glueman wrote:
"How reliable are the collectors and how scruplous their methods."

There's plenty of published material available to those who want to read and learn, rather than merely "bait". Read Harker, Boyes, Bearman, and others on Sharp, for instance, but don't expect consensus. Baring-Gould is controversial, too. Later collectors have learned from their mistakes and prejudices.

Here's a couple of articles just a mouse-click away:

Yates on Sharp
(scroll down left column and click on #36)

Baring-Gould

Or you could try asking Jim Carroll, who is a distinguished collector himself. I'm sure he could give you an answer on the identity of 'the people' - oh, but he already did, and you ignored it, preferring instead to indulge in provocative cliches about "the great unwashed".

Here's an interesting snippet from Wikipedia's page on Sharp - any attitudes here we can recognize?

"Dave Harker's harsh criticisms... reflect an idiosyncratic Trotskyist Marxist framework that views any and all folk song collecting, scholarship, and attempts at revival as malign forms of appropriation and exploitation by the bourgeoisie of the working class."