Some may have noticed that a few artists now appear on the site who have name's that do not use English language text, they use Cyrillic instead. A couple of examples would be Аркона and Калевала. trying to add artists to MMA using a Cyrillic name will result in a generic error page without fail. There is, or rather was a work-around however, add the band with a translated name (though to be honest a random word would have done), like Arkona or Kalevala for the two above examples. After the entry has gone into the database, all that is needed is to add the Cyrillic name to the profile by editing it. The page gets changed, and keeps a English text URL, as seen here:

http://www.metalmusicarchives.com/arkona%28russia%29.aspx" rel="nofollow - http://www.metalmusicarchives.com/arkona(russia).aspx

http://www.metalmusicarchives.com/kalevala.aspx" rel="nofollow - http://www.metalmusicarchives.com/kalevala.aspx

Doing this allows artists with Cyrillic names to be listed correctly, with a translated English text name being placed in the alternative name field, so the entry is easily searchable. Doing this had no negative effects, until now. 

Today I added two more bands in this manner, Сварга and Дрыгва. However the method to get such names to work seems to no longer work. I can add the profiles fine with this method, but now changing the band name on the entries changes the URL, as seen:

http://www.metalmusicarchives.com/%D1%81%D0%B2%D0%B0%D1%80%D0%B3%D0%B0.aspx" rel="nofollow - http://www.metalmusicarchives.com/%D1%81%D0%B2%D0%B0%D1%80%D0%B3%D0%B0.aspx

http://www.metalmusicarchives.com/%D0%B4%D1%80%D1%8B%D0%B3%D0%B2%D0%B0%28belarus%29.aspx" rel="nofollow - http://www.metalmusicarchives.com/%D0%B4%D1%80%D1%8B%D0%B3%D0%B2%D0%B0(belarus).aspx

Whatever has changed, it seems to have also affected the MMA search, as it is impossible to access either entry without a direct link. Сварга's English text name is Svarga, and this sits in the alternate name field for easy searching. The search cannot find Сварга at all however, and Svarga turns up but never loads. The same applies to Дрыгва and its translation. This entry also leads now:  http://www.metalmusicarchives.com/GenericErrorPage.htm?aspxerrorpath=/%D0%B4%D1%80%D1%8B%D0%B3%D0%B2%D0%B0%28belarus%29.aspx" rel="nofollow - http://www.metalmusicarchives.com/GenericErrorPage.htm?aspxerrorpath=/%D0%B4%D1%80%D1%8B%D0%B3%D0%B2%D0%B0(belarus).aspx

I'm not sure what changed on MMA to make this happen, but I really think it needs to changed back, since it now seems impossible to list artists with Cyrillic names without issues arising. Of course, we could use the translated names I guess, (although I think the above generic error issue started when I tried to change the entry back), however I've always believed that their original names should be used, not translated ones. Since it could be done before, hopefully it can be made so it works again.