Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Will Parsons <wbparsons AT alum.mit.edu>]

On Fri, 10 May 2013 10:06:07 -0500, Stewart Felker <stewart.felker AT gmail.com> 
wrote:
> ...
> For a while now, I've considered creating an academic space for the
> discussion of Semitic languages. Conformity to the basic scholarly
> consensus about fundamental tenets of Semitic linguistics - e.g. the
> existence of Akkadian and Ugaritic - would be strictly enforced. Posts
> violating this would be deleted; and those who _repeatedly_ violated would
> be banned. I've actually just gone ahead right now and created a place on
> the site Reddit: www.reddit.com/r/Semitic. For those unfamiliar with the
> site, it hosts many of the largest forums on the Internet. For some months
> now, I've run a specific forum there for academic Biblical studies, that's
> become quite successful (www.reddit.com/r/AcademicBiblical).
> 
> Hope this doesn't come across as advertising - I'm certainly not making any
> money for this or anything. I just legitimately think there should be a
> very active place on the Internet where all aspects of Semitic linguistics
> can be discussed in an academic context.

I know that the discussions on this list can be frustrating, but
before people rush over to your forum and abandon this list, I would
like people to consider a few points:

o  Tastes differ in this, but *I* at least don't want to have to visit
   and log into a bunch of forums (or fora if you prefer) to follow
   discussions.  I would much prefer to have a mailing list.

o  I know I appreciate the moderators' allowing a wide variety of
   discussion and not being quick to disallow posts.

I fear that if people leave this list in favour of your forum, those
of us to *like* this list and wish it to get better will be the poorer
off because of it.

-- 
William Parsons
μὴ φαίνεσθαι, ἀλλ' εἶναι.