Hi y'all,
First - my apologies to Paul Banjiman - I misunderstood his comment, hence the hissy-fit - the result of trying to do this on the move (which I still am) - sorry (until the next time it happens, at least).
Anyhoo; I'll have a try with this as long as I can.
Tom:
Thank you for your list of 'definitions' - it made my point far better than I ever could. You missed several, by the way. A couple of weeks ago on this forum (of informed folkies) somebody offered 'love songs' as a definition making 'Your Tiny Hand Is Frozen......?"
What you gave us as 'definitions' are 'misconceptions' of what folk is; it's The 'Six Blind Men of Hindustan Who Went To See The Elephant', writ large and underlines perfectly the need for consensus if all of our musics are to survive.
There are loads of questions here hanging unanswered, but I suggest we cut to the chase and deal with those later. Maybe by then Glueman will have provided me with his list of those I have deliberately avoided - but I can only hold my breath for so long nowadays.
The '54 definition, flawed as it might be, pulled together most of the salient points of the music I came into in the early sixties so that we knew roughly what we were getting when we went out to enjoy a night of 'folk song'. No, we didn't go running for our dictionary before we went down to the Pack Horse, or the Union Tavern, or The Fox, or The Empress of Russia - we didn't have to, there was a degree of consensus and we could choose our music on the basis of whether it pleased us aesthetically, rather than we heard what we had been told we were going to. I may have wildly misjudged to what extent that this is no longer the case, but a couple of clips put up on this thread serve to convince me - not too wildly. The cuckoo in the nest has not only, to a large degree, thrown out many of the other birds, but is now demanding that those remaining change their names to something else altogether. There has been no re-definition as far as I can see, by those involved or by the public at large, just a (deliberate?) blurring of the existing one to provide a convenient peg to hang a too diffuse a selection of music - try to please all of the people all of the time and you end up pleasing no one.
Personally I feel my understanding of 'folk' is flexible enough to provide me with a guide to what I want to listen to (as an evening of 'folk')
"If clubs don't actually use the F word, does Jim mind what they put on?"
No - of course I bloody don't; why on earth should I? When I lived in Manchester I was a regular at Terry Whelan's Wayfarers, residented at a couple of Harry Boardman's clubs, and visited several others that supplied my folk 'habit'. On Thursday nights I often went to a pub along the Stretford Road where the landlord put up a few quid as a prize and I listened to the locals singing or reciting their own stuff, or the blasts from the past or present, or whatever took their fancy, just like a number of folk clubs I have visited recently - only they didn't call themselves that - good days.
The term 'folk' has a significance way beyond what goes on in clubs; it indicates its origins, its social, historical and artistic standing - it is essential to any understanding of our music - it is what we were and are. It provides, I believe, the key to our being more widely accepted, to our gaining air time, funding for our projects, and some chance that following generations will have the great advantage we were given of enjoying and becoming part of our heritage. This I KNOW from present experience here in Ireland, where the fortunes of the music have been changed radically and dramatically.
To answer the op's original question "Is traditional song finished?" - I believe it is unless something is done to change the present situation.      
Tom again;
"Please don't bring the quality issue in here. It's highly subjective and is completely separate to the debate over material"
I wasn't aware I had brought it in; on the contrary; I don't believe that we can alter definitions on the basis of our personal tastes or conveniences; dictionaries don't work like that.
If I have (please point it out) I apologise.
Must go - but a final thought.
You mentioned 'public domain' in your list of 'definitions'; am I to take it that you are happy to relinquish all claims to your own compositions?
Best to all,
Jim Carroll
E&OE