"'I know one when I hear one' or 'the old singers could tell' "
The Wiki editors know nothing of folk songs as far as I know - the contributors should
As for the argument istself, it would be a fairly weak one of we had anything better to go on, but if you believe that the singers knew less about their songs than we do, we're not speaking about the same people
That is academic arrogance in the extreme.
We don't know who wrote the songs - wr probably never shall
All we can do is gather what we do know and add common sense - personal perception by thingers and those associating with them has to be a major part of that
Jim Carroll