You can't usually go wrong with a Maiden survivor of some description
Yeah, we can.Were we still planning to do that Maiden song head-to-head thing we were talking about during the album game?
Well, whatever we do, we should start it with Iron Maiden, obviously. That'll attract people.
I agree that we should start with Iron Maiden, and then focus on having more Iron Maiden-based games to keep the number of participants up. We can do another Iron Maiden survivor, sure, but I don't think the results will be too different from the previous ten we've had before and we'll be treading old ground with some of the discussion/arguments that come out of it. The albums head-to-head game was good fun and had an interesting format, but it won't work when a new album is eventually released and there are only so many combinations of albums we can start with. Unless we have a big influx of new members then the results of the games will just converge if we keep using the same format. I know that with the current Iced Earth survivor Night Prowler reversed the order in which he ran the albums, which will actually be a really good idea for when Iron Maiden have a new album as we'll all be listening to it on repeat for the first few weeks and there will be a lot of activity on the forum.You can't usually go wrong with a Maiden survivor of some description
That’s an easy way to boil the stuff down to, but the Rankings threads have also had some good discussion about the actual music here and there. I liked NP’s discussion-vivor format with the Devin Townsend work, so maybe if in future we go down something of that route - each week we discuss a new album and vote on how we’d rate the songs.I might be in the minority here, but I see absolutely no point in Rankings threads because they rarely go beyond bickering over numbers.
"I think song X is ranked way too high"
"What are you talking about? It's a top 5 song!"
"Not in my book, buddy, not in my book. It's number 87 for me."
"Bullshit. It's a solid top 18 2/3."
And so on. You know what I mean. How is that of any actual value to anyone?
I guess a new format would really be the best, although discography discussions are also very interesting if more people are involved.
If we have discography discussion threads for each of these bands then the band threads become obsolete and the forum gets more cluttered. If it's a choice between a survivor which could take more than six months, a discography discussion thread or using the band threads properly or bands like Gojira, Kreator or Epica, then I'd much rather keep the pre-existing threads alive and frequently appearing in the New Posts section on the main page.
I agree with this. To add to that, the sample size of these threads is not large enough for the results to have any meaning to me. The Maiden ranking thread being a notable exception.I might be in the minority here, but I see absolutely no point in Rankings threads because they rarely go beyond bickering over numbers.
"I think song X is ranked way too high"
"What are you talking about? It's a top 5 song!"
"Not in my book, buddy, not in my book. It's number 87 for me."
"Bullshit. It's a solid top 18 2/3."
And so on. You know what I mean. How is that of any actual value to anyone?
I guess a new format would really be the best, although discography discussions are also very interesting if more people are involved.
I do have a few ideas for future ranking threads, but they’re Maiden-related and should be more interesting to the general members. That said, once the Blaze thread ends I’m gonna need a break from this kinda thing because too much at one time will drain. So yeah, unless someone else starts something I won’t do anything new for a while.But I hope that after the Blaze one ends that’s it for awhile.
The forum rules state that offending forum members will be subject to the "moderation process". I can think of a small number of forum members who repeatedly post links or videos without any accompanying words, perhaps a gentle rebuke or two when this happens might put an end to it? If one of said members was a moderator it might be a bit awkward though...I also agree that many of the music discussion threads have gotten a bit spammy. I think we just need to do a better job at encouraging discussion. The forum rules do discourage posts that just contain a link and nothing more, maybe we need to enforce that more.
Most of the band threads don't get used though. The only significantly active band thread in Music Discussion is the Judas Priest thread, and since the discography discussion is a separate thread the only reason that the Judas Priest thread is currently used is to report on what KK Downing has been complaining about. Other threads get used for tour announcements occasionally but most are rarely active. For example, the Blind Guardian thread (a band with an extensive discography) has progressed two pages in the last two years but I know that plenty people here listen to them. Savatage have a very extensive discography and have plenty of fans here but the four year old thread hasn't completed its second page yet. There's plenty scope for us to use pre-existing threads properly.Discography discussions really need their own threads. Using an already established band thread for that would run the risk of the thread getting derailed if the band is currently active.
My biggest concern with this is elitism. Maybe we don't get a lot of discussion, but if it brings people into the forum to participate in what you might consider more meaningful games, then that is an absolute win after all:I am strongly against bringing endless games to this subforum. I see them as spam threads and it would get in the way of games with an actual purpose. The best thing about survivors and other similar games, for me, is the opportunity for discussion and (re)discovery. You don’t get that with Guess the Maiden Song.
I think we all agree that this is the problem with current survivors. The survivors get a lot more interesting with more people, but 6-7 is a "popular" survivor these days, and that's a problem for the viability of the format. I get why you see the endless games as "spam", but if the goal is gonna be to bring people into the other game formats you need something to get them interested. Survivors are a heavy lift for a new forum member to participate with. They feel like a commitment.The biggest problem is lack of participants.
This is something that can happen. Forum Games do not *need* to be specifically music related. Looking to the community for more input on this point.On the topic of games, this isn't music related at all, but I saw that in the past this forum played some sort of mafia game. Is there any chance of something like that coming back? It looked fun!
I agree, let's get back to basics. Run less survivors at once as well. Some of us do not have the time to do 3-4 at once.I don't have any specific ideas for new games or formats, but I would like to see them focus predominantly on Iron Maiden or look at Metal/Rock/whatever on a broader scale.
Agreed, let's try to limit them in the same way we would survivors.That being said, I think it’s okay for those threads to be moved here because they received input from multiple members and have results similar to a survivor. And there is occasionally some interesting discussion. But I hope that after the Blaze one ends that’s it for awhile. I don’t think we need to see rankings for every Maiden side project or even non-Maiden related bands.
We can fix this by doing less survivors and having the forum members interested in them working as a team rather than individually. IE, if we decide a survivor updates every 4 days, we have people set up a shared document to do the work and have 3-4 people able to do the updates.I think that the forum members who are currently running survivors don't have enough time on their hands to update a fast moving game anyway.
Yes, exactly, and I believe the whole point in having a thread about a band is to discuss the band's music, yes?Yeah, I don't see why current band news and a discography discussion can't co-exist. If something actually really important happens worth talking about when it comes to a band, the discography discussion can be put on hold and resume after a week or two?