Why Paper Sucks

Tue, 2008-Nov-18 by nmw.

#2 Reason: You Have to Chop Down Trees to Make It

Wha? #2?!? So what’s #1?

#1: It Can’t be Edited as Easily as a Cloud

That’s right — and paper is not really all that good at leaving a “paper trail” either.

As a trained archivist, I know how photocopy machines can cause more confusion. And then came mailing lists, reply to all — you name it.

Wiki has really revolutionized publication — but it is still the darling of web entrepreneurs….

Where do we Go from Here?

Well, maybe we need to get back to the idea of “markup” — the original version. Well, I’m not talking about marking typos per se, but rather incorporating structure to revisions — for example, Authorship:Is it really “correct” to say that the last editor of a collaboratively created document is its “sole” or “primary” author? Probably not. How do we leave trace of authorship? When does a remark lose it’s relationship to the author, because one or more words have been revised, changed, deleted or additional words are included? These are all important questions — difficult to answer, but important nonetheless. Otherwise, we would be fooling ourselves into thinking we are behaving responsibly — quite the contrary would be the case: we would be about as responsible as the pack of children “toying” with power in the Lord of the Flies.

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