Talk:World Wide Web

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the World Wide Web article.
Article policies
Archives: 1
Former featured article World Wide Web is a former featured article. Please see the links under Article milestones below for its original nomination page (for older articles, check the nomination archive) and why it was removed.
Main Page trophy This article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on November 1, 2004.
Internet Portal
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Internet, an attempt to better organise information in articles related to the Internet. For more information, visit the project page.
B This article has been rated as B-class on the class scale.
Top This article has been rated as Top-importance on the importance scale.
This article has been reviewed by the Version 1.0 Editorial Team.
Version 0.7
 This article has been selected for Version 0.7 and subsequent release versions of Wikipedia.
Other languages WikiProject Echo has identified World Wide Web as a foreign language featured article. You may be able to improve this article with information from the Urdu language Wikipedia.
News This page has been cited as a source by a media organization. The citation is in:

Discussions from 2001 to September 2005 have been archived.

Contents

[edit] Improving this article

Can I just say that I think this page is not as bad as others have stated. 82.32.52.223 13:19, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

The current article strikes me as convoluted, as it evolved over a few years from a reasonable summary into a poorly-structured hodge-podge. It's time to be bold and work together in order to give the Web an article worthy of its impact on the Wide World ;-). The text should explain elementary notions in simple terms, and be more informative and complete for advanced readers. Some salient shortcomings were noted by Fredrik back in 2004 when the article was featured; sadly, most of his comments are still relevant today, so I'll copy them here to start the discussion. -- JFG 02:11, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

This article, featured on the main page today, has several problems. Parts of this article read way too much like an essay, with clear instances of POV and/or original, subjective interpretation ("these bold visions", "beyond text", also see "Publishing web pages" comment on talk). The overall structure is poor; the order and choice of sections seems arbitrary. For example, the "Java and Javascript" section should rather be called "Dynamic content", or something similar, and cover more than these two particular technologies. The section says nothing useful about what dynamic content is and what it is supposed to be good for. The "Sociological implications" section is vague and incomplete at best. Poor writing: many one-sentence paragraphs, missing wikilinks. Sub-standard choice of images. And perhaps the worst problem: this article is blatantly incomprehensive; there is almost nothing on types of websites, search engines, organization of the web and websites, the web's role in commerce, and probably many things I didn't think about. In my opinion, this article could use a rewrite from the ground up. Fredrik | talk 18:35, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Call for help with a major rewrite proposal. This article needs some love: come and submit your ideas! -- JFG 04:57, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pronunciation

The pronounciation section is potentiall usefull and is not causing any harm 82.32.52.223 13:22, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Is that fat section on the pronunciation of 'www' in various languages (and dialects!) really necessary? It seems like there's gotta be something more important that could replace it.

I think it's relevant. It provides one interesting angle on how various peoples around the world have approached the problem of concisely referring to a network service that purports to call itself "World Wide." --Coolcaesar 22:48, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
Yeah, it's potentially useful, and definitely interesting. I don't see the slightest harm in it being there. --Oolong 10:52, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

The quotation:

The World Wide Web is the only thing I know of whose shortened form takes three times longer to say than what it's short for.
— Douglas Adams, The Independent on Sunday, 1999

This Mr. Adams apparently missed Archie Bunker refering to his service in "Double-you double-you eye-eye." 140.147.160.78 19:13, 8 September 2006 (UTC)Stephen Kosciesza

Well, the "Pronunciation" section provides no citations, so it should be considered POV until sources are put in there. I've never heard anyone say, "triple 'double u'," "triple dub", or "all the double u's." But I'm just asking for a source to be cited. 68.38.242.66 20:59, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
"all the double u's" is quite common on the street and on pirate radio (in London) and might be worth a mention (citation needed, blah blah) Uncoolbob 16:44, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] graphic

the graphic violates wikipedias policies about not being self-referential. this article is about the www, there is no reason why we should display it as revolving around wikipedia. 69.22.42.35 20:59, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] HTTP cookie

I have submitted the article HTTP cookie for peer review (I am posting this notice here as this article is related). Comments are welcome here: Wikipedia:Peer review/HTTP cookie/archive1. Thanks. - Liberatore(T) 16:57, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Jean Armo(u?)r Polly

Coolcaesar claims that the name of the librarian who coined the term "surfing the Web" is Jean Armour Polly. There's a "netiquette" site that someone tried to refer to by an one-word article Net-mom called Net-Mom], where the owner signs herself Jean Armour Polly (see bottom of front page). Her biography on the site claims that she's the inventor of the phrase "surfing the Internet". So I'd say that his point is documented. I'll write her a page. --Alvestrand 06:51, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Origins

I think it should be a little clearer that internet hypertext appeared in Gopher before the invention of WWW. I believe WAIS also predates WWW. The "brilliant breakthrough" paragraph makes an incorrect statement in this regard. It should also be mentioned that HTML is based on SGML, with a link to that mark-up language.

Gopher wasn't hypertext. It had directories (lists of terms) and files (text). No links within the texts. WAIS was a search tool; again, not hypertext. Alvestrand 22:31, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

The Origins section does nothing to make it clear why the Web is even called a Web, or what was web-like about it. For early users of the Web, before search engines existed, it was clear that the structure was web-like. Unidirectional links allowed users to branch out in a completely unstructured way. Subsequent material may or may not have linked back to the source of the link, and may not have been directly related. For most users of the modern Web, its usage is more structured and hierarchical. Often, a search engine is the starting point, and hyperlinks generally point to areas deeper within and more specific to a given site. This differs from the earlier model when a typical website contained numerous links to discussions of related subjects or keywords on unrelated sites.

Hypertext certainly predates HTTP, as do other protocols. The general issue of what protocols were in common use, such as Gopher, or Archie, or any others that may have allowed searching, are not truly related to the Web, although they are part of Internet history. Since the Web was not a search based medium, but a hypertext based one, HTTP did not truly replace protocols such as Gopher. It was really search engines, which are tools accessible by HTTP, that replaced Gopher. Hypertext itself, in its earlier uses, had nothing to do with the Internet per se. Its first mainstream use was on Apple computers, although the concept was much older. Likewise, the first mainstream use of hypertext on the Internet is the Web itself. Although Berners Lee had an earlier hypertext tool on the Internet, it was not widely recognized. 23 May 2006

I believe the Origins section was actually better a couple of years ago, though I'm not 100% sure. The problem is that this article is vandalized on an hourly basis, and it's often edited by inexperienced, immature, or uneducated users, so the article as a whole is in very bad shape. --Coolcaesar 19:49, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] “World-Wide Web” with a hyphen?

Should “World-Wide Web” rather be written with a hyphen? -- Wegner8 17:09, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Might have been a reasonable suggestion in 1992, but now it's too late - it's been firmly established that it's non-hyphenated. --Alvestrand 17:19, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
Negligent usage takes precedence over rules and consistency. This is how languages deteriorate: Latin to Italian, English to AE and beyond. Wegner8 (talk) 07:26, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Minitel, Telidon, Nabu Network

I have been somewhat bold and added a subsection to origins to briefly discuss earlier similar information delivery technologies such as the ones mentioned in the section head just above. I think what I added could be substantially improved and encourage all and sundry to do so

  • My terminology (system/information delivery/...) may be off - I am not an expert in the field
  • Maybe this is not the right article for it, perhaps History of the Internet instead.

-- Martinp 22:25, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Please don't do that. No intelligent person confuses videotex with the Web today. Of course, in 2001, British Telecom had the bright idea of trying to claim that one of its old videotex patents encompassed hypertext and sued Prodigy (now part of SBC, which is now AT&T). The case never got to trial, since the defense got it kicked out on summary judgment because videotex and the Web are so different. The biggest difference (which is what the BT case ultimately turned on) is the fact that the Web and the Internet are both decentralized while videotex was always heavily centralized.--Coolcaesar 06:36, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
Actually, I'm going to be bold and delete the section. There is no reason to have a discussion of videotex in the World Wide Web article, which is way too long as is. There are already numerous articles on videotex and the various videotex systems on Wikipedia.--Coolcaesar 06:37, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
Not trying to have a discussion of videotex, or thinking that they get confused. I just think that it's good to mention and point to other technologies which tried to do something similar (which is e.g. Nabu network not just videotex) even though they failed. Just as it is interesting to mention various forks of prehistoric humans (e.g. Neanderthals) in a history of human evolution, even though we are not directly descended from them and would not confuse them. But I won't force the issue -- it was a bold suggestion from someone who was searching where to hang Nabu Network, which has some if marginal interest -- though I'd appreciate alternative suggestions on where else in the whole tree of evolution of the internet/www/networked information/interactive information exchange it ought be mentioned in. Martinp 19:02, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Inaccurate definition

The article kicks off with the following text. If its intended to be a definition, its wrong; if its introductory, its misleading:

WWW is The complete set of documents residing on all Internet servers that use the HTTP protocol, accessible to users via a simple point-and-click system.

The errors are:

  • information,not documents
  • not restricted to http
  • need not be acessible to users
  • need not (and often does not) use point and click

--Nantonos 20:48, 18 April 2006 (UTC)


This definition was plagarized from the American Heritage Dictionary (http://www.bartleby.com/61/78/W0227850.html).

[edit] More errors

[edit] text based

Prior to the release of Mosaic, the Web was text based

No. The first Web browser, on the NeXT, had both text and graphics (although not mixed together). The second one, because not everyone had a high-end workstation, ran on basic text erminals. Other browsers, such as Viola, followed. What Mosaic did was to allow graphics to be displayed inline in the text. Unfortunately, Marc based the Mosaic code on the widely available dumb terminal browsers rather than the more fully featured ones. --Nantonos 20:57, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Why this article is a mess

I haven't been following this article closely and I didn't realize it has become such a MESS. I just reviewed the article history carefully. Major screw-ups include Ryguillian's 2004 replacement of what was the technically correct definition with the W3C's politically correct one (see [1]), and severe vandalism in October 2005 by user 202.124.147.147 (see [2]) and others shortly thereafter. I suggest a revert back to the last good version at 9 October 2005.[3] Does everyone else concur on this? --Coolcaesar 23:22, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

It's hard from your links to see what you're referring to - only the middle one shows a diff. I haven't been following this article much either but I would be wary of a wholesale revert of over 7 months' work - there must have been some worthwhile additions in that time too, I would have thought. --Nigelj 09:31, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
I also disagree with reverting to such an old version, although it was more coherent. Thanks for finding some gems in earlier versions; you should bring the deleted paragraphs back to life. Nantonos also makes some good points in the discussion above. I'm glad to see that some people care, so let's go ahead and clear the mess together! -- JFG 23:03, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Rewrite proposal

Recent comments have encouraged me to create a major rewrite proposal. This article needs some love: come and submit your ideas! -- JFG 04:57, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Opening paras

Re-reading the opening paragraphs today I notice that the emphasis has been changed, with a lot more on hardware and less on the actual web of information that the article is about. I tracked this down to two edits, 16th Jan by JFG and 4th Apr by Bgs264. In the first, JFG removed a reference to URI, which is the most fundamental underlying concept - more so even than HTTP and HTML. In the second, Bgs264 makes no comment but began what is surely a hopeless list of links to all the different hardware devices that may interact with the web.

I have tried to redress the balance again, while discussions continue regarding a major re-write. --Nigelj 16:40, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

I do not agree with all your word choices but agree that it is mostly an improvement. Considering their damage to the article, Bgs264 and JFG may both be possible vandals. --Coolcaesar 21:40, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Dear Coolcaesar, please keep cool! Read my contributions closely and I hope you will be convinced that, far from being a vandal, I am deeply motivated to improve this article and make it both more exact and much clearer, serving the needs of the newcomers as well as the experts. I'd love to read your comments and ideas on my proposal for a major rewrite of this article. We should be able to do a good job by working together.
Concerning the specific change that you criticized, I wanted to make the opening paragraph understandable by non-specialists, which is a fundamental goal of writing an encyclopedia. Defining the Web in terms of URIs was not the most intuitive way to explain it: the Web is first and foremost an information space, URIs and other technicalities are a means to an end, and are duly explained in the following paragraphs. Subsequent changes by Bgs264 and others obfuscated the matter, and Nigelj clarified it again (thanks!). As of today, the opening paragraph has definitely been improved, although I'm sure we will be able to make it even better over time.
Let's keep talking and strive to bring this fundamental article back to "featured" quality. -- JFG 21:26, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
Please try to tone down the agression, Coolcaesar. I'm referring to your edit comment, "Some idiot vandalized my photo..." (06:59, 18 June 2006 on this article). Maybe it's time for you to re-read some of the the basic WP policies and guidelines, and stop abusing your fellow contributors? --Nigelj 12:00, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
Fine, I'll concede that my comment was a bit strong and I apologize. But whomever that Van Dore dude was who edited it, he should have (1) asked me first and (2) done a decent job rather than making a smeared blurry mess or just not touched it at all. Plus making substantive serious modifications to photos (other than basic sharpness and color balancing applied to the whole image) seriously reduces the reliability of the whole encyclopedia.--Coolcaesar 18:31, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Piotr Blass

This guy in his vanity article claims to have co-invented WWW. Please somebody disuade him. Mhym 20:34, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 666

I don't believe there is a letter "w" in Hebrew. Where does this idea that www = 666 come from? I suggest deleting that section, as humorous as it may seem.

[edit] The picture issue

I am having a dispute with User:Netoholic regarding the version of my photo Image:FirstWebServer.jpg that should be displayed in this article and History of the World Wide Web. Several months ago, someone calling himself/herself Van Dore created an altered version, Image:First Web Server.jpg. They attempted to remove the glare of the flash (this was before I learned how to take good photos in low light without a flash) by retouching the photo, but the retouching quality was quite poor.

I would prefer the original unaltered version of my photo to be the version in the article, for several reasons. First, this is a photograph of a historical artifact we are talking about. Directly retouching historical photos (that is, to add or subtract objects in the image) is widely considered to be sleazy and unethical among professional historians (see Wikipedia's own article on Photo manipulation for the history lesson on Joseph Stalin's use of the practice). I never make such edits to my photos; the only adjustments I make to my photos are uniformly applied filters like color balancing, contrast, and sharpness. Sometimes I might crop an image to better frame a subject (for example, to make an off-center subject appear to be in the center) but I never paint over something in the image so that it is no longer there.

Second, this particular retouching was poorly done. It is quite obvious to anyone with a high-quality LCD screen and perfect color version (that would include moi) that the altered version does not look natural because it has an area of pixels in the middle of the exact same color. Such spots are common in artwork, of course, but they are rare in photographs of ordinary objects in their natural environment since the reflection of light from different points on a surface at different distances from the camera results in continuous gradients. The result is that it is immediately apparent that the photo has been altered by an amateur. Wikipedia does not need to be serving up amateur artwork on such an important topic.

I request the community's feedback on this important issue. We may need to amend the image use policy at some point. --Coolcaesar 03:54, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Taking a photograph of a historical artifact does not make your photograph a historical artifact itself. You uploaded the image under the GFDL, and in doing so, explicitely allow people to edit it mercilessly. You should let go any expectation that your image will remain unmodified and you should never use the word "vandalized" as you did in your edit summary. I believe removing the flare (whether you want to do it yourself or just accept the existing alternative) is the best choice for a high-quality article. This is especially true considering the image is thumb-nailed. -- Netoholic @ 04:28, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
You did not respond to my argument on the merits. As any professionally trained historian knows (and I studied history with one of the top three history departments in the United States), photos of historical artifacts are part of the historical record since they may be the only record that an object even existed if the original is ever destroyed (due to fire, vandalism, plane crashes, car accidents, accidental drops, war, terrorism, and so on). For example, hundreds of artworks that have been lost (in World War II, for example) are known only through photographs. This is why it's so important to not retouch photos. There is a very famous passage in The Book of Laughter and Forgetting about the guy who was airbrushed out of all the photos in all the history books in Czechoslovakia, so that the only indicator in the books of his existence was the hat he put on another guy's head.
Second, I'm sorry to have to directly confront you this way, but are you actually physically capable of seeing that the edited photo has a big gray unnatural solid spot in the middle of it? I mean, do you see it? I can see it quite clearly in both the expanded and thumbnailed versions. And yes, I have looked at the photo on several other computers as well and I saw it on those.
Any photo with a weird big gray alien splotch in the middle is not high quality. That is amateur quality! If you truly care about making sure that this is a "high-quality article," you would concede that an amateurish photo edit is inconsistent with that goal.
Finally, I am not going to remove the flare because (1) it would be inconsistent with my strong personal conviction that history ought to be transmitted in the most neutral, realistic, coherent and truthful manner and (2) I am out of practice with regard to retouching, which I have not dabbled in since I was in college. --Coolcaesar 16:56, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
Here we go again. Some anon IP user had fixed WWW and related articles to point to the original copy, FirstWebServer.jpg, and then Netaholic just went and overrode that edit so that all those articles are showing the edited copy. Can we please PLEASE engage in a reasonable debate here? I don't want to take this minor matter to mediation or arbitration, though I will if I have to (I just successfully prosecuted a request for arbitration against Ericsaindon2, after I and about ten other users became totally fed up with his edit warring over the Anaheim Hills, Anaheim, California article).--Coolcaesar 01:58, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
Okay, no response after two weeks. I am changing it back. --Coolcaesar 21:21, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Boring intro

The intro section is far too low-key and techical, and conveys no sense that the Web is the nost important and revolutionary development in communications technology since the invention of television, and probably since the printing press. Could someone with some expertise in the social importance of the Web contribute some material? Adam 07:28, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, that's a rather subjective judgment. While most people (myself included) would probably agree, it needs to be backed up by citations to some of the major pundits like Alvin Toffler. To clarify the issues: I personally think the Web is the biggest development in publishing technology (one-to-many) since the invention of the printing press, while e-mail is the biggest development in communications technology since the invention of the telephone. --Coolcaesar 05:29, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

OK well I will write something myself if no-one else will, although it won't have anything to do with the charlatan Toffler. Also, what is this WWW "historical logo"? I've never seen it before. What is its orgin and status? Adam 16:10, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, if you're going to rewrite the intro, you need to make sure that your edits comply with core Wikipedia content policies. Please read Wikipedia:Verifiability, Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not, Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, and Wikipedia:No original research. Please review Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration to see what happens to editors who fail to cooperate with these policies. For an example of a properly researched article, see my work at Lawyer.
As for the logo, it was used, if I recall correctly, for the WWW project around 1994-1995. --Coolcaesar 18:22, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] BBC

I once heard that the BBC found out that they had some obscure patent on linking between files that happened to cover the WWW, but decided not to claim rights to the WWW. Any truth in that? DirkvdM 07:00, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Never heard of it. The only British patent I've heard of is the British Telecom patent, but a district court judge in New York dismissed the BT case against SBC and BT decided to not appeal. --Coolcaesar 02:15, 22 September 2006 (UTC)


[edit] "Website" and "Web site" capitalised?

Is this correct? I have never seen it before, including on Wikipedia, but apparently it is ?? -- Chuq 20:48, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, the World Wide Web is name, like "Internet." It is therefore capitalized, like all names. The internationally recognized official Web standards are established and published by the World Wide Web Consortium or W3C and can be found at the site www.w3.org. It must be acknowledged that the standard (i.e correct) is always a capitalized W whenever referring to the World Wide Web in any form, including: Web, Web site, Web page, Web server, etc. (See Web Site (spelling) and its discussion as well.) ~ UBeR 01:27, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
That may be an official standard, but it is certainly not common usage. Take a look at current usage with a google news search for "website". -- Chuq 00:07, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
Actually, it is. Compare http://news.google.com/news?q=%22web%20site%22 to the link you posted (that is, the number of results).
In addition, from the discussion at Web Site:
[claim] 7. Somehow common malpractice in public forums represents justification for further neglect, abuse, or malpractice, particularly abandoning widely accepted standards.
[Answer]: False. All over the Web and in interpersonal communications, there are accelrating occurences of individuals failing to use capitalization, punctuation, or even automated spell-checking. that doesn't make it tolerable acceptable beneficial admirable or even comprehensible does it do you intend to emulate that common practice as well
~ UBeR 01:32, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
I just checked Google News at news.google.com. There are 51,700 hits for "website" and 89,700 hits for "Web site." Clearly Web site is the more common usage. I also noticed that "Web site" is much more common in the United States. This is one of those differences between British English and American English. --Coolcaesar 04:19, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, we're pretty 'uneducated' over here. But we're happy enough; we get things done - and we certainly do exist. :-) --Nigelj 19:04, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
No, you've missed my point. I'll take it out though, if that's all you'll ever focus on. My point was, Web site is common usage among the educated. That does not necessarily suggest those who do not write it as so are uneducated. ~ UBeR 20:11, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
Google news is just newsgroups, it has nothing to do with determining any standard. In fact based upon the kinds of people who post there I'd argue anything there is more likely to be wrong. "Web" absolutely is not capitalized willy-nilly. DreamGuy 14:44, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
Whilst "web" is not capitalised in general usage, I would argue that "the Web" is more correct than "the web" - compare with "the Internet". I won't do any edits along these lines for a couple of days to allow folk to reply to this, but I am inclined to change capitalisation to CapFirst when usage is as a proper noun. -- SGBailey 15:10, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
That's improper usage most places, and the vast majority of the instances in the article aren't properly proper nouns, as they work for limited "web"s (for intranets, CDs, etc.) just as well as the World Wide Web. If you went to specify the World Wide Web and insist upon capitalization, spell the whole thing out to avoid confusion, or otherwise reword it, because capitalizing things willy-nilly makes it look highly amatuerish. 21:15, 23 August 2007 (UTC) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by DreamGuy (talk • contribs).
I agree with SGBailey. "The Web" is the shortened form of World Wide Web, which we all agree is a proper noun. And to say that capitalizing things willy-nilly looks amateurish is ignoring the fact that web was always capitalized for a long time. It really was Web page and Web site and so on. Only recently has web become such a common noun that it's been de-capitalized. However, "the Web" is still a proper noun (note the "the"), as it refers directly to the World Wide Web. For a real world example, how about the Company in reference to the CIA? Or the Senate to mean the Senate of the United States of America? Senate alone is not a proper noun. But when used to refer to "the Senate," it is a proper noun. Just as "the Web" is used to refer to the World Wide Web. I don't know how this can be made any clearer. (I hate to use all the quotation marks, but it's the easiest way to delineate the difference between "the Web" and web.)
Let it be known that I also agree that not all instances of web are to be capitalized. Just the proper noun bits. --clpo13(talk) 08:47, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
Shortened formed of proper nouns are only capitalized when the shortened form still explicitly refers to a proper noun usage as an official title, and even there only in certain style guides, and not typically Wikipedia. When you refer to, say, Yale University, it's capitalized, but when you mention university even if the university in question being talked about is Yale lowercase on university is still preferred in most style guides because it's not an official title. "The Company" in reference to the CIA is a bad example because it's not a separated out world from the full name, it's a nickname that's official. But if we talk about the "Smith Automative Supplies Company" and take a subset out we write "the company" did this or that and not "the Company". It's an amateurish mistake from people incapable of following nuances of grammar and usage. "The Web" is not it's official title, "the World Wide Web" is. And when talking of the web in general, again, that's not necessarily a reference to only The World Wide Web, as it's a more general web that includes intranets and other situations totally separate from the whole web. If you mean specifically the World Wide Web, then say it, otherwise no capitalization, per basic English grammar rules. And of course I question Clpo13's involvement here as he seems to be interested only in wikistalking me and trying to start whatever fight he can everywhere he can despite never having participated on the articles in question before. DreamGuy 14:28, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
You can question an editors involvement all you want, but it just shows your continued assumption of bad faith. People do not need to explain themselves to you, and you'd do well to remember that.
Here's an idea: provide a source backing up your claims (instead of using sketchy grammatical claims with little or no basis) and maybe the editors here will take your seriously. It might also help not to insult people by questioning their grammatical knowledge. But that would be expecting a bit much, yes? You never were one for discussing properly. --Editmaniac 21:09, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
Actually, if you'd been paying attention to Clpo13's edit history at all you'd see he's doing exactly what I say. You without knowing any facts are assuming bad faith about me just because I pointed out your incivility. The fact is that you've provided nothing to back yourself up at all, and your claim that my explanations are sketchy also assume bad faith. You've done nothing but declare yourself right and made personal attacks on my motives while I have at least tried to explain why I am right. As you've done nothing you should take the time to try to back up your edits before you blind revert to your version. Your comments and actions are definitely a case of WP:POT. DreamGuy 22:24, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
So let me get this straight: your response to the accusation that you've made dubious claims/arguments is to throw it right back at the accuser, saying he's the one who needs to provide sources? You feel no obligation to justify generalizations and claims you made in support of the dubious argument that capitalizing "Web" is poor grammar? It also seems that like many discussion page disputes, this is quickly devolving into "nobody else chimed in to agree with you, so I must be right" posturing, which suggests you've got nothing substantive to add. (continued below, in the Manuals of Style subsection) —mjb 23:52, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
I have examined clpo13's edits at length and seen nothing wrong. And saying I don't know the facts...tsk tsk. More assumption of bad faith. You can't really say what I do and don't know, can you? I have examined the facts, especially those on your RfC and ArbCom listings, even if I am refraining from participating in either. You think I know nothing about you, but simply because you've never seen this account before doesn't mean we haven't interacted. A quick glance at my talk page would explain that nicely.
As to my supposed lack of justification, did you not see the explanations above regarding the proper nouns? I agreed with those. Besides, the original version of the page had Web (in a certain context) capitalized, so I was sticking with the original version. You could have very well discussed the manner politely and come to some kind of consensus. Now it simply appears the consensus is turning the other way. I need not provide any more justification than mjb has so kindly produced. Editmaniac 07:40, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Manuals of style

This topic has actually come up before, in discussion for WP:MOS. One person in that thread notes the following:

“Both the Microsoft Manual of Style for Technical Publications and the Chicago Manual of Style give Internet and World Wide Web.”

Although the Chicago MOS isn't freely available online, a summary of it says the following:

“Internet Terminology: Usage in this area is frozen by the CMS publication cycle. Be consistent!
  • e-mail [email]. The hyphenated form is found in the AMA, APA, CMS, and MLA style manuals!
  • Web page [Web site]. “Web” is a proper noun in these terms (AMA, APA, CMS, MLA agree).
  • webmaster, web… Most other Web terms are spelled lowercased and closed (without a hyphen): webcam, webcast, webhead, webmail, webzine, etc. Some terms may be spelled open and Web capitalized in formal writing— Web cam, Web cast, Web mail, Web TV.”

I find the fact that four major style guides agree on "Web page"/"Web site" noteworthy and, given the credentials of those who author such guides, a strong argument against capitalization being an error. On the other hand, the ubiquity of "website" in numerous Google-able informal and mass-market publications is hard to ignore, at least for the sake of whether one should write "Web site" or "web site" or "website". Also, editors and style guides tend to be conservative and behind the times when it comes to proper nouns and trademarks falling into general, non-capitalized (mis-)use. However, I'm not persuaded to stop capitalizing Web just yet, especially for references to the Web. Pedantic observations of the existence of "a more general web" (a distinction which only DreamGuy and very few others make) aside, is the capitalization ever really causing any confusion? Besides, the longstanding stability of such a popular article with capitalized "Web" indicates most would-be editors agree with the convention and see no need to change it. —mjb 23:52, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

I concur with Mjb's excellent repudiation of DreamGuy's weak arguments. Regardless of what may be happening in certain publications, many if not most established, respectable publications in the United States are still capitalizing "Web" as an adjective, including the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times. Wikipedia does not lead the style trends, it follows them. DreamGuy's aggressive pushing of his idiosyncratic lowercase usage of "Web" in Wikipedia articles (e.g. Web server) is tantamount to using Wikipedia as a soapbox for personal opinion and original research in violation of official policies Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, Wikipedia:No original research, and Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not (specifically, not a soapbox). If (and when) the AP and Chicago stylebooks change over to lowercasing "Web" then DreamGuy's proposed usage will have merit.
Also, all editors interested in this discussion should be aware that User:Dicklyon has filed a request for arbitration against User:DreamGuy at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration. --Coolcaesar 00:49, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
I believe he has now violated WP:3RR. I've prepared a report, but as per the reporting requirements, we must first give him a chance, after warning him, to cease with the reversions. Perhaps he will engage in a discussion that addresses the criticisms of his stated position, rather than merely insisting he's right / has provided enough justification. The warning is necessary, even though he's been through this before and has endured other blocks. More reading for interested editors: a lengthy discussion about DreamGuy on the Administrators Noticeboard. —mjb 07:00, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
I'm in complete agreement with mjb. I don't know what the whole "general web" bit is about, but in the context of "the Web," the word should be capitalized. Making the distinction by completely spelling out World Wide Web simply makes for a confusing and wordy article. People are smart enough to note the distinction based on capitalization. Capitalized words mean proper nouns. When someone sees "the Web," they should know to link it to the World Wide Web. When web isn't capitalized, it obviously isn't a proper noun and means something more general. Editmaniac 07:40, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
Well, if I understand correctly, DreamGuy, like you, feels that "web" is general and "World Wide Web" is specific - but at the same time, he insists that "Web", as short for "World Wide Web", is flat out wrong, and that we must all use "web" in that case, which obviously leads to ambiguity but somehow makes sense to him. It's not clear to me whether in his edits he's applying the latter preference (decapitalization of the strictly-WWW Web), or the former (changing the text to be about general, not-necessarily-WWW webs). Regardless, it's even more confusing when I consider that the average reader most likely does not make a distinction between a "web site", "website", or "Web site"; it's all WWW sites to them, until they're reminded that there are non-Internet-bound webs that otherwise use the same technology. DreamGuy apparently feels this ignorance is all the more reason to support blind decapitalization, but to me just seems to make it all the more reason not to carelessly lowercase every "Web" on the page, lest the reader not know which type of web is being referred to. —mjb 09:36, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
From the Associated Press stylebook -- "World Wide Web or the Web." ... "Also, Web site (an exception to Webster's first listing), and Web page. But webcam, webcast and webmaster." Otto1970 18:00, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Just looking at this, I thought to myself, near thre start, The World Wide Web and the Web may be names, BUT website is a word for a type of thing, and not a name of a singular instance. As such "website" should be lower case.

Otto1970, you may be wrong. There are other networks, but I have yet to come across other webs, or even mention of them, and I have done courses in IT and a cert 4 course in web design. Please enlighten me and tell me how to contact them. After all, you are assertign that there are other webds out there, and all points used in a discusion to decide a matter should be verifyable. Corrupt one 22:14, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ad surfing

This may have something to do with the phrase, if someone wants to do the research: [4] ~~helix84 12:42, 16 November 2006 (UTC)


[edit] where did the end of the article go?

the caching sectioned petered out mid-sentence. I looked for, but didn't find, a version to safely revert to with the complete article. In the absebce of anything better I tidied up by removing the final sentence / para, so at least it stops with a full-stop, not mid-sentence. However, this is very unsatisfactory. Does anyone remember what it used to say, and can revert to a fuller version? raining girl 17:24, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

S/he may have been experimenting or just vandalising, but the article was mostly wrecked by a user at 68.189.124.92 between 17:11 and 17:15 today. The only interesting edit since then was Raining girl changing the number 4 to the word four. I hope I've restored it OK - if I've missed anything useful, please add it back too :-) --Nigelj 19:11, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Basic Terms

The article lists four basic terms or concepts that allow the web as we know it to function: hypertext, markup, the client/server model, and "resource identifiers." Because the majority of humans alive today understand the concept of a URL and are very comfortable with the notion, having used them "hands on" in the address bar every day. A URI and a URL are not the same thing, but the concept is very similar. 71.216.188.161 23:44, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Improper redirect.

Web-based redirects to this article, when it should redirect to Web application. I must also point out that Web-based application properly redirects to Web application. 01:02, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The line about the Semantic Web in the introduction is grossly inaccurate

Red1 D Oon's contribution on 12 November 2006 [5] to the first paragraph was quite inaccurate and was in gross violation of numerous Wikipedia policies, including Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not, Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:No original research. Specifically, Wikipedia is not a soap box nor a crystal ball. The Semantic Web is still a pipe dream and we are still at least a decade away from fully realizing Berners-Lee's vision (if it ever happens, since many critics have pointed out that it is founded on honesty and there are a substantial number of dishonest hackers and spammers).

Also, Berners-Lee did NOT conceive of the Web in terms of the Semantic Web. The Semantic Web did not burst full-grown from Berners-Lee's head like the goddess Athena from Zeus.

Anyone who has actually read Berners-Lee's 1989 paper will see that the Semantic Web was not even in his mind at the time; much of the vision of the Semantic Web is based on innovations in artificial intelligence, databases, and distributed computing that occurred during the 1990s. The World Wide Web as originally conceived is clearly based on the state-of-the-art in 1989: HyperCard, Guide, MacOS, NextStep, the old purely UNIX-based Internet, and Ted Nelson's vaporware Xanadu project.

I am going to delete Red's egregious misstatement of the facts in a week or two unless someone defends it or modifies it for accuracy. --Coolcaesar 09:49, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I am going to fix it, no one has stated a position either way. --Coolcaesar 13:03, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
Hi Coolcaesar, thank you for kindly adding some debate for some intellectual ponder. I m still new to wiki editing and might put the tree in the wrong part of the forest. This is indeed news to me. All this while, i have read of the Semantic Web as coming from the inventor and even followed the debate about how HTML precluded and polluted such an important enlightening concept. However can't we be less chronological and show some hindsight in wikipedia? Isnt the Semantic Web a 'factual philosophy' of what the inventor has in mind for the web? At least eventually since there is already a Semantic Web entry saying as such. Think about it. Isn't this a highly significant soundly placed headline for the public to succinctly grasp thru the noise of it all? As i said perhaps the point is correct but not in the right place. But from you saying it as some fantasy of Zeus, i m not sure if this is a debate or a fact. :) Thanking you again -- Red1 D Oon 03:27, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
Please read Weaving the Web by Berners-Lee or How the Web Was Born by Cailliau (I've read both books twice). It is very clear from both books that the Semantic Web is a relatively recent development. Berners-Lee did not conceive of the Web in terms of the Semantic Web, which your statement implied; rather, the Semantic Web is an advanced refinement of his original vision for the Web.
Also, showing "hindsight," in the sense you are arguing, is considered to be intellectually immature at best and irresponsible at worst by contemporary professional historians. It's called Whiggishism or Whig history. Contemporary historians are always extremely careful to explain historical ideas within their original context and to avoid teleological depictions (that may well turn out to be inaccurate). If historians have to draw upon contemporary vocabulary that may carry improper connotations that did not exist in the period at issue, they identify and negate those connotations. A professional historian today who writes Whig history (unless they're doing it as a well-crafted joke) is essentially asking to be censured or fired. It makes no sense to lead a Wikipedia article on such an important topic with a statement that would gain an instant C- or D+ grade in a history of technology course as an inaccurate statement of fact.
I could write more but I would be essentially repeating what is taught in any senior-year history seminar in college. If you still do not understand what I am getting at, you need to study history in the academic context. --Coolcaesar 06:46, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Just stick to the known facts. Using the hindsight line means looking back at things. and if it is you doing it, it is OR, and not allowed. If it is found in soemthing like a magazine or a website, provide referance to it. Remember, on thing about hind sight is that people not dirrectly involved can see the past any way they like, and say things happened or deny they took place (WWII is a good example.) Alsao, it can be very POV. Corrupt one 22:05, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Do we need nationalities in the introduction?

There seems to be a bit of an edit war going on, during the past few months, over whether the nationalities of the inventors of the Web should be in the introduction. After a lot of back-and-forth, Tim Berners-Lee's nationality (English) is not currently listed but Robert Calliau's (Belgian) is. For consistency, I think we should have both or neither. Which do people prefer? I don't care which, personally, as long as we are consistent. --Coolcaesar 09:49, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

As far as I'm concerned, we don't. Also, as a side point, Tims article in Wikipedia states he was BORN in Afghanistan, and latter moved to England as a child. I know from Weaving the Web he has lived in Swizaland, and America. Before anyone adds his nationality to the article, please check to find out WHAT it is first. Corrupt one 00:31, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Anglo hate?

Is there a reason why the nationality of Tim Berners Lee is not permited to appear in the article, while Robert Cailliau is quite reasonably described as Belgian? The fact that Berners Lee is English has been deleted on several occasions. Do we have an anglo hater at large and can we identify this bigot? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 86.8.105.64 (talk) 07:12, 18 March 2007 (UTC).

Because there probably is a debate over WHAT his nationality is? I don't know, that is just a guess. Corrupt one 00:13, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Just looking back here after a time, if you want to see who has deleted what nationality he is, just check out the page history section to find out when and by who changes were made. You can also check out their other changes they have made. Corrupt one (talk) 06:43, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Anglo Hate Confirmed

I agree with the earlier comment, it seems clear that the editor does not want the fact that Berners Lee is English to appear. Their hate is only surpassed by their ignorance however since their current edit should read 'the Briton' not 'the British'. Grammar is clearly not a priority in the mind of a bigot. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 86.9.138.200 (talk) 21:05, 5 April 2007 (UTC).

Uh, I hate to have to point this out (actually I don't, but you are les likely to get steaming mad then if I said I will enjoy pointing out) but this part you made is actually part of the previos part labled Anglo Hate, and NOT a sub segment in its own right. Also, if you are annoyed that he is not mentioned as being British in the intro of the article, then mention it.

Oh, by the way, the Britons were a main ethnic group of british people formed from merging other groups together over centuries, and since we can't be sure that he IS from that specific anglo group, we have to be more general and state British. Corrupt one 21:58, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Lee mentioned a lot of times, Caillau once

why ? Because he is English speaking ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.205.142.75 (talk) 16:19, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Or because the Web was Lees baby, and Caillau played a lesser role? Corrupt one 00:15, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Intro incorrect?

I believe the introduction is incorrect. As far as I know no-one who has worked on it has recieved a knighthood, thus the sir part is wrong. Also, I think Tim Burner-lee was Americain. I will check my sorces, namely the book Weaving the Web BY Tim Burner Lee. Corrupt one 00:11, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

O.K. I think we can all see from the preceding (barely legible) paragraph that no attention need be paid to anything that 'Corrupt One' might have to say. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.9.138.200 (talk) 21:10, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I was stating what I believe, and that I would check my sources, meaning I admit I may be wrong. I believe you are just doing this because you like to be an annoyance, but are too, well let's be blunt, chicken shit to put your namwe to anything. Please tell me how I was wrong, or as YOU put it "barely legible." Corrupt one 23:27, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Your original post was barely legible because it's full of grammar and spelling errors.

  • "no-one" should be "no one"
  • "recieved" should be "received"
  • "sir" should be "Sir"
  • "Tim Burner-Lee" should be "Tim Berners-Lee"
  • "Americain" should be "American"
  • "sorces" should be "sources"
  • Weaving the Web should be in italics
  • "BY" should be "by"
  • "Tim Burner Lee" should be "Tim Berners-Lee"

And that's just what I caught in 5 minutes. If I spend more time I could probably catch more errors, but I need to save my brainpower for the clients who pay for it by the hour, as opposed to teaching remedial English.

Turning to the merits, Berners-Lee was honored by the Queen after the book Weaving the Web was published (I happen to own a copy), which is why it's not mentioned in there. And if you actually read the book, you would notice that Berners-Lee writes extensively about growing up in England. I hope you are not trolling in violation of WP:TROLL.--Coolcaesar 09:11, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

After the first part was written, I re-read the book, and I admit it does mention his childhood in England. That he recieved a knighthood after the book was written was something I could not confirm. I was mistaken as t his nationality due to the fact he lived in america for while. Also, the article on him mentioned he had been born in Afghanistan. I find that hard to believe but the book only mentioned where he was raised and thus I could not state where he was born.

There is a question of which country he has citizenship in. Which one?

Although I like a good debate on a matter to look at things from all points of view, I get annoyed when someone states that a persons comments should be ignored without providing good reason why they should be. I believe if you disagree with what someone has to say, you tell them why and allow the public to decide the mater for themselves. To insult someone on a matter not relevant to the subject at hand and to tell people they are not to be taken seriously is in poor taste. To not have the guts to admit to being the one who said it makes them, in my point of view, chickenshit. As far as I can see, since they added nothing except an insult, they had nothing to ad, and was doing this because they like to be, to be perfectly blunt, annoying. Can you see anything wrong with my reasoning, and if so please tell me?

As far as I know, stating your opinions in the discusions page as to the merits of a persons additions here is legitimate, and not trolling.

PS, I know my spelling and grammer suck, but hey, if it gets the point across clearly, it not that illegible. Corrupt one 23:19, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Update The Statistics Section

The statistics in this document are out-of-date (2005) and need updates. I think this should be updated with some latest "guesstimates" (with different section) to reflect current estimations.


Citing several sources of information can be the solution to this out-of-date issue e.g. based on a data from this/my post

  • According to boutell.com guesstimate we have ~ 29.7 billion indexed pages on the World Wide Web (updated to Feb. 2007)
  • http://worldwidewebsize.com suggest a ~22.34 billion indexed pages (Sep. 2007)
  • Using a simple Google search for “or | -or +*” you will get about 17,340,000,000 documents estimation from Google.

This bring a nice round guesstimate average of 20 billion indexed pages.

Multiplying it with an average page size of 70K (based utexas.edu and

optimizationweek.com) Brings a rough estimation of ~1300* Tera = ~1.3 Peta of known/indexed web which might hide a ~600 Peta of deeper web


What do you think?


karmona 13:14, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Interesting, but keep in mind that we can only use reliable sources and no original research. I wouldn't say that boutell.com would work as a reliable source - it is unpublished and only uses some very much unjustified arithmetic. http://worldwidewebsize.com/ is based on an unpublished masters thesis which seems to have major statistical flaws to me (using DMOZ as a fair representative of the indexed web???). Maybe we can cite http://worldwidewebsize.com/ as "another attempt to estimate the size of the indexed web" without replacing the older 2005 study, which is published though outdated.--Sir Anon 12:27, 14 November 2007 (UTC)


I see your point, so maybe we can put these "guesstimated" statistics under the statistics section with some kind of "guesstimates" disclaimer – I think it is better to have updated data than wrong/old validated data. (karmona 14:51, 14 November 2007 (UTC))
I disagree. We should have data that complies with WP:NOR and WP:VERIFY first. That it be "up to date" is far less important. Printed encyclopedias can have data that is one or two decades old. Having to use data that is only two years old data is nothing. It's surely not bad enough to sidestep WP:NOR or WP:VERIFY. About the disclaimer: if the "guesstimated" data is untrustworthy, we shouldn't include it in the article at all; why use a disclaimer when we can just not put it in?--Mumia-w-18 15:03, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

I am prety minded about what is put in articles myself, so I can see how you would want to put those things in, BUT it must comply with the rules. I recommend this; leave the current information, but state that it is outdated, and then put you part in after adding a disclaimer that it is based on rough estimates and thus not confirmed. Something about the lines of;

However, this is outdated, and rough unconfirmed estimations from elsewhere tell us

Well, you get the idea. They get to keep the confirmed information, and you get to add the information you found, and it MAY be allowed in that way.

Corrupt one (talk) 06:40, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] University College London

The World Wide Web that emerged from CERN was simply "the marriage of hypertext and the Internet," as reasonably professed by the Oxonian developer, Sir Tim Berners-Lee.

The Internet is simply a metaphor for TCP/IP, and vice versa. By the way:

Between 1984 and 1988 CERN began installation and operation of TCP/IP to interconnect its major internal computer systems, workstations, PC's and an accelerator control system.

– "TCP/IP becomes worldwide" in "History of the Internet"

That is, University College London (UCL) was at least a decade earlier than CERN in TCP/IP networking. Mainly responsible was Peter T. Kirstein, who began his professional career at CERN during 1959-1963, joined UCL since 1973 and managed the first trans-atlantic Internet node at UCL, and later gave a lecture on TCP/IP internetworking to CERN. [6]

Just when Kirstein joined UCL and TCP/IP was shipped and applied to UCL, there was a study at UCL concerning hypertext! Too regrettably, however, it has never been known to the world! Why not?

Something similar may be alleged to be the origin of a great success such that the World Wide Web may have emerged from the Memex, the NLS, or the Project Xanadu. Such loud claims may be just untrue.

On the other hand, what if there had been some versions of hypertext and the Internet, though separately, at UCL as early as 1973, roughly a decade earlier than CERN's TCP/IP network and two decades earlier than its World Wide Web? Then, UCL may have been the better if not best place for incubating the World Wide Web or the like, by virtue of "the marriage of hypertext and the Internet."

Truly, my thesis at UCL (SLAIS) during the academic year 1973/74 was about hypertext, regardless of the contemporary Internet work done by Peter T. Kirstein of the Computer Science Department at the same college. Both features may have been too crucial for one to ignore the other after all. Both were very likely to marry! So had been evolutionism and genetics at UCL decades ago!

For my thesis about hypertext
To be or not to be
That is the question.

--KYPark (talk) 18:12, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

The internet is NOT a metephor. It is the name for the network of networks devoloped by using the protocalls. Infact, the name Internet comes from the word internet which is the I in TCP/IP.

The part about the UCL using the internet protocals is not relevent to this atricle, since it is about the WEB, and NOT the Net. Also, although he saw it as simply the marrage between Hypertext and the Internet, he developed it the way it is for a reason. The fact that Hypertext was used there before the Web was made is irrelevent to this article. You might want to try to Hypertext page. Corrupt one (talk) 22:43, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

  • KYPark reply :

No Web without the Internet and hypertext. This is why Berners-Lee regarded the Web as the "marriage" of both layers or aspects. Simply, the Web is the hypertext-added Internet, as it were. The Internet is an infrastructure, whereas hypertext can be a superstructure upon it. The Internet is a web of computers, as any net is a web. Hypertext is a web of texts, which in turn are a web of words and meanings, derived from Latin texere "to weave," which in turn is a cognate with "web." Berners-Lee's next step is weaving the semantic web.

The Web in turn serves as an infrastructure for Wikipedia, CiteSeer, Google, and so on. For the analytic sake, the Web is divided into the Internet and hypertext. Of course, the Web as a system is "more than the sum of its parts" -- Internet and hypertext. But, no synthesis of the Web without analysis of its parts, I fear. The Web cannot help but be explained in terms of, or by virtue of, its parts, as you make a complex narrative by virtue of elementary words. To talk about the Web reasonably is to talk about the Internet, hypertext, and something else, balancingly. It is regrettable indeed to overstate one aspect while understating the others. The following suggests the possibility of such unbalances:

The World Wide Web has evolved into a universe of information at our finger tips. But this was not an idea born with the Internet. This lecture recounts earlier attempts to disseminate information that influenced the Web - such as the French Encyclopédists in the 18th century, H. G. Wells' World Brain in the 1930s, and Vannevar Bush's Memex in the 1940s.

– Editorial comment*

* From the World Brain to the World Wide Web (Annual Gresham College BSHM Lecture, by Martin Campbell-Kelly, Warwick University, 2006)

The opening passage of How the Web was Born, written by the Web co-developer Robert Cailliau (et al), reads:

"The World Wide Web is like an encyclopedia, a telephone directory, ... all rolled into one and accessible through any computer."

In a sense, the Web is a worldwide encyclopedia made accessible anywhere, even though not through computers but any feasible media. H. G. Wells' idea of World Encyclopedia, also known as World Brain (1938), was exactly such a dream, even mentioning "worldwide network." Is this "relevant" to this article? Is there any neutral or objective criterion of relevance? It is radically, if not reasonably, said that "everything is related to everything else." Selection is inevitable, especially in encyclopedian articles. Nevertheless, is it still worth mentioning the World Encyclopedia, though neither Berners-Lee nor Cailliau have mentioned it? The above quoted Campbell-Kelly appears to argue strongly for it. So do I! Why not? Personally I deeply regret that they never mentioned it in their memoirs at the moment of which at least they must know it, I guess. They appear too ignorant, I fear. In this regard, I like to quote:

In science men have learned consciously to subordinate themselves to a common purpose without losing the individuality of their achievements. Each one knows that his work depends on that of his predecessors and colleagues, and that it can only reach its fruition through the work of his successors.

– J. D. Bernal (1939) The Social Function of Science

Bernal was also a leading wartime scientist in UK during the WWII, comparable to Vannevar Bush. Incidentally, Bush was getting his seminal paper As We May think (1945) published in that year 1939, too, but stopped due to the outbreak of the war. Bernal took Wells' idea seriously. On the other hand, it is unknown if Bush was aware of, or affected by, Wells' idea. I quess that he was aware at least in 1945 (if not in 1939) perhaps through F. D. Roosevelt who had dinner with Wells before the war.

My graduate study at UCL 33 years ago was to contribute to the realization of the World Encyclopedia by applying hypertext to the web of referenced scientific papers to the effect of something like CiteSeer rather than Science Citation Index, which was made feasible by the World Wide Web paving the way. Isn't it striking at all? --KYPark (talk) 18:48, 28 February 2008 (UTC)


The internet and the web are very different. I agree that the Internet can be discribed as a web, since that is what packet switching mainly does. However, the organizational structure of the information on the Internet was mainly up to the people using the different systems and adding the information, (with no easy interconnectivity between the computers) and different systems had problems talking to each other to allow people to access the information.

What the web did was give the internet a common computer language, and allow people to connect with each other. The idea behind the Web was out there, BUT until he linked the Internet and Hypertext together to make the web, there was no web.

We can mention the development of the web, using referancable material, but we can't say somerthing was linked to the creation of the Web, until we can find referancable material that meets Wikipedias standards. Otherwise, that is OR and quite often POV.

You also mentioned your own work at UCL. You can't include that, since it is POV and OR. Corrupt one (talk) 22:50, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

  • KYPark reply again :

It took two decades (1969-1989 when the the Web was first proposed) for the ARPANET, now Internet, to be overlaid with hypertext. The period is marked by the spectacular standardization parades towards TCP/IP, Ethernet, IBM PC, MS DOS, Unix, SQL, SGML, and so on. The Internet itself is the most definite example, taking advantage of TCP/IP and defeating most of the privatizing WAN and LAN islands and protocols. The Web was just on the right track, taking advantage of most if not all these parades. It may be a historical necessity! rather than any one man's creativity? The last quarter of the last century made the greatest liberal, global, utilitarian achievement that mankind had ever seen. All the troubled waters was flowing into the open sea. As a result, even the iron curtain was opened. What is to be opened is the cruel mind to my great dismay. This is why I'm here to Look back in anger.

Prior to the Web, CERN was suffering from the worst compatibility and interconnectivity among a staggering variety of computers. So standardization was one of the most critical agendas. Indeed, necessity is the mother of invention, adding up to historical necessity. The networking with TCP/IP was the first major step. The weaving and overlaying of the hypertext web was the next step, incidentally taking advantage of the NeXTSTEP computer that was Steve Jobs' next-step venture. Every event is a next step, step by step, or Markov chain, hence most likely empiricism and determinism.

The ideas behind the Web may look like floating free in the air. So Berners-Lee snatched at them faster than anyone else? Unfortunately, such a snatch is very problematic. Nothing is in isolation. Everything is in process. Someone is most responsible for an idea. No taking advantage of the idea without running risks of piracy or without paying due homage to her. This is easily justified by the golden rule or ethic of reciprocity, and has been long practiced in academia, reflected on references embedded in decent scholarly writings, collectively weaving an ever-growing, evolutionary web of ideas. There is practically no beginning and ending in the history of scientific ideas. No idea is in the air, in isolation, but in context of rigid stochastic deterministic fabic of destiny, I believe.

The Science Citation Index is an early attempt to take advantage of the web of scientific papers interwoven by references. The owner Eugene Garfield acknowledges that SCI owes much to the World Brain. But the weakest link is that SCI suffers from too little context to make sure communication of meanings. This was exactly where I attempted to take off fueled by such excerpts that make one or more references or hyperlinks in modern terms. Scientific papers had been waiting so long for being converted to hypertext or whatever it may be called. I am supposed to be the first. UCL should keep silent no more!

I select Bush and Wells as forerunning visionaries, Engelbart and Kirstein in relation to networks, whether online timesharing or distributed, and Nelson and Brown in relation to hypertext programming. Similarly, the two 1991 heroes, Mark McCahill and Tim Berners-Lee, may well be taken into account additionally in relation to the hypertextual web applications.

When the development of the Web is discussed, Vannevar Bush, Doug Engelbart and Ted Nelson (incidentally all American, two Norwegian lineage) are always mentioned, while H. G. Wells, Peter T. Kirstein and Peter Brown (incidentally all Anglican) are always ignored. It appears here that little justice is done, ethic of reciprocity is gone, and "bad money drives out good." Honesty is just a matter of policy so that piracy may be the best policy or strategy for survival, the ultimate goal. The social responsibility of scientists is not critical but hypocritical.

Conceptually, the Web is like the World Encyclopedia rather than the Memex which is rather like a personal computer or workstation in isolation. Bush just wished for a local rather than global web of texts, never wishing for a global web of Memexes, while Wells wished for the World Encyclopedia as "worldwide network" hence the name and close synonym to the "World Wide Web." It is definitely wrong, if not evil, to ignore his last heroic spurt of relevance and explain away the Web. --KYPark (talk) 14:58, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Look, you keep going on and on, and even I don't want to bother reading all of this.l Unless you can point to some verifiable and reliable referance material, you can't put anything up. Also, your own work can't be included UNLESS it was published, and someone else puts it up. That is to avoid POV, COI and OR. Unless you avoid these things, it is all a moot point, and not worth taking up our time with.

What you CAN do is give the bacis information, and call for people to provide help finding referance materials. Try that, it can't hurt. Corrupt one (talk) 22:45, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

I concur with Corrupt one's well-explained position on this issue. KYPark is attempting to use Wikipedia as a soapbox for posting original research in violation of Wikipedia policies. KYPark clearly does not understand contemporary theories of the history of technology, such as the social construction of technology (which one has to read 3 or 4 books to fully understand) or the "system builders" analysis put forth by Thomas Hughes. --Coolcaesar (talk) 19:26, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Dear Corrupt one

I have never ever explicitly asked my work at UCL to be reflected on this article. Few would be that childish. I would benefit little from a few words in my favor in Wikipedia. And I cannot take responsibility for the infinite implications of my words but only for my explicit claims. So you just grossly misunderstand or mistake my words, as if strongly preoccupied or committed to keep me from Wikipedia.

I have to go a long way for my work to be duly, truly known to the world whose relevant part, I believe, has gone a wrong way so far away from justice. I'm determined to get ethic of reciprocity or fairness hence justice back to where it should be, which is singly the best moral principle hence golden rule. No truth and goodness without that.

First of all, I explicitly require that no less justice be done to the three Anglicans, H. G. Wells, Peter T. Kirstein and Peter J. Brown, than to the three Americans, Vannevar Bush, Doug Engelbart and Ted Nelson as their respective counterparts. I have already indicated or suggested some useful references. I will do much more if you insist.

Justice to Wells is a must above all, whether the Web was actually inspired by him or not. Why? J. D. Bernal (1939) criticized H. G. Wells' vision (1938) as utopian. But his utopian dream is gradually coming true, and now it is becoming the best de factor bench mark. Roughly, in effect, the Internet was the first major step, and the Web was the next step that has paved the way to the further next steps such as CiteSeer and Wikipedia, which have so far been far away from his World Encyclopedia or such a body of knowledge that would best help resolve the public ignorance and solve the "world problem."

Most of the current Web is the unexpected side effect including pornography and other nasty industry. The developers lost themselves in the wide-open possibilities. It was a great utilitarian success that the Web came to be opened to the public far earlier than reasonably expected.

I personally feel like Wikipedia being hopeless unless an effective measure is taken to stop the current intellectual violence, vandalism or injustice. It aims to subject itself to even bad publications, "word magic" and conservatism rather than the objective reality and truth that should always remain the highest criteria. It shakes hands with the peer review system, good and evil. Formal communication is not flawless; informal communication is not worthless. In contrast, the World Encyclopedia aims to overcome the bad formality, say, Nazi propaganda and become the best brain totality to help resolve the world problem including the world war.

You'd better pay a special attention to the liberal and utilitarian UCL, the beginning of the University of London, in contrast to the conservative University of Oxford and University of Cambridge. The liberal and utilitarian Jeremy Bentham is the spiritual leader of UCL. He played a leading role in its establishment. Anyway, suppose my thesis is true and guess why then UCL keeps silent. If I'm right it appears most sinful. Should it duly acknowledge my work, I would blame no one else!!!

The two vital references are the memoirs, Weaving the Web, written by Tim Berners-Lee (1999), and How the Web was Born by his co-developer Robert Cailliau (2000). Refer to the next section "Some comparison of the two main memoirs." Disappointingly, the former once refers to Peter J. Brown missing his Guide, while the latter once to Guide missing Brown, which is the first published hypertext program (1982). It was the first step toward everybody's hypertext indeed. All the predecessors were kept secret, beyond reach of the general public. A year later than Guide on sale, HyperCard was bundled free of charge, which Cailliau used a lot. Heather Brown, Peter's wife and colleague at the University of Kent, and her expertise, Open Document Architecture, would better have been mentioned, as Berners-Lee knew well prior to the Web. Be informed of significance as follows:

"ODA ... is a standard document file format ... to replace all proprietary document file formats."
"It would be improper to call the ODA anything but a failure, but its spirit clearly influenced latter-day document formats that were successful in gaining support from many document software developers and users. These include the mentioned HTML and CSS as well as XML and XSL leading up to OpenDocument."

Berners-Lee could not help but be influenced as much as he knew Mr and Mrs Brown's works and would better not shy away so as not to be suspected of plagiarism, even if his work was not affected at all for sure. Suppose he was making a choice between complex ODA and simple SGML. Then he should have mentioned them a good deal, if he was really responsible for that choice.

As compared with Cailliau's, his memoir is so incomplete as to be suspected of fabrication of the Web history. To do justice as I suggested is to avoid such suspicion. For a scientific work to make references to others is not only to pay homage but also to orient itself relative to others, not to mention the other reasons, including freedom from alleged plagiarism. Technologists would better learn a lesson or ethic from decent scientists and scholars, regarding how to make decent references, unless they would insist as if they snatched at vital ideas in the air. No ideas are free out there or in the air, but in the mind by definition! In favor of semantic externalism, Hilary Putnam (1975) argues that "meanings just ain't in the head" but in the reality "out there." But ideas just ain't meanings!

Lastly, to Coolcaesar, I'm so much concerned with "social construction of technology" and that type of thing. I may discuss it in another section. This is generally sociology of science. There has been a lot of dog fights around this theme after my work at UCL. Most remarkable may be the Sokal hoax. Incidentally or not, Sokal is at UCL. The mainstream paradigms are mostly Anglican rather than American in origin. If so, why? Basically they are social versions of contextualism, say, social contexts. These are basically qualitative rather than quantitative, hence barely rarely rooted in the U.S. I may show it someday. Until then, bye. --KYPark (talk) 18:06, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

KYPark, here are some reasons for why what you want can't be added. You mentioned "Justice to Wells is a must above all, whether the Web was actually inspired by him or not. Why? J. D. Bernal (1939) criticized H. G. Wells' vision (1938) as utopian." but unless we can show that it is directly related to the Web, we can't include it. It would be biased matrerial that is irrelevent to the article. You mentioned a comparision between two books, "How the Web was born" and "Weaveing the Web" A comparision is research, and since you did the comparision, that makes it OR.

Unless you can point to something stating in an independendent article or referance material why we should include the UCL, we can't include any of the work done there. We can't include referances to people who we think may of influenced the creation of the Web. Otherwise, we would have to include every story that included magical books that took you to the information you wanted from any other related page. I have come across some of those. Can we include them as examples?

Just stick with the shown and proven facts. Otherwise, if you keep this up, you MIGHT be in some trouble for soapboxing, which IS against Wikipedia guidlines. Place a call for information for what you want. If what you want to add that stuff, getting people to help you can make it easier for you, and get people looking at it. If you CAN'T provide referances, and do not ask for peoples help to get them, or look for them to use, then quit bothering us.

Basically, show what you have, get help, or let the matter drop.

They are the three options people have when it comes to introducing material.

Corrupt one (talk) 22:52, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
I concur. Plus KYPark's analysis seems to reek of the teleological style of Whig history, which no competent historian today would write (unless they want to be censured or fired) because it is considered to be a sign of severe intellectual and emotional immaturity. I think I know what I'm talking about as I majored in history at the most prestigious public university in the United States, which happens to have one of the top-ranked history departments in the world.
KYPark, the truth is that the key catalyst that propelled the great work of Engelbart and Nelson was Bush's "As We May Think," as both men have repeatedly acknowledged in numerous public writings and appearances. And Bush despised the social sciences and thus had no connection with the library science or "documentation" community. The work of Wells, Otlet, et al. while tantalizing, were ultimately dead ends whose relevance to hypertext was not discovered until much later by Nelson and others. Also, I am well-aware of ODA, I have numerous sources on file on that topic (as well as ASN.1), and plan to mention it in my own long-delayed book (which at my current rate will be completed around 2020), but I believe it is clearly a dead end along with the rest of OSI.
KYPark, you also seem to place too much importance on the memoirs of Calliau and Berners-Lee while ignoring numerous other relevant works such as the books by Thierry Bardini and M. Mitchell Waldrop. Finally, your appeal to "justice" is exactly the kind of "original research" that is totally inappropriate for Wikipedia. The "No original research" policy along with Verifiability and Neutral point of view are bedrock Wikipedia policies and are completely non-negotiable, as numerous editors have discovered when they were banned by the Arbitration Committee or by Mr. Wales himself. --Coolcaesar (talk) 16:14, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. Hey, if you want to mention what the book will be about on your User page, I would be happy to see what sources I can help find for you. Corrupt one (talk) 22:51, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Some comparison of the two main memoirs

Index terms Tim Berners-Lee
(1999)
Weaving the Web		 Robert Cailliau et al
(2000)
How the Web was Born
Carpenter, Brian   75, 90, (CERN PS) 143-4, 145, 146, 148, 159, 160, 166, (computing div.) 196-7, (BITNET) 80, (DECNET) 77, (TCP/IP) 87, (Tim Berners-Lee) 168
Cerf, Vint 6 71, 107, 309, (IMP number) 128, (Internet demo) 80-1, internetworking) 39, 40, 42, 43, 44, (Chair of Int. NWG) 64, (Jon Postel) 45, (Requiem for ARPANET) 46
CERNDOC   177-80, 181, 182, 183, 194, 197, 261
CERNNET   70-4, 81, 82, 83, 180
computer (No entry) (What a dazzling inventory!)
Goldfarb, Charles   160
Guide   128
Kay, Alan   99, 186, 187, 188, 190
Kirstein, Peter   51-5, 66, 70, 80, 84-5, 88
Llewellyn Smith, Chris   221, 296
proposal 21-22 (Alexandria) 271-3, 274, 276, 286, 287, 308, (Information Management) 180-4, (Information Management updated) 191
University College London    
Van Dam, Andy 27 104-5, 127-8, 131, 307

--KYPark (talk) 15:21, 28 February 2008 (UTC)


[edit] Demographic studies

Can anyone find some demographic studies of the Web? I found ONE referance that those who use the Web a lot actually defy demographic surveys, and why. I welcome all sensible ideas.

Corrupt one (talk) 22:38, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Pew Internet has reliable studies for the U.S. but not so much the world. Google results seem to have become rather polluted over the past year or two (or is that my imagination?). I added some statistics to estimate the amount of the Web that is used commercially, and to explain how it used to gather data privately about Web users. Corrections most welcome (it's OK to ping me on my talk page if a long time passes). -Susanlesch (talk) 20:42, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

I found something in a book about web comics. I think people can use some of this stuff, if they wanted to. Here it is

The comics version of 'old media' first responded to the Web with the same old material in a silion package. Marvel.com launched a short series of 'webisodes' featuring Spider-man. The strip syndicates often put up a couple of weeks worth of strips online- a remarkable move, considering the primary reason for their existance was to give the newspapers exclusive content. Comic-books publishers and syndicates have refinned their approaches in recent years, but the core philosiphy remains: there are real comics, and then there are the Web versions of real comics. Why wasn't that enough? Why did web-native comics end up finding so much larger an audiance then properties with decades more experience? Short answer; because Web-native comics come from their intended audience . . . . the Web-native audience. At the time of writing, 600 million people use the Web, but just using it doesn't make you a native. Natives are truly involvedwith the Web. Natives look to it for entertainment and conversation. And natives share other democratic traits. One of these is a resistance to demographic studies! Concerns about identity theft and spammers tricks make them cagey with their personal information, and so percentages are hard to come by. Still, an impressionistic picture is emerging. Most readers are young: school age to late twenties, with a significant number in higher education. The gender ratio appears to be more balanced then that of comic books, though not comic strips. Their well-off enough to have a fast connection and some leasure time, but not so settled they have no time to discover entertainment in out-of-the-way places. Predomunantly white socially and financially liberal, well-read, and media-savy. They have no patience for the bland Pleasentville presented by most newspaper strips: their sense of humour is smarter, cruder and wilder. They have no patience for the cliches and conventions of superhero series: they won't reject superheroes, but they will rejust "heroes meet, misunderstand each other, fight, and then team up" storyline that comic books have been selling since 1961. they have no patience for storytellers who pretend sex is always magical or that romance is as simple as Meg Ryan films claim. They have no patience. But once you have them hooked - the critical part- repeat readers will follow you to the ends of the earth. many strips that started as simple humour stories matured into far more ambitious projects, with the full sypport of the readership. It's inconceivable that something similar could happen in the world of newpaper comics - it would be like Garfield becoming Watership Down for dogs and cats - but webcomic readers are much more flexible about genre, and much more prone to see the silliness in seriousness, and the serious side of silliness. In the book Webcomics by Steven Withrow & John Barber (c) 2005 ILEX

I hope people can use some of this stuff Corrupt one (talk) 22:45, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Literary references

The Asimov story features a system employing a slaved connection to a central server. Surely the first reference to a system similar to the Internet we have today is in Bill Gibson's Neuromancer? It's the oldest I can think of that describes a network of stand-alone servers that a user can navigate between using an overlayed interface (although there they use videophones that show them a 3D-spatial representation of the net rather than a hypertext-based browser interface like the WWW, but hey, it's the future after all). 81.111.58.48 (talk) 00:39, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

This is the World Wide Web talk page, not the Internets. Sayng it is the first refernce to something similar to it is OR. Drop the subject here, please. Corrupt one (talk) 01:26, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Difference from internet

From the articles here it is not really clear to me what exactly was the new contribution over the already existing internet. Barcovelero (talk) 12:06, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

The World Wide Web is just one of many Protocals of the Internet. Other Protocals include Email, IRC, FTP and others. The Web is just the most visual part of it. After all, the Internet WAS around long before the Web. The Web made it more user friendly, accessable, and compatable.

You can have the Internet without the Web, but you can't have the Web without the Internet Corrupt one (talk) 01:32, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] piranhas

Piranhas live in South America in slow moving rivers such as the Amazon river and some go in sreams. Piranas like to eat fins from other fish,birds and somtimes they eat deer, frogs and other animals like really big animals. they cach there food by riping flesh from hurt or drowning animals or sneak up on other fish. Nobudy has bin recorded eaten by a piranha, but they say a person fell in the Amazon river and never came back up. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.207.66.195 (talk) 12:50, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] lllll

llllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.207.66.195 (talk) 13:00, 31 May 2008 (UTC)