Dear All,
(please forgive the lengthy message)
Thanks to Steve for putting forward his suggestions for renaming
the Ballads List. I was one of the people he originally emailed
about his concerns and, as Listowner of Ballads, it was my hope
that we might be able to reform (re-form) the Ballad List rather than
start yet another list.
Thanks to all who have responded to his suggestions too. Many of
the points raised are sensible ones. I personally agree with the
proposed new name Traditional Song Research. I think JISCMail
who administer the List would want the syntax Traditional-Song-
Research but otherwise it's fine from their angle. I too feel that
'Tradsong' is a little too close to the Traditional Song Forum's
website name, but of course you could set up this shorthand in
your email address book to take you to the full Traditional-Song-
Research List address.
I don't think we need to worry too much about definitions here. As
another contributor has said, it's pretty much a de facto thing.
What gets discussed is the result of what subscribers post and
respond to. I think it's in everyone's interests for the membership
of the list to be multidisciplinary, and I personally would welcome
those in allied fields to be members. I'm sure that there will always
be a strong core of subscribers in ballad/folksong research. It of
course depends on your interests and uses of the list but it's easy
to delete messages or unsubscribe if you feel strongly.
Meanwhile, I would just point out that the subtitle of the list (which
is so long that it never gets completed on my screen) is already:
'News and discussions relevant to the study of
popular/folk/traditional ballads - international and multilingual'.
That's already broader and along the lines that Steve was
proposing.
I am very happy to do the following:
1) Set up a Traditional-Song-Research List and automatically
transfer all members of the Ballad List to it. If you want to
unsubscribe, just go to the JISCMAil website and find the List
Homepage from which you can modify or cancel your membership
(please do this when you change your email address too!):
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/
2) Write a Welcome Message (there actually isn't one at the
moment apart from the administrative one from JISCMail) which
aims to reflect in broad terms what we're about.
3) Check with JISCMail about putting some kind of message where
the Ballads list was to point to the newly named list.
I think it's down to all of us subscribers to a) encourage others to
join the list, b) maintain a high standard of discussion, c) alert
those with links to the current list/website that the name has (when
it has) changed.
The majority opinion, as expressed, seems to be in favour of this. I
won't go ahead with it until **Monday, 4 February 2002**, so if
there are compelling reasons NOT to do this, speak now or forever
hold your peace!
Julia (Bishop)
Julia C. Bishop (Dr)
National Centre for English Cultural Tradition
University of Sheffield
Sheffield S10 2TN
U.K.
Tel: (Direct Line) 0114 222 6295
(NATCECT Office) 0114 222 6296
EMAIL: [log in to unmask]
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