While "an observer" is being deliberately provocative, he (she?) has a point….

Mudcatters (in general) are music snobs; we like our music and will happily eulogise about it until the cows come home, or, to be more truthful until the artist becomes successful and manages to gain a little cross-over appeal to a wider market.
It's a shame that the latest successful artists (at present it's Seth Lakeman, but it's been Kate Rusby in the past), get ripped to pieces on Mudcat – we should all be ashamed.

Much as it seems worthy to support tiny festivals like Miskin do you think these events are going to keep folk music thriving? One look at the websites of these smaller festivals and photographs of the audience profile will give you your answer.

While the success of popular artists and the larger festivals may not be what Mudcatters' want to happen to folk music, without these there's no hope of bringing in a younger audience and keeping folk (in it's many forms) alive.

If a young person is trying to find their way in to folk and they hear Seth/Kate/Bellowhead/Julie Fowlis then it opens a door which may start them off on a journey; give them a June Tabor album and they'll run away and never listen folk again. There's room for everybody, even on Mudcat!