Just recently I've been getting the feeling that we are through a bad spell of bullying and flaming and all that, and it's been feeling more comfortable.

That's essentially because the nastiness was mostly coming from a very small number of people who seem to have turned their attention to something else. Sooner or later I imagine we'll gonmthrough another spelkl of that kind of stuff, or something as bad or worse. It goes with the open nature of the Mudcat, and it's a price we have to pay, I think.

It's never occurred to me to have any qualms about using my real name. That's partly because I live on te East side of the Atlantic, and partly because I haven't come in for the kind of personal unpleasantness Jenny talks about.

As to whether the Mudcat has changed for the worse, well, I haven't been there that long. My impression is that so far it has gone in waves, good and not so good mixed up in varying proportions. But more than enough good to keep me coming around, and I hope Jenny will decide that too. I think it's quite possible that the best of the Mudcat may still be, not in "the good old days", but up ahead and still to come.