[Wikipedia-l] Re: Sanger's memoirs

[Daniel Mayer]

--- lmsanger at sbcglobal.net wrote:
> This implies that a Jeremy Rosenfeld actually caused the precursor of
> Wikipedia to come into existence on January 3 or 4.  In fact, the idea came
> out of my head; if Jeremy Rosenfeld told you anything, that had no causal
> influence on the development of Wikipedia, which would not have happened had
> I not had the idea.  You certainly never gave *me* the idea, and you never
> mentioned that anyone had ever even told you about the existence of wikis
> before January 3.
> 
> So when you now write "The original idea for a wiki for Wikipedia was not
> proposed by Larry," you are not "just adding an interesting bit of
> historical trivia"; you are saying something false, which does a
> considerable disservice to me.  Indeed, it makes a liar out of me and out of
> the Wikipedia history page as it has existed since 2001.

Hi Larry - As one of the few people left that was here while you were still
around on Wikipedia, I’d just like to say that I think your contribution to the
project during its first year was invaluable - vital even. As I said shortly
after you posted your letter of resignation, I feel that you were the main
person that held things together long enough for the community to be strong and
oriented enough to take care of things on its own. That fact is, IMO, vastly
more important than who did or did not think of the idea of Wikipedia first.

At the time of your resignation you didn’t seem be as optimistic about
Wikipedia’s future as I was, however, saying that more paid editors like
yourself would be needed to make sure the project would not go awry (IIRC).
>From that point our views have diverged, but that does not diminish the high
regard I - and I suspect many others - have for what you did.  

-- mav

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