Tell me about Mudcat

Subject: RE: Tell me about Mudcat
From: Amos
Date: 06 Aug 08 - 04:45 PM

196 poster handles, including Guests of various degrees;
659 posts
3.36 avergae posts per handle.

THis is just today so far.

A

Subject: RE: Tell me about Mudcat
From: Joe Offer
Date: 06 Aug 08 - 03:33 PM

So, is there a spreadsheet genius who can go to Messages by Date and generate some meaningful statistics?

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Tell me about Mudcat
From: PoppaGator
Date: 06 Aug 08 - 03:29 PM

I'm sure that some of those 22,107 members haven't kept up and are no long active members,

Still in all, that's a huge number, much higher than I would have guessed.

Subject: RE: Tell me about Mudcat
From: Bill D
Date: 06 Aug 08 - 03:26 PM

Indeed! A new member just joined, and his # is 22107. There are regulars who are not members, but not that many. (Peter's #, on the other hand is 58...one of the earliest)

Subject: RE: Tell me about Mudcat
From: Peter T.
Date: 06 Aug 08 - 02:39 PM

100,000 regulars? That seems a bit steep (who's talking as someone who is only around irregularly any more). How many members are there, you know, with names, even though they might not be active? (inquiring minds want to know)

Is there a Web ratio calculator someone does, you know, for like advertisers and such? X members means X100 people who can't be bothered, but do check in.....

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: Tell me about Mudcat
From: Stringsinger
Date: 06 Aug 08 - 01:41 PM

knight_high,

I can only tell you what I think it means. Years ago, there was a little magazine called Sing Out! It was based on an interest in the various facets and definitions of folk music and it was quite political in nature. It was not afraid to be controversial and not all of the contributors to its columns agreed on everything. There were some stimulating disagreements by the editor, Irwin Silbur and Israel Young, the former owner of New York's Folklore Center. Many people objected to the controversial nature of the magazine and so it was taken over by those who wanted it to be more acceptable and it became a folk music fan magazine.

Mudcat takes on the earlier position of Sing Out! It's Muddy because there is no strong assertion as to a religious or political affiliation or orientation and does not shy away from controversy which makes it one of the most interesting places on the net. The Catfights are often informative and the mud sometimes gets slung around. This is the way (IMHO) that democracy works. Also, it's the best reference for folk music lyrics and songs on the net. There are scholars here who can point you in the direction of not only lyrics but appropriate known data on folk songs. All you have to do is ask.

I have found that people who have an interest in folk music are generally more socially intelligent and tend to be more informed about contemporary issues. I see this in evidence here. (Notice I said "generally")

I guess that's why I keep coming back.

Frank

Subject: RE: Tell me about Mudcat
From: Joe Offer
Date: 05 Aug 08 - 03:21 PM

Well, if we get 650 to 1,000 messages posted a day, I'd like to hope that we get at least ten "hits" for each message posted. This place would become pretty mindless if everybody posted and nobody read.
Of course, that is a phenomenon that sometimes seems to happen around here.....

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Tell me about Mudcat
From: Susan of DT
Date: 05 Aug 08 - 05:52 AM

At some point, several years ago, Max said there were tens of millions of hits a month. He thought there were 100,000 regulars who came at least once a week. Remember that each page viewed is a hit.

Subject: RE: Tell me about Mudcat
From: semi-submersible
Date: 05 Aug 08 - 04:00 AM

Thanks, Joe! I had not thought of that as a counting tool. Was there ever a page counter here? A rough ratio of views to posts would be interesting, though it's not important.

Subject: RE: Tell me about Mudcat
From: Joe Offer
Date: 04 Aug 08 - 07:57 PM

Semi-Sub -
Up in the QuickLinks dropdown menu, you'll find a utility called Messages by Date, http://www.mudcat.org/messagesbyday.cfm. It wsill give you most of the information you like, although not condensed (the daily message count is at the bottom of the page). It looks like we get from 650 to 1000 messages a day, and that number has stayed in that range since about 2000. There were far fewer messages per day from 1996-99.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Tell me about Mudcat
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 04 Aug 08 - 07:31 PM

"Dick, the other god in the pantheon." ... "in shorts"



!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1111

Subject: RE: Tell me about Mudcat
From: catspaw49
Date: 04 Aug 08 - 12:35 PM

I dunno' ............. Its a new world and all so I think Dick can be a goddess.............If not that, perhaps a satyr or something......

Spaw

Subject: RE: Tell me about Mudcat
From: Amos
Date: 04 Aug 08 - 11:22 AM

"Faith not in arms but in God", I suspect.

a

Subject: RE: Tell me about Mudcat
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 04 Aug 08 - 10:01 AM

No offense. Never thought of myself as a godess. Godlike, though....hmmm

Subject: RE: Tell me about Mudcat
From: Peace
Date: 04 Aug 08 - 09:32 AM

Sorry, Dick, but I've seen you in shorts. No offense.

Subject: RE: Tell me about Mudcat
From: Peace
Date: 04 Aug 08 - 09:09 AM

Both Susan and Dick are wonderful people, and the DT is a treasure because of their care. Thank you both.

And Peter T, Susan is a goddess. Dick however . . . .

Subject: RE: Tell me about Mudcat
From: Peter T.
Date: 03 Aug 08 - 01:03 PM

And then there's Dick, the other god in the pantheon.

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: Tell me about Mudcat
From: semi-submersible
Date: 03 Aug 08 - 07:42 AM

Are there perchance, figures on how many visitors (different computers or IP addresses) access the Mudcat Cafe per day? What percent carry Mudcat cookies? How has site traffic changed over time?

Subject: RE: Tell me about Mudcat
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 02 Aug 08 - 10:49 PM

If she does, I'll remind her. BTW, about databases---nowadays, Google has made everyone blase about full text searching. Back in the very early 90s, the concept of being able to locate a song lyric from a word or phrase was pretty off the wall. Digitrad was one of the very first lyric collections to permit this--previous ones searched only by title or by some identifying index number.

Subject: RE: Tell me about Mudcat
From: Peter T.
Date: 02 Aug 08 - 06:43 PM

And you are a goddess in the folk firmament, don't forget that. yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: Tell me about Mudcat
From: Susan of DT
Date: 01 Aug 08 - 07:57 PM

Mudcat existed before the DT joined it, but you can't find threads from earlier, because there weren't any threads/discussion at that time.

The Digital Tradition started in 1988 and was distributed on disks. It came in CP/M and DOS versions at first. Initially each song was a separate file.

I was not one of the first people on mudcat - I did not get internet access until a few months after the DT moved to mudcat. I picked the handle because the first thread I wanted to comment on already had 4 Susan's in it and that seemed like a more recognizable identifier than using my full name.

While the original songs were from me and Dennis Cook, Dick was there to put the whole thing together.

Joe - watch who you are saying did not know databases. All three of us did (Dennis certainly does now, so I assume he did then). Dick was willing to take on the project of putting it together and thinking about which programs to use to do it.

Yes, Bruce, we certainly spent hours at the Getaway and FOTM making copies of the database for people, either on a computer you brought or on one of ours. Some of the historical info under the permathreads still refer to how many formated disks to send us, and some have ancient addresses, phones, and emails.

Subject: RE: Tell me about Mudcat
From: GUEST,hg
Date: 01 Aug 08 - 07:21 PM

hmmmm...looks like gargoyle is over in Europe again....better to busk for those Euros, huh garg?

Subject: RE: Tell me about Mudcat
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 01 Aug 08 - 07:55 AM

The Xerox host was whem I came im.TELEX-TELMET days (awsome 8088 processor amd DOS 2.0)zilch graphics.

Ome of my postimgs was a ramt(who me)teasimg MAX (who me)adout usimg dot ORG simce it was mew amd the dot COM was takem dy Caterpiler. Somethimg adout turmimg-him-im...decause he had mo "right" to use a ORG.

Evem WAYDACK was mot yet.

SORRY weird machime for spellimg.

Simcerely, Gargoyle

I thimk Sir jOhm im Hull's hamsters here screwimg the spiders om this thimg.

Subject: RE: Tell me about Mudcat
From: knight_high
Date: 31 Jul 08 - 04:22 PM

Information overload ...Information overload ...Information overload ...Information overload ...Information overload ...Information overload ...Information overload ... but thanks soooo much

Subject: RE: Tell me about Mudcat
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 30 Jul 08 - 07:58 PM

Bruce-
THat would have been 1989.

Subject: RE: Tell me about Mudcat
From: Rapparee
Date: 30 Jul 08 - 01:42 PM

That should be "Armmani" and not "armis. It means that God will not allow dogs to be suckered in by high-priced fashion designers.

Subject: RE: Tell me about Mudcat
From: GUEST,Peace
Date: 30 Jul 08 - 01:15 PM

"In Deo Non Armis Fido"

God will not arm dogs?

Subject: RE: Tell me about Mudcat
From: beardedbruce
Date: 30 Jul 08 - 01:12 PM

I remember making (disk) copies, I think at FOTM. When was the DT at two disks?

8-{E

Subject: RE: Tell me about Mudcat
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 30 Jul 08 - 01:06 PM

For the record, Digitrad hit the Web in 1992. A gentleman names Steve Putz arranged for it to appear at the Xerox Parc site.

Subject: RE: Tell me about Mudcat
From: Bill D
Date: 30 Jul 08 - 12:19 PM

why no, Amos...we "oldtimers" remember when it was steam powered and all the posts had to be mimeographed and hand-delivered to Max. The whole thing ran at -.426 BAUD. Posts from England ran months behind.(We speeded up a lot in '08)

Subject: RE: Tell me about Mudcat
From: Amos
Date: 30 Jul 08 - 11:46 AM

It changed pretty rapidly once the database was attached and even faster when the Forum was added in Oct. '06.

I believe you mean October 1996, yes?



A

Subject: RE: Tell me about Mudcat
From: PoppaGator
Date: 30 Jul 08 - 11:33 AM

This is the most complete history of Mudcat I've yet encountered, and cleared up many questions and misunderstandings for me.

Thanks, all!

I suppose we have to thank knight_high for getting this particular ball rolling, but really, the emergence of so much information has been accidental/serendipidous. We get new memebers asking similar questions every couple of months, and the answers have never yet been this thorough!

Subject: RE: Tell me about Mudcat
From: Bill D
Date: 30 Jul 08 - 10:42 AM

I see your point, Joe....we need a 3rd 'section': folk, BS...and beer! It can be waaaaaayyy at the bottom - I'll find it.

Subject: RE: Tell me about Mudcat
From: MartinRyan
Date: 30 Jul 08 - 06:56 AM

p.s. That was no lady in the bar - that was a nun!

Subject: RE: Tell me about Mudcat
From: MartinRyan
Date: 30 Jul 08 - 06:55 AM

Kendall

Rough translation: "Keep the dog away from the shotgun when the sun shines"

Regards

Subject: RE: Tell me about Mudcat
From: kendall
Date: 30 Jul 08 - 06:52 AM

Well, my family coat of arms says "In Deo Non Armis Fido" that's the extent of my Latin.

There was that time many years ago when I asked this woman in a bar for her name and she said she was Italian and her name was Mea Culpa. Never did find her in the phone book.

Subject: RE: Tell me about Mudcat
From: GUEST,LTS pretending to work
Date: 30 Jul 08 - 06:34 AM

"He's a lot older now - but hey, so are we all...."

Speak for yourself Sunshine!!!

LTS

Subject: RE: Tell me about Mudcat
From: Joe Offer
Date: 30 Jul 08 - 12:18 AM

Well, I have to say, I'm really disappointed that the beer link on this page goes nowhere.

Max, please bring back the beer section!!

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Tell me about Mudcat
From: Bill D
Date: 29 Jul 08 - 11:12 PM

Well...hmmm...I remember being told the database had moved, and wondering exactly why it landed in that strange place. It was called a 'magazine' format, I believe, when Max had all those odd headers & links to go along with blues history. I 'think' there was this brief period when the database was here without the forum....(after all, the forum took some design work, which Max's elves worked on at spare moments.)

Subject: RE: Tell me about Mudcat
From: Joe Offer
Date: 29 Jul 08 - 10:55 PM

Now, we do have to give Dick the credit for actually building the database (although he started it as a word processor file). Dennis and Susan were still in the Notebook Generation at the time, and didn't know from databases.

I thought the Digital Tradition and the Forum came to Mudcat on the same date, October 1, 1996. I wasn't there, though - as is often the case, I was on vacation....or out to lunch.....or something. I cam in January, 1996 - although I had been to the Xerox site many times. After the Digital Tradition was taken off the Xerox site, I kept going back, hoping to find that Xerox had reinstated the database. I think I saw a notice there one day that the database had moved to www.deltablues.com.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Tell me about Mudcat
From: Bill D
Date: 29 Jul 08 - 10:41 PM

Yes, Joe...that page with literature & philosophy etc. at the top was what I remember of the Delta Blues site. I remember looking up songs one minute and browsing thru odd links on Robert Johnson & Nietzsche the next. It changed pretty rapidly once the database was attached and even faster when the Forum was added in Oct. '06. I had browsed the database, but lost track of the beginnings of the forum and didn't post for 'about' 3 weeks.

I CAN confirm, however, (because I sat around and watched a few of the discussions) that Susan of DT began the process of trading files of songs after comparing fat notebooks with a friend..(Dennis Cook, husband of Judy Cook)...Dennis, Judy, Susan & Dick Greenhaus were all familar with computers, and the logic of putting songs onto disc to make updates & trading faster was a logical step. (You'll have to quiz some of them as to exactly who made the 1st disc...etc..)(I had 3-4 iterations of the floppies before the online version)

But it was not long before Dick was appearing at events with copies of the floppies and making more and asking people for their input. As the Internet/WWW [I hope some of you still appreciate the difference] appeared to 'common folk' about that time, the next step was obvious...only the 'how & where' were tricky.

Eventually, Dick found that temporary home at Xerox and as they say, "it all took off". There's a dozen stories about the problems, music software, 'philosophy' of what to PUT in the database...etc....many of those stories are buried in various threads if someone wants to do enough research.

It's because Mudcat Central was located in Pennsylvania and that Max played music and because Dick & Susan have attended the FSGW Getaway for years that the East Coast of the US became a major gathering place for those who wanted to meet folks they had corresponded with....and here we all are...

Now there are 'Mudcat' centered meeting in The British Isles, Europe, Australia..etc...and long time members all over the world. I have been privileged to meet many thru the Getaway and Mystic and a couple other events.

Ya' know what? Mudcat has become important!

"Good, though"

Subject: RE: Tell me about Mudcat
From: Charley Noble
Date: 29 Jul 08 - 08:01 PM

When I first joined no one was ever this helpful. I just muddled about.

Of course it didn't occur to me to ask for help.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Tell me about Mudcat
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 29 Jul 08 - 07:06 PM

"Tell me a story,
Tell me a story,
Tell me a story,
And then I'll go to bed!"

Subject: RE: Tell me about Mudcat
From: Joe Offer
Date: 29 Jul 08 - 06:40 PM

Now, I've always thought that this page (click) predated the folk music aspect of Mudcat. In fact, it may even have been the Home Page of Mudcat before the folkies arrived (it's obvious that Max made some changes to the page to accommodate the folkies). Click here for a Mudcat Home Page from December, 1996. If you follow the Philosophy link, you'll see a page from the Week of April 1, 1996 (caveat: note the date).
When we folkies came, Max was not quite 25 years old. He's a lot older now - but hey, so are we all....

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Tell me about Mudcat
From: Art Thieme
Date: 29 Jul 08 - 06:35 PM

To paraphrase Robert Frost, Mudcat is an oasis where, when ya gotta go there, they gotta take you in!

And a fine place it is most all the time.

Art

Subject: RE: Tell me about Mudcat
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 29 Jul 08 - 06:34 PM

Amos amat amant...

Subject: RE: Tell me about Mudcat
From: Amos
Date: 29 Jul 08 - 06:32 PM

Well, Susan, Dick or Max could address this; my understanding was that the site was operating before Max agreed to host the DT when Xerox decided they couldn't do it anymore.


A

Subject: RE: Tell me about Mudcat
From: beardedbruce
Date: 29 Jul 08 - 06:15 PM

It PROBABLY was an example of Intelligent Design...

Subject: RE: Tell me about Mudcat
From: Joe Offer
Date: 29 Jul 08 - 06:11 PM

I dunno, PoppaGator. I also have always assumed the pre-existence of Mudcat, but I have no proof. I guess, until we can get a definitive answer from Dick or Susan or Max or maybe Bert (who actually IS really, really old), we have to classify this as a Matter of Faith.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Tell me about Mudcat
From: PoppaGator
Date: 29 Jul 08 - 06:03 PM

Hmmmm, I suppose I read somewhere that DT had found a home at Mudcat, and assumed that Mudcat had previously existed. And you what happens when you assume, don't you? You make and ASS out of U and ME!!!

Anyway, as promised earlier, I found my earliest postings, along with the dates that indicate my middling status as neither a true old-timer nor a newbie:

First post as a member:
16 Apr 03:
http://www.mudcat.org/detail.cfm?messages__Message_ID=934959

First post ever, as myself:
24 Dec 99:
http://www.mudcat.org/detail.cfm?messages__Message_ID=153878

(I tried to make links, but the "blue clicky" blickifier seems not to work correctly for these internal on-site references.)