Bill Kennedy: You seem to think Joe Offer is in control of what goes into DigiTrad. He is not. Dick and Susan are. Over the years they have accepted input from lots of people, including Joe and me. They have repeatedly invited people to send input directly to them. (See Help: Mudcat netiquette query or Some queries or BS: Digital Tradition: How Does It Grow?) Unfortunately, I don't think this information has been added to the FAQ, however. So I will repeat their e-mail addresses here:

susan@digitrad.org

dick@digitrad.org

I sent lyrics to nearly 1000 songs to Susan between September, 2000 and December, 2001. Then I stopped because Susan told me she was swamped with material. I decided I would not harvest any more songs until they brought out a new edition of DigiTrad. Now that they have done so, I may start harvesting again. In the meantime, I have devoted my Mudcat time to responding to requests by looking up lyrics and other information and posting it.

But if I worked at it 8 hours a day, I don't think I could keep up with everything that gets posted at Mudcat. And I haven't had much time to check yet, but it looks like maybe half of what I submitted to Susan got into the latest version of DigiTrad.

I could be screaming that some of my favorite songs didn't make it, but I'm not. I choose to call the glass half full, not half empty.

One of the consequences this being a "labor of love" is that you have to accept that what you love and what other people love are different. They will inevitably devote their time and attention to what THEY love, not what YOU love. Some people love accuracy and scholarship. Some people love having a large selection of amusing songs available so they can learn them and sing them at their local pub or coffeehouse.

And, Bill, I doubt very much that your information about Abel Meerapol (Or is it "Meeropol"? I've seen it both ways.) was deliberately excluded from DigiTrad. More likely they just never got around to processing it, just like they never got around to processing maybe 500 of the 1000 or so songs I harvested. Those are the breaks.