"If you build it, they will come."

What generally happens with communities is that at some point they fragment, and a bunch of people go off and do something similar but marginally different somewhere else, so I imagine that'll happen some time. Not such a bad thing - that's why there are people living all over the planet.

The other thing that will happen is more sophistictated technology, and virtual reality and all that kind of stuff. And it won't be as much fun, and everyinbe will say it's not like the good old days.

Except that somewhere there's going to be a bunch of us still doing it this way. The same way you find us sitting in pubs and bars getting them to turn off the canned music so we can play the old stuff that we just made up this week.

Thinking about what kat wrote: It seems there are certain phases we go through as evolvoing Mudcatters which include some things in common with one another based on the length of time we've been here. Like the cycles of life, some general terms might be the Honeymoon, the Ardent Poster/Helper, the Pick Your Poison, the Elder WiseOne, and/or the Jaded Oldster.

Maybe we should get letters awarded after our names to mark the grades we've reached. Though I think it's more complicated - we aren't all going along the same path, but whatever path we follow has a series of stages we pass through. (Hmmm. That sounds like McGrath trying to be McGuru. But I'll leave it anyway, because it sounds quite neat, and I think it's probably true enough.)