The Mudcat is Closing its Doors

Subject: RE: The Mudcat is Closing its Doors
From: Max
Date: 05 Apr 99 - 07:07 PM

Man, what would happen if I really did close the Mudcat. I mean it is MY site. I created it for nothing, I lose money on it all the time, put myself in harms way with all the copyright bullshit, not to mention the individuals who don't like what I am doing, and the IRS. If I just lost interest, or ran into some hard times and shut down the Mudcat, I would be looking over my shoulder all the time for some crazed Mudcatter looking for revenge. These strong feelings at first made me realize the importance of this service that I provide, but now it makes me wonder why I bother. To be honest, I'd rather be a member of this site than run it. I realize now that the least I have to worry about is the copyright bullshit and IRS, it's the emense responsibility I have to all of you. I now apparently have to be careful what I say and do on MY OWN SITE.

To all those who I offended with this prank, I am sorry, but take a joke will ya, it was April 1st and you're just pissed you were the fool.

Subject: RE: The Mudcat is Closing its Doors
From: Joe Offer
Date: 05 Apr 99 - 08:00 PM

Aw, Max - just remember how much we like you. We really do. I do wish you had more time to stick around and chew the rag with us. You're not only the Benevolent Provider of this wonderful site - you're fun to have around.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: The Mudcat is Closing its Doors
From: Pete M
Date: 05 Apr 99 - 08:28 PM

Well I suppose there are some advantages to being 12 hours ahead of the rest of you. What with that and the Easter weekend, I've only just caught up and missed all the fun. I agree with everyone about the serious loss to us all the closure of the 'Cat would represent, but come on guys, did you actually read Max's posts? I know a lot of you are not well versed in computers but a hot standby for the 'Cat with a 100% effective re-direction of all traffic by the ISP and no break in service? About as likely as Clinton keeping his trousers on.

Secondly, if Max really thought this was likely, would he duplicate the system within US jurisdiction? And to cap it all, he then typed in a supplementary message while hundcuffed!

Now if Max had gone ahead with the remainder of the plan, it would have been much more scary. Its been done before though Max in rather more serious circumstances. Transmision by the black propoganda station Soldatensender Calais was ended by it being supposedly "shut down" by the Gestapo complete with appropriate shouting, gun fire etc. The only problem was that the taped "incident" was transmitted twice!!

Anyway, as everyone has said, I think it has made us all realise just how important the 'Cat is to us, and that we should not take your contribution in time and money lightly. So seriously Max, a back up plan to distribute the 'Cat outside the US is not a daft idea. I can't offer 24hr access to my server currently, but I would be happy to discuss any way that I could add to the resilience of the site.

Pete M

PS catspaw, I've alerted the the appropriate people to the possibility that you lot may be installing a secret keel based on tiple technology to your America's cup boat.

As for the FBI/CIA/ASCAP infiltration, all US citizens entering NZ will be required to answer two simple questions: "When did you last see your Tiple?" and "When do you wear gum boots?" Any unsatisfactory answers will result in them being dressed in ram skins and put into a paddock with 3,000,000 sex crazed ewes!

Subject: RE: The Mudcat is Closing its Doors
From: LEJ
Date: 05 Apr 99 - 09:37 PM

Max...you are doing a great job with this. Reactions to your Practical Joke break down into 3 groups:

1. Jokers and foolers like me, Catspaw, Alice and Bob who were hoping for this kinda joke from somebody and were willing to play along.

2. More sincere and sensitive phoaks like Katlaughing and Animaterra who were taken in not because of naivete, but because they were so afraid of losing something they value.

3. Folks like Roger and Peter T who got pissed off because you were seriously worrying group 2

I look at Mudcat as a party with great music and great conversation. It's also a lot of laughs, and I got a laugh out of this thread. But everybody needs to know that Max is putting on the party - and if you are having fun, you better thank the host. And Max, promise me one thing... you'll do another April Fools Joke next year! LEJ

Subject: RE: The Mudcat is Closing its Doors
From: Barbara Shaw
Date: 05 Apr 99 - 09:51 PM

Wow. Some folks are laying an awful lot of guilt on Max and an awful load of responsibility. Maybe we should all look at our dependence on the Mudcat community and consider whether or not we need to get more of a life. Max is not responsible for the rest of his life for keeping this site up permanently to amuse and entertain and inform us. It's great that he does, but not his life. Whether or not he loses money or makes millions on the mudcat, whether or not he was joking on April 1 or sounding off or whatever, it is our responsibility not to depend on the mudcat for our well-being. The idea that we should demand his continued responsibility and accountability is troublesome to me.

I enjoy the forum as much as anyone and run to the computer whenever I get a few minutes to browse, post whenever something stirs me enough and thoroughly enjoy reading some of the threads. Also, some of them are boring and uninformative and unfunny and uncompelling. Sometimes, the rest of my life waits because I'm too busy reading the mudcat to pick up my guitar, or too busy reading the mudcat to balance my checkbook or too busy reading the mudcat to do anything else. This is not Max's fault either. He created the monster, but I have to deal with it personally.

There have been threads identifying other discussion forums. There have been threads sharing e-mail addresses with mudcatters. There would be ways to get in touch with mudcat people and there are undoubtedly other people outside the mudcat who have compatible ideas and interests. I hope I haven't offended anyone, but I really think we need to lighten up (another thread) and leave the idea of entitlement and guilt out of the mudcat. Enjoy it while it lasts.

Subject: RE: The Mudcat is Closing its Doors
From: Big Mick
Date: 05 Apr 99 - 10:25 PM

You know, I erased a start of a post to this message just before Max posted his. I wish now that I had posted it. It started ENOUGHT ALREADY!!!!!!!!! Max is not responsible for our health, our well being or our financial state. He is the person responsible for giving us this wonderful community. And for that we are in his debt. But it is a huge drain. I put a posting in this thread that was supposed to be taken tongue in cheek. It was supposed to make you chuckle and think about how much we love this site and how we are going to have to deal with supporting it.

Max, I indicated to you in my post that I would do anything to help, and I will. I and many others here are fully aware of the tremendous drain this site puts on you and your family. You have created a wonderful thing. It is my sincere hope that you someday realize the fruits of your labor. And the rest of you, lighten up. It was a joke and the man is entitled.

Mick

Subject: RE: The Mudcat is Closing its Doors
From: Roger in Baltimore
Date: 05 Apr 99 - 10:32 PM

Thanks, Barbara, you said it more firmly and more concisely than I could have. There is no reason to think that this site go on forever, for much of the energy comes from one person, or more precisely, a few people.

Let me digress a moment. I volunteer at a weekly folk coffeehouse twice a month. It was started by two women who didn't want to keep travelling to DC to hear good folk music. Eventually, the two split up (one woman was running another weekly venue as well). The remaining woman realized that the coffeehouse was not going to be something she could do forever. With wisdom, she divided up the tasks that needed to be done and slowly began farming them out to individuals (I became a host/emcee). Eventually, the place could run without her and now it effectively does, she is just one of a cadre of volunteers and she is not in charge. A constant worry is how to replenish volunteers.

I say all of this to reinforce what Barbara says. The 'Cat runs on Max's good graces, finances, and legal responsibility. One way we can all help is to send a few bucks his way. I plan to continue to do this. I encourage the rest of you to do so. I suspect what little I send may be more important emotionally to Max than it is financially. In some way his position is pretty isolating.

Max, I suspect we have encountered an age difference. Many of us are old enough to be your parent. Some of us, although that old, may be stuck at your age (right Catspaw?). As people get older, emotional ties can become more important.

I have forgiven you, which is more important for me than for you. I always knew no harm was intended. I know you already sacrifice more than most of us would lose.

Thanks.

Roger in Baltimore

Subject: RE: The Mudcat is Closing its Doors
From: Max
Date: 05 Apr 99 - 10:38 PM

Sorry for the previous post, I had my panties in a bunch. I want to say too that this was not a ploy for money or gratitude.

Sometimes I feel like the host of a party, so much responsibility that I fail to enjoy the party. Truth is, I really have no right to complain. For the most part, I get out of the Mudcat exactly what I want. I learn from all of you, I find friends and people like me and that like the things that I do. I enjoy taking your suggestions and critisisms, and even the long hours that go along with them.

Perhaps I will play another joke next year, but certainly not about the Mudcat going away. I can surely say that the Mudcat's existence is about as solid as could be. We have consulted lawyers, and get permissions and licenses to publish all the things we do, we are non-profit and are not making money off of others' hard work. We are an educational resource, and it would be a grand injustice to shut us down. For now, my other company Onstage, needs all the same technology that the Mudcat does, so the expenses are managable and intertwined. As long as Onstage is OK, so shall be the Mudcat. If anything ever happens to Onstage, worste case scenario is that we need a raise some funds to host the Mudcat.

The Mudcat gets about 2.5 million hits (about 80,000 unique visitors) per month, more than ever anticipated, which does require more computational power than we may have at any given time. Again, worst case scenarios are temporary outages or slow service. We do the best we can with what we have and can afford. If these things bother you, either go away or make a contribution or buy a t-shirt or some cd's and books, and we'll buy a new server or better software etc. We are not suffering here. If you can find a better way to spend your money locally please do. If you can take your kids out for ice-cream instead, please do.

Perhaps from now on, no one is allowed to complain or criticise or suggest unless accompanied by a contribution or sale. If no money ever comes in, the Mudcat and Digitrad will still be here. I want more though, I want to always be able to make it better and bigger and faster and more reliable. I would like to see Dick doing it full time too. And it's as simple as that.

So lets take the edge off the situation and put an end to this thread. No more posts here. Lets talk about better things like FOLK. Thanks everybody.

Subject: RE: The Mudcat is Closing its Doors
From: Shula
Date: 06 Apr 99 - 12:31 AM

Dear Max,

Blame the intensity of the reaction, if you must, on the sort of critters drawn to this particular watering hole. Once a radical, always a radical. Best not rile some varmints.

Personally, I have decided to consider the episode instructive. It was a pretty fair "air-raid drill." Pete M. has a point. The Mudcat really *should* have plans for damage control in the event of hostile action.

And maybe it's time to consider that you have created something so fine and unique that, like Galatea, it has taken on a life of its own. Why not enable your beloved "baby" to "outlive" you, by planning for its future in the event of the loss of its "parent?" What loving and responsible "parent" would do otherwise?

*********************
Once, in my callow youth, I did something disgraceful on April Fool's Day. In a monumentally adolescent lapse of judgement, I plotted with a schoolmate that he should pretend to have a diabetic crisis, and I should "inform" our teacher. We anticipated the pleasure of greeting our plump and prissy English instructor, on her red-faced return from a marathon run to the cafeteria for orange juice, with the cry of "April Fools!" We expected her to be annoyed, non-plussed, and embarrassed; she was all those things, and more, but not until much later.

At the time, she simply sat down and wept with relief that one of her pupils was not really dying. We were too young to anticipate how deeply such a thing would affect her. We didn't know this silly old biddy had feelings, she was just a *teacher* after all, and a relentlessly strict and demanding one at that. But the revelation that she had any sort of human emotion was not the shocker. It was that she loved us with all her antimacassared old heart.

It can be fearful to glimpse the truth. And burdensome. It is unwise to think of automotive fatality statistics while driving. And who would marry or procreate these days, going by the odds? To know that one is sincerely and greatly loved is, indeed, fearful and burdensome -- and highly unsettling. It changes things, makes us painfully self-conscious. Which is why the grown-ups so rarely let us see how much we mean to them.

You have discovered, quite unintentionally, how much *you* mean to a goodly number of folk whom you have only known here in what you believed was a small way. We will get over our dismay -- most already have. The question remaining is: will you be able to forgive us for betraying the depth of our affection?

Fondly,

Shula

Subject: RE: The Mudcat is Closing its Doors
From: Shula
Date: 06 Apr 99 - 12:39 AM

Dear Max,

So sorry. Would have been glad to leave you the last word, to which you are surely entitled. Was composing the foregoing all evening, and sent it thinking LEJ's was the last post. Please forgive my failure to re-check the thread before posting.

Shula

Subject: RE: The Mudcat is Closing its Doors
From: The Shambles
Date: 06 Apr 99 - 03:34 AM

Thank you Max.

(To the sound of 'The Last Post' playing quitely in the distance).

Subject: RE: The Mudcat is Closing its Doors
From: Sam Pirt
Date: 06 Apr 99 - 08:00 AM

Ha, Ha, Ha, FUNNY. NOT!!!!!!!!

Bye, Sam

Subject: RE: The Mudcat is Closing its Doors
From:
Date: 06 Apr 99 - 11:41 AM

I was just going to shut up, but Shula's response, as usual so clear and right, set me off again. The phrase from King Lear -- "As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods, they kill us for their sport" -- is relevant. Because, as Joe says, the Web is such a strange, neutralizing and yet powerful place, any community group that is set up is going on faith that it is not run by the wanton boys who seem to run everything on the Web. This space is continually being threatened from the outside, not just by authority, but by people who are just drifting by, spraying graffitti, and so on. Just like other places we know. What has been heartening about this site is that -- thanks to Max, Dick, and Susan -- it stumbled on a way to bring the classic storytelling, chatting, and folk banter onto the Web, bringing tradition along. It has been even nicer that people have started to get to know each other off the site, preparing for Mudstock 99, 200, wandering along after Joe and Rick, and so on. There is so little of this on the Web (and not much of it elsewhere). That is why what Max did made me so angry -- this was an internal assault on the whole thing from the sustainer of the whole thing. As if it were one more wanton game, which could be fooled around with, and undermined without anyone being much better off or worse off. I think people who say that we should not be taking this site or its growing community seriously (the get-a-life brigade) are missing the point. This is part of life, and it has its seriousness and its good jokes too (thank goodness). What is raised by what happened is not (contrary to some respondents) "Now I can see how much this site needs protecting," but "Why should I care, why should I put myself on the line to help, since the person who runs it thinks it is all optional." That is what it says, like a lot of wantonness out there. That's why I think it was so damaging -- we will all survive the FBI, but we cannot survive our loss of trust in each other, however fragilely earned. Perhaps it is true, perhaps it is stupid to be sucked into thinking this is just one more Web site in a world of manipulation, but I don't want to believe that, and I don't think Max believes it either. It was just one of those dumb things people do, but it still makes me mad.

Yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: The Mudcat is Closing its Doors
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 06 Apr 99 - 01:12 PM

A thought:

If the estimated 80,000 unique visitors we get every month would find it in their hearts to kick in a buck a year, a) Max would have his expenses covered, with something left over, and b) I could afford to devote a substantial chunk of my time on the Digital Tradition database.

Both Max and I would be very happy if all Mudcat cost us was a buck a year.

Subject: RE: The Mudcat is Closing its Doors
From: The Shambles
Date: 06 Apr 99 - 05:45 PM

Brief reprise of the Thread Name Game.

The Mudcat is closing it's doors/Waiting for the Federals

Subject: RE: The Mudcat is Closing its Doors
From: catspaw49
Date: 01 Apr 05 - 11:19 AM

For those of you who weren't around back in these days, THIS was the classic April Fool's Joke. It was also a lot more as well. If you read it, you find that perhaps for the first time, Max begins to understand just how important this site has become to many of it's members and frankly it scared the lad a bit. But at the same time I think here is the first place he also began to really see and accept that he no longer had a website, he had a real community forming.

Just a month later the entire membership came together behind another event and the realization of true formed friendships and a real world community took a strong hold here which still remains among many of us today. Remember that this was long before "gatherings" of members that are so common now. Pretty much we knew each other through cyberspace only, but as events unfolded around the first of May, it became apparent to most that this was a real place and not just a cyber-site.

This thread was the first part of that turning point for Mudcat and it came completely together when we realized just how close we had become a month later. So this is not just a classic joke, but a significant part of Mudcat history. Hope you enjoy(ed) the read.

Spaw

Subject: RE: The Mudcat is Closing its Doors
From: katlaughing
Date: 01 Apr 05 - 12:24 PM

THANKS, Spawdarlin' for refreshing this!!

Subject: RE: The Mudcat is Closing its Doors
From: Charley Noble
Date: 01 Apr 05 - 12:38 PM

Spaw-

Thanks for refreshing this one. I was oblivious to Mudcat at the time. Lord knows what I was doing with my life back then.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble, a figment of Mudcat

Subject: RE: The Mudcat is Closing its Doors
From: GUEST,MMario
Date: 01 Apr 05 - 12:54 PM

I wonder what the stats are now - they were 2.5 million hits a month /80,000 unique hits per month in 1999.

six years later?

Joe?

Jeff?

Max?

Subject: RE: The Mudcat is Closing its Doors
From: Azizi
Date: 01 Apr 05 - 02:57 PM

I have to say I read the title of this thread and got an "Oh, No!" sinking sensation in my stomach.

Then I remembered it was April Fool's day..

Okay, you fooled me that time.

Now that I know that Max isn't announcing that he's closing Mudcat,
I can relax and read the comments that have been posted here.

Long live Mudcat!!


Azizi

Subject: RE: The Mudcat is Closing its Doors
From: Little Hawk
Date: 01 Apr 05 - 05:55 PM

Well, I am relieved that my demise and Mudcat's did not coincide, as folks might have attached some special significance to that. I don't want to be responsible for all that.

I am just glad that no one decided to run an Obit for William Shatner today. The mind can only take so much.

Subject: RE: The Mudcat is Closing its Doors
From: GUEST,Jaze
Date: 01 Apr 05 - 09:30 PM

Not funny, Max, but you rule. And thanks for all you do. And especially thanks for this incredible site. Amazing how important it's become for so many people. You should be very proud of what you've accomplished. From the bottom of my heart, I do thank you. James

Subject: RE: The Mudcat is Closing its Doors
From: Swave N. Deboner
Date: 01 Apr 05 - 10:38 PM

Max,

I just about choked on my brew when I saw this thread title. Nearly panicked until I saw the date it was started. I'd survive without the Mudcat, but life would be waaaay more boring. Seriously, I appreciate your perseverance, determination, and dedication to keep this site going. It has truly become a phenomenon. I get hours of enjoyment reading the threads and posts from so many bright personalities, many of whom I truly admire (not that they have the slightest clue when I'm here most of the time, and probably don't give a rat's patoot.) And thanks goes to the clones, too. Please keep the Mudcat home fires burning.

Scott

Sincerely,

Scott, AKA Swave N. Deboner

Subject: RE: The Mudcat is Closing its Doors
From: Big Mick
Date: 02 Apr 05 - 01:01 AM

Good pull, Patterson! Perfect timing. You been keepin' on the meds? Significant event, eh? I would say so. Anyway, great job. Now get back and lay on the couch before I have to talk to the partners of Lane, Patterson, Fielding and Swan, Layabouts at Large and for hire, about expelling your ass for excessive productive behaviour.

I love ya,bro.

Mick