Just a little while ago, probably without even noticing
it, you joined one of the most exciting
communities that has yet existed...
You entered it a little while ago. Probably long before you realised it. Let me backtrack a bit...
I meet a lot of people through these pages. And a great lot of people you are too! Webspace is a very civilised and human place.
Lots of what is on the Internet is far from civilised. Some newsgroups are the pits. I've been hurtfully flamed in some Christian mail lists, by people I will probably never meet. The hurt is all I will ever know of them. That's sad.
But the Web is very civilised I find. Why? Two inter-related reasons:
Most of the people who read my pages never want to talk to me. That's fine. Thanks for paying me the compliment of reading them, I hope they are helpful to you.
But the selection started long before that. I don't know how you found my pages, probably by a link or a search engine. Either way, you chose to be on a page written by somebody who chose to link to mine, or you chose to enter a search that found my pages and then chose that link.
And at each of these choices, our two minds touched. Not very intimately, but effectively.
That's communication. A very subtle, incredibly efficient, computer-assisted communication.
But it doesn't stop there either. One of the most exciting bits of my pages is the Visitor's Book. You see, it's a searchable page too. So everyone who signs it and gives a usable email address joins the group of people who are linked by this very subtle and new form of communication.
That's a community. It doesn't have to want to be one. It is one whether it wants to be one or not.
The evidence to date is that it's a rather wonderful community. And you ain't seen nothin' yet.
Search engines are still in their early days. In particular they tend to give unwanted multiple hits on the same site, and they don't give the context of the hit very well. But that is changing as the hardware makes more and more sophisticated approaches possible.
But already this is a very human and civilised place. I'm still striving to understand exactly why.
In a sense you entered my cyberspace as soon as you started navigating the Web. You were making decisions at every point that could have brought us together, and eventually did.
Welcome.
Return to my home page
http://www.zeta.org.au/~andrewa/aja2.htm