Dear NABOKV-L subcribers,
After listening to feedback from a good number of you, we have decided
to make the following modifications to our stated policies for editing
NABOKV-L. The rationale underlying these
changes rests in the fact that most of those who responded to our
request for feedback concurred that there is a need for more editorial
control as well as some reduction in the list's volume. We are
grateful for your input--for your criticisms as well as for your praise
and suggestions.
The List's current mission statement is as follows:
"NABOKV-L is a moderated electronic discussion and information sharing
forum for those with a scholarly or other serious interest in the life
and writings of Vladimir Nabokov. Postings may
include queries; annotations; discussion; conference announcements;
calls for papers; information on work-in-progress or new publications;
and anything else relevant to Nabokov studies."
It seems to be the "discussion" category that causes the most trouble. Some of you have already experienced first-hand our
efforts to curtail rhetorical, off-topic, or redundant posts. Many of you feel, however, that we have been too
lax in allowing "discussions" to go on and on, generating many
refinements, corrections, and diversions of argument along the way. And yet discussion has always been an intrinsic
part of this list--especially as envisioned by its founder, Donald
Barton Johnson--as we see in this excerpt from the early, quiet days:
As a topic for discussion I would
appreciate responses on the following
Topic. There is a long-standing dispute over whether VN is properly
viewed
As a souless, stylistic virtuoso or a closet humanist.[. . . .]
RESPONSES, PLEASE.
(DBJ post, 4/22/1993)
But not all members of our community welcome the maximum possible level
of "discussion," simply because they have limited space in their
in-boxes or limited time to devote to the list each day.
Some hate deleting posts unread--with reason!! We
must respect such needs in order to make NABOKV-L a forum that works
well for all participants. Consequently,
while we continue to encourage all subscribers to freely exercise the
delete key as a way of filtering postings, we would also like to
propose the following guidelines:
1. From now on, we ask that all submitted posts
be labeled in the subject line by their authors with an
all-caps identifying tag. This is the list of
tags we have come up with so far (we welcome additional suggestions):
ANNC [for Annoucements]
CFP [for a Call for Papers]
BIB [for Bibliographical Information regarding a recent or forthcoming
publication]
WIP [for Work in Progress]
QUERY [for a request for answers to a specific research question]
VN SIGHTING [for a previously unreported reference to VN]
NEWS [for any other factual information related to VN]
CORRECTION [for clarification or correction of a previous post]
THOUGHTS [for individual reflections about VN's life and work]
2. Discussion of a given topic that strays from the contribution of
facts to exchanges of opinion will be curtailed by the editors and
encouraged to continue off-list, with a summary to be posted by one of
those involved when important progress is made.
3. Posts that are not related to Nabokov, broadly defined, will be
rejected even more stringently.
5. Posts that point out *small* errors in earlier postings are
discouraged. This practice has had a tendency
to generate lots of back-and-forth and to bruise feelings unnecessarily. Corrections deemed important should either be
communicated directly to the original contributor for consideration, or
to the editors, who may from time to time post a corrections
department, with accumulated errata.
6. We encourage subscribers to limit the number of contributions that
they post each week. A conversation dominated
by only a few voices makes others less likely to join in.
Indeed, it may prompt some readers and scholars of Nabokov to
tune the list out entirely.
Thank you for your understanding and your patience as we implement
these new guidelines. We plan to test them for
the next month or so and then ask for additional feedback from
subscribers.
Stephen Blackwell and Susan Elizabeth Sweeney, Co-editors