This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
It is my intention to create a spoken version of this article. Dfmclean ( talk) 17:36, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
I'm putting up the pieces as I record and edit them. This will allow folks to check them out and comment. It will also make it possible for someone else to pick this up if I am hit by a bus. Dfmclean ( talk) 04:58, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
Dfmclean ( talk) 03:16, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
At the beginning of the article it states that SF was insignificant before Gibson. This is certainly POV. However Gibson certainly felt that his SF was renewing what he saw as a otherwise stagnant genre. I am therefore proposing to edit this sentence to reflect Gibson (and others view) of his work rather than claiming too much. That is unless someone can cite a neutral source for the SF renewal claim, in terms of books published/sold for example just before and after Neuromancer. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dbronstein ( talk • contribs) 10:03, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
It would be valuable data right here to state how quickly these sales were made. Does anyone have access to such data? If most of the sales happened after the first 10 years of release then it will form a different impression of the book's impact than if 90% of the sales were in year 1. Tempshill ( talk) 18:47, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
As a big fan, and as a computer guy, I view this sentence as garbage. I want to take it out, and the reference to it in paragraph 1. It is irrelevant that the WWW spec was published 11 years later. Many thousands of people were telnetting, etc., long before the WWW. Tempshill ( talk) 19:01, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
[Outdenting.] Johnson says that Gibson first used the term "cyberspace" 11 years before we know what. The WP article [unreliable!] on the word dates its first use to 1982, but in order to do this cites a page that is no longer available. Best would be to look it up in the OED, but I am not a subscriber to the online version and doubt that it's in the book, which I also don't have on me. Can I leave that half of the problem to you? As for the other half, here is a pretty authoritative history; please pay close attention to the 1990/1991 area. ¶ Eventually, we'll probably agree that Gibson came up with the word "cyberspace" so many years before the web existed. Next question: So? Surely the word itself has not magical/mystical significance; what matters is what Gibson used the word to refer to, how this referent is related to the web, and what attention is paid to Gibson's idea by people who are historians of the web rather than (or in addition to being) admirers of Gibson. -- Hoary ( talk) 16:38, 26 July 2008 (UTC)
[Left again] Merely to warn that although you -- exhaustedly? if so, I can sympathize -- wrote above that " No Maps For These Territories verifies that Gibson conceived of the underlying concept quite a while before he came up with the phrase", it can't do any such thing. It can show that for example Gibson later claimed to have conceived this well before 1982, but that's about all.
You ask about the two lines: In Neuromancer, Gibson first used the term "matrix" to refer to the visualised Internet, two years after the nascent Internet was formed in the early 1980s from the computer networks of the 1970s. Let's put aside mere facts for the moment. It strikes me as very odd to say that X happened two years after Y happened "in the early 1980s". I mean, if the latter can't be made more specific, we should hardly talk about something happening two years thereafter. And now for the facts: As I understand it, the various networks were already connected via (perhaps creaky) "gateways" by the late seventies, but what we'd now recognize as the, single, potentially ubiquitous internet is a product of the Internet Protocol suite, which consists of various layers that moved through a sequence of recommendation, partial adoption, wide adoption and universal adoption from around 1981 to 1985. However, I only hazily understand this kind of stuff. Given time, I think I could understand enough to write all that's needed for this article (as opposed to one about TCP/IP), but I shan't have time.
We can argue over the exact chronology of the real-world internet, but it's undeniable that Gibson did write early. Just what did he write that did or didn't prefigure the web? Or rather, how has this been summarized by knowledgeable and disinterested writers?
I took a quick look in the library (yes, dead trees) and found very little (which of course doesn't mean that there isn't more to be found). One is Debashis "Deb" Aikat, "Cyberspace of the People, by the People, for the People: Predominant Use of the Web in the Public Sector", in Alan B Albarran and David H Goff, eds, Understanding the Web: Social, Political, and Economic Dimensions of the Internet (Ames: Iowa State UP, 2000; ISBN 0-8138-2527-X). This paper starts off with an account of how Gibson coined the term cyberspace in his 1984 novel Neuromancer to describe the real and cultural dynamics of people and machines working within the confines of computer-based networks. Let's not niggle over the non-mention of the short story; the far bigger problem for me is of what Aikat means by what he does say. To me, it's impossibly abstract. Anyway, he continues: cyberspace is a computer-generated landscape [...] What [the characters] see when they get there is a three-dimensional representation of the information -- great warehouses and skyscrapers of data (Gibson, 1987 [sic]). Now, this is pretty clear, but I'm surprised by two things. First, Aikat has without any fuss segued into a reference to Burning Chrome (Ace, 1987) rather than Neuromancer; secondly, it doesn't sound at all like my own experience of the web or indeed any experience that I've read about. (I mention the latter as distinct because for example I recognize that my own non-use of Facebook etc makes me an unrepresentative user of the web.) But a bigger surprise is in the next sentence: Today, Gibson's imaginary world has been invoked in myriad ways on the World Wide Web. Even granted that Aikat was writing in 1999 or thereabouts, what ways? He doesn't say, but instead jumps on to something else. He then forgets about Gibson till his "Summary and Conclusion", where he writes: William Gibson's vision of cyberspace has become a reality; but he follows this with a straightforward description of the web that lacks any mention of three-dimensional (or similar) representation of info. And he goes on to muse about how the word "cyberspace" was being commonly used to describe the internet.
This is all very unconvincing. It seems to say very little indeed but to suggest the following: Back in the early 80s, Gibson had a remarkable vision of computerish communication or knowledge-flow or a communally projected quasi-hologram or whatever. He called this "cyberspace". This vision has certain (unspecified) similarities with the web of today [i.e. 1999]. We call this web of today "cyberspace". This is Gibson's own word! Ergo, Gibson was prescient.
For the product of a university press, this is underwhelming. (Also: "'My' library paid real money for this?") I hope there's more to Gibson's prescience than what Aikat bothers to explain. -- Hoary ( talk) 07:10, 27 July 2008 (UTC)
SF and Gibson aren't about predicting things, they're about imagining what-if, and Gibson fused the technological ideas of his time with punk / Goth fashion imagery and style to create cyberpunk as a lifestyle statement, visualising the WWW as second life on steroids. As shown in the reference I've added while amending the predictions section, Brunner anticipated much of Gibson's "prediction" in 1975, though stylistically it predates punk. Also, the cyborg stud as hero (or antihero) appeared in '68 in Delany's Nova. Yours, Wintermute aka dave souza, talk 13:02, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
How is a refrigerator on a sidewalk an example of "the street finds its own uses for things"?? I tried removing it, but I was reverted. Is this supposed to be funny or something? Kaldari ( talk) 21:48, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
Lighten up. The unnecessary photos with their sometimes goofy captions are among the best parts of this long and somewhat numbingly written article. Example: The disposition of arcade gamers toward their consoles, their intensity of focus and posture, and their immersion in the visualised dataflows inspired Gibson's conception of cyberspace. Ooh! -- Hoary ( talk) 01:40, 26 July 2008 (UTC)
The image is of an object ("thing" ) being used (by "the street") for something other than its intended use. This is so trivially obvious I can't believe it needs pointing out. Yes, associating the image with Gibson's phrase is original research, but if you were familiar with that policy, images are acceptable forms of original research. If we required that every image have a citation from a reliable source verifying that it represented what the caption claimed...we would have about a hundred images on Wikipedia. I have altered the caption above in an effort to make the connection more explicit; further suggestions welcome. I understand that you are concerned, but unless any arguments for removal are forthcoming that are based on policy rather than personal whim, I will restore the image. Regards, Skomorokh 15:40, 26 July 2008 (UTC)
Still waiting chaps. Skomorokh 15:06, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
Could editors not familiar with the development of the article please please discuss here before making what they see as corrections, especially to the lede? I've been exhausted the past week with having to correct or revert well-intentioned "corrections"; dropping a quick note or request for clarification first would save us all trouble and effort. I've [1] tried [2] to [3] keep [4] references out of the lede [5] for presentation [6] reasons, [7] and because the content is already referenced in the article (though thanks are due to those who have boldly corrected the inaccurate representation of the references), but if the recent spate of readers changing whatever they disagree with continues, we're going to have to introduce references for every contested and potentially contested clause. The article is improved for all the changes this week, but the way in which it happened leaves a lot to be desired. I'm not trying to own the article, but editors who have watched and contributed to its development (Jay, Quiddity, Susan, Cannonfodda and myself among others) have a better idea of what was meant by the various claims in the article, and many changes which would be acceptable on most articles are not appropriate for featured ones, the revising of which needs to be more conservative, immediatist and deliberative. Your consideration is a appreciated, and all good faith suggestions for improvement from every pov are enthusiastically welcomed. Sincerely, Skomorokh 15:04, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
'Exciting Imagery' for the World Wide Web? What? I don't see how Gibson's works have much to do with the WWW. The web is just a system of moving and displaying text documents (like this one here), and linking text documents together. It really has very little to do with the 'cyberspace' that Gibson talked about. Talking about imagery for the WWW...doesn't even make much sense on it's own. The web just happens to be the most popular protocol on the Internet, which is a very different beast. I would seriously suggest replacing the former with the latter, to prevent spreading the misconception that the WWW is the internet. -- Niten ( talk) 03:45, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
The reference 116 seems to be false. The only reference to Gibson in the The Economist article is :
I don't have any better source about this quotation. Koteks ( talk) 12:07, 15 August 2008 (UTC)
I agree that the cropped version is superior here. Not only does it offer a higher-resolution copy of the important part (his face) for a reduced overall horizontal resolution, but it also kills off a bunch of black pixels which don't add anything. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 10:32, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
I disagree with the idea that the blackspace does not contribute anything; the contrast casts the face in a very striking and compelling light. The fact that Gibson's face is illustrated like this is particulary appropriate, as it is evocative of much of his definitive cyberpunk period (esp. ROM-constructs, The Finn etc.), and illustrates the opening line of the article very well. To crop just leaves us with a poorly detailed diesmebodied head. There are at least three high quality straightforward portraits of Gibson elsewhere in the article; an attempt to reduce Armitage's artistic work to one of these would be pointless. Skomorokh 10:49, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
Your move, Chris. Are you happy to abide by this consensus of four, or would you prefer to put it before a broader audience or work on a compromise crop? Skomorokh 11:15, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
It is my intention to create a spoken version of this article. Dfmclean ( talk) 17:36, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
I'm putting up the pieces as I record and edit them. This will allow folks to check them out and comment. It will also make it possible for someone else to pick this up if I am hit by a bus. Dfmclean ( talk) 04:58, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
Dfmclean ( talk) 03:16, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
At the beginning of the article it states that SF was insignificant before Gibson. This is certainly POV. However Gibson certainly felt that his SF was renewing what he saw as a otherwise stagnant genre. I am therefore proposing to edit this sentence to reflect Gibson (and others view) of his work rather than claiming too much. That is unless someone can cite a neutral source for the SF renewal claim, in terms of books published/sold for example just before and after Neuromancer. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dbronstein ( talk • contribs) 10:03, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
It would be valuable data right here to state how quickly these sales were made. Does anyone have access to such data? If most of the sales happened after the first 10 years of release then it will form a different impression of the book's impact than if 90% of the sales were in year 1. Tempshill ( talk) 18:47, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
As a big fan, and as a computer guy, I view this sentence as garbage. I want to take it out, and the reference to it in paragraph 1. It is irrelevant that the WWW spec was published 11 years later. Many thousands of people were telnetting, etc., long before the WWW. Tempshill ( talk) 19:01, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
[Outdenting.] Johnson says that Gibson first used the term "cyberspace" 11 years before we know what. The WP article [unreliable!] on the word dates its first use to 1982, but in order to do this cites a page that is no longer available. Best would be to look it up in the OED, but I am not a subscriber to the online version and doubt that it's in the book, which I also don't have on me. Can I leave that half of the problem to you? As for the other half, here is a pretty authoritative history; please pay close attention to the 1990/1991 area. ¶ Eventually, we'll probably agree that Gibson came up with the word "cyberspace" so many years before the web existed. Next question: So? Surely the word itself has not magical/mystical significance; what matters is what Gibson used the word to refer to, how this referent is related to the web, and what attention is paid to Gibson's idea by people who are historians of the web rather than (or in addition to being) admirers of Gibson. -- Hoary ( talk) 16:38, 26 July 2008 (UTC)
[Left again] Merely to warn that although you -- exhaustedly? if so, I can sympathize -- wrote above that " No Maps For These Territories verifies that Gibson conceived of the underlying concept quite a while before he came up with the phrase", it can't do any such thing. It can show that for example Gibson later claimed to have conceived this well before 1982, but that's about all.
You ask about the two lines: In Neuromancer, Gibson first used the term "matrix" to refer to the visualised Internet, two years after the nascent Internet was formed in the early 1980s from the computer networks of the 1970s. Let's put aside mere facts for the moment. It strikes me as very odd to say that X happened two years after Y happened "in the early 1980s". I mean, if the latter can't be made more specific, we should hardly talk about something happening two years thereafter. And now for the facts: As I understand it, the various networks were already connected via (perhaps creaky) "gateways" by the late seventies, but what we'd now recognize as the, single, potentially ubiquitous internet is a product of the Internet Protocol suite, which consists of various layers that moved through a sequence of recommendation, partial adoption, wide adoption and universal adoption from around 1981 to 1985. However, I only hazily understand this kind of stuff. Given time, I think I could understand enough to write all that's needed for this article (as opposed to one about TCP/IP), but I shan't have time.
We can argue over the exact chronology of the real-world internet, but it's undeniable that Gibson did write early. Just what did he write that did or didn't prefigure the web? Or rather, how has this been summarized by knowledgeable and disinterested writers?
I took a quick look in the library (yes, dead trees) and found very little (which of course doesn't mean that there isn't more to be found). One is Debashis "Deb" Aikat, "Cyberspace of the People, by the People, for the People: Predominant Use of the Web in the Public Sector", in Alan B Albarran and David H Goff, eds, Understanding the Web: Social, Political, and Economic Dimensions of the Internet (Ames: Iowa State UP, 2000; ISBN 0-8138-2527-X). This paper starts off with an account of how Gibson coined the term cyberspace in his 1984 novel Neuromancer to describe the real and cultural dynamics of people and machines working within the confines of computer-based networks. Let's not niggle over the non-mention of the short story; the far bigger problem for me is of what Aikat means by what he does say. To me, it's impossibly abstract. Anyway, he continues: cyberspace is a computer-generated landscape [...] What [the characters] see when they get there is a three-dimensional representation of the information -- great warehouses and skyscrapers of data (Gibson, 1987 [sic]). Now, this is pretty clear, but I'm surprised by two things. First, Aikat has without any fuss segued into a reference to Burning Chrome (Ace, 1987) rather than Neuromancer; secondly, it doesn't sound at all like my own experience of the web or indeed any experience that I've read about. (I mention the latter as distinct because for example I recognize that my own non-use of Facebook etc makes me an unrepresentative user of the web.) But a bigger surprise is in the next sentence: Today, Gibson's imaginary world has been invoked in myriad ways on the World Wide Web. Even granted that Aikat was writing in 1999 or thereabouts, what ways? He doesn't say, but instead jumps on to something else. He then forgets about Gibson till his "Summary and Conclusion", where he writes: William Gibson's vision of cyberspace has become a reality; but he follows this with a straightforward description of the web that lacks any mention of three-dimensional (or similar) representation of info. And he goes on to muse about how the word "cyberspace" was being commonly used to describe the internet.
This is all very unconvincing. It seems to say very little indeed but to suggest the following: Back in the early 80s, Gibson had a remarkable vision of computerish communication or knowledge-flow or a communally projected quasi-hologram or whatever. He called this "cyberspace". This vision has certain (unspecified) similarities with the web of today [i.e. 1999]. We call this web of today "cyberspace". This is Gibson's own word! Ergo, Gibson was prescient.
For the product of a university press, this is underwhelming. (Also: "'My' library paid real money for this?") I hope there's more to Gibson's prescience than what Aikat bothers to explain. -- Hoary ( talk) 07:10, 27 July 2008 (UTC)
SF and Gibson aren't about predicting things, they're about imagining what-if, and Gibson fused the technological ideas of his time with punk / Goth fashion imagery and style to create cyberpunk as a lifestyle statement, visualising the WWW as second life on steroids. As shown in the reference I've added while amending the predictions section, Brunner anticipated much of Gibson's "prediction" in 1975, though stylistically it predates punk. Also, the cyborg stud as hero (or antihero) appeared in '68 in Delany's Nova. Yours, Wintermute aka dave souza, talk 13:02, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
How is a refrigerator on a sidewalk an example of "the street finds its own uses for things"?? I tried removing it, but I was reverted. Is this supposed to be funny or something? Kaldari ( talk) 21:48, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
Lighten up. The unnecessary photos with their sometimes goofy captions are among the best parts of this long and somewhat numbingly written article. Example: The disposition of arcade gamers toward their consoles, their intensity of focus and posture, and their immersion in the visualised dataflows inspired Gibson's conception of cyberspace. Ooh! -- Hoary ( talk) 01:40, 26 July 2008 (UTC)
The image is of an object ("thing" ) being used (by "the street") for something other than its intended use. This is so trivially obvious I can't believe it needs pointing out. Yes, associating the image with Gibson's phrase is original research, but if you were familiar with that policy, images are acceptable forms of original research. If we required that every image have a citation from a reliable source verifying that it represented what the caption claimed...we would have about a hundred images on Wikipedia. I have altered the caption above in an effort to make the connection more explicit; further suggestions welcome. I understand that you are concerned, but unless any arguments for removal are forthcoming that are based on policy rather than personal whim, I will restore the image. Regards, Skomorokh 15:40, 26 July 2008 (UTC)
Still waiting chaps. Skomorokh 15:06, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
Could editors not familiar with the development of the article please please discuss here before making what they see as corrections, especially to the lede? I've been exhausted the past week with having to correct or revert well-intentioned "corrections"; dropping a quick note or request for clarification first would save us all trouble and effort. I've [1] tried [2] to [3] keep [4] references out of the lede [5] for presentation [6] reasons, [7] and because the content is already referenced in the article (though thanks are due to those who have boldly corrected the inaccurate representation of the references), but if the recent spate of readers changing whatever they disagree with continues, we're going to have to introduce references for every contested and potentially contested clause. The article is improved for all the changes this week, but the way in which it happened leaves a lot to be desired. I'm not trying to own the article, but editors who have watched and contributed to its development (Jay, Quiddity, Susan, Cannonfodda and myself among others) have a better idea of what was meant by the various claims in the article, and many changes which would be acceptable on most articles are not appropriate for featured ones, the revising of which needs to be more conservative, immediatist and deliberative. Your consideration is a appreciated, and all good faith suggestions for improvement from every pov are enthusiastically welcomed. Sincerely, Skomorokh 15:04, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
'Exciting Imagery' for the World Wide Web? What? I don't see how Gibson's works have much to do with the WWW. The web is just a system of moving and displaying text documents (like this one here), and linking text documents together. It really has very little to do with the 'cyberspace' that Gibson talked about. Talking about imagery for the WWW...doesn't even make much sense on it's own. The web just happens to be the most popular protocol on the Internet, which is a very different beast. I would seriously suggest replacing the former with the latter, to prevent spreading the misconception that the WWW is the internet. -- Niten ( talk) 03:45, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
The reference 116 seems to be false. The only reference to Gibson in the The Economist article is :
I don't have any better source about this quotation. Koteks ( talk) 12:07, 15 August 2008 (UTC)
I agree that the cropped version is superior here. Not only does it offer a higher-resolution copy of the important part (his face) for a reduced overall horizontal resolution, but it also kills off a bunch of black pixels which don't add anything. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 10:32, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
I disagree with the idea that the blackspace does not contribute anything; the contrast casts the face in a very striking and compelling light. The fact that Gibson's face is illustrated like this is particulary appropriate, as it is evocative of much of his definitive cyberpunk period (esp. ROM-constructs, The Finn etc.), and illustrates the opening line of the article very well. To crop just leaves us with a poorly detailed diesmebodied head. There are at least three high quality straightforward portraits of Gibson elsewhere in the article; an attempt to reduce Armitage's artistic work to one of these would be pointless. Skomorokh 10:49, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
Your move, Chris. Are you happy to abide by this consensus of four, or would you prefer to put it before a broader audience or work on a compromise crop? Skomorokh 11:15, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |