The developer of the world's largest online encyclopedia on drugs PsychonautWiki Kenan Suleiman (Kenan Sulayman) remembered the first days of work on the site. His interview published in Vice.
According to the publication, the site PsychonautWiki provides information about hallucinogenic substances and the effects of their use.. About half a million users are interested in the encyclopedia a month, a quarter of which falls on the darknet. Journalists call the driving force behind the project 23-year-old software engineer Suleiman, who lives in Berlin.
The programmer said that he was originally brought to the site as a freelance writer, but then he realized that the topic was really close to him, so he decided to help the project evolve.
"I focused on the professionalization of all of this: I drew more volunteers and helped create recommendations for articles. For example, we never use the word "drugs", as it has negative connotations in many languages.. I brought a lot of value as a software engineer to help scale it all up, ”said Suleiman..
The man also remembered that at first he was struck by the lifestyle of some employees of the encyclopedia, who had a serious drug addiction.
“Before I joined, several authors died due to an overdose, and it seemed that nobody cared,” the programmer said. For example, one of the site workers used ketamine: once he attacked an old woman and is now in prison.
Another employee, according to Suleiman, was taking the same drugs, as a result of which he became paranoid.
"He began to believe that all our visitors were aliens, and therefore turned the main page into a kind of temple for these aliens. For me, this was another sign that the organization needs professionalization, ”the current head of the project recalled..
Suleiman said that it took him a lot of patience to completely change the approach to work on the site. He took over all the technical responsibilities and began to make small changes, gradually gaining the trust of colleagues. The man said that at times he felt like a therapist..