By: Taban Khajehnassiri
If they could be in our time and had this opportunity to use the Internet, e-mails and web spaces, the world would surely appreciate their works. I believe they have to be and some are now online forever and we have to pay more attention to their existence. If we have a web site for our business, it can be a good attitude to dedicate a space to those most respected ones - in the related industry or subject matter - who have been a milestone, a turning point, a great history for ages and ages; Without their attempts and works we could never reach this far to such a great status of Science and Technology, Literature, Culture and Civilization, worldwide. They are now online and read and see what we are doing ...
I really like the terms "online" and "offline". When we are online, it
means that we are alive and connected to the Internet as far as our web
space and/or our Internet accounts are active and available.
When we are offline, sometimes it means that we are alive but not connected to the net, but sometimes I ask myself what we do call those people who are no longer alive but still on the net. Some people on the net use the term
"honorary" for them, for instance, they say we have T. S. Elliot or E. A. Poe as our honorary subscribers or visitors or guests in the chat room. I like this term too. Let us say, nowadays, we are using the Internet to find out more about some of these most respected names on the web - these honorary net users - who are no longer among us physically but electronically they are accessible. Personally when I use known Search
Engines to find some invaluable information on someone from the past or sometimes ages ago, I whisper to myself that I wish I could send him/her
an e-mail; Last week I was looking for Ferdowsi and Hafiz - Two of the most respected names in the persian poetry - on the web. I think there must be a big room or space for these respected names officially on the web, dedicated all to them, webmastered by cultural authorities of each
country. If they could be in our time and had this opportunity to use the Internet, e-mails and web spaces, the world would surely appreciate their works. I believe they have to be and some are now online forever and we have to pay more attention to their existence. If we have a web site for our business, it can be a good attitude to dedicate a space to those most respected ones - in the related industry or subject matter - who have been a milestone, a turning point, a great history for ages and ages; Without their attempts and works we could never reach this far to such a great status of Science and Technology, Literature, Culture and Civilization,
worldwide.
The final outcome of this philosophy is the good feeling we can get whenever we choose a link to these most respected names in the history
of the world and also a good feeling for them to see that we care after all these years. Let me name some of these respected names and icons we do
have in our persian history: In Literature, Hafiz, Sa'di, Ferdowsi, Khayam, Baabaa Taaher and many more ...; In Fine Arts, Behzad,
Kamal-ul-Molk; In Medicine, Science and Technology, Aveccina (Bu-Ali Sina), Khadjeh Nassir ul din Toosi, Prof. Hashtroodi, Dr. Hessabi and many many more; All of these "honorary" Iranian Net users are invited to join
our newsletter, if I could have their e-mail addresses, I would surely send them e-mails of my appreciations and I would invite them to join us.
I believe they are still among us watching us from the heaven, surfing our web sites on the net, subscribing our newsletters and this is why I have decided to start an invitation process to invite these respected names to our list every week and in this way I try to introduce them to the world as possible.
In Webfaqt, we welcome your views and narrative stories on these most respected names and icons of Iran and the world, not living any more but online and surfing freely from web sites to web sites to find their own names asking "Still, is there anybody online writing about me,
looking for me?"
They are alive, they are among us, they are online.
This article first published electronically as an editorial of WWN April 1, 2000.