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VeteranHeadshaker
Mallcore Kid

Joined: Tue Jul 07, 2020 5:07 am
Posts: 2
Location: United Kingdom
PostPosted: Tue Jul 07, 2020 9:59 am 
 

I recently posted a question about In This Moment. Here is the reply I got then my issues with it follow:

"They seem to be blacklisted, so they've basically been judged to be not metal.
This isn't really the place to bring up bands that you think are missing from the archives, though. In any case, if you read the rules for submitting bands, it should be pretty clear what's considered to be acceptable and what isn't.
Sometimes it happens that a non-metal band ends up putting out something metal enough that warrants adding them to the site later on - it happened with Soulfly, for example. That's when you can post about it on the Band Appeals forum: viewforum.php?f=27"

I don't have any issues with paragraphs 1 and 3. If the reply had been just one and three, I would have no issues. I have big issues with paragraph 2 and a couple of other points:
1. The tone is distinctly condescending and impolite. If moderators want us humble users to be polite, then maybe they should be too.
2. The rules are NOT clear at all. I resent the implication that I am stupid. I am 57 years old, have considerable experience of life, a measured IQ of 120, a career in production management and I study Quantum Physics as a hobby. So if I find the rules unclear, overlong and scattered all over the place, I'm sure others will too. All the rules for everything need to be considerably shortened and all in one place, and should have no more than 20 points and preferably 10. In fact the site as a whole could do with streamlining and made easier to navigate, particularly for newbies. In This Moment did not appear on any banned list or even in a forum search. As it stands the only way of finding out for sure if a band is "blacklisted" is to try entering them as a new band, a warning banner pops up. The blacklist on the site does not include all the blacklisted bands and no reasons are published next to the bands that are - WHY NOT? How hard can that be?
3. Just who are the people deciding what "blacklisted" and why, what is metal and what isn't? Is it one opinionated guy or is it a proper committee decision? What are the criteria used? I'd like the process to be explained somewhere. And who is deciding to lock a thread? And on what grounds?
4. I was particularly insulted to receive the label "Mallcore Kid" under my username. Someone has clearly decided, based on one perfectly legitimate question, to make a judgement on what my entire musical taste must be. And I am not a "kid" - refer to issue 2. I would please like this judgmental, derogatory and insulting label removed immediately. "Darksider" or "Child of 80's Metal" would be more acceptable to me if any label has to be put there at all.
...at the end of the day the people who run this site can do what they like - I am only a prospective "citizen". But maybe it would be a good idea to treat users as they'd like to be treated - if they don't like being labelled on the basis of one question and spoken to like they were mentally retarded, maybe they shouldn't do it.

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Midnightwards666
Heavy Metal C-3PO

Joined: Tue Aug 02, 2011 7:05 am
Posts: 975
Location: United Kingdom
PostPosted: Tue Jul 07, 2020 4:08 pm 
 

VeteranHeadshaker wrote:
1. The tone is distinctly condescending and impolite. If moderators want us humble users to be polite, then maybe they should be too.

He probably didn't intend to be impolite or condescending at all... we refer people to the rules all the time. I agree that staff should maintain politeness as much as possible though, and I try to.
Quote:
2. The rules are NOT clear at all. I resent the implication that I am stupid. I am 57 years old, have considerable experience of life, a measured IQ of 120, a career in production management and I study Quantum Physics as a hobby. So if I find the rules unclear, overlong and scattered all over the place, I'm sure others will too. All the rules for everything need to be considerably shortened and all in one place, and should have no more than 20 points and preferably 10. In fact the site as a whole could do with streamlining and made easier to navigate, particularly for newbies. In This Moment did not appear on any banned list or even in a forum search. As it stands the only way of finding out for sure if a band is "blacklisted" is to try entering them as a new band, a warning banner pops up. The blacklist on the site does not include all the blacklisted bands and no reasons are published next to the bands that are - WHY NOT? How hard can that be?

You can read all the rules on various site aspects here. Sorry that you didn't like the formatting... though I found them perfectly comprehensible.
https://www.metal-archives.com/content/rules

If you type In This Moment into the search, you'll receive any post with any of those words. However, if you type with quotation marks "In This Moment", it will reveal posts with those three words unseparated. We also hope one day there'll be further improvements/guidelines to the search feature. That said, there's rarely any point inquiring about well-known bands as it's very unlikely a staff concensus wouldn't have already been reached.

Displaying the reason next to the blacklist is a feature that gets brought up regularly and I think even some mods might be for it... it might have even been the case once before, but as far as I know it made things worse overall due to genre debates over blacklisted non-metal bands. This was all before my time though.
Quote:
3. Just who are the people deciding what "blacklisted" and why, what is metal and what isn't? Is it one opinionated guy or is it a proper committee decision? What are the criteria used? I'd like the process to be explained somewhere. And who is deciding to lock a thread? And on what grounds?

It is a staff decision based on genres we do or don't consider metal. In borderline cases, it's discussed internally. Mods lock threads when we feel there is no more to be added... those are the only grounds.
Quote:
4. I was particularly insulted to receive the label "Mallcore Kid" under my username. Someone has clearly decided, based on one perfectly legitimate question, to make a judgement on what my entire musical taste must be. And I am not a "kid" - refer to issue 2. I would please like this judgmental, derogatory and insulting label removed immediately. "Darksider" or "Child of 80's Metal" would be more acceptable to me if any label has to be put there at all.
...at the end of the day the people who run this site can do what they like - I am only a prospective "citizen". But maybe it would be a good idea to treat users as they'd like to be treated - if they don't like being labelled on the basis of one question and spoken to like they were mentally retarded, maybe they shouldn't do it.

Actually, no one gave you that rank, it's what all users start off with automatically. After 30 posts you become a "Metal newbie", then after 400 you become a "Metalhead" and eventually you become a "Veteran" and "Metal freak". Please don't take these ranks too seriously - we just thought it would be more fun than "New user", "Moderator" etc.
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Korpgud
Metal newbie

Joined: Sat Jul 13, 2013 7:09 pm
Posts: 290
Location: Sweden
PostPosted: Wed Jul 08, 2020 9:50 am 
 

yikes
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Botgörelsen - black metal

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