I'm not sure I feel like a citizen of the net. The word 'citizen' has
the same root as 'city' and partly means 'living in a city or town'; it
also means 'someone who lives in a state which is not a monarchy' -
hence the French revolutionaries addressing each other as 'citizen' -
but it also means 'A person who is legally recognized as a member
<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/member> of a state
<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/state>, with associated rights and
obligations' (Wiktionary), and I'm not sure I feel any of those things
about the Net. I do, on the other hand, feel a sense of community - a
word which is connected both to 'communication' and 'common' - a sense
of sharing and fellowship - but not with everyone else on the Net, or
with all other parts of the Net, just with certain circles or
associations in which I have become involved, like Furtherfield and
NetBehaviour.
I'd like to put forward the word 'NetArtisans' as an alternative to
'NetArtizens', because I don't feel like a citizen of the net, but I do
feel like someone who takes material off the net and tries to hand-make
new artefacts out of it (if you can call mucking around with bits of
software hand-making).
- Edward
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