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Tim Berners-Lee on Blogging And The Web
neiljt writes "The BBC2 is to air an interview by Marc Lawson with Tim Berners-Lee this evening, where TBL offers his thoughts on the Read/Write web. A transcript of the interview is available from BBC News." From the article: "I feel that we need to individually work on putting good things on [the web], finding ways to protect ourselves from accidentally finding the bad stuff, and that at the end of the day, a lot of the problems of bad information out there, things that you don't like, are problems with humanity.
This is humanity which is communicating over the web, just as it's communicating over so many other different media. I think it's a more complicated question we have to; first of all, make it a universal medium, and secondly we have to work to make sure that that it supports the sort of society that we want to build on top of it. "
"I feel that we need to individually work on putting good things on [the web], finding ways to protect ourselves from accidentally finding the bad stuff" And who is to decide good vs. bad? Parents should supervise/restrict their children's browsing habits, but I for one value sites such as http://www.erowid.org/ which is a site that contains information about drugs... There are plenty of "bad" websites out there that are labeled as "bad" because they offend people who are closed-minded...
"We" are doing that, certainly, but "we" don't all agree on what sort of society "we" want to build on top of it.
HCG 50a = 2MASX J11170638+5455016
11h17m06.4s +54d55m02s
But it sounds like basically what he's saying is that he'd like to see more websites that don't suck, and less sites that do.
;)
Brilliant!
(Un)Fortunately we have a little thing called free speech, which can be a double-edged sword (hence the 'Un'). I can find information 99.99% of the time that I'm looking for, but I also get shoved head-first sometimes into piles and piles of unwanted banners, popups, spam, spyware, etc.
More good, less suck. I think we should run with that!
And they said zombies weren't real!
"What in the heck is the Read/Write Web?"
You're posting on it.
OddManIn: A Game of guns and game theory.
"..we have to work to make sure that that it supports the sort of society that we want to build on top of it..." amen to that! our problems as a race are not technological, they are existential, and I am really glad to see that the web is finally starting to reflect that. its as if the search-stream gods are finally comfortable with virtuality. finally it's okay just to put an idea on the web, and expect that if its good enough, that idea can stand on its own. from ideapark.org-- "we have been so busy building up the Internet with pseudo-edifices in the grand style of Olde Commerce--virtual banks, virtual universities, virtual shopping malls--that we have completely forgotten to ask ourselves whether that musty old economic model is really worth replicating in the Dream Land that is the Internet. It's time for us to wake up, and quit taking the math test over and over again."
Interesting perspective there coming from the creator of the WWW itself. Especially so because of the contrary opinion that I and a number of techie people (on and off Slashdot) hold - about "blogs" merely being the ancient idea of personal webpages that have been around for 2 decades, and which is being recycled/marketed as a hep "in" idea in the past few years.
I've always thought of "blogs" being a overhyped concept that the PHBs (recall "corporate blogs") and Joe Sixpack are discovering as a kewl thing you can do with teh Intarweb.
And here comes Sir TBL himself and claims that blogs are closer to what he imagined the original WWW to be. And when he puts it like that, I sorta agree with him - I'd rather have people more personal content on there (not talking about the typical immature blog-kiddie's OMG I'm so cool) rather than have it turn into a marketing/services too used mostly for providing business services (car rentals, flight reservations).
If blogs are what make using the WWW easier, more interesting and useful, then I'm willing to drop the whole (Blog = Overhyped Personal Webpage) argument.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
Less interesting is the second half of the quote:
and secondly we have to work to make sure that that it supports the sort of society that we want to build on top of it.
This is a complete non-statement, of the sort that you'd be smacked for writing in an english class. The internet supports everything that is built on top of it. This includes the right society and the wrong society alike. This is like saying the earth has to support the sort of cities that we want to build on top of it.
Simply put, it does. It is incapable of doing anything else.
Not hearing/seeing anything you don't disagree with because you have put blinders on your searches might lead to the kind of world described in "Fareignheight 411" (that's 411 not 911) By Ray Bradbury.
Yeah, but in Fahrenheit 451 the firemen went around burning other people's books, not just their own.
If you're solipsistic in your reading, regardless on the medium, you do so in order to become a "contented consumer" and it costs you your humanity.
And that is a tragedy - one which we see all around us because the vast majority of people do go through life with blinders on. But insisting that they must open their eyes is as wrong as them insisting that we must be fitted for their blinders and even more hopeless. After all, none is as blind as the man who will not see.
#!/usr/bin/english
ML: Do you feel guilty for the web?
TBL: No.
www.joshferguson.org
And just who is "we" then?
Any group of like-minded people.
And just what "sort" of society "we" want to build?
Whatever sort they want it to be.
The net, more than anything in meatspace, enables specific communities to develop as connected to, or as indepent of, any other community on the net.
They can range from the extremely insular to the extremely open and they can all do it however they want without having to dictate how other communities ought to organize and behave.
You want to be a car-freak? Fine, lots of places on the net. You want to be ferrari snob, fine there is a place for you too. You want to be hong-kong rom-com movie fanatic? Lots of places for you too. Whatever floats your boat, you can find or build a group of like-minded people on the net and you don't have to step on anyone else's group to do so.
Looking at your score will reveil that content is more important than presentation :o)
Open Source Drum Kit, LPLC deve board - mjhdesigns.com