3 ms·

Reminds me of Everything2. It started as a freeform text linking site, where nodes (pages) could be linked just like a wiki these days. It was written by some o

Reminds me of Everything2. It started as a freeform text linking site, where nodes (pages) could be linked just like a wiki these days. It was written by some of the slashdot crew, back around 2000. The site grew and attracted a fun crowd who really liked the freeform wiki-like interface. Unfortunately some of the admins wanted to compete with Wikipedia, so the fun, frivolous stuff was discouraged over purely factual nodes. This meant that some people stopped contributing. I left around that time. https://everything2.com/ https://everything2.com/ Huh it's still going! It must be 25 years old now, not a bad achievement.

thoughtFrame 3y ago
That's interesting, because I checked out everything2 last year to see what I had missed out on, and found it a nice place with poetry and personal essays. Maybe at some point their culture changed again?
- bloopernova 3y ago
  It's entirely possible! I left sometime in the mid 2000s, so there's certainly a lot of time for cultures to have changed significantly even multiple times.
- creatonez 3y ago
  > Maybe at some point their culture changed again? Supposedly Tumblr has done the same. They crashed and burned so hard that they actually came out of the ordeal with a reverse eternal September effect, where miraculously most people act respectfully towards each other and are not just trying to exploit the platform.
unwind 3y ago
Founded (as "Everything1") in 1998 according to the other site.
- bloopernova 3y ago
  Oh right! Yeah I completely forgot about its initial incarnation being named that. It was definitely a new frontier where we thought anything was possible. Just being able to easily link between nodes/pages was a very cool feature back then.
Espressosaurus 3y ago
Hah. I remember joining it to write a bunch of stuff about a game, which immediately got removed. I of course immediately left. What is with these "encyclopedias of everything" that don't want frivolous information?
- contravariant 3y ago
  Easy, if you want an encyclopedia that contains truly everything you can just use the library of babel.
  - Dylan16807 3y ago
    Sure, if you move the goalpost from "information" to "has letters".
- ethbr1 3y ago
  Humankind's inherent love of rules and order? >> “I don’t have a problem with roads,” Zeleny said. “There are lots of obscure subjects on Wikipedia, but you have to follow the guidelines. People see Wikipedia as a joke. They think it’s not serious. I’ve taken great, great pains to make sure articles are well written, well researched, and well cited.” Or maybe more precisely, people's desire to believe the thing they're volunteering vast amounts of their personal time to matters and is serious, and because it's serious there should be rules.
  - Cipater 3y ago
    I agree that people contributing to Wikipedia should take it seriously. I also believe that Wikipedia is important and the work contributers do there matters. Your comment makes it sound like you disagree.
    - ethbr1 3y ago
      I think it's unreasonable to treat people's volunteer efforts lightly. Nobody gives massive amount of personal time to something they don't really care about. But that also leads to myoptic views of projects in super-volunteers, where the intent of the project to users gets lost in performance of the rules. I'm not sure this is a solveable problem for volunteer-based projects though. There are only so many people willing to donate time, and you have to keep them happy.

thoughtFrame 3y ago

That's interesting, because I checked out everything2 last year to see what I had missed out on, and found it a nice place with poetry and personal essays. Maybe at some point their culture changed again?

bloopernova 3y ago
It's entirely possible! I left sometime in the mid 2000s, so there's certainly a lot of time for cultures to have changed significantly even multiple times.
creatonez 3y ago
> Maybe at some point their culture changed again? Supposedly Tumblr has done the same. They crashed and burned so hard that they actually came out of the ordeal with a reverse eternal September effect, where miraculously most people act respectfully towards each other and are not just trying to exploit the platform.

unwind 3y ago

Founded (as "Everything1") in 1998 according to the other site.

bloopernova 3y ago
Oh right! Yeah I completely forgot about its initial incarnation being named that. It was definitely a new frontier where we thought anything was possible. Just being able to easily link between nodes/pages was a very cool feature back then.

Espressosaurus 3y ago

Hah. I remember joining it to write a bunch of stuff about a game, which immediately got removed. I of course immediately left. What is with these "encyclopedias of everything" that don't want frivolous information?

contravariant 3y ago
Easy, if you want an encyclopedia that contains truly everything you can just use the library of babel.
- Dylan16807 3y ago
  Sure, if you move the goalpost from "information" to "has letters".
ethbr1 3y ago
Humankind's inherent love of rules and order? >> “I don’t have a problem with roads,” Zeleny said. “There are lots of obscure subjects on Wikipedia, but you have to follow the guidelines. People see Wikipedia as a joke. They think it’s not serious. I’ve taken great, great pains to make sure articles are well written, well researched, and well cited.” Or maybe more precisely, people's desire to believe the thing they're volunteering vast amounts of their personal time to matters and is serious, and because it's serious there should be rules.
- Cipater 3y ago
  I agree that people contributing to Wikipedia should take it seriously. I also believe that Wikipedia is important and the work contributers do there matters. Your comment makes it sound like you disagree.
  - ethbr1 3y ago
    I think it's unreasonable to treat people's volunteer efforts lightly. Nobody gives massive amount of personal time to something they don't really care about. But that also leads to myoptic views of projects in super-volunteers, where the intent of the project to users gets lost in performance of the rules. I'm not sure this is a solveable problem for volunteer-based projects though. There are only so many people willing to donate time, and you have to keep them happy.