What the Internet needs … is not rules and guidelines but a more fully functioning set of community standards. Although laws are certainly necessary for many sorts of things, community standards are better than laws because they are more flexible, more situational, cheaper, less dependent on supposedly objective authorities, and basically decentralized. Community standards are the best way to regulate a commons. And that’s what the Internet is – a commons. What does that mean? Well, we’re not talking about common ownership, since the Internet is owned by all sorts of organizations. Rather, we’re talking about a certain social system within the Internet, which includes, for example, the convention that discussion lists are open to all.
Predictor: Agre, Phil
Prediction, in context:The March 1994 issue of The Network Observer, an online newsletter, carries an article titled “The Internet as a Commons” by Phil Agre, TNO editor, who was, at the time, working in the Department of Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles. He writes:”What the Internet needs … is not rules and guidelines but a more fully functioning set of community standards. Although laws are certainly necessary for many sorts of things, community standards are better than laws because they are more flexible, more situational, cheaper, less dependent on supposedly objective authorities, and basically decentralized. Community standards are the best way to regulate a commons. And that’s what the Internet is – a commons. What does that mean? Well, we’re not talking about common ownership, since the Internet is owned by all sorts of organizations. Rather, we’re talking about a certain social system within the Internet, which includes, for example, the convention that discussion lists are open to all.”
Biography:Phillip E. Agre was an associate professor of information studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, and has been the author of research studies on the Internet. He edited The Network Observer, an online newsletter on Internet issues. (Research Scientist/Illuminator.)
Date of prediction: January 1, 1994
Topic of prediction: Community/Culture
Subtopic: General
Name of publication: The Network Observer
Title, headline, chapter name: The Internet as a Commons
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://dlis.gseis.ucla.edu/people/pagre/tno/march-1994.html
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Guarino, Jennifer Anne