Subject: Re: CCL:WWW Oversight

From: "Oscar N. Ventura" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jan 1995 08:18:29 -0300 (TZ )

Netters,
 In principle, I don't consider abhorent that an independent comittee nay
referee anyone's home page. In that I agree with Henry's message today.
 But (there's always a but, isn't it?) what are the criteria this
comitee (eventually the "learned societies"?) will use for the evaluation?
I'm sure everybody agrees that the essential content is new and valuable
information. Na gut! But what about presentation? We all know that a very
well designed home page viewed with Netscape may have a completely
disgusting appearence viewed with Mosaic! Or that a beatifully designed,
plenty of images home page in Europe, may be really never appreciated for
instance here because I will need some 5 minutes to load it and then I will
prefer simply to delay image loading!
 And what about content (i.e. new and valuable info)? What is that? The
apparent state of mind here in this net is that a home page is a bit like
a paper (or a set of papers). I would say it is much more like a whole
journal, or (what it is really) the front end of a laboratory or institution.
In my opinion a page must be alive for been useful. A certain degree of
freezing is necessary (some valuable material should always stay there!)
but mostly it should be changing so that the page is attractive, not only
for new users but also for old ones. By the way, how many times in one's
life one rereads classical, beautifully written, extremely valuable for
their moment, papers? 10? But, how loyal are we to reading JACS or
JChemSoc?
 Then, I agree that some discussion about independent refereeing is
healthy. But, I think, we are not yet at the point of agreeing on what
are the external parameters to be used in assessing quality. After all,
very few people in our profession is building up home pages at this 
moment without thinking that they will be inmediately noticed by the
colleagues. So, I don't think somebody is simply saying "ok, I have a
low quality thing, but let's show it anyway, nobody will notice!".
O.

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Dr. Oscar N. Ventura                 Tel.     +(5982)941860
MTC-Lab                              Fax      +(5982)941906
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Montevideo, URUGUAY                  MTC-Lab  http://bilbo.edu.uy/MTC-Lab.html
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From: [email-masked] (Ryszard Czerminski X 217)
Date: Mon, 30 Jan 1995 15:02:50 -0500

As a side commentary to ongoing discussion
about chemistry, WWW, homepages ratings,
censorship, etc...
let me point those of you who will find time
to an article by John Perry Barlow
----------------------------------------------------------
John Perry Barlow ([email-masked]) is a retired cattle
rancher, a lyricist for the Grateful Dead, and co-founder
and executive chair of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
----------------------------------------------------------
in magazine "WIRED", March 1994. The title
is "The Economy of Ideas", subtitle
"A framework for rethinking patents and copyrights
in the Digital Age (Everything you know about intellectual
property is WRONG)"

To give you a feel what it is all about I list here
few chapter titles.

I.   Information is an activity

II.  Information is a life form

     Information wants to be free
     Information replicates into the cracs of possibility
     Information wants to change

III. Information is a relationship

     Exclusivity has value
     Point of view and authority have value

etc...

It is worth reading.

Ryszard Czerminski
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