Editing History of Wikipedia (section)

===Founding of Wikipedia===
{{See also|First Wikipedia edit|Wikipedia:Wikipedia's oldest articles|Wikipedia:First 100 pages}}
There was some hesitation among editors about binding Nupedia too closely to a wiki-style workflow.<ref name="memoirofwiki">{{cite web|first=Larry |last=Sanger |url=http://features.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/04/18/164213&tid=95&tid=149&tid=9 |title=The Early History of Nupedia and Wikipedia: A Memoir – Part I|date=2005-04-18 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090722235956/http://features.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05%2F04%2F18%2F164213&tid=95&tid=149&tid=9 |archive-date=22 July 2009}} {{cite web|url=http://features.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/04/19/1746205&tid=95 |title=The Early History of Nupedia and Wikipedia: A Memoir – Part II |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061108094801/http://features.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05%2F04%2F19%2F1746205&tid=95 |archive-date=8 November 2006 |website=[[Slashdot]] |date=19 April 2005 |quote=My initial idea was that the wiki would be set up as part of Nupedia; it was to be a way for the public to develop a stream of content that could be fed into the Nupedia process. I think I got some of the basic pages written—how wikis work, what our general plan was, and so forth—over the next few days. I wrote a general proposal for the Nupedia community, and the Nupedia wiki went live January 10. The first encyclopedia articles for what was to become Wikipedia were written then. It turned out, however, that a clear majority of the Nupedia Advisory Board wanted to have nothing to do with a wiki. Again, their commitment was to rigor and reliability, a concern I shared with them and continue to have. Still, perhaps some of those people are kicking themselves now. They (some of them) evidently thought that a wiki could not resemble an encyclopedia at all, that it would be too informal and unstructured, as the original WikiWikiWeb was (and is), to be associated with Nupedia. They of course were perfectly reasonable to doubt that it would turn into the fantastic source of content that it did. Who could reasonably guess that it would work? But it did work, and now the world knows better.}}</ref> After a Nupedia wiki was launched under {{mono|nupedia.com}} on 10 January 2001,<ref>{{Cite web |date=2003-04-25 |title=[Nupedia-l] Nupedia's wiki: try it out |url=http://www.nupedia.com/pipermail/nupedia-l/2001-January/000678.html |access-date=2023-08-21 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20030425173342/http://www.nupedia.com/pipermail/nupedia-l/2001-January/000678.html |archive-date=25 April 2003 }}</ref> Wales proposed launching the new project under its own name, and Sanger proposed ''Wikipedia'', framing it as "a supplementary project to Nupedia which operates entirely independently."<ref>{{Cite news |last=Larry Sanger |author-link=Larry Sanger |date=11 January 2001 |title=Re: [Advisory-l] The wiki... |publisher=Nupedia mailing list |url=http://www.nupedia.com/pipermail/nupedia-l/2001-January/000680.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20030414021138/http://www.nupedia.com/pipermail/nupedia-l/2001-January/000680.html |archive-date=14 April 2003}}</ref> A new wiki was launched at {{mono|wikipedia.com}} on Monday 15 January 2001. The [[bandwidth (computing)|bandwidth]] and [[server (computing)|server]] (located in San Diego) used for these initial projects were donated by Bomis. Many former Bomis employees later contributed content to the encyclopedia: notably [[Tim Shell]], co-founder and later CEO of Bomis, and programmer Jason Richey.

Wales stated in December 2008 that he made Wikipedia's first edit, a test edit with the text "[["Hello, World!" program|Hello, World]]!", but this may have been to an old version of Wikipedia which soon after was scrapped and replaced by a restart.<ref>[https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Wales&diff=prev&oldid=258632986 Message by Jimmy Wales] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160412003535/https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Wales&diff=prev&oldid=258632986 |date=12 April 2016 }} Wednesday 17 December 2008. Retrieved Saturday 30 January 2010.</ref><ref>{{Cite mailing list |url=https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2011-January/108198.html |title=Hello world? |date=14 January 2011 |access-date=4 June 2022 |mailing-list=WikiEN-l |last=Starling |first=Tim}}</ref> The first recovered edit to Wikipedia.com was to the HomePage on 15 January 2001, reading "This is the new WikiPedia!"; it can be found [[Special:permalink/908493298|here]].<ref>Wikipedia's earliest edits were once believed lost, as early [[UseModWiki]] software deleted data after a month. But on 14 December 2010, [[Tim Starling]] found backups on [[SourceForge]] containing every change made to Wikipedia from its creation in January 2001 to 17 August 2001. As of 2019, these were imported into Wikipedia's edit history.

Before that, the first edits that had been known were to [[Special:PermanentLink/291430|Wikipedia:UuU]], [[Special:PermanentLink/286342|TransporT]], and [[Special:PermanentLink/11992008|User:ScottMoonen]] on 16 January 2001.</ref> The existence of the project was formally announced and an appeal for volunteers to engage in content creation was made to the Nupedia mailing list on 17 January 2001.<ref>{{Cite web |date=31 March 2003 |title=&#91;Nupedia-l&#93; Wikipedia is up! |url=http://www.nupedia.com/pipermail/nupedia-l/2001-January/000684.html |access-date=16 March 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20030331101007/http://www.nupedia.com/pipermail/nupedia-l/2001-January/000684.html |archive-date=31 March 2003 }}</ref>

The project received many new participants after being mentioned on the [[Slashdot]] website in July 2001,<ref name="slashdot26july">{{Cite web |date=26 July 2001 |title=Britannica and Free Content |url=http://slashdot.org/articles/01/07/26/0312258.shtml |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090114204227/http://slashdot.org/articles/01/07/26/0312258.shtml |archive-date=14 January 2009 |publisher=Slashdot}}</ref> having already earned two minor mentions in March 2001.<ref>{{Cite web |date=5 March 2001 |title=Nupedia and Project Gutenberg Directors Answer |url=http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/03/02/1422244&tid=99 |publisher=Slashdot}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=29 March 2001 |title=Everything2 Hits One Million Nodes |url=http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/03/29/2035230&tid=95 |publisher=Slashdot}}</ref> It then received a prominent pointer to a story on the community-edited technology and culture website [[Kuro5hin]] on 25 July.<ref>{{Cite web |date=25 July 2001 |title=Britannica or Nupedia? The Future of Free Encyclopedias |url=http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2001/7/25/103136/121 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20011107050810/http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2001/7/25/103136/121 |archive-date=7 November 2001 |publisher=Kuro5hin}}</ref> Between these influxes of traffic, there had been a steady stream of traffic from other sources, especially Google, which alone sent hundreds of new visitors to the site every day. Its first major [[mainstream media]] coverage was in ''[[The New York Times]]'' on 20 September 2001.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Meyers |first=Peter |date=20 September 2001 |title=Fact-Driven? Collegial? This Site Wants You |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/20/technology/fact-driven-collegial-this-site-wants-you.html |access-date=16 March 2023 |issn=0362-4331 |archive-date=15 April 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090415232001/http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/20/technology/fact-driven-collegial-this-site-wants-you.html |url-status=live }}</ref>