I too am often frustrated by the lack of threads that interest me. My interest is the history around and behind the songs and mythologies that arise about the songs. I've started a few great threads, been invovled in a few and I've started several that died almost immediate deaths... By and large the threads I'm intrested in don't often last very long, but I also often find treasure.

Despite the fact I don't regularly find what I am truly seeking, I stay. I lurk, sometimes a very long time, until I find something of interest or I have a need for information. There are other places for information, but I'm more at home here than in a truly academic environment (like the Ballad Listserv - which features incredible scholars - so I just sit in the corner and listen, as it were).

As gargoyle says, there is no better place for me out there. So I tolerate the BS - even check it out once in a great while (this being an example). The main thing I dislike about the BS threads is that there seems to be a greater incidence of personal attack (this being an absolutely unscientific and unverified opinion). Given the level of intelligence and knowledge of the people involved in the forum it always leaves me a bit sad.

So I'll come and go as often or as little as I find threads of interest - but I'll keep checking things out because the place is to valuable to give up on.