On 13 January 2011 23:27, David Lindsey <dvdlndsy(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Assuredly, Gardner is just repeating what Wales has
told her as she was not
involved in the early stages of Wikipedia. This leaves us with Wales's
word. Uncharitably, you can assume that this is just a half truth or
falsehood designed to advance the sole founder theory; however, it is
possible that the purported edit happened not on Wikipedia but on the
short-lived wiki hosted at Nupedia, which would not even have been called
Wikipedia at the time. Unless (until?) a full backup of that wiki surfaces,
we have nothing to go on.
All that I can find of the old NupediaWiki is a version preserved on the new
Wikipedia within the Starling archive. The text "Hello World!" is not found
in that version, though it's quite possible that someone else removed it
after Wales added it.
Either way, "Hello World!" was not the first Wikipedia edit. It may have
been the first NupediaWiki edit, but that's not quite the same thing.
I seem to recall jimbo stating at some point that the edit in question
was deleted (rather than lost).
--
geni