66 Know Where to Look - Getting the Best from the Internet (Information Research)
Description
This article is from the Information Research FAQ, by David Novak david@spireproject.com with numerous contributions by others.
66 Know Where to Look - Getting the Best from the Internet (Information Research)
Let's look at information itself. Information passes from producer, to
organizer, to consumer. It travels many paths in this journey.
Superficially, we can observe internet communication travels via email,
newsgroups, and webpages (and others). Let's call these tools.
Looking deeper, we observe information emerges from just a few
generalized sources: knowledgeable individuals, informed government
employees, grant funded educational projects, commercial organizations
and a few others. Each source produces a particular type of
information, distributes (publishes & promotes) in particular channels,
and hopes to pay for (or justify) their effort in a particular way.
Efficient internet research is infused with an understanding of who
publishes, where and why.
Before information reaches the consumer, it passes through a vetting
which organizes and filters both the quality and the presentation style
of the information. Let us call these systems. The FAQ is a pivotal
piece of a system that may start with a post to a mailing list or
newsgroup, involves the vetting of the FAQ maintainer, then proceeds to
an FAQ archive then to the end consumer. The webpage is published by
someone who has justified their time and expense, is indexed by a
search engine or definitive-topic-website or webring or what have you,
and then is found and read by the end consumer. The internet has many
such systems.
Each system again defines many of the traits of the resulting
information. FAQs are semi-authoritative, collaborative pieces, often
dense and factual. Private mailing lists are sometimes more
informative, discussive, as well as serving as a notice board.
Newsgroups involve far less natural vetting and quality control, but
excel in distributing popular volume resources like graphics. Search
engines don't vett, but can be searched.
Each system reinforces the uniqueness it brings to the whole internet.
When I blindly declare "Information Clumps" at the start of this FAQ, I
am really describing a trend whereby certain information accumulates in
a particular location, others out of self-interest add to the pile, and
further information reinforces both the logic and uniqueness of that
pile of information.
It is just a short jump from this to understanding how FAQ archives
grow but maintain a good quality, how the grand internet search engines
began to lose value about 15 months ago then recently began regaining a
position of strength, and how ftp archives still exist for many
computer topics.
The internal logic to the organization of information is based on
simple principles. It defines the environment within which we strive to
improve the internet as an effective information resource. We take this
understanding and build sophisticated expectations about what kind of
information rests at which format.
Further Reading: Searching the Web: Strategy
(http://spireproject.com/webpage.htm#5)
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