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Best, Peter
Inspired by Dave E. I thought I would take advantage of this rather tense list moment to introduce a new topic and avail of the wisdom and generosity of list members. Apart from Levi and WE Butler, does anyone know of pre-1960 references to egregores (egregori?) sorry, not sure of the plural.
Thanks and best wishes to all,Alison
Sent from my iPhoneModeration:
moderation here has always been a very light touch affair, since for over 99% of the time all participants have behaved like adults, I was a listmod from 2003 until -... i don't recall exactly when i stopped, but it was for about 3 years, until .....
we closed the list due to continual godawful behaviour by several members, which became too much to moderate, and in one case could have had the listmods sued had we allowed the content to remain hosted on a UK academic server
Dave Green is moderator now, but list members should be aware that nobody who has ever run the list does it for any reward, it is something done in precious spare time, and i for one appreciate that effort, which DG has put in for years. Sometimes issues arise that involve considerable offlist time, for example individual emails to members in attempts to defuse situations and gently persuade people to not post in particualr ways.I once spent 4 hours in one evening exchanging lengthy explanatory mails with a particularly obnoxious list member (now gone) who simply would not play by the very few rules that we have here. Those rules are sent to every member when they join.
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I say this next part purely as a list member, not anyone who runs the list- Prof Segal: your lobbing additional stones like the one below is not useful and I would suggest you re-read your own recent posts, since IMO they constituted part of the problem. This is not the first time you have been involved in a kerfuffle here. the previous time was possibly more unpleasant than this.
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It is difficult sometimes for us all to communicate with people online, as with hundreds of members there are sometimes turns of phrase which may be misinterpreted, or mismatches of what people find to be lighthearted banter versus what they find insulting, however many of the recent posts have been obvious intentional insults, and written in temper. Passion in debate should not cross over into aggression of the kind we've seen recently. Sometimes it may be due to posting in haste, or maybe late at night, or sometimes it is an artefact of using a smartphone where words are maybe used briefly and bluntly- I for one don't want it in my inbox. If anyone wants a good flamewar try alt.magic on the internet newsgroups, take the angst and vinegar there
A useful ad hoc measure for anyone of whether to post a phrase or not is to ask yourself if you would say it out loud to a complete stranger, in person, or as a question from the floor at a conference. If not, then don't post it. Googling for 'netiquette' and reading those hits is also useful as a guide to how to behave online
I would be grateful if those barbs could stop, from all parties, and we resumed a useful academic discussion, free from attacks on the person, needless critiques of grammar while ignoring the overall message of a post (because everyone makes typoes, me included), generalised dismissals of anyone's entire career output, or general bluster please, this list is too useful to close again, but everything has a threshold, and if moderation becomes an onerous job again i would not blame DG at all if he chose to close the list. I certainly would not wish to take on the role again.
something else that this kind of noise causes is for list members to unsubscribe, sometimes in droves, which is counterproductive for everyone; the more perspectives we have here, and the more new scholars we can attract, the better the list function is, being to allow a multitude of disciplines and nationalities to converse on subjects of mutual interest; which was part of the message of a previous thread today. Those members who unsub are a potential treasure lost, especially so if they leave due to the volume of extraneous noise, such as person a calling person b an idiot, rather than them leaving because they find the list uninteresting. I feel for anyone who joined the list today and have yet to introduce themselves- they probably won't do that now.
This list has been the venue for numerous people linking up for research projects, several scholars joining forces for publication and conference work, and, i think, has been the place for two people finding a common academic interest, then meeting IRL and finding a romantic attachment too. All of that is marvelous.The recent stuff is not.
Technical note; as a Gmail user i can block individual posters from threads if i wish, which means i can filter out some of this stuff, but i choose not to. Other readers using that mail service may wish to explore that option on menus.
i do not propose to discuss this subject again, i'd much rather talk the weird and wonderful stuff. can we do that. Please?
thankyou for reading
Dave E
On Mon, Apr 23, 2012 at 11:51 PM, Segal, Professor Robert A. <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
An open society means one in which religion itself can be challenged, not merely one in which adherents can criticize one another.
The conflicts among Christians in the Reformation and in religious wars thereafter have little to do with an open society.
Robin Horton, an esteemed English anthropologist who has spent his career in Nigeria, contrasts the openness of Western society to that of African society. (He is also an authority on magic, by the way.)
This list should have a moderator. Other lists do. A moderator would keep out the viciousness evinced in the past day. When real scholars debate, they use arguments and evidence. Their arguments are impersonal. But then they have the goods.
Robert Segal (Prof.)
-- Dr. Gerhard Mayer Institut für Grenzgebiete der Psychologie und Psychohygiene e.V. (IGPP) Wilhelmstraße 3a 79098 Freiburg GERMANY phone: +49 (0)761 20721 22 fax: +49 (0)761 20721 99 www.igpp.de http://igpp.academia.edu/GerhardMayer