HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Nupedia was an English-language,
online encyclopedia An online encyclopedia, also called an Internet encyclopedia, or a digital encyclopedia, is an encyclopedia accessible through the internet. Examples include Wikipedia and ''Encyclopædia Britannica''. Digitization of old content In January 199 ...
whose articles were written by volunteer contributors with appropriate subject matter expertise, reviewed by expert editors before publication, and licensed as free content. It was founded by
Jimmy Wales Jimmy Donal Wales (born August 7, 1966), also known on Wikipedia by the pseudonym Jimbo, is an American-British Internet entrepreneur, webmaster, and former financial trader. He is a co-founder of the online non-profit encyclopedia Wikipedi ...
and underwritten by
Bomis Bomis ( to rhyme with "promise") was a dot-com company best known for supporting the creations of free-content online-encyclopedia projects Nupedia and Wikipedia. It was co-founded in 1996 by Jimmy Wales, Tim Shell, and Michael Davis ...
, with
Larry Sanger Lawrence Mark Sanger (; born July 16, 1968) is an American Internet project developer and philosopher who co-founded the online encyclopedia Wikipedia along with Jimmy Wales. Sanger coined the name and wrote much of Wikipedia's original governin ...
as editor-in-chief. Nupedia operated from October 1999 until September 2003. It is best known today as the predecessor of
Wikipedia Wikipedia is a multilingual free online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and using a wiki-based editing system. Wikipedia is the largest and most-read refer ...
. Nupedia had a seven-step approval process to control content of articles before being posted, rather than live
wiki A wiki ( ) is an online hypertext publication collaboratively edited and managed by its own audience, using a web browser. A typical wiki contains multiple pages for the subjects or scope of the project, and could be either open to the pu ...
-based updating. Nupedia was designed by committee, with experts to predefine the rules, and it had only 21 articles in its first year, compared to Wikipedia posting 200 articles in the first month, and 18,000 in the first year. Unlike Wikipedia, Nupedia was not a
wiki A wiki ( ) is an online hypertext publication collaboratively edited and managed by its own audience, using a web browser. A typical wiki contains multiple pages for the subjects or scope of the project, and could be either open to the pu ...
; it was instead characterized by an extensive
peer-review Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work (peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the relevant field. Peer review ...
process, designed to make its articles of a quality comparable to that of professional encyclopedias. Nupedia wanted scholars (ideally with PhDs) to volunteer content. Before it ceased operating, Nupedia produced 24 approved articlesCraig 2013, p. 84Ayers 2008Myers 2006, p. 163 that had completed its review process and another 150 articles were in progress. Wales preferred Wikipedia's easier posting of articles, while Sanger preferred the peer-reviewed approach used by Nupedia and later founded
Citizendium Citizendium ( ; "the citizens' compendium of everything") is an English-language wiki-based free online encyclopedia launched by Larry Sanger, co-founder of Nupedia and Wikipedia. It was first announced in September 2006 as a fork of the Engl ...
in 2006 as an expert-reviewed alternative to Wikipedia. In June 2008,
CNET ''CNET'' (short for "Computer Network") is an American media website that publishes reviews, news, articles, blogs, podcasts, and videos on technology and consumer electronics globally. ''CNET'' originally produced content for radio and televi ...
UK listed Nupedia as one of the greatest defunct Web sites in the still-young
history of the Internet The history of the Internet has its origin in information theory and the efforts of scientists and engineers to build and interconnect computer networks. The Internet Protocol Suite, the set of rules used to communicate between networks and de ...
, noting how the strict control had limited the posting of articles.


History

In October 1999, Jimmy Wales began thinking about an online encyclopedia built by volunteers and, in January 2000, hired Larry Sanger to oversee its development. The project officially went online on March 9, 2000. By November 2000, however, only two full-length articles had been published. From its beginning, Nupedia was a free content encyclopedia, with Bomis intending to generate revenue from online ads on Nupedia.com. Initially the project used a homegrown license, the Nupedia Open Content License. In January 2001, it switched to the
GNU Free Documentation License The GNU Free Documentation License (GNU FDL or simply GFDL) is a copyleft license for free documentation, designed by the Free Software Foundation (FSF) for the GNU Project. It is similar to the GNU General Public License, giving readers the r ...
at the urging of
Richard Stallman Richard Matthew Stallman (; born March 16, 1953), also known by his initials, rms, is an American free software movement activist and programmer. He campaigns for software to be distributed in such a manner that its users have the freedom to ...
and the
Free Software Foundation The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is a 501(c)#501(c)(3), 501(c)(3) non-profit organization founded by Richard Stallman on October 4, 1985, to support the free software movement, with the organization's preference for software being distributed ...
. Also in January 2001, Nupedia started
Wikipedia Wikipedia is a multilingual free online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and using a wiki-based editing system. Wikipedia is the largest and most-read refer ...
as a side-project to allow collaboration on articles before entering the peer review process. This attracted interest from both sides, as it provided the less bureaucratic structure favored by advocates of the GNE encyclopedia. As a result, GNE never really developed, and the threat of competition between the projects was averted. As Wikipedia grew and attracted contributors, it quickly developed a life of its own and began to function largely independently of Nupedia, although Sanger initially led activity on Wikipedia by virtue of his position as Nupedia's editor-in-chief. Besides leading to discontinuation of the GNE project, Wikipedia also led to the gradual demise of Nupedia. Due to the collapse of the internet economy at that time, Jimmy Wales decided to discontinue funding for a salaried editor-in-chief in December 2001, and Sanger resigned from both projects shortly thereafter. After Sanger's departure, Nupedia increasingly became an afterthought to Wikipedia; of the Nupedia articles that completed the review process, only two did so after 2001. As Nupedia dwindled into inactivity, the idea of converting it into a stable version of approved Wikipedia articles was occasionally broached, but never implemented. Nupedia's server later crashed in September 2003. Nupedia's encyclopedic content was assimilated into Wikipedia.Waters 2010, pp. 179–180


Editorial process

Nupedia had a seven-step editorial process, consisting of: #Assignment #Finding a lead reviewer #Lead review #Open review #Lead copyediting #Open copyediting #Final approval and markup Authors were expected to have expert knowledge (although the definition of expert allowed for a degree of flexibility, and it was acknowledged that some articles could be written by a good writer, rather than an expert ''per se'') and the editors approving articles for publication were expected "to be true experts in their fields and (with few exceptions) opossess PhDs". Ruth Ifcher was someone Sanger depended upon and worked closely with on Nupedia's early policies and procedures. Ifcher, holding several higher degrees, was a computer programmer and former copy editor and agreed to be volunteer chief copy editor.


Software development

Nupedia was powered by NupeCode
collaborative software Collaborative software or groupware is application software designed to help people working on a common task to attain their goals. One of the earliest definitions of groupware is "intentional group processes plus software to support them". As re ...
. NupeCode is
free Free may refer to: Concept * Freedom, having the ability to do something, without having to obey anyone/anything * Freethought, a position that beliefs should be formed only on the basis of logic, reason, and empiricism * Emancipate, to procur ...
/
open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...
software (released under the
GNU General Public License The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or simply GPL) is a series of widely used free software licenses that guarantee end users the Four Freedoms (Free software), four freedoms to run, study, share, and modify the software. The license was th ...
) designed for large
peer review Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work (peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the relevant field. Peer review ...
projects. The code was available via Nupedia's
CVS CVS may refer to: Organizations * CVS Health, a US pharmacy chain ** CVS Pharmacy ** CVS Caremark, a prescription benefit management subsidiary * Council for Voluntary Service, England * Cable Video Store, former US pay-per-view service * CVS F ...
repository. One of the problems experienced by Nupedia during much of its existence was that the software lacked functionality. Much of the missing functionality had been mocked-up using underlined blocks of text which appeared to be hyperlinks, but actually were not. As part of the project, a new version of the original software (called "NuNupedia") was under development. NuNupedia was implemented for testing at
SourceForge SourceForge is a web service that offers software consumers a centralized online location to control and manage open-source software projects and research business software. It provides source code repository hosting, bug tracking, mirrorin ...
, but never reached a sufficient stage of development to replace the original software.


See also

*
List of online encyclopedias This is a list of well-known online encyclopedias—i.e., encyclopedias accessible or formerly accessible on the Internet. The largest online encyclopedias are general reference works, though there are also many specialized ones. Some online ency ...
*
List of wikis This article contains a list of notable wikis, which are websites that use wiki software, allowing users to collaboratively edit content and view old versions of the content. These websites use several different wiki software packages. Table ...
*
Scholarpedia ''Scholarpedia'' is an English-language wiki-based online encyclopedia with features commonly associated with open-access online academic journals, which aims to have quality content in science and medicine. ''Scholarpedia'' articles are written ...
*


References


Further reading

* Larry Sanger
The Early History of Nupedia and Wikipedia: A Memoir Part 1
an
Part 2
Slashdot ''Slashdot'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''/.'') is a social news website that originally advertised itself as "News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters". It features news stories concerning science, technology, and politics that are submitted and evalu ...
, April 2005. * Larry Sanger
"Nupedia.com Statement of Editorial Policy, Version 2.1,"
Printable Version dated May 10, 2000. * Larry Sanger
"Nupedia.com Statement of Editorial Policy, Version 3.2,"
Printable Version dated June 23, 2000.


External links


Earlier versions of Nupedia
(from the
Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...
)
Nupedia
€” revived Nupedia on
Fandom A fandom is a subculture composed of fans characterized by a feeling of empathy and camaraderie with others who share a common interest. Fans typically are interested in even minor details of the objects of their fandom and spend a significant ...
{{Wikipedia History of Wikipedia Internet properties established in 2000 2003 disestablishments in the United States Defunct websites Jimmy Wales