Wikipedia Cofounder to Put the Encyclopedia on the Blockchain

By comparison, its much easier to wrap our heads around a decentralized encyclopedia. The world needs knowledge and right now centralized places of information, like Wikipedia and Everipedia, are subject to censorship in places like China and Russia.

Everipedia co-founder and CEO Theodor Forselius told TNW:

The tokens for Everipedia will reflect its current merit system called “IQ” which rewards users with points for creating and updating articles. Using tokens provides a way to reward or incentivize engagers — and ensures that everyone who uses the platform is a ‘shareholder’ on it.

Those tokens, also named “IQ,” will be used to provide access, enact revisions, and power the system. For example, if a user doesn’t like an update they can spend tokens to challenge it. If the community agrees with the dissenter, the edits will be made and the challenger’s tokens will be returned.

According to Forselius, the blockchain represents an end to that kind of censorship:

Everipedia is the largest online english encyclopedia in the world, partially because it sourced all of the articles on Wikipedia (which sourced articles from Britannica, according to Dr. Sanger). Giving the world access to all of this knowledge could change things for researchers, academics, and interested citizens in countries that have banned and blocked information for political or religious reasons.

If knowledge is power, Everipedia is about to become ‘Wikipedia on steroids’ for billions of people. The token system it intends to unveil could provide incentive for millions of people to engage in a collective effort to go beyond the current broad strokes of Encyclopedia Brittanica and Wikipedia’s work.

Dr. Sanger believes blockchain is the best way to do this. He told TNW:

With the new system, Everipedia is hoping that putting information in a peer-to-peer network, which eliminates hosting fees, will alleviate the need to support its content with ads or donations.

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There are no limits to what you’re capable of.. “50 Bits of Wisdom to Live By” is published by Anders Skagerberg, CFP® in ILLUMINATION.