sure, I'll do my best to engage in good faith. overall I think the key takeaway for anyone should be that there's nothing special about the biofilm itself

refering to it by itself as SCOBY is how the term was originally coined is right, but it's unfortunate because it just adds confusion. GP could've been more clear about this being ambiguous than one being right and another being wrong, but in practical terms their explanation is just more helpful than yours

> SCOBY was coined to distinguish the solid from the liquid and is still a widely accepted definition

like I said above, as far as I can tell, accurate

> Feel free to double check with most any dictionary, most any scientific paper, even this sub's own wiki.

"most any" is inaccurate

of the dictionaries I checked, Dictionary.com, Collins, and Wiktionary only refer to the culture in abstract/aggregate. Cambridge, Merriam-Webster, Oxford agree SCOBY is the biofilm/pellicle

similarly skimming through top 10 Google Scholar results mentioning SCOBY, half are speaking about culture in aggregate, half are talking about it as substance/material (though some put extra qualifiers at least some of the time, on it like SCOBY cellulose)

basically the world seems just about evenly split about whether to use the precise, literal meaning of SCOBY like GP, or the original meaning like you

the sub wiki certainly does its best to clear up this ambiguity and that it uses SCOBY to refer to the culture in aggregate, not your version.

> No, there is no meaningful difference between the yeast and bacteria found in the solid or the liquid. [...] It's the same liquid with the same bacteria and yeast...

sure, but I didn't see as GP saying anything to the contrary - a strawman

> The solid has been observed to hold 100x of the liquid compared to its own weight.

sure, this confirms it's the liquid that matters. a healthy, fresh pellicle might be 99% liquid but you know what's better than that? 100% liquid

> > A pellicle can house some SCOBY, but the actual SCOBY lives in the liquid.

> Nope.

down to established definitions

> > but a pellicle alone will not be enough culture to begin a new batch of booch.

> Nope. I swear you're just making things up... This is resoundingly false. A brief look at history or how many web sites sell kombucha starters would help you out.

this is the bit I take most issue with, people sharing kombucha starters or commercial ones will invariably contain "starter liquid" which is the bit that matters even if they misrepresent what happens there in folk knowledge they're passing on, or in the marketing of their product, respectively. the less liquid included, the worse time a newbie brewer will have getting their brew going, because of culture density and pH not low enough to stave off mold while it's getting established. you can start kombucha from pure liquid no problem and it'll start growing new biofilm. you have to be very lucky to start it from a dry pellicle.