Interesting the thoughts on moderation. Max does moderate things but only to a very small degree and as far as I understand it, he will delete a post in extreme cases such as a viscious personal attack. Also, the knowledge that there is one person who is ultimately in control of everything here must provide some degree of moderation in itself.

What makes people choose Mudcat in preference to other music forums?

I subscribe to uk.music.folk, rec.music.folk, rec.music.celtic and alt.banjo and I notice that there are a few people like myself that participate in some of these newsgroups as well as Mudcat but it appears that the majority of people do one or other - why?

What makes a person decide where to ask a question? In many cases, I would feel confident in getting a good answer in more than one forum so it is not a question of knowledge but I would be more likely to ask here than in the alternatives because I prefer the "feel" of Mudcat - waht about other people?

PeterT commented on the Mudcat format helping the nature of this place. I have had another think on this subject and am beginning to think that the newsgroup format with the quoting and threading probably encourages more terse replies than this system does and that will effect the feel of a group. Does anybody have any thoughts on this?

Jon