It's a lot like what I found at my church. As long as all I did was attend on Sunday, I didn't have anything at stake, and I really didn't know people, so I didn't even attend all that often.

When someone talked me into serving on a committee I made more acquaintances, and felt more at home, attended more often, and felt I had a stake in the joint.

The same thing happens here. We don't have committee assignments, but taking the painless (and free) step of registering as a member, and contributing posts in various threads that interest you, and when possible posting songs that aren't already in the DT or additional verses to those already there--these things make YOU an "insider", a "clique member", if you will, just as it has for 'Spaw, for me, for hundreds--maybe thousands?--of others.

Then, when you have proprietary sense about Mudcat, you too may want to contribute monetarily, but it's not necessary at all. You may WANT to. The one thing is, it doesn't buy any more voting power than anyone else has.

Dave Oesterreich