Let's chill, guys, OK? Joe, I think your post would have been more effective if you limited it to the last two sentences. The page in question is unfriendly technobabble, no matter how much of it you read.

Joe, there's no question you've done an outstanding and generally under-recognized job in starting and maintaining the FAQ threads (as well as troubleshooting the Forum and harvesting songs for the DT), and I understand you get tired of people complaining. But sometimes the complaints are justified. I agree with Jon that that page doesn't belong as the target of a link that's supposed to help people who want to find a song they like.

This is a rich and complex site, and one whose dedication to accessibility and flexibility tends to make it difficult to use at times, even for an experienced user. (square brackets? curly brackets? filter?) If Max were more autocratic and rigid, there wouldn't be nearly as many questions...and it wouldn't be nearly as much fun. I don't think anyone is ever going to come up with an instructional page that is both simple and complete.

Having said that, it might be worth trying to come up with a very simple single page of instructions, to answer three basic questions: How do I find a song? How do I post a message? How do I add a song?

Now I fully realize that other people will have their own list of "three basic questions", and pretty soon you'll end up with....the FAQ PermaThread! But I still think it's worth working on a "Mudcat Primer" of some sort. ("First visit to the Mudcat Cafe? Click here for the Mudcat Primer.") Just a thought.

Aloha,
Mark