A point about all this.
These debates are seldom about the real definition of folk song; rather they almost exclusively cover whether what goes on in today's 'folk clubs' can be described, loosely or otherwise, as 'folk song'.
The term is clearly defined, researched and documented and works, in the form of books, articles, magazines, journals and printed and recorded examples, usually researchedm analysed and annotated, have regularly appeared since the beginning of the twentieth century and continue to do so with steady regularity all over the world.
The existing definition of folk will remain until it is either adapted (very much needed) or replaced (possibly by continual misuse - but this usually takes at least decades, if not centuries and involves the population as a whole, who up to now have shown no interest in the subject whatsoever) by something else.
So really, these long, convoluted and usually fascinating (to me anyway) debates are little more than family squabbles as to whether the club scene (as small and ineffectual as it is outside its own goldfish bowl) should make a U.D.I. and decide to go it alone (who was Ian Smith anyway?).
Long may they continue - at least it means we continue to think about what we do and have enough nouse and good manners to discuss it with others.
LET THE GAMES RE-COMMENCE!!
Jim Carroll