I think it's pretty simple. We are each responsible for our own scholarship, and the threads are one avenue to do it, both in looking up old threads and in starting new ones. The DT I just downloaded includes instructions on how to offer corrections for the future.

I think of the DT as a tool in making it easier to do songs I have decided to do, but I do not assume that I can stop thinking or learning for myself because "it's in the DT." I introduce a song the way I think it ought to be introduced, and singing it the way I think it ought to be sung, by me. Beyond that, I expect others to be responsible for whatever comes out of their own mouths when THEY sing. Maybed they know more than I do about a song. Maybe I know more. Whatever. It's a good song, fine!

We have a thing in our culture now that says we can and should know everything, and right away. It's crept into how we teach science. My kids have assured me a number of times how this or that thing "is," because science now KNOWS it. I remember science being taught as an exciting process of discovery. In fact all we know about science or anything else "now" is merely a cross-section slide sample of all that is. Life in all aspects is an ongoing investigation, and all we "know" about what "is" is what we now THINK and SUSPECT may be partially the case. And even if we can know everything in one heart beat, who cares if we do or if we are plugging along in the moment like we used to think was important?

Wanna trade REAL gibes about accuracy and the folk process? Try entering a dispute about things Biblical.

I believe the jews have a name for commentary on commentary on commentary when it occasionally amounts to small squeaks of upset and hairs split so fine no one has any hair left-- I think it's called pilpul..

Of course someone will want to argue about THAT now too, but this is Mudcat and no matter how "correct" any given thing "is," folkies (face the facts) LIKE to argue, because they LIKE to argue. We don't call it arguing (I call it jabbering), but that's all it is. Sometimes I wonder-- where are the grownups to tell us to knock it the hell OFF once in awhile?

So use the DT as a tool or claim to be a victim of someone else's incomplete achievment-- victimhood also is very popular nowadays and it neatly excuses one from taking any positive initiative. But SING the damn songs; get on with it.

~Susan