Wikipedia, is a wealth of digital information that we have had on the Internet. This online encyclopedia, created over twenty years ago, is of great importance. We all used it even once, for our research. Hence its importance no longer needs to be demonstrated. But do you know its origin? Drafter’s Corner plunges you this Thursday into the origins of this 20-year-old encyclopedia.
Wikipedia origins with Jimmy Wales
Created by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger on January 15, 2001, to accompany Nupedia, a sister project designed by experts, Wikipedia is a universal encyclopedia whose content is distributed under a free license on the internet. But the French version was officially created on March 23, 2001, the first version available in a language other than English.
Jimmy Wales, the majority shareholder of the Bomis company and owner of the Wikipedia online encyclopedia, put Nupedia, a free encyclopedia, online in March 2000. He thus benefits from the support of the said company.
Having by his side Larry Sanger, the Editor-in-Chief. But the increase in the number of articles on Nupedia is getting really slow as it works with experts from the scientific world. So Larry Sanger engages in a discussion with Ben Kovitz the programmer about the situation, who ends up explaining the Wiki concept to him. Considering the enormous concern caused by the increase in the number of publications on Nupedia, Larry Sanger decides to explain this new Wiki concept to Jimmy Wales in order to increase the number of articles.
Wikipedia was born after the efforts of these two experts. But remember that Larry Sanger is not actually a co-founder of Wikipedia, he just came up with the idea following the problems caused by Nupedia. This is what Jimmy Wales confirms to us in an article at the end of 2005 in which he clarified the status of employee of Larry Sanger.
A site of the future?
Wikipedia is published on the Wikipedia.org site which in just a few years has become the most consulted site in the whole world and funded by the American foundation, Wikimedia Foundation.
This encyclopedia now includes thousands of articles and web pages available in several languages. And distributed under a free license to allow its readers to modify the various publications if necessary.
It is of great importance for all because it is a great store of information. So everyone contributes to publish information there as long as it comes from a reliable source. Even when searching on the internet, it is the information in this encyclopedia that appears first to facilitate the task and also the access is on free-basics.
In summary wikipedia is
1- Created by Jimmy Wales on January 15, 2001.
2- released under a free license to allow anyone to make necessary modifications.
3- very important because it is a great source of information.
4- a virtual and free source of information.
