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Nupedia

Nupedia was an online encyclopedia created by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger. It was the predecessor to Wikipedia.[1]

History

Wales hired Sanger to be editor of Nupedia.[1:1] The project launched in March 2000, but saw very slow growth.[2] One of Nupedia's earliest articles was on polymerase chain reaction (PCR), written by Magnus Manske.[3]

During a dinner on January 2, 2001, computer programmer Ben Kovitz introduced Sanger to the concept of "wikis" — webpages which could be edited by anyone.[4] Sanger subsequently proposed to Wales that they incorporate a wiki into their online encyclopedia project.[1:2] On January 10, 2001, Nupedia added its first wiki page.[5]

Wikipedia

Shortly thereafter, Wales and Sanger decided to create a separate project from Nupedia which would allow the general public to participate in adding and editing content.[1:3] On January 11, 2001, Sanger suggested naming the project "Wikipedia."[6] The domain name "Wikipedia.org" was registered on January 13, 2001,[7] and the first edit was made two days later on January 15.[8] Wikipedia's launch was officially announced on January 17, 2001.[9]

Wakes announced the launch of the Wikimedia Foundation on June 20, 2003. The foundation assumed control of Nupedia and Wikipedia along with other related assets previously owned by Bomis.[10]

Nupedia's server crashed in September 2003 and was not restored.[11]

Organization

Nupedia was funded by Bomis, Wales's startup company, which also provided the "initial bandwidth and server needs for the site."[12][13]

Personnel

Nupedia employed a team of writers, editors and peer reviewers, who were listed on the website.[14][15]


Name Position Notes
Larry Sanger Co-creator and writer Wikipedia
Jimmy Wales Co-creator Wikipedia, Bomis
Carl A. Anderson Writer Michigan State University
James Allan Evans Writer University of British Columbia (UBC), Royal Society of Canada (RSC)
Andrew R. Golding Writer Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories (MERL)
Gisle Hannemyr Writer University of Oslo Department of Informatics
Christoph Hust Writer Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz
Jan T. Kim Editor Institute for Neuro- and Bioinformatics (INB)
Michael Kulikowski Writer Pennsylvania State University Department of History
Dan Leggate Editor UCL School of Parmacy
Phillip Lord Editor University of Manchester
Magnus Manske Writer Wellcome Sanger Institute, MediaWiki
Andrea Maria Marconi Editor Consorzio ZAI, University of Minnesota Biocatalysis/Biodegradation Database, LatoServer.it, KBasic
Ramin Nakisa Editor University of Oxford
Jaime Nubiola Writer University of Navarra
Mara Parker Writer Widener University
Nagina Parmar Writer[16] University Health Network (UHN), MD Pharma Consulting Group
Karl J. Roberts Writer Prince George's Community College
Stan Seibert Writer Los Alamos National Laboratory, Sudbury Neutrino Observatory, University of Pennsylvania
Stephen Thornton Writer -
Nancy Tinkham Writer Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence, Rowan University College of Science & Mathematics
Claus O. Wilke Writer and editor University of Texas at Austin Department of Integrative Biology, California Institute of Technology
Michael Witbrock Writer Cycorp, Justsystem Pittsburgh Research Center, Infomedia Digital Library

  1. Sidener, J. (2004, December 6). Everyone’s Encyclopedia. San Diego Union-Tribune. https://web.archive.org/web/20071011150228/https://signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20041206/news_mz1b6encyclo.html ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎

  2. Poe, M. (2006, September). The Hive. The Atlantic. https://web.archive.org/web/20121026045223/http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2006/09/the-hive/305118/?single_page=true ↩︎

  3. Manske, M. (2001, July 16). Polymerase Chain Reaction. Nupedia. https://web.archive.org/web/20011116035247/http://www.nupedia.com/article/short/Polymerase+Chain+Reaction/ ↩︎

  4. Ben Kovitz. (2012, May 3). WikiWikiWeb. https://web.archive.org/web/20170912092040/http://wiki.c2.com/?BenKovitz ↩︎

  5. Sanger, L. (2001, January 10). Nupedia’s wiki: try it out. Nupedia. https://web.archive.org/web/20010506044019/http://www.nupedia.com/pipermail/nupedia-l/2001-January/000678.html ↩︎

  6. Sanger, L. (2001, January 11). Re: [Advisory-l] The wiki... Nupedia. https://web.archive.org/web/20030414021138/http://www.nupedia.com/pipermail/nupedia-l/2001-January/000680.html ↩︎

  7. Wikipedia.org Whois Record. DomainTools. Retrieved May 17, 2012, from https://web.archive.org/web/20120517112035/http://whois.domaintools.com/wikipedia.org ↩︎

  8. Bomis [Office.bomis.com]. (2001, January 15). HomePage. Wikipedia. https://web.archive.org/web/20191019123818/https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=908493298 ↩︎

  9. Sanger, L. (2001, January 17). Wikipedia is up! Nupedia. https://web.archive.org/web/20030331101007/http://www.nupedia.com/pipermail/nupedia-l/2001-January/000684.html ↩︎

  10. Wales, J. (2003, June 20). Announcing Wikimedia Foundation. Wikipedia-l. https://web.archive.org/web/20130330033331/https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2003-June/010743.html ↩︎

  11. Reagle, J. (2010). Nazis and Norms. In Good Faith Collaboration: The Culture of Wikipedia (p. 6). The MIT Press. https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/8051.003.0004 ↩︎

  12. Chozick, A. (2013, June 27). Jimmy Wales Is Not an Internet Billionaire. The New York Times. http://archive.today/2014.12.11-182232/http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/30/magazine/jimmy-wales-is-not-an-internet-billionaire.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 ↩︎

  13. Russell, K. (2013, June 28). Wikipedia Founded With Revenue From Soft Porn. Business Insider. http://archive.today/2013.07.17-090857/http://www.businessinsider.com/wikipedia-bomis-2013-6 ↩︎

  14. Nupedia Writers. Nupedia. Retrieved October 21, 2001, from https://web.archive.org/web/20011021144403/http://nupedia.com/writers.phtml ↩︎

  15. Editors - Molecular Biology. Nupedia. Retrieved September 17, 2001, from https://web.archive.org/web/20010917160953/http://nupedia.com/editors_detail.phtml?area_n=molbio ↩︎

  16. Nupedia Writers. Nupedia. Retrieved August 10, 2003, from https://web.archive.org/web/20030810201402/http://www.nupedia.com/writers.phtml ↩︎