Imminent Death Of Wiki Predicted

Film at 11.

The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated. (MarkTwain)

Back in the good old days of UseNet, predicting the "imminent death of the 'net" was a popular sport (wherein the "net" could, depending on context, refer to UseNet or the Internet as a whole). The phrase "imminent death of net predicted" was originally coined by BradTempleton? in his 1989 UseNet posting "Net History In Brief" (http://www.templetons.com/brad/nethist.html).

Lots of things have, over the years, been suggested as the cause of the ImminentDeathOfTheNet?, including:

• Spam
• Providing college freshmen with net access (back before the GeneralPublic? found out; indeed, before the general public could get on the Net, at least not without spending thousands of dollars)
• Net kooks (especially the notorious SerdarArgic?)
• Pr0n
• AmericaOnline (and other InternetServiceProviders?)
  • TheSeptemberThatNeverEnded
• DickDepew (AARM! AARM! AARM!)
• MicroSoft
• Various ThreeLetterAgencies
• The WorldWideWeb. What, there was an Internet before they had the web? What was it - text based or something?
• MultiUserDimensions?
• InternetRelayChat
• JamesKiboParry

I remember screaming "No! Don't tell 'em" at the TV set back early in Clinton's first term, where SlickWillie? gave his first "information superhighway" speech (this is not where Al Gore allegedly claimed to have InventedTheInternet). Like all good residents of an exclusive resort, the thought of a technological trailer park moving in next door was terrifying...

Obviously, the Internet is still alive, though wildly different. UseNet has arguably been spoiled by spammers, though it still occasionally is useful. The net media that best carries on the tradition of UseNet are portal sites (though they do so poorly), 'Blogs, and Wiki.

So imagine my horror to find the following article on cnn.com:

"Wikipedia: The know-it-all Web site" (http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/internet/08/03/wikipedia/index.html)

(No mention of WardCunningham or WardsWiki, though. You've escaped becoming the next TimBernersLee this time, Ward...)

One of the signs of the WikiApocalypse? is, of course, mass media coverage of Wiki. Therefore, in grand UseNet tradition....

ImminentDeathOfWikiPredicted!!! (Or perhaps WikiIsDead already.)

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See DoWikisHaveFiniteLifetime