Building Wikipedia On Hive
Over the years, there was a lot of discussion regarding the idea of building Wikipedia on Hive. Is this really possible?
In this article, we will look at the possibility of something like that and how it would look.
Before going any further, we have to say that building Wikipedia would be a mammoth undertaking. That project has a couple decades under its belt and a large number of people working on it. To create something like that on Hive would take years.
However, is there a way to duplicate what is going on, even if to a lesser degree? This will be the thrust of our conversation here.
Once again we are going to focus upon Hive as a permissionless, decentralized database.
Advantages To Hive
Hive is an open data storage system with infrastructure already in place. What this means is that, if one wants to build a database, that is available for use.
This is not the case with Wikipedia. It is a true Web 2.0 application. Hive is part of the foundation of Web 3.0. Instead of going out and renting servers, one simply starts building.
Here is a page from the Wikipedia Foundation. It is likely most reading this came across the banners discussing how so few donate to the cause of free and open knowledge. This does not exist on Hive.
The entire business model shifts when entering Web 3.0. Suddenly something like this could be built without the hassle of worrying about infrastructure or the associated costs.
Infrastructure on Hive is provided by block producers who are incentivized in that direction. This comes from the inflation in the base coin, which is distributed for performing this service.
In addition to having a different business model, we have a database that is immutable. Once it is on the blockchain, the information is there. Also, unlike Wikipedia which is likely on a coordinated set of servers, the Hive ledger is mirrored on over 100 uncorrelated nodes. Each is running the software and updating the content every minute throughout the day.
Unlike distributed ledger technology such as Bitcoin, the Hive ledger contains more than just transaction information. Instead, it allows for full text documents to be stored in the dataset.
Finally, once the data is on chain, any front end can read it. This will help a great deal when it comes to search engine ranking.
Communities
We often discuss the idea of communities and how powerful they will become. The idea of each being able to spin up its own token and turning itself into an economy is a game changer. That is going to alter the path of society.
There is another point to this. With Hive, each community can also generate its own database if needed. Here is where the idea of "Wikipedia on Hive" comes in.
As opposed to a team trying to build out the project, it develops naturally. After all, the data is housed in the same place regardless of who put it there. Hence, all applications that read the information on Hive will pick it up.
What kind of database would a community build?
This would be anything that has to do with the basics of that community. For example, the photography community could create a database of terms and concepts relating to that field. CineTV could do the same for movies and television shows. If we had a Real Madrid community, they could start a database of the bios on all players, present and past.
The field is actually wide open.
Having an immutable database of information that is on a decentralized storage system is something we have not looked at enough.
Everyone Benefits From The Information
While having a database of best gardening techniques might not be the make or break for humanity, there is something to keep information safe.
Let us consider for a second if Wikipedia suddenly was taken down for not paying their bills. What would happen to the accessibility for that information? Naturally, it is in the Internet archives but we know that, rather quickly, the search engines would drop the site from the results.
The same is true for any information source we go to. If companies like AWS decide to turn off the switch, it is effectively gone from the view of most people.
Hive provides a solution to this. With over 100 nodes in operation, each mirroring the content, we are going to see this ongoing. The incentive is there to keep the servers running.
Another benefit is the fact that the information can start to rank in the search engines. We know that projects like Wikipedia and Investopedia turn up on page 1 in many related searches.
Type in anything about finance and the latter will certainly come up as one of the top results in Google. Of course, Wikipedia pops in there also. We will cover why this happens in a bit but the key is that both receive a ton of organic traffic.
Here is where Hive's open database system really can help. Once the data is on chain, all front ends have it. This means that, while the one that originated the information gets the weighting from Google, all will receive some ranking help. Something posted through Leofinance aids that site the most yet both Hive.blog and PeakD still gain.
With a single category of information, this does not equate to much. However, if each community is building out a database of basics concepts, the totality of it will help to thrust Hive onto first page ranking.
Links: Internal And External
The Internet is still made up of hyper-linking to a great degree. This is what makes something like Wikipedia so powerful.
Let us look at the page of American Actor Alan Alda.
We can see there are 24 links in the first paragraph alone. Each of them goes to another Wikipedia page. Can you imagine what does that to the Google spider once it gets into Wikipedia? Internally, it is going to bounce around among billions of links, all related to each other.
Is it any wonder why Google ranks it so high?
Of course, this does not deal with external links. This article has linked to that site a few times already. The site is a treasure trove of information, hence content creators are constantly linking to it. Once again, Google loves that.
Transitioning back to Hive, think of something like Investopedia. Here is their definition of a put. It utilizes the same concept. The page is full of internal links sending people to other Investopedia pages.
This is exactly what could be done on Hive. Different communities could follow the same format, providing linked databases the search engines love.
Of course, others can use the information and reference in their articles. Considering that we write posts, it is easy to see how we can grow this quickly.
Think about these terms and how often they appear on Hive each day:
- Hive / Peakd version
- HBD
- Bitcoin
- Cryptocurrency
- Blockchain
- Ethereum
- Bear (Market)
- Web 3.0
- Token
- The Fed
What would be the impact if each of them was one of the first page of Google for those terms?
One again, how would things look if there were dozens of databases like this on Hive, all pertaining to categories that were applicable to different communities?
Over time, an information base like Wikipedia would form on Hive. Suddenly users, both internal and external could start linking back to the information.
This is how something like Wikipedia could eventually be built on Hive. Remember, that is nothing more than a database on a centralized server system along with a single front end.
With Hive, we simply decentralize it while adding the ability to access it through many front ends.
A glossary of crypto/financial terms can be found here
If you found this article informative, please give an upvote and rehive.
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I think that putting the already existing Wikipedia on a blockchain would be a so much better idea, instead of creating another Wikipedia on a blockchain. There should be a discussion about this with the Wikimedia Foundation (they host the Wikipedia).
Well I am not sure they would go for that. I am not sure how much control they want to have.
Plus that is a lot of data to move over, questionable whether the blockchain could scale to that at this point.
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This sounds great! I hope thos will be materialised. May God bless your plans
I would !LUV to see this as well as a genealogy bank on hive. I don't like the idea of having to either pay a subscription or going to the library to get free access to the information. I have nothing against going to the library as I love books but when I want to do genealogy research I don't want to have to plan a library trip.
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I am not sure how that works but I am sure someone could build it. Hive is a decentralized permissionless database so if someone wanted to build using that dataset that could.
It only takes someone with the initiative to start it. Hell, dont even need a website as the links in the article show.
Nothing more than posts on Hive will suffice.
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I feel we will have to talk about this more often as it will take time for people to agree on sparing that extra 30-1hr for linking, depending on the content length.
My last content had so many terms to link that my estimation is I spent more than 3hrs on one post, it really threw me off balance that I went straight to bed afterward.
What I'm saying, in essence, is that it's a great deal, if we can see the numbers of people doing this rising then we stand to make a huge impact.
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That is the idea behind LeoGlossary and having the Main Menu. There are now over 330 crypto and finance related terms to link from.
And each of those links have links in them.
This should save you a lot of time.
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If Everipedia can do it on EOS, I don't see why we could not do it on Hive. I remember attending a "live" podcast on Discord back in 2018 where the founders of Everipedia were interviewed. All attendees could ask questions after the interview and it was such an exciting and enlightening project!
You mentioned Investopedia, but you did not mention LeoPedia, run by Hive's own LeoFinance tribe. They have not leveraged LeoPedia into a Web3 solution yet, but I feel surely it is coming down the pike.
That EOSipedia is looking really nice.
Because LeoPedia and Investopedia are not even in the same realm. You could claim there is potential with LeoPedia but where is it? What is happening? Are they trying to get certain keywords ranking?
From that perspective, I do not see it. It is a valuable resource/education center but that is about all. It is not going to do well in the rankings from what I can see.
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There are so many other factors affecting search result rankings other than keyword relevancy and links. Mediawiki is most likely designed to support some of the latest features in search engines and has metadata optimized to a level similar to Wordpress. Hive would need a custom frontend for wikis to support all the features.
The biggest obstacle for using Hive for wikis, in my opinion, is how posting and editing permissions work. I think Hive would need a new feature to let the owner =author allow other users edit their posts. Otherwise the wikis will become like commercial digital encyclopedia where the publisher collect editors' texts in one publication. Maybe Hive could allow patches from other users saved on the blockchain and then it would be up to the frontends to filter out bad patches, spam and vandalism.
I can't tell how well this idea would work in practice because I don't know much about how versioning works in patching.
It would always be prone to spam and vandalism, especially without "vetted" editors and authors. If shared editing could be achieved by permissions/keys it would be very lean, but doing it at the front end seems we'll rely on blacklists.
That is true but have to start somewhere.
Right now, we aren't even driving much in the way of organic traffic to Hive or the associated applications.
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There are some movements though like PoSh to increase backlinks and some instructional posts about how to improve SEO in posted content.
Some well curated topic centric communities hosting their own break away community sites and linking back to Hive frontends could do a lot for Pageranks. You need that domain authority about a topic for backlinks to have more meaning I believe but it is better to consult an expert before investing resources for this idea.
That is true about the name. It is evident that having that in the url is vital.
Blockchain.com comes up at the top for a reason.
Always an interesting topic since it seems nobody truly knows what the search engines are doing or how they are changing things up.
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I think this will be a mammoth task but if everyone plays a part in it then it's highly achievable. Building Wikipedia on Hive could be a very valuable information hub. If web 2.0 information hubs are down, Hive will be here.
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If articles weren't as biased and would document various things they relegate as bunk, conspiracy theory or simply ignore outright that wouldn't be bad either.
It will be more individual groups and communities building what they are experts in. Using the photography example, that community could build a database of relevant terms and concepts. That could help to have that "expertise" on Hive.
Rinse and repeat with different groups/communities.
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Alpha 🦁 More power to you Task. It's not an easy job to do. I hope with time, you get more contributors.
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Yeah well the using of the links will be a great help at this point.
If we get a few dozen people using the links, things will spread.
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I wonder if a frontend could be created where certain keywords would automatically appear as a link to those articles? So if I was writing about Bitcoin for example, every time I type de-fi, decentralized, Bitcoin, blockchain, etc those terms get linked.
The Leofinance team, at some point, plans on adding this feature to the front end. It will read the data from LeoGlossary and simply give a pop up (or something to that effect) which will suggest the link.
So that is planned at some point to make it easier for people to do that.
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Perfect :) .. But we need it for all subjects, not just finance
I could do that. It’s so weird, I had the same idea 🤗🤗
Nice :) ... I also like the idea of the live chat that was mentioned a while ago 🙌
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It's a nice idea, but we need a more viable model, do you know the shortcomings of wikipedia? We could identify these shortcomings, and thn implement changes along as we go rebuilding a new version of the same vision. Alternatively, an interactive pedia for our metaverse on Hive, Dlux might be more suitable, and also unique. Keep generating new ideas, and sharing valuable insights. Stay Blessed mate!!!😊
I once thought of turning my blog into a place to find health articles.
And as a result, all my #stem posts are related to health issues.
Well, this idea makes so much sense
I think some SEO should be put in place to get people to see them.
This post totally makes a lot of sense
Health is a great area to focus upon. See if you can get that ranking.
I would suggest putting together a blog page similar to the main menu page for LeoGlossary. Then you can start to put together the material as a linking page.
It would help to have a bunch of definitions in there each with its URL.
There are a lot of different possibilities and the health area is a very large field.
I would say you have some potential there over time especially since some of your articles have some time on them. Get some definitions going and start going through older articles and linking to them.
That will really help over time.
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Thank you
The sweet part of utilizing Hive's data base in building our own Wikipedia like LeoGlossary is it doesn't cost us money.
We can get the numbers high up a lot quicker if other Hive communities emulate LeoGlossary concept, at the end of the day it is a win-win for us all in driving traffic onto Hive.
This is an organic marketing concept worth supporting.
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All of that is true. It takes the efforts of many communities, all focusing upon their niche. It will not only be organic for traffic but also in the design. A bunch of different groups focusing upon what they know best.
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A blockchain might be a good place for something like that, but I'm not sure the Hive platform would work as it does not allow multiple accounts to edit a post. I expect the Wikipedia people have some good support, but they do keep asking for money. Maybe crypto could be part of their funding.
I have wondered if something like Goodreads could be implemented on Hive, but I have not figured out all the details. We can certainly put up book reviews, but you need a way to link all those for a given book. Could possibly use tags with the ISBN codes. Just a thought.
The different communities could allow who they want to edit the posts. A posting key can be shared. So if I am part of the group working on the Photography database, then I along with 4, 5, whatever number of people can edit and add to it.
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I guess so. Lots of things are possible. I'm excited to see what people come up with next. It's all about adding value :)
Legit, A Version of Wikipedia or Wikipedia itself belong on hive!
I think more a pseudo one.
If different communities are building out their own [databses}(https://leofinance.io/@leoglossary/leoglossary-database) of information, then we could see, over time, the organic effects of one coming together.
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It's an interesting thought experiment. The biggest obstacle may be trying to figure out how to replicate their system of allowing anyone to edit a page and establishing a hierarchy of editors who can overlook pages. Flawed as their system can be, it's be rough to copy that.
That said, certainly Wikipedia could benefit from some kind of decentralized structure. It is such an amazing resource, but what happens if the Wikimedia Foundation were to suddenly be removed?
Anyway, good look at how it could be possible to make a similar project!
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You earned 1.000 PIMP for the strong hand.
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considering the fact it's a pain in the butt to search for stuff on Hive sometimes I find the title very funny :)))
I think it's great but it's still an issue to decide who gets to modify the contents of these pages. After all, there is only so much one person can do on their own. Wikipedia got worst after a clear bias towards some people in control of what content gets put up.
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I hope you'll read this post about wikipedia and what they are doing : Politicis and Culture !. There are not there for sure to protect humanity. But we can do it in hive by sharing only truthful information to the world. Wikipedia being caught in lies and manipulations many times. Not only about Russia and Veganism like I wrote, but I'm sure about many things. It's controlled by moderators who are controlled themselves. It's not an open source and that's a big issue. If something like wikepedia will be in hive, that will be really huge. I also was thinking about that many times. And in the past I wrote a few posts about that.
If something like wikepedia is incorporated into a platform like hive, it will sure make a lot of sense . The question is if the shortcomings of Wikipedia can actually be improved and corrected on Hive .
Being able to look back on the immutable record of edits and seeing who is editing would make wikipedia no longer a propaganda tool, but what it was intended to be from the start - a true and open information source with complete transparency.
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I am reminded of Everipedia, which has it's own blockchain iirc, but it has its shortcomings, to say the least. I like the idea of decentralizing the glossary of terms & definitions for each community, and then having an aggregation algorithm on the back-end pool all the different glossaries together into one uniform format that can be indexed a la Wikipedia or Investopedia.
Un-censorable databases could easily be very life-changing, think about all the document dumps that have taken place over the past 15 years. Everything WikiLeaks puts out could be immediately indexed and protected from what has happened, which is a lot of the documents have been taken down. Same thing would apply with information about current events, such as an event being confirmed with on-the-ground reporting evidence AND a permanent place on the Hive blockchain ledger.
The same could be done for public companies wishing to establish a new level of financial transparency, by publishing their audited financials in an un-censorable database, it would be much easier to establish which companies routinely alter their financial statements and which don't.
Very exciting idea to say the least!
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Having a "wikipedia" on blockchain is my dream. It would be nice to have such a platform running on HIVE. Great idea.
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This reminded me that an attempt like this was made on Steem before Justin Sun's hostile takeover and we hardforked. hede.io; it's now defunct.
https://github.com/Hede-io/hede.io
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Good analysis.
I have a reservation, though. One need for making this on hive is so that if Wikipedia ever goes down all the information would remain intact and on top of search results. How likely is it that Wikipedia goes down? Hive which is held up by those nodes and the incentives therein how about if the price of hive goes too low that it's no longer profitable and the incentive becomed not worth it?
What are the chances of this happening to hive? Maybe very low but would you say it is lower than the chances of Wikipedia going down? Definitely not, I guess.
Great idea if it is technically possible. There maybe some Hive restrictions that prevent it.
On SPK web otherwise it has no sense.
That concept of yours could be used on elsewhere too, Splinterlands glossary would be great!
Do you really think we can build some kind of Wikipedia here on Hive? I don't doubt it, I just think it would be really interesting to try.
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