It would be prety cool to be able to suggest genre changes on the album page (in the edit menu for example) instead of having to go to a special thread

Written by Roman Doez on 15.01.2022 at 15:00

It would be prety cool to be able to suggest genre changes on the album page (in the edit menu for example) instead of having to go to a special thread

If you have no album edit pemrs due com points it might work,

Written by Roman Doez on 15.01.2022 at 15:00

It would be prety cool to be able to suggest genre changes on the album page (in the edit menu for example) instead of having to go to a special thread

I get your point, but I think it's good how it is.

The edit menu should be used to report obvious mistakes (typos, wrong track orders, postponed release dates, etc.) and omissions (eg. missing cover artworks), and these matters usually require no further debates as long as a trustworthy source is provided.
Genre definitions, on the other hand, may depend on individual perception and personal opinions. The decision as to whether an album belongs to one genre or the other should therefore not be left to just two users who determine everything behind locked doors and in camera.

However, you can also discuss the genre on the album page. Sooner or later, someone with the necessary permissions will stumble upon your comment, listen to the album, discuss it with the rest of the team if necessary, and correct the genre accordingly.

@BE: your "If you have no album edit pemrs due com points it might work" makes no sense and it doesn't really help either. Please refrain from responding to user suggestions if incomprehensible nonsense is all you have to contribute.

Written by Starvynth on 15.01.2022 at 16:27

Genre definitions, on the other hand, may depend on individual perception and personal opinions. The decision as to whether an album belongs to one genre or the other should therefore not be left to just two users who determine everything behind locked doors and in camera.

Rym has an interesting solution for that, users can vote for which genre they think fits the most. I'd say it could be a pretty good way of deciding genre. When you go in the edit menu of an album you could vote for a genre you think fits most and maybe with enough votes a genre can become the one on the release. And if the admins disagree they could just change it to whatever they think fits best.

My two unrequested cents on MSA (in particular on 2021 edition).
We've gone too far with categorizations. This is becoming an issue, even if it started like a feature.
The fact that I need to open a bunch of links to find where a band that I know is present is actually listed is an evidence for it.
Splitting death metal in 3 categories ("normal", melo- and -core) is way too much.
So it is for many genres.

One of good points in the past about nominations was to point out what were the best records in each category of metal. Splitting the categorie in so many subgenres results in something like 250 nominated records. This is way too much and the quality of nominations is indeed very questionable.
You do a great job putting together the lists, but sometimes I have the impression that many records are there because you NEED to fill the 10 nominee.
Let's take sludge as an example category: in the sludge category this year we have some records with more that 20 votes who don't reach 7.5 average voting.
TarLung maybe an underdog that nobody knows and deserve to be there (9 votes, average 8: nobody knows it, but who does seem to like it).
Alkerdeel already has a 42 votes averaging to 7. Really? Erdve is stuck at 6.8.

Popular vote is not a mirror of the artistic value of a record. I know, I agree, But awards are also about popular votes and letting people discover new music. When 40 fans of the genere say that that record is just average, that's it. Game over. No metter if that's the most voted (and the most popular) record.

Mixing the categories we'd have fewer records with an higher quality (or better, without the fillers). Some fanboy will argue? For sure. But all the people that comes here to listen to the nominees can listen to them carefully, discover great new music, cast a conscious vote.
Sludge could be mixed with post and stoner to have a selection of great records that are not in the same style, but that appeal to 80% of the same audience (I have no numbers to support it, just a feeling, but maybe it would be interesting to dig into this with actual data).

To really vote for the categories I'm interested in I should listen to about 80-100 records in a month. Is that realistic? Or will I end up voting for those who I already know because I wasn't able to listen carefully to every nominated record?

Too much information becomes quickly no information at all.

Would it be possible to have the song lengths next to each song when you click on an album? I understand that it would be time consuming.

Written by AndyMetalFreak on 11.02.2022 at 10:02

Would it be possible to have the song lengths next to each song when you click on an album? I understand that it would be time consuming.

I think ity was rejected by old staff members, but then who will add it in whole database? I would agree even whit album lenght but ....

Written by Bad English on 11.02.2022 at 10:10

Written by AndyMetalFreak on 11.02.2022 at 10:02

Would it be possible to have the song lengths next to each song when you click on an album? I understand that it would be time consuming.

I think ity was rejected by old staff members, but then who will add it in whole database? I would agree even whit album lenght but ....

I would do as many as I can if it would help, but yes it would be a real challenge to do every single song on the database.

Written by pdepmcp on 07.02.2022 at 16:30

My two unrequested cents on MSA (in particular on 2021 edition).
...
Too much information becomes quickly no information at all.

I am only quoting the first and the last sentence to save space but I will try to address all the points you make.

First of all, I hear you. Believe me, I personally find it more and more exhausting every year to listen to so much music, especially when it comes to styles I don't particularly enjoy, just to decide what I will end up upvoting for nomination.

For the death metal category, I don't really agree. Pure death metal has little in common with melodeath (which is often power metal with growls), and it is also not so close to deathcore (which is often more brutal metalcore with growls). The point you make about sludge below does not apply here; I don't think that 80% of those who like death metal also like melodeath (I cannot prove it but I am not sure that someone who enjoys Qrixkuor will also enjoy Aephanemer). And, if you see the death metal category, you will find that there is much variation already between the nominees; there is little in common between the blackened doom death metal of 1914 and the tech-death of Archspire, for instance.

For sludge, I think you are jumping to a possibly wrong conclusion when you presume that 40-something fans of sludge voted an average of 7 for the Alkerdeel album. People often vote for stuff that is not in their preferred style. Sludge is not very loved among Metal Stormers. For proof of that, check out the all time highest ratings of sludge albums; you will find that they are much much lower than those of melodeath or meloblack albums for example. However, I agree with your point that "Sludge could be mixed with post and stoner to have a selection of great records that are not in the same style, but that appeal to 80% of the same audience". Like you, I also have no numbers to support it but I know that within our team, the people who like sludge also like stoner and post-. And those who aren't big fans of sludge, do not really enjoy either stoner or post- (myself included, although there are exceptions). But again, there is not much in common between Amenra and Domkraft to be put under the same umbrella.

We separated the sludge / stoner category last year, thus adding yet one more to the many we already had, and this year we have all-full, 10-album categories for the first time. With the Clandestine Cuts nominations, we now have 272 albums. It is indeed overwhelming. It is even possible that we sometimes include albums in a category only just to fill the 10-album list that we maybe do not consider to be that good (though this is more likely when each of us has to opine in their less preferred categories). However, I don't think someone should listen to everything in its entirety. I mean, even in styles you prefer, you know if you will like something or not from the first two tracks. So, maybe you don't have to listen 80 to 100 entire albums, and I suppose that some of them you had already listened before the awards.

All that said, I have to admit that your last sentence had me thinking; are we maybe overdoing it? You know, it takes a huge amount of time and effort to put the Awards together. If the massive quantity defeats the purpose, we may need to rethink how we present these.

Thanks a lot for your two cents, your suggestions are appreciated and have been noted. And we would really like to hear from more users since it would be helpful to have as much input as possible from as many people as possible on this.

Written by pdepmcp on 07.02.2022 at 16:30
My two unrequested cents on MSA (in particular on 2021 edition).
We've gone too far with categorizations. This is becoming an issue, even if it started like a feature.
The fact that I need to open a bunch of links to find where a band that I know is present is actually listed is an evidence for it.
Splitting death metal in 3 categories ("normal", melo- and -core) is way too much.

This is a very interesting and thoughtful post and I hear you. Many thanks for your input.
Nevertheless, I tend to disagree with some of your conclusions.

Throwing everything broadly labeled "death metal" into a blender and cutting it down to 10 nominees may at first glance seem like a good idea, but I think the result would be the exact opposite of everything the MS Awards are about.
A combined death metal category comprised of this year's nominees in melo-death, death metal and grindcore would probably look something like this:

1914
Archspire
Asphyx
At The Gates
Be'lakor
Carcass
Full Of Hell
In Mourning
Lock Up
Omnium Gatherum

Sure, we'd have all the big names featured, but there would hardly be anything left to discover. Only one or two grindcore bands would be there, which is a slap in the face of any fan of the genre. And would you really want mellow, keyboard-laden melodeath to compete with the filthiest, cavernous death metal gutturals we've heard last year? I'm pretty sure this could not be a fair competition anymore, as it would all boil down to the total number of die-hard fans per subgenre instead of providing a wide selection for every fan of every style.

Besides, some folks have already asked for a further segmentation of the categories into more specific subgenres, in particular regarding "atmospheric black metal" as part of "melodic black metal". I don't think this will happen in the near future, and I also don't think we need any more categories, but these user requests show that the idea of merging established MSA categories does not necessarily reflect the current preference of the majority.

The same applies to your suggestion of combining sludge with stoner and post-metal. For me, the most interesting albums of these categories are usually the ones that did not yet catch much public attention. Sure, that's just my personal opinion, but I'm not a big fan of stoner and sludge, so all I can hope for is to find that odd album that got nominated eventhough it is not a typical representative of its genre. The Lion's Daughter's Skin Show is a good example of an atypical but great sludge album that would most likely fall through the cracks as soon as we divide the amount of nominees by three.

There's no need to go into more details, but you've mentioned Alkerdeel, so let's take a closer look at the ratings for Slonk. An average rating of 6.9 is indeed not what one would expect to find within a handpicked selection of AOTY contenders, but an exclusive view on the average score conceals the fact that one third of all voters consider this album to be at least very good. Should we ignore the opinion of a third of our users just because a small minority has managed to lower the average score by doling out conspicuously low ratings? I don't think so.

Written by pdepmcp on 07.02.2022 at 16:30
You do a great job putting together the lists, but sometimes I have the impression that many records are there because you NEED to fill the 10 nominee.

I can guarantee you that we didn't feel the urge to fill every category with 10 nominees. It's the first year that we had 26 full main categories, but we didn't force it - it simply happened. And I'm pretty sure that the future will bring a few stripped down categories again.

Written by pdepmcp on 07.02.2022 at 16:30
To really vote for the categories I'm interested in I should listen to about 80-100 records in a month. Is that realistic? Or will I end up voting for those who I already know because I wasn't able to listen carefully to every nominated record?

Listening to 80-100 albums in one month may not be realistic, but it's not impossible either. Besides, we do not expect people whose interest is focussed on 8-10 categories to dive into the set of nominees totally unprepared. If you're only passionate about a third of the categories, then chances are pretty high that you've already heard most of your favorite categories' participants before the Awards have even begun. This gives you more time to delve into genres you'd normally ignore, but of course that's only possible if those additional categories do still exist.


This may sound like I'm contradicting you in everything just for the sake of disagreeing, but it's not like that. Basically, you are absolutely right about many things. But I just don't think removing a bunch of categories would change anything for the better.

I don't know how on earth Starvynth and I decided to respond to something that was said almost a week ago at the same time, with very similar posts and using even same phrases (the "I hear you" is an eerily strange coincidence), but I assure you we have not previously discussed about it between us at all. Not even with the rest of the staff has there been any discussion about this. These are both entirely personal opinions by him and me. If you see the time of posting, you can tell that he started writing his before I had posted mine. It's unbelievable, I know, if Starvynth doesn't mind I can share a screenshot of the PM he sent me when he realized what had happened. I only found out this morning.

There is an inside joke that I call him my brother from another mother, but I am now thinking that it may be worth looking into the possibility
Holy fuck, was that weird.

Written by nikarg on 12.02.2022 at 09:06

I don't know how on earth Starvynth and I decided to respond to something that was said almost a week ago at the same time, with very similar posts and using even same phrases (the "I hear you" is an eerily strange coincidence), but I assure you we have not previously discussed about it between us at all. Not even with the rest of the staff has there been any discussion about this. These are both entirely personal opinions by him and me. If you see the time of posting, you can tell that he started writing his before I had posted mine. It's unbelievable, I know, if Starvynth doesn't mind I can share a screenshot of the PM he sent me when he realized what had happened. I only found out this morning.

There is an inside joke that I call him my brother from another mother, but I am now thinking that it may be worth looking into the possibility
Holy fuck, was that weird.

Wanna know what's even weirder? I was thinking of this exact same post before seeing that both of you replied to it.

And to bring a massive argument in favor of pdepmcp's direction: Imagine how much less effort we'd have to put into the awards if we only nominated like 30-50 albums. January would feel like a vacation rather than the busiest MS month of the year.

Written by nikarg on 12.02.2022 at 09:06

I don't know how on earth Starvynth and I decided to respond to something that was said almost a week ago at the same time, with very similar posts and using even same phrases (the "I hear you" is an eerily strange coincidence), but I assure you we have not previously discussed about it between us at all. Not even with the rest of the staff has there been any discussion about this.

I appreciate you both decided to answer this and addressed almost every point of my original post. Thank you for your time, I appreciate it.
Thanks to RaduP who read but decided to wait before answering with another similar answer

First of all, just let me state the obvious: it's crystal clear that every change has its drawback. It's impossible to reduce the choices and at same time be as complete as we are today.

I gave some suggestions and probably I got a bit too deep in the example making a mistake. I see this mistake of mine in your answers.
I used the whole death container and the post/sludge/stoner examples because I'm somehow closer to these, but I'm no way near to your knowledge of the corners in them. They were only examples that may not fit completely.
You are surely right: deathcore is not a derivative form of death metal, but a more aggressive form of metalcore. It can't be merged with death metal, but maybe it could be merged with metalcore. And by the way not everything need to be merged.

Too bad the "fans also like" box gives no real clues if death fans are divided or united. Maybe you can access more accurate data on your side. The same for other kind of metal. In the end we all listen to the same 20-30 bands that emerge in the box everyway in the site.

I agree with you when you say that reducing the categories may end up in a just a list of big names and a war of numbers between fanboys, losing the opportunity to let people discover new underdogs. About fanboy, the Awards often end up like this anyway, don't they? I mean: how often it happened that the "biggest" bands loses a category to a small unknown band?
This clashes with my other idea to suggest you push the awards on facebook and other social (mainly IG) by tagging the bands in a post for each category and see if this brings their attention and some new life through their fans to our beloved metal home

Probably there is a point of equilibrium somewhere. I just don't know where.
I do agree with you that would be pretty nice to hear other people voices.
Maybe this may be an excuse to experiment with some social media feature (who said facebook polls?)

Written by pdepmcp on 14.02.2022 at 19:21
Maybe this may be an excuse to experiment with some social media feature (who said facebook polls?)

We're very much on the fence when it comes to branching out into other platforms. Naturally, our main goal is to keep people on the site as much as possible and make their stay enjoyable. Just we're not doing it for ad revenue but to maintain a healthy community. We'll have to come up with new features for proper collection of feedback eventually, but Facebook will most certainly not be the answer.

I think a Getting Into: Summoning article would be pretty cool

Written by F3ynman on 10.04.2022 at 22:18

I think a Getting Into: Summoning article would be pretty cool

You can write it, or radu hehe

Written by Bad English on 10.04.2022 at 22:59

Written by F3ynman on 10.04.2022 at 22:18

I think a Getting Into: Summoning article would be pretty cool

You can write it, or radu hehe

I don't think I have the patience or discipline to write an entire article. Plus, I lately don't have much time with university starting... but I'll think about it.
Just listened to Minas Morgul again. Now listening to Let Mortal Heroes Sing Your Fame

Written by F3ynman on 10.04.2022 at 23:06

Written by Bad English on 10.04.2022 at 22:59

Written by F3ynman on 10.04.2022 at 22:18

I think a Getting Into: Summoning article would be pretty cool

You can write it, or radu hehe

I don't think I have the patience or discipline to write an entire article. Plus, I lately don't have much time with university starting... but I'll think about it.
Just listened to Minas Morgul again. Now listening to Let Mortal Heroes Sing Your Fame

It sounds like a good one, I would like to give it a shot myself, but timewise it's impossible.

Just an idea: you two can share it, and that way it will be easier. Also, bear in mind that a Getting Into is supposed to feature a paragraph for each release, 5 or 6 lines are enough (kind of what we do for the Clandestine Cuts). We sometimes go over the limit and it is overkill; you don't have to do that. The point is to have a short intro and outro and to list the releases with a concise description/opinion about each. A Getting Into article is not meant to include a full review of each release

A few years ago, in this thread, there was a discussion going about the "rating numbers colour scheme". There was a back and forth between people about how the colour scheme should look like. But maybe I'm the only one here: I really find ANY colour scheme annoying. I would suggest to make all the numbers white.

Why not let people decide for themselves how to rate albums? In the end, you only look at the average ratings. So, if you get rid of the colours, all changes in rating behavior would just "average themselves out". And to go even further: like it is now, with the colours, I always get the feeling I'm being pushed to rate the albums higher than I would do without the colours.

PS: I have the same issue with the words that go along with the numbers (e.g. average, bad, ...).

The ability to filter out "Albums already in your collection" or "Albums you've already rated" from metalstorm.net/bands/albums.php would be extremely valuable and save trawling through pages upon pages of albums we've already heard to find something new (especially when new ones come on the site).

IMDb has this funtionality for reference ("Exclude Titles I've Seen"). As does RateYourMusic.com ("Exclude releases that I have: Rated").

When I search for a keyword in the posts search the results should be in chronological order. Instead I get mixed results from 2011, 2015, 2012, 2022, in no way organized

So when you quote yourself you receive a notification...
Shouldn't you... not?

Idea: A poll on each album to vote for your favourite song.

There are so many albums on here that many of us will probably never hear, but it would be very useful to see which songs are generally considered the best and to try one or two before commiting to an entire 50-60min album.

Written by nonZero on 07.11.2022 at 14:32

Idea: A poll on each album to vote for your favourite song.

There are so many albums on here that many of us will probably never hear, but it would be very useful to see which songs are generally considered the best and to try one or two before commiting to an entire 50-60min album.

Ooh this is a cool idea. Plus, then one could have an extra statistic for "most voted song"

Written by nonZero on 07.11.2022 at 14:32

Idea: A poll on each album to vote for your favourite song.

This has been suggested before and I believe the answer is still valid:

Written by corrupt on 08.09.2021 at 13:12

I can tell you right now that that's not going to happen anytime soon
Technically, the database doesn't really know about songs, the track list is one large blob for it.

I'm not even sure if I like this idea very much, because voting for individual songs would inevitably spawn a number of problems.

Rating abuse is the first big issue. Take all the trouble we've always had with rating abuse and multiply that annoyance by a factor of 10. Who's going to control all that and who wants to deal with even more multi-accounts and the complaints of all the people who are going to be upset that their most favorite, life-changing song isn't getting the recognition it deserves?

Besides, song ratings are prone to manipulation, even more so than album ratings.
You know, if an album is deleted, all user ratings are automatically lost as well, since ratings are linked to the album ID. Fortunately, though, only about 10 active users are able to delete albums, and there must always be a good reason for deletion, so this is just a minor problem. However, track lists can be deleted and edited by hundreds of users, and just changing the track order or correcting a typo would already mess up the song ratings and render them totally worthless.

An additional problem is that albums may contain different versions of a song. I can't imagine how it would be technically possible to distinguish between identical song titles as long as each track list is inherently a mutable and arbitrarily expandable data set.


I'm aware that we're talking about technical and organizational problems that could theoretically be solved somehow, but I just don't see that coming, at least not in the near future.

Why has the color scheme on the rating scale been chosen as it is?
It currently is as follows (if my eyes dont fool me):
9-10: green
7-8: yellow
5-6: light red
1-4: dark red

Now, when applying a red-yellow-green color scheme I am used to the following (broad) interpretation:
green: above average
yellow: around average
red: below average

Thus, for the color scheme to better correspond to the meaning of the scale, I suggest to shift the color scheme for our rating scale in the following direction:
9-10: dark green
7-8: light green
5-6: yellow
3-4: light red
1-2: dark red

I know, this is merely a visual thing. But power of visual effects should not be underestimated. A possible favourable side effect of the shift could be a reduction in overly high ratings in general. But that would probably more be a wish of mine. In the worst case there is no effect on the rating behavior at all I predict. But I dont see any possible harm of such a shift.
What do you guys think?

Written by Redel on 26.01.2023 at 16:34

What do you guys think?

It isn't the first time this has been suggested. In time, something similar or exactly like this could be implemented, but I believe even if said change is going to take place, there are plenty of more important things ahead of it on the priority list.

Written by Troy Killjoy on 27.01.2023 at 04:58

In time, something similar or exactly like this could be implemented

I wasnt aware that this shift in the color scheme would take so much programming effort. In my naiive programming mind I am thinking of a change in the red-yellow-green codes at ideally a single place in the programming code for the rating scale. But obviously I am not a programmer.

Written by Redel on 27.01.2023 at 09:05

Written by Troy Killjoy on 27.01.2023 at 04:58

In time, something similar or exactly like this could be implemented

I wasnt aware that this shift in the color scheme would take so much programming effort. In my naiive programming mind I am thinking of a change in the red-yellow-green codes at ideally a single place in the programming code for the rating scale. But obviously I am not a programmer.

Well, if it's a global variable that alters the display colors in all ratings, it should be very easy to implement the change. It really depends on how the whole code was built, tho...