lmsanger@sbcglobal.net wrote:
I remember very clearly the evening when I got the idea for Wikipedia. It was January 2 and Ben Kovitz and I were eating at a Mexican restaurant just around the corner from the old Bomis office. (I could point out the place, if it still exists, but I forget the name.)
We should hang a gilded plaque there and make it a place of pilgrimage, obviously. (Especially since San Diego in January is a nice escape from northern climates.) That doesn't mean it need to be the only such place. Such dates and places are the best we have, because we can seldom explain exactly how, when or why certain thoughts came into our heads.
As I described in my 2002 paper (aronsson.se/wikipaper.html) I think I first learned of wikis when the Seattle Wireless wiki was slashdotted on March 22, 2001. However, a programming colleague of mine (Pär Fornland) has later reminded me that he tried to make me grasp the concept of c2.com already in 1999/2000. It is quite possible that this early input was resting in my subconscious and provided a necessary fertile soil for the impressions I received in the spring of 2001. (I don't keep detailed records of all impressions and ideas, but maybe I should. I have this idea of an always-on digital video camera on my eyeglasses, so I can go back and search and replay any earlier part of my life.)