Development of Wikipedia
Wikipedia's main page (28 September 2002)
In March 2002, following the withdrawal of funding by Bomis during the dot-com bust, Sanger
left both Nupedia and Wikipedia.[63] By 2002, he and Wales differed in their views on how
best to manage open encyclopedias. Both still supported the open-collaboration concept,
but they disagreed on how to handle disruptive editors, specific roles for experts, and the
best way to guide the project to success.
Wales went on to establish self-governance and bottom-up self-direction by editors on
Wikipedia. He made it clear that he would not be involved in the community's day-to-day
management, but would encourage it to learn to self-manage and find its own best
approaches. As of 2007, Wales mostly restricted his role to occasional input on serious
matters, executive activity, advocacy of knowledge, and encouragement of similar reference
projects.
Sanger said he is an "inclusionist" and is open to almost anything,[64] and proposed that
experts still have a place in the Web 2.0 world. In 2006 he founded Citizendium, an open
encyclopedia that used real names for contributors to reduce disruptive editing, and hoped
to facilitate "gentle expert guidance" to increase the accuracy of its content. Decisions about
article content were to be up to the community, but the site was to include a statement about
"family-friendly content".[65][66]
Past content of Wikipedia
Old, even obsolete, encyclopedia articles are highly valuable for historical research.[67] For
each Wikipedia article, past versions are accessible through the "View history" link at the top
of the page. In addition, the ZIM File Archive,[68] at Internet Archive, contains past full
snapshots of Wikipedia as well as article selections, in multiple languages, from different
years. They can be opened with Kiwix software. Between 2007 and 2011, three CD/DVD
versions (called Wikipedia Version 0.5, 0.7 and 0.8) containing a selection of articles from
English Wikipedia were released. They became available as Kiwix ZIM files, both from the ZIM
File Archive[68] and from the Kiwix download site.[69]
Evolution of logo
Founding – late 2001 (tentative)
Late 2001 – 12 October 2003
13 October 2003 – 13 May 2010
13 May 2010 – present
Timeline
Articles summarizing each year are held within the Wikipedia project namespace and are
linked to below. Additional resources for research are available within the Wikipedia records
and archives, and are listed at the end of this article.
First decade: 2000–2009
2000
Bomis staff in mid-2000
In March 2000, the Nupedia project was started. Its intention was to publish articles written
by experts which would be licensed as free content. Nupedia was founded by Wales, with
Sanger as editor-in-chief, and funded by the web-advertising company Bomis.[70]
