From what i've been able to tell over the past few months most recent releases by the band "Sloth (Cleveland)" is that they are mp3/digital files, often one song each, releases. I haven't been on the site much since 2011/2012 so i'm still not entirely sure what qualifies under the "digital" release rule that was recently added, but i believe it applies to full lengths with distribution, which these are not, they're mostly songs added one by one to their bandcamp page.

If more information is needed i can figure out which ones are official releases (digital full length or physical albums) but from what i can tell every release from 2012 and 2013 with the name "Single" are not official releases. Since 2011 there has only been a split 7'' released this year and a couple tape demos/eps released in 2012.

Ive seen digital singles on other bands here as well recently.

Is this allowed by the rules, or should i report them when i see it?

I'm personally for archiving that type of information regardless. Sure, it's a stupid way to release music and the band probably know that, but I don't think there's anything that makes those any less "legitimate" than, say, other releases by any other band. If the band acknowledge them as official releases, it'd defy the website's ideal of completionist levels of detail to exclude them, and the band, ultimately, have the final say in what is and isn't part of their discography.

Digital singles are a somewhat contentious issue. There was a certain semi-rule in the past that it needs to be available for purchase (which precludes free singles), but that's not really site policy now from what I gather. I would also disagree with that approach as I feel it's too arbitrarily selective and rigid.

I pretty much agree with Mutant's thoughts on this, if an already approved artist sees fit to release music that way and considers it a valid, separate single in his or her discography, then we should reflect that. If it has its own accompanying cover art, even better. (although I would not say it's an absolute requirement in every case) That being said, there's still the requirement of that single being available to the public in some fashion, i.e. as a download, so video uploads on Youtube or Streams on Soundcloud shouldn't qualify if that's all there is.

Also, don't confuse album previews or such with valid singles. Although I guess it's a fine line sometimes.

I'm the one adding most of them (this started long before I began doing it though). I have the page bookmarked and am following along with the new tracks posted virtually every other day. Kind of crazy scenario really. Every track is purchasable for $1.50 and there is no intention on them ever being part of an album. The "Cover art" is a picture on the web of some cute little animal and the title of the track is made up to go with the picture. And on top of that, every song is virtually the same. Just 8-11 minutes of a wall of noise and almost nothing else in any track.

Delete this band or every Noise Grind band can release 100 singles instead of one release with 100 tracks and then appear at the top of the bands...

Noisegrind isn't metal. Assuming one of the three bands on here that formerly played it reverts back to the style (or a random band starts playing it), there's nothing that says they can't release 100 (or 500) noisegrind-styled singles, so long as they have a valid, actual metal release, which those three have.

Just noticed this "single", from bandcamp. (1) The full-length album, which contains the single, was released in late June, so it precedes the single, which is quite odd. (2) The single was upload to douban, xiami and other Chinese websites well before June and was just for streaming purpose. And the cover art on bandcamp is for the full-length album (proof), so I would naturally assume that the this track is purely for promotional purpose, so it would not be fit for the discography.

This brings us back to the old question: Should every track uploaded to BANDCAMP, for sale or not, be considered a valid release and thus part of the discography? If not, what constitutes to be a valid single (acceptable in MA)? For example, on Agalloch's bandcamp, there are the singles "The weight of darkness" and "Nihil totem", but no one intended to add them to MA because they are obviously not "true singles". If these two singles, having special covers, do not qualify into MA, then how could the abovementioned single qualify?

Theoretically, yes. Unless it is marked/presented as as "rough mix" or some sort of unfinished earlier permutation of a then-upcoming release, we document what gets uploaded on Bandcamp without too many conditions. At the same time, we don't delete releases and otherwise try to keep up with band flippancy when it comes to Bandcamp as a whole. If something was available, even if only for a day, we document that, period. If the band removes it and tries to claim it never existed, tough. This is a huge issue we are dealing with, this sort of Bandcamp revisionism



Who says they aren't "True singles?" They are valid digital singles based on your description of them.

Then that becomes quite interesting, because looking through the mod history of Agalloch's page, there was indeed no one that tried to add those "singles", and there is no doubt that a famous band like Agalloch would attract many viewers and contributors daily, which definitively shows that there is a consensus among a lot of metal listeners that certain "singles" are not fit for MA! If that were not the case, many people would have tried many times to complete the discography by adding those singles, which did not even happen once. (I recall that if an album entry is deleted, it still has a remnant in the mod history, like "[user] added album - ". Such a remnant does not exist in Agalloch's page.)

Anyway, let me add those singles to Agalloch's page and see what ensues. (I'm not point-whoring~~~)

Not surprising, since the guidelines haven't been published yet concerning these minutiae. Put "Bandcamp" in the description field to help clarify (this is my protocol).