Baha'i Studies was, in a sense, an offshoot of the original Talisman list under the late John Walbridge. In fact, before I started this list, I asked John whether he would mind. He graciously said he would not. I became frustrated over the constant name-calling on that list and decided to establish what I conceived as a "safe place" for discussions.
Dear Sandra,
I might add something from my own perspective. What ended up happening is that the two lists became kind of polarized with non-academics feeling subjected to name-calling on Baha'i Studies just as others sometimes felt the same thing on Talisman. At one point most of the academics unsubscribed en masse. While Baha'i Studies continued to have substantial membership, people no longer seemed to have much to talk about once the academics left. Conesequently it pretty much died out until tensions between Juan Cole and myself became so great that we split company on H-Bahai. At that point Mark asked me to manage and revive this list. I agree to do so providing that the prohibition against discussing infalliblity be removed from the list rules and that there be a clause prohibiting scholar-baiting. Later, we also prohibited posts that aimed at undermining the authority of the institutions.
We were fairly successful in reviving the list, but many academics still remained away, not so much because it was an unfriendly environment but because the sound to noise ratio got so high that many academics couldn't spare the time to read it. Hence, we were victims of our own success. Subsequently we formed a separate list specifically as a place for academics to share their rough drafts with one another. Baha'i Studies became a place for dialogue between academics and non-academics on issues related to Baha'i scholarship.
warmest, Susan ----------
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