by
Frederick Rustam
Part Five, WHAT DOES INFORMATION WANT?
| Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four |
_____________________________________________________________________
Questor
Institute is a new, experimental technical school where
bright-but-poor
high-school graduates on full scholarships spend
two
years seeking to become wizards of Internet sorcery by studying
the
science and philosophy of information retrieval from textual
databases
such as the World Wide Web. In Part Four, "Ordinary
Citizens
as Scholars," Kevin and Marylou learned how the Internet
evolved
from a techno-tool for academics into an information system
for
the masses, They also learned about the usefulness of citizen
websites,
and they began a hunt for the awful Witchfinder General.
_____________________________________________________________________
Information Reliability
"How
many times," the Rector began, "have you heard or read that
information
on the Internet is unreliable? 'Anybody can put anything
on
the Internet,' they say. Do you believe that Internet information
is
unreliable?... If you do, you shouldn't be here, studying Internet
infotrieval.
"This
widespread belief about the People's Medium is partly a result
of
the news media's early campaign of unwarranted disrespect aimed
at
the Internet, which they viewed as dangerously-competitive.
"The
belief about the unreliability of Internet information is also,
perhaps
mostly, a product of bad personal experiences on the Internet.
Users
have indeed found some Internet information to be unreliable.
Statements
of fact have proved to be guesses, opinions, and even
deliberate
falsehoods. We can't deny this reality. The Internet is,
after
all, not just a computer-and-cable thing; it's a people thing.
It
mirrors the people who put stuff up on it.
"Yet
it's wrong to say, 'To the degree that our society is composed of
unreliable
people, the Internet will be unreliable.' Serious Internet
people,
especially those who are in entrepreneurial roles such as Web
authors
and webmasters are better-educated and more ethical than our
society
as a whole, I believe. So one might
better say, 'Internet
information
is more reliable than that circulating person-to-person
within
our society.'
"That's
faint praise, though." He cupped an ear with his left hand.
"Almost
any kind of information is more reliable than gossip,
especially
that which has propagated beyond its original source.
"All
of you have used the Internet for sometime, now. You've seen
some
overtly-unreliable information and other info which, although
sincerely
worded, seems to require verification. Usenet and Web
discussion
forums are responsible for much of the belief in the
unreliability
of Internet information. From its early days as an
intercommunication
tool for academic researchers, the Internet
discussion
forum has evolved to a societal info-medium with more
facets
than a fly's eyes, a place where anybody with access to a
computer
can have his say. In Internet forums, expectations for
the
accuracy of opportunistically-posted information aren't high.
"As
infoseekers, we aren't so-much concerned with the reliability
of
forum 'rants,' although even rants may contain some useful
information
or leads to useful info. We are concerned with seemingly-
factual
forum postings which we, in our search-desperation, may have
to
retrieve in order to obtain anything from the Internet on a desired
subject.
When useful info appears in a forum posting, how should we
view
it: as certain truth, as probable truth, or as possible truth?
To
emphasize his next remark, the Rector bent to hold a hand about
three
feet parallel to and above the floor. As he spoke, he raised
the
hand to the top of his head.
"Judging
the truth of a seemingly-factual statement is something we
begin
to do as children, and which we do better as our knowledge
accumulates
and our mature judgment sharpens. So we must learn,
from
our experiences, how to handle the information in forums.
"Discussion
forums are not to be scoffed-at and avoided as sources
of
useful information. Serious forums are a goldmine of information
offered
for others by citizens who know what they're talking about.
Such
forums are not just places for the dissemination of personal
knowledge,
that is, the information in our heads. They're also places
for
posting secondary information---that which someone other than the
poster
has published somewhere else. Forum posters often quote from
or
cite other, more-reliable sources of info. We'll discuss this
'information
transfer' process, next.
"The
information on webpages is generally more reliable than that
found
in discussion forums. Website authors have a greater personal
involvement
in their pages. Their information remains more-easily-
available
for a longer time. Their website credibility and their
personal
reputations are more at stake, so to speak. But a good,
authoritative
forum posting is better than a poorly-researched
webpage.
Some webpages are careless with facts, too.
"So
how do we judge the reliability of Internet information?...
If
you desire a simple formula for doing this, you desire in vain.
There
is none. But some have tried to codify reliability judgment.
You
may have read some of these written guidelines for judging
Internet
information. I recall one written by a well-intentioned
school
librarian. She wrote that Internet users should seek to verify
Internet
information by asking themselves several questions about the
info
and its author---questions which are difficult or impossible to
answer
in a reasonable time. 'What are the author's qualifications?'
'What
else has he written?' Questions like that may be unanswerable,
in
practice.
"Another
of the librarian's reliability principles was that we
should
verify Internet information by comparing it with that from
more-reliable
sources, such as reference books."
From
his desk, the Rector produced a thick book, which he waved
at
the students.
"I
see some of you smirking at this piece of advice---as well you might.
If
we have to verify all Internet information with 'book information,'
we
might as well just consult the books, skip the Internet, and save
ourselves
some time.
"If
then, a cookbook approach to judging information reliability
isn't
practicable, what approach is?... First, you must seek info
on
the Internet with an open mind. Use your natural judgment, that
which
you've developed and polished during your years of intellectual
activity.
<i>Above all, don't be afraid to believe what you find on
the
Internet.</i> Especially that which seems to have been written
with
a confident authority. But verify it if you must.
WHAM!!
He dropped the heavy reference book onto his desk.
"A
curiosity-satisfaction information discovery usually doesn't usually
require
a trip to the public library's reference shelf for verification.
But
an 'important' information query on the Internet may seem to require
verification.
Try to use the Internet itself to do this. Let's not
undermine
our People's medium by preferring only other media for our
verification.
Many authoritative printed works have been digitized,
and
have found their way onto the Web. Use these, when applicable.
"Let
me give you an example of questionable information which I
discovered
on the Web. On a citizen interest-website about Russia,
were
listed some unusual facts. One of these was that actor Walter
Matthau's
father had been an Russian Orthodox priest. Because I
believed
Matthau to be Jewish, I accessed his entry in the Internet
Movie
Data Base,
a generally-reliable infosource. The actor's
biographical
info there said that Matthau's father had been a street
peddler
in Kiev, and that that the actor, who often kidded others
about
himself, told people that his father had been an Orthodox
priest
who'd been defrocked for his belief in the infallibility
of
the Roman Catholic Pope!
"This
example is interesting because it illustrates how a myth, even a
laughable
one, can be transmuted into a seeming-fact and be offered as
truth
by a sincere webpage author. My doubt about it led me to verify
it
by consulting another, more-reliable Web infosource. I'm sure that
Walter
Matthau never imagined that his little jest would harden into
a
factoid about him on the People's Database. The Internet teems with
just
such factoids as this one, and we should exercise reasonable
caution
about what we retrieve there.
"Any
questions?... I know I've raised more than I answered."
A
girl asked, "If I supply somebody with information from the Net,
and
that somebody questions its reliability, what do I say to them?"
"Always
cite your source of Internet information to your end-users;
they
might want to view it for themselves. If they question your info,
remind
them that you can't be responsible for the reliability of the
info
you've done your best to find. Transferring judgment about
information
reliability to your end-user is not unprofessional. When
someone
requests info from the Internet, that's what you give them.
You
don't say, 'The public library is probably a better place to find
what
you want.' You don't undermine the People's Medium by pandering
to
your end-user's doubts about it. But you can offer to verify your
information
from other Internet sources. Try to make your end-users
understand
that there are degrees of online 'research.' If they want
information
of assured truth, that'll require more retrieval time
than
the simple discovery of some apparently-good information.
"Let
me conclude this topic, for now, by saying something you can
quote
me on. So far as I know, I'm the first to say it---but you
can
search the Usenet and Web to verify that, if you desire." The
class
snickered at this remark. "It's a variation on an oft-quoted
Internet
verity." He wrote on the whiteboard:
Information wants to be
reliable.
"What
does this mean? It means that, unlike errors in printed info,
Internet
information errors are easily corrected. And that if info
needs
correction, it probably will be corrected because Web authors
want
their content to be viewed as correct. You've undoubtedly seen
webpages
where the author solicits corrections; these are the better
webpages,
the more-reliable ones. Other webpages welcome unsolicited
corrections,
so long as they view these corrections as facts, not as
opinions.
This human tendency means that Web information wants to be
reliable
because its creators and publishers want it to be reliable.
"Remember
that information is animated, not from within itself,
but
by the actions of its creators, its retrievers, and its users.
"Forum
info wants, rather less than webpage info, to be reliable.
This
is primarily because of the ephemerality of forum postings---
here
today, gone tomorrow, so to speak. That doesn't mean that some
forum
posters don't correct themselves. And it sure doesn't mean they
aren't
corrected by other posters!... It may be worthwhile to follow
up
on a relevant, factual forum posting by examining all the replies
to
it. This procedure often results in information correction and/or
supplementation.
These useful corrective processes are the norm in
discussion
forums." The Rector paused to check his lecture notes.
"I
know what Internet verity he's going to quote, next," boasted
Kevin
to Marylou.
"Don't
spoil it for me," she replied. As if I didn't know.
Information Transfer
"Early
in the history of the personal computer, and well before the
Internet
became a household fixture, Stewart Brand, the publisher of
The
Whole Earth Catalog,
put into a sentence of his conference
speech
a remark which has probably become the most controversial
verity
of the Computer Age. He said,
'...information wants to be
free...'
"History
has almost forgotten the context in which this remark
appeared.
You can find it on the Web if you're interested---and
you
know how to search for it. Those five words are still quoted
as
an axiom of truth by Internet users. They'll probably never be
forgotten
because they articulate such a widespread, idealistic
desire.
"But
what do they mean? Do they mean that it's wrong to seek money
for
information put up on the Web? No.... Do they mean that webpage
authors
can use on their pages any information they find? No.... Then,
what
does this arguable statement mean? Is it a truth or just a wish?
"I
believe it is true, but only if it's carefully interpreted.
Unlike
reliability, freedom is not an attribute of information. But
on
the Internet, information does seem to exhibit a 'freedom dynamic,'
a
phenomenon which is brought about by its handlers. Information on
the
Internet is often transferred freely from one place to another,
usually
from places of information originality to places of secondary
usage.
It may then propagate from secondary places to further places.
Text
that's useful in one place will often be found useful in other
places,
and it'll be copied and used in those other places. This can
be
viewed as a useful societal process if the info is truly factual.
"Such
information transfer is accomplished by several processes,
ranging
from 'permissive use' to shameless theft and use without
permission
or attribution. Ownership and copyright are scarcely
respected
on the Internet, mostly because secondary users---'thieves'
to
information originators---almost never seek to charge others for
the
use of this 'transferred' information. They just want to display
it
in their forum postings or on their webpages for its relevance.
If
these secondary users ponder the ethics of this situation, they
probably
see such info-transfer as 'fair usage,' like book reviewers
are
allowed, without permission, to quote from the books they review.
The
Rector wagged a finger at his students.
"But
there's a big difference between a quotation from a written
work
and the entire copying and reproduction of one. In our mind's
logic,
we understand this. But in practice, we openly use the works
of
others for our own purposes on the Internet, especially when they
are
fairly short. When we weave unattributed passages of other works
into
our own writings, or claim entire works as our own, however,
that's
plagiarism, a practice that's unethical from any rational
viewpoint.
But in speaking of information transfer, I'm talking
mostly
about attributed material which is simply 'redisplayed'
on
the Internet without the permission of its originators.
This
questionable practice is widespread.
"Internet
information is thus transferred so freely that it seems
to
want to escape to other places where it's needed. Realistically,
information
wants to be free because so many Internet users want it
to
be free. This desire for freedom strongly animates information.
"I've
seen so many forum postings and webpages which reproduce
someone
else's textual material that I've become accustomed to the
convenience
of having information where I discover it---rather than
at
its place of origin, where I might have to search for it with
some
difficulty. In the world of the professional information
supplier,
finding info quickly wherever it's most-easily found,
is
a great convenience.
"When
I read a Usenet or Web forum posting in which a poster has
reproduced
a copyrighted article from a newspaper or magazine for
the
convenience of others in a discussion group, I blame no one, I
find
no fault. When a webpage contains something copied from another
source,
I thank the webpage author for the convenience of his copying
and
I praise him for its relevance to his page. That's the reality
of
my usage of the Internet. I want information to be free, in that
sense.
"But
if I find that my own original text has been impermissibly used,
even
with attribution, I may feel quite differently. If I'm a generous
soul,
I'll forgive my copier and I'll even feel pride that my work was
worth
copying and reusing. If I find my work plagiarized by someone
who
more-or-less claims it as his own, I think I'm entitled to take
a
dim view of the situation... and be mad as hell about it!"
This
forceful remark provoked laughter in the classroom.
"Right
on," approved Kevin.
"As
student infoseekers, you'll delight in finding information quickly
in
secondary places. When you become professional infoseekers, though,
it's
better to cite retrieved info as from its original online source,
if
you can easily discover that source. You should always present
Internet
information as copied-and-reused material if its original
source
is offline, and you should cite that offline source to your
end-users
so they'll know where it originated.
"Okay.
Bring up my homework assignment page. Today's homework is to
examine
and ponder an instance of Internet information transfer to
a
place on the Web where you might not expect to find it:
Find a state university website where
academic personnel have
collected and made available copyrighted
articles from newspapers,
magazines, and journals about the 1959
earthquake in Montana
in which a landslide created a new lake in
the Madison River,
later named 'Earthquake Lake.' List the
URL of one of these
'secondary usage' webpages and describe
its contents. Are there
any indications on the webpages
reproducing these articles that
the university had the permission of those
newspapers, magazines
and journals to reprint their material?
Should there be?
Later,
Kevin remarked to Marylou, "So, information wants to be free
because
it's dumb and doesn't know any better. Is that it?"
"You
could say that," she replied, dryly. "But I agree with the
Rector:
information wants to be free because so many of its users
desire
it to be free. And that desire animates it to move about."
"Marylou,
you're so literal you'd probably sink like a stone in
Earthquake
Lake. There's no chance you'd float."
THE END OF PART FIVE
Next: Part Six, "Hacking The
Benefactor, Turning a Bus"
______________________________________________________________________
©
2002 by Frederick Rustam. Frederick
Rustam is a retired civil
servant.
He formerly indexed technical reports for the Department of
Defense.
He writes science fiction for Web ezines as a hobby. He
studies
and enjoys the Internet as a hobby.