[1]The Internet is a global network used extensively in research and higher education, as well as by businesses, K-12 educators and students, and non-profit organizations. For more detailed information on Internet electronic conferences and mailing lists, see Lane & Summerhill (1992) and Kovacs and Kovacs (1991) in the list of references.

[2]In the book Critical Theory and Public Life (Forester, 1985), a number of social sicentists seek to apply the models of communicative action put forth by Habermas in the consideration of what they term "public life." The editor, John Forester, notes in the preface :"By applied I refer not to insturmental application but to critical, empirically, and historically oriented appropriation." J. Forester, `Preface,' in Critical theory and public life, ed. J. Forester (Cambridge, MA, 1985), p. vii.

[3]On p. xvii, McCarthy says "It is apparent that the conditions of free speech are rarely, if ever, those of the ideal speech situation. Bu this does not of itself make illegitimate the ideal--that can be mor eor less adequately approximated in actual speech situations--which can serve as a guide for the institutionalization of discourse or the critique of systematically distorted communication."

[4]See note #2, above, for one example.

[5]For a detailed description of the PACS-L conference, see the articles by Bailey (1990, 1991) and McKinzie and Kovacs (1991) in the reference list.

[6]A method for retrieving material from the electronic archive of past conference messages, which requires the use of a complex and very structured syntax. For example, to retrieve the message quoted in this text, one would send a message containing the following text to the site housing the archives:
//
Database Search DD=Rules
//Rules DD *
Search Zen in PACS-L
Index
/*

[7]These messages appeared as part of a series under the heading "Settling the Internet," which were sent out as part of the PACS-L electronic conference during the week of October 5th, 1992. Information on retrieving the messages from the conference is provided in Lane & Summerhill (1992).

[8]However, these views are still widely held by many computer scientists. In an introductory Computer Science course at the University of Alabama, however, an instructor was recently heard to say: "Face it, if users could be programming, they would be." This barely concealed contempt for those without high-level technological skills pervades the computer world. In fact, a humorous document entitled "Real Programmers" (author unknown) that regularly circulates through the networks has as one of its lines: "Real Programmers don't comment their code; if it was hard to write, it should be hard to understand." The corollary to that rule--that if it was hard to write a program, it should also be hard to use it--is distressingly evident in many software interface designs.