SB replied: Blount and Jaggard published the Folio. As part of this publication, they would have employed other staff, including editors. They may have contacted Ben Jonson - who Blount would also publish - asking him to contribute the commendatory verse. Or perhaps Heminges or Condell suggested him. Or perhaps Jonson learned of the proposed publication, and wished to contribute something to it. This also applies to other contributors to the Folio.

SB replied: The above was in response to my earlier statement that "Publishers usually have in-house editors, or work with editors when preparing work for publication. This is standard practice". Which is perfectly true. Publishers employ a range of staff, including editors. 

Mark Haslett also wrote:  When evidence is presented, you bat it aside with more inventions.

SB replied: There hasn't been any evidence presented that proves, or even supports, the argument that Jonson was the editor of the Folio, or that Oxford (or someone other than William Shakespeare) was the true author. If there were, I'd be interested to read it. 

Not in order of importance (and I don't know that I have an order)...

The name: I'm unconvinced Shakespeare is a pseudonym, and despite all the varieties of spellings and pronunciations, there it is, the name. And I'm not convinced Shaksper was a front deliberately for another author or that Shaksper took unchallenged opportunity to claim authorship against another who didn't care to or was unable to publicly be known as the author.

Stratford and Avon are right there, at the beginning, never seems to be in doubt, connected to the author, and Shaksper's birthplace, so...

Shaksper's being an actor and shareholder in the companies with rights to perform the plays.

Finally, in perfect honesty, given the mystery of Shaksper's background and the wealth of learning in the plays (yes, even when imperfect, incomplete, or flat-out erroneous), the man would have to be a stunning genius to pull it off. But I don't especially have a problem considering the author of these plays a genius of the first degree compared to the literature of any known civilization, anywhere, any time.

This is "a" case for Shaksper as Shakespeare, maybe not the best or the only one -- and maybe not ultimately convincing or correct!

Mark Haslett wrote: Stephen, you claim publishers employed nameless craftsmen who were in the habit of taking 900 page manuscripts and providing exacting and artful editing services without credit.

SB replied: I don't. I've pointed out that publishers employ a range of staff when producing works for publication, and can add that both Blount and Jaggard received credit for the Folio's publication.

Mark Haslett wrote: You claim that Ben Jonson and the Earls financing the folio...

SB replied: What evidence is there of this?

Mark Haslett: The evidence I presented on the idea that Jonson was the editor has convinced a number of Stratfordian scholars that this is the case. 

SB replied: It may have convinced some, but not most. The general consensus is that Shakespeare wrote the plays, and, after his death, Heminges and Condell collected as many as they could, finally arranging for them to be published in the First Folio.

Mark Haslett wrote: Ben Jonson’s contributions to the folio coming a year after writing the sponsors of the folio, offering his services on the heels of completing his own, very similar, Ben Jonson first folio – a book he most definitely edited.

SB replied: Jonson was proud of his work, and expected it to be appreciated. Why would he be so clandestine about being the true prime mover behind the creation of the Folio? 

Scott Gray wrote: That’s the problem with the conspiracy theories. Why would someone spend so much time and effort writing the plays and poems only to allow a lowly Stratford actor to take all the credit?

"Now also of such among the Nobilitie or gentrie as be very well seene in many laudable sciences, and especially in making of Poesie, it is so come to passe that they haue no courage to write & if they haue, yet are they loath to be a knowen of their skill. So as I know very many notable Gentlemen in the Court that haue written commendably, and suppressed it agayne, or els suffred it to be publisht without their owne names to it: as if it were a discredit for a Gentleman, to seeme learned, and to shew himselfe amorous of any good Art."

-- The Arte of English Poesie (1589)

To take the question further, how much credit did Shaksper actually take? Even utterly stratfordian Stanley Wells conceded that "despite the mass of evidence that the works were written by a man named William Shakespeare, there is none that explicitly and incontrovertibly identifies him with Stratford-upon-Avon" ... "in his lifetime." (Shakespeare: Beyond Doubt, p. 81)

If Shaksper was the Shakespeare credited as the author in the published quartos, that means Shaksper had earned a fee as the named playwright from the acting company, an amount that was not inconsiderable. Henslowe would pay around £5 for a play, which was about a year’s income to an average craftsman or shopkeeper at that time. Antistratfordians argue that it would've benefited Shaksper to take undue credit as the author in that respect, collect the fees, and then ever afterwards simply ignore the fate of the plays... which is what happened. There's no evidence, yes, in his lifetime, that Shaksper, even if he was Shakespeare, cared the least about his life's work.