Ace,

It means people will be "bullshitting" about the topic, not that the topic itself is necessarily bullshit. It's a US slang term, to BS about stuff... but a lot of people refuse to use the prefix because it seems, I guess, to them, that it denigrate the seriousness of the discussion or the importance of the topic.

The reason why people care if the prefix is used is that there is a URL into Mudcat people can use, that filters out threads labeled as [BS:]. When people use it just like that, colon and all, it helps people who prefer not to be distracted by the sometimes-large number of threads that are not about music.

And it helps people sort out which ARE the music threads. It's often been said, "People can tell this isn't a music thread from the title!" But often, you can't, and if you have a slow internet connection or tited old yes, it can take a long time to open and check the number of threads on the daily list to see what the music topic is about. There's one now, for instance, that could seem like a BS thread we have hashed out before-- BREATHALYSED. (Just so happens it's about a song of that title.) The earlier discussion was really painful for people who had lost loved ones to drunk driving, so it would probably not occur to them that this is a music thread unless that were made part of the title.

Part of the problem is that the daily thread list really is awfully long to wade through, even with the use of the BS filter!

Anyway, the people who use the BS prefix, despite its acknowledged limitations and discomforts, really do their fellow Mudcatters a gracious favor that promotes peace around this place. It isn't mandatory, though-- just deeply appreciated by a lot of Mudcatters.

~Susan