David Goodman wrote:
perhaps it will soon be just as likely and
authoritative that people
will write this material directly here. To think we are always going
to remain a secondary or tertiary medium is perhaps looking a little
narrowly. I know we're trying to resist this, but things will proceed
in any case. Or, if we resist strongly enough, they will proceed in
such a way that we may soon be forgotten except for the
specialists--like usenet, perhaps.
Indeed. The No Original Research principle was
developed to deal with a
specific problem; it has never been a core principle. When we get away
from writing about modern industrial societies we need to recognize
that these other countries just to not have the intellectual and
literary infrastructures. India is still relatively well-off in this
regard, but there are English speaking countries like Sierra Leone where
recent history has not been at all kind to the infrastructure.
Ec