Reviving this praise thread after seeing an article in the San Francisco folk Music Club's newsletter, by our own Joe Offer:
(from a year ago)
http://www.sffmc.org/archives/jan09/clubnews.html

Mudcat Cafe

by Joe Offer, joe@mudcat.org

I am a folk song addict. I started out on Peter, Paul and Mary but, as the song says, "I soon hit the harder stuff." In fact, it was Paul Stookey who introduced me to the harder stuff. He had a copy of the Digital Tradition (DT) Folk Song Database on his computer, and I soon installed a copy on my own computer. I found the songs in the DT to be far more interesting and challenging than the stuff I'd learned from PP&M and Kingston Trio records.

In 1996, Max Spiegel opened his Delta Blues website as home to the DT database, and started a discussion forum so folks could submit and request lyrics. He called the website the Mudcat Café, and he was its first "bartender," assisted by Dick Greenhaus & Susan Friedman of DT. I joined Mudcat in 1997, became a moderator, and since then I've been the primary "people contact person." Mudcat is non-hierarchical, so my function at Mudcat is somewhat undefined — but I do it very well, and have a great time doing it. Annually since 1999, I've attended SFFMC's Camp Harmony and the Getaway of the Folklore Society of Greater Washington, partly to get to know the people I've met at Mudcat. I have even made trips to England and Ireland to meet Mudcatters and enjoy their music.

Mudcat has become a worldwide community of folk musicians and fans, with 22,547 registered members and many guests who stop in to look up a song or add a comment. We've had almost 2.5 million message posted, and over 116,000 discussion threads on a wide spectrum of topics. Participants may spend time in our "BS" sectio , discussing anything under the sun, and we've had Mudcat romances including one or two that ended up in marriage. As for me, I stay for the folk music, and my favorite threads are the song threads. If we research a song, we do so thoroughly, and we often come up with ten different versions of the lyrics. If we can't find a song, we keep looking even if it takes years. Along the way, we learn fascinating stories about the songs, the singers and the songmakers. I started a thread on the songs of Jean Ritchie, and Jean Ritchie herself has been helping me with it. Art Thieme (Chicago), Kendall Morse (Maine) and John Roberts (England & US) have often helped us with song research, telling us marvelous stories about the backgrounds of songs. Eliza Carthy is an occasional participant, as is former Weavers member Frank Hamilton. These are only a few of the moderately well-known folk musicians who have participated in Mudcat discussions.

If you haven't seen the Mudcat Cafe stop and visit us on the Internet at www.mudcat.org. You'll find we're a great resource for folk lyrics and music information, a worldwide folk community where nobody stays a stranger for long.