Re: Web<>Net. Re: Web presentation stuff at HCC

kevinh@pulua.hcc.hawaii.edu (Kevin 'Kev' Hughes)
Resent-Message-Id: <9309211948.AA20361@dxmint.cern.ch>
Resent-Date:  Tue, 21 Sep 93 15:43:34 EDT
Resent-From: Richard  Wiggins <WIGGINS@msu.edu>
Resent-To: www-talk@nxoc01.cern.ch
Date: Tue, 21 Sep 93 09:19:53 HST
From: kevinh@pulua.hcc.hawaii.edu (Kevin 'Kev' Hughes)
Message-id: <9309211919.AA21632@pulua.hcc.Hawaii.Edu>
To: www-talk@nxoc01.cern.ch
Subject: Re:  Web<>Net.  Re: Web presentation stuff at HCC
Status: RO

Kevin,

From a glance at the Guide it looks lovely.  But Tim's absolutely
right -- WWW is *not* the Internet, and such confusion should be
avoided, especially in an intro document.  In other quarters,
people think Usenet News *is* the Internet.  Others may think
Gopher *is* the Internet.  Others may have e-mail-only access to
the Internet -- what are they to believe, that they're not really
using the Internet?  In light of Tim's analogies, it's not the same
situation as xerox: photocopy; if anything, that doesn't give WWW
fair credit for its unique features.

/rich


----------------------------Original message----------------------------
> One minor but important comment.  I don't think it
> is true that the term "World-Wide Web" is or should
> be `rapidly becoming synonymous with'
> "The Internet".  A lot of people might object
> to that, and it may cause some confusion.

	Thanks, those are very good points - if I make another version
of the guide I'll certainly keep these in mind. However, I've been
noticing that people who haven't really used the Web begin to refer to the
Internet as the "World-Wide Web". The Computer Underground Digest did
have a post that advertised a "World-Wide Web" ezine, and it used the phrase
rather...haphazardly, I suppose...
	I can't say I like it myself, but what can (or should) be done?
It's almost like using the word "xerox" to refer to anything produced by
a copy machine.

	-- Kevin