5. Comparing bands (don't)

This may seem like the obvious course of action in some cases, but be advised that we generally frown upon arguments like "you have band A listed and band B is similar, hence you must also accept band B". Please avoid this, as it comes with the following problems:
1) We simply do not work that way. Each band is assessed and judged on its own merit and trying to compare two distinct bands is treacherous business, even if they may sound similar. And if the two are indeed sonic carbon copies, perhaps the listed one should be deleted instead.
2) Since the site lists a (very) small number of non-metal exceptions, one might be tempted to use them as a reference point. However, these are exactly that, exceptions, and not subject to our guidelines on music.
3) Slippery slope. We do not want to base further inclusions solely on one or more listed band(s) that might be questionable or were wrongly approved to begin with. We would rather (re-)assess the proposed inclusion and the compared listed band(s) on their own instead of expanding a part of the database based around repeated instances of a resigned "we'll, we have this, why not this as well?". See item 1). To be clear, nobody thinks that we'd otherwise be doomed to ride into fallacy territory and in danger of including BB King or whatever, but we are quite strict about keeping the database focussed.
4) Most importantly, the Archives can in some ways be seen as a database of metal releases rather than bands. What that means is that in order to gain entry, a band only needs one predominantly metal release (ideally a full-length), regardless of the rest of their discography. This can result in bands starting out as metal, but changing to non-metal later or the reverse. More subtle cases exist, with bands being listed based on a (possibly lesser-known) fraction of their discography. So how does this connect to comparing bands? Well, it's simple: Since we judge releases, comparing band A as a whole to band B as a whole is a fallacious argument when one is actually comparing non-metal output of band A (accepted based on their metal output) to non-metal output of band B (unacceptable because they have no metal output). Consider it one level above arguing that band B should be included because they have a few songs as metal as band A's releases.

So again, each band is judged individually and we don't do the blind approach "A, hence also B".