Well said Snail.

Performance standards and ability do of course matter - we would and should all like to be better than we are - but if folk are not allowed to sing it, it is no longer folk music.

And no, that does not mean that if people sing it it is necessarily folk music.

I would have thought that it went without saying that people msut be permitted to adapt folk song, and perform in the style they see fit. Folk is not about form, but derivation. I still listen to 60s and 70s electric folk - and indeed have learned (by ear) a number of songs from there - that I do acoustic. So the wheel completes the circle. I do however see the problem sometimes - how could anyone learn the melody line or words of "The Setting of the Sun" from the Seth Lakeman version? But by comparing that version to the less modern version that I do, I have sent more than a couple of people off on a voyage of enquiry.