Online community

“ The focus of 18thConnect, an online community of eighteenth-century scholars, is threefold: enabling plain text searching to freely available and proprietary digital resources in eighteenth-century literature and history, facilitating peer review of eighteenth-century digital scholarship, and developing and encouraging best practices with new digital scholars. ”

“ So I think that there is a lot of positive things that could be done, and they're missing particularly content that's relevant to the community and is made by the community because a lot of times there's misappropriation communities have to access content about themselves, which are made by someone else, and sometimes that kind of content has an inherent bias. So that's not really helpful for any community. It's important that communities develop their own content, decide what they want to share online, and I think that's missing big time. ”

“ Freedom to reuse Open access Free cost Easy use Digital, networked content Social, community based approaches Ethical arguments for openness Openness as an efficient model These are digital, networked transformations; the nonrivalrous nature of digital content and the easy distribution of content and conversations online, underlies all of them. ”

“ It can support democratic tendencies, the transition to a market economy, the formation and support of businesses, the spreading of interpersonal and mass communication, the forging of invisible colleges among scientists, and breaking-up of traditional and closed information systems developed in some societies. No matter whether your application is useful or just a pastime, online services queue up to help give your life a better content. Some people fear that language might be a problem, and in particular if English is not their first language. ”

“ The World Wide Web, whose rather opaque platform ascended primarily for its ability to serve as an online catalogue, has been adapted to serve many of the internet's original, more technologically primitive functions. ”

“ You know, from our perspective, it is actually about bad, it’s that we believe that most people who participate in our community and in the open web are generally there because they are appreciative of the good parts about it, the creativity, the innovation, the connection. ”

“ Other people prefer to socialize. They meet in online "meeting places" to debate everything from Africa and the administration of kindergartens to poetry, LISP programming and compressed video for multimedia applications. It has been claimed that increased use of online networking in a country can effect social changes within politics, economics, communication and science. ”

“ Nobody is watching. Will you being member of the online world make you rich? Probably not. On the other hand, it most certainly provides the opportunities to help you achieve such a goal, no matter how you define the word "rich."
Chapter 2: The online world =========================== This chapter is about the structure and contents of the online world. You will read about Bulletin Board systems, discussion lists, conferencing systems, online data bases, packet data services, and network services like FidoNet, i-Com, Infonet, and the Internet. ”

“ For free, in many cities, you can open up an Internet account and tap into electronic libraries all over the world or receive electronic mail. Best of all, “communets” can bring communities together. The Net is one of the big lures to get people online, but once there, they may be able to fetch the schedule of their local public radio stations, find out about local charities, and talk back electronically to officials of city halls. ”

“ Increasing proportions of educators’ work will involve them as members of teams to which they will contribute only some of the required expertise, and of which they will not necessarily be the leaders, managers or coordinators. ↑ Wikipedia notes that 'Web 2.0...refers to a supposed second generation of Internet-based services – such as social networking sites, wikis, communication tools, and folksonomies – that emphasize online collaboration and sharing among users... ”

“ These interactive communication technologies could even help us to understand autonomy as a collective phenomenon, a shared state that emerges spontaneously and quite naturally when people are allowed to participate actively in their mutual self-interest. ”

“ Similarly, for academics who work in potentially sensitive subject areas, such as Middle-​­Eastern politics, climate change or evolutionary psychology, then pressure to be open and establish an online identity may subject them to particular groups with strong interests. ”

“ E-commerce certainly has its strengths and the economic development associated with a profit-driven internet creates new reasons for new countries to get their populations online. But an interactive marketplace is not fertile soil for networked democracy or public participation. ”

“ Clearly, the success of sites like Dear Raed stem from our increasingly complex society's need for a multiplicity of points of view on our most pressing issues, particularly when confronted by a mainstream mediaspace that appears to be converging on single, corporate and government approved agenda. ”

“ Without the slightest apology, we should tell the public what to read, and besides lording over the editorial pages, we should inflict the same front page stories on everyone. The notion that each reader could write regularly for other readers, or that he or she could see wire service stories online, was as sacrilegious as it was science fiction-like. ”

“ At one point I was even worried that this “aaronsw” guy, whoever he was, was going to organize, that his organization of his group there was going to threaten the fact that the World Wide Web Consortium, my Consortium, was where all these people would come and do their standards because he seemed to be such a good organizer.
He joined a working group which was doing work on the Semantic Web, the RDF Working Group. At one point this group, which normally met only online, was going to have a rare face-to-face meeting. Normally, everything happens online – we share code, ideas, hopes and dreams. ”

“ Instead, we must forge ahead into the challenging but necessary task of inventing new models ourselves, using the collaborative techniques learned over the past decade, and based in the real evidence around us. ”

“ Though one possible direction for the implementation of new media technology may be exhausted, its other myriad potentials beckon us once again. While it may not provide us with a template for sure-fire business and marketing solutions, the rise of interactive media does provide us with the beginnings of new metaphors for cooperation, new faith in the power of networked activity and new evidence of our ability to participate actively in the authorship of our collective destiny. ”

“ But we may have to let their replacements emerge from the myriad of new relationships that begin to spawn once people are acting and communicating in the present, and on a realistic scale, instead of talking about a fictional future. ”

“ Walkers may not be as famous a virtual community as The WELL, Echo, and similar bulletin board systems with Net and media connections, but it’s hardly as if the luminaries of those places enjoy a monopoly on Caring. ”

“ Transparency in media makes information available to those who never had access to it before. Access to media technology empowers those same people to discuss how they might want to change the status quo. Finally, networking technologies allow for online collaboration in the implementation of new models, and the very real-world organisation of social activism and relief efforts. The good news, for those within the power structure today, is that we are not about to enter a phase of revolution, but one of renaissance. ”

“ This makes it critical to find practical ways to build business models that will ensure the success of the online educational commons. Critically, we would do well to accept that – until this new model is established – it is likely that we will need to retain open minds and a spirit of compromise in engaging the interests of different parties seeking to open access to educational content. ”

“ That's why the software and interfaces developed for the commercial webspace tended to take user's hands off the keyboard and onto the mouse. The most successful programs, for them, lead people to the 'buy' button and let them use the keyboard only to enter their credit card numbers and nothing else. The internet that grew from these development priorities, dominated by the World Wide Web instead of discussion groups, treats individuals more as consumers than as citizens. ”

“ The open course creates both the opportunity, with large numbers and frequent presentations, and the ethical framework that permits this. MOOC learners are not paying, so there is a different contract with the institution. Increased ­reputation – ­Being networked and online can help improve an individual’s or an institution’s profile. ”

“ This is why it appeared that the decision to grant the public open access to the internet in the early 1990s would herald a new era of teledemocracy, political activism and a reinstatement of the collective will into public affairs. The emergence of a networked culture, accompanied by an ethic of media literacy, open discussion and direct action held the promise of a more responsive political system wherever it spread. ”

“ The true promise of a network-enhanced democracy lies not in some form of web-driven political marketing survey, but in restoring and encouraging broader participation in some of the internet's more interactive forums. Activists of all stripes now have the freedom and facility to network and organise across vast geographical, national, racial and even ideological differences. And they've begun to do so. The best evidence we have that something truly new is going on is our mainstream media's inability to understand it. ”

“ Everything for my current book project goes ever the wire.” I was working on a guide telling how to lobby for one’s political beliefs online, and the publisher had even received the book proposal via the Net. Lots of people were doing the same, not just with the Net but with commercial services and fax. ”

“ For early internet users, sitting alone in their homes or offices, connected to one another only by twisted pairs of copper phone lines, the notion of being connected, somehow, in the manner of a fractal was quite inspiring. ”

“ Famous scientists, authors, philosophers and scores of journalists flocked to the site in order to develop their ideas collaboratively rather than alone. Meanwhile as the internet continued to develop, online discussions in a distributed system called USENET began to proliferate. These were absolutely self-organising discussions about thousands of different topics. They themselves spawned communities of scientists, activists, doctors, and patients, among so many others, dedicated to tackling problems in collaboration across formerly prohibitive geographical and cultural divides. ”

“ Thus, in an era when crass perversions of populism, and exaggerated calls for national security, threaten the very premises of representational democracy and free discourse, interactive technologies offer us a ray of hope for a renewed spirit of genuine civic engagement.
The very survival of democracy as a functional reality may be dependent upon our acceptance, as individuals, of adult roles in conceiving and stewarding the shape and direction of society. ”

“ As different people and groups competed for authority, narratives began to be used to gain advantage. Stories were no longer being used simply to predict the patterns of nature, but to describe and influence the courses of politics, economics and power. ”

“ We can all see, for this moment anyway, how so very much of what we have perceived of as reality is, in fact, merely social construction. More importantly, we have gained the ability to enact such wizardry ourselves. ”

“ Usenet has the newsgroup clari.news.trends (Surveys and trends) . Why not complement what you find here by monitoring trends in associated areas (like music) , to follow the development from different perspectives? The music forum RockNet on CompuServe has a section called Trends. CompuServe's Education Forum has the section Future Talk. What educators think about the future of online services (and education) is always interesting. The Well, based just outside Silicon Valley in the United States, has The Future conference. ”

“ Although many of the leaders and top shareholders of global media conglomerates felt quite threatened by the rise of new media, their conscious efforts to quell the unchecked spread of interactive technology were not the primary obstacles to the internet's natural development. ”

“ The values engendered by our fledgling networked culture may, in fact, help a world struggling with the impact of globalism, the lure of fundamentalism and the clash of conflicting value systems. Thanks to the actual and allegorical role of interactive technologies in our work and lives, we may now have the ability to understand many social and political constructs in very new contexts. We may now be able to launch the kinds of conversations that change the relationship of individuals, parties, creeds and nations to one another and to the world at large. ”

“ Many free BBS systems let you register for full access to the service during your first visit. It is possible to use any name. Don't do that. Use your true name, unless asked to do otherwise. It's impolite and unrespectful of the other members to participate in online discussions using a false identity. Being helpful is an important aspect of the online world. The people you meet 'there' use of their time to help you and others. Often free. The atmosphere is one of gratitude, and a positive attitude toward all members. ”