Statistics on Prog genres currently on the website

416 Symphonic Prog 

The awesome, celebrated SP team has not yet finished its cleanup of the section (we're just about halfway through, and should start again this week, with Ivan being back and all) - which means this number is likely to further decrease.

377 Art-Rock

259 Neo Prog

255 Prog-Metal

229 Jazz-Fusion

176 Prog-Folk

156 Psychedelic/Space Rock

145 Italian Symphonic Prog

87 Prog-Related

79 RIO/Avant-Prog

60 Krautrock

31 Canterbury

26 Post-Rock

25 Zeuhl

21 Indo/Raga-Prog

20 Proto-Prog

6 Various Genres

164 bands under the same roof, which will not be as extensive as other genres. I am saying this because it has been the primary reason to deny further Prog-Metal band "branching" - because we already have too much genres. If so, why not put the least popular, prevailing ones in one box? There's more similarity between bands in these genres than between many Prog-Metal bands, for example. I would be in favour of that, but the experts should have their say first, as I am certainly no expert of any of these subgenres.

2. Indo/Raga-Prog is, as a common belief, an unnecessary addition to the site, for there are only 21 bands in the genre, and, most importantly, because it is an ethnic movement, which should have a better place in Prog Folk with other so-called Ethnic Prog bands.

However, this also rises an important question, as there has been a trend lately to separate, fuse and "branch" different genres:

How should we decide the way the genres are separated? By the number of the bands already present in a genre or by the differences between the genres?

If former, then what I posted in #1 and #2 applies here.

If the latter, then the difference between Italian Symphonic Prog and "other" Symphonic Prog is so miserable compared to Prog-Metal(I am sorry, but this is the best example where bands inside one single genre sound so different from each other)that it can be easily neglected. You know I quite agree with you in this respect, although at the same time I am in favour of a dedicated subsection in the Symphonic subgenre for Italy and other influential national schools.

Another idea I've got is to fuse Proto-Prog with Prog-Related, as you can pretty much say that Proto-Prog, much like Prog-Related, is merely a reference in the archives - bands which are not Prog themselves but are related or important to the genre itself. I don't agree on this one, as the bands in Proto-Prog and Prog-Related are quite different from each other, and the purpose of having a Proto-Prog section was to highlight the forerunners of the genre - something that I find quite important to do for a website like ours.

The ideas expressed here have already been expressed by others many times throughout time, myself included, however, the main point of this thread was to have a deeper look on the things and also find some logical conclusion, a compromise, if I may, and actually make the decision come true.