[Wikipedia-l] Re: Sanger's memoirs

[Mark Williamson]

It's a good thing you're back, Larry.

I had begun to tire of Phil Sandifer's endless attacks on your
character. I don't believe these will continue in your presence.

Welcome back

Mark

On 19/04/05, lmsanger at sbcglobal.net <lmsanger at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> I was looking at wikipedia-l to see how the community might react to my
> memoir.  I haven't been subscribed for three years.  But seeing Jimmy's
> comment impelled me to rejoin the list, for the sole purpose of confirming
> what has been on record for five years.
> 
> Jimmy wrote:
> 
> > The original idea for a wiki for Wikipedia was not proposed by Larry,
> > but by Jeremy Rosenfeld.
> 
> Who is Jeremy Rosenfeld?  I'm afraid I don't remember, but I don't have a
> very good memory for names.  Was he one of the people doing link weeding for
> Bomis?
> 
> 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.)  Ben no doubt remembers it as
> well, because I told him almost immediately after he explained the concept
> of a wiki to me that it would be interesting to consider building a more
> free-wheeling encyclopedia project using a wiki.  I told him that, even as
> we were still eating dinner.  I remember writing a wiki encyclopedia
> proposal soon after I got home, I think that very night; I remember you
> saying that you liked the idea and that you'd set up the wiki.  That would
> have been January 3.  I think you (or maybe it was Jason Richey) actually
> put the wiki online either that day or the next.  I think it was that very
> day, because I remember being happy that the thing had been set up so
> quickly.  Over the next few days I started populating the wiki with the
> basic pages, and pitched the idea to Nupedia.
> 
> If Jeremy Rosenfeld told you about wikis, or suggested that wiki software
> could be used to run a wiki encyclopedia, you certainly never told *me*
> that; and in any case, it was not Jeremy Rosenfeld's conversation with you,
> but instead mine, that actually caused the precursor of Wikipedia to come
> into existence on January 3 or 4.  I know how Wikipedia was originated,
> since, well, I did the origination.  Moreover, I came up with the name for
> the project and shepherded it very closely from then through its first year.
> 
> Do you deny these claims, Jimmy?
> 
> If not, then what you say is simply false, is it not?--That "The original
> idea for a wiki for Wikipedia was not proposed by Larry, but by Jeremy
> Rosenfeld."
> 
> I just don't know what you could possibly thinking.  Why don't you clarify
> for the list what you meant, precisely, in light of the facts as I have
> presented them?  Surely you're not accusing *me* of having lied since
> practically the beginning of the project?  Because, as you know, the above
> story has been the official story of the origin of the idea for Wikipedia
> since the beginning of the project.  Why would you take five years to "set
> the record straight" and thereby accuse me of having been a liar all that
> time?
> 
> --Larry
> 
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