I can assure you that Mudcat Administrators and volunteers never masquerade as guests. That is a ridiculous claim.

I will also mention that I run this site with the help of a few very dedicated volunteers. That is our management, that is our leadership. We have no one else to answer to. We are not run by committee. We run things as we see fit, and considering everything, I feel very comfortable with the job we do. We provide a lot of great stuff to a hell of a lot of people and constantly work to improve our free, no obligation resources.

Your comments on efolkmusic.com are fine.   They do some things that I don't appreciate, like their pop-up ads, and how they say in their privacy statement that they won't sell your email address, yet offered to sell me, and anyone who asks, over 28,000 of them on their advertising page. That's fine. I just take that for what it is and make my decision of whether I'll spend time there based on all that it is.

You can communicate with me via the forum or help forum without registering. Even easier than email, which is max@mudcat.org by the way. It's on our support page, and my home phone number is on the contact page. What's hard about that? Barrier to communicate?

Point is, you disagree with some of our stuff, that's fine. But we're not some big company or academic institution. We are not driven by money and we don't seek popularity. We are a simple bunch of folkies who do what we do because we like it. We provide a resource because we think it is important to preserve and provide. We do it with what means we can muster without compromising our ideals. If we appear unprofessional, that may because we're not professionals. I'm not apologetic for that because I never claimed I was or promised I would be. I guess I've always just thought that Professional and Folk were contrary concepts.

You spend a lot of time and energy being negative and proving that you are right, even when you are not. If you don't like it, you can always go hang out at efolkmusic.com or start your own forum. If you "insist upon that as a minimum standard for discussion forums [you] participate in", why are you participating here? Why are you so afraid of cookies? Can you think of one thing why having a Mudcat cookie could cause you harm in any way?

And just to be clear, I am not attacking you, I am only being frank because I happen to disagree with everything you said in this thread. Your research is thin, your theories about the Mudcat Royals is way off, and simply ma'am, you are wrong. You take things out of context, fear things of which you know not, and speak in half-truths all to avoid being wrong. That is not a demographic we strive to preserve.