The Internet Lexicon
In honor of One Web Day, we’ve launched The Internet Lexicon, a blatant ripoff of the immensely clever Philosophical Lexicon. It’s a wiki-based list of Webby people whose names are treated as if they were definable words. For example:
stone, lisa: (n) An object used to break a hard substance. E.g., “I’d like to lease a stone to throw against that glass ceiling.”
kahle (brewster): A healthful leafy vegetable that improves memory.
boyd (danah): to provide an environment for floating new ideas. E.g., “Sociologists were boyd by the research showing the class differences between Facebook and MySpace.”
doctorow (cory): The hero of a popular Canadian science fiction show about a man who, paradoxically, becomes more visible by insisting on transparency. E.g., “After ‘Dr. Who’ is over, shall we watch the new episode of ‘Doctorow’? We can download it for free or pay for it!”
The lexicon is an unofficial project by some Berkman Fellows. It’s a wiki, so jump on in!
I dunno … seems a little exclusionary and cliquish to me. I assume this is for fun and not value (other than having fun that is)?
So, add who you want to it, David. But I think we we need some reasonable guideline for whose name gets listed, don’t you? If not Wikipedia, then what?
And, yes, it’s only for fun.
I realize that the spirit of One Web Day is to celebrate what the Internet has brought us so I guess it makes sense to celebrate the relative fame of those who have established themselves as Internet experts, but it seems to me that a more gracious celebration of the Internet would be to spend a day (or week) reaching out to those who have yet to benefit from social media tools. Why not organize a web 2.0 training workshop at a senior center, for example?