4 ms·

Agreed. Also, if IPFS is not the preferred way to go about this kind of endeavor, there are the guys at https://lunyr.com/ https://lunyr.com/ who are building a

Agreed. Also, if IPFS is not the preferred way to go about this kind of endeavor, there are the guys at https://lunyr.com/ https://lunyr.com/ who are building a Wikipedia in blockchain architecture. About time someone actually attempted this. Additionally, the guys at Everipedia also have the entirety of English Wikipedia imported and forked very nicely so there is at least another large scale effort with a robust dump of Wikipedia already in production. Lots of different attempts at keeping the vision of "sum total of human knowledge" on the web. :)

komali2 9y ago
>Sum total of human knowledge I like wikipedia, but I always felt like it was missing crucial pieces of information to make it the "sum total of human knowledge." For example, I can look at the articles for ISO_31-11, Spheres, and Sphere Eversions, but I don't think that information alone is enough for me to go from "society of post-apocalyptic 'we lost how to do math'" to "we can prove sphere eversion is possible once again." I chose this example because I'm shit at math and never learned much of it anyway so I can maybe be considered a mad-max post-apocalyptic uneducated peon? Anyway point is I think there's the crucial "teaching" step missing. Perhaps with a collection of a great deal more articles together, the result "prove eversion is possible" can be taught, but missing for example the ISO_31-11 article alone would make it monumentally difficult, I feel. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_31-11 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_31-11 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphere https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphere https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphere_eversion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphere_eversion
- efskap 9y ago
  s/ total/mary/
  - komali2 9y ago
    I don't understand this comment :(
    - apenguin 9y ago
      They mean "Sum total" -> "Summary" As in, that's a more accurate descriptor(?)
    - effie 9y ago
      That's the geekspeak for '"sum total" should be rephrased into "summary"'.
      - komali2 9y ago
        Ah I see, thank you. Is it some sort of programming syntax or like, scientific publishing notation?
        echion 9y ago
        It's regular expression syntax for, roughly, "substitute 'mary' for ' total'", which transforms "sum total" - " total" + "mary" --> "summary.
    - bigbugbag 9y ago
      relevant xkcd: https://www.xkcd.com/208/ https://www.xkcd.com/208/
      - Qwertious 9y ago
        Only in the sense that it's something to do with regular expressions.
- johncolanduoni 9y ago
  I think sum total is probably overstating it, but Wikipedia provides more than enough of a scaffolding to massively accelerate rediscovery of math. It's less about teaching and more about giving inquiring minds a roadmap with some answers filled in. How far do you think Euclid would have gotten if he could've read Wikipedia for the entirety of his life?
  - thaumasiotes 9y ago
    > How far do you think Euclid would have gotten if he could've read Wikipedia for the entirety of his life? Much less far than he actually went, given that Euclid is known solely for compiling existing work. There's not so much reason to do that when it's already been done and you're happily reading the compilation.
    - johncolanduoni 9y ago
      In Euclid's day, "compilation" meant taking disparate and sometimes halfheartedly proved theorems with wildly different terminology and framing and laying them out in one consistent chain of deductions. So I have trouble writing him off as a trumped up textbook author. It's like saying the formalization of continuity by Weierstrass and Bolzano was compilation because prior mathematicians had already been working with the concepts.
- derefr 9y ago
  I believe, at some point, Wikipedia was talking about partnering with Archive.org to turn all their citation links into Wayback Machine snapshots—including the ones for journal PDFs. Presuming such a thing ever gets done, an archival copy of Wikipedia + the Wayback Machine pages Wikipedia references would then make a pretty good "sum total of all human knowledge."
  - roywiggins 9y ago
    There's a lot that's not written down. Didn't NASA try to coax Apollo engineers out of retirement for their new big space stuff? The engineers had knowledge that wasn't written down, wasn't accessible, or was simply lost. Sure, with sufficient time you could recreate the knowledge with brand new engineers but you'd be rediscovering lost information.
sidko 9y ago
Did you look into Lunyr much at all? They are just using IPFS on the backend (or plan to use, per their ICO communication to raise money), and using an Ethereum-based ERC20 token to 'incentivize' people to contribute and edit.
latenightcoding 9y ago
Feels like everyone in the ethereum community has sick frontend design skills
- Quiark 9y ago
  Because every such project starts with crowdfunding. Some of them may actually get some code written but not always. /s

komali2 9y ago

>Sum total of human knowledge I like wikipedia, but I always felt like it was missing crucial pieces of information to make it the "sum total of human knowledge." For example, I can look at the articles for ISO_31-11, Spheres, and Sphere Eversions, but I don't think that information alone is enough for me to go from "society of post-apocalyptic 'we lost how to do math'" to "we can prove sphere eversion is possible once again." I chose this example because I'm shit at math and never learned much of it anyway so I can maybe be considered a mad-max post-apocalyptic uneducated peon? Anyway point is I think there's the crucial "teaching" step missing. Perhaps with a collection of a great deal more articles together, the result "prove eversion is possible" can be taught, but missing for example the ISO_31-11 article alone would make it monumentally difficult, I feel. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_31-11 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_31-11 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphere https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphere https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphere_eversion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphere_eversion

efskap 9y ago
s/ total/mary/
- komali2 9y ago
  I don't understand this comment :(
  - apenguin 9y ago
    They mean "Sum total" -> "Summary" As in, that's a more accurate descriptor(?)
  - effie 9y ago
    That's the geekspeak for '"sum total" should be rephrased into "summary"'.
    - komali2 9y ago
      Ah I see, thank you. Is it some sort of programming syntax or like, scientific publishing notation?
      - echion 9y ago
        It's regular expression syntax for, roughly, "substitute 'mary' for ' total'", which transforms "sum total" - " total" + "mary" --> "summary.
  - bigbugbag 9y ago
    relevant xkcd: https://www.xkcd.com/208/ https://www.xkcd.com/208/
    - Qwertious 9y ago
      Only in the sense that it's something to do with regular expressions.
johncolanduoni 9y ago
I think sum total is probably overstating it, but Wikipedia provides more than enough of a scaffolding to massively accelerate rediscovery of math. It's less about teaching and more about giving inquiring minds a roadmap with some answers filled in. How far do you think Euclid would have gotten if he could've read Wikipedia for the entirety of his life?
- thaumasiotes 9y ago
  > How far do you think Euclid would have gotten if he could've read Wikipedia for the entirety of his life? Much less far than he actually went, given that Euclid is known solely for compiling existing work. There's not so much reason to do that when it's already been done and you're happily reading the compilation.
  - johncolanduoni 9y ago
    In Euclid's day, "compilation" meant taking disparate and sometimes halfheartedly proved theorems with wildly different terminology and framing and laying them out in one consistent chain of deductions. So I have trouble writing him off as a trumped up textbook author. It's like saying the formalization of continuity by Weierstrass and Bolzano was compilation because prior mathematicians had already been working with the concepts.
derefr 9y ago
I believe, at some point, Wikipedia was talking about partnering with Archive.org to turn all their citation links into Wayback Machine snapshots—including the ones for journal PDFs. Presuming such a thing ever gets done, an archival copy of Wikipedia + the Wayback Machine pages Wikipedia references would then make a pretty good "sum total of all human knowledge."
- roywiggins 9y ago
  There's a lot that's not written down. Didn't NASA try to coax Apollo engineers out of retirement for their new big space stuff? The engineers had knowledge that wasn't written down, wasn't accessible, or was simply lost. Sure, with sufficient time you could recreate the knowledge with brand new engineers but you'd be rediscovering lost information.

sidko 9y ago

Did you look into Lunyr much at all? They are just using IPFS on the backend (or plan to use, per their ICO communication to raise money), and using an Ethereum-based ERC20 token to 'incentivize' people to contribute and edit.

latenightcoding 9y ago

Feels like everyone in the ethereum community has sick frontend design skills

Quiark 9y ago
Because every such project starts with crowdfunding. Some of them may actually get some code written but not always. /s