This here thread will serve as a collection of general guidelines and also a place for asking questions about anything related to adding unlisted bands and projects to artist pages.

As many of you will undoubtedly know already, since April 2012 it's possible to add bands not listed on the Archives to artist pages as proper, "showing up in the see-also section in lineups" entries. During the process of transferring v1 lineups such non-MA remnants were (usually) -due to this feature not existing back then- added to the trivia or bio section of the respective artists, with various levels of order, formatting and detail. This stop-gap solution should now be dealt with and the bands and projects in the notes transferred to the artists' actual band listings. (read: "moved" and then deleted)

There is a list accessible through the main page (under "Other stuff to do") containing what is probably the majority of artists with unlisted bands in their descriptions.

Here's a direct link.

Beware, it's (still) huge (18000+ entries) and takes a bit to fully load. This list is not exhaustive, since it only uses certain keywords/phrases like "also plays in", "other bands" or "also active in" to compile these artists. Some pages are logically bound to fall through the cracks. Still, this list should be more than good enough for now.

Some things to keep in mind:

1. Full members and regular live musicians only
The non-MA bands feature is to be used only for bands the musician is a full member of. Or at least bands for which he or she is performing as a regular live musician. Guest/session appearances do not warrant an entry. So, for example, while Dave Grohl performed session drums on Tenacious D's debut, they should not be added to his past bands. On the other hand, Nirvana and Foo Fighters are obviously allowed.

This should be simple enough, just don't add any appearances that would, were the band(s) on MA, only show up in the "guest/session" tab. See also.

Not to despair for want of complete information, though, as there is always the trivia section to use for such appearances.

2. Active/past bands & roles
Whether or not a particular non-MA project mentioned is still active or not is unfortunately a bit of information that is not always conveniently available from the notes alone. Our system of active and past bands tabs for artist makes that info seem obligatory, and of course this difference should be taken into account eventually, but, for the time being, we allow a more casual approach. To quote myself:

...which should be comprehensible enough. However, I cannot stress enough how welcome a little bit of "detective work" on your part is, provided you have the time and inclination. But in the end, if nothing is to be found, don't hesitate to just add it under active bands and move on. The important thing at this point is to get those bands transferred.

Note: Keep in mind that the tense can't always be taken as a trustworthy indicator of active/past. "Also played with:" can just as well refer to (an) active band(s) and vice versa. If it's more explicit, like "Used to play in a thrash band in his teens.", that's okay, of course.

3. Be aware of additional band info
Let's say an artist has

in his or her trivia section. Business as usual, just move that band to the band listing, but seeing as there is useful data to be retained from this mention in the notes, leave it there as well (or feel free to reword it in a more fitting way; "Heisenberg was a mathcore band.", for instance). For this example it's the genre of the unlisted band, arguably the most frequent one. Others would be some trivia about the reason for them splitting up or how they got together, the band's location, etc... Anything worth preserving that doesn't fit into the unlisted band entry.

4. External links
It's fine to add an unlisted band's Facebook/Myspace/etc... page or, even better, their official website to the artist entry. After all, we do have a special category for this now. As a rule of thumb, try to limit it to only one link per band, though.

Use this template for naming external links: "[Band name] @ [Site]"; for original homepages just use the band name.

5. Country tags
Whenever an unlisted band shares its name with one or more bands in the database, a country tag should be added to the entry. As was accepted policy for listed bands in v1. Here is a list with the standard ISO codes. (use the ones with three digits) Example: http://www.metal-archives.com/artists/Sarolf/214276 If you can't be reasonably sure about the respective country of origin, just omit the tag.

Note: Naturally, there's always the possibility that the supposedly unlisted band is in fact the one showing up in the database, especially when the country is the same. New bands getting added all the time and all that. So it doesn't hurt to do a quick check before adding redundant/misleading information.

To summarise, let's try to get these unsightly trivia mentions removed and the relations neatly streamlined and nicely and readily accessible to the everyday site user, without losing relevant data in the process.

Would formatting like this be acceptable? (I worked this page off the list, as he had a bit more info present than most other artists)

Sure, something like that. Nicely done.

Updated the OP, among other things adding a new point.

Okay, I'm just gonna nitpick and say that using bold to highlight the band names doesn't exactly look terribly nice (IMHO ). I'd settle using a hyperlink for the band (copied from the unlisted bands section), as the difference in colour tends to look more aesthetically pleasing than simply putting it in bold.



Obviously there won't always be a link, so I use a blank <a> tag instead. See this guy's biography for how I present additional info for unlisted bands.

I find the formatting a lot easier to read this way, TBH.

Before I dig too deep into this - I did Adam Levy. He was in Norah Jones' band according to his website but for the other three bands, he played on one record - which doesn't necessarily mean he was in the band. Though I can't confirm that one way or another - so I just expanded the trivia section on those three. Does this look like what you'd expect?

http://www.metal-archives.com/artists/Adam_Levy/254395

Also - are we trusting the info that's in the notes section? Meaning, if I search for the unlisted band and can't find any info - am I not supposed to touch it or should I move it anyway?

That's alright.


Move it regardless. No info on the Internet doesn't always mean it didn't exist. Also, you wouldn't delete it from the additional notes for that reason anyway, so you can just as well move it to the proper field.

Awesome. Thanks for the info.

So with deceased artists, put them under "Last active bands" (the equivalent of "Active")?

What abbreviation/country code should be used for unlisted international bands that share names with other bands featured on the site?

Yes. Sorry for the late reply.


I assume you actually came across such a case? Dunno/care, "(Int)" maybe. Or just explain in the notes.

Yeah, as ridiculous as it sounds, this guy from Cyprus and this guy from the Netherlands had a Non-MA collaboration called "Hydrus", which also happens to be the name of this thrash band from Columbia.

(INT) is acceptable.

I'm surprised no-one has asked how to do this yet. Is it just that obvious to everyone except me?

Adding unlisted bands? On the artist page, you click the "add" button on the right (or "Some bands are missing? Click here to add..." at the bottom). Then search for the band and scroll down to "Not a metal band?". The rest should be obvious.

I don't see any "add" button or "some bands are missing". Is there a minimum rank requirement?

As this is basically adding new data, there shouldn't be a rank requirement. But not 100% sure...

Seems to be.

Ah well, I guess it's Veteran and upwards. You can always use the report function until then.

http://www.metal-archives.com/artists/Hugin/8073

There is a javascript link on the (show all) but it is blank ...