I have been avoiding the fray here for te past week or so, but I am alarmed by the exits of so many from our ranks. Shambles, I am terribly sorry to see you go and hope that you'll reconsider sooner rather than later. Your thoughtful presence will be deeply missed.

As for the rest, I think it's shameful that we've come to a place where we're even considering censoring the forum (beyond what Joe and others already do with spam, etc). We are all in charge of what this forum is, and of what it becomes. Those of you who want to see more music threads, start the threads yourselves and your like-minded fellow Catters will join right in. If you want it, make it happen. And although it's been said many times, many ways, if you don't like the content of a thread, DON'T CONTRIBUTE. It really is that simple. But others have the right to start whatever thread they wish, until Max says differently. As has been noted elsewhere, the thing about free speech is that sooner or later someone will say something you don't like. All of us must accept that, and get on with it.

As for the flaming, which has been horrible to witness, we really do just have to ignore it and hope it goes away. That thing your mama told you about making bullies go away by refusing to act scared holds true here as well; you give people power by reacting to them. Take away the reaction, take away the power. That's hard here, because to leave nastiness unchallenged is counterintuitive; we want to defend ourselves, and our friends, and our forum. Or to extend the olive branch, when possible. But this community shouldn't be all-inclusive, necessarily; we have the right to exclude people when their bad energy outweighs their good.

I don't believe that we need to re-configure the Cat, or twist ourselves inside out wondering why some are unhappy. Just disengage from the flaming, stay away from the politics threads if they're giving you ulcers, and post threads on the topics that you want to discuss instead of feeling all bitter that no one else is. Some people are never going to see eye to eye; they can civilly agree to disagree on the threads, and take the personal attacks to the personal messages or face the censure of the group. That's cenSURE, as opposed to cenSOR. Now is the time to keep on keepin' on. This place needs to remain the best forum on the net. We will weather this storm.

Love to you all,

Cara