towards a list for professional ...

[Houben, J.E.M.]

Dear Listmembers,
A few remarks on my suggestion "towards a list for professional ... ", to
avoid the continuation of unnecessary misunderstandings:
- the list of abbreviations of journals was taken from Dominik's Scope of
Indology; it DOES contain widely respected scholarly journals from Indian
institutions. (Those who missed this may ask themselves whether they qualify
for active discussion in this list.)
- just as my list of journals (which ends with "..."), my list of relevant
disciplines was not intended as definitive (here I forgot to add "...");
Dravidology is an important discipline of Indology (or South Asia studies or
whatever label one prefers); I should have included it in view of its
importance.
- my present suggestion doesn't imply that I recommend that Indologists
adopt or persist in an Ivory Tower attitude; but some differentiation in
kinds of messages along the lines of the Buddhologists (see message J.Dunne)
or a division into a "dry & sober" list of brief informative communications
("lurking free for everybody") versus a "hot & dripping" discussion list
("participation free for everybody") could in my view be useful, and be
advantageous both to active and lurking members. Those who seek
confrontation or immersion in views without any claim to professionality may
participate in, e.g., the IndianCivilisation List, which, as I wrote, does
contain interesting contributions, and which perhaps already fulfils the
role of a "hot & dripping" list. Especially in the era of Tera and Exabyte
information loads, differentiation between types of communications is
indispensable.
- my suggestion does not lead to the exclusion of non- or not-yet accredited
Indologists, nor to the exclusion of those with a different disciplinary
background: rather it leads to a democratisation of the moderatorship over
all those admitted as posters (with one founder/moderator being more equal
than others, but otherwise not in need of individuals with extraordinary
"ceremonial as well as professional standing"). The non-, not-yet, or
differently accredited persona needs to convince only ONE accredited poster
to get her message accross; if she does not even succeed in doing this, it
is probably better that her message remains sub-liminal.
- my basic motivation for presenting my suggestion is my inspiration by the
possibility of the Indology list as a much more efficient tool to realise
multi-dimensional progress in Indological studies (also in unexpected
directions and in border areas with other disciplines, other area studies
etc.). I was just wondering to what extent the present list fulfils the
purpose of the founder, viz. to be a  "forum targetted at professional
participants in Indological studies" (I acknowledge the large number of
valuable contributions by many, irrespective of their academic background,
but I feel the list could do better and think hereby also of those serious
scholars, Indian and non-Indian, who don't participate at all as they -- as
I know in the case of a few -- feel put off by the level of some of the
discussions on the list).
- the occasion for being about to unsubscribe at this moment is not a
specific disappointment with current discussions, but my coming stay in
India for a few months and worries over an overful mailbox or indology
archive with too many worthless messages (2-5 seconds to find this out each
time).
- since I fully support the purpose of the founder of this list and like its
environment (the indology website) I don't aspire to start a new egroup even
if this would be technically quite easy (but perhaps not leading to solid
results in the absence of a similar environment ).
With kind regards, Jan Houben