Alright, How Do We Kickstart the Metal Community On This Site?

[Janszoon]

Originally Posted by Trollheart

He tried that with "Metal King of the Hill", and look at the massive lack of response that got. I know how he feels. I felt something like the HMAC would be jumped all over, but unlike we proggers some of the metalheads here don't seem interested in getting involved. And if they won't make the effort then it doesn't matter what initiatives Batty, you or I, or anyone else makes. You can't force people to participate (NO Batty! Put the gun down. Slowly now, it's not worth it...)

Also remember Batty is restricted to computers at his local library, not having access at home, so running something like Metal Wars could be problematical for him. I'd do it, but I learned my lesson with the mixtape: don't take on too much work and do something which will get very low response rates. Also I'm nowhere near as au fait with all the aspects of metal than a hundred other members here, so I would be a terrible choice to do that.

I'd really like to get some interest going in the HMAC though, so...
One. More. Time! (see below)

I think the problem with the HMAC (which sounds like some kind of financial term when it's abbreviated by the way) is that metal is such a broad genre that it's hard to pick albums that will interest everyone who wants to participate. I almost wonder if it would work better if it were broken down into smaller groups like the extreme metal album club, the classic metal album club, etc.

[Zack]

As a newbie here, I don;t know the forum's history.

BUT. Unfortunately, Metal listening is becoming more and more of a niche, and a fractured, subdivided niche at that. Heads that love Nightwish don't necessarily dig the Opeth, and Opeth fans aren't exactly gagging for Kayo Dot all the time. And then there's the problem that most of the populace thinks that Slipknot and Disturbed are/were what metal is about, with maybe some Metallica thrown in if you're lucky.

In terms of jump starting a forum, I'd say it needs more thought-inspiring, debate-provoking, story-pulling threads.

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Threads with 50 pages of people listing bands they like are great, and they're an awesome reference, but they don't inspire activity.

Threads that make people think about how metal affects other genres or daily life, threads that ask about specific concert stories, threads that pit Black metal against Death metal against Post Metal against Trollish Hoe-down metal, those are the threads that might get some people chatting in here.

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That said, as of my writing of this post, "Rock/Metal" had more viewers than any forum except "General Music."

[Trollheart]

Yeah I see what you mean, both of you. But if we subdivided it then you're looking at less members for each club, like half a dozen for say Extreme Metal, another six for Prog Metal etc. I can't see that working. Surely everyone will try something new once? Even I've listened to death and doom, even some black! It shouldn't be so fragmented and I think pandering to that sort of cherrypicking is only strengthening the divisions within the genre.

If people (me included) are prepared to listen to, say, a death metal album with screaming vocalist, and get something out of it, surely that's better than just sticking with (again, using me as an example) traditional, prog or power metal? Encouraging the widening of musical taste is our (unstated and unofficial) mission statement here, so why should Metal be any different?

Look at the HMAC: first we had Anthrax, a thrash album, albeit not a very good one, then Witchery, a black one. Surely diversity like that should only draw people in, not push them away? Are yiz all pussies, like me? Come on! Stand up for your genre, guys and (maybe) gals!

[Key]

I think you need to go here and see what happens. I know people have been successful. https://www.kickstarter.com/

EDIT: I'm making a joke, don't actually make a kickstarter. Unless you want to.

[The Batlord]

Originally Posted by Trollheart

Yeah I see what you mean, both of you. But if we subdivided it then you're looking at less members for each club, like half a dozen for say Extreme Metal, another six for Prog Metal etc. I can't see that working. Surely everyone will try something new once? Even I've listened to death and doom, even some black! It shouldn't be so fragmented and I think pandering to that sort of cherrypicking is only strengthening the divisions within the genre.

If people (me included) are prepared to listen to, say, a death metal album with screaming vocalist, and get something out of it, surely that's better than just sticking with (again, using me as an example) traditional, prog or power metal? Encouraging the widening of musical taste is our (unstated and unofficial) mission statement here, so why should Metal be any different?

Look at the HMAC: first we had Anthrax, a thrash album, albeit not a very good one, then Witchery, a black one. Surely diversity like that should only draw people in, not push them away? Are yiz all pussies, like me? Come on! Stand up for your genre, guys and (maybe) gals!

Well, better six people than none. An Extreme Metal Wars/Album Club thread is actually one of the better ideas I've seen on here. I don't know why the overarching Metal Wars/Album Club threads are failing, since the original was such a hit, but they are. Like I said earlier, it wasn't hard getting Metal Wars up. Pretty much from the word "Go!" you had like fifty people joining in with both barrels. I understand that fatigue set in and the older members got bored, but enough time has passed, and we have enough new, fresh members that I don't understand why it hasn't taken off again. At most you'll have one or two members who'll say they're going to contribute, and maybe one of them actually does, but then it dies the next day.

[Unknown Soldier]

I think Janszoon's idea of individual metal projects is probably the best, as to think of metal as one big genre these days is quite misleading. Because most of its sub-genres feel like genres in their own right and huge amounts of listeners won't really listen to and enjoy another kind of metal that much, if its too left of field to what they expect metal to be.

For example how many people on here get all hot and excited like me over power metal..... well not many, as they'd sooner listen to their ****ty black metal instead

[Trollheart]

Well someone can certainly do that, but I'm not going to be running an album club that's that specific. I mean, the PRAC gets along fine without people saying "Oh I only listen to Canterbury, or art rock, or 70s prog". I know it's not quite the same and prog is not as fragmented as metal is. But I would not want to personally be involved in something that narrow.

Anyone else wants to take a stab at it, be my guest.

[The Batlord]

Originally Posted by Trollheart

Well someone can certainly do that, but I'm not going to be running an album club that's that specific. I mean, the PRAC gets along fine without people saying "Oh I only listen to Canterbury, or art rock, or 70s prog". I know it's not quite the same and prog is not as fragmented as metal is. But I would not want to personally be involved in something that narrow.

Anyone else wants to take a stab at it, be my guest.

Really? I think you'd be the perfect person to run the Extreme Metal Wars thread.

[Wpnfire]

The last metal related thread that got much activity was the "which metal type are you thread." It may not have been called, I'm not sure. Someone posted a link to a survey and that got a lot of people involved. That was like, 7 months ago though lol.

Also, I'm just not that interested in listening to undiscovered music recently, I do read most if not all of the posts in all the metal threads, but yeah, I'm just mostly lazy these days.

Originally Posted by Unknown Soldier

For example how many people on here get all hot and excited like me over power metal..... well not many, as they'd sooner listen to their ****ty black metal instead

Pistols at dawn!

[Isbjørn]

Originally Posted by Unknown Soldier

For example how many people on here get all hot and excited like me over power metal..... well not many, as they'd sooner listen to their ****ty black metal instead

Power and black metal are two of my favorite subgenres. It's not as if you can't dig both.