Do I have your permission to post this as an article?

If the answer is yes, then it’ll get popped into the queue and scheduled for sometime just after the 1st of August.

It’s my opinion that it’s suitable for an article and won’t need much editing to turn it into one. It’ll just get copied/pasted and then formatted with the video linked and cached properly. Then, some keywords will be added to make the page pretty for search engines and that’s pretty much about it.

So, if we have your permission, it’ll go up on the front page.

One of these days, I’ll get around to writing a formal agreement that allows us to do this without asking permission (all contributors will retain copyright but posting grants us unlimited use to post on this site, or related sites for which we have control, and things like that). I just haven’t gotten there and I don’t really feel like paying my lawyer any additional money at this time.

In my haste to buy a domain name and get one set up for this site, I didn’t bother to do my research. The sad thing is, I knew enough to do my research but thought I was clever enough to not need to do any – because surely this domain name was unique!

Nobody would have ever used it before, right? After all, TheBuddha is brilliant! (That’s something you’re not supposed to argue with.)

Well, I’ve been working on some SEO stuff and looking to find a way to get us both organic traffic AND a solid reputation in the Internet world. I subscribed to a few things and dug a through a few links, and I even paid for a report that wasn’t worth the money.

(It turns out that people think I own a lot more domains than I actually do own. I’m not nearly as unique and creative as I’d thought. Someone is using an old familiar moniker and might actually be pretending to be me.)

However, I digress…

See, it looks like this domain name was once a pirating site. It looks like people may have used it to pirate videos and music files. In their defense, it’s a wonderful name for such a project.

The good news is that this was a long time ago and we’re already establishing a “clean” reputation online. We’re seen as a valid site, with valid ownership, and are on reputable IP addresses with a reputable hosting company.

So, it’s not important – but it is kind of amusing.

If you’re curious about what the previous owners did with the site, you can try crawling around through here:

History of Music For Us via the Wayback Machine at Archive.org

It’s pretty neat to look at and this doesn’t impact us in any meaningful way. It doesn’t look like Archive.org has crawled us and added the changes to their index yet. They will. It just takes time. I actually know some of the folks who got the project started which is just a bit of curiosity and doesn’t mean anything. They’re a fascinating organization and we’ll definitely be crawled and indexed when they get to it.

There’s actually a lot that goes on behind the scenes and I keep pretty busy poking at the site. It’s not hard work and I’m able to fit it into my schedule without much of a problem – except for when it demands blocks of time.

Why do I write these? Well, I figure I’m pretty much just the admin and the site mostly belongs to you folks. I like to keep you in the loop, as much as possible. It seems like these little tidbits are both amusing and things that might interest you as much as they interest me.

And, I really do see the site as belonging to you folks. For the most part, I see myself as someone who works for you. I also see it as my responsibility to ensure these stories keep getting shared. I see it as my obligation to the music, that I ensure the history remains alive.

In many cultures, there’s a belief that the person (or even a deity) still is alive and still has power – so long as they’re remembered. In a way, that’s true. The music still has a power over us, so long as we keep telling the stories. The history is still real, so long as we keep sharing the stories. And, it’s an honor to be a part of this.

(Damn, have I been verbose lately!)

Tried Mozilla Firefox instead of IE, and still not seeing “edit” function, but could be me. Whereabouts on page?
I would like to do a submission, and think bouncing it back and forth a couple of times with you guys is great idea. Get it cleaned up and make clarifications.

Just above your post, not far from where I clicked the quote button, there’s a small header type of thing that says the date and time of your submission. On that line, there should be “edit.”

At least it’s supposed to be there! If it isn’t, let me know. I can grab a screenshot later and put an arrow onto it, if you need me to. It’s REALLY faint and I’m not actually sure how to change that!

Also, you should now have a top-bar (you may have had it already) and there’s a thing that looks like a speedometer and says “Music For Us” next to it. You can also see the same thing, the thing that might interest you, by clicking on the “new” (next to the + sign) and you can write an article.

Then, you can edit it until you’re content, ask for help to edit it, whatever.

When you’re done – either @COF or I (probably COF) can toss it into the queue as a scheduled article. Basically, I’ve set your permissions to ‘contributer’ which means you can write ’em, but you can’t publish them. Until/unless the site grows, we’re going to keep it that way to ensure that we’re able to push out only content that the hosting company won’t ban us for.

Man, I’d hate to move this site!

Anyhow, not much time today. Enjoy your weekend!

“accepted form of free” was spossed to read “accepted form of free speech”

You should be able to edit your posts. It’s pretty faint and I’m not actually sure how to fix that – ’cause I’m not actually good at this. I’m just doing it ’cause nobody else will.

By the way, no offense taken. Music is music.

We’re not “free speech” ’cause we have a hosting company – but we’re pretty damned lenient and difficult to offend. The only time something will be disapproved of is when it’ll get us booted from the hosting company.

We don’t have to walk on eggshells, but we do have to avoid the fairly obvious word choices and engaging in things that modern society has deemed hateful. I’m actually mostly okay with that, as it’d be a potential distraction.

I really doubt it’s going to be much of a problem.

Would you like to try your hand at writing an article?

I can set your permissions up so that you’re able to write them and then @COF or myself can do any editing needed, maybe knock it back to your court, and then click on the schedule or publish button and push it out to the main section of the site.

Hope this doesn’t offend anybody, we were all just shitdisturbers, having fun and trying to get people to think in a third way.

The queue is pretty full, so it’d be a while before it gets published – but it’s possible to post more than one article in a day. That “limit” isn’t actually set in stone – we can publish as many articles as we want in a day.

I’ve simply set it as one per day to keep the load down (as I lack time) and to make sure the content will last for a while. It’d be pretty damned awesome to have fellow-user generated content, constant new content, and things like that.

When I first started this project, I considered using the same software that Wikipedia uses. But, the amount of effort that entails would be far more time than I have free. So, I’m familiar with WordPress and figure it makes a fine CMS (Content Management System) as well as a blog. I also knew that it had this whole giant plugin architecture that’d enable me to add the forum and make a community out of it.

And, a reminder, I’m pretty much just the admin/tech guy. The stories come from you and (ideally) the community. I’m not the boss – I’m just the guy that pushes buttons. Y’all are pretty much in charge.