It seems that the success of Mudcat as a community continues to cause growing pains. Like, any community or organism it must adapt or wither.

The large number of threads and topics from BS, to lyrics, to Folk Music (yes Folk Music) and the difficulty in sorting them out continues to surface as a topic in threads. The most recent is Art Theme's. I for one have been frustrated when I post a music question or comment and it has scrolled off into the sunset before people have a chance to see it and/or respond. Music threads may be getting only one to three responses for several reasons. First, as has been mentioned, as the data base and number of threads grow they may have already been discussed. Equally likely, however is that they may not have been seen by someone with a response. Many of the music threads are different from the BS lines (which I am a fan of too) because they are asking for/sharing some sort of specialized knowledge. Consequently, their likelyhood of being seen by a person with the knowledge drops as the number and rate of threads increases.

Anyway: as a community grows neighborhoods develop; as my research on a topic at work grows, it goes from a a pile, to several folders, to a filing cabinet; when we build a house we design rooms. Yet, each part still remains part of the whole, but the whole becomes more understandable and manageable. If the technology exists I for one, think it would be helpful to have several rooms that I could explore at Mudcat depending upon my mood: Music, Instruments, BS... or whatever.

One of the things I do feel is lately too much bandwidth has been spent in sqabbling. Art Theme made a valid point that seems to be also felt by a number of catters. The many, and widely varied topics bantered about at the "Mudcat Water Cooler" also are a very important part of our community. How do we accomodate both?

JAB

P.S. I don't post often, but I hope this makes some sense to some folks.