New rule suggestion: song posts must include at least genre and year

When people post a link to a song, there is no way to tell what kind of music it is or what period it’s from. To help engagement and the user experience, I suggest we require people to at least write the genre and year in the title of their post. Bonus points for adding some explanation in the body of the post about the significance of the song and why they’re sharing it.

Madbrad200 ,
@Madbrad200@lemmy.world avatar

100% agree with this.

Songs should be ArtistName - SongName [Genres] (Year) - optional additional info

MiddleWeigh ,
@MiddleWeigh@lemmy.world avatar

The genres have gotten so out of hand, I have no idea what is what outside of usual vague “pop rock metal hip hop” labeling. The year I understand.

Aurix ,

The year is a useful metric, unfortunately genre is such a sloppy thing it is definitely better left out. For that genre specific communities should be used.

soyagi OP ,

I feel that Lemmy is still too small for many genres to have their own community.

Madbrad200 ,
@Madbrad200@lemmy.world avatar

Disagree, even a generic genre marker is useful.

zecg ,
@zecg@lemmy.world avatar

It’s a bad idea. You know what kind of music it is? Music someone wanted you to hear. Feel free to post genre and year, just don’t mandate it.

RanchOnPancakes ,
@RanchOnPancakes@lemmy.world avatar

If you make genre mandatory then the genre hawks come and discourage posting.

soyagi OP ,

Then the problem would be people squabbling about genre, which can easily be stopped. I don’t think we should prevent ourselves from doing something potentially very helpful because we foresee a chance of another problem occurring, especially one that can be dealt with.

RanchOnPancakes ,
@RanchOnPancakes@lemmy.world avatar

Just saying. The genre thing is why I never participated in r/music

southsamurai ,
@southsamurai@sh.itjust.works avatar

laughs in metal fandom

For real though? Genres are 90% bullshit. Era doesn’t matter at all. And, if you have to know what the track is about genre/era wise to be willing to give it a listen, you lose half the fun of things :)

Let the music stand on its own. Having the meaningless facets of the track before listening prevents a truly naive first listen, and that’s the best way to encounter new music.

Save the metadata stuff for after the listen, in the comments. That’s where the real discussion should be anyway.

soyagi OP ,

Genres are not bullshit. They give you an instant general idea what kind of work something is. If you wanted to hear either someone’s best classical recording of the year or best metal recording of the year, that simple addition of genre already tells you which one you’re likely more interested in.

To be clear, I am not in favour of discussions arguing what narrowly specific micro genre a piece of music belongs to. I’m only suggesting a single word is added as a guide. That’s all.

southsamurai ,
@southsamurai@sh.itjust.works avatar

I mean, I said 90% bullshit :)

The problem with making it a rule is that genres are largely variable, and there’s always cross genre tracks/artists, as well as the fact that what I think is doom metal, someone else might think is sludge, or maybe even death.

Yeah, if you stick with meta-genres like rock, classical, country, you’re going to be okay usually.

Like, when it’s voluntary, it’s all good. When it becomes a rule for a C/, you’re then asking existing moderators to take on the extra work of A: verifying the presence of the tag (and without automod to make it a trivial task via flair or in title [genre] tags), and B: become the arbiter of what is and isn’t within a given genre.

B is a major problem, because then they have to either wait on reports of incorrect labelling, or check out every post eventually. The first part is a lot more hassle than you think, because now you’re getting reports that are based in someone else’s arbitrary definition of a genre, and it isn’t going to end up with everyone happy. The second part is just not realistic over time.

That’s the real issue with it, not the mostly joking part of my previous comment.

I will say that I stand by the point of that jokish part. Genres are mostly bullshit, and metal genres in specific approach absurdism. Applying them to a given C/ helps if that C/ is geared to searches and focused discovery. If the C/ is more of a place to share stuff you enjoy and let the chips fall where they may, genre tagging kills the exploratory side of things.

Both approaches are valid and awesome, but they are mutually exclusive. So it really depends on if the mods have a negative preference in vibe, and their willingness to deal with the added work that is likely to come with the tagging

Also, again as a joking way to address things, have you never visited a metal forum? Endless discussions about what specific sub genre of a sub genre a band is, is the entire reason they exist lol. It’s practically inevitable that if more than one metalhead is in a room, there will be war over what genre is true metal. Shit, that’s barely a joke it happens so often.

That’s a way to say that not being in favor of those endless discussions doesn’t mean they aren’t going to become a chronic occurrence.

soyagi OP ,

Yeah, if you stick with meta-genres like rock, classical, country, you’re going to be okay usually.

Perfect. This was my suggestion.

grape54321 ,

year would be really helpful

pastanomaly ,

I disagree. Year could be ok I guess but genre tags sometimes discourage folks from clicking on something they otherwise would if it’s not immediately appealing to them. Sometimes less context is best context.

soyagi OP ,

I think people have the right to choose if they want to listen to something within their comfort zone or not. People have a generally good idea of what they like and don’t like, and it’s very reasonable for people to want to discover new music within genres they are familiar with.

pastanomaly ,

You’re making some assumptions about how people operate that I’m not sure I agree with. But maybe you can make a different community - genre-specific or something. Or just live dangerously and click the genre-less links.

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