This site is available for your use at no monetary cost. The only cost to you is that you obey a few rules. The rules for the site are here to make sure that the site functions in the way in which it was intended.

1.) Local Music

This is a local music website. The aim of this site has shifted and expanded somewhat in the last few years but one thing that has not changed is it's intention to be local. Certainly there is some fuzziness regarding what's "local" and what isn't so consider some of the following. You needn't satisfy all of these criteria, but they're a good starting point.

1. Are you local to the Madison area?
2. Even if you don't live in/around Madison, are you active within the Madison music "scene"?
3. Are you posting about something related to the Madison area or Madison area bands?

As you can see this allows for some degree of flexibility. If you are in a band that's from ten states away and you've played Madison some and have developed a raport with people around here then go ahead and jump in the discussions and post about your band. On the other hand, if you're from out of town, and haven't played here then perhaps post your (local) show on the show listing page where people who are specifcally looking for shows can find it. If you're in doubt, contact an admin via private messaging on the site. If you're local and run a label/distro/venue/whatever, post news but please don't come on here just to post ads, get active beyond just self promotion! If you run a non-local label/distro/venue/whatever and the three above criteria don't seem to fit, can I suggest you find another site.

2.) Non-Commercial Nature

This site is a non-commercial site. I don't sell anything here and don't I make a profit off of advertising. As such I realize that there is some commercial element to all music. It costs money to make records and those records (usually) need to be sold to recoup costs, finance tours, etc. That said, I don't want blatant advertising on the message board. Of course, as with most everything there are exceptions. If you're local and you're promoting the release of your band's new album fine, assuming your activity on the site goes beyond posting an ad for the record. If you're involved with a local label and you're promoting a new release that's cool, assuming your activity on the site goes beyond posting an ad for the record (see a theme here?) If you're an out of town label promoting non-local band releases and you're registering an account just to post your ad, go somewhere else... Seriously.

I'm sure some people will take umbrage with these rules and want to tell me how it's "un-punk", or censorship, or some such shit. Guess what: I don't care. I put a lot of time into working on this site and I essentially give away its functionality for Free^TM, so deal with the few restrictions I put in place. The argument that this is censorship is a total falacy as well. If I had a billboard and refused to put something you wanted on it for free, I hardly think anyone would call that censorship. You want to post non-topical ads? Get your own billboard (or webserver, or whatever).

Breaking these rules can result in any or all of the following: your post getting negative moderation by the community, me deleting your account, me calling you an asshole (or similar) in a public forum, me sending you "flame" mail, or anything else I can come up with to balance out the annoyance you brought.