Hi Dick, I suspect that perhaps you are referring to something other than Wikipedia?? n any case, from the "about Wikipedia" page:

" - Wikipedia is an online free-content encyclopedia project helping to create a world in which everyone can freely share in the sum of all knowledge

- Wikipedia is written collaboratively by largely anonymous volunteers who write without pay

- Wikipedia is a live collaboration differing from paper-based reference sources in important ways. It is continually created and updated, with articles on new events appearing within minutes, rather than months or years. Because everybody can help improve it, Wikipedia has become more comprehensive than any other encyclopedia."

The only limitation on Wikipedia articles are that the subjects have to satisfy some criteria of "notability", in other words, reliable secondary sources (other than the subject or person concerned) have deemed that they are worth writing about; otherwise every person in the world could have an entry (which is not the purpose of Wikipedia, i.e. it is not a directory).

In my experience, Wikipedia articles are useful in that they are a single point to collate (and in some cases, make sense of) otherwise scattered, published information existing "somewhere", as well as propagate it to the world. Hence the original poster's desire, to see more articles about noteworthy folk musicians, so that information on them becomes more widely disseminated and recognised outside our "folk" silo, where appropriate of course, as well as providing an education resource for present and future interested persons.

In your example, "doing gigs for 45 years plus and having run folk clubs and a festival" does not automatically qualify a person for inclusion as a Wikipedia article subject, but if they have done something notable enough to have an article written about them by a third party elsewhere, and/or satisfied one of the other criteria as mentioned above, that should do the trick...

I was a bit sceptical about the value and quality of wikipedia content until around 2006, by which time it had been going for 5 years and was beginning to provide a useful place to look up various technical terms useful for my employmennt, and was pleasantly surprised at how far it had got, on a voluntary contribution basis. Now it is better still of course, but still many slightly lesser known (but arguably notable) persons can be missing from its coverage. It is up to suitably motivated individuals to carry on adding and improving content as they feel the urge, and have time available. Personally I enjoy the challenge, on occasion, of doing the required background sleuthing either to improve a current article, or create a new one from scratch. - keeps my brain alive. I also enjoy singing and playing - the 2 (or 3) are not mutually exclusive!

- Tony