John P: This topic has been discussed before, many times, at great length. (Someone should post links to those threads so we don't have to repeat ourselves.) But my own understanding (which I haven't posted before) is that Mudcat is like a big party where all, or nearly all, of the attenders happen to have one thing in common: they love folk music. But we have other interests, too. And you know darn well that if all these people were actually gathered together in one house, for a real party, some of them would be in the dining room having a jam session, some would be in the kitchen telling jokes, some would be in the living room having a heated discussion about politics, some would be on the front porch talking about gardening, and so on. From time to time, people would get up and move from one room to another, and circulate. And maybe the same jokes would get told more than once, the same tunes would get played more than once, the same issues would get debated more than once, as new people entered or left the room. And they would all go home feeling they had a darn good time. That's sort of what happens here in a virtual sort of way.

Now, you wouldn't make yourself very popular at a party if you went around telling people they ought to shut up and only listen to the music, or only talk about music. The polite people would patiently explain what a party is really supposed to be like, and the less polite would tell you where to stick it. All that has happened, many times over, at Mudcat. But in spite of that, the party goes on, and even those who once said foolish things are, finally accepted and welcomed.

Welcome to the Mudcat party, John P!