Modern WisdomWhy Is Wikipedia Broken? | Dr Larry Sanger | Modern Wisdom Podcast 118
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
115 min read · 23,410 words- 0:00 – 15:00
One of the reasons…
- LSLarry Sanger
One of the reasons why Wikipedia is so messed up is that there is no formalized way of arriving at a decision about disputed questions. So you go there, you've got a question about, you know, what, what should the, the definition of racism be? Extremely hot topic. It should be possible for people to come up with a bunch of different options, and maybe have a, a round robin competition or something like that, and, and actually get a legitimate choice. That's not what they do. They pretend that it is possible to have a consensus about these things, and, but the consensus is determined basically by the people in power on the topic. You know, whoever, whoever has the most seniority or seems to have the most allies, or whatever, those are the people who basically declare the consensus. So it's not a consensus. It's just putting a, a cynical description on what is not a, a consensus at all. The decision making process needs to be reduced to very specific editorial decisions to be made, and then taking legitimate votes based on that.
- CWChris Williamson
I'm joined by Larry Sanger who is the ex-founder of Wikipedia, among many other things. Larry, welcome to the show.
- LSLarry Sanger
Oh, thanks for having me on. I appreciate it.
- CWChris Williamson
Really good to have you here. First things first, I've never heard the term ex-founder before. (laughs) What, could you explain, can you explain what that means please?
- LSLarry Sanger
Yeah, I, I made it up yesterday. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs) Oh my God.
- LSLarry Sanger
Or the, or okay, a couple of days ago.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- LSLarry Sanger
Um, I, I did a, a face, or a, a, uh, Twitter, uh, poll about it. And, and, uh, over 50% of the people thought it was a, it was a good title for me to claim. Um, so I was once considered, um, by everyone co-founder, even Jimmy Wales. Uh, but then, then he started denying me the founder, uh, the title, um, uh, like in 2005, which everyone thought was ridiculous. Um, but he, he was insisting on it. Um, so it's a little bit of a dig at him, um, for that. But it's also, um, whenever I tell people online that I'm co-founder of Wikipedia, um, especially in the last, I don't know, three or six months, um, they've started getting hostile toward me personally.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- LSLarry Sanger
Um, it's like, um, you know, Wikipedia's out of control they say now. Um, and, uh, you know, you're, "You must be the devil if you actually started it." Um, and, and so I, I'm, I, I'm distancing myself from it because I have been a critic of Wikipedia, um, for, well, I'm one of the first critics of Wikipedia frankly, um, uh, uh, outside of the, or very original naysayers. But, uh, you know, um, yeah. And, and then, and then I've been gone for a long time, so sometimes when, when, um, I tell people I'm co-founder and, and, uh, but now I'm working on whatever my latest project is, they get confused and they think, "Oh, so you," they seem to assume that I just left it, like, a couple years ago.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- LSLarry Sanger
No, I left in 2002. Um, I, I, I permanently distanced myself from the project in 2003, and I've been working on all kinds of other things since then, so.
- CWChris Williamson
Okay.
- LSLarry Sanger
But I got it started.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, and also world's first ex-founder. Um, which is (laughs) -
- LSLarry Sanger
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
I think so.
- LSLarry Sanger
That's right.
- CWChris Williamson
I think (inaudible) (laughs)
- LSLarry Sanger
I founded, I founded the term.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, you are, the world's-
- LSLarry Sanger
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
You're the ex-founder founder. (laughs)
- LSLarry Sanger
(laughs) Right.
- CWChris Williamson
Um, so before we get into Wikipedia and where it's at at the moment, and also your exit, could you, could you tell us the genesis story? Could you tell us how it, how it started on your side?
- LSLarry Sanger
Okay. Um, well, um, I first met Jimmy Wales in the mid-1990s through our, our common interest in, in philosophy. Actually it was, uh, Ayn Rand. I joined one of his mailing lists and later on made one myself, and he joined that, about philosophy. And, um, we lost touch for a few years, um, but then, uh, I was sharing a idea that I had for, uh, what would later become a blog, um, around, uh, early 2000. And, uh, one of the people that I shared the idea with was Jimmy Wales, and he wrote back and he said, "Don't work on that. Work on this thing. Um, uh, you'd be, you know, editor-in-chief of an encyclopedia." And I was like, "Wow, this sounds great." Like, that was practically my dream job. It's something... If I wasn't gonna be a, a professor of philosophy, which by that time I decided not to be even though I, I was all but dissertation at the time. Um, uh, it would be, you know, like, uh, uh, an editor of an encyclopedia. That's sounded great. Um, so it was my job to, to start, uh, Nupedia, N-U-pedia, um, and that was to be built on the principles of open source, uh, software. Um, so there was this guy, uh, um, who wrote a, a, a, an essay called, called The Cathedral and the Bazaar. His name is Eric Raymond. I was told to read this. It's still a great thing to read. Um, a- and it explains how, um...... volunteers can get together to build great things online simply by sharing, uh, a common vision, and a common need, solving common problems, um, but in a way that, that results in something that, that lives in the commons. Um, and so, that, that's the, that was the idea. And, um, the problem was, we wanted Nupedia to be as trustworthy as possible. So we had this seven-step, really arduous editorial process, um, and not many people wanted to go through it, so we generated only a few dozen articles, um, in the first year, um, and that wasn't good enough. So, so, we were well agreed that there needed to be a new, um, uh, source of content for the project, um, and so I made some different proposals, and Jimmy Wales, he, he, you know, dismissed them all because they, it would involve more coding. And then a friend of mine, um, January 2nd, 2001 told me about this software called Wiki Software, very uber geeky, um, where you go to, uh, a web page and you click an edit button, and you can, you can edit the text of the page right there on the page, and hit save, and your changes are instantly live. Um, and it was an insane-sounding idea, but, you know, okay. I've ... Even by that time, I had been living online for, um, you know, the better part of 10 years, and, and, uh, and so it wasn't that hard to imagine how it actually might work.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- LSLarry Sanger
Um, so he, he got me excited enough a- about the idea that I, I started thinking, "Well, this could solve the problem that we were having with Nupedia."
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- 15:00 – 30:00
Mm-hmm. …
- CWChris Williamson
PR, uh, a PR concern to be dealt with.
- LSLarry Sanger
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Um, and, uh, replied ... He sent ... I don't know whether you did this, but I think he actually created quite a, an extensive press release/proposal which, for him, was, um, a thesis laying out where the issues lay. It was his conceptualization of exactly what was going on. Uh, and apparently the reply that he got from, from Mark and from Sheryl was, uh, similar to how a, a bad, uh, you would, you would deal with something in a press release, bad press release, which I thought was really interesting.
- LSLarry Sanger
Interesting.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- LSLarry Sanger
Yeah, well, uh, I, uh, I was nice. I didn't, like, uh, go to the, uh, make a public spectacle of, of the thing in, in 2000. I, I mean, I, I think I considered it. Um, I didn't actually go public with any criticisms until 2004. Um, and that really pissed Jimmy Wales off. One of the things he, he responded, um, to that, uh, on, and it's, it's on a, a now defunct, um, group blog called Kur5hin, K-U-R-5-H-I-N, .org. Anyway, um, and he basically said, "Yeah, I was thinking of, of, uh, you know, hiring you back and getting you back involved, uh, but not now." Um, and I said, "Well, I wouldn't have come back if you had asked, dude."
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- LSLarry Sanger
Um, because, uh, the, the problems were not getting better. Um, and, uh, some of the things that I saw, which is a tendency to ignore the neutrality policy, um, have gotten worse. I mean, that's, that's been a problem since, I would say, um, a couple of years after I left. It started when, when one could begin to see an ideological tilt to at least some of the articles. Not always. Um, but that, that goes back to, like, maybe 2004 or 2005. Um, then it started getting really pronounced, like 2010. Uh, lately though, like in the last three or four years, basically eh, eh, at the same time that mainstream media has decided to abandon, um, all pretense of objectivity, um, Wikipedia has more or less followed suit as far as I can tell.
- CWChris Williamson
That's so, that's so upsetting for me to hear. So first off is, I, I did a little bit of background reading into this particular situation, had a good chat with Vizzy who's the guy who put, put me and you in touch. And, um-
- LSLarry Sanger
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... uh, as a part of that, I, I've definitely seen recently, I was watching Steven Crowder, um, and he was, he said something, this is only the other day, about the fact his Wikipedia page has been locked down, apparently. It's had malicious edits made to it and is now locked down. And this is, I'm, I'm not even kidding you, Larry, this was a week ago, and I heard this for the first time. And I, um, you know, spend a fair bit of time on the internet and I swim in these sort of circles. Hadn't heard anything.
- LSLarry Sanger
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
And you're talking about something which is nearly two decades deep now, with regards to this particular pathology that's going on. So, I'm thinking about this and then-
- LSLarry Sanger
... it's gotten worse though, is- is what I'm saying.
- CWChris Williamson
Oh, yeah.
- LSLarry Sanger
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Oh, yeah. It's- it's... B- you saw the seeds of it, right? Back in the day.
- LSLarry Sanger
Oh, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
So, can you explain to us, in your world, what would make the perfect wiki, and how does that, uh... how does that contrast with what you saw, and then how has that begun to diverge further as- as time's gone on?
- LSLarry Sanger
Well, I'll give you, first, what I think is- would be the perfect wiki, and then I will- I will give you, um, uh, the way I think encyclopedias generally should go, which is not necessarily in the form of wikis at all.
- CWChris Williamson
Got you.
- LSLarry Sanger
Um-
- CWChris Williamson
Got you.
- LSLarry Sanger
So, um, let me tell you about a couple of projects that I worked on, and the- the- the very best, uh, version of a wiki encyclopedia might combine both. Um, so I actually started a- a competing wiki project called Citizendium, um, as in the Citizen's Compendium.
- CWChris Williamson
Nice.
- LSLarry Sanger
Um, back in 2006, 2007, um, and that was just when Wikipedia was enjoying its steepest growth curve, so it never really took off. But it had a really great start, um, and, uh... So the distinctive features that it had really weren't enough to really distinguish it from Wikipedia, but they were important differences. Um, one was you had to use your own real name. So anonymity... Anonymity was not- was not, uh, permitted, except in special cases, in which case, um, we- we allowed pseudonyms. Right? So if somebody wanted... If somebody were a- a political dissident, they would have to trust me, at least, and I would like, um, you know, approve of an account, um, and- and then they could just, like, um, use a pseudonym. All right. Um, a- a- that, I think, just takes care of a heck of a lot of the problems. It did, in- in that, um, y- years that I was working on Citizendium. Um, and- uh, the other thing that- that helps, basically, solve a lot of the problems with Wikipedia is making all of the people who contribute to the project agree to a- a statement of fundamental principles, and, um... Now, Wikipedia itself has, you know, some bedrock policies, um, that- that it has stated, but the, uh, the... Um, its commitment to neutrality, in particular, is, uh, is really, um, on the ropes. So, um, I- I think that, uh, if people were made to- to agree in advance with, uh, policies that, uh, you know, are specifically devoted to, um, strict notions of neutrality and, um, and other, uh, important policies, uh, it goes a long way, basically. Um, and then a- a third thing is, um, we had a... essentially a- a- a constitutional system of governance, a project governance. Um, it w- it's not mob rule. Um, there are actual elections. Uh, people, um, uh, people can actually change the rules through a legitima- legitimate process. They can adopt new projects through a legitimate process, and there... That doesn't really exist on Wikipedia, as crazy as that might sound. It just doesn't. Um, so, um... And that's i- in large part because they don't have one person, one vote. The reason for that is that, well, they allow anonymity. So that's one of the- one of the problems there. Um, uh, so the other project that I wanna tell you about is one, uh, that I've been working on, um, since late 2007. So I have been, uh, chief information officer of Everipedia, um, and, uh, Everipedia is the encyclopedia of everything, that's why it's called Everipedia, and it's now blo- built on the blockchain, so it's the first blockchain encyclopedia. Uh, it is a fork of Wikipedia, um, and, uh, we have decided to allow contributions from all different sources, from all... uh, about, uh, uh, all different topics. Um, so we're much more open, um, as to contributors and topics, uh, whereas Wikipedia tends to shut people down quickly. They tend to be much more closed than they used to be, anyway. So we- we are- are going back to some of the- the more positive ear- early, um, tendencies, I guess, of- of, uh, Wikipedia in that regard. Um, but, uh, one- s- one thing that Wikipedia never had was this idea that you could have an article about absolutely anything, so I have an article about my left thumb, just to demonstrate-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
- LSLarry Sanger
... that it is possible to have an article about anything, and it changes the nature of- of the project. So if- if Everipedia really takes off in a big way, um, and it very well could, then, um, the- the result might be the- the mass creation of not five million articles in- in the English, um, encyclopedia, but 500 or five billion articles about everything, all proper names, as one- one of the co-founders put it.... um, anything that has a proper name would have an article that would be attached to it.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
- LSLarry Sanger
Um, so, um, so here's the, here's another thing that, that is not part of that system yet, but which I think any system of, of, uh, collaborative encyclopedic, encyclopedia writing has to have, and that is a, um, a, a democratic dispute resolution system. Um, usually what happens, and this is why Wikipedia... One of the reasons why Wikipedia is so messed up is that, um, there is no formalized way of, of, uh, arriving at a decision about disputed questions. So you go there, you've, you've got a question a- a- about, you know, "What, what should the, the definition of racism be?" You know, extremely hot topic. Um, it should be possible for people to, you know, come up with a bunch of different options and maybe have a, a round robin competition or something like that, and, and, um, actually get a legitimate choice. That's not what they do. They pretend that it is possible to, um, have a consensus about, um, about these things, and, um, but the consensus is determined basically by the people in power on the topic, you know, whoever, whoever has the most seniority or seems to have the most, uh, allies, uh, or whatever, um, those are the people who basically declare the consensus. So it's not a consensus. It's just putting a, a cynical description on, uh, what is not a, a consensus at all. Um, so, no, there... It, it needs... Uh, the decision-making process needs to be reduced to very specific editorial decisions to be made, and then taking legitimate, legitimate votes, um, based on that. And, and-
- 30:00 – 45:00
Right. …
- CWChris Williamson
fair distribution of power with regards to the editing of articles. How-
- LSLarry Sanger
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
... how is that manifesting on the actual platform? So if I go on, I try to edit something, it just doesn't get allowed? It doesn't save straightaway, so there's certain protected articles? Is that the way it works?
- LSLarry Sanger
Certain protected articles, unless you actually have, uh, uh-... e- enough, um... Uh, have made enough edits in the system, you're not allowed to touch them at all. Um, but, uh, you know, it doesn't take that long to, to get to the point where you actually are licensed in the system to, to edit even the protected articles.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- LSLarry Sanger
Um, but, uh, yeah. I mean, uh, I don't actually think that that in itself is, is such a, a terrible problem because, I mean, it, um... There are... Popular articles need to be locked down for the simple reason that it's, it ends up being, uh, uh, just a, a chore to, to clean up after the, the vandals, right? Um-
- CWChris Williamson
To be constantly reverting things, right?
- LSLarry Sanger
Exactly. That's exactly what happens. So there's... I'm, I'm not complaining about that.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- LSLarry Sanger
Uh, the, the complaint that I would have, um, are, uh, is, is the abuse of such a policy. The, uh, locking down an ar- an article, um, so that, that, uh, people that you, uh... Who, who are outsiders, they have legitimate contributions to make to the article but you disagree with them, those people are excluded. That's a, that's a problem. Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
That must be such a effortful process on the back end, on the, on the end of Wikipedia, to constantly be looking, what, what article falls within the purview of, um, our protected bracket. "Is this edit in line with our particular thinking? Does it blah, blah?" Like, that's, that's a serious... Unless... Uh, I suppose unless it's just a, it doesn't get through, this is a very, very hard wall to keep.
- LSLarry Sanger
Well, it's not like there's some centralized rules and, and, and world view that is, um, that is enforced by everyone. I mean, to a certain extent that's, uh, k- kind of true, um, but not really. It, uh, uh... But it doesn't matter, right? Because, because there's all, all kinds of, of, uh, uh, uh, people who have made their own little fiefdoms on their set o- the set of articles that they sit on, and, um, there's just a game that you have to play in order to get anything done on Wikipedia, and that game appeals to only a, a very few people. So, uh, uh, if I may, uh, let me, let me explain what's going on now with me, because it's, it's... Uh, it develops... You're basically asking what is my notion of the, the perfect wiki or the perfect encyclopedia system, so here it is. So I, I said that I have been the chief information officer of Everipedia. Well, actually, uh, as we speak now, I am no longer, um, so I, I resigned, uh, in, in, um, uh, September, in order to start the, uh, Knowledge Standards Foundation, and we are gonna be developing something that I call the Encyclo-Sphere. Now, the Encyclo-Sphere will be... Uh, hopefully, um, ha- have as a partner Everipedia, but also Wikipedia, and Ballotpedia, and Britannica, and the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, and the rest of them. Not necessarily partners in the sense that we'll have a, an, a written agreement with them, but what we're gonna do is, we're going to take, uh, metadata about all of their articles and make it freely available as part of a public commons everyone can use. And if their articles are free, as in the case of Wikipedia, Everipedia, and Ballotpedia, and actually quite a few others, um, if it is free then you'll be able to see, uh, the articles themselves. Uh, they will also be shared and made available as part of a public commons. Um, so what do I mean by public commons? I actually mean something like the blogosphere. So you can... You know, right? If you start up a blog, um, if you don't tell it not to, then, um, WordPress for example will publish your posts, um, using, um, a, a standard called RSS, Really Simple Syndication, right? Uh, so it makes what's called a feed, and that feed can be slurped up by, uh, by blog readers. And so you can go and look at Feedly, for example, um, and, uh, Feedly will allow you to subscribe to different news sources and blogs, right? And then your blog gets collated in with other things that you might wanna read and so forth. Well, we need to build that kind of system for encyclopedias. That's what needs to exist. See, if you wanna work on an encyclopedia now, you have to work a- and, and you wanna t- work on the, the, uh, biggest, most influential encyclopedia in the world, well, that's Wikipedia, and you have to work with that weird crew, with their strange policies, um, uh, with... You know, and, and put up with their ideological editing and so forth. You have to work on one article per topic. They don't allow multiple articles or, you know, competing articles or anything like that, of course, right? Um, well, I submit that there are probably millions of people who, if given the chance, would be writing encyclopedia articles about what they know, if they could be submitted into a general commons in the same way that people submit blog posts into the general commons of the blogosphere. So what we need to do is create an Encyclo-Sphere that enables the millions of people who would like to write encyclopedia articles but who don't wanna put up with the BS of, of, uh, Wikipedia.... so that is the idea. That's what we're building.
- CWChris Williamson
How do you get around... So you would presumably have multiple articles on the same topic, um, multiple-
- LSLarry Sanger
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
... encyclopedia entries on the same topic. For me, I- I may be judging what I consider to be an encyclopedia incorrectly. But presumably, there should eventually only be one for most things. Is that increa- is that the wrong way to look at an encyclopedia?
- LSLarry Sanger
Uh, I think that's the wrong way to look at it.
- CWChris Williamson
Interesting.
- LSLarry Sanger
Um, yeah. So, here's the problem. Um, I- I personally am an objectivist about truth. I believe that there is such a thing as a mind-independent reality, and, um, we can get, uh, closer or farther away from- from a correct description of it. All right? So there is a mind-independent reality, and it constrains what we can know about it. Um, but, uh, the problem is that there is no generally accepted methods, and certainly no political entities that everyone can agree with for determining what that truth is. Right?
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- LSLarry Sanger
Um, and- and, uh, the best way to, um, arrive at, uh, the truth is to get all the views on the table, um, to be, uh, uh- um, as- as open as possible to proposals, and then allow people to- to rate those different, um, articles. And then, um, we can, if we have, uh, a- a proper user account system set up, right? Then, um, if I've confirmed that I am in fact Larry Sanger, then I could say, uh, things like, um, "Well, I'm an American. I'm male. I'm, you know, over 50. I have a- a PhD. I have degrees in philosophy. Um, I'm a member of this organization. I have- I went to these colleges," and so forth, right? Um, and then based on those categories, um, or political party, religion, whatever, based on such categories, you can say, "Okay. Show me the top-rated article according to all of the, you know, white male Republicans or how about Black female Democrats?"
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- LSLarry Sanger
Or, um, you know, on- on ... And on certain topics, those categories probably won't matter. On other topics, they'll matter a lot.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
- LSLarry Sanger
And i- it would be really, really interesting, I think, to compare the top-rated article about jihad according to, let's say, um, uh, American college professors versus imams living in the Middle East.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
- LSLarry Sanger
Um, I'll bet they would be different, um, and it would be really interesting to compare those articles, right? What would the- what would the top-rated article according to those categories of people be? Um, and, uh, so not only would it enable us to articulate different points of view, it would actually incentivize by creating a- a worldwide but completely decentralized, leaderless, centerless, uh, contest to write the best article about every topic from every point of view. So you wouldn't be- you wouldn't just get an article, um, that is approved by American college professors or whatever.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- LSLarry Sanger
It would be the best one according to them. And there would be this constant competition to write a- a better one. So, um, yeah, there's all kinds of things to- to be said about that, but I'll- I'll just leave it at that and let you ask questions.
- CWChris Williamson
I think it's cool. It- it kinda sounds a little bit like Reddit, I guess, where you kind of upvote, you upvote particular articles, and the ones that are the most active... Although I guess you wouldn't have the time-degrading element of that. How-
- LSLarry Sanger
Well, the difference, there's a difference. Uh, Reddit is, uh, uh, doesn't constrain the, uh, the type of thing that is submitted to a subreddit, right? This is just encyclopedia articles.
- 45:00 – 1:00:00
Mm-hmm. …
- LSLarry Sanger
sure we have the right standards, um, uh, expressed. So I, I've, um, actually started a, uh, a WordPress blog actually, um, and you might not even be able to tell that it's a blog by the time we're done with it we're adapting it so much. But, um, yeah, it's gonna be a, a big old group discussion, but, uh, a serious long-form discussion about what this now does, should look like. And I'm... uh, I've already started reaching out to a lot of people, um, and we're gonna try to get as many relevant experts involved, um, a- and, uh, make sure that, that, um, we've got everything nailed down as much as possible. But also in a way that, that, that isn't, um, that isn't interfered with by, uh, big money interests, uh, and, and, um, a- and the power brokers of the world. Just don't want them involved at all. So, uh, we're not gonna accept any corporate money. We're not going to accept any money from governments. Um, any, any large contributions we accept, um, from individuals or, um, or maybe fou- family foundations or whatever, w- we're gonna actually check them out (laughs) , gonna make sure that they're not another Epstein, um, you know, that, that kind of thing. Um, we want the money to be clean and we want to make sure that it... there's no quid pro quo involved. Um, so because knowledge is power, um, right? And, and if, if we actually succeed in developing the, the project that, that I'm talking about, uh, it could be extremely powerful actually. And, um, I think there might be people after, uh, after it to, um, e- exert influence so that, um, there's, uh, special favors done to certain people.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- LSLarry Sanger
Um, and that's, uh, that isn't gonna happen. I want it to be as neutral of, uh, and democratic of a standard as, um, a- as the classic standards of, of, uh, you know, defining the internet have been.
- CWChris Williamson
Understood, yeah. So when you're talking about the Knowledge Standards, uh, Foundation itself, the actual, uh, platforms I'm going to guess that you're dealing with, Wikipedia and stuff like that, in terms of repurposing their content and pulling them across, are they all within a format which is usable at the moment for you to rip that metadata out?
- LSLarry Sanger
Um, not really, no. In fact, that-
- CWChris Williamson
So do you need, do you need to get them on board with what you're going to do?
- LSLarry Sanger
No, uh, not necessarily.
- CWChris Williamson
Understood.
- LSLarry Sanger
I mean, it would help.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- LSLarry Sanger
Um, we could probably use their help, but I don't think it will be necessary. Uh, in the case of, of, uh, MediaWiki, that's the name of the software that, that Wikipedia uses-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm. Cool.
- LSLarry Sanger
... um, um, yeah, we can, um, uh, we can write basically a, a scraper for MediaWiki sites that extracts the, the right metadata. Um, thing is people do use Me- MediaWiki in different ways. Uh, so that, that would itself need to be adapted. I'm pretty sure we're gonna have to, to adapt our, our scrapers for, for basically all, all the d- different sites. And I'm not just talking about a, a meta search engine though. To, to be very clear, um, what I want to exist is, like, uh, plug-ins for, for, um, for WordPress or for m- uh, browser, uh, browser plug-ins that you could use when you're working on a Medium article, for example. You press a button, um, it imports the data on the page into a form, and then you fill out other fields to make s- and make sure that everything is, is correct. Um, and then-... it republishes it on a feed, in a feed. And then that feed could maybe, another thing that it could do is ping one of the e- one of the feed aggregators, right? And that would pull, uh, in different encyclopedia feeds from different encyclopedias. But also, and this is the point, individuals. If you just wanna put up an encyclopedia article about your hobby, and you, like, "Okay, I don't know a lot about a lot, but I can write, you know, a dozen articles about, about, you know-"
- CWChris Williamson
Table tennis or something.
- LSLarry Sanger
"... playing cards." Yeah, yeah, yeah. Trainspotting.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- LSLarry Sanger
Whatever. Um, then, then, uh, uh, uh, that's fine. You'll be able to that. And they will be collated in and ranked against, um, uh, all the others.
- CWChris Williamson
I think, I, I, I just can't get over how big of a technical undertaking this is. Like, it sounds-
- LSLarry Sanger
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
It just sounds like... Because obviously from your side, philosophically, it, it is very interesting. Um, another thing that I've got in my head at the moment is the, is how similarly this matches up with what's happening with blockchain technology at the moment, uh, with, with decentralization of currencies and stuff like that.
- LSLarry Sanger
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Um,
- LSLarry Sanger
This is why I joined Everipedia, right? Um, and Everipedia is, is still committed to, to, um, using this sort of system. But when I, when I joined Everipedia, um, I, I said, "Okay, so this is the project I really wanna work on." So they said, "Okay, well, you develop the ideas, and, and, and, you know, you can give speeches about it," and that's what I did. But, but, uh, also early on, I said, "Eventually, um, somebody is going to have to actually define the standards, the, uh, common standards that are used."
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- LSLarry Sanger
"If, if, for people are gonna be submitting articles to the Everipedia network-"
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- LSLarry Sanger
"... um, then, then, um, they would have to have common standards for doing that." And I eventually came to the conclusion that if it's really gonna be open and not controlled by Everipedia Inc., then it actually has to be something that is built not on the blockchain, but built on, on the World Wide Web, basically. So just, it'll, it'll be basically a text feed, right? Um, and, uh, but of course, uh, you know, Everipedia will, in fact, be able to tokenize that work. Um, perhaps you'll have to do something special in order to get an article submitted to Ric- uh, Everipedia. Maybe it'd have to have an Everipedia account in order to, uh, earn IQ tokens for doing that, right? But you're, you're not at all wrong, um, that, that the whole idea of decentralizing, uh, content development, uh, um, is, uh, is something that people are really excited about, um, uh, blockchain, uh, for enabling, so.
- CWChris Williamson
It's interesting, isn't it, that this particular pathway's acting across multiple different domains, so to speak, within tech? This, this push towards decentralization.
- LSLarry Sanger
Yeah. Look, it's just a, it's a, it's a movement, basically, to, to, um, take power back. Um, take it out of the hands of Mark Zuckerberg and, uh, and his ilk, right? Um, yeah, it's a, uh, I, I think it's a huge problem that they have, um, decided to ignore our privacy rights. And, um, even though our content is what they, uh, have built their m- you know, multi-billion dollar corporations on, they insist on censoring us. It's the arrogance is mind-boggling to me. Um, and, uh, that wouldn't fly if you were talking about blogs, would it?
- CWChris Williamson
Yes, yes.
- 1:00:00 – 1:15:00
It could st- it…
- CWChris Williamson
like, things move pretty slow, right?
- LSLarry Sanger
It could st- it could still happen. It could still happen, for sure. Okay, but there's another thing, okay? Um, uh, I, I decided to do a social media strike, um, in, uh, in July. July 4th and July 5th, um, I invited people to sign a Declaration of Digital Independence.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- LSLarry Sanger
You can still sign it.
- CWChris Williamson
I love it. That's cool.
- LSLarry Sanger
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
That's cool.
- LSLarry Sanger
Yeah. You should read it. And sign it. Um, it's still up. Uh, it's on my blog, LarrySanger.org. Just search for Declaration of Digital Independence. And I told people, uh, "Strike on July 4th and 5th," um, and a bunch of people did. I don't know, thousands and thousands of people did, and they, they were declaring that they were on strike and so forth. I got ... There were dozens of articles written about it too. Um, I was on CNN, I was on, um, Fox talking to, um, uh, oh, what's his name? Um, anyway. Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Someone. Yeah.
- LSLarry Sanger
Um, and, and, um, uh, so, uh, it was, uh, as far as getting the idea out there, um, goes, that was a, a, a, a success. Um, not that many people actually went on strike, but it was still a s- still fair, fair few.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- LSLarry Sanger
And, um-... here's the interesting thing. After that, like, beginning toward the end of July and since then, uh, Facebook has gone down from, uh, an Alexa rank of three to five. Twitter has declined from 11 to 30 today. Their Alexa rank is 30 today. Used to be 11, right? Um, I- I've written an article about this on my, on my blog. Um, there's various others that, that are big decliners, like, um, uh, Instagram is another one. Has gone down, like, 25 or 30 places, um, from those.
- CWChris Williamson
And this, this, this Alexa rank's publicly available?
- LSLarry Sanger
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, Alexa-
- CWChris Williamson
It's just... I've never heard of it. It's, so it's the ranking of how many people are asking Alexa to do a particular thing, is that correct?
- LSLarry Sanger
Nope.
- CWChris Williamson
Oh. What i-
- LSLarry Sanger
Nope. A- and, it's, it's, it's the, it's the, the, uh, r- rank, ranking of websites. It's not Alexa, uh, it's also a, a, an Amazon product.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- LSLarry Sanger
But actually predates the, the Alexa device.
- CWChris Williamson
So what is it?
- LSLarry Sanger
Uh, it's a, it's a web traffic, um, service basically.
- CWChris Williamson
Cool. Understood.
- LSLarry Sanger
Y- yeah, yeah, yeah, and it, I think it's-
- CWChris Williamson
So this is much more serious than people not asking their smart speaker-
- LSLarry Sanger
... it's one of the, the biggest.
- CWChris Williamson
... to n- to, to access Instagram, this is general traffic going down.
- LSLarry Sanger
Yes. This is general traffic going down. Oh, Wikipedia has gone from th- uh, uh, a ranking of, uh, uh, it is, it used to be the fifth most popular website, now it is the ninth. Just in the last, uh, r- six to eight weeks.
- CWChris Williamson
Have there been any notable...
- LSLarry Sanger
Um.
- 1:15:00 – 1:15:27
Encyclosphere. …
- CWChris Williamson
uh, it'll be exciting to see if you guys manage to change the, the space of the encyclos- encyclosphere?
- LSLarry Sanger
Encyclosphere.
- CWChris Williamson
Encyclosphere.
- LSLarry Sanger
Just like the blogosphere. Encyclosphere.
- CWChris Williamson
I love it. Larry, thank you so much for your time. (instrumental music plays)
Episode duration: 1:15:27
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