[2] [Editor's Note: The following entry, "Netizens", can be found on the informative website http://www .livinginternet.com put up by William Stewart.] Netizens: J.C.R. Licklider to Michael Hauben by William Stewart billstew@livinginternet.com Netizens: In April, 1968, Licklider and Robert Taylor published a ground-breaking paper The Computer as a Communication Device in Science and Technology, portraying the forthcoming universal network as more than a service to provide transmission of data, but also as a tool whose value came from the generation of new information through interaction with its users. In other words, the old golden rule applied to an as yet unbuilt network world, where each netizen contributes more to the virtual community than they receive, producing something more powerful and useful than anyone could create by themself. Michael Hauben, a widely read Internet pioneer, encountered this spirit still going strong in his studies of online Internet communities in the 1990s, leading to his coinage of the term "net citizen" or "netizen". Newcomers to the Internet usually experience the same benefit of participating in a larger virtual world, and adopt the spirit of the netizen as it is handed down the generations. It cannot be a coincidence that so many Internet technologies are built specifically to leverage the power of community information sharing, such as the Usenet, IRC, MUDs, and mailing lists. The concept of the netizen is also the foundation for the motivation of netiquette. [http://www.livinginternet.com/?i/ii_licklider.htm] ----------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Reprinted from the Amateur Computerist Vol 11 No 2, May 1, 2003. The whole issue or a subscription is available for free via email. Send a request to jrh@ais.org or see http://www.ais.org/~jrh/acn/ ----------------------------------------------------------------------