Tony L
Administrator
The pink fish media forum
pfm is an independent music and audio discussion forum that is not connected to any hi-fi manufacturer, dealer or magazine. Audio industry professionals are however very welcome here. pink fish media is also a record shop specialising in some rather wonderful second hand vinyl and CDs.
Why on earth is it called pink fish media?
The name has nothing to do with the forum, it stems from a child's cuddly stuffed pink fish that was left in a recording studio in the late 1980s. This somewhat bedraggled one eyed fish gave its name to various projects including a band, an almost entirely fictitious promotions company, a little black box that triggered an analogue monosynth, some music events, an IT company and a website from which this forum eventually evolved. It is possible to do anything with a name like pink fish media. It has existed on the internet for a very, very long time too, long before things like Google. pink fish media is a good name, and it has always been in lower case.
If you see the fish please say hello. We have no idea where it is these days.
An overview of the various rooms
discussion – a group of six discussion rooms:
music – an area is for discussion of anything music related.
audio – audio equipment related topics.
classic - vintage or classic kit, this is the place to discuss that old valve amp you found in the loft etc.
Headphones - not just headphones, anything vaguely portable e.g. headphone amps, portable DACs, Walkmans etc.
d.i.y. – pfm has a thriving culture of modifying and building audio kit with plenty of knowledgeable folk on hand.
photo – pfm has many keen photographers, this is their area.
off topic - an area to discuss anything that is off topic, i.e. guitars / bicycles, politics etc.
reference – a read only room which holds detailed info compiled by the forum’s faq owners about various audio or music topics.
It is requested that trade users do not use any of the above rooms to actively plug their wares, though their more general comments and contributions are most welcome.
commerce - a selection of rooms for the buying and selling of audio equipment and recorded music.
pfm record shop - this is my own little corner of the site where I sell a wide selection of high quality second hand vinyl and CDs. The list is updated every Sunday at 6:00pm UK time.
The next three rooms; trade announcements, trade sales and trade discussion, are available to our friends in the audio trade to advertise their services and wares. There is an annual fee of 75 UK pounds to post in these rooms. The rooms are visible to all, though posting in the first two is restricted to the ‘Trade’ and ‘Moderator’ user levels. Please check the ‘How pfm is financed’ paragraph below for further details.
classifieds - a free advertising service available to all established members for buying and selling (a member requires >50 posts and >90 days membership in order to place an advert). There are various sub-category rooms and thread prefixes to better define sales, wants etc.
charity - a place to donate kit to a charity of your choice or announce charitable work or benefits etc. There is a running total in this room that indicates how much the site has generated for good causes.
The reference room
The reference room is only possible due to the efforts of dedicated pfm members. Any topic can be suggested for the room, and anyone with the necessary knowledge or dedication can volunteer to compile one.
The process is to suggest a new topic in the music, audio, classic or off topic room, if it looks like a popular idea the person who volunteers themselves to be ‘faq owner’ is given write access to the reference room to enable the creation and maintenance of the document.
pfm would like to publicly thank those who have put in considerable effort and time to produce and maintain the contents of this room.
Classified advertisement guidelines
pfm has proven itself to be a most trustworthy and honest community over the years with countless thousands of successful transactions, but as ever with internet commerce caution is advised, especially when it comes to confirming a person’s identity and physical address prior to sending any payment. When buying goods from a private individual there is inevitably less legal protection than buying from a professional trader. The principle of caveat emptor, or ‘buyer beware’, operates. It is recommended that, wherever possible, a buyer collects and inspects an item before parting with any money.
Please be very aware that scammers and fraudsters operate in all areas of internet commerce these days and that internet forums are no exception. Sadly the only way to detect such people from a forum administration perspective is after the fact, i.e. after someone has lost either money or goods. As such it is strongly recommended that pfm members approach all transactions with exceptional caution. Check and double check everything. Do not send money unless you know exactly who it is you are sending it to and where they live. Do not ship anything unless you are absolutely certain you have received the payment in full and with no caveats. Do not accept email confirmation that may appear to originate from sites such as PayPal as proof of payment (it may be a spoof mail), always ensure the money is safely in your account. Please consider every eventuality and protect yourself at every stage.
The pfm member classifieds are provided as a free service to our members, any transactions are entered into entirely at the member’s own risk.
There is a limit of five items per month for music sales, i.e. records and CDs. pfm is in business as a second hand record shop so can’t be expected to provide free advertising to competing sellers in this area.
New members require 50 or more posts and to have been a member of the site for 90 days before they can post an advertisement in the classifieds area. This is to ensure the site does not become a easy target for scammers.
How to link to image files
The pfm forum does not provide free image hosting though it does allow links to external images using the vBcode IMG tags. The reason pfm does not provide this facility is that it has an impact on the database size and bandwidth, and therefore the actual performance and running cost of the site. It is also unnecessary to provide this kind of facility these days as every internet service provider (ISP) provides their customers with an amount of webspace included in the monthly fee, i.e. you already have the facility and have paid for it.
To get your picture to appear in a post on pfm you will need to find out how the webspace of your own ISP works, this information can be found in the ISP’s FAQ section. You will need a simple FTP (file transfer protocol) application to get your image up to your webspace, there is a wide choice available for PC, Mac and *nix, including freeware, so it need not cost anything. You need to know the sign in details for your webspace, again this is between you and your ISP. For the rest of this FAQ it is assumed that you been able to get the file up either onto your own webspace or onto a site like Flickr, Photobucket, Postimages.org etc (which is actually the easiest way of doing it by far).
To link to your file you obviously need to know where it is, i.e. you need to know the full domain, path and file name of the location where you uploaded the image, it will look something like this:
www.mysite.com/myfolder/myfile.jpg
It is now a simple matter of enclosing this information within the vBcode IMG tags:
If using Flickr the easiest method is to click the "more ways to share" button (the one which is a box with a curved arrow coming out of it). You now get an option to "grab the HTML/BB code" - choose 'BB code', select the image size you want and the supplied code can now be pasted directly into your post. Tinypic.com offers similar BB Code links too - just upload the file and a BB Code link is provided.
How pfm is financed
pink fish media largely supports itself through advertising, both via our Trade Account system and also via Google AdSense, and Amazon and eBay partner networks. As such pfm reserves the right to overwrite or replace any affiliate, commercial, or monetizable links, posted by users of pfm, with our own internal tracking and monetisation. pfm members are asked not to post or otherwise make available links that already contain affiliate marketing, link referral code etc and can expect such content to be overwritten. We actually have a dedicated forum for interesting eBay auctions and members are encouraged to post links here.
In an attempt to get the right trade customers on board at pfm, it is suggested that if you like pfm and also like your local dealer or manufacturer, you attempt to bring both parties together. If you have had great service and support from them, it implies other people will too. pfm generates a lot of sales for the dealers and manufacturers we have on board already and will no doubt do the same for yours so all parties benefit.
The pfm Trade Account deal is very simple, the dealer or manufacturer pays 50 UK pounds to pfm to advertise in the two trade rooms for a period of one year. There is no limit on the number of posts a dealer of manufacturer can make in the trade rooms.
Dealers and manufacturers are also obviously welcome (in fact actively encouraged) to join in discussion on any topic on an equal footing to everyone else in the pfm community.
If you wish to make a personal donation to help support pink fish media there is a ‘donations’ link on the main menu with details and a dedicated PayPal link:
https://paypal.me/pinkfishmedia
For other payment/support options, including donating unwanted LPs, CDs, audio equipment etc, please contact the site administrator (Tony L) via the Private Message system.
Moderation and the AUP
The full forum Acceptable Usage Policy can be found elsewhere in the FAQ area. A small team of moderators help to ensure that users respect this AUP.
Moderators are selected from the pfm community and give freely of their time. The moderation team at present is:
Lordsummit (Richard)
Joe P
Jo Sharp
Flatpopely (Andrew)
Nic Robinson
Tony L (Admin / owner)
The future
This forum is very much an ongoing project – nothing is written in stone, all ideas of how to make this a better community will be gratefully received. Please post any ideas / comments you may have in the discussion / off topic area or send a PM to the site administrator (Tony L).
pfm is an independent music and audio discussion forum that is not connected to any hi-fi manufacturer, dealer or magazine. Audio industry professionals are however very welcome here. pink fish media is also a record shop specialising in some rather wonderful second hand vinyl and CDs.
Why on earth is it called pink fish media?
The name has nothing to do with the forum, it stems from a child's cuddly stuffed pink fish that was left in a recording studio in the late 1980s. This somewhat bedraggled one eyed fish gave its name to various projects including a band, an almost entirely fictitious promotions company, a little black box that triggered an analogue monosynth, some music events, an IT company and a website from which this forum eventually evolved. It is possible to do anything with a name like pink fish media. It has existed on the internet for a very, very long time too, long before things like Google. pink fish media is a good name, and it has always been in lower case.
If you see the fish please say hello. We have no idea where it is these days.
An overview of the various rooms
discussion – a group of six discussion rooms:
music – an area is for discussion of anything music related.
audio – audio equipment related topics.
classic - vintage or classic kit, this is the place to discuss that old valve amp you found in the loft etc.
Headphones - not just headphones, anything vaguely portable e.g. headphone amps, portable DACs, Walkmans etc.
d.i.y. – pfm has a thriving culture of modifying and building audio kit with plenty of knowledgeable folk on hand.
photo – pfm has many keen photographers, this is their area.
off topic - an area to discuss anything that is off topic, i.e. guitars / bicycles, politics etc.
reference – a read only room which holds detailed info compiled by the forum’s faq owners about various audio or music topics.
It is requested that trade users do not use any of the above rooms to actively plug their wares, though their more general comments and contributions are most welcome.
commerce - a selection of rooms for the buying and selling of audio equipment and recorded music.
pfm record shop - this is my own little corner of the site where I sell a wide selection of high quality second hand vinyl and CDs. The list is updated every Sunday at 6:00pm UK time.
The next three rooms; trade announcements, trade sales and trade discussion, are available to our friends in the audio trade to advertise their services and wares. There is an annual fee of 75 UK pounds to post in these rooms. The rooms are visible to all, though posting in the first two is restricted to the ‘Trade’ and ‘Moderator’ user levels. Please check the ‘How pfm is financed’ paragraph below for further details.
classifieds - a free advertising service available to all established members for buying and selling (a member requires >50 posts and >90 days membership in order to place an advert). There are various sub-category rooms and thread prefixes to better define sales, wants etc.
charity - a place to donate kit to a charity of your choice or announce charitable work or benefits etc. There is a running total in this room that indicates how much the site has generated for good causes.
The reference room
The reference room is only possible due to the efforts of dedicated pfm members. Any topic can be suggested for the room, and anyone with the necessary knowledge or dedication can volunteer to compile one.
The process is to suggest a new topic in the music, audio, classic or off topic room, if it looks like a popular idea the person who volunteers themselves to be ‘faq owner’ is given write access to the reference room to enable the creation and maintenance of the document.
pfm would like to publicly thank those who have put in considerable effort and time to produce and maintain the contents of this room.
Classified advertisement guidelines
pfm has proven itself to be a most trustworthy and honest community over the years with countless thousands of successful transactions, but as ever with internet commerce caution is advised, especially when it comes to confirming a person’s identity and physical address prior to sending any payment. When buying goods from a private individual there is inevitably less legal protection than buying from a professional trader. The principle of caveat emptor, or ‘buyer beware’, operates. It is recommended that, wherever possible, a buyer collects and inspects an item before parting with any money.
Please be very aware that scammers and fraudsters operate in all areas of internet commerce these days and that internet forums are no exception. Sadly the only way to detect such people from a forum administration perspective is after the fact, i.e. after someone has lost either money or goods. As such it is strongly recommended that pfm members approach all transactions with exceptional caution. Check and double check everything. Do not send money unless you know exactly who it is you are sending it to and where they live. Do not ship anything unless you are absolutely certain you have received the payment in full and with no caveats. Do not accept email confirmation that may appear to originate from sites such as PayPal as proof of payment (it may be a spoof mail), always ensure the money is safely in your account. Please consider every eventuality and protect yourself at every stage.
The pfm member classifieds are provided as a free service to our members, any transactions are entered into entirely at the member’s own risk.
There is a limit of five items per month for music sales, i.e. records and CDs. pfm is in business as a second hand record shop so can’t be expected to provide free advertising to competing sellers in this area.
New members require 50 or more posts and to have been a member of the site for 90 days before they can post an advertisement in the classifieds area. This is to ensure the site does not become a easy target for scammers.
How to link to image files
The pfm forum does not provide free image hosting though it does allow links to external images using the vBcode IMG tags. The reason pfm does not provide this facility is that it has an impact on the database size and bandwidth, and therefore the actual performance and running cost of the site. It is also unnecessary to provide this kind of facility these days as every internet service provider (ISP) provides their customers with an amount of webspace included in the monthly fee, i.e. you already have the facility and have paid for it.
To get your picture to appear in a post on pfm you will need to find out how the webspace of your own ISP works, this information can be found in the ISP’s FAQ section. You will need a simple FTP (file transfer protocol) application to get your image up to your webspace, there is a wide choice available for PC, Mac and *nix, including freeware, so it need not cost anything. You need to know the sign in details for your webspace, again this is between you and your ISP. For the rest of this FAQ it is assumed that you been able to get the file up either onto your own webspace or onto a site like Flickr, Photobucket, Postimages.org etc (which is actually the easiest way of doing it by far).
To link to your file you obviously need to know where it is, i.e. you need to know the full domain, path and file name of the location where you uploaded the image, it will look something like this:
www.mysite.com/myfolder/myfile.jpg
It is now a simple matter of enclosing this information within the vBcode IMG tags:
Code:
[img]http://www.mysite.com/myfolder/myfile.jpg[/img]If using Flickr the easiest method is to click the "more ways to share" button (the one which is a box with a curved arrow coming out of it). You now get an option to "grab the HTML/BB code" - choose 'BB code', select the image size you want and the supplied code can now be pasted directly into your post. Tinypic.com offers similar BB Code links too - just upload the file and a BB Code link is provided.
How pfm is financed
pink fish media largely supports itself through advertising, both via our Trade Account system and also via Google AdSense, and Amazon and eBay partner networks. As such pfm reserves the right to overwrite or replace any affiliate, commercial, or monetizable links, posted by users of pfm, with our own internal tracking and monetisation. pfm members are asked not to post or otherwise make available links that already contain affiliate marketing, link referral code etc and can expect such content to be overwritten. We actually have a dedicated forum for interesting eBay auctions and members are encouraged to post links here.
In an attempt to get the right trade customers on board at pfm, it is suggested that if you like pfm and also like your local dealer or manufacturer, you attempt to bring both parties together. If you have had great service and support from them, it implies other people will too. pfm generates a lot of sales for the dealers and manufacturers we have on board already and will no doubt do the same for yours so all parties benefit.
The pfm Trade Account deal is very simple, the dealer or manufacturer pays 50 UK pounds to pfm to advertise in the two trade rooms for a period of one year. There is no limit on the number of posts a dealer of manufacturer can make in the trade rooms.
Dealers and manufacturers are also obviously welcome (in fact actively encouraged) to join in discussion on any topic on an equal footing to everyone else in the pfm community.
If you wish to make a personal donation to help support pink fish media there is a ‘donations’ link on the main menu with details and a dedicated PayPal link:
https://paypal.me/pinkfishmedia
For other payment/support options, including donating unwanted LPs, CDs, audio equipment etc, please contact the site administrator (Tony L) via the Private Message system.
Moderation and the AUP
The full forum Acceptable Usage Policy can be found elsewhere in the FAQ area. A small team of moderators help to ensure that users respect this AUP.
Moderators are selected from the pfm community and give freely of their time. The moderation team at present is:
Lordsummit (Richard)
Joe P
Jo Sharp
Flatpopely (Andrew)
Nic Robinson
Tony L (Admin / owner)
The future
This forum is very much an ongoing project – nothing is written in stone, all ideas of how to make this a better community will be gratefully received. Please post any ideas / comments you may have in the discussion / off topic area or send a PM to the site administrator (Tony L).
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