100% apathy would have just left it alone. Someone has made a lot of effort to quickly close it

Would it? No-one except you has posted on that thread for over a week. And since you've raised the exact same issues here that you also raised in that thread, why are you surprised?

with abusive personal attacks and name-calling against individual posters

No, not "posters" plural. One specific poster who's repeatedly insulted them.

He makes it perfectly clear that BS is secondary.

Yep - this is a *music* site. The chat amongst the community is great, but the reason for its existence is *music*. If Mudcat became simply a forum for chat without any association with music, then people wouldn't be here.

I am not saying he is not welcome to his view - but it is one that is at odds with the site's owner and one that causes conflict.

I think you'll find that Max has also said that BS is secondary to music.