Ideas and suggestions

Would it be possible to add some way to visibly mark an album as "listened to" in a list if you've given it a rating already? I know that if you hover over the album in question it tells you your rating but I'd like to be able to tell at a glance.
For example, on letterboxd, there's a button that will fade the posters for the movies you've already seen when checking any given list, that way you can quickly identify which ones you haven't watched yet. It could be something similar where the album covers are faded.
This could be useful for both user lists and "official" lists like the top 200.
Obviously there are cases where I'm not sure how it would work, like lists that have images turned off, so I don't know how feasible it would be in general but it could be really useful. Maybe just adding a checkmark on the side or something could work. I haven't thought this through very deeply.

Written by Roman Doez on 18.05.2026 at 14:11

Would it be possible to add some way to visibly mark an album as "listened to" in a list if you've given it a rating already?

Since some version of this was brought up multiple times now, I'll put some of my thoughts here.

There are several reasons why I, personally, don't like the idea. That is not to say we can't build it, just that I would either need the staff team to want it, or be convinced of benefits to the community that I don't see right now. So consider these my personal feelings about the matter. The rest of the team might disagree.

First, I don't like this kind of commodification of music. I know a lot of people value lists and ratings, and see new releases as a chore to do every week, and that's not something we can change. But we have a choice of what we want to encourage here on Metal Storm. I, personally, find turning an emotional experience (listening to music) into a bunch of stats (tracking how many times and how much you liked it) to be the opposite of what such an experience should be. We complain about bands like Sleep Token, who play the commodification game successfully, yet some people look for the same commodification in their listening habits. I never got that.

Second, the more convenience Features we add, the more some people will use MS as merely their personal stat tracker, when what we're actually trying to build is a community. Metal Storm is not a scrobbler, Metal Storm is a place for human beings to hang out and communicate.

The more we tell people via features that we're a stat tracker, listening commodification platform, and new-album notification system, the more we will attract users we who are looking specifically for this, and not users who look for community.

We are still trying to cultivate a part of the internet (and the spirit of its time) that has largely disappeared in the capitalist machine that it is now. I feel like there are platforms out there that will give you exactly what you want (in fact, you even named one, and other people bring up others, too), and these sites have their features for a reason. That reason is usually not what drives us to do what we do, meaning just because some sites do things a certain way doesn't mean we are interested in doing the same.

If things fit our broader vision, we're usually on board with new features.

Third, even if all the points I just made were moot, there doesn't seem to be a clear vision here. Some people want to track what they listened to, some people want to track how many times they listened to things (effectively turning MS into a scrobbler, when last.fm exists), some people want to rate albums multiple times, some people want a broader rating scale, some people want a finer rating scale, you name it.

The point is that each of these feature requests seem to want something else, and there doesn't seem to be anything missing from MS that is more than just one individual's personal use case.

And on top of that, I fail to see how we can turn any of this into publicly displayable stats that have meaning to other people. Lists, ratings, favorite bands, ... all that communicates something to the community.

How many times you listened to an album means nothing in its own right. It's only a stat for yourself, not for other people to draw any meaningful information from. And I firmly believe that MS shouldn't add features that don't contribute to the community.

Written by Roman Doez on 18.05.2026 at 14:11

Would it be possible to add some way to visibly mark an album as "listened to" in a list if you've given it a rating already? I know that if you hover over the album in question it tells you your rating but I'd like to be able to tell at a glance.

Since this info is stored in the html of the list entry, it would be quite feasible. You can do this for instance :

for(element of document.querySelectorAll(".ms-link[data-subheading-2~='You:']")){ element.setAttribute("style","color:yellow"); };

The problem would be to find a nice way to display it, not cluttering the list too much while being visible enough

Written by corrupt on 18.05.2026 at 17:47


Second, the more convenience Features we add, the more some people will use MS as merely their personal stat tracker, when what we're actually trying to build is a community. Metal Storm is not a scrobbler, Metal Storm is a place for human beings to hang out and communicate.

The more we tell people via features that we're a stat tracker, listening commodification platform, and new-album notification system, the more we will attract users we who are looking specifically for this, and not users who look for community.

I just wanted to say that, as much as I'm wanting my personnal stat tracking stuff, I respect your stance. You are right that community and speech should be held above cookie-clicker mentality, even by embedding the idea in the site's design.

But don't you also think that having more features would attract more people, hence helping the community to grow? Or do you think it would attract the wrong kind of people? I mean from the very start I'm on MS for the database aspect foremost, and also because it seemed to be the most ergonomic site.

Written by corrupt on 18.05.2026 at 17:47

How many times you listened to an album means nothing in its own right. It's only a stat for yourself, not for other people to draw any meaningful information from. And I firmly believe that MS shouldn't add features that don't contribute to the community.

Actually when I had this in mind, it was more a way to weight a rating. I believe it's way more interesting to know which albums are listened a lot to by people, rather than consulting the average rating. You can rate an album high and never listen to it again. You can rate two albums the same and don't engage in them in the same way. I don't really care if I listen to an album 17 or 18 times, but at one time I believe it's good to know which one you didn't give enough attention.

Written by Ansercanagicus on 18.05.2026 at 17:49
The problem would be to find a nice way to display it, not cluttering the list too much while being visible enough

Are we talking about other users' lists here, or overview pages like the bands list? For user lists there's another aspect in that many users like to control what their lists look like and how they display (adding country flags, personal rating systems, emoji, ...). Anything that influences presentation based on who looks at a list will break with that paradigm. That (among other things) is why we have the popups.

Written by corrupt on 18.05.2026 at 17:47

Very detailed answer

Yeah, I get what you mean, I personally get a lot of fun from lists and stats and stuff, but I agree that it's not what the website is aiming for, and that's why I also don't really care about the other features you mentioned like being able to count how many times you listened to an album, especially since there are usually other tools like lastfm for that.

That being said, I think that being able to point out what you haven't listened to in a list is a good way to highlight potential new discoveries above all else, I didn't really think of it in a completionist way. And I'm asking for this specifically because we have plenty of user made lists on this website and it would make navigating them more easy when trying to find new cool things to listen to. That's why I didn't ask for the completion percentage also found on letterboxd lists, it's not about completionism, but rather about highlighting potential great discoveries.

But I get where you're coming from, and i won't try to convince you further if my haphazardly written paragraph didn't suffice

Written by Ansercanagicus on 18.05.2026 at 17:49

Since this info is stored in the html of the list entry, it would be quite feasible. You can do this for instance :

for(element of document.querySelectorAll(".ms-link[data-subheading-2~='You:']")){ element.setAttribute("style","color:yellow"); };

I have no idea what I'm supposed to do with this lol

Written by Roman Doez on 18.05.2026 at 18:22

I have no idea what I'm supposed to do with this lol

for(element of document.querySelectorAll(".ms-link[data-subheading-2~='You:']")){ element.setAttribute("style","color:yellow"); };

Go on the page of a list, open your browser's console and execute the command. It will turn all album titles you rated in yellow. On firefox it's ctrl+shift+I. For chrome ctrl+shift+J

Written by Roman Doez on 18.05.2026 at 18:22
But I get where you're coming from, and i won't try to convince you further if my haphazardly written paragraph didn't suffice

Don't avoid that on my behalf. I might be opinionated, but my whole frame of personal opinion was meant be an invitation to theorycraft this. Even though I'm usually the one answering these questions, we do talk about new features as a team, and sometimes my opinion is overruled. I'm the guy building things, not the one making decisions. Maybe we can come up with something that does make sense. I wouldn't have outlined my motivations this way, if I wanted to just reject the idea.

Might have been suggested before but it would be cool if the main page for a band would show all the attended events where the logged in user saw the band, based on the shows they have marked themselves as having attended of course.

Is there anyway to filter bands by year time. For ex i really want to collect all bands formed pre 2000.

Probably suggested a hundred times before, but as someone who loves EPs it would be great to see a Top EPs list similar to the Top Albums.

Written by Languedocian on 05.06.2026 at 16:01

Probably suggested a hundred times before, but as someone who loves EPs it would be great to see a Top EPs list similar to the Top Albums.

You can customize your Top EP list from the Album Index.
Or you go directly here. (kiddin')

Written by Redel on 05.06.2026 at 17:00

Written by Languedocian on 05.06.2026 at 16:01

Probably suggested a hundred times before, but as someone who loves EPs it would be great to see a Top EPs list similar to the Top Albums.

You can customize your Top EP list from the Album Index.
Or you go directly here. (kiddin')

Oh wow, all this time! Thanks Redel, you've made me very happy indeed!

It might be a wrong thread,

One of the staffer flagged a post since 2020. I can’t edit to update the info.

Written by Cynic Metalhead on 21.07.2026 at 17:22

It might be a wrong thread,

One of the staffer flagged a post since 2020. I can’t edit to update the info.

Yes, you're right. This is the wrong thread. Since it concerns a band profile (post? ), you could have used this thread, or, if you preferred, a general bug thread, such as this one. It's the first and pinned topic in website forums/bugs.

In any case, thanks for reporting this. It’s working again now. The issue wasn't staffer A flagging a user edit, but staffer B processing an edit that had already been flagged. That particular case hadn't been accounted for in the database.

By the way, I'll reject any edit that doesn't fix Binaash's absolutely hideous, distorted header image that you have uploaded in 2016.