Jeri generally sums things up pretty well and indeed she has again. In the future the registration will undoubtedly do away with the "Guest" moniker and that will not be the issue..but then again it really never was. The changes, outside of Max's letter, are ones which will improve many things about the site and I'm led to beleive they will resolve some of the longstanding nitpicks and larger issues as well, such as filtering. I think we will see these fairly soon.

The "issues" brought up most recently such as the entire guest thing and all of that are simply, as Kendall put it, "Red Herrings." We have had folks trying to discuss this logically and truthfully but as soon as one issue is countered they move to the next red herring and then to the next and the next until they come back to the first. This is trolling at it's finest and we have some people here who have shown how adept they are at it in these past few days especially. They are trolling....they aren't interested in the 'Cat. They are trolling.....they know what buttons to push. They are trolling......and they get what they want here.

Even after Max makes whatever changes he intends, some of these trolls will continue to circumvent the program and they will still be with us. There will be fewer, and Max will handle many of them, but the bottom line is......We must be able to handle the trolls ourselves. No matter what has been tried or said in the past, there is only one way to do this.....DO NOT RESPOND TO A TROLL. This we seem to be almost unable to do, and until we do, the trolls will feed here.

Shambles started a thread asking in short, to take the pledge, so to speak, and not respond to them. Many of us have done so. Others have found reasons to feed the trolls......."They're living on stored up fat so I figure I might as well have my say."-----and in doing so we give them more fat. Or, "I just want to correct the record in case there are any lurkers."-----the record is what it is and plain for anyone to see. Attempting to correct it just feeds the trolls. The first of those was by Bill D., a good friend and I know exactly how he feels and the second by WYSIWYG, another friend, I know exactly how she feels too. The bottom line is that no matter how good the reason for responding, any response feeds the trolls and they are not interested in the Mudcat, in Max, in you, in me, in music, in discussion........They are interested in trolling and they are doing a good job of it! WE allow it because we RESPOND and as long as we do, no matter how much we want to defend something we love or the people who have made it so, we will have the trolls.

Let's all stop feeding them NOW!!!

I have said before that for words to be injurious you must have respect for the person saying them and have some belief that they may be correct. Do you really believe what they say?----Obviously not because we keep wanting to explain why they are wrong (secret:they aren't really interested anyway). Do you respect their opinion?----Personally no. They are strangers and I really don't have any reason to give them any credence at this point.

Good Friends........Most of us care deeply for this place and for the music, knowledge, friendship, and camaraderie it has spawned. We look forward to the latest visits of 'Catters whether it's at Stony Stratford or in Toronto. We look forward to sending Kendall back to the UK and having Bill Sables and Micca back in the USA. We care because, rightly or wrongly, we have invested ourselves here. The trolls haven't, they won't, it's not a part of their agenda. To rid ourselves of them we must stop feeding them.

Try it now. Do it now. Have the willpower to read the stuff they have to say and let it die.....DO NOT RESPOND! Let them make their "arguments" for all their red herring positions.....DO NOT RESPOND. Let them call you names.....DO NOT RESPOND! It really is that simple, but it takes two things.......Willpower and Time. If we start now, it will happen.....not tomorrow and not next week, but down the road it will work. Take the pledge and do it now.

Spaw (Red Herring Alert-a troll will say I am hiding behind a pseudonym when everyone here knows everything there is to know about me because my life is on these threads)