So it is. I believe that at least one of its great novelties is making the effects of peer to peer interaction in the creation of norms and knowledge… observable, within reason.

[which reminds me to add a bit to my previous post: my impression of the Wiki thing is much the some as yours, Jona. It is easy to cut the thing out of search. There is an equivalent decentralized function - meaning, where sources are vetted by a machine prone to other lapses and mistakes then the human squabbles: 'Define:[word] in Chrome. Perhaps neither is a great encyclopedia, but the race between the two is entertaining, in a philosophical sort of way…].

And then dear Jona you undo some of your argument by making it on . . . the Internet.

The greatest benefit of the Internet, and why I believe it will ultimately be a success, is that it does level the playing field to some extent: it is forcing open the doors of privilege, the stacks of libraries, even the museums. Institutions are tumbling all over themselves to offer more than the next. It’s competition and free market at its best. Like David Reinke said earlier in this thread, The Cat Is Out Of The Bag.

Turning to the access complaint: I am not so sure whether pay-walls are either entirely superfluous or stifling. Although I cannot read most of the sources that interest me without waving some credentials around, a search engine can. It makes a world of difference. Perhaps this is simply an irrelevant benefit for anyone that does not need or enjoy sifting through more bibliography then they know what to do with… Had I disposed of a great library at will, perhaps I would have never put much thinking into what on Earth these [formerly] annoying searches can do that a decent paper index can’t [roughly: chasing arguments buried under unanticipated titles, etc. - the choice of context turned into my reader's hands to a much greater degree... my interests changed accordingly over some years].

Of course, the sport of pedantic reading is still a somewhat cumbersome hobby outside a well-endowed university. Nice blackmail. Successful, so far.

What I would appreciate, is if scholars all over the world came together, and created a good network of (more or less) adequate information. One big digital library, in other words, which will – the humanities being what they are – never be completely free of bias, but can generally be trusted. As it now stands, we have a lot of small-scale initiatives, which are vulnerable (like the recent blackout at Louvain), suffer from wrong editoral choice (my own website), and often confusing.

I think you are basically right; I am not against the internet as such, but I am not optimistic about the present situation. Of course students can learn how to distinguish between good and bad information. Free access is a very important first aim, because it at least takes away the disadvantage that scholars now have.

What I would appreciate, though, is if scholars all over the world came together, and created a good network of (more or less) adequate information. One big digital library, in other words, which will – the humanities being what they are – never be completely free of bias, but can generally be trusted. As it now stands, we have a lot of small-scale initiatives, which are vulnerable (like the recent blackout at Louvain), suffer from wrong editoral choice (my own website), and often confusing.

Helemaal gek! (Professors, who object to your using citations, I mean).

Would you consider your site a success if you had not acceded to the request of the US Universities, and instead continued to include links to sources?

It would seem the universities were unhappy because you were doing the research they thought their students should be doing.

However …

Is that not what every author does?

When I read Goldsworthy, for example, he includes end notes that contain asides, digressions and sources. Are the universities suggesting, by extension, that we should avoid Goldsworthy and only do research in primary sources?

Perhaps that might work of PhD candidates, but for the rest of us, doing original research in Japanese of Latin or Sanskrit is beyond us. (Or me at any rate.)

While I do have an extensive personal library, and access to several very good public libraries, it is still the case that the cat is out of the bag when it comes to academia and the internet.

The internet is here to stay and more schools than ever are moving their students onto it. Indeed, the school my grandson attends is this year requiring all 6th, 7th, and 8th Graders to have iPads for use in class.

Now, the upside of this move will be eliminating the need to carry home a literal ton of books every night. The down side is … yet to be seen precisely.

In my humble opinion, you should in fact reverse course and go back to your original and rigorous format of including links to sources. The more good sites that are out there, backing up their claims with reliable sources, the better are the chances of the internet not becoming s wasteland of misinformation.

Of course, many will argue that it already is a wasteland and we have already moved past the point of no return. I disagree, but turning things around will not be easy or quick. Your site can be a shining beacon of scholarly rigor in this squall of uninformed opinion masquerading as fact.

That’s my opinion anyway.

I think you are rather too hard on wikipedia – it has lots of pitfalls but overall I think its model is working. From my experience editing, there is a very large number of users who do care about integrity and proper sourcing, even when political controversies are at stake. Crudely speaking, if a subject is popular, it will sooner or later (and usually sooner) get a proper scholarly write-up; if it’s a more abstruse one, it will wait more. Of course, there are cock-ups sometimes, but on the whole I’d definitely chalk the wikipedia as a GOOD THING.

This comes from one who very much appreciates your websites and admires your work, to be perfectly clear.

F.G.