Some criticism on the Lynx from WWW94...
Not too impressed with your Lynx WWW94 Special. If you are going to continue
this sort of publishing venture, do it right. Hire professional journalists,
not computer hacks typing from their diaries. Not every reader is a computer
hack. It doesn't do your publication much good, nor does it make a very good
impression of WWW94 who weren't there.
I thought Bill Thompson's comments - written in a style which looks like they
were straight out of a notebook - were incomplete as best. Benefit of the
doubt: perhaps he just didn't go the right sessions.
Arguably the 3 top issues of WWW94:
- DigiCash
- HTML+ (what, when, where...)
- VRML & modelling cyberspace
Of these, the Lynx mentions the first one. Hard not to, since everybody was in
attendance. But where are the more in-depth comments from David Chaum? How
will DigiCash work? Was he asked to expand on some of his themes in any way?
How did his views go down with the audience?
No mention of the ongoing HTML+ debate, a key issue affecting all Webbers. ALOT
of time was spent on this issue.
Very little mention of VTML & 3-d webspace, although there was a workshop and
alot of talk about it.
So, what's the beef? If you guys are going to claim to have titles like editor
and reporter, do things properly. Proper journalism, please!
I have no problem with The Lynx WWW94 Special Report if it's for "internal use
only", as a publication for the whole world via the Web? I worry that you are
giving the Web developer community a bad name with sloppy "journalism", and in
fact doing damage to the Web community itself by trivializing many of the
issues. To quote;"...only six people at Robert Cailliau's session were
Web-initiates, and one of them was Tim Berners-Lee's father!"
It's all very exciting doing an online journal. But please remember that
people actually read this stuff, not all of them familiar with internetworking
and webs of information. Is "amateurism" something we want associated with WWW
publishing?
I hope some of this criticism will be of use to your future issues, and to the
Web community at large.
Charles Ashley