Wikipedia is the most used and a powerful platform to find information online. It has a huge range of articles, where contributors are welcome to submit new articles and edit the existing ones. Based on the current platform, a start-up in California has launched Everipedia, the biggest online encyclopedia in the world. The biggest catch here is that it is based on blockchain technology. Everipedia is a valuable extension of the existing Wikipedia platform. Let us know more about the concept and how it’s going to harness the potential of the blockchain.
What is Everipedia?
Many of you might assume Everipedia to be the exact same things as Wikipedia. However, it is a new and more advanced option. According to Wikipedia, “Everipedia is a for-profit, wiki-based online encyclopedia founded in December 2014.” The site was launched in 2015 as a fork of Wikipedia. However, the site became live on 9th August 2018. The website was co-founded by Mahbod Moghadam, Sam Kazemian, Theodor Forselius, and team. The name of the company that owns the website is Everipedia Inc., headquartered in Los Angeles, California.
The Core Concept
The Everipedia is a decentralized encyclopedia based on blockchain fully governed by token holders. They play a crucial role in the consensus protocol of finalizing the data entry into the database. That means, they have the right to approve edits, create network-wide rules to govern the encyclopedia, as well as buy and sell services for tokens on the network.
Everipedia aims to build the most accessible online encyclopedia by eliminating or improving the limitations of the current platform. The company is trying to address problems such as the inability of non-notable figures or startups to have their own wiki-pages, the lack of diversity of topics, presenting false information, and deletionism.
Deletionism reflects differing opinions of the contributors on deleting a given Wikipedia article.
How Does it Work?
Like Wikipedia, Everipedia relies on the contributors from all over the world. The company wants to decentralize the control over the platform by offering more decision-making power in the editing process.
EOS Blockchain Adoption
In the year 2017, Everipedia announced to use EOS Blockchain for generating edits and storing data. They planned to combine EOS Blockchain and the InterPlanetary File System (IFPS) to store the content and the heavier data files such as video and images.
IPFS is a network designed to create a peer-to-peer method of storing and sharing data in a distributed file system.
Peer to Peer Incentivized Network
Everipedia has harnessed the blockchain technology that has allowed them to create an incentivized peer to peer network for submitting and editing articles in the encyclopedia. The company uses a points system through which contributors can earn “IQ” points for curating and submitting articles. They can convert the points to a token-based currency giving them a real, financial stake in Everipedia. However, to prevent them to deliberately add false content or edit to earn tokens, the website forces them to put up their token in order to submit.
You can have a detailed look at the Everipedia whitepaper here.
Everipidea currently sees about 3 million users per month and touts itself as having more than 200,000 published pages.