Panel discussion on Past Visions of Hypertext

The second panel discussion is on Past Visions of Hypertext with Mark Bernstein, Cathy Marshall, J Nathan Matias and Frank Tompa, moderated by Darren Lunn. Cathy Marshall from Microsoft Research, Silicon Valley is the first panelist and she mentions an article that says is Google making us stupid. The first two generations of pre-Web hypertext were catalyzed by the need for links so there is this problem of link anxiety disorder. In 1989-90, a system was created called Aquanet which is a collaborative hypert4ext tool for creating, storing, editing and browsing graphical knowledge structures. Aquanet replaces links with complex relations, are we headed in the right direction? By Hypertext 1994, there was hypertext without explicit links. VIKI was a spatial hypertext system in 1994, we still want linkiness but want it to be less formal, want to have implied relationships. In 1997, Cathy gave a keynote on the Smith System for defensive driving and applied it to hypertext. So looking back to look forward, links make us stupid, linkiness anxiety disorder has brought us to the world of App Islands, VB's motivation for links was to address the Balkanization of the scientific literature, we need to rethink links not getting rid of them.

The second panelist is Frank Tompa from the University of Waterloo talking about is whether we should still be influenced by Vannevar Bush. Wikis is almost what Vannevar Bush had in mind. Today's hypertext links are uni-directional, although Bush had it as bi-directional. WWW could expose reverse links via search engines. Very little of the content of the article was indexed in early hypertext. Search is now more powerful than what Bush had envisioned at the time. Another thing that might be worth considering is making trails into first-class objects like links. Memex objects were originally meant to be links to data, but now is broader on the web. According to Frank, further challenges to explore is that links can be typed, whereas most hypertext systems are untyped, therefore record the semantics of link labels (cf. Aquanet); and also to pursue Bush's vision that the Memex is a library and a current awareness medium. From Jon Kleinberg's keynote address at SIGMOD 2010, we need to understand how information flows from person to person through the web (including the influences of time and space) and how competing messages attract attention.

The third panelist is J. Nathan Matias. We have a long way to go for augmentation. There is a growing mountain of research, and we are being bogged down. The document systems we have are still not as reliable or easy to use, compared with note cards.

The fourth panelist is Mark Bernstein. Vannevar Bush's article in 1945 wasn't new, it was written in 1939. Engelbart and Nelson both acknowledge the influence of Bush. Also, Bush's vision of Memex wasn't new, it was built by IBM 10 years earlier by Emmanuel Goldberg. Engelbart was inventing with singularity. Why are we not citing H.G. Wells instead of Bush? Bush was a safe and respectable ancestor, and was useful in ways goldberg, H.G. Wells, and Leinster and others were not. A question that was asked in the audience is why hypertext relies on studying its past history compared to other disciplines that don't do as much. As hypertext researchers, is relying on our past hampering us moving forward? Hypertext panelists say not, it is actually helping us reflect. Another question is about what in the vision of Bush is still not realized in hypertext today? Frank Tompa responds about how it is not easy to find other ideas that are related to ideas that I have. According to Cathy Marshall, we still want to have the stumbling (in human terms) and not have search engines be perfect.

All in all, a great panel discussion and nice to reflect on what we have done, and what more needs to be done.