As long as there Actual Folk there will be Folk Music and Folk Song - likewise Folklore, Folk Custom, Folk Tale etc.

I completely agree and totally disagree. This goes back to my semi-facetious comments about the Snelgrove Process in an earlier thread. Unless one of us is calling Jim a liar, I think we're agreed that he spent a lot of time and energy documenting something that people collectively used to do, and that he was witness to the fact that people don't collectively do that thing any more. (This isn't because people have changed but because society has changed. There are lots of things in the world that people don't do any more.)

The big controversy seems to be about what we call that thing. Calling it "folk music" doesn't bother me in the slightest, but it obviously bothers you a great deal. But all those are just labels, as someone said - the important thing is that Jim is reporting what he saw, and that he did see something real.

(Where I agree with you is that I do think people getting together and making music - in singarounds, in battles of the bands, wherever - is a folk art, & deserves to be celebrated as such. But I don't believe it produces folk music, 99.9% of the time; not because people have changed but because society has changed, and the place of music in society has changed.)