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Web 2.0 Forum: Overview

Index OpenAccording to some, expertise and the people who possess it are a thing of the past. Thanks to the Internet, they are being replaced by new kinds of collective authority in the form of blogs, wikis, and peer-to-peer Web sites.                      

Is it real, is it hype, or does the truth lie somewhere in between? That’s the question this forum sought to understand, along with related issues, such as plagiarism, the future of copyright in the digital age, the hazards of anonymity online, and responsibility in community-generated works.

To get things rolling we asked Michael Gorman, past president of the American Library Association, to explore the state of knowledge, learning, and authority in a series of three essays. We then solicited critical responses from people who have thought seriously about these issues from different points of view. The posts ran from June 11 through June 28.

We thank everyone who contributed, including Michael Gorman, Andrew Keen, Nicholas Carr, Matthew Battles, Robert McHenry, Clay Shirky, Gregory McNamee, Thomas Mann, danah boyd, Roger Kimball, and Sven Birkerts.

Their posts can be found by clicking on their names above or by clicking on individual posts below, which are listed in chronological order.  Comments are still welcome on these posts.

June 11: Michael Gorman, “Web 2.0: The Sleep of Reason, Part I

June 12: Michael Gorman, “Web 2.0: The Sleep of Reason, Part II

June 13: Andrew Keen, “The Answer to Web 2.0: Political Activism!

June 13: Nicholas Carr, “From Contemplative Man to Flickering Man

June 13: Matthew Battles, “Authority of a New Kind

June 14: Robert McHenry, “Lost in the Hive Mind

June 14: Clay Shirky, “Old Revolutions, Good; New Revolutions, Bad

June 15: Gregory McNamee, “Maoism and the Mass Mind

June 18: Robert McHenry, “The Importance of Critical Judgment

June 18: Michael Gorman, “The Siren Song of the Internt: Part I

June 19: Michael Gorman, “The Siren Song of the Internt: Part II

June 19: Clay Shirky, “The Siren Song of Luddism

June 20: Andrew Keen, “The Counter-Information Age

June 21: Robert McHenry, “Information Ain’t the Issue

June 22: Gregory McNamee, “When to Call the Electrician

June 22: Matthew Battles, “From Great Ideas to Our Greatest Opportunity – The Internet

June 25: Robert McHenry, “Web 2.0: Hope or Hype?

June 25: Michael Gorman, “Jabberwiki: The Educational Response, Part I

June 26: Thomas Mann, “Brave New (Digital) World, Part I: Return of the Avant-Garde

June 26: Michael Gorman, “Jabberwiki: The Educational Response, Part II

June 26: Gregory McNamee, “10 Ways to Test Facts

June 27: Thomas Mann, “Brave New (Digital) World, Part II: Foolishness 2.0?

June 27: danah boyd, “Knowledge Access as a Public Good

June 28: Roger Kimball, “Technology, Temptation, and Virtual Reality

June 28: Sven Birkerts, “The Threat to Individuality

Your comments are welcome on any of these posts.

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