Once again, we run into another opportunity for misunderstanding because Mudcat and most of its features PREDATE the other forums that are so commonly used in today's internet culture.

On most forums these days, the user sets up what is called a profile-- it's usually a series of boxes to fill in. It's often made up from your membership sign-up form, and you choose whether to let those details show or not show. At Mudcat, though, a profile is a page you write that describes you and your music, kind of like a section in a press kit. Most of the exisiting profiles are from professionally gigging musicnas and they include a link to their website for sound samples, etc.

At most forums today, you can choose an image to appear next to your posts (avatar) that you think shows the image you want the world to associate with your personality. We have here, instead, Mudcat Photos. These which were first intended for the purpose of being able to recognize fellow Catters at festivals, especially before the advent of easily-used photo and email programs to send your pix out to potential festival-goers to hook up. Now we have a ton of photos that I think spring from the desire to share ourselves in community, putting faces to posts.

Remember, when Mudcat was created, almost NO ONE had their own personal website and there was no "MySpace." (There was ICQ and a need to post ICQ-identifiers.) No FlickR. No MSN Groups or Yahoo Groups. Nowadays we have all those, PLUS it is both easy and cheap to make a personal website.

Mudcat made these resources available when Mudcat was often the only affordable (free) place to publicize yourself as a musician. Now, of course, we have quite a few more than that, from anyone who cares to submit one for whatever reason.

So when we say nowwadays that we want a profile-- if you want a MUDCAT profile, all you need to do is LOOK AT the existing ones. Then create what you want yours to be, and email it all to Pene Azul-- just like it indicates in the FAQ:

Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
From: Joe Offer - PM
Date: 12 Jul 06 - 01:21 PM

... Our member photos and information are available only to registered Mudcatters - you can send photos and get added to the e-mail list by contacting our Tech Guru, Pene Azul, jeff@mudcat.org
Jeff can also help you set up a profile.

~Susan