Since I seem to be on the opposite side of the argument, I guess I'm one of the "folk police", although it's not a description I recognise or agree with. I thought I had been addressing the point, but perhaps after 900+ posts I've lost sight of it.

If the point is the 1954 definition itself, then actually I don't give a monkey's about it. It's an academic definition, for academic purposes, and I'm not an academic. I'm interested in folk music from the point of view of listening to it and performing it. I'm not bothered about the minutiae of the 1954 definition, or whether or not it covers all the possibilities, or whether this or that amendment should have been, or should now be, made to it. None of that's very important to me. But the concept it encapsulates and the process that it attempts to describe are absolutely fundamental, and from the perspective of a listener and performer the 1954 definition is a good starter to understand why traditional music is what it is.

If the point is about the meaning of words, then my position is clear. I accept that "folk" has for a long time - longer than I've been involved - meant more than "traditional". However up until now it has meant something which bears some resemblance to "traditional", whether in the musical or lyrical structures or simply the ideas it expresses.

What I cannot accept is the argument that since "folk" doesn't just meant "traditional" it can therefore encompass anything. I don't think that's helpful in any way - it doesn't help anyone to know in advance what sort of music they can expect to hear, it doesn't help someone who hears and likes something new to seek out more of the same. Not only that, I think it's actually damaging because it obscures real folk music, and in particular traditional music.

On an average night in our Folk Club we might hear Blues, Shanties, Kipling, Cicely Fox Smith, Musical Hall, George Formby, Pop, County, Dylan, Cohen, Cash, Medieval Latin, Beatles, Irish Jigs and Reels, Scottish Strathspeys, Gospel, Rock, Classical Guitar, Native American Chants, Operatic Arias and even the occasional Traditional Song and Ballad.

Each of these descriptions tells me something about the music and what it might sound like. What value is added by throwing the label "folk" over them? If you asked the average person in the street, with no axe to grind, whether most of these were "folk", do you think they'd agree?