This isn't so different from other folk music forums online. Their heyday is long past. The different social groups have settled comfortably in to their own places (ie Mudcat, rec.music.folk, music mailing lists like Folk Alliance, etc). There just isn't the high level of discussion about music that took place online in the late 90s, when a lot of really knowledgeable people spent a lot of time online sharing what they know. And then there is the antagonism and hostility towards the academically trained people who once were all over in the folk music forums, by people who preferred to discuss farting, and other such drivel.

I agree that dividing Mudcat was a good move, it was just too little, WAY too late. By the time it was done, most of the truly knowledgeable people were fed up with the clubhouse and gossip atmosphere, and were already gone.

It isn't just Mudcat that has fallen victim to this syndrome though. All of the forums have their insider groups of old-timers, many of whom have used the net to connect with other people and make new friends. Which is fine, of course, if you want your online forums to be social clubs. Not so fine if you are looking to learn new things, and interact with people who are tops in the field, which is the way the folk music forums were in the late 90s, when lots of knowledgeable people were online, but hadn't yet been cyber-bludgeoned by the rude, the ill informed, and the racist and sexist assholes.

The decision was forcibly made here a long time ago that the social club would rule, hence it's demise as legitimate source of folk music information.

The search engine here sucks for anyone except those with the arcane knowledge of it.

Even if the search engine wasn't so bad, the music information from the forum is still inaccessible because it is so badly organized and cataloguing is a joke.

Initially Mudcat had great potential. It was squandered by a group of megalomaniac control freaks, who cared more about controlling what posters said about each other, and censoring information that offends them, than they did about the database resource.

There is occassionally some quality conversation taking place here, but it seems to only happen in the BS section nowadays, and even there it is pretty rare. I mean, take a look right now where all the clubhouse folk are gathered--the Mother of All BS thread & in every thread someone has to be last thread...the interesting threads are lucky to hit 50 posts.

There is a reason why all the new members are of the ilk we are seeing now. When we see new members, that is.