The second question is a vital one, particularly in light of evolving information technologies and worthy of serious discussion for a maturing on-line community. The issue of information ownership surfaced early on during our work at SAIN and could explain an unwillingness to share. To maintain a professional standard, we go to great extents to document information and respect authorship. Admittedly, one of the problems SAIN had was inherent in its name and association with a church. In the early days when the name SAIN surfaced, immediately flags went up as to the motives and credibility of such an enterprise.
Information is power and the name which appears on the information holds the power.
In a brief analysis, we can surmise that the reluctance to share comes from our collective consciousness as a community. It seems that by giving away information we lose a hold on power and we fall short of assisting the goals and aspirations of the community at large. With the popularity of on-line services and electronic publications, the threat of sharing is not as great today. Nevertheless, it is still a concern for the Armenian community. This maturation process is a slow one, but vital for the effective operations of any communal work.