New (much improved) Metal Academy Website in Development - maybe

The first thing to say is that I wrote a long, heartfelt message last night in the Site Suggestions forum. I included a couple of transparent images in that post which inadvertently shut the site down. It was completely inaccessible. How ironic it was that in the process of announcing that I've been working on making a new, less volatile website, that the website broke. My only way of getting the site back was deleting the previous Site Suggestions forum. Let's try again...

Interesting news Ben. Will this entail much change in features and how the site looks or  is it going to be more of an improvement in background processes?

For the past 3 or 4 months, I've been working on a new Metal Academy website. At first I was doing it just to see what I could do, but I found myself going back to it every day and spending hours playing around and building some ideas that I've had for a long time. It's got to a point where I can genuinely see a time where we might want to switch over to the new site, but I must admit that I'm very daunted by the idea of trying to move across all the content from this site (forum posts, reviews, releases, bands, cover images etc.) to the new one.

I feel like it's time to share some of the work I've done to date. More importantly though, I genuinely want to hear what people would change on Metal Academy, or what new features they would like to see. I encourage everyone to think of Metal Academy as a metal community site and not just a novel way to rate and review content. Let's think big and come up with crazy ideas that would make the site even more novel than it is. New features could be clan based, or they could have absolutely nothing to do with our novel clan approach.

Before you make suggestions, know that the new site allows you to filter and sort everything the way you want to, with no limitations. There have been lots of requests to improve the filtering on the current site, so know that whatever you want to do on that front will be possible on the new site, including AND / OR options (show me all releases that belong to The Fallen AND The North or show me all releases with Atmospheric Black Metal AND Depressive Black Metal subgenres).

OK, here are some images of what I'm working on. Obviously these are not necessarily the finished product. Also note that the new site contains dummy data, so don't pay any attention to the actual album information you're seeing.

Here's the current Homepage. I will continue to tinker with it, so this is the most likely page that could change dramatically before any potential go live. Still, it gives you an idea.

Here's the current Releases page in List view. There's also a Grid view.

And here's an individual Release page. I'm really happy with the way this is coming along. The clan based colouring works really well and the added features (Tracklisting, Track rating, ability to add the release to one of your lists, and a comprehensive recommendation section) are all working the way I'd hoped they would.

This does look very eye-catching Ben and I like the idea of increased flexibility on search options. I think tracklistings are also a must and have long hoped that they would be added as a function.

I am very much a lists person, so would it be possible to have a users lists linked on their profile page, similar to RYM, because how they are currently arranged, all being lumped together, feels a bit random. It would also be great to have clan-specific lists linked on the respective clan homepage.

Hi Sonny. When you go to Lists on the new site, it defaults to only showing your lists. You can then select Discover to see all public lists and filter them all sorts of ways.

Thanks Ben. I really like the look of this potential new site, it is visually very impressive and the colour schemes look fantastic. I am actually feeling quite stoked for it and I hope it does come to fruition.

I also like the new site's look. I don't have any new feature ideas in mind right now, Ben, but if I do, I'll let you know. Here's to an exciting new era for Metal Academy!

I haven't really got any suggestions to improve the community side of the site, I think the tools are there with the forums, features, playlists etc, it just comes down to the participation levels and how we use those tools.

I do, however have a suggestion regarding the rating system. In keeping with the academy theme we could have a grading system for rating rather than a numerical, so releases would be graded E- to A+, giving a 15 point rating system. Obviously all the work in the background would be numerical, and the releases average scores could still be shown as a numerical, but with a grade alongside, so an album with currently, say, a 4.0 clan average rating would be given a B+, a release with a 4.2 average would be an A- and only those releases scoring above a 4.8 average would be entitled to the A+ rating, which could then afford a release a special a award on its release page. For example, such prestigious releases could receive a "Top of the Class" icon on its release page which would signify an exemplary release within its clan's scope. These could then appear on the clan homepage as a kind of auto recommendation to anyone exploring the clan who may not be so familiar with its notable releases. I would also probably restrict the qualification criteria for the award to the clan rating rather than the site overall rating.

I understand that converting from a 10-point rating system to 15 may be unworkable, but I think the merit award for high-scoring releases within a clan would be quite a useful and fun thing to have. I'm afraid that is all I've got for now.

I've thought about lyrics, but I don't think there's an API available that would consistently return lyrics for all the underground metal releases we have on Metal Academy. I could always allow the community to help populate lyrics. I guess there would be no harm in having the option. I'll explore.

Sonny, I'm very open to ideas like yours. I don't actually think it would be that hard to implement. Let me have a think about that one.

I would question whether people would really use lyrics to be honest. I mean, would it add much value? It think this all looks brilliant from a visual perspective Ben. I love how you can choose to see only the reviews from the releases chosen clans. That's a nice addition. How will the synopsis section of the release pages be populated? I also like the greater use of the release dates on the release page. Can I order my results chronologically using the exact day of release rather than the year? That would be very cool. Can we make it compulsory for new users to select three clans so as to avoid the ongoing issue of people being confused & only selecting one?

I agree with Daniel regarding how useful lyrics are. It seems like lyrics are one of those things that would be nice to have, but probably wouldn't be worth the time investment needed to add them to the site.

To throw in my two cents from what I've seen: 

I would question whether people would really use lyrics to be honest. I mean, would it add much value?

I think it'd be convenient since all the data about the album is aggregated in one place and you wouldn't have to do another search if you cared about the lyrics and you'd stay on MA, but I don't think the juice is worth the squeeze either. If I want lyrics I'll look them up on one of the many sites where that's all they do, I don't think that's MA's burden to bear with how difficult it could be to keep up with. I personally wouldn't use it much, if I had to guess. 

I do, however have a suggestion regarding the rating system. In keeping with the academy theme we could have a grading system for rating rather than a numerical, so releases would be graded E- to A+, giving a 15 point rating system. Obviously all the work in the background would be numerical, and the releases average scores could still be shown as a numerical, but with a grade alongside, so an album with currently, say, a 4.0 clan average rating would be given a B+, a release with a 4.2 average would be an A- and only those releases scoring above a 4.8 average would be entitled to the A+ rating, which could then afford a release a special a award on its release page. 

I really like this from a flavor perspective, but I'd be careful about changing the default rating scale, as you said at the end. As much as I agree that the site should stand out and at least try to not use the same systems as everything else, I think most new users would be put off by using a scale like that even though it's novel. The 5 or 10 star system is pretty universal, compared to grading which I think could differ from country to country? I do really like the grade addition on the average rating though, its a cool bit of flavor that wouldn't change the rating system but would allow for more sorting options! Someone would have to think through the requirements for each though, since there's generally no way a release is getting higher than a 4.2 once the sample size increases, as shown by pretty much every other rating site. 

Overall though it looks like a huge step forward, congrats on the progress Ben.

The first thing that stuck out to me is the new Clan symbols. I dig the idea of the M/F versions, especially since they're placed on everyone's profile, but I'm personally not sure about the updated designs? They are extremely busy and detailed for an asset that is going to be pretty small most of the time, like on people's reviews or forum posts. I think that the current ones, while dated, are way less muddy and easier to discern with the generic skull and color differences rather than the detailed portraits. The bold, glowing colored outline on the new ones do wonders for readability but I'm still on the fence. Maybe have the detailed one for the large clan badge in the top right of the release page like you showed, then have more simplistic badges for the smaller ones on forum posts and the release lists? But then that's double the assets, so...

The first thing that stuck out to me is the new Clan symbols. I dig the idea of the M/F versions, especially since they're placed on everyone's profile, but I'm personally not sure about the updated designs? They are extremely busy and detailed for an asset that is going to be pretty small most of the time, like on people's reviews or forum posts. I think that the current ones, while dated, are way less muddy and easier to discern with the generic skull and color differences rather than the detailed portraits. The bold, glowing colored outline on the new ones do wonders for readability but I'm still on the fence. Maybe have the detailed one for the large clan badge in the top right of the release page like you showed, then have more simplistic badges for the smaller ones on forum posts and the release lists? But then that's double the assets, so...

I did try using the old images, but they just don't hold up in the new environment. I also really love the new badges, and I think everyone will agree when you see them in larger formats. There are places on the site where you can hover on the badges and see them in all their glory. I've actually been working on the badges for a long time. Way longer than the new site. It's only when I saw just how great they look that I wanted to build a new site where they could shine.

Here's one from each clan in all their glory...

These new clan badge designs do look incredibly cool Ben. Should the new site not materialise, could these be incorporated into the old site?

These new clan badge designs do look incredibly cool Ben. Should the new site not materialise, could these be incorporated into the old site?

I'm sure they could be, but I'm still determined to make the new site work. I just added a new feature on the Covers page that allows you to search using keywords. For example, you can look for every album cover that contains a woman holding a sword or any cover that contains a cemetery with a zombie or basically anything you want. It returns covers that match, and it's fucking cool. I'm making so much stuff that I really want you guys to see, so I'm not giving up. It might just take a while for me to be able to afford it.