Improving our awareness of 'missing artists' on PA

Edited by yam yam - 18 hours 43 minutes ago at 20:27

^ Yeah, this would just be a 'screened' list of potential suggestions - hopefully held in a sticky at the top of the New Suggestions forum. No suggestions for artists that were made in the thread and subsequently weren't considered to be suitable potential candidates would be transferred to the list. It would just be an easy to find list, with the artists grouped in alphabetical order by suggested sub genre, which anyone could then take a look at to see all the artists we were aware of who weren't on the site, and maybe pick one or more of them out to prepare a proper formal suggestion - complete with bio and artist photo - to be passed to the appropriate team to be evaluated.

Edited by yam yam - 17 hours 46 minutes ago at 21:24

siLLy puPPy wrote: I see artists all the time on RYM that aren't here. I only suggest a few but mostly don't because of the bio requirement.

My tuppence worth, and please, those keyboard warriors who like to weigh in and chuck an invective or six at me, please don't bother. I will say from the outset that some of my suggestions here will not be welcomed or implemented, which is fine, but I post this as the "inspiration" behind David's post when he looked at my playlist for this afternoon's radio show and discovered artists who should be on PA but are not.

Here goes:

1.      Pin this thread to the top of this section – for some reason it is halfway down, and not easy to find.

2.      I am willing, as the creative content owner of lazland.org, to allow PA to use my site as an artist, album, bio, whatever addition as source material. Increasingly, artists I review are nowhere to be seen on PA. Mike will have the same view, I hope, with his Awesome Prog site.

3.      The suggestion process, as has been mentioned, is simply far too bureaucratic – most people simply don’t have time to add a bio, provide album links, abide by Section 282, para 456, subsection 5 of the PA Additions Act 2015. And that is before a suggestion even gets to a team. I propose making things simpler by:

4.      Simply allow a member of PA to post on a thread that, for example, Nick Fletcher should be a solo artist on PA (by the way, whatever did happen to that suggestion on my part? Ah! Still in the process! I rest my case, m’lud).

5.      Do we need some background information on the artist? Well, yes, but in most cases, the artist him or herself, or themselves, will have a bio on, for example, the website or Bandcamp page, which can be pasted when the artist is added.

6.      I would remove the teams. It has gotten to the point that when one person leaves, or something happens, suggestions get gummed up and never get done, and there is a clear reputational damage to PA here. In their place (see below my comments about sub-genres) I would create a team of Special Collaborators led by David whose responsibility it would be to add suggestions which are not controversial or have issues – Nick is one, as is Amanda Choudhary, as is Alienor, as David pointed out. Just allow the SC to add the bloody suggestion and get on with it – the suggester can then add albums, or there is that chap MBRZ, or whatever, who seems to do an extremely good job in curating that side of the archive, and the SC can paste a very quick bio when adding – it doesn’t need to be war and peace, and the team can perhaps in the future look at enhancing bios, because there are some which need updating (that is the problem with a detailed bio – it doesn’t stay current for long). In my opinion, for Nick Fletcher, all that would be needed is “Nick is a consummate guitarist and songwriter, whose output is regularly feted by the progressive and wider music world. In addition to his solo work, he plays with The John Hackett Band”. That is all that is needed – it will never go out of date, unless, of course, John kicks him out of his band, and it took me all of a couple of minutes.

7.      At the risk of stirring the ghosts of disputes past, I would also now recommend that PA consolidate the ridiculous number of sub-genres. Do we really need some 300 sub-genres of progressive metal? Neo-Prog is loathed by artists as a descriptor – see Cosmograf and The Emerald Dawn for very good recent examples. Marillionm haven’t made a “neo-prog” album for at least 30 years, and I could go on. Nobody outside of PA takes “crossover prog” seriously, and it is, in any case, usually a dumping ground for where you can’t decide where to plonk someone. Artists do not make “eclectic” or “neo” prog albums – they make music. Keep it simple. I would recommend the following: Symphonic, Progressive Metal, Art Rock, Jazz Rock/Fusion, RPI. Five sub-genres – easy peasy and not requiring a major overhaul of the site – just rename all the eclectic, crossover, and neo, for example, as art rock. It is what they were called before. If, incidentally, this can’t be done without Max’s permission or input, and he didn’t give it, then that is a different matter altogether. If it were me, I would simply go off and start a new website and call it The Online Encyclopaedia of Prog. Come to think of it, that sounds like a fun retirement project………

8.      What do the collabs on the teams do? Why, instead of assing about deliberating, they can get stuck in with tidying the database, adding albums, artists. I would say that there should only be a vote where a suggestion is controversial, and David’s team can determine that – trust people, and they will repay that trust in spades, and more would get done.

9.      Svetonio – what to do with our Serbian fruitcake? He is certainly a persistent bugger, but, whether we like it, or not, he knows his prog, and with the right guidelines could be an asset to an additions team. I know this would be controversial, but I think that an admin should reach out to him and suggest a peace, much as Trumpalot wants to do with Putin & Zelensky. I would make it clear to him that we want him to join a suggestions/additions team, but that he is NOT to flood the forum with his unique brand of spamming. Let him add bands – he would be good at it, and the database would be the richer for it. Okay, can I take my tin hat off now, please?

As I indicated above, I post this to be constructive, and not naughty, so keyboard warriors please do not post anything insulting here. Of course, there are holes in what I have posted, and a constructive debate might, you never know, result in some positive changes. Let’s be honest and clear – Prog Archives is no longer anything like a comprehensive encyclopaedia of past and present progressive artists. The music world has changed immeasurably since the site was founded, and old definitions simply don’t apply any longer, plus the reality out there is that there are tons of artists who call themselves progressive able to get their product on platforms such as Bandcamp – they might only flog a couple of digital downloads in many cases, but they should be on this site, and, you might not like it, but Serbia’s answer to OCD can help in that regard.

Right, orf now to prepare for a wonderful radio show you can all hear at 16:00 UK GMT. Don’t miss out!

Just a not that well trhough-through post (I'm not speaking as a staff member). Really I'm just a forum guy mostly who likes to share and discover music with forum members, and is someone who make some terrible jokes/ absurdities.

I actually would like more categories, or tweaking the "subgenre" names, and ideally album tagging and multi-tagging 9(ut I understand Max saying that the old existing site architecture does not support it, so one would need to rebuild).

I agree that what matters is if those labels can be understood from the definitions. I do think the definitions ideally would be be updated and improved.

Without Max being involved major changes are not as practical, or where they can be made, advisable. This forum can do a lot of what the database does and more (I would like to add some forums if I had Max's blessings) and complement it well.

Personally, I would like to see changes to the admission procedures, collab structures and expectations for Suggest New Bands threads. We did become quite Draconain with expectations when the suggestions were being overwhelmed. We wanted to slow down suggestions and make it more manageable for collabs. Franky, the expectations sometimes that something gets added, and complaints if it doesn't and sometimes if it does, has been very disheartening And it has been more than little annoying that some of those who would complain were not willing to put in effort into helping along the addition. Ideally ALL OF US (at least regulars) at the forum are collaborating and working together.

That thing about being the most comprehensive database goes back to the early days, and it's not really important to me. That was the aim, but we set up ways to limit additions and there is always going to be lots of Prog not on this site and not all team members and people will agree on what can be suitable for the categories. I would like to see systems that involve the general membership more in the evaluation and discussion process.   Maybe a more open process. I would like to more collabs having votes across teams.

I do think a stickied list is a good idea. There used to be a list of accepted and rejected artists.

I have long wanted to make my own site with others help on modern (say 50's up) progressive and art music.

Okay, one more! Genre splitting is NOT very popular. It is on Prog Archives, but absolutely nowhere else at all, with the possible exception of the hard work Mike does on Awesome. In the real world, not that many give a toss, really. I know you don't like me saying these things, but it is a truism.

I think "genre splitting" is done as a means to compensate for not having a tagging system. If you take that perspective of tagging music, that is what most people like. Generally, I like having categories, subcategories, overlapping categorie, and such as a means to find and look for music I might like.

There are different ways to go about it. There was the music genome project, which I think AllMusic initially used. Those tags can then be used to suggest other music. MIike does something like that now at Awesome Prog.

This could also be a matter of semantics. Rather than saying these are "genres" of prog, we are really using this as labeling by groups of characteristics. It's certainly imperfect. There are many ways to group artists.

I think that way rateyourmusic has genres is excellent (being able to search using multiple tags and tagging individual albums), and I'm confident that lots of people care about it. Lots of people care about having subcategories in the arts and sciences, in department stores etc.

I have seem some say that all subgenres should be removed at PA, but I know if I go to a library I don't want to see one big section that says books. Or a video store back in the day with one big section of "videos" or a record store with just a section of "records". Maybe one big section whichi includes all media under "stuff" so CDs, record, DVDs, cassettes eight tracks etc. are all together. An archives is more useful to search when it is catalogued and organised.

Often the people who do complain about such things too, in my experience at PA, are those who are not even doing the work. Obviously others are working to improve the site and I think there are many ways to improve efficiency and the site's valuableness. Helps if the webmaster is on board, supportive and guiding...

Edited by Logan - 2 hours 34 minutes ago at 12:36

Logan wrote: Often the people who do complain about such things too, in my experience at PA, are those who are not even doing the work. Obviously others are working to improve the site and I think there are many ways to improve efficiency and the site's valuableness. Helps if the webmaster is on board, supportive and guiding...