r/PowerMetal • u/[deleted] • Feb 08 '15
The State of the Subreddit
The subreddit has had a bit of a shake up recently, so I thought it would be a good idea to get some discussion going on where we're headed next now that the dust has settled a bit. We had a bit of unofficial discussion regarding this, but not really in a place that was easily visible and open to comments from all of you guys.
First up, we recently concluded our 2014 year-end awards. The voting stage was a bit briefer than usual, but I wanted to get those out there as soon as possible since they were running later than usual, and voting had sufficiently died down to the point that I felt comfortable ending it. There's been a good amount of critiques regarding the results, so when the 2015 awards draw near we'll (mods and users together) re-examine the process and put in any new methods or rules that we think will improve the results. That said, the awards will always ultimately be a popularity contest, and I don't think too many restrictions should be placed on them.
As /u/70000tonsofmetal brought up, /u/mushmancat has been doing a good bit of CSS and design work for the subreddit, so thanks to him and continue giving him any feedback you have.
/u/Fazermint has been continuing our weekly release threads. My own view is that I'd like to see this become something that's shared between users, particularly so that we might get different perspectives on weekly recommendations, but your input on this would be appreciated, of course.
The sidebar has received a revision as well. We're now making use of our wiki to host the essential albums, along with our yearly awards. This has tidied up the sidebar quite a bit, as well as provide room for anything else we might want to include there in the future.
Regarding the essential albums, redoing the list has been a much discussed matter. In the next few weeks, I'd like to see that effort be taken up.
I'd also like to see more regular 'official' posts for fostering discussions -- discussions for new and old albums and the like. The first will be an discussion based around Blind Guardian's recently released Beyond the Red Mirror to go up in the next few days. I'd like to see these go beyond 'I liked this album' or 'I liked song ____,' so if you'd like to take part give the album a few listens and form some ideas for discussion points!
Lastly, as you've noticed (or not), we've not done any introductions of new rules and such, nor do we plan to. However, we do have a larger and more active moderating team now, so in case incidences require us to give warnings, we will do so. If people continue being disruptive despite those warnings, they may face temporary bans. But we do think that the community does a great job of watching itself, and such occurrences where even warnings would be required are exceedingly rare. Just remember to obey the moderator!
Leave thoughts, questions, concerns, suggestions, and excellent power metal below!
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u/munjakos the Highlander Feb 09 '15 edited Feb 09 '15
I made a revised banner, made the logo smaller so it fits better, changed Polaris artwork with higher resolution one and made the wolf on Pariah's Child cover a bit smaller as well so he fits nicely.
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u/Snake_Byte Epic Metaller Feb 09 '15
Wow thank you very much! Great work
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u/munjakos the Highlander Feb 10 '15 edited Feb 10 '15
I made self post icons as well. Check them out and let me know if any change is necessary. (Text for example)
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Feb 10 '15
Thanks for making these! I put in the dragon 2 button, and we can see what people think of that.
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u/Snake_Byte Epic Metaller Feb 10 '15
Exemplary work, Warrior. Enjoy the gold
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u/munjakos the Highlander Feb 10 '15
Holy shit, thank you, but to be honest i don't even know what can i do with it. I'm going now to check what the hell can i do with it. Thank you again.
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u/fuzzynyanko Buried in a Metal Avalanche Feb 08 '15
Overall this subreddit has been alright. Usually when a popular band releases something, we'll get a flood of band posts for that band because people remember "Ah! These guys exist!", but after a few months, the posts die down
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Feb 09 '15
I might sound like a total douche for suggesting this, but how about a wiki page for band writeups? I'm not the only one doing them, and while there are some in the essential albums list, many others are lost as soon as they're off the front page. I know /u/REkTeR did one of Heavenly not so long ago, and someone did Iron Mask recently as well.
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Feb 09 '15
Not douchey at all, I can make that this afternoon if another mod doesn't get to it first.
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Feb 09 '15
To give an update: I got the wiki page up with a link in the sidebar and have included a number of articles. I'll get more in there soon. Since some articles might be difficult to track down, if anyone has any to point out, feel free to do so.
I couldn't find the Iron Mask one you brought up.
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u/REkTeR My favorite metal's more metal than your favorite metal Feb 11 '15
I believe this might be the one he was talking about.
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Feb 11 '15
Sweet, nice work! Just a heads up, though - the top article under my name says 2014, should be 2015. Just for the next time you're up in there editing stuff.
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Feb 11 '15
Fixed! I guess an unconscious part of me wanted it to still be 2014, despite Blind Guardian's new album.
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u/Phyralis the Dragonrider Feb 10 '15 edited Feb 10 '15
I went all out and made many changes tonight in the stylesheet. A big one, and maybe controversial, is removing the background image. I am hoping people prefer it this way, although I did save it and can put it back if people want that.
The reason for removing it is that it was very messy with too much going on, making it distracting and ugly, in my opinion. Most subreddits don't have a background image, and if they do, it is a lot more simple than that. I do not think it is necessary, but again, the choice is yours: the community's!
Other little changes here and there; if something bothers you or if something is off in the changes, make sure to say something!
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u/mushmancat Sabaton eats farts Feb 10 '15
Looks much better without the background. My only gripe is that I know have an annoying dotted line between the header and comments. Does anyone else have this showing up?
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u/Kweetniks Feb 10 '15 edited Feb 10 '15
I liked the background dragon but I get your point.
You could lower the image's intensity so it doesn't stand out but is still slightly visible?That said. Things look very clean now so it's probably best to not bring back the background image. I'm ok with whatever you guys think is best.
Another thing I'd like to mention. There's something weird going on with the banner in combination with RES.
Here's an image of what the "menu-bar" looks like here compared to /r/funny (It's cut off on the left side)
http://i.imgur.com/0LzOtDz.png
(Also there's a one-pixel wide blue outline on the left and bottom of the powermetal banner)That is all. Thanks for the hard work. :) You guys are doing a great job so far.
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u/Phyralis the Dragonrider Feb 10 '15
So your header is cut off that much? I installed RES to see what you were talking about, but mine reaches to the end of the page. Is it fixed now? Are you zoomed in your browser at all?
Also, I got rid of the blue border on the left and changed the bottom one to a black one.
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u/Kweetniks Feb 10 '15
It's still cut off.
Here's a screenshot from a different computer and it has the same problem.
http://i.imgur.com/ux9E2g3.jpg
It only gets cut off in /r/powermetal .
Both Google Chrome and Firefox have this problem for me. I'm not zoomed in.
I don't mind if it stays like this but I thought that if I have this problem, others might have it too and it's only on this subreddit.
Thanks btw.2
u/Phyralis the Dragonrider Feb 10 '15
Oh! I finally see what you mean now. I will figure it out.
EDIT: Done.
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u/Harfatum Feb 10 '15
I think the background was slightly too intrusive, but I am still in favor of having something (besides the up/downswords) that makes the page look like /r/powermetal when you're not at the very top.
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u/Phyralis the Dragonrider Feb 11 '15
Do you have any ideas for something like that?
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u/Harfatum Feb 12 '15
Well, someone mentioned the Smash Brothers subreddit at /r/smashbros and I thought that was a good example.
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u/Snake_Byte Epic Metaller Feb 09 '15
I would appreciate any time an album comes out there could be an official self post made for discussion of it.
I'd also agree a re-doing of the essentials list by the community should be done if enough people want it re-visited.
I don't have any major gripes with the way the sub looks (great job /u/mushmancat) except I would say ditch having Joakim as our self-text icon lest we are accused of favouritism :)
Maybe the background needs an update, depending what people think?
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u/PiTheKhoz Feb 09 '15
I agree with getting rid of Joakim as the self-text icon
Like, it was funny for a while, and pretty fitting while the 2014 election results were posted, but I don't think it should be a permanent fixture
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u/omegakingauldron Luca Turilli stole my sharpie! Feb 08 '15
When it comes to the essential albums, will we be looking at bands as a whole, going album by album to decide which one is the "essential one" or are we going to rely on superfans to step up and give us a rundown on which one(s) are recommended and essential?
Also, I am kicking around a discussion thread idea, but held off this weekend as I felt it would have been lost in the shuffle with what occurred.
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Feb 08 '15
We can talk about the process when we get to it, but it'll probably be based more around albums than bands (while keeping in mind that there are some bands that definitely need to be on there).
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u/weebigrob247 Feb 08 '15
I think that all the changes so far have been good and I thank all the mods for their work. Regarding the discussion posts, would they be accessible from the wiki page after they have died down? I think that would be a nice resource to have.
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u/Enemy-to-Injustice Hunter of Lost Dreams Feb 09 '15
I love the CSS work, especially the new font and tidier look to the right-hand bar. It looks much better with the essential albums being a single link too.
If we redo the essential albums list, I think each person should be able to vote 2 albums: 1 is what they consider the best PM album ever, and the other 1 is what they choose is the best from the old list. That way we don't get too spammed with album suggestions, and the merit of the old list is still honored. Each band can only have 1 album represent them, etc.
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u/Godker Feb 09 '15
Sounds great, I'm looking forwards to the Beyond the Red Mirror Discussion Thread.
Keep up the good work!
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Feb 09 '15
I'm not much of a fan of the CSS changes, I gotta say.
Also, since you know Optimus Rhyme, were you maybe on the Nintendo NSider Forums back in the day?
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u/WingsOfDespair Feb 09 '15
The CSS work is great! Are we going to host any AMA like the Keldian one here on the subreddit?
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Feb 09 '15
Hopefully - it depends on band interest. If you have a way of contacting a band that might be interested, feel free to reach out to them.
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u/rcfox Feb 10 '15
According to my tags:
- /u/ametalfellow is a member of Viathyn
- /u/mshabooboo is the vocalist of Lords of the Trident
- /u/ColeR832 played with PelleK
Also, /u/Hammerforce used to post his own stuff in this subreddit. I haven't seen him in a while though.
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u/Harfatum Feb 10 '15
Can we finally get a fix for the redundancy in the sidebar?
"I mean given custom flair, which is tantamount to the same thing."
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Feb 10 '15
Put in some new text. I also took the opportunity to reflect that anyone who makes quality contributions to the sub on a frequent basis will be rewarded with flair, rather than just submitting links.
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u/psychoconductor The Devil’s Gambler Feb 10 '15
Just an idea, since we will never agree on the sidebar albums, maybe have links to the individual lists of flaired members, for instance?
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u/creamweather Hammerheart Feb 11 '15
I like what they are doing in /r/Metal with the weekly spotlight albums. We could do something like that to sort of induct albums onto the essentials list.
Also the new page looks great!
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u/BlackTeaWithMilk <3 Symphonic / Happy / Melodic Feb 12 '15
Now that the essential albums list is moved off the sidebar, we have more room. It'd be great if we could label each album with a few descriptive words / subgenres to help guide newbies.
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u/mattigummi Feb 13 '15
I noticed in the Top section that there are no numbers next to the post score to show the post's rank.
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u/Holyrapid Feb 11 '15
I just messaged the mods about this, after seeing Elan leaked for a second time, but i'd also like to ask the community about this.
How would you feel if we banned posting early/leaked songs? If an artist shares it themselves it would be fine, it would just have to be labeled as WIP or something similar depending on the state of the song, but if it was a leak it would be deleted and the poster given a warning and after repeated offenses (case-by-case basis, if someone constantly post either the same song or other songs that are leaked) they would eventually get temp banned.
It wouldn't be for long, just a few weeks at first and rising if they keep it up.
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Feb 11 '15
My stance is this: direct links to any torrents/torrent sites are not allowed. Links to sites such as youtube/soundcloud are allowed. If content is posted there that an artist or label doesn't want, they have very easy means of taking it down - power that they usually don't have on torrent sites. I don't think it's the place of the mods to forbid links like this: whether or not people want to post and listen to leaks is up to each individual, and I don't think one person's view should determine the actions of another. As I said, if the song owner has an issue with a song being online, they can deal with it at the source.
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u/Phyralis the Dragonrider Feb 08 '15 edited Feb 08 '15
In terms of the CSS, I have enjoyed some changes but am bothered by others. What has been done recently, in terms of making everything smaller, including the background and some spacing between comments, have made the subreddit look very messy and incosistant. It'd be nice to see this subreddit resized to proper subreddit sized like every other one, including the currently cut-off background. Other things, such as the sidebar and the upvote/neutral/downvote colors, have been changed in positive ways.
EDIT: In terms of the background, maybe removing it is a valid thing. Backgrounds are very iffy, especially for forums and such. Maybe someone who is any decent at design can come up with a theme for the place, specifically in terms of the post layout. See /r/Overwatch, /r/Smashbros, and /r/CodAW (I'm so sorry) as examples.
EDIT 2: Keep aspects of the theme consistant. At the moment, the "distinguished mod post" colors and sticky colors are different. I imagine it would be a good idea to keep those colors consistant. The stickied post color should probably be different than other posts as well, rather than just being a bolded version of the same (or very similar) color.
I would not mind taking part in the weekly release threads. Are the releases mostly grabbed from Metal Archives? What other sources might be used?
Redoing the Essential Albums list, as I have already said, is never a bad thing. Either more people come to an agreement before and the list becomes more "perfected", or nothing changes and there was nothing negative about the discussion.
I would definitely be up for album discussions. I have thought about them in the past, and would definitely be willing to help keep these on track with the new releases. I am wondering if there is a way to get 2 stickied posts? Maybe with modifications or a CSS edit?
In terms of rules, the only thing that I would appreciate is if we officially endorsed (Band - Song Title) as opposed to (Song Title - Band) to keep things organized and to avoid confusion.
I haven't been around too much the past week between work, school, being sick, and very tired, but soon I'll start posting more and start coming up with ideas for the subreddit.