Frequently Articulated Questions

What is this site?

This site is a re-creation of a forum game (usually called "MS Paint Your Favorite Album" or similar) where users draw music album covers in a drawing program of their choice (often Microsoft Paint), and invite other users to guess what the album is. Most often, the name of the album and the name of the artist are not included in the drawing. A variation leaves the album information intact, which removes the guessing aspect, and another variation states to draw the albums "badly" in order to make guessing more difficult.

Here, we require that the name of the album and artist be left off the drawing, and we encourage users to try their best in re-creating their chosen album cover.

How do I play?

Users will see an area to guess the name of the artist and the name of the album when they view an album. Points are awarded for correct guesses and for drawing albums, but only for registered users. Points are not deducted for incorrect guesses, but an incorrect guess means that you will never be able to guess that album again.

Make sure to read the rules too!

What are the guidelines for drawing an album?

The number one most important rule of the site is never put the name of the artist or album anywhere in your drawing! I repeat, never put the name of the artist, nor the name of the album anywhere in your drawing! Here are some other guidelines:

• In case you missed it, do not put the name of the artist or the title of the album in your drawing. Use generic wordage such as "album title" and "name of artist" instead.

• Do not upload random images. Any user found to be doing this will be banned. This is not imgur. To protect against abuse of this feature, a user must draw five albums before having access to the image upload area.

• There should be no explicit nudity of any sort in your drawing.

• Please make an attempt to draw a reasonable approximation of the album art in question. A few abstract scribbles will not make the cut. The site is more fun for everybody if users put effort into their drawings.

• Only upload your own work. Any user who plagiarises will be banned.

• Try to use the commonly-accepted title of the album if possible. If in doubt, consult Wikipedia or another trusted source.

When typing in the info for your album, take care to avoid typos. Once you submit an album, you can no longer change that information, and you will need to use the "report" functionality on the album page to notify staff of your error. Do not upload a duplicate of your album simply to fix a typo.

For self-titled albums, use the exact wordage that appears on the album cover (usually the artist name). Do not use any of the following:

• Self-titled

• S/T

• S-T

These are hard to guess correctly because nobody knows which variant you used.

To prevent abuse, there is no way to modify a drawing once it has been submitted. You are given the option to remove an album, but in doing so, you forfeit the amount of points you originally gained for the submission of that album.

Can I draw an album that's already been drawn?

Yes. However, users cannot guess different versions of the same album, so you might get fewer guesses on your drawing than an older drawing of the same album.

How does scoring work?

You get 250 points for drawing an album. Being the first person to guess an album gives you 100 points, and each subsequent correct guess is worth one fewer point, down to a minimum of 50. If you refer somebody to the site, and they invoke your username during the registration ritual, you get 500 points.

What browsers are supported?

The site is only tested with the most modern version of each of the major desktop browsers. Functionality is not guaranteed on out-of-date browsers. Your browser must support the HTML Canvas element in order to draw albums.

Are there any cool ways to format my posts on the forum?

Why, yes! You can use the right caret (>) to make your text green. You can use [user Anyusernamehere] (with brackets) to link to a user and [album 1] to link to an album.