I think El Greko's description is quite good. Max Spiegel started the Mudcat Folk Music Forum on October 1, 1996. I don't know how long the site was online with blues and other information before that, but the birthday of Mudcat as a community is October 1, 1996.

To honor the Digital Tradition, you might say something like: "Mudcat is home to the Digital Tradition Folk Song Database, a constantly-growing collection of some 9,000 folk song lyrics and tunes that has been maintained by Dick Greenhaus since 1988."

-Joe Offer-