Difference between revisions of "Timeline of Wikipedia"
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| 2004 || January || Milestone || The percentage of English articles falls below 50%, as non-English language versions continue to grow. | | 2004 || January || Milestone || The percentage of English articles falls below 50%, as non-English language versions continue to grow. | ||
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| + | | 2004 || June || Block || Wikipedia is blocked in China for two weeks. | ||
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| + | | 2004 || July || Social Meeting || The first social meeting in the United States takes place in Boston. | ||
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| + | | 2004 || September 7 || Project Creation || Wikimedia Commons is created to host media files for Wikipedia in all languages. | ||
|- | |- | ||
| 2004 || || Growth || Wikipedia sees further growth in content and user participation. | | 2004 || || Growth || Wikipedia sees further growth in content and user participation. | ||
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| + | | 2004 || || Content Growth || Wikipedia's article pool doubles in size from under 500,000 to over 1 million articles by the end of the year, with content in over 100 languages. The English Wikipedia accounts for just under half of these articles. | ||
| + | |- | ||
| + | | 2004 || || Server Relocation || Wikipedia's server farms are moved from California to Florida. | ||
| + | |- | ||
| + | | 2004 || || Features || Categories and CSS style configuration sheets are introduced. | ||
| + | |- | ||
| + | | 2004 || || Governance || Formal elections begin for a board for the Wikimedia Foundation and an Arbitration Committee on English Wikipedia. | ||
| + | |- | ||
| + | | 2004 || || Chapter || Wikimedia Deutschland is recognized as the first national chapter of the Foundation. | ||
| + | |- | ||
| + | | 2004 || || Legal Reference || Bourgeois v. Peters, a court case, becomes one of the earliest to cite and quote Wikipedia. | ||
|- | |- | ||
| 2005 || || Expansion || Wikipedia's international editions continue to grow, and the site gains widespread recognition. | | 2005 || || Expansion || Wikipedia's international editions continue to grow, and the site gains widespread recognition. | ||
Revision as of 19:35, 13 September 2024
This is a timeline of Wikipedia, a free, web-based encyclopedia that is collaboratively written by volunteers from around the world.
Contents
Sample questions
The following are some interesting questions that can be answered by reading this timeline:
Big picture
| Time period | Development summary | More details |
|---|---|---|
| 1990s | Technological Context | The development of the World Wide Web leads to several attempts at creating online encyclopedias, setting the stage for the eventual success of Wikipedia. |
Full timeline
- We do not include:
- Controversies: see List of Wikipedia controversies
| Year | Month and date | Event type | Details |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1857 | November 5 | Speech | Richard Chenevix Trench delivers a speech at the London Library on Guy Fawkes Day, proposing the creation of a new grand dictionary of every word in the English language. He emphasizes the need for a large, unpaid volunteer team to compile this work, a concept that parallels Wikipedia's reliance on volunteer contributors. |
| 1910 | – | Institution Establishment | Paul Otlet founds the Mundaneum, an institution dedicated to indexing the world's knowledge. This marks a significant step towards creating a global repository of information, paving the way for future encyclopedic efforts like Wikipedia. |
| 1928 | – | Project Completion | After nearly 70 years of collaborative effort, the *Oxford English Dictionary* is completed. This massive project, driven by volunteers, demonstrates that large-scale, volunteer-driven knowledge projects were possible long before the advent of the internet. |
| 1934 | – | Publication | Paul Otlet publishes *Traité de Documentation*, in which he explores the idea of using automated technology beyond the printing press to build a more useful, machine-assisted encyclopedia. This concept would influence later digital knowledge projects. |
| 1938 | – | Concept Proposal | H. G. Wells expands on Otlet's ideas in his book of essays *World Brain*, proposing the creation of a global encyclopedia that could serve as a repository for human knowledge and wisdom, an idea that anticipates the collaborative nature of Wikipedia. |
| 1945 | – | Essay Publication | Vannevar Bush publishes his influential essay *As We May Think*, in which he envisions the "Memex," a microfilm-based system that would allow users to store and retrieve vast amounts of information. This concept of a knowledge machine would later inspire developments in digital information storage, such as hypertext. |
| 1960 | – | Project Launch | Ted Nelson begins *Project Xanadu*, a pioneering hypertext design aimed at creating a global, interconnected library of information. This project is a precursor to the development of the internet and collaborative knowledge systems like Wikipedia. |
| 1993 | – | Concept Proposal | Rick Gates, a computer scientist and advocate for online information sharing, makes the earliest known proposal for an online encyclopedia. This proposal outlines the concept of a collaborative, digital resource where users can freely contribute and access knowledge, laying the foundation for later initiatives like Wikipedia. |
| 1993 | – | Encyclopedia Launch | Microsoft's *Encarta*, a CD-ROM-based encyclopedia, is published. It introduces hyperlinked articles, a significant departure from traditional book-based encyclopedias like the *Encyclopædia Britannica*. |
| 1998 | – | Concept Proposal | Richard Stallman, founder of the Free Software Foundation, proposes the idea of a "free-as-in-freedom" online encyclopedia. His vision includes the principle that no central authority should control editing or access, directly opposing the proprietary models of contemporaneous encyclopedias like Microsoft Encarta or Encyclopædia Britannica. |
| 1998 | – | Concept Proposal | Free software advocate Richard Stallman outlines the idea of a "Free Universal Encyclopedia and Learning Resource." He stresses the importance of creating a free, universally accessible encyclopedia to ensure continuous progress toward this ideal. |
| Late 1990s | – | Concept Development | Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales is inspired by the open-source movement and Richard Stallman's *Emacs Manifesto*. As a graduate student at Indiana University, Wales is intrigued by the idea of volunteer-driven collaboration, which will later influence Wikipedia’s model. |
| 2000 | March | Encyclopedia Launch | Nupedia is launched by Jimmy Wales, Tim Shell, and Michael E. Davis under their web-advertising company, Bomis. The project aims to create a free online encyclopedia using qualified volunteers and a peer-reviewed multi-step editorial process. Despite having a mailing list of over 2,000 interested editors and Larry Sanger serving as full-time editor-in-chief, *Nupedia* struggles to produce content, with only 12 articles written during its first year. |
| 2000 | March | Founding | The Nupedia project is started by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger, with the intention to publish articles written by experts and licensed as free content. The project is funded by Bomis. |
| 2001 | January 2 | Key Conversation | Larry Sanger learns about wikis during a dinner with Ben Kovitz, a programmer and regular on Ward Cunningham's WikiWikiWeb. Kovitz introduces Sanger to the concept of using wikis to organize knowledge, an idea that would soon shape the future of Wikipedia. |
| 2001 | January 10 | Proposal | Larry Sanger suggests on the *Nupedia* mailing list that a wiki-based platform be created as a feeder project to complement *Nupedia*. He proposes the use of the UseModWiki platform under the subject "Let's make a wiki." |
| 2001 | January 10 | Wiki Setup | Jimmy Wales sets up a wiki under the *nupedia.com* domain as a test project for rapid content creation. This marks the beginning of the wiki approach to encyclopedic content for *Nupedia*. |
| 2001 | January 11 | Naming | Larry Sanger suggests the name "Wikipedia" as a portmanteau of "wiki" and "encyclopedia." |
| 2001 | January 12 | Domain Registration | The domain name wikipedia.com is registered. |
| 2001 | January 13 | Domain Registration | The domain wikipedia.org is officially registered, signaling the creation of a new free-content encyclopedia. This event marks the beginning of what would become one of the most significant and widely-used knowledge repositories on the internet.
|
| 2001 | January 15 | First Edit | Wikipedia’s first edit is made, marking the platform's launch as a live site. Just two days after the domain registration, Wikipedia begins its journey as a space where volunteers from around the world can collaborate to create and edit articles, significantly lowering the barriers to contribution compared to Nupedia. |
| 2001 | January 15 | Wikipedia Launch | Wikipedia is launched by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger as a companion project to *Nupedia*. It allows for faster content creation by enabling volunteers to edit articles freely, using wiki software. This project rapidly overtakes *Nupedia* in content and activity. |
| 2001 | January 15 | Wikipedia Launch | Wikipedia is officially launched under the wikipedia.com domain as an independent project, separate from Nupedia, with the goal of allowing volunteers to edit articles more freely.
|
| 2001 | January 15 | Launch | Wikipedia officially opens to the public, with the creation of the first international editions, including French, German, Catalan, Swedish, and Italian. |
| 2001 | January 17 | GNUPedia Launch | The Free Software Foundation's GNUPedia project goes online as a potential competitor to *Nupedia* and Wikipedia. Within a few years, the FSF encourages people to contribute to Wikipedia instead. |
| 2001 | February 12 | Milestone | Wikipedia reaches its 1,000th article. This demonstrates the rapid content growth compared to *Nupedia*, which had struggled to produce articles at a faster rate. |
| 2001 | March 16 | New Subdomains | The first non-English Wikipedia, the German Wikipedia (*deutsche.wikipedia.com*), is created at 01:38 UTC. This is followed a few hours later by the Catalan Wikipedia (*catalan.wikipedia.com*) at 13:07 UTC. |
| 2001 | March | New Subdomain | The Japanese Wikipedia (*nihongo.wikipedia.com*) is created, initially using Romanized Japanese. |
| 2001 | March | Expansion | The first international Wikipedias are created, including the French, German, Catalan, Swedish, and Italian editions. |
| 2001 | May 11 | New Subdomain | The French Wikipedia is created, followed by the introduction of other languages such as Chinese, Dutch, Esperanto, Hebrew, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and Swedish. |
| 2001 | July 25 | Traffic Increase | Wikipedia receives a large influx of traffic after being mentioned on the technology website *Slashdot*. This is followed by further exposure from *Kuro5hin*, which brings more participants and attention to the project. |
| 2001 | July 26 | Media Attention | Wikipedia experiences a surge in traffic due to the first "slashdotter" wave. |
| 2001 | – | Licensing Change | The license for Wikipedia’s predecessor, Nupedia, is changed to the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL), which allows content to be freely used, modified, and shared. This open license becomes a cornerstone for Wikipedia’s ethos of free knowledge, encouraging broad participation and redistribution. |
| 2001 | August | Media Report | The first media report about Wikipedia appears in Wales on Sunday. |
| 2001 | September 7 | Milestone | Wikipedia reaches 10,000 articles, highlighting the continued success and growth of the project in just eight months. |
| 2001 | September 20 | Media Coverage | *The New York Times* covers Wikipedia, marking its first major mainstream media recognition. This coverage increases its visibility and legitimacy. |
| 2001 | September | Announcement | Wikipedia commits to providing multilingual versions, aiming to roll out Wikipedias for all major languages, set core standards, and translate core pages for the new wikis. |
| 2001 | September 11 | Traffic Spike | A link to the Wikipedia article on the September 11 attacks appears on Yahoo!'s home page, resulting in a significant increase in traffic. |
| 2001 | September | Breaking News | Following the September 11 attacks, Wikipedia begins featuring breaking news stories on its homepage and linking related articles. Approximately 100 articles related to 9/11 are created. |
| 2001 | December | New Subdomains | Afrikaans, Norwegian, and Serbian Wikipedia versions are announced as international statistics begin to be logged. |
| 2002 | January | Milestone | 90% of all Wikipedia articles are in English. |
| 2002 | January 25 | Software Release | The first portable MediaWiki software goes live. |
| 2002 | March | Departure | Larry Sanger leaves both Nupedia and Wikipedia after Bomis withdraws funding during the dot-com bust. |
| 2002 | August 30 | Milestone | Wikipedia reaches 40,000 articles, having grown at a rate of over 1,500 articles per month during its first year of existence. |
| 2002 | Philosophical Disagreement | Sanger and Wales differ on how to manage open encyclopedias, particularly concerning disruptive editors, roles for experts, and project management. | |
| 2002 | Funding Reduction | Bomis reduces funding for Wikipedia, leading to the departure of Larry Sanger. | |
| 2002 | Fork | A fork of the Spanish Wikipedia results in the creation of Enciclopedia Libre. | |
| 2002 | Policy | Jimmy Wales confirms that Wikipedia will never run commercial advertising. | |
| 2002 | Bots | Bots are introduced to Wikipedia. | |
| 2002 | Launch | The first sister project, Wiktionary, and the first formal Manual of Style are launched. | |
| 2002 | Participation | Close to 200 contributors are editing Wikipedia daily. | |
| 2002 | Growth | Wikipedia continues to expand internationally, with new language versions and increasing article counts. | |
| 2003 | October | Social Meeting | The first Wikipedian social meeting takes place in Munich, Germany. |
| 2003 | November 24 | Project Creation | Wikisource is created as a separate project to host free textual sources in multiple languages. |
| 2003 | Milestone | The English Wikipedia passes 100,000 articles, while the German Wikipedia surpasses 10,000. | |
| 2003 | Foundation | The Wikimedia Foundation is established. | |
| 2003 | Logo | Wikipedia adopts its jigsaw world logo. | |
| 2003 | Feature | Mathematical formulae using TeX are reintroduced to the website. | |
| 2003 | System Development | The basic principles of the English Wikipedia's Arbitration system and committee ("ArbCom") are developed. | |
| 2003 | Growth | Wikipedia reaches significant milestones in article counts and international editions. | |
| 2004 | January | Milestone | The percentage of English articles falls below 50%, as non-English language versions continue to grow. |
| 2004 | June | Block | Wikipedia is blocked in China for two weeks. |
| 2004 | July | Social Meeting | The first social meeting in the United States takes place in Boston. |
| 2004 | September 7 | Project Creation | Wikimedia Commons is created to host media files for Wikipedia in all languages. |
| 2004 | Growth | Wikipedia sees further growth in content and user participation. | |
| 2004 | Content Growth | Wikipedia's article pool doubles in size from under 500,000 to over 1 million articles by the end of the year, with content in over 100 languages. The English Wikipedia accounts for just under half of these articles. | |
| 2004 | Server Relocation | Wikipedia's server farms are moved from California to Florida. | |
| 2004 | Features | Categories and CSS style configuration sheets are introduced. | |
| 2004 | Governance | Formal elections begin for a board for the Wikimedia Foundation and an Arbitration Committee on English Wikipedia. | |
| 2004 | Chapter | Wikimedia Deutschland is recognized as the first national chapter of the Foundation. | |
| 2004 | Legal Reference | Bourgeois v. Peters, a court case, becomes one of the earliest to cite and quote Wikipedia. | |
| 2005 | Expansion | Wikipedia's international editions continue to grow, and the site gains widespread recognition. | |
| 2006 | New Project | Larry Sanger founds Citizendium, an open encyclopedia requiring contributors to use real names to minimize disruptive editing. Citizendium aims to include "gentle expert guidance" and family-friendly content. | |
| 2006 | Milestone | Wikipedia reaches major milestones in article counts and global reach. | |
| 2007 | Governance | Jimmy Wales continues to establish self-governance on Wikipedia, with editors managing the community and content development, while he provides occasional input on serious matters. | |
| 2007 | Release | Wikipedia Version 0.5, a CD/DVD containing a selection of English Wikipedia articles, is released. | |
| 2007 | Recognition | Wikipedia's impact and influence become more prominent as it continues to expand. | |
| 2007–2011 | Availability | Kiwix ZIM files for Wikipedia versions from 2007 to 2011 are made available for download, providing offline access to selected Wikipedia articles. | |
| 2008 | Release | Wikipedia Version 0.7, a CD/DVD with updated selections of English Wikipedia articles, is released. | |
| 2008 | Milestone | Wikipedia celebrates significant achievements and milestones in content and community. | |
| 2009 | Release | Wikipedia Version 0.8, the final CD/DVD in the series with selections of English Wikipedia articles, is released. | |
| 2009 | Growth | Wikipedia remains a leading source of free knowledge, with continued growth and international expansion. | |
| 2014 | – | Reader Statistics | By this year, Wikipedia attracts approximately 495 million monthly readers worldwide, reflecting its status as a major source of free information on the web. This level of readership showcases its vast reach and the growing public reliance on the site for accurate, up-to-date knowledge. |
| 2014 | Milestone | About 85% of all Wikipedia articles are in non-English versions, marking the significant internationalization of the project. | |
| 2015 | – | Visitor Statistics | According to comScore, Wikipedia achieves over 115 million monthly unique visitors from the United States alone in 2015. This figure highlights the platform’s popularity in one of the largest internet markets and its role as a key player in digital education and information dissemination. |
| 2018 | September | Page Views | Wikipedia and its associated projects receive 15.5 billion monthly page views. This surge in traffic illustrates the platform’s enduring significance and widespread use across various languages and regions, underscoring its role as one of the world’s most important online resources. |
| 2023 | Milestone | Roughly 90% of all Wikipedia articles are in non-English Wikipedias, though the English and Simple English versions together have 7 million articles. | |
| 2023 | Preservation | The ZIM File Archive at the Internet Archive continues to store past full snapshots and article selections from Wikipedia in multiple languages, accessible with Kiwix software. |
Meta information on the timeline
How the timeline was built
The initial version of the timeline was written by Sebastian Sanchez.
Funding information for this timeline is available.
Feedback and comments
Feedback for the timeline can be provided at the following places:
- FIXME
What the timeline is still missing
- feature/update
- language versions
- userbase evolution
- research
- criticism (e.g. by notable people)
- public opinion
- government intervention
- notable policies by the Wikipedia community and the Wikimedia Foundation
- controversies
- references to Wikipedia in popular culture
- philosophies among Wikipedians (e.g. inclusionism vs exclusionism)
- competition
- awards
- parodies
- other
