Everything2 (abbreviated to 'E2') is an online community encyclopedia. It shares a few basic ideas with h2g2 but is vastly different in terms of how it is going about creating the encyclopedia. It's owned by the Everything Development Company, who make what they call 'Another Dumb Perl-MySQL Web Content-Management System'.

The Everything Software

The Everything system is used on several sites - one of the more attractive being Animefu. It can be downloaded for use on other sites and has some interesting features. The Everthing Development Company are particularly proud of four features:

• Chatterbox

  A single step away from live chat, this feature allows for conversations between everyone who is online, and also for private messages between individual users. However, the content from the chatterbox scrolls away after a while, never to be seens again.

• Voting System

  People's contributions can be rated, in real time, by other users of the site. This allows, in theory, better content to be given priority, and poorer content to acheive lower final significance.

• User Groups

  User Groups allow the owners of a site to grant access to certain features and privileges to a restricted group of users. This isn't jsut confined to a manual list, but privileges can be awarded according to the amount a user has contributed to the site.

• Weblogs

  Weblogs are a journal system which Everything claim 'allow easy communication with users'.

People

Users

When a new user arrives at E2, and signs up for an account, their privileges and powers are quite different to those of experienced users. The system is quite complex, and even the E2 administration don't take parts of it 100% seriously. There are two factors of importance that have an influence in what level of user someone is, and therefore what tools they can use:

• XP are 'experience points' - gained when someone votes for something that a user wrote, when a user votes for someone else's work, and when another user 'blesses' that user. XP are also gained by writing, and by having work marked as 'cool' by other users.
• Writeups must be made - contributions to the encyclopedia - in order to advance.

Different ranks are awarded to users based on which level they're at. These ranks come with specific privileges and are treated quite importantly by the users of E2. There's nearly always a new feature or privilege to be earned just waiting on the horizon. Here are the different user levels and what they mean:

1. Initiates are E2's newbies. They have no voting power, and no ability to mark others' work as 'cool'. Beyond writing and using the chatterbox, privileges include access to their own deleted work, and the ability to read other people's 'Scratch Pads', which are used to hold work that is not complete.
2. Novices have earned 50 XP and written at least 25 writeups. They're beginning to show their worth in the community, but still have few privileges. They are allowed to vote ten times in a day.
3. Acolytes have amassed 200 XP and written 70 writeups. They are awarded the privilege, somewhat bizarrely, of being able to see the name of people who created a 'nodeshell' - an empty topic - and didn't write anything. Maybe it's to allow them to shout abuse at those responsible. They also have 20 daily votes.
4. Scribes possess 400 XP and are the authors of 150 writeups. They have 30 votes a day, and the ability to mark a single writeup as 'cool' each day - called a 'C!'. They are also allowed to become a mentor - someone who helps the Initiates to find their way around.
5. Monks have passed the 800 XP, 250 writeup mark. They have 45 votes every day. They can create new rooms in the Chatterbox.
6. Crafters have 1350 XP and have written 380 writeups. They have 60 votes and 2 'C!s' a day. They're also allowed a single uncopyrighted image on their page, called a 'homenode'.
7. Artisans have 2100 XP and have written 515 writeups. They have 75 votes a day.
8. Seers have accumulated 2900 XP and have written 700 writeups. They're allowed 90 votes and 3 'C!s' each day.
9. Archivists have 4000 XP and have written 900 writeups. They receive the ability to vote 105 times a day.
10. Avatars have 7500 XP and have written 1215 writeups. The reward for all this contribution is 125 votes and 4 'C!s' daily. At this level and above, users can lurk unseen by cloaking their names in the online list.
11. Godheads have 13000 XP and have written 1800 writeups, and are allowed to vote 150 times a day for their efforts.
12. Pseudo_Gods have 2100 XP and have written 2700 writeups. 200 votes each day and 5 'C!s' serve as their reward.
13. Pedants have 2100 XP and have written 4500 writeups.

• This may seem insanely complicated, but this is just a part of it - for more on the XP/Voting system, see this page

Above all of these normal users, there are other people with special privileges, and who are granted a prestigious status within the community. These people are similar in number to h2g2's Volunteers, only that you don't volunteer - you get asked if you're experienced enough. It's obviously a long way to the top.

Content Editors

There are about 35 'Content Editors' at any one time. They are granted the ability to 'cool' a topic, which places it on the Front Page of the site. They can also delete your contribution - and it's not obvious how to retrieve it. This is E2's method of keeping load on their servers to a minimum, and the deletion can happen pretty quickly. They also have the power to edit any writeup at will - for example to correct links or spelling.

Content editors also have an unlimited number of 'C!'s to hand out, and are also able to lock a topic, called a 'node', so that no more writeups can be added without the permission of an editor.

Gods

E2's 'Gods' are immensely powerful on the site. In addition to the powers of the Content Editors group, they have yet more abilities. They can 'bless' users that they like with 10 XP at will. They can cloak themselves even if they're not at Level 10 or above. They can award a user 25 votes to use during the same day - even to newbies, if they want to. They have the power to unleash the 'Everything Death Borg' on someone who's using the Chatterbox too much - apparently because chatting isn't productive, especially as it's forbidden to chat about writeups. This has the effect of stopping the target user from chatting. Gods can delete topics ('nodes'), or individual writeups. They can leave 'Editor's Notes' in writeups. They can also move writeups between nodes.

Community

All of this restrictive red tape might look like it would put people off from using the site at all. However, there does still appear to be a thriving community on the site. Mostly from the USA, many noders are more than a little hostile to users of other online communities, which they consider to be inferior. Preconceptions about h2g2, for example, are frequently wildly inaccurate, and they have a tendency to compare today's E2 with the h2g2 of yesteryear.

The favourite pastime, besides noding, of community members appears to be attracting the attention of the Gods to their comments in the chatterbox, with a view to being attacked by the Death Borg. This is in protest at the rules prohibiting the discussion of religion - one Researcher was silenced purely for answering a question on the significance of Holy Communion in the Anglican Church. It also frequently is to demonstrate the tendency of some Gods to silence people simply because they dislike them.

Writing

On E2, writing is called 'noding', hence 'noders' are the users. A node is a page dedicated to a topic, and multiple writeups are not uncommon. Responses to writeups tend to sit in the node itself. The best entry is at the top of the list, as decided by the community at large. All the newest writeups find their way into a little list in the right hand column of every page for a short time - so people notice them.

The figures determining your user level appear astronomically high, but it's worth noting that there are major differences between an E2 writeup, and a comprehensive encyclopedia entry, such as those favoured by sites such as h2g2 and Wikipedia.

The differences between h2g2 and E2

• Opinion

  If you were to ask the average h2g2 Researcher at the time of writing what they thought of Everything2, their response would probably go something like this: 'Everything2? What's that?'. E2's noders, however, seem more aware of us than we are of them. Most of them dislike the way we operate due to the differences below. A few, however, are more civil. They hate our moderation policies too, but more of that later.

• Writing

  On E2, writing is called 'noding', hence 'noders'. A node is a page dedicated to a title, and multiple entries are not uncommon. Discussion of entries tends to sit in the entry list itself. The best entry is at the top of the list, as decided by the community at large. All the newest postings find their way into a little list for a short time - so people notice them.

• Moderation/Censorship

  E2 noders pride themselves on their right to freedom of speech, the lack of moderation and the freedom of their writings from the evils of editing. However, if you were to sign up, you'd probably find that they hadn't got the first clue what they were talking about.

  The first thing you're likely to notice is a 'live' chatterbox in the top right of the page. This is not moderated, and swearing gets through. But before you go on to enjoy your chat, there are some things you ought to know about:

  1. Political Asylum is where you get thrown if you are foolish enough to talk about politics or religion. There are no exceptions - even if someone just asks a question about Holy Communion or something and there's no argument going on. Young and mid-experienced noders sometimes protest at this and like to deliberately get chucked in there. You end up chatting to yourself until you realise and escape.
  2. Silencing is employed - if you say something that someone important dislikes, you get chucked out of the conversation for several minutes. This includes talking about nodes - dismissed as 'nodevertising', and insulting people, naturally. Also, when a discussion about h2g2 is getting interesting, its defendants are likely to be forced to shut up. An announcement is made in the box and there are general groans at how unfair it is.
  3. In the experience of one h2g2 researcher, banning seems easy to achieve. Without knowingly breaking the rules, Whoami? was evicted. He simply couldn't log in. No message, no explanation, no warning shot. He'd not insulted anyone, or written anyting nasty.