Welcome to our latest blog post, where we delve into the fascinating history of one of the world’s most popular websites – Wikipedia. Have you ever wondered who founded Wikipedia and how it became the go-to source of information for millions of people worldwide? If so, you’re in luck! In this post, we will take you on a journey through the early days of Wikipedia and explore how it evolved into the vast, multilingual online encyclopedia we know today. So, without further ado, let’s dive in and learn about how Wikipedia came to be what it is today.
What is Wikipedia?
Wikipedia is a free, multilingual online encyclopedia that was launched on January 15, 2001. It is maintained by a global community of volunteer editors who write and update articles in various languages. Wikipedia is widely regarded as one of the most comprehensive and popular sources of information on the Internet.
Wikipedia’s articles cover a wide range of subjects, including history, science, technology, literature, arts, politics, and many others. The site has more than 6 million articles in English and over 50 million articles in total across more than 300 languages.
Wikipedia operates on the principle of collaborative editing, which allows anyone with Internet access to add, modify, or delete content. However, the community of editors works to ensure that the information on Wikipedia is accurate, verifiable, and neutral.
Wikipedia is funded by donations from individuals and organizations and does not display advertisements. The site is owned and operated by the Wikimedia Foundation, a non-profit organization based in San Francisco, California.
Who owns Wikipedia?
Wikipedia’s technical infrastructure is maintained and supported by the Wikimedia Foundation, which also oversees other projects such as Wiktionary and Wikibooks. Previously, the website was hosted on servers belonging to Bomis, a company primarily owned by Jimmy Wales.
However, with the creation of the Wikimedia Foundation on June 20, 2003, ownership of all domain names was transferred to the Foundation. Today, Wikipedia is managed by a community of editors, known as Wikipedians, who are guided by the site’s five pillars.
All articles on Wikipedia are collaborative works, edited by multiple contributors who have agreed to release their contributions under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license. This means that Wikipedia’s content is free and can be reproduced under the terms of the license.
Who founded Wikipedia?
Wikipedia was founded by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger. Jimmy Wales is an American-British internet entrepreneur and a key figure in the development of the World Wide Web. Larry Sanger is an American internet project developer and co-founder of the online encyclopedia Nupedia, which served as a predecessor to Wikipedia.
Wales and Sanger launched Wikipedia in January 2001 with the goal of creating a free, collaborative, and multilingual encyclopedia that could be edited by anyone with access to the Internet. Since then, Wikipedia has grown into one of the most popular websites on the Internet, with millions of articles in hundreds of languages and a global community of volunteer editors.
Detailed History of Wikipedia
Wikipedia’s history began in January 2001, when Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger launched the site as a free, collaborative, and multilingual encyclopedia that could be edited by anyone with access to the Internet. The two had previously worked together on the online encyclopedia Nupedia, which was intended to be written by experts and reviewed by a peer review process, but it was slow and cumbersome.
Wikipedia started as an offshoot of Nupedia, with the idea of creating a much larger and more easily accessible database of knowledge. The first Wikipedia website was launched on January 15, 2001, and it quickly gained popularity as a platform for collaborative editing and knowledge sharing.
Initially, Wikipedia’s growth was slow, with just a few hundred articles in its first few months. However, the site’s popularity began to grow rapidly as more people started contributing and spreading the word about the site. By the end of 2001, Wikipedia had more than 20,000 articles in 18 languages.
Over the years, Wikipedia continued to grow and evolve, with new features, policies, and guidelines being added to the site. In 2003, Wikipedia introduced the “neutral point of view” policy, which requires editors to present information in an impartial and unbiased manner. This policy has been instrumental in maintaining Wikipedia’s reputation as a reliable source of information.
In 2005, the Wikimedia Foundation was established to support the growth and development of Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects. The foundation is a non-profit organization that is responsible for hosting and maintaining Wikipedia and other Wikimedia sites.
Today, Wikipedia is one of the most popular websites on the Internet, with more than 6 million articles in English and over 50 million articles in total across more than 300 languages. The site is visited by millions of people every day and has become an important resource for information on a wide range of subjects.
