wikipedia

Wikipedia began as a complementary project for Nupedia, a free online English-language encyclopaedia project whose articles were written by experts and reviewed under a formal process. Nupedia was founded on March 9, 2000, under the ownership of Bomis, Inc, a web portal company. Its main figures were Jimmy Wales, Bomis CEO, and Larry Sanger, editor-in-chief for Nupedia and later Wikipedia. Nupedia was licensed initially under its own Nupedia Open Content License, switching to the GNU Free Documentation License before Wikipedia's founding at the urging of Richard Stallman. Larry Sanger and Jimmy Wales are the founders of Wikipedia.

Wikipedia have fund raisers all around the world asking for those who have visited Wikipedia and think it is a great success. Also, at the top of the internet page, Wikipedia provide a donation list asking for your support to keep them running.

The actual founders of Wikipedia are Larry Sanger and Jimmy Wales.

Both Larry Sanger and Jimmy Wales are both from the United States and are good friends.

Jimmy Wales was born on August 7^th 1966. He grew up in Huntsville, Alabama, United States. His dad worked in a small, local grocery shop and his mum and grandmother both owned a small, private school. There were only five students in that school. He went on to get a bachelors degree in finance from Auburn University. He then got a degree at Alabama’s University as he came out with a masters degree. Jimmy Wales was married twice and had a daughter with his second wife. He divorced both of them shortly after marriage. From 1994 to 2000, Wales was the research director at Chicago Options Associates, a futures and options trading firm in Chicago. By speculating on interest rate and foreign-currency fluctuations, he had soon earned enough to support himself and his wife for the rest of their lives. In March 2000, Wales started a peer-reviewed, open-content encyclopedia, Nupedia ("the free encyclopedia"), and hired Larry Sanger to be its editor-in-chief. Nupedia was characterized by an extensive peer-review process designed to make its articles of a quality comparable to that of professional encyclopedias. After Sanger publicly proposed on January 10, 2001 the idea of using a wiki to create an encyclopedia, Wales installed wiki software on a server and authorized Sanger to pursue the project under his supervision. Sanger dubbed the project "Wikipedia" and, with Wales, laid down the founding principles and content, establishing an Internet-based community of contributors during that year. Wikipedia was initially intended to be a wiki-based site for collaboration on early encyclopedic content for submission toNupedia, but Wikipedia's rapid growth quickly overshadowed Nupedia's development.

Lawrence Mark "Larry" Sanger was born on July 16, 1968. He is an American philosopher, co-founder of Wikipedia, and the creator of encyclopedia Citizendium. As a philosopher, one of his special interests is epistemology, concerning the theory of knowledge. He received his B.A. in philosophy from Reed College in 1991 and Ph.D. in philosophy from Ohio State University in 2000. He has been involved with various online encyclopedia projects. He is the former editor-in-chief of Nupedia, chief organizer (2001-2002), and instigator of its successor, Wikipedia. Sanger was born in Bellevue, Washington, and raised in Anchorage, Alaska. When he was seven years old, the family moved to Anchorage, Alaska, where Sanger spent his formative years and excelled in the classroom. At an early age, he was interested in philosophical topics. In high school, Sanger was asked, "What are you ever going to do with philosophy?" He said, "Well, change the way the world thinks, for one thing." He graduated from high school in 1986 and went off to Reed College, majoring in philosophy. As a college student, he explored the understanding and sources of knowledge. He also became interested in the Internet and its publishing abilities. These interests helped him to realize the benefits of using a wiki for an online encyclopedia. He set up an early attempt with a listserver as a medium for students and tutors to meet up for "expert tutoring" and "to act as a forum for discussion of tutorials, tutorial methods, and the possibility and merits of a voluntary, free network of individual tutors and students finding each other via the Internet for education outside the traditional university setting."

Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger have both worked on Wikipedia from the very beginning. In 2005, Larry Sanger went off to be a lecturer at Ohio State University. Jimmy Wales is still currently working with Wikipedia.

Wikipedia is the worlds largest online encyclopaedia in the world. It shows over 100,000 articles in English and has it in over 50 different languages. There are over 10,000 different articles in these other languages. There are no other online encyclopaedias near this status.

I think that this online encyclopaedia is the most successful ever in the world. It has made great accomplishments in terms of its nearest rivals. Wikipedia is a great and easy way to find out information about anything or anyone.

By Elliot Chandler 10C