[ snipped, see full article at Declan's new site ] # http://www.wired.com/news/news/technology/story/15611.html # # 5:45 p.m. 14.Oct.98.PDT # SAN FRANCISCO -- Science fiction author Bruce Sterling # acknowledges that he isn't a programmer, or even a # contributor to the kind of openly developed software project # [Apache] that brought his audience together on Wednesday. # ... # Using a fictional example of people gathered online around # their interest in "freakish, left-handed mollusks," he said # collaborative software is needed that liberates the creative # power of the best people and "annihilates the counterproductive." # According to Sterling, the latter includes idiots, spammers, # and less-than-useful contributors. # ... # Sterling envisions an "online utopia" that would occur if # Web- and email-leveraging software were automatically # moderated. # ... # "If you could do this, you could advance knowledge," he said. # The Net and the collaboration it enables would be able to add # to the sum of human knowledge. # ... # Successful implementation of such a concept, Sterling said, # is critical to the success of the Net as a so-called "gift # economy".... [This] economy should function more like an # [actual] economy," he said. A differing set of rewards should # be returned for a differing set of efforts.