How I almost invented Wikipedia

Wikipedia Logo

Wikipedia Logo

I sold one of my domain names this month, reliablesources.com. I had that domain longer than I’ve had kids, registering it on 17 January 2000. Two months ago the domain became old enough to drive.

I remember just where I was when I decided to register the domain. I was in my entrepreneurial phase at the time, working with some extremely talented friends at NeTraverse and while I was on a business trip to Austin I dreamed up what I thought would be an innovative website.

I was a regular reader of the Slashdot (which was recently sold) nerd news website back then and was intrigued by its “karma” system of ranking posts. I wanted to apply this karma ranking to the people in the news, giving users the ability to rank what someone in the news says based on that person’s known credibility.

It was inspired by President Bill Clinton’s time in office. The Office of the President carries a lot of built-in credibility, for instance, so right away you’re going to listen to what the President says. But what if the President is caught lying (i.e., “I did not have sexual relations…”)? That should make one skeptical of whatever that President says, knocking down his or her karma score.
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