Nupedia

This article is about the predecessor of Wikipedia. For the online encyclopedia originally known as GNUpedia, see GNE (encyclopedia).
Nupedia
Screenshot from the Wayback Machine
Type of site
Online encyclopedia
Available in
  • English
  • German
  • Spanish
  • French
  • Italian
DissolvedSeptember 2003
OwnerBomis (formerly)
Created by
URLnupedia.org www.nupedia.com at the Wayback Machine (archived 8 August 2003)
www.nupedia.com at the Wayback Machine (archived 7 April 2000)
Launched9 March 2000; 24 years ago (2000-03-09)
All three logos used by Nupedia. The first logo was used from March to August 2000, the second from August 2000 to February 2001, and the third from February 2001 to September 2003.

Nupedia was an English-language online encyclopedia whose articles were written by volunteer contributors with relevant subject matter expertise, reviewed by expert editors before publication, and licensed as free content. It was founded by Jimmy Wales and underwritten by Bomis, with Larry Sanger as editor-in-chief. Nupedia operated from October 1999[1][2] until September 2003. It is best known today as the predecessor of Wikipedia. Nupedia had a seven-step approval process to control content of articles before being posted, rather than live wiki-based updating. Nupedia was designed by a committee of experts who predefined the rules. It had only 21 articles in its first year,[a] compared with Wikipedia having 200 articles in the first month, and 18,000 in the first year.[3]

Unlike Wikipedia, Nupedia was not a wiki; it was instead characterized by an extensive 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.[4] Before it ceased operating, Nupedia produced 24 approved articles[5][6][7] that had completed its review process and another 150 articles were in progress.[8] Wales preferred Wikipedia's easier posting of articles, while Sanger preferred the peer-reviewed approach used by Nupedia[3] and later founded Citizendium in 2006 as an expert-reviewed alternative to Wikipedia.[9]

  1. ^ "Nupedia.com WHOIS, DNS, & DomainTools". WHOIS. 2016. Archived from the original on 24 July 2017. Retrieved 6 March 2016.
  2. ^ Poe, Marshall (September 2006). "Can thousands of Wikipedians be wrong? How an attempt to build an online encyclopedia touched off history's biggest experiment in collaborative knowledge". The Hive. The Atlantic. Archived from the original on 26 October 2012. Retrieved 1 January 2007.
  3. ^ a b Sanger, Larry (18 April 2005). "The Early History of Nupedia and Wikipedia: A Memoir". Slashdot. Archived from the original on 25 May 2009. Retrieved 26 May 2012.
  4. ^ Lih, Andrew (2009). The Wikipedia Revolution: How a Bunch of Nobodies Created the World's Greatest Encyclopedia. London: Aurum. p. 38. ISBN 9781845134730. OCLC 280430641. His academic roots compelled Sanger to insist on one rigid requirement for his editors: a pedigree. "We wish editors to be true experts in their fields and (with a few exceptions) possess Ph.Ds." read the Nupedia policy.
  5. ^ Craig 2013, p. 84
  6. ^ Ayers 2008
  7. ^ Myers 2006, p. 163
  8. ^ "When Wikipedia was young: the early years". VatorNews. 13 June 2017. Archived from the original on 26 December 2018. Retrieved 25 July 2018.
  9. ^ "Wikipedia founder forks Wikipedia". Archived from the original on 26 December 2018. Retrieved 7 August 2018.


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