If you can't behave, you can't be here.
If you can't behave, you can't be here.
You're likely to have a number of questions about the Nexus of Networked Orthodoxy for the Web. This page should be a good start.
The First Sermon was specifically created to answer most of the questions that aren't already answered in the Introduction. You may find most of your answers there in far greater detail than in this FAQ.
Below are the most common questions we've received so far. If you don't see your question listed here or elsewhere in the Nexus, please ask!
What do you hope to accomplish with the Nexus of Networked Orthodoxy for the Web?
At the very least, we hope to encourage better behavior via the Internet, to reduce the static noise that's interfering with peoples' freedom and ability to openly explore and express themselves. Right now, far too much of the Web's resources are devoted to starting or stopping fights and personal attacks or other types of hostilities. If we're to realize our potential on the Web, we've got to just cut that out.
Our hope is that once that goal becomes more of a reality, the Web and everyone in it will have that much more time and energy to more fully devote ourselves to developing to our greatest potential, without invasions and restrictions on our privacy and freedoms.
If you're so pro-freedom, why have rules and commandments? Don't those restrict peoples' freedom?
In an ideal culture, the Big 10 would ridiculously unecessary. People would already know how to behave within a society in such a way that everyone within it is free to act with a minimum of interference. Unfortunately, we couldn't be farther from that ideal if our cultures were specifically designed to keep us interfering with each others' development as much as humanly possible.
We need to retrain ourselves, and redesign the online culture. Instead of an internet that's famous for its hostility, we need an internet that's famous for being a place where people are free to develop and explore as their experiences drive them. That can only happen if we each adhere to some very basic standards of common decency in how we treat each other, and ourselves.
The Big 10 in their current incarnation are our best attempt at helping establish those very basic standards. We don't want them to rule anybody's lives, we just want them to be out there for people to use as guidelines on how to stop interfering with each other. Without that interference and background noise distracting development on the Web, the Internet will develop and grow better and faster than ever.
This has nothing to do with a deity, does it? Why this talk about a religion?
No, the Nexus of NOW isn't designed to tell people what they should believe is true about the nature of any divine or natural power. It actually originated as a joke about founding a new internet religion ABOUT the internet and its potential for the fun and amusement of its participants. As Kyle sat down and started drafting stuff up, however, that joke grew into something with far more serious potential. Hence, the first incarnation of the Nexus was born.
Kyle decided to keep the idea of the Nexus as a 'religion' for several reasons, but the one we'll address here is that Kyle sees great power in the meme, or idea/thought-form of religion. She sees religions as the name people give to when they gather together with common goals and value systems to help guide their development on the most important, core parts of their lives. As people contribute their own selves to the meme, the meme becomes stronger and more influential.
However, many, many people have seen this increase in influence as a bad thing, and have hugely negative perspectives about religion as a meme-force that is out there to dominate people and restrict personal exploration and development. The Nexus is the opposite of that, and Kyle wants to show how the memepower of the idea of a 'religion' can be used to promote and speed personal development, not restrict it. Yeah, it's an ambitious and potentially controversial experiment, but it's one she feels strongly enough about that it's happening anyway.
Since you're pulling on some ideas about religion, do you have a clergy?
Kinda. We call the head and founder of the Nexus of Now the Hyperspeaker, both to imply 'hypertext' through which the Web is possible, and because she's a very hyper speaker. You should hear it sometime, once she gets going it's hard to slow her down.
The Web Evangelists and other Idea-Formers who contribute a great deal to the Nexus are recognized as Speakers. This means that they are specifically identified as those who can be trusted to speak for the Nexus, spreading words and ideas that are in keeping with what we're trying to accomplish here.
Actually, yes. NexusOfNow.org will probably always be the official home of Nowism, the repository of the Official Big 10 and any core tenets that are considered 'official Nowism' (which won't be much). That said, Nowism isn't about dictating beliefs or perspectives to others, but streamlining the process through which each person can develop their own ideas. That means that other branches are almost inevitable, and are pretty much encouraged.
It's preferred that each branch be called a Node, showing that it's a specific repository of info that is related through the Nexus to all other Nodes. You'd then choose an adjective kinda prefix, such as "Purple", so the official name would be "The Purple Node of the Nexus of Networked Orthodoxy for the Web". If your Node is found to be in keeping with the spirit of the Nexus of Now, your node will be recognized as officially part of the Nexus. On the other hand, if we think your work is actively counter to what we're trying to accomplish, we'd have to ask you to stop pretending to be a part of it.
You don't have to be a recognized Speaker to form a Node, though Speakers who form Nodes will have those Nodes automatically recognized. So long as you're helping rather than harming the Web, it's all good.
Isn't this all pretty hands-off for a so-called 'religion'?
Yes, it really is, but only to a point. We believe that people are inherently capable of doing great and productive things, once they learn how to effectively tap those inner resources. We don't want to interfere with that by working too hard at structure and restrictions, especially since we have better things to do with our time. However, that doesn't mean that anything goes, and we'll shut down harmful activity fast and hard. Again, we don't have time and energy to waste, here.
We think the best way to handle this situation is to put down just a few very simple guidelines, and make them as clear as possible so people can follow them if they choose. If they don't choose, they can't play with us, simple as that. There's plenty of other places for them to cause trouble; we don't have to tolerate it here.
Important Note: As a church of the internet, by the internet and for the internet, the Networked Orthodoxy for the Web concerns only what can be shared via the Web. We are not here to prove or disprove the existence of one or more dieties, supernatural visions or any other concept that can't be directly conveyed through shared experience. Dignified debate is welcome; insults and invective are not. You have been warned.
Absolutely everything that appears on nexusofnow.org is Copyright 2006. "Nexus of NOW", "The Nexus", "Networked Orthodoxy for the Web", "The Big 10", and all logos are Trademark 2006. All Rights are Reserved, and will be protected to the fullest extent. Our intent is to safeguard rather than fully restrict, so please contact us if you would like to appropriately use anything from the Nexus.
