On 4/21/05, lmsanger@sbcglobal.net lmsanger@sbcglobal.net wrote:
Richard Holton wrote:
My conclusion? "Jimbo Wales had a vision for a free online encyclopedia;
he and his
employee Larry Sanger worked up Nupedia as a first stab at this vision; after hearing about wikis - which Jimbo had also recently discussed with another employee, Jeremy Rosenfeld - Larry laid down the first strokes of what would become Wikipedia."
Yes, it sounds very reasonable--for someone who wasn't there. Unfortunately, it is still very misleading.
I'm sorry you think so. Let's work on it:
"Jimbo Wales had a vision for a free online encyclopedia; he hired Larry Sanger to be the project's editor-in-chief, and he, with a voluntary advisory board, worked up Nupedia as a first stab at this vision. There were problems with Nupedia's system, which Larry was tasked to solve. Larry heard about wikis one evening over dinner and the very next day, or the day after, as a direct and sole result, laid down the first strokes of what would become Wikipedia. Jimmy said later, in 2005, as an interesting bit of historical trivia, that someone else first suggested a wiki encyclopedia to him. This suggestion, however, had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the origination of Wikipedia, nor did Jimmy mean to suggest that it did."
This version simply says the same thing, with more detail. OK, so it's obviously not *exactly* the same, but it boils down to much the same thing, IMHO.
What some people seem to want to be true is this: "Jeremy Rosenfeld got the idea for Wikipedia, which he conveyed to Jimmy. Jimmy then told Larry to start it, which he did." That is completely false. No:
That is certainly *not* what *my* "conclusion" said, although people do seem to have got that impression from other parts of the discussion.
"Larry got the idea; Larry asked Jimmy to set up the wiki software on the server, which he (or Jason Richey) did; then Larry got to work."
The only thing I was trying to add to this was the fact - reflected in your "memoir", unless I'm misunderstanding it - that you had to "sell" the new idea to Jimmy after your epiphanous dinner. It is therefore historically important that he accepted it; you suggest that "After he had nixed my several earlier proposals, and given that setting up a wiki would be very simple and require hiring no programmer, Jimmy could scarcely refuse".
Is it not possible - indeed likely, unless Jimmy is actually lying - that the fact that he had discussed a similar concept with someone else *helped warm him to the idea*? And if so, does that conversation not have a small bearing on the existence of the wiki - not as an agent in making it happen, or shaping it, but like a Butterfly Effect; a small event which may have just been coincidence, but seems notable with hindsight.
So perhaps: "Larry got the idea; Larry told Jimmy about it; Jimmy had discussed something similar with Jeremy Rosenfeld, but not in any detail; Larry talked Jimmy into setting it up; then Larry got to work."
Or, in the style of my original "conclusion": "Jimbo Wales had a vision for a free online encyclopedia; he hired Larry Sanger to oversee the project, who - together with a team of volunteers - worked up Nupedia as a first stab at this vision. While thinking of ways to solve problems with Nupedia's current model, Larry heard about wikis over dinner with Ben Kovitz and came up with the idea of a wiki-based encyclopedia. Larry suggested this to Jimmy (who, coincidentally, had once discussed something vaguely similar with Jeremy Rosenfeld) and was given the go-ahead. Larry then proceeded to lay down the first strokes of what would become Wikipedia."
Or, finally, I quite like the current wording in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Wikipedia (although it doesn't mention, as Jimmy now has, that Jeremy literally suggested a wiki-encyclopedia): "On the evening of 2 January 2001, Sanger had a conversation over dinner with Ben Kovitz, a computer programmer, in San Diego, California. Kovitz, who was a regular on "Ward's Wiki" (the Portland Pattern Repository), explained the wiki concept to Sanger. Sanger saw that a wiki would be an excellent format whereby a more open, less formal encyclopedia project could be pursued. Sanger easily persuaded Wales, who had been introduced to the wiki concept previously, to set up a wiki for Nupedia, and Nupedia's first wiki went online on 10 January."