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Joe Offer 17 Mar 00 - 05:06 PM
Joe Offer 17 Mar 00 - 05:27 PM
Joe Offer 17 Mar 00 - 06:28 PM
Joe Offer 17 Mar 00 - 07:47 PM
Joe Offer 17 Mar 00 - 08:00 PM
McGrath of Harlow 17 Mar 00 - 10:12 PM
GUEST,Neil Lowe 17 Mar 00 - 11:01 PM
Joe Offer 19 Mar 00 - 09:24 PM
Jon Freeman 21 Mar 00 - 08:14 PM
Joe Offer 22 Mar 00 - 05:49 PM
Elektra 22 Mar 00 - 10:55 PM
GUEST,Mrrzy-at-work 12 Apr 00 - 01:44 PM
Night Owl 18 Apr 00 - 01:40 PM
Mrrzy 10 May 00 - 02:20 PM
IvanB 27 May 00 - 08:57 PM
Joe Offer 17 Jul 00 - 07:44 PM
Joe Offer 18 Jul 00 - 04:32 AM
Big Mick 18 Jul 00 - 09:31 AM
John in Brisbane 02 Aug 00 - 08:04 PM
rabbitrunning 30 Aug 00 - 01:00 AM
Joe Offer 30 Aug 00 - 02:48 AM
GUEST,SharonA 13 Jun 01 - 02:32 PM
Joe Offer 21 Jun 01 - 10:45 PM
Joe Offer 01 Jul 01 - 10:19 PM
Joe Offer 17 Aug 01 - 07:33 PM
Joe Offer 16 Oct 01 - 11:45 PM
Joe Offer 30 Nov 01 - 11:49 AM
Joe Offer 01 Dec 01 - 01:51 PM
Joe Offer 03 Feb 02 - 01:53 AM
bfolkemer 15 Mar 02 - 09:18 AM
Joe Offer 07 May 02 - 12:42 AM
Joe Offer 13 May 02 - 12:57 PM
Mr Happy 11 Jun 02 - 12:17 PM
Joe Offer 27 Jun 02 - 01:05 PM
Mr Happy 19 Jul 02 - 05:27 AM
Nigel Parsons 19 Jul 02 - 06:03 AM
Watson 19 Jul 02 - 06:42 AM
robinia 05 Nov 02 - 12:38 AM
GUEST,Q 11 Nov 02 - 08:12 PM
Joe Offer 07 Dec 02 - 12:50 PM
GUEST 27 Dec 02 - 10:48 AM
GUEST,DianElvin@bigpond.com 17 Feb 03 - 08:19 PM
Joe Offer 18 Apr 03 - 11:33 PM
Allan C. 09 May 04 - 03:38 PM
Joe Offer 21 Mar 05 - 11:47 AM
wysiwyg 04 Apr 05 - 09:30 AM
Joe Offer 17 Apr 05 - 12:08 AM
Joe Offer 10 Aug 05 - 01:31 PM
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Mrs_Annie 12 Jul 06 - 03:57 AM
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Mo the caller 24 Nov 06 - 08:39 AM
Sorcha 24 Nov 06 - 09:07 AM
wysiwyg 24 Nov 06 - 09:09 AM
Mo the caller 24 Nov 06 - 09:17 AM
catspaw49 24 Nov 06 - 10:06 AM
Joe Offer 24 Nov 06 - 08:26 PM
Joe Offer 09 Jan 07 - 03:36 PM
Joe Offer 09 Jan 07 - 03:55 PM
Azizi 16 Jan 07 - 08:48 AM
Azizi 16 Jan 07 - 09:10 AM
wysiwyg 16 Jan 07 - 09:53 AM
Azizi 16 Jan 07 - 10:44 AM
wysiwyg 16 Jan 07 - 12:02 PM
Joe Offer 16 Jan 07 - 07:41 PM
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Azizi 16 Jan 07 - 08:37 PM
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Joe Offer 07 Mar 07 - 06:33 PM
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Amos 20 Jun 07 - 02:00 PM
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topical tom 02 Nov 07 - 10:28 AM
Joe Offer 16 Nov 07 - 01:07 PM
edarem 29 Nov 07 - 11:26 PM
topical tom 14 Dec 07 - 11:53 AM
Bill D 14 Dec 07 - 12:05 PM
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wysiwyg 14 Dec 07 - 01:17 PM
Jeri 14 Dec 07 - 10:07 PM
katlaughing 14 Dec 07 - 10:51 PM
Jeri 14 Dec 07 - 11:19 PM
Joe Offer 15 Dec 07 - 03:27 AM
Janie 15 Dec 07 - 11:55 PM
Joe Offer 16 Dec 07 - 12:36 AM
topical tom 16 Dec 07 - 02:56 PM
semi-submersible 05 Jul 08 - 06:32 AM
Joe Offer 05 Jul 08 - 03:40 PM
Joe Offer 31 Jul 09 - 08:11 PM
Joe Offer 28 Aug 09 - 04:56 PM
GUEST 28 Feb 10 - 01:58 PM
wysiwyg 19 Mar 10 - 09:55 AM
Rowan 13 Apr 10 - 08:20 PM
Joe Offer 14 Apr 10 - 12:17 AM
Joe Offer 14 Oct 10 - 05:21 PM
Joe Offer 29 Oct 10 - 12:43 AM
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Joe Offer 11 Apr 12 - 03:14 PM
Joe Offer 07 Sep 12 - 12:43 AM
GUEST,Karl Dallas 21 Sep 12 - 09:58 AM
Joe Offer 21 Sep 12 - 10:36 PM
Joe Offer 20 Jan 13 - 09:34 PM
Joe Offer 22 May 14 - 01:42 PM
Joe Offer 21 Feb 15 - 10:29 PM
Susan of DT 10 Sep 16 - 07:48 AM
maeve 10 Sep 16 - 01:45 PM
GUEST,.gargoyle 12 Oct 16 - 06:46 PM
FreddyHeadey 04 Apr 17 - 08:02 AM
Jeri 04 Apr 17 - 09:56 AM
FreddyHeadey 04 Apr 17 - 10:38 AM
RunrigFan 09 May 17 - 06:58 AM
Jeri 09 May 17 - 09:37 AM
RunrigFan 09 May 17 - 09:39 AM
Jeri 09 May 17 - 09:58 AM
RunrigFan 09 May 17 - 10:30 AM
DaveRo 09 May 17 - 10:31 AM
Nigel Parsons 09 May 17 - 11:20 AM
Joe Offer 09 May 17 - 02:07 PM
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Bonnie Shaljean 09 May 17 - 04:06 PM
GUEST,Ann Boulden 04 Aug 18 - 02:21 PM
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Joe Offer 07 Dec 18 - 02:22 PM
Steve Shaw 26 Nov 19 - 04:08 PM
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Jeri 26 Nov 19 - 09:25 PM
Joe Offer 27 Nov 19 - 12:01 AM
Joe Offer 08 Feb 20 - 04:02 AM
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DaveRo 21 Nov 21 - 02:41 AM
FreddyHeadey 23 Nov 21 - 03:02 PM
GUEST,fricklefrackfreddy 23 Aug 22 - 11:03 PM
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Subject: Mudcat FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 17 Mar 00 - 05:06 PM

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Mudcat Cafe!

Table of Contents (click here)


This is a PermaThread™ for use as a guide for visitors and anybody else who might need help here. While most Mudcat threads are not censored or edited, I will monitor this one and maintain and edit it to serve as a guide to the Mudcat Cafe. Feel free to post questions and answers, but be aware that I'm going to edit this thread heavily. If you find messages at other parts of the forum that you think should be included here, please let me know about them. I would like to thank all the people who contributed material for this FAQ, with special thanks to Jon Freeman and Pene Azul and Jeri for all their technical help.
-Joe Offer-

If you're looking for a song, you'll often find it right here in the Digital Tradition Folk Song Database. Feel free to post a request, but we ask you to use the search box in the upper-left corner of this page (and most other Mudcat pages) to search the database and forum for your lyrics before you post a request for them. We have some 9,000 folk songs in the database, so it's one of the best places to look. Even if your song isn't in the database, our search engine will also search the forum for songs that may not yet have been included in the database.

If you're looking for a folk song that isn't in the database or forum, start a new thread [click here to create a thread (topic)], and make sure the title or a phrase from the song you want is in the thread title. Generic titles like "desperately seeking lyrics" may end up being used for many different songs, and that gets very confusing. Please try to tell us whatever you know about the song - phrases you recall, where you heard it, and so on. Often, songs have various titles that can cause confusion, and a phrase may be a better way to locate a song.

We specialize in folk music and blues. If the music you seek is of another genre, you may wish to try

The Mudcat FAQ (frequently asked questions)

Table of Contents



Making Mudcat Accessible (click)

Explore Our Menus

Be sure to explore the links at the top of most Mudcat pages. Here they are again:
E-Zine (Max's Blues Museum) has been removed from the top links, but it's still available.

Quick Links
Be sure to explore the Quick Links dropdown menu you'll find below, and on most Mudcat pages. Just click on the down arrow, and the menu will appear. On that menu, you'll find a link that will allow you to Search the Forum (or you can click here). Just select that link and hit the "go" button, and follow the search instructions.

Dale Rose and others posted "thread of the day" messages and other things that have been deleted from this thread because they are not permanent in nature. Some of these messages have very valuable information, and you will find that those messages have been moved here (click).

Searching Mudcat for Information

It's easy to search for songs in the Digital Tradition Folk Song Database - just put some words from the song in the search box you'll find on most Mudcat pages, and click the "go" button. There's an advanced box that will help you narrow your search and pinpoint exactly what you're looking for. Also, click here for more song search help. You'll note that there is a dropdown menu of letters at the bottom of the search box - those letters link to a "titles list" of the songs in the Digital Tradition. Titles can be misleading, so you'll probably have better results if you use the search box to search for a distinctive phrase from the song. Here's that search box:

Lyrics & Knowledge Search [Advanced]

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Sort (Forum) by:relevance date

DT Lyrics:


Notice the search box toward the bottom of the box above - that's Google Custom Search, set to use Google to search the contents of Mudcat. Try it - you'll find it works quite well, especially if you search for a phrase in quotes.


Forum Search (searching by Message Title or User Name)
If the song or information you want does not come up with our usual search engine, you may want to try searching our discussion Forum with our "Filter" (for searching by thread title) or "
Forum Search" (for searching by message title or user name.

The Filter

(searching by thread title)
Toward the top of the
Mudcat Forum main menu (click here), you'll see a "filter" box - put an appropriate word in the box and set the age to whatever is appropriate to cover the period you want to search. Click the grey "refresh" button, and all threads with that word in the title should appear (a "thread" is a series of forum messages, posted on a specific topic). Here's a filter box you can try:
Filter Age

Filter Out Help


Note: The forum menu is set to display all threads for which messages have been posted in the last 24 hours. If your thread has disappeared, please don't start a new one. Just use the "filter" or "search the forum" links on the main forum menu, and pull your thread up and post a new message in that thread - that will bring your thread up for another 24 hours. Your new message can be just the word "refresh" if you have nothing else to add.
If you're viewing Mudcat from work or a library or another location that has a "profanity filter" on its computers, you may not be able to view our Forum Menu if we happen to have a so-called "naughty word" in a thread title. We've tried to tag these titles "bawdy." If your profanity filter blocks your access, try putting bawdy in the Filter box and check the "filter out" box. Click here for tools to help you filter out "bawdy" or other threads.

Outdated search tools

Once upon a time, not so very long ago, we had a blue search box to search the Digital Tradition. It had lots of shortcomings, but it may work when our regular search engine is down. It also had a "titles" list that worked horribly. Here is our Old Blue Search Box:

DigiTrad Lyrics Search Help

All Titles - A - B - C - D - E - F - G - H - I - J - K - L
M - N - O - P - Q - R - S - T - U - V - W - X - Y - Z


SuperSearch was the prototype of our current method of searching both our Forum and the Digital Tradition, SuperSearch. Here's a copy of that prototype, in case you find it useful. Just enter a phrase and click the "go" button.
Note: the index for the SuperSearch is not always up-to-date, so recent messages may not appear in your search results.
Digitrad and Forum Search

Use Google to search Mudcat

If you use
this Google search link and just add what you're looking for, you'll be able to search Mudcat. A search for twa corbies would look like this: (click).


Note:

Our main search engine depends on an index which is supposed to be updated regularly. However, performance of the Mudcat Search Engine has been a bit spotty. If it doesn't work, try the Google search box above.

The Filter is our best tool for finding things by thread name. You can use the Old Advanced Forum Search in our QuickLinks dropdown menu to find posts by message title or by the name of the poster.


And if you still have trouble finding something, ask me. That's my job.

Joe Offer, Mudcat Music Editor
joe@mudcat.org

revised by Joe Offer, December 2023.


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Subject: Site Map and PermaThread Index
From: Joe Offer
Date: 17 Mar 00 - 05:27 PM

This is a PermaThread™, intended to serve as an index to Mudcat and a permanent index for our PermaThreads™ and other memorable and notable threads. Feel free to post messages in this thread, but note that I reserve the right to edit or delete all messages here, so that this thread will serve as a permament reference.
-Joe Offer-

Table by Jeri & Joe, with help from Pene Azul

PermaThreads™

(threads maintained by various Mudcatters for use as permanent references)

Reference


Research Projects


Folk Clubs & Venues:

Mudcat Auction FAQ

Revised 11 Nov 2011

Handy Mudcat Links

  • Send a personal Message
  • Members: PMs Received From
  • Members: PMs Sent To

  • Updated 24 March 2020


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    Subject: Basic Mudcat HTML
    From: Joe Offer
    Date: 17 Mar 00 - 06:28 PM

    You do not need to know any HTML to post messages at the Mudcat Cafe - but it's nice to know a little bit.

    I suppose the most basic HTML tag is the <br> line break. Mudcat automatically puts one at the end of every line you post, unless you have automatic line breaks turned off in the bottom of the message reply box. If you are copy-pasting text that already has line breaks visible, be sure to turn off the automatic line breaks. Once again, line breaks look like this:

    <br>

    If you see <br> in the text you're copying, be sure to turn Automatic Linebreaks OFF when you paste it into a Mudcat message.

    If you want to direct somebody to an interesting site on the Web (or to information that's at another location at the Mudcat Cafe), the best way to do it is by posting a clickable link. We have a Make a link ("blue clicky") tool at the bottom of message boxes that will make links for you. Click here to try it. You have to highlight and copy the text that results, and paste it into the proper place in your message.

    Even if you use the link maker, it's a good idea to know how to make clickable links. Here's how:

    <a href="https://www.mudcat.org">Click here</a>

    <a href="mailto:joe@mudcat.org">Click to e-mail</a>

    If you're posting links at Mudcat, the quotation marks are optional. I prefer not to use them, because they complicate the task of making links. Simple is better, I think. Fewer misteaks.
    I find it's best to open a new browser window [CTRL-N] and navigate your way to the site you want to link to. Highlight and copy [CTRL-C] the URL (address) of the site, and then go back to your Mudcat message and paste [CTRL-V] the URL into your link. Be sure to include the http:// in that URL. The quotation marks are standard procedure, but most links and HTML tags work just fine without quotation marks.
    I'd like ask our "regulars" to take the time to learn how to do within-Mudcat clickable links (internal links). When you make a link, leave out the http://XXX.mudcat.org (XXX being the name of the server). That way, the link keeps the reader in the server he/she was using. Our regulars post a lot of internal links, and I've had to spend a lot of time changing them. If you linked to ragtime or dharma or shorty or loki (all now dead), or even www - there are times that those servers aren't working, and your link then leads people to a dead end. The link maker tool handles this correctly - but it doesn't hurt to know how to do it yourself.

    The above tells you how to make clickable links. I'd also like to encourage you to explore all the links you'll find at Mudcat. For Mudcat Members, one very important link is the little grey box that sometimes appears and says You have XX Messages. The words in that box are a clickable link - clicking on the words will take you to your personal messages on your own personal page. Please take full advantage of personal messages for sending personal chit-chat and phone numbers and other personal stuff that doesn't belong in a public forum. Personal messages are one of the nicest advantages of Mudcat Membership.

    -Joe Offer-
    Here are some other HTML tags to try:
      Note that HTML commands have to be enclosed in <angle brackets>.

      testing

      <i>testing (italics)</i>

      <b>testing (bold)</b>

      <marquee>testing (marquee)</marquee>

      <font color=orange size=+2>testing (font colors)</font>

      <h3>testing (headline - please, no 2's or 1's)</h3>


      Clickable Links

      ("blue clickies")

      for a thread:

      <a href=/thread.cfm?ThreadID=39542>(click here)</a>



      for a song (link preferably taken from SuperSearch/ Digitrad & Forum Search):

      <a href=/@displaysong.cfm?SongID=409>(click here)</a>




      Note how cleverly I have also deleted extraneous stuff from the end of the URL of both the thread and the song. All you need is;
      • the display page for either the thread or the song (/thread.cfm or /@displaysong.cfm)
      • a question mark to show a query
      • THREADID or SONGID
      • the number of the thread or song

      Now, to display angle brackets is in the Advanced Course....

    Click here for more HTML stuff

    Updated November 2003


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    Subject: Submitting Links
    From: Joe Offer
    Date: 17 Mar 00 - 07:47 PM

    How to submit a link to Mudcat's Links Page

    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


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    Subject: Mudcat Membership Benefits & Problems
    From: Joe Offer
    Date: 17 Mar 00 - 08:00 PM

    The Benefits of Mudcat Membership

    So, now maybe it's time to put up a consolidated message explaining the benefits of Mudcat membership. Here are the ones I can think of. Let me know the ones I missed.
    • You can send and receive personal messages
    • When you post messages, you are identified by name as a Mudcat member and not as a GUEST, so people can be sure who you are
    • You can post links on our links page
    • You can trace threads you'd like to follow
    • "New messages since last visit" feature which is very nice (you don't have to remember which messages you have seen already, very handy for people with a buggy brain)!
    • You can have bookmarks, not that I've ever been able to figure out their value other than when I'm away from my own computer
    • Mudcat will never use your name for commercial purposes
    • You have the pride of being a Mudcatter, which is pretty darn cool
    So, did I miss any benefits?
    -Joe Offer-

    How to Join

    If you've never registered with Mudcat before and you'd like to take advantage of our free, honest, no-strings attached Mudcat Membership, click on any
    Membership (click) link you see and submit the requested information. Mudcat will deposit a cookie in your computer so you'll be recognized, and then you can take advantage of our personal messaging and other special member features.




    Standard Mudcat Login Instructions

    (Cookie Reset)

    Here are the standard login instructions I've been sending to people with problems. If you have already registered with Mudcat and are having problems with your registration, this is what to do. Please do not resubmit your registration information. Duplicate registrations cause us all sorts of problems.
    Your Mudcat membership is probably working perfectly - on Mudcat's end. Therefore, it's just a matter of cleaning things up a bit on your computer and resetting your Mudcat cookie. Since you've been having problems, I'm going to add another step and first ask you to clear your cache and history from your Internet browser.

    First, if you think you've tried the login process correctly and you still can't get in, clear all the old files out of your browser.
    (If you like, skip this part and try the login process once more - and THEN clear your browser cache if login still doesn't work).

    CLEARING YOUR BROWSER CACHE (this clears out-of-date Mudcat pages from your system - I call it "The Purge.")
    In MSIE (Microsoft Internet Explorer):
    • On the "tools" menu at the top of your browser, select "Internet Options."
    • On the general tab, you will see a button that says "clear history" - click it.
    • Still on "tools/Internet Options/general," click on the "delete files" button
    • Then click on the "OK" button on the bottom of the grey box, and your browser should be clear of all old files. That should solve most problems.

    In Netscape:

    • Go to the "edit" menu on the top of your browser and select "preferences." In the box that opens, make sure you go first to the "Navigator" category, and then click the "clear history" button.
    • Then go to the "Advanced" category, still in the same box, and click on the little "plus" sign before the word "advanced." the word "cache" will appear below "Advanced" - click on "cache."
    • Click on the "clear memory cache" and then on the "clear disk cache" buttons.
    • then click on the "OK" button on the bottom of the grey box, and your browser should be clear of all old files. That should solve most problems.

    LOGIN PROCESS

    • First, go to the Membership page at Mudcat: http://www.mudcat.org/member/EntryForm.cfm. If a registration form comes up with your name and everything, that means you're all OK. Correct the registration information, if needed, and click the "submit" button.
      If the registration form is blank, please do not fill it out because you have already registered with Mudcat and should not submit a second membership.
    • Second, click on the logout link to clear any corrupted Mudcat cookies that may be still on your computer: http://www.mudcat.org/member/logout.cfm
      You'll see a second link that says "to logout, click here" - click it.
    • Another screen will appear that tells you that you have logged out.
    • Now, go back to Mudcat Membership: http://www.mudcat.org/member/EntryForm.cfm
    • A blank registration form should appear - leave it blank and click on the reset cookie link: http://www.mudcat.org/login.cfm

    • A LOGIN page will appear which asks for your Mudcat Name - enter your Mudcat user name exactly, with correct capitalization, and click the submit button. Your Mudcat name is: xxx

    • Another box appears that asks for your password. Enter it exactly, and click on the "submit query" button. Your password is: xxx

    • You should get a page that says: You cookie has been reset. You are now acting as [Your Real Name] with email address
      your.e-mail@yourprovider.com

    • It also says: Click here to view or edit your personal data That's a link that lets you update your registration, and it might be a good idea to do that. Remember that you cannot change to a user name or an e-mail address that is already in use by somebody else.

    • Once you've reset your cookie, you're free to go to the lyrics/forum/chat page, or maybe it would be a good idea for you to check your personal page for messages that came in since you lost your cookie.


    Solving Registration Problems


    If you have been registered at any time in the past, please don't submit a new membership. If you can't figure out how to reset your cookie, go to the
    Help Forum (click) and ask for help. It's quite possible to fix things on your own. Here's the process that seems to work best:
    I've included links above to membership, logout, and reset cookie screens, in case you're lazy.
    If you've forgotten your password, don't worry. Go to Login (click) and fill in the information you know. One of two login pages will show up. One gives you a box that lets you select to have your password e-mailed to you. The other doesn't have that selection, but if you enter your user name and just leave the password box blank, you'll get another page that will ask if you want your password mailed.

    You'll get your password within seconds - Max's elves work very quickly.

    There are a couple of problems people have had. One is if they have their browser set so it won't accept cookies - just go to the "options" menu of your browser, and set it to accept cookies. The other is if you bookmark a Mudcat page other than the main page, www.mudcat.org - start at the main page when you begin a Mudcat session, and that should take care of it. Be sure to delete bookmarks to any other Mudcat pages.

    Also, some (but not all) of the information on your Mudcat registration is case sensitive. That means that if you are registered as "Joe Offer," you may not be able to log on as "joe offer" or "JOE OFFER." Be careful with capitalization.

    If that doesn't work, please click on my name below and e-mail me back with your real name and your Mudcat Name (the nickname you registered with), and your e-mail address. If you may have used another e-mail address when you registered, give me that, too.
    If you can do that, I'll try to talk you through fixing your registration cookie. It's usually pretty easy to do, but you have to log in with exactly the same Mudcat Name and e-mail address that's on your registration (and capitalization must be exactly the same).
    -Joe Offer (click to e-mail)-
    Duplicate Memberships
    Q. I can't access my Mudcat membership. Should I go to Membership and register again?

    A. PLEASE don't register twice. Duplicate memberships can make things very messy. If you have membership problems, go to the Help Forum and ask for help.
    If by some chance you do have duplicate memberships, please let me (Joe Offer) know. We can't delete memberships, but we can mark them (inactive) so they don't cause problems and confusion.
    Moving to a new computer or new Internet Provider
    Your Mudcat Membership is not affected by your change in Internet Service Providers, e-mail addresses, or computers. You can change your email address or other membership information any time by emailing the membership registrar, Joe Offer, joe@mudcat.org. If you change computers, you can reset your cookie, also through the membership link, on the new computer.
    One computer, one E-mail, two people-how join
    Question from Mrs. Duck:
    We have one computer and at present share the E-mail address but both want to be members,. When we enter Geoff's details it automatically deleted mine. What are we doing wrong?


    Answer from Joe Offer:
    Hi, Mrs. Duck - So everything can work properly, you should have two e-mail addresses, one for each member. You have one Mudcat membership, and that membership has a cookie deposited on your computer. To submit a membership for a second person in your family, go to
    Membership. First, click on the "logout" link (to delete the existing cookie), and then finalize the logout by clicking on the second "logout" link that will appear. Then sign the second person up as a new member (that person must have a separate e-mail address, and www.hotmail.com is a good place to get it). When that second person is done, he or she logs out at the "logout" link (also found on the Quick Links on almost every Mudcat page). Then, the other person logs in by clicking on a "reset cookie" link (found in Membership or in the Quick Links).
    Don't worry - it's a lot easier to do than it is to explain.
      Once you've registered with Mudcat, you're always a member. Please, do not submit a second membership for yourself. If you have membership problems, it's just a matter of logging out and resetting your cookie. If you need help, post a question for us in the Help Forum and we'll be glad to straighten things out for you.

    Personal Messages
    Joe, Please include something about personal messages; a little more concise than the enjoyable thread that The Shambles linked to above. I didn't know anything about this feature until I saw the notice "You Have 1 Personal Message." I took a chance and clicked on the notice, and have enjoyed the personal messages ever since, but it would be nice if there were some instructions. In fact, maybe Max could add "(click here to read messages)" to that box. I still haven't figured out what happens to archived messages, and how you archive more than one at a time during spring cleaning.
    Aloha,
    Mark
    You explained it quite well, Mark. Personal messages are one of the best advantages of Mudcat Membership. When you're a member, you can send personal messages from a selection on the "Quick Links" dropdown menus. The messages your receive show up on your Personal Page (which only works when you're a member). Once you've read a message, you may want to take it off your personal page by clicking the "archive" link. Every once in a while, go and view your archive and delete messages you don't want to keep. To ensure that you don't accidentally lose important messages, Max designed message deleting as a two-step process: first you archive a message, and then you go to your archive occasionally and delete. This process will soon be changed to check boxes that allow archiving or deleting multiple messages.
    Posting Multiple Personal Messages (click)
    You can't send a personal message to more than one person at a time, but I still think it's better not to use the Forum for stuff that's not of general interest. What you can do is highlight the text of your message (use the "shift" and arrow keys on your keyboard - the highlighted text changes color). Then copy [CTRL-C] the text onto the clipboard of your computer. Then start a new personal message to the second person on your list and paste [CTRL-V] the text into the second message. Copy-Paste is a technique that works both in Windows and (with just a few differences) Mac - and you can use it on the Internet and in all sorts of other applications to save you a lot of typing.
    If you want to send a second person a copy of a message you've already sent, you can click on
    View Your Sent Messages at the bottom of your personal messages list. Just highlight and copy the old message, and paste it wherever you like.
    P.S. It's a nice idea to use personal messages to alert people to threads that might interest them. HTML works the same way in personal messages as it does in the Forum, so you can send links and use line breaks and fancy fonts and all that stuff.
    You can also copy-paste a forum message you're posting and send it as a personal message. I'm going to do that with this one, and send it to you as a personal message.
    Tracing threads
    from Lamarca
    Good job, Joe! One feature that's an advantage of Membership is the "Trace" function. If you become a Mudcat member, and there's a thread you're interested in following responses to, you can hit the "Trace" link. That thread is then added to your very own personal list of "traced" threads, so that even if it drops off the general list of threads before you visit the site again, you can easily find it by going to your personal page and looking in your list of traced threads. When you're no longer interested, you can "De-trace" a thread.


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    Subject: What's NOT Allowed
    From: McGrath of Harlow
    Date: 17 Mar 00 - 10:12 PM

    See the Posting Policy thread for recent developments.

    And there might be a request to people not to do undesirable things - that way when they start doing them it would be possible to refer back to this, which would make it less of a personal dispute.
    What the undesirable things would be might need thinking about.
    They'd fall into two classes - technical things that can mess things up - e.g. slowing down loading, by inserting pictures; and manners, like making personal attacks, or carrying out quarrels in public instead of maybe through Personal Messages.
    I refer most questions of etiquette to a truly wise person, Miss Manners, whose basic premise is the Golden Rule, that we should do unto others as we would have them do unto us, etc., etc. I fully agree with Miss Manners on this.
    The Washington Post's website also contains an archive of Miss Manners' columns.
    We believe that Mudcatters are blessed with common sense and admirable judgment, and should have little need of rules. The Powers That Be at Mudcat are tolerant of just about everything but intolerance.
    As for technical things, Mudcatters should refrain from posting embedded pictures and sounds from other sites because this slows down the loading of threads (use clickable links instead). Also, we usually try to discourage the posting of messages that are posted elsewhere and lyrics that are already in the database (clickable links or searching directions are usually better, with some common-sense exceptions). It's also usually better to avoid starting multiple threads on the same subject, as this tends to divide and confuse and duplicate discussions. It's usually better to resurrect and add to an old thread on a song, rather than starting a new one. There's no need for separate threads to request, post lyrics, post tune, and add comments on a song - all of these fit together quite nicely and make for a better discussion.
    We also do not permit the posting of lengthy non-music articles from other sources. If they fill more than a screen's worth of space, post a summary of the article in your own words, and provide a link to where the information can be found. Although Mudcat is a music forum, we welcome discussions of politics and other subjects, as long as discussion participants use their own words and ideas.
    -Joe Offer-

    Mudcatiquette

    Joe: I think there should be a paragraph or two on "Mudcat-equet". Alison made the first step with her request that requests for lyrics be more informative. One of my pet peeves is a title like "Please Help Me" with no reference to the problem. It would be nice to think of rules of behaviour that will avoid flame wars; but I don't have any concrete suggestions.

    Murray

    Murray, your point is well taken, but I'm staying away from giving guidelines on etiquette. I figure that whatever I say, the nice people will be nice and the nasty ones will be nasty. I've given some guidelines above about selecting appropriate thread titles, but we will always have some dumb people who will start dumb threads with dumb titles. Ya gotta love 'em. I'll leave matters of etiquette to one of the true idols and inspirations of my life,
    Miss Manners (click).

    One other thing - Please be careful not to post information you want to keep private. The Mudcat is part of the Internet, and there are nasty people out there who study every word you post. There's no need to be paranoid about the nasty guys - but it is wise to be prudent. Don't post your date of birth, your address or phone number, or other personal information. If you need to convey that information, send it by e-mail or personal message - but only to people you trust. The Protecting Your Privacy section of this FAQ gives pointers on privacy. By the way, Mudcat will not release your membership information or IP address to outside parties or to members.


    Some people have suggested that there should be more rules around here, so that people know how to behave properly; and that this or that should be better-organized or have instructions that are clearer. Mudcat is governed by a principle of civil anarchy, and that principle gives Mudcat much of its spontaneity, intelligence, and friendly spirit. We don't want to see anything here that's too organized or too slick. It's OK for people to have to use their heads and explore a bit. There's a well-known Mudcatter who occasionally sends me a personal message to remind me how much this place resembles Golding's Lord of the Flies. There are times when I agree with him, but I generally find our anarchy and lack of organization to be quite wonderful.

    What about Censorship?

    We try very hard to preserve freedom of expression here at Mudcat, so we edit and delete messages as sparingly as we can. However, part of that freedom is that people should feel safe to be here and express their ideas without fear of being bullied or threatened. Heated discussions are generally considered "protected" around here, but if you find a post that is seriously offensive because it is a threat or a personal attack, let Max or one of the moderators know about it and they'll take a look at it.

    Generally, we expect people to settle their own differences, and we will ordinarily refuse to delete a message unless there is a serious reason for us to do it.

    There are some people who use the Internet as their platform for hatred and racism. We will not allow Mudcat to be used as a vehicle for hate information, and we will delete all racist information as soon as it comes to our attention.

    If you post a message and there have been no responses, we'll usually honor your request to delete your own message. Same thing if the message is a personal attack against you. If people have responded directly to the message, it may be inappropriate for us to delete it. We do the best we can, but at times we have to make unpopular decisions.

    And of course, we're willing to fix mistakes you've made.

    The Mudcat Cafe is a music discussion forum. Other activities are permitted and encouraged, but the primary focus of the Forum is music. The discussion of music is to be given special protection. Harassment which discourages or attempts to prevent the requesting, posting, or discussion of a song will not be tolerated, no matter how controversial the song may be.

    Sometimes, the posting of a song may arouse controversy that can be intimidating to some. If you wish to post lyrics in the Forum without being identified, feel free to send the lyrics to Joe Offer or Max Spiegel by e-mail or personal message, and the lyrics will be posted.

    Editorial Policy

    We occasionally get requests for information about what we delete and why we delete it. Most of the principles we follow are stated above, but let me try to state it more succinctly:
      The Mudcat Cafe reserves the right to edit, move, combine, rename, or delete all threads and messages posted in the Forum. We will try our best to edit sparingly, but there are times when we may have to take some action to keep the peace, or to protect the interests of our community. Editorial decisions are made by Max, or under his direction. We follow principles and common sense, and see no need to have everything spelled out in some sort of pseudo-legal code. We don't allow hate, racism, stalking or other intimidation, or personal threats or attacks. We don't cater to chain letters or non-music advertising, and we expect people to use moderation when they advertise music-related things. We allow just about all sorts of discussion, but we draw the line when it's clear that an individual is flooding Mudcat with information - things like multiple "copycat" or interrelated threads, lengthy copy-paste messages of non-music articles from publications and Internet sources (one screen full of text is the limit - and remember that we encourage you to post the entire text of music-related information). If you regularly start more than one thread a day, you are quite probably starting too many. Please try to post to existing threads as much as possible, rather than splitting topics into a number of threads. I suppose there are a few other things we take action against, but I think this is a pretty good summary.
      When we encounter individuals who cause us continual problems, we may take action to temporarily or permanently bar them from posting at all, but this rarely happens. Most of these are people who post just because they like to cause trouble. They may become very self-righteous in defending their right to "free speech," but it's usually quite clear what they're up to. On the Internet, they're called "trolls." We deal with them as we see fit.

    Dealing With Flamers and Trolls

    Here are some definitions from Netlingo.com:
    • flame
      To send nasty or insulting messages, usually in response to someone's having broken the rules of netiquette.
    • flame bait
      An intentionally inflammatory posting in a newsgroup or discussion group designed to elicit a strong reaction thereby creating a flame war.
    • flame war
      When an online discussion degenerates into a series of personal attacks against the debators, rather than discussion of their positions. A heated exchange.
    "Troll" is a bit more subtle, and I had a harder time finding it. Here's what I found in the
    Jargon Dictionary:
    troll v.,n. 1. [From the Usenet group alt.folklore.urban] To utter a posting on Usenet designed to attract predictable responses or flames; or, the post itself. Derives from the phrase "trolling for newbies" which in turn comes from mainstream "trolling", a style of fishing in which one trails bait through a likely spot hoping for a bite. The well-constructed troll is a post that induces lots of newbies and flamers to make themselves look even more clueless than they already do, while subtly conveying to the more savvy and experienced that it is in fact a deliberate troll. If you don't fall for the joke, you get to be in on it. See also YHBT. 2. An individual who chronically trolls in sense 1; regularly posts specious arguments, flames or personal attacks to a newsgroup, discussion list, or in email for no other purpose than to annoy someone or disrupt a discussion. Trolls are recognizable by the fact that the have no real interest in learning about the topic at hand - they simply want to utter flame bait. Like the ugly creatures they are named after, they exhibit no redeeming characteristics, and as such, they are recognized as a lower form of life on the net, as in, "Oh, ignore him, he's just a troll." 3. [Berkeley] Computer lab monitor. A popular campus job for CS students. Duties include helping newbies and ensuring that lab policies are followed. Probably so-called because it involves lurking in dark cavelike corners.

    Some people claim that the troll (sense 1) is properly a narrower category than flame bait, that a troll is categorized by containing some assertion that is wrong but not overtly controversial. See also Troll-O-Meter.


    I have to say that I have become a bit cynical about people who make a big show of leaving the Mudcat because of flamers - many of these people might warrant the title of "trolls." The people who attract flamers are often quite obnoxious themselves, especially those who leave with a long farewell message that usually generates a hundred "don't go" responses or more. I am concerned about those who quietly slip away, or those who never even start to participate because of the nastiness. Those who make a show of making martyrs of themselves are every bit as bad as the flamers, I think. They prey on the sympathy of good people.

    I've said it before, and I'm sure I'll say it many times more: the best way to deal with both flamers and trolls is to ignore them. Give them silence, and they'll go away. They feed on attention - don't give it to them.
    There is another problem that occasionally arises here - people who are threatening in their behavior. It is of utmost importance that you do not try to deal with these people. If you ignore them totally and inform Joe Offer or Big Mick about them quietly with a personal message or e-mail, we can quietly make them disappear (to an extent).
    PLEASE DO NOT TRY TO DEAL WITH THESE PEOPLE YOURSELVES.
    If people seem dangerous, LEAVE THEM ALONE.



    Who's In Charge Here?

    Mrrzy asks: Hi, nother question that might be frequent - who does what here? I mean, there are occasional references from people who post frequently, who all seem to know that X will fix this or they hope Y will get rid of the duplicate posting or... it would be nice to have a Contacts list, like ask Joe for tech help but ask Max for whatever he seems to be helping about.
    Also, I seem to have read in this thread that the Help option for posting is for technical help; I've been using it whenever asking for input on anything that isn't specifically lyrics, so I didn't think the Lyrics Requested was the right topic. For instance, that lost book, or the jargon terms for folk singing. Should those have been BS? I would now say the latter Yes, but the former No; how about another category like Favors? Information Requested? Offline Help? Or something...
    Thanks, as always,
    -Mrr
    Hi, Mrrzy -
    Max runs Mudcat and is the Ultimate Guru of All Things Technical. The Digital Tradition Folk Song Database is operated by Dick Greenhaus and Susan of DT. Since Max and Dick and Susan don't have time to handle the day-to-day problems like duplicate posts and bad HTML and registration problems, Max gave "edit" buttons to some of us. The identity of those with "edit" buttons is a bit of a mystery - the only person actually known to have a button is Joe Offer, because somebody caught him in a moment of indiscretion. {grin} So, since Joe is a known quantity, people have asked Joe for help. Joe is now known as "Senior Archivist," and handles things like archiving and indexing music information, helping people with technical problems and registration, and other information-related matters.
    For a time, a mysterious individual with legendary technical ability was around, the man known as Pene Azul, Blues Pianist. Pene (Jeff) did a lot of programming for Mudcat, and we're grateful to Jeff for all he did for us and we wish him well in the new career that has taken him away from Mudcat. Also, Big Mick Lane has joined the leadership team, and can be contacted for assistance, complaints, or advice. If you need help on something technical, post a message in the Forum (or send Joe or Big Mick or Max a personal message if it's something sensitive), and somebody will take care of the problem. While Max is the Ultimate Authority, remember that he has to work for a living, so you may get a quicker response by posting a general message in the Forum, so the problem can be handled by those of us who have more time than money. Our e-mail addresses are:
    our Moderators handle the day-to-day operations and problems, and are the best ones to contact first. They can handle most problems.

    The Mudcat Help Forum was for technical stuff - registration problems, asking for help with duplicate posts, communication when Mudcat is not operating, and stuff like that. Unfortunately, the Help Forum was taken over by Spam and trolls and general nastiness, and we had to close it.
    The thread categories are an attempt to make some sense our of our discussion, but there are no solid rules regarding their use. The "BS" category seems to be misunderstood - that category is for chit-chat and goofing off, and you should not use the "BS" category if your thread has to do with music or things related to music. The "BS" tag is supposed to warn off those of us who don't have time or interest for that sort of thing. "BS" is not a lesser form of communication, but it is placed at the bottom of the Forum Menu because we want to make our music information easier for visitors to find.
    Basically, though, I think the general principle here at Mudcat is "civil anarchy." Max, Dick, and Susan have shown no desire to set rules for operation of the Mudcat. They are very gracious hosts, and it would be nice if we'd all follow their example. That should be the only rule we need.

    Hope that helps.
    -Joe Offer-

    Explicit Lyrics Alert

    Explicit Lyrics: Some people have suggested that there should be a warning posted at the beginning of threads that include lyrics that are sexually explicit. Bawdy songs have always been an integral part of folk music, and you'll find lots of dirty ditties if you do a keyword search of our database for bawdy. There is no set policy on this sort of thing, but Standard Mudcat Policy is that freedom of expression is to be encouraged and protected. If you're going to post something spicy and think you should label it, that's fine - but there is no requirement for labeling here and visitors are advised that they read at their own risk.
    There was a message in the Help Forum one day, complaining that a bawdy parody turns up when you click on the title of Grandfather's Clock. Well, we fixed that-partially. Trouble is, the Henry Clay Work song is listed as "Grandfather's Clock," and there's another song titled "My Grandfather's Cock." Maybe that's not such a horrible thing. If we can help people learn to explore life on their own and to think for themselves, we've taught them a valuable lesson.
    A worthwhile caveat from the late, great John in Brisbane:
    Some material on these pages is intended for a mature audience, and may irritate parents of children under the age of sixteen.
    Keep in mind, however, that
    (a) if they don't understand it, it's not really much of a problem
    (b) if they do understand it, they almost certainly did not learn it here.

    The Big, Bad Troll
    Lately, we have had an unusual amount of activity from one or more very tenacious and clever trolls, people who are trying to make our participants outraged, indignant, and hysterical. This troll (or trolls) has taken out dozens of false Mudcat memberships, and many of these memberships closely resemble the names of longtime Mudcat participants. Much of this troll activity has taken place in Personal Messages sent to Mudcatters. It is very important that you do not respond to or acknowledge these trolls in any way, because this feeds them the attention they crave. If you suspect troll activity in the Forum or in Personal Messages, please report it to Max or a moderator by personal message. Forum discussions of troll activity are prohibited, because this tends to give trolls exactly what they want. Trolls are like rattlesnakes - if you leave them alone, they usually won't bother you.


    Updated July 2015


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    Subject: Mudcat is about the Blues (and Folk)
    From: GUEST,Neil Lowe
    Date: 17 Mar 00 - 11:01 PM

    No reference to da blues in the introduction? I know folk is the overwhelming focus, but the heading at the top of the page does say: "A magazine dedicated to blues and folk music." Granted, the few of us that are still around might not be around much longer, what with:

    Whiskey, wimmin,
    Fast cars and hard livin'
    Chain-smokin' Camels
    Ramblin' around,
    Lookin' for my baby
    On every street corner downtown.
    Oh Lordy, I've paid my dues,
    Enough to buy Hades,
    And drown it in blues.

    I think even the founder of this Forum has been know to pay homage to the blues on occasion.
    Ooops! Glad you caught it before Max did. Mistake repaired. -Joe-


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    Subject: Posting Lyrics - how to do it
    From: Joe Offer
    Date: 19 Mar 00 - 09:24 PM

    Posting Lyrics

    The Digital Tradition Format

    All lyrics and tunes submitted to the Mudcat Café are considered for inclusion in the Digital Tradition Folk Song Database, so it's best to post lyrics in Digital Tradition format:
    • TITLE OF SONG IN ALL CAPS
    • (Songwriter name, or "traditional," or "songwriter unknown" on the second line in parentheses)
    • Skip a space
    • Text of the song
    • Any background information you'd like to include
    • Please try to remember to include your initials (not your Mudcat name) at the end, so you can be credited for submitting the song.
    • Also, please be sure to include information about the source of the lyrics you posted. If you got them from a songbook, name the songbook. If you got them from sheet music at the Levy Sheet Music Site or Bodleian Ballads or the Library of Congress or another extremely reputable Website, that's important information. If it's from a Website that includes a transcription of what somebody thinks they heard on a record they heard twenty years ago, it's likely to of questionable accuracy - but it still may have value to us. So, please, be specific about the source of your information, so that people can follow up on what you posted if there's a question.

    I'm working on refining guidelines for submitting lyrics. Here's a copy of my e-mail to somebody:
    Hi - we'd love to have any folk lyrics you'd like to post at the Mudcat Cafe. All lyrics that are submitted stay in the forum, and people can find them using our search engines. Many of the lyrics are also "harvested" and included in the Digital Tradition Folk Song Database, which now has lyrics for some 9,000 songs (you can access the database in the blue DigiTrad search box you find on most Mudcat pages).
    If you'd like to post a song, first check that database to see whether it's already there or not. Make sure you put the lyrics in a thread that has a title that's related to the song (like an ongoing thread that's collecting train songs, if that's appropriate; or a thread you start that has the song title as the title of the thread.). The SUBJECT line for the message with the lyrics should include this information:
    Lyr ADD: title of song here

    Ideally, you should follow the Digital Tradition Format:
    • song title on the first line IN ALL CAPS
    • songwriter name (in parentheses) on the second line
    • skip a space
    • then the lyrics
    • skip a space
    • then any notes
    • and then finish off with your initials
    Yes, there are copyright questions, but we leave it to the operators of the Digital Tradition to deal with them. In the meantime, we ask people to feel free to post whatever lyrics they'd like in the Mudcat Forum - keeping in mind that we are primarily a folk and blues site.

    -Joe Offer, Sacramento, California-

    Lyrics Requests

    In another thread, Mrzzy writes:
    This would mean that anyone, before posting anything, have to research whether any prior threads existed on it, which is nigh unto impossible. I was told that I ought to have done that when asking for the lyrics to the Country Gentlemen's version of Two Little Boys, whereas what I had done was see if that version were already in the database. Turns out the thread was years old and didn't spell things the way I did, so I think that if I had done such a search, I still would not have found it...

    Also, threads get llllllllllloooooooooonnnnnnnnngggggggggg sometimes. I had posted to the World Where Are You one, and later saw that someone had split off a smaller subthread for better loading, but the smaller one doesn't have my comment on it so I am not even sure how it got split up... And I'm a linguist too (in case you hadn't figured that out by my thread on jargon in folksongs)! So this was very interesting!

    In response, Joe says:

    That's exactly what we're asking for - that people take a moment to look around themselves for information, before asking the rest of us to look on their behalf. I guess I'd liken Mudcat to a library. Reference librarians love to tackle interesting questions and they'll go out of their way to help people who are working hard to research a question, but I'd imagine that they must get really frustrated with people who always ask for information, and never open a book themselves.

    Our music discussion threads build up a fascinating body of knowledge, but that information is much more valuable if it's easy to find. You bring up a good example with "Two Little Boys." It took just a moment for me to put "Two Little Boys" in the filter box on the Forum menu, and set the "age" to 3 years. Seven threads came up, and the longest had only 17 messages. If all of those threads were together, they might make up a very interesting discussion (and eliminate a lot of duplicated information). Again, it's like a library - it's very frustrating when the books on a given subject aren't all on the same shelf.

    If you post lyrics for a song, a "harvester" from the Digital Tradition takes about half an hour to process those lyrics for inclusion in the database. The harvester searches the database to see if that song or other versions of the song are already there. Then, the format of the lyrics is checked to make sure it meets the Digital Tradition format (see the
    Posting Lyrics (click) in this thread). Also, an attempt is made to match the song to the various Keywords (categories) of the database. The database also tries to include the initials of the person who submitted the lyrics, and determining the initials of someone identified only as "songlover" or another pseudonym also takes time. What's really frustrating is when harvesters takes half an hour to process a song, only to find out they goofed on the search, and the person who posted the lyrics had copy-and-pasted the lyrics right from our own database.

    So, yeah, I think it makes sense for people to take time and thought before they post or start a thread. After all, they're asking other people for time and thought, aren't they? This is strictly a volunteer operation. What's wonderful about it is that it is a body of knowledge that is constantly growing, something that we all can contribute to. I think it's reasonable to request that we all use care in what we post.

    I don't think you need to worry about music threads getting too long to load. A thread with 50 messages loads quite easily, and music threads rarely get that long. The "BS" threads get long and it makes sense to start a "part 2" once they get to a hundred messages or so, but that almost never happens on music threads.

    We certainly don't expect newcomers to know the ropes the first time they post, but it certainly is a pleasure when people show consideration and good scholarship when they post to the music threads. If somebody has responded and provided information, a word of thanks is always nice, too.

    It's a wonderful thing that our Forum is a spontaneous free-for-all, no-holds-barred bull session. However, it is also a very valuable information resource for those who love folk music, and it's good for all of us to do our best to do what we can to make the Forum the extraordinary resource it can be.

    -Joe Offer-

    Answering Requests

    I don't know what impressions other people have, but it seems that in the last few weeks, we've had a number of non-answers to song requests. People tell people they might be able to find the song in such-and-such a songbook which they might be able to find online for a hundred dollars if they're lucky. Somebody said that a song called "A-Rovin" is in the John Jacob Niles Ballad Book, but they neglected to tell what name Niles called it. Somebody asked for a gypsy song, and somebody responded that we should stop attacking gypsies - not knowing whether the song attacked gypsies or not. Other people are reluctant to post lyrics because maybe we're afraid that Harry Fox doesn't want us to post lyrics any more.
    I think that if somebody requests lyrics that we have, we should provide a link or tell people exactly how to find the song. If we don't have the requested lyrics here at Mudcat, then we should post them.

    When people have SOME information about a song and contribute it, that can be really good. It can be fascinating and very satisfying to watch a number of people get together to find a song, each doing a part of the search. What I object to is when people suggest checking Cowpie without first checking Cowpie themselves to see if the song is there. Or, worse yet, they tell people to check Cowpie whe Cowpie doesn't have the song - and ironically it turns out that we have the song right here. Misleading leads can direct people away from what they're seeking.
    If people post answers to lyrics requests, they should actively participate in the search and then report what they found or were unable to find. If I say that I searched DigiTrad, Cowpie, and Levy for "red roses" and couldn't find anything, that's a contribution. If I just tell somebody to try Cowpie and Levy, I'm implying that Mudcat doesn't have the lyrics.

    Should I Start a New "ADD" Thread to Post Lyrics?

    No, not usually. If you are responding to a request for song lyrics, please put the lyrics in the request thread, but put ADD and the song title in the title of the individual message. Our general policy is one song, one thread. Try to keep all the information about a song in one thread. Before you start a thread to post a song, search the Mudcat and Digital Tradition to see if we have it already.
    I think that if you're posting a number of songs, it's a good idea to fit them together in one way or another. If you keep related songs together in the same thread, they are less likely to get lost. What I would suggest is that you have one song per message and be sure to put ADD: and the song title in the message title. If you're posting a number of songs from Sandburg's book, or a number of train songs, or a number of Northumbrian songs, they may fit together in one thread.
    Now, when you request a song (after you've searched Mudcat and haven't found it), you're usually best off to start a new thread and request just that one song - unless you are requesting a number of related songs.
    -Joe Offer-

    Posting Corrections to the Digital Tradition

    The short answer:The Long Answer:
    • If we notice omissions in the DB, is there anyone to whom the missing info should be sent? I'm thinking little niggly things like, I've got no use for the women is listed as recorded by (not Ed McCurdy, from whom I learned it). Not important things like outright errors, misspelled artists or incorrect lyrics, which I assume would be posted to the thread as soon as noticed. And what about added verses from other versions, are they to be posted separately as Lyrics Add? Or is that only for adding NEW lyrics to the DT?

      (Not that I've noticed lots of errors, just curious. I was surprised not to see Ed credited with having recorded I've got..., but then again there are probably bunches of folks who also sang it who aren't there...

      Dale Rose replies: I don't think you could call it an omission because Ed McCurdy is not listed as having recorded the song. I looked it up, the version in the database is credited to RG, who would be Dick Greenhaus. He apparently learned it from Burl Ives, who was also my first source. To list every version of every song is just about impossible, though sometimes it seems we try to do so in the threads! Just check out the current thread "In Heaven There Is No Beer" ~~ we have three versions last time I counted, and have yet to come up with the well known polka lyrics, which other than the German version probably should be thought of as the definitive "way to do it." For that matter, there are cases where the same band did a different version of the same song somewhere along the line, sometimes even in the same recording session! Certainly significantly different versions are sometimes added, but that is pretty much up to Dick (and Susan) to decide if a version has enough merit to be added.

      I would suggest that if you feel McCurdy's version is sufficiently different to deserve addition to the database, then post the lyrics to a new thread and see what happens next. In any event, you are sure to elicit a new round of discussion, and someone is bound to profit from your work. Even if it is never added to the database, it will still be there in the threads for all to find by way of Max's super search.

      I should have been more informative about part of your question. Up at the top of the page in the quick links box, slip down to the very last entry, Contact Us. There you'll find who to talk to for just about every question you might have. I think in this case, other than posting the lyrics in question, you might want to contact Dick.


    If I find requested lyrics on the Internet, should I post just a link to their location?

    Generally, it's a good idea to post both lyrics and a link to show where you got 'em from - don't post them if they are elsewhere in the Forum, or in the Digital Tradition. If you post the lyrics here, we don't have to deal with expired links, and then our Digitrad and Forum Search (SuperSearch) can find them.
    There's one exception - it's probably a good idea not to post lyrics to popular songs that aren't likely to be of interest to folk musicians. I think we should do our best to respond to ALL requests, but a link to pop lyrics should suffice. If we post them here, they turn up on search engines like Google, and that in turn may bring in more people who are looking for things other than folk music. Also, if we have a large collection of commercial songs, that may attract the interest of the Copyright Cops.
    Would I post songs by Rodgers & Hart and Cole Porter? You betcha!

    Harvesting Lyrics

    The "harvesters" who collect lyrics for the Digital Tradition are Susan of DT and Joe Offer and Jim Dixon. Dick Greenhaus does some, but he does mostly the tunes and the technical stuff. I have met Susan of DT and found her to be quite human, and a very nice and interesting person.
    Several people have posted documented evidence in the forum that has almost convinced me that Joe Offer is a computer program created by Max, but my mother insists it isn't true. Mom thinks Joe Offer is human. My ex-wife thinks so, too.
    And being quite human, we occasionally miss songs that have been posted. If you post a song and don't see a ^^harvesting birdie at the end of the lyrics by the end of a week, send Susan or me a personal message, and tell us where we can find it. If you're willing to give us a little more slack, post a link to your song in the
    Songs you've posted (click) thread, and we will harvest and mark it at our leisure.

    If you post songs, please post them in the Digital Tradition format, which is explained toward the top of this FAQ thread. We'd like to get tunes for all the songs in the database, and you'll find tune posting instructions in the FAQ and in the Please Post Tunes Here thread.
    Rounds don't do anybody much good without a tune, so Dick usually stays away from them.
    Dick and Susan have maintained the Digital Tradition since 1988. They make the decisions about what goes into the database, and what doesn't. I got recruited at the beginning of 2000. I just harvest, categorize, and format them, match them with the tune files, and send them as text files to Dick.

    Generally, alternate versions of a song are included in the database only if the lyrics are substantially different from what's here. If a song is the same except for a few verses, I's suggest that you post the entire song so we know where all the verses fit, but mark the alternate verses some way so we know what's different and what's not.

    There are some glaring mistakes in some songs in the database, and you're welcome to submit corrections (best to do it as a whole set of lyrics, with notes below to tell us what you think should be corrected). Remember, though, that we are dealing with folk songs, and we expect slight variations in lyrics and tunes and don't pay too much attention to that. If Ewan MacColl sang one word and A.L. Lloyd sang another, we probably won't care to make a change.

    -Joe Offer, human being-
    Somebody asked for a description of what Susan and I do to harvest songs for the database.
    Here's the process:
    • Copy & mark the lyrics, and paste them into a word processor
      (Jon Freeman figured out a way we can paste now without losing the stanza breaks, so that saves me a lot of time)
    • Search the database to make sure we don't already have the song, and look for related songs or other versions of this song
    • Look up the poster's real name in "membership" so I can put his/her initials at the end of the lyrics
      (they always forget)
    • Go through our 576 categories and decide which ones should be assigned to the song
      (I'm hoping we can combine and eliminate some categories sooner or later)
    • See if there are DT, Child, or Laws numbers that should be assigned to the song
    • Come up with a filename 7 or 8 letters long, a filename that hasn't been used (related songs are given related filenames)
    • Save the results as a text file, and then close Word and open the file in Notepad to make sure none of the stanza breaks disappeared
    • If the tune is posted, match it with the song and ZIP it into a package. If no tune, solicit one, or try to find one in a songbook and transcribe it
    • Being the independent maverick that I am, I've started adding a line of alternate titles and keywords to make songs easier to search for (like alternate spellings of "whiskey" and "singin'")
    • ZIP together a packet of a reasonable number of songs, and send it off to Dick for further processing.
    Dick takes the songs and tunes and makes them into SongWright files, carefully matching the lyrics to the notes, and correcting the tunes where needed.
    All this takes a lot of work, but thre are fringe benefits. I always have new material for my Wednesday night song circle. And you wouldn't believe the number of songs that Dick has in his head, and Susan has a serious passion for long ballads.
    NOW do you understand why it takes so long? I actually think it wouldn't help to have more people do the harvesting, because even my added presence can tend to confuse things and Susan and I are still learning how to avoid duplicating each other's work - but it sure helps when people post songs that are already formatted and annotated.

    -Joe Offer-
    Some of you may have noted that I marked Kendall's lyrics for "East Virginia" with a three-winged harvesting birdie ^^^ - the third wing means the song is redundant because it's already in the database.
    But it really isn't redundant. I don't think it's different enough to include in the database, but it's certainly of great value to have all the different variations posted in the forum.
    Thanks, Kendall.
    -Joe Offer-

    Please Note Important Message


    The End

    The permanent part of the FAQ stops here. What follows are questions and answers. Some will be developed into more complete information and added to the FAQ. Other parts will eventually be deleted or replaced.
    -Joe Offer-
    Partial Update July, 2008


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    Subject: Join in on line with other Mudcatters
    From: Jon Freeman
    Date: 21 Mar 00 - 08:14 PM

    Some Mudcatters get together for on line chats and sing arounds and even concerts. Here are a few ideas:
    • Paltalk: To use Paltalk, you need to download software from Paltalk and install it on your PC (no Mac support unfortunately). There are several rooms used by Mudcatters outlined below. When open, these rooms can be found in the Music Category of the Group menu. Please note that to see these rooms in the listing, it is necessary to have the show adult groups box checked.


      • Mudcat Snug: This is a closed (password protected) room operated by Nynia which is used by Mudcatters and invited guests for a get together and a song circle. The password is dt This room maybe opened by any Mudcatter, details are as follows; Owner - Lurkio, Admin Code - 0898.

      • Mudcat Concert Room:This room, operated by BigChuck, hosts concerts where one or more Mudcatters provide the entertainment. Concerts are generaly on Thursday evenings at 7:00PM EST. Please check this thread for details of future events.

    • ICQ: This provides a text chat facility and is popular amongst Mudcatter's for personal conversation. Details can be found at http://www.icq.com. In addition, an ICQ active list called FolkChat (ICQ #62415725 ) is run by Max and is opened used during the Mudcat Radio show for communication between Mudcatters and the Radio hosts.

    Alas, most of these online gatherings are no longer. We used to have wonderful, worldwide song circles on PalTalk, but we haven't found a good replacement for PalTalk.
    -Joe- (29 Aug 2009)

    But COVID-19 hit us in 2020, and Mudcat responded in June 2020 with the Mudcat Worldwide Singaround, which meets on Zoom at 8 PM London time every Monday (noon in Los Angeles). Email Joe Offer joe@mudcat.org to get on the email list for notifications and the Zoom link, which is updated weekly. (Joe Offer, April 2022)

    Jon


    Hints, and Links and pointers to helpful threads (links submitted by various Mudcatters)

    Lonesome EJ has volunteered to maintain the list below:

    Mudcat Classic Threads

    The following links will take you to prime examples of the musical knowledge, humor, and thoughtfulness to be found in the Forum of the Mudcat Cafe.
    I had originally asked Rick for suggestions for a Classic Thread under the topic Technique and Instrument Discussions, which was why he started the Pickers Tips Thread. I had also planned a Traditional Music Discussions topic, but a lot of the ones I considered are already named in Alice's Memorable Threads. At any rate, I'll give you my picks at the risk of overlapping Rick and Alice. The individual threads may be changed from time to time, but the Topics should be ongoing.
    The master list is in a thread called Mudcat Classic Threads
    -Lonesome EJ (updated 13 September 2000)-


    Alice's Memorable Mudcat Threads

    Thanks also to Alice Flynn. For quite some time, Alice has maintained links to memorable Mudcat threads on our
    Mudcat Links Page:


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    Subject: Why Didn't Anybody Answer Me?
    From: Joe Offer
    Date: 22 Mar 00 - 05:49 PM

    Transferred from another thread, and slightly edited. Thanks, Malcolm.
    -Joe Offer-
    Subject: RE: Whats the matter with you people????
    From: Malcolm Douglas
    Date: 22-Mar-00 - 12:44 AM

    Sometimes a question doesn't get answered, maybe because it's not expressed very clearly, or the thread-title is too general ("NEED HELP BADLY" turns up a good bit; lots of people don't bother looking at those) or because nobody knows the answer!
        If your thread disappears, you can always find it again, either by changing the "Age" filter on the main Forum page to a longer time-period and pressing the "refresh" button, or by searching for your thread title in the "Quick Links" box at the top of the page. You can then bring it back to the top of the list by adding a new message to it. There may be answers on it by the time you find it again.

    It's always a good idea to make the nature of your question as clear as possible in your thread-title, and to provide as much background information as you can: a lot of people recently have been asking for "the lyrics" for entire albums, without being able to say for sure who recorded them and what they were called. That's a little too much to ask of people who come here to share what they know -or can find out- in their spare time, and (unless they're logging on from work) at their own expense.

    It isn't a "clique" thing (or I wouldn't be here), but it usually takes a little while to work out how to get the best results from a place like this.

    If I've been telling you stuff that you know already, I apologise; "Guest" doesn't tell us much, though. If you sign your name, people will have a better idea whether or not they've seen your question(s).
        Don't give up.

    Malcolm


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    Subject: Thread Naming Conventions
    From: Elektra
    Date: 22 Mar 00 - 10:55 PM

    A quick list of thread naming conventions would be helpful, though I'm sure I'll leave a few out.
      Purpose  ______________________________Format
    To request song lyrics/chords.........Lyr/Chords Req: Song Title
    (can be used together or separately, as needed)
    Lyrics to add to existing DT song(?)..Lyr Add: Song Title
    For HTML practice/help................HTML: Whatever
    Breeze-shooting.......................BS: Topic
    To submit an original composition.....Mudcat Songbook (it changes -- search for it!)
    For help with none of the above.......Help: Subject/Question

    I would also like to suggest one that may already exist in some form, though I haven't seen it lately:

    To request a definition/meaning.......Def Req: Word/Phrase

    *elektra*

    P.S. All yours, Joe!

    from Gaz:
    BS: So that's what it stands for. From the nature of the 'contributions' I assumed it stood for Bullshit.
    That's right, Gaz. At Mudcat, "BS" stands for "breeze-shooting." "Breeze-shooting," of course, is a euphemism for "bullshit."
    -Joe Offer-
    I've had to change a lot of thread names in the last few days, and I can't quite figure out why there's a rash of naming music threads with the BS: designation.

    Please do not use the "BS:" designation when starting threads that discuss music.


    Thread #24630   Message #283140
    Posted By: Gary T
    23-Aug-00 - 08:05 AM
    Thread Name: What does 'BS:' stand for?
    Subject: RE: What does 'BS:' stand for?

    Actually, what Joe mentioned--breeze shooting--is probably the most accurate way to look at it. Of course we all know that "bullshit" is the original word that BS indicates, but it has different shades of meaning. MichaelA's second post listed some of them. Here it essentially refers to something that's not the stated business at hand (folk and blues music), similar to having a "bull session" at college (instead of discussing studies) or "shooting the breeze" around the office water cooler (instead of talking about work). So I would say it means bullshit in the sense of breeze shooting.


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    Subject: Support the Mudcat-money matters
    From: GUEST,Mrrzy-at-work
    Date: 12 Apr 00 - 01:44 PM

    About those contributions and things, can you explain something someone mentioned in some thread at some point (wish we could do body searches!) about Amazon.com, and how if you are going to order from them if you do it through Mudcat then Mudcat gets a slice? And are there any other cooperative affiliations of this type?
    Mrzzy,if you click on the banner with the Mudcat Logo that says Help Support the Mudcat at the top of this page, you will get the answers to your first question. -Jon Freeman-
    Mrr says: Another question: What does the little SHOP line mean that sometimes, and sometimes not, appears below the date of the posting? Thanks, -Mrr
    Click on one, and see, Mrr. It leads you to recordings of songs mentioned in the message, and you can buy the recording and generate a small amount of income to help support Mudcat.
    Ok, I see what it DOES, but why or how does it get there? I have seen something under my name sometimes that didn't seem to relate to anything... I will try to find an example. Thanks again. I'd like to benefit Mudcat - pity I buy so little music!
    It gets there by Max's Magic, Mrr. Max is the whiz who keeps this place running.
    -Joe Offer-


    Trouble with Thread Titles and Starting Threads


    Mrrzzy: Another question: sometimes when creating a new thread, I change my mind about what the title should be halfway through. Then when I post, what I see posted is always what I first typed, not what I had (by the end of my typing) decided to title the thread. Does it save the thread title as soon as you tab into the body, and if so, how can you change your thread title from your first stab? Should I wait to title till I'm completely done thinking?
    The title for the thread appears to be set when you first go to create it. When you enter and submit the post, you have the option to change the subject field but not the actual thread title. If you change your mind halfway through creating a new thread, I would suggest that you copy the text that you have already typed, abandon that attempt (you can do that by using your back button but make sure you don't hit the Submit button before doing this) and starting again with the correct title. You can then copy what you have already typed back into the form. -Jon Freeman-

    Sometimes, people get error messages when they are trying to create a thread. The thread creation mechanism is complicated and a bit fussy, and does not allow all punctuation marks and special characters. If you get an error message, the first possible solution is to check the thread title and avoid using punctuation or special characters. Quotation marks in thread titles can be real killers - please don't use them.

    Jon's partially right in his comments about aborting the thread creation process. No thread is created until you click on the "submit" button for your first message (be sure to click on it only once). However, please AVOID using the "back" button on your browser to navigate the the Mudcat, especially in the process of posting messages and creating threads. As much as possible, use the navigation links Max has provided, and that will help reduce the problem of duplicate threads and messages. To abort a thread creation or a message, click on any link on the page, but don't click on the "submit" button. If you do start a duplicate message or thread, don't worry. Somebody will take care of it. If you need to have something deleted right away, post a request on the
    Help Forum

    Be sure to give your thread a specific title. Titles like "desparately seeking lyrics" are considered generic, trite, and poorly spelled (desperate people never spell the word right). Tell people what you want by putting the song title or a phrase from the song in the name of the thread. In your inital message, tell us everything you know about the song, not just the title. Too many songs share titles, and many songs have several different titles.

    Thread too big to load in your computer?

    In the "messages" column on the Forum Menu, there's a column of numbers that tells how many messages are in each thread. If the thread has more than 50 messages, that number is a clickable link that will display the thread in batches of 50 messages. Next to that number is a small "d" that is a link that will display the messages in reverse (descending) order.
    -Joe Offer-


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    Subject: Definitions and Terminology
    From: Night Owl
    Date: 18 Apr 00 - 01:40 PM

    What's a THREAD, anyhow?
    "Thread" is a term that has been around the Internet for a long time, probably from the ancient time when there were Newsgroups but no World Wide Web (WWW). A "threaded" discussion is one that has a number of separate messages that discuss a single topic.

    If you're a Mudcat Member, you can trace threads that are interesting to you, and check to see if messages have been posted to them recently. Otherwise, threads stay listed on our forum menu for 24 hours after the most recent message was posted. You can bring a thread back onto the menu for another 24 hours as often as you like - find it with the "search" engine or filter, and post a new message to the thread. The message can contain just the word "refresh," if you like. We delete duplicate, blank, and excess "refresh" messages when we find them, so don't worry about your "refresh" message cluttering anything. We cannot delete excess or duplicate threads, so try not to create a second thread on a subject when there has already been one - better to refresh the old thread and continue the discussion there.

    I don't know about how many threads and personal messages you can keep on your personal page, but I don't think I'd worry about it unless your personal page starts loading very slowly. I keep about 40 traces threads and 40 personal messages on my personal page, which is probably too many because the page is slow to load - but I'm not ready to delete them yet. Do as I say, not as I do...
    -Joe Offer-
    What's "Refresh" Mean?
    Somebody asked why a Mudcatter posted a message with just the word "refresh" in it. The Mudcatter didn't have anything to add, but he refreshed the thread and brought it to the top of the Forum Menu by posting a new message to it. That made me notice it. I checked the one songbook I thought might have the requested song, but had no luck. Maybe somebody else will know it.
    If there's no answer to a thread in a day or two, find the thread using our "filter" and post a new message to refresh it. Messages disappear from the menu if nobody posts a new message in 24 hours, but you can always find it by putting a phrase from the thread title in the filter box and setting "age" to an appropriate time, like three years. If you don't remember the thread title, try putting a phrase from the thread in our "search" box.
    Define "mudcat"
    mud cat any of several catfishes capable of living in Muddy Waters.
    Source: Webster's New World College Dictionary
    Catfish and Muddy Waters are inextricably connected to the Blues. Max started the place as a blues site, but generously invited us folkies to join him. Sometimes, he's still not too sure of us. Ask him what he thinks of Gordon Bok.
    What's a cookie?
    A cookie is a small file a Website deposits in your computer. The cookie identifies you the next time you visit the site. Your Mudcat cookie gives you access to various features, particularly the ability to send personal messages and to post in the forum and be identified as a member with a known personality. When you log out of Mudcat, the cookie is deleted from your computer. When you log in, it's put back on.
    And an explanation of GUEST.
    Another advantage of Mudcat Membership is that the messages you post are identified as coming from you. If you are not registered or if you post messages from a computer that does not have your Mudcat cookie, you will have to fill your own name in on the the messages you post, and you will be identified as Guest, So-and-So. Guests are welcome to post messages at the Mudcat, to don't be taken aback by the fact that you're identified as a guest. If you're a member and the messages you post identify you as a guest, then it's time to Reset your cookie (click)


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    Subject: Mudcat T-Shirts
    From: Mrrzy
    Date: 10 May 00 - 02:20 PM

    Hey, how long does it take for a Mudcat t-shirt to arrive? It hasn't been that long, I'm just wondering.

    I think about 6 to 8 weeks, Mrrzy. It's all done by volunteer people who have too much to do and too little time, so it takes a while. Service is slow, but very reliable, friendly, and conscientious.
    -Joe Offer-


    Pass Mrzzy but for UK people like myself, Bill Sables helps out and is likely to supply quicker than Mudcat themselves can and cut some postage costs out but with the profit still going to the MC
    Jon Freeman


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    Subject: Submitting Tunes
    From: IvanB
    Date: 27 May 00 - 08:57 PM

    Joe, one newcomer question which I'd like answered: I posted a lyric request last week, which another MC'er fulfilled within a day. Since I have the tune for the requested lyrics, when would it be appropriate to submit it?
    Hi, Ivan - If we don't already have the tune in the database, send a MIDI or ABC file off to MMario or to Joe Offer (joe@mudcat.org). Be sure to tell us where the lyrics of the song were posted, so he can link to the tune. If you have the tune in other formats, you'll find a Digital Tradition e-mail address in the "Contact Us" page on Quick Links - or you can post a message in the thread and ask somebody to type up a MIDI from whatever resource you have.
    If you like, you can post tunes in the forum in ABC format so people can access them right away. Alan Foster wrote a program for us called MIDITEXT that changes MIDI files into text that can be posted at Mudcat. We've changed the way we handle MIDI, so we no longer support Alan's program. We thank him very much for it, because it opened the door and allowed us to post tunes.
    Dick Greenhaus, curator of the Digital Tradition, is eager to get any tunes he can get. He'll foam at the mouth, sit up and bark, or do all sorts of other tricks, just to get a tune.
    -Joe Offer-

    More Information on Posting Tunes Here (click)


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    Subject: Sending Personal Messages to Multiple Recipients
    From: Joe Offer
    Date: 17 Jul 00 - 07:44 PM

    Hi, Mrrzy - no, you can't send a personal message to more than one person at a time, but I still think it's better not to use the Forum for stuff that's not of general interest. What you can do is highlight the text of your message (use the "shift" and arrow keys on your keyboard - the highlighted text changes color). Then copy [CTRL-C] the text onto the clipboard of your computer. Then start a new personal message to the second person on your list and paste [CTRL-V] the text into the second message. Copy-Paste is a technique that works both in Windows and (with just a few differences) Mac - and you can use it on the Internet and in all sorts of other applications to save you a lot of typing.
    If you want to send a second person a copy of a message you've already sent, you can click on
    View Your Sent Messages at the bottom of your personal messages list. Just highlight and copy the old message, and paste it wherever you like.
    Hope that helps.
    -Joe Offer-

    P.S. It's a nice idea to use personal messages to alert people to threads that might interest them. HTML works the same way in personal messages as it does in the Forum, so you can send links and use line breaks and fancy fonts and all that stuff.
    You can also copy-paste a forum message you're posting and send it as a personal message. I'm going to do that with this one, and send it to you as a personal message.


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    Subject: Revealing Personal Information - Privacy
    From: Joe Offer
    Date: 18 Jul 00 - 04:32 AM

    I don't worry about using my real name too much - and my name is a lot more unusual than most. I don't give my address on the Internet or in the phone book - I use a post office box. I do not give my full name, my date of birth, or my social security number unless the recipient of the information has a darn good reason to know. If I can't figure out why they would have a legitimate need for the information, I don't give the information.
    But I do like to be known by my real name, and it's nice when I meet Mudcatters in real life and they know immediately who I am.

    I find it's helpful to use my real name online. It hasn't caused me any problems, but I do use some precautions:
    • The only mailing address I give out in public forums is a post office box
    • I usually post my e-mail address as a clickable link (or use my Hotmail address)
    • I don't give my exact date of birth on Mudcat Resources
    • I don't post messages that reveal that I will be away from home for a long period of time
    • My home address is not published in the telephone book
    • I don't mind people knowing my home phone number, although I don't usually post it in Web messages.
    • If you attack or provoke people online, be aware that they may wish to fight back in ways you may not have anticipated. If you're not nice by nature, it might be an idea to be nice online for your own protection.
    If you don't use your real name online, you may not need to be quite as cautious, but you should use some prudence about what you reveal about yourself. I think that women need to be a little more cautious then men, but I don't think anybody needs to get too paranoid about Internet privacy. I'd recommend prudence, not paranoia.
    -Joe Offer-


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    Subject: Protect Your Privacy
    From: Big Mick
    Date: 18 Jul 00 - 09:31 AM

    Please pay very close attention to Joe's post. He knows this stuff very well. Before he retired, Joe was an investigator for the government. And, I wager, a very good one.

    All the best,

    Mick
    Q: I had to relocate because of a security reason. Could you clarify: if I register as a member, is my email address seen by anyone who comes here? (I don't want to be found via reverse-search.) Just because I'm paranoid...
    Hi - The staff and a few select volunteers have access to your registration information, but it is not posted anywhere public unless you ask to have your name posted publicly at Member Photos & Info. We try to be very careful with registration information, and we never use it for commercial purposes - we're here for fun, not money.
    I'm a retired federal investigator, and I think it's quite safe.
    -Joe Offer-


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    Subject: Digital Tradition for Windows- Donkey Works
    From: John in Brisbane
    Date: 02 Aug 00 - 08:04 PM

    If you've downloaded the entire Digital Tradition Database, Donkey Works is an excellent FREE program for PC's with Win 95 or later. This is a great way to explore the treasures in the Digital Tradition offline. Apart form being free, the searches are more versatile than an on-line Internet search and don't consume air time or attract timed call charges.

    And you can print direct from the program with your choice of font, or copy the text into your favourite word processor.

    For DonkeyWorks click here

    Regards, John

      Unfortunately, it appears that Donkey Works is no longer available.
      -Joe Offer, May, 2005-

    Sheet Music for Digital Tradition Songs

    I'm trying to figure out how to better get tunes. Searching lyrics is OK, but I'm having problem with tunes. I really want sheet music, so I downloaded ABC2win and found the 'post tunes here' Mudcat thread, but found only unindexed posts. Also, I haven't figured out how to convert the ABC notation to sheet music without having to cut and paste. Any advice?

    From the forum you will have to cut and paste in order to produce sheet music from the posted abc's OR the miditxt. If you have a program that will import midi's - then you can use the midi's in the database and/or on Alan of Oz's mudcat midi site. Check out NoteWorthy Composer.
    There is a site called Yet Another Digital Tradition (click) listed on our "links" page. It has the ability to convert the tunes from our database into various formats, including sheet music.
    For converting tunes not yet in our database, you may want to look at the Mudcat ABC Tune Guide and the Mudcat MIDI Guide.


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: rabbitrunning
    Date: 30 Aug 00 - 01:00 AM

    Hey ho,

    I'm unclear about the harvesting process. Are the "harvesters" humans or a computer program? And why are some songs not harvested? How can we tell that they've even been noted by a harvester if we've seen them in a thread? If I see a song in a thread that I didn't find in the database (and would love to see there) but it isn't in the right format, should I repost it correctly so it gets noticed?

    What about variants? How much of a difference should there be to make a song worth "harvesting?" Does a tune make a song more likely to be harvested?

    I'm looking up a lot of girl scout songs, and I'm sort of frustrated by how many of them I find in threads, but not in the DT. I did see one commment that rounds, in particular, weren't going to be picked up without tunes, but I'm not sure why some of the others aren't being included.


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    Subject: Harvesting Lyrics
    From: Joe Offer
    Date: 30 Aug 00 - 02:48 AM

    Well, the "harvesters" are Susan of DT and Joe Offer and Jim Dixon. Dick Greenhaus does some, but he does mostly the tunes and the technical stuff. I have met Susan of DT and found her to be quite human, and a very nice and interesting person.
    Several people have posted documented evidence in the forum that has almost convinced me that Joe Offer is a computer program created by Max, but my mother insists it isn't true. Mom thinks Joe Offer is human. My ex-wife thinks so, too.
    And being quite human, we occasionally miss songs that have been posted. If you post a song and don't see a ^^harvesting birdie at the end of the lyrics by the end of a week, send Susan or me a personal message, and tell us where we can find it. If you're willing to give us a little more slack, post a link to your song in the
    Songs you've posted (click) thread, and we will harvest and mark it at our leisure.

    If you post songs, please post them in the Digital Tradition format, which is explained toward the top of this FAQ thread. We'd like to get tunes for all the songs in the database, and you'll find tune posting instructions in the FAQ and in the Please Post Tunes Here thread.
    Rounds don't do anybody much good without a tune, so Dick usually stays away from them.
    Dick and Susan have maintained the Digital Tradition since 1988. They make the decisions about what goes into the database, and what doesn't. I got recruited at the beginning of 2000. I just harvest, categorize, and format them, match them with the tune files, and send them as text files to Dick.

    Generally, alternate versions of a song are included in the database only if the lyrics are substantially different from what's here. If a song is the same except for a few verses, I's suggest that you post the entire song so we know where all the verses fit, but mark the alternate verses some way so we know what's different and what's not.

    There are some glaring mistakes in some songs in the database, and you're welcome to submit corrections (best to do it as a whole set of lyrics, with notes below to tell us what you think should be corrected). Remember, though, that we are dealing with folk songs, and we expect slight variations in lyrics and tunes and don't pay too much attention to that. If Ewan MacColl sang one word and A.L. Lloyd sang another, we probably won't care to make a change.

    -Joe Offer, human being-
    Somebody asked for a description of what Susan and I do to harvest songs for the database.
    Here's the process:
    • Copy & mark the lyrics, and paste them into a word processor
      (Jon Freeman figured out a way we can paste now without losing the stanza breaks, so that saves me a lot of time)
    • Search the database to make sure we don't already have the song, and look for related songs or other versions of this song
    • Look up the poster's real name in "membership" so I can put his/her initials at the end of the lyrics
      (they always forget)
    • Go through our 576 categories and decide which ones should be assigned to the song
      (I'm hoping we can combine and eliminate some categories sooner or later)
    • See if there are DT, Child, or Laws numbers that should be assigned to the song
    • Come up with a filename 7 or 8 letters long, a filename that hasn't been used (related songs are given related filenames)
    • Save the results as a text file, and then close Word and open the file in Notepad to make sure none of the stanza breaks disappeared
    • If the tune is posted, match it with the song and ZIP it into a package. If no tune, solicit one, or try to find one in a songbook and transcribe it
    • Being the independent maverick that I am, I've started adding a line of alternate titles and keywords to make songs easier to search for (like alternate spellings of "whiskey" and "singin'")
    • ZIP together a packet of a reasonable number of songs, and send it off to Dick for further processing.
    Dick takes the songs and tunes and makes them into SongWright files, carefully matching the lyrics to the notes, and correcting the tunes where needed.
    All this takes a lot of work, but thre are fringe benefits. I always have new material for my Wednesday night song circle. And you wouldn't believe the number of songs that Dick has in his head, and Susan has a serious passion for long ballads.
    NOW do you understand why it takes so long? I actually think it wouldn't help to have more people do the harvesting, because even my added presence can tend to confuse things and Susan and I are still learning how to avoid duplicating each other's work - but it sure helps when people post songs that are already formatted and annotated.
    Dick and Susan, is there any information you can add to my description of the process?
    -Joe Offer-
    Some of you may have noted that I marked Kendall's lyrics for "East Virginia" with a three-winged harvesting birdie ^^^ - the third wing means the song is redundant because it's already in the database.
    But it really isn't redundant. I don't think it's different enough to include in the database, but it's certainly of great value to have all the different variations posted in the forum.
    Thanks, Kendall.
    -Joe offer-


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: GUEST,SharonA
    Date: 13 Jun 01 - 02:32 PM

    I'm a newcomer (newbie? or newkie?) and I just read your instructions about creating line breaks. I'm confused about the following text: "Most word processors will let you search for 'special characters' - search for a paragraph mark or carriage return, and "replace all" with both a paragraph mark and a <br> line break (if you remove all the paragraph marks and just replace them with line breaks, you get a jumble of words that's hard to work with)." Does this mean I need to type the 'less than - br - greater than' symbol ONLY, or the symbol AND a hard return? Or the hard return and THEN the symbol??? Thanks for your help.
    Hi, Sharon - you can replace those carriage returns with just a <br> line break and then paste the whole mess into Mudcat. I replace with both a carriage return and then a line break because the end product is easier for me to review - it comes out with a line break at the beginning of each line except the first, and that makes it easy for me to see it's OK.
    Welcome to Mudcat.
    -Joe Offer-


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    Subject: Posting Songs for the Digital Tradition
    From: Joe Offer
    Date: 21 Jun 01 - 10:45 PM

    This came up in the Help Forum, and I thought I'd post a copy of my reply here.

    I don't worry too much about thread titles for searching purposes. The Filter is the only thing that searches thread titles, and it covers only three years. The SuperSearch (Digitrad and Forum Search) is based on an index that is rebuilt every few days, so recent messages aren't included in SuperSearch. I don't know if SuperSearch covers thread and message titles, or if it just searches the text of messages.

    When I search for songs to harvest, I use the old, reliable Forum Search that's available in QuickLinks. It searches by title and by user name, or both.

    If you'd like to help make it easy for Jim Dixon and me to find a song to harvest (if the song doesn't have ADD and the song title in the message title), just post a message below the song - title it ADD and the song's name, and put "see above" in the body of the message. If you've posted songs, it's a good idea to add a link to them in the Songs You've Posted thread. That makes it easy for Jim and me (and Susan, sometimes) to find the songs, and it makes a handy index. I know the thread is past the 100-message cutoff that we usually have, but most of the messages there are reasonably short and it doesn't seem to take that long to load the thread. I think there's a part 2 of the thread, if you're squeamish about adding to part 1. If a song has been posted for over a week and doesn't have harvesting marks, send a personal message to me or to Jim Dixon if you think it warrants harvesting.

    If you're making your own changes to songs or if you're adding verses, please take note that we're trying to have mostly the traditional versions of songs in the Digital Tradition. If you want to let people know about your version of a song, please make it clear in the message that the version is your own. If you post a song you've written yourself, please put your name (or Mudcat Nickname) as the songwriter in the usual
    Digital Tradition format
    • title first line (IN ALL CAPS)
    • songwriter name in parentheses next line
    • skip a line
    • then lyrics
    • then explanatory notes
    • then initials of the person who submitted the lyrics.

    You're free to post whatever you like at Mudcat, although we ask that you don't copy-paste lyrics from the Digital Tradition or from other threads. If it's a song that's of no particular interest to folkies, it's preferable that you just post a link. If it's one that folkies might enjoy (and it isn't in the Digital Tradition or Forum, then please post the complete lyrics, plus give us a link to your source of information (or tell us where it came from, if not from the Web).

    Now, although you're free to post anything, that doesn't mean that we're required to harvest it. Dick says we'll accept anything for the Digital Tradition - but Dick doesn't do the harvesting. Susan of DT, Jim Dixon, and I do it, and I think we'll confess that we bypass some songs at times. However, remember that you have three chances - Susan of DT, Jim, and Joe. Your song may make Joe and Susan groan, but Jim's an old softie...

    No word yet on when the next edition of the Digital Tradition will come out. Dick had a crash on the computer he uses used to compile the Digital Tradition, and his new computer doesn't handle the softeware he had. The new operating systems from Apple and Microsoft may or may not be compatible with the engines we have available for the database, so that's slowing us down. We're continuing to harvest the songs and Dick continues to compile them, but publishing them is a problem right now. In the meantime, Mudcat serves very well as a searchable supplement to the Digital Tradition.

    I think it's important that we take our time with the DT so that it is the best information we can gather.

    -Joe Offer-


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    Subject: Why line breaks and blue clickys
    From: Joe Offer
    Date: 01 Jul 01 - 10:19 PM

    I got an e-mail from somebody who wondered why Mudcat doesn't make clickable links automatically when somebody posts an URL or an e-mail address. Here's my response. Let me know what you think.
    -Joe Offer-
    Mudcat works off a program called ColdFusion. Max Spiegel, our Webmaster, can set all sorts of options on ColdFusion. One would add line breaks automatically instead of forcing us to put <br> at the end of each line when we post lyrics.
    I believe there is another option that would automatically make clickable links out of World Wide Web URLs and e-mail addresses.
    The problem with both of these options is that once you choose them, the line breaks are added and the clickable links are created, whether you want them or not. Max chose to allow us to choose how our posts look. It means we have to learn to do some simple HTML, but that's kind of an interesting and worthwhile challenge. We have experimented with the options, but we felt too caged-in by the results. It's like riding a bike with training wheels after you've learned to ride without - you feel very restricted in what you can do.
    If you ever have any questions about how to do things, take a look at the FAQ (frequently asked questions), and follow the link to the Mudcat HTML Guide. If you have more questions, post them in the HTML Guide thread.


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    Subject: Digital Tradition Corrections
    From: Joe Offer
    Date: 17 Aug 01 - 07:33 PM

    If you have corrections to the Digital Tradition, post them. It's that simple. No magic formula. We'll send a correction file to Dick, and he'll look at what you say and decide whether it's worth adding to the database. Put the word ADD in the title of your message, and make clear in the text that you're submitting a correction. If there's an existing thread on the song, post your corrections there. If not, start a new thread.


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    Subject: HearMe and PalTalk
    From: Joe Offer
    Date: 16 Oct 01 - 11:45 PM

    Over the last few years, Mudcatters have used the HearMe and PalTalk services to gather for online concerts and song circles. Both these services are in a state of flux, so our procedures for singing sessions keep changing. Click here for a thread that should have the latest information on Mudcat online sings.
    -Joe Offer-


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    Subject: Cookie Problems - probably on your computer
    From: Joe Offer
    Date: 30 Nov 01 - 11:49 AM

    Somebody asked me why he keeps having cookie problems. Here's my answer. Any other ideas?
    -Joe Offer-


    You know, I haven't been able to figure out why some people lose their cookies, especially when it happens more than once. I know how to fix it - go through the login process and enter user name and password. I know it's caused by a cookie on your computer that gets deleted or corrupted - but I can't understand why it never happens to me. Almost always, the problem is on the user's computer, and not at Mudcat.

    I guess it's a good idea to do a little maintenance on your computer every month or so - you might try the complete login instructions (click) here in the FAQ and delete and reset your Mudcat cookie and clear your history and browser cache. You might use the maintenance tools from Norton or McAfee, or the ones that come with Windows (hit your "Start" button and look in programs, go to "accessories," and select "system tools.") If you use Windows System Tools regularly but wisely, you'll have fewer computer problems overall.

    We tech geeks do have one serious problem solving problems - the common Mudcat problems never happen to us.


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    Subject: Internal Blue Clickys
    From: Joe Offer
    Date: 01 Dec 01 - 01:51 PM



    I'd like ask our "regulars" to take the time to learn how to do within-Mudcat clickable links (internal links). When you make a link, leave out the http://XXX.mudcat.org (XXX being the name of the server). That way, the link keeps the reader in the server he/she was using. Our regulars post a lot of internal links, and I've had to spend a lot of time changing them. If you link to ragtime or dharma or shorty or loki, or even www - there are times that those servers aren't working, and your link then leads people to a dead end.



    for a thread:

    <a href=/thread.cfm?ThreadID=39542>(click here)</a>



    for a song (link preferably taken from SuperSearch/ Digitrad & Forum Search):

    <a href=/@displaysong.cfm?SongID=409>(click here)</a>




    Note how cleverly I have also deleted extraneous stuff from the end of the URL of both the thread and the song. All you need is;
    • the display page for either the thread or the song (/thread.cfm or /@displaysong.cfm)
    • a question mark to show a query
    • THREADID or SONGID
    • the number of the thread or song


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    Subject: Searching for an individual's posts
    From: Joe Offer
    Date: 03 Feb 02 - 01:53 AM

    Somebody asked how to find all the messages a Mudcatter has posted.
    You can search under user name and/or message title in the Mudcat Forum Search, which is in the QuickLinks dropdown menu on most pages at Mudcat - explore all the QuickLinks, and you'll find lots of handy stuff.
    If you look at an individual message posted by so-and-so, you'll see that the sender's name is a clickable link - click on it, and you'll find that all of the sender's messages will appear.
    -Joe Offer-


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    Subject: Personal Messages
    From: bfolkemer
    Date: 15 Mar 02 - 09:18 AM

    Hi!

    How do I send a personal message to a mudcatter? One of the members will send me a hard copy of some tunes if I send him my postal address. Thanks!

    Beth


      From: Pene Azul - PM
      Date: 16 Mar 02 - 12:49 AM

      Beth, you can either click on the Quick Links dropdown, and select "Send A Personal Message," or click on "Personal Pages" in the banner and click "Send A Message" on your personal page.

      Jeff


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    Subject: Finding things at Mudcat
    From: Joe Offer
    Date: 07 May 02 - 12:42 AM

    Spaw posted this in another thread, and I thought it was worth copying over to the FAQ.
    -Joe Offer-
    Thread #47291   Message #704520
    Posted By: catspaw49
    04-May-02 - 10:17 PM
    Thread Name: HELP TO FIND OLD THREAD
    Subject: RE: HELP TO FIND OLD THREAD

    Jeepster.......You can thank Jeff as you did for this one, but let me help you a bit for future reference.

    If you suspect you might want to occasionally go back to a thread, you can "Trace" it by clicking the Trace option to the right and the thread will always be available on your Personal Pages.

    You can do as Jeff did and enter something you think might be in the thread title into the Filter box and set the "Refresh" for some period of time you are sure is longer than when the thread appeared.

    You can also think back to some Keyword or another that you feel you had in your post and enter that in the "DT and Forum Search".......you may get a lot of hits depending on how common the words are, but you can usually find it that way too.

    Or you can do a "Forum Search" on your name.....Go to the Quick Links pull down menu and click the Forum Search option. When you get that page, enter your name in the user box and nothing in the subjest box and you can get every message you ever posted. The easier way to do this is simply to click on your name in a thread post and the same list of all your postings will come up.

    Hope that helps in the future. Mudcat has many features and sometimes we don't use the many given us. Take a few minutes and try some of these if you haven't already.......It's a great site!

    Spaw


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    Subject: Requests for editing messages
    From: Joe Offer
    Date: 13 May 02 - 12:57 PM

    In general, please don't ask us to edit messages or delete duplicate posts. We have a number of JoeClones who monitor the Forum, and they have been instructed to delete duplicate posts when they see them, leaving only the duplicate that was posted most recently.
    If you ask us to go to the Forum to make corrections of non-critical errors, we often go looking for a message that has already been deleted or repaired, and that's frustrating. If you make mistakes on a post and you want to correct them, just post a second message, with the errors corrected. The first post will most probably be deleted - and the world won't end if it doesn't get deleted.
    The main thing we need to know about in the Help Forum are critical problems, or requests for help resetting cookies - things like that. If there are seriously objectionable messages you think we should review, send a personal message to both Joe Offer and Pene Azul.
    -Joe Offer-


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    Subject: Selling Items on Mudcat / auction
    From: Mr Happy
    Date: 11 Jun 02 - 12:17 PM

    i've some questions about buying & selling items on mc.

    1. is it allowed?

    2. is it allowed to post buy/sell/swop ads on the open forum or is there a special place for these? [if its allowed]

    the reason i'm asking is i've got an instrument i bought some time ago & although i persevered in trying to learn to play it i can't do it well enough for my own satisfaction.

    i'd be interested in exchanging it for another instrument.

    can you help?

    thanks

    mr h


    Hi, Mr. Happy. Yeah, you can do it in a regular thread in the Forum, or you can sell it through the Mudcat Auction and give Mudcat a percentage of the sale price. We don't want to turn Mudcat into a marketplace, but it's ok to do that sort of thing occasionally.
    -Joe Offer-


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    Subject: Please Don't Copy-Paste Long Non-Music Articles
    From: Joe Offer
    Date: 27 Jun 02 - 01:05 PM

    Please remember that Mudcat is a Music Forum. We welcome discussion of all topics, but we give special emphasis to music.
    If you wish to discuss other topics, you are welcome to post your own opinions. Please do not copy-paste the entire texts of lengthy non-music articles that are available elsewhere on the Internet - just post a link and summarize the article in your own words.
    We don't routinely delete threads because they're political or controversial. We DO delete cut-and-paste non-music articles when we find them. We don't have room for people to debate simply by throwing newspaper articles at each other - but we DO allow political discussions if people express their own opinions.
    If you find music information or lyrics you wish to share, particularly if it is about folk music, please DO post the entire text, plus a link to where you found it.
    Thank you.
    -Joe Offer-
    Possible revision:
    Our copy-paste limits apply only to non-music items. If it's about music, please post the entire text, if at all possible. For non-music articles that you want to copy and post, our limit is one screen of text, which is a lot of information. If the article is longer, post excerpts or a summary in your own words, plus a link to the source of the text. Whenever you post information from other sources, please tell us where you got it from - this is especially important when you are posting lyrics, because it helps answer a lot of questions. Generally, we ask people NOT to post lyrics that are copied directly from the Digital Tradition (or Yet Another Digital Tradition), or from messages already posted in the Forum - it confuses our song harvesters.

    Blues Fake Book


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: Mr Happy
    Date: 19 Jul 02 - 05:27 AM

    i've recently been exploring some of the threads posted in the past, some going back several years.

    sometimes a topic in these old threads seems also relevant now, so i've refreshed it along with adding my comments. often these revived threads are then further added to by other respondents [often new mcs]

    some of these threads are now getting inconveniently long.

    i've looked through the various mc resources & faqs on the subject of making 'blue clickies' but these seem to refer to making links to other sites.

    i know i'm being very long winded here, so to avoid beating about the bush or procrastinating any further, [:)],i'll come to the point.

    can someone give info. on how to make 'blue clickies' as links for the purpose of making 'part 2,3, etc' threads for the overly long ones mentioned above?

    i'd also need to be able to make retrospective links back to the original thread[s].

    i'm also a bit dim on being able to absorb technical stuff, so i'd appreciate it if the instructions for the procedure could be made as a simple step-by-step progression.

    like:

    1. do something

    2. do something else

    3. do something more etc

    many thanks in advance,

    mr happy


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: Nigel Parsons
    Date: 19 Jul 02 - 06:03 AM

    Mr Happy: There may be a standard method (but I think not).
    So, what I have done in the past, and which seems to work. Remembering that you can't do a clicky until you know the thread ID, you must post the new thread first. This often leads to last minute entries in the old thread, putting it ahead of the new thread in the list.
    So,
    1,think of title for new thread
    2,Check 'Thread ID of old thread' either write it down, or, if crafty, cut'n'paste from the current address (e.g. this one shows in current address as "http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=19340#750935". you need only cut'n'paste the bit between the "org/" and the "#". i.e "thread.cfm?threadid=19340")
    3, compose the initial message for the new thread, referring back to the old with a clicky. E.g see [a href=thread.cfm?threadid=19340]Name of Old Thread[/a] (in practise, the square brackets "[" should be the 'less than & greater than'"<" brackets., and the bit after the "a href=" is the cut'n' paste you made.
    4,Submit this as your new thread.
    5,Note the address of this new thread (as in 2 above)
    6,Post message at end of old thread with a "clicky" to the new thread. (In this final message I always try and leave several blank lines before a final comment [say 6 line breaks] to the effect "Please post all messages to the new thread")
    7,Check the list of current threads to ensure that the new one is higher up the list, if not, refresh it.

    It is worth composing both messages in something like wordpro, on separate pages as 'old thread' & 'new thread', and minimising them on your tool bar. You can then post the 'new' message by starting a new thread, and pasting your message. Note the new thread ID, type it into your 'old thread' message, and cut'n'paste that. This reduces the time between posting the two messages, and avoids a rush job.

    Nigel


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: Watson
    Date: 19 Jul 02 - 06:42 AM

    Mr Happy.

    Nigel got in before me, and my explanation is much the same, but you can cut and paste my example if it makes it any easier for you.

    Start your new thread

    Make a note of the threadid number

    Go back to the old thread

    Type in a line like:

    <a href="thread.cfm?threadid=xxxxx">Click here</a>

    ...but instead of the red xxxxx put in the number you have noted.

    Either use the Click here or substitute your own text.

    Put whatever explanation you feel is appropriate

    Submit Message and away you go.


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    Subject: Searching/Filter
    From: robinia
    Date: 05 Nov 02 - 12:38 AM

    How do you back check the forum for say a month or so? I know I'm SUPPOSED to be able to do this because there's a pull-down for varying time periods, but no matter what I "pull down" to, my screen maxes out at about four or five days. (Yes, I'm still trying to chase down the most recent thread on The Knight and Shepherd's Daughter).   What am I not doing?
    Hi, Robinia - the best way to search by thread title is to use the filter. Put a pertinent word from the thread title in the filter box, and set the age back an appropriate length of time. The thread you started is here (click). The previous thread is here (click). Be sure to check the crosslinks at the top of the threads.
    -Joe Offer-

    Lyrics & Knowledge Search [Advanced]


    DT  Forum


    DT Lyrics:


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    Subject: Links
    From: GUEST,Q
    Date: 11 Nov 02 - 08:12 PM

    There used to be a Links list (very long) at top right. Part of it seems to be buried as links under Site map, "Links," but where is Max Hunter, Lomax Southern trip, etc.
    I was trying to see if the Wolf Collection had a link. No can find.

    Links (click)


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    Subject: preformat tags
    From: Joe Offer
    Date: 07 Dec 02 - 12:50 PM

    The <pre> tag is the best way to post chords, but it does not make line breaks. And if you don't have line breaks put in manually or automatically, you'll have an 'orrible mess.

    If your material already has line breaks in it, make sure the "automatic linebreaks" feature is turned OFF. Leave it ON is you're copy-pasting a straight text file, with no line breaks or HTML tags in it.

    Be sure to close the preformat tag with </pre> at the end of the section with the chords.

    -Joe Offer-


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    Subject: Can Mudcat Cookies Carry a Virus?
    From: GUEST
    Date: 27 Dec 02 - 10:48 AM

    I'm thinking of becoming a member, and have checked a good deal of the FAQ, but have not found info on this: Will, or could the cookie leave by computer vulnerable to virus?
    This may seem a foolish question to some, but I'm new at this and I don't want to stuff things up.
    Hi - the answer to your question is an emphatic No! No need to worry about that. Mudcat cookies won't harm your computer. They are not fattening or hazardous in any way.
    -Joe Offer-


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    Subject: Thanks for recognizing my parents
    From: GUEST,DianElvin@bigpond.com
    Date: 17 Feb 03 - 08:19 PM

    I found my parents' work alive and kicking on your site. All I have to say is "thank you"!   They would have been thrilled! Much better than being on a shelf in their out-of-print books. The words dance on your site.

    I put "Montgomerie" into your site and found 88 hits! Wonderful! Where are you?

    Good luck to you all.

    Dian Montgomerie Elvin

    Daughter of: William Montgomerie (1904 - 1994)
    and Norah (Shargool) Montgomerie (1909 - 1998)


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    Subject: BS and Music threads - mixed or separate?
    From: Joe Offer
    Date: 18 Apr 03 - 11:33 PM

    On March 3, 2003, we changed the Forum Menu so that all the music threads are at the top of the Forum Menu, and non-music "BS" threads are at the bottom. We did this to give our music threads better exposure.

    We realize that not everyone will like this change, so we worked out a solution:
    Registered Mudcatters who'd like to have the old "mixed" format on their Forum Menu should go to membership, check the appropriate box toward the bottom of the page, and click the "submit" button. Your cookie will be reset, showing that you have the mixed-format preference.
    Jeff also devised a Forum Menu for unregistered people who prefer the mixed format -Here 'tis:

    http://www.mudcat.org/threads.cfm?mixbs=yes

    Uh, well...it doesn't seem to work any more for me. Jeff says it should work for those who don't have a Mudcat cookie. If you're registered and logged in, your Mudcat cookie overrides it.
    -Joe Offer-


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    Subject: How Many Characters in a Title?
    From: Allan C.
    Date: 09 May 04 - 03:38 PM

    I've searched the FAQ and cannot find anywhere that tells how many characters one can put in a thread title. Does the total number include the thread designation and punctuation, such as, BS: ?
      Hi, Allan - when you get too many characters, it should stop, but I don't think it does. It allows a lot of characters - just don't get carried away. We don't put that number in the FAQ because it's something we keep changing.
      -Joe-


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    Subject: RE: Don't post e-mail addresses
    From: Joe Offer
    Date: 21 Mar 05 - 11:47 AM

    I really shouldn't have to post a reminder about this, but I guess some people just don't catch on. On Saturday, somebody posted another Mudcatter's e-mail address in a political thread. It's true that the address had been posted elsewhere at Mudcat, but not in a controversial thread. I deleted the message as soon as I found it, but the damage had already been done. The Mudcatter's e-mail was swamped with e-mails that condemned her for her opinions - and the e-mails came from several addresses, none of which were registered as members at Mudcat.

    If you post your own e-mail address or personal information at Mudcat, please be mindful that you do so at your own risk. I post mine, but I have good reason to. But PLEASE don't post anybody else's e-mail or phone or personal information in a public message, unless it is an e-mail address or information that is openly published at other locations for business purposes.

    Thanks.

    -Joe Offer-


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    Subject: Letters with diacritics
    From: wysiwyg
    Date: 04 Apr 05 - 09:30 AM

    Letters with diacritics

    I believe these can all be copy-pasted and turn out right:

    Extended ASCII:    Æ    Á        À    Å    à   Ä    Ç    É    Ê    È    Ë    Í    Π   Ì    Ï    Ñ    Ó    Ô    Ò    Ø    Õ    Ö    Ú    Û    Ù    Ü    Ý    á    â    æ    à    å    ã    ä    ç    é    ê    è    ë    í    î    ì    ï    ñ    ó    ô    ò    ø    õ    ö    ß    ú    û    ù    ü    ý    ÿ   

    Czech/Slovak characters:    Č    č    Ě    ě    Ň    ň    Ř    ř    Š    š    Ů    ů    Ž    ž

    Hungarian characters:    ő    Ő    ű    Ű

    Polish characters:    Ą    ą    Ć    ć    Ę    ę    Ł    ł    Ń    ń    Ś    ś    Ź    ź    Ż    ż

    Romanian characters:    Ă    ă    Ș    ș    Ț    ț

    Turkish characters:    Ğ    ğ    İ    ı    Ş    ş

    ~S~
      Thanks for a helpful tool. Let me warn everyone, however, that some of these characters may not display correctly in every browser. We ask that people not use special characters in thread titles or in their user names, but it's fine in the text of messages. Better yet, use HTML Ampersand Character Codes - all of these begin with an ampersand and end with a semicolon.
      -Joe Offer-


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    Subject: Happy! Happy?
    From: Joe Offer
    Date: 17 Apr 05 - 12:08 AM

    In the Help Forum (click), somebody noticed two threads they thought were duplicates. One was titled    Happy? - April 16, and the other was Happy! - April 16. There was also one called Happy! Sam on March 31, 2003. There was another on August 31, 2001; and a few others I'll track down and add to this list.

    The "Happy!" and "Happy?" threads are a trademark of the infamous and inimitable Abby Sale, and I ask that we reserve that title format to Abby. I'm looking forward to what Abby comes up with in the future.

    -Joe Offer-

    You'll find historic "Happy!" posts at Dick Gaughan's Website.

    Note:

    The "Happy!/Happy?" format is reserved to Abby Sale. If anyone else starts a thread with that format, it will be renamed.


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    Subject: Tricks for viewing long threads
    From: Joe Offer
    Date: 10 Aug 05 - 01:31 PM

    In the column showing the number of messages logged for each thread, some of the larger number are shown in blue, underlined, suffixed with the letter 'd' and asterisked. What does all that mean?

    Have you tried this?
      On the Forum Menu, there is a "messages" column that shows the number of messages in a thread. If there are more than 50 messages in a thread, the "messages" number becomes a blue clickable link. If you click that, the messages will be displayed in groups of 50. Next to that clickable number link is a small letter "d" which is also a link - if you click that, it will display messages in reverse (descending) order in groups of 50.


    It's a little-known feature that Jeff designed, and some people have found it very useful.
    -Joe Offer-


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    Subject: Using the filter
    From: autolycus
    Date: 25 Jan 06 - 07:26 PM

    Hi Joe,

    I'm following the instructions for recalling a thread that's dropped off the current list, ending with pressing the grey Refresh button, and nothing happens for me.

    Sorry if this has been dealt with somewhere (Haven't read thru all this thread);I don't know where.

    Auto.
      Hi, Auto - put a word from the thread title in the "filter" box, and then set the age back a bit.
      -Joe-


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    Subject: Tech Tips PermaThread
    From: wysiwyg
    Date: 18 Feb 06 - 10:04 PM

    Remember the Mudcat permathread of Tech Tips???

    ~S~


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: wysiwyg
    Date: 19 Mar 06 - 01:04 PM

    Joe, would you say something about old threads being closed now (for site tech reasons I guess) and that you can be PMed to ask that they be re-opened?

    ~Susan


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: Brass Monkey
    Date: 19 Mar 06 - 02:52 PM

    How do you create a complete new subject for a thread?


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Changing Post Subject Lines
    From: wysiwyg
    Date: 19 Mar 06 - 02:59 PM

    You can change the subject line of your post, but not the thread title-- look in the text box at the top of the compose window, and at the subject line of my reply to you.

    The trick you learn after being here awhile is, when it is a good idea to start a new thread as an offshoot, and when not.


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: Joe Offer
    Date: 19 Mar 06 - 08:41 PM

    If it's a completely new topic, use the create a new thread link on the Forum Menu - but use the Filter or search engine to check to see if your topic already has a thread you can resurrect.
    There are some old threads that were closed for housecleaning purposes, particularly old "BS" threads. They can be reopened as needed - just ask.
    In some closed threads, it's obvious that they were closed because of contentiousness or obnoxiousness or repetition - generally, we don't reopen those.
    -Joe Offer-


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: Mrs_Annie
    Date: 12 Jul 06 - 03:57 AM

    I followed the link to Members photos and info above, and was fascinated.

    I can't see how to get there from the home page, can you tell me? Also how can one put ones own information into these pages?

    thanks


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

    Hi, Mrs. Annie - 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.

    Member Photos & Info is a link on our QuickLinks dropdown menu, which you'll find on most Mudcat pages.

    -Joe Offer-
      Member Photos & Info has been disabled. Don't know when/if it will be reopened. -Joe Offer, 5 August 2012-


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: Mo the caller
    Date: 24 Nov 06 - 08:39 AM

    I want to start a thread and am not sure how many characters I have for the title.
    The links advising on how to start a thread dont tell me. (must admit I've not gone all through this thread.)
    So I risk being unnecessarily terse, or having it chopped, and either way not making much sense.


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: Sorcha
    Date: 24 Nov 06 - 09:07 AM

    You can change it UNTIL you go to the actual text box.


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: wysiwyg
    Date: 24 Nov 06 - 09:09 AM

    You will know when you start the thread, because only what will fit wiill show up on the screen that comes after "Create" and before "Post." You can estimate what will fit by setting the filter to 3 or 7 days' worth of threads, and look for the longest thread title showing. Try that number of characters for a start.

    ~Susan


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: Mo the caller
    Date: 24 Nov 06 - 09:17 AM

    Yes, I did that Susan.
    I still think it would be helpful if the instructions on starting a thread told you though.


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: catspaw49
    Date: 24 Nov 06 - 10:06 AM

    Although it would be helpful I suppose, its not a big deal and there are several tricks you can use to get more in. For instance, eliminate spaces when possible by capitalizing.....like this:

    Suppose you want to start a thread with the title:

    Harry Legg craps real big in his pants

    You can save a lot and it will be very legible in the title page like this:

    HarryLeggCrapsRealBigInHisPants

    Eliminating "Real" would save even more of course.

    Spaw


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: Joe Offer
    Date: 24 Nov 06 - 08:26 PM

    It's kind of a trial-and-error thing, Mo, so I can't really post an explanation (or maybe it would be more honest to say that I don't really know the answer...) ALLCAPS titles take up more space, so fewer letters are allowed. If your title includes a preponderance of lowercase letter "i," you can fit in lots of letters. If it's mostly uppercase "M," you're not so lucky.

    If the title doesn't turn out the way you want it, contact me, or one of your friendly local JoeClones.

    Oh, and please note that we don't usually allow ALLCAPS in thread titles, although there may be exceptions at times. We also expect titles to be reasonably specific, and to reflect what's in the thread.
    -Joe Offer-


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    Subject: Anonymous Posting
    From: Joe Offer
    Date: 09 Jan 07 - 03:36 PM

    From now on, anonymous posting will be watched and controlled. We've had far too many problems with anonymous posters. If you want to post, use a consistent name. We're not requiring registration, although we certainly prefer that. You may certainly use a pseudonym as a user name, but please use that same name every time you post.

    -Joe Offer-


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    Subject: Objectionable Messages
    From: Joe Offer
    Date: 09 Jan 07 - 03:55 PM

    I see forum messages here and there, questioning why Mudcat "allowed" a certain message and deleted another. We don't "allow" any messages - we allow posting, and we don't do full review of all messages to determine if they are suitable or not. If we see messages or threads that are causing a problem, we deal with them. If I receive e-mails or personal messages complaining about a specific message, I review the message and make a determination - and I ordinarily respond directly to the person who made the complaint. I do not feel bound to respond to complaints (particularly anonymous complaints) that are posted in the Forum or the Help Forum. If you have a complaint, contact me directly by personal message or by e-mail. My e-mail address is joe@mudcat.org.
    You can also contact Jeff and Max on these matters, but I'm the one who's most readily available.
    -Joe Offer-


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: Azizi
    Date: 16 Jan 07 - 08:48 AM

    Joe, I have several questions to ask about posting lyrics to songs.

    1. If the purpose of the post is to explore the meaning of the lyrics, or to explore the meanings of a particular line of a lyric-for instance "people keep comin but the train done gone-in the RE: Religious Train & Chariot Songs thread-
    a} is it appropriate to post the lyrics of that song even if it is already posted in another thread?

    b}And if so, since the purpose of the post is not to add lyrics, but to share theories about the meaning of those lyrics, should that specific post have the title "Lyr Add: [name of song]?

    2.If the purpose is to compare and contrast versions of songs-
    a} is it appropriate to post the lyrics to more than one version in the same song in the same post?

    b} If so, should the Lyr: Add: title be used? Should there be a new title? {such as "Lyr: Compare: titles"}

    3.{similar to #3}, if the purpose is to list or compare songs from different genres that may have the same or similar floating verses or lines, or which appear to share some other element{s}

    a} is it appropriate to start a new thread on that subject?

    b} is it appropriate to post all of the lyrics or portions of the lyrics to those songs even if those lyrics are are already posted in another Mudcat thread, or should there just be a hyperlink to the thread which contains those already posted lyrics, followed by new commentary?


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: Azizi
    Date: 16 Jan 07 - 09:10 AM

    Also, I have some questions regarding posting hyperlinks to YouTube and/or other videos of songs:

    1.Should there be a new title for this {such as "Video: Add: title" or "Vid: Add: title"?

    2.Should each link to a video be posted separately, or can links to multiple videos of versions of the same song or similar songs be provided in the same post?

    3. Should links to a video that is posted in one thread be reposted to Permathreads? For instance, I posted a link to the video "Mary Had A Baby" in the "African American Christmas Carol" thread.
    I believe that I also posted that same link on the "YouTube VideoPermathread". Should I have done so? And should I have also posted a link to that same video on the African American Spirituals Permathread?

    **

    Also, here is a portion of my post in response to Susan's recent post about the African American Spirituals Permathread:

    I have not yet posted any video links to the African American Spirituals Permathread. However, if it is appropriate, I can post those links to videos I have included in other threads, if this would help.

    Also, if this will help, I will go back and correct the way I have titled individual posts that have lyrics to an African American spiritual and/or gospel song. Furthermore, I will post the thread number where those songs are found in the African American Spirituals Permathread and will henceforth to the best of my ability and understanding follow the Mudcat rules for titling posts.


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: wysiwyg
    Date: 16 Jan 07 - 09:53 AM

    Azizi, I just want to address this:

    I posted a link to the video "Mary Had A Baby" in the "African American Christmas Carol" thread.
    I believe that I also posted that same link on the "YouTube VideoPermathread". Should I have done so? And should I have also posted a link to that same video on the African American Spirituals Permathread?


    Using this example, what would be really helpful to people would be to post the "Mary Had A Baby" video link on the existing "Mary Had A Baby" thread. In that case there would be no need to post about it in the Spirituals permathread itself. OR an alternative that would be acceptable would be to post the link, the song title, and the thread number where the song is discussed, in the Spirituals permathread.

    The goal is that people can easily find material related to the song, without assuming that the person will have known about your newer thread or that they will know, again using this example, that in December of 2006 there was a thread about "African American Christmas Carols" where they might find additional information or examples for that song.

    Also, if the "African American Christmas Carols" thread does include a number of spirituals, of course I want to include a link to it in the Spirituals index, so it would be really helpful for that thread title and thread number to be posted in the Spirituals permathread. I'd probebly put it HERE where there is a list of "KEY RESOURCES AT MUDCAT ABOUT SPIRITUALS."

    Looking forward to this,

    ~Susan


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: Azizi
    Date: 16 Jan 07 - 10:44 AM

    Susan, I have begun to review my postings and put information on the African American Spirituals Permathread as I understood you to outline in your recent BS thread about that Permathread.

    As I was doing this, I noticed this question was posted from GUEST,Will Greene:

    "Would it not be simpler to compile a list of these threads and then PM them all to the Permathread co-ordinator instead of posting each one in the Music section?"

    -snip-

    If you prefer me to compile information from all of the threads that I have posted video links or lyrics of African American spirituals and gospels to since I joined Mudcat two years ago, I can do it that way. However, that will take time, and I can't say when I can get that to you.

    Please let me know way you prefer to get this information.


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: wysiwyg
    Date: 16 Jan 07 - 12:02 PM

    I answered Will's question where he asked it.

    A simpler way to understand the goal of correct titling of subject lines is to look at this example:

    Q's Posts

    If you will just click to bring upo that page, you'll see it's quite easy to use that search feature to sort his new material from his replies to exisiting material, and to use Find in Page to quickly determine if he has posted a lyric one might be in need of finding.

    About 90% of what's now in the permathread index was found in old threads by doing that with the posting history of several aficionados of the genre, when we started that permathread. Volunteers each took on particular keywords and posting histories to compile the index.

    Therefore, if you adopt that convention, your posting history can be linked in the permathread as a quick way of mining your research for valuable gems.

    I know it's a lot of work-- I remember how long it took ME to do the searches I did as my part of compiling that index! Just let us know what you can do, and I will seek out volunteers to pick up the slack on the old posts, as long as the future posting will be done as we've discussed.

    Thanks! Going to be offline now for a bit--

    ~Susan


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: Joe Offer
    Date: 16 Jan 07 - 07:41 PM

    Hmmm. So many questions, so little time. In general, I see no problem with re-posting lyrics for the sake of discussion, but it should be made clear that the lyrics came from the DT or from another thread. It's ALWAYS important to identify the source when posting lyrics.
    In general, the principle with MUSIC information from other sites is to copy-paste the entire text of whatever it is - within reason, of course. For non-music information, post a summary or excerpts, plus a link.
    For Youtube stuff or other online audio or video, I think it would be good to post a summary of the information shown in the link. That's probably true for ANY information you link to - summaries are good. That especially goes for YouTube, because some of us rural hicks don't have broadband and can't access YouTube.
    -Joe, Thank God I'm a Country Boy-


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: wysiwyg
    Date: 16 Jan 07 - 08:04 PM

    Thanks, Joe, I think Azizi and I are off to a good start on how she can help ensure that her contributions are represented in the Spirituals Permathread, and why subject titling is important. We can work it out from there, I think.

    ~Susan


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: Azizi
    Date: 16 Jan 07 - 08:37 PM

    Thanks for your response to my questions, Joe.


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: katlaughing
    Date: 16 Jan 07 - 09:10 PM

    "Country Joe McOffer!"


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: wysiwyg
    Date: 07 Mar 07 - 05:43 PM

    Joe, I see you've made some changes in that privacy/security stuff since I last looked-- I like it.

    Some people are not aware that when a change is made within a permathread, the thread does not necessarily refresh back onto the daily threadlist. (I learned this in my own work on the Spirituals permathread.) This is because if a change is made in a post already occupying the thread, it doesn't constitute a "new" post and therefore doesn't bring the thread back up.

    I found that quite disconcerting at first with the Spirituals permathread, when I did a LOT of work to reorganize and update it and yet it remained off the day's threadlist as if I hadn't done a thing. But I got used to it quite soon. Now I like being able to work on that project without necessarily inviting all of Mudcat to insert jokes or other comments into the middle of what I may spend several days re-coding and re-writing before the whole is ready for public consumption.

    What it means, though, is that we can't take the permathreads for granted and assume that we necessarily know what-all is inside them-- we have to be grownups about it and actually look at them to see what's current. IMO that's a good thing.

    ~Susan
    Or when there's new stuff on a PermaThread, post a "refresh" message to move it to the Forum Menu, and delete it later when it's no longer needed.
    -Joe Offer-


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: GUEST,Dave
    Date: 07 Mar 07 - 06:05 PM

    How can I update or submit a link for the links section
    (e.g. for 'composers')

    Also,
       How can I submit photo and profile info; thought
    I did this correctly (via email), but it's been
    about a month and I haven't seen any updates.


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: Joe Offer
    Date: 07 Mar 07 - 06:33 PM

    Hi, Dave - you have to be a registered user and logged in to submit links (then go to "submit"), or to access Mudcat photos. If you're registered and want to have your photo, profile, or e-mail included in the Photo section, e-mail it to Pene Azul, jeff@mudcat.org.

    -Joe Offer-


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: EuGene
    Date: 20 Jun 07 - 01:30 PM

    Golly, I am new here and read all of this FAQ thread . . . lotsa good info here, but unfortunately I am very computer illiterate so I will probably mess up a lot trying to learn what it all means and how to work the system.

    I googled onto this forum while searching for Folk and Blues music score & parts sets, either to order or to download and print out. I hit this forum twice when I googled "Golden Vanity" and then "Red River Valley", two of the songs our little community band would like to play. We are Ozark hillbillies, so I can identify with "Country Boy" Joe on that score.

    Does the DT have just the basic melody & chords for the tunes, or does it also sometimes also have stuff that a typical concert band (with the usual complement of woodwinds, brass, and percussion)can play?

    Eu


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: Amos
    Date: 20 Jun 07 - 02:00 PM

    Typically the DIgital Tradition database contains lyrics and sometimes can provide a link to a MIDI file to demonstrate the tune. The Forum discussion threads, however, often have rich discussions which include chords, usually geared to the needs of an individual guitarist.

    I don't know of any concert arrangements! :D


    A


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: EuGene
    Date: 20 Jun 07 - 02:26 PM

    Thanx, Amos.

    I could see from the nice long thread about the origin of "Red River Valley" that there are a lot of folks coming to this site for the lyrics to songs and discussions about same. I wasn't sure, however, if the participants were folk singers, bluegrass group members, guitar pickers, or what, but there's room for all genres, even us old fogies in small community bands. "My Bunnie lice soda devotion, . . ."   Eu


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: topical tom
    Date: 02 Nov 07 - 10:28 AM

    How can I create a "blue clicky" (or other colour) on Mudcat?

    <a href="http://www.mudcat.org">Click here</a>




    If you're posting links at Mudcat, the quotation marks are optional. I prefer not to use them, because they complicate the task of making links. Simple is better, I think. Fewer misteaks.

    I find it's best to open a new browser window [CTRL-N] and navigate your way to the site you want to link to. Highlight and copy [CTRL-C] the URL (address) of the site, and then go back to your Mudcat message and paste [CTRL-V] the URL into your link. Be sure to include the http:// in that URL. The quotation marks are standard procedure, but most links work just fine without quotation marks.
    -Joe Offer-

    ...and for the lazy (or confused), there's a link maker at the botom of each thread


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: Joe Offer
    Date: 16 Nov 07 - 01:07 PM


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: edarem
    Date: 29 Nov 07 - 11:26 PM

    Dave, you can hear "The Rich Maharajah of Magador" here:
    http://www.midomi.com/index.php?action=main.profile&recording_id=f9994504922ecf0245d06b108183af9c


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: topical tom
    Date: 14 Dec 07 - 11:53 AM

    Here I am pestering you again! I now can make a blue clicky but only    by using the full url address.
        My question is how do you make a blue clicky saying only "click here" or "here"? sending the user to the desired site?


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: Bill D
    Date: 14 Dec 07 - 12:05 PM

    You simply insert 'click here' in place of the URL that is BETWEEN the > <...it is as easy as NOT pasting the URL twice, or backspacing over the 2nd URL entry, and retyping 'click here'.


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: Bill D
    Date: 14 Dec 07 - 12:11 PM

    Tom...look closely at Joe's answer to your earlier post several above this...it has a perfect example of what a link should look like just before you post it.


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: wysiwyg
    Date: 14 Dec 07 - 01:17 PM

    I think MOST people who ask questions here never realize their answer will have been inserted into their post, after the fact. I'm not saying that's a bad way of handling questions, but how can we help people know to look there?

    ~Susan
      If they're registered, I also often send the answer by personal message. Answering a question in the location where it is asked, seems to be the only way to asnwer efficiently in a thread that has so many questions.
      -Joe Offer-


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: Jeri
    Date: 14 Dec 07 - 10:07 PM

    Joe, regarding the photos, I assume you worked the whole thing out with Jeff and he approved the alternate site. (I know you wouldn't just do that without consulting with him.) Will he eventually pluck the photos off your site instead of having folks mail them to him?

    I got the impression that we were supposed to send photos to Jeff and he'd get to them. I think there might be a problem with profiles and member photos because there hasn't been much new posted there, but I'm sure some new stuff has been added in the 'Events' section. I think people just quit sending photos to Jeff.


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: katlaughing
    Date: 14 Dec 07 - 10:51 PM

    Jeri, as I understand it, hatched out between BillD, Joe, and me, we aren't taking any photos from the Mudcat photo section, nor profiles to put up at the myopera site; only new ones since after the crash and no more were added here. I did add the ones of Big Mick when he visited here because he asked me to. I would do the same for anyone else who might ask. I think we plan on limiting it to 2-3 photos per person, at this point. I also hope we can eventually see the Mudcat ready to host more of them, here. In the meantime we thought myopera would be a good way for folks to send updates, new ones, etc. Hope that's clear as mud.:-)


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: Jeri
    Date: 14 Dec 07 - 11:19 PM

    My question was, is Jeff going to get photos from your site?

    Or

    Have you taken it out of Jeff's hands without talking to him?

    What I also said was that some HAVE been added since the crash. The crash ended on 15 June 2005.

    Post #1501298 was on 15 June 2005.
    Post #1501288 is the first intact message prior to the crash and was posted on 6 June 2005.

    Poppagator's photos from before and after Katrina are there and a couple of events from 2006 are there, so there HAVE been photos posted since the crash. I suppose If Jeff cares, he can say something - as if...


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: Joe Offer
    Date: 15 Dec 07 - 03:27 AM

    We're just taking the photos temporarily, until Jeff has a chance to add them at Mudcat. Think of myopera as a temporary holding place. Eventually, when Jeff has the time, they'll be posted at Mudcat.
    -Joe-

    Mudcat Photos (click)

    (Temporary Location)

    send photos for posting to joe@mudcat.org


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: Janie
    Date: 15 Dec 07 - 11:55 PM

    Has Jeff passed on to you the photos and profiles that have been sent to him over the last year or so that have never been put up on the member photos and profile sections?


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: Joe Offer
    Date: 16 Dec 07 - 12:36 AM

    No, Janie - If they haven't been posted, please send them to me for posting.
    -Joe-


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: topical tom
    Date: 16 Dec 07 - 02:56 PM

    Thanks a lot, Bill D! Because of your message and Joe's previous
        post I can mow type "Click Here" and it actually works!Muchas Gracias!


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: semi-submersible
    Date: 05 Jul 08 - 06:32 AM

    I've been looking for protocols for format of the "composer" line when posting songs (in this case, a weboholic parent parody, on which I spent far too much time, which may ironically leave me a cranky and impatient parent tomorrow.)

    Would it be possible for the FAQ guidelines to include an example, such as a parody with appropriate mentions of original songsmith(s) and new song-mangler?

    Also, does it matter if the keywords in the subject line are capitalised or abbreviated? (E.g. LYRICS ADD: vs. Lyr Add:)


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: Joe Offer
    Date: 05 Jul 08 - 03:40 PM

    Hi, semi-submersible -
    Check the FAQ index way at the top of this thread, and follow the link to Posting Lyrics. This link will also do the trick.
    The operative word in the subject heading of a message is ADD and the song title (Lyr ADD if you have space).
    I won't give an example - because every song in the Digital Tradition serves as an example. I know you're looking specifically for example on how to post parodies - but I don't want to get THAT specific and legalistic in the FAQ. The people who harvest songs for the Digital Tradition and the Mudcat Songbook, will make corrections if they're needed. Correct information is more important than correct format.
    -Joe-


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: Joe Offer
    Date: 31 Jul 09 - 08:11 PM

    Maybe this is a good time to remind people that when they post songs, it helps to post them in proper Digital Tradition format:

    • Subject of message: ADD: Title In Title Case

    • First Line: TITLE IN ALLCAPS
    • Second Line: (Songwriter name in Parentheses)
      Third line: empty
    • [then song text]
    • [then any notes go last - be sure to include source information]

    I go through songs and correct formatting and such, and then I regularize the formatting of the song title to <b><big>, to indicate it's ready for harvesting. I don't format the song title until the song is ready.


    T'anks.

    -Joe-


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    Subject: Starting New Threads
    From: Joe Offer
    Date: 28 Aug 09 - 04:56 PM

    I see an experienced Mudcatter started a thread today titled "Some John Hartford Wonderful." Yesterday, the same person started a thread titled "More Vintage Ron Bankley."

    In both cases, I think it would have been better if the information had been added to existing threads. We have over 123,000 threads on Mudcat, so in many cases I find it hard to see how starting a new thread on an established subject is a virtue (there are exceptions, when one wants to take a different tack in approaching an issue). With each addition of a thread, it gets harder and harder to find all the wonderful music information that has been posted.

    Please consider using the Filter to look for related threads that can be resurrected and added to, rather than starting new threads.

    At least, that's my opinion.

    -Joe-


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: GUEST
    Date: 28 Feb 10 - 01:58 PM

    I have two albums which I made over the last ten years. I was told that you review albums. If this is true could you tell how and where to send them to.

    Thank you,

    Simon Davey
      Hi, Simon. We're primarily a forum for Traditional Folk, but members of our community post on anything and everything. If your music is in the folk or blues genre, you're probably best off to find somebody you know, and ask that person to review the recordings and post their review here. If you have online sample recordings available, post a link so people can hear your work.
      -Joe Offer, Forum Moderator-


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: wysiwyg
    Date: 19 Mar 10 - 09:55 AM

    In THIS THREAD, there Is, IMNSHO, the clearest explanation (with an example right in it as well) of why and how certain threads get closed.

    A link to it in the FAQ, or quoting it wholesale, would do much to buttress policy.

    ~S~


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: Rowan
    Date: 13 Apr 10 - 08:20 PM

    Greetings All,
    The first sentence of the first post in this thread (currently) reads
    "If you're looking for a song, you'll often find it right here in the Digital Tradition Folk Song Database. Feel free to post a request, but we ask you to use the search box in the upper-left corner of this page (and most other Mudcat pages) to search the database and forum for your lyrics you post a request for them." [I've removed the formatting.]

    It occurs to me that it might (better) read
    "If you're looking for a song, you'll often find it right here in the Digital Tradition Folk Song Database. Feel free to post a request, but we ask you to use the search box in the upper-left corner of this page (and most other Mudcat pages) to search the database and forum for your lyrics before you post a request for them." [I've italicised the suggested amendment.]

    But, it has lasted so long that, it occurs to me, it might be one of your clever tricks to get people to concentrate.

    As an aside, now that the Search engine is again running, I'll be able to find the original words to "I've been everywhere" (as sung by Lucky Starr, using Australian place names) so they can be added to the DT alongside (but 'preceding') Hank Snow's effort on Canadian place names. A long-ago Mudcat thread had a post with all the material required by the DT harvesters but I haven't been able to resuscitate it recently. If I find it before you do I'll do as recommended in the posts above.

    Many thanks for your efforts.

    Cheers, Rowan


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: Joe Offer
    Date: 14 Apr 10 - 12:17 AM

    Hi, Rowan -
    It's actually a good feeling to know that somebody reads what I wrote, closely enough to find my mistakes.

    There's information on posting in the Digital Tradition format here in the FAQ thread.

    -Joe-


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    Subject: Spam
    From: Joe Offer
    Date: 14 Oct 10 - 05:21 PM

    As I've said many times before, please don't bother to notify moderators about Spam unless it is more than 24 hours old. We regularly check Guest messages, and most Spam gets cleared in our regular checks.
    It's a horrible hassle to follow up on individual Spam messages, because we often get several dozen a day.
    Be patient, and it will be removed.

    -Joe Offer-


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    Subject: Finding Lost Posts
    From: Joe Offer
    Date: 29 Oct 10 - 12:43 AM

    I try posting, but get back to the Forum Menu page, check the thread, and my message isn't there.

    BillD discovered the solution to this. What happens when your message doesn't post is that you were posting on a copy of the thread that was saved by your browser, not a fresh copy. To force your browser to download a fresh copy, click the "reload" button on your browser (usually a circular-arrow icon) - pushing F5 usually works, too. THEN you can post, and it almost always "takes."

    Getting your lost typing back is another matter. It will sometimes come back if you use your "backspace" key or the "back" button on your browser, but not always.

    An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. When posting long messages, here's a good thing to do before hitting the "Submit" button:
    • Highlight your typed text by hitting CTRL-A
    • Copy your text to your clipboard CTRL-C
    • If you need to, Paste the text - CTRL-V - into the refreshed message box and submit again.

      If you can't do this right away, your typing will be lost forever.

      But hey, blame your browser, not Mudcat.

      -Joe-


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    Subject: Posting Songs
    From: Joe Offer
    Date: 28 May 11 - 05:57 PM

    For the sake of uniformity, and to make it easy for Digital Tradition harvesters, we ask that songs be posted in the Digital Tradition Format - title in ALLCAPS, then the songwriter name in parentheses, then skip a space, then the text of the song, and then source information and notes.

    The Message title should have ADD and the title of the song, in Title Case (not ALLCAPS).


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: Joe Offer
    Date: 11 Apr 12 - 03:14 PM

    Posting Lyrics

    I've noticed lately that a lot of lyrics are being posted without a title, and without the name of the songwriter. Sometimes, the title and songwriter name can be determined by reading the thread, and sometimes not. This may seem redundant, but it's nice to know for certain what the song was called by the source it came from.

    When posting lyrics, please include the song title and songwriter name at the beginning of the lyrics, and source and background information at the end. At the very least, please tell us where you got the lyrics.

    Thanks.

    -Joe Offer, Mudcat Archivist-


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: Joe Offer
    Date: 07 Sep 12 - 12:43 AM

    Mudcat Photos (click)

    (Temporary Location)

    Is now closed, and we haven't come up with a replacement. However, if there's something you'd really like people to see, especially if it's musical, Joe Offer is willing to post a limited number of photos on his own Website.
    Send photos for posting to joe@mudcat.org
    Updated 214 March 2014


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: GUEST,Karl Dallas
    Date: 21 Sep 12 - 09:58 AM

    I have downloaded the database and I'm using it. But I have a technical problem perhaps someone can help me with.
    I've written some new words to Florence Reece's Which Side Are You On. What I want to do is to find the midi file and add my words below the music line.
    Well, here's my puzzle.
    If you access the list of songs, Which Side Are You On isn't listed.
    But if you do a search, there it is.
    In the /tunes folder, some of the midi files are listed (in the old 8.3 format) but there's nothing remotely like Which Side.
    So where does the playback of the song get its data?
    I'll post the lyrics to The Skiffler's Song, when I've sorted this out.


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: Joe Offer
    Date: 21 Sep 12 - 10:36 PM

    Hi, Karl -
    Sorry I missed your message until now. The "easy way" isn't working just now, but there's a workaround. You can't extract MIDIs easily from the downloadable Digital Tradition, which has melodies in the Songwright format. So, the next step would be to go to the online Digital Tradition and download the MIDI, but our MIDIs aren't working right now.
    Luckily, there's a Digital Tradition mirror known as Yet Another Digital Tradition (click here), and it has a link to a MIDI (or click here). E-mail me if you have trouble.

    -Joe Offer, Mudcat Archivist-
    joe@mudcat.org


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: Joe Offer
    Date: 20 Jan 13 - 09:34 PM

    Hot Tip:

    Thread too big to load in your computer?

    In the "messages" column on the Forum Menu, there's a column of numbers that tells how many messages are in each thread. If the thread has more than 50 messages, that number is a clickable link that will display the thread in batches of 50 messages. Next to that number is a small "d" that is a link that will display the messages in reverse (descending) order.


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: Joe Offer
    Date: 22 May 14 - 01:42 PM

    If a message doesn't "take," it's gone forever. Usually, what happens is that you've posted on a thread that was stored on your computer, not loaded fresh. As a precaution, it's best to highlight [CTRL-A] and copy [CTRL-C] all long messages before you post, and then check the thread to make sure it posted. If it didn't, refresh [F5] your thread to make sure it's a new load, and then paste [CTRL-V] your message text into a message box and "Submit."


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: Joe Offer
    Date: 21 Feb 15 - 10:29 PM

    Non-members: to contact members, e-mail joe@mudcat.org


    In general, I don't think it's a good idea for Mudcatters to post personal e-mail addresses (their own, of that of others) in the Forum. Occasionally, a non-member will want to make contact with a member, and Mudcatters will often instruct the Guest to join Mudcat so they can send a personal message. I have an easier solution - have them e-mail their message to Mudcat's Registrar, joe@mudcat.org, and he will be glad to forward the e-mail to the member.

    Don't bother trying to protect me by posting my email in any sort of code like "joe(at)mudcat(dot)org" - my e-mail is intended to be public, and I just put up with the Spam. Thank you for your concern, but it isn't necessary. Feel free to post joe@mudcat.org wherever you like.

    I have no way of contacting Guests unless they have furnished an email address to me or the Forum for some reason. And we never release member registration information to anyone.

    -Joe-


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: Susan of DT
    Date: 10 Sep 16 - 07:48 AM

    There is some really ancient contact info for me and Dick Greenhaus in parts of this thread that were written a long time ago.
        current: dick@camscomusic.com 800 548-FOLK
                 We are in Lansdale, PA (USA). PM if you need details
                 I'd rather not post my email, so PM to contact me.

    Old addresses/emails/phones are listed under:
        Get you mudcat tee shirt (no longer available anyway)
        Who's in charge
        About the Digital Tradition (written in 1999)
        DT Official Rules
        Get your own copy-has not been available on floppies in many years
        Contact mudcat and digitrad

    Updating and correcting the Digital Tradition.
        Due to technical problems, it has not been possible to update/correct the DT for several years. Max is working on a solution. I have stopped monitoring the corrections thread, since I cannot do anything useful about it.


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: maeve
    Date: 10 Sep 16 - 01:45 PM

    Thanks, Susan.

    Wishing you and Dick good health and much joy,

    Maeve


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: GUEST,.gargoyle
    Date: 12 Oct 16 - 06:46 PM

    Dear Mr. Pork,

    Post your question to a New Thread using Lyric Requested and the first line of the chorus. I bet you will receive an answer within 24 hours.

    1. Look for the BOLD type face Create A New Thread Upper Left Side and click.

    2. Select "Lyrics Requested" from the "pull-down menue" (first one)

    3. Use your three word chorus for the title.

    4. Post in the box below...exactly what you have requested in this thread.

    5. Wait for the answers to roll in....And they will.

    Sincerely,
    Gargoyle

    ---------------

    Look for thread titled "Persevere, Persevere." -ed-


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: FreddyHeadey
    Date: 04 Apr 17 - 08:02 AM

    thread.cfm?threadid=19340#213795 
    If a guest adds a nickname will all subsequent posts in that name be from the same person?
    e.g.
    http://mudcat.org/usersearch.cfm?who=GUEST%2CGuest 


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: Jeri
    Date: 04 Apr 17 - 09:56 AM

    FreddyHeadey, the short answer is "no". People can type whatever they want into the guest "From" block, and they have to type it (or not) for every post.
    We (Moderators/admin volunteers/people with magic buttons) try to watch for identity usurpers, but there's no guarantee we'll notice them. Membership's the only way to preserve and protect a unique name.


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: FreddyHeadey
    Date: 04 Apr 17 - 10:38 AM

    Thanks.


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: RunrigFan
    Date: 09 May 17 - 06:58 AM

    Hi can we change the timezone


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: Jeri
    Date: 09 May 17 - 09:37 AM

    To what? Why? It's Eastern (Daylight) Time, and seems to currently be correct.
    Changing the time zone would be fairly complicated as Max would have to move everything, and I think he's happy where he is (aside from stormishness).
    Yeah, Joe, I know this is getting deleted. 😀


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: RunrigFan
    Date: 09 May 17 - 09:39 AM

    I'm from the UK and keep forgetting it's DST time. Or allow member to change the timeone in their area. Not everyone on here is from USA.


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: Jeri
    Date: 09 May 17 - 09:58 AM

    The way Mudcat time-stamps and indexes messages, it can only deal with the one time zone. (Although it occasionally gets wibbly-wobbly)

    If you can figure out how to change Mudcat's time on individual computers, please share. There are probably a few people are confused by having to add 5 hours onto the time. (Or less, or more, or if you're west of Mudcat central, subtract time.)
    Think of it sort of MCT (Mudcat Central Time), like GMT.


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: RunrigFan
    Date: 09 May 17 - 10:30 AM

    No you're not understanding. If you go to a forum, you can change date/time/timezone. Here it;s US format and since I'm from the UK, I forget mudcat uses DST.


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: DaveRo
    Date: 09 May 17 - 10:31 AM

    I considered making my Mudcat Browser Tools addon change the displayed times to my local (UK) timezone. It would be quite easy to do. I didn't, mainly because it's not really a problem, but also because you sometimes have to quote the time of a post - they're not (visibly) numbered.

    Referring to FreddyHeady's question of 04 Apr 17 - 08:02 AM: the addon will automatically fill in the same guest username. But only on the same computer (and on supported browsers).


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: Nigel Parsons
    Date: 09 May 17 - 11:20 AM

    At the very bottom of the list of threads there's a note of the current 'Mudcat Time', currently: Mudcat time: 9 May 2017 - 11:13 AM EDT
    This can be compared to the time on the most recent posting for how long since the last post, or compared to your local time to know what time difference to allow for.
    By the time I type all of this (on two fingers) it will probably be a few minutes out from the time stamp I quoted above!

    Cheers


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: Joe Offer
    Date: 09 May 17 - 02:07 PM

    Hi, Runrig-
    Mudcat runs on software from 1996, so we don't have all the bells and whistles of modern software. We also don't have some of the glitches of more modern software.
    Lately, we've had a problem with some of the clocks on some of our servers (we have many) being out of sync, and that is a real problem that Max is trying to resolve.
    The time stamps are an easy way to talk about a message. If I talk about your message posted 09 May 17 at 01:49PM, everybody can tell exactly what message I'm talking about. If we had different time stamps for everybody, that would do away with that functionality.
    -Joe-


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: RunrigFan
    Date: 09 May 17 - 03:00 PM

    OK, it;s just hard to tell the time in US from UK as US has -5 or-8 timezones.


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: Bonnie Shaljean
    Date: 09 May 17 - 04:06 PM

    Hi Runrig - If you just add 5 hours to the Mudcat time, you should get the British time. It only gets dodgy for a few weeks each year when Daylight Savings kicks in or out, because that happens on different dates across the globe, and it goes out of whack for a little while. But for the majority of the time, that's a reliable guide.

    The Firefox browser has (or used to have) a nifty little free extension called Fox Clocks, which gives the times in all the various zones, and you can choose which areas you want it to display on its menu when you click. I don't know the latest state of play though, so that info could be out of date,


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: GUEST,Ann Boulden
    Date: 04 Aug 18 - 02:21 PM

    My father worked on the narrow gauge railroad in CO way back when. He used to sing 'Wreck of Old 99'. I can't remember all the words so would like to find them on here. Thanks.

      Hi, Ann -
      I think you want Wreck of the Old 97 (click). If this isn't the one, please email me.
      -Joe Offer, Mudcat Music Editor, joe@mudcat.org -


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: GUEST
    Date: 28 Nov 18 - 05:31 PM

    Where's the spot for setting my thread view to mix music and BS?

    ~S~


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: wysiwyg
    Date: 28 Nov 18 - 05:36 PM

    Hm, my view reverted to the mixed view I'd chosen, when I logged back in, but during that process "click here to view or edit your personal...." and that's not where that link actually goes..... and I had not logged out to start with. ...


      It won't mix unless you're logged in. I don't know of any places where members can change their registration information any more. We had to block access to that, to make impersonation more difficult. If your settings changed without your changing them, first try logging out and logging in again. If that doesn't work or if you need to change your registration, contact me by email.
      -Joe Offer-
      joe@mudcat.org


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: Joe Offer
    Date: 07 Dec 18 - 02:22 PM

    Search Problems?

    Remember that the main search engine depends on an index that has to be generated, so the recency of those searches depends on how recently Max updated the index.

    There are other search engines on the Old Advanced Forum Search on the quicklinks dropdown menu on most Mudcat pages.

    My favorite search engine is the Filter box at the top of the list of threads on the Forum Menu. It searches by thread name, and it's quick and accurate. Use one or two key words in the Filter, and then set the Age back. You can do a secondary search of the results with CTRL-F.

    Other search tips in the FAQ, above.

    And if you still can't find it, ask a moderator or start a thread and ask.

    -Joe-


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: Steve Shaw
    Date: 26 Nov 19 - 04:08 PM

    Ah yes. Anonymous unsigned guests. Stevie's 'obby 'oss. From the rules of the now sadly-defunct Gaughan forum:

    2. No anonymous members.
    It is a requirement of forum membership that you let the other members know who you are. There is not a single good reason in a forum of this kind for anonymity. If you are normally known by a nickname, by all means use it here; my birth name was Richard but the only people who ever use that are my parents (both dead) and my two sisters and their children. The no-anonymity rule is not here to check people's birth certificates, it is simply so that we all know who we're talking to and the risk of anonymous trolling is reduced. As said, by all means use a nickname on posts but please put your real name in your member profile and you will be asked to give it when registering.


    So if you troll or otherwise post inappropriate stuff, as above, the mods know who you are and you're toast. Good, eh? As ever, only in m'humble, and this is never my gig.


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: Joe Offer
    Date: 26 Nov 19 - 07:12 PM

    I agree about unnamed guests, Steve, but I lost that battle.
    -Joe-


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: Steve Shaw
    Date: 26 Nov 19 - 07:21 PM

    Then fight again, Joe. Remember Pseud...


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: Joe Offer
    Date: 26 Nov 19 - 07:50 PM

    Well, it's a mixed bag. We get some really priceless one-time posts from people who have valuable information on a particular subject - people like Si Kahn, who drops in now and then to comment on his songs. Other people come as guests and decide to stay. Many of these people wouldn't bother going through the hassle of registration just to give us one post. It's that music information that we're here for, not the thousand-message marathons that usually end up in squabbles.
    Maybe we should move the marathons into the BS section, where only members are allowed to post.
    -Joe-


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: Steve Shaw
    Date: 26 Nov 19 - 08:02 PM

    I do get that, actually. But if Si Khan was so exercised as to want to post here, surely a quick prior registration oughtn't to be beyond him...?


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: Joe Offer
    Date: 26 Nov 19 - 09:06 PM

    Well, no. When people see something here and want to answer, we get the best answers when we let people post without having to wait a day to register.
    Our "regulars" are very valuable to us, but we need the spontaneous input of outsiders to keep us fresh and prevent us from becoming ingrown (more ingrown than we are).
    -Joe-


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: Jeri
    Date: 26 Nov 19 - 09:25 PM

    I thought it was ironic that Dick Gaughan once posted here and said he didn't want to join because he didn't want a cookie. Then, he created a forum where you HAD to be a member to post. I guess all it proves is that people acquire new info and change their minds sometimes. (And I miss his forum.)


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: Joe Offer
    Date: 27 Nov 19 - 12:01 AM

    I like the forums where guests can post immediately, but they have to wait for moderator approval for the post to appear. Our software doesn't accommodate that feature. We've looked into changing to more modern software, but the changeover doesn't allow us to import all the wonderful posts from the golden years of Mudcat, when people like Rick Fielding and Art Thieme and Sandy Paton and Jean Ritchie were posting.
    -Joe-


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    Subject: Moderation Change: 3 May 2020
    From: Joe Offer
    Date: 08 Feb 20 - 04:02 AM

    Thread #167769   Message #4050150
    Posted By: GUEST,Mods
    03-May-20 - 01:44 PM
    Thread Name: Moderation Change
    Subject: Moderation Change

    We, as moderators, are deleting battles between people. They seem to be mostly about who is involved, not the purported subject of the thread.
    It could be called trolling.

    As it seems to usually be the same people involved, we’ve decided to remove the people.
    So please, consider what you have to say.
    We have decided to stop it. Political discussion is one thing, but these seem to be excuses to attack one another. They don’t end, and they get nastier as time passes.

    If you find your membership disappeared, or you’ve been blocked, let the Mudcat moderators know why they should let you back in.
    You can contact them through joe@mudcat.org

    Please know that decisions, both on suspension and reinstatement, will be by consensus. No one person decides.

    I’m going to close this thread. There is no discussion.


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: Joe Offer
    Date: 16 Feb 21 - 07:45 PM

    I can't make sense out of much of Many Mudcat threads with the invasive ads. If you have the same problem, please remember that there is an ads-free version of every post and every thread in the "printer-friendly" option.
    Use [CTRL-F] and search for friendly


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: DaveRo
    Date: 21 Nov 21 - 02:41 AM

    Perhaps I could mention this here?

    Someone commented recently that the blicky-thing failed with long URLs, so I created a simple replacement:

    Simple linkifier

    You could bookmark it.


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    Subject: Clickable links
    From: FreddyHeadey
    Date: 23 Nov 21 - 03:02 PM

    ! DaveRo thanks !

    It works for links to mudcat too.
    :)


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: GUEST,fricklefrackfreddy
    Date: 23 Aug 22 - 11:03 PM

    Newbie here. Any Pentangle songs demystified? Particularly songs from their 1991 Album 'Think of Tomorrow' like Meat on the Bone.
    Pentangle threads (click)


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    Subject: Message: I Delete Most of Your Threads
    From: Joe Offer
    Date: 03 Feb 23 - 03:59 PM

    I sent a personal message to a Mudcatter today and titled my message "I Delete Most of Your Threads."

    Here's the message, redacted:

    Hi, xxx - you seem to like to start threads at Mudcat. We already have over 172,000 threads at Mudcat, and we really don't need more. We try to encourage people to add to existing threads, and to start a new thread only when the subject hasn't been discussed before. Before starting a new thread, use the Filter at the top of the list of threads, and search for a thread on your subject. I moved your message to [another thread on the performer], and that revives that wonderful earlier discussion.
    I hope you understand.

    -Joe-


    P.S. If you post something that isn't offensive and you can't find it, it probably was moved and not deleted. You can find all your messages by clicking on your name in any message you've posted.


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: Joe Offer
    Date: 07 Mar 23 - 10:43 PM

    I'd suggest that Mudcatters read my guide to searching. It's the first message in the FAQ thread.
    https://mudcat.org/detail_pf.cfm?messages__Message_ID=196922

    People always go to the Mudcat search, but it has never been reliable - Max never got it past the experimental stage. Our older, more reliable search engines are the Filter (top of the Forum Menu) and the Old Advanced Forum Search (in QuickLinks)
    https://mudcat.org/forumsearch.cfm

    The Filter searches by thread name. Put one distinctive word (like international) in the Filter box and set the age back to "all," and refresh. Then do a secondary search of the results with CTRL-F, maybe looking for women (or whatever). You'll be amazed what you can do with CTRL-F on any Web page. A search and then a secondary search are very powerful.

    The "Old Advanced Forum Search" can search for MESSAGE title (subject), and I have been re-titling messages for 25 years to make this more useful. It can also be used by UserName, to find messages posted by whomever. If you're looking for your own messages, click on your name in any message you've posted, and you'll find your Mudcat Life History.

    Hope that helps.


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    Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
    From: GUEST,Ann Parsons
    Date: 28 Mar 24 - 10:42 AM

    I'm looking for contact details for Pete Scrowther

    Hi, Ann - please see this thread (click).
    Thanks.
    Joe Offer, Mudcat Music Editor


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