No,it's Kevin not Frank. As I said, being anonymous isn't the problem. But leaving off any kind of identifying label gets in the way of any kind of exchange of views. Which means that it conveys an attitude that an exchange of views isn't envisaged, just a bit of graffiti stating a position and asserting a claim to territory.

But the original post by the nameless one, who now I take it is the same as Aon (that's purely a guess on my part of course) was clearly argued and logically expressed. It didn't read like unattributable graffiti, which is why I expressed surprise, and speculated whether the lack of a name might just have been a slip up rather than a statement.

Saying it was logical and clearly argued doesn't mean I agree with itmore than some lf the way.

I quite like the idea of prefixes which are more informative, to give a better idea of which threads are worth dipping into when time is short.

And I also get irritated when people or documents say that a song is "by" the person who is best known for singing it, ignoring the person who wrote it, or collected it - though that happens all the time in the face-to-face world, and, as there, the only answer is for those who have the facts to chip away and put in the needed corrections.

Yes, and not everyone is as funny as they think they are - and that's something that happens in the face-to-face world as well.

But the distinction isn't between stuff that is appropriate to a folk-based site, and stuff that isn't and shouldn't be there.

It's much more between stuff that is interesting and cogent to whatever kind of thread that is going along (which doesn't mean it may not be trivial and lightweight at times - just as there are excellent somngs which are trivial and lightweight), and stuff that isn't - and that can include stuff which might be formally about music or songs, but is really about trainspotting. (Though I use that term as shorthand, and bear no illwill or contempt towards real trainspotters.)

But there's no way in an unmoderated forum - and from his or her post Aon (or whoever) appears to agree that that is what we want to keep - that you can exclude stuff that doesn't measure up to whatever standards you'd like to apply, even if there was any agreement on these things, which there never can be.

The price of freedom is eternal tolerance. All we can reasonably demand of each other is that we are reasonably polite and friendly and don't try to hurt each other. And maybe if a thread is getting a bit heated, bring in a song, the way Quakers bring in a silence.

"Let no man come into this hall,
Groom, page,nor yet marshall
But that some sport he bring withall,
For now is the time of Christmas.

If that he say he can not sing,
some other sport then let him bring,
that it may please at this feasting;
For now is the time of Christmas.

If that he say he can nought do,
Then for my love, ask him no more,
But to the stocks then let him go,
For now is the time of Christmas.

(Balliol MS, Richard Hill's Commonplace Book, 1500 1535; but I've modernised the spelling.)

The reason I put that in is that it is about what links everyone who visits Mudcat. We're willing to risk making fools of ourselves in public to help the party go better. This isn't true for all that many of the people around us, and that is a pity. But with that in common, it means we ought to be willing to put up with and respect each other - and most of the time, we do.