There are many Mudcat solipsists, the metaphor isn't that difficult to grasp.

For people with internet dependency problems who use Mudcat as a fix, the demise of this website would no doubt create a short-term hardship, but they'll find a new fix somewhere as they always do.

For those few here who have created a true folk community here through Mudcat that now extends to off-line friendships, I expect they will find ways to stay in touch with one another if Max pulls the plug. As to the claims that this place is unique in cyberspace, I would say it is only as unique as you believe it is. There are people who inhabit other folk discussion forums who feel that their forum is unique, and superior to all others as well. People will always believe that what is most familiar to them, and therefore the most comforting, is superior to what everyone else enjoys in the same way, for largely the same reasons.

As to the usefulness of this forum to the on-line folk music community outside of the Mudcat regulars, well that is a highly debatable matter. As would be expected--the people who come here regularly love the place, think it is unique and far superior to all other discussion forums, and that Max can do no wrong. People who don't come as regular users see those opinions spouted as fact, and learn to take it all with a large grain of salt when they are here. Those who use DT but never use the forum don't even have this "community" on their on-line folk community radar. Mudcatters behave and think just like those who regularly inhabit other folk music discussion forums on-line think & behave--as if their forum is the best, the only that matters, etc.

I've come to view this particular on-line forum as a rabid folk equivalent of a cult like the Deadheads. It is an analogy that works for me, and that I often use when describing this place to others.