A Web Science could readily be defined - the knowledge area pertaining to the Internet. I think TBL is right: a new knowledge space is opening up. The questions aren’t around “standards” but around understanding. When I studied Computer Science: I got to know the principles of language design and options for the hows and whys of software engineering and team-working. Similarly, I hope that Web Science can pull together things like hardware scalability and social networking dynamics.

And…

Yep. Accepted theories change over time in science - that’s why science is important. Theories and models help us to interpret our world. Good science is always pushing for deeper or even contradictory understanding; just like Newtonian physics has been augmented by relativistic physics. I would go as far as saying that science is the (ever-changing) understanding of the facts available, rather than a collection of data.

The social science aspects of Web Science are often less quantative, but the “science” part comes in the understanding of the “social” data. Just becauuse society is complex and the expression of human virtues and inadequacies doesn’t mean it can’t be studied and understood.

Web Science is concerned with this huge entity: the Internet. The effects of the ‘Net are explosive! We are entering a new way of living and we should seek to understand it.

Peter Hitchmough

TBL is concerned that the web’s unique social properties easily lead to bad outcomes, e.g. new generations of spam-like nuisances, undemocratic social-engineering, and importantly for Citizendium: the web has misinformation and unreliable information. The knight-of-the-web remains upbeat: with the right understanding he is confident that the web will deliver. Important questions remain: how can we predict what will happen? How do we stop the bad derailing the good?

Prediction is easy: human nature wil run its course - for better or worse, or somewhere in between.

“Bad” and “Good” are complex concepts. One man’s meat is another’s poison. No standards can be developed that encompass ALL possible cases, nor which will be understood or accepted by all persons at any given time.

Science has elaborate rules for testing “theories”, but the rules must change as the “facts” become better understood - but there is no final understanding of “facts”, just a continuing investigation using the rules that have not yet proved inadequate - i.e, had to be changed because they don’t work well enough.

In the case if non-scientific endeavors, e.g., religion, philosophy, politics, art, the rules for arguement are not generally agreed to. In Wikidom, all is fair, though often not beautiful. Probably the best that can be provided as a service to readers is an opportunity to view most side of major disputes regarding “facts” opinions and interpretive techinques.

Carl Webber