[INDOLOGY] LtoBB?

[Jan E.M. Houben]

The problem that is attributed to *authors* of messages on the list --
grown over several decades and much appreciated as a precious medium for
students and scholars in our domain -- could that be, in part, *also* a
problem of lack of *organization of the list*, perhaps even more, of the
*archive*?
The linearity of the list could then be replaced or supplemented by the
two-dimensionality of a bulletin board, divided into three main categories
(each with possible sub-categories): (A) agents and places of indology; (B)
the process of indology (projects, scholarships, positions); (C) the object
of indology (questions ranging from: difficult passages, syntactic
categories, to searches for scans of rare publications, etc etc.).
Accepted members can choose to react to messages or post their message in
one of the provided categories, and the message will remain available
there.
No need anymore for a message belonging to category (A) to receive a large
number of comments by those more interested in category (B) or (C), on
whether or not the message should have been posted or whether it or the
thread to which it belongs is taking too much bandwidth etc.
In a bulletin-board setting an interested reader can focus on the required
category and need not be regretting to have started to read a message that
does not provide the information seeked for, for instance on scholarships,
job openings etc.
As the present list is a private enterprise set up by a visionary colleague
in the 1990s and administered by volunteering committee members (including
the undersigned from ca. 2000 to ca. 2012), I have no objection to these
committee members -- who represent nothing or no-one since they are
co-opted but not voted for -- taking their own decisions in order to keep
the list focused on what they perceive and have announced as the list's
main domains of interest.
Adding a "donation-button" to the Indology.info website for entirely
anonymous donations without any obligation and without providing any
privilege should in the meantime be considered.
With best regards,
Jan

-- 

*Jan E.M. Houben*

Directeur d'Études, Professor of South Asian History and Philology

*Sources et histoire de la tradition sanskrite*

École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE, PSL - Université Paris)

*Sciences historiques et philologiques *

54, rue Saint-Jacques, CS 20525 – 75005 Paris

*johannes.houben at ephe.sorbonne.fr <johannes.houben at ephe.sorbonne.fr>*

*johannes.houben at ephe.psl.eu <johannes.houben at ephe.psl.eu>*

*https://ephe-sorbonne.academia.edu/JanEMHouben
<https://ephe-sorbonne.academia.edu/JanEMHouben>*


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://list.indology.info/pipermail/indology/attachments/20190417/0c0f4d17/attachment.htm>