Mendele: Yiddish literature and language
______________________________________________________
Contents of Vol. 4.267
January 8, 1995

1) Splitting the list (Zellig Bach)
2) Splitting the list (Hope Ehn)
3) Splitting the list (Harvey Spiro)
4) Splitting the list (Evelyn Feins)
5) Splitting the list (Peter Kluehs)

1)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 6 Jan 1995 00:12:22 -0500
From: zellig@aol.com
Subject: Do _not_ split

I hasten to join the voices that proclaim loud and clear:  Do NOT split
Mendele.

I particularly liked the well-reasoned opinions of Zachary Baker and the
fullness of voice of Louis Fridhandler against a split.

Zachary is right one hundred percent:  Mendele is "by its very nature
participatory."  The more posters (I'm afraid I am coining here a new
meaning:  poster, one who posts an E-mail message to a network), the more
contributors, the richer, the more varied the list.  Each member of our
learning society (khavruse) contributes according to interest, knowledge,
and specialty.

And as Louis puts it:  "We cannot do without the immediacy of
non-academic discussions, and we cannot do without the mediation of
scientists [specialists]."

I consider myself a generalist, but am always willing and ready to learn
--and often enjoy a special morsel about Yiddish -- from our Mendelyaner
specialists in etymology, dialectology, grammar, history, phonetics,
syntax, and so on and on.

Notwithstanding the divergence of opinions and occasional debates, let's
all stay together and enjoy the kaleidoscopic liveliness and uniqueness
of our Mendele that carries on its masthead the all-encompassing flag:
Yiddish Literature _and_ Language.

Zellig Bach

2)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 6 Jan 1995 12:38:59 +0001 (EST)
From: ehn@world.std.com
Subject: Don't split the list

"Splitting the list" seems to come up regularly as a topic on academic
lists, and even on some non-academic ones. In my opinion, it's rarely a
good idea. If there isn't a "critical mass" of contributors, a list can
die a natural death, or at least become comatose, due to the lack of
activity. There are some music lists, such as the MUSIC-ED list for music
teachers and those who teach them, on which this has happened.

The list-splitting topic came up a while ago on the American
Musicological Society list, the amslist. Someone proposed having a
separate list for graduate students -- and was roundly attacked for
proposing a "student ghetto." The topic died, buried under a blizzard of
protest.

A similar proposal on the Early Music List EARLYM-L met a similar fate,
despite the fact that there was a fairly natural option for dividing it
-- record reviews vs. everything else (including music, performance
practice, instruments, etc.). That may have been partly because it would
have been a long bureaucratic process to split the associated newsgroup,
but I think that there was also a recognition that some postings are not
so easily categorized. Talk about a record may lead to a discussion of
performance practice, instruments, etc.

There are ways of coping with mailing lists if it is too expensive to
read everything on-line. Basically, they all involve downloading the
material and then either reading it off-line, or printing it. There are
off-line readers that will download E-mail automatically and then log
off, allowing you to read your mail, compose your answers, and then log
back on and upload those answers. Also, there is the option of simply
downloading the mail, loading it into a word processor, and reading or
printing it after you log off. Anything one doesn't want to read can be
skipped or deleted.

The on-line Yiddish community isn't really all that large. MENDELE may
have hundreds of subscribers, but most are "lurkers." A very small number
actually contribute regularly. For that reason, I feel that it would be a
very bad idea to split the list.

Hope Ehn

3)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri Jan  6 16:32:49 1995
From: hjs@nrc.gov
Subject: Splitting the list

Here's a brief but inelegant appeal not to split the list.

There are a fair number of Mendele submittals that delve into details
well beyond my interest in the topic, be they debates over "epenthesis or
syncope," the etymology of names of destroyed suburbs of Grodno, or the
nth iteration on "gedabrt" or "Bay mir bistu sheyn."  On very busy days,
I may just scroll down.

However, when I do have the time to read the submittals, whether
scholarly or naive, I usually learn something, if only about how other
Yiddish lovers view mameloshn and Yiddish culture. Frankly, there's no
other place that I can find that.

Yes, we nud each other.  Yes, the pilpul is sometimes too much for me.
Yes, we often lose our tempers.  Yes, sometimes the topics are primarily
of interest to the specialists.

My answer, as others have suggested, is for the non-experts, and
non-"linguists," to write in with their anecdotes, memories and
questions.  Let Mendele grow in participants as well as lurkers. More
letters on music and culture, film and custom.  Make our hardworking
shames Noyekh put out seven editions weekly instead of five or six.  :-)
Let Mendele resemble the marketplaces in thousands of destroyed
shtetlekh, a bit noisy and rude sometimes, but carrying on the business
of Yiddish.

Harvey Spiro

4)----------------------------------------------------
From: m.feins@genie.geis.com
Date: Sat,  7 Jan 95 00:06:00 UTC
Subject: Splitting the list

In reply to Dovid Braun, ikh vil aplodirn zeyne verter.

I am so happy to have found Mendele, and look forward to reading all the
different types of topics, which all do pertain to some aspect of
Jewishness. If some of it is at times somewhat technical, to a layman
like me, so much the better! I feel that we can all benefit from learning
something new, and if a particular post does not interest us, what is to
stop us from hitting "page down" and continuing on to the next item? To
limit the type of discussions would be a terrible "shande". Please, let's
not kill the beautiful goose who is laying the golden eggs!

Evelyn Feins

5)----------------------------------------------------
Date: 07 Jan 1995 18:08:00 +0200
From: pete@pko.rhein-main.de
Subject: Splitting the list

ikh halt oykh, az mir zoln nisht zeteyln mendele! lomir blaybn ale unter
eyn dakh, az dovid braun hot azoy sheyn gezogt!

s'volt gevolt zayn an emesdike hanoe far mir, az ale mendelnik(e)s vos
kenen shraybn yidish voltn banutst mameloshn un nisht english far zeyer
brivn. zayt azoy gut un mutsht aykh a bisl mer tsulib di nayen yidish-
lerner ;B-).

in letstn yor hob ikh gefunen nor an erekh 6 protsent yidishe tekstn in
der gantser mendele post. ikh klayb ale yidishe tekstn un shtel tsunoyf a
verterbukh daytsh-yidish, makhmes es iz do faran nor a duden-verterbukh
yidish-daytsh. oyb emetser iz farinterisirt, ken ikh shikn dem bukh tsu
zayn e-mail adres.

zayt ale gezunt

peter kluehs

[The shames opines that, in the absence of views _in favor_ of
a split, enough has been printed on the subject.  nm]

______________________________________________________
End of Mendele Vol. 4.267

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