INNKEEPING IN CYBERSPACE
There really is a sense of place, out there in the ether

John Coate is director of interactive services for 101 Online in San Francisco, CA, and for many years, director of marketing for The WELL (Whole Earth ‘Lectronic Link) in Sausalito, CA.

Coate believes that the focus of online services, and 101 Online in particular, is moving toward personal communication — a trend that he welcomes and encourages. Those who doubt him ought to sign up for an online service and participate in earnest for a month or two. It’s a compelling medium of communication, made mysterious only by the fact that you cannot see it. — Ed.

When you log into an online service, you use new tools for an ancient activity. Even with all the screens and wires and chips and lines it still comes down to people talking to each other.

Language is so ancient a currency of communication that people of the northern hemisphere, from Europe to India, know of their common tribal roots mostly just by the remnant commonalities of the languages. Through all these thousands of years (sign language excepted), language has been either spoken or written.

TALKING BY WRITING

But online conversation is a new hybrid that is both talking and writing, yet isn’t completely either one. It’s talking by writing. It’s writing because you type it on a keyboard and people read it. But because of the ephemeral nature of luminescent letters on a screen, and because it has such a quick — sometimes instant — turnaround, it’s more like talking. The act of conversing over computers is such a new twist that a lasting term for what it is has not yet been coined.

The new with the old. It is also new because you often feel a real sense of place while logged in, though it exists “virtually” in each person’s imagination while they stare at a computer screen. It’s old because even if the village is virtual, when it’s working right it fulfills for people their need for a commons, a neutral space away from work or home where they can conduct their personal and professional affairs.

My work with the WELL in Sausalito, and now with 101 Online in San Francisco, is about building an online version of what author Ray Oldenburg calls the “Third Place.” In The Great Good Place, Oldenburg calls home the “First Place” and work the “Second Place.”

Psychological comfort and support. “Third places,” he says, “exist on neutral ground and serve to level their guests to a condition of social equality. Within these places, conversation is the primary activity and the major vehicle for the display and appreciation of human personality and individuality. Since the formal institutions of society make stronger claims on the individual, third places are normally open in the off hours, as well as at other times. Though a radically different kind of setting from the home, the third place is remarkably similar to a good home in the psychological comfort and support that it extends.”

I’ll say right up front that my love for online interaction is because it brings people together. At the personal level, it helps people find their kindred spirits and at the larger social level, it serves as a conduit for the horizontal flow of information through the population.

THE VIRTUAL VILLAGE: WHO DOES IT ATTRACT?

Online systems attract independent-minded people. People who think for themselves and many people who work for themselves. Freelancers, contractors, entrepreneurs and others who, because they are always looking ahead to that next job, need to have their shingle hung out.

‘Intellectual massage.’ The text display that still dominates online systems appeals to people who love wordplay, language and writing. And it appeals to people with active minds. Good conversation can be a hard commodity to find these days. If you love stimulating conversation — what I like to call an “intellectual massage” — where would you go, say, after work, to find some people to do it with?

It appeals to people who have numerous interests because you don’t have to go from club to club all over town to hang out and talk with people interested in specific things like boating or books. You can get around town without even getting up.

And then there are people who just have unfulfilled social needs and want to meet some people.

EXPENSIVE TOY, BUT A CHEAP TOOL

If you only find entertainment in the various conversations, then it could fascinate you for a long time or it might get old pretty soon at $2 or more an hour. But if it helps you find your next job, or connects you with a new friend, or fulfills that need to have good conversation with a bunch of bright people, then it becomes a real bargain.

And that is the method behind the madness, so to speak. Behind all the screens of sentences are real people making real connections that make a real difference to them.

Potluck for the mind. Ask a question about almost anything and you’ll likely get an answer or a reference to an answer very quickly — often within 24 hours. The informal nature of online conversation encourages people’s amazing generosity in sharing the things that they know. It’s a potluck for the mind.

Unlike network TV or mass market magazines or even parts of other large online services, the information doesn’t flow in a top-down manner, but rather horizontally among the peer group of the participants. People join online systems because they are useful personal tools. The horizontal information flow is really a by-product of this, but it has, I believe, a deep and abiding importance to all of us. Because the free flow of information among the people is essential to the health of a democratic society.

VILLAGE, NEIGHBORHOOD, SALON, COFFEE SHOP, INN

But something more is going on here. Dry terms like “think tank,” “information exchange” and “conferencing network” are too flat, too mono-dimensional. They don’t convey the reality that while you and the other people logged in are separated by miles of phone lines — looking at CRT screens that just display written words — it feels like a real place in there.

And those terms don’t show that it’s just about the easiest way to meet new people that there is. Nor do they describe how, via all this online talk, people form and sustain relationships. This is when it crosses over into something else, something fuller, something more like a community.

A sense of place. In attempts to describe this accurately we conjure up familiar images like village, neighborhood, salon, coffee shop, inn. It’s as if it is all of these things, yet isn’t really any of them because it’s a new kind of gathering. It just helps to hang something familiar onto it so we can picture it.

An online community is one of the easiest ways to meet new people. Certainly it is very low-risk. You come and go at your convenience and comment or not, as you wish. The pressure is minimal.

A level playing field. The great equalizing factor, of course, is that nobody can see each other online so the ideas are what really matter. You can’t discern age, race, complexion, hair color, body shape, vocal tone or any of the other attributes that we all incorporate into our impressions of people.

HUMAN EMOTION IS THE SUBCARRIER

The tangible part is the hardware and the software — the physical network. Obviously you have to have it, and it has to work reliably. The intangible — the people part — is just as important because a system is as much defined and shaped by everyone’s collective imagination as it is by the computers, diskettes and software tools.

Traveling through the chips and wires, as a kind of subcarrier to the words themselves, is real human emotion and feeling. Furthermore, the quality of the atmosphere largely determines whether or not the people involved will develop any affection for the system at all.

Just do it. Ultimately, any network is about relationships. I like to say that, rather than being in the computer business, I am in the relationship business. Some are ad hoc, some are long term, some are for business and some are social. Get online for business or for pleasure. While you can just do one or the other, most people use it for both. I know people who got online just for fun but made contacts that led to a new job. I also know people who joined for business reasons such as getting help on a computer application or doing research and made some new friends through conversing in other non-technical forums.

For the term “village” to be applied to an online scene with any accuracy at all, this blending of business and pleasure must be present. Because that’s what a village is: a place where you go down to the butcher or the blacksmith and transact your business, and at night meet those same neighbors down at the local pub or the Friday night dance.

RIGHTS, RESPONSIBILITY AND THE CONSTITUTION

In order for the best minds to be applied to the task of figuring out the social and legal issues of electronic interaction, we need as open a forum as we can put together.

Closing the gap between rich and poor. Without the goal of improved communication throughout the citizenry, regardless of their opinion or station in life, writers and sociologists who express the fear that electronic technology will widen the gap between the rich and poor — rather than narrow it — may be proved right. Allowing maximum freedom of expression for each person or institution involved is the only way that enough collective intelligence can be gathered so that these matters can be figured out for the common good.

As it is now, there isn’t much case law regarding these various issues, lending still more credence to the image of the “electronic frontier.” Still, there are a few general categories into which most of these issues fall. All of these issues are unsettled and the subject of intense debate.

Free speech. Is electronic conversation talking or writing? Or is it a hybrid of these two that is unique and new? And is this activity protected by the U.S. Constitution just like freedom of speech? If this is a kind of meeting place, is it then an assembly of people that is also protected by the First Amendment? I say these are rights that must be protected.

Privacy. Do your electronic files have the same Fourth Amendment protections from unreasonable search and seizure as your personal effects in your home? Is your private e-mail on a subscription-based service truly private? What rights do you have, what are the responsibilities of the operators of a system and what are the limits placed on the government if it should want to look through your electronic files and correspondence?

The Electronics Communication Privacy Act (ECPA), passed by Congress in 1986, made it a crime for someone to gain unauthorized entrance into an online system. It also requires system operators to inform their customers about how much privacy they should expect and then insure that that privacy is not invaded.

But what if the FBI came to our offices and ordered us to give them a copy of everyone’s e-mail? Would we have to do it? What if they wanted to confiscate our equipment so they could comb through the files? Could they do it? According to the ECPA the answer is yes, if they have a search warrant.

Intellectual property. Are online messages a form of publishing, or is it just a conversation that happens to be in writing? Is your every utterance online a standalone piece of copyrighted intellectual property? Does the fact that anything you say in an online system can be downloaded and printed out by anyone who happens to read it create a different class of reproduction than a commercial publication?

This issue is deeply controversial and may never develop really clear-cut guidelines. While I don’t like to see people get too maniacal about what happens to things they type into a system because actual control is already just about impossible, and getting worse, I do think that good manners and consideration of others’ wishes are critically important.

Censorship. Are the owners of a system responsible to their customers and the right of those customers to express themselves freely, or is the system responsible for making sure that some kind of community standards must apply to the electronic dialogue?

And what about “community standards?” Current obscenity law refers to “local community standards” having jurisdiction in deciding what constitutes obscenity. But in the online world, where people meet in virtual space even though the participants may be located anywhere in the world, are there any local standards that even can apply? This one may never get figured out.

THE FUTURE: TRIPPING OVER ITS OWN FEET

The Internet is growing so fast it can barely keep track of itself. Computerized communications reach more people all the time. Surveillance is refined now to the point that satellites can track individual vehicles from space. Photo images can be altered undetectably. Laptops are more powerful than computers that once filled entire rooms. Virtual reality. Genetic engineering.

We’ve been hearing it all of our lives, but it still holds that never before has technology had the potential to do more good or more harm. Above all else, I want these communication tools to help: to be part of the solution and not more of the problem.

To this end, I want to sound a warning about five areas of great concern to me.

The cost of a phone call. The cost of the phone call to an online service is prohibitively expensive for people outside of the local urban calling areas. Even the big packet-switching nets don’t go to cities with populations less than about 100,000. This means that many of the people who could most benefit from being connected online are priced right out of the market.

We all suffer from not having the input and views of people who live in the country. I urge that we press for national information highways that are affordable to everyone.

Remove the ‘computer’ barrier. For our purposes here, society is segmented into computer users and non-computer users. While hundreds of thousands of enthusiasts dial into online nets around the country, the general population is largely unaware that such systems even exist, let alone are potentially as important to them as their cars or televisions.

Still, millions of dollars have been and are being spent to bring online communications to the general public in the form of dedicated terminals such as Minitels and smart phones. But for all the talk I have heard and all the reports I have read about hooking up the “global online community,” little is happening to create systems where computer users and the general public can meet and talk on a common system.

This is incredibly short-sighted. The real communication breakthrough will occur when those who use computers and those who don’t can talk openly and freely because access to the meeting place is not confined by the equipment that gets them there.

Protection from tyranny. I feel great alarm at some of the recent raids on hackers and sysops who, in utter disregard of due process of law, have had their equipment and systems confiscated before any proof or conviction is forthcoming. This is nothing short of tyranny by law enforcement, especially in cases involving morality standards and not actual cracking or file theft.

Keep media ownership diverse. Ownership of media is becoming more concentrated every day. Fewer corporations own more media outlets all the time. And it’s getting worse. Right now the FCC wants to remove the limits on how many radio and tv stations a single corporation can own. For freedom and democracy to survive, we, the people, must increase direct communication among ourselves.

No ‘techno-pacifiers.’ And finally, cyberspace is wonderful. It has the potential to hook us all up in ways that most of us didn’t dream possible only a few decades ago. But the planet’s wealth is increasingly concentrated in the hands of the few. Our planetary environment is deteriorating badly. Species are becoming extinct, global warming and ozone depletion aren’t just theories anymore, and the planet’s capability to sustain huge populations while resources are being plundered at unprecedented rates, is in peril.

I don’t want this virtual world to become a substitute reality that serves to placate a population that accepts a world where it’s no longer safe to go outside because the air is too foul, the danger of skin cancer from the sun is too great or the social inequities of the real world are that much easier to ignore.

So I say that those of us who develop and use these tools in these still-early days have the responsibility to make sure that our work isn’t co-opted into some huge techno-pacifier.

BIG WHEELS ARE TURNING

Rather, let us build into these networks a pervasive community spirit that invigorates our society at every level, from local to global, with a new democratic awareness. I don’t think I was ever more inspired than when I learned that the failed coup in Russia was thwarted in great measure because the resisters, holding out in their various enclaves around Moscow and the rest of Russia, stayed in touch through an online network.

More recently, the demonstrators in Thailand maintained their resistance and ultimately prevailed over the tyranny of the military, in part because they stayed in touch with cellular phones after their regular phone lines were cut.

Big wheels are turning around the world right now. Let us make sure that we work to help, and not hinder, this great movement toward democracy and self-determination that may be the only hope for a world that, more than ever, needs to talk freely to itself.

John Coate