As the World (Wide Web) Turns

From the NY Times, Aug. 25, 2009 "We are no longer at the point that it is acceptable to throw things at the wall and see what sticks."MICHAEL SNOW, chairman of the Wikimedia board, the nonprofit in San Francisco that governs Wikipedia, on steps to impose editorial review on articles about living people. I remember reading once about the challenges that the home telephone presented to people when first introduced. What time of day is acceptable for someone to disturb someone at home? How should the phone be answered? The computer has presented a similar challenge to us but in an even deeper and broader sense due to its amazing power to gather and share information. And the speed with which this technology changes is an added element in the mix. If we stand still we fall behind. http://www.connected-earth.com/Galleries/Shapingourlives/Livingwiththetelephone/ Firstencounters/index.htmEarly phone etiquette (1922) : but we haven't been introduced ... By the early 1900s, for the upper classes a telephone call was beginning to take the place of the calling card. Instead of leaving a card and waiting to be invited, people would telephone and ask if they might pay a visit. Emily Post in her 1922 book 'Etiquette' noted: 'Custom... has taken away all opprobrium from the message by telephone and, with the exception of a very small minority of letter-loving hostesses, all informal invitations are sent and answered by telephone.' Even so, there was endless uncertainty about the etiquette involved in using the telephone - about the 'proper' way to give one's number, and to whom? Who should make the first call - man or woman? Could one call someone to whom one had not been formally introduced? Questions like these would preoccupy the etiquette writers and authorities for decades.