"It's an acknowledgement of terminology in The Wider World."
Oh dear - one more time - the wider world does not have a terminology. Folk music (certainly in the UK) has passed the wider world without even making a dent in its conciousness. Ask for a definition from the man-in-the-street and you are as likely to get referred to thin singing pullovers of the fifties and sixties, or the Spinners, or Riverdance, or that which was hammered out of the rosewood upright by Miss Pringle in those Blue Remembered Schooldays; all of which have a far greater claim on folk than the navel-gazing introspection that now passes for 'folk song' in clubs.
You may wish to the largely didinterested general public for your information; personally I prefer common-sense and personal experience and research; failing which, I always have the dictionary to fall back on.
If there is a genuine, widely accepted, workable alternative definition, I wonder if you'd care to specify what it is?
Jim Carroll