New list / new rules (RE: Request for Info)

[jneuss]

Dear List Members

George Thompson wrote:
<<<Dear Indology List Members,
As a sincere student of Old Indo-Iranian literature, I am seeking an
e-mail list devoted to the dispassionate scholarly [that is,
philological] study of Old Indo-Iranian texts like the Vedic Rgveda and
the Avestan Gathas.
I know that this sort of thing is not appropriate on your list, devoted
as it is to partisan personal attacks, but since it is *fairly close* to
your stated interests, I thought that some of you might be aware of
*other* lists where people like myself might find informed discussion of
relevant matters.
I'd be grateful for any and all recommendations (...)>>>


I fully agree with George Thompson's view of the nature of our list, or
rather what this list has degenerated to. When I joined the list about
two years ago, most of the topics discussed were of interest to broader
circles of indologists and most messages contained profound and
interesting views and informations.
These times, after three days or so, hundreds of messages pile up in our
Inbox folders, which are for their most part, to be frank with you, of
no value to most of us (I assume), or at least to me.
The administrators of this list have several times tried to reduce the
amount of postings of individual members, and they also have shut down
numerous threads which were, disguised as scholarly discussions, only
meant for personal, religious or political attacks on other members.
Although efforts to protect the original intention of this list were
obviously in vain, the administrators are definitely not the ones to
blame.
I am sure many former members of this list have already cancelled their
subscription. Like George Thompson I wonder where these scholars
currently discuss matters and whether there is another indological list.
If so, would somebody be kind enough to inform me (privately) about it?
Alternatively, would it be possible to reorganize this list, or set up
another one with a set of somewhat stricter guidelines regarding
subject, content, length and amount of messages?
Be sure that I feel very uncomfortable writing this (last) message,
before I cancel my subscription in a couple of days. But in my opinion
this is not a scholarly forum anymore.

Thanks for reading.

jneuss at zedat.fu-berlin.de

--
Juergen Neuss
Freie Universitaet Berlin