If people don't start threads about American music because they think the Cat is too overloaded by stuff about music from across the Atlantic the effect is that the Cat gets even more overloaded by stuff about other types of music.

At present that tends to be music from the British Isles. I'd sooner it included more from other places, because it's a big world with lots of wonderful music. (And some of the best from inside North America.)

There's nothing much people over here can do about it really. I suppose they could stop starting threads, but I don't really think that is the right way. I suppose we could start threads about American music, but I'm pretty sure quite a lot of people over here do that in any case.

As for the arguments about whether something is folk or not, true that can get a bit boring, and it diverts attention from the interesting part, which is whether it's any good, and where it comes from and where it's going to and what people can learn from it... But if the discussion about those kinds of things is lively enough, the trainspotter stuff about exact classification should die away.

And unless I'm very much mistaken the "is-this-really-folk" people are as likely to be from over there as from back here.

As for threads not taking-off - I'm sure most people who have ever started threads have started a good few which didn't take off. About every topic under the sun. It's just the way the Mudcat works.

And I repeat my plea for an official prefix for local events and gigs, everywhere, because I think it actually woudl help.