Mudcat is the leading board for folk music discussion on the internet and the contributors represent a wide range of interests and backgrounds of those interest in 'folk song' (whatever that is for there seems to be about many different opinions on what this is as there are contributors; certainly the Brits and the Americans view it differently).
It is far from perfect. To my mind it is too tolerant of a variety of political extremists as I found to my cost when the 'attack dogs' of the BNP were infiltrating the board with character asassination and identity theft. However, I had the choice of leaving or continuing in the hope that things would improve. Well they have, but I was never under any illusion that Mudcat was a democracy and that I could change the basic policy. Max and Joe and their other helpers have devised a consistant way of running Mudcat which is quite discernable after a few visits reading a variety of posts. Clearly, they work hard for what appears to be very little reward. Personally, I am very thankful for the work they do in spite of the apparent hard time that some members give them.
The alternative would be for the strong dissenters to leave, perhaps combine their talents and set up a rival board that ran in the way that they saw fit - but I know from being a webmaster of various smaller folk music sites that this is both expensive and time consuming.