to be able to create their own lists. I specifically brought up the example of "Best of 2020" lists created by users. Of course, it does not have to be limited just to "Best of 2020" lists. I would leave that up to the discretion of of the individual users.
I will say that I think the Hall of Judgement is broken. Or at the very least, very few people use it. This could also be in large part to the very few "recurring students". I also think that because those recurring users are all in different clans, very few records ever make it to the fifteen vote minimum. Maybe we can reduce the vote count? I can think of other alternatives that I would prefer moreso, but it's a start.
That's all I can really think of atm. As I have said from the very beginning, my favourite element of this website is being able to discover lots of heavy metal music. I have heard more new records in 2020 than I have in any of the previous three years. I hope that my comments are a step in the right direction for this website for the remainder of the year, as well as into 2021.
Thanks for the feedback saxystephens! It looks like Daniel has already taken the "more modern features" advice, so no need for me to comment on that. I do like the idea of allowing site members to create their own Lists. I'll have a think about how it could be implemented and discuss with my developer. I've considered allowing members to submit their lists (or changes) to me to administrate, but I think it would add a lot to my workload.
Regarding the Hall being "broken", I actually believe it's working as designed. The only issue is that we don't (yet) have enough regulars for it to be very functional. That being said, I don't want to lower the minimum vote number, as that would also lower the "accuracy" of the result. I've considered closing off submissions as soon as the result is clear, rather than waiting for the judgement to reach 15 votes. For example, there are instances where there have been at least 8 votes of yes, which obviously means that request will pass, so I could just call it a done deal. The issue is that I don't have a way to prematurely close a submission, meaning it would sit there waiting for the final votes, even though I've already actioned it. I guess I could just delete submissions once I've actioned them. Thoughts?
Cheers,
Ben.
The things I love about this site (that set it apart) are of course the gallery and ability to rate covers, as well as the many options for organizing albums in the Releases tab. Why has no other site ever implemented an "only releases I've rated" option? The clans and clan ratings also make sorting the charts super interesting. "Only releases without ratings" is a great way to find underground stuff and albums that need attention. I don't use most of the features unrelated to ratings/charts, but that's just because I'm a numbers guy and I love rating things and looking at other's ratings. The gallery again is just so much fun on it's own, I have never understood why no other sites have cover ratings. I would keep coming back even if that were the only feature haha.
I have two small suggestions. First, when sorting releases, there should be an easier way to select a span of time rather than manually adding every year. Even just adding an option for individual decades would be fine. Secondly, again in the releases tab, add an option in the sorting option to sort by cover rating! I'd love to be able to see all the covers I've rated organized by the site rating, as well as delve further than just the top 100 that the gallery allows.
You guys are doing great! Thanks for the awesome site and keep it up!
Thanks for the feedback SilentScream213! I'm thrilled that others are enjoying The Gallery, as I did wonder whether it was something that would really interest anyone other than myself. Now that it's popular, I agree that it could be pushed further across the site, such as adding cover options to the Releases page. I'm sure I can make that happen. I'll see if I can allow multi-page options for The Gallery too, so we can see more than the top 100.
Having a better date range section is something I've wanted myself, so I'll see what can be done with that too.
Cheers,
Ben.
There are so many aspects that are exciting for me and have kept me in the site throughout the almost one and a half years I've been here, so here are some of them:
Forums - My favorite forums are the interactive ones where you get to share the metal music you like (or dislike in the "Stinkers Threads") with other members such as the "Track of the Day" threads, "Recommendation to Fellow Clan Members" threads, and the monthly Clan Playlists. Those threads allow me to share and recommend the metal songs and albums I enjoy, suggest tracks that can fit well with the clan playlists, and give feedback to both my suggested tracks and other different ones in the playlists, and they help me discover bands I haven't listened to before or have heard of but not yet fully interested. It's a total win-win!
Reviews - One of the crucial elements of any metal community website is, of course, reviews! I'm on quite a roll with reviewing albums from my current favorite bands and different releases that have been recommended to me. I actually have a few releases that I plan on reviewing next week (the two Coroner studio albums left for me to review, Twilight Force's Dawn of the Dragonstar, and HammerFall's Live! Against the World), and given how much fun I had reviewing approximately 523 releases (holy f***, that much!??), those next 4 releases should be a piece of metal cake!
Ratings - And yes, ratings are also included, review or no review. I enjoy both rating releases and covers, especially rating covers because of how unique that feature is. You can finally show how much you like or dislike a piece of art that has accompanied a metal CD, ranging from an epic viking battle that deserves a high rating (Amon Amarth) to a pointlessly offensive image with its sole purpose of making someone lose their lunch (early Type O Negative).
Anniversaries - A great way to celebrate the x5-year anniversaries of metal releases! And I think October really is THE month to celebrate metal anniversary Fridays, because besides those other two special Fridays, today we celebrate a bad-a**-whopping 28 releases in the Anniversaries celebration including two of my earlier favorite releases (Children of Bodom's Follow the Reaper and Amaranthe's Breaking Point - B-Sides 2011-2015 (the latter being mostly an acoustic album but I enjoy those last two songs that were originally bonus tracks in the deluxe edition of their debut album)). Excellent feature, but it does make some of us feel old. Not me though, the only thing that makes me feel old is when high-school-age teens have more metal talent than I wish I could (Alien Weaponry, anyone?).
Hall of Judgement - This is a very interesting idea, so that way a member can submit an album they think is different from the clan or genre the release is in with a valid reason and other members can vote YES or NO. My submissions weren't so easy or clear for the most part, but I still like that helpful feature.
And for any aspects I have no interest with... NONE!! I like them all, and I certainly care about rating covers and anniversaries for the reasons mentioned above. As for any new feature ideas or different changes, I have a few suggestions, Ben. The first few ideas are about the Gallery and I suggested them before but you never seemed to get around them. First off, PLEASE implement the ability to delete cover ratings! I know we talked about this earlier and you didn't think it was necessary, but that cover rating I changed my mind about I feel it's still haunting me, and what if I change my mind about a band and wanna get rid of my ratings for both its albums and covers? Am I gonna be stuck with a cover rating I thought I liked but didn't and wanted nothing to do with, for the rest of my life?! Anyway, next, I like that suggestion by SilentScream213 about editing the minimum of ratings for both charts and the Gallery to different options like 1, 5, 10, etc, better than having to stick with a set number. Can you please implement that if you still haven't planned on doing that? Same with the "Exclude release I've rated" option that's not in the charts yet, please add that too. And finally, this idea is for the Hall of Judgement, and it's in the long run; after a few more of the highest-voted releases get the 15 votes they each needed for the Hall to decide their fate (Vektor's Outer Isolation and Terminal Redux, Venom's Possessed, Voivod's War and Pain, and Coroner's Mental Vortex), whether we ask members who haven't voted for them yet to vote or just wait for them to vote, can you please add a separate section for the finished releases instead of being in the same place as the ones that are ongoing? The idea to put the finished releases in a separate section would make the Hall look less messy and easier to find releases to vote. Thanks Ben! You and Daniel are doing a great job building the site, keeping it interesting, and letting members help keep Metal Academy alive with suggestions, threads, reviews, and much more to come. Keep it up!
Thanks for responding to the call shadowdoom9!
I will try to add the ability to remove a Cover Rating, but given everything has a cost, I have to consider it a low priority. You may personally see this as an important option, but I do doubt that anyone else would use it. If you change your mind about the rating you gave an album cover, just change it. I will definitely look into it though.
I'll also look into allowing adjustable minimum ratings and an "Exclude releases I've rated" option on the Charts. Moving the completed Judgements to another page makes sense too.
Cheers,
Ben.
1. There's a consistent feed of new releases and bands added each week that help me to explore corners of genres that I haven't spread my wings over previously or simply shows me releases by artists I am familiar with but haven't ventured into the full discography of the band. I also love the playlists for the very same reason.
2. I really don't get the Hall of Judgement, in fact it bores the living bejesus out of me. Perhaps I am just not as focused on genres as some of the other members (and this is not a criticism of anyone who does enjoy the feature) but I really don't care if something is speed metal or thrash metal. It was fun for the first few months but nowadays I see little value to me.
3. Could we please have an action bar at the bottom of the page to navigate from instead of just at the top?
4. I don't have anything to add here. You guys have tread the fine line between making this a well-informed resource and community and it becoming a cottage industry of just trying to cram everything in. Your dedication shows in the content you develop and then maintain frequently.
Thanks for the response MacabreEternal, I really appreciate it. We're stoked that you're enjoying the site so much. Regarding the action bar at the bottom of the page, do you have an example of another site that has something similar? I want to make sure I understand exactly what you mean rather than make an incorrect assumption.
Sorry I've only just seen this thread.
Personally, as I have long since lost touch with any of my metal-loving friends and I love to talk metal, I enjoy the interaction of the forums immensely. However, it is sometimes difficult to sustain a prolonged discussion, probably due to the small number of active participants. The advantage of the forums here as opposed to those on RYM (where I don't really participate any more) is that MA forum users respect other's opinions whilst not necessarily agreeing with them and, consequently, don't have some smart arse jumping in with a smarmy comment deriding the music and it's fans every time anybody mentions the word "metal", like some deranged Pavlov's dog. Obviously I also love to rate and review music too and like to see what others think via their ratings and reviews. Incidentally, I don't know if it's just me but I seem unable to "like" reviews anymore as nothing happens when I press the button. Also love the playlists which is certainly a unique selling point, as is the Gallery.
I'm afraid I'm with MacabreEternal on the Hall of Judgement in that I have very little interest in it as I dislike the whole genre/micro-genre labelling fad that seems to have invaded metal.
My main gripe with the site is that it doesn't do much to promote new metal releases and sometimes feels like it exists in a bubble. I have no qualms at all with focussing on metal's glorious past, but a nod to the current and future would surely be welcome. How about an Album of the Month feature, maybe nominated by members and chosen from those nominations in similar vein to the playlists.
The lists feature seems to me to be something of a missed opportunity and is something I would like to see expanded, allowing other users to contribute because at the moment they are only a spectator sport for most of us, allowing us no participation and as a consequence a feature it is difficult to engage with. As you can probably tell from some of my forum threads I love a good list, but the forums are the only place we can post them.
Reading this back it sounds a little harsh in places and I have no wish to appear negative as I really do enjoy the site and thoroughly appreciate all the hard work both Ben and Daniel put in to provide something worthwhile and I'm sure their dedication will ultimately pay off.
Cheers Sonny92! I appreciate the reply and there's no reason to feel bad about appearing negative. I wanted feedback, and the best form of feedback are the suggestions for how to make the site better.
I like the idea of having an Album of the Month. Let me stew that over and see if I can come up with a cool way of introducing it. It might not mean much while the headcount is low, but I figure the best way to grow is to do unique things.
I stopped putting so much energy into the Lists section, as I basically never got any responses from anyone about them (apart from the Challenges of course). Others have suggested the ability to have your own lists, so I'll look into that. I also agree that adding the ability to comment on a list would make them more interesting.
Cheers,
Ben.
1. There's a consistent feed of new releases and bands added each week that help me to explore corners of genres that I haven't spread my wings over previously or simply shows me releases by artists I am familiar with but haven't ventured into the full discography of the band. I also love the playlists for the very same reason.
2. I really don't get the Hall of Judgement, in fact it bores the living bejesus out of me. Perhaps I am just not as focused on genres as some of the other members (and this is not a criticism of anyone who does enjoy the feature) but I really don't care if something is speed metal or thrash metal. It was fun for the first few months but nowadays I see little value to me.
3. Could we please have an action bar at the bottom of the page to navigate from instead of just at the top?
4. I don't have anything to add here. You guys have tread the fine line between making this a well-informed resource and community and it becoming a cottage industry of just trying to cram everything in. Your dedication shows in the content you develop and then maintain frequently.
Thanks for the response MacabreEternal, I really appreciate it. We're stoked that you're enjoying the site so much. Regarding the action bar at the bottom of the page, do you have an example of another site that has something similar? I want to make sure I understand exactly what you mean rather than make an incorrect assumption.
Hi Ben,
On another site I frequent I have this bar at the top of the page in the forum section:
If I scroll down that page to read something near or at the bottom I have the same bar at the bottom of the page to access "Home" or another thread in the same section I am in:
I hope this makes sense? So for example on the MA site if I am in the gallery section and go through all 100 entries in the list I have to scroll back up to the top to navigate away which isn't the end of the world but the option to pick up the action bar at the bottom as well as the top of the page would be helpful I feel.
I think the biggest recurring theme on all of the feedback sessions we've had is "This would be really great, but we don't have enough people!". There isn't a particular solution to this, since the internet is incredibly random with what becomes popular and what doesn't and there's not much you can do about it. But I do think that most of the things that we do here are for the hardcore. I don't know actual statistics, but the number of people who actually write thought out reviews is astronomically low. It looks to be around 10% for popular, new releases on RYM that have around 2,000 ratings, but dips down into the 2% range on known classics that have even more ratings. More likely than not, those 2% of people are the ones who are going to be perusing the Academy Forums, making playlist contributions, and sharing their new favorite Metal album they found that no one else has ever heard of. But to get more people involved, appealing to only the "super-hardcore" fanbase is going to land us in the exact same feedback position every single time.
Personally, The Academy lets me curate my listening outside of checking out all the new albums that come out every year. It's been fantastic being pushed to check out a ton of 80's and 90's Metal that I wouldn't have otherwise thanks to the monthly features and recommendation threads. But I think I'm one of the extreme cases since, as Sonny said in his reply, a lot of people are more interested in the modern and upcoming music scene rather than constantly reminiscing about the past one. Deep cuts are always amazing to find (Artillery's By Inheritance for example, turned out to be one of my favorite classic Thrash albums), but I think that trying to find creative ways to push new music will garner more attention to the site. That's why whenever I suggest ideas to the site, I always pose the question of how can we make this as accessible and appealing as possible to anyone who comes in here, not just people who have listened to over 1,000 Metal albums and can discern an exact Slayer riff from 1000 yards away. The playlists are a great start, since I'm able to share them with friends and post them in other servers I'm around.
I think as more features are being pushed forward, like the Monthly Features, the Monthly Playlists, as well as the Anniversaries tab, I can't help but agree that the Hall of Judgement feels a bit out of place. I never cared for genre discussion since I always consider my knowledge of older metal to be few and far between, so it's not a feature I'm interested in keeping up with. I gave it a fair and honest shot with my Manowar submission and trying to go back and forth with Daniel about a Voivod release, and it really wasn't something I particularly enjoyed. It's tough because I agree that since the Clan system is so important there needs to be a way to properly move releases around Clans if something isn't properly labelled. But I don't think facilitating genre disputes on the forums has the most welcoming atmosphere to it for your average metalhead. It's a tough problem to solve.
To cap this off, I think the thing I like most about this community is that there's a lot of emphasis placed on reviews and discussion rather than just the RYM shoutbox, with members being able to comment under reviews to spark discussions, as well as the Clan Challenges aspect. Not everyone is a reviewer, but it helps the site push towards having more content rather than just rating albums and moving on.
I find the comments around the Hall of Judgement to be really interesting as I think it's working precisely as it was intended to but was always going to be a feature that required time & numbers to work to its full extent. We never expected it to be something that every member would use but (as Xephyr identified) it's a key component in the clans concept. On a personal level, I've always really enjoyed discussing the right genre tagging for a release & a part of that comes from the fact that I'm a major "lists" nut. If I'm going to create a "Best Speed Metal Releases Of The 1980's" list then what is & isn't a speed metal releases needs to be well defined. Also, the charts rely heavily on this being right. I mean we don't want to get to a situation where we have a release at the top of the charts for The Horde when it's not really a death/grind release, do we? Those of you who don't really care to enter into those discussions may not be aware of this but there are some truly baffling genre tags on RYM that are inherently wrong. The worst ones are usually historical with people being talked into the fact that a release should reside within a certain subgenre simply because that's the way it's always been presented to them. Early Voivod is a prime example of this. I love to challenge those concepts & get things right here as an additional differentiator that gives us more credibility with that small niche of people that care. I'd suggest that the fact that I was a metal musician for so many years perhaps gives me a stronger understanding of how to identify the techniques that characterize the different subgenres so that probably plays into why I find these mistakes to be really annoying too.
On another note, it's probably worth mentioning that the original concept of Metal Academy was always to look at metal historically. That was the entire focus of the podcast which was all that Metal Academy was intended to be to begin with so perhaps that's why it's taken us some time so start seeing the need to modernize our approach a bit. With regards to the feature releases in particular, the focus on more well-known releases was meant to allow people to contribute without having to explore new material that they may not have heard of & so that we could get some good cross-clan pollination as many of these more classic releases are widely known by the greater audience. It's always been about building content as I've been a little disappointed with the lack of responses on some pretty cool releases that people probably hadn't heard of. In general, I've always found that it's only a small niche of metal fans that are following the new releases religiously & most fans just want to hear a) the music they loved from their youth or b) good music from any era, particularly as they get older. Perhaps our existing audience don't fall into this category & maybe there's a reason for that & I've been overly ambitious but we're trying to grow that audience substantially & we have to find the best mix to bring those additional members in. When I personally returned to metal after a decade in the electronic dance music scene I focused entirely on new releases for a year in order to re-immerse myself within the scene. I ended up finding it to be pretty frustrating as the cream of the crop had yet to rise to the top & the overall quality wasn't as high as it was when I experimented with the material that had had the time for people's views to settle a bit so that experience has guided me a bit here too. Anyway... we've taken your comments onboard in regards to the feature releases & we'll see how it plays out.
The only real anomaly that sticks out for me is The Sphere. Would Industrial Metal have been better served being incorporated into one of the other clans such as The Gateway or The Revolution? With a much lower membership count and being the only clan that encompasses just one genre it seems a bit underfed.
The other issue for me is that Gothic Metal being in The Fallen (and I CAN see why) means that bands like Cradle of Filth are included, when they don't really fit.
Other than that it's all good and an original way of creating talking points about the music we each love.
The Sphere was definitely the trickiest genre to deal with when designing Metal Academy. As you suggested, I was tempted to merge The Gateway and The Sphere together, but in truth they have very little to do with each other. The biggest issue with The Sphere is that any release that has an industrial edge can be given the tag, which means black metal albums that have industrial elements (such as Dodheimsgard and Aborym) are included. Fans of The Gateway are rarely going to be into that, so that option didn't seem like a good one. Daniel and I decided early on that we shouldn't jam genres into clans. If they didn't fit anywhere else, then a separate clan needed to be made. Yes, I may have made an exception when I jammed Trance Metal into The Revolution, but I wasn't about to create a clan to hold what was at the time under 50 releases.
As for Gothic Metal, I personally feel that's a pretty logical inclusion in The Fallen. Bands like Tristania and Draconian would seem out of place anywhere else, and while I admit that Cradle of Filth are a strange sight amongst all the doom, there are outliers in every clan. It still bugs me to see Septic Flesh in The Guardians, but the majority of Symphonic Metal fits quite snugly in that genre.
At the end of the day there was and never will be a perfect set of clans, and personal opinions will always clash with some of our decisions. I'm still pretty happy with what we came up with though.