Talk:Internet/Archive 3

This is an archive of past discussions about Internet. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Archive 5

→

Archive 9

Text removal

I removed the following text from the article, this texts includes POV. I don't think this stuff is suitable for an encyclopedia article. --Haham hanuka 07:46, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

How are these POV? They're actual problems. Can it really seriously be argued that the Internet has not faciliated increases in child porn, copyright infringement, viruses, and people finding each other? If you have a problem with an individual section, it can be dealt with, but mass deletion isn't the answer. If the Internet creates problems, as studies show it has, then how can not mentioning them possibly be NPOV? -- Wisq 13:08, 2005 May 25 (UTC)

I don't know when "people finding each other" became a problem.... and all of the points can be seriously argued, the views are simplistic even though some of the problems are real-world problems. agree with the removal. --Alvestrand 00:32, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Well done, Haham. Some of the daft statements in those sections have been irritating me for a long time. --Nigelj 19:05, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Current and potential problems

The Internet, along with its benefits, has a lot of negative publicity associated with it ranging from genuine concerns to tabloid scaremongering.

Child abuse

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. With the recent growth in Chat rooms and instant messaging services in the late 1990s, the potential for a new form of child abuse has emerged: so-called grooming. This involves a pedophile pretending to be a child in a chat room/instant message conversation, to gain the trust of a child before arranging to meet up.

Copyright infringement

Copyright infringement has also been the focus of much media attention, mainly through peer-to-peer filesharing software, but also through private members-only chatrooms, so-called warez sites (which either offer unauthorised copies of software directly or the means to crack copy protection), or even the sale of counterfeit CDs, DVDs and software masquerading as official product. Many ordinary Internet users are less concerned about the actual infringement itself but more about the effect on the Internet as a whole if tighter controls result from the infringement.

Viruses

In the 1980s and early 1990s, when very few people had access to the Internet, viruses were not a huge problem. They did exist and did cause just as much damage to computers as modern viruses can today, but there was no fast-moving epidemic because there was no means for a virus to directly infect other computers. Before the Internet, the only way for a computer to be infected was through use of a removable disc that was itself infected. As a result, virus infections were mercifully rare.

All that changed with the widespread growth of the Internet. With near-universal Internet access among computer users in developed countries, and the proliferation of high-speed broadband Internet connections, a virus on one person's computer can infect thousands of other computers. In fact, much of the disruption from virus outbreaks is caused not by the payload of the virus (e.g. deleting hard drive, shutting down computer every five minutes), but by the Internet congestion caused by the virus spreading itself.

Security cracking

Main article: Security cracking

When computers were stand alone machines (or at most connected to a company's internal network), to steal data from a system an intruder had to physically steal it. The Internet means that data from an insecure site could be stolen by someone working two blocks from the site, or just as easily from another country.

Some of the recent high-profile examples of this were when a working version of the source code for Half Life 2 was copied from the developer's computer systems by security crackers and when portions of the Windows NT codebase were copied from one of the companies that had access to it via the Microsoft Shared Source initiative. In both cases the Internet was used for dissemination of the leaked code, in particular using P2P networks.

Dated technology

Very few people outside the technical community are aware of the future problems posed by the Internet's archaic technology. It was originally designed for a small number of research institutions to share research data, and was never intended for the multi-billion user behemoth the modern Internet has become.

One serious problem is that the IP address (a unique number assigned to each Internet computer, functioning much like a street address in the real world) will run out eventually. Despite an estimated world population of over six billion, there are only a little over four billion different IP address combinations possible under the current system — see IPv4 address exhaustion for more information. This also does not take into account the fact that there is not a 1:1 person to computer ratio in current computerised countries, where many people will have a desktop machine at home, a laptop machine for on the go, another desktop machine at work, and an e-mail mobile phone, all requiring their own IP address.

This could pose serious problems in the future as more and more nations expand their computer infrastructure (the vast majority of the world's population does not currently use the Internet, that is the so-called digital divide) and even now efforts are proceeding to find new ways of running the Internet. The new version of the Internet Protocol, IPv6, which expands the address space of the Internet, is one proposal for how to deal with some of the technical problems caused by the growth of the Internet.

Self-destructive subcultures

As a decentralized, largely uncensored worldwide network, the Internet promotes free speech. Since the early 1990s, it has been widely recognized that the Internet enables broader distribution of all ideas, including those considered distasteful by any portion of the population. The most widely condemned of these ideas are those that promote, condone, or justify the infliction of violence upon innocent, non-consenting people. Examples include racism, sexism, and fascism.

Around 2000, The Atlantic Monthly and other publications revealed a similar but distinct issue: The Internet also allows people who exhibit or wish to practice abnormal behavior to find one another easily, due to anonymous search engines and online forums or services. As sparse subpopulations, it was often unlikely or difficult to find willing partners or like-minded individuals prior to the Internet.

A small number of these subcultures promote self-destructive or mutually destructive behavior. Websites and mailing lists exist that explicitly promote anorexia, breatharianism, apotemnophilia, necrophilia, and suicide. While these activities are easily recognized as abnormal and self-destructive by most adults, many people fear that children or mentally ill persons visiting such sites would lack the maturity necessary to make that discrimination.

In rare cases, people have used the Internet to find willing partners for abnormal activities, but with disastrous or fatal results. In one case, a German named Armin Meiwes (the "German cannibal") made an online arrangement with Bernd Jürgen Armando Brandes to kill and eat him. Meiwes was later convicted of manslaughter.

"Internet" is obsolete

Please correct. --Dtcdthingy 15:11, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Done. HTH. Andy Mabbett 15:27, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

accommodated?

what does this mean? Can't find it anywhere...

Requested move

Talk:Internet – Internet ? internet – (NB I know technically this doesn't require the page to actually move, but this still seems the most appropriate forum to bring it up) Whatever the gramattical/practical arguments, "Internet" with a capital letter is already an archaic convention and has never been used by the vast majority of its users. Here's a short Wired article on the topic.

Support — Dtcdthingy 09:01, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Oppose. Unique instances are capitalised. A sun is a star; the Sun is teh star we orbit. A moon is a celestial body; the Moon orbits the Earth. A web is a network; the Web is where Wikipedia lives. An internet is a computer network; the Internet is what we're using. Since when were Wired magazine arbiters of the English language? How (and by whom) was this "vast majority" counted? Andy Mabbett 10:47, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Oppose. Internet is a proper noun. I remember when the Wired article came out and from what I remember, the decision was derided or ignored. As far as I can tell, the majority of other media and publishers use a capital Internet (for instance, see a Google news search). You're right that the majority of Internet users probably don't capitalize Internet, but I think that's because the majority of Internet users don't capitalize in general. — Knowledge Seeker দ 14:59, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Support. I've noticed that many quality newspapers and books are now losing the I in favour of i, too. And we can take out that piece of mis-guided pedantry at the start about all these other alleged small 'internets'. Don't confuse a network of computers with internetworking, which led to the internet. Small, private sets of interconnected networks or sub-nets are universally referred to as LANs, WANs or intranets in my experience; no-one ever says 'internets'. --Nigelj 19:17, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Except certain leaders of global superpowers. —Michael Z. 2005-06-17 05:41 Z

Oppose. The Internet was created in the United States, and nearly all of the underlying technologies were developed in the United States. In American English grammar, Internet is a proper noun, which means it should be capitalized. The vast majority of American publications continue to refer to "the Internet" — see my previous research contribution to the earlier version of this same discussion above. ICANN, the Internet Society, and the Internet Engineering Task Force continue to refer to "the Internet" as well. American English has grammar and style rules that are much more strict than most other dialects of English, especially with regards to capitalization. In my opinion, the 290 million speakers of American English have the prerogative on how to describe the network their government invented! --Coolcaesar 21:53, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)
- This isn't a "US English vs. English (or any other) English" debate. Andy Mabbett 21:58, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  - Actually, I think it is. When I did that LexisNexis search a while back (scroll up to see my research), I noticed that nearly all of the published sources for "the internet" were located outside of the United States. I think what is going on is that there is some "linguistic drift" going on in English-speaking countries outside of the United States, while the U.S., with its slightly more conservative attitude towards written English, continues to capitalize "the Internet" as it always has. --Coolcaesar 00:26, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  - Well that's that settled, then. Wikipedia isn't a US-centric publication. There's no need to stick to US usage, if the rest of the English-speaking world is evolving in a different way. It's just like any of the color/colour, gasoline/petrol and other US/rest-of-world spelling debates. What normally happens? --Nigelj 09:14, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)
not possible. The wikimedia software does not support article names with an initial lower case letter, see Wikipedia:Naming_conventions. -- Rick Block (talk) 22:02, Jun 16, 2005 (UTC)
Oppose, even though it's pointless as there are no plans to move w:en to case-sensitivity on the first character, as the Internet is a proper noun (as distinct from the concept of an internet). James F. (talk) 00:58, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Oppose It's academic in terms of the page title, but we should use the correct orthography in the body of this article and others. Wired may be an important indicator of computer culture, but certainly not of the English language. Yes, inter-networking did lead to the Internet, but the misguided pedantry here is to call capitalizing a proper noun archaic. —Michael Z. 2005-06-17 05:29 Z
- Tell that to the London Times, Guardian, Financial Times - archaic? Just because the US is the biggest consumer of it, do we all have to say 'gasoline'? There's no need to argue 'US is right', just let go. --Nigelj 09:20, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  - How about using the compromise position that's been adopted in most Wikipedia articles for such terms? Lead the article with something like: "The Internet (American English), or internet (Commonwealth English), is ..." Of course, that still doesn't solve the problem of what to do with the rest of the article.
  - Also, WP may not be an U.S.-centric institution, but the Internet is. In the case of the Internet, the U.S. is not only the biggest consumer (though soon to be overtaken by China), but the country that created it and continues to do a large part of the work of advancing it. There was simply no equivalent to ARPA in the European Union during the 1960s — that is, there was no equivalent of J.C.R. Licklider to dispense millions of dollars to creative research scientists. Then, as you may know, European governments foolishly blew a large portion of their computer science research budgets during the 1980s on the ill-fated OSI project, while Japan wasted over a billion dollars on artificial intelligence research. That's why all of the high-level Internet institutions are based in the United States. ICANN is a California corporation based in Marina Del Rey. Both the Internet Society and the IETF are based in northern Virginia. And until recently, W3C's de facto main research center (the one where Tim Berners-Lee was actually living at) was the MIT Media Lab in Massachusetts. Until those institutions (particularly the Internet Architecture Board at ISOC) collectively vote to drop the capitalization, I feel that Wikipedia should not prop up what is really an unofficial and minority spelling at this point. Certainly, I concede it should be mentioned, but it should not be overemphasized. To point out another example, Wikipedia uses "aluminium" because that's the spelling adopted by the official chemistry institutions, even though it annoys us Americans.
  - Finally, I have to point out that although the London Times, the Guardian, and the FT are well-respected and reliable sources of information, they reflect only the minority language position of the UK on this issue. In contrast, all major American newspapers, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, the San Jose Mercury News, the Los Angeles Times, the Boston Globe, etc., all continue to respect the official spelling used by the Internet Society and IETF. The WP, the Merc, the L.A. Times, and the Globe, of course, are the newspapers that serve the majority of the members of the Internet institutions I just mentioned above.--Coolcaesar 18:03, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)
    - Sorry, no matter how big your bullet-points become, you'll never convince me that "the internet is a US-centric institution", but if it helps you sleep soundly to think so - well, hey-ho... --Nigelj 22:02, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)
      - I simply cannot see where you are coming from with your perspective, because you have adduced very few factual assertions in support of your position, and in your most recent edit, you actually misstated the facts. The opening of the article does correspond with contemporary technical, practical and linguistic usage in the United States and in the broader Internet community, as I have repeatedly pointed out. In any case, as you have probably noticed, the majority of Wikipedia users responding to this point by now have expressed their opposition to the lowercase spelling. I am beginning to draw an inference that you may have some kind of anti-American bias or you are just playing troll games. --Coolcaesar 04:21, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)
      - Fine, keep it how you like it - and try not be so rude and aggressive, please. --Nigelj 17:20, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)
      - Also, as I noted above (scroll up to read the earlier discussion) when I ran some searches on LexisNexis in January, Internet is still clearly the majority usage at well over 70%. Note that Lexis does carry most Australian and British newspapers, so this is not an issue of overrepresentation of American and Canadian sources. --Coolcaesar 04:27, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Oppose. It would be incorrect to fail to capitalize it. It's capitalized for the same reason as the Sun and the Moon. --Yath 17:14, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)
- Maybe, by some (in the US, it seems). But not to distinguish it from some other kind of non-existent, lower-case internets, as the artcle goes to some lengths to try to establish in both its opening paragraphs. That's the problem, not whether Wikipedia uses US or rest-of-world English spelling here, but that those Americans who are perhaps a little obsessed with this have ended up distorting the whole emphasis of the opening of the article in their attempt to make a point that does not correspond with any modern technical, practical or linguistic usage. --Nigelj 22:02, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  - I agree that the article is a bit wordy and excessively apologetic. Any explanation for the capitalization should be moved down further in the article. On the other hand, it's easy to make a strong case that there are other internets out there, such as Internet2. As for people obsessing... you'll notice that I never brought up the subject of whose version of English is being promoted. And in fact I'm not convinced that Brits and Americans are all that divided on the matter. --Yath 04:04, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  - Quote from Internet2: "This is misleading since Internet2 is in fact a consortium and not a computer network." But I give up on this one - I'll leave it until either you guys are too old to care, or I am :-) --Nigelj 17:20, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

It was requested that this article be renamed but there was no consensus for it to be moved. violet/riga (t) 19:15, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Proposal for a compromise

After thinking a lot about our huge debate last month, and today's revert war between Dtcdthingy and Yath, I think the best position is to have either a compromise lead paragraph or a compromise "Nomenclature" section. That is, we should continue to use "Internet" (the standard American English usage) throughout the article, but acknowledge in the lead paragraph and/or in a new Nomenclature section that Commonwealth English appears to be standardizing on "internet," and that several Americans have called for (unsuccessfully so far) for American English to follow.

The Nomenclature section, of course, would have to explain that "Internet" is the traditional usage among Americans and computer scientists in general, and is still the official usage of all key Internet institutions like the Internet Society, the IETF, the IAB, ICANN, and so on.

I think this will reasonably accommodate the views of the speakers of the various dialects of English. For example, we use a Nomenclature section in the Freeway article to explain the current freeway/expressway terminology mess, and that section seems to work quite well. What does everyone think? --Coolcaesar 4 July 2005 20:49 (UTC)

Internet is capitalised in British English. It's not an Atlantic-divide issue. Andy Mabbett 4 July 2005 20:51 (UTC)

"internet" is in common usage everywhere. Whether or not it's grammatically or formally correct is kind of irrelevant. Pretending the usage doesn't exist benefits no one. I'd support a nomenclature section, as long as it was NPOV --Dtcdthingy 4 July 2005 22:53 (UTC)

I don't know that it's a US/rest of English-speaking world issue either. I think it's more likely a 5-years ago/present day issue, a title-case/body-text issue and a geek/general public issue mixed with perhaps a Microsoft spell-checker issue. But if that is the prevailing view, we're going to have to do better than dragging some anachonistic reference to the British Commonwealth into it - see Commonwealth and Commonwealth English to see what a fur-ball that could become! It feels like there's about as much of a put-down for us implied in that suggestion, as their would be for the US if we insisted on 'mother-country/former colony'! I would prefer such staunch nationalism be left out of such a discussion, rather than slipped into the argument like some kind of 'condition of surrender'. --Nigelj 22:20, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

Uh, I completely disagree. Here's a simple test. Go to Google News at news.google.com. Click on the Advanced News Search link next to the main search box. Type internet into the main search field. Then try typing different English-speaking countries and U.S. states into the field that limits searches by geography, and running searches. You will immediately notice that news sources in Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom prefer "internet" much, much more than their counterparts in California, New York, and Massachusetts.

Google News searches all major newspapers, periodicals, and Slashdot, as well as many well-established blogs, so its results are quite representative of the usage of a term among both professional journalists and ordinary people. --Coolcaesar 02:52, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

Being a successful netter

I've briefly compiled a user-friendly list of things a newcommer to the internet and computers in general may need to know about before they begin using the internet extensively. This was sort of a flow-of-thoughts kind of a thing, but I figured the basic list may be helpful in improving this article for "newbies" to the internet. You could possibly link to the article the things a new commer may need to know. But here is the list; do as you will with it:

read about netiquette

read about internet slang, acronyms, emoticons, memes, internet phenomenons, and cultural literacy in terms of the internet

learn to type, and the basics of using an OS and an internet explorer browser (basically, the basics of using a computer)

learn how to use a search engine (google)

learn how to email

learn how to use chatrooms, message boards, forums, instant messages

read about identity theft, viruses, privary issues, state laws, adwares, hacks, shock sites, false contests, banners and ads, pop-ups, pranksters, spyware, file-sharing, cencorship, downloading&uploading, the WWW, Usenet, blogs, viruses in email, etc., etc., and how to deal with these common internet problems (internet safety)

RE: I'm with you. I think there really should be a super user friendly wtf am I doing on the net wiki. Information streamlining and clarity for the lay man is exactly what needs to go into a how to use the internet guy. However, this doesn't really belong in the Wikipedia namespace. The format would have to be extremely biased, tailored for a standard set of recommended software: FireFox, Google, etc. A "WTF is the internet and how do I surf it" page shouldn't contrast software titles and have a user choose between specs and layouts. This is analogous to asking which editor I want to edit this wiki in. anyways... suggest... Wikibook: Windows and Firefox

I concur with the second editor's analysis. Wikipedia is not about "how to," it is more of an answer to the question "what is."

Links Policy

It appears that every marginal web business (you know, the kind who's business plan depends on generating popups rather than displaying actual content) wants a link from this page, presumably for PageRank purposes.

I suggest that a site should only be linked from this article (in the general links section) if it meets at least one of these three criteria:

1. It is authoritative; e.g. it is a well-known and respected archive of RFC documents. The link to the ISOC site comes into this category.

OR

2. It illustrates, demonstrates, or further explains specific points of article content. The link to Hobbes Internet Timeline fits in here.

OR

3. It is otherwise genuinely useful to someone who would read an encyclopedia article called "Internet". The internet statistics links would fit in here (although perhaps we don't need so many of them?)

Lastly I'd suggest we should avoid duplication. If two sites cover essentially the same material, we should think very hard about whether both links should be kept or if the poorer one can be dropped. For instance, we currently have two links to two different "show my IP" sites. I think this (marginally) qualifies under (2) above (although perhaps it would be better on the IP article, since this article doesn't actually discuss IP addresses at all). But we sure don't need two of them.

I have already deleted some links which in my opinion are clearly poor quality:

Silly number of gaming links (gaming is a very minor topic in this article)

Out of date statistics

Infoquest! : links to different Internet surveys and statistics

News sites with no original content (but lots of ads)

Borderline kookery

The Internet as a new mass medium

Thparkth

Good work. I agree with your suggested policy. I've pruned some more.

Show your IP address, * Show your IP address

, * provides information about your computer relating to the internet. All of these are IP address viewers(some with other "about your computer"-type info - the article does not talk about IP addresses, and IP viewers are a dime a hundred - we could add a google link if it is really necessary.

http://cyberatlas.internet.com/big_picture/traffic_patterns/article/0,,5931_3099471,00.html and http://news.earthweb.com/stats/print.php/3096031, - Two copies of the same 2003 stats, vast piles of ads, source is Nielson/NetRatings, so it may be available direct, in any case.

(forgot to sign) JesseW, the juggling janitor 02:39, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

OK JesseW the junggling Janiter :) cheap shot I know but it made me feel better about you and your chainsaw approach to things.... OK let me guess. This article is about the 'internet'. Right? Yes! Right. So I add an external link, NO advertising, NO products, NO service, just information relating to the 'INTERNET' and you, duuuuuuuuuuuuh? delete it? Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh? :) 0waldo 02:54, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

(Copied from User_talk:JesseW) JesseW :) you bad boy you! OK so all I have to do is add a page of text to getmypc.info and that is all it will take to get an external link to park? 'talk' about the internet? 0waldo 03:23, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

No. External links need to provide material that adds value to the article, and should not be added by their controller, if there is opposition. I find your persistence in trying to "do Wikipedia a favor" after that favor has been rather strenuously, but mostly politely, refused, to be quite odd. In any case, this should be discussed at Talk:Internet. JesseW, the juggling janitor 03:35, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

(End copied text) For the sake of any uninvolved viewers: For the considerable previous discussion, see Talk:IP address. Search for 0waldo. JesseW, the juggling janitor 03:35, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

OK JesseW my friend: I see how your mind works so I will narrow my scope and play your game. "Welcome to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit" - gee, I wonder what that means? 24.214.176.87 04:16, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

It means anybody; it doesn't mean any kind of edit is legitimate. If there weren't rules it would be anarchy, whereas wikipedia has been described as a benevolent dictatorship, and not as a social experiment, SqueakBox 05:06, September 13, 2005 (UTC)

question

can someone tell me how do you clear the list on search engines when you look for something?

Pece Kocovski 07:13, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

For pretty much any dropdown box you can hold down the shift key and press delete to delete items from the list. That will remove individual items, for removing the whole list just look around in the options for clearing the cache and history and stuff. Charles (Kznf) 13:26, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

Net access list stats

Hi

I see that India and China are included in the list where the majority of the population has internet access. Does majority mean more than 50 percent ? Looking at http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~hgs/internet/population.html (outdated stats from 2000) India and China don't figure in the above 30% list. Has the growth been that sharp in India and China from 2000 to 2005 ?

-Kghose 14:38, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

no. For India & China, the pencentage of internet access in population is probably less then 25%. In China, for some regigions such as Taiwan, Hong Kong, Shanghai... it's probably above 70%, but in rural areas, almost zero. Xah Lee 03:34, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

Censorship countries

USA has laws about nudity, any photos that may be thought of as “underage” sexuality, the censorship of encryption codes... See the internet censorship article... and of course, the censorship of publishing bomb making etc. Xah Lee 03:23, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

Well, in that case every country on the planet censors the 'net - why single out the US? Seems like you are just trying to make a point. The other two countries mentioned make a particular point of restricting access to the certain web pages and even cached Google content. Since when did the USA do that? --PhilipO 14:50, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

well, then aren't you being selective? What makes you to be the judge of the type and severity of censorship? The word censorship does not mean Speaclized Censorship. For example, in much of Europe, you can have nudity just about everyday life on the web. (car ads, etc.) But in US, you can't. Even the full article of wikipedia on censorship listed USA. Please check that. Xah Lee 04:21, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Xah Lee, I am not certain what you mean. It is certainly possible to access nudity on the Web in the United States. — Knowledge Seeker দ 04:40, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Not only that, some U.S. states, like California, have some of the most liberal policies on free speech in the world. See Pruneyard Shopping Center and San Fernando Valley for more information. --Coolcaesar 21:32, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

I am taking out the section on censorship, it's very ill thought out, you tech guys are good when it comes to bits and bytes, but when it comes to coherent abstract thought and synthesis, you are not, the person who made the initial argument here refers to the fact that you cannot be selective about what is or isn't considered cencorship of the internet, and to some extent or other ALL countries are guilty of it, regardless of the overt or covert way this is done, or the exent way to which it is done. And he did mention some examples too, about depictions of underage sex, material that can be considered "terrorist activity". Lets not forget that with the new totalitarian lass passed in the u.s. I could be shipped to guantanamo bay and subjected to all sorts of horrors for merely writing this, and I am pretty sure as I am writing this too some cia carnivore-like program is filtering bits and bites and tagging me in their files. This is not a matter of speculation, it's a matter of fact and I need not quote anyone or anything on it, just wikipedia or google it, or read a few pages of your u.s. legislature. So, before passing any moronic self righteous value judgement on how much censorship goes down on the internet in foreign nations, take a look at yourself. For all the above I am taking this ill conceived, and superflous paragraph out. 213.5.31.209 06:24, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Ugly white space

As soon as I load the page, the first thing I see is that big ugly white space next to the index. I'm not that great with wiki formatting, but is there any way we could put a picture of something there, maybe with a table? Just looking for aesthetics here.

Article suggestion

Perhaps someone can find out the web page codings...for example, <img>... and make an artical, or at least some sort of list, about it. I just think it would be helpful to those trying tomake their own web page. -Dr.Cribbit (message posted by editing the page)

No, that would not be in compliance with Wikipedia's editorial policies. This issue has already been heavily debated many times and the consensus has been that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia (which tries to comprehensively describe things) and not a how-to guide. If you want to draft such an explanatory article on Web markup elements, the appropriate location for that would be Wikibooks. --Coolcaesar 00:54, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

Cribbit: Darn. Oh well, thank you anyways! PS: wow, that was faster than I expected.

The article you want is here, Dr Cribbit, called HTML element. --Nigelj 18:47, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Internet v. internet redux

I just reverted a very subtle edit by Nigelj, in an apparent attempt to upset the delicate consensus that was reached back in mid-summer. His edit would have omitted the fact that "Internet" is both the traditional usage and the majority usage (I just checked the major periodical databases again to reconfirm this), and left article readers with only the impression that the issue is up in the air (without indicating which was the traditional usage). --Coolcaesar 21:38, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

<smells google> What's your 'major periodical database?' markmtl 24.202.31.120 12:43, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

I don't like being labelled 'deceptive' by this man in his edit summary, when I clearly stated my intentions in mine; but what can you do? --Nigelj 10:32, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Is this written by 10-year-olds?

"Online gaming began with services such as GameSpy and MPlayer"

According to MUD, MUDs are a type of online game, the first of which was created in 1977. According to GameSpy, GameSpy was founded in 1995. Saying online gaming "began" with GameSpy and such is completely absurd. 207.59.86.5

I agree fully, I've added a sentence to the bigining as a tempory measure, but that really really neads looking at. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.9.43.76 (talk • contribs) 17:27 16 April 2006 (UTC)

first sentence confusing

Presently, the first sentence reads: "The Internet, or simply the Net, is the worldwide system of interconnected computer networks which makes information stored on it accessible." I find the final clause, beginning with "which," to be confusing. The internet makes accessible the information stored on what? On other computers. I think it would be improvement to write, "which makes data stored on one computer in the world accessible to others."

Further, I think the internet does much more than make available stored data. More generally, I would say it makes possible the exchange of data. Thus, I think a further improvement would be, "which makes possible the exchange of data between geologically distant computers."

I just figured out how the first sentence was screwed up. In this edit , the anonymous user at IP address 72.240.78.211 split what was one sentence into two sentences. The original sentence was "The Internet, or simply the Net, is the publicly accessible worldwide system of interconnected computer networks that transmit data by packet switching using a standardized Internet Protocol (IP) and many other protocols." I believe the original sentences was much more comprehensible and I am switching back to that version. The 72.240.78.211 user was grossly incorrect in stating that parts of the Internet are not publicly accessible.

After all, if a network is not publicly accessible over the Internet (meaning that it is a closed network like the various military networks), then it is not part of the Internet even if it uses Internet protocols internally. The whole point of the term Internet is to refer to its very character as an internetwork of networks. --Coolcaesar 06:17, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

IANA

Would someone please add a mention of the IANA to the article? I'd research it myself, but… Wikipedia is a huge time-suck as it is :) — mjb 01:17, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Feel free to rework the sumary section I created for the Internet standards bodies at History of the Internet#NIC.2C InterNIC IANA and ICANN --Barberio 03:51, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Wrong information

"In the Western world, it is Germany that has the highest rate of censorship. Internet Service Providers are required by law to block some sites that contain child pornography or Nazi or Islamist propaganda."

This is just wrong. ISPs are not forced to block these sites, but the state can and will file a lawsuit against the owner. I can access every internet site. If you don't believe me tell me a site, you don't think I can access because my ISP would have to block it and I'll email you a screenshot

neverpanic

Is there a chance we could get a verifiable source on this information? Also the tone of your edit is bad, you may be annoyed but the article shouldn't sound that way. Also if you could regester it would be nice. Drn8 17:34, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

You can edit it yourself, my tone might not be that good... you know, english is not my native language.

Sources? What about being from Germany? I never heard of such censorship here and my ISP doesn't even have a forced HTTP proxy, so they can't filter my web content. Also there is no article in our laws that forces ISPs to block content. neverpanic

/* Criticism */ merge|World Wide Web

The critisism is not of the Internet, but of weblinks. Benn Newman 21:03, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

I concur. Also, we already had a section for criticism of the Net, which was taken out precisely because many people thought it was POV (just scroll up this page) although I thought it should have stayed. The consensus is to NOT have a criticism section! --Coolcaesar 23:19, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Discrepancies on language usage b/w Internet and World Wide Web articles.

From World Wide Web:
According to a 2001 study [6], there were more than 550 billion documents on the Web, mostly in the "invisible Web". A 2002 survey of 2,024 million web pages [7] determined that by far the most Web content was in English: 56.4%; next were pages in German (7.7%), French (5.6%) and Japanese (4.9%). A more recent study [8] which used web searches in 75 different languages to sample the Web determined that there were over 11.5 billion web pages in the publically-indexable Web as of January 2005.

Does this conflict with the information given under the Language section on this site:
After English (32 % of web visitors) the most-requested languages on the world wide web are Chinese 13 %, Japanese 8 %, Spanish 6 %, German 6 % and French 4 %. (From Internet World Stats)

I'm unsure whether the way I'm interpreting 'most requested' is preventing me from seeing something obvious. :)

Also, there's inconsistent capitalisation of Web/web/World Wide Web/world wide web/etc.

I'm new to Wikipedia, so I'd prefer to just point it out and get some opinions, rather than dive in and change things.

--wht.rbt 11:53, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

It is possibly that both are true, but someone may want to look into that. Benn Newman 14:54, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

I think they're probably both right - the 2001/2 studies were of the apparent or main languages used in the documents surveyed. The Internet World Stats are much more recent (2005) and refer to the requested or preferred language of the users or readers of WWW material. These latter figures are based upon the fact that web browsers send the logged-on user's preferred language as part of almost every web page request. This normally defaults to the selected desktop language on the client machine, but can be set independently in some cases (e.g. Firefox). Note that in both cases these only refer to web usage - it would be much harder to work out language use in other internet applications such as chat, email, file-sharing etc. --Nigelj 20:49, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Semantic web

should we not mention the semantic web over here?...

1st generation 2nd generation: now 3rd generation: semantic web..

No, the Web is not the Internet. Benn Newman 17:24, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

I concur. Please do not mix up the two! --Coolcaesar 20:08, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

'Marketing' section - merge|World Wide Web

I've been watching it for a while and now I am convinced that this section is propagating the old confusion re internet/WWW. What it talks about is buying and selling on the web, without a doubt. --Nigelj 11:00, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Unsure - ecommerce on the Internet is more than the Web; it includes B2B EDI protocols, and it includes the delivery of stuff over the Internet, such as p2p. But I wouldn't mind - it adds very little value to the article, which is plenty long enough. Alvestrand 11:05, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Population or demographics?

It's a shame there's nothing in this article about Internet population or demographics. Or possibly that's a new article. Johnh 05:38, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Future trends

Future trends ideas (suggestions): 1. On demand resources like application when high speed networks and larger servers are available 2. Distributed variable space and resource available at each operating system connected to internet to compute or share resources managed by a new internet layer based on criticality and priority of resources and computation to be shared

Neil Harwani

I don't think a future trends section is appropriate. This issue has been debated many times in the context of many, many Wikipedia articles and the consensus is that such speculation is generally inappropriate as it violates the No original research policy. The obvious exception is for paraphrasing of widely held beliefs about future trends as articulated by prominent futurists (and backed up with appropriate citations). --Coolcaesar 06:35, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

On a similar note, I've been wondering if there should be an article on the End of the Internet, detailing scenarios in which the Internet is no longer a viable medium. I remember in the early days talk about IPv4 address exhaustion and an entropy-related "heat death" of sorts in which there are so much active connections eventually lag the Internet to the point it becomes unusable. Recently, and what made me consider this as an article was, in light of BellSouth trying to extort Google by reducing the speed of traffic to their site, there has been talk, such as this article in The Nation, about greed between companies tearing the open and free worldwide web into a privately run, branded services localized around regional networks. --YoungFreud 13:24, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Living Internet

I've had to comment out two links to livinginternet.com as they have upset the spam filter for some reason. I don't know why (it looks a good site from my superficial investigation), so I'll investigate further. See also m:talk:Spam blacklist. Thryduulf 11:20, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

I've just added the lnk in the references again, and it now works. Very odd. Thryduulf 00:17, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

AL GORE

I don't know why this article ignores Al Gore...he's AL GORE! He invented the internet...without him, none of you would be here on wikipedia.

Al Gore is one of the greatest men of the last two decades for creating the internet. Its too bad that you and old Floridian jews can't see that. *sigh*

165.123.186.179 21:37, 26 January 2006 (UTC)FatAlbert

Please tell us your source for the claim that Al Gore "invented" the internet. I think you'll find it quite difficult :) Eurosong 22:11, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

I concur. All reputable published sources agree that if the Internet was invented by any particular person, the persons responsible are Vinton Cerf and Robert Kahn. --Coolcaesar 01:04, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Internet and nuclear attack

It is often stated that the internet was not created for military communication lines to remain open in case of nuclear attack. In a very limited sense this is true. This is only true to the extent that the idea for the internet was a civilian idea. At MIT Leonard Kleinrock published the first paper on packet switching networks in 1961 called Information Flow in Large Communication Nets. As the main article here already says, in 1958, the USSR's launch of Sputnik spurred the U.S. to create the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to regain a U.S. technological lead. It should be noted this was a defense project. Defense against what? The USSR. What did we need to defend ourselves against? Nuclear attack. Sputnik was thought by the military as a first step to launch nuclear weapons from space. It was not simply a desire to be more advanced technologically such as the race between the US and Japan for superior technology. This was about Defense. Don't be naive. In the same year that Leonard Kleinrock published his paper (1961), there were several meetings with the US Air Force by the Rand Corporation about the viability of creating the internet. Written by Paul Baran (see main article here to see who he is) "Various aspects of the concept as reported in this Memorandum were presented before selected Air Force audiences in the summer of 1961 in the form of a RAND briefing (B-265), and contained in RAND Paper P-2626, which this Memorandum supersedes." These memorandums were published and are available for free on the internet where it states "The present Memorandum, the first in the series, introduces the system concept and outlines the requirements for and design considerations of a digital data communications system based on the distributed concept, especially as regards implications for such systems in the 1970s. In particular, the Memorandum is directed toward examining the use of redundancy as one means of building communications systems to withstand heavy enemy attacks." -- http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_memoranda/RM3420/RM3420.preface.html. Creating the internet took money and that money came from the military. In October 1962 Licklider was appointed head of the DARPA information processing office, part of the United States Department of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. The military has tried to water down the media hype, but the fact still remains, this article starts with DARPA, a military defense organization and yet this article refuses to conclude that the internet, although conceived of by civilians, was not powered by the money from the military in an attempt, to quote Paul Baran, "to withstand heavy enemy attacks."--Voyajer 16:35, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

"Funded by the U.S. government, the ARPAnet became a series of high-speed links between major supercomputer sites and educational and research institutions worldwide"; "The Internet was founded on a simple vision: to build a highly decentralized and resilient worldwide network infrastructure that would scale and that could resist any denial-of-service attacks." [my emphasis added in both quotes]. I haven't taken the time to dig back to contemporary source documents, but what I'm saying is well-documented common knowledge. I think what Voyajer may be thinking of above actually became the "digital battlefield" or whatever they call their current military comms system. Both end-products depend on packet-switching, routers, limited-range broadcast packets and lots of other common tech. Why would the US Miltary pay for such a thing for their own use and survival, then let everyone else use it too? The answer is that at that time the technology was emerging and lots of people worldwide were thinking how to apply it in their problem-space. Some of the early R & D was probably done in common, but the thing the military wanted became the digital battlefield, and the thing academia wanted became the internet, and commerce soon piggy-backed onto the internet - but (thank God) they've not been allowed to buy it or own the rights to any of it. Yet. --Nigelj 18:58, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree

blackout

In the Malfunctions and attacks section, there is alink to 2003 North America blackout - August 14, 2003. I flipped through this article, and found no mention of anything internet-related a a cause of the blackout. Unless some wikipedian is, contrary to the evidence, taking credit for this incident, I don't understand what it is doing on this page. Shaggorama 08:24, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Physical Structure?

The section on the physical structure of the Internet was unclear. There was no section. I'd like to know how exactly my computer accesses the network, whick is routed to another network, and so on. Please include an example of data transfer from Wikipedia to an ISP, then a home computer. I really think this would help.70.25.138.179 04:15, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Internet Communication

A huge part of the internet and its most common use (majority of people's use) is simply for communication (email/im/chatroom/myspace/etc.), and this issue is kinda ignored by the article, don't know if anyone agrees that there should be a section for this (or maybe this is the wrong article for it), perferably including a www.bash.org link when mentioning the idiocy that sometimes arises from this form of communication. Qballony 08:24, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

"Teh Intarweb" vs "The Interweb"

12:49, 2 March 2006 Computerjoe m (Reverted edits by Biederman to last version by 2dogs)

12:48, 2 March 2006 Biederman m (Revert edit by 2dogs - see Interweb for explanation of "teh intarweb" - I think you broke it ;-))

12:37, 2 March 2006 2dogs m (changed teh to the intarweb to interweb)

"Teh intarweb" is a deeper parody than "the interweb". As is explained in the Internet article, public confusion between the Internet and the 'Web is often parodied by such phrases as "teh intarweb". See Interweb, to which Intarweb redirects, for an explanation that "intarweb" is a deliberate mis-spelling. "Teh" is also a deliberate mis-spelling. See Teh and L33t. Perhaps using both "teh intarweb" and "the interweb" would be best? I don't wanna change again w/o consensus. How 'bout:

The confusion between these two by the general public is often parodied by phrases such as "the interweb" and "teh intarweb", as in "You broke teh intarweb!".

Biederman 21:05, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't think the "Interweb" concept needs to be discussed in the first paragraph (with either spelling), as it may further confuse newbies who come to Wikipedia looking for clarity, not confusion. Furthermore, the term is not generally used in the mainstream media by reputable publications or well-known television shows. A single show on Comedy Central, while interesting, does not have the same cultural impact as Saturday Night Live, which is well-established and reaches a much larger audience. Please read Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:No original research. --Coolcaesar 04:21, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Humour section

I just removed the following three paragraphs, added earlier today. I don't want to 'bite the newbies', but I really think this is mostly personal experience and in-jokes, and so not of widespread or encyclopedic importance. Furthermore, most of this is actually about the WWW, not the internet, so was in the wrong article, and further adds to the confusion over the two terms. Lastly the 'joke' in the last para is really quite offensive, and is certainly not in widespread use.

Begin removed text

Because of some of the Internet's major uses and limitations, physical contact for example, some on-going jokes about the web have been spawned. O RLY, Interweb, and the Internet is for porn are a few examples of more widely known jokes about the Internet. "The Internet is for Porn" is a song from Avenue Q that tells the character Kate that although regular users of the net perform common activities such as online auction, stocks and trades, and research, its main purpose is searching for erotic material to masturbate to.

In response to the large amount of porn involving childhood memories Zoom Out Webcomics drew a comic strip that is commonly known as 'Internet Rule #34'. The rule is that there is porn of everything and nothing is excluded from this rule. The comic shows the character Yokai viewing a computer monitor in shock. The viewer infers that he sees an image of Calvin and Hobbes performing some type of sexual act. The bottom of the comic states that the Internet has been raping your childhood since 1996.

Disagreements in chatrooms or forums may sometimes get serious to the point that users will make threats of bodily harm or death. Because one cannot actually damage a person on the Internet some have publicly made wishes along the lines of "God, please grant me the ability to hurt someone over standard TCP/IP. Amen." A common phrase used when an Internet argument begins is "Arguing on the Internet is like running in the special olympics. Even if you win, you're still retarded." An image was created to go along with this sentence showing a chubby boy running on a track field with his arms outstreched. The order in which the phrase and picture were created is unknown and it is possible that the phrase came from the original image.

End removed text --Nigelj 20:15, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Alex Jones' Opinion on the Internet

How many people here think that the opinion of Alex Jones on the Internet warrants mention in the article? (See )--Jersey Devil 16:12, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

NPOV demands all views to be represented. I really dont see why that is even a issue. --Striver 16:32, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

No, NPOV means only that representative views should be presented in a neutral fashion. If you want all points of view then you want the WP fork known as Wikinfo (which does allow for all points of view), not Wikipedia. Even if we need to mention neo-Luddite critiques of the Internet (which I will concede are probably worth mentioning), they have been argued far more cogently by reputable intellectuals like Bill Joy (co-founder of Sun Microsystems).

Also, while we're on the subject, I think we need to get rid of the Seth Breidbart quote. I just ran a Google search and it's not often-quoted. Of the 161 hits, most of them appear to be mirrors of this article! --Coolcaesar 17:28, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Okay, no one has defended that idiotic Seth Breidbart quote, I'm taking it out. When someone gives me a cite to a reputable publication then they can put it back in. --Coolcaesar 01:05, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Seth Breidbart, Internet pioneer, is hardly Alex Jones, whoever he is.... Paul Vixie, the guy who wrote BIND, the most-used DNS server, used to carry his quote in his .sig file (accounting for most of the 907 hits *I* found on Google for the quote). I've asked him. --Alvestrand 04:37, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, I still don't think 907 hits is very much, but if Paul Vixie thinks it's important, fine. Yes, I'm aware of what BIND is and I know it's a very important part of the Internet infrastructure. --Coolcaesar 17:37, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Alex has four large websites and over 2 miljon subscribers. His views are controversial, but he represents a significant minority, and their views are to be represented according to NPOV. The line is NPOV:

Alex Jones on his site Prisonplanet.com raises grave concerns on the future of Internet, specialy with the development of Internet 2 www.prisonplanet.com/articles/march2006/160306myspace.htm]

Everything in that live is 100% true. And no, you dont need to even know anything about internet to be able to have a view of it, but incidently, Alex has four large websited and uses internet as his main medium. --Striver 14:38, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

actually that line is not 100% true. The term "grave" is a value judgment; my personal value judgment would make me write the line as

Alex Jones, writing on his site Prisonplanet.com, tries to raise alarmist, misguided concerns about the future of the Internet, invoking the name of Internet 2.

The words "alarmist" and "misguided" are as much fact as "grave".. in my opinion. --Alvestrand 17:49, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

In my mind, part of the problem is that this Alex Jones, in his own piece at www.prisonplanet.com/articles/march2006/160306myspace.htm], seems completely muddled on the differences between

the internet and the world wide web,
a website and a network hub (or perhaps he means router?),
an internet backbone and a web-hosting provider
and on the nature of Internet2, for which the WP article contains the important sentence, "This is misleading since Internet2 is in fact a consortium and not a computer network."

With so many important category errors in his central argument, even if he is onto a point that some feel is relevant, then as Coolcaesar says above, he does not carry the intellectual credibility to represent the view. Others may say that this view borders on the irrationally Luddite, or the hysterically conspiracy-theorist, and with only his dimly argued exposition, who could doubt them?

Find some better, more respected, intellectually more heavy-weight citations and I'll defend the viewpoint to the end, but as it stands it sounds like just one of gazzilions of whacky bits of background noise that could be pulled into here from the blogosphere. Sorry, but as such it has to go. --Nigelj 17:24, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Well argued. I and Nigelj have had our differences elsewhere, but on this point I believe we concur. See What Wikipedia is not. In particular, Wikipedia is not a soapbox.

I should also point out that the ability to distinguish fact from fantasy is a key component of psychological maturity. Sounds like Striver is still striving to grow up! --Coolcaesar 17:37, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Agree totally with Nigelj's succinct arguments. On the same basis, Striver should stop trying to include the same ill-informed opinion in Internet2. -- uberpenguin 05:04, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

"Size" of the internet

According to a paper published in early 2005, the size of the internet in January 2005 was 11.5 billion pages. Should we include that information in the article?

Is there a more recent update on the size of the net and its growth?

That's the size of the World Wide Web, not the Internet. The Internet is much more than the Web, as any computer science professional knows. The Internet includes all the other application protocols that run on top of the TCP/IP stack, not just HTTP (the Web protocol). There's streaming video/audio, email, instant messaging, file transfers, Internet Relay Chat, etc. Please do more research before making a fool of yourself! --Coolcaesar 18:37, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Wow, never expected a rude response such as this. Is this how every member of wikipedia treats good natured questions (which I guess falls under the category of research)? Thanks for the correction, but that was uncalled for.

Now another question - has there been any attempt to gauge the size of the internet?

"Cleanup"? What's the problem?

The "cleanup" tag was added to this article, without comment or explanation, at 10:14, 1 April 2006 by User:Haham hanuka. There has been no discussion that I can find here in the talk page.

I assume it was an April Fool's Day joke. Unless someone can come up with at least one specific thing that needs fixing, I'll delete the "Cleanup" tag tomorrow. --Nigelj 22:38, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't really see a problem with removing the cleanup tag. I was thinking of removing it myself and replacing it with unreferenced. --GraemeL ^(talk) 22:43, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

What you're proposing is {{unreferenced}}

Wouldn't it be more helpful to go through and put {{fact}} templates where you think citations are needed? Like^{[citation needed]} --Nigelj 22:56, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

there are only about 3 or 4 references in the whole article. Almost every paragraph would end up tagged. --GraemeL ^(talk) 22:58, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

I have removed it - like I have been removing every POV and similar tag that was placed by User:Haham hanuka withouot any rationale on the corresponding talkpage. But if you feel the article is truly lacking I will not be revert anyone bar HH (who has been banned for over a week now). Agathoclea 23:08, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

British work creating the net

I recall seeing a British tv programme about the internet, which showed that a large amount of the work that contributed to what we know as the net today was done by a couple of scientists working in Middlesex, England. Does anyone know if this is true, and if so, can the correct information be added so the article does not claim the net is a purely American invention. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.17.208.173 (talk • contribs) 21:58 7 April 2006 (UTC)

ICANN and IANA

The article says:

"The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is the authority that coordinates the assignment of unique identifiers on the Internet, including domain names, Internet Protocol (IP) addresses, and protocol port and parameter numbers."

Protocol and port numbers are assigned by IANA. Even though IANA is a operated by ICANN, it would be worth mentioning IANA in this context. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.104.69.121 (talk) 09:25, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Language

The list of most used languages on the Internet is outdated. According to the link you provide the most used languages on the Internet are as follows:

Top Ten Languages Used in the Web ( Number of Internet Users by Language )

TOP TEN LANGUAGES IN THE INTERNET

Internet Users

by Language

Internet

Penetration by Language

Growth

in Internet ( 2000 - 2008 )

Internet Users

% of Total

World Population

for this Language (2008 Estimate)

English

1000
36.2 %
218.4 %
0 %
1,247,862,351

Chinese

321,361,613
23.5 %
894.8 %
20.4 %
1,365,138,028

Spanish

121,993,069
29.8 %
571.0 %
7.7 %
408,760,807

Japanese

94,000,000
73.8 %
99.7 %
6.0 %
127,288,419

French

72,720,214
17.6 % 
496.1 %
4.6 %
414,043,695

Portuguese

72,555,800
29.7 %
857.7 %
4.6 %
244,080,690

German

65,243,673
67.7 % 
135.5 %
4.1 %
96,402,666

With Portuguese surpassing German already . —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.169.67.134 (talk) 05:26, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Logical Boundaries

The logical boundary of Internet depends on the type of IP address you set to a network element, server or host. If the network element/server/host has a public IP address and it has a physical connection, so this host is part of Internet, on the other hand, if the network element/server/host has a private IP addres, even if it has a physical connection, it does not belong to Internet. ( Abel L.M.O) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.72.116.224 (talk) 21:48, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Huh? I think I can see where you are going here: if you can't access it publicly, then it is not part of the Internet, even though it is a private site that may be members only? Your logic is illogical. Corrupt one (talk) 00:42, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Routers?

At the end of the history section there is credit given to Cisco, Protean, and Juniper as enabling growth of the internet. Since Juniper wasn't founded until 1998 this doesn't follow in the timeline, or my memory. The big router companies were Cisco and Wellfleet in those early internet days. Wellfleet turned in Baynetworks and then Nortel. Techmum (talk) 19:33, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Advertising?

The following seems a bit fishy to me...

"Sites like meetup.com exist to allow wider announcement of groups which may exist mainly for face-to-face meetings, but which may have a variety of minor interactions over their group's site at meetup.org, or other similar sites."

[Copied from the "Social Impact" section of the page] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.219.49.206 (talk) 13:34, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

If it seems fishy, we can't include it as a reliable source. However, the idea behind what they have there does make scense. Just sending business tyo associated people is an old business trick, and is actually illegal in a few cases.

Oh, and the new articles should go down the bottom of the page. Corrupt one (talk) 23:40, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Correct information by adding link

Professor David L. Mills is cited in this article for his contributions and his "fuzzball" router. However there is no link from his name to his page. You'll find him listed here: Afterburn188 03:14, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Add a Link?

Does anyone feel that we should add a link to the following site? [http://earlyhistory.googlepages.com/historyoftheinternet Development of the Internet] - Please give your reasons as to why or why not! Thanks! West wikipedia —The preceding unsigned comment was added by West wikipedia (talk • contribs) 18:41, 9 December 2006 (UTC).

Because it does not cite it's sources, doesn't add anything already in Wikipedia, the site is non-notable i.e. it hasn't been cited as an authority by other reliable sources and it's authors are completely unknown. In fact if I google for earlyhistory googlepages com I get nothing. Please read WP:WEB (under criteria), WP:RS (e.g. Non-scholarly sources) and WP:NOTABLE and ideally please solve this one link first before you start posting to all the other entries you've been trying to make. Ttiotsw 18:48, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

The links you wish to add to all these articles do not pass any of the criteria for external links, as has already been explained to you. Even if the links did pass the criteria, your objective is obviously to promote your web site, and that objective will not be accomplished here. I suggest you consider productive content editing rather than just attempting to get your site linked from numerous pages (see WP:SPAM). -- mattb @ 2006-12-09T19:02Z

I concur. To "West wikipedia": If you fail to understand Wikipedia policy, your account will be blocked and any edits from your account will be reverted. Wikipedia editors have already encountered several sites similar to yours, and the community consensus has been that links should such sites should be deleted as spam as well as possible Google bombing or link farming. --Coolcaesar 06:55, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

CircleID inclusion request: We would like to ask this group to consider including an external link to a site called CircleID - often referenced in the media and well known among Internet pioneers who read and contribute to its content regularly. The site has been dedicated to continuous and up to date development of the Internet related issues for 6 years. We thank you for your consideration and if there are any questions that might help in qualifying CircleID for inclusion, we would be happy to respond.--Afarsh (talk) 21:57, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Capitalization issues redux

I just reverted a bizarre statement that Nohat tried to insert into the Capitalization conventions section, in which he claimed that "the telephone network," "the power grid," and "the sky" were exceptions to the rule that proper nouns are written in uppercase in English. Actually, those are all common nouns, because there are many examples of each---every country has its own telephone network and power grid, and every planet with an atmosphere has a sky. On the other hand, I could manufacture proper nouns by simply inserting qualifiers that are proper nouns in themselves: "the AT&T telephone network," "the Pacific Gas and Electric power grid," and "the Earth's sky."

It's analogous to the difference in object-oriented programming between classes and objects. Common nouns are classes and proper nouns are objects (and an object is a particular instance of a class). --Coolcaesar 03:49, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes, but when talking about the entire global telephone network, taken together (and it is all connected), we still don't capitalize it. Why would the internet be any different? Same with sky—there is only one sky on the planet earth, and when people say "the sky" they are referring to the one sky on this planet, but we still don't capitalize. When I say "the sky is blue" I am referring to the one single instance of sky that exists on this planet. There is only one—it is unique in exactly the same way that the internet is unique—but we don't capitalize it. This observation is directly applicable to the capitalization of internet, so I have restored the commentary as well as a reference to a knowledgeable source (a linguistics professor) who makes the same argument. Nohat 06:30, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

"Internet" was capitalised during the bubble when techies ran it and people thought it was like God - omnicient and omnipresent. Since the bubble burst, non-techies have grown to resent the implication that anything like this could be so important. Familiarity breeds contempt. We've moved to "internet" on our website because people said that "Internet" was pretentious. We're based in the UK, BTW. Stephen B Streater 08:26, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Nunberg's argument is faulty in his reference to the power grid. He is a linguist, not an electrical engineer. He is clearly discussing an area outside his own sphere of expertise. For example, I cannot take my hair dryer to Europe and directly plug it into the wall because (1) the plug will not fit, (2) the voltage is different (220V v 110 V) and (3) the frequency is different (60 Hz v. 50 Hz). Furthermore, most countries cannot shift power to each other as easily as they can share computing resources under the modern distributed computing model. If California were having another energy crisis this summer, France cannot lend us a few hundred megawatts for a day, because there is no direct link between their power grids. So it is simply foolish to speak of one "power grid."

Also, it appears that Nunberg's commentary was originally a radio commentary for a show that is not a regular news program, which meant it was not subject to the rigorous editing that regular news programs, newspapers, or academic journals usually go through. Thus, it is highly suspect and probably falls under original research. See Wikipedia:No original research.

The point is that there are multiple power grids, running on all kinds of wacky technologies. Power grid, standing alone, is a common noun. But there is only one Internet (capitalized), which is a proper noun, that runs on TCP/IP.

As for "the telephone network," there are actually many telephone networks, despite the loose appearance of interoperability. Just look at the mess with telephone numbers. But there is only one Internet Protocol.

Also, to take Nohat's ludicrous argument the other way, I could argue that the Queen of England is unique, since there is only one at any given time, so why don't we just call her queen elizabeth ii? Or how about the president of the united states? Realistically, there are many queens, many presidents, many skies, many telephone networks, and many power grids. But there is only one Internet.

That is the argument that the majority of educated Americans adhere to (including the vast majority of computer journalists, computer programmers, and electrical engineers), and nothing is going to change that in the foreseeable future. Wikipedia is not about changing minds, only about providing information on the status quo. The blogosphere is for changing minds.--Coolcaesar 18:19, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

First of all, this is a question about language, so a linguist is exactly the kind of expert we should turn to for providing guidance. I fail to see how the fact that his opinion was presented in the context of a non-news radio show in any way diminishes his authority to present opinions on English-language usage.

Second, even if it is "foolish" to speak of one power grid, people do still speak and write about such things. The fact that the conception of something may be incomplete does not change how one capitalizes its name. Knowledge of a topic and knowledge of how to use the English language are NOT the same thing, and it is perfectly possible to write about something which the writer has limited knowledge of and still use unimpeachable English. The relevant facts of the matter are that whether or not "internet" is a proper noun is not a res judicata, and there are arguments on both sides of the issue that warrant mention in this article.

The statement "there are many queens, many presidents, many skies, many telephone networks, and many power grids. But there is only one Internet." is begging the question. There are obviously many internets, not only internets which are completely disconnected from the internet, such as networks operated by the Department of Defense, but the internet is itself composed of many internets. The term "the internet" is the one global internet, the same way that even though there are many skies, "the sky" is the one global sky, and even though there are many telephone networks, "the telephone network" is the one global telephone network (which uses a single protocol—voice). The things are exactly analogous, and arguing that they are not is sophistry.

No one is advocating trying to change minds, but it is important to include all legitimate viewpoints on this linguistic matter. This viewpoint, presented by a linguist, is perfectly legitimate and deserves mention in the article. While it is true that the capitalized convention is currently the most prominent, the noncapitalized variant enjoys some usage by respectable users of the language, and it is important to recognize not only the variety of usage, but the variety of reasons for the variety of usage. The analogy with "sky", "telephone network", and even "the power grid", despite your quibbles, is perfectly apt. Nohat 19:23, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm afraid you're on to a loser here, Nohat and friends. Coolcaesar is prepared to be rude, beligerant, to insult you, your education and your country, and will try to destroy your will to help on WP before he'll let you change a word of "his" section on this topic. He's about the only one, and almost a year ago he himself wrote "news sources in Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom prefer "internet" much, much more", which is perfectly true, but I think he waits for these arguments to flare up. And it keeps happening, because he's wrong; but winning again means more to him than improving or balancing the article, it seems to me. (Feeling chewed and spat out from the last mauling I got) --Nigelj 21:27, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

I have confidence in Coolcaeser's commitment to NPOV, that he will agree that there is room for all viewpoints on this topic to be fairly represented in the article. Nohat 23:07, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Well, I still disagree with you, but as I am too busy with personal and work matters at the moment to get involved in another Wikipedia flame war, I will back down on this issue for now. --Coolcaesar 05:03, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for doing so, Coolcaesar. I've rearranged and tightened up the wording in the section a bit. I hope it shows in a valid way, both views on the subject and I hope you find it OK for now. --Nigelj 09:51, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

"... United Kingdom prefer "internet" much, much more", which is perfectly true ..." - nonsense. A number of pretentious (and frankly, ignorant) British newspapers may prefer 'internet', but educated Brits write 'Internet', which is the correct form. To say that a linguist is the right person to pronounce on a topic s/he understands nothing about is arrogant, as well as ignorant.

“Internet” is the proper name of the network most people connect to, and the word needs to be capitalized. ~ UBeR 02:55, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

IMHO, the Internet is the largest internet in the world... but I'm not getting into any flame war on this - it's obviously generating strong feeling ;-) Poweroid 18:36, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

The Internet is a NAME of an internet. As such, I am sure Nohat would agree that as a NAME, it must have capital I. That is opposed to the TERM internet, which should have a lowercase i. The MAKERS of the Internet reffer to the difference between Internet and internet in the book Where wizards stay up late. I have made the correction to the main page. The term Internet to name that internet comes from Transmission Controll Protocal/ Internet Protocal (TCP/IP), which are the very basic protocalls used be the Internet. Corrupt one 00:36, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

British Invention

Wasn't the Internet a British invention? I'll edit this page with the info I found later, im going to put the info into words that other people can understand... Garfunkle20 11:39, 20 May 2006 (UTC)Garfunkle20

Hmm I think that the french were the first to use some sort of internet for public use with their minitel connection. They were allready in use in 1981 ! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Xklsv (talk • contribs) 13:30, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, the Web was - look up TBL.

I look forward to seeing your information. Stephen B Streater 18:19, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Especially since the only possible contributor on the British side of the pond was Donald Davies, who was English. And Davies' contributions were more on the theoretical side; as far as I know, he didn't actually do hands-on work on the IMPs or on the TCP/IP protocol stack itself. The key people are Licklider, Taylor, Kleinrock, Engelbart, Cerf, Kahn, etc. --Coolcaesar 19:04, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, my mistake. The article I read was about Boolean expressions. I dont know where I got that it contributed to the making of the internet, mabye with the exception of Scripting languages... Garfunkle20 13:53, 21 May 2006 (UTC)Garfunkle20

Thanks for checking before you put it up on the main article. Stephen B Streater 13:55, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Sorry if I caused any hard feelings. I really should have read the article carefully. Hey! Gimmie a break! Im 16! Garfunkle20 14:32, 21 May 2006 (UTC)Garfunkle20

Actually Packet Switching was developed by a British scientist before his American counterpart as the phone company in America refused to co-operate. Without the packet switching, the Internet woud be impossible. Corrupt one 00:38, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Without several dozen other things, none invented by the British, it wouldn't be possible either :)

Exactly that would be like sayin the Sumerians invented it, since it wouldnt exist without writing —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.241.65.126 (talk) 18:36, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Charles A. Petrik

Isn't this Charles A. Petrik just a figment of someone's imagination? i.e. vandalism? I'm removing him. (Rajah 04:39, 11 June 2006 (UTC))

If he is indeed a hoax (which seems exceedingly likely), then I guess he'll be no more real over at Ronald Pelton. I'll go remove him. --Ashenai 04:48, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Picture of the internet

It seems to me that this article could use a picture of the internet. I was thinking either:

A: a big nice picture of planetary bandwidth/connections, etc.

B: A picture of the standard flowchart representation of the internet, a cartoon storm cloud that says "the internet", possibly with lightning.

Any thoughts?

--Zzthex 04:53, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Cute. There's a "picture of the Internet" floating around with just a monitor that says "Welcome to the Internet". But, seriously, no.Danny Lilithborne 05:24, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
- It might help certain people make the point that the Internet is not a dump truck. 66.171.45.111 23:02, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Of course not, its a series of tubes. Anyways, a picture of a router or an ethernet cable would be a great addition.

What about this one: http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/map_of_the_internet.jpg ?

- Very funny. Or maybe even : http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/online_communities.png (my personal favorite)Whatipedia 23:24, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

The picture of the internet is created from data almost three years old (2005) and the internet has grown greatly since then. Is there an updated picture to be found?--Exander (talk) 02:06, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Web applications in workplace section

What is the purpose of including this minor factoid? What does this add other than a doubly redundant clause? Web applications are not even the primary reason why people can work from home, they are one among many means, all of which should not be mentioned here. Are we to add more and more about "e-mail", "remote desktop access", "also normal websites", "specialized proprietary software", "oh, and combinations of these", etc. 12:09, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

To be frank, I think the whole section is a bit waffly. However, Web applications give a new dimension to using the Internet from home or other remote location because all the data is available from anywhere without installing new software. This is qualitatively different from using traditional desktop applications with an Internet connection, where an installation is required. Web applications, for example, allow collaborative working from multiple locations including cyber cafés where installation of new software is prohibited. The cost of liccences and support for installing software on random PCs at home is a major limiting factor in working from multiple locations. If we're going to cut out something, I'd say something more like this:

The Internet is allowing greater flexibility in working patterns, especially with the spread of unmetered high-speed connections. Today, many people have more flexibility in working hours and location. Web applications allow people to work (separately or collaboratively) through standard Web connected PCs.

This is a new area, but Web applications (which include a wide range of options such as web email, Google, Wikipedia and video editing) are a major factor in changing the work place options. Stephen B Streater 13:15, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Okay, but it needs something along the lines of what you wrote above, rather than repeating that it's for "web-connected PCs" and without simply plunking down "using Web applications" without a minimal description of what it is. —Centrx→talk 14:24, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

I've put something up - concise but covers these points. Stephen B Streater 15:07, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

ownership and value

so who owns the internet and how much is it worth?? imagine if someone else bought it... it would be billions! 203.211.75.42 06:19, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

That comment's not too bright. There are several reasons the Internet could never have been created or owned by one person, starting with the issue of the initial capital costs. Please see Project Xanadu. --Coolcaesar 19:42, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Additionally, the internet would have never gotten so popular if it was a private entity, as censorship alone, which is treated quickly as damage on the internet, would have killed it. 68.228.33.74 23:13, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

I have read recently that other governments are becoming concerned about US government control of the internet. Other than buying the equipment - does it cost anything to be on the net - who do you send your check to ( the guy who owns it ) if anyone? The not too bright among us thought the US government started it on a small scale and then it grew - Al Gore seems to think so and he would never tell a fib. I believe censorship and bugging are quite common on the net - information appears to be capable of being purged if desired ( or so I have found - searching a few months later for a person ( of no international importance I thought ) the information, of which there was a lot, has gone ( is it possible only in one area or would it have to disappear everywhere - just curious, not a federal case).

Huh? Not sure what you're getting at; it was invented by a project funded by the US military and grew well beyond their expectations. The backbones are owned, as is the cable connecting everything, other than that though I'm not sure who can claim ownership of what. Gtadoc 02:36, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

The part about other governments being concerned certainly seems to be true.^[1] Even then, ICANN doesn't really own the internet, but has a lot of power at their fingertips opening up opporturnities for (possibly malicious) meddling. One could argue that even at the hands of the UN someone could meddle with the internet, but I guess some people may view it as an "equal opportunity" for meddling as opposed to just a one-sided one. --0imagination (talk) 23:44, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

The ownership matter is simple to deal with. Lots of people own parts of what we call the Internet. If some of them took their stuff away, it would still be around. Offically no-one owns it, just parts. Corrupt one (talk) 00:49, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

References

[1]
McCullagh, Declan. "Should the United Nations run the Internet?". Retrieved 2009-2-23. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)

Censorship in France?

I don't think any form of Internet censorship exists in France. It is unlawful to sell nazi memorabilia in France, but there is no difference in doing so online versus offline. As far as I am aware, the French government does not block information on the Internet in any way. --194.109.232.21 19:58, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

No, that is censorship because a French citizen can get an enforceable court order to require an online company doing online auctions in France to police all auctions for Nazi-related material, and to remove such auctions whenever it finds them. That was the key issue in the Yahoo! case a few years ago. In contrast, in the United States, such a court order would be unconstitutional under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, because the American public policy in favor of free speech requires a much higher standard of imminent harm (where the speaker would have to be explicitly urging physical violence against particular persons and would have to be speaking to an audience which he knew was capable of such violence). This distinction is commonly taught in Internet law courses in American law schools to illustrate the difference between American and French public policy on freedom of speech and expression. --Coolcaesar 04:57, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

That is an absurd definition of censorship, not a million miles from Clare Short referring to pornographic magazines as 'censorhip of women's right not to be harrassed by pornography'. The French model is not censorhip, but a prohibition on selling certain items - SELLING, mate, not MENTIONING.

A prohibition on selling certain items, because of the content that they communicate, is equivalent to censorship, because it is suppressing the communication of the content to an audience. For example, if selling any copies of Pokemon cartoons was illegal because Pokemon encourages the resolution of conflicts through violence or causes thousands of kids to have seizures (both technically true), then much fewer kids would ever know who are Ash and Pikachu. The point is that by limiting the sale of an object, one ends up limiting the distribution of the object as well as any inherent meaning it communicates. Both, of course, are the goal of the French law. In contrast, the United States tends to be more tolerant of abhorrent and disgusting political ideas, because it was founded by revolutionaries whose views amounted to treason against the Crown. Oddly, the U.S. is more intolerant towards nudity and sex in its media, though, than many other countries. --Coolcaesar 04:09, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I believe it is - I know it is - illegal to mention anything about the Nazis concerning the holocaust if it is in a nonbelieving manner. That's censorship - how you get caught I don't know - snitches or direct government search? - by any definition. China also seems to censor what gets into China.

About the start statement for this discusion part:

I would say it should be phased "There is no Internet censorship in France.", instead of "There is no censorship on the Internet in France." The difference is that Internet Censorship reffers to censorship relating specifically to the internet, and does NOT include all other forms of censorship that apply in France.

If you think that restrictions on SELLING does not qualify as censorship, but only restriction on mentioning things is censorship, then here is a question for you: If France has NO censorship on the Internet, is child pornography freely available online? If even THAT is allowed freely, then there is no censorship on the internet there. Corrupt one 00:54, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Al Gore

I could swear Al Gore made the internet in his basement in the early 1990s. What was he just bullshitting everyone?

But serially, it would at least be interesting to note that Al Gore said he invented them internets. ABart26 23:42, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

You are an idiot. He never said he invented he. He said he played a key role in helping to fund it. He did, voting in favor of funding DARPA. The news media twisted "funded" into "created", and then turned "created" into "invented". He never claimed to invent it, much like he never claimed to have "discovered" Love Canal. Coolgamer 19:39, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Please do not engage in trolling. In his role as a legislator, Al Gore was a major force behind the privatization and commercialization of the Internet in the 1990s — but he did not invent the technology. His role is already noted in the History of the Internet article. --Coolcaesar 16:46, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Please do not engage in humorlessness. One line clarifying about a well-known misquote is entirely appropriate. It's probably not a stretch to claim that Gore's statement is the most famous quote using the word "Internet". Woodshed 07:00, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Could we at least put somewhere in there that "the Internet is serious business"?

Another good source of information regarding VP Gore's role in the internet can be found at Al Gore and information technology, which may not have existed when the previous responses were written (I didn't check). It explains the source of his comment and how it came to be interpreted. CsikosLo (talk) 16:23, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

This is shameful. You mention AL GORE, but there is no mention of any of the TECHNICAL INNOVATORS LIKE BURT METCALF AND HIS ASSOCIATES WHO REALLY GAVE ARPA THE MEAT AND BONES OF THE INTERNET. THIS IS LIKE MENTIONING THE LIGHT BULB WITHOUT THOMAS EDISON. NO WONDER THERE IS DIMINISHING INTEREST IN ENGINEERING AND SCIENCE IN THIS COUNTRY!!!

70.106.60.44 14:36, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Apparently you haven't been interested enough to look up what you're talking about or to contribute meaningfully to wikipedia. Your so-called BURT METCALF is a fiction of your imagination. Bob Metcalfe's role in Ethernet is discussed in that article. As for History of the Internet, there's a whole separate article on it, linked from this one. Dicklyon 16:37, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Internet2

internet

[[Meaning of internet Importance of internet advantages Disadvantages''''']]

vandalism

Internet and internet

hey guys I just did a search on internet <lowercase and i got redirected to the Internet Page. I am certain that there is a difference. Internet you all know and internet being a bunch of interconnected networks using all different kinds of protocals and topologies. am i mistaken? if not should we make a page for internet and link it to the Internet page?

Indeed, there is a difference between the Internet, and an internet.

I am of the opinion that this article should be renamed as The Internet, and that this articles current heading be used for the general sense of interconnected networks. -FrostyBytes 11:42, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Hey that is not a bad idea at all--Sniperwolf3 06:11, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

In my opinion, Internet spelled with a capital I is The Internet. One generalized rule for capitalization is that a word must be capitalized if it is the name of some person, place or thing that is the only one of its kind. Therefore, since there is only one Internet, it should be capitalized. Uncapitalized internet could simply refer to any of a number of networked networks that exist; however, using the term internet might cause some confusion, I think. Then there is the term intranet but that is somewhat different in it use. Katalaveno 14:36, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

The Internet is a NAME of an internet. As such, I am sure you will agree that as a NAME, it must have capital I. That is opposed to the TERM internet, which should have a lowercase i. The MAKERS of the Internet reffer to the difference between Internet and internet in the book Where wizards stay up late. I have made the correction to the main page. The term Internet to name that internet comes from Transmission Controll Protocal/ Internet Protocal (TCP/IP), which are the very basic protocalls used be the Internet. Corrupt one 00:39, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree, but names can become common nouns, and I believe this has happened with the name "Internet" (which is now used to identify the services it offers, which is not the same thing as the technical basis for them). I have edited the relevant section to reflect this. Rp (talk) 15:15, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

This is so dumb. It's not a name in the sense of a trademark or title, it's just the word we came up for it. Compare "the world", "the universe", "reality", "the atmosphere", and so on. Yes you can argue there are other instances of each, but we can also imagine other internets, and the usages are very analogous, therefore I do not enjoy seeing the word capitalized as a standard.207.189.230.42 (talk) 19:53, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Too bad. The Internet Society, ICANN, W3C, IETF, etc. all use "Internet" consistently in their publications. The correct analogy is to planet Earth and other proper nouns. Unless you think mercury, venus, earth, mars, jupiter, etc. should be proper capitalization. --Coolcaesar (talk) 06:41, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

The name Internet and the term internet both dirives from the term internetwork. A similar example all this is the name of this planet! The word earth with a small e means what we walk on, thus we called our world the Earth, or Earth for short. It would be a bit unusual to write the name of the planet always as earth, instead of Earth. Corrupt one (talk) 06:38, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Linked to on Slashdot

Definition of Web on Internet page

I take issue with the definition of the WWW on the Internet page - a collection of documents? Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that the web is a graphical interface we use to access files on the Internet? Because don't lots of people now say they're going to upload a video to the web, or download a podcast from the web? They don't say they're going to go look at an HTML page with some Ajaxy stuff that allows them to view a video.

Valid point - the correct word is resources, to include files, interactive Ajax applications, multimedia etc. I've updated the article, but kept it brief. The sentence above is interesting: maybe what they should say is something like, "they're going to upload a video using the internet to put it onto the web, or use the internet to download a podcast that they found by using the web". If they could be bothered, that is :-) --Nigelj 17:58, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, this is part of the problem with the Web combining aspects of hypertext and Internet technologies. Hypertext traditionally dealt with documents (that is, textual objects). Even today, the Web is primarily about documents; HTML documents still form the primary navigational structure (and their formal structure is called the Document Object Model, after all). A true hypermedia Web that transcends the document model would be one where people could seamlessly link from the middle of one Flash presentation to the middle of a QuickTime movie to a particular page in a 300-page PDF, but we haven't gotten that far yet. Although we can embed plug-ins in HTML documents, and although some plug-ins like Microsoft Word and Adobe Acrobat support direct links into HTML and other types of files, the linking isn't truly universal, with Flash's and QuickTime's refusal to expose all objects as links posing the largest obstacle. This is one of the issues that really gets on the nerves of hypermedia scholars, that Macromedia (now part of Adobe) and Apple are more interested in protecting their little fiefdoms rather than supporting a truly open and seamless Web. I hope this clears up the issue. --Coolcaesar 05:45, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Because almost all 'web' browsers support protocols other than HTTP, such as FTP, I think that the issue must be addressed. For those people who are trying to really understand or study Internet concepts, I think defining and distinguishing between web and Internet in this article is valuable information. I know this isn't the exact point brought up above but I think it's still worth a mention. Katalaveno 14:40, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

In Weaving the Web, the book written by Lee-burner about making the World Wide Web, he got the Web part from the fact it was the only term he could find that described how the resources interconnected from many points to many other points. The definition for Web has not changed, just the type of files that are used. It grew to include images, but they were not there originally, and so should NOT be part of the definition of the WWW

It would be most accurate in my point of view to state the the World Wide Web is a collection of interconnected FILES.

Still, I'll check my facts before I make any changes. Corrupt one 00:41, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Could you even generalise it as a collection of interconnected files? Technically, a growing number of websites use dynamically created content, through Content Management Systems, such as weblogs or even this site. Wikipedia is a collection, in itself, of some files, some multimedia resources, and a whole lot of database driven text. Frustrating to classify, but damned exciting to develop and explore. Lucanos (talk) 04:58, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

And Wikipedia is part of the Web. Before the Web, the internet was mainly a network of networked computers that stored information is directories, and you could not just easily go from one to another, but rather had to go all the way to THAT computer and work your way down to that data. The Web is basicily the system of connectivity between bits of data on the Net. I think that the easiest way to describe the Web would be as a system of interconnected files on the Internet.

Also, I just realized, this is going to far into what the Web is, and whould be continued there. Corrupt one (talk) 23:26, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Help with Portal:Internet

Section about Microsoft not NPOV

Accuracy of statistics

Autonomous Systems

I feel there is a need to cover the subject of autonomous systems, with respect to the internet. 202.54.176.11 09:47, 28 November 2006 (UTC)nr, 28-Nov-2006

That is way too much information for 95% of Wikipedia users. Remember, most users don't know the difference between a compiler and a interpreter, let alone the difference between the Web and the Internet (yes, there is a difference). Perhaps a See also link at the bottom might be appropriate, but autonomous systems are too much of a tangent for any in-depth coverage here. --Coolcaesar 21:59, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

See Autonomous system (Internet) --Nigelj 22:16, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Would it not be correct to state that the internet is a conglomeration of interconnected autonomous systems? 59.93.32.35 13:49, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

No. Originally it WAS, as you put it "a conglomeration of interconnected autonomous systems." That is, each system that linked via the internet was able to function on its own, and to a certain extent without needing each other. However, I reckon that since Domain Names came out instead of just IP Address Numbers, we have become more dependent on a directory of them to connect to each other. Most of you would know the domain name for Yahoo!, but would you know the IP address Number for it? Also, we have had systems become more dependent on each other. A Business that sends out Emails to its customers to tell them what new things are in depends on the customers Email servers. It depends also on the BANKS systems to get the transation done! then their is the fuss with messing with things like all the Host system, the Server system, and others. That is assumeing the people who own it are also maintaining it, and don't have some other people running their security for them. There are many ways in which they are becoming more dependent on other systems. Some systems are still autonomous, such as BBS's (Yes, I THINK there are still a few out there. I'm not sure where, but I THINK they're out there), but most of them are heavily into security, like banks and government military systems. I must admit, some just want to controll it all themselves, and don't want to have to put up with other people's incompedences (Examples include some large businesses.) Corrupt one 00:41, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

CERN or USA

Who actually started th enet is it CERN or the USA Military?--Darrendeng 07:25, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

As far as I know, the USA Military created a lot of the Internet (internetwork) protocols and CERN was where the World Wide Web was invented. 80.42.143.242 17:52, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

If I remember correctly, in the book, Where wizards stay up late, which was written by people who MADE the internet, they were FUNDED by a US military department DARPA, but THEY developed it without military help. They were called the Advances Research Project Agency (add Defense to the start and you have the name of the funding military department), and their first network using the Internet protocalls was called the ArpaNet. Darpa developed the second network and called it DarpaNet.

It was made NOT by the US military, but by people FUNDED by them. I'll check my facts. Corrupt one 00:42, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

They were funded by ARPA, which was set up in the pentagon, and established by Eisenhower (or however you spell it) as a responce to lagging behind the Russians in technology. ARPA granted money out to people for research in all kinds of areas on the grounds that technology must develop all around.

The idea for the Internet came about due to people being annoyed at having to have terminals for many different networks in their officesand having to, log into each, them not sharing information and having to know the programming language for each computer system!

The only work done with the military in mind was what would come to be called packet switching, giving the internet is decenteralized formation. The packet switching never got of the ground in America until the people planing on connecting the different mainframes learned about it from a British guy who had developed just about the same thing on his own for different reasons. It was litteraly gathering dust in the militaries Research ANd Development (RAND) department! The Internet people took it for themselves.

Read Where wizards stay up late by Katie Hafner and Matthew Lyon. The start for the origins of the idea, and chapter 2: A Block Here, Some Stones There, for the information about Packet Switching. Corrupt one 01:34, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

I am pretty sure you will find that the motivations behind the development of (D)ArpaNet and the internet stretched well beyond users getting tired of walking from single-purpose terminal to single-purpose terminal. The very nature of the internet, and the self-healing characteristics of the decentralised routing system, were part of the defence forces influence. From what I recall from the training I have had exposure to within a telecommunications framework, the underlying purpose of the internet was to provide a communications system which would not be destroyed or disrupted (permanently) from the loss of any single point.

This motivation was through fear of the whole nuclear sneak attack/Cold War thing, where, in a traditional telephone network, alot of the traffic goes through a small number of critical points. The problem with that system is that the loss of one point can essentially blackout a far larger portion of the geographic area covered by the network. With packetised switching, and intelligent routing, if a switching point fails traffic is simply routed around it until it comes back online.

Mind you, with the increased growth of internet traffic and infrastructure, and the involvement of traditional telecommunications companies in the creation of internet backbones around the world, some of the initial tenets of internet design have been disregarded, or devalued, over time. So, for example, alot of the Pacific telephone trunks, and a large portion of the Pacific internet pipelines all run into and out of San Francisco, meaning if it has a catastrophic failure a good portion of the traffic into and out of USA would be affected.

An interesting topic to research though, and to see how it continues to develop over time. Lucanos (talk) 05:12, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Packet switching was developed to solve the problem of backlogs in informations occuring, and in case one part went down. Please read When Wizards Stay Up Late. Since it was made with the help of the people who made the internet, I think it would be one of the more reliable referance books for this matter.

That is MY verifiable referance. Where did you get YOUR information from, and does it possess as much reliabity as mine? Corrupt one (talk) 23:16, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Section: Terminology

It feels to me as though the second paragraph in this section pretty much repeats the first, albeit in more complicated terms. The first paragraph gives a very clear and easily undertsnable, if basic, explanation of the difference between the Internet and the World Wide Web and then the second paragraph continues on to explain it in more complex terms, but will ultimately do nothing more than confuse the person reading this article. I may just be nitpicking, but I just thought I'd share my two cents on the way that section reads. --IndigoAK200 10:13, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

I think I originally wrote what is now the first paragraph (I may be wrong about that - but if I didn't actually create it I certainly wrote a large part of its current wording, and have helped maintain it for some time now). At the time it was a second paragraph in the lead section. On the 21st November, a user at 70.50.237.242 added the new material with the comment, 'as suggested, merged "define and distinguish between" paragraph from Web vs. Internet which will now redirect here' (diff). I don't know what discussion led to this - maybe it was on the other article, or maybe I just missed it. The two paragraphs were later given a separate heading.

I agree that they both say the same thing in two different ways. My feeling is that the second paragraph is overly-technical for this early in the article, before any of these terms have been introduced or discussed. My suggestion would simply be to delete it: (a) it would also be redundant to come back to the issue later in the article and (b) I strongly feel that this confusion is so rife and so wrong that it needs to be laid to rest right up front - prefereably in the lead as it used to be.

But maybe I'm too close to this, due to my involvement in the original text. If this is all that remains of a whole previous article, probably someone somewhere feels it should be kept too. What the second paragraph says is not wrong, it just isn't the way I would explain it to anyone other than a trained and experienced network engineer - and they, most likely, would already be very familiar with the distinction! I'd move the original text back up into the lead too. --Nigelj 14:52, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree that they both say the same thing, and that Nigelj was correct in avoiding a conflict of interest. Personnally, I think they need to be replaced with someing VERY simple, so that most people can understand it. Something along the lines of "The Internet in the name given to the group of interconnected networks using the Internet Protocals. Once the networking is established, we can run other protocals. One of them is called HTTP and is the basis of the World Wide Web. The World Wide Web was designed to help interlink different resources on the Internet, and provide better and easier access." Corrupt one 00:43, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

"The Internet" versus "an internet"

According to the networking book I was reading a couple of years ago, an internet is a connection of interconnected networks (thus the term), whereas The Internet is the global internet. ie. it's possible to have your own internet. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.149.70.75 (talk) 15:07, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

That's what everybody keeps saying, but I've never seen a noun internet used in that sense. The RFCs use "internet" almost exclusively as an adjective. Rp (talk) 13:34, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

That makes sense; an internet-enabled device works for all internets, including The Internet. --206.223.186.79 (talk) 12:33, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

This is not necessarily true. An internet-enabled device might support a different addressing architecture than is currently allowed on the Internet. For example, the device might only support the 10.0.0.0/8 address range, which cannot be routed on the Internet (and thus it would not be Internet-enabled), but it could well be used to build quite an extensive internetwork. An Internet-enabled device should support the current addressing conventions used on the Internet. This is a realistic problem in the discussion of allocating some previously reserved address ranges to the RIRs. There are some devices that simply are hard/firm-ware restricted in the range of addresses they can support. Kbrose (talk) 20:05, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

The first part was right. These days the internal private internets (often for only one lovcation) are called intranets, and the long range ones for priavte users over a large area are called something else that escapes my mind at the moment. They are most often used by governments and businesses who need that abilities of an internet, yet want to retain privacy and security. Corrupt one (talk) 00:58, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Internet vs. Internet Service

I'm seeing a growing trend here in the U.S. of people referring to having internet service as having an internet. ISPs are doing this too when marketing their services (AT&T and Earthlink are notable examples). I personally find this rather odd. I can't think of any other service the average person consumes to which we refer in a similar manner. For instance, we don't say that we have a cable, we say that we have cable. The former would be confusing -- I personally have many different cables including network cables, power cables, phone cables, etc. Granted, there are some who can honestly say they have an inter-network (internet for short). Some businesses for example. However, that generally does not apply to everyday consumers. Comments? Siggimoo 15:53, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

I haven't heard the precise usage you are talking about and I live in the Bay Area too. I have seen/heard the AT&T TV commercials where they say, "you can get Internet, cable, and phone all on one bill." Can you cite a particular advertisement or describe a particular TV commercial so that we can understand what you are talking about? --Coolcaesar 07:00, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Earthlink ran a TV ad campaign not too long ago in which their "staff" spoke about their Internet services, working at Earthlink, etc. One of the people stated, "...I will do all I can to get you a high-speed Internet that goes up to 70 times faster than dial-up." I've been looking around for an online copy to which I can link, but I'm not finding it. If I do, I'll post it here. -- Siggimoo 16:47, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Was that on a cable network? I have only over-the-air antenna. I haven't seen a Earthlink campaign for a long time. --Coolcaesar 20:13, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Also, for important issues like evolution of language, a single advertisement is insufficient evidence of a "trend" and to draw that weak inference would constitute original research in violation of core policies like Wikipedia:No original research and Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. You need to get either several written examples (for example, if you can show that several prominent journalists have published that usage) or even better, an academic paper by a English professor or professional lexicographer. After all, the job of lexicographers is to update dictionaries to reflect current usage! --Coolcaesar 21:10, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Internet vs. The Internet

referring to Internet as "the internet" is a grammatical error which assumes that Internet is the only network that exists. Much the same as calling any Internet browser "Internet Explorer." --Rebent 14:55, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

It may not be the only network, but it is arguably the most important, it's like The Pill, i'ts not the only pill in existence, not even the most important, but massive amounts of people who hear the words "the pill" are going to think about birth control pill.--Chain Impact 15:03, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

I can't understand how there can be 'massive amount of people'! Shouldn't it be 'large number of people' instead? Kazimostak 13:10, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Be that as it may, "the pill" is not a trademark. Should we change all the instances of "tissue" to "Kleenex" just because it's the most widely recognized? --Rebent 15:04, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

This is incorrect, see the Internet#The_name_Internet in this very article. An internet is any internetwork of networks, many of them exist. The Internet is the large, publich internetwork of networks that most people use. Wrs1864 15:05, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

you are obviously misreading it. Internet#The_name_Internet is about the convention of using upper or lower case is in the word "Internet" --Rebent 15:08, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

The section, correctly says: "Under this distinction, the Internet is a particular internet, but the reverse does not apply." Wrs1864 15:15, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

The section is about Internet capitalization conventions, not about internet article usage --Rebent 15:19, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, clearly, but that doesn't change the fact that there is "*the* Internet" and "many internets", of which the Internet is only one of them. Now, whether the capitalization alone is enough to make that distinction is somewhat open to dispute. Wrs1864 15:24, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Hi Rebent, and welcome to Wikipedia. I think if you have a look at some of the Wikipedia policy and guideline pages, you'll see that what we're trying to do here is to reflect and record current knowledge. I think you'll agree that most English speakers refer to 'the (i|I)nternet' millions of times a day both in writing and in speech. So that's what we do here. You maintaining that they're wrong to do so is an original thought on your part, at best. --Nigelj 16:36, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Hi Nigelj, and welcome to Wikipedia. I think that if you had a look at the dictionary or any peer-reviewed encyclopedia you would find that, in the real world, just because many people believe in something doesn't mean it should be true. Perhaps you should add a section entitled "Internet vs. The Internet" and express your claims there, so as to keep the article NPOV --Rebent

There is only one Internet in the context of this article. The word "the" is providing the definite description when used with the noun "Internet" because though traditionally internet could mean any old bunch of routers it is now properly "the Internet" i.e. that big network based around the root DNS servers and with IP addresses issued by a central managing body (more or less ICANN). You can have other networks but you'd never refer to a bunch of routers using private address space as "the internet" but as an "intranet". In the context of one company you could say "the intranet". I think it would be very hard to make a claim of that "the Internet" is an improper definite description unless you can show us where these other internets reside ? Until then "the internet" sticks for me and "internet" is WP:OR. Ttiotsw 02:15, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

D'oh! great point about intranet. I've put a mention of it in the naming section. (dang, the autosign bot is *quick*!) Wrs1864 02:49, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

The internet is a series of tubes

The Mobile Internet is Incomplete

Cultural/Social Significance

Very confusing sentence

Shopping

Significant Internet Events

Language

Internet's effect on sociology

I am looking for research on information about how the internet has created some online communities that would not of ever existed without them. by this I mean both the communities based on people who have something in common thanks to the growing technology (like hackers and web comic artists) and also communities whoes members previous to the internet were seperated by distance or fear of embaressement (or arrest) (Such cases include Furries, perverts, and peopophiles).

All I have been able to find is stuff on how the technology is changing the type of society in real life, and totally ignoring these types of communities!

If ANYONE can tell me where to find this information I am after, contact me, PLEASE Corrupt one 03:56, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Woof, vice magazine still wants to write that story about furries? how booooring... ;) --lynX

I was only giving examples off the top of my head. I could of just as easily of mentioned anarchists or different protest groups. Also, I was thinking about people who like having them as Avatars and roll playing anthromorthic animals in roll play games (and not the sexual kind either, although it DOES bring up the matter of internet communities being misunderstood by a few public cases of negitive exposure [both meanings intended]). I am also interested in how lynX would automatically think about Furries as in the fetish context immediantly, would know about a magaizine called Vice magainze, which caters to fetishes by the sound of the context s/he put in in, and that s/he seems to be so familiar with it that s/he is bored by it.

I would also like to ask that s/he keeps all comments in this section related to this subject.

The s/he is NOT accidental, since I have no idea WHAT fetishes s/he engages in on or off the internet, and I am covering myself in case they include MORFing. Thanks to no-one being able to tell anything about a person, and people lying about themselves, for all I know Lynx may be a fifty year old fat, hairy, foul smelling, drunked homosexual guy who likes being gang banged. S/he might also be an upstanding woman of good taste in her twenties, but since she knows that kind of magazine well enough to consider a Furry Fetish boring, I would not place any money on it.

Before anyone started accusing me of Trolling, I would like to find out lynX's response to this matter I have just raised about false identities used on Internet communities, another important matter when talking about the internet as a whole, as it deals with self representation.

I would also like for him/her to send me copies of the stories on Furries she mentioned in that comment of his/hers, as well as of any other fetish community s/he is ware of articles about, so I can see how Internet communities as a whole are portrayed there. Corrupt one 01:31, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Internets

The distinction was evident in many RFCs, books, and articles from the 1980s and early 1990s (some of which, such as RFC 1918, refer to "internets" in the plural), but has recently fallen into disuse.

The first uses of the plural I can find in RFCs are in RFC 870, RFC 872 (quoted), and RFC 882. Capitalization is inconsistent. My suspicion is that before 1982, "internet" was rarely if ever used as a noun, but only or mainly as an adjective: i.e. "internet mail", "internet protocol", "internet service" were popular, while "an internet" and "internets" were rarely used. Then Gore helped create "the Internet" (i.e. NSFNET and everything attached to it with TCP/IP) which turned the term into a proper noun. On the other hand, it's quite possible that "internets" was widely used before 1982 and that it's just hard to come up with references to prove it. Rp (talk) 15:43, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't know how it'd be researched, but Internets seems to be more frequently used recently if only in the context of joking. Messatsu 04:45, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

While I personally agree with your assessment, this isn't something that's easy to support with hard numbers. What's more, it's likely that this usage is marginal in the grand scheme of things and only prevalent in certain parts of internet subculture. In any case, I think that the humorous usage of the plural "internets" is trivia at best, and its inclusion wouldn't improve this article in any significant way. -- mattb @ 2007-03-03T07:32Z

What about the example, "(like radio or newspaper, e.g. I've found it in internet)" used in the article? That's a joke, isn't it, like 'interweb' and 'tinternet'? No-one actually says 'I've found it in internet' even in America, do they? I'm planning on changing it to say 'I've found it on the internet' - has anyone got a problem with that? --Nigelj 11:02, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Actually, including the difference between the Internet and internets would be a way useful. Most people do not understand what the Internet is, and think that netowrks can only be linked via the Internet. I am talking about people in the IT industries! This should tell them that the Internet is just ONE internet. You might specify that large companies have an internet containing smaller networks, called intranets. At the very least, it will help clear up confusion to SOME people. Corrupt one 03:03, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

There is now a page on Internets. It is predominantly about the George W Bush gaffes at the 2000 and 2004 presidential debates but also mentions the earlier use of the term. In modern useage, interconnected networks are still just "a network" (never an internet), since most networks require some level of interconnection anyway. 60.241.193.143 06:12, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

I understand that. I was merely pointing out OFFICAL useaged as used by the makers of the Internet who mentioned the difference. I can understand confusion causing the change in terms. Corrupt one 23:41, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Adding a Link

Protection for 72 hours starting 6th of April 2007

WP:BETTER#Size

The End of the Internet

if Al gore is not mentioned ONCE in this article, then we know we have a problem

Paul Otlet and Internet.

Something I think is important...

VoIP bias

Mention of EVDO in the article.

Overseas...

Future of the internet

would you say?

Announcement of Wikipedia:WikiProject Internet

A question about realms of the internet

Untitled

Need to credit Al Gore for invention

Goverance of the Internet

This Page is Very Possibly Conflict of Interest

I believe that this page is indeed a Conflict of Interest per anyone who edits the Internet article is indeed using the Internet. I saw this policy on Wikipedia that states this at WP:COI. It seems that there is no way that this article would abide by this policy on here. I didn't add the COI tag on this page as it would probally be removed anyway. I will be also discussing this over at the WP:COI talk page also to see about it. Sawblade05 ⁽^{talk to me} ^| ^{my wiki life}⁾ 10:13, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

As long as it is neutral, unbiased, verifiable and not promoting anything, it is NOT conflict of interest. The editing is NOT COI, and using the internet to edit this does not count. Here is the fikrst paragraph of the COI page

A Wikipedia conflict of interest (COI) is an incompatibility between the purpose of Wikipedia to produce a neutral, verifiable encyclopedia, and the potential motivations of an individual editor. COI editing often involves contributing to Wikipedia in order to promote yourself or the interests of other individuals, companies, or groups. When an editor disregards the aims of Wikipedia to advance outside interests, they stand in a conflict.

If you can tell us HOW this page violates that, we shall reconsider the COI matter Corrupt one 23:59, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

If you read on past that part it goes on to stat that you shouldn't edit articles about your intrest per WP:COI#Editors_who_may_have_a_conflict_of_interest and WP:COI#Consequences_of_ignoring_this_guideline. As I said everyone is using the internet here and yes that can be used against you per what is stated in the WP:COI#Editors_who_may_have_a_conflict_of_interest. So therefore does not follow with these parts below what you stated. Sawblade05 ⁽^{talk to me} ^| ^{my wiki life}⁾ 02:01, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree. Therefore, in stating my conflict of interest, I freely admit that I use the Internet, the English language, chairs, clothing, food and water, and my contributions to these articles may therefore be biased. In order to counter systemic bias, I encourage those who have never used the items listed above to contribute to these articles. GUllman 03:08, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

I am goonna go with what GUllman says here even though on WP:COI is kinda screwed up right now anyway per this edit at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest&diff=next&oldid=167501188 Which make this page sound less like a COI. Seems like a case closed, I hope. Sawblade05 ⁽^{talk to me} ^| ^{my wiki life}⁾ 09:07, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

You can't be serious. JuJube 05:18, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

As the COI page states, there is NO FIXED STANDARD of what is COI. Also, it is a CONFLICT of interest. Unless you can tell us how using the internet is in CONFLICT with this page being fair and unbiased, it is not COI.

If you consider just USING the internet to be COI, then you in all fairness CAN'T edit the article. I would like to state that I believe Sawblade05 is just trying to stir up a debate, which I think MAY be in violation of OTHER rules. I may be in error as to his motivations, but this entire segment is pretty stupid. Corrupt one 22:41, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

The motivation for the Internets invention

Previous event -- bad .com redirects

Marketing as sub-section

Altering the Timeline/60s/70s

Section on Leisure contains unsourced, and inaccurate claim

Is Wiki Owned by Brits??

Anti-American nature of article

It's shocking to find that the only mentioning of the United States in this article, despite America's huge role in the Internet's development, is done either derogatorily or hapenstance. Note the following quotes which are the only mentioning of the United States:

"It may also be related to the poor capability of early computers, largely originating in the United States, to handle characters other than those in the English variant of the Latin alphabet."

The smug statement suggesting that the United States, being so "backward" and "xenophobic" could not foresee the Internet's huge international appeal is unnecessary.

"New findings in the field of communications during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s were quickly adopted by universities across the United States....Examples of early university Internet communities are Cleveland FreeNet, Blacksburg Electronic Village and NSTN in Nova Scotia"

They were "adopted" by universities across the United States, but none were instrumental in originating them? No mention anywhere in the article that they were. But we are given an example of an Internet "village"--in Nova Scotia!

The article cannot circumvent the fact that ICANN is created by the United States. But basd on the article, one would have to ask why? If the United States had NOTHING to do with the Interent's development, as the article insinuates, then why would the US control its protocol?

"Many countries, including the United States, have enacted laws making the possession or distribution of certain material, such as child pornography, illegal, but do not use filtering software."

Again, why are we singling out the United States here?? In actuality, thanks to the First Amendment, pornography laws in the US are less stringent than in Canada.

More and more of the articles I read on Wiki are completely devoid of facts merely because the writers refuse to mention key roles played by Americans and the United States, especially its military.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Guidosdad (talk • contribs) 04:33, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Dude, what the hell are you taking? The fact in the first quote you mentioned was that most of the computers were MADE in America, and the American programmers, for American customers BEFORE the internet as even proposed! As such they had no reason to include variation that are paticular to different languages. There was nothing backwards in it, or xenophobic. Only an totally paranoid moron would think that.

In the second quote, you are presuming that the universities helped make the advances in communication technology, but unless you can find any information that states that, you must accept the fact it is possible they did not. They did however, adopt the technology quickly, and were the main backbone of the Internet when it started. The other thing I noticed was you said the only example of an Internet village offered was in Nova Scotia, which, by the way, is in Canada. You failed to notice that it listed THREE examples of internet communities, and the "village" mentioned was in Blacksburg, which IS in America.

The third thing was about ICANN. There was no real reason for it to be based in America, other then the fact that America was the main home of the internet when ICANN was made, and they figured why not make it there close to the other people involved in the Internet. As far as anyone is concerned, it could be based in an island in the south pacific, as long as people could easily get to it. Also, the government can only APPROVE changes to the root zone file. It can't do anything else.

In the part about the censorship laws, I can think of a good reason for America to be mentioned. For a long time there was arguement over whether or not America was allowed to censor the Internet. Not just stuff put up by Americans, but what Americans can view from overseas. In the end it was settled, but a debate still rages of the range of their authorities powers. In america the debate is fiercest, thanks to the First Amendment.

If you find articles that fail to give due respect to America, you can make changes to fix it, ON THE CONDITION THAT IT IS ALL VERIFIABLE AND NPOV! Find the referance matierals that mention the American contributions, and reffer to them. Unless you can find stuff that tells what the Americans did, you can't add it!

Also, the American Military FUNDED the Internets creation. That was their main contribution. They did not tell some scientists to create a network to withstand nuclear attack as I have read in some books about the history of the Internet. No, it was developed out of fustration of the person in charge of DARPA having to go to all these different networks and being expert in them just to get some work done!

If you want to talk about a country not getting due respect for their help in making the Internet, try England. The Packet switching technology used was thought up and well developed there inpedendently after the American telephone company refused to try testing the American version. Only after it was partly developed in England was America eager to get it going.

I also believe you are Trolling, which is against policy. Your segment here is stupid and you must be crazy. You also appear to lack the guts to admit to who you are. Corrupt one (talk) 01:36, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

contradiction

Navigational box

"International network

Correct date for first ARPANET link?

ISO's Internet

-- The International Standards Office had its own version of the internet made, and tied to get the already established internet removed. This failed, but it greatly affected the expansion of the internet as people were unsure of which proticals to make. Some people used both. I think we should have a segment in the article about that.

Corrupt one (talk) 00:00, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Citation please? ff m 16:09, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

I think it was when "Wizards stayed up late." A book writen with the help of the people who created the Internet. I will have to check. Corrupt one (talk) 02:10, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Huh? If you're talking about Open Systems Interconnection, at most, it's worthy of only a single one-sentence mention and a link, but not a whole section. Keep in mind that while OSI was initially conceived of as a complete networking package, and certain government bureaucrats backing it in many countries, including in the U.S., did attempt to displace various protocols in the TCP/IP family with OSI equivalents by fiat, OSI was never completed as a working network protocol stack because the written-by-committee OSI protocols were so badly designed that they could not be implemented in practice. I know that OSI was briefly seen as a major threat to the Internet at one point (from around 1987 to about 1994) but I don't think it warrants much mention in an article about the Internet as it currently exists. We have a separate article on the History of the Internet. And the Internet article is already quite large and rambling. --Coolcaesar (talk) 04:40, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

I'll get the book again, and see what I think is worth adding. Corrupt one (talk) 23:41, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Coolcaesar, just looking at the article, you may be intersted to note that for the Internet Protocols section, it referse to TCP and IP as part of the OSI stack, not as a stack by themselves. Yes, the stack DOES work. It was made in 1988. However the point of this is that if OSI is not worth much mention, then howcome TCP/IP is not mentioned alone in the Internet Protocols?
I think both should be mentioned, and the difference as well. That should help the article greatly. However, I am not very knowledgable in those areas, so someone else who knows the matter well should do it. Corrupt one (talk) 00:55, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

9/11 conspiracy theories sneaked in

Culture?

Internet users by continent data unclear

Internetwork

Internet Protocols

Subscriptions? The Internet Ends in 2012

Internet Myths, Rumors, and Random Facts

internet vs Internet

This section largely avoids the points, which are that either spelling is completely understandable, that style manual fanatics love to argue about such things that are largely a matter of opinion and local usage. Drawing "hard" distinctions between different senses of the word, the way it's done here, just demonstrates some folks want to believe that words have fixed meanings to everybody. Which any linguist would laugh at.

That published opinions can be quoted is hardly surprising, since everybody working with the early Internet needed to have an opinion. Even wrong, minority, pointless, transitory opinions. The New York Times does not tell the ACM what to do, and vice versa. It's not a contest to see who is right. It's enough to note the word varies widely in meaning.

The whole section could be reduced to little more than the first sentence, and it wouldn't make a wit of difference to what a reader gained from the article.

67.180.48.233 (talk) 11:54, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

I disagree. Many readers will come here with a preconceived idea of what "internet" or "the Internet" means, without being aware of other uses or of their legitimacy; spelling out the differences and relationships between these uses is an essential part of clearing up possible confusion and therefore necessary in Wikipedia articles. Rp (talk) 15:25, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

It was mentioned before, I think, that the distinction is that the "Internet" is an "internet" using TCP/IP. Then there is "internet" meaning interconnected Networks. Basically, since people mainly use TCP/IP linked to the Internet, there is no real main distinction. The only cases where there is a difference would mainly be controlled internets, which are often catigorized as intranets or extronets. (Intronets meaning internat internets used in large companies and extronets being internets just for a few specific companies. They are kept of the Internet for securoty reasons. Militaries use internets as well.) Corrupt one (talk)

End of the free internet

Peering agreements

Thailand should be added the list of countries that restrict what people in their countries can access on the Internet.

How Internet Work:

Errors in 'Terminology' section

Recently, user Kbrose has decided to revert-war with me over some errors that have been introduced into this section, giving the reason, "the old terms were better in context". I'm not sure what that means, but if I read it correctly, we cannot introduce sloppy and erroneous terms into this crucial opening paragraph of the article, even if they sound better to Kbrose's ear.

Specifically, the article said,

The Internet is the global data communications backbone, i.e., the hardware and software infrastructure, that provides connectivity between resources or services and the users of such facilities.

My changes make this read,

The Internet is a global data communications system. It is a hardware and software infrastructure that provides connectivity between computers.

There is such a thing as the internet backbone - the main "trunk" connections of the internet - so it is just confusing to say that the whole internet is any kind of backbone. The whole internet includes the internet backbone as well as all the other connections, routers, hubs, switches and cables in every other connected area including all the local loops to our homes, the corporate networks that are connected etc etc. Why pick a piece of related but irrelevant technology and introduce its name needlessly into the crucial first definition of what the internet is? Is everyone aware of how many scholars and students will Google 'internet', visit this article and paste the first definition they find into their papers, projects, dissertations and so on? And journalists etc.
Using the abbreviation 'i.e.,' in the middle of a crucial definition is clunky English
So is using a comma before the relative pronoun that
The internet is specifically a physical, hardware thing, even though many of its physical elements, such as routers and switches, are internally implemented using software. Saying that it provides connectivity between "resources or services and the users of such facilities" is unnecessarily abstract and circuitous. Resources and services are abstract concepts that can be implemented in various ways using software, databases, computer files, servers and by other means. Users are typically human beings, who may, and more often may not, be present for, or even aware of, many of the operations of the the internet. The abstractions are all parts of the TCP/IP application layer, which, as the TCP/IP article shows, is two layers above the network layer that is the actual internet. Many data update and access operations that the internet handles every day are at the request of unmanned software clients that are totally unrelated to any current human users such as you and I. There is no need to limit what the internet is by insisting on the provision of things to 'users'. Luckily, the reality is so much simpler: rather than get involved in producing and maintaining a poor and incomplete list of what might be going on several abstraction layers above, and requiring live or abstract users to be present, the items the internet connects can all be called, simply computers.

Lastly, the Terminology paragraph goes on to contrast the internet and the web, as they are often confused. The article said,

... the Web is one of the services communicated via the Internet. It is a collection of interconnected documents and other resources, linked by symbolic hyperlinks and URLs.

My changes make this read,

... the Web is one of the services communicated via the Internet. It is a collection of interconnected documents and other resources, linked by hyperlinks and URLs.

At last (in the previous version) we got to define resources, which were central to the previous definition of the internet (i.e. more circuitousness). It turns out that resources are part of the definition of the World Wide Web, not the internet itself, as discussed above. However, there is no need to italicise as well as to hyperlink the word - we don't elsewhere for the crucial words, so I remove the italicisation.
The real error here is bringing the word symbolic in as a qualifier of hyperlinks. HTML hyperlinks are defined, for the present time, in the W3C spec at . The definition says, "the link (or hyperlink, or Web link) [is] the basic hypertext construct. A link is a connection from one Web resource to another." Nowhere in the whole document is the word 'symbolic' mentioned. Again the word refers to an existing but, in this case, utterly irrelevant technology. As I linked in my edit summary, a symbolic link is a special file-type in Unix (e.g. Linux) operating systems. It provides a reference or link to another file in the filesystem; it is similar to a shortcut in MS Windows. This has nothing to do with the WWW's hyperlinks at all. Mentioning it at this point may sound cool to some ears, but is actually confusing and just plain wrong.

This has taken a surprising amount of time and effort to research and write. I hope it explains why I made these edits. Please read the linked articles and other resources if you have a problem.

Thanks

--Nigelj (talk) 20:42, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

It is really very simple. All languages, natural and computer languages, HTML included, are innately symbolic. Perhaps you need only a dictionary. There is no encumbrance of the word "symbolic" by Unix technologies with which there can hardly be a confusion here. In the general level at which this article is written it makes a lot more sense to a (more novice) reader to classify hyperlink as symbolic links, which they are, and to find a comparison such as "the Internet provides physical links, whereas the Web uses symbolic links between resources.". You referral to symlinks is silly.

As far as the "Internet backbone" is concerned, there never was a mention of "Internet backbone", that's your invention, and it surely has a specific meaning, but is different usage than "someting being a backbone of another feature". Again, backbone is a useful, illustrative term perfectly content being used by itself without confusion. The Internet is indeed the backbone of the World Wide Web, but ignorance can be the backbone of poor judgements.

Lastly, long gone are the days where only "computers" are connected via the Internet. Looking around my desk alone there must be at least a dozen devices connected directly on the public Internet, devices that no one would ever call a "computer". Kbrose (talk) 20:00, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

OK, then let's see some WP:V references for reputable sources where, e.g. students are taught to refer to 'hyperlinks' as 'symbolic links', or where any standards body refers to them as such. Let's see some where any reputable authority refers to the whole internet as a 'backbone' of something in the TCP/IP Application Layer, like the World Wide Web. And lastly, what on earth do you think is inside any electronic box that can interpret and play appropriately within a TCP/IP network? It certainly isn't any set of discreet logic chips or transistors - its a computer. Read the computer article to find out that all computers are not either laptops or beige boxes. --Nigelj (talk) 21:41, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

P.S. Please cut out the personal attacks: I do not need a dictionary, neither is my ignorance the backbone of my poor judgement. --Nigelj (talk) 23:01, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

For once I find myself concurring with Nigelj. Kbrose apparently has not studied computer science at the university level or in any formal academic setting. No properly trained computer science professional would refer to hyperlinks as "symbolic links," misconstrue the nature of a network backbone (which has been hashed out in literally hundreds of papers and books over the years), or limit the definition of a computer to a personal computer! --Coolcaesar (talk) 13:25, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Confusion in 'Internet protocols' section

Internet map?

Text does not match referenced statistics

Language

. . . By continent, 38% of the world's Internet users are based in Asia, 27% in Europe, 18% in North America, 10% in Latin America and the Caribbean, and 7% in Australia.[6]

I was alerted to a problem when I read that a country of circa 20 million residents (Australia), could represent 7% of the world's Internet users. When I followed the link to the referenced data, I found that most of the statistics were slightly in error (presumably due to rounding), with two notable exceptions. The Middle East which presumably has 2.9% of the world's internet users, was ignored, whilst Australia's 1.4% of internet users was overstated by more than 400%.

If the data in the referenced study is to be accepted, the sentence should be re-written to state:

. . . By continent, the world's Internet users are based in: Asia, 39.5%; Europe, 26.3%; North America, 17.0%; Latin America and the Caribbean, 9.5%; the Middle East, 2.9%; and Australia, 1.4%.[6] —Preceding unsigned comment added by Yank-in-Oz (talk • contribs) 01:48, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

The problem is that the referenced source (Internet World Stats) is not a 'study', but a dynamic site that continually updates its statistics. The figures on our WP page were last updated on March 31, 2008, so are due to be brought up to date. I just tried, but stopped as some of the figures on Internet World Stats suddenly make little sense to me. I started with usage by language, and hit the problem when looking at French: If 94,000,000 Japanese speakers represent 1.9 % of all Internet users, how can 68,152,447 French speakers represent 6.1 %? I took a calculator to some of the other percentages and actually many of them seemed out. So either I don't understand what those figures represent, or Internet World Stats has a software glitch, or maybe they have a jingoistic French speaker locked in competition with the over-enthusiastic Australian who massaged the other figures before we copied them in March? (P.S. The last option was meant as a joke - you can't believe how little sense of humour some people have, so its better to be careful now than sorry later, I find) Either way, the current figures look no more reliable than the March ones now do; the March ones can no longer be verified (as I say, the source updates and doesn't display a complete history): Maybe we need a new source of statistics that we can better depend on; or maybe we just kill the two stats paragraphs - I always thought they muddled the web with the internet, and updating them both every few months is a job for life. --Nigelj (talk) 04:45, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Merge proposal and new section proposal

There is a novel and currently in construction article on Is Google Making Us Stupid?, a Nicholas G. Carr piece on the cultural and cognitive impact of the Internet. I personally think that the information on the article, while fully notable, would be better presented in a section of this article on the cultural impact of the Internet. I searched for an article or section discussing this and I didn't find it -if it exists but I failed to find it, please link it to me!- I feel such a section, if absent, is badly needed. In this context:

Discussion of Is Google Making Us Stupid? is a good start for a section on the cultural impact of the Internet.
The information in, about and in response to the Carr magazine piece would be presented in context. Moreover, the Carr article is a rich source of sources on the Internet cultural impact, that could be fully discussed here in a proper, full context, with further (and possibly future) references

Therefore I propose this merge. Discussion is welcome. --Cyclopia (talk) 21:38, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Comment Merging or not would depend on how much more can be said about the subject and therefore the size of the article matters. If Is Google Making Us Stupid? can be substantially expanded then obviously it merits its own space. If not, a subsection in this article would be a better idea. Given the subject matter however and the parallels it has with The Thriving Cult of Greed and Power I would guess that this can grow and become a viable article on its own merit. Dr.K. (talk) 18:51, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Look at the article now. I think we can close this merge idea. It's a no go.Manhattan Samurai (talk) 05:35, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Not sure. There is only a sentence in the article related to the content of the Carr's article itself. Much of the discussion there is discussion on the cultural value of the Internet and its relationship with other media like books: discussion that stem directly from the article but talk about a wider problem. Contrast this with The Thriving Cult of Greed and Power, where instead for example there is a lot of direct reaction to the article itself (Scientology lawsuits etc.). Yes, there is content now, but I stand on the opinion that it is content better suited to something relating to the cultural impact of the Internet. But maybe that's my bias: that's why I'd like to keep discussion open until a few people have commented and there is a bit of consensus. --Cyclopia (talk) 09:09, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Reject - Google ≠ cultural impact of the Internet. Google ≠ Internet. The act of publishing Is Google Making Us Stupid? and reactions to that article ≠ cultural impact of the Internet. Nicholas G. Carr's personal opinions ≠ cultural impact of the Internet. If this article belonged anywhere it would be in Nicholas G. Carr. -- Suntag ☼ 15:00, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

If you read the Carr article you will learn that, in spite of the title, the article talks about the whole Internet, and not only Google itself or the WWW. In the specific, it talks about the cognitive and cultural impact of the Internet. I will clarify it in the WP article. --Cyclopia (talk) 15:37, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Reject. I agree with Manhattan Samurai. Article has been expanded. Inserting the article in its current form in any other article would seriously impede the flow of the host article. Dr.K. (talk) 15:44, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, of course not in its current form. --Cyclopia (talk) 16:12, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

There is also too much debate about this one magazine article to make any firm statements about what it means. That is why there is an article about the article. People are still trying to figure out the fallout.Manhattan Samurai (talk) 16:16, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't understand what do you mean when you say that it is impossible to make statements about what the article means. The meaning of the Carr article seems quite clear -the article itself is clear and well written. There is fallout, yes, but they are people debating on the merits of the arguments brought in the article. Also, I don't understand what does your comment mean in the context of the merge discussion (my fault probably, but if you can clarify...) --Cyclopia (talk) 16:25, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm just saying that if there is so much discussion ongoing about the magazine article you can hardly use it as a reliable source for factual information about the Internet. It is a highly speculative piece. I rarely stay within the bounds of any given policy discussion here. I always have WP:IAR at the back of my mind.Manhattan Samurai (talk) 17:33, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

It is a reliable source for factual information about the debate on the Internet, not on the Internet itself of course. And such debate is exactly what should go in an article on the cultural impact of the Internet (and that's the reason for my proposed merge), since (as far as I know) the discussion on it is well far from settled. However I think that I will try to mock up on my userpage an example of how could the merged section look like, so that my proposal is made more clear. --Cyclopia (talk) 20:23, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Why bother? Why not try to improve the article that is being worked on now, "Is Google Making Us Stupid?, and leave it at that. I don't see the point in trying to squish its contents into some other article.Manhattan Samurai (talk) 20:26, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Apart from the fact that I actually helped you a bit here and there, to me improving equals to discuss in context -that is something the article alone cannot achieve. --Cyclopia (talk) 12:31, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Don't merge. It can be mentioned as a referance material, but only that. It would also fit with other articles, like social changes, google, and other such things. Corrupt one (talk) 06:46, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

I concur with everyone who rejects the proposed merge. The social impact of the Internet has been thoroughly discussed and analyzed in many other works by far more accomplished writers, like Sherry Turkle, Howard Rheingold, Neil Postman, and Stewart Brand. It sounds like Cyclopia, as a molecular biologist, is apparently unfamiliar with the huge body of scholarly literature on the psychology of the Internet that dates back to the early 1990s. --Coolcaesar (talk) 07:06, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

I agree I am unfamiliar with the subject. However what you say is exactly in the direction and spirit of my proposal, not against! There is a huge body of knowledge on the cultural impact of the Internet that should be discussed all together in a meaningful context. The article on the Carr article is isolated instead and most of the discussion referenced therein would be better discussed in the whole context of such studies. That's why 1)a section or article on the cultural impact in WP is needed and 2)the Carr article would be fine discussed in such a section, along with all other references. I proposed the merge only as a startpoint (not necessarily the best one) for writing something on the whole subject. --Cyclopia (talk) 12:27, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

That's precisely the problem. Do you have the time, energy, and interest to complete the merge properly (by balancing out the discussion of the Carr article with a thorough discussion of similar points made by Postman, et al.)? Does anyone? I doubt it. Too many incompetent editors of mediocre intellect prematurely split or merge articles on Wikipedia in the hope that a specialist in the field will clean up their mess. But most intelligent specialists with the knowledge to draft a decent article on their subjects take one look at the existing messes on Wikipedia created by such dimwits, throw up their hands in despair, and go back to working on their magnum opuses which will be published by some university press and NOT under the GFDL on Wikipedia.

So the result is that we have lots of hopelessly incoherent WP articles in various states of disrepair and nothing gets done. For example, it took me three years to whip Lawyer into shape and I still haven't found the time to finish cleaning up Attorney-at-law, and in the meantime some idiots drafted separate articles on Law school, Law school in the United States, Legal education, and Juris Doctor, all of which overlap (or not) in bizarre ways that make no sense. I've pointed out the situation, but the idiots who created this mess don't have the intelligence, energy, interest, or time to clean it up, and as a practicing lawyer, I certainly don't have the time either.

That's why I and nearly everyone else are opposing your proposed merge, because none of us have the time, interest, or energy to balance it out. If you were to simply dump the text in as is, the result that we would end up with a discussion ridiculously biased in favor of what is really a rather minor article (from the perspective of those familiar with the relevant literature on the subject). And that would seriously damage what is already a rather mediocre article on a very important subject in need of major repairs. --Coolcaesar (talk) 09:27, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

I've removed all mergetags since consensus is oppose. However I would like to discuss this. No, I don't have myself the knowledge needed to do this all properly. I was proposing the merge because I hoped someone with such knowledge and skills could come here and do things properly. This is not what people want, so I will not do it (until a properly done article on the cultural impact of the internet is done, at least). However, you approach is not constructive. Surely WP has troubles everywhere and every article can be improved. But dismissing proposal with "people are idiots are no one will jump in and help" is not going to help either. If that's your approach, you could better go at Citizendum, where the mindset seems more tuned with your point of view. I personally prefer to "release early and release often" and contribute something that the community (with roadbumps and all) can overall improve. --Cyclopia (talk) 12:46, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Not more talk. Really. "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" is a very minor article. I'm just having fun, writing about an article that has been widely discussed. Citizendium is definitely an encyclopedia with a better future for serious encyclopedic articles. Wikipedia's niche should be pop kind of stuff, which is what the philosophy "release early, release often" is. Britannica should start throwing its weight around. They're becoming irrelevant. If I use Britannica I used a 1970s edition which isn't bad. No more talk. This merge is over.Manhattan Samurai (talk) 21:59, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

...until the proper Cultural impact of the Internet will be done (not in the near future, anyway). --Cyclopia (talk) 10:01, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Internet:Social Culture & Change

We are all part of a global communication network, where the flow of information, news and current affairs are available to us almost instantly. This revolution can be attributed to the World Wide Web, or better known as (and most commonly called) the ‘internet’. This complex phenomenon has led to the freedom of information around the world and provides enormous fields liberty for those who are fortunate enough to become part of this virtual universe of information. As you may not know, the history of the internet stems from a computer network built by the ‘Advanced Research Projects Agency’ in 1969, otherwise known as ARPA. This agency was constructed for means of ‘mobilizing research resources’ in the military, by the Defence Department of the United States (Manuel, 2001). The internet has come a long way since its days known as ‘APARNET’. Its functions and uses have changed dramatically along with the increases in technology and the fast spread of information. There has been a shift from an age where the flow of information was time consuming and we have now moved into a culture of freedom, in every meaning of the word. Not only are there limited gatekeepers, society today use the internet as a means for social networking. This is not only limited to younger generations; it is a way for people of all ages to keep in touch with family and friends, or to meet new people. This social phenomenon has taken the student culture by storm, as well as all other generations. This computer networking system empowers people with information and is used as a tool of ‘free communication and liberation’ for all (Manuel, 2001). The introduction of the internet has drastically changed the way in which people communicate with one another, and the benefits of this include; its efficiency, effectiveness and the ability to reach a wider audience based on people’s interests, as well as unexpected temporary alliances between ‘hackers, artists, critics, journalists and activists’ (Graham, 2004). The potential of the internet is yet to have surfaced; and as we are exposed to such a wide spectrum of information, we have the ability to increase our knowledge and shape our prospective learning environments. It is with information and knowledge that we can create power, with which all have the ability to implement significant change where it is needed. The internet and its many uses generate ideas and forums for people to discuss issues of interest. Thus, providing an outlet for human imagination and intelligence, as well as a place to vent, learn and grow. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mossmas229 (talk • contribs) 03:54, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Bulletin Board Systems.

Help needed

Discussion of bootstrapping?

One thing I would like to see in the article is at least some mention of the bootstrapping issue. It is often said that "nobody owns the Internet" but if that were true, a user should be able to reasonably provide means of accessing it on his own, without relying on the paid services of a telephone or cable company. (Or mooching free access from someone else who pays those companies.) 71.95.231.67 (talk) 06:06, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Not clear why bootstrapping is relevant to this article unless you're using an obscure definition that's not clear. Bootstrapping is normally used in philosophy of technology discourse to refer to something like coevolution of technology or the recursive evolution of technology. That has very little to do with the property rights issues on the Internet or the tragedy of the commons, etc. Also, philosophy of technology is one of the most difficult areas of philosophy and should probably not be mentioned in an article for a general audience on such a broad subject (we can all agree the Internet is HUGE). --Coolcaesar (talk) 19:24, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Not at all. The context I'm using is similar to that of bootstrapping node, but at the physical connection level. How does your computer become an internet node from the ground up? To oversimplify, you can frame the question in this context: if someone wants to have control (not merely contractual use of, but principle control) of a particular range of IP addresses, how does that person actually go about obtaining that control from ICANN and the powers that be? Within reason, this actually isn't possible. You would have to have the resources of a large corporation or government agency to accomplish such a goal. It is these large bodies that own the networks which interconnect with each other; everyone else is just renting access to one of these networks. The average user has no other means by which to connect to the internet. Thus I think the notion that "nobody owns the internet" is a falsehood, and the myth is common enough to warrant a discussion in the article. 71.95.231.67 (talk) 08:24, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

I see where you're going but I disagree with your proposed inclusion. The notion you pose is relatively little-known and much rarer than you make it sound; the phrase returns only 2,190 hits on Google. To compare, the much better known phrase, ""on the Internet nobody knows you're a dog," (from the famous New Yorker cartoon) returns 56,000 hits on Google. I think this is because most people already understand that the Internet is made by people and therefore all of it is owned by someone, though they may be unclear as to who that someone is. Also, the article is already way too big as is.--Coolcaesar (talk) 16:27, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

I think I see where you are comming from, but you have things wrong.

The IP addresses are handled by one organization that deals solely with them. Nothing else. they do not control the networks. For a long time the entire organization was just one guy! (see Where Wizards Stay Up Late.) Anyone can buy an IP address.

Basically all they do is organize things.

If someone DID own it, governments would be VERY happy, since that would allow them to have control over the Internet. Corrupt one (talk) 06:48, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Internet functional specification

Material and examples re capitalisation

Gibberish in "Email" sections

History -> Creation Section

Social Impact Section Really Needs Work

Unbelievable

Definite article

From the article:

The term internet [...] is used both with and without the definite article.

In the sense that I understand it, this is not true -- not in the English I speak anyway. To me it means that sentences such as "Internet has made possible entirely new forms of social interaction" are feasible; to me this is wrong. I'm not sure if the article means something else or if this form is acceptable in the version of English used by the author. Either way, I think some clarification would be useful. Matt 04:05, 20 March 2009 (UTC). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.137.136.96 (talk)

I agree, it is not clear. My guess is that maybe someone wanted to say that it is possible to refer to 'the internet' and 'an internet'. This is an old saw, more fully covered in Internet capitalization conventions. If so, they did not make that clear, and as the edit page says, 'If you don't want your writing to be edited mercilessly ... by others, do not submit it', so I guess it's time to think exactly what to say there. --Nigelj (talk) 21:06, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

I think you're probably right. My suggestion:

When referring to the global network described in this article, the term internet takes the definite article and is written both with and without capital ("the Internet" or "the internet"). The term may, in technical usage, take the indefinite article without capital ("an internet") to refer to any interconnection of networks based on similar technology.

Matt 86.133.211.250 (talk) 12:49, 28 March 2009 (UTC).

I flagged this for a cite but now I see it has been discussed here I have "mercilessly" edited it. I wonder whether the orig writer was thinking of adj vs noun. Nurg (talk) 09:05, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

The intention was to state that the term is used with or without article. For instance I have seen phrases like "we have internet at home" or "look it up on internet". As far as I know, the term "an internet" is rarely used (although it does occur, e.g. in RFC 870), this sense of the term is mostly used as an adjective. Rp (talk) 14:32, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

I think it would be helpful to discuss these issues together with the capitalization issue, to whoich they are closely related, in a section or article "The word 'Internet'" Rp (talk) 14:20, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Do you have any citations regarding the use without definite article, or are you basing this on your own observation? Nurg (talk) 10:32, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Just perform any Google search like Most of the hits aren't clear examples - e.g. few are from incomplete sentences, which doesn't count, and most have an adjective thrown in ("wireless Internet at home", etc.) but there are genuine examples among the hits. So it does happen, although it's rare. Rp (talk) 18:52, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm afraid examples don't count as citations. We need something much more substantial, ie, writing about the matter, before we can add it to WP articles, IMO. Nurg (talk) 09:03, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree. This is starting to sound like a proposal for a new original research project into a detail of everyday linguistics. We need to wait until some expert does the work and publishes their results in a 'reliable' source. --Nigelj (talk) 22:01, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

I also agree. This debate sprang up because of disputable claims in the article as to the usage and origins of the word "Internet"/"internet". At present the article says very little about that, which is probably the best solution.Rp (talk) 22:15, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Merge from Internet capitalization conventions

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

The result was 'consensus against merge. -- Alvestrand (talk) 19:29, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

I am proposing that Internet capitalization conventions be redirected here. It doesn't make sense as a separate article, and the amount of space it'd take to cover it here to the extent it would need would be minimal. At best it's something to mention somewhere in our WP:MOS. DreamGuy (talk) 13:55, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Strong Oppose it does make sense as a separate article, just needs more sourcing, and possibly a bit of a rewrite Jenuk1985 | Talk 14:26, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Strong Oppose This article is the general overview of a huge topic and is very big already. It has been kept as brief as possible with lots of sections having 'Main' and 'See also' tags. This is growing topic, not a dying or minority-interest one: it should branch the reader into the many other specialised articles that already exist and are yet to be written. This is not the time to be shrinking it back down. --Nigelj (talk) 20:56, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Strong Oppose It doesn't make sense to merge that much standalone material into an already large article. Internet capitalization conventions is already linked as a {{see also}} under Terminology but an argument could be made that it might be better to use the {{main}} template instead. Tothwolf (talk) 21:13, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Strong Oppose. Same reasons as previous 3 speakers. --Alvestrand (talk) 02:00, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
Strong Oppose. Same reasons as the last four editors. --Coolcaesar (talk) 11:30, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
Mild oppose. I have beefed up the article. I doubt it should be merged. However I care less about where the material goes, and more about the idea that it could any longer be condensed to a minimal size. Nurg (talk) 08:47, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Child abuse

Copyright infringement

Viruses

Security cracking

Dated technology

Self-destructive subcultures

"The Internet" versus "an internet"

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