I am a new member here but have been frequenting the site for over 10 years & I have long wondered why there is a "formed in" entry for band pages. Just below that you can see the years in which the band is/was active. I think it is safe to presume that a band which was active from 1976 - 1986, was formed in 1976 without the need for another entry telling me the band was formed in 1976. The reason I bring this up is that this encyclopedia seems to be mostly void of superfluous information and this "formed in" entry seems quite superfluous in light of the "years active" entry. It's not extremely important but it would make band pages look tidier if the "formed in" entry was removed.

http://www.metal-archives.com/search/ad ... ing=&type=

If implemented, your suggestion will fuck this up...
Year of formation: From ______ to ______
...primarily for bands that have changed name, once or multiple times.

The advanced search "years of formation" function is useful. It still seems to me a good idea though to merely hide the "formed in" year on band pages.

I wonder how long you have wondered that, since for majority of the time you've frequented the site the field hasn't been there. It was added only about four years ago. That's a practical sort-of-answer to your question.

And dunno, are they really the exact same thing? Can you form a band without having it active from the start? You could argue this might apply to some cases, like if the idea of the band is born at one point and it slowly forms into a band and something happens.

And well, there are bands with several former names with a bunch of activity periods, so in those cases the formation field is a rather clear thing to have.

I suppose I don't have a proper opinion, but the field doesn't really bug me either.