A lot of regulars here seem to only frequent this forum, rather than visit a number of on-line music forums. They seem naive, and maybe a bit too insular.

Well maybe that's true. But I've never found one yet remotely comparable. Maybe if I had the patience to struggle past finding my way round news groups like alt.music.folk and rec.music.folk, I might find something comparable, but I haven't so far.

I think Max's design of the site, and his hands off approach to running it, has been the key factors in helping people to come together and develop what we've got here.

I've just come back from a week at Sidmouth Folk Festival. There really is an enormous amount in common between the kind of detached community you get at such events, with people who only see each other on rare occasions and make music and talk about music and anything else that's on their mind, and the Mudcat. No it's not the same as a 3D local community, but then a mandolin isn't the same as a concertina, and they can be played together very effectively.

Seriously, if anyone think they have found something which does come within striking distance of the Mudcat, tell us about it. Whether it centres round folk music or anything else. If they do exist, maybe we could learn something from them.