distro site - NicheInterests/mistfunk GitHub Wiki

Short for "distribution site", historically this would have referred to a BBS affiliated with an underground crew, with a kind of assurance that new releases by that crew would make their way (sometimes via [courier], sometimes automatically over [echomail]) to that distro site there, acting as a hub to percolate the releases from there to other bulletin boards in its area code. There's no reason a distro site couldn't be an [FTP] site or a webpage or an [eggdrop bot] in an [IRC channel], but by and large... mostly they were BBSes. Contrast with: [member board], a BBS affiliated with a crew by virtue of being operated by an active member of said crew. Distro sites weren't run by members, but they just served to help get the good news out there. Distro sites were under no obligation to be exclusive in their affiliation, and lively independent ones could boast [affil]s from dozens of groups and provide bustling ecosystems for sceners in their area code. Distro sites that actively represented the interests of their affiliated crews (eg. liaising with local artists on their behalf) could be bumped up to regional HQ status.

Both distro sites and member boards, in addition to being advertised in crews' [infofile]s, were more likely to attract promotional and interface art being made by other members in the distributed crews.