Search engines, while extremely helpful for people searching for information quickly, do not promote a sense of community. They offer the same sort of dynamic as using an encyclopedia - a dynamic in which the end user is not required to give back to the knowledge base and has to accept the validity of its contents at face value. In this type of top down knowledge delivery system, the effects of social capital is almost completely negated.

In communities such as the WELL yahoo groups, usernets, mailinglists, forums, estrip you get to know the people who are producing the answers and can decide if you trust that person as a source of information based on their history and your personal interactions with them. With search engines none of that exists. There is no need to be accurate, only a need to show up at the top of the return list, which does not equate validity, just a repetition of keywords and other people (possibly yourself) linking to you.

Furthermore, the results of most searches on the Internet only give you information that already exists while online communities allow the user to pose questions that possibly have not been answered yet and get results from other people with expertise in that subject matter.

This is not to say that search engines are not the one of the best ways in which to find information, just as an encylopedia is a great way to find out about something.

(e:terry) decided to make waffles for all of us this morning. It was very nice of him. They are even gluten free so (e:matthew) can eat them but its 1:19 and he is still not up yet.

Zack if you see this sign on or call me, I don't have you number but still want to go.

Wow, if you type in dynamically written epoetry (GOOGLE - dynamically written epoetry) into google, my poems are the first thing that come up!!

I am still working on the stars for the grading system. Unlike (e:maidencateyes) who surely has a full supply of these babies, I didn't have nay for my students so i had to make some. Here are the stars that will someday be used as stars in the system. You can see them both as original 3d full size image and the icons that resulted from them.

I am excited to see what happens with the western site after tomorrow when (e:twisted) has the demo party. I am also pretty excited about going snowshoeing, if I can get ahold of (e:zack) . I don't have your phonenumber!