I'd think they should be on here due to the direct connection to melodic black metal band Kvist.

https://rateyourmusic.com/artist/xploding-plastix" rel="nofollow - https://rateyourmusic.com/artist/xploding-plastix

https://www.discogs.com/artist/48385-Xploding-Plastix" rel="nofollow - https://www.discogs.com/artist/48385-Xploding-Plastix

  

Of course if any other Admin feel differently to me.....  Unless that's the case it's probably a no. 

Thanks for your suggestion though.

On another note, it's good to see you back around, Khaliq 

Nightfly wrote: The current rules on non metal additons are not deffinitive but only state a minimum requirement for inclusion. Ultimately it's down to how much relevance and interest a band is likely to be to people who visit here. It would be difficult to have rules  for non metal that could encompass every eventuality. If it was down to me alone and this site was starting from scratch I'd say no to all non metal.

To be honest, I agree with this.

For starters, many of the acts that we might have added under such rules, did we have them at the start of MMA, were in fact already here. This was thanks to the original automatic import that was run from wherever when the site was started. 

That import picked up a load of crap that never should have been here and my honest opinion looking back is that import brought more trouble to the site than it was worth what with such pages and many incomplete profiles as well, some of which still have never been fixed.

But it did also pick up some non-metal acts that may have had a case for being on the site all the same. Which brings us to major reason number two: our rivals in this game like EM were listing these acts (and for EM with all their rules on what was valid metal and could and couldn't be included on their site, that seemed to be saying something). 

As the person who was the primary on pushing for these subs to be added here, especially sooner rather than later (because at one point we were deleting artists that would later be re-added), I still stand by that having them was beneficial in the long run. Or at least, it seemed that way at the time. 

Unfortunately, Non-Metal and Metal Related quickly got out of hand. And this applies to Hard Rock as well to an extent. There was getting to be too much focus on the kind of peripheral artists that might be OK in them and not enough on the metal subs. And we were honestly getting some really out there suggestions for inclusion that I don't think anyone bar the suggester would even think to look for here. 

There were also some attempts to push some of these artists and albums up into metal subs instead of more the more valid MR/hard rock etc, meaning the subs where visitors would expect to find such artists if they were to be included at all, which created yet another problem. But it's a problem that would have existed with or without the MR and Non subs/rules, which by the way, we (the admin teams of the time) had to continually keep looking at and trying to tighten up because of what was basically abuse of the system. 

I recall one time where it came to the point that I had to explicitly ask the collabs here to focus on metal subs and some, not naming any names, treated it like such an outlandish idea that I was actually dumbfounded. My Dad was a bricklayer all his working life, so to use a metaphor that he'd appreciate, some collabs here were trying to not even build the walls, but to furnish the house before the foundations had even been laid. 

A site like this could never possibly work that way.

So as much as I think acts like Transatlantic, Wongraven and many others are a part of the metal scene and deserved to be catalogued in a competitionist database (which is what we always intended to be), in hindsight if I'd known what getting the green light for any such additions on MMA was going to cause in the way of trouble, I'd never have suggested it. Unfortunately I don't have a TARDIS or a DeLorean, so there's no changing it now and I'd hate to see quite a few of those profiles existing only in MR and Non removed. And don't forget, Hard Rock and Hardcore Punk aren't actually metal either, so to say no to all non-metal, you'd have to also say goodbye to those. Because there are no doubt some artists tagged as MR that have more actual metal in them than some hard rock additions do. 

In summary, there is no perfect system. I doubt that some here who say they wouldn't have non-metal here at all they aren't actually considering hard rock or hardcore. But it's all a complete package, or at least was when I was still an admin here, even though we made HR and HC top level subs (they couldn't have had child subs otherwise). None of my business now if the attitude has changed, but as the guy who was instrumental in a lot of this happening, this was my piece regarding reasoning and what went wrong. Honestly I could write for a lot longer on what we should have done in hindsight, but I think this is long enough already. 

For me this really hits the nail on the head. All Non-Metal, Metal Related and yes even Hard Rock and Hardcore additions should be expected to be on a metal site by a person with reasonable knowledge of the genre and it's closely related styles. There's no point adding any artist that we don't think people would generally think to look for on a metal site. There's so much work to be done still that it would be a waste of time. This is most crucial for Non and MR more than HR and HC, but does apply to them as well to some extent. I for instance have long had it in for all the AOR types that have been added here. One step too far away from metal IMO. Just one example.

This did come up in the AZ recently and I believed we agreed that for any of these 'extra' subs the final decider is whether something just feels right on a metal site to be allowed to be added solely as MR/Non. We've tried various iterations of written rules over the years and none have been perfect. There are a few hard guidelines that we can use such as such additions requiring a full-length album to be released to keep out projects that may not progress very far, but if something feels out of place we're unlikely to allow it going forward regardless of what they've released. Actually the example Chris used was that if James Hetfield released a solo drum and bass album we wouldn't add him as a solo artist, despite fronting one of the biggest metal bands in history. Yet the various ambient and darkwave types from black metal musicians are fine, because that's like a whole sub-scene of the black metal genre, thus has relevance beyond one artist doing something different. 

Honestly don't know about Transatlantic, since they were mentioned. The only album with a really heavy moment is Bridge Across Forever and even that's in Non rather than MR and Portnoy is their only true connection to metal. Neal Morse is here of course but that doesn't actually help their case, since he's only in as MR as well. The other two guys have no metal history at all. Love the band and would hate to see them removed after all these years but the thing with MMA is that none of us our supposed to play favourites with what should and shouldn't be here - something I think has been forgotten every now and then. And I do think that at some point we are really going to have to take a hard look at all the profiles added solely under MR/Non (especially Non) to see what really deserves a place on a metal site. 

Getting off topic now considering this is a rejected suggestion thread, so all I'll add to close is that if there are any pages here solely in Non-Metal that anyone is concerned over they are free to flag them with the admin team and we'll see how we feel about them. 

Yes it probably does warrant a discussion elsewhere. I honestly don't remember just how many acts were added just as Non-Metal during my time as admin. I don't think it is that many because we did try to focus somewhat on Metal Related over outright Non-Metal. All the Non-Metal except Transatlantic that I can think of off the top of my head relates to what I said at the start of my post: they were already here as part of the original import. Some did get deleted and later had to be re-added. At least one (Fejd) did later release an actual metal album. 

As far as Transatlantic goes I would object to them being removed. They were always considered to be a part of the metal scene even if 3/4 of the band's background was in prog rock. I don't think it unreasonable that they can be found on MMA and see point 2: other sites at the time I was pushing for this kind of inclusion were already listing them, including EM, SoM (not a reputable source for my money but for the sake of argument) and Metal Kingdom. 

It's the long standing problem on where the line should be drawn. 

I've started to collect a list of all the profiles currently only filed under Non-Metal, so we can have a good look and see which actually should be here and hopefully come up with a workable formula for what is OK to include and what isn't. For my money I've already spotted a couple I'm uncomfortable with. 

It's one thing out of that black metal sub-scene to have Wongraven (Satyricon), Neptune Towers (Darkthrone), Die Verbannten Kinder Evas/Ice Ages (Summoning) etc here. But we have others on here whose metal bands are far less notable like Aythis (In point of fact Aythis has zero black metal connections. It's all doom metal, so it's really a part of the same sub-scene even though the music is in a similar style to what many of those acts play), Dark Sanctuary (who have released a metal album since but historically speaking), Dissvarth and Galdur; the latter two of which were evidently picked up while adding the artist's metal projects. There are several metal projects active at the same time for both of these, but none are close to household names as far as black metal goes. 

I don't have a problem with offshoots from lesser known black metal artists being here so long as the musician was/is reasonably prolific with preferably more than one act. 

You bring up another issue by mentioning Aythis was well: what actually makes black metal special that these acts get a pass? It's not something we can really tie to another genre in terms of addition validity. There's no good reason why a doom connected act like Aythis should get the boot if similar acts connected to black metal are allowed to stay. 

I can see we're going to have to have some long debates in the AZ on how to re-approach this. Don't suppose you've decided to come back on board?

I'm always around to bounce ideas off of though, regardless of whether my profile says admin or not. I do feel somewhat responsible for Metal Related and Non-Metal, having been the driving force behind allowing these additions, so I would appreciate being kept in the loop on what is decided about them at the very least. 

But on the other hand that does sound like inventing any excuse to get/keep an artist on here doesn't it? 

Personally I would not lose any sleep if Aythis wasn't here. My biggest reluctance would be that the profile has been here for six years and no one has questioned it's presence, but that may be because no one has ever thought to look for it (I'm the only one who ever left a rating). 

As you said Nicole - a total minefield. 

Sorry, not heard a word. 

I nearly followed you out the door a while back. I decided to stick it out, but I'm also waiting on a sign from Max that it'll be worth my time getting stuck back into any of my old projects here.