Quickly (I'm racing out the door atm and will return to edit and add to this blog), there are important issues, affected by this years U.S. Presidential election, needing your serious consideration prior to placing votes. Know upfront that I will not be addressing, nor even listing them all; but, I do wish to alert readers some of the issues I come across. To begin with, we'll start with "," regarding the impact this election will have on our Supreme Court system, and their future treatment of our Constitution. Public chat board discussions initiated . Don't forget to review the Presidential Debate tonight, October 7, 2008.

I've been told by some members "I'm not FAMily! MY 'family' is here at home, not online. SC is not my 'family.'" So I had to look up the word, and wasn't much surprised to see 16 references in the dictionary for the word "family." Let me share them with you: fam·i·ly / Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation [media] noun, plural -lies, adjective –noun 1. parents and their children, considered as a group, whether dwelling together or not. 2. the children of one person or one couple collectively: We want a large family. 3. the spouse and children of one person: We're taking the family on vacation next week. 4. any group of persons closely related by blood, as parents, children, uncles, aunts, and cousins: to marry into a socially prominent family. 5. all those persons considered as descendants of a common progenitor. 6. Chiefly British. approved lineage, esp. noble, titled, famous, or wealthy ancestry: young men of family. 7. a group of persons who form a household under one head, including parents, children, and servants. 8. the staff, or body of assistants, of an official: the office family. 9. a group of related things or people: the family of romantic poets; the halogen family of elements. 10. a group of people who are generally not blood relations but who share common attitudes, interests, or goals and, frequently, live together: Many hippie communes of the sixties regarded themselves as families. 11. a group of products or product models made by the same manufacturer or producer. 12. Biology. the usual major subdivision of an order or suborder in the classification of plants, animals, fungi, etc., usually consisting of several genera. 13. Slang. a unit of the Mafia or Cosa Nostra operating in one area under a local leader. 14. Linguistics. the largest category into which languages related by common origin can be classified with certainty: Indo-European, Sino-Tibetan, and Austronesian are the most widely spoken families of languages. Compare stock (def. 12), subfamily (def. 2). 15. Mathematics. a. a given class of solutions of the same basic equation, differing from one another only by the different values assigned to the constants in the equation. b. a class of functions or the like defined by an expression containing a parameter. c. a set. –adjective 16. of, pertaining to, or characteristic of a family: a family trait. 17. belonging to or used by a family: a family automobile; a family room. 18. suitable or appropriate for adults and children: a family amusement park. 19. not containing obscene language: a family newspaper. —Idiom20. in a or the family way, pregnant. Now... while it is true that FAM, short for FAMILY, does not soley pertain to one's children or relatives (though I dare say, relatives do exist on SC), for all intended purposes, "FAMily" pertained to definitions 8 - 11, 16 and 17, with SC FAM also including 18 and 19 (naturally, SC FAM PA would not pertain to 18 and 19). It saddens me to think that folk on this site would wish to deny being "related" with any other member, here at SC, but the fact remains, I personally perceive a very distinctive relation among artists AND listeners: music. It's what brings people together, when they're not fighting, and is indeed what makes members "family" at this site. If they didn't wish to associate with other artists, then they wouldn't be found communicating with one another. Any time you have something that relates two people together, you have a "family." And that's what FAM was.

In the spirit of SC Artist protection, I will keep this blog updated to share with you which SC Artist have requested that their tracks neither be played, nor added to SC stations: UPDATE: NO ARTISTS AT THIS TIME Please respect artist wishes and refrain from listening to their tracks, as per their request, and help me help them by not playing their music or adding their tracks to stations, as per their request. Should you have any tracks on your station from these artists, then please respect their wishes by deleting them. If you need confirmation of these requests, then simply provide me with your email address and I will forward their request to you. Thank you. UPDATE: Artists have since withdrawn their former requests for boycott, and have given their permission to listen to their tracks once again. I do not know how they feel about adding their tracks to stations, but as of this time of writing, I will not add senior tracks to any stations with which I'm affiliated, out of respect for the artist, as well as preventatve maintenance. If any senior track has been added to any station with which I'm affiliated, then it has been at the artist's request or understanding we have their permission to do so.

Though it is greatly disappointing to spend my time writing this, rather than enjoying my time working on collabs (which I rarely upload to my site, but rather permit the other artist these rights), due to the interest of numerous members, I will spend the new few hours attempting to explain once again (as I've made innumerable posts about it within the Community), as to what FAM is, as well as clear up some of the lies and confusion being posted within the Community regarding FAM. Q. Where did FAM get its name? A. FAM stands for Featured Artist Monthly. It is also to reflect FAMILY, as that is generally what a Community consists of, regardless of it being in an online, digital environment. People join the Community to not only learn about how to improve their music, find solutions on software, hardware, and other audio equipment, but also to associate and commune with fellow artists, while appreciating praise and criticism alike from all listeners: musicians or nonmusicians alike. Q. How does FAM feature artists? A. Community review posts (both on SoundClick and on MySpace), adding tracks to SoundClick stations, Blog posts (both on SoundClick and on MySpace), and upon receiving artist permission and authorization, uploading selected tracks to both a SoundClick VIP account, as well as to MySpace, either through their default player, or through a third party Flash Player. Tracks on MySpace, however, are limited to a certain number, and so tracks are rotated in a manner that would result in each track inevitably being deleted from the page. Station tracks and VIP uploads here at SoundClick, however, would remain on the list for the duration SoundClick permits; which, to date, has been eternal. Also, SoundClickFAM.com is a domain that I personally registered to provide further promotion to both the featured artists, as well as to SoundClick.com themselves. A longterm goal would be the provision of frontpage advertisement and/or banner rotation here at SoundClick, in addition to both audio software and hardware awards provided by various sponsors. We have not achieved this goal, yet, as FAM is still just getting started. Q. Who pays for everything? A. In regard to future awards, sponsors and donators. In regard to VIP, SoundClick has provided a few VIP accounts, and I personally pay for the others. I also pay for the SoundClickFAM.com domain, as well as SCFAM.com. Q. Why did you register SoundClickFAM.com and SCFAM.com? A. You need an email address to create an online account. This was the most efficient manner in keeping all email addresses uniformed, easy to remember, and located in one place. I created SCFAM.com for shorter addresses, and to not impose so much on the domain name SoundClick.com. A site one might be more concerned with, would be SoundClik.com, which is not being used as an email host, but rather have a similar setup like SoundClick.com. I doubt, though, that there is much anyone can legally do about this, as many .com's have been created in this manner for such purposes quite legally. Perhaps at some time in the future, the www might be patrolled further to prevent companies from harvesting businesses due to close-name registrations, but until that time comes, it remains quite legal. I simple chose to switch to SCFAM.com out of courtesy to SoundClick.com and its members, as well as to type shorter email addresses. Both domains are presently up, because not all online accounts have had their email addresses changed from SoundClickFAM.com to SCFAM.com as a result of nonworking servers and address change verifications -- things take time. Eventually, the SoundClickFAM.com domain will be forwarded to the SCFAM.com, provided FAM continues. Also, a webspace would provide further promotion to the Featured Artists on a Monthly basis, complete with links and bio's provided by the featured artists.

Q. Does admin know about FAM, the MySpace accounts, and the domain registrations? A. Yes, admin is fully aware of all of these things. They've been posted within the forums innumerable times, and have even been responded to twice. Initially, admin expressed both their approval and appreciation for the added free promotion to their site. However, at this time, certain folk in administration are displeased with the turmoil found among members of the Seniors Forum found within the Community, which will be disclosed as you read further. This is a displeasure that I, myself, share with those folk, though the turmoil caused therein has very little, in fact, to do with FAM, short of its association with stations and accounts managed by other members of the board. Q. Is FAM stealing artist tracks? A. Absolutely NOT! Never have and never will. All track uploads are authorized by the original artists themselves prior to their track being uploaded, with each track listing the artist's name and links. One can easily find this information on SC FAM's message board at SC. It simply baffles me why some people aren't more concerned with other band accounts found on SC that in fact do have illegal tracks (digitally unlicensed cover songs, karaoke, remixes, etc.) uploaded to their account, rather than worrying about an account that has received orignal artist permission for their track uploads. Q. What does SCS Forum have to do with FAM? A. SC FAM is fed tracks to add to their stations from various stations within the Community. SCS Forum, originally created and owned by member "Robot Archie," was one of those accounts, up until it being recently stolen by member "Lou Quarmwater," within the Senior Forum. I don't know if Lou acted alone, but the theft is indeed real, and will no longer be associated with SC FAM as a result. Tracks are now fed through the account Seniors FAM, which was created by me, and operates differently than SCS Forum, in that it only hosts one track per member / band account per month, thereby preventing an overload of one or few members tracks into the station, in addition to keeping the station at a minimum track count to better ensure all tracks receive plays. Q. Why are you doing this? A. Quite simply: I love music. Music puts me in a better mood, regardless of what's going on around me -- why do you think dentists use them, or why music is played while you're on hold? Since I don't have access to a band locally, nor do I have the knowledge of becoming my own full band, nor do I write music for other people, but rather write music for myself when I have a moment of mental relaxation from work (which is rare), I support those artists who do write music. I love music, and I love people, it's as simple as that. Q. I heard FAM has "Shared Accounts." What are these, and how good is the security? A.. A "Shared Account" is nothing more than an account of which the author of that account shares their password with another one or more people to assist managing that account. When FAM initially started, security was as simple as completing the security questions and/or emailing support. However, in light of the recent SCS Forum account quite literally be stolen from the author of that account, it would appear that not only has SoundClick removed the security question feature from their site, but thus far appears to be unsupportive to account authors. This, of course, causes great concern for FAM's future here at SoundClick.com. Shared accounts would in fact enable FAM to be eternal and perpetual in that in the event the account author passes away or moves on, the work would not only remain intact, but accessible to others to continue the account's existence and activity. Continue to Part III