There was a time when tools such as That-Search-Engine, Facebook, YouTube, Wikipedia, etc. were small enough to care about the people using their offerings (that is, us). Fast forward to today, and we know better.
One reason I took the plunge into Hive blockchain was the selecion of dApps available which substitute those of the usual suspects:
- Presearch can replace That-Search-Engine;
- Hive.blog (and its various entry points) can replace Facebook;
- 3Speak and DTube can replace YouTube.
While looking for blockchain and crypto alternatives (preferably, but not necessarily, using Hive) I wondered if there was such an alternative to Wikipedia.
Recently I discovered an article titled "Crypto Alternative Everipedia To Replace Wikipedia" by @akintech9 posted 3 years ago.
Everipedia came into the news recently. A fork of Wikipedia, it operated on Ethereum for a while before making the switch to EOS. Now there is something called Lunyr. I don't know much about either service, so I can't comment on them.
I've been reviewing dApp services to see if a Hive-based equivalent of Wikipedia exists, and I haven't seen anything so far. Among the Hive Proposals, I didn't see anything there either (although it's possible I may have missed it if it is there).
It occurred to me that blockchain can do for online encyclopedias what it did for social media platforms. Knowing what Hive has done and what we do for Hive, I just thought something similar could happen with online encyclopedias.
The idea of Hive having an online encyclopedia is just something I was thinking about recently, although I have to believe others have thought of it as far back as the Steemit era. Even if a different blockchain offers an online encyclopedia, we would be better off using that than Wikipedia.
Other questions came to mind as I was composing this post:
- Would it even make sense for an online encyclopedia to be based on Hive blockchain?
- Even if desire and interest in one exist, what practical issues need to be resolved before one can go online?
- If a Hive-based online encyclopedia can be brought online, would changes need to be made in how resources are allocated (especially RCs)?