This article explores the implications of moving public participation GIS (PPGIS) onto the World Wide Web. It discusses the potential benefits and impediments of using the Web for PPGIS application; it then uses a PPGIS project developed solely on the Web as a case study to illustrate various issues such projects may face. It finds that the cost-benefit calculus in this transition is ambivalent: whereas some costs decrease, other threshold costs actually increase. Moving PPGIS to the Web will not undermine the traditional intermediation role of PPGIS but, rather, diversify it. The Web helps attract "occasional users" to use GIS; however, this creates new challenges for PPGIS providers, who used to work with defined clients and must now cultivate client support to anonymous clients. The Web has greatly improved connectivity and data access, which, in turn, promote collaboration among geographic and non-geographic information providers. In this context, the Web increases awareness of integrating non-geographic information such as local knowledge into GIS operations. The article concludes that Web technology alone is not sufficient to enhance the capability of every community group and resident to use GIS, to change the reality that GIS is a specialized skill, or to significantly level the unequal socio-economic or political relationships that hinder participation in distressed communities.
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