2. Pensieve: An Overview
For a knowledge base to be called decentralised, we propose these standards to be met:
The data of collective creation must live in a decentralised storage that is universally accessible and provided universally.
The access for participation in the content submission process needs to be universally accessible, as well as the participation in the discourse of content fit to display.
Rules for adoptable content and consensus need to be open and transparent, subject to modification proposals from communities catering to respective usage.
Traditional Wiki. Typically, a traditional wiki as a knowledge base offers key features for collaborative information management. It supports collaborative editing, allowing multiple users to contribute, enhancing community-driven knowledge creation. Wikis are structured logically with interconnected Pages and hyperlinks for easy navigation and comprehension. Additionally, every edit is recorded in a revision history, preserving content evolution and allowing reversion to previous versions when needed.
The Pensieve knowledge base model introduces a even more dynamic, decentralised, and community-driven approach to knowledge management, marking a revolutionary step beyond the more static, centralised frameworks typical of traditional wikis.
A Pensieve Knowledge Base features the following qualities:
Decentralisation: there is no centralised party for arbitration of truth or admission standard. Unlike traditional wikis, which may still operate under some centralised administrative control for content arbitration and standards, a Pensieve knowledge base eliminates any centralised authority. This approach ensures that truth and standards are governed by the community at large rather than by a selected few. Decentralisation is through storage, communication, incentive structure governance to achieve social consensus with blockchain, distributed storage and social contracts encoded by smart contracts. Further more, blockchain-based user authentication and authorisation in a knowledge base allows users control over their identity, contributing to a more decentralised and user-centric approach. Blockchain technology offers unique advantages that make it particularly well-suited as the infrastructure for a Pensieve knowledge base, especially when the requirements include security, transparency, and decentralised control for trust-building.
Accessibility: technologically globally accessible both for obtaining the data and contributing to knowledge base, where identity is irrelevant to the contribution of knowledge base by default. While traditional wikis are generally accessible, Pensieve takes accessibility further by being globally available through decentralised storage. Contirbution access is guaranteed by free key creations from blockchain protocols and by default, it cannot care about identity and does not rely on any other credential providers.
Dynamism and Immutability: any user’s data entry is unchangeable once recorded, ensuring each entry is preserved permanently. However, no data record is ever considered final. While original entries remain intact, updates can always be appended, allowing for continual data refinement and accuracy enhancement.
Consensus Approximate Truth: a practical approach to knowledge that leverages the collective expertise of a community while recognising the provisional nature of human understanding. This approach acknowledges that while absolute truth might be difficult or impossible to attain, a high degree of agreement among knowledgeable people can serve as a reliable indicator of what is likely to be true. It relies on the collective judgment of a community of experts, under the assumption that these experts have access to relevant information and possess the necessary expertise to interpret that information correctly.
Contextualisation: community participate in contextualisation and justification of perceived truth to constitute knowledge. Relevance is determined through community governance. Traditional wikis rely on hyperlinks and structured Pages for context, but a Pensieve knowledge base actively involves the community in contextualising and justifying what is considered truthful and relevant. This is governed through community participation rather than only static linking, allowing for a more fluid and evolving understanding of information.
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