Community Profile

What is it?
deeprange_radio is a music sharing community designed to widen the horizons of its members and expose them to the infinite varieties that never get airplay on the radio. It is an outgrowth, revamp, and revitalization at Dreamwidth of the old audiography community at Livejournal, as well an absorption and rewrite of the original deeprange_radio.

Why do it?
Over the years, the debates have been the same. Whether it's sampling, mixtapes, or MP3s, it's all the same argument, just rehashed for modern technologies. The fact of the matter is that MP3 sharing communities & sites are one of the best ways to increase a potential market base because any music that is not Top 40, pop, "modern rock", or rap & hip-hop simply does not get any sort of wide-scale radio airplay, & thus people never know about it. Word-of-mouth & saying "I put some files on your MP3 player" ("I burned you a disc"..."I made you a mixtape") are the only ways even some well-known artists get promoted. People can't support what they don't know about, and they might not know they like it unless they hear it.

Who's in charge around here?
The Grand High Poobah of the Moose Lodge is gandhicrushkill. Other moderators shall be listed as and if they are added.

How does it work?

First, you sign up. Membership is open, but posts will be friends-locked to prevent prying eyes.

Every week a theme prompt will be posted, usually sometime between late Friday afternoon and early Saturday afternoon. The prompt is a suggestion for the following week's posts. It can be anything, and I mean anything.

Posting is voluntary at all times. Posting does not even have to keep with the theme, although it's requested that off-topic posts be labeled as such.

Download the files, enjoy the music. Find out about the artists. Go see them. Buy merch from them direct, or as direct as you can.

What is the posting form?

All posts are to be made friends-only for the community. No exceptions. Sometimes we forget and that's OK; it can be fixed. Excessive failure to follow this simple rule will result in action being taken.

Name of artist, title of track, and genre are mandatory for each song. All other information (track length, album title, etc.) is voluntary

A valid link for purchase of related work by said artist must accompany each file uploaded. (If it's an unreleased track, a live cut, anything of that nature, a link to other product by that artist is fine.)

Posts related to the weekly theme prompt must note the theme somewhere in the subject line, even if it's an obscure reference.

Off-topic posts must be noted by "OT" or some other designation in the subject line.

All posts must be tagged with artist names and genres of all songs within the posts. This will eventually create a large easily searchable archive, and that's a nice thing to have.

Large images, long-ass posts, and potentially NSFW content should all be placed under a cut. It's just courteous.

A description or explanation of each song is mandatory. As stated on Audiography: "A song title and an artist name and saying 'Oh, I have been listening to this song non-stop! It's dancey music and I totally love it!' are not helpful. We understand that not everyone is a music journalist. Tell us something about the artists. Try to reduce the tendency to post lyrics and instead talk about the message the lyrics are trying to convey. What is your favorite part of the song? Why? Describe it to us. What album is this song from? Are the rest of the songs on this album similar to this song? Yes/No? How so? If you find it hard to describe the music, at least tell us what genre the song is under, whether it's a slow song or a fast song, is it sad or happy? (Of course, don't be an idiot and take me literally and put 'fast, happy' beside your song links, you will seriously get your ass banned.)"

What are the other rules?

Don't post more than three songs from a single album.

Don't post full albums, open directories, or the like.

Don't post zipfiles as a post without single links to the song in the post. (Having a zipfile is fine for convenience when people want all or most of the songs, but not everyone wants to pull a whole archive for one track.)

Don't combine all the songs into one large "club mix"-style track and post that. That chaps my ass something fierce.

Try to be qualitative. Something that's on the radio over and over and over is probably not the best choice. I understand if it just fits so well or if there's no other choice, but maybe there's something else by the same artist that's lesser known and still works in the context.

Not everyone shares your taste in music. People are snarky, sarcastic, and silly. Chances are someone is going to take the piss about your choices. Chances are you're going to do it yourself. Don't be a baby and don't be a douchebag. Comments like "Lady Gaga? Really? I'm sorry, I'm going to have to go to your house & hurt you. Nothing personal." are okay. Comments like "Lady Gaga fucking SUCKS & you're a fucking idiot for listening to that shit." are not okay. Whining that someone insulted your choices is childish; grow up & learn to deal. This is not to say that overt actual abuse will be tolerated; it won't and I'll smunch it quick. Annoying douchebaggery results in the potential detonation of the +9000 Antimatter Warhead of Bannination, depending on how funny you might be, how pissy of a mood I'm in, how much of a douchebag you are, & other whimmy factors. It's simpler not to be a douchebag.

Request posts are fine, as long as REQUEST is placed in the subject line and as a tag. When/if the request is filled, please change the subject line and tag to read REQUEST FILLED. It just makes things easier.

Cross-community promotion is not allowed. Ever. Don't even consider it.

Active participation is severely encouraged. Talk to your fellow members, ask questions, recommend, start dialogues. Got a suggestion for a rule, a contest, a theme, something else? Drop the mod(s) a note. We're cool.

The moderator(s) reserve all rights to edit the rules at any time, to enact special rules for emergency situations, and generally to run things as they see fit. Remember 98% of the time, things will be cool.

I don't know where I can post stuff!
Mediafire, Sendspace, Rapidshare, Megaupload...there's a whole slew of free file-hosting sites out there. I personally prefer and recommend Mediafire and Megaupload.

I dig this a lot! Can I help out in anyway?
Yes with an if, no with a but. As (if) membership expands in size, there may be a need for other mods. The gift of a paid account is always keen for a neater layout design. If you're the type who likes to promote communities a bit on your own journal, here's a small whipped-up banner to use if you feel to: