Well, thread drift is ordinarily not a problem. It's combat. It was bad enough when the Usual Suspects wanted to do battle in the BS section, but lately they've moved their combat over to the music section. It's a small, bullying "in crowd" that scares other people away from Mudcat because they find themselves unable to carry on a decent discussion of any serious subject.

I reopened this thread so that people could discuss Walter Pardon. Unfortunately, only the person named as a troll wants to discuss Walter Pardon, and she has posted some very valuable information about Walter Pardon - the Usual Suspects just want to do their usual dog-and-pony act. Jim Carroll even wants to do battle with her about her referring to Walter Pardon by his last name, a common journalistic practice. If I don't see substantive discussion of Walter Pardon in the next few hours, I'll close the thread for good.

I get too many complaints from people who say Mudcat has been taken over by a small, bullying group of British males. On top of that, this group always seems to pick a pariah they want to drum out of Mudcat - the first one I recall is Lizzie Cornish, and that was years ago.

I think it's time to put this bullshit to a stop. This is a music forum, and people ought to be free to discuss music here without being bullied away. So, get back to the business of talking about music. In Walter Pardon threads, talk about Walter Pardon. In Ewan MacColl threads, talk about Ewan MacColl. If you can't do that, I'll do my best to stop you.


-Joe Offer, Mudcat Music Editor-