Welcome
The civic networking movement the world over is starting to do its networking in earnest now, and that’s terrific. Will it be Home Shopping Channel the whole planet wide? You can make the difference by getting involved right now.
Subtopic: General
The Internet as a Commons
The Internet could fragment into a bunch of separate spheres, each with its own gatekeeper. It won’t happen right away, since most of the people who run Internet discussion lists and the like are still primarily interested in attracting people, not keeping them away … The net is providing people at the periphery of the global research system with ways of building a community for themselves by providing a useful public service. Let’s hope it stays that way.
The Internet as a Commons
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.
The Internet as a Commons
The net is full of people looking for business models these days, and several books and newsletters promise to explain how to advertise on the net. These people have caused much worry among net inhabitants who envision receiving floods of junk e-mail and the like. There are certainly things to worry about, but in my view this isn’t one of them. Internet folks have already suppressed numerous outbreaks of anti-social advertising through the simple method of flooding the offenders with flaming complaints. While ill-tempered flaming has its own costs, the basic method is an important one. Imagine if it were just as easy to complain to the people who send you *paper* junk mail.
The Internet as a Commons
Most Internet institutions are still remarkably open, in the sense that anybody can join and anybody can send messages at any time. Will this last? Will hordes of unacculturated beginners overwhelm it? Will advertising overwhelm it? Will cumbersome billing software overwhelm it? Will people start building walls around their network communities? Maybe not – if we understand and apply some principles for the maintenance of a commons.
Vision
The new world of information was already affecting everyone’s lives. Yet I knew that its present impact paled in comparison to what would be coming in the next several decades. While the media continued to flash old news about information highways, electronic mail, multimedia CD-ROMS, virtual reality, even the Web, newer and more fascinating technologies were already being prototyped in our lab and others around the globe. Meanwhile, the world’s economies were getting ready to surrender a huge chunk of themselves to the activities that would stem from these technologies. And the envisioned activities, in turn, were already raising complex new social issues.
Models for the Internet Local Loop
A key role of the NII must be to provide this service. Creating a data networking environment as ubiquitous and seamless as the telephone network is a critical first step to achieving the promised benefits of the NII … The critical issue facing us now is how to extend Internet access to small users – how to extend the Internet beyond its traditional institutional user community, into small offices and homes … Basic, universal, small-user Internet service should be the same service that larger institutional users already receive: A 24-hour, high-speed, IP (Internet Protocol) “wall plug” at a flat price under $100 per month.
Atheism, Sex, and Databases: The Net as a Social Technology
It is unlikely that social benefits will occur simply as a byproduct of information-centered technology and policies. As the number, size, and heterogeneity of groups continues to grow, so does the need for group tools and the need to understand group governance. Tools and policies directed at individual information processors are not necessarily responsive to group needs … If we remember that access to the net means not only access to information, but access to people, we can provide tools and policies to promote both.
Atheism, Sex, and Databases: The Net as a Social Technology
By the mid-1990s, people can be expected to view personal computers as knowledge sources rather than as knowledge processors … gateways to vast amounts of knowledge and information.
Learning and Teaching on the Internet: Contributing to Educational Reform
There is a great danger than enormous efforts now put into educational “reforms” will turn out to be irrelevant to the circumstances of learning and working in a networked, knowledge-creative society. Current investments in reformed curriculum frameworks, standards, assessments, teacher in-service programs, and the like should take advantage of networking to reduce industrial-age constraints; at the same time, they can contribute vitally to the evolving information infrastructure, to the learning benefit of everyone.