[-empyre-] introducing Anne Helmond and Kazys Varnelis

[Kazys Varnelis]

Regarding Eduardo's comments aboutn the perseverance of authorship and  
its continued importance in an academic milieu, it seems to me that  
when deeper responses happen, they happen on sites owned by the authors.

Here's an everyday example that turns thorny when I look at it.  
Recently I responded to a piece by another author, but I did it on my  
site rather than his and a heated discussion about the original piece  
and my response ensued on my site.

Did I hijack his intellectual work? Perhaps it would have been fairer  
to respond on the other author's site? But then wouldn't responding to  
him on his site not undermine him by failing to introduce his post to  
my readership, which was probably unfamiliar with it? I'm not sure.

Years ago, I suspended my blog for a short time because I had become  
frustrated with its monological quality. After RSS, spam-free  
commenting, and pingbacks became widespread, I brought it back.

Maybe we're at a similar point now, where the atomization of the Web  
into sites is hurting our ability to build dialogic conversations?

Perhaps we need to break down the divisions between sites further?  
Maybe we need something along the lines of Disqus, only intrinsic to  
the Web rather than proprietary?


Best,

Kazys