Way up at the top of this discussion a number of people seemed to agree that although Harker's definition of 'mediation' was not prejudicial the way he applied it to most collector's was.

Someone pointed out that there was nothing threatening about the term itself. It's a technical term with a number of definitions.

My last post was mainly to explain to Jim (at his request) how I came to regard him as a 'mediator'. It's simple - he is between us and his singers. I also explained how in most cases the context of passing on the information meant that we got the parts that he thought were relevant at the time. There will be other things that Jim thinks are important that have never come up so he has not told us about, or put in a discussion we have forgotten. Even if he wrote a book (which I would want to read) he would have to be prepared for scholarly types to cross-question him on things. Other people may have written things that don't fit with Jim's account and it is part of a scholar's job to notice those things ('compare and contrast' etc.)

As for the 'getting the wrong end of the stick' part there are a number of posts where I have asked Jim something and tried to make myself really clear and he has assumed I am saying something else, usually something that he strongly disagrees with. He has been accused higher up here I think) as setting up straw men, but I don't think that is deliberate. So I was pointing out that it leaves open in my mind the possibility that he might make mistakes. In contrast there are other people who do seem to understand my questions so - rightly or wrongly - I tend to give more weight to their opinions.

Most people are familiar with the idea of a mistake. I sometimes make mistakes. Some of you may even have made them yourselves.