Well, from MA's point of view, our fundamental purpose is to be a comprehensive database of all bands with metal releases out there, which does include those which have problematic content. However, that's the limit of what we aim to do. Beyond the basics, we do not want to promote or enable NS/racist/etc. content on the site. MA has to balance its purpose, which is to be an informative and ideally objective source, while at the same time not falling into the trap of being a tool for promotion or recruitment. We know that bands do use the site as a promotional tool, even though that isn't its purpose, but we aim to limit what NS/racist/etc. bands can do for using us to promote their ideologies and beliefs. For instance, we've blocked and removed links to merch and other websites which don't serve to support MA's informative purpose. We also remove promotional material on the forums, as well as on band and artist pages. We're also less forgiving when it comes to bands and their themes. It's not a perfect system, but it's one we are proactive on.
Reviews provide a complication, arguably, to this balancing act. On the one hand, they do help our purpose by being informative about describing the music of the album. On the other hand, they're not particularly objective, and arguably anything beyond describing the music of the album, its history, and how it was developed are superfluous to MA's purpose. This is one of the many reasons why we stress that reviews should focus on describing the music of the album. We're not a soapbox for individuals and their beliefs. For the most part, this has meant that many reviews for problematic albums actually do get rejected more often than not, because some reviewers can't help using their reviews to spread their beliefs. Sometimes it's subtle, but other times it's not, but in both cases it's clear when a reviewer only wants to review an album, not because they genuinely care about the merits of the music, but because they want to use it to support and promote an album's content. When we say that we judge reviews of problematic albums more harshly than others, this is largely what we mean. It is often pretty hard for some people who review these types of albums not to inject their own bigotry into the writing of the review. We notice, and we reject. In the past, some review mods didn't care as much about that, and so there are some reviews still on MA that should be removed, but that's an ongoing process.
That said, yeah, reviews of problematic albums which are undoubtedly positive could pose an issue when it comes to promotion, and I'm not entirely sure what the solution is there - if it warrants one. Even if a reviewer was to write the most acceptable review which focuses on describing the music of the album, and their rating is still positive, that can be used by the band to spread their ideologies. The band could point to that review, spread it themselves, or even just let people organically see the positive review and rating on their own, and let the album and the beliefs underlying it gain clout and popularity that way. In reverse, yeah, negative reviews do much the same, just in that case discouraging people from checking out the album. Up until now, our policy is that you can review any album on the site, but should we maybe consider disallowing reviews of certain albums or bands? How would that work, and what should be the limitations there? Or, should we just continue on as we are now? Or, do we only accept negative reviews, even though that opens up the fact the site would be interfering and manipulating information, which is not something that fulfills our goal to be overseers, not participants in the data we collect. I'm not entirely sure.
On a personal level, I do feel the system we have in place now where we scrutinize reviews of problematic albums more carefully is a good one, but I will admit that seeing the review challenge used as a vehicle to drop 9 mostly positive reviews for a NS band is a little disheartening - even though I have nothing against the reviewer for doing so. You didn't do anything against our rules. But, taken from an outsider's point of view, I could certainly see how some people might say that it shows we as a community condone those positive reviews and therefore the band and its albums, and that the challenge is comfortable with it.
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R.I.P. Diamhea 1987-2018 Live young, die free. Gone, but not forgotten.
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