This website has existed for four years now and it is time for an overview. At the foot of my home page I said that I intended to conduct an experiment into the communication through the Net. Since the advent of the world wide web, great hopes have been set on it; but most of these hopes were childish visions or even propaganda. I wanted to see for myself.
These four years (1997 - 2001) have been crucial in the evolution of the world wide web. It is the period during which it has been popularized; from a communication tool for research workers it has become a new mass medium. However I shall not consider its function as a widely used medium; only its original use [tool for research workers] will be discussed. Please do not interpret this restriction as a mark of contempt: I did not use the world wide web in any other way, so that any judgment about the popular or commercial use would be beyond the scope of my experiment. But among the great hopes set on the world wide web, it has been announced as a kind of panacea for every problem in scientific communication. It is true that today you can have a discussion with a colleague, mention some recent paper by X, and immediately find the paper on the world wide web, print it, and continue the discussion with this paper in your hand. Ten years ago, it would have been necessary to delay the conversation, to go to the library and to make a copy of the paper. Moreover, very recent papers were only available as private preprints.
But the facilities for supplying documents is only one aspect of what seems to be the most interesting capability of the world wide web: the development and the world wide availability of freeware. The Big Business is obviously eager to lay its hands on this medium, but the very technical freeware is protected by the fact that skill is needed to use it. Research workers are generally able to use complicated (but powerful) software, or to read and understand specialized literature. Such products are protected by the mere fact that their use requires rare skills and therefore cannot be sold with massive profit. Presumably this will be the main advantage of the world wide web in the future for us [``us'' means the human beings considered as opposite to the Big Business Monster]. I imagine the world wide web in the future as partitioned: one part (the largest) will belong to the pair business / uninformed consumers, and the other part (the smallest) will be the field of freeware and free minds.
It is precisely this vision I tried to test or to experiment. As an account of this four-year experiment, I shall report some difficulties and show that reality, though not negative, is very prosaic compared to the high hopes. So I consider successively several questions.
1. What is the advantage of the instantaneous communication of any document? As I pointed out above, the possibility of immediately available documentation is one of the comforts of civilization: you do not need to waste time in libraries. However this will be the case for new documents only. Certainly most of the historical old documents will be made available on the web (it is not yet done), but this cannot be made without labour and therefore it is expensive and will be limited to the well-known historical texts of the past. If you are in search of old texts [many of them can be very important even if they are not well-known] you will have to go in the libraries. This means the world wide web will only become useful in the related area after your own work (if you publish it on the web and make the old documents you discovered available).
A rather irritating aspect of the instantaneously available information is its rapid evaporation. You can hardly publish a document with hypertext links towards other websites, because most of these sites will unceasingly change and the linked documents rapidly disappear. I generally solved the problem by lodging them into my own site and then linking to these copies.
I conclude from my experiment that the world wide web is not really appropriate for archiving or even for making available durable documents. However it is rather an organization problem: some institutions such as great libraries can create stable websites especially devoted to documentation. Such sites must remain stable during long periods and must be maintained by the institution. From my experience it appears that the websites of research laboratories, newspapers or other periodic journals, etc. are too fluctuating, and those of the few libraries offering more than their catalogue are still in the compiling phase. I hope that the situation will be better in ten years time . . .
Some announced the progressive disparition of books and their replacement by e-books. This could be true for ephemeral books, newspapers, announcements, advertisements, catalogues, year-books, phone-books, etc. For this the world wide web is certainly the most practical way. But what about a scientific reference book that has been written after a ten-year period of work and that should still be cited several decades later? Such books are better edited in special collections and printed on acid-free paper.
Summarized: Up to now the web is certainly the most practical way for finding recent documents or papers that are not aimed to perdure. For durable reference books, encyclopediae, historical documents, etc., special websites, only devoted to the conservation and the spread of knowledge must be established (by universities, museums, libraries, etc) and maintained during long periods by the institution. Up to now this is far from being achieved (it will really be a titanic work). Nevertheless if it were achieved, it would certainly be the most interesting advantage of the world wide web: to obtain instantaneously any significant existing document.
2. And the instantaneous communication, through e-mail or W.W.W. announcements ? From my own experience with email I could see that it is very comfortable for exchanging short practical messages, for example if you want to schedule a seminar or a conference you can exchange three or four messages within one hour to decide rapidly which flight or train you have to book. So I find the email more practical than the phone. But this is familiar to everybody and my ``experience'' on this area is of no interest. On the other hand, a thorough discussion about some scientific subject, which can require precise arguments and subtle reasoning, is very difficult via email. Moreover, you can hardly write equations. One can imagine that many philosophers or scientists of the past would have been pleased to have such an instantaneous way of communication. They wrote letters with a goose feather and in those days the post was slow; the answer came back generally after one month or more. Modern technology is much easier for it permits us to keep a copy of the letter, to make corrections without rewriting, etc., but all this has nothing to do with the Net, which provides only the velocity. And for this the results are very poor, because a thorough discussion about a scientific subject needs time, not velocity. I affirm that for such conversations the benefit of fast communication thanks to the Net is negligible in comparison with a letter written with a goose feather. The reason for this is merely the following principle:
``The acceleration of the information technology has not accelerated the human thinking process''
I have often carried out such scientific conversations using email, and the most common obstacles were:
a) the fact that you are decoyed into answering immediately and without sufficient reflection;
b) that the same was true for the recipient: it often seemed to me that he had not read my arguments carefully.
The same can happen on paper, but not so often because letters belong to another universe in which time is not so short. Moreover, I imagine that my recipient did not receive only my mail, but a lot of others, and that he was in a hurry . . . So I can ask: what advantage can the fast communication per email offer for discussions in which slowness is better than precipitance? Of course this problem is not produced by new technology; it is a social problem that existed before the Net. [In another text of this website I said that the Big Science System, despite many wonderful realizations, is unable to have ideas. So long as a realization is only a matter of management, engineering, investment; in other words, so long as it requires only to find competent engineers and pay them, the Big Science System is able to decode the human genom, to increase the energy of proton colliders, to create new alloys, to conceive new microchips, to send spacecrafts to Jupiter. But nobody, in this gigantic scientific-military-industrial complex, has time for thorough reflection about his own activity, and still less for the unsolved mysteries of science.]
Summarized: email is perfect for short communication about practical, workaday activities. Not for intellectual intercourse.
3. Is it possible, thanks to the Net, to become acquainted with other persons regarding a given subject, especially if there were no other opportunity or chance to meet? This possibility has been widely praised by the web aficionados for years. I have not used the new technology for sexual or political purposes and therefore the scope of my experiment is restricted to the subjects or areas you can find on my own site, or related to them. So I cannot conclude whether or not you can find your ideal sexual partner or bring together people with similar political views. I can report that I received messages from people who visited the site. Most of them, however, were colleagues or students I knew before. Among the others, the communication consisted generally in exchanging two or three messages about some topic or some argument encountered in my website. In most cases this exchange faded out after two or three answers. I think that this is the normal case: my correspondent had something to communicate, wrote it, I answered, and after two or three messages the point was settled. In some cases the correspondent turned out to be a monomaniacal proselyte, who has been led to the site by his favourite keyword: in such cases he is only interested in converting you to his views and no rational discussion is possible. Such disturbed persons are exceptional, however the probability of encountering them through the Net is certainly higher than in normal life.
So the answer to the question is YES, but the number of correspondants and the contents of correspondance is much more mundane than in the dreams of some enthusiastic aficionados. I insist on this aspect in my report because almost everyday I see in my newspapers columns about the W.W.W., judging from which one could imagine a complete revolution of human relationships. This is not the case! The only revolution is technological. I wonder whether the authors of these columns really tasted the W.W.W. further than three clicks . . .
Another important element of my observations is the following point: among all the persons who sent me a mail about my website, at least 80 % were directed to me via some common acquaintance and not straightly from the web. This is a very important law: in most cases relationship has been obtained before, by direct human connection; the W.W.W. will then be a technical way to communicate between persons who are already in touch. Maybe you heard about cyberspace love stories; newspapers make much of such tales, but in reality they are very exceptional!
Summarized: Yes, if you are in search for people interested in some area, you can find somebody by way of a website. But if you wish to find enough people for creating an active circle, it will be necessary to have recourse to other ways, and namely to make more direct advances, and even to canvass for your cause. The mere creation of a website is inefficient, but it will become a good link once people have been brought together, generally by direct relationship.
4. What should you put in your website ? I have no particular advice about the form. I think that only the contents is important. If the site does not contain any interesting material, it will be vain to embellish it with web gadgets. I have observed that the websites of almost every laboratory or institute just contain a hierarchical list of its members with e-addresses, an administrative chart of its activities (which only shows keywords, not activities) and a list of publications with some PostScript or PDF files. What a lack of invention! One can bet that the published papers will not often be demanded. But after all, that's not my business.
I know that most research workers are not personally interested in the results of their work, but only in its benefits for a career (it is one of the reasons for which the spirit of today's science is so poor). Therefore they have no reason to present their work in a personal fashion. Certainly this explains the insipidity of their publications and of the websites of their labs, as just pointed out above. As long as publication in the best recognized international journals will bring more career advantage, it seems to be vain to make propaganda for publishing on the web rather than on paper. However you must be aware of the fact that the best scientific journals have become a profitable business for some international edition companies. The profitability of this business is entirely based on the public financement of libraries and labs that subscribe to these very expensive journals. In fact, for these companies it is a way for recovering money that was alloted to public research.
However if you are occasionnally writing for yourself, if you have ideas, you should publish them on the web as freeware. I do not see in the world wide web the panacea for all scientific or human communication problems, as I have shown above; and to believe that it will provide a means to escape from the Big Business is childish. On the contrary it is already corrupted by the same social problems as the paper publications have been before it. But despite this I conclude from my four year experiment that there will remain a corner for freeware and free-minded people in the world wide web. The reason for this assertion is practical and realistic: paper publication could not be made with private means; it required financial means (for editing, printing, diffusing) and therefore inevitably fell into the hands of Business. On the contrary, to publish on the world wide web is possible with private means. Only a totalitarian dictatorship will enforce obedience in the private sphere, certainly not the democratic and liberal Business. This liberal system has its goldmine (the mass of uninformed consumers and low-payed workers), and an optimal, scientific, operating process for its exploitation (influencing people scientifically in their private sphere through advertisement and television). During the second half of last century, its managers dicovered a very important fact: it is much more profitable to exploit the goldmine with this scientific method than by use of constraint (it is the reason for which it defends democracy and human rights). At the same time, the political leaders discovered that the best way to quell contestation is to allow free expression for everybody: so the dissidents will be lost in the crowd, whereas the censorship of totalitarian states transfigured them in heroes. So the Big Business System will never create a police for the private sphere: as long as scientific methods work better than any other, there will remain freedom for a minority. [At first sight this analysis could seem cynical. But think it over before concluding prematurely: all the great utopists of the past had generous phrases for the proletariat; in fact they all believed to know the way to make him happy better than he did himself. I merely propose to create a small world of freedom and equity that works, before offering it to others. I do not say that the world wide web is the shrine for this small world: in fact this small world should be developed mainly in a parallel economy of cooperative units (that already exist). These remarks are just made to avoid misunderstanding, but here I am speaking about publication on the world wide web and not about the best way to improve the world.]
So it appears that if you want you can be free. No Gestapo will put you under arrest for having published yourself your work. Of course this can only make sense if you have a work that is your work. It supposes you have something to communicate.
However the price paid for this freedom will be that your work can never have influence beyond a small circle. This is only due to the gigantic number of people who publish anything on the W.W.W. Even top scientists cannot dream to be widely read, owing to the number of top scientists. The fact that the web is world wide will permit a world wide small circle, or in other words: distance will play no role; but if you want a wide circle, the W.W.W. by itself cannot help you in any way. The only way for wide influence is the same as before: to be well connected with many important persons, to be present in the mass media, to profess simple ideas, etc. The W.W.W. is just a technology that cannot change anything in human behaviour. If you aspire to be a prophet who influences a large part of humanity (what seems to be the aim of some websites), you will have to fight for a place among great men, and this cannot be reached through mere publication: to reach the top requires specific skills, friends at court, and good fortune. If you publish a work of genius on the world wide web and then wait for universal recognition, you are running the risk of waiting a very long time.
Summarized: Publish on the W.W.W. anything you consider interesting; there is no censoring except for paedophilia and nazi propaganda, since the insignificance resulting from the gigantic number of websites is much more efficient than censoring. Be aware of the fact that the fame of your website will be due only to your own fame. No fame, or additional fame, can be created by the website itself.