Brian wrote: Since you frame your analogy in terms of scientific ideas, I think it would be much more accurate to put it in terms of Sanger & Wales putting forth a later discredited theory, which however was tangential and part of the broader scientific thread of inquiry that eventually brought forth a tenable theory. To put it in more concrete terms, visualize Sanger & Wales (2001) as being Lamarckianism. Something close, but not quite on point. Wikipedia, as it stands now, would be Darwinism, very well established as the most robust theory out there, but with important wrinkles that still need to be ironed out. Yours, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen

When I came on in 2002, Nupedia was still alive, had half a dozen articles, including one in development. Essentially it was dead, but Sanger had not given up on it. Anything you contributed that was not approved by an expert in the field was just lost. There was not even a transparent way to communicate with that expert. See http://www.starfishandspider.com/index.php?title=Wikipedia for more of my observations. What really made Wikipedia was free publicity from Slashdot and The New York Times during 2001. I don't know if I could find the initial Slashdoting, but here are the links to the two New York Times articles: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/20/technology/fact-driven-collegial-this-sit… http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/09/magazine/the-year-in-ideas-a-to-z-populis… So I would say at least some of the credit goes to folks who recognized a good idea and alerted the rest of the intellectual and internet community to it. Fred Bauder

Ian Woollard arranged electrons to indicate (back on 04/13/2009 10:09 AM) that: Shortly after reading that Slashdot article I became Wikipedia user #30. -- Sean Barrett | It's impossible! I'm far too busy, so ask me sean(a)epoptic.com | now before I again become sane. --Edna Mode

On Mon, Apr 13, 2009 at 11:04 PM, &lt;wjhonson(a)aol.com&gt; wrote: <snip> Possibly [[Special:Preferences]], and your user ID. My user ID is between 165,000 and 166,000. And I created my account on 8 January 2005. Carcharoth

Speaking of Hector, can someone translate this for me: "¿Habéis pensado en diseñar un Wiki específico para el trabajo de pulir los módulos-entradas?. Muchos proyectos de Software están considerando aprovechar la dinámica "Document-mode" de los Wikis como una alternativa a las "message boards" que permite una documentación persistente, no repetitiva e hipertextualmente articulada de los temas que se van tratando a petición de los usuarios." It was written by Álvaro Tejero Cantero on December 24, 2000, just a week before the conversation at the taco stand. I can't figure out if it's talking about software, or if it's talking about...well...Wikipedia. On Mon, Apr 13, 2009 at 1:09 PM, Ian Woollard &lt;ian.woollard(a)gmail.com&gt;wrote;wrote:

I get stuck on the term "módulos-entradas", which seems to be literally translated as "input modules", but I can't fit into the context. Here's the context, by the way: http://softlibre.barrapunto.com/article.pl?sid=00/12/21/0849254 Anyway, I was just rereading some of the discussion of Larry Sanger and Wikipedia, and noticed that while Wales claims that Jeremy Rosenfeld was the first to propose using wikis to work on Nupedia, he admits that it was Sanger who convinced him to actually do it. Further, Sanger agrees that "probably...hundreds of people had the idea about a wiki encyclopedia before Wikipedia got started, and even told each other about it." So despite what I see as Wales intentional attempt to distort the issue, by mentioning certain seemingly contradictory facts and then failing to elaborate on them, I think I've got a fairly well agreed upon version of the events as they happened. I feel I ought to continue that quote from Larry, rather than risk taking it out of context. Sanger continued: "But it was the idea I had, while tasked with solving Nupedia's problem, that actually and directly led to the development of Wikipedia. That is a matter of historical fact, in living memory of several people--including Jimmy, whether he admits it or not. " And Wales responded with "Of course I 'admit' it. :-)" I'd the say the Jeremy Rosenfeld bit, if true, actually enhances Sanger's contribution to the creation of Wikipedia, in that it shows that merely mentioning wikis to Wales wasn't enough to bring the idea to fruition. It's good to reread those old messages, because I had somehow gotten the impression that the fact that it was Sanger's idea, and not Rosenfeld's, which actually and directly led to the development of Wikipedia, was a matter of dispute. On Wed, Apr 15, 2009 at 9:40 AM, Carcharoth &lt;carcharothwp(a)googlemail.com&gt;wrote;wrote: