"Can we all please address the title of this posting"
Up to now you have been quite happy to follow this line of discussion quite cheerfully and enthusiastically now it appears, having been presented with a challenge that you don't wish to rise to you cry "thread drift" - hmmm
Sorry - no takers

What is happening today is directly related to how folk song is defined and interpreted - not 'minutiae' but folk song's raison d'être
If there is a case to answer that folk song proper has been exorcised out of the present folk revival, then it is not only acceptable but is essential that it is discussed, if possible, by a friendly and intelligent exchange of ideas, no matter how firmly and passionately put.
Frankly Ray, some of the backbiting, evasion and personal insulting has 'got my goat' - it is unpleasant and totally unnecessary.

There are more than enough 'fanzine-type' threads on this forum for anybody wishing to say how lovely everything is in the garden and who their heroes are, there are precious few enabling us to discuss our gripes, disappointments and misgivings
'Definitions' has become a heavily mined 'no-go area' as has the work of MacColl and The Critics.

You didn't start this thread - Dick Miles did - so far he hasn't called 'thread drift' and I think I know his feelings well enough to believe he won't - even if he did, nobody has a right to direct the direction of any opened topic
If you don't wish to take part in this discussion please feel free not to, but please don't encroach on anybody else's right to do so
Jim