.......I just opened this thread for the first time, and read all 112 messages..(maybe there are 3 more while I'm typing)....

Some people just don't get it.....THIS IS LIFE! It is EXACTLY like having a festival, or a party, or a church, or driving on the highway, or going to the beach, or doing almost anything that is mostly open to the general public: that is, you get all kinds of people behaving in all kinds of ways, like.....well....like people!

OF COURSE it will not please everyone all the time! Yes, there is off-topic banter sometimes, and often the same folks are at the center of it...just like at your office, or at meetings you have attended...(and just like at MOST of the 'public' singing sessions I have attended!!)

You get several choices if you don't like it...1)don't go there any more, 2)try to find one (or start one) that is rigidly controlled (perhaps by YOU)...3) yell and complain 4)shut up and join in as best you can. (yeah..there is 'sort of' a 5th choice of politely, but firmly, raising your hand and making suggestions ..i.e., complaining to the management..but this assumes the management is taking suggestions.)Ask yourself honestly which one you use.

I have been here since almost the beginning, and early on, I was well-known for complaining that "folk" music was being too broadly defined...I still believe that, but *shrug*...I can't win that one..(though I have influenced a few)...So I largely shut up about how I'd like it to be, and fit in "as best I can". The neat thing is....in this forum, I **CAN** not open a thread..or immediately close it if I don't like it...and...even in threads that are hi-jacked...I can do like I do with the comic strips in the paper..I IGNORE the ones that I choose..(Rex Morgan?, Mary Worth? Spiderman?...haven't read them in years!).....I'm so VERY sorry if you cant do the same. Perhaps options 1 & 2 are your best choices.

I do know one thing...despite all the BS and banter and silliness that goes on (which I even contribute to at times)...if I have a music question, it GETS answered! Sometimes it is answered by the likes of a Malcolm Douglas or Gene or Bruce Olson who "almost" never partake of BS threads...and sometimes it is answered by Catspaw or MMario or others who may be in 47 threads simultaneously...but almost NO music question gets ignored or missed!

The only way, my friends, to deal with a place that is big and complex, is to develop filters! If Max can help even more than he has...fine, but each person has to apply his/her own filter system too. (how many remember this link? which gives you the forum will all threads titled BS already filtered?)

If you cannot either ignore the parts you don't like, or endure them, then simply give up!

You all know that line about "not trying to teach a pig to sing, because it wastes your time, and annoys the pig"?....it applies to Mudcats 'as a group', too......