I've noticed a huge amount of orphan artists (or at least I think they are) which have not been related to any band since 2011 or 2012 (so they are not artists from bands in the queue). I've read somewhere in these forums there are automatic purges, so I think something must be wrong with my understanding of what an orphan artist is or how the site works to this extent.

You only need to type a common name, like Jack:
http://www.metal-archives.com/artists/Jack/420131
http://www.metal-archives.com/artists/Jack/245372

etc.

Am I missing something?

Hello, BlackFlag.

It so happens that those two artists are attached to bands that are still drafts or on the queue.

OK, the oldest band on the queue was entered in March, 12th, so I doubt these two artists are featured in any of those.

Now... I don't understand how people can add drafts (as I understand drafts as provisional entries which have to be added at some moment -minutes, hours, maybe days-) and putting them on rest for a year and a half. Does users even know those drafts are still pending?

And another question:
What does happen to artists only featured on rejected bands? Are their profiles automatically erased or they remain as drafts ad infinitum?

Looks like they're only connected to unsubmitted drafts. Or previously rejected submissions that the respective users returned to draft status.


Well, people casually submit stuff, it gets rejected, they re-draft it and kind of forget about it again. Just one simple example. People abandon their accounts all the time, without "cleaning up" first. There's a million different ways drafts and their artist can be in limbo for years. Also, drafts are not "pending" in any kind of sense. They are unsubmitted bands "waiting" for the user to submit them to the queue. There is no time limit for having drafts per se and there is no need for one.

Admins such as myself (not mods) can purge deleted/rejected bands, but not drafts. That's something only Morri and HB can do and I'm not sure if the purges you speak of are automatic or done by them on a semi-regular basis. The owners are currently on vacation until early April, so we have to wait till they come back to answer that.

Every staffer can delete any kind of artist entry, though.


No, not automatically, they need to get deleted manually. See above.

I've understood how it works, but I still fail to see much utility of those profiles for artists if bands they are related to can't be shown to general public. In fact, these "people" has profiles on MA without knowing if they had, have or will have any relation to any legit metal band. I think it's very easy to cheat on rules this way, so any user could have dozens of artists which would never have nothing to do with metal and those profiles stay in limbo. Somebody could even create a profile for his mother included in a fictional band in drafts just because he wants his family tree to be on the Internet, or profiles for members of plain Rock bands like Héroes del Silencio, when this band is yet split and will never be related to anything metal.
http://www.metal-archives.com/artists/J ... via/450431
http://www.metal-archives.com/artists/A ... sky/450438

Thank you all for your time. You helped me a lot

I don't think I see the problem. People create drafts, add artists for those, submit them. You know the rest. Provided the entries are only connected to non-approved pages they are empty except for the few general info fields. I'm not even sure they are googleable. And as established earlier, lingering draft orphans are purged in some fashion after a while. In a possibly irregular fashion, granted, but nonetheless. Maybe some are overlooked, I guess, but how are the rules cheated that way? We can't and definitely shouldn't start regulating what drafts people are allowed to make. Yeah, we had lots of weird stuff in unsubmitted drafts, but what harm does that do exactly? I just don't see the issue here.

How can one tell whether the artists below, for instance, are attached to drafts, pending or yet to be submitted, or to rejected bands that may have long been deleted rendering these entries purgeable residue? True, this isn't a big issue, but is there a way to know when to flag such entries for removal and when not to? Moreover, while it may not sound like a sound suggestion, wouldn't it be convenient to disable adding artists to a band until the submission's been approved?

http://www.metal-archives.com/artists/Maik/495082
http://www.metal-archives.com/artists/Maik/593425
http://www.metal-archives.com/artists/d ... aik/567794

I'm not sure you should be flagging them for removal. Seems pointless to me, stuff's purged every once in a while. If ancient drafts become a problem one day, I'm sure it'll be a lot handier to purge them with a tool instead of deleting each of them manually.

Got it.