May 1 2003 Netizens: Then & Now Volume 11 No. 2

Introduction

This year, 2003, is the 10

anniversary of Mi-

chael Hauben’s posting of his research paper “The

Net and the Netizen”. Also, on May 1, 2003 Michael

would have been 30 years old.

With the continued growth and spread of the

Internet and of the concept of the Netizen, it seems

appropriate to look back and to reflect on the impact

that not only the Internet has had, but also, and

perhaps as importantly, that the emergence and

consciousness of the Netizen has had on our society.

This issue of the Amateur Computerist is a

beginning of that project. In exploring online, it soon

becomes evident that the concept of the Netizen has

inspired many to actively work to make the online

world a better place. There’s been at least one art

exhibit, an exhibit in Rome, inspired by Netizens, and

many other developments.

The literature of the art exhibit explains how the

word was chosen to support contributions to the Net.

Table of Contents

Introduction.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 1

J.C.R. Licklider to Michael Hauben. . . . . . . . page 1

Netizenship Today: An Interview. . . . . . . . . . page 2

Jr GII Web Chat 1995. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 6

What It Means to be a Netizen. . . . . . . . . . . page 10

Letters to the Editor.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 11

Poem about poetry Forums. . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 11

The E-DRUM: An Ode.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 11

Letter from the Poet. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 12

In Memoriam: Akos Herman. . . . . . . . . . . . page 13

Review of Netizens.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 14

Letter to the Editor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 16

Netizens Then and Now. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 17

15 Years of the Amateur Computerist. . . . . page 20

Communication Not Annihilation. . . . . . . . page 23

Also an act was introduced into the U.S. Congress,

called the “Netizens Protection Act” to deal with

online spamming.

There are many other uses, but another that is

notable is an article about those in China or who can

post on Chinese online sites, who are taking up the

challenge of netizenship.

Michael would welcome these efforts just as, in

1992-1993 he welcomed those who wrote him

describing their efforts to contribute to the growth

and spread of the Internet as a public communica-

tions medium. In honor of Michael’s life and work

toward the development of the Internet, and of the

better world that the Internet can make possible, we

have put together this issue of the Amateur

Computerist. We know that Michael would be

honored that others continue his efforts.

The netizens and the continuing development

and application of the concept of the netizen that we

document in these pages, is indeed something to

celebrate.

Thank you dear Michael and thanks to all those

who have taken up the torch to carry it on.

[Editor’s Note: The following entry, “Netizens”, can

be found on the informative website http://www

.livinginternet.com put up by William Stewart.]

Netizens: J. C. R. Licklider

to Michael Hauben

by William Stewart

[email protected]

Netizens: In April, 1968, Licklider and Robert

Taylor published a ground-breaking paper The

Computer as a Communication Device in Science

and Technology, portraying the forthcoming uni-

Page 1

versal network as more than a service to provide

transmission of data, but also as a tool whose value

came from the generation of new information through

interaction with its users. In other words, the old

golden rule applied to an as yet unbuilt network

world, where each netizen contributes more to the

virtual community than they receive, producing some-

thing more powerful and useful than anyone could

create by themself.

Michael Hauben, a widely read Internet pioneer,

encountered this spirit still going strong in his studies

of online Internet communities in the 1990's, leading

to his coinage of the term “net citizen” or “netizen”.

Newcomers to the Internet usually experience the

same benefit of participating in a larger virtual world,

and adopt the spirit of the netizen as it is handed

down the generations. It cannot be a coincidence that

so many Internet technologies are built specifically to

leverage the power of community information shar-

ing, such as the Usenet, IRC, MUDs, and mailing

lists. The concept of the netizen is also the foundation

for the motivation of netiquette.

[http://www.livinginternet.com/?i/ii_licklider.htm]

Netizenship Today:

An Interview

Questions

by Daniela A Baszkiewicz-Scott

dab1@columbia.edu

Responses

by Ronda Hauben

[email protected]

Question #1: Five years ago, you and Michael

published Netizens, a study of the history and pros-

pects of communication on the Internet, specifically

through the most common and popular medium of

Usenet. The book added a new coinage to the English

language and implied a particular vision of where the

net could carry us. What was that vision then, and has

your sense of it changed at all over the past decade,

and if so, how?

Answer #1: While Netizens was indeed published in

a hard copy version in 1997, it was first put on line

almost 10 years ago, in 1994. In 1992/1993, Michael

did his research and posted the summary in his

article “The Net and the Netizen.” So actually Mi-

chael’s work discovering net.citizens and then

formulating the concept of netizen, is 10 years ago

this year.

What Michael’s research taught him, was that

there were people online who functioned as citizens

of the Internet and Usenet. These were people who

participated in making the Internet something valu-

able to people around the world. Among those who

recognized the importance of the Internet as a new

communication medium, there was the special con-

cern to make low cost or free access available to all

people who wanted to be online. These were some of

the characteristics that Michael recognized of users

who were acting as “netizens,” or as citizens of a

broader entity than a national geographic entity.

Michael’s vision of the potential of the Internet, and

the vision of a number of the users who wrote him,

was of an online medium that would make it possible

for people to be able to participate in the decisions

that affected their lives. Michael wrote about this in

his article “What the Net means to me” (See ACN

Vol. 11 No. 1. http://www.ais.org/~jrh/acn/text/acn

11-1.articles/acn11-1.a13.txt)

What has happened in these 10 years?

There are others who are “netizens” in the finest

tradition. They are continuing to uphold this vision

and to help it to become a reality.

The Internet is going through difficult times in

terms of its promise as a participatory global com-

munication system available to all who want access.

The conception of the netizen, however, is very

much alive and is helpful in supporting those who

continue to work toward this goal. Searching online

in a search engine under netizens turns up almost

100,000 entries. Michael noted that the netizen was

someone who acted as a citizen of the Internet. He

also observed that there was another usage that

developed after he popularized the term. This second

usage refers to any net user as a netizen. There are

dictionaries that recognize this distinction, for

example, the Oxford English Dictionary. It defines a

netizen as a participant in the online community.

Other sources like the Glossary of Internet Terms

describes a netizen as: “Derived from the term

citizen, referring to a citizen of the Internet, or

someone who uses networked resources. The term

connotes civic responsibility and participation.”

(http://www.matisse.net/files/glossary.html#N)

Page 2

Still others like the Polish researcher Lesek

Jesien examine the essence of the citizen as the ability

to participate in the processes of governance. The

netizen provides Jesien a model to be investigated.

(See for example “The 1996 IGC: European Citizen-

ship Reconsidered”, “Instituets fur den Donauraum

und Mitteleuropa”, March 1997, page 2.)

Michael spoke about the importance of everyone

being able to be online, as part of the vision of the

netizen. Also, he noted the need for people to have the

time in their lives to be able to participate in the

affairs of the Internet’s development. How this can

happen, only the future will tell. A possible model

exists in the U.S. This is the process set up for citi-

zens to have time in their lives to serve on juries.

When citizens are called for jury duty, they are paid

by their employer or given some reimbursement by

government for the day. This is a model to consider

when looking at what will be needed for netizens to

be able to participate actively in the Internet’s devel-

opment.

In these past 10 years, the concept of netizen has

been embraced by many people around the world. In

our book Netizens: On the History and Impact of

Usenet and the Internet Michael wrote several chap-

ters looking at various developments. One chapter is

chapter 13, about the press, another is chapter 14

about the U.S. government policy advisory online

conference held in 1994. In his article on the develop-

ment of the press, Michael noted that the netizen as a

citizen reporter will greatly enrich the news that is

available to the public. (See “The Effect of the Net on

the Professional News Media: The Usenet News

Collective and Man-Computer News Symbiosis”)

While Michael documents instances of this in his

chapter on the press, there continue to be many other

instances. More recently, for example, on February 8,

2003, the New York Times News of the Week in

Review section printed a transcript of an online

discussion of people monitoring the reentry of the

Columbia shuttle back into the earth’s atmosphere.

They document their observations of its breakup as it

entered the earth’s atmosphere.

What progress has these 10 years brought for the

Internet as a participatory communication medium?

Many people around the world try to utilize the

Internet to influence their governments on a wide

range of issues from local housing concerns to broad-

er efforts to prevent or stop war. The concept and

vision of the netizen is developing broadly and

widely, though it is not always visible. There are,

however, rare times, like the February 15, 2003 anti-

war demonstrations around the world, which were

possible because they could be coordinated and

supported by citizens utilizing the Internet. Citizens

could work together to communicate with each other

and their government to oppose a war being waged

against the people of Iraq.

The vision that Michael documented was of the

Internet as a platform for democracy, or as a labora-

tory for democracy. The Internet provides the medi-

um needed, and the netizens are the researchers who

explore how this medium can be helpful. I was

invited to a seminar in Finland in December 1999.

This seminar was part of a European Union spon-

sored conference exploring the ability of citizens to

influence the decisions made by their governments.

There was general dismay at the conference about

the inability of most citizens to have an impact on

government decisions. The seminar I participated in

explored whether the Internet could make such

participation possible. A journalism researcher from

Finland told of the frustrations of Finnish citizens in

trying to get their local government representatives

to listen to their views. She proposed that it was

important for citizens to document their efforts to

influence their representatives before they could

expect to succeed. Her research was part of a process

of exploring the barriers for citizens to achieve this

goal. To have such research ongoing and presented

at a conference was an important advance. Also a

government official at the seminar responded that

after representatives are elected they feel it is appro-

priate to act according to their own judgement. They

are not required to listen to their constituents.

The EU Conference was held on December 2,

1999, just days after the protests in Seattle (in No-

vember 1999) in opposition to the World Trade

Organization (WTO). Some of those attending the

European Union (EU) conference in Finland had

come from Seattle. They were excited by the breathe

and diversity of those protesting in Seattle.

Michael’s research, done over 10 years ago this

year, has set a basis for continuing research on the

impact of the Internet, not only on its own develop-

ment, but also on the development of the larger

society.

It will be good to see this research continued and

enriched.

Page 3

Question #2: Certainly, one of the things that has

changed has been the makeup of the populace of the

Internet. Alongside the old elites and normal, peaceful

people, a vaster public of less clear ideals and com-

mitments, even including a significant number of

hooligans and sociopaths, has appeared. With such a

public, can one still dream of a magical civil society

for which the net will be the “carrier” of democracy?

Answer #2: This is an interesting question as it

assumes that all those who participated in the early

development of the Internet were “elites”. This is not

accurate. From the early development of the Internet

and Usenet there were people who explored how to

support collaborative activities and communication

versus those who wanted the Internet and Usenet to

serve their narrower purposes. Also, contrary to all

the myths of the Internet developing apart from

government and government regulation, the Internet

was nourished by the early forms of government

regulation that functioned to protect it. The Internet

was born as a government project under the leader-

ship of the Information Processing Techniques Office

(IPTO), an office within government. Through much

of its 30 year development, there was an Acceptable

Use Policy (AUP) that specified that the use of the

system should be one with public purposes and forbid

self serving purposes. Similarly, Usenet had a mecha-

nism for system administrators to hold users responsi-

ble for following certain standards of behavior. Those

users who violated these standards were limited or

deprived of access to Usenet.

The current period is not the first time that there

are users who abuse the Internet and other users.

Governments like that of the U.S., however, have

ceased to provide citizens and netizens with protec-

tion from those who are abusive.

There are counter efforts ongoing as well, how-

ever. How this will develop, time will show. But there

is much to learn from the early development of the

Internet and the role played by government and online

administrators to encourage constructive activity by

users.

Question #3: There would seem to be other poten-

tial challenges to direct democracy and human rights

today, but there is one of particular relevance to the

net and to Europe, which has been a subject of partic-

ular interest to you in your recent study of the

internet, namely, that of language barriers. These

barriers appear capable of dividing united and still

uniting Europe into a society of e-aristocrats and

e-outcasts, since, through no fault of their own, some

peoples were long cut off from the language which

is now emerging as the universal e-language: Eng-

lish. Can an individual learning English as a new

language, or for whom English is a “distant second”

language have the opportunity of truly free expres-

sion, at the same time as the European Union be-

comes a single society with a common bureaucracy,

officialdom, and system of government which will

need to be controlled by its citizens?

Answer #3: This question has two parts.

The first refers to the development of English as

a standard language online. There are, indeed, many

people around the world who use the Internet, but

who don’t speak or write English. English is clearly

not a common language at present, though it is used

sometimes to try to make communication possible

among those with different languages.

A common language allows people from differ-

ent countries to communicate. However, this is a

burden on those who don’t know this language.

Rather than a common language, there are trans-

lation programs online. One can put text into these

programs and learn some of what is being said in

different languages. While these programs are still

primitive they are being used by people to communi-

cate with others who speak different languages. Also

there are certain words that have developed as part of

the Internet’s development, like the word netizen,

which are being adopted as a common vocabulary in

countries around the world.

These are merely beginning steps toward trying

to make communication possible among people who

have different native languages. On Usenet and the

Internet, there are posts, mailing lists, web sites, and

Usenet newsgroups in many languages. This makes

it possible for people to participate in the languages

that are their own first languages, the languages they

are most comfortable in.

The Internet is not only helping to spread the

means for people to communicate with those who

speak other languages, but it is also beginning to

create some common terms used online. Most

importantly, however, it is spreading the desire for

and the possibility of communication among people

who speak many different languages.

The problem of making communication possible

Page 4

among people who speak different languages is a very

real problem. It will take the efforts of many people

to solve it. The Internet and netizens are contributing

to the effort to explore and solve this challenge.

The second part of the question is about how

citizens will be able to control governing institutions

like the European Union. This is a broader question

which I will respond to as part of the promise of

e-democracy which you ask about in question 5.

Question #4: Another significant brake on e-dem-

ocracy would appear to be the uneven system treat-

ment of freedom of expression in different countries.

In the United States and, more recently, Great Britain,

a set of civil liberties are in force, in which a particu-

lar emphasis is placed on freedom of speech. How-

ever, in many countries of Western Europe and

Central Europe (now seeking membership in a united

Europe) a person can go to jail for opinions about a

politician expressed on the net, since harming the

“good name” of the politician is punished by the

criminal code. In Poland, for example, “slandering” a

politician is addressed not by the civil courts, but by

the prosecutor paid by the taxpayers. In this way, free

exercise electronic media can be treated as an instru-

ment of crime. What are your thoughts about this

problem?

Answer #4: Will the internet and netizens be able to

help netizens in Poland fight these restrictions? This

is a question to be explored. This is needed for the

further development of the Internet in general, and in

Poland, in particular.

Both the origins of the Internet and its continued

development require the ability to freely discuss

diverse views via a grassroots connection of people.

Michael documented this in chapter 2, and 7 of

Netizens. The U.S. government was trying to outlaw

the freedom to express one’s views on the Internet

when the U.S. Congress passed the Communications

Decency Act, (CDA) in 1995-1996. There was much

protest online and offline against the law. This pres-

sure was helpful in setting a basis for the decision of

the U.S. Supreme Court when they voted that the

CDA was unconstitutional in the Summer of 1996.

Those online, whether in the countries of East

and Central Europe, or in the countries around the

world, value the Internet and the ability to explore

diverse viewpoints online.

It is a serious problem that in Poland a person can

be tried for their criticism of a politician. I would

hope a way could be found to have an online cam-

paign against such laws as they not only harm people

in the present, but they will make it more difficult in

the future to develop both the technology and the

social environment for the technology and the people

to flourish.

Perhaps the ability to publicize such problems

via the Internet will make it possible to change such

laws, like the experience of the online community in

overturning the CDA.

Question #5: Do you expect the United States, as

a country which at least has the right of the citizen to

free expression included in its constitution, to move

more quickly toward e-democracy than other parts of

the world as a result of technological progress, or do

you see barriers blocking a movement toward e-dem-

ocracy here as well? To put it differently, what con-

ditions must be realized for society to move toward

the model of e-democracy that has been sketched out

at various international gatherings recently devoted

to this subject?

Answer #5: There are a variety of e-democracy

models, from putting government administrative

functions and services on the Internet to cheapen the

cost of government, to encouraging citizens to dis-

cuss problems from a broad diversity of viewpoints

in order to find the means to solve them. Examples

of the latter are included in the chapters in Netizens

on the online processes to involve citizens in policy

discussions. (See chapters 11 and 14)

The 1999 European Union conference in Finland

raised the question of how citizens could have more

say in the decisions of their governments. The re-

searchers and other participants in one seminar de-

scried how citizens in many countries around the

world faced this problem. The U.S. is no exception.

Despite the constitutional right to protest govern-

ment activity in the U.S., the city and federal govern-

ment refused to allow a march in New York City on

February 15, 2003 to protest war against Iraq. Also

the police prevented massive numbers of people

trying to attend the legally sanctioned rally from

being able to get to the rally.

What conditions are needed to make e-democ-

racy a reality? People need low cost or free access to

the Internet. They need enough leisure time or paid

work time to participate in forums on public ques-

tions. For example, in the U.S. citizens are paid by

Page 5

their employers to participate in jury activity. A

similar process is needed for citizens to have the time

and income to be able to participate more broadly in

public affairs.

Another condition is the need to have this partici-

pation affect the decisions made by government offic-

ials. If there is no sign that citizens’ efforts have any

effect, then it appears fruitless to make the effort.

In a paper “The 1996 IGC: European Citizenship

Reconsidered” published in March 1997, Lesiek

Jesien explored the views of a number of political

theorists to determine what is essential for citizenship.

His conclusion is that the ability of citizens to partici-

pate is critical. Comparing the development of neti-

zenship on the Internet and citizenship, Jesien writes

(Jesien, 15): “Almost in front of us, and almost

unnoticed the new kind of citizenship is evolving....

But using the Internet today is a sign of belonging to

the elite, to those who exchange ideas, who partici-

pate in something important, in a common cause.

There is no question of governance there, nor the

question of representation, but there is a full, ultimate

and direct participation.... At the time the European

Union struggles to shape the European citizenship

with much effort and little success, the other citizen-

ship – Netizenship – emerges. The IGC negotiators

and European political leaders should perhaps look at

this phenomenon with sympathy and attention.”

The ability of netizens to participate in the

activities of the Internet is a fruitful model for the

future of citizenship around the world. The “netizen”

online is the networking citizen who accepts the

obligation to contribute to the Internet’s development

and to the direction of its future growth. The Internet

functions as a laboratory of democracy. It has done

this best, however, when there have been prohibitions

against the abuse of online processes, like the Accept-

able Use Policy (AUP) that helped to support con-

structive activity online from 1985-1995. There is a

continuing need to learn how to support and protect

the online user and the netizen, to make it possible to

realize the potential for e-democracy that the Internet

provides.

[Editor’s Note: In 1995, teenagers from around the

world were invited to participate in a debate and

discussion regarding the potential of the GII (Global

Information Infrastructure). Michael was asked to

attend an online session. Below is the log from that

web-chat.]

Junior GII Discusses

Netizens

Web-Chat With Michael Hauben

January 25, 1996

Michael Hauben: Ohaiyo Gozaimasu. :-) Sorry

for the delay.

Junko: Hi, Michael! Nice to see you again!

Darren: Hi Michael! I’m Darren from Hawaii.

Michael: Hi Junko, how are you? Hello every-

one else. Nice to meet you.

Michael: Hello Darren, I am writing you from

New York City.

Richard: I’m here. Sorry I’m late.

Sheila: Hi, Michael. My name’s Sheila.

Michael: Hello Sheila and Rich! Nice you could

be here today.

Michael: It is interesting to see people are con-

necting from a wide variety of places. I am at home

on a computer newly connected via SLIP to my

University.

Michael: Someone asked before I connected

what a Netizen is. That is a good question.

Darren: Okay, we are connected from an Elem.

school LAN with frame relay access.

Michael: wow - I prefer IRC to this. Anyways,

I was saying that I was doing research into how

people used the Net, Internet, Usenet, etc.

Rich: Also, a question from the communications

Page 6

group: What do you think about “Internet addiction?”

Michael: And people felt they were part of a

global cooperative community. Net.citizen was used

in Usenet speak and this really represented what

people were telling me - they were really net citizen

- which Netizen captures.

Sheila: So what did you find in your research,

Michael?

Darren: A question from the Communications

group--Do you think that a universal language is

necessary for such netizenship?

Michael: To be a ‘Netizen’ is different from

being a ‘citizen’. This is because to be on the Net is to

be part of a global community. To be a citizen re-

stricts someone to a more local or geographic orienta-

tion.

Michael: About the Q of the need for a “uni-

versal” language. I do not think that a universal

language is necessary.

Darren: So the members of the JR. Summit are

netizens? :-)

Michael: This is because the new global com-

munity is best made of the particular contributions

that each different language and culture can con-

tribute to the whole of the net culture.

Richard: Then what do you think is the solution

to the language barrier?

Darren: What do you think about control/cen-

sorship of material on the ‘Net’ and about the Compu-

Serve deal in Germany?

Michael: An example is a friend of mine who

recently was quoted in a German newspaper because

of a Usenet post she made.

Michael: Her post described how she started to

try and learn different languages - German, Italian,

Japanese, because of the connections to people with

other languages on Usenet

Junko: Did she learn all of those?

Michael: About the Q about if Jr. Summit

Participants are Netizens? Please tell me. Netizens

are people who make a contribution to the Net and

the development of the Net.

Michael: Netizens give to the Net, and receive

back through the contributions of others.

Michael: Junko, she has begun to learn parts of

the languages. Not a 100% crash course, but a begin-

ning that she will continue.

Michael: About the language question again -

language is a difficult thing, but people on-line try to

help each other.

Junko: So to speak, the Net motivated her to

start learning different languages, right?

Junko: If you start living in the Net, you notice

that a different style of life exists.

Michael: In different newsgroups you will see

people posting in languages other than English, and

sometimes others translate or the original poster

posts a translation.

Darren: I think we are netizens.

Darren: On our lists we try to solve problems of

language, control, and access

Michael: I am interested in hearing other peo-

ple’s thoughts about how to deal with the language

difficulties too.

Michael: The connection between Netizen and

the language question is that Netizen is global and

thus there is not the tie to the local language and

there is consideration of others in other places.

Rich: Some participants have suggested ma-

chine translation. Do you think that will be an option

in the near future?

Junko: Are those translation done on voluntary

basis?

Michael: How are you trying to solve these

problems or what has been talked about so far about

Page 7

Language, control and access?

Darren: My sister found some web sites on

electronic translators.

Michael: Junko, yes these messages are trans-

lated on a voluntary basis.

Darren: The group was divided – half for uni-

versal lang. – half for trans.

Michael: Automation of translation is a good

thing to explore. I do not know how good they are

now though. If however they are like interactive spell-

checkers...

Darren: We were also divided on the issues of

control – governmental or commercial/free market

Michael: and if the person using these automated

translation is also a student of the language, then it

can be an interactive speller where the user can see

about the translation

Michael: The question of commercial vs govern-

ment access is important. It is a very live question this

moment in the USA. It is one of the topics that I try to

cover with a co-author in a book that is online called

the Netizens netbook. The URL is http://www. co-

lumbia.edu/~hauben/ netbook/

Richard: The European participants seem to

favor government regulation.

Michael: The history of the Net is important to

examine to understand how “Netizenship” or a

cooperative community is possible.

Michael: It is possible to make voluntary contri-

butions to a larger group, if the person involved does

not expect something to be given to him or her

because that person paid for access.

Rich: How do you instill that sense of “self-

lessness” that’s required to expand the net?

Michael: Once access becomes “a service” as

provided by the market, there is little incentive to

create original material or make a contribution.

Rather the service model builds expectations of re-

ceiving something from others. This is different then

a Netizen.

Michael: The Net should be like a utility - akin

to postal/telephone/water not a commercial process.

Richard: So it sounds like you favor govt.

regulation to a certain extent.

Darren: Our Think Quest project requires that

we create new information, not just links

Michael: Rich - that is a good question. The

“selflessness” grew out of the fact that technology

required cooperation and helping each other to

succeed - for people to develop and further com-

puting technologies; like UNIX, timesharing, etc.

Darren: I have seen people share URLs, infor-

mation, advice on the ‘Net’

Michael: The public access (in the USA) of the

ARPAnet and Internet came with a public obligation

of research and sharing in science and other aspects.

There was the government partnership with acade-

mia.

Rich: Do you think the current trend of net com-

mercialization will decrease or get “worse?”

Rich: And do you see any benefits to the com-

mercialization of the net?

Michael: It is not that I necessarily favor regu-

lation. It is that it is important to have equal access

available and provided by government. The “market”

would not make the Internet available in areas where

it could not make a profit. Well the Net would lose

if all potential contributors were not able to partic-

ipate. Regulation does not mean censorship, even if

it is sometimes described as such. Rather regulation

means putting the public interest over the commer-

cial or private interest. The Net is a shared commons,

which means it is important to make it available to

the many, and not grabable by the few.

Richard: The Rand Organization just completed

a study on universal E-mail access. I ordered it

through their web at www.rand.org. It’s $20. There’s

a brief overview available for free.

Page 8

Michael: Sheila, and others - do you have any

thoughts about Netizenship or commercialization or

government supported access?

Rich: ...and I just figured out the trick to using

web chat is to write your message in a text editor and

paste it into the web browser instead of trying to play

“beat the clock.”

Michael: Commercialization - is the old way

trying to take the new way and use it for the old.

CompuServe is an example - which is not the Internet

or Usenet. It is important to struggle to keep this

public channel open for the whole public to use. This

would be through non-commercial development.

Richard: I posed the commercialization question

to the lists and no one seemed to think it was a bad

thing. The education group favors companies spon-

soring online educational projects in return for adver-

tising space.

Darren: I think that we will be Netizens

Michael: There have been previous commun-

ications channels that had potential to give a voice to

the many - which were taken over by commercial

interests trying to make money - and to some extent

certain governments do or do not allow this. (Exam-

ples of TV, radio, etc)

Darren: And I think the government should

provide access

Michael: Rich - that is what I am doing. :) (text

editor)

Richard: Do you think it would be possible in

any way for businesses or governments to actually

“take over” the Net? (This is an open question to all

you quiet folks too.)

Michael: Advertising will (and is) polluting the

online world Those with money will quickly take over

the spaces that those without would not be able to.

And those thinking of money are not thinking about

a global cooperative community - they are thinking

about themselves.

Junko: I’ll be really upset if commercial

(ization) take(s) over the Net! It should not happen.

Michael: There is a battle over the soul of the

Net. However, this medium (as opposed to TV, etc)

allows people to organize on-line and to come to

grips that there are others who feel the same way. If

you look to Usenet groups, mailing lists, web pages,

etc - you can see people organizing and trying to

understand how to join together to struggle for what

they feel is right.

Michael: The question is to figure out how to

contribute in this battle. I am sorry, but I need to sign

off now. However, I hope I was able to contribute to

help people to join in these discussions and trying to

figure out what role governments, people and comp-

anies and other organizations should be playing.

Darren: Maybe our peace game can deal with

control of the net instead

Junko: Thanks a lot, Michael.

Richard: Michael, I really appreciate you

showing up today. Thank you for coming.

Junko: You contributed a lot for us today!

Michael: By the way - my E-mail address if

anyone is interested in talking more is hauben@

columbia.edu

Darren: Bye Michael! Thank you!

Michael: Thank you. It was interesting to hear

some of what the Jr Summit participants are discuss-

ing.

Michael: Bye Bye. :-)

Darren: Bye everyone!

Page 9

[Editor’s Note: It is an important question to figure

out what has happened with our online world - for

those of us who were here at least 10 years ago. We

thank Steve Hoff for the following submission on this

question. Interestingly, TCP/IP development actually

began about 30 years ago, in 1973. So both the

Internet and the netizen are still quite young. It has

been a hard period of growing.]

What It Means To Be

A Netizen In 2002

by Steve Hoff

[email protected]

Date: Thu, 12 Sep 2002 12:48:49 -0500

To Whom It May Concern,

The early adapters of the technology we call the

“net” were, more often than not, the renegades. The

geeks, freaks, prophets and pharisees. Those unafraid

of new untested waters, as long as it was in the pri-

vacy of their own homes. The net was an adventure,

all at once vast and scary, yet safe and personal. We

harnessed our saddles onto an electron’s back and

zoomed across the globe. Each click of the mouse,

held possibilities never before dreamed. Suddenly the

world was at our doorsteps and we at theirs. We typed

and chatted, discussed and cussed. Sometimes we

agreed, more often not. We snickered and scoffed at

the strangeness we found so far away and reflected

upon the strangeness, not so far away. Crackpots,

kooks, fanatics and freaks... every last one of them,

the nine o’clock news dutifully warned us, repeatedly.

We listened, repeatedly, like teenagers to their par-

ents. Usenet was king, Microsoft a rebel and IBM a

has been. Spam was packaged meat and I preferred

my cookies with milk thank you. Our biggest discus-

sions? Frames or no frames, reply with the whole text

or only quote the relevant, pictures or text and the

evils of bandwidth waste.

We accelerated our understanding of the world

around us and shortened the distances between us. To

be a netizen meant to take personal responsibility for

your actions and guide the “newbies” when they

floundered, just like we had. It meant to share what

you had found and to doubt what was shared. Though

we had heard of Michelangelo and understood the

concept of a firewall, we never really bothered to use

one. Everyone knew the only way to get a virus was

by trading floppies. DOOM came on seven of them

you know. Duke Nuk`em on fifteen. It took me three

weeks to write my auto dialer/uploaded script. My

BBS allowed for a five to one upload ratio, but it

worked ( I think ). Much easier to upload when I

slept than pay the twenty dollars per ten hours of net

time they charged. Thank God I had found a cheap

service.

There aren’t any “newbies” left to guide. I sort

of miss them. I try to avoid sites that are across the

globe, or rather I try to remain hidden from them.

The crackpots, kooks, fanatics and freaks have left

the net for the most part. A friend in Idaho told me

they all went to Washington. Usenet is still king, but

no one talks there anymore. IBM is a rebel and

Microsoft... well, they’re just evil. Frames or no

frames, Flash or HTML, reply to be removed? ( even

though we know not to reply ). I still hate Spam, all

kinds and I don’t do cookies, any kind. Bandwidth?

In the ten years past the world has grown small-

er still, yet strangely more distant. The net is less

personal, but more invasive. The wires I plug into

my hyper-tweaked machines twice as thick, the

connection one-hundred times faster, and the con-

tent... well, I seem to have lost it under a pop-up.

Amazingly, violent games are still causing us all to

degrade into an army of slathering zombies with

assault rifles, though I fear our freedom to corrupt

ourselves with these games may not last much lon-

ger. It took me three weeks to write my firewall

script. Much easier to block all traffic than to let in

worms and crackers. My firewall is secure ( I think),

and my system is free of viruses ( I think ). I could

be prosecuted if I unknowingly transmit a vicious

worm. Thank God I found Linux.

Through all of our understanding we have

gained, we haven’t really grown that much. I don’t

cuss and discuss with exotic people, they are all too

busy reading books. The net isn’t anonymous any-

more, but the nine o’clock news doesn’t tell us. I

don’t think we would listen to them anyway. Our

next machines will protect our “digital rights” (my

friend in Idaho was right I think), and bring us closer

together. Cell blocks are 8 x 10 right?

We have come a great distance in those ten

years, some would say not far enough, other’s too

far.

Page 10

Letter to the Editor

From: Jay Machado <jay[email protected]>

Subject: please subscribe me...

... to the Amateur Computerist.

I was the editor of an e-zine back in the mid 90's

called Bits and Bytes Online Edition: The Electronic

Newsletter for Information Hunter-Gatherers. Back

issues are here: http://radio.weblogs.com/0104156/

stories/2002/07/31/bitsAndBytes.html. I was inter-

ested (still am) in the convergence between technol-

ogy and society. Got a little bit of attention; I was in

the first edition or 2 of the Internet Yellow Pages, a

piece mistakenly attributed to me was published in a

book called “Internet Dreams”, I got a couple of job

offers, briefly worked with Christopher “Rageboy”

Locke on a website for Internet World, blah blah blah.

Time passed, and here we are. I will be reading your

back issues over the weekend. Looks interesting

though. These are critical times for preserving the

freedoms we dream of enjoying on the net, when the

net grows up. It’s actually looking pretty bleak to me,

but we will do what we can to keep the net fast,

cheap, and out of control.

Jay Machado

this particular weblog:

http://radio.weblogs.com/ 0104156

Why Old Mores Are Not

Relevant to Internet

Poetry Forums

by Peter Richards

[email protected]

You think that I got here by backing down?

You think you’ll find your voice by saving face?

We have no voices and there is no place

or volume, here the listeners can drown

one input by selecting other sounds.

So by whose standards do we kneel, who says?

A busted maestro in a leaded case;

a jester buckling beneath a laurel crown.

I hate diplomacy. It creeps along

the veins of peace engendering mistrust

and fear of words, a province of the old

world. With pioneering courage, may the bold

young bard’s blade not be blooded yet, nor thrust,

but held out, open, to be run upon.

The E-Drum

by Niama Leslie Williams

[email protected]

I really don’t want to write this ode. Cause the

brotha came to town and didn’t like my s***. Men-

tioned me in his report, the element of his list serv I

most look forward to, but misspelled my name and

grouped me in with a bunch of other spoken worders

who he said were “[not] as bad as many I have heard

at open mikes, and at the same time there was no one

who really, really knocked me out.”

So by all rights I should be in Louisiana with my

never been South ass lookin’ fo’ him. To do some

damage. And I admit; it took some emotional doings

for me to get back to readin him. Emotional doings.

But like that step fellowship I belong to, I never

really left.

Cause see, he done done what no other force on

this planet has been able to do. Let me talk to you for

a moment about the L.A. Times. My parents only

knew daily and Sunday. Wasn’t nothin else happenin

in my house. After my daddy left, the habit still con-

tinue. We all three readers, my brothers and I, cause

every time we looked at our parents there nose was

stuck in a newspaper, a book, or a magazine.

There was also the element of escape. I mean,

incest, divorce, physical abuse; that a lot of s*** to

deal with on any average day. I dealt by doing what

my parents had done; picking up a book. And so

words have meant salvation to me. When I started

dealing them, gathering them up, tossing them,

shelling them out for sometimes money, it was no

little thing I was doing. This was tradition, heritage;

hell, my mother one of the few people got Bernie

Casey’s book of poems in her library, and all three of

us read it.

Look at the People; I never forgot the title or the

cover. I still prefer the cover of a hardback to a

computer printout; there’s just something so tactile,

so permanent, about a book. But this man, this man’

Page 11

list serv has gently seduced me into putting down the

newspaper. At a pivotal time. A time when we cannot

count on traditional news outlets to give us the real

story.

I don’t find Yasser Arafat’s words on why he will

not cease the Palestinian struggle in the L. A. Times.

I do not find Michael Moore’s delightful and terribly

sarcastic essay on whiteness there. I did not read the

Afghani woman’s essay, sharply on the heels of 9/11,

in its pages. I read all of the above on my screen. On

e-drum. For free. www.topica.com /lists /e-drum. I am

put in the midst of a jivin’ discussion between Kevin

Powell and Charlie Braxton, me, the budding Black

Studies scholar, by Kalamu, the humble, quiet,

stealthy perpetrator of neo-griot. I understand griot,

even neo-griot, as literary terms. What Kalamu does

with them via his traveling computer and portable

theory on new media mystifies me. I know that he

speaks to the young, puts the tools, the power, the

idea of expression, the idea of access to the tools of

expression, the responsibility of recording expression,

in their hands, cooks it into their brains. I think he has

cooked mine also. Because I was a woman of the

page.

Only now do I look back on my life and under-

stand that if not for the funny papers and the tv guide,

I would have no subscription to the newspaper. Those

are the only two things that keep my hand in. I have

gone from a heritage of daily and Sunday to Sunday

only, and saving about four sections of that Sunday

only, none of them the front page.

I have seven five-shelf bookshelves in my house,

each packed to the gills with books. Books are the

first thing anyone who enters my sanctum sanctorum

notices. I want to someday have tomes with my own

name on the spine.

But I have relinquished print for something else.

I spurn four, five, six and eleven for this strange new

creature I do not fully understand. It brings me Mardi

gras and festival in Brazil from the lips of a barely

twenty-something. It brings me calls for submissions

that Poets and Writers would never think to run. It

brings me the pulse beat of life from places I cannot

yet afford to visit, connects me to writers and outlets

that even if I had a check to write, I could not afford

the multiple subscriptions.

All of this for free. This e-drum, this place, is a

powerful tool because it has helped me turn my back

on a media that has been co-opted, that does not tell

the Blackman’s truth, or the Latino’s or the Asian’s.

Or the Afghani’s for that matter. It gives me some-

thing the corporate media, for that is what they have

become, no longer seems to understand: balance,

balanced reporting. I see, when I check it once a

week, 100 to 150 messages at a time, my own

perspective reflected back through someone else’s

pen.

This is no small thing, this turning away from

Channel 7, the one station we always looked forward

to growing up as children because it came in the

clearest. This turning away from my hometown

paper. No more will I scan its pages with love,

reminiscing about Hipshot Percussion, Gal Friday,

Bert’s Beanerie. I will hand down to my children

printouts, and the occasional clipping of Boondocks,

the only strip that now brings a smile when I flip to

the funny pages.

We are in an interesting time, a time of a closing

of the borders. They have not erected steel and

fencing, but they have corralled those suspected of

murder and they commit civil injustices against

them. We live in perceived freedom. One day, some

day soon, they will come for us. We need to sound

the drum, the e-drum. It is the only thing that can get

into all of our houses, the only thing that can cross

all of our screens, one of the few things that is still

free.

Close the comic book. Discontinue the Wall

Street Journal. Turn to your screen; fight to keep it

free; beat the tightened skin. The e-drum is all we

have left.

Letter from the Poet

Dear Editor,

What a pleasure to receive your email welcom-

ing my work and including the wise and powerful

words of Floyd Hoke-Miller! Floyd sounds indeed

like someone I would have loved to have met. Thank

you for responding so heartily and caringly. I will try

to squeeze into an already packed schedule exam-

ining some back issues of The Amateur Computerist,

but if the amount of time it took to respond to your

e-mail is any indication, it may be Spring before I

actually get to do so!!! :) Be well.

Sincerely,

Niama Williams

Page 12

Books Have Their Own Fate

In Memoriam of Dr. Akos R. Herman

by John Horvath

In late February 2002, Dr. Akos R. Herman,

formerly the director of the National Technical

Information Centre and Library in Budapest

(OMIKK), died from cancer. Like so many needless

and premature deaths in this tiny Central European

country, his case had been diagnosed as less severe

than it actually was.

Yet the importance of Dr. Herman’s untimely

death was not as another shameful statistic of a

country that has medical care and life expectancy

comparable to the advanced countries of the Third

World. Rather, he was yet another example of a

legion of unknown pioneers who describe themselves

as a citizen of the Internet, or to use the late Michael

Hauben’s term, a “netizen”, that is, a net citizen.

Unlike most hailed as pioneers of the “information

society”, Akos Herman wasn’t a celebrity figure like

Jon Postel, Tim Berners-Lee, or Richard Stallman.

Nor was his contribution of a technical nature. Yet his

work was equally as important.

The OMIKK was a library that served the entire

Hungarian community and was traditionally in the

forefront of progress. A state owned institution found-

ed in 1883, it was open to people and organizations,

including small and medium sized enterprises, both as

a special interest institution and as a public library in

the fields of science, technology and economy. The

OMIKK was one of the biggest of its kind in Hun-

gary, with a holding of one million and a half books,

serials and other documents.

During the Cold War years, the OMIKK was the

first public — and for a long time the only — institu-

tion of its kind in the whole of the Eastern Bloc which

had subscriptions to western science and technology

databases. It had the biggest collection of CD-ROM

databases (more than one hundred) and the most

subscriptions to journals — including electronic ones

— in Hungary (more than six thousand).

Unfortunately, like all public institutions around

the world — especially since the fall of communism

and the advent of “freedom and democracy” — the

library soon came face to face with a funding crisis.

As Dr. Herman himself noted, “one element of the

library crisis in the whole world is that in the best

cases, budgets are flat while there is the more or less

exponentially growing number of publications, the

inflation in prices making an ever growing tension.

So we had a money shortage for acquisition.”

This crisis permeated all public institutions,

affecting even the very core of the emerging “infor-

mation society” in Hungary. The Hungarian Com-

puter and Automation Research Institute (SZTAKI),

which was in control of the information backbone

within the country, had to come up with innovative

ideas and practices just to survive. It was not an easy

task.

Despite this uphill battle, Dr. Herman did his

best to keep the OMIKK alive. In doing so, he forged

a relationship that attempted to integrate “eastern”

and “western” thought on the role of computer

mediated communications. In May of 1999, after

searching for information on the renown Hungarian

mathematician John G. Kemeny, he found the book

“Netizens and the Wonderful World of the Net” that

had been put on-line in 1994, as well as an article by

Ronda Hauben that mentioned Kemeny but only

briefly. He subsequently wrote to her about how not

enough attention was properly given to the work of

Kemeny. She then forwarded this e-mail to her

husband, Jay Hauben, who had written a biography

of Kemeny when he had died in 1990. He promptly

answered Herman with a copy of the biography. This

exchange led to a lasting personal and professional

relationship between the Haubens and Herman that

helped open the door on research into the develop-

ment of science and technology during the Cold War

era.

Dr. Herman was a pivotal figure of sorts in this

area. He studied engineering (the metallurgy of non

ferrous metals) in Moscow during the mid 1950s,

when science and technology became a focal point in

policy on both sides of the Iron Curtain. When asked

why he thought there was such public support for

science, he said that people so hated war that they

wanted to support whatever gave a chance of helping

to prevent one from happening.

Akos Herman also proved to be a wealth of

information on numerous Hungarian scientists. In

particular he emphasised the work of Kemeny, better

known as the co-inventor of the computer language

BASIC and of DTSS, a person he felt deserved more

attention.

When Ronda and Jay Hauben went to Budapest

and met Akos Herman in 1999, she gave him a hard

copy edition of her book on Netizens. For many, it’s

still hard to understand how, even in this day and

Page 13

age, books that deal with science and technology are

somewhat of a rarity. During the communist era it

was a question of political correctness; in the present

era of neo-liberalism, it’s a question of price. As Dr.

Herman related, “although it [the Netizens book] will

be a very useful book for our readers, we will not buy

it. I had an exemplar dedicated personally to me. I

was afraid that not any other Hungarian library will

have this book. I decided one year ago, grudgingly, to

give my copy to the library.”

Concerning his views on the development of the

Internet, Herman agrees with Hauben that the ARPA-

net and the so called poor man’s ARPAnet were very

early phases of the “Internet revolution”. However, he

credits the work that went on at MIT and Dartmouth

with the first time-sharing systems as the true begin-

ning of the Internet, not to mention the work of Baran

at the Rand corporation.

As for his views on the concept of netizens,

Herman pointed out that there is a long list of names

of people who contributed to this concept. Among

them are the ideas of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, the

Jesuit philosopher who published nearly half a cen-

tury ago in “The Vision of the Past” (Harper & Row,

New York, 1966), where he mentions the “noo-

sphere”, i.e. the man made sphere on the globe. Then

there is the Hungarian biologist Vilmos Csßnyi and

his work “Evolution Systems and Society: A General

Theory of Life, Mind, and Culture” (General Evolu-

tion Research Group, Duke University Press, Dur-

ham, NC, 1989), which concludes with the

autogenesis of a global system based on new technol-

ogy. And finally there is the late Michael Hauben who

first coined the word “netizen”, who made a signifi-

cant contribution to exploring the technical and social

roots and aspects of the Internet. In many ways, the

year 2001 marked a troubling time for the concept of

netizens. Most notably, the September 11th terrorist

attacks in the U.S. led to a severe crackdown in

human rights and gave the green light to law enforce-

ment authorities around the world to monitor and

even curtail computer mediated communications. This

has been a severe blow to the free flow of – and

access to – information, which lies at the heart of the

netizen concept, one in which it’s believed that the

top-down model of information distribution would be

transcended, thus making it harder for governments to

manipulate public opinion.

Yet even prior to this, two events happened in

late June in separate parts of the world which likewise

had a devastating effect, each in their own different

way. In Budapest, the OMIKK succumbed to its fate.

The Secretary of State for Education decided to put

an end to the over hundred year history of the li-

brary. Against the will of many thousands of users,

on June 30th the holdings of the OMIKK were

transferred to the Budapest Technical University. In

effect, this move has made it more difficult for the

general public to gain access to the wealth of infor-

mation that was at the OMIKK. Meanwhile, in New

York City, Michael Hauben died tragically.

“Habent sua fata libelli”, a Latin phrase quoted

in an obituary of Michael Hauben, had a double

meaning for Herman. “The books have their own

fate” refers to how a work can live through the

centuries and still, in the end, find its reader. Yet in

this instance, it not only refers to the work, but also

to the author.

In the end, yet another meaning was added to

this Latin axiom: that of the reader. The book he

dedicated to the library was read over by him and

initially left at the distant left corner on his writing

table. He thought that it would be a good beginning

for a new period of his life. Indeed, he shared with

his friends a long list of projects he was hoping to do

now that he was retired. Habent sua fata libelli.

[Editor’s Note: The following review of Netizens

appeared in Studies in Informatics and Control

Journal (SIC) December 1998 Volume 7 Number 4

(Bucharest). It is at their website at the URL:

http://www.ici.ro/ici/revista/sic98_4/index.html.

We found it recently and feel it recognizes the

connection between Netizens and cybernetics.]

Review of

NETIZENS: On the History

and Impact Of Usenet

and the Internet

by Boldur Barbat

Michael Hauben and Ronda Hauben

IEEE Computer Society Press, Los Alamitos, 1997,

XVI p. + 346 p.

ISBN 0-8186-7706-6

Page 14

The book aims at presenting the development and

significance of the participatory global computer

network evolving into “an ambitious look at the social

aspects of computer networking. It examines the

present and the turbulent future, and especially it

explores the technical and social roots of the Net”.

The readership aimed at, is comprised not only of

those who are already Netizens but - maybe notably

- of those who strive towards getting this status,

within the perspective of passing from the latter

condition to the former. So, before moving forward,

let us see where such a gratifying title comes from -

according to Michael Hauben: “My research demon-

strated that there were people active as members of

the network, which the words net citizen do not

precisely represent. The word citizen suggests a geo-

graphic or national definition of social membership.

The word Netizen reflects the non-geographically

based social membership. So I contracted net.citizen

to Netizen.” Anyhow, the book makes it evident that

the word - as well as its denotation and ramifications

- are here to stay.

The volume is divided into four Parts; each part

comprises between three and six Chapters ordinarily

consisting of articles written over a four-year period

(1993-1996) and set up to be read individually.

The first Part, The Present: What Has Been

Created and How, has four Chapters providing an

introduction to the net world: the effect it has on

peoples lives (now, after the moment when the critical

mass of people and interests has been reached),

Usenet (its evolution and goal as “poor mans

ARPAnet”), the social forces behind its development,

and the description of the Usenet (including the

conceivable antithetical features of structure anarchy

and the system of rules known as “Netiquette”),

emphasising the advantages of this new world as well

as the possibility of a “more democratic government”.

The second Part, The Past: Where Has It All

Come From, is the largest one, being composed of six

chapters, and starts with the “vision of interactive

computing and the future” originated by Licklider and

proceeds on describing the foundations of the cyber-

netic revolution, time sharing, man-computer symbio-

sis and their implications. Chapter 7 looks “behind the

Net”, introducing “the untold story of the ARPAnet

and computer science” highlighting the new way of

viewing the computer: a communication device rather

than (only) an arithmetic one, whereas the next

Chapter is a comprehensive narrative of the birth and

development of the ARPAnet. The last two Chapters

bring into focus the early history and impact of Unix,

and the roots of the “co-operative online culture”,

respectively. In one of its Appendices are listed two

Newsgroups appearing in Usenet in 1982.

The third Part, And the Future?, comprises five

Chapters. In Chapter 11, the National Telecom-

munications Information Administration virtual con-

ference on the future of the Net (held in November

1994) is described as a very significant event, at-

tempting to create a prototype for a democratic

decision-making process. The next Chapter, with the

inciting title “Imminent Death of the Net Predicted!”

- a phrase often used in the past, by Usenet pioneers,

when problems seemed insurmountable - explains

the new problems ensued by the envisaged changes

in the nature, ownership, and oversight of the Net,

defending the principles that place its development

into the hands of the public, educational, and scien-

tific sectors of society (i.e. considering the privatisat-

ion harmful). Chapter 13 investigates the effect of

the Net on the professional news media, under the

metaphor of “Will this kill that?”; its conclusion is

rather optimistic: the user masses becoming “netizen

reporters” will force the acknowledged news media

- to avoid being increasingly marginalized - to

evolve a new role, challenging the premise that

authoritative professional reporters (almost always

biased, consciously or not) are the only possible

ones. Chapter 14 scrutinises the effect of the Net

upon the future of politics, forecasting the “ascen-

dancy of the Commons” by reason of the new tech-

nologies presenting “the chance to overcome the

obstacles preventing the implementation of direct

democracy”. The last Chapter of this part departing

from the changes on a world scale, explores the New

York City’s online community, showing a snapshot

of “nyc.general”, and concluding that, in spite of

being problems online, the advantages are “more

important and outweigh the disadvantages”.

The fourth Part, Contributions Toward Develop-

ing a Theoretical Framework, consists of three

Chapters. Two of them address characteristic areas:

“The Expanding Commonwealth of Learning” and

“‘Arte’: An Economic Perspective”, respectively. As

regards the first issue, “making a contribution is an

integral part of Netizen behavior” and “both the

printing revolution and the Net revolution have been

a catalyst for increased intellectual activity”. With

respect to the second question, after accentuating the

Page 15

role of “Arte” in the production of social wealth, the

authors defend Humes observation that “arte” leads to

intellectual ferment, and, in turn, this ferment “is the

needed support for the development of technology”.

The last Chapter merges the consequences of the

former ones into a whole, synthesising them in its title

- perhaps the bannerol of the entire book: “The

Computer as a Democratizer”, one main idea being

that the “step toward universally available and afford-

able access” and “uncensored accessible press”

demonstrate that “it is now possible to meet more of

Mills requirements for democracy”.

At the end, before the substantial and numerous

references, the Glossary of Acronyms is, particularly

for readers outside the American cultural milieu, an

invaluable asset.

Maybe, this condensed passing through the

content can give you an idea about this book, but it

could be inconclusive, because the mesmerizing force

is originated by - or, better, in - the multitude of

quotations from known, and mostly unknown, “co-

authors”, the conventional ones remaining in the

background, as unpretentious editors, devoting them-

selves to the chore of task-building. Consequently,

“Netizens” becomes rather an aggregate of articles,

than an orchestrated ensemble with its unbroken

composition and, in turn, the articles become a kind

of syncretic and chaotical, but very enthusiastic and,

first of all, very fertile opinion pool. Though, the

whole might be seen in the optimistic view of the Net,

as well as the cyberspace it embodies, as a

“meritocratic” environment; the book suggests us a

micro-snapshot of such an ambience. The feeling -

intended or not - is that the book has been written by

Netizens for themselves, as an entreaty, a summons to

all readers - whatever and where ever they are - to

join them in the extraordinary world they live in.

Thus, the book employs, at its much smaller scale, the

“large-scale customization” made workable by the

Internet it fights for. By the way, have you seen many

books with Foreword, Preface and Introduction? Yes,

the book is full of redundancy and heterogeneity - just

like the Net, just like life itself (fortunately, some of

the redundancies are quite pleasant, covering most

crucial historical moments of the marvelous phe-

nomenon they depict). Reading it, you will find a very

rich authentication, a host of peoples with a lot of

ideas, comments, proposals and - sometimes - dis-

pleasure, rising their voices; you will discover rather

the atmosphere of a “multimodal chat” than that of a

conference with invited papers. So, if you imagined

that you could learn from this book about network

programming, forget it. Yes, the Internet is in there,

but as an actor - in all interpretations of this

polysemantic word - not as a computerised tomo-

graphy. Thus, paradoxically, the book is net-centred

because it is human-centred, or, pure and simple,

human.

If you read it again - it is in no way a chore - and

all seems all right, nothing is amazing or frightening,

then you are prepared for full Netizenship (of course,

you need a computer, too!). Moreover, from the

wording as well as from some rare photographs, you

may scent the flavour of old battles (with legendary

heroes like Wiener, Shannon, McCarthy, Licklider,

Thompson, Ritchie ...), fought for forwarding not

only the Net, but the Computer Science itself. Such

a flavour acts in the age of Netizens as a catalyst for

the Information Technology. Thus, the book can be

seen - and used - as a kind of second-degree catalyst:

the written catalyst for the living one...

Letter to the Editor

From: Tetsuro KATO <[email protected]>

Subject: Re: global netizen college and link to

netizens book?

The name of my homepage “Global Netizen

College” comes from netizen of course. My Japanese

page is a bit famous personal academic site. “Netizen

College” (over 400,000 hits). In Japan, we use the

word “netizen = network citizen” very popularly,

thus I named my site “Netizen College”. I of course

know the history of the word and Prof. Kumon’s

book.

If you can understand Japanese language, please

search the word “Netizen” in Google. You will find

5,410 sites which uses the word Netizen. Of course

I am proud of the fact that my site is the number one

site of those “netizen” sites in Japan. (You will of

course find 82,600 “netizen” sites in English

Google.)

Yours,

Prof. Tetsuro KATO

Hitotsubashi University, Tokyo, Japan

Page 16

Netizens Then and Now

Introduction

This year marks the 10 year anniversary of the

introduction online of Michael Hauben’s article “The

Net and the Netizen”. In honor of this anniversary it

seems appropriate to look at how this concept has

inspired, described or promoted netizenship around

the world in the intervening years.

Search engines turn up almost 100,000 instances

of the use of Netizens. Individual searches combining

different countries and “netizens” such as “Netizens

India” or “Netizens Korea”, turn up a large number of

hits in each individual country. I want to consider but

a few of the examples I found.

Examples

1) A paper written by Jane Long and Matthew

Allen titled “Hacking the Undernet” (The Australian

Journal of Communication, vol 28 (3) 2001, pp

37-54) describes the process of privatization of the

Internet as one of invading it. They examine the

concept of an online community. They recognize that

the networking architecture, which sets a foundation

for the global commons is often hidden from most

researchers who focus only on the online conversa-

tion. Long and Allen object to this limiting and

characterize it as a “narrowing” of the meaning and

character of the concept of community. They write:

The narrowing of meaning and association

of the term ‘community’ was also influenced

by a concurrent thread in Internet research

concerning Usenet newsgroups. As with

initial forays into Irc research, earlier

ground-breaking research (principally by

Hauben & Hauben, 1997) into Usenet had

identified the totality of newsgroup users as

a form of community, ‘a world town meet-

ing’ or ‘the Wonderful World of Usenet

News’. The Haubens also, however, empha-

sized the technical architectures through

which the overall Usenet system was main-

tained.

Long and Allen point to other notions of commu-

nity that narrow the concept to those on a single

newsgroup, or those who use the Internet to support

relationships among people which already exist. In

this context they critique the notion of the Internet as

a frontier with settlers. They write:

Many problems have been identified with

the individualist, libertarian, and colonising

ideologies inherent in the frontier myth

(Barbrook & Cameron, 1995; see also

Werry, 1999). An additional concern, not

normally considered, is that describing

cyberspace as a frontier ‘presumes’ the

existence of the space into which commu-

nity developers and settlers, such as

Howard Rheingold, John Perry Barlow,

Esther Dyson, George Gilder, and the mul-

titude of anonymous others, were to move.

However, these self-styled settlers were

preceded by another community, or set of

interlinked communities, comprising the

engineers and scientists, hackers and cod-

ers, system administrators (‘sysadmins’)

and operators who – effectively – created

the virtual terrain later labeled ‘the fron-

tier’. Some who utilise the frontier mythol-

ogy regard these creators as the ‘natives’ to

be colonised or even driven off the frontier

(Werry, 1999), but within the metaphor,

that still leaves open (or, rather, hidden) the

identity of those who created the cyber-

frontier in the first place.

2) An article in a South Korean newspaper

(Digital Chosunilbo - English Edition) on March 3,

2003 documented how the Internet was making it

possible for people to act as netizens. The Korean

president made a decision to support the U.S. war

effort in Iraq. The newspaper article reports that this

decision “has stirred up a flurry of disputes among

the segments of society.”

The article then describes the role of the Internet

in this dispute:

Much of the dispute is playing out on the

Internet, where tempers flared after Presi-

dent Roh’s televised address on Thursday.

A netizen with the ID of ‘small practice’

wrote on the Web site Jinbonuri that ‘Presi-

dent Roh violated the constitution by decid-

ing to dispatch our troops to Iraq.’ He

created a petition, to which 150 people

quickly added their names.

The article continued quoting from another web

site:

The Cheong Wa Dae Web site was swarm-

ing with thousands of posts and e-mails

criticizing the president’s decision. One

Page 17

netizen said that the president had betrayed

his people.... But other voices supported

Roh. A netizen with the ID ‘people’ wrote

that ‘The war is abhorrent, but as an ally of

the U.S., we must not forget that 30,000

American soldiers are in Korea to secure our

nation’.

The article in a very small way documented

online discussion among Internet users in South

Korea to discuss whether a policy of their government

was in the interests of the South Korean people.

The article only gave a few of the posts. The

posts themselves, however, are an important process

that shows that governments are not the same as the

people of a country. Though the Internet now makes

it possible for governments to hear the views of their

citizens on important policy questions, most govern-

ments do not recognize the importance of these

voices. In general, they don’t try to hear from the

people of the country before undertaking actions that

they claim are in the best interests of their citizens.

The Internet and netizens are changing this

terrain, however. It is now possible for governments

to support the creation of online processes where they

can hear from their citizens and from netizens around

the world about the national and international re-

sponse to their plans. That is a more dynamic process

than depending on the voices of a few to determine

the decisions that will affect the many.

3) Another article explored the importance of the

concept of netizen for the people of China. The paper

by Jack Linchuan Qiu, about the Internet and its role

in China, describes a similar democratic vision for the

role of the Netizen in Chinese society. In his article,

“Virtual Censorship in China: Keeping the Gate

Between Cyberspaces” (International Journal of

Communication Law and Policy – issue 4, Winter

1999/2000), Qiu writes:

The Internet, as the means of online political

communication (OPC), is not only a stimu-

lant of cross-border interactions but also a

tranquilizer of academic debates.... Some

hold that advanced technology tends to

democratization, while others contend it

leads to demoralization.... Today’s new

medium is the Internet. It sets the academic

agenda with its interactivity, global accessi-

bility, infinite channel capacity and other

pro-democracy properties. It engulfs the

critics of technology, whose voice nearly

disappears.... (pg 1)

Qiu recognizes that the Internet is a platform for

many different activities. He defines netizens,

however, as those who utilize the Internet for online

political communication. He writes:

Politics and ideological content is usually

outnumbered by discussions about technol-

ogy, economy, entertainment, sports and

other topics. In this sense, only a small

portion of China’s 4 million Internet users

can be called “netizens”, defined as those

who engage in OPC. (pg 9-10)

Qiu observes that there are netizens from within

and outside of China who interact. He writes:

A special group of netizens is the external

users, who enter China’s virtual territory

from the outside, playing a key role in

linking China’s cyberspace with the global

computer network. Most of them surf do-

mestic websites and exchange information

with others as ordinary users. (pg 10)

Among these users he reports that “some di-

rectly oppose the rule of the Chinese authorities

distributing e-mails with overt anti-ccp content.”

The Chinese government web sites, Qiu reports,

are not influential, One reason he proposes is that

they “lack interactivity.” He writes:

The websites are designed to facilitate

one-way indoctrination instead of OPC

interactions. Seldom do they reflect nonof-

ficial opinions except when they are

hacked. (pg 10)

Discussing the advantages of technical back-

ground for Chinese users who want to engage in

online political communication, Qiu writes, “Tech-

nical detours bypassing regulatory obstacles are also

possible in the case of the user who has more com-

puter literacy.” (pg 18) And he reports that most

Chinese netizens use pseudonyms to protect them-

selves from penalties for expressing their views. (pg

16)

His article raises the question of whether the

Chinese netizens will prevail in their challenge to

virtual censorship in China. “It remains uncertain,”

Qiu writes, “whether virtual censorship in China will

become more menacing or they will collapse some-

day leaving online political communication free at

last among the Chinese netizens.” (pg 20) The URL

for the journal’s website is http://www.ijclp.org/.

4) Looking for a definition of netizens, the

Page 18

online Miriam Webster dictionary defines a netizen as

“an active participant in the online community of the

Internet.”

5) The Tech Target, “What Is” website, goes

further offering two similar meanings for “netizen”.

1. A citizen who uses the Internet as a way

of participating in political society (for

example, exchanging views, providing infor-

mation, and voting).

2. An Internet user who is trying to contrib-

ute to the Internet’s use and growth. As a

powerful communications medium, the

Internet seems to offer great possibilities for

social change. It also creates a new culture

and its own special issues, such as who shall

have access to it. The implication is that the

Internet’s users, who use and know most

about it, have a responsibility to ensure that

is used constructively while also fostering

free speech and open access.

(http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/0,,sid

9_gci212636,00.html)

6) Chris Mueller, a graduate student, at the

University of Berne, in a thesis on “Electronic Net-

works and Democracy” (draft October 2002) de-

scribes how the online process of users contributing

to the net is necessary for the net to be a democratic

commons. He concludes that this process needs the

hard work of people online. (http://www.soz.unibe

.ch/ii/virt/euricom.pdf)

Those who do some of this hard work, are the

online users that Michael called the netizens.

7) “Netizens Unite”, proclaims the title of the

editorial in the Times of India on Tuesday, March 4,

2003. The editorial appeared in the online edition and

also in the print edition on page 14. The editors of this

major newspaper in India write:

America’s threatened war against Iraq has

divided the world. First between the few

friendly governments that support its unilat-

eral action and the many that don’t. And

second between officialdom on the one hand

and the people on the other. This later divi-

sion is particularly significant because it has

pitted democratically elected governments

that back Washington against the over-

whelming anti-war sentiment of their own

people. But none of this has made the slight-

est difference to president Bush and his team

of hawks.

The editorial documents that there was a basis

for a peaceful process to achieve the end that the

earlier UN resolution had advocated (whether or not

that was a legitimate end, was not a question raised

however).

Then the editorial asks, “But what can all those

around the world who oppose this mindless milita-

rism do other than feel powerless?”

This is a question essential to Michael’s vision

for the concept of the netizen. What are the means

for common people to have power over the issues

that affect their lives, including issues like whether

one’s government makes war on another country?

The editorial then proposes a tentative way to

look at this problem. The editors write:

We believe that one easily accessible way

for world citizens to protest against this war

is literally a mouse click away. As inhabit-

ants of an increasingly globalised and bor-

derless world, they should use the ultimate

instrument of supra-nationalism – the

Internet – to register their opposition and

say no to the war: Netizens of the world

unite, you’ve nothing to lose but your

chains of chauvinism. (To voice your views

log on to http://no-war.indiatimes.com)

The significance of the editorial is that it pro-

posed that people peacefully discuss their concerns

and views. That such activity might indeed be a

weapon in the fight.

The editorial and then the online discussion by

the Times of India are not alone in seeing in the

concept of Netizen as a way to be responsible

“inhabitants of an increasingly globalised and bor-

derless world” which the Internet has made possible.

8) It is not only researchers and writers online

who have explored and contributed to the develop-

ment of the concept of Netizen. There is also interest

in the vision of the netizen in the online art commu-

nity. For example, in December of 2002 there ap-

peared on the Net an announcement of an art exhibit

and competition in Rome, Italy. The exhibit was

curated by Valentina Tanni.

The curatrice writes (our translation):

Netizens is a neologism. It is born from the

union of two English words, net and citi-

zens and is used commonly to define the

navigators of the web. The expression,

destined to a great future, was coined in the

book by Michael and Ronda Hauben, au-

Page 19

thors of an important book about the social

and psychological impact of the Net and of

Net communication. (Actually it is Michael

who is responsible for identifying and devel-

oping the concept of netizen -ed.)

Tanni continues:

It is not enough to be connected to the

Internet to be a Netizen. In order to enter

and to become part of this new, diffused

society, it is necessary to pay attention to it,

to understand it and to try to improve it, just

as one must do to be part of communities offline.

(Catalogue of the exhibit “Netizens: cittadini della

rete” Sala 1, Rome, Italy, December 2002., pg 14.)

9) Another writer commenting on the concept of

Netizen, shortly after the concept spread around the

Internet, John Svedjedal, in his paper, writes:

the Net provides new opportunities for

discussions, meetings, and the exchange of

ideas. As Michael Hauben... (has) recently

remarked, the Internet provides an ‘expan-

sion of what it means to be a social animal’

– the democratic, helpful human being

Michael Hauben has labeled the Netizen....

(“Busy Being Born or Busy Dying: Net-

working the Net” http://www.kb.se/Nvb

/Svedjedal/busy14.html)

Conclusion

These are but a few of the ways that the concept

of netizen is being understood and utilized online in

the years since Michael first recognized that there was

something besides the technology of the Net that was

important. Among the Internet’s users something new

was developing, something new was being born. This

new phenomena is what Michael recognized and he

called those who were part of this new phenomena

“netizens”. Whether the word had ever been used

previously, is not significant. What is significant is

that there was a transformation occurring. Among the

users online, something new had been discovered.

This was that they were able to be part of a new

society, and to play an important role in the birth and

development of this new society. This isn’t something

idealistic or off in the future. And it isn’t something

detached from the offline world and society. The

netizen is at the intersection between the old and the

new, between the offline society and the online

community. The actions that people described in

1992-1993 when Michael posted his questions about

the impact of the Net on people, gave him an under-

standing of this new development. This understand-

ing was captured in a new concept, netizen, made up

of the concepts of citizen and net. And this concept,

the new concept of the netizen has gone on to set a

foundation for a more active role for citizens and

people online, for a way that the Internet and its

users can influence the old world, the old institu-

tions, so that the new world of a new millennium can

come into being. We are not there yet. Neither is the

concept of netizen a concept of “utopianism” as

some have suggested. Rather there is a living prac-

tice, an experience, and a consciousness developing

which is one of the promises for a better world in the

future.

[Editor’s note: We are happy to announce in honor

of this as our 15 year anniversary that all of the

previous issues of the Amateur Computerist are

online in at least PDF format at:

http://www.ais.org/~jrh/acn/Back_Issues

The following is the full index of all of our issues.]

Amateur Computerist

15 Year Index

1) Volume 1 No 1 Feb. 1988

Introduction; Dawn of a New Era; Dedication;

World of Telecommunications; Try This (IBM);

Future Belongs to Programmers; The First Program-

mer (PICTURE); Why Learn Programming; Cover

of Personal Computing (PICTURE); Commodore

TIPS & TRICKS

2) Volume 1 No 2 Jun. 1988

The Big Machine; Pass the Profits, Please; Technol-

ogy: Develop or Stagnate?; CARTOON by “DOC”

Wilson; Sample BASIC graphic program; Try This

(IBM); The World of Telecom... Corrections; Ger-

man Vocabulary Helper Program; Programming in

BASIC or C?; Configuring Your System; Letter to

the Editor

3) Volume 1 No 3 Oct. 1988

Letter Published in Radio-Electronics; Responses

from Around the Country; Election & Computers

(Editorial); Savior in Waiting; How to Use the Merit

Page 20

Network?; Virtual Drives & Batch Files; Try This

(EQUATION OF A STRAIGHT LINE); As I Was

Saying... (Why Computerism?); Computers and Free

Speech; Letter to the Editor; Plant Life (PICTURE)

4) Volume 2 No 1 Jan. 1989

Return to Sanity With the Amateur & the Pro; Letters

from Readers; Problem Corner; Try This for IBM;

SYSTEM DIAGRAM for Quadraphonic Sound

System); Response to October Editorial; CARTOONS

(COMMODORE COUNTY); Welcome to Commo-

dore County USA; Computer Hacking, A Crime?;

IBM Key Assignments Using the “PROMPT”...;

History of Computers Part I

5) Volume 2 No 2 Apr. 1989

Why Learn to Program? (DISCUSSION); Letters; Try

This (MESSAGE); “SE Q” for IBM; As I Was Saying

(JOBS: HOURS AND SENSE...); Overtime and

Under Pay; May Day; Sample Batch File; History of

Computers Part II

6) Volume 2 No 3 Summer 1989

Impact of Computers On Society: A Debate; Letters

to the Editor; COCO Corner (Grail Quest-Pip);

Commodore County USA (Cursor Color Change);

Out of the Heart of the Abacus...; History of the

Computer Part III

7) Volume 2 No 4 Fall 1989

Letter from Prosecutor; Opposing Viewpoint...;

Letters to the Editor; Wanted Alive (AD); COCO

Corner (Equation Graphing Prg.); True Heroes;

Trigonometry Lesson for IBM; History of the Com-

puter Part IV

8) Volume 3 No 1 Winter 1989

Letter from Editor of Detroit News; Don’t Replicate

UAW-Ford School; When Will Their Walls Come

Tumbling Down; Letters to Editor; Commodore

County USA (CARTOON); The Spirit of Babbage;

COCO Corner (POKE & PEAK); CAD/CAM/CIM;

History of Computers Part V

9) Volume 3 No 2 Spring 1990

The Laborer, Yes; Floyd Hoke-Miller (1898-1990);

The Picket; In Honor of Labor’s Poet Laureate;

Computer Education and Government Regulation;

Letter from Superintendent; Open Letter to Superin-

tendent Bemis; Letter to Governor; Commodore

County U.S.A. (SHIMMERING TEXT); C-64 Music

Digitizer; IBM Label Program; COCO Corner

(CALORIE COUNTER); Bulletin Board Numbers

10) Volume 3 No 3 Fall 1990

What Criticisms Have You of the A.C.?; Tips and

Tricks (IBM BOOT PROBLEM); Letter to Editor;

Editorial; A Common Man of Greatness; COCO

Corner (CORRECTION); Excerpts from BBS

(DISCUSSION-TRADE UNIONS); Commodore C-

64 Reset Switch; DIAGRAM #1

11) Volume 3 No 4 Winter 1990

Hats Off to Patriot; Amateurs are Needed More Than

Ever; COCO Corner (MORE POKE & PEAK);

Bringing Automation Home; Computer BBS Discus-

sion on the War; Computers for the People: Part I

12) Volume 4 No 1 Fall 1991

Computers for the People - A History Part II; Letters

to the Editor; Ten Commandments of Good Net-

working; Try This Program (GRAPHIC “HI”);

USSR and the Computer; Command Line Calculator;

The Question of Censorship

13) Volume 4 No 2-3 Spring 1992

Computers Vs Plant Closures; Amateur Computerist

Index(10 year); Problem Corner; Union Forever;

CARTOON (Shorter Hours); Letter To The Editor;

Letters to Amateur Computerist; Letter to Editor of

Utne Reader; Review from the ìPeripheral; Tribute:

Modern Computer Pioneer; Interview with Staff

Member; One Line Program; Computers For The

People; CARTOON (Commodore County); Pascal

Program

14) Volume 4 No 4 Summer 1992

Impact of the Computer on Society: Two Views;

Electronic Mail; Letters to the Editor; Desktop

Publishing; Computers for People: History; TRY

THIS: (Programs); From the Shop Floor; CAR-

TOON (I HAVE A Grievance); America and the

Dollar; Problem Corner; Interview with Staff Mem-

ber

15) Supplement Fall 1992

INTRODUCTION; THE NET WORKS; ‘Arte’,

Computers and Usenet News; Computer as a

Democratizer; CityNet in New Zealand; Learning

About Usenet; Freenet BBS’s; Two Books to Help

Page 21

Users Liberation Technology

16) Volume 5 No 1-2 Spring 1993

Interview with Henry Spencer; Tradition of May 1,

1848; Social Forces Behind Usenet; The Net and the

Labor Movement; Letters to Editor; The New Dawn;

Pittsburgh Press Strike; John G. Kemeny; Computers

for the People; Pascal Program; Try This Program in

C; May Day in History; Charter for Newsgroup

17) Volume 5 No 3/4 Fall 1993

From ARPANET to Usenet News; Battle For Pro-

gramming; COMMON SENSE; Imminent Death of

the Net; Letters To The Editor; News From Europe;

From The Shop Floor; Report: Summer 1993

USENIX; Proposals on NSF Backbone; C Program;

Computers for the People; Soul of the Internet

18) Volume 6 No 1 Spring 1994

UNIX and Computer Science; An Interview with John

Lions; An Interview with Berkley Tague; On the 25th

Anniversary of UNIX; Usenet News: The Poor Man’s

ARPAnet; What the Net Means to Me; Plumbing The

Depths Of UNIX; Using UNIX Tools; C Program;

New Net Book; The Linux Movement; The Ten

Commandments for C; May Day in the Morning; Free

Software Foundation

19) Volume 6 No 2-3 Winter 1994

What is a Netizen?; Licklider’s Vision and the Future;

Net Cultural Assumptions; Etiquette and the Internet;

Ethics and the Internet; The Internet Society; The

Internet: Maintaining Diversity; Do You Want to

Lose Your Voice?; The Net: A Scientific Perspective;

Book Proposal; Netizens: The Impact of the Net;

Rights of Netizens

20) Volume 7 No 1 Spring 1996

Net Access: A Privilege or a Right?; Canadian Com-

munity Networking; Netizens and Community Net-

works; Letter to the Editor; Access For All FAQ; The

Future of Democracy; Old Freedoms and New Tech-

nologies; Forming the Usenet Online Community;

History of Cleveland Freenet; Universal Access to E-

Mail; Prototype for Policy Decisions; In Honor of

‘Doc’ Wilson; (PICTURE OF DOC WILSON); ( 3

CARTOONS)

21) Volume 7 No 2 Winter 1997

Power Tools of Our Times; Effect of Net on Profes-

sional News Media; Report from INET’96 Part I;

CDA Decision (Excerpts); E-mail Evangeladdict;

Culture and Communication; Online Education;

Report from INET’96 Part II; Internet Impact on

Daily Lives?; FCC Submission on Universal Service;

Letter to the Editor; Freenets and Politics of Commu-

nity; Broadsides for Our Day; Genora (Johnson)

Dollinger (1913-1995)

22) Volume 8 No 1 Spring 1998

Interview with Tom Truscott; Editorial; Factsheet

Five: ACN; Cooperative Nature of Usenet; Creating

Broadsides; History of the Net is Important;

Netizens: Review of Reviews; Book Reviews:

Netizens; Community in k12.chat.teacher; Wiener

and Licklider; Amateur Computerist 10 Year Index:

1988-1998

23) Special Issue July 1998

Stakeholders in the DNS Controversy: Netizen List

DNS Discussion; Study of the ARPAnet TCP/IP

Digest; An Introduction to TCP/IP

24) Volume 9 No 1 Winter 1998

Editorial: 25 Years of TCP/IP; Role of Govt in the

Internet; Report from INET98 and IFWP; The

Internet: Public or Private?; Report from the Front;

The Internet a Public Treasure; Testimony Submitted

to Congress; Letter to Congressman Bliley; E-mail

Message from Becky Burr; Letter to Wm. Daley Sec.

of Commerce; Letter: Tom Bliley to Ira Magaziner;

Letter to the NTIA; Herding Cats and Sacred Cows;

DNS: Short History and Short Future MsgGroup

Mailing List

25) Volume 9 No 2 Special Issue 1999

ISOC Silencing the Press; Cone of Silence; U.S.

Press Censorship; Letter from the DOC.; Letter from

Ira Magaziner; Report from SIGCAS/POLICY 98;

GAO Review

26) Volume 10 No 1 Summer 2000

Welcoming the Millennium; Who Can Watch the

Watchdog?; Internet Pioneers Panel; Citizens’

Agenda 2000 Forum; Cleveland Freenet Closed;

From the Internet; Oral History of the Internet; 30

Years of RFCs; Principles of the Internet; ARPAnet

Mailing Lists

27) Volume 10 No 2 Spring 2001

Page 22

EDITORIAL; Internet: A Laboratory for Democ-

racy?; Ford Model E Program; Battle over Computer

Classes; State of the Net in Hungary; A Loss for

Netizens; Moment of Silence for Michael Muuss;

Culture Clash over Usenet Archive; Privatization of

the Internet; MsgGroup

28) Volume 11 No 1 Special Issue 5/1/02

Introduction; The Emergence of the Netizen; Michael,

Computers and the Net; Work And Life of Michael

Hauben; Some of Michael’s Accomplishments; In

Memoriam: a Netizen; Giving Back to the World;

Thoughts Regarding Michael’s Work; Mike:

Sketches; “Netizens” in Hebrew Dictionary; A

Tribute; Writings by Michael Hauben; Preface: What

is a Netizen?; What the Net Means to Me; Declaration

of the Rights of Netizens; Democracy: SDS and the

Net; The Untold History of the ARPAnet; Berlin

Report: The Vision Lives

[Editor's Note: The following is the text of a leaflet

distributed in New York City on February 15, 2003 at

a rally in opposition to War against Iraq.]

Communication Not

Annihilation,

No War on Iraq. Netizens

Unite

Today’s marches around the world demonstrate

the power of the Netizens. There is a need for global

communication to be utilized to solve the enormous

problems in our modern world. More citizens and

netizens around the world can now participate in

helping each other to solve what otherwise would be

impossible difficulties.

What is a Netizen?

The concept of Netizen grew out of research

online in 1992-1993. This was before the commercial-

ization of the Internet. Contrary to popular mythology

the numbers of people connecting to the Internet was

growing by large numbers each year. There began to

be Free-Nets springing up to provide community

people with access to the Internet.

A student doing online research, Michael, writes:

The story of Netizens is an important one.

In conducting research... online to deter-

mine people’s uses for the global computer

communications network, I became aware

that there was a new social institution, an

electronic commons, developing. It was

exciting to explore this new social institu-

tion. Others online shared this excitement.

I discovered from those who wrote me that

the people I was writing about were citizens

of the Net, or Netizens.

(from Preface to Netizens: On the History and

Impact of Usenet and the Internet

http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/netbook/)

The Internet was making it possible for people

who got access to communicate with others around

the world. And there were people online who did

what they could to connect others to the Internet and

to make the Internet something valuable for people

around the world. The student documented this

development in his paper “The Net and Netizens:

The Impact the Net has on People’s Lives”.

The paper was posted online in 1993. The

concept of Netizen spread round the world and has

been adopted by many who continue to contribute to

the development of the Internet as a global commons

and to spread access to the global communication the

Internet makes possible.

We need the vision of the Internet and the

Netizen, that both its early pioneers and the users

that the student in 1992/3 found online, have embod-

ied. This is as a network of networks linking people

around the globe where online users act as netizens

helping to solve the problems of the Internet and of

the society.

People online and people who aren’t online, can

help to make the vision of the Internet pioneers and

users a reality. We don’t want war in Iraq. We don’t

want war in North Korea or Iran. We don’t want war

against the Palestinians. We want to communicate

with each other and collaborate together to have the

wealth of society go to its people so that the better

world that is now possible, becomes a reality. It’s a

hard and difficult struggle. But with lots of netizens

around the world, we can forge a better world.

Long live the Netizens Long live the Iraqi

People Long live the American People Long live the

peace loving people everywhere

Let us honor the memory of those who have

perished in the struggle.

Page 23

Sticker distributed in

1995 at the Beppu Netizens

Conference in Oita, Japan

NETIZENS UNITE AND SPREAD THE INTERNET

SO EVERYONE HAS ACCESS

Let us continue to take up the challenge to make

the Internet a global commons that all can contribute

to and build.

Dedicated to Michael (1973-2001). I have written

this to honor his memory and to try to continue his

contributions to make the world a better place.

Ronda [email protected]

EDITORIAL STAFF

Ronda Hauben

William Rohler

Norman O. Thompson

Michael Hauben

(1973-2001)

Jay Hauben

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