bibliography & references

This page is the edition’s end notes: every source the edition stands on, gathered in one place. Each entry gives the source as it was consulted, says in a line or two what it establishes for this edition, and names the pages that cite it — so a reader can walk from any claim on the site back to its paper.

The editor’s stated aim for the whole edition, in his words: “To stitch this all together as best as possible, to be an historical resource, with the hypertext writing on top as cream on top.” The bibliography is where the stitching shows, and it is laid out as a chain of custody: the work and its witnesses first, then the Caucus and TMN paper, the people’s own accounts, scholarship and the dissertation’s attested press, the house’s records, and last the testimony and the archive on which the rest rests.

The sister edition’s bibliography is a different kind of record: the paper of the work that survived in its maker’s keeping, and of the copy that did not — My Name is Scibe’s bibliography at scibe.org

82 entries, in six movements.

The work and its witnesses

Witness A — the Plone copy: the transcript as carried for years on the editor’s weblog
The edition’s base text: 212 responses, parsed for every page of the work. Collated line by line against Witness B; the two agree on every header and, with two disclosed exceptions, on every word. Read in full.
Cited on: the colophon, the index of the work

Witness B — the Wayback Machine capture of coelaboration.com/8/f8.html, December 11, 2000
The work’s own period site, captured in 2000: the same 212 responses — the witness against which the edition’s one deletion and one stray character were decided. Read in full.
Cited on: the colophon

Witness C — the period site’s single-response view, coelaboration.com/8/8.html (Wayback capture)
A partial witness: one captured page, 8:235, agreeing word for word with both complete witnesses. It covers none of the 29 missing numbers. Read.
Cited on: the colophon

The editor’s printed thank-yous (2000) — to Scott Burns, to Caucus Systems, and to The Meta Network, as reprinted on the what page
The work’s own period frame text. The thanks name the sysadmin, the software’s company, and the network, in that order, and corroborate Scott Burns’s place in the story.
Cited on: the what page, context: the village, context: Caucus, the glossary

The editor’s own period description and “why” sentences (2000), quoted on the what page
“8 is a spontaneous work of on-line interactive fiction”; “i wanted to see if i could create anything like my name is scibe, which i was a part of years ago.” The what page’s stated basis, in the editor’s own words where they survive.
Cited on: the what page

The work’s own responses, as the glossary’s basis — 8:0; 8:15; 8:35; 8:99; 8:108; 8:113 and 8:116; 8:127–8:129
The glossary is grounded in the work’s usage first: coelaboration at the head of 8:0, JPO and TheBUS in 8:15, dead soldiers defined in 8:35, the Cuchulainn retelling in 8:99, Gretna Green in 8:108, the custodies tag in 8:113 and 8:116, and the Rambo/Rimbaud pun across 8:127–8:129.
Cited on: the glossary

The Caucus and TMN paper

“The Meta Network — A New Electronic Network Opens” (press release, March 1983), as preserved on the editor’s site
The founding announcement, in Frank Burns’s words — “an information age version of the think tank.” A period document, read; it is preserved on the editor’s own site, not in an independent archive.
Cited on: context: The Meta Network

InfoWorld, November 4, 1991, p. 36
Period trade press: Metasystems Design Group “known for its Caucus conferencing software,” with Frank Burns as its president — a document the MDN entry relies on for both points. As cited.
Cited on: context: MDN

Caucus 2.7 Menu User’s Guide (April 1994)
The period manual for the text interface — logging on, the standard menu, the captive account that started Caucus at login. Read. The caucuscare.com archive address printed here carries the April 1994 guide, as the sister edition prints it.
Cited on: context: Caucus

alt.bbs.unixbbs FAQ (September 1994)
A period directory of bulletin-board software: Caucus as a commercial package from Camber-Roth of Ann Arbor, priced from $1,800 to $20,000. As cited.
Cited on: context: Caucus

Business Wire, July 23, 1997 — Eastman Kodak’s acquisition of Picture Network International, Ltd.
Kodak’s own release, identified from print: the acquisition, and SRA Corporation’s natural-language search engine behind PNI’s Seymour service, whose patents passed to Kodak in the deal. This edition prints this release bundled with its trade-press corroboration (next entry) on the Meta Network entry. As cited.
Cited on: context: The Meta Network

Jim Pickerell, “Kodak Buys PNI,” Selling Stock, September 17, 1997
The trade-press corroboration of the Business Wire release above: the acquisition, the Image Bank interest, and SRA’s transfer of the search-engine patents to Kodak, in the stock-photography trade’s own paper. Read. On the Meta Network entry this edition prints the two bundled as one source line; here they stand as the two documents they are.
Cited on: context: The Meta Network

Screen Porch backgrounder and the Caucus 4.0 announcement (1998), caucuscare.com archive
The company’s own papers: Roth as chief technical officer, Metasystems Design Group’s principals among Screen Porch’s founders, and Doc Searls’s verdict on Caucus. Read in full.
Cited on: context: Caucus, context: MDN, context: from telnet to the web

Odd de Presno, The Online World
A period directory of the online world: the Arlington address and telnet tmn.com, in period listings. A book; this edition prints no address for it. As cited.
Cited on: context: The Meta Network

The people in their own words

Virginia Little, “Composing Reality” (1997)
Her published account of the Creative Writers on the Net program, in the International Telecommunications Conference papers, September 1997 — the period account naming “Metasystems Design Network (Metanet),” on which the Metanet styling in the MDN entry rests. Read in full.
Cited on: context: MDN

Virginia Little, “The World at Our Finger Tips,” CPSR News 15.1 (Winter 1997)
Her own account of the program for the Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility newsletter — the classroom conferences, the students, and the network that housed them, in the teacher’s own words. Read in full.
Cited on: this bibliography
Grounds: context: the village

“Creative Writers on the Net: A Dialogue between Three Students,” ed. Virginia Little, with Jessica Ott, Sean Moiles, and Katherine Blanke, ITU Geneva 1997
The students’ own side of the program, edited by their teacher — Blanke is this work’s own KAT, and Rhoades appears in the companion piece. Read in full.
Cited on: this bibliography
Grounds: context: the village

Virginia S. Little, “We are the Poets: Crossing Boundaries” (Omaha, March 1998)
Her conference account of the young poets crossing the boundaries of classroom, distance, and medium. Read in full.
Cited on: this bibliography
Grounds: context: the village

Virginia S. Little, “Life at the Bottom of a Soup Bowl,” ITU/Telecom 99 (Geneva, October 1999)
Her retrospective on the program at the decade’s end, for the International Telecommunication Union’s forum. Read in full.
Cited on: this bibliography
Grounds: context: the village

The editor’s professional biography, Rheingold Associates (rheingold.com)
“Worked at Caucus Systems as a Linux SA”; “as an employee of Caucus Systems, Inc,” hosting Professional Virtual Events since 1999. His own period biography, published among the Rheingold Associates team pages — the corroboration of the Caucus Systems employment. Read.
Cited on: context: Caucus, context: the village

Charles Roth, interviewed by Lisa Kimball (2004), caucuscare.com
Roth’s own account, given inside a Caucus conference: CONFER encountered at Wayne State, the calling of portability, the Japanese version built across three time zones. Read in full.
Cited on: context: Caucus, context: the village, context: from telnet to the web, the context index

Charles Roth, “Entrepreneur Bio,” thedance.net (first-person history, March 15, 2012)
His own history of the stewardship: Aule-Tek and Camber-Roth, the 1994 buyout of the Caucus rights, CML written in a month, Caucus Systems, the layoff, the bankruptcy, and CaucusCare. Read in full.
Cited on: context: Caucus, context: the village

“Kids Say,” BEAT St. archive
The students in their own words, gathered in the program’s own archive at the College of Exploration. Read in full.
Cited on: this bibliography
Grounds: context: the village

The editor’s memorial page for Frank Burns — his own pairing of TMN and MDG
His own published memorial of the network’s founder, pairing The Meta Network and Metasystems Design Group as he knew them. Read.
Cited on: context: MDN

The editor’s professional profile — the PNI dates and role, as he publishes them (no address printed)
The documentary anchor for the PNI employment as the MDN entry prints it: June 1993 to October 1994, technical customer support for the Seymour platform. The record does not establish that this profile and the Rheingold Associates biography above are one document, and this edition cites them separately.
Cited on: context: MDN

Virginia S. Little, résumé, College of Exploration
Her own professional record — the teaching, the program, and the publications gathered in this bibliography’s fourth movement, in her own listing. Read in full.
Cited on: this bibliography
Grounds: context: the village

Scholarship, reference, and the attested press

Starr Roxanne Hiltz & Murray Turoff, The Network Nation (1978)
A 1978 book-length account of the field’s beginnings: EMISARI, the Delphi method, and EIES—systems its two authors built. A book; this edition prints no address for it. Read.
Cited on: context: online conferencing

David R. Woolley, “Choosing Web Conferencing Software” (the survey as captured January 17, 1999)
The survey this edition’s Caucus entry means — the sister edition cites it at the same Wayback address. Its “WELL-style” family — systems derived from CONFER, structuring discussions as linear chains of responses — is where it places Caucus. Read in full.
Cited on: context: Caucus

Katie Hafner, “The Epic Saga of The Well,” Wired (1997)
The Wired history that called The WELL “the world’s most influential online community.” This edition prints no address for it. As cited.
Cited on: context: The WELL

ComputerWorld (1997) and the Detroit Free Press
Two publications, one entry, as this edition prints them: the verdicts — ComputerWorld’s hundred most effective organizations of 1997, and “the poster child for Internet theory 101” — stand quoted in the ARTS WIRE entry. As cited.
Cited on: context: ARTS WIRE

Howard Rheingold, The Virtual Community (rev. ed. 2000)
An account of the conferencing world: Burns and MDG in it generally, and at p. 286 — “another partner in MDG, Frank Burns” — as the MDN entry cites it. A book; this edition prints no address for it. Read.
Cited on: context: The Meta Network, context: MDN

Wikipedia, “CONFER (software)”
The progenitor line: CONFER (1975), by Robert Parnes, and its descendants Caucus, PicoSpan, and YAPP — the lineage on which the conferencing, Caucus, WELL, and village entries all draw. Read.
Cited on: context: online conferencing, context: Caucus, context: The WELL, context: the village, the context index

Wikipedia, “Frank L. Burns”
The founder: Task Force Delta, the Electronic Networking Association, and the presidency of Metasystems Design Group. Read.
Cited on: context: The Meta Network, context: MDN, context: the village

“Great Green Room: A Partial History of Computer Conferencing in Ann Arbor”
The community history of the Ann Arbor scene: Confer’s structure and descendants, and the “direct descendents” line for PicoSpan and Caucus. Read.
Cited on: context: online conferencing, context: The WELL

Jessica Lipnack & Jeffrey Stamps, “Only Connect” (chapter of The Age of the Network)
Lisa Kimball, MDG partner from 1984 and founder of the Electronic Networking Association, in the network-organization literature’s own account. Read.
Cited on: context: The Meta Network, context: the village

“The Meta Network,” Wikipedia — consulted via its mirror, as the label discloses
The founding date, the hosts and organizers, and the real-names rule of the network that housed the work. Read.
Cited on: context: The Meta Network

Wikipedia, “Telnet”
1969, RFC 854 and 855, the Network Virtual Terminal, and clear text — the protocol facts under the telnet-to-web entry. Read.
Cited on: context: from telnet to the web

Wikipedia, “The WELL”
The founding, PicoSpan, the hosts, “You Own Your Own Words,” and the EIES influence its history records. Read.
Cited on: context: The WELL, context: the village

The Computer History Museum, on EMISARI and the Network Nation — Turoff’s account of the 1971 freeze (as cited)
Carried exactly as this edition prints it: no fuller citation could be confirmed for the label as printed. As cited.
Cited on: context: online conferencing

The PLATO history — David Woolley and Notes, 1973 (as cited)
Carried exactly as this edition prints it: the label names the man and the system, and no single document could be confirmed as the one it means. As cited.
Cited on: context: online conferencing

Wikipedia, “Gretna Green” — General reference
The Scottish village famous for runaway marriages: the general-reference basis of the glossary’s Gretna Green entry, labelled “General reference” as the sister edition’s glossary labels its own. Read.
Cited on: the glossary

Wikipedia, “Cú Chulainn” — General reference
The Hound of Ulster, hero of the Irish tales: the general-reference basis of the glossary’s Cuchulainn entry, labelled “General reference” as the sister edition’s glossary labels its own. Read.
Cited on: the glossary

CML Reference Guide, caucuscare.com
The language defined by its author: CML combines HTML tags with programming constructs and database functions, its interpreter the core of Caucus’s web interface. Read.
Cited on: context: Caucus

CaucusCare, “Caucus Architecture”
Every page a browser displayed as the output of a CML file, and the swebs interpreter — the architecture of the web Caucus this work’s later life ran on. Read.
Cited on: context: Caucus

CaucusCare, “Caucus & Open Source”
The software’s two open layers and their licences: the CML interpreter under the GPL, the CML pages under the CDDL. Read.
Cited on: context: Caucus

Virginia S. Little, “Design, Implementation and Assessment of an Online Writing Program for Multi-age Students, Grades 9–12,” doctoral dissertation, California Institute of Integral Studies, September 27, 2000
The program’s own full record, by its teacher: its chapter 4 coverage list and Appendix J attest the press and publication entries that follow in this movement. Read in full.
Cited on: this bibliography
Grounds: context: the village, context: MDN

KVISD Newsletter (December 1996)
An early notice of the program in its own district’s newsletter. Attested in Little's dissertation (2000); the piece itself has not been located in open archives.
Cited on: this bibliography
Grounds: context: the village

Community Focus 7.1 (January 1997)
Coverage of the program in its community’s paper. Attested in Little's dissertation (2000); the piece itself has not been located in open archives.
Cited on: this bibliography
Grounds: context: the village

South County Commercial Express (January 1997), p. 3
Coverage of the program in the local commercial paper. Attested in Little's dissertation (2000); the piece itself has not been located in open archives.
Cited on: this bibliography
Grounds: context: the village

Nancy King, “Breaking the old class barriers,” Kalamazoo Gazette (January 1997), p. C5
The Gazette’s account of the classroom without walls. Attested in Little's dissertation (2000); the piece itself has not been located in open archives.
Cited on: this bibliography
Grounds: context: the village

“Local students travel to Washington D.C.,” Kalamazoo Gazette (February 1997), p. 7
The students’ trip east, in their hometown paper. Attested in Little's dissertation (2000); the piece itself has not been located in open archives.
Cited on: this bibliography
Grounds: context: the village

Virginia Little, “Classrooms without Walls” — the dissertation’s list gives the piece the program’s name, “Creative Writers on the Net” — Talking Points (Spring 1997)
Her own piece on the program for the teachers’ journal, printed here under both titles as the record gives them. Attested in Little's dissertation (2000); the piece itself has not been located in open archives.
Cited on: this bibliography
Grounds: context: the village

Virginia Little, “The Heart of Community and the Soul of the Machine,” NEA website (April 1997)
Her piece for the National Education Association’s site, on what the network did to community. Attested in Little's dissertation (2000); the piece itself has not been located in open archives.
Cited on: this bibliography
Grounds: context: the village

“Vicksburg students speak to state school board here,” Kalamazoo Gazette (April 1997)
The students addressing the state board, in the Gazette. Attested in Little's dissertation (2000); the piece itself has not been located in open archives.
Cited on: this bibliography
Grounds: context: the village

WWMT-TV news segment (April 1997)
Broadcast coverage of the program — attested as a presentation listing in the dissertation. Attested in Little's dissertation (2000); the piece itself has not been located in open archives.
Cited on: this bibliography
Grounds: context: the village

The Washington Post interview with Linton Weeks (April 1997)
An interview event, not a publication: no published piece is attested, and this entry records the interview only. Attested in Little's dissertation (2000); the piece itself has not been located in open archives.
Cited on: this bibliography
Grounds: context: the village

Lisa Beckwith, “No Walls for County’s Newest Classroom” (1997)
A feature on the program under its defining image. Attested in Little's dissertation (2000); the piece itself has not been located in open archives.
Cited on: this bibliography
Grounds: context: the village

Virginia Little, “Technology: The New Literacy,” ITU Forum Papers on CD-ROM (October 1997)
Possibly an alternate title for another of her forum papers; the record gives it as its own item, and it is printed so. Attested in Little's dissertation (2000); the piece itself has not been located in open archives.
Cited on: this bibliography
Grounds: context: the village

“Students Receive Laptops for Internet Class,” Kalamazoo Gazette, City Life (October 1997)
The press corroboration of the students’ laptop posts in the 1999 export: the program’s machines, in the paper, in the same season. Attested in Little's dissertation (2000); the piece itself has not been located in open archives.
Cited on: this bibliography
Grounds: context: the village

Inner Eye, California Institute of Integral Studies (May 1998)
Her own institution’s notice of the work. Attested in Little's dissertation (2000); the piece itself has not been located in open archives.
Cited on: this bibliography
Grounds: context: the village

University of Nebraska at Omaha, professional journal (June 1998) — the journal’s title is not given in the source
A journal appearance recorded without its journal’s name, and printed so. Attested in Little's dissertation (2000); the piece itself has not been located in open archives.
Cited on: this bibliography
Grounds: context: the village

News You Can Use, Arts Council newsletter (by 1998)
Its text survives as quoted inside the dissertation’s Appendix J — including the note of a program student’s Metasystems Design Group internship. Attested in Little's dissertation (2000); the piece itself has not been located in open archives.
Cited on: this bibliography
Grounds: context: the village

Virginia Little, “Our Words as Writers Create Windows,” in Defining Moments, eds. Nieto & Spears (Lawrence Erlbaum — “in press,” September 2000)
Her chapter for the volume, recorded in press as the dissertation closed. Attested in Little's dissertation (2000); the piece itself has not been located in open archives.
Cited on: this bibliography
Grounds: context: the village

The house’s records

The New York Foundation for the Arts’ ARTS WIRE record
The foundation’s own record of its program: Focke, Berger, Matuzak, the conference roster, and the virtual office. This edition prints no address for it. As cited.
Cited on: context: ARTS WIRE

Usenet attic file (ifindkarma.com) — a message header from media.sra.com, April 13, 1994
A period record, kept in a Usenet attic: the SRA media subdomain live in period traffic, in exactly the PNI window. The host is named in this edition and no address is printed; none is printed here.
Cited on: context: from telnet to the web

The sister edition’s wiki: ARTS WIRE — the full entry, with its own consulted sources
This edition’s cross-reference to the sister edition’s page, labelled as the sister edition’s page: the fuller record of the program that housed the sister work. Read.
Cited on: context: ARTS WIRE, context: the village

The sister edition’s wiki: Metasystems Design Group
This edition’s cross-reference to the sister edition’s page, labelled as the sister edition’s page. Read.
Cited on: context: MDN

The sister edition’s wiki: The WELL
This edition’s cross-reference to the sister edition’s page, labelled as the sister edition’s page. Read.
Cited on: context: The WELL

The sister edition’s wiki: The Meta Network — the period account of telnet tmn.com
This edition’s cross-reference to the sister edition’s page, labelled as the sister edition’s page. Read.
Cited on: context: from telnet to the web

The sister edition’s wiki — the companion context layer for My Name is Scibe
This edition’s cross-reference to the sister edition’s wiki index, labelled as the sister edition’s page. Read.
Cited on: the context index

Kalamazoo Regional Educational Service Agency, “Education for the Arts”
The program’s present institutional page. It stands behind the EFA and KRESA expansions in this edition’s glossary and faq — the basis those entries rest on, named here. Read.
Cited on: this bibliography
Grounds: the glossary, the faq

Rheingold Associates, “Our Team”
The roster page that carries the associates’ period biographies — among them the biography cited in the third movement of this bibliography. Opened and read.
Cited on: this bibliography
Grounds: context: Caucus, context: the village

Testimony and the archive

The editor’s confirmation (October 26, 2026) — his role as the course’s technology architect; the supplied laptops and dial-up accounts; the face-to-face sessions
Testimony given October 26, 2026: the shape of the classroom record, confirmed in testimony by the course’s technology architect.
Cited on: context: the village

The editor’s testimony (October 26, 2026) — teaching the course from 1996 by dial-up, from his apartment at 1101 East Capitol Street, Washington, DC, overlooking Lincoln Park
Testimony given October 26, 2026: the teacher’s end of the classroom, on Capitol Hill, the students hundreds of miles away in Kalamazoo.
Cited on: context: the village

The editor’s ruling — MDN is the company behind TMN; affirmed October 26, 2026: “Yes. Metanet. The Meta Network is tmn.com.”
The ruling the MDN entry is built on. The entry itself states that no source consulted prints the initials “MDN”; the identification rests on this ruling beside the documented record and the Metanet styling. Testimony given October 26, 2026.
Cited on: context: MDN, context: The Meta Network

The editor’s recollections, printed as recollection — the TMN/MDG offices (ground floor; server room at the back; Scott Burns, SA of everything, living on site); PNI’s adjacency and the front-entrance patio (no institutional connection); ClarkNet as his ISP, MDN never his ISP
Prose-level testimony, printed as recollection wherever it stands; Scott Burns’s place in it is corroborated by the 2000 thank-yous in the first movement.
Cited on: context: The Meta Network, context: MDN, context: the village

The editor’s recollections of coming online — ClarkNet dial-up in 1993 (“It was Gopher, too early for web when I got on”); PNI’s Fairfax image lab (Solaris boxes, a T1 line and X Windows); “when Mosaic and port 80 became a thing”; his hedged recollection (“I think it was”) of his lab email under the media.sra.com subdomain
Prose-level testimony, printed as recollection, hedged on the page exactly as he hedged it; the subdomain itself is receipted by the attic file in the fifth movement.
Cited on: context: from telnet to the web

The editor’s correction and ruling — Item 8 was not a class (public item, unassigned, not part of any program); and the EFA co-teaching sequence (Ginny Little first with the editor, then with Dirk Flinthart)
The correction on which the faq’s class answer, the glossary’s EFA entry, and the village’s classroom passage all stand. Testimony and ruling, as printed.
Cited on: the faq, the glossary, context: the village

The editor’s thesis for the context layer, quoted on the index (October 26, 2026): “Like any museum, the art is only part of what makes Item 8 and Scibe interesting”
The thesis the whole context layer lives by: provenance, people, and machinery are part of the exhibit, not footnotes to it.
Cited on: the context index

The editor’s question, quoted — how are The WELL and Caucus/TMN related: coincidence, “like chimps coming up with food washing concurrently on different islands?”
His question; the entries answer it in labelled claims — documented kinship, documented contact, convergence — resting on the sources in the fourth movement.
Cited on: context: The WELL, context: The Meta Network

The November 1999 export of the TMN campus conferences — the surviving capture, taken through the session of Phillip J. Rhoades, an EFA student, whose login its pages render under; preserved in the editor’s archive
One artifact, cited across the edition under its several descriptions. Its constituent files, as the build report records them: confhome.html in efa_classroom_A, efa_classroom_B, and efa_authors_forum; efa_classroom_A/jimmy_project_time_liddar.html; efa_classroom_B/end_of_semester_number_crunching_is_all.html; efa_classroom_A/jackie_petto.html; efa_classroom_A/tiffany_carvell.html; efa_classroom_B/nic_sia-penrod.html; efa_classroom_A/jennifer_jansen.html.
Cited on: context: MDN, context: the village, the glossary, the faq

The editor’s original export of Item 8 itself — the export from which the surviving copies descend
The dating discrepancy, printed and resolved neither way: this edition dates the export “1998–99” in the colophon and the glossary, and “1999–2000” in the faq and the gap pages. Both datings stand in the record; this bibliography prints both and resolves neither.
Cited on: the colophon, the glossary, the faq, and the frame text of all 29 gap pages