Because at first you only notice the extremes of Mudcat it can take a while to settle into it. There are some extremely clever and academic regulars, some outrageously funny regulars and the occassional outrageously unpleasant regular but, because this site has a common theme, one which most of us here share a passion for, you keep returning and, in doing so, begin to recognise and be familiar with dozens of names. After a while you begin to feel that you know these people, their views, and wether you'd enjoy an evening in their company.
I know there are those who would be happy to lose the BS element from this site but I do think it's instrumental in building a sense of community here and is a shortcut to getting to know one another.
I've never been a member of an on-line community before or ever visited a chat-room and I now realise how lucky I was to stumble across Mudcat having since had a look around at what else is out there.
There's rarely a day now that I don't look in and I get twitchy when the site is down for any length of time.