Everything2 Hits One Million Nodes

Stavr0 noted that Everything 2 has now hit its 1 Millionth Node: [list collector] by [stepnwolf]. Long long long time readers of Slashdot remember Everything as The Mystery Project thought up and developed years ago by Nate & I, which has since taken on a life of its own. Congrats to Nate, Bones, Darrick, Tim, Ron, and the thousands of people who have contributed a million nodes, both priceless and worthless to this bizarre experiment in distributed collection and maintanence of information. Nostalgia rises up in me whenever I read the original nodes that Nate and I wrote when Everything was just a wierd drunken idea. If only we figured out a way for it to break even ;)

Comments

Check out the system BEHIND everything2..

[mcc]

Well, as long as so much attention is centered here.. no one seems to have mentioned it yet, so i'd like to point out (for those who may not be aware) that the Everything Engine, the software on which everything2 was built, is freely available and Open Source and nearing an official 1.0 release. Check out:
http://everydevel.com/

The system is truly impressive as an abstract and astoundingly flexible architecture to let you VERY easily create collaboratively managed websites (assuming you are a relatively experienced perl programmer), and i would just like to suggest that those in the general Slashdot population to whom the system might be useful go take look at it and maybe play with it some. The chances of it being useful to you someday are not bad..

So charge or something...

[supabeast!]

"If only we figured out a way for it to break even ;)"

Give me a way to support it. I cannot tell you how many times I have needed to look up tech jargon at work and found an instant answer of E2. That site is a lifesaver.

Wikipedia hits 2000 articles

[jwales]

If you'd like to get in on the ground floor of something similar, but a lot more serious, Wikipedia (the free GNU FDL encyclopedia based on wiki software) is always looking for good contributors.

Since opening in January, we already have over 2000 articles, many of very good quality.

Everything2 is awesome. But many of the entries are more humor than anything else. An encyclopedia is a different beast.

http://www.wikipedia.com/

It thinks, therefore...

[zpengo]

The cool thing about Everything is that it eventually acquired its own culture (much as Slashdot has its own culture), and it became self-referential. It acquired self-awareness, and lost its dependency upon the outside world. Slashdot depends upon external ideas and information, but Everything is perfectly content writing about the things that it discovers about itself. It's a simple thought experiment that took off and became, if not a small movement, then at least something like one.

It exists on a purely conceptual level. It soon outgrew a limitation on existing ideas and began to create new ideas, such as "backwards compatibility of the toaster." Instead of describing what people thought, it made them think anew.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that it's cool. :)

Moderation Success of E2

[Belgarath52]

When Everything started, I always assumed that it would meet the same fate as all internet discussion boards seem to - no meaningful signal-to-noise ratio. Slashdot and K5 do fairly well, but you have to read at a pretty high rating level to eliminate all of the crap that you normally find.

Everything, on the other hand, outright gets rid of the stupidest posts. The format also isn't conducive to stupid posts, as they'll never be referenced to.

A weblog site, like /., K5, or any of the many others, could be designed around the same rather decentralized hierarchy, allowing any user at all to post articles, similarly to K5's design (I'm going to get moderated down for criticizing /., I'm sure), but without even a real main page - users would just search for what they're interested in.

For example, one might search for most recent articles that're rated above x and have at least x responses, or something along those lines.

Just an idea, and one that I don't have time to implement. I just thought I'd throw it out there as a thought.

Everything2:Community yes, source of knowledge, no

[sociology major]

The simple fact about everything2 is that while it is an interesting place, and a fascinating community, the ecology of any online community ultimately destroys it as a source of reliable information.

Everything2 has its own fair share of trolls and freaks, intent on spreading disinformation and chaos. This means that anything said there must be taken with a pinch of salt.

Furthermore, it has its own 'Karma Whore' equivalents, people who are trying to gain 'experience' and status as a result. It is full of ultimately banal information.

Secondly, the females there are pretty awful - the average female uses the internet to affirm real life relationships, not to make new relationships. Females who post to online communities are usually rather strange creatures, desperate for some sort of attention.

This is why the e2 females cluster around the sex topics.

Having said all that, e2 definately is interesting. It is just not reputable or useful.

It has fun, but no utility.