Message From Michael Hart About Flames
Michael S. Hart
As many of you are aware, there are several people, who MAY have the
best of intentions, who flame me regularly all over the Net and Web,
and I take this opportunity on July 31, of each year to reply to the
assortment of notes that are normally beneath the level of life that
I wish to live. You are welcome not to read this reply, especially,
if you are already aware of how icky the flames really are.
1.
A lot of the flames are from people who want me to do things in some
manner other than I am. . .these are NOT suggestions, they are would
be controllers of me, my work, etc., and the notes DEMAND that I may
only be allowed to continue my existence on this electronic frontier
if I do things their way.
The major factors of these messages are that I join their causes, in
some virtual conspiracy to promote their favorite markup schemes, in
particual, SGML, HTML, TEI, .pdf, .gzip, Mac, UNIX, or various other
ways of creating and disseminating etexts.
My answer to this is the same as it always has been, but not as this
answer always will be, that I use Plain Vanilla ASCII, a term that a
person invented to describe exactly what I use to send information--
and thus should be more or less immune to what others think it would
mean if THEY controlled what it meant.
PVASCII is just what you see here, it doesn't use markup to create a
semblance of features not included in the character set we all use--
but which certain elitists would like to force all people to use, in
their attempts to control who gets what kind of information, and the
format in which they get it.
The reason, I don't want to leave out any more people than I have to
in my efforts to communicate with the world at large, of the billion
or so computers in the world, only a very small percentage will read
any particular markup format, though there is a huge trend toward an
HTML takeover, but most computers still don't have HTML readers.
When over half of the computer users in the world are using HTML, or
whatever replaces it as the front runner, I will make a real effort,
without any requests or demands being necessary, to provide material
in a manner that gives more information in that format than in Plain
Vanilla ASCII. We have experimented with various formats, and would
like to report that none of them have received much feedback that we
would consider a motivation to do more in those areas, but we should
continue experimenting, and making information available in the ways
people would like to receive it.
The fact is that marked up files are just not very portable, so I am
still having to refuse the requests that I make a huge effort for an
etext library that would be specifially tailored to those above, but
would leave out most of the rest of the world.
Thus I shake the dust of these requests off, and proceed on August 1
back to the work that is the most accessible.
2.
In the same vein, I receive requests that demand that I include some
information from particular editions or editors, including header or
footer information, page numbers, various degrees of italics, bolds,
underlines, em-dashes, single and double quotes, printing history or
any of a number of other items specific to a particular edition, AND
including the requests that I leave in all the ERRORS from that book
as it was published by THAT editor and printed by THAT printer.
My response is that etexts don't have pages, and thus have little or
no need for page numbers. . .the text is much easier to read with an
entirely complete flow, not interrupted every 50 to 100 lines with a
page number, chapter title, book title, author's name, or whatever--
BUT--I had given each of these people permission, and encouragement,
to add these items themselves, and offered to post their new edition
free of charge, to the public.
What they really want, of course, is not to do the work themselves--
even though we have already done the vast majority of this work, but
rather to control the work we are doing. So lazy, but still want to
appear to be the driver of the train when they never laid a rail, or
a tie, or blasted out a tunnel, or built a bridge, to create what is
essentially a Transcontinental Railroad.
I don't want electronic texts to be mere copies of paper editions, a
copy that must remain faithful to the form constraints of the paper,
with so many hyphens at the ends of lines, simply to save one sheet,
at the end of the book, to save the publisher less than on penny.
I don't want to preserve the errors created by authors, editors, and
printers who used to substitute whatever letter was close to the one
they just ran out of.
I don't want footnotes in the middle of the book, I want them at the
end. . .on a computer the time it takes to jump from the text to the
footnote and back is so minimal that it doesn't matter.
When the people who have selected these books want them a particular
way, I don't insist on changing their work. . .it is THEIR work, but
I think it might be worthwhile to create a SEPARATE electronic text,
for those who want a different format.
I encourage those who would demand I bend to their wills to do these
exact same things, or to eat hot electrons. . .the choice is theirs.
***
How these things are laid out by the editors and printers are NOT an
elementary canonical feature of the information, they are merely the
choices made by particular editors and printers, they are NOT what a
person writing an original work put down on the page.
Do I think editors perform a worthwhile function?
You bet!
Do I have to agree?
No.
Do paper publishers have to only copy previous paper editions?
No.
These people simply and plainly want control.
They want you to only read their favorite editions.
This is censorship.
3.
To those who call me stupid who disagree with them, I merely say the
obvious: anyone who does something that has never been done, is the
most disagreeing person of all, they don't agree that the way it has
been done is the way it should be done. . .but they don't try to say
that other people should change what they are doing, they change the
way they do it themselves, and if the world agrees, they have a life
that is beyond what others even try to reach, and if they fail, they
can always try again.
4. To those who would drown me in trivia and quadrivia and politics
I say that I simply step aside and leave these to you, at least when
I can. . .if you get too much power over me, then I strike back high
and hard. . .if you get too much power over others, I provide what I
call an alternative.
I will be dead in another 20 years or so, and might not have much of
an impact after another 10 years or so.
But these people can't wait that long, they want to stop me now.
Simply because I believe that there should be a Public Domain and in
the public's right to easy access to the Public Domain, and willing,
and ready, and able, to make it my career to create this access.
Some of them, incredibly inHumanist, even want to make sure all text
files created or distributed by me are deleted from indexes, so that
people can't find them.
Talk about censorship!
***
I have used the first person here because I take all the credits for
the things people do NOT like, while passing on all the positives to
those who help me. They really do deserve all the credit, as it can
only be too obvious that one person could not do all the work.
All I did was start the wheel rolling, other people paved the roads,
paved the way, powered the engine, etc. Alone, I could possibly get
out perhaps one book a week, and would be ready for a straightjacket
after a few years.
However, other people have tried to rule the pavement something like
the signs on the concrete superhighways that exclude pedestrians and
bicycles, and low powered motorcycles, farm implements, etc.
Of course, the road was created by pedestrians, etc., before all the
horsepower created a new upper crust that want everything to be toll
boothed at every possible intersection.
***
Oh well, I hope none of these people are offended because I left out
their particular beef about me, my life, my work, etc.
Where's the beef?
Right here.
***
Michael S. Hart
This note, as are all my July 31 yearly responses to flames,
was written live, online, without a spellchecker, etc.
There are people who will tell you that if I make an error--
spelling, punctuation, or otherwise, that you should not pay
any attention.
Form vs. Content
That is the battle they are claiming. . .but it isn't really
the battle they are fighting. . .
Life is an open book test, and they want to close the books.