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Encyclopaedia Metallum: The Metal Archives is a large website which attempts to list every known metal band and provide additional information on each band, such as a discography, a short history, and user-submitted reviews. The site also provides a system for submitting bands to the archives, and users are encouraged to use it. As of August 2006, the site boasts +39,000 bands listed, +94,000 albums, +21,000 reviews and +56,000 active registered users.
As an incentive to get people to submit data, the site uses a "point" system, in which registered users gain points and move up ranks with the amount and value of data and information they submit. The more valuable and complete the information, the more points are awarded.
The website is notably completely free of advertisements, and as of August 2006 is run completely independently. Some however, question whether or not this affects the quality of the website. Since the middle of 2005, frequent visitors noticed that the site was often down. The instability was due to a bug that was supposedly fixed around April 2006, yet many users still experience difficulty with the site.
Accepted bands
The site is known for its extremely strict rules, especially those which mandate band submissions. Encyclopaedia Metallum only accepts bands which are, without debate, metal bands. The only exceptions are: side projects of members of metal bands that were released by a label with worldwide distribution, bands that are no longer considered to be metal, but were in the past and grindcore bands that bear close similarities to death metal.
Additionally, there are some non-metal bands featured on the site that are considered to be part of the metal scene despite not being metal themselves (usually darkwave, dark ambient and folk bands, examples being Mortiis, Elend, Autumn Tears, Stille Volk, etc). These bands are selected by the moderators in an admittedly arbitrary fashion, and their submission by normal users is discouraged.
Genres that are usually associated with metal, such as grindcore and hardcore, are also absent as they are seen to have more in common with punk than metal. Glam metal is rejected if the band is considered more rock than metal and industrial metal is only allowed if it's considerably more heavy metal than industrial music. Bands that are associated with the nu metal or mallcore labels are completely forbidden and have been since the website started. Many users believe that metalcore bands have been completely banned from the website since a bulletin was posted that simply stated, "Please stop submitting -core bands. Please." However, this is false; many metalcore bands appear on the archives and many more have been added since the bulletin was posted, but the moderators have become more strict on what metalcore bands can be added and generally work case-by-case rather than saying all, or zero, metalcore bands will be accepted. Most of the metalcore bands that are allowed are the ones heavily influenced by melodic death metal.
History
The Encyclopaedia Metallum was founded in 2002 by two Canadians using the pseudonyms HellBlazer and Morrigan. They have been interviewed twice about their site. The first interview was given to the now defunct MetalGospel.com site, and the second interview was given to the Finnish magazine Miasma during May and June of 2005, and the issue was published in mid-October of the year.
Trivia
- The process of being banned from contributing to the site has been nicknamed "Dursted", named after Fred Durst (lead singer of Limp Bizkit). Durst is cited as a possible "enemy" of metal, and thus, an enemy to members of the site.
- Everyone starts off with the ranking of mallcore kid when joining as a member of the site. Some people get upset about being labeled as a mallcore kid on the website, but it's just a ranking on the site refering to the amount of points you have (in which case referring to 0-point accounts).
- Finnish band Amorphis was the first band to be entered into the database. According to administrator Morrigan, there was no particular reason for this.
- Certain bands, like Def Leppard, are only allowed on the site for having one metal release.
- Industrial metal band Ministry was originally rejected since it was believed they were not metal enough. Recently, the band was accepted after their two recent albums.
- Certain bands original accepted have been later rejected. One example was pornogrind band, Cock and Ball Torture. Another was groove metal band, Skinlab, for the belief they were "too mallcore".