Here are a few rules I am now instituting for those persons who wish to submit their music videos to Limewire. Rules so that I can for once download the damn things and not just end up with a few hundred incomplete files with little hope of downloading the rest.

1] LABEL THE DAMN THINGS CORRECTLY
If what you have is Stevie Nicks singing "Edge of 17" at last years VH1 Storytellers then lable it as such. It should not be labeled "Stevie Nicks - Edge of 17 (1982)" If it is an original video then label it as such. If it is a clip from a concert, a television performance, or something from a documentary then it should have a seperate label saying so. Not only will this save my time from me waiting in line to download from a host that really does not have what I want, but there are probably others out there with the actual video who did not bother to add it to their share files because they did a search and saw that it was listed as already in the system.

2] NO MORE FREAKING HOME MADE VIDEOS!!!
I do not want to download what is labeled as "Carl Douglas -- Kung Fu Fighting" and end up with a Yu-Gi-Oh episode edited to the music. Nor do I want to download what I think is Mike Reno & Nancy Wilson singing "Almost Paradise" only to see Buffy and Spike making out. If you are going to make a home made video using television show footage then label it as HOME MADE VIDEO.

3] STOP WITH THE AVI. FILES
I know that you may think they are better than all the others, but you have to download the whole file before you can preview it. And 90% of the time people find out through preview that the file they are downloading is something they do not need or want.

4] LIMIT THE NUMBER OF RARE FILES IN YOUR SHARE FOLDER
You may think you are doing something great by putting a few hundred videos in your share folder that no one else has. But the end result is that hundreds of members will try to download those videos at the same time. The end result is that very few actually successfully download anything from you and you wasted your time putting those videos on computer files in the first place. Instead, put a few videos in at a time. Keep track and if one file has been compleately downloaded 5 or more times then replace it with something else. Soon you shall have gone through all your hundreds of videos and there will be enough complete videos in the system so that others can download from others.

5] NO COMPLETE VIDEO COLLECTIONS
If you have a VHS or DVD with the collected videos from some artist then break it up into seperate videos. No one wants to have to spend days downloading something just to get at one video they want.

6] STAY ON THE NETWORK LONG ENOUGH TO SHARE WITH OTHERS
Don't put Don Henley's "Dirty Laundry" in your share folder, stay connected a few hours, then go away for a few months. What you do not want is a few dozen members with half a file downloaded from you. If you are going to submitt new files then you must stay connected long enough that at least 5 other members have downloaded that file and can in turn share with others. This could be for many hours non stop or showing up every day at the same time for many days. Remember, some of the persons downloading may be freeloaders who will not go on to share that video. 5 downloads is safe enough that at least 1 would in turn share what he has.

7] SHARE WHAT YOU HAVE DOWNLOADED
If you are able to download that hard to get video, then don't just move it to another folder. Leave it there so that at least 5 others can download from you. If you must store it on disk then make a copy for your limewire folder.

8] COME UP WITH A TRADE TIME
There should be some time when all those members who want to trade music videos could all log on at the same time. If there is then I have not found it yet. There is no point for member A to be logged on for a few minutes when no one else is around, logs off, then member B logs on an hour later with the same results. A and B may have had videos they could trade. If some standard time could be arranged then this would save everyone a lot of time.

9] ADD " Music video " TO YOUR FILE LABEL
There are many recording acts who, unfortunately, have similar names as porno stars or names of porno videos. Try looking for videos by Vixen or Tiffany and you will see what I am talking about. You wind up finding hundreds of porn clips that drown out the video you are searching for. However, if someone searched for " Vixen Music video " then there would be less of a chance of this happening. If only the words music video were also on the file label.

10] STOP IT!! WHOEVER IS GIVING AWAY THE FREE IPOD"S, STOP IT!!
I thought I found what I was looking for. I downloaded it. I played it back. And all I got was an ad telling me that I can get a free Ipod. Well, now I do not want a free Ipod from you, now that you have wasted my freaking time. You have just lost a potential customer. And if you keep it up then maybe I will show up to collect that free Ipod. And maybe a few seconds later you will find it shoved up your........... [ for legal reasons the rest of this rule cannot be published on the Gnutella forums ]

Follow these rules to make things easier for me. Yea, thats right! I am being selfish! But I have a dozen freaking files incomplete, most of which are as still unplayable avi. files. I also have nearly a hundred files that I was not able to even download a bit from the host and am still waiting for them all to come back.