By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Web Site That Went Too Far
As we move into an era in which increasing numbers of public services are being handed over to the private sector, it is important to note that our rights and freedoms associated with those services are not being transferred with them. Thus we see this case of a university professor being fired for a website mildly critical of a college administration. Or this story of professors fighting a gag order barring board members from talking to students or faculty. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Network Connections
Examines the phenomenon of social networking with an emplhasis on three casae studies: Friendster, Ryze and Meetup. Good summary of the theory behind social networking and a nice history relating the phenomenon to its origins in MUDs, Usenet and IRC. The case studies of the three sites are accurate and to the point. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Wide Open: Open Source Methods and Their Future Potential
The authors of this longish essay (it's listed as a 'book' on the web page) look at "wider applications and potential of the open source idea." Good list of characteristics of open sourc e(p.17) - most people, when they think of open source, think of free software, but as the authors point out, the methodology of sofwtare development becomes something different. For example, it includes the vetting of participants only after they've started to contribute. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. The New Gatekeepers
Nice article on the 'new gatekeepers' of the blogging world - the so-called 'A-list' bloggers who draw thousands of readers and dozens of links every day. The big spike, as I characterized them in a recent presentation, these gatekeepers instantiate the very properties of the mainstream they are supposedly displacing - appearance over substance, mutual reinforcement, polarization, and herd mentality. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Freire, the Matrix, and Scalability
Paulo Freire, as the biographies note, wove education theory and social theory into a form of liberation pedagogy based on "the idea of building a 'pedagogy of the oppressed' or a 'pedagogy of hope' and how this may be carried forward." A session on Freire at a recent conference in Montreal moved David Wiley to pen this article. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Blocking VoIP Calls: Foreboding Harbinger or Benign Fluke?
The nation of Qatar has already started cracking down on what it calls "illegal VoIP" (Voice over IP) and there are signs that this trend is spreading as some U.S. carriers have already attempted to block voice traffic, citing it as unfair competition. I personally don't see what's unfair about using technological innovation to provide the same service at a lower cost, but then I have maintained that the global business ennvironment has long since ceased to be based on the principle of free competititon and now relies on cartel, copyright, patent and trade legislation to support otherwise unprofitable business methods. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. When iPod Goes Collegiate
Overview of Duke's experiment with iPods (the university gave one to every student last year) with some frank admissions that they weren't well used combined with some interesting observations on their use. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. The Early History of Nupedia and Wikipedia
With more than a million entries and able to compose credible and authoritative articles years before its more traditional competition, Wikipedia has emerged as a force in online publishing. But how did it start? In this two part essay (Part One, Part Two) one of the people who worked on the project in its early days, Larry Sanger, offers a retrospective. More...