Wikimedia/The History of Wikipedia/Before Wikipedia

One day, two friends called Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger had an idea. Their goal was to collect all human knowledge and place it in this one, centralised location. They called the project Nupedia, and launched it in early 2001. This project was not a wiki, meaning that not everyone could edit it. The project had numerous versions, including a French version, a German version, an Italian version and a Spanish version. Nupedia had a strict review process, which consisted of around 7 complex steps. People who contributed generally had to be experts in their respective field, and in most cases, a PHD was preferred. Nupedia eventually shut down in 2003, and the foundation associated with it, Bomis, disbanded in 2006.

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 * The Early Days