Making the academy sounder

Hi all,

When the Academy subforum was initiated a year ago, it was intended to become a sort of reference allowing every forumer to use it in order to learn, enjoy and at times strengthen her argument in a discussion somewhere else in the forum.

It was also intended to be a sort of vitrine for AE, to show the outer world that it was more than a fun site where to discuss endlessly about history with other enthusiasts. It could be a website to trust where reliable information could be found by students and amateurs.

Unfortunately, despite a handful of interesting debates and exchange of ideas, the academy did not live up to these expectations.

Second life

That's why we should try again. Many among us read history books and articles for their studies or by sheer passion. Would it be very costly to once in a while post notes about these readings. AE has hundreds of forumers, and more than one is truly dedicated to history: quite fast we could have dozens of posts.

I can only regret that this has not been started long ago. I'd love to be able to refer myself to notes Maju, Komnenos and Flyingzone would have written. Decebal will soon leave us for a year, had he been able to write these notes he would not really be away, we could always refer to his amazing knowledge.

The point here is to leave AE for the next generation a tiny bit better than the way you found it. You would not accumulate knowledge in vain!

What's next

Every one could post reading notes, summaries, dissertations, essays, etc. The project must be committed to respect a very high standard of quality as well as internationally recognized scholarly rules (reference by pages, etc.).

The problem would of course be that � due to the forum format � the latest messages will push the older ones in the archives and interesting notes and essays would be forgotten because they are two months old. This issue could be solved by 1) creating a sticky post named "Content" that would classify every note and essay posted and 2) later on maybe opening subforums dedicated to, say, the periods of history.

I've posted an example of what this could look like (here). Please share your comments

Best

M.

Interesting ideas.

I would personally like to see the academy expanded and made to be better organized.

Guys,

Edited by pikeshot1600 - 27-Apr-2008 at 23:32