Directory & Events Listing FAQs
What Do We Want From People We List?
(Quick and Honest Answer: Links!)You will never be charged or asked to pay anything for your listing. If you are, check back here to see if the policy has
changed and, if not, you may very well be being scammed. (SusFa would be, of course, grateful for any donations - and the
webmaster for any free pints of beer going spare... ).
Information. We glean our information from publically available sources (and sometimes the clubs themselves!) though
sometimes draw a blank and have little to say except for times and dates.
We wriggle out of any responsibility for accuracy, up-to-datedness etc. through our Disclaimers.
If you want to correct or add anything, please let us know. If you know of a group, club or event that should/could be included,
please let us know. We are particularly interested in callers, teachers, bands and performers actually residing in Sussex.
Updates. Whilst we actively search for clubs etc. to add to the directory, we rely on people letting
us know about changes - there are too many listings to continuously check.
Links We'd love you to give us a link or two (...or three..) but there is no requirement to do so. It helps the
search engines find us. Also often people ending up on your site may be looking for what you provide but not in your area or
something similar but not that or not on that day. By passing them on to where they can perhaps find what they want, you are
doing them a service and paying back all those other groups in other areas who are happy to let their 'lost' visitors know
about you.
Links can be to the whole site, or the relevant area or genre page would be welcome - more than one would be doubly
or trebly welcome. Please do not link back to your own page. Links to pages of groups without a website will help them.
If you do not have a website, you can use the link to your page as a web reference (e.g. for
library or council entries) - this is also useful as a cross-reference for the search engines to know that you are you
and that we are not making it all up.
What Can We Have On 'Our' Page?
Factual information and blurb (with photos if you want) telling people about yourselves, most importantly giving the
time and location. If you have a schedule of callers etc. for the year, it can be on the page. There is no limit on space
only on our time. We suggest including an idea of the types of dances you do, how strenuous they can be and whether you have annual
events (e.g. Christmas Party) with a view to letting potential visitors know what they can expect. It can be useful to say
whether you are available for local displays (e.g. fetes). Together we will work on it to get it right and then hopefully
not have to update it too often thereafter. A good example you might look at to see what can be done is the page of the
Crawley Folk Dance Club.
We prefer to link to contact information off-site (e.g. your website or a county library page) so that neither of us has to
keep that information up to date (similarly we do not list weekly prices). Where we list contact information, we will usually
convert the text to a picture so it cannot be harvested easily by spammers. Where we have photographs of a group we may
enhance the page ourselves (e.g. Martlet Sword and Morris Men).
We also restrain the superlatives (particularly for performers :-) ). We aim to be a factual resource neither providing
reviews nor over-the-top advertising (besides which we could end up with update wars as two groups add more and more superlatives
in competition with each other). We provide a good link to your website (where you can give your imagination free rein) as well
as to other relevant things you are associated with if they don't have a page of their own.
What Is Traditional?
Some things are obvious but traditions develop naturally and it is very difficult to
establish specific rules. Generaly it has to be grass roots and originating in folk traditions (though quirky more modern traditions
can make the grade). How we handle the International Folk scene can provide some guidelines.
Some people may find the inclusion of, say, West African Drumming Groups rather incongruous but they are traditional albeit
from a different culture and people attend these for the same reasons as they would any other group. However some groups are
geared to providing workshops for schools, and entertainment for corporate and party events and thus are not listed. Some
groups from other cultures are non-traditional in that the genre is the equivalent of our modern 'pop' culture. In a few
cases (e.g. Bollywood) the traditional merges with the modern culture and we would have to make a decision based on who is
doing it and why.
'English/Celtic' traditions tend to merge in with modern culture and it is more difficult to draw
the line. 'Folk' is used as a generic term in the same way as 'Rock', 'Pop' etc and these groups/events will generally not
be listed. We prefer to promote the efforts of local bands playing gigs around the pubs rather than tours/events organised by promoters.
Which Traditional Groups Can Get Listed?
a) Any non-profit folk group or class, and pubs hosting music and song clubs located in Sussex.
b) bands, callers, teachers, etc offering their services to the above residing in Sussex.
Note: you or your activity/event need to be actually located in Sussex. If you are outside our borders and have the right
credentials, we are happy to exchange links. We do not wish to promote commercial operations feeling that traditions are best
kept alive by volunteers doing things for enjoyment and a sense of community. There is, of course, a grey area where we are
currently not sure - but we do know that whilst folk enthusiasts might be interested in insurance, cars, double glazing etc
this is not a site that will promote such products.
Which Traditional Events Can Get Listed In The Calendar?
Any special event by a group or class or one that we feel people will be interested in. Morris groups usually have a weekly
programme visiting more than one pub of an evening, Folk Song and Music clubs usually have a weekly guest artiste and some
dance clubs have a weekly rota of callers. We will not list these in the calendar as we would be here all day and night, every day
- we point to your website from your page and you can do it there (if you don't have one we will list them on your page if you like). We will not
usually list commercial venues/events per se.
How Does It Work?
You contact me (initially at 
)
and we see how you fit in the directory. If so, you send me the information, I format it and massage the text a little for
search engines, and put it up. We have a standard layout for consistency and the blank bit in the middle is open to
imagination (limited by the abilities of our engravers). You tell me of any mistakes or improvements and I correct them.
Note the singular - usually I should be able to cope with the volume of work but I may be on holiday or swamped.
As webmaster, if I am not too sure whether to include you or not, I may have to refer the decision to the committee.
Effectively if you have come to me believing you are eligible and I am not sure, I will defer the decision to SusFA.
If you are obviously not, I will refuse and leave it too you to complain to the committee. (Don't get too anxious over
eligibility, this covers me against the spammers who think that they are entitled to fill everyone's directory with their
adverts for Viagra etc).
Why Our Listings Are Good
The Directory is aimed at helping people to find an activity in their area and thus allows them to search for genre (where
they want a particular sort of thing), area (where they want something locally) or day (where they want to do something on a
particular day). They all cross reference so that if they are not sure what they want, they see all the possibilities.
From a search engine point of view, each listing then has several links pointing to it associated with genre, area and day
and, if the group has a website, it's listing page becomes a strong link pointing to it. Search engines will then more
accurately determine the relevance of the referenced website and they will appear higher in the search engine results for
relevant searches.
Why Is The Site So - Um, How To Put It Politely - Simple?
Because our visitors are... Because by presenting the information clearly, people and search engines can
find what they want easily. Dancing shamrocks, animated penquins, and multi-coloured text on flashing backgrounds are not
traditional (anyway our engravers and etchers refuse to do them). If it was good enough for Cecil Sharp, it's good enough for
us (though admittedly we have introduced colour and the odd daguerreotype but, hopefully, our traditionalists with B&W
text-based monitors and Babbage machines won't notice them).
