blue danube

I find myself dreaming about "replace Wikipedia" again.

What does it take to replace Wikipedia?

• A base of 50k "decent" encyclopedia articles. ChatGPT or a dozen other LLMs can do this.
• A way to generate articles on current events. How will the machine know things? You collect primary sources, and write the article based on them. ⚙️( a "primary" source is a source with direct connections to an event. Despite the protests of many Wikipedia editors, contemporary news articles are generally primary sources. A "secondary" source analyzes the primary sources, with the benefit of hindsight. A "tertiary" source is an encyclopedia or the like, built on secondary sources.) 💡( the need to prefer secondary sources on Wikipedia is for multiple reasons; one of them is that editors can easily mis-interpret primary sources. hopefully the machine can avoid this problem) 💡( the problems of "who creates the primary sources we use" are more difficult)
• A way to encourage people to use your site and not others. 💡( "advertising spend" can do this. Also, appealing to a vertical (or clique) that dislikes Wikipedia can generate word-of-mouth marketing) 🔥( the cynical approach would be to have a dozen different encyclopedias, targeting a dozen different cliques)
• A way to generate revenue. ⚙️( Wikipedia, famously, has no ads [other than the annual donation-drive banners])
• A way to remain up to date.

The new encyclopedia would use hypertext. Maybe. 🔥( my experience has demonstrated that most people are less enamored by hypertext than I am)