Jon, I wasn't trying to suggest that you had created another music forum, and hope my remarks don't get contrued that way. I appreciate what you tried to do for the music.But that said, I also don't feel a strong sense of allegiance to Mudcat or Max. I deeply appreciate what Max and Dick Greenhaus have accomplished with Digital Tradition--it is a great resource.
But to be brutally honest, I don't appreciate what Max has accomplished with the forum. Far from it. I don't wish to seem ungrateful, though. I'm no more or less grateful for Mudcat than I am the free Usenet music newsgroups and the free music mailing lists I've participated in over the years. You get what you pay for, especially on-line.
My gut feeling is, it is time for a new private mailing list for those of us folk music fans who are disillusioned both with Mudcat and rec.music.folk. If that means a new forum will be viewed contempuously as a threat to Mudcat's survival by many Mudcatters, I don't think that would necessarily be such a bad thing at all.