a portion of Peter Timmerman's post at the end of the 'long thread'

"Why work through programmes, search engines and the rest -- which are incredibly frustrating and time consuming -- when you can ask other people using the Web? No Yahoo/Altavista in the world can beat Dick and Susan and Gene and Bert and Frank and whoever else is DT (or so I have learned). There will never be an IBM "Deep Folk"!!"

When I was in college, there were professors with specialties who could have answered almost ANY question.....but they expected the students to go to the library and do research, too!! They did not have time & energy to answer everything....that's why those books (and the card catalogue) are there. And.......even if Professor 'X' were willing (as 'some' of our resident experts seem to be), the line outside the door would soon become a real problem for others wishing to use the hallway!

The search engines are SUPPOSED to be how you find things that are on the WWW!...Like a 'folk music' database! And if you do not know how, there are libraries, music stores etc. In a few years, I expect that almost ANY reasonably popular song will be online somewhere. In the meantime, lets not demand that anyone with a good FORMAT (as Rodney says) be expected to have everything!

As to an IBM "Deep Folk"...that is what this forum is aiming towards...a very complete list of FOLK songs!There are 6000+ now...a computer could easily handle 72,937 (or whatever)...and know enough to beat Dick & Les & Barry & Gene & Peter etc. combined! And free them to sing and play and listen!And the forum could be about history & and versions and discussions of which songs have qualified to be added because they seem to have become folk! (And, as Dick said in one post, this is HIS to moderate...if you don't like what he puts in, start your own!! There could easily be competing Chess-playing computers, if someone wants to prove they have a better idea on how to beat Gary Kasparov...if YOU want to start a forum/database with YOUR notions of what should be in it, go ahead! Call it "Songs I like". THIS one says DIGITRAD on the front door, and at least Dick has the final say about what gets added to the database. He seems to add mostly folk/trad, so I take that as my guide as to what is appropriate to ask about...I take my opera questions elsewhere.