to help with this, i'd like to encourage subscribers to create distinct
threads addressing specific problems. if need be, certain threads may be
followed up off-list. (although a summary back to the list is always nice!)
however, we shouldn't discourage people from an active discussion. as
someone recently posted: One of the wonderful things that can happen in
this type of forum is that new space erupts at the most unexpected places.
thus, we should remember that this concern for focus is also ironically
very topical.
that said, i'd like to fill out a definition of netspace by working on the
idea of *protocol*...
Alan wrote a while back:
>Forgetting just for a second the corporate aspects of VRML, it might be
>better to compare it with HTML, not a MUD - both MLs manipulate semantic
>content and flux dependent on the viewpoint.
[...]
>Perhaps to equate VRML with simulated 3-d space is similar to equating
>HTML with 2-d space
[...]
>VRML might be considered a tool to navigate through multiply-connected
>and parameterized sememes
as jordan has noted, protocol is a type of structuring agent. In the same
way that computer fonts regulate the representation of text, or html
designates the arrangement of textual objects, protocol may be defined as a
set of instructions for the compilation of contents (call them digital
objects). Protocol is always a second-order process; it governs the
*architecture* of the representation of infoids or texts.
thus, i agree with alan that these protocols (html/vrml) are basically
manipulators of content. furthermore, they directly constitute these
content spaces, these discursive spaces.
can others help work on this idea?
-ag