User:H2g2bob/JvL

Who Founded or Co-Founded Wikipedia? I want to know who's right!

Evidence

2000

Nupedia founded

• In 2000, Wales founded Nupedia. At some point Wales hires Sanger. [1]

2001

Idea of using Wiki

• "Sanger [...] says he got the idea of using "wiki" technology [...] and proposed it to Wales in 2001."[2]

Editor in Chief

• Slashdot, submitted by Jimbo: "Larry Sanger, editor-in-chief of the Nupedia and Wikipedia sister projects."[3] Links to "About the author: Larry Sanger is the editor-in-chief of Nupedia and chief instigator of Wikipedia. He received his Ph.D. in Philosophy last year. He enjoys writing about himself and his projects in the third person. :-)"[4] So written by Sanger I guess.

December FAQs

• Earliest available about December 2001. Author unknown: "Q. When did the Wikipedia start? A. January 15, 2001. An earlier version of the wiki (including original versions of some of these pages) was briefly hosted on Nupedia.com (first posted January 10). The idea of a Nupedia-sponsored wiki originated out of a conversation Larry Sanger had with Ben Kovitz on the evening of January 2."

Sanger Full Time editor

• "full-time editor Larry Sanger"[5]

Mailing list

• Checked Nupedia-l emails for Jan 2001 but no mention before this 10 Jan. Larry seems to be working as a technical guru or webmaster. There are other lists too.

10 Jan

• Larry suggests an "experimental" Wiki as a "Nupedia Wiki." Larry claims " It's an idea to add a little feature to Nupedia. Jimmy Wales thinks that many people might find the idea objectionable, but I think not" so obvious discussion first.[6]
• Larry: "It hasn't yet been linked from the website, so if you're very concerned that we're going to make utter jackasses of ourselves and you want to stop us from doing this, speak up!"[7]

11 Jan

• Support from Cindy Lynn
• Larry mentions "wikipedia", no mention who coined phrase. Reply to an [Advisory-l] email.[8]

17 Jan

• Larry: "Wikipedia is up", "wikipedia.com".[9]

20 Jan

• Wikipedia-l set up.[10]
• Slashdot from [11], nupedia and gnupedia. Anything nu can do gnu can do better ;-)

2002

Press release 2002

• Originally written by Larry [12]
• "The founders of Wikipedia are Internet entrepreneur Jimmy Wales and philosopher Larry Sanger. Wales has supplied the financial backing and other support for the project, and Sanger [...] has led the project."

2003

Press release 2003

• Probably copied wording from 2002 version, but was written by Maveric149.[13]

2004

Press release 2004

• By Maveric149. "The Wikipedia project was founded in January 2001 by Internet entrepreneur Jimmy Wales and philosopher Larry Sanger. Bomis (bomis.com), an Internet web portal owned by Wales, supplied the financial backing and other support, while Sanger led the Wikipedia project during its first year, as a full-time paid editor. Since then it has operated mostly on consensus, using policies refined over time by its contributors." [14]

2006

Guardian

• [15]
  • Sanger: "[Jimbo] saw that I was essentially looking for employment online and he was looking for someone to lead Nupedia ... Nupedia wasn't there at all, in fact it was just the vaguest of ideas. Jimmy was frustratingly brief in his instructions, he simply wanted an encyclopedia that everyone could contribute to and that would be released under what he called an open content licence."
  • Sanger: "Originally it was the Nupedia Wiki - our idea was to use it as an article incubator for Nupedia."
  • Guardian: "Then, in 2002, Sanger left Wikipedia. In the wake of the dotcom crash, the company that owned and ran Nupedia, Bomis, was suffering too, and Wales had to lay off most of the staff, including Sanger. Wikipedia was henceforth run by Wales and the Wikipedia community."

2007

Sanger's explanation on userpage

• [16]
  • Sanger, from memoirs: "To be clear, the idea of an open source, collaborative encyclopedia, open to contribution by ordinary people, was entirely Jimmy's, not mine... The actual development of this encyclopedia was the task he gave me to work on."
  • Sanger: "I named it"
  • Sanger: "I actually wrote the first organizational and policy pages for Wikipedia, publicized it, managed it, and in many other ways got it started."
  • Day-to-day work - enforce on recent changes, some recruiting + welcoming, worked similar to an admin (content disputes/bans etc), "much else"
  • Shared - set up software, set up policies. Wales increased role as time went on
  • Sanger: I was "the person assigned to manage the Bomis-sponsored encyclopedia projects [...] Throughout my employment, Jimmy Wales made it perfectly clear that I was the primary person responsible for the encyclopedia projects."

Recent resources

• http://www.cadenhead.org/workbench/news/2828/wikipedia-founder-looks-out-number-1
• http://www.larrysanger.org/roleinwp.html
• Slashdot investigates: part one part two

Working hyoithesis

• Sanger was an employee (2001 Nupedia founded) but is "Editor in Chief" (many sources).
• Wikipedia evolved from Nupedia.
  • Nupedia = "an encyclopedia that everyone could contribute to" with open content license (2006 Guardian)
  • Use of wiki to achieve this "originated out of a conversation Larry Sanger had with Ben Kovitz on the evening of January 2." (2001 December FAQs)
• General direction and finance comes from Wales (2007 explanation on userpage)

Thoughts

• The buck ultimately stopped at Jimbo; but did Jimbo's role go further at the start of Wikipedia?