If limitations needed to be imposed and enforced, they could best be handled from within the user population on a “local” forum-by-forum basis, rather than on a system-wide one. The creation of private forums, where local rules can hold sway, has allowed public forums to retain their openness while providing more regulated “retreat” for those who felt they needed them.
Predictor: Figallo, Cliff
Prediction, in context:The 1995 book “Public Access to the Internet,” edited by Brian Kahin and James Keller carries the chapter, “The WELL: A Regionally Based On-Line Community on the Internet” by Cliff Figallo. Figallo, a networking consultant in the San Francisco area who served as director of the Whole Earth Lectronic Link from 1986 to 1992, writes: ”If limitations needed to be imposed and enforced, they could best be handled from within the user population on a ‘local’ forum-by-forum basis, rather than on a system-wide one. The creation of private forums, where local rules can hold sway, has allowed public forums to retain their openness while providing more regulated ‘retreat’ for those who felt they needed them.”
Biography:Cliff Figallo, was managing director of the WELL (Whole Earth ‘Lectronic Link, one of the best known conferencing systems and virtual communities in the United States in the 1990s) and a director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Cambridge office in the early 1990s. He later worked with Pandora Systems. Figallo and John Coate are regarded to be the chief architects of the WELL’s implementation of virtual community. (Advocate/Voice of the People.)
Date of prediction: January 1, 1995
Topic of prediction: Community/Culture
Subtopic: Virtual Communities
Name of publication: Public Access to the Internet (book)
Title, headline, chapter name: The WELL: A Regionally Based On-Line Community on the Internet
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
Pages 53, 54
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Guarino, Jennifer Anne