Access denied? WTF: Have I been banned?!? Why?
It is possible that I banned your IP because you blocked a listener slot for longer than 20 hours or you grabbed multiple slots with the same IP address, which clearly showed a certain amount of disrespect for the bandwidth I provide. Note that each listener slot costs me $1 per month. The radio is for dark ambient enthusiats, not for radiating cool background noise via web streaming devices in all your rooms 24/7. If you feel that your ban wasn't justified, leave me a note via the contact page. (Note: a donation may be a good way to show that you value the provided stream bandwidth -- see FAQ #2 above. ;)
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Can I use pictures, i.e. cd covers, in comments?
Generally yes, as far as you respect German copyright legislation. This is usually the case, if you use images as dispensable attachment to an article.

For a better layout, use 300 pixels width. Use the [img] and [/img] tags to embrace picture URLs.

Sadly, flooding text around a picture isn't possible.
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How can I contribute to the project, financially or otherwise?
If you want to help sutaining the stream service (which is about $45 per month) you can use the flattr button on the start page (below the Listen button). For bank transfer use IBAN DE68206905000001942522 / BIC GENODEF1S11 (Account holder: Thomas Mielke, Account# 1942522, BLZ 20690500, Bank name: Sparda Hamburg) and for Bitcoin the adress 13e6Ex2ma1bqyYErKmBk1tbsbuMYpQSCSo. There is also a Flattr button on the start page. (Flattr is a service every conscious internet content user should consider, if you ask me.) If you want to aid the radio in a non-material way, you could participate in the 'presentation' of the stream. Each registered (and logged in) user can become a radio host by clicking on the currently played track or the recently played tracks list. Of course musical contibutions like promos of own dark ambient projects are always welcome.
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What are the things to bear in mind when I compose a comment to the currently played music?
There are two kinds of comments: One is about the artist/project and one is about the specific track played. It would make sense, if a rather journalist-like style with objective informaion is maintained while writing the article, e.g. link to the projects homepage, background infos to persons, country, or connections to other projects. This is probably easy to investigate but it's not obligatory in any way. A report from a concert can be ok as long as there is a certain informaition surplus beyond 'hey, that's cool'. Such spontaneous and subjective comments would rather fit in a track comment, where, on the other hand, would be the place to focus on specifics of the track itself, i.e. with regards to the total output of the artist. Is there something new being tried? Are there citations of other projects? To post a in-text link so the URL is hidden, use the [url] tag like this:

[url=http://www.darkambientradio.de/forum/viewthread.php?forum_id=12&thread_id=10]Desiderii Marginis - Deadbeat I[/url]
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What is the purpose of all this?
Dark Ambient Radio plays music connected to the dark ambient style and was founded in 2006 because there wasn't any station dedicated to DA before. The program is 100% music, no voice content or advertisment of any kind. Instead of vocal presentation of the tracks, textual information is being supplied via the forum system directly on the start page.
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Why can't I listen to the radio stream?
DAR broadcasts using the AAC+ format. It's not as commonly supported by player software, but the gain in quality (with respect to bandwidth consumtion) compensates this by far.

To listen to the AAC+ stream I recommend these players:
- Windows: Winamp 5.04 or higher
- Linux or Mac: VLC Media Player - a very good and professional designed free player, I personally also use for video playback on Windows
- All: Clementine a music player with a rich user interface, working stable under Linux, Mac, and Windows.

If it's not the player, it's probably the firewall blocking the port. Many employers do this to reduce their network traffic.

It is also possible that I banned your IP because you blocked a listener slot for longer than 20 hours or you grabbed multiple slots with the same IP address, which indicates a non-intended use of this service.
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