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Predecessor of the Wikipedia: "One of the Greatest Defunct Websites in History"

3/9/2000 to 9/2003
The Bomis.com logo

The Bomis.com logo

Using money from the dot.com Bomis, on March 9, 2000 American entrepreneur Jimmy Wales founded the web-encyclopedia, Nupedia in San Diego, California, hiring philosopher Larry Sanger as editor-in-chief.

"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 to volunteer content for free. Before it ceased operating, Nupedia produced 24 articles that completed its review process (three articles also existed in two versions of different lengths), and 74 more articles were in progress.

"In June 2008, CNET hailed Nupedia as one of the greatest defunct websites in history" (Wikipedia article on Nupedia, accessed 05-23-2009).

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