Wikipedia’s rival is now live, and it’s already boasting of 6 million articles, more than Wikipedia which has been around for 17 years. This, however, is no surprise given the project also boast of Larry Sanger, one of the two founders of Wikipedia, as the Chief Information Officer of the project.
Everipedia has become the first decentralized internet encyclopedia based on blockchain technology and the biggest competitor to the dominant Wikipedia. The site is expected to be information-uncensored and out of control from any central power.
A Better Version Of Wikipedia?
According to the Everipedia team, the site is set to be free from ads and promotions, but most admirable characteristic is that it is decentralized and hence made for ‘truth seekers.’ The project allows for people to share information even in censored regions and countries. Theodor Foselius, co-founder, and CEO of the organization says;
“Wikipedia is largely older white men, we’ve tried to focus on getting a lot of female edits, younger editors, and diverse background and ethnicities.”
Unlike Wikipedia where contributors and editors contribute for free, Everipedia has introduced an incentive that will encourage people to work with it. Everipedia plans to reward participants using IQ tokens, tokens which will entitle the holder to governance and voting rights of the organization, essentially becoming a stakeholder. Being a decentralized site also means that there is no central server and no centralized power. As the CEO notes, the project’s existence is not tied up to certain people;
“If everyone on the team got abducted tomorrow, the site would keep running.”
The rather reserved co-founder of Wikipedia, Larry Sanger, joined the project in December 2017 after being intrigued by the possibility of decentralized information. The now Chief Information Officer who has set out to take down his own creation has been a critic of “what Wikipedia has turned into” saying that it is controlled by a few players. Now, although this project is not his brainchild like Wikipedia, he is set to do much better than what he did 17 years ago with this second attempt. Around the same time Sanger joined the Everipedia team, the organization moved from Ethereum to EOS, quoting ‘scalability issues,’ and now it is time to see how the decision will pan out.
Decentralized internet is guaranteed to be the future and blockchain technology is already disrupting the industry. The launch of this project sets a new precedent for other institutions to re-examine their organizational structure in a bid to become decentralized, or at the very least this will encourage startups to set out and challenge established organizations that are not ready to adapt to change.
