By "proper historian" I mean -for example- the kind of person who may have a PhD in Chinese Art History specializing in cloisonné beads.

By "popular version" I mean her/his best selling dissertation based upon research in the Chinese language.

In practice, I like BCN the way it is. I see it as a chat room where people get together to have fun and share from their experiences.

Beadcollector.net is "here as an educational tool for the purpose of reporting information and research related to bead collecting."

We pool our information in order to come up with a little something.

Just Fred