The current Wikipedia entry for Net Neutrality has a pretty good intro, but you never know how long these things will last:
Columbia University law professor Tim Wu popularized the phrase network neutrality as a term designating a network that does not favor one application (for example the World Wide Web) over another (such as online gaming or Voice over IP).[1] Wu claims that the Internet is not neutral “as among all applications” as it favors file transfer over real-time communication.
The concept of network neutrality has since taken the form of various regulations proposed to govern Internet communications, including commercial interconnection agreements between Internet Service Providers (ISPs), carriers, on-line service providers, and broadband users, usually on the basis of principles of public service obligations associated with special access to public rights of way. In this sense, network neutrality means a state in which Internet providers provide interconnection services on a uniform basis, or “without discrimination”, although there is considerable disagreement about how this principle applies to applications with different needs.
Network neutrality is sometimes used as a technical term, although it has no history in the design documents (RFCs) describing the Internet protocols. In this usage, it is claimed to represent a property of protocol layering in which higher-layer protocols may not communicate service requirements to lower-layer protocols, a highly idiosyncratic interpretation of protocol engineering. (In conventional network engineering practice, each protocol in a layered system exposes Service Access Points to higher layers that can be used to request a level of service appropriate to the needs of higher-layer protocols.
Network neutrality also designates a contemporary controversy local to the United States regarding the role that government should take relative to Internet access providers providing multiple levels of service for different fees. This controversy, which emerged following regulatory developments in the United States, is extremely complex, as it mixes technical, economic, ideological and legal arguments. In essence, network neutrality regulations proposed by Senators Snowe and Dorgan and Representative Markey bar ISPs from offering Quality of Service enhancements for a fee.
This framing is showing up in some of the recent essays on the subject, such as this one from Tech News and this one by Susan Davis for Hosting News.
High-traffic articles in Wikipedia tend to degrade over time and require reformulation as entropy increases.
UPDATE: That didn’t take long. A Google sympathizer going by the name “Wolfkeeper” tried to erase the summary and replace it with a pithy personal opinion. See the history page.
Ah hem.
“In essence, network neutrality regulations proposed by Senators Snowe and Dorgan and Representative Markey bar ISPs from offering Quality of Service enhancements for a fee.”
Whilst I in no way disagree that that may be important, who says that that’s supposed to be *the* essence?
I just wish I was as clever as Richard Bennett to have God-like knowledge of the world, its economics and networking, including all the peering agreements and legal implications to be able to state that that, and only that was important.
The fallacy on which Wikipedia, the Virtual Encyclopedia, is founded holds that any uninformed group of people may, with earnest applications of proper grammar, spelling, and syntax, arrive at the truth. We’ve yet to see any evidence that this works. What actually happens in the Wikipedia world is that knowledgeable experts write articles only to have them systematically degraded over time by ignorant hacks and partisans.
If you were to spend the next thirty years of your life working as a network protocol engineer and political activist you might accumulate the necessary base of knowledge to have this debate with me without asking your mother for help. But as it stands, you’re simply in over your head and quite sensibly ashamed to disclose your identity.
True, though I still find that for many subjects (the ones that only experts are interested in like and have no political interest), the degradation can be slow enough that the experts can keep up on it. What Wikis really need (what the world really needs) is some kind of powerful “weak AI” that can spot irrational explanations for changes and tell the difference between a punctuation or grammar change and a substantive one and run the change by an appropriate expert. Notifying a biochemist when a language change has been made (instead of, say, an English professor) will cause people to ignore all small changes.
This is another example where intelligence is the limiting factor to human civilization. I could think of nothing that would change human society more than having people be confronted daily by something that could understand when they are being idiots and explain it to them. Imagine a generation of kids that could ask a source of information in plain language something like “My pastor says that scientists can’t know how old the earth is. Why do they think they do?” and be given an appropriate page on Talkorigins.org or the like. Imagine a generation of kids who have had terms like “sophistry” and “fallacy” explained to them and applied to their thinking by patient AI chat bots and artificial tutors. AI researchers are constantly telling us that subject specific AI is really pretty good (at taking hotel reservations on the phone and understanding questions about travel advise for an example). Why doesn’t someone get on the job of using AI for educational and collaborative purposes?
Why doesn’t someone get on the job of using AI for educational and collaborative purposes?
Because it doesn’t work.
We are not lacking in intelligence. In the example you give people are perfectly capable of understanding your point, but choose not to agree because it clashes with a belief system. Unfortunately you’re not going convince many people by bombarding them with facts – you need to present a richer, more coherent belief system.
While you try and think of one, your fantasy that machines will save us will cause you a lot of distress.
I’d love an article on net neutrality on http://www.wikiality.com