Hello everyone, take a seat. If you think this is too much to read, you'll probably get banned, so listen up.

These forums have been around for a long time; I've been posting here myself for 5 1/2 years as of this post, and for 2 1/2 of those I've been a moderator. In that time the forum has seen a lot of changes. When I started out, there were just five subforums for general users, and now there are nine. The userbase was much smaller back then too, and there was a sort of "small town" feel to the place; everyone knew everyone else and there was a lot of common ground between us. While people certainly still got banned then, often for much less than they do now, there was a sort of fun-loving, easy-going feel to the place, with a lot of running jokes and leeway when it came to funny shit. Some people may remember the old sticky in S&C that served as a Metal Archives glossary of sorts, explaining some of those running jokes, but I could probably count on my fingers the people still around today who actually saw those jokes in action. Some may remember the AFMF, but how about the Bullshit Begone Brigade? The Metal Inquisition? The Council of Twelve? And then there are the former staff and regulars who have since retired - Esoteric for example is a name everyone who uses this forum sees every time they're here, and he's been gone so long even I barely remember what he was like. If he remembers me at all, which I doubt, he'd probably be pretty surprised to see me as a moderator.

But as the site got bigger and more popular, the userbase grew by leaps and bounds; soon it was too big for everyone to know everyone else, and wtih the constant influx of new blood came the constant repetition of old topics. No longer interested in the same recycled discussions and no longer recognizing the shifting face of the forums, most of the regulars drifted away, to be replaced by mostly faceless noobs. This was especially evident in 2007, when it was pretty much just Nightgaunt and PhantomOTO holding down the fort in the forum. True, we have gained some new regulars, and many of them are pretty worthwhile guys. There are also certainly some benefits that have come with the changes. But the old mentality of the forum has nevertheless been lost. Maybe it's just nostalgia, maybe it's because I was much newer to metal back when I joined and everything felt more exciting, or maybe working on the staff here has made me old and bitter before my time, but I miss the old forum. I liked it better, and I know a lot of other people feel the same way.

This raises the question: what, then, is to be done? Do we accept that we'll never get the old forum back, and let it change on its own as we keep the peace and hope for the best? Or do we try to divert the flow, and change the forum into a place we actually enjoy posting in? Well, the choice for me at least is obvious. The how of it is less so, but suffice to say there will be some changes around here, mostly concerning how long we will suffer fools. "Respect Month" was a precursor to this: from now on we're going to be observing and enforcing social rules much more strictly. People around here are going to be polite, or they're going to be shown the door. There will be observance of proper spelling and grammar, within reason. You will all act like adults, because this is a forum for adults; if you want to post like a child, I'm sure there are many other forums that tolerate and even welcome such behavior.

Now, anuses do not have to slam shut, most of the current regulars will know what's expected without having to be told. We aren't saying "if you don't have anything nice to say, then don't say anything at all." But there is a line. You all know where it is, even though some of you love to cross it; we won't tolerate that any longer. If someone is behaving in a manner that warrants being shown the door, the moderators will take care of it. The proper behavior for the average user in such cases is to ignore the offender. We already ban people for saying "IBTL" and similar nonsense, and we'll start treating people who act like mini-mods the same way. We've been doing this for years, so leave modding to the mods.

The long and the short of it is, this site has and always will be about metal. For a while now the forums have revolved around other things, and in fact there are many people here with thousands of posts who barely post about metal at all. But none of the staff really gives a shit about the Tavern or the Symposium, beyond our duties. If you want to keep them around, then do your best to make them into places worth our time and effort to keep open.

April Fool's.

So this April Fool's "prank" wasn't as much a prank as it was a lesson for all of us. To show us what it would be like to lose the Tavern and Symposium...

I've always enjoyed posting on MA, but sometimes there is a lot of shit to sort through to find the good stuff, and every once in a while a thread comes up that is so epic in its own right ("New Heathen..." thread) that it ought to be archived and backed up and saved on some hard drive somewhere. I've been posting on MA for five years, joined originally around March 2005 (or was it May, can't remember) - Obviously under an older name, an old exoskeleton I have since shed.

i really hope more people besides me and maybe Goatfangs take the time to read all that. i really like the atmosphere and people here, and i don't want to lose it. i agree the tavern and symposium really are unnecessary on a metal forum, but it's nice to have them to just kick back and shoot the shit every once in a while. as for regulars coming and going, i think there's still a nicely knit community here. i'm sure it's not the same as it was 3 years ago, but since i've been here i'd like to think i've come to somewhat know or understand, however much you can do that online, a couple of posters and their attitudes here.

i've been apart of another forum for 4 years now that i've since become a mod on, and i agree that things start to slow down once you reach that point, it seems. i was so excited at first joining and posting with others and musicians there for the first year or two, and it just seemed like some of the regulars just drifted away and the old atmosphere was lost. i like to think it's still somewhat there in the spirits of the veterans still around, and we try to recreate that, just as you guys do here, but what good would a forum be if it didn't evolve? i think you guys are proud to have the biggest metal forum on the web, rather than just a small community. it's really something when musicians who we come here to talk about actually visit and post on this site as well under their own user names. that's an honor, i'd think.

Yeah, I've only been here going on two years, and rarely do I even post, but I do sense the change - a lot of which has to do with the change in users. A few days ago I logged in and didn't see many familiar names. I see thread upon thread composed 100% of screen names I don't even recognize, profiles that were made only weeks or days before. And I'm seeing less Empyreal, Olio, Ribos, OneRodeToAsaBay...and where the hell is Kruel?

But just because there's a massive wave of new users doesn't mean this place has to start blowing. All the posters I just mentioned were new at one point, of course. The more new users are encouraged to discuss effectively and respectfully, and engaged, and the less we 'feed trolls', the more likely this place is to retain the awesomeness it had and still has.

Very well, I shall adhere to this new policy. I agree that what is spoken of in this post is vital, mainly the forechoice of posts with good spelling and grammar over childish ones and the point that this is mainly a heavy metal forum, although I will admit that I am happy that The Tavern and The Symposium have been returned. Nevertheless, I hope that at least the vast majority, if not all of the board members, will read the new policy and follow it.

I believe this to be good thing - a step in the right direction. I've been a member for almost five years (with long absences of leave occasionally), and things have changed, mostly among the style of users. There are many new members, who are mainly faceless, and at times extremely asinine and ignorant. It could be an age thing (definitely a population thing), I don't know, and don't really care to check every annoying bastards profile for their age and whatnot, but I do know that a tightening of the rules of conduct, will only produce a more enjoyable experience on this great facility.

I do revel in coming online here and discussing/arguing about a great and personal passion of mine - Metal, with a lot of the regulars on here, and those who actually have something to say and contribute, but the nuisance users...... they become a pain in the neck at times (not saying I will be completely blameless). Keeping them on their toes will be a useful deterrent.

And the Tavern and Symposium area great place to have a laugh or discussion at times when you feel like it.

To me, this is excellent news. Although I haven't really been a long time member, even I have noticed a decline. Often, the boards turn into warzones with hardly any metal being discussed at all. I remember what attracted me to this forums in the first place was the general friendly atmosphere. Lately, threads are being locked every day because of the same morons, and it's good to know that this might change. Of course, this puts the mods in an awkward position, because it's hard not to come off as an asshole when dealing with such situations, but I think cracking down is the right move.

Although I am new to this forum (less than 2 years) and therefore missed the decline, I can understand why you would want to improve it. I hope that this forum gets better, although it is still better than most.

im a new poster on here so cant really say whats it was like before, but for me its the best metal forum on the net and should be kept up at the heights.

This is a very good step in the right direction. It seems like the forum as a whole has been moving away from its original direction- to discuss metal, and all things related to it. It was time for a change, and even if it's just a change in behavior and not a physical forum change, it is more than welcome. I wish all the mods luck.

I haven't really been here long enough to relate to failsafeman's post (I lurked the forum occasionally + read reviews since early 2008) but I can definitely sympathize with the general sentiment. I was a regular on a politics forum from 2005 to 2007, and left because of the decline of the 'small town atmosphere' and the increase in repitition of done-to-death topics as the user population grew.

Very good OP, definitely something people should read and keep in mind as far as making MA a better online community goes.

Noted. His word is law.

By the way, What is IBTL?

"In before the lock." Obvious in its use, I should think.


I do hope that the increased moderation and the decreased tolerance of blatant trolls and the like will help make this a more well-kept forum. There don't seem to be many downsides (at least for me) from what I've read, other than the possibility of the Tavern being closed. It's always nice to be able to talk about other things you enjoy/care about with people who share a common interest. It can be a great asset to the forum if used properly, though I suppose it isn't exactly "necessary."

Mmm, people are too chippy and soulless is all. The clear solution would to be to ban people without personalities!!!

It's happened to another forum that I modded on, except it wasn't a flux of new users, it was a lack thereof. I agree on the point where the same topics are rehashed constantly, which is why the general forum is an INTEGRAL part of any successful non-shitty forum. It's a place to figure out what the people behind the usernames are really like.

Removing the general forum would definitely dial up the boredom factor.

The main point of the OP is definitely on the mark, and even though when I read the thread title, I SWORE I head those aforementioned assholes slam shut (gay joke here), but the majority points are fairly applicable. I think it would go a long way for some of the younger users to stop eviscerating each other on the dancefloor.

Oddly enough, this comes right after Doomworld cracked down on "in before Post Hell" posts.

Meh, I'm still around, just feeling less inclined to post my thoughts on things. Whether that has much or anything to do with the changing state of the forum, I can't rightly tell.

Although, one thing that I do know has been bugging me for a while is the growing tendency to complain about certain posters or the new wave of posters as a whole. These complaints don't do anything but clutter threads with whining and bitching. It certainly hasn't done anything to better the forum.

I personally like this new policy, because, as TheJizzHammer said, everyone was new at some point. And all new posters take a while to find their place in the forum and get accustomed to its ways. This new policy of politeness (I hope) should remove at least some of the whining and shit flinging. In conjunction with the tightened views on grammar/spelling, newer posters will be shown by example how people are expected to act and will become quality posters in time.

I'm mostly busy with school and this place was really wearing out its welcome for a while...but don't worry, I still listen to metal!

The new policy is a great idea. Maybe the amount of dumbfucks will finally start to decrease. I think the forum really went downhill before April Fool's Day, mostly due to an increase in just plain old morons flooding it with their insipid bullshit and whining. It was to no fault of the staff here, and with this new policy I can only assume it will get better. Looks good, guys.

This is coming from the perspective of one who lurks far more than posts.

I can't say it isn't a logically sound change in policy. I've never found much interest in the Tavern or Symposium in the first place, and even that has waned over some time now. Stale is how I'd describe the atmosphere; despite clicking both forums one or twice a day, I rarely find discussions worth reading, much less participating in.

I'd be careful about getting caught in the whirlpool of nostalgia. As a veteran of "joining at the wrong spot in the timeline" nothing is more discouraging than seeing a constant wave of, "Sigh, remember when things were good? Y'know, back when we'd kick back on the grass during a hot and windy August afternoon, a blade of grass stuck between our teeth? Back when our hearts were restless and our vision nameless? Those were swell times."

Yeah, that gets to you, and it creates a rather unwelcoming atmosphere.

A forum is no different from any other style of community. People settle in, coexist, and move out like clockwork. Instead of lamenting on past members and times, would it not make more sense to try and assimilate the newer members, people who have an obvious interest in your community?

Perhaps that was a bit of a tangent, but I feel it was necessary for the point. This announcement is a good example of policy change, and I doubt many will dispute that; however, in the future it might be better to express said policy changes in a form more akin to an inspirational pep talk. Y'know, as opposed to a discouraging tale of times past and golden ages.

Absolutely well said, Khull!

"Good ol' days" come and go. Right now, new and old users are having days that, in years to come, will be remembered as "Good ol days", and in the future, there will be "Good ol days" that will be remembered further along. In short, there are always "Good ol' days"

Times change, they don't change back to the way they were before, they either improve or deteriorate, kinda like a roller coaster. This site experienced massive growth since 2005, and while a lot of the topics are stagnant, there is always something worthwhile, so overall, since 2005, this site improved by leaps and bounds.

Khull and Goatfangs kind of said what I wanted too. I'm pretty sure every single forum I've been too gets caught up in "the good ol' days" from time to time. It always seems a bit too dramatic. Admittedly my activity has dropped a lot over the years and I really only check a few threads exclusively now, so maybe I haven't seen this "decline", but yeah. Regardless this is still one of my favorite boards that I've been consistent with checking up on.

In response to the last three posts, I would gently point out that two of the three posters have not been around long enough to have seen the "good ol' days" of the board for themselves, and thus don't really know how it has changed since then. The third is a pretty good example of part of the problem: a regular user whose activity has dropped a lot over the years.

As for sitting back and dwelling on the "good ol' days," I advocate nothing of the sort, nor did I in the initial post. Instead I say we ought to work on making the forum a new and better place, such that the "good ol' days" are here and now. I'm sorry if I don't come across as very inspirational or welcoming...but that's only because I'm neither.

Well... touche'.

Wow. I just realized Ive been a member for 4 years on here... and yet I have less than 300 posts.

I guess its because I had originally signed up to submit album reviews while skipping the forums completely. Its only recently that Ive started posting in the forums...and from my experience, it seems like a nice place. I enjoy the Symposium and the Musicians section the most.

The 'good ol' days' whilst fun, and exciting (I'll admit at the time from a personal perspective at least) did have a lot of chest puffing and exclusive boys club mentality 'like what I like or yo gonna get flamed biatch' type stuff. It's really no more than a step or two away from what you have here now, the only major difference is that you had well known posters, held up as paragons of metal taste (mostly for the wrong reasons, I may add) to hold up the standards and "fight for Metal."

If anyone did anything similar these days they'd get banned. Pretty much how the Post-Eso heirarchy has worked.

Lament all you will, but I don't remember you or most of the other current mods contributing in any massive way back in those 'good ol' days' either.

People cry foul about forums all day and how they are going downhill, then changes finally come in and they agree with them, but does their attitude ever change? Not for most. They never contribute anything that makes either a "better forum" or a "return to the good ol' days."

The most effective way of showing them is not by brute force (locking or deleting every thread in sight, or excess banning - because there's always going to be new idiots to replace the old) - it is by setting an example with your own posting, I mean you're an authority figure people pay attention to you so use it. I think that is the difference between the leaders of the past and the current day ones in that they set and provided a certain culture. I probably don't even mean the admins alone in that post either.

Sure, we're all busy, but if you want a better forum, is that a valid excuse?

Well, antagonistic tone and dubious motives aside, I actually agree with you for the most part. As for you not remembering me contributing much in the old days, you're right; I didn't. I was a normal user who more or less ended up filling the void left by the "old guard" when they departed for greener pastures. Then again, I don't remember anyone named "Mishalra" posting back then either - but how many Aussie ANUSites could there be? The problem with moderating a forum is that, for us, negative reinforcement is much easier than positive reinforcement. We can punish pretty effectively, but not reward, custom title nonsense notwithstanding. So, we end up with a bunch of people who know how to be just smart enough to avoid getting banned, but who don't necessarily know how to - or even want to - behave better than that.

As for setting an example, well, duties aside I post around here more than any of the other staff. I'm one of the few who haven't written the forum off altogether, and frankly I think the threads I frequent do pretty well (not that you'd have noticed much, given our wildly different tastes). But I can't be everywhere, nor do I know enough to post about everything (besides which a board where I post everywhere about everything sounds terrible). Regardless of whatever authority I may have, most of the burden in the content generation department is going to have to fall on the regular users. Of course, one of the main problems is that the regular users represent a much smaller percentage of the overall population than they did before, which means we need either more or more vociferous regulars. Got any extras?

To be fair to you, you're probably one of the better mods at still remembering to be a poster at the same time.

I thought I'd just throw my 2 cents out there since I do remember what this place was like until at least as far back as 2002.

My original username was registered [s]early 2005[/s] March 3, 2006. Before that, I browsed the site casually, and before that I relied on Yahoo! Music and Wikipedia for metal info.



On the contrary, you are quite inspirational - especially since the people here are indeed capable of making this forum a new and better place.

I couldn't agree more with the mod's decision about not suffering fools. It's pretty much an essential policy to keep any forum awesome as the years go by. In my case, I share some of the nostalgia of the people in these threads but for different reasons.

I registered here in late 2008 and only began posting very recently but I've been a regular viewer of Metal Archives pretty much since it's inception in 2002. I consider it one of those essential sites of my youth. When I was first shown Metal Archives by one of my close buddies, I was in Grade 10 and now I'm posting here as an adult with a career and it's really encouraging to see that the site has done so well for itself for so long. I never knew what the forums were like way back when but I do enjoy them now and hope they'll stay awesome. The Tavern and Symposium seem like pretty cool places so far, but maybe after I explore a bit more I'll change my mind!

I guess I do have a question about the new rules actually:
Are the mods planning on deleting bad threads that get locked or are they just going to let them sit there?

I can't really find anything that I disagree with. I used to post here under a different name many years ago, so I've seen some of the things that you are talking about, Failsafeman. I, too, miss the good old days. Like you, I wonder if it's because I was newer to metal back then, or if everything really was better. Either way, I essentially agree with what you've said.

Ok, I think we all get that failman is cool...certainly not as cool as me though.

Let's just leave it all at that and adhere to the rules of the forum. Be productive, make worthwhile contributions and don't troll. This forum can be a very good one. Everything on the subject that needed to be said, has been said.

Unlocked for those who want to argue whether or not janitoring the board beyond cleaning up puke and hosing away corpses and poop is necessary.

I will be watching.

Yes. I think it is. I think the boards have deteriorated even more since you guys posted this, (since the beginning of April). I actively avoid coming here except for a topic or two because there is so much shit in MetDisc. The poster quality has gone down an incredible amount so far. I feel when anybody tries to start an interesting topic it gets run over by bullshit and one liners.

I began posting sometime in 2003 or 2004 under my old moniker and I stopped being a regular back around 2007 or 2008. As forums grow in popularity then more and more users arrive and with it a lot of shit. The atmosphere when I first joined was very family oriented where people all poked fun at each other but always seemed happy with one another. Much of the general atmosphere shifted quite a lot over time to where people were often pricks to each other and very quick to put down 'noobs'. I remember going back and reading old topics from 2003 or so a while back and the difference in attitudes was very noticeable. I stopped being a regular for a long while cause I got tired of the attitudes around here being so unfriendly and the repetitive topics (and i got addicted to WoW). I get the sense now mods are less lenient on what is acceptable posting and I will back them up 100% as the leniency of behavior was becoming abused. It is making it more enjoyable for me to browse here again anyways.

Actually I would say the opposite, not that I'm claiming credit.

Currently active topics in MetDisc with good discussion:
http://www.metal-archives.com/board/vie ... hp?t=66476

http://www.metal-archives.com/board/vie ... hp?t=66606

http://www.metal-archives.com/board/vie ... hp?t=66612

http://www.metal-archives.com/board/vie ... hp?t=66649

And possibly others. That is far more than we usually have.