MetalSucks Community Guidelines

Hey everyone, it’s your favorite moderator in the world here to talk about our community guidelines, expectations, and rationales, as well as to destroy some myths about how we work with FACTS and LOGIC.

To get right to it, a fair amount of our commenters are under the impression that MetalSucks is a draconian, free speech-snuffing, opposing viewpoint-quelling hellhole of a place. We are not, or at least really try not to be. What we are concerned with chiefly is upkeeping a measure of relative safety and a welcoming attitude toward most people, and a good way to facilitate that is with some good old-fashioned mitigation of hateful comments. This includes, but isn’t necessarily limited to: slurs of any kind (ableist, racist, sexist, transphobic, sexual orientation, etc.), overly aggressive attacking of fellow commenters, calls for extreme physical harm or death to others, speech that explicitly or implicitly supports hate of any kind (based on race, sex, gender, sexual orientation, religion, etc.), unrelated and disparaging comments toward alleged victims or victim blaming (this happens on a lot of sexual abuse stories – stop it), and doxxing a person or sharing any private information of a person. Basically, being a dick will get your comment deleted at the very least.

We also delete comments in some cases where a commenter isn’t regularly contributing anything directly to a discussion (like the person who likes to create numerous scenarios where Axl poops on various prized collectibles of Vince’s – you know who you are), and in cases where people are spamming the same or similar comments in one article or across many articles.

When you post a comment and you don’t see it right away, that means it was auto-flagged by OpenWeb (formerly Spot.IM). This system, while wonderful overall, gets a little trigger happy and will push some comments with cuss words or other detected unsavory language into a special inbox that lets me either approve or deny the comment. We ask that you please be patient and try not to repost the same comment over and over thinking that it didn’t work or that we’re trying to silence your thoughts (unless we banned you already, in which we are DEFINITELY trying to silence your thoughts). I check these “pending” comments daily, multiple times, and I will get these comments up on the site with no issue as soon as I’m able to, and provided it doesn’t conflict with any of our guidelines. Censoring yourself very rarely helps this, so it’s not worth it in my eyes – say “shit” and “fuck” all you want. I’m not a fan of these words myself, but feel free to call whoever an “idiot” or “moron” if you want. We don’t ban for this unless it overlaps with our other guidelines.

What we are NOT deleting or banning is measured, reasonable discussion whether you’re left-wing, right-wing, centrist, “apolitical”, a Ted Nugent fan, a cop, a communist, or whatever. I’ve seen plenty of relatively civil talk happen on this site and our Facebook page, and the only time something is deleted is when it crosses a line detailed above or you were banned for another comment elsewhere – this will delete ALL your comments on the site regardless of anything. We also don’t ban for promoting your own music unless it’s NSBM or some shit.

So, if you want a tl;dr list for what we delete and/or ban for, here it is:

• No slurs or hate speech against anyone for any reason — this includes race, gender identity, skin color, sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity, sex, disability, political affiliation, etc. — doesn’t matter if it’s a joke, quotes are okay if you link to reputable sources, this includes well-known coded or dog-whistle language.
• Deliberate and overly aggressive comments toward fellow commenters that needlessly escalate or derail a situation
• Calls, wishes, or desires for extreme physical harm against someone or a group of people (yes, this includes wishing coronavirus on someone)
• Doxxing or sharing of any kind of personal, private information of anyone that is not readily available for the public to view
• Sharing misleading, disproven, bad faith, or just plain incorrect information on a topic that could potentially prove harmful to the general public or specific individuals
• Commenting in an egregiously and repeatedly off-topic manner
• Site managers and moderators reserve the right to delete comments or ban accounts for other reasons related or adjacent to the ones listed here.

To close up, we’re not perfect; none of us are. We try our best to do the right things, and while the definition of “right” may differ to y’all, it’s our belief that we can all talk about the music, people, and stories covered here in a civil manner. If you harbor hate against people, please check it when you log on or get banned. If you have something overly negative to say about an already messed up situation, think twice. If you don’t like what another commenter said about something you hold dear, it’s probably not worth getting worked up over; just downvote and move on. We are open to constructive criticism, and you can always feel free to contact us at [email protected].

As a quick disclaimer: this all also applies to our Facebook comments as I watch those as well, and any comment made by me under my account (Modtoid Man) is my own opinion independent of MetalSucks and any of its other staff, unless of course I’m commenting explicitly on moderation or site-related things.

Anyway, here’s a cool song to make this music-related. King Witch rips.