Sorry to be pedantic, but once more I can see us going round in circles because of an important semantic difference:

Mudcat the Forum (website, message board call it what you will, the thing you log into) is a tool, and clearly it belongs to Max. It has a purpose - stated in the FAQs as quoted above.

Mudcat the Community (the collection of people who, using this tool as the connector, meet virtually or physically to discuss folk music - and not only that - or to exchange ideas, thoughts, questions and answers; who become friends or enemies, marrying or befriending each other or never speaking to each other as the case might be) are just as katlaughing and Giok say: A community; it is what it is; it is fluid, changing all the time, and open to the vagaries of human communication and whim.

Mudcat the Forum has expenses and a few rules of operation. It is lightly moderated.

Mudcat the Community has no agreed rules of behaviour or membership other than those which apply to any human community, such as (un)common sense and ethics. But the understanding of these varies enormously, as we all know and have seend demonstrated on these pages.

Mudcat the Forum (and Max) deserve our gratitude as enablers.

Mudcat the Community deserves to be celebrated, because it manages to survive and be a useful source despite (because of?) the diversity of its membership in everything including manners and behaviours.

In discussion the two, or their characteristics (rules etc) should not be mixed.