You spew your opinions worse than a bible thumping Jesus freak...

[Baroque]

I'm glad to read this discussion. I always thought some of the bickering around here was over the top and uncalled for. Sorry to be part of the problem for once.

On topic I agree with people saying that dividing the forum is probably not a good idea. I mean the Thrash thread is slow enough as is. It would also make it more difficult to browse the forum for multiple genre people like me. I'd have to open a page for Thrash, Death, Doom, Progressive, and whatever else I get into in the future instead of just 1 page.

Also I think Temporary bans might be another option to add to your arsenal. Often banning is overkill and warnings are underkill. A 3-7 day ban would definitely get the point across. There was a forumer awhile back (forget his name, he had a Suffocation avatar) who was over the top and got banned, but he wasn't entirely bad. A temp ban might have been enough to get him to change, who knows.

 

[AllShallFall]

Also I think Temporary bans might be another option to add to your arsenal. Often banning is overkill and warnings are underkill. A 3-7 day ban would definitely get the point across. There was a forumer awhile back (forget his name, he had a Suffocation avatar) who was over the top and got banned, but he wasn't entirely bad. A temp ban might have been enough to get him to change, who knows.

I concur that temporary bans would be a good option to have.

If somebody is banned for a few days, hopefully that would be enough time for that person to cool off and become level-headed again and end/get over the bullshit that they got banned for.

 

[viewerfromnihil]

Temporary bans are a good tool and Deron utilizes them. I was banned temporarily like 5 years back and it served its purpose.

 

[Carpe Mortem]

I think the psychology at play here is that people who post most often are probably spending a lot of time on the internet in general, so there's a certain 'underground' preference in music that only those folks share. Its due to a lot of research, those people keep up to date on new shit. Likewise, there's a certain 'internet-raised' etiquette akin to regulars on 4chan. I have seen new members once polite and pleasant conform to the regulars' style, and I have seen people scoff if you don't preface certain opinions with an explanation of how your opinion sucks. Just too much appeasement going on.

Not really useful or anything, just my two cents. I got pretty bored of the actual music discussion like a year ago. I don't seem to have much taste in common with many people here. If I do, they don't want to talk about it.

 

[Omni]

Secondly, this forum is largely swayed to the heavier stuff, which is my least favorite stuff. It annoys me so much, I've thought of renaming this section to something else and starting a new General Metal Discussion.

No offense, Deron, but this sounds like a clear case of you missing your audience and just doing what you like, rather than making an effort to know the people who are posting here. You don't have to like the music that people are talking about in order to know the demographic posting on your website.

Heavier genres such as extreme metal are extremely popular in online metal discussions and continue to grow in popularity over time.

 

[MetalAges]

Just noticed that there is no "UltimateBlack".....

Had to settle on UltimateBlackMetal.com - UltimateBlack.com was too expensive. So yes, I have that one also

Temporary bans are a good tool and Deron utilizes them. I was banned temporarily like 5 years back and it served its purpose.

Always a temp ban first, sometimes multiple. Perm is always a last resort.

No offense, Deron, but this sounds like a clear case of you missing your audience and just doing what you like, rather than making an effort to know the people who are posting here. You don't have to like the music that people are talking about in order to know the demographic posting on your website.

Heavier genres such as extreme metal are extremely popular in online metal discussions and continue to grow in popularity over time.

Thanks. That wasn't supposed to read the way it did (I just revised the original). Your reply is correct with the way it was written (in your quote). The bickering/derailing is what "annoyed me so much" not people talking about Black Metal/Heavier stuff in general. I lumped that part in as a reason to possibly renaming "General Metal Discussion" because it wasn't so much "general" any longer, but more about the black/heavier stuff more than anything.

 

[Omni]

There are quite a few people here who want to post about various types of metal all in one setting without it being divided up. The fact that there are threads for traditional metal, traditional doom and power metal all on the first page with the black metal and death metal threads and there are more than a few folks who post in all of them is a good indicator of this.

 

[Eligos]

Had to settle on UltimateBlackMetal.com - UltimateBlack.com was too expensive. So yes, I have that one also

I thought for sure you would do something other than UltimateBlack.com, which sounds like a porn site tbh. Might have brought us some interesting traffic.

 

[The Ozzman]

From what I gather here, there needs to be some give and take with certain subjects. I've never been a mod for such a big contingent of people before so of course I'm bound to fuck up a few times. I could try taking a more passive role for a few days and see how that changes my viewpoint on things (unless things get really ugly in a thread and I have to act...or there's bad spam).

 

[MetalAges]

Just wanted to put an fyi out there.

2 people have ben temp banned for not listening to warnings/advice. I've said it a million times, that's my/our last resort and something I prefer not to have to do, or that it get to that point. It should be easy to get along and respect the others here, and follow a few simple rules - but some make it awfully difficult.

 

[viewerfromnihil]

So, what you're saying is that UltimateApathy will be back soon?

 

[crimsonfloyd]

This may be an interesting time to pose this question...

Once I get the site converted and moved over, it will serve as a template for a few new sites I want to launch, that are all genre specific. I will still inter-link them from here, and vice versa, but each site would be specific to genres (and branched off from that genre.

So, I'm talking:

UltimateThrash.com
UltimateDeath.com
UltimateDoom.com
UltimateHeavyMetal (Old School)
UltimateDjent.com
UltimateHardRock.com
UltimateProg.com
UltimateRock.com
UltimateMetalX.com (to cover the Nu genre)

and there are more (including non metal genres).

The idea is that, some of these audiences don't mix very well with others. But, some do perfectly, but could be expanded upon content wise/band forum wise/fest wise etc.

My key is to somehow make it easy that you can share a user name across them all, but that seems to be an elusive holy grail so far (only reason I have not done it sooner). At worse, I would let existing members know first so they could reserve their user names before the sites officially launched.

What are your thoughts on this (whether you would use or not)?

Honestly, I hate this idea. First of all, it would be laborious to have to go to five or six different boards and would disengage me from most, if not all, of the forums. Second of all, I can't even count how many interesting bands I've found out about on here within genres I didn't previously listen to. That wouldn't happen if the forums were segregated. Lastly, some of the forums wouldn't get enough posts and would slow to a crawl.

Edit: One more. It disrupts more general metal discussions that shouldn't be restircted to one forum (i.e. discussions on the evolution of metal, debates on the best on a certain instrument, metal during a certain decade).

 

[EternalMetal]

You saying that made it click with something I didn't mention yesterday. I'm not clueless enough to not realize a lot of the banter are friend's giving each other a hard time. But, when you factor in that this isn't a completely personal playground, and you have lurkers, other visitors who may not be as tight, or new users in general - the banter comes off as people arguing, fighting, complaining, and just being outright rude. So, I understand that 60+% of the time it's among friends, but lots do not. That's why I had considered in the past converting this over to something more clique' (for lack of a better word) than a general metal forum that represents Ultimate Metal. Hopefully that thought process is more clear now (it's not changing, don't worry).

Im generally more of a lurker than a poster, but every forum has it's users and their personalities. I understand that most of it is banter, some users are more picked on than others for their individualities, and that there is some sort of implied elitism in certain opinions, but that is what makes this such a great forum. Changing the dynamic of this forum by trying to segregate it into individual circle jerks is a great way to kill all activity. This place works perfectly as is, flaws or not.

In my experience, splitting genres into sub-forums kills boards. Discussions carry on within them for some period initially, but the discussions die down sooner or later and the sub-forums die one by one until the corpse-forums kill the whole board. It happened to two sites I moderated (along with The Butt), to couple of other smaller sites I visited periodically, and I think it was tied into the downfall of All-Metal. Not even Metal-Archives has genres separated into sub-forums anymore (I think they used to?).

I think the fact that this site consolidates most of the metal discussion into one forum helps to keep the place running (after all, UM is one of the few decent metal boards left)--if discussion about one genre dies down, the discussions of other genres keep the forum afloat.

Bolded parts are points of emphasis. If you attempt to segregate this forum into discussions of people that are always on the same page, this forum will die. Please dont do this Deron.

So, what you're saying is that UltimateApathy will be back soon?

His posting has been pretty flameworthy as of late. Tbh a permaban wouldnt be such a bad thing, he barely contributes to anything.

 

[Master_Yoda77]

I didn't even know there was such a big problem in that thread. I was pretty hammered when I made those posts and was merely commenting on how terrible Pantera and Korn are. I had no idea you people care so much about Korn.

Nothing I said was meant to be taken personal, after all (even my "Yeah, fuck you too" comment to TechnicalBarbarity was a reference to the last line in The Thing...) this is the internet we are talking here. It's cluttered with neckbeards and trolls.

But I apologize. I'm not one to cause flame wars usually.

Also, Ozz, you shouldn't go out of your way to present yourself as this "beacon of light" when at every chance you make some backhand comment towards Manilla Road with the sole intent to strike a rise out of those of us who love the band. I know better than to take it seriously, but others not so much.

 

[rms]

You big liar, aren't the last lines of The Thing Childs and MaCready talking as they freeze to death?

 

[Master_Yoda77]

Yeah, fuck you too!

 

[OneManArmy]

I think the Old School Metal posts should be merged into the main General Discussion forum.

There are sub-sections for Musicians, Concerts, Non-Metal etc. which seems logical.

But why on earth single out Old School Metal for its own section? It's metal, and should be in the General Discussion section with everything else. It might even be more popular if the discussions were in the main forum that everyone reads.

Just keep to one main music section, and people will talk about what they want to talk about, and if Old School Metal isn't discussed very often, then it's because people aren't very interested. I'd like to talk about it, but I'm unlikely to go into a different section of this forum to do so, knowing that it probably won't generate much interest.


PS: How do I get a profile picture to appear? I keep getting "Upload of file failed", even though it's sitting there in my Control Panel.

 

[The Butt]

I think the Old School Metal posts should be merged into the main General Discussion forum.

Don't do this, since the moderation in Old School is total shit.

I also echo the sentiment here that splitting GMD into subgenre forums will kill it entirely.

 

[The Ozzman]

I didn't even know there was such a big problem in that thread. I was pretty hammered when I made those posts and was merely commenting on how terrible Pantera and Korn are. I had no idea you people care so much about Korn.

Nothing I said was meant to be taken personal, after all (even my "Yeah, fuck you too" comment to TechnicalBarbarity was a reference to the last line in The Thing...) this is the internet we are talking here. It's cluttered with neckbeards and trolls.

But I apologize. I'm not one to cause flame wars usually.

Also, Ozz, you shouldn't go out of your way to present yourself as this "beacon of light" when at every chance you make some backhand comment towards Manilla Road with the sole intent to strike a rise out of those of us who love the band. I know better than to take it seriously, but others not so much.

Why even post it in a thread like that then? Someone is asking about gateways to get into metal. It could be seen by someone as hostile is all I'm saying. You can't assume everyone has been on the forum for 9 years and can discern who is being serious and who isn't.

Just as we all know when to take shit seriously and when not to (mostly) that means you have to ascertain when your responses are appropriate. That wasn't an appropriate response.

And the only recent Manilla Road post was the bad album covers thread and those were legitimate and confirmed BY YOU. Please do a search and find other backhanded comments about Manilla Road over the course of my time here. No time limit.

In conjunction with that, do a search on how many times people made disparaging remarks when I mentioned Killswitch Engage, Devildriver, Trivium or any other of the 'untr00' bands I like. Again, no time limit. You'll find the disparity staggering. This can include posts talking about my 'shit taste' for liking these bands or whatever or even posts where I question someone's opinion and they bring up that I like 'x band' when it's completely irrelevant to the argument.

Again, it comes down to what I've been saying for a long time about how this board and its contingent operate: It's okay for you to make a disparaging remark about a band I like whenever you get the opportunity, but when I make a disparaging remark about a band you like whenever I get the opportunity, the world is going to end and we can't have that.

 

[OneManArmy]

Don't do this, since the moderation in Old School is total shit.

I also echo the sentiment here that splitting GMD into subgenre forums will kill it entirely.

I just think it's a bit confusing having "Old School" metal somewhere separate, rather than having everything lumped together.

The Power Metal and Prog Metal threads are in General Discussion, and some of the bands in both those genres come across as very old school, or at least dated and old fashioned, to the point where I sometimes wouldn't consider them relevant to those threads.