Transclusion

Theodor Holm Nelson
Oxford Internet Institute and Project Xanadu

When I got into the computer field, in 1960, a fundamental question I asked myself was: What can computers do that is better than paper? The main answer I came up with was: keep each quotation connected to its original context.

I believe that was the right answer, and that is what I have tried to do in my designs for electronic documents, in the decades of   Project Xanadu and in the new Transliterature project.

Somehow others haven't seen it that way.  They haven't asked how we can improve on the past; they've imitated paper!  Whereas I keep working toward that other goal.

The fundamental relationship that keeps a quotation connected to its original context is called transclusion.  (Meaning, "inclusion across a document boundary.")

People mistake transclusion for a mechanism.  No, it's a relationship.  A transclusion is--

• the same thing knowably in two places, with a quick path between;
• a quotation taken dynamically from some other on-line document and retaining its connection to its original context.

Also called: transquotation, dynamic quotation, hot quote, and many other things-- but rarely if ever implemented.

You can try it out with the Transquoter, a new piece of software that allows transcluding pieces from all over the Net.

Metaphysics of transclusion: It can be argued that in the old world of paper, many relationships strove toward transclusion-- copies, cross-indexing, cross-filing.  And in the world of computers we have copies, shortcuts and aliases, caches, proxies, instances-- all different mechanisms that verge on the transclusion relation in different ways.

The transcopyright permission system is the only license that allows transclusion; see transcopyright.org.