But there's another aspect to this: The circulation of tall tales will always be part of our culture and therefore part of the online world. That said, we, as online readers, need to be far more critical and more demanding. We need to look for veracity. We need to demand support for assertions of any kind, but especially those that appear to fail the smell test. And we need to make the smell test more rigorous.

When you find yourself thinking "this can't be real?!" listen to what your commonsense is telling you: If it quacks, it's probably not an eagle.

Gibbs can hear the sound of ducks in Ventura, Calif. Your commonsense to backspin@gibbs.com.

in Network World's Wide Area Network section.