Thoughts on Design at the Netizens Cyberstop
My design on these pages are mediated through two major topics,
Considerations and Limitations.
Considerations
- Respect
- The web is greatly populated by over-use of graphics, color,
backgrounds, funny fonts, image maps and otherwise extraneous bandwidth
wasting. Extraneous uses of these features on a page increase the time
necessary to access the information stored on web pages by people on
all connections. Backgrounds themselves take away so much time before
you get to see what is at a site.
- I use lynx and prefer to use lynx as it is much faster then any of
the graphical web browsers for getting to the content of web stites. I
respect people who are on-line using a 2400 baud modem and normal
serial dialup connections. Not everyone has access to graphical web
browsers, and imagemaps and web designers who do not use the ALT tag
limit access to those sites.
- While style is nice, content is what is important. That is why you
you will see no backgrouds, fancy fonts or unnecessary graphics on my
pages.
- In addition, I have tried to make a balance between original
content and hotlinks available at my site. I am bored silly by web
pages which only point to other web pages. When you go somplace
on-line you want to find something interesting and worthwhile the
effort it took to go there! Indexes are fine if they are unique in the
information they gather. Random "Hot links!" or "What's Cool" lists
which pride themselves are lots of hot air.
- Netscape extensions
- Netscape additions to HTML are more attempts to make profit by selling
their software rather then contributing to the WWW. While these additions
might make web pages look nice and provide more flexability, they go
against the original design principles of HTML and the WWW.
- HTML was designed to make page design
possible which ALL browsers could read. Thus someone
could design a page using the <strong></strong>
pair, and some browsers would change the font, others would inverse
the video. This is different then using the <bold></bold> or
<italics></italics> which command a browser to emphasize in a
certain fashion.
- The netscape extensions promote elitism of platforms if they
wish to become part of standard code.
Limitations
- Time
- Or rather the lack of time. These pages would be more complete and
there would be more of them, if I had more free time to create and publish
on the Web.
- Usenet
- For me, Usenet represents more of the spirit and soul of the Net
then the World Wide Web. As such I try to devote more of my emphasis
on following and posting to newsgroups. Sadly this happens less now
then before too.
- Usenet represents more of the active dynamic then the
Web to me. I am more interested in what comes out of the discussion of
different people then the web page which comes from one persons time
and effort.
- Collaboration and cooperation, even by people of differing
viewpoints, is much more the fruit of this new world.
Now that I have outlined the considerations and limitations which
guide the design at the Netizens Cyberstop, please contact me if you
would like to be helpful in advancing this site. In particular, I am
interested in people who would want to be helpful with my two major
projects:
In trying to spread the research Ronda and I have done about the
Internet and Usenet, we are looking for mirror sites around the world
to make it easier for people to access the book. Similarly I would
like to mirror my music list in other locations. In addition, any help
in maintaining the music list would be greatly appreicated. I just
have too many links to go through and to keep up to date.
Please
e-mail me at hauben@columbia.edu
if you have disk space, time or energy to contribute. Thanks!
Last modified: new file
Michael Hauben <hauben@columbia.ed.edu>