[LINK] Digital doomsday: the end of knowledge

[Roger Clarke]

At 15:55 +1000 8/4/10, Brendan Scott wrote:
>There is a side issue in that easy reproduction detracts from one 
>particular copy or version being considered canonical.  What is a 
>citation after Wikipedia?

What is a citation in a hypertext system?  Just a pointer.

Okay, in the primitive Web of 1990-2010:
-   it's a mere 'hotlink', i.e. a unary, one-directional pointer
-   the pointer is impermanent, unless
     -   it's a PURL, or
     -   we run mature systems, i.e.:
         -   webmasters ensure archival of all versions of all pages
         -   designers (what are they?) ensure that a 404 results in
             an auto-lookup of the archive

We should be moving beyond the basic Web by now, and implementing the 
much more powerful hypertext architectures that pre-date Tim 
Berners-Lee's pragmatic little model.

And, if we did that, we could be actually delivering Xanadu, instead 
of thinking of it as a hstorical curiosity.

But unfortunately the marketers, advertisers and graphic designers 
have become dominant, and 'enhancements' to the Web are all about 
glitz and 'owning the consumers' eyes'.


-- 
Roger Clarke                                 http://www.rogerclarke.com/

Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd      78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA
                    Tel: +61 2 6288 1472, and 6288 6916
mailto:Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au                http://www.xamax.com.au/

Visiting Professor in the Cyberspace Law & Policy Centre      Uni of NSW
Visiting Professor in Computer Science    Australian National University