The group of writers that's meeting at our place today won't be arriving for a couple of hours yet.

Goofus, in your post of 13 Jul 14 - 01:38 AM, other than the parts where you are quoting me, it's totally incoherent. What in hell are you struggling to say?

Note:   I've been posting on Mudcat since September of 1999, and for several years there, Mudcat was warm, friendly, and welcoming. 'Spaw was particularly warm and gracious in welcoming me to the 'Cat.   

But—gradually, within recent years, it has become a minefield of gradually increasing nastiness, coming, not from the original group, but from a relatively small number of people who are not that much interested in music, but who spend most of their time wanting to argue politics and just about anything else, as long as it's controversial. I think that's why Max started the B.S. section. To keep the Philistines from messing up the music discussions, which were intelligent, thoughtful, and informative.

Unfortunately, it's not really possible to have a rational discussion of anything controversial because Mudcat's B.S. section has become a gathering spot for internet thugs and hooligans, i.e., trolls. People who are not here to discuss music, and are only marginally interested in music, if at all. And many of them seem to be looking for a fight, because they are the ones who provoke it.

Frankly, it would not break my heart if the B.S. section were eliminated and Mudcat limited itself to discussions of music only, deleting any posts not having to do with music.

Now, I enjoy a good, hot argument over a controversial issue (and I have several hobby horses), but such discussions are best carried on face-to-face rather than anonymously on the internet.

Face-to-face forces a degree of civility.

Some cowardly types, hiding behind an internet handle, feel free to say things that, in a face-to-face confrontation, would provoke their adversary to grab their shirt front, shove them up against a wall, and slap the living snot out of them.

So, to start with, a troll is a coward.

Later. Got to get ready for our guests.

Don Firth