What are we doing here?

The heritage of this place is the Whole Earth Catalog, the Whole Earth Review, and the grand dreams of these folks have made us over-ambitious. We want to create something here on the WELL Gopher that hasn't been seen often on the Internet - a resource with a "point-of-view". To try to keep to that idea, we started with an manifeso. Or more modestly, an editorial policy.

We make no claim that what we've ended up with here has matched what we set out below. But we're trying ....

(What you see below steals heavily from the Whole Earth Review's Manifesto).

  1. We are publishing, not just "making resources available."

    We should produce this publication with the same care and standards that apply to print publications. Content is important. Form is important. Most Internet archives make no attempt to target readers or attract their interest; we will be different.

  2. We seek to provide material that provides further access to tools and ideas.

    This technology has different strengths than paper. We should play to our strengths. On-line strengths include the ability to search, the ability to provide pointers that people can "pull" on (here's why this resource is good; select this item and away you go.)

    We should not put something on-line just because we can, especially if that thing would work better on paper or in some other medium. If a resource works better on paper, better to point at it or create a searchable index to find it than to attempt to include it. Shorter material is often better material on-line.

  3. We make note of the good work of others.

    We don't just create pointers to things, we tell our readers why they should care. Why is what we're pointing at worthwhile? What makes it unique? It's OK to point at something that others point at if we add value with our commentary. Our goal, as with WER, is to interest others in looking further. The Internet is strikingly free of useful critical commentary. There's So Much available, and so little to help you find what's good.

  4. We make full use of WER and the WELL.

    One of the most important sources of material for us are the people who contribute to the WELL and Whole Earth Review. Most of the world has never seen what shows up in these two places. We should endeavor to pull some of the best or most interesting of this material and put it on-line. Doing so will promote the wider use of these resources.

  5. We leverage the growing Worldnet.

    This publication exists as part of the world-wide Internet. We should create a resource that is part of that Worldnet, that isn't isolated from it. Though we want to make something unique, we still want to be recognized as a part of the Net. The Net is part of our world, it we are part of the Net.

ph Updated to WWW 1/18/94