Talk:History of Wikipedia
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[edit] Semi-protection
I request semi-protection for this article. Too many people visit it and vandalism occurs often and this page shouldn't be vandalised more so than other pages. Zuracech lordum 09:18, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Duplication
Unfortunately, there is an existing timeline already in Meta [meta:Wikipedia_timeline]. There, I've been focusing on improving the pre-2002 items, trying to make sure there is a consistent formatting, and every entry has a specific date and reference. It appears that the time line on this page has had more care since 2002. I think would make a lot of sense to somehow consolidate these two pages so that one as a prose history, as well as a specific timeline. Actually, I am not that fond of the timeline being in Meta since many of the links that need to be 'en:' qualified. - Reagle 15:04, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
- Note also Wikipedia:History of Wikipedian processes and people and Wikipedia:Historic debates for substantial overlap. - BanyanTree 18:04, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Misc
I actually don't see the need for the paragraph that begins "In March 2002" if for no other reason than it seems out of place with the rest of the material. - Hephaestos 19:20 28 Jun 2003 (UTC)
- well that simplifies things. Martin 20:17 28 Jun 2003 (UTC)
Wikiquote and wikibooks are not, to date, important enough for a wikipedia article, in my opinion. Martin 21:56, 12 Sep 2003 (UTC)
- alexa.com for wikiquote - rank 4,806,184. August 2005: rank is now in the 9,000s.
- alexa.com for wikibooks - not rated. August 2005: rank is now in the 8,000s.
This is a great article; does anyone think it should be linked up to the Main Page?? --Merovingian 09:15, Dec 6, 2003 (UTC)
Wouldn't it be a whole lot easier if we added a timeline to this article, or even made the article consist of but a timeline, and there are links for the different stages if more information is required. Ludraman 20:50, 6 Mar 2004 (UTC)
It's inappropriate to say little about the history in the main article. The article lengths are such that chunks of this article would fit in the main wikipedia article. How about just leaving a timeline here and moving the rest back?
[edit] Slashdot
The project received large numbers of participants after being mentioned three times on the tech website Slashdot — two minor mentions on March 5 and March 30, 2001, and then a prominent pointer to a story on the community-edited technology and culture website Kuro5hin on July 26.
- It would be very informative if those mentions on slashdot were to be linked to directly after they are referred to, which will of coures involve digging them up... -- Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 01:04, 2004 Dec 27 (UTC)
[edit] Wikipedia Day
Would we really need an article about Wikipedia Day? Is it encyclopedic? Fredrik | talk 05:45, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)
[edit] history of the "Current Events" page
I am trying to trace the history of the "Current Events" page for Wikipedia. I am able to trace the "Current Events" page back to the archive of January of 2002. Did the "Current Events" page exist in 2001? Was it archived? Can anyone confirm if this was originally on the "Current Events" page? --Memenen 2 July 2005 23:24 (UTC)
- Prior to that, the history was lost. I can find http://nostalgia.wikipedia.org/wiki/Current_events. Notice, however, that nostalgia is a snapshot of how things were in the older software, and it lost history every few weeks. --cesarb 2 July 2005 23:37 (UTC)
- Other resources
- Wikipedia:Wikipedians_in_order_of_arrival - gives you a clue who to ask
- Blank Google search for current events inurl:2001 site:mail.wikipedia.org shows that no-one talked about it much :)
- This URL shows with a high degree of confidence that Topics removed from current events began in November 2001. If I was a gambling man, I would say that current events started in September 2001. Maybe The Cunctator would be a good person to ask. Pcb21| Pete 3 July 2005 00:25 (UTC)
- I just explored the Internet Archives, my results suggest that the events of September 11 may have been what lead to the start of the Wikipedia Current Events page. --Memenen 3 July 2005 01:15 (UTC)
[edit] Censorship?
Why does the "F*lun Gong" article title have to be censored? Will spelling it out cause mainland China to block Wikipedia? Would pipelinking it help? — JIP | Talk 5 July 2005 06:22 (UTC)
- I don't know. I'm not really sure how their Internet censorship system works. I pipelinked to the article, but left the title censored just in case. Ikusawa 01:20, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Most recent block from mainland China
I don't know whether this is accurate, but Reporters without Borders indicates access has been blocked since October 18th in some areas (it names Shanghai). Also, is information on the status of Wikipedia access in the PRC really best placed in this History overview article? Should it be spun off into a separate article? It seems a little strange to see it tacked on at the end of the timeline there, is all. — MC MasterChef :: Leave a tip — 14:42, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
- I got it from the Chinese Wikipedia... it says "October 19, 5pm (UTC+8)". It might have been earlier, though.
- I suppose we can also make the section its own article. The Chinese Wikipedia has a separate article already, which is also very detailed. I might translate it later tonight. -- ran (talk) 17:26, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
- Article to update!!! Wikipedia is partially unblock (except the chinese version and some english article...) please see Blocking of Wikipedia in mainland China Froggy helps ;-) 08:24, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
[edit] LL B,B,
[edit] Article count milestones
Do we really have to list every article count milestone ever made in the english wikipedia? It's just banal trivia for anyone but the most wiki-obsessed. I can understand maybe leaving the 100,000 and 500,000 milestones, but let's get rid of the rest of them. Kaldari 22:41, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
I like the article count data because I'm going to use this data for some work I'm doing. The charts on this page only go up to 2002. BTW, I would like to have a page filled with stats: history of # users, articles by language, # words, #edits, etc.
[edit] Image selection vote
- Around October 15, 2003, the current Wikipedia logo was installed. The logo concept was selected by a voting process, which was followed by a revision process to select the best variant. The final selection was created by David Friedland based on a logo design and concept created by Paul Stansifer.
Could we have a wikilink to that historical vote? - RoyBoy 800 17:59, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Wikipedia calendar
Please take a look at Wikipedia:2003, Wikipedia:2004 from Category: Wikipedia years. Wikipedia as community deserves to keep track of its own history, of events which may be not very encyclopedic in the world scale, but of interest to wikipedians.
This may help declutter this, History of Wikipedia, article, in particular, to address the concern posted above, in #Article count milestones, while retaining the info.
I understand that today, of only 5 years of history, the "calendar" may seem redundant, but I seriously hope for wikipedia to live and grow.
Potential additions:
- start dates of non-english wikis,
- new policies introduced,
- dates of board of directors elections,
etc. mikka (t) 20:53, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
[edit] 2005 section
I added the Nature comparative experience because I think it is an interesting point, the first true comparative experience. In that, I think this is really more usefull than the Seigenthaler controversy which was the history of the sentence "... may be involve in ..." Revert is need in some extrem cases, other way, we have to Improve article. So I will restaure this, free to every body to improve "my" sentence and to neutralise them if need. 82.244.80.175 = french User:Yug, french active editor.
[edit] Some omitted history
This article seems remarkably light on the part of Wikipedia's history in which its fundamental principles and habits were established--its first year. Why is that? --Larry Sanger 00:34, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
- Just like you, I'm not going to touch this article. I "left" Wikipedia before you did, and my editing could be construed as controversial. However, I think the current article's main problem is that it is a "chronicle" (as poets would write for their kings) and not history writing. This is a list of events tracked by the people who experienced them, it would be "original research" (not allowed here!) if only it were "research". Any proper "history of X" article should probably start with a section on historiography (who has written history about this? which conflicting theories are there about this history? Marx vs Adam Smith? Larry Sanger vs Jimbo vs that public toilet guy?). This criticism can be made of many "History of X" articles in Wikipedia, and the "History of Wikipedia" will probably be researched a lot later than the "History of the Internet" or the "History of computers", all of which are quite poor. I think you (and others) should go and do the history research, and publish somewhere where it matters. Then others might be able to reference your work in a future version of this Wikipedia article. --LA2 00:41, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Class action
Should this class-action suit be mentioned in the article? It's linked at the bottom of Jimmy Wales. --zenohockey 07:55, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
I think this : It appear than Britanica stay of a better quality than its concurrent, but not so much, which can confirm the " de facto " concurrence between Britannica and the new alternative Wikipedia. have to be in the 2005 Nature' article analyse. Yug (talk) 16:02, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
[edit] With user:Dmytro :
have you a source to write "However, some of the Wikipedia articles were found poorly organized and confusing." [1] All what I have read was something such as "both have mistakes and organized confusions" (about the 50 articles look by Nature). If you talk about "some of the Wikipedia articles" out of this 50, please correct your sentence. Yug (talk) 16:02, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
[edit] One millionth English article
When is this projected and how will it be marked? It is a very notable achievement in the development of the web. Perhaps a 'plaque' on the 1000000th article?[[Btljs 13:40, 19 January 2006 (UTC)]]
- I like the idea that when 1,000,000 is reached, creation of new articles be blocked for a month while Wikipedia does nothing but work on improvement of existing articles. --JWSchmidt 02:36, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
- This never happened, it looks like. --WCQuidditch ☎ ✎ 17:48, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
[edit] MediaWiki:Monobook.css and MediaWiki namespace editing
Dates on which administrators could edit these from Wikipedia:Administrators. --JWSchmidt 02:32, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Link please
I dare not edit this page ;-) so could someone please put up a link to User:Larry Sanger/Origins of Wikipedia? TIA. --Larry Sanger 02:05, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
- Hi Larry. We usually do not link to anything outside the main namespace from articles. --Phroziac . o º O (♥♥♥♥ chocolate!) 01:21, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
- Hey Larry, careful now, Jimbo could just erase u from wikipedia, he calls the shots here, ultimately. The article already says you are cofounder, and most reasonable people dont think Jimbo was sole founder. Jörg Vogt 10:50, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
[edit] #s
Hundreds of thousands of contributors. Over 100k logged in with at least 10 edits. +sj + 23:32, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
[edit] The name "Wikipedia"
It'd be interesting to find the first instance of the name "Wikipedia". I found this response from Larry Sanger to his own thread on nupedia-l (!) called "Let's make a wiki". Could anyone confirm whether this is it? Cormaggio @ 18:24, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
- Sorry, that link should be [2] - the previous link is to the beginning of the thread. Cormaggio @ 20:19, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
[edit] The removal of self-references (wikilinking to non-main namespace pages)
When the self-references were removed, some links with nicer look-like names were changed to a not-as-good naming style -- the page you end up on. Shouldn't the better names return? I ask since I don't feel like it right now. --WCQuidditch ☎ ✎ 17:51, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
[edit] "The free encyclopedia" - trivia question
Does anyone know when and how the slogan "The free encyclopedia" began to be used? Who suggested it? Was there ever a discussion or a vote? Or was it just self-evident?
I looked at the "nostagia Wikipedias" listed at the bottom of the article, and they don't have the slogan. On the other hand, look here to see "The Free Encyclopedia Project" used quite early by Richard Stallman.
My own hunch: This was just so self-evident that it began to be used at some point early on, and then when it was coded to appear at the top of each page it began universally recognized and accepted.
Does anyone else have additional ideas or information? Dovi 17:46, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Sources!
This page has been frustrating me for a long time. A key principle of the Wikipedia is verifiability. Sadly, on a page where we should be employing our own principles, we ignore them completely. Who says that "On January 4, the English language version of Wikipedia arrived at the 900,000 article mark." What is the source? How I know this was a legitimate contribution? For this page to be credible, all of these statements need to be sourced. This should not be hard as these announcements are typically made in an e-mail list, the Wiki zine, the signpost, etc. as I mentioned before, I tried to do this with the meta timeline, to go back and find sources, but it was a very difficult and time-consuming process. So please, do this when you add something. I almost think we should start reverting any edit that doesn't have a source.
[edit] ® type things
show me 10 articles with ® used to designate trademarks and you'll have a better case, reverting... JoeSmack Talk 17:06, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Second language?
In Wikipedia:Multilingual coordination and Catalan Wikipedia put that the second language was Catalan, created in March of 2001. Is it false? Llull 10:09, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
In the Creation history there is Catalan as the second to be created. Llull 17:07, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
- Indeed it seems a "Spanish" and a French Wikipedia were set up together with the German one in March, 2001 [3]. But were any articles written there? What proofs are there? You should expand the article Catalan Wikipedia to the same level of detail as the article about the German Wikipedia. --LA2 22:16, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
- Cronological facts:
- Fri Mar 16 01:24:53 UTC 2001 Jimmy Wales says here that he wants to set up some alternative language wikipedias.
- Fri Mar 16 01:38:55 UTC 2001 Jimmy Wales says he has created deutsche.wikipedia.com wich has only a few words in english.
- 01:41, 17 març 2001 (Sat Mar 17 01:41 UCT 2001) an anonymous makes the first contribution in catalan to the catalan wikipedia.
- 13:37, 30. Mai 2001 (May 30 2001) first contribution in german in the german wikipedia.
- Therefore: I would write in the article that the first domain reserved for a non english wikipedia was deutsche.wikipedia.com followed in the same day by the catalan and probably also the french and the spanish (how could the anonymous contribute some hours after in the catalan wikipedia if it was still not created?), and the first colaboration in a non-English wikipedia was an article in catalan.
- Cronological facts:
-
- In any case, catalan wikipedia can not be created in may as it says in the article, because in march it already had some editions.
-
- To sum up, I would rewrite the paragraph as follows:
Early in Wikipedia's development, it began to expand internationally. The first domain reserved for a non-English Wikipedia was deutsche.wikipedia.com (on 16 March 2001)[1], followed in the same day by the Catalan and probably also the French and the Spanish. The first contribution in a non-English article, however, is in the Catalan Wikipedia [2]. The first reference of the French Wikipedia is from 23 March[3] and then in May 2001 it followed a wave of new language versions in Chinese, Dutch, Esperanto, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and Swedish. They were soon joined by Arabic and Hungarian[4][5] In September, a further commitment to the multilingual provision of Wikipedia was made.[6] At the end of the year, when international statistics first began to be logged, Afrikaans, Norwegian, and Serbian versions were announced.[7]
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- Please, make any suggestion/correction if you find any mistake or you can improve the style. If you feel it's ok, please, change the article with this more accurate description of the events. Thanks.--Xtv - (my talk) - (que dius que què?) 23:55, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
[edit] review all external links
I have upgraded all external links to <ref> tags so that we can see all of these external links together and ask ourselves if they are appropriate and scholarly. -- 75.24.111.205 11:51, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Current censorship of Wikipedia in the world
I'd like to ask a (perhaps) simple question: is Wikipedia (and Wikimedia) only censored (blocked) in PRC? --Fitzwilliam 04:38, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
[edit] 15th January
This diff is curious (and, while true, I've reverted it for the moment). The 15th of January is commonly known as "Wikipedia day" - this is when (as the article said) Wikipedia was formally founded. Further information and context can be added, but this date needs to be recognised. Just a thought, but if a mini-timeline could be created on the first days of Wikipedia, that would be a better substitute for removing the date entirely. Cormaggio @ 13:47, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
[edit] First inkling of a WikiPedia ?
wiki:WikiPedia here?
My question, to this esteemed Wiki community, is this: Do you think that a Wiki could successfully generate a useful encyclopedia? -- JimboWales
Yes, but in the end it wouldn't be an encyclopedia. It would be a wiki. -- WardCunningham
(see also: WikiWikiWeb, Wiki, Ward Cunningham, Jimbo Wales
-- Kim Bruning 21:31, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Edits by possible banned editor and other vandalisers
- I reverted a set of edits made on August 3 by someone editing from IP 75.26.2.210. This address is similar to others that have been used by a banned editor who has been very active on Wikipedia lately. We need a mini-project to find reliable sources for the history of Wikipedia and then this article needs to cite those sources. Since Wikipedia should always "look outward", it might be best to move this article to a different wiki. --JWSchmidt 05:00, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
I reverted a couple of edits too regarding name-changes. Can this page be protected so that access to new users like me and others are restricted? -- Zurcech Lordum 09:30, 23 November 2006
[edit] 1,500,000th article
The one-millionth article is linked from the article. What's article #1,500,000? --zenohockey 22:42, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
- Kanab Ambersnail. Pepsidrinka 13:32, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] The facts according to Wikipedia press releases and page histories
I'd like to point out, for the benefit of those working on this article and related articles, that according to Wikipedia's own first three press releases, until 2004--including two press releases that I didn't have anything at all to do with--I was billed as a founder of Wikipedia. See:
- Wikipedia:Press releases/January 2002
- Wikipedia:Press releases/January 2003
- Wikipedia:Press releases/February 2004
Also, until 2004 or 2005, all of the articles about me, Wikipedia, History of Wikipedia, and even Jimmy gave me billing as co-founder of Wikipedia. Just thought it might be useful to point this out for those who weren't aware of it. --Larry Sanger 20:49, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Links of interest
To the best of my knowledge, I was first described as co-founder of Wikipedia back in September 2001 by The New York Times. That was also my description in Wikipedia's own press releases from 2002 until 2004. With my increasing distance from the project, and as it grew in the public eye, however, some of those associated with the project have found it convenient to downplay and even deny my crucial, formative involvement. In fact, in the early years of the project, my role was not in dispute at all.
The following links have come to light, and they should dispel much of the confusion:
http://www.larrysanger.org/roleinwp.html
--Larry Sanger 22:56, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Those of us who were there...
I was a member of the core group of editors back in 2001 - there were only about 30 of us. I arrived in early Sept.
Frankly - to assert that Larry was not a co-founder of the Pedia is patently absurd. Jimbo was the driving force behind the Internet-based encyclopedia concept, which became Nupedia. Larry proposed and convinced Jimbo that a wiki-based concept was worthwhile.
Larry remains (in my opinion) the single most important individual in the history of the actual Wikipedia, and his structural and philosophical influence remains apparent to this day. (FWIW, IMHO the second most important individual is Daniel Meyer whose name is completely absent from this history.) Jimbo is certainly up there, but from personal experience of what actually transpired in the micro and macro evolution of the site, this is how I see it.
Myabe one day I'll write my own verion of events. Manning 02:03, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
- Agreed. That's how I see it too. -- Derek Ross | Talk 00:59, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
Were you really there? What you are saying contradicts what Jimbo Wales, founder of Wikipedia said on the bomis talk page[4] Jörg Vogt 23:58, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
- oh actually you might be right, according to wikipedia's 2001 website [5]. Jörg Vogt 00:02, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
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- Was I really there? That's easily verified by examining the archived version. I even created the Wikiproject concept Manning 01:57, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
[edit] This is pretty bad...
This article is not too good a resource, it's missing some vital facts. When did Wikipedia switch from usemod to phase 2 to phase 3? What else happened in 2006?(come on, I know at least a few thigs did, with the election and all) -- Chris is me (u/c/t) 16:01, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
- Indeed. A lot of things are missing from the 2006 section, and I'm not sure the sections are arranged as nicely as they could be anyway. I've stuck a to-do list at the top of the page, and I'll work on the things in it at some point – Qxz 09:47, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
- I've added brief details of the Phase I/II/III transitions, based on information in Wikipedia – Qxz 10:40, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
[edit] German Version
Was looking at the german version of this article and it seemed that the way it started out is a lot better than ours, or at least contains more info. See here. Unfortunately I'm next to useless at reading german (even though my family comes from germany... drat!), so can't see exactly how much better it is or easily add parts in from there. But am posting here in the hopes a german reader could? Mathmo Talk 13:44, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
- Yes the german version of most things is better. Normally I would volunteer, but I am having computer problems at the momentJörg Vogt 03:59, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Xrefer
is claimed (in it's article) to have been one of Wikipedia's main competitors as an open access encyclopedia between 2000 and 2003. Is That true? Would it fit in the article? -- 172.158.230.125 01:41, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
[edit] 2006 fundraiser
Hi. There was a fundraiser in late 2006 or early 2007, I'm not sure when exactly. it raised over a million dolars US for the foundation. Other fundraisers are mentioned, why not this one? Should it be added? Please respond. Thanks. AstroHurricane001(Talk+Contribs+Ubx) 17:23, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Daniel Meyer
I've raised this before, but it's worth raising again. As I've said, I would rate Larry Sanger as the single most important person in the history of the 'pedia.
However, the second most important person is (in my opinion) Daniel Meyer, also known as Maveric149. Why his name is missing from this article eludes me completely. Daniel was the leader of the "second wave" of editors who arrived early in 2002, and his handiwork is evident in almost every aspect of the current 'pedia's architecture. Daniel effectively ran the entire site for nearly a year after Larry's exit. Those of us who were here then can vouch for that. Manning 04:38, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
- Please do not defy Jimbo. Nothing good will come of it. Its surprising how many people try and pull down the great man, he deserves the credit, Plus he could delete any one of us out of existence you know.Jörg Vogt 10:44, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
-
- I'm not trying to "pull Jimbo" down. Jimbo was certainly crucial to Wikipedia - he provided the money and the hardware. But he was really not involved in the 'pedia's day-to-day development for the first two years. My own involvement diminished in mid 2002 and has remained 'infrequent' since that time, but I know what went on before that, as I was heavily involved (a fact easily verified by checking the archived versions). Larry was the chief driving figure prior to February 2002. After that, Daniel Meyer became the chief driving force (without ever being formally appointed to the role I might add). Manning 01:53, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
