Why Everipedia Exists and Why I Enjoy Contributing to it: A Call to Action

Everipedia launched in 2015 with the idea of reimagining how the encyclopedia works. As Paul Graham said in his newsletter over 10 years ago, “There is room to do to Wikipedia what Wikipedia did to Britannica,” and he is right more than ever. Before in the print era, we were constrained by the binding of books in what we could put in an encyclopedia. In the information age, why would we keep limiting ourselves when we have the capacity to host millions upon millions of pages? And with new notable concepts and memes (pertaining to the evolution of the idea) rising to the forefront daily, we will have to sooner rather than later. If Wikipedia is the online encyclopedia for traditional knowledge, then Everipedia is the online encyclopedia for up-and-coming topics in culture.

Building on top of Wikipedia (Everipedia has imported all of English Wikipedia and is in the process of importing different languages), Everipedia is carrying the mantle of knowledge aggregation into the internet era. There is no denying Wikipedia’s massive presence online and contributions to the internet as we know it today. They pioneered the crowdsourced encyclopedia and have been able to document long-established topics of importance such as historical events, mathematical formulas, scientific theories, and more. For all the great things Wikipedia has done in the past, they hit a wall in their development.

Early in its history, a battle on Wikipedia was waged between deletionist and inclusionist editors. Deletionists believed that Wikipedia is not a junkyard while inclusionists argued that the more content Wikipedia had the better. In the end, the deletionists won and today notability guidelines determine whether a topic is worthy enough for a page. Wikipedia’s turn towards deletionism has had far-reaching consequences for the platform. The deletionist mindset has discouraged new editors from joining who are frustrated with their policies and has made Wikipedia slow to adapt to new trends.

For example, the rise of social media has made it much easier for anyone to become famous and notable. Any person with an internet connection can create a Twitter/Instagram/YouTube/SoundCloud/etc. account and start gaining a following through creating and sharing content. This is a far echo from more than a decade ago when traditional media outlets had much more control of what content could be shared with the masses. In addition, there are a number of memes, concepts, and ideas being put forth online that often fail to get the scholarly recognition it deserves. This is where one of Everipedia’s value propositions comes in, by filling in the white space that traditional gatekeepers ignore.

And personally, this is where I saw the vast potential in Everipedia years ago. I have always been a curious person and was an avid user of Wikipedia. In the past, I would search for “so-and-so wiki” but if there wasn’t a Wikipedia page, the only things that would be left is disappointing alternatives that would barely compromise as a substitute. I always had an intuition, even in my youth, that there was still something missing in the world of wikis and that Wikipedia was missing out on a lot of content that it could document. I guess that would put me in the inclusionist camp.

When I discovered Everipedia back in 2015, I knew there was something special there. Their inclusionist policies really made for cool pages being made. I followed Everipedia for about it for eight months before I signed up for an editor account (pre-blockchain era). When I was offered to be on the founding team in 2016, I jumped on the chance.

Throughout my time at Everipedia, I have made pages for everything you can imagine and have focused my time of keeping track of different communities and what they value. One of the best examples of this is music, which is something I have always enjoyed and for the past few years, I have taken it upon myself to make wikis for as many dubstep artists and related pages as possible. I’ve noticed that although many artists have a number of interviews on reputable websites providing biographical information and garnering substantial followings, they still fail to have Wikipedia pages. It was the perfect opportunity for Everipedia to show the worthwhileness of inclusionism.

Personally, I really didn’t get into dubstep until two and a half years ago, ironically around the same time I started contributing to Everipedia. Over time, I have probably made hundreds of pages for artists and these pages have received a countless number of views. I usually make pages before I see them perform and listen to them while I make the page. One of my favorite projects I completed was making pages for all the artists playing at Electric Forest in 2017 before I attended it. Through doing this, I became familiar with a plethora of music that I wasn’t familiar with before and it felt a certain attraction to dubstep more than the others. I felt more connected to the artists and their music, knowing their backstory, influences, and how they became a musician and was able to conversate with anyone at the festival about pretty much any artist playing there. Everything really came full-circle in December 2018 when the king of dubstep, Excision, started tweeting Everipedia pages alongside his Artist Spotlight of the Week series.

For me, it’s music but for anyone, they can be the scribe of a community that they are passionate about and Everipedia’s inclusionist policies promote it. I am only one person and I can’t do it alone. There are so many awesome people, topics, and communities that have yet to be covered. You can fill that gap and be rewarded for it. If you already didn’t know, Everipedia is on the blockchain and those who contribute can be rewarded with the native token to the Everipedia platform, IQ. And now, anyone can sign up for Everipedia using their social media account. So I invite you all, especially Hacker Noon contributors, who are reading to come join the Everipedia community and me in documenting the topics of our times.

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