and e wrote: Yay! Ball of Yarn has been updated! Thanks!

The theoretical goal is to have all information about all folk songs, or at least have references for it -- but of course that cannot be accomplished by any one person in one lifetime (or two people, really, since Ben Schwartz in particular has done yeoman work). With 17,000 songs already, there's no way to do systematic study. I work herbivorously -- that is, I wander around till I find something interesting. After all, it's all data for somebody. :-) But if someone has data on a particular song (and if I agree that it's quality data), then it will go in there. Quickly if it's easy to enter, slowly if it's hard and has to be checked and boiled down to something more direct. But it goes in there.

At the rate we're going, were there an infinite number of future me's, we might finish some time around 2350 or so. :-) As it is, I'll keep at it as long as my brain isn't completely rotted. So maybe four more years. :-p