Our links database and our membership database got bloated with duplicates, spam, and crass commercialism - so Mudcat owner Max Spiegel appointed me Gatekeeper.
In general, you have to be a registered member - and then you can go to our Links Page and submit links. Then I review the links, and add them to our links database if they're appropriate.
I occasionally get softhearted and add a link without requiring membership, if the link is of special interest to folk musicians.
We were getting a lot of links submitted four or five times so they'd be in four or five categories; and we also got a lot of very wordy, self-aggrandizing link blurbs from budding singer-songwriters. We allow only one posting of a link, so choose your category carefully. Oh, and if you've given us a link to Page 1 of your Website, we don't allow a link to Page 2. If you're a performer, give us a link to one Website that tells your story; not to your Web page, your Facebook page, your Myspace page, and the fansite maintained by your mother-in-law. The one site you give us a link to, should give links to all those other places.
I also control the membership database, another reason to be nice to me [I'm pretty easy - I just don't allow duplicate memberships, duplicate links, or links that aren't related to folk or blues]. If you'd like to join Mudcat or if you'd like to try to persuade me to post a link without requiring you to join, contact me by e-mail.
Oh - and we don't do "links exchanges." Anyone is welcome to post a link to Mudcat on their Website - no need to ask permission. If you'd like to post a link of folk music interest on the Mudcat Links Page, become a member and submit the link yourself, so the wording and format are the way you want them.
-Joe Offer, Mudcat Archivist, 5 August 2012- joe@mudcat.org