I have to say that, if I were Jim C, I'd be rolling my eyes, throwing out my arms and asking, "what would you have had us do?"   The collecting practice of Jim, Mike Yates, Tom Munnelly and other relatively recent exponents was explicitly designed to avoid the pitfalls and omissions the early collectors were blamed for. Jim has posted many verbatim accounts of his interviews - is it now being suggested that these too have been 'tampered with'? I take on board jag's compliments regarding Jim and Pat's collection, but to me this whole line of questioning illustrates the pernicious effect of Fakesong: all 'mediators' must be distrusted as a default position. It begins to seem a bit like a conspiracy theory. FFS, these people should be getting knighthoods, not having every aspect of their work and personal integrity questioned. They got off their arses and did the stuff that no-one else thought or could be bothered to do, and that's all the material we have to go on, whether from Jim or Francis Collinson or Cecil Sharp or Anne Gilchrist - there's not going to be much more to come. Surely their work is more important in its own right than something that's there just to be pulled apart?

On jag's final point, I strongly suspect that Jim Carroll is not the only contributor to Mudcat whose online persona - especially in the context of a passionate argument - is different from their persona at home or at work.