I agree Dani. eFolkMusic.com has discussion forums. They have the opposite (organizationally speaking) of what Mudcat has. They have a main forum page, then it splits to separate pages for general/misc, a page for song questions, pages by music genre, ie a page for bluegrass, a page for Celtic, etc.

I think that this forum isn't big enough for that level of organization at this time. But I wouldn't have a problem with the BS being put on a separate page, and a breakdown into sections by type of thread, according to the prefix system we currently have now.

I don't believe there is ever "one right way" of doing a forum layout myself. Every discussion forum is unique in it's own way, and I think the tech fixes and solutions should follow the way the forum grows organically. Clearly, the time had come for some sort of split between music and BS. I had thought the BS filter worked fine. But apparently it wasn't enough for some. I think this current change would have been a better solution from the gitgo to the music folk wanting to be separated from the BS folk.