Buddhist Discussion Mail Lists: Reflections & Proposal

Over time I also began to grow weary of the character of the discussions themselves. The main reasons for this were:
1. Volume of messages. On some days, when discussions were heated, the volume could be very high, as many as 20-30 messages, with as many as five or six posts coming from one person. Although as subscribers we always have the option of deleting unwanted posts, one still must read through everything to find out if there is any information of value contained within the pile. When one is busy, this does not get done, and the mail ends up being unread, or one feels stressed about having to set aside time to read it.
2. Many of the discussions were too frivolous for my tastes, often concerning issues peripheral to the field of Buddhist Studies proper. Even when posts were well grounded and dealt directly with Buddhist Studies issues, they often addressed a sub-specialty of Buddhism in which I held no special interest.
3. The discussions tended to be dominated by a small group of regular discussants, who tended to say the same sorts of things, and often in a less-than-polite manner that I did not find to be especially entertaining.
4. In my own attempts at serious discussion/debate on the list, I was disturbed by the blatant unaccountability demonstrated by my counterpart discussants, who regularly evaded the main thrust of my own arguments, disingenuously cutting and pasting some minor point of my writing into their next response, shifting the discussion in a way that would not be possible in more standard forms of written debate.

Although ZenBuddhism was intended to be academic in nature, there were no specific criteria for subscribing, and so the list was populated by a wide range of people. Among these were a handful of accredited scholars, a number of mature, balanced Zen teachers, and a sizeable contingent of sincere and humble individuals who were looking to learn something about Zen.

Unfortunately, the list also became infested by a number of individuals who apparently considered themselves to be enlightened, or at least far closer to enlightenment than the rest of us, and who felt it was their duty to disrupt our discussions in order to show us what Zen really was. When a rich intellectual discussion of a seminal point would begin to develop, some self-designated imitator of Linji would invariably shout a koan at us, to make the point that intellectual discussion of Zen was a heretical activity.

I moderated this list with two main assumptions as grounding principles:
* The study and practice of Zen should be based on a solid grasp of fundamental Buddhist concepts, most importantly the basic teachings of early Buddhism regarding the four truths, karma, dependent origination, Nāgārjuna's teaching of emptiness, the middle path, and so forth.
* Intellectual study and cultivation should not be seen (especially for newcomers with little background) as obstructions to the attainment of enlightenment.

I also belonged to a couple of technical lists, and scholarly lists that covered area studies, history, and so forth. These lists, even when disagreement occurred, were never plagued by the kind of raving, nonsense, emotion, and irrationality that were part and parcel of the Buddhism lists. Moderators of Buddhism-related lists (and certain other religion lists) with their sliding range of practitioners and scholars, were faced with an extra set of problems beyond those that would be seen on, say, a computer-related list, or an area studies list. [I found an interesting example in the Confucianism list, where list members demonstrated a natural air of civility and rationality, making the position of list moderator almost unnecessary. I have always taken this as an indication of an influence of the topic materials of their research.]

The problems with Wikipedia (but also perhaps its most interesting
points) will be on the highest traffic "nexus" pages, such as the main
"Buddhism" page, where people who have strong emotional feelings toward
a particular view of Buddhism will tend to want to express that view,
and can do so by simply wiping out what anyone else has said and adding
their own prose--if they want. From the point of view of an object of
study, it will be an interesting phenomenon to observe over time.

== Please do not promote sectarianism ==  

If this is going to be a compilation that people want to use reliably, practicing Buddhists who add information must exercise caution not to add information with sectarian bias, that they have learned in their local Zen center, or whatever. One example that I see over and over again in the entries on Buddhism is that of the mythical distinction between the arhat(my definition)/arahant and the bodhisattva. This distinction was just a Mahayana polemical device, and does not describe a situation that ever really existed. On the same vein, there never existed any school named Hinayana that was equivalent to Theravada. This was just a pejorative term created by the new Mahayanists to distinguish the new character of their teaching. If you are not a specialist in Buddhist studies, please take the time to be sure of the accuracy of your information before writing. I encourage you to take advantage of my online [http://www.acmuller.net/ddb Digital Dictionary of Buddhism] to check things before adding.

== Buddhism Wikipedia is filled with errors ==

I am a specialist in Buddhist studies and have looked at a lot of the material contained here in the area of Buddhism. Most of it is terribly inaccurate and misleading. People should not be writing entries for a reference work if they are lacking in expertise on a topic. It will give people the wrong information, and give the project a bad reputation. Please don't write on a topic if you don't know what you are talking about. Charles Muller (www.acmuller.net/ddb)

Truth
"The greatest enemies of truth are those who think they have a monopoly of truth."

Official Wikipedia Disclaimer
"Please be advised that nothing found here has necessarily been reviewed by professionals with the expertise required to provide you with complete, accurate or reliable information".

The Faith-based Encyclopedia
"However closely a Wikipedia article may at some point in its life attain to reliability, it is forever open to the uninformed or semiliterate meddler..." (Robert McHenry, "The Faith-Based Encyclopedia", Tech Central Station, 15/11/04)

Advice for New Editors
But why should I contribute to an article ? I'm no expert. That's fine. The Wikipedia philosophy can be summed up thusly: "Experts are scum." For some reason, people who spend 40 years learning everything they can about, say, the Peloponnesian War -- and indeed, advancing the body of human knowledge -- get all pissy when their contributions are edited away by Randy in Boise who heard somewhere that sword-wielding skeletons were involved. And they get downright irate when asked politely to engage in discourse with Randy until the sword-skeleton theory can be incorporated into the article without passing judgment. (Lore Sjöberg, The Wikipedia FAQK)