Talk:Heavy metal subculture

Hessian?
The term "hessian" seems to be exclusive to the folks who congregate around the whole ANUS.com (American Nihilist Underground Society), corrupt.org, and Satanic Coalition, notorious internet trolls and right-wing polemicists who are widely hated by a lot of other metal fans. I'm not saying that all mention of the term should be eliminated from this article, as I think ANUS et al are a fairly notable presence in terms of metal-related websites, and their ambitions to legitimize metal as a high art is significant, but the term needs to be qualified in relation to their views. I have never, ever, ever heard metal fans outside of that particular circle, whether in person, or online (through message boards or on other metal websites) refer to themselves "hessians." — Preceding unsigned comment added by Vlad the Impaler (talk • contribs) 17:05, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Hi there, I'm a Hessian from the UK. There's a good number of us here, and I think I'm the only one that's ever even seen the ANUS page, and I've never heard of corrupt.org or the "Satanic Coalition".  I think the current spread of this ethos stemmed from people who worked on such sites, but they were carrying a torch from before their time - this thing extends back into the eighties, as a way of life.  You should probably forget the ANUS crap, since it doesn't always reflect the Hessian outlook accurately; they have a generally good taste in music, but some strange politics.  All it means to be a Hessian is to live Metal: it's a way of distinguishing between "real metalheads" (people who'll probably die listening to Slayer) and fair weather fans (who'll move onto the next big thing as soon as whatever counts as "popular metal" dies). -unsigned  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.105.76.135 (talk) 10:59, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

Article move and general cleanup
I've been watching this article for quite some time now and it's still pretty much as big a mess as it was when the AfD debate was raised. Although the result of that was a keep, there was a strong consensus around a major cleanup and a fair consensus around renaming the article.

As nothing is happening, I'm proposing some bold editing to move this forwards.

First off, I think the article needs to be renamed to Heavy Metal Subculture. This would align it with the relevent parent section of Heavy Metal, plus it is a more encyclopedic description of the subject. It is quite clear that this article is not about the word 'Metalhead', but rather about the culture, and there are no citations to demonstrate that 'Metalhead' is in any way a universal term for members of the subculture. In fact there is only one cite which uses the phrase, which is a book called 'Metalheads'!. There are lots of different words used around the world, plus even within one area the word of choice evolves over time. Far more of the citations use a phrase similar to 'Heavy Metal Subculture', so that seems a far better choice. There can then be a section of the article discussing different phrases that are used around the world and over time, including Metalhead. It would also be easy to add redirects for local words, so they all come together here without any one word having preference.

Secondly, it needs a ruthless edit. I would suggest that everything which has a citation flag, or is obviously OR, be simply deleted wholesale. We may chuck out some usable info, but the problem at the moment is that swathes of poor quality un-citable OR is encouraging random editors to add more unciteable OR, and the circle needs to be broken. Nobody at the moment seems interested in improving what's there, so I would simply remove all the dubious material and invite editors to add back in what they think is appropriate with citations. I think at that point the article would be a more 'normal' wiki piece and the various flags could be removed. I also strongly suspect that changing the name to something more factual and removing some of the wilder nonsense in there now will encourage more editors who work within other Heavy Metal articles to both link here and also to come in and write it up the way it should be.

Please put in any comments you have here, unless there is a strong opposing opinion I'll press on in a week or two. --ThePaintedOne (talk) 11:38, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

No one seems to have any particular opinion on this, so I'm going to crack on with my proposals above.--ThePaintedOne (talk) 08:17, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Page move and cleanup for new name completed. To be honest I think it reads better already just for sounding more encyclopedic. Will leave it a couple of days now and then do a copy trim as well. Note, I've added in some stuff, notably the Nomenclature section, which is defintiely OR and needs cleanup. But I think a placeholder is important here so that the previous focus on the names of the fans, i.e. 'Metalhead', is not lost altogether. Citations definitely needed though.--ThePaintedOne (talk) 09:52, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Ok, second phase done, lots of uncited stuff trimmed out. Note, I'm not saying that none of this should be in the article, but I think it best to cut right back then add thing in with citations moving forwards. I've left a few bits of uncited stuff around as otherwise the Neutrality questioned stuff would be all that's left, which wouldn't make for much of an article. On which subject, I'm not all that happy with some of the cited facts, they seem a bit biased to me and not representing a wider view of the subject. But it is cited so I've left it in. I think the article is sufficiently improved now for the blanket multiple issues tag to be replaced with inline improvement tags where necessary, which I'll do now. --ThePaintedOne (talk) 20:52, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

I've archived all the old discussions as most of the stuff discussed in there has now either been dealt with as part of this cleanup or else is no longer really relevent. I think it will help the future quality of the article to start with as clean a slate as possible. --ThePaintedOne (talk) 21:10, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Dude! Noooooooooo! There was so much valuable shit here!
 * Of course, I jest. Was about time someone cleaned up this mess, hats off to you sir. ElectricWizard 0 (talk) 19:37, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

This page is awful,delete. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.89.52.11 (talk) 03:15, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
 * It's been up for AfD before (and I voted delete), but it was kept. Since then I've done a lot of improvement and trust me it's a lot, lot better than it used to be. I'm not hugely happy with the balance at the moment but at least it's all cited. If you don't like how it reads now, can you do some improvement, or at least make some specific suggestions for what needs changeing?--ThePaintedOne (talk) 16:24, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Disambig
Given there are now four alternate definitions of Metalhead linked from here, and this article isn't even called Metalhead anymore, it seems a bit silly to keep it redireting here. When I have a bit more time, I'll convert the redirect into a disambig page, which I think will work beter all round. --ThePaintedOne (talk) 14:04, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

International Variations - Use of "fact"
I'm not sure it's a "fact" that metal doesn't undermine the Muslim faith. There is no reason given (either for or against) this assertion. However, I would argue that it is closer to undermining it than not, based on other evidence from this very article. (i.e. that Christian metal bands sometimes get criticized for adhering to an established authority, and that heavy metal promotes opposition to such authority). The various Muslim religious figures count as an established authority in my book. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.165.170.247 (talk) 02:39, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
 * By its own principles, then, Metal can't adhere to its own authority, which is why we have Christian Metal, Vedic Metal, Muslim Metal - Metal is a mode of expression, not a set of ideals which one must follow. There are a number of staunchly Muslim Metal bands (check out the Bangladesh scene!); they use the music and imagery to spread and support Islam, as is their duty.  Same thing with all religions.  I believe there's one hadith which Saudis interpret as saying "music is evil", but that's totally fucking retarded, and not in keeping with Muslim culture as its grown over the centuries (given the fantastic music that's come out of the Middle East and surrounding areas).  There's nothing in the Qur'an against Metal, if it isn't anti-Muslim/idol-worshipping/promoting criminality.

removing POV tag with no active discussion per Template:POV
I've removed an old neutrality tag from this page that appears to have no active discussion per the instructions at Template:POV:
 * This template is not meant to be a permanent resident on any article. Remove this template whenever:
 * There is consensus on the talkpage or the NPOV Noticeboard that the issue has been resolved
 * It is not clear what the neutrality issue is, and no satisfactory explanation has been given
 * In the absence of any discussion, or if the discussion has become dormant.

Since there's no evidence of ongoing discussion, I'm removing the tag for now. If discussion is continuing and I've failed to see it, however, please feel free to restore the template and continue to address the issues. Thanks to everybody working on this one! -- Khazar2 (talk) 21:55, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

External links modified
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 * Attempted to fix sourcing for http://www.clevescene.com/2007-08-08/music/talkin-thrash
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20081223084512/http://www.anus.com:80/metal/about/metal/orthodox/ to http://www.anus.com/metal/about/metal/orthodox/
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20120213001335/http://www.ffwdweekly.com/Issues/2002/1107/mus1.htm to http://www.ffwdweekly.com/Issues/2002/1107/mus1.htm
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20100423132657/http://encarta.msn.com:80/dictionary_1861616918/headbang.html to http://encarta.msn.com/dictionary_1861616918/headbang.html

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statistics
add before that kid-man a statistical metal fan population chart by country -

also create a different chart to analyze age and changes in musical taste.

Do it officially, use a famous statistical research company and find a way to pay it.

this isn't a scientific article. All articles are supposed to reveal actual data BEFORE personal opinions!!!! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:587:4108:5F00:B577:E8C5:B37A:AB6E (talk) 14:36, 20 August 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
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December 2023
It may just be me, but some sections seem to rely a bit too much on direct quotation and feel very chunky to read because of it — especially the “Subculture” section - or use quotation marks in the air quotes sense excessively. I’m just unsure if this is truly a problem and if so how to deal with it. Any comment would be helpful, thank you! InRRainbows (talk) 16:41, 24 December 2023 (UTC)