Web2.U - A Standard

In response to my entry titled Structured Blogging - Exploit or Exploitation?, Marc Canter responded with these comments. What follows is my reply.

When used as a noun, the word ’standard’ tends to imply an ideal. In this sense, a standard is a conceptual end towards which one turns their attention. Through action, one might thereby strive to approach the ideal, the standard.

When used as an adjective, ’standard’ indicates the norm; designating that which lacks qualities or features considered exceptional. As such, a ’standard’ thing may not be considered exceptionally good or bad with regard to other things in its class.

Considering whether a “standard” is exploitive or cooperative, one ought to consider both the formative process, and the operative function of a standard. A group generally engages in the process of standard formation and its motivations serve to characterize such efforts as cooperative or exploitative. More specifically, one ought to consider each participant’s motives as potentially exploitative. See Rambus v. Infineon, for example. Additionally, one must consider if there was an exploitative intent on the part of the group as a whole?

Once formed, some willingly adopt a standard. Others are unwillingly subjected to it. One must view the effects of the standard on each of these two distinct populations. Generally, a standard is cooperative when each of those expected to abide by the standard, or to strive to reach the standard have either participated in its formation or have willingly accepted it. Regarding those unwillingly subjected to a standard, one needs to consider whether the standard promotes an ideal that is more elevated than the ideal which it replaces. The lowering of a standard serves to exploit some group, usually the unwilling subjects (i.e. slavery).

With regard to structured blogging, Marc, you state that the intention of the group is not exploitative. Given that you’re in a far better position to know the intentions of not only the group as a whole, but individual members as well, an analysis must then shift to the function of the structured blogging standards.

I recently read a journal article detailing the results to a novel physics experiment. Much like the popular executive toy, a number of spheres hang from a cross-bar, each by a connecting string. In the experiment, an oscillator is placed at the point where each string attaches to the cross-bar and the oscillators are made to oscillate in phase. The result: the spheres move chaotically. When the oscillators are set to be “out of phase” and their motion is randomized, the motion of the spheres unexpectedly becomes synchronized.

I hypothesize that when an environment is ordered and stable, randomness is generated by elements internal to the environment. Concomitantly, when an environment is disordered and chaotic, order tends to be generated by the environment’s internal elements.

We find that people are striving to generate the standards (such as structured blogging) necessary to give the web more structure and order. When such efforts result in the formation of normative standards (standards that define what is average), one sees the sacrifice of exploration, discovery and growth in the name of co-operation. In essence, one finds exploitation.

It is in the formation of an ideal that one promotes exploration, discovery and the cooperation between those striving to reach such an end. The hope being that one day such an ideal becomes simply that which is standard.

The question one ought to ask then is this: What structure might be broad enough to serve both as an ideal and as a means for identifying the norm? It is in this structure that one will find the means for bringing order to the web in a way that promotes personal expression and creative experimentation.

Summum Bonum.