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Re: Barabtarlo (fwd)
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From: Mary Bellino <iambe@javanet.com>
I am a great admirer of Gennady Barabtarlo's work, but his remarks about
whether, and to what degree, this list should be "censored" are way off
base. It's ridiculous to bring an inflammatory term like "censored" into
the discussion; the list is "moderated" by an editor whose job is
precisely to keep non-Nabokov-related postings from clogging up our
e-mail boxes. NABOKV-L is one of the best-run lists around because the
editors, and most of the participants, are very good about keeping on
the topic. I myself find the Shakespeare authorship controversy quite
interesting; I researched it last year it for a novel I'm writing. My
conclusion was that studying this issue is a terrific way to spend a few
weeks in the company of some truly dotty people (on BOTH sides -- or all
three counting the Baconians), but I still don't think it has any place
on NABOKV-L, except insofar as it relates directly to VN. Any reasonable
person can see when a discussion (like the recent Freud discussion) has
gotten to the point where the combatants should be communicating
"off-list" -- that is, in private e-mails to one another. This is when
the "terminus ad que" (ouch!) should be put to the topic by one of the
editors. Indeed, our e-mail addresses are included with each posting so
that those inclined can communicate directly with other participants.
If Gennady doesn't get enough e-mail now, he can join any number of
lists, newsgroups, and website discussion forums dedicated to
Shakespeare or Bacon or Freud or, for that matter, Latin grammar. I
think he'll find that subscribing to a list that's poorly moderated can
make checking one's e-mail a real chore. Don and Galya have done a great
job of keeping NABOKV-L lean and mean -- and I suspect most of us would
like it to stay that way.
Mary Bellino
I am a great admirer of Gennady Barabtarlo's work, but his remarks about
whether, and to what degree, this list should be "censored" are way off
base. It's ridiculous to bring an inflammatory term like "censored" into
the discussion; the list is "moderated" by an editor whose job is
precisely to keep non-Nabokov-related postings from clogging up our
e-mail boxes. NABOKV-L is one of the best-run lists around because the
editors, and most of the participants, are very good about keeping on
the topic. I myself find the Shakespeare authorship controversy quite
interesting; I researched it last year it for a novel I'm writing. My
conclusion was that studying this issue is a terrific way to spend a few
weeks in the company of some truly dotty people (on BOTH sides -- or all
three counting the Baconians), but I still don't think it has any place
on NABOKV-L, except insofar as it relates directly to VN. Any reasonable
person can see when a discussion (like the recent Freud discussion) has
gotten to the point where the combatants should be communicating
"off-list" -- that is, in private e-mails to one another. This is when
the "terminus ad que" (ouch!) should be put to the topic by one of the
editors. Indeed, our e-mail addresses are included with each posting so
that those inclined can communicate directly with other participants.
If Gennady doesn't get enough e-mail now, he can join any number of
lists, newsgroups, and website discussion forums dedicated to
Shakespeare or Bacon or Freud or, for that matter, Latin grammar. I
think he'll find that subscribing to a list that's poorly moderated can
make checking one's e-mail a real chore. Don and Galya have done a great
job of keeping NABOKV-L lean and mean -- and I suspect most of us would
like it to stay that way.
Mary Bellino