I can't think of anyone, including contributors here, who does not go along with the 54 descriptors. I certainly do.

My own personal proviso is that they do not offer what I would call a definition with finite boundaries and why should they? As I stated above, no other musical genre or literary genre requires hard and fast boundaries. Neither Steve nor I have changed any of this. As Maud K quite clearly states, origins have nothing to do with whether a song/ballad is a folksong or not, and she was the major influence in drawing up the 54 descriptors. I cannot see any differences between any of us here.

The whole argument seems to be around origins of individual folksongs/ballads (not of the genre as a whole). We can discuss this amicably without resorting to insults like 'desk jockeys'. My opinion is that 95% of the English corpus originated in some form of urban commercial enterprise and Jim's opinion is that some unknown quantity originated with the rural common people. I base my opinion on having studied in great detail, the folk songs in that corpus, alongside much other material that came from the same sources that didn't survive in oral tradition.