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"Internet" v "internet" (reprise)

Internet, with capital I, is redundant and not supported by common usage. The rule on Wikipedia is to follow common usage, and common usage is lowercase i. Uppercase Internet is an anomaly not supported by analogy with any other global network. We don't write "The Atmosphere" even though there is only one. The word the is sufficient to determine the singular definiteness of the internet. Without a specific context, "the internet" is sufficient to specify the internet. Unless someone can show with real data that common usage supports capital I, then lowercase will suffice. Nohat 22:52, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

---
We don't write "The Atmosphere" even though there is only one.
There's more than one.
The word the is sufficient to determine the singular definiteness of the internet.
If capitalization of proper nouns were truly "redundant" when preceded by the definite article, we would write "the university of oxford", "the booker prize", and the hoover dam (all singletons). We don't.
Unless someone can show with real data that common usage supports capital I, then lowercase will suffice.
Unless someone can show with real data that common usage supports lowercase "i", then uppercase will suffice. [1]
chocolateboy 01:22, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)
The fact that there are other atmospheres (planetary and stellar) may not be a good argument. The fact is, when you say the atmosphere without any qualifier or supporting context, you mean (or should mean) the atmosphere of our planet. Nonetheless, this is likely to be relative since the first conversation on the surface of Mars may in fact be "Gosh, the atmosphere really is red!" I'd claim atmosphere is not a really clear example since it's a thing always attached to another thing (essentially), so that context is important, qualifiers are very common, and the default is clearly defined.
In any case, a counter example can also be dredged from astronomy. When referring to the Milky Way, we astronomers say the Galaxy. There's no real reason why that couldn't have been the galaxy, but it's not. The capital letter helps the reader clearly set the context. I don't know if that's a good argument for why Internet should be capitalized. Whether it is commonly used or not, there clearly is a generic definition of internet (as with galaxy) especially with the common derivation from the same root as intranet, which abounds in plurality. As a result, I certainly feel more comfortable when I see the Internet referring to this massively connected entity that enables discussing such esoterica with absolute strangers possible. --mh 04:46, Dec 3, 2004 (UTC)
FWIW, "intranet" is a much later addition to jargon than "internet" was. (Not that this makes any difference to your overall argument, which I wholly support.)Noel (talk) 18:54, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

There's also my canonical counterexample: "The internet of intelligence agency {foo} is not connected to the Internet". Not all instances of "the internet" necessarily refer to the Internet! Also, there are two instances of "the internet" in that sentence, but it can be somewhat confusing unless one is capitalized. Noel (talk) 18:54, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

That's not really a counterexample. By using "of intelligence agency {foo}", you are further qualifying "the internet". Without qualification it still just means "the internet". Besides, I think we all know that usage of internet to refer to other than "the internet" is marginal at best. Irrespective of this process' correctness, to most people "the internet" means "the internet" and nothing else. It doesn't seem like a sufficiently important distinction to justify violating a long-standing convention of not capitalizing things that aren't names, but simply descriptors. We don't say "the World", we say "the world". We don't say "the Ocean", we say "the ocean". And so on. The only exception to this rule seems to be for certainly heavenly bodies—Earth, The Sun, The Moon—and only in certain contexts—and although I'm sure many of us have a high opinion of the internet, I don't think anyone would argue that it's a heavenly body. Nohat 19:20, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Oh, for goodness' sake, "further qualify[]", my aunt Agatha's autistic Anglophobia! OK, try this one: "The internet of intelligence agency {foo} spans 42 countries and is composed of over a hundred networks. For security reasons, the internet is not connected to the Internet." And yes one can reword it to avoid a problem - and if one's really clever, one can also write a whole book without using the letter "e". Does that mean "e" is next on the list for "fixing"?
"Internet" is long-standing usage, there's no rough consensus here to change it (and almost certainly never will be), just divided opinions which further debate is not going to change, so just stop wasting time on it, OK? Noel (talk) 19:49, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I think we have yet to uncover all the truths about this matter. If you don't want to continue debating, that is your choice, but I'd appreciate it if you refrain from instructing me on what and what not to discuss. Nohat 21:53, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)
If you're so interested in continuing the debate, why don't you try answering my point above, in the example where there is no "further qualif[ier]"? Noel (talk) 01:53, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Well, your example is confusing, because it uses two different definitions of the word "internet", distinguishing them only by capitalization. A writer striving for clarity would have used a different word or construction to distinguish the agency's network of networks from the internet. However, disregarding that, the first occurrence of the word "internet" in the second sentence of the example refers back to "The internet of inteligence agency {foo}" in the first sentence, which was already qualified as being different from the internet (without qualification). However, as I mentioned, the example is potentially ambiguous and confusing because you use the same word to refer to two different things. I don't think this example proves anything other than use of the word "internet" to refer to other than "the internet" is potentially a source of confusion, error, and misunderstanding best remedied by using a different word. Nohat 05:34, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Exactly! There are two different meanings, which require two different words, and the distinct terminology that was explicitly created to avoid such confusion is the very thing you're now trying to get rid of. Noel (talk) 12:44, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)
A capital letter does not a different word make. Nohat 21:39, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Obvioulsy you have never looked up the definition the words Polish and polish

Oh really? I'm looking forward to your effort to convince dictionary writers that "Earth" and "earth" mean the same thing. Noel (talk) 22:51, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Polish refers to ethicicity of the Polish people, polish refers to the action of making something smooth and shiney. The only difference is one is capitalized and the other is not. In fact this is a classic example of how changing a letter from lowercase to uppercase not only changes its meaning but also its pronunciation. 25 Apr 2005

Wikipedia usage is supposed to match the real world. In the real world, the people who designed/created/developed/invented the Internet distinguished between "an internet" (small "i") and "the Internet" (capital "I"). This distinction is still in common use about 40 years later. It's only in the past 5 years or so that revisionists or people ignorant of the relevant history have taken to using "the internet" with a small "i". Listen to Noel, he knows what he is talking about. —AlanBarrett 19:39, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The meaning that doesn't mean "the internet" is slowly dying and being replaced by less ambiguous terminology. I'm not a revisionist, nor am I ignorant of historical usage. I'm simply keeping pace with the continual churn of the English language. The reality is that for the overwhelmingly vast majority of usage, "the internet" refers to one thing and one thing only, and contrived examples that use an outdated sense are disingenuous. "The Internet" will soon go the way of to-day, omnibus, and thou. Of course there were those that continued to use the archaic forms long after they had fallen out of common use, but do we want Wikipedia to be full of archaisms? Nohat 21:50, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)
As a result of looking at your gratuitous "just kidding" change, I now have a much better example: "The internet of intelligence agency {foo} spans the globe. All agency employees have access to the Internet." Now, without the i/I distinction, how does one phrase that last sentence to make it clear which internet one is referring to? The simple modifier "global internet" doesn't do it, since the agency's internet is also global. Noel (talk) 01:49, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Yet another bad example that in fact prove my point that a different word in most cases should be used for "an internet". The two sentences are a non sequitur, and any sensible reader in trying to understand it would assume that the capital I was merely a typographical error and the second sentence was asserting access to the agency's private network. Why would you talk about the private network of the intelligence agency in one sentence and "the internet" in the next sentence without linking them in any way? This kind of semantic expectation plays a large role in understanding and undermining it with contrived non-sequitur examples proves nothing. In response to your question about how you would refer to the agency's internet rather than the internet, you would simply write "the agency's internet". The I/i distinction is not necessary in this case or in any case. If you were writing about the atmospheres on different planets, when discussing the atmosphere of this planet, you would write Earth's atmosphere, but if you were writing about the atmosphere of earth only not in any kind of astronomical context, the atmosphere would be sufficient to qualify which atmosphere you were talking about. Similarly, "the internet", when being discussed not in the context of large private networks, is sufficient and requires no further qualification, whether by capital letter, or by descriptors like "global" or "public". Nohat 21:52, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Is this thing on? :-) chocolateboy 22:26, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Um, looking to news headlines for advice on how to capitalize? Sound Like a Great Idea to Me. Nohat 23:23, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

:-) Nah. News articles. Try again. I found the vast majority of recent (cf. "slowly dying and being replaced") news articles favour "Internet" rather than "internet". But I probably miscounted. What did you find? P.S. Wikipedia:Check your fiction.

chocolateboy 23:45, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The reality is that for the overwhelmingly vast majority of usage, "the internet" refers to one thing and one thing only, and contrived examples that use an outdated sense are disingenuous. "The Internet" will soon go the way of to-day, omnibus, and thou.
Kleenex has been around a lot longer than the Internet. It's capitalization doesn't seem to have gone away. On the other hand over on this side of the Ocean (oh wait, there's more than one), aspirin, which has been around a longer time too, has. There is no concrete rule, even for trademarked items. Invoking singular mindshare and uniqueness isn't enough to justify why there should be a forced migration away from the common usage for the last 30-ish years.
You might not have noticed, but there is only one ocean, of which areas have been given specific names, like the Atlantic, Pacific, Indian, etc. They're all connected. If you say a boat is "in the ocean", you know which body of water it's in, although not necessarily which part. Even so, "ocean" is not normally capitalized. Second, your trademark examples are red herrings. The internet is not and never has been a trademark, and so rules for capitalization of trademarks have no relevance. I never said anything about a forced migration, I simply said that "The Internet" will be going away. In English, the trend is always away from capitalization; the trend to decapitalize internet is already well underway and the hysterical shreiks of those who oppose the change will, in the end, be ignored. Mark my words: the Internet is dying and will eventually go away. Maybe not today, or next year, but eventually, and forever.
Want another tack? Let's get abstract. The fact is, the Internet is more than just the thing that is defined by the connectivity of digital-ness we share in now. It goes much beyond that by virtue of common communication (among machines and humans), social interaction at numerable levels, and virtual immersion of one's time, mind, and body (well, for now until we are all wearing nodes...). The phrases get on the Internet... and go to the Internet... and I'm on the Internet. refer more to this place of information sharing we have crafted rather than any thing pseudo-mechanical/ditigal/T1-y that is physical. It's not like saying I'm on a bike. In this sense—which IMHO is more of the reality even if it is less concrete—it deserves to retain the caps by virtue of being a true destination of interest that is as real as the North Pole or the Orient. --mh 01:54, Dec 4, 2004 (UTC)
Not all places are capitalized. I'm downtown. I'm on the road. We're going to the park. Similarly, the internet is just as generic. I think that if you look at the data, and do searches for phrases like "is on the internet" and "we're on the internet", you'll find that usage is pretty well mixed. Both "internet" and "Internet" are common. (And don't just look at the first few results; their ranking is likely conditioned by things like capitalization and occurring in titles, which have different capitalization rules.) Given that, this article's assertion that only correct way to write it is with a capital I seems a bit POV, as there are lots of people who don't capitalize it. At the very least, the article should frame the debate in terms of the opinions of those who insist on capitalization and those who don't. 02:51, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)
It certainly ought to be mentioned in the article that there is debate on what the correct usage is (I don't recall what's there now). It should be a separate section, lower down in the article, and give the arguments both ways.
I wouldn't lean too hard on the kind of phrases you mention, because the Web is full of bad English. Also, I suspect some high percentage of the people who use "internet" don't understand that there are internets which are not connected to the Internet. Noel (talk) 03:49, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)
So we should have to judge whether or not a particular usage is in a work of "bad English" before we can consider it as evidence? And we also have to judge whether or not the author knows about the obscure other meaning of "internet"? Who gets to be that judge? Those don't really sound like tenable or even reasonable criteria to me. If a usage occurs in great quantities, then with what authority do you judge it incorrect? I wish it were needless to say, but the answer is none. Nohat 05:23, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)
The other meaning is obscure only to people who know nothing of technology. No doubt C. P. Snow would be amused. I await with interest your proposal to replace all instances of the word mass with the word weight because, after all, most people don't know the difference, and who are we to say that they are incorrect? Noel (talk) 12:44, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)
No, not just to people who know nothing of technology, but to nearly everyone, except for those select few who concern themselves with the precise terminology used for "networks of networks". Compare the number of people for whom the distinction could ever play an important role to the number of people who are familiar with the term internet and you may come to recognize that the gap is tremendous.
Your comparison with mass vs. weight is yet another red herring, because while those are two very different concepts that most children learn about in elementary physics lessons, the distinction between an internet and the internet is much more subtle; indeed the internet is an internet. But it remains unclear to me why we need to maintain internet as a generic term for "network of networks", when a network of networks is still a network. If I have four computers and three routers, and connect two computers to one router, the other two computers to another router, and those two routers get connected to the third router, isn't that sufficient to form an internet? Most people who understand the technology would just call that a home network. Why is the distinction between a network and a "network of networks" important enough to maintain a separate word that already has a vastly larger corpus of usage under a different sense? Nohat 20:53, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)
"Most children"? That's utterly ridiculous - try asking random people you stop in the street to define the difference.
I'm sure you don't remember everything you learned in school either. We learned about the difference between weight and mass I think at age 8 or 9 in the American public school I attended. Of course, most of my classmates forgot it unless they took physics in high school, but they still were taught it. On the other hand, no one except those who are studying for degrees in information systems learn about internetworks. That's what makes it obscure.
And as for "why we need to maintain internet as a generic term for 'network of networks'", several points:
  • First, I look forward to you telling physicists how to rationalize the terminology in their field, and then biologists, etc, etc, down the line. The community of people who work with computer communications is quite happy with the internet/Internet terminology, and has no interest in changing it. (Other terminology in the field is in bad shape, and could use improvement, but this one is quite crystal clear and well-defined.)
It doesn't matter whether or not this tiny group cares about how the rest of the world uses their terminology. Language operates under the principle of 'change is inevitable'.
  • Second, it's not a generic term for a collection of network - it specifically refers to a group of networks (a poorly-defined word for this usage; the term "physical network" is sometimes used - although that's not quite right either) connected together via a specific class of device (a router).
OK, so the example I gave of two networks connected together by a router is not an internet how?
  • A typical home network (such as the one in my house) uses bridges to connect together its different segments, and is not an internet. (I'm not sure who your hypothetical "people who understand the technology" are, but their understanding is rather incomplete.)
Just because they don't buy into your party line about what the correct usage of the terminology is dosn't mean they don't understand it. I work with people who manage very large networks in multiple data centers around the U.S. that are connected together with routers (along with equipment that connects those networks to the telephone network), and nobody at my company calls it an internet. They realize the word "internet" has a much more important use elsewhere and don't try to press it into service when other terms work just fine and don't introduce the potential of confusion or ambiguity by relying on capitalization as the sole distinction.
I'd explain why a network of networks is not a network, but I have no interest in writing an introductory lecture on computer communications. May I suggest that you consult Interconnections: Bridges and Routers, by Radia Perlman, where you will find the various kinds of "networks of networks" very clearly explained. Noel (talk) 22:51, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)
You are inventing distinctions where none exist. I have seen many definitions of "internet" (try a Google search for "an internet is" for some examples) and none of them make any claim other than an internet being an interconnected network of networks. Perhaps the reason you won't explain why a network of networks is not a network is not because you don't want to write "an introductory lecture on computer communications", but because such an assertion doesn't make any sense. Saying that a network of networks is not a network is like asserting that a tautology is false. Would you also entertain an argument that a list of lists is not a list? Nohat 09:32, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)
When a "network" is defined as "a communication substrate across which a packet can be sent directly from one access point to another" (as it sometimes is - confusingly, I admit, when compared with other potential definitions, which is causing rather a lot of very expensive and high-stakes patent litigation at the moment), then yes, an "interconnected group of networks" is not a network.
Read the book. Noel (talk) 13:29, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I also would like to note that "mass" is indeed one of the definitions of "weight" (6a) [2], but rather than proposing some small change like using "Weight" to mean "mass" and "weight" to mean "weight" when the distinction is significant, a completely different word is used. Doesn't that seem like a much more sensible and easy-to-understand solution? Nohat 22:26, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)
"Weight" may mean "mass" to English majors, but not to physicists. And as for changing the terminology in the computer communications field, I'm afraid that train has long since left the station. (Ironically, originally a different term ["catenet"] was used, but it never caught on.) Noel (talk) 22:51, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)
If you do a Google search for the "internet", not a single one of the first 150 hits refer to anything other than "the internet" (not that hit 151 is not such a hit; I just got bored of clicking next.) And this is a corpus of text that consists of texts that occur on the internet! Other than the occasional prescriptive nutjob who insists on a distinction between internet and Internet, I haven't seen any evidence that internet enjoys any kind of robust usage in the generic sense, even in the literature in the field. I highly doubt there are many contemporary examples of the word "internet" used in its generic sense not in the context of distinguishing it from "the internet". It is a death knell indeed if the only occurrences of a particular sense of a word are from those who insist that that's the true or original meaning of the word. Nohat 09:32, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Oh, so people who disagree with you on this are "nutjobs"? Well, we can all see the force of your argument now.
I have better things to do here than get called names (in fact, I have better things to do here than argue about this to begin with), and there's clearly no point trying to explain this to you, since you have already made up your mind.
There's no consensus to change to "internet". End of story. Noel (talk) 13:29, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)


Just a question

Am I the only one who thinks that we have much better things to sort out on Wikipedia (including on the internet page) than childish name-calling over capitalisation of a single word? --Cynical 22:23, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Even less important would be wasting time pointing out that we're wasting time. Nohat 23:40, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Just the Facts

The correct form, "the Internet", is at least 4 times more common than the incorrect form, "the internet". The latter is neither the de jure nor the de facto standard.

chocolateboy 16:09, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

This test is biased because it doesn't exclude examples that occur in titles or headlines. You have to only count examples that occur in body text. Nohat 20:40, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)
However, even disregarding that, a usage that constitutes nearly 20% of overall usage (although almost certainly much higher than that percentage) would be prima facie evidence of its legitimacy, if not a majority usage, and I continue to aver that describing it as wrong is flagrant abuse of NPOV policy. Nohat 22:18, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I just went to change the intro to remove any verbiage about "wrong", but I can't find any such language. Noel (talk) 22:55, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The part that says
internet (with a small i) in the world, it is simply called the Internet (with a capital I).
is the part that says that calling it "the internet" with a lowercase i is wrong. It doesn't flat out say it, but it as much as implies it by asserting that it is spelled with a capital I. Maybe you could add something like "although it is often not capitalized". That seems like a step towards NPOV. Nohat 09:32, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I see no harm in an observation, properly phrased, that says that "internet" is used by some people. I am doing some research which will enable me to properly phrase the statement, and will add it when I have that information in hand. Noel (talk) 20:31, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Just a note that I now have most of the data in hand, I need to collate it and post it, will happen in a day or so (I'm rather busy at the moment, alas). Noel (talk) 12:23, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)
This test is biased

There's no bias, as you can see if you perform the test yourself (rather than speculating) and view the results. Headlines and titles are as likely to be in sentence case as title case, and title case titles are as likely to use "The Internet" as "the Internet".

Note that the figures are even more decisive when evaluated globally rather than per-document:

  • grep -r 'the Internet' . | grep -ivE '<(h[1-9]|title)' | wc -l
    • 337
  • grep -r 'the internet' . | grep -ivE '<(h[1-9]|title)' | wc -l
    • 76'
I continue to aver that describing it as wrong is flagrant abuse of NPOV policy.

Please note that this section is called "Just the Facts" and not "Lurid Allegations".

Maybe you could add something like "although it is often not capitalized".

"Often" is incorrect, as demonstrated above. "Occasionally", "seldom", "infrequently" &c. would be closer to the mark. It's not our job to cultivate and nourish vulgar errors.

chocolateboy 11:07, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Your method for excluding instances in titles and headlines is flawed. First, relying on HTML tags is inadequate. When I said "examples that occur in titles or headlines", I meant examples that occur in text acting as a title or headline, not text occurring in HTML tags that were designed to mark text as a title or headline, because as we all know, HTML tags are not always used to encode the semantics they were intended to. Second, even if we accept your HTML tag methodology, your method for counting is flawed because it incorrectly counts those cases where the tags are on a different line of HTML source as the text "the internet", and it doesn't count cases where the text doesn't occur inside one of those tags, but one of those tags occurs on the same line. Finally, I add that the test is further biased by the fact that it is only looking at news articles listed on news.google.com, and not at a broader corpus of English texts, some of which are just as easily accessible, like the Google web search corpus. Conclusions drawn from biased data do not make a convincing argument. Nohat 18:36, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Please restrict your argument to facts rather than long-winded fantasy. If you have stats at your disposal, I'd love to see them. Otherwise: 'There's no consensus to change to "internet". End of story.'

chocolateboy 18:43, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

To add my own two bits to the debate, I just ran some searches on the huge LexisNexis ALLNEWS file. ALLNEWS includes all news articles from the majority of English language newspapers, periodicals, newsletters and newswires worldwide, transcripts of broadcast news programs, and transcripts of government proceedings.

Lexis has the ability to limit searches to segments of an article and can thus filter out headlines. Lexis can also run searches where all matches can have any letter of the matching words capitalized (the CAPS command) and searches where all letters of all matches must be in lowercase (the NOCAPS command).

Here are some results for the last three days, for CAPS versus NOCAPS for the word "Internet" in article body text:

1/4/2005 - CAPS: 1078 (80%); NOCAPS: 265 (20%); Total: 1343
1/5/2005 - CAPS: 1144 (83%); NOCAPS: 224 (17%); Total: 1368
1/6/2005 - CAPS: 1059 (79%); NOCAPS: 281 (21%); Total: 1340

Clearly, "the Internet" is the dominant usage overall, not "the internet." Though, from surveying the progress of this ongoing debate, I suspect that Nohat is a troll and will not be swayed by such clear evidence.

Furthermore, I should also point out that the vast majority of sources that were using "internet" were outside of North America and were written in Commonwealth English, which differs significantly from American and Canadian English in many, many ways. Almost all North American news sources appear to prefer the spelling that is used by the Internet Society, the IETF, ICANN, and many other Internet institutions. It may be most accurate to note that "the Internet" is the traditional usage preferred by the Internet technical community and most English-speaking North American users; but "the internet" is rapidly catching on outside of North America. For example, the Economist (a UK magazine) uses the latter spelling.

--Coolcaesar 09:09, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Cultural Awareness Section

Sorry to interrupt the argument about the letter 'i', but am I alone in not understanding this sentence, that's recently appeared in the article?

"However, this is not always a good thing, as in situations like free speech law where the positions of the United States and most other countries are almost completely irreconcilable (all efforts by legal experts to overcome such differences have stalled)."

It's followed by this, which seems to me to be POV, more about the WWW (and books!) than the Internet, and a bit baffling too:

"Another related issue is that for persons with little curiosity (possibly the majority of the human species according to some sociologists), the Internet may actually be more of a dividing than a uniting force. Such persons might visit only Web sites that unquestionably reinforce their views, rather than forcing themselves to visit Web sites that challenge them."

Could the author, or somebody with some actual sociological knowledge on the subject, tidy these up? If not, I'll remove them in a few days, I think. --Nigelj 17:05, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)

They're gone.--Nigelj 18:34, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Frankly, this is also POV:
...so that ideally, people will be more sensitive to each other's positions.
But then there's little left under Cultural Awareness. There is probably more NPOV bits that could be interesting to have here, but I don't have the ability to formulate them into proper prose today! --mh 19:54, Dec 17, 2004 (UTC)

I originally drafted those sections. The first sentence was an allusion to the fact that different countries have different standards of what is an acceptable exercise of the right to free speech. Those differences were not a big deal until the Internet came along. For example, many European countries have a slightly higher tolerance for nudity and sex than Americans, but perceive American media to be too violent. France and Germany both ban Nazi-related speech, with only very narrow exceptions for educational or research purposes. The U.S. allows hate speech to flourish, but does not tolerate advocacy of imminent violent action against the government. And so on. The point is, the Internet allows people in different countries to serve up speech that is illegal in many of the countries where it is received. So even though the Internet allows people to become more aware of the cultures of other countries, they may be doing so in direct contravention of their own home country's public policy. There have been several attempts by conventions of legal experts to hack out a compromise on this issue, but not a single attempt has succeeded.

As for the second part, I agree with Nigelj that it is too POV. A few communications studies scholars have raised the possibility that as communications media like the Internet allow people to obtain information that is increasingly customized to their preferences, such media might allow people to reinforce their own cultural worldview rather than force them to confront different worldviews or cultural backgrounds. But there wasn't a consensus on that issue the last time I checked.

--Coolcaesar 08:35, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Self-destructive subcultures

I'm a new user here, so forgive any ettiquette breaches, etc, but I consider the grouping of sadomasochism in with things like suicide and necrophilia to be inapropriate and offensive. Sadomasochism is a consensual activity, with many levels, not all of which actually result in any harm to any/all participants - let alone self distructive acts. (see the wikipedia article on sadism and masochism). The 'Deviant behaviours' label is likely to be very offensive to some, and probably doesn't uphold the NPOV principals.

Also grouping anorexia in with necrophilia is also a bit off imho, given that anorexia is widly regarded as a disease. Yes there are sites that encourage it (which, having a large amount of experience helping anorexics to overcome their problems I personally hate - but this is obviously not npov), but there are far more sites out there that take my view.

I suppose what I'm saying is that I think this one section should be split into about three sections, and possibly retitled (although I currently have no suggestions for an alternative).

Chris

Good points, Chris, in my opinion. Go for it! Maybe test out your proposed new version here first - see if anyone's got any objections before replacing the real page stuff - if you're worried about the changes you're planning. (Oh, and sign your comments here with four tildes (or click the signature button) to get a full signature on the talk page) --Nigelj 21:18, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I'll have a think about how to organise it and phrase it and then post a suggestion here.

Chris Thryduulf 01:10, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC) (I am the same Chris as above, but I didn't know about signatures when I posted my first comment)

The whole subsection is horribly non-NPOV. I've added a pov check at the top of the page, I suspect the whole problems section needs cleaning up: Figures like 1000% are conjured out of thin air (is the in the US? Globally? Based on what data?) and a lot of the language is strongly POV. --fvw* 05:44, 2005 Jan 4 (UTC)

I was the person who originally raised the self-destructive subcultures issue, although it's been greatly rewritten by other users and myself (look at all the numerous versions in this page's history). The reason I grouped anorexia with necrophilia and apotemnophilia is that paraphilias by definition are also generally considered to be psychiatric disorders, just like anorexia nervosa. The point I was originally trying to raise, though I think it was edited out at some point, was that the Internet highlights a key tension within the concept of free speech---that free speech presupposes that the recipients of such speech are fully rational and are able to make a calculated decision about the full impact of their actions not only on themselves but on those around them and those who care about them. Also, I am aware that the notorious "pro-ana" sites are a minority of the total sphere of Web sites that deal with anorexia; the point of the new sub-subsection was to highlight that such sites even exist (since many newbies are still unaware of this issue). --Coolcaesar 10:33, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Regardless of validity, wording, structure, or even the specific examples included, the inclusion of this section seems rather POV to me. It's an attempt to draw attention to something by shoehorning a discussion of it into this page; the fact that "many newbies are still unaware" is actually an argument for why it should not be included here: it's part of someone's agenda. The Internet is a very, very big subject, with a thousands subtopics that one might spotlight in its main article. Is a commentary about a very small percentage of people really one of the key aspects of it, deserving of several paragraphs on that page? Or should we spin this off into a separate article and link to it? Tverbeek 13:11, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Apart from a few mentions of chat and messaging, most of the social issues and comments seem to be more about the Web than the Internet itself, so maybe should be in (or spun off from) the WWW article rather than this one. I'm more of a techie myself, so I'm hoping for someone with more sociological knowledge to take this problem in hand, and be able to 'add value' while doing it. --Nigelj 14:54, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I'd definitely like to see it taken out of an article that's primarily about a technology, because the direction it's taking (see the latest addition about Linux geeks and LiveJournal bloggers) is degenerating into a litany of "those people are messed up". At the least it needs the kind of qualified reviewing that it might get in a sociology-focused article. Tverbeek 13:11, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I agree, that latest section is very POV and indeed offensive. Linux geeks and LJ bloggers are wide ranging groups of people, some of whom virtually live on teh interenet, someof whom don't. There are also many other groups who can take it a bit seriously at times, e.g. gamers, wikipedians, IRC users, MSN users, BB readers, usenet readers, slashdotters, etc, etc. In most people's case it isn't a problem. Thryduulf 14:25, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I would like to point out that necrophilia is a sexual orientation; it's not the act of "making love" to dead people. (anonymous)

What is said in this part of the article has to be proved. It seems to refer to rumours, thoughts, and anti internet propaganda. The fact is that before Internet a lot of information were out of reach for one person. A free speech media rising will eventually show thing that people don't want to see or know about the world in which they lived. Actually Internet has played a significant role in stopping criminal activities that were discovered through it. The main isue is a POV issue about what is deviant or not. Eating dogs is a long tradition in Korea, but is seen as deviant in other countries, and as the internet connects these countries together, it is sometimes wrongly accused to be responsible for increasing it. Sorry I don't have time right now to search and provide reliable sources. You can also search how a revolutionary thing is received, and what are the different stages of acception by the people. Izwalito 13:00, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

And BTW this text is obviously written by someone who don't know what he/she's talking about, sounds like he/she's confusing the web and the net, ans as WWW was made public in 1993 how is it possible that since early 90's the Net was anything widely?? I think the NPOV version should say that the existence of many subcultures were discovered through the growing of Internet. Izwalito 13:18, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Can someone tell me why we can find this destructive sub culture excerpt here ? Oh and by the way what is this man butcher killed one guy because of the internet. didn't they also use a phone to get in touch, maybe one of em took a train, or drove a car to get to the other one. Why not say if there were no car this would have never happened so phones and cars are responsibles? 82.66.65.136 21:41, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Again, I started that section, and I should point out that the Web was developed in 1990 and introduced in August of 1991. I know quite well what I'm talking about, because my undergraduate specialization (as a history major at the most prestigious public university in the United States) was the history of computers. Furthermore, although you may have been too young to remember, there was intense worldwide media coverage of the World Wide Web by August and September of 1994 (I have two binders full of newspaper and periodical articles describing the Web just from the latter half of 1994). There was also a significant amount of media coverage of the Internet from 1993 onward.

I agree with the criticism that has been raised that this point is specific to the Web in particular and should be moved to the World Wide Web article.

I believe that Izwalito is conflating (if you don't know that word, look it up) the issue of how the Web allows people to discover deviant behaviors engaged in by other people, and the issue of how the Web allows people to discover deviant behaviors which they would never have known about otherwise, which they themselves proceed to engage in. Izwalito is criticizing the passage with regards to the former issue, but that is a straw man. The passage addresses the latter issue.

For example, in his groundbreaking article "A New Way To Be Mad" in the December 2000 issue of Atlantic Monthly magazine, bioethicist Carl Elliott pointed out that the interesting thing about the Internet is that it allowed people who had never even heard of apotemnophilia (and ordinarily never would have heard about) to hear about it. In turn, the problem is that the meme of apotemnophilia is contagious, in that people with the latent potential to develop this disorder then discovered other people like them on the Internet, and relevant materials which crystalized their formerly vague fantasies.

This could not have happened with prior technologies. For example, cars are private, and on any train or bus it is unlikely that someone would be advertising themselves in public as having such a disorder. Telephones and telegraphs are usually point-to-point, and even today multi-party teleconferences are rather clumsy to set up. Television and movies can reach mass audiences, but such a disorder is so rare that it is rarely covered in such media, and even then, only from a neutral perspective in a documentary. All "old media" have the common problem of even if they can allow someone with this disorder to find out more about it, they do not help such patients get in touch with the small number of others like them who also have it.

Similar analyses can be performed with other issues like anorexia. Although anorexia has received somewhat more media attention, it is highly unlikely that an anorexic sufferer would be able to purchase television time for an infomercial advocating anorexia nervosa as a healthy or reasonable lifestyle.

I hope this clarifies the discussion.

--Coolcaesar 22:56, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Introduced in 1991, the web in 1992 was about 26 websites, and became public domain in 1993, in june 1993 there was 130 sites and 623 at the end of 1993. Which the point where people accord themselves to say that the mass médias discovered Internet and the web. We both agree on this, but instead of Since the early 1990s, it has been widely recognized that the Internet enables broader distribution of ideas that most people find distasteful, for such ideas condone (or justify) the infliction of violence upon innocent non-consenting people I would have preferred a more NPOV version, something like In the end of early 1990s, mass medias described the Internet as a tool enabling people to discover cultures inside their own, upon which some would be considered distateful by public opinion in certain countries..

About me conflating (I looked), I think your text is conflating between a tool: the web, the Internet, and something capable of acting on its own. Are you confusing Internet and Internet usage by man ? Cause it is not Internet, but Internet usage by man that enables all that you are talking about. This is where relies the POV problem. As one purpose of Internet is to make knowledge available to the most, and that includes knowledge you wouldn't have otherwise access to, so I hardly see your point in precising that upon all this knowledge is apotemnophilia. The creation of virtual communities around a specific point shared by some or most of its member is pretty frequent and is not specific to self destructive subcultres, which are nowhere to be seen in your clarification. Anyways this clarification does not solve the POV problem, although gives us directions about what you wanted to say with this. 82.66.65.136 19:05, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Internet/Self-destructive subcultures (proposed)

I have had a go at redoing the section. My proposal is at Internet/Self-destructive subcultures (proposed).
I am not claiming that it is NPOV yet, I have probably made it slightly POV in the other direction in places, and so it needs input from others before its ready for the main article (imho). Thryduulf 11:52, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)


This section is inappropriate. It should be moved into its own section. It's relevance to the internet specifically is questionable. - A technology teacher in Texas.

POV removal

I just removed the following text from the WWW section of the article:

DR Web said one day :What punk was to rock, the Web is to the Internet.

The web produces new and exciting ways of accessing information and has since produced several specialist websites known as vertical search engines. Unlike traditional search engines like Google, these tend to specialize in one area, for example Totaljobs, whose search engine would only return information about job openings. One website that has gone a step further is Yumgo. Yumgo is what the future may be when it comes to accessing infomation as it enables users to group together all their various vertical search engines' preferences onto on page. This means it is possible to have Wikipedia, alongside other verticals like, IMBD, Yahoo, and Ebay.

Who is this Dr Web we are quoting here? Do we need to have a whole paragraph in the Internet article predicting the possible future success of a few web sites that most people have never heard of? I think someone has been sneaking vandalism and spam in here 'under the radar' - then getting their spelling mistakes tidied up by well-wishing editors!. --Nigelj 18:56, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Imho its inapropriate for this article entirely. Written better to focus on generic vertical serach engines rather than specific ones nobody has heard of, it might be apropriate at the search engine article. Thryduulf 19:46, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I slightly modified a sentence about societies that impose media censorship outlawing internet use. Does anyone know of a country that has outlawed internet use? I can, however, think of several countries with governments that are either arguably or unquestionably strongly autocratic where the internet is heavily censored, many web sites are blocked, public usage is limited to internet cafes, etc. So accordingly I changed the sentence to emphasize limitations rather than outright prohibition. Everyking 06:48, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)


"Since the early 1990s, it has been widely recognized that the Internet enables broader distribution of ideas that most people find distasteful, for such ideas condone (or justify) the infliction of violence upon innocent non-consenting people. Examples include racism, sexism, and fascism."

Oops. You forgot socialism and communism. – Fogger 13:13, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

"According to children's charities, the number of annual convictions for child pornography offences have increased by over 1000% since the Internet was first available to the public in the late 1980s." - I can't believe this is still in the article. Unless someone can find the source reference and show whether the Internet is (a) helping to increase the conviction rate or (b) is causing child pornography by itself, I propose we re-write or remove it. In what country was this research done, or are these worldwide figures? Are we really talking about the Internet or just the WWW? When were these figures gathered? What would the increase in the conviction rate have been if the Internet had not been made available? --Nigelj 22:23, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)