I was just thinking of Kendall's earlier bit of wisdom and applied it to my music.

If I was asked how I found the music in N Wales (at least over the last 4 yrs), I would have said there's hardly any players left I enjoy playing with - most of the good ones either left or don't go out anymore, the events that I used to enjoy have mostly been taken over by people who have it that nothing matters as long as it's "fun" and that a complainer like me over slipping standards and no attempt to improve musically were just putting everbody down to sound clever...

By Kendall's logic, I should have found the same in Norfolk but instead, I found a session where the standard is so high that some of the stuff is of recording quality, a place where people believe playing the music for the music is the goal and perhaps most notably a place where I, rather than being the so called clever sod feels like a beginner who is still trying to learn his skills. And I'm loving ever minute of it.

Often within communities, changes happen - from any individuals perspective, for better or for worse - and at times people either have to adapt or move on. This is just part of life, something that will never change but sometimes one can find better elsewhere, sometimes there is understanding and people on all sides bend a little, sometimes people can't move for whatever reason...

So where does Mudcat fit into all this? Mudcat is a place that was built on music and largely on the efforts of people that we rarely see these days. What seems to have happened is that a community side developed and a certain group wanted to expand on that, perhaps at times caring more about their perceived community than its original foundations - I guess it could be likened to building a new housing estate in an old village and a division between the new and the old occuring.

I would argue that the community side within Mudcat is a healthy feature, one that opens amazing doors to people as well as perhaps making the site "accessible" to a greater number of people. I would also argue that the old values are important here if this site is to retain any focus.

It seems to me that Max is working on tech ways to make it easier for the 2 sides (and those inbetween) to find (and exclude) what they want here and I applaud him for that. To be honest I feel bad about some things I said - wish I could have PMd him and KNOWN how far he was thinking - I'd never have taken the line I had if I did.

There does however remain one problem IMO that all the tech ability in the world can not solve and that is people. Feelings of things like "cliques" do exist here - perhaps with reason - I'd lay odds that if I ran a poll on the top 10 members, the results would be pretty consistent, feelings of guests (and I know some are only trolling/flaming) being mistreated do exist...

Mudcat is overall a friendly place but that does not mean it couldn't be better and that issues don't exist. They real question to me is "Can the 'core' members recognise this and try to help become part of a bigger and greater Mudcat than before or are they going to continue to argue that everything in the garden is rosey?"

Jon