morphing editors
February 1995
Perhaps with a project like this, the editing should not be so much a "gatekeeping" function -- determining what gets in and what doesn't -- as a "mapmaking" function. That is, the role the "editors" might more usefully take would be to create links between formerly discrete works -- be they essays, snapshots, whatever, -- sometimes annotating them with an intermediary linked file. This might be along the lines of "Maybe it's only me, but this thread reminds me of how Hegel used to illustrate the dialetical method in class by running into opposing walls and bouncing back. See also Eric Crump's Piece "Kangaroos and Koalas in Net Theory" (press Enter to link now).
In this form of editing the entry of pieces into the system would be anarchic -- but the classification of them, once entered (what they're called --essay. snapshot. etc.) and the ways in which they link to each other or other resources would be determined largely by the editors. Of course, this might be another nightmare on the doability scale...