A PROFILE OF CANADIAN ELECTRONIC COMMUNITY NETWORKS GARTH GRAHAM (aa127@freenet.carleton.ca) January 26, 1995 Acknowledgements: This profile was written on behalf of Telecommunities Canada and the Communications Development Directorate, Industry Canada, but the analysis, conclusions, and recommended actions expressed in it are purely the responsibility of the author. Many people freely contributed information to the listings compiled in the related CANADIAN COMMUNITY NETWORKS DIRECTORY. For their conscientious efforts in response to my requests, my thanks, and my apologies for any errors I may have introduced. I would also like to thank the several people who commented on an earlier draft of the profile and in particular, Jay Weston. I've happily appropriated his expressions and incorporated much of his ideas into the final section, THE FUTURE OF COMMUNITY NETWORKS, but of course the context in which I've reworded them is entirely of my own contriving. OVERVIEW The analysis in this profile is based on data from the updated CANADIAN COMMUNITY NETWORKS DIRECTORY, January 25,1995, supplemented by my experience in community network consulting. This profile provides an analytical overview, organizing around the headings that describe association listings in the Directory. Together, the Directory and profile summarize the current status of community networking in Canada, including; what has evolved, what needs to be done, implications for infrastructure and policies, similarities and differences among networks, and unique and significant pilot projects. The Directory identifies electronic community networks operating or organizing in Canada. After a brief and preliminary listing of national agencies, it is organized by province and territory, reading geographically from West to East. Within each province or territory the list is arranged alphabetically, beginning with a preface note on provincial focal points for community network development in the provinces where they exist. The Directory should be considered an appendix to this report. For now, the Directory resides in the August 1994 Community Networks Conference submenu on National Capital FreeNet. When, as planned, Telecommunities Canada acquires a www site and address, the home of the Directory will migrate to that site. What picture does analysis of the data reveal? What methods will introduce community networks into communities that don't yet have them? There is one clear lesson from the use of these technologies to date. Almost anyone can take hold of interactive computer mediated and networked communications and use it to participate significantly in community life and social development. The rapid adoption of new communications technologies by autonomous community associations represents a spontaneous grassroots "movement." Although some provincial and federal agencies express interest in and have provided start-up support for community networking, governments are largely absent from this movement. On their own, people with experience of the Internet are finding ways to transfer that experience into their daily living. To remain "connected" themselves, they know they must help everyone connect. By their actions, they are transforming the concept of neighbour and of civic responsibility. They see "community" as both an antidote to corporate globalization and a key to individual competitiveness in a political economy of knowledge. They are enjoying the experience of creative occupation of electronic public space in large and increasing numbers. DEFINING COMMUNITY NETWORKS Representatives of community network associations, meeting in Ottawa in August 1994, agreed to implement a national organization, Telecommunities Canada, to address broad issues of community network development in a coordinated manner. Electronic community networks are new in Canada. Action to define their nature, purpose and the issues that affect all of them, is also new. A major purpose of compiling and updating the Directory is to provide data to assist in that definition. The Directory is not a membership list for Telecommunities Canada, although all associations in it are potential candidates for such membership. For reference, here is the membership definition adopted by the Telecommunities Canada Board: Ordinary membership in Telecommunities Canada, with full privileges, is limited to Canadian electronic community network organizations that: * operate on a not-for-profit basis; * have their legal membership open to every citizen of their community; * provide equitable access to all citizens in their community; * encourage exchange, publication and access to the broadest possible range of information of interest to the community; * endeavour to create connections with other computer based networks and to allow the free and interactive flow of information between different communities; and * whose membership application has been approved from time to time by the board of directors. The role of Telecommunities Canada in creating a national strategy for the development of community networking is based on the following perceptions and principles: * Community networks are primary vehicles for Canadians, as private individuals, to learn about and gain access to networked services. Community networks are enormously efficient in dealing with public issues of Canada's transformation into a Knowledge Society. * The essential element for community network development in Canada is grassroots community control. Community networks are not "infrastructure." Community networks are caretakers of electronic public space created BY the community, not providers of something FOR the community. * The responsibility to articulate a long term strategy for Canadian community network development is inherent in Telecommunities Canada's mandate. Sustaining the essential autonomy of community networks requires the means of coordinated collective action among community networks over issues of national concern * While Telecommunities Canada provides the "national voice", it's the community networks themselves that actually address those needs. To date, the needs identified by Canadian community networks that a national voice should address include: - Self definition of community nets - Mentoring (experience sharing) - Advocacy related to national issues of Community Network development - International Relations - Research and Development (Socio- economic and political impact, organizational governance, and technology platforms) - Communications Strategy (Internal and external) - Francophone Services - Federal / Provincial / Municipal issues The Morino Institute of Great Falls, Virginia, is currently designing a North American Directory of Public Access Networks (draft, December 1994). They have developed a definition of Community and Civic Networks through moderated online discussion with over thirty community network activists. Their definition emphasizes citizenship and interactive communication to a greater degree than the Telecommunities Canada membership definition. On the other hand, their emphasis on a "city" metaphor may be at odds with the "remote and rural" access questions dominating Canadian Information Highway policy debate. I applied the Morino Institute definition in this profile analysis and in updating the directory: Community/Civic Networks are known by many names, including Free-Nets, CivicNets, Community Information Systems, and several others. But they share a broad-based focus on serving the information and communications needs of a local community, often through the metaphor of an "electronic city," whereby non-technical users can visit the electronic equivalent of a schoolhouse, hospital, town hall, post office, etc. They emphasize the role of the user as citizen of that electronic city - and encourage dialogue and interaction among those citizens by offering them equal access to a common and convenient medium of communication. The key differentiation between community/civic networks and the other types of public access networks lies in the breadth of focus - and the communication and interaction that takes place around that focus. To continue the "electronic city" metaphor, the special focus networks could be seen as the individual buildings or organizations - while the C/Cnets encompass the city as a whole, and particularly the "town square" or common areas that give the city its unique character. ACTION: More thinking needs to go into the definition of a community network, particularly with respect to the absence of reference to personal relational communications and dialogue in Telecommunities Canada's membership definition, and the balancing of remote and urban services in the Morino Institute definition. Use of the metaphor of cyberspace as public space or an electronic common, and the reduction of the "city" metaphor to a subset of this, might help. STATUS There are 55 community organizations across Canada involved in organizing or operating a community network. Currently 14 community networks are fully operational, and 5 others are operating in test mode. Of the 41 in various stages of organizing, 14 more have indicated they will open between now and June, 1995. Except for one community network service hosted by a school district, all of them are governed by voluntary associations or societies. With 7 up and running, British Columbia has more operating community networks than any other province. BC and Manitoba are the only provinces with established provincial umbrella organizations for the support of community network development. BC, Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario, and Nova Scotia have operating community networks. Saskatchewan, Quebec, New Brunswick, PEI, Newfoundland and the two Territories do not. Although all operating community networks are essential urban based, the representation of small, medium and large communities is roughly equal. NATIONAL STATUS There are some federal and provincial agencies with a peripheral interest in community networks. I am aware of provincial information highway policy focal points in BC, Ontario, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, and there may be others. But, as yet, no government agency in Canada has specific responsibility for community networks development. Because of the reliance of networked services on the quality of infrastructure for telecommunications and electronic media, all network development, including community networking, focusses attention on structural inequalities in rural and remote services. Existing governmental interests coincide with parallel interests in the growth of telecommunications and information infrastructure, questions of rural and remote access to networked public services, and the utility of community networks to assist these. In other words, governments still view community networks as secondary means to the ends of other services, and not as primary new social agencies in their own right. This relative inattention will change as it becomes apparent that the number of participating Canadians is significant. Telecommunities Canada sees that community networking sustains community directly, particularly through provision of new communications technologies as means of voicing community concerns and directly expressing the community's telepresence. In this sense, community networks are central social learning institutions in the creation of a knowledge society. Because of this, Telecommunities Canada sees local autonomy and community control as basic to the very definition of a community network. The concept of a cultural mosaic is fundamental to Canada's chosen self identity. Community networks are providing a pluralistic umbrella that serves the communications and relational needs of ethnic and minority communities directly. There is an advantage to this period of relative governmental inattention. It allows time for experimentation, organization, and consolidation of experience, in order to articulate the defense of autonomy and community control that will be required. If the present growth continues, community networks should be able to negotiate from strength over the means of their sustainability and their autonomous status. The present government climate of fiscal constraint should actually favour the development of self sustaining community networks in the long run. A shift is occurring in perceptions about public mandates and programs. We are moving away from rowing and toward steering the boat of government. This shift should favour the new forms of organization that community networks represent. They share knowledge of how to address common needs widely, and they coalesce opinion and broad-based responses rapidly. ACTION: In order to anticipate the need to defend the autonomy of community networks and clarify their purpose, community networks should research and share information on federal / provincial relations issues and initiatives surrounding the development of telecommunications infrastructure and Information Highway policies, particularly with respect to their relevance in sustaining a grassroots movement for local control of communications capabilities. ACTION: Within the context of the equity and universal access questions facing the Information Highway Advisory Council, the experience of community networking associations that place special emphasis on addressing the needs of rural and remote access (for example; Blue Sky FreeNet, TDG/FreeSpace, and the "Connecting the North" project) appears particularly relevant and should be carefully examined and communicated. NAMES OF ASSOCIATIONS There is no established convention for the naming of community networks. Variants on the themes of FreeNet, Free-Net(tm), Info Net, Community Net, FreeSpace, and several others are in common use. FreeNet is often assumed to be a generic term for electronic community networking but, in fact, it is not. Approximately half of the community networks (27 of 55 associations) use some variation of the word "Free- Net" as trade marked in Canada by the US based National Public Telecomputing Network (NPTN). Several of the 27 are considering a name change. They do not intend to continue with their NPTN affiliation and its attendant charges and obligations. Telecommunities Canada and NPTN are negotiating over the use of the name. NPTN sees itself as a central organization that is building a network of FreeNets. Whereas Telecommunities Canada is a national association of associations characterized by cooperative support in the organization of its member community networks. Telecommunities Canada supports community networking by sharing experience and articulating a common voice among all types of community networks. These differences in objectives and purpose will affect the outcome of the Free-Net name negotiations. As a naming footnote, even the word "Telecommunity" has been reserved by the federal government for the use of The Open Learning Agency. As a consequence, the formerly named "Telecommunities Development Group" in Guelph has changed its name to the "Telecommons" Development Group. Telecommunities Canada has not yet approached The Open Learning Agency, but may also be blocked in its use of the word "telecommunity." ACTION: Legal use of the word "telecommunities" should be clarified. CONTACT NAMES There are 86 people listed in the directory as persons willing to act as first point of contact for their organizations. We don't have role titles for all of them, but where we do, they are predominantly senior members of the governing executive committee. In 29 cases, it's the president or chair that's listed as a primary email contact. Only 3 of the 86 listed contacts are identified as staff. This is characteristic of both the voluntary nature of the community networking movement and the limited degree of its institutionalization. For now, the virtual door to the top office is always open. Given the interactive communications and civic purposes of community networks, any evolution away from openness, and toward a professionalized separation into service providers and clients, should be resisted. ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE: As community networks are new social sector institutions, we should expect that their governance will evolve from where it is now. As we might expect of voluntary community associations, the governance of community networking should be subject to dynamic shifts in emphasis and ability as the cast of volunteers changes. In fact, although all 14 operational systems of service have emerged so rapidly it may be too soon to tell, this does not seem to be the case. Consistent leadership by the same key individuals has been constant throughout the transition from project initiation to implementation in successful projects. Another constant has been reliance on the message and experience of Tom Grundner, the Founder of Free-Nets (if not specific adherence to the NPTN model). Although I have an impression of some shift in key people as projects move from the early stages to operational status, in general community network projects are magnets for enthusiastic, committed and competent volunteer support. There is a rule-of-thumb in community development, "People want to talk." If you provide them the means, they will do so. That rule-of-thumb certainly squares with the early experience in organizing community networks. The typical organizational structure of a community network is as follows: * A small executive or steering committee (three to five people) * An elected board of directors (several have twelve members) * A subcommittee structure that addresses the tasks of: - Content providers support - Funding - System design / Technical / Hardware - software - Community contact / public relations / marketing - education / training in connection - administrative liaison Community networks use these very general headings for their subcommittees. Since, in every case, the people who come together to organize a community network have not done this before, this generality probably reflects the necessity to anticipate the unknowable in planning an organization. The Thunder Bay community network project, "807- CITY," has a First Nations Services Committee, an example of special emphasis in representing a particular user community. Communities giving special emphasis to anglophone and francophone services include a Translation Subcommittee. The subcommittee structure of National Capital FreeNet has evolved rapidly and ad hoc in response to growth and need. Its experience may be an indicator of key points of emphasis facing newer projects. It includes the following: - Public Access Strategies Committee - Hardware and Software Committee - The Menu Design Taskforce - Ways and Means Committee - Comite' francophone de Libertel / NCF Francophone Committee - The Help Desk Committee (includes Documentation Task Force) The Guelph based Telecommons Development Group, organized as a workers cooperative, is a departure from the general model of governance. This model may neatly balance the question of how to ally a system with commercial sources of revenue while still keeping it focussed on the human behavioral change goals of a social sector institution. But TDG is more of a regional provider of support and organizational development services *TO* community networks than an operator *OF* a community network. ACTION: "Planning" implies an iterative performance evaluation that the newness of experience in operating community networks does not yet allow. Projects initiated in university settings, such as NCF at Carleton and FreeSpace at the University of Guelph, are highly conscious of the political dimensions and socio-economic implications of community networking. These may be ideal locations for a study of how to set performance goals that balance the governance needs of community networks with community control and their essential grassroots nature. USERS At this date, the picture of who uses community networks, why, and how many is far from clear. But it is very clear that any new community network, in spite of never catching up with phone / modem access demands, will experience a growth rate that exceeds their expectations. Many Canadians are ready and waiting to use and enjoy community networks. Of the 14 operating systems, there are membership figures available from only 5; Prince George, Victoria, Edmonton, National Capital FreeNet, and Toronto. In these five, there are now 80,000 registered members and projections of 300,000 by the end of 1995. In total in the 14 operating systems a guess of 150,000 registered user seems reasonable. Crudely projecting from the growth rates of the 5 for which we have figures to the 28 we can anticipate as operational by mid 1995, it is not unreasonable to anticipate that 750,000 to 1 million Canadians could be experiencing community network services by the end of 1995. With a community network emerging as a concrete example in almost every major city in Canada during 1995, public awareness of alternatives to structuring Information Highway services will increase. Even by Internet standards, that 10 times expansion would be an explosion of growth. It means that coping with rapid growth is a key issue in the development strategies of Canadian community networking. The Communications Research Centre, Industry Canada, is currently undertaking an extensive social science research project on the use patterns and demographics of National Capital FreeNet members. The information this research will provide is badly needed, not just as description, but also to experiment with how systems of quantitative evaluation of community net performance can be designed. Some commercial Internet access providers and private bulletin board operators anticipated competition from the establishment of a community network. In reality, through the free training of sophisticated and eager users, operating community networks create a rapidly expanding market for all types of net-based services. ACTION: The experience of Blue Sky FreeNet in Manitoba and the Thunder Bay FreeNet in active participation by First Nations organizations may be useful in other communities. FUNDING AND SUSTAINABILITY All community network associations in Canada, as social sector organizations, are committed to some form of universal "free" access as an ideal. The means of achieving that ideal are varied, particularly with respect to the questions of fee-for-service and provision of commercial service. All associations rely on in-kind volunteer services, so that access to computer mediated communications technology, and not salary, is the highest component of operating cost. Although raising money is not a big part of the motivation of community networking activists, it is a huge part of their reality. Community networks are efficient and very effective methods of achieving universal access to computer mediated communications, and universal participation in the new networked social structures of the Knowledge Society. But they are not cheap. The fund raising scramble consistent to all associations includes seeking and maintaining: - donations - project contracts and charge backs levied to other organizations for networking services or development research - Computer vendor product donations - federal / provincial project establishment grants - in-kind services from municipal governments and primary sponsoring agencies National Capital FreeNet raises significant coverage of telephone line costs by charging businesses and organizations for identified annual line sponsorship. The following are examples of the creative range of fundamentally different approaches to raising money: * National Capital FreeNet, Ottawa - a pure "Free-Net" model, with no fee for access or membership, but donation heavily encouraged. * Calgary Free-Net - A PBS model, where use is free, but there is a $50 charge for active membership in the association itself. * Edmonton FreeNet - membership revenue from a $15 registration fee is a significant component of budgeting to meet projected costs. * Manitoba Blue Sky FreeNet - charges for network connection services at the level of provincial programs (eg. education) and communities. * Halton Community Net - has grown a platform with sufficient infrastructure to sustain public access through cooperatively meeting the direct internal networking needs of a large group of municipal, educational and public service agencies. * Telecommons Development Group / FreeSpace, Guelph - charges for parallel commercial space, gateways, and value added service in order to sustain free access in autonomous community-based FreeSpaces. ACTION; Sharing experience gained from applying these models, and documenting acceptable funding methods that achieve self-sustaining growth, is a critical issue for the Canadian community networking movement. The chapter on funding in the national "cookbook" on how to grow a community network is a matter of urgent importance. But, remembering that all operating community networks are new, it also seems important to encourage and support this experimentation with a range of models. The criteria for success in funding is not just meeting costs. It's achievement of the ideals of universal free access to basic local networked communications services and universal participation in social opportunity via grassroots organization. FOUNDING SUPPORTERS / SPONSORS The list of organizations that typically take an interest in the initiation and support of a community networking project is lengthy and includes; universities, colleges, schools, libraries, CableTV companies, Computer hardware and software companies, regional telephone companies, technology research centres, foundations, and First Nation organizations. But starting a community network is really not a matter of institutional support. It's individuals who take action. It's individuals who become aware that the social sector of life in community can gain control of, and benefit from, new communications capabilities. The individuals who do this are people who have experienced electronic networking in schools, community colleges, universities, libraries, BBSs, and MUDs. They have a strong sense of its implications for positive social change. They know how effective providing an electronic commons can be in intensifying relationships among individuals and organizations. This knowledge that they are making something happen strengthens their volunteer effort and commitment. In almost all cases, municipal governments are noticeably absent as key initiators. Direct participation by regional telecommunications carriers, for example in BC, Alberta, Manitoba, Quebec, and New Brunswick, should be contrasted with a seeming lack of involvement in national community networking issues at the STENTOR level. The one instance of CANARIE involvement occurs in Thunder Bay but is specifically in support of the use of the network for tourism marketing. There is an emphasis in the CANARIE / SchoolNet projects on community Internet training through physical "community information access sites," but the relation of the sites to community networks is not yet clear. TECHNOLOGY PLATFORMS / INTERNET SITE ADDRESSES Since for the moment the average person's primary access to community networks is via phone lines, community networks are creatures of the local dialing zone. Flat rate access is essential to understanding their success and, in fact, to imagining their future. Important exceptions to telephone access occur in the Chebucto, Cape Breton and Toronto systems where CableTV companies provide some experimental access routes via TV cable. Most of the skepticism expressed by telecommunications technologists about the future of community networks relates to the problem of scaling up internal modem access to the same switching volume as local dialing zones. But this is clearly a problem of the supporting access infrastructure and regulatory framework, rather than a problem inherent in community networks themselves. Community nets technology platforms imaginatively and dynamically combine existing off-the-shelf hardwares and softwares that support the major functions of Internet connectibility. Since the Internet is evolving rapidly and the bundled components require tinkering, debugging and adaption to fit local needs, this means that community nets must attract and keep people who are happy at evolving within a UNIX environment. Although the initial community net software was adapted from NPTN's FreePort, as developed at Case Western Reserve University, several community networks have shifted entirely to a www / mosaic / lynx base. In the case of the Montreal Free-Net this was the only way to achieve essential use of accent marks in French. The French language interface being developed by the Montreal Free-Net is an enhancement to "Chebucto Suite," developed by the Chebucto FreeNet, Halifax. However, the switch toward graphic interfaces this represents can raise serious content design problems in accommodating users disadvantaged by low income or, for example, blindness. Using a web based client does not mean that you *must* go heavy on the graphics. It means that you *may* enhance the text information with graphics, sound and video. So far, text based interfaces remain the best developed, simplest to use, and cheapest route to access. Ensuring that the power and flexibility in www is used effectively requires careful attention to access objectives in design specifications. However as the cost to access and the ubiquitous availability of graphic interfaces improves, the advantages of text may become specific to particular uses. TDG / FreeSpace, Guelph, uses a graphical user interface client program called Remote Imaging Protocol (RIP) which allows for point and click control over a multimedia information environment. Much of FreeSpace is based in a graphical and audio collaborative virtual environment in which users can freely interact and communicate in real time. It utilizes experience being gained in the online world of MUDs. Learning within the system is more intuitively a matter of seeing and feeling than of language skills. There are two small community nets operating on 486 based systems. The hardware of larger systems includes several varieties of Sun SparcStations, IBM 6000s, and at least two DEC Alpha APX 3000/550s. All of the currently operating community nets are testing hardware load factors beyond previous experience. But scaling up phone lines, bandwidth, modems, and distributed hardware to accommodate rapid growth is not viewed as the real problem. The real technical resource allocation problem is seen as rationalization of system services to sustain local services and content as the first priority in system design and related overall technology costs. In other words the technical problem is not in how you do it but in what you do. ACTION: Montreal Free-Net (in cooperation with the developers of Chebucto Suite), as the world's first francophone community network, should receive priority support for the rapid development, implementation and dissemination of its www based bilingual services. This service is a potential product for global distribution. THE FUTURE OF COMMUNITY NETWORKS Why will people continue to click on the community net icon, and to write cheques for support of their local associations, after Internet access is folded into the costs charged by their local telecommunications carriers? In our current Industrial Society, no institution, including government, has a primary mandate to provide a public space where public opinion can be constructed. The space that the federal government creates and maintains is parliament - an institution of representative democracy, where representatives of the people act on their behalf. As of yet, no government anywhere sees either the mandate to create a self-representative public space or its essence as the defining institution of a Knowledge Society. This does not mean that the recently created technological possibility of an electronic public space should not be valued by governments, or that governments should not assist in the development of more open and complex patterns of public expression. The notion of an expanding universe of discourse means hearing more of the voices that we now stifle. These include: the poor, the technologically disadvantaged, the non-urban, the crackpots, the politically incorrect, the character disorders and, worst of all for the sensibilities of elites, the ordinary. If we are ever going to be even a little less cruel to one another, we must discuss, debate, inform, come to understand, and persuade each other of the kind of society we want. We should take our chances on not losing this kind of dialectical contest to the Nazis, the pornographers, and the others that advocate and practice cruelty. Trying to ignore intolerance and hide these ideas from a 'vulnerable' public certainly didn't seem to stop the cruelty in the 20th century. Full public discussion is the best inoculation against private conspiracy or unthinking paternalism. Any public discussion leaves open the possibility of consensus. This is the 'liberal' hope for a less cruel society. Access to a pubic sphere of discourse provides the means to nudge that hope along. The experience of community networks is that people want to talk and will take personal responsibility for sustaining the means of conversation. To ask "whose network is this anyway?" and, if you believe it is owned by the community, "how do you get the 'community' to pay for it?" are two ways of asking the same question. In terms of public policy concerning community networks, the federal government can best serve the interest of an evolving electronic common by ensuring that the pricing structure of the technologies does not surround the 'public space' by access routes that are purely commercial. The concept of a market driven right to speak in public is an oxymoron. Unless there is a clear policy that values these new public spaces, the existing regulatory process will continue to hold our arms while industry picks our pockets. This is likely to make community networking too costly to survive, except in the largest centres or except with massive government funding. Any institutionalized public space will have trouble standing the heat of open discussion. Certainly, governments, or universities, etc. don't want to be seen as promoting any unpopular or 'dangerous' ideas, and will immediately make exclusionary rules. In fact "netiquette," or public behaviour in cyberspace, already dominates the board agendas of operating community networks. As a corollary, guaranteed access to full participation in the conversations of electronic public space will have to be distributively financed by the distributed membership called the community. If not, it will become the funding body's constrained creature. Certainly the government, which now behaves as if the public sector were divorced from the social sector, would be a disastrous source of major funding. What has been visible so far in the Information Highway Advisory Council policy discussions, and in the CRTC consultation process, is not a national vision. It's a defense of public/private distinctions of the status quo. It's essentially supporting the mass media model that is being pushed by the telecommunications industry - just enough upstream bandwidth to let us click on the "buy" icon. The experience of mediating intensified relationships in electronic public space provided by the community networking movement shows that the Knowledge Society's not going to be that way. Despite all efforts to hype the Information Highway as merely downloaded information and entertainment spectacles, the concept of cyberspace as an electronic common slowly gains strength. But this is not just a matter of every citizen gaining access to cyberspace via an Internet email address. It depends on what they do when they get there. Responsible citizenship in an electronic common requires contributing to it more than you retrieve from it. It takes knowledge to get knowledge. In a Knowledge Society, what we can know is directly related to the degree of expression of what we do know. As we express ourselves in our local experience of electronic public space we upload a richness of texture to the totality of global connectivity. It will be answered by an inbound flood of the knowable that is already truly beyond comprehension. Community networks are the best means we have in letting anyone and everyone participate in the creation and use of electronic public space. Community networks are key agencies for achieving equity of opportunity and learning in Canada's transition to a Knowledge Society. ----------------------------- END ----------------------------------- -- Garth Graham aa127@freenet.carleton.ca Box 86, Ashton, Ontario, K0A 1B0 Tel: 613-253-3497