Answers for the way Encore works today.

Project Encore is a social platform for preserving concert and festival memories through long-form Stories. Stories connect to shared Events and canonical Artists, are published through Crews, and remain connected to their original Writers.

You can explore public Stories, Artists, Events, Crews, Writers, and other public pages without signing in. An account is required to follow Writers and Crews, join Crews, give Encores, save Stories to Read Later, create private Collections, mark Events with I was there, use your personal Library, receive notifications, and manage Stories. Creating a new Story also requires an active Owner or Writer role in a Crew.

Complete your profile first. Add a display name and biography, and upload an avatar or banner. After that, you can follow Writers and Crews, browse Stories, Artists and Events, build your private Library, create a Crew, or join an existing one.

Encore automatically generates a unique internal username when your account is created. It is used only to create stable profile links. You do not need to know, enter, share, or manage it. Your editable display name is used throughout Encore as your public identity.

Password changes are available in the Security section of Profile Settings. Password recovery is available from the authentication flow when you cannot sign in.

Profile avatars, profile banners, and Crew images may be uploaded as JPEG, PNG, or WebP files up to 5 MB each.

A Crew is a community that publishes and preserves live music Stories together. It may be a group of friends, a fan club, a local music community, a festival collective, or an independent publication.

Each user may own one Crew. You may still belong to multiple other Crews as a Writer or Member.

Yes. You may own one Crew while writing for one or more other Crews. The account menu will show both My Crew and the Writing Dashboard when both apply.

Owners manage Crew settings, invitations, join requests, roles, members, archived status, and the Crew-specific Story workflow. They can also hide or restore published Stories connected to their Crew when moderation is required, without taking ownership from the original Writer.

Writers can create and publish Stories while they have an active Writer role. They permanently retain access to Stories they authored and can continue editing them or deleting their own drafts. Writers cannot manage Crew settings or other members unless they own that Crew.

Members belong to the Crew and can read Crew-only published Stories while the Crew is active. They may also give Encores, save accessible Stories to Read Later, organize accessible Stories into private Collections, and mark Events they attended. Members cannot create, edit, publish, unpublish, or manage Stories.

A Crew Owner may invite you by entering your full display name, or you may submit a join request from the Crew's public page when requests are available. The Crew Owner decides whether to send or accept the invitation or request.

Yes. Public profiles show visible Crew memberships, membership roles, and the total number of Crews a member belongs to. Detailed follower and following lists remain private.

Membership controls may evolve during the Public Alpha. When a direct leave option is unavailable, contact the Crew Owner or report the issue so the membership can be handled safely.

Users with an active Owner or Writer role in a Crew can create new Stories. Members cannot access Story creation tools.

During Story creation or editing, search Encore's canonical Artist directory and select the Artists who are substantially featured in what you wrote. You do not need to select every Artist mentioned briefly or used only as a comparison.

Yes. Stories can be connected to multiple canonical Artists. Their order is preserved so a Story about several performers can represent them in the sequence intended by the Writer.

No. A festival-wide Story, general reflection, or another Story without a specific Artist focus can have no canonical Artists selected.

Search for the Artist first. If no suitable canonical Artist exists, you can add the entered name as a new Artist from the Story form. The Artist remains pending while you write and is created only when the Story is successfully saved.

Encore uses canonical Artist records so different Stories can connect to the same Artist. Known aliases and alternate spellings help Encore reuse an existing Artist instead of creating an unnecessary duplicate.

No. Selecting Add as a new Artist only adds a pending Artist to the Story form. The canonical Artist is created when the Story is successfully saved, so abandoning the form does not create unused Artist records.

Yes, when the selected Crew is public. Choose Everyone for a public Story or Crew members only for a restricted Story. Stories in a private Crew are always Crew-only, and existing Stories are automatically restricted if their Crew becomes private.

All Stories connected to that Crew are enforced as Crew-only. This applies to new and existing Stories at the database level. Making the Crew public again does not automatically change those Stories back to Everyone; the Writer can choose a different visibility later when allowed.

The original Writer and active members of the selected Crew can read it. Signed-out visitors, unrelated users, and removed members cannot open it, even with the direct link.

They may appear in intentional member-facing areas such as the personalized Home feed, the Crew page, My Crews, and My Library when the current member has saved, Encored, or collected them. They do not appear in public Story discovery, public Artist Story lists, Search results, Event Story lists, public Writer profiles, related Stories, or public Crew-card previews.

Every Story is connected to one Crew selected during Story creation. You may choose from the Crews where you have an active Owner or Writer role. Publishing one canonical Story to multiple Crews is planned for a later release.

Choose a date you attended first. Encore then shows Events that already exist on that date. Select the matching Event when available or choose Create a new Event when it does not exist. For a multi-day festival, you may choose any date that falls within the Event's dates.

Yes. Use Save draft when creating or editing the Story. Drafts appear separately in the Writing Dashboard and cannot be read from public Story pages.

No. A draft can be connected to canonical Artists, but those Artists are not added to the Event's public Artist knowledge until the Story is published.

The Story becomes published using its selected visibility. Its canonical Artists are also added to the connected Event's Artist knowledge. Public Stories can appear across Crew, Event, Writer, Artist, Search, Discover, related-Story, and Home surfaces. Crew-only Stories remain limited to the original Writer and active Crew members.

The original Writer retains editing access to their Story, including after leaving the Crew. A Crew Owner can edit Stories they personally authored and legacy Stories without a linked author profile, but cannot edit another Writer's linked Story.

Writers can delete drafts they authored from their Writing Dashboard. Published Stories cannot be deleted through the draft deletion controls.

Not directly. The original Writer can first unpublish the Story, which returns it to draft status and removes it from published Story surfaces. The resulting draft can then be permanently deleted after confirmation.

Not automatically. Event Artist relationships are additive historical knowledge. An Artist may also be connected to the Event through another Writer's Story, so editing one Story does not silently erase the Artist from the shared Event.

No. Publishing establishes the Artist-to-Event relationship as part of Encore's shared archive. Unpublishing the Story later does not automatically erase that Event knowledge.

Yes. The original Writer can continue editing a published Story through the Writing Dashboard, including after leaving the Crew.

Yes. A Crew Owner can hide a published Story connected to their Crew when moderation is needed. Hiding does not delete or unpublish the Story, does not transfer ownership, and does not give the Owner editing rights over another Writer's Story.

The original Writer and active Crew Owner can still open the Story. Other readers and ordinary Crew members cannot access it, and it is removed from normal discovery surfaces. The Writer can keep editing it and can see the moderation reason and optional note. New Reads and Encores are paused while it is hidden, but historical totals remain available to the Writer and Crew Owner.

The Story returns to its existing visibility without changing ownership. A Public Story becomes available publicly again, while a Crew-only Story remains Crew-only. The Writer receives a restoration notification and normal Read and Encore activity can resume.

Stories remain attributed to you and continue to appear in your Writing Dashboard. Public Stories remain in public Crew, Writer, Artist, and Event archives. For Crew-only Stories, the original Writer keeps access, while other former members lose access when their membership ends. Leaving a Crew prevents you from creating or republishing Stories for that Crew without renewed writable access.

The Writing Dashboard is based on permanent authorship rather than current Crew membership. It shows every Story connected to your profile, including Stories written for Crews you are no longer part of.

Stories linked to a user profile show the Writer's current display name. Older Stories without a linked profile may use their original stored author name instead.

A canonical Artist is Encore's shared record for a musical Artist. Instead of every Story storing unrelated free-text Artist names, multiple Stories and Events can connect to the same Artist record.

Open the Artist Directory from Discover. Artists can also appear in Global Search, including matches through known aliases and alternate spellings.

An Artist page can show the Public Stories and Events currently connected to that Artist, along with available Artist information such as a biography, image, banner, or website when those details exist.

No. Artist records are independent platform entities. An Artist can exist in Encore's archive even if the Artist or their representatives have never created an Encore account.

Yes. Encore does not assume that an Artist name is globally unique. Canonical identity is based on the Artist record itself rather than relying only on the displayed name.

Aliases record alternate spellings, previous names, or other known name variations that help Search and the Story workflow identify an existing canonical Artist without displaying every variation as a separate Artist.

Yes. If the correct Artist cannot be found while writing or editing a Story, a Writer can add a new Artist from the Story form. The Artist is created only when the Story is saved successfully.

No. During the current Public Alpha, community Artist creation happens through the Story workflow. This keeps Artist additions connected to an actual archive contribution rather than turning Event pages into manually maintained lineup databases.

Encore does not currently aim to maintain exhaustive festival or concert lineups. Event Artist knowledge grows organically when Writers publish Stories featuring Artists from that Event. An incomplete Artist section therefore does not necessarily mean the historical lineup itself was incomplete.

When that Story is published, the additional canonical Artist is added to the same Event. In this way, multiple Writers can gradually enrich one shared Event archive.

Yes. That is the purpose of the canonical Artist model. One Artist can be featured in many Stories and connected to many Events without creating duplicate Artist identities.

No. Community Stories remain owned and controlled by their original Writers. Being associated with an Artist does not give that Artist or a future Artist administrator permission to edit, unpublish, hide, or delete fan-created Stories.

Artist claiming and administration are planned for a later stage of the Artist Platform. The intended model is to let an Artist or authorised representative manage official Artist information while keeping community Stories independent.

Use Report an Issue and include the Artist name, the relevant Story or Event when applicable, and what appears incorrect. Canonical Artist matching and duplicate handling will continue to improve as the archive grows.

My Library is your private space for accessible published Stories you want to return to or organize. It contains separate Read Later, Collections, and Encored sections and is available from the account menu.

Read Later is a private bookmark list. Use Save for later on an accessible published Story to add it. Select the Saved control again to remove it.

Collections are private groups you create to organize Stories in your Library. For example, you might create Festival favourites, Rock Werchter memories, Favourite artists, or Stories to revisit.

You can create a Collection from My Library or directly from the Add to Collection control on a Story page. Collection names can be changed later.

Open an accessible published Story and select Add to Collection. You can add the Story to an existing Collection, remove it from a Collection, or create a new Collection and add the Story immediately.

Yes. The same Story can belong to several of your private Collections at the same time.

Deleting a Collection removes the Collection and its Story organization only. It does not delete, unpublish, unbookmark, or remove an Encore from any Story.

Yes. Other users cannot browse your Collections, see their names or contents, or see which Collections contain a particular Story.

Yes. Other users cannot see your Read Later list, your complete Library, or a list of the Stories you have Encored. Only public Encore counts are visible on Story cards and Story pages.

No. Save for later, Add to Collection, and Encore are separate actions. Saving means you want to return to the Story, Collections organize Stories, and an Encore shows appreciation for it.

Yes. A Story may appear in Read Later, one or more Collections, and Encored at the same time when you have used all of those actions.

A Story appears there after you give it an Encore. Removing your Encore removes it from the Encored section without affecting a separate Read Later bookmark or Collection membership.

Yes, while you are authorized to read it. The Story may appear in Read Later, one or more Collections, Encored, or any combination of those areas depending on the actions you used.

The Story and its details disappear from My Library as soon as you lose access. Stored Library relationships do not bypass Story permissions or reveal the title, image, author, Crew, or content while you are unauthorized.

When access is restored, stored Library relationships may make the Story visible again in the relevant parts of My Library, provided the Story is still published and otherwise accessible.

No. Library actions only apply to published Stories you are currently allowed to read. Drafts and inaccessible Crew-only Stories cannot be added through the Story interface.

An Event represents a concert or festival. It provides a shared page where multiple Public Stories and known canonical Artists from the same experience can be collected together.

Open the Event Directory from the main navigation. You can search by Event, venue, or location, filter by year or Event type, and sort the results. Latest Event is the default ordering and uses the actual Event date.

No. Event creation is built into the Story workflow. Choose a date first, select an existing Event when it is already registered, or choose Create a new Event when it is not.

When choosing an Event for a Story, you may select any date that falls between the festival's start and end dates. Encore can then show that existing multi-day Event for selection.

Writers are encouraged to choose an existing Event first. When an existing Event is selected, Encore uses its canonical database details. If a Writer chooses Create a new Event, Encore also performs a server-side duplicate check and may reuse an existing Event when a strong match is found.

Yes. That is one of Encore's core ideas. A single concert or festival can contain multiple perspectives from different Writers and Crews.

Published Stories contribute Artist knowledge to their Event. When a Story features canonical Artists and is published, those Artists become connected to the shared Event as well.

Not necessarily. Encore builds Event Artist knowledge organically from community Stories rather than preloading every performer from complete festival lineups. The section represents Artists currently known to Encore for that Event.

No. During the current Public Alpha, Writers contribute new Artist knowledge through Stories. Publishing a Story about an additional Artist automatically enriches the existing Event.

Their published Stories can gradually build the Event's Artist section. Each newly connected canonical Artist is added once, even when several Stories later feature the same Artist.

The public Event Directory and Event pages count Public published Stories connected to that Event. Crew-only Stories are not included in public Event discovery counts.

Signed-in members can use I was there on an Event page to record that they attended the Event. Publishing a Story about an Event also automatically records the Writer as having attended it. The attendance record remains independent of the Story afterward, so unpublishing the Story does not automatically remove it.

Publishing a Story about an Event is treated as strong evidence that the Writer attended that Event. Encore therefore automatically adds the Event to the Writer's attendance history when the Story is published. This creates only one attendance record even if the Writer publishes multiple Stories about the same Event.

Encore may show aggregate attendee counts publicly, but Event pages do not expose a public list of attendee identities. Your public profile may show your total Events attended count, while the detailed list of Events you marked is visible only when you view your own profile.

Yes. When you view your own public profile while signed in, Encore shows a private Events you attended section with your recent attendance history.

The Event remains in the Event Directory. Encore treats Events as historical records in their own right, so an Event is not automatically deleted merely because its current Story count becomes zero.

Yes. Use Write a Story about this Event. The Story creation page opens with that Event already selected so you do not need to enter its details again.

Duplicate Event records can be merged through protected maintenance tooling. Stories, attendance records, and canonical Artist relationships are preserved on the canonical Event before the duplicate is removed.

You can follow Crews and Writers. Their public Stories can appear in your personalized Home feed. Accessible Crew-only Stories may also appear when you are an active member of the Story's Crew.

An Encore is Project Encore's way to show appreciation for a published Story. It replaces a generic Like and is represented by the sparkle icon and a visible count.

A signed-in user can give one Encore to each published Story they are allowed to read. Selecting the Encore action again removes it.

Yes, for their own published Stories. The Writer can open a private Encore-members view from the Writing Dashboard. The identity list is not public and is not available to unrelated users.

Opening an accessible published Story can count as a Read. The same reader counts at most once per Story per day. Signed-in readers are deduplicated by account. Signed-out readers are counted with a first-party anonymous reader identifier only after they allow Story Read measurement.

Not when you are signed in as the Story's Writer. Your own signed-in views are excluded from the Read total.

No. Encore shows the aggregate Read count, not a public list of individual readers.

Yes, while you are allowed to read it. If your Crew membership ends, you lose access to the Story and it disappears from the Encored section of My Library until access is restored.

Open My Library and go to the Encored section. It is a private list of accessible Stories you have supported. A Story may also appear in Read Later or one or more Collections when you used those actions separately.

Yes. Public profiles and Crew pages may show follower and following counts.

No. Detailed follower and following pages are private. Encore keeps the counts visible without exposing the full relationship lists publicly.

Yes. Canonical Artists appear in Global Search. Search also considers known Artist aliases, and Artist results can show their connected public Story and Event activity.

The Artist Directory is available through Discover. It provides a dedicated way to browse canonical Artists and open their public Artist pages.

Discovery features use activity signals available within Encore. Ranking behavior may continue to change during the Public Alpha as the platform gathers real usage data.

Discover may highlight Events with the largest number of Public published Stories. When Story counts are equal, more recent Event dates may be used as a secondary ordering signal.

The Home feed is personalized around the Crews and Writers you follow and may include Crew-only Stories you are allowed to read. Discover is public-facing and uses public content for broader platform discovery, including Stories, Artists, Events, Writers, Crews, and other editorial sections.

Notifications include Crew invitations and join requests, invitation responses, membership removals and role changes, new followers, Encores on Stories you wrote, new Stories published in a Crew you own, restoration of Stories that were hidden by Crew moderation, and platform update announcements.

Needs Your Attention shows unresolved items that still require action or awareness. This includes pending Crew invitations, pending join requests for a Crew you own, and published Stories you authored that are currently hidden by Crew moderation.

A hidden Story remains an active moderation state until a Crew Owner restores it. The item shows the moderation reason and optional note and links directly to the hidden Story or its editor. It disappears automatically when the Story is restored.

Yes. Once a Crew Owner restores a hidden Story, the attention item disappears and a normal restoration notification appears in Recent activity.

Yes. A new Encore on a Story you authored creates a Recent activity notification that links to the private Encore-members view for that Story. You do not receive a notification for giving an Encore to your own Story.

Yes. A new profile follow creates a Recent activity notification and links to the follower's profile when a public profile link is available.

Yes. When a Writer publishes a Story with a Crew, the Crew Owner receives a Recent activity notification. Owners are not notified about publishing their own Stories.

Encore may use platform update notifications to tell signed-in members about important product changes, new features, or other updates relevant to the Public Alpha.

Yes. Recent activity supports individual read states and a Mark all as read action. Actionable items in Needs Your Attention are resolved by handling the underlying invitation, request, or moderation state rather than by marking them read.

The badge reflects both unread Recent activity and unresolved Needs Your Attention items. It can therefore remain visible even after all activity notifications are marked as read if, for example, you still have a pending invitation, a join request to review, or a Story that remains hidden by Crew moderation.

The Crew stops accepting new activity. Existing public Stories remain public. Crew-only Stories remain restricted, and their original Writers retain access. Invitations, join requests, follows, membership management, and new Story publishing are blocked.

No. Archived Crews cannot receive new Stories, even when the user still has an Owner or Writer membership.

Yes. The Crew Owner may restore it. Once restored, normal activity can resume.

No. Archiving preserves the Crew and its published archive. Public Stories remain public, while Crew-only Stories keep their restricted visibility. It is a reversible lifecycle state, not deletion.

Events are independent historical records and remain available. Public Stories and canonical Artist relationships remain connected according to their existing archive state.

Public Alpha is an early working release of Project Encore that is available more broadly while the platform continues to develop. Core workflows, canonical Artists, production infrastructure, privacy and permission safeguards, and error monitoring are in place, but design, performance, accessibility, and smaller usability details may still change.

Encore is intended to preserve genuine user contributions, but the platform is still evolving during Public Alpha. Content or platform data may occasionally need to be corrected, migrated, consolidated, or removed when required by changes to database structure, permissions, moderation rules, canonical data, or product behavior.

Include the page you were using, the action you attempted, what you expected, what actually happened, and any visible error message. For Artist issues, include the Artist name and whether the problem involved search, aliases, duplicates, Story connections, or Event connections. For Library issues, mention whether the Story was Public or Crew-only and whether the problem involved Read Later, Encored, or Collections. For Event issues, include the Event name, date, and whether the issue involved selection, duplicate matching, attendance, Artists, or Story counts. Screenshots are useful when they do not contain sensitive information.

Never include passwords, private authentication links, session tokens, recovery links, or other sensitive account information.

Use the Report an Issue page for bugs and unexpected behavior. Use the Contact page for general questions or feedback that is not a technical problem.