Name: The birth of Wikipedia
Uploaded: 2006-08-21T00:11:00Z
Duration: 19 min 48 s
Description: Jimmy Wales recalls how he assembled "a ragtag band of volunteers," gave them tools for collaborating and created Wikipedia, the self-organizing, self-correcting, never-finished online encyclopedia.

Jimmy Wales: The birth of Wikipedia

The birth of Wikipedia

Jimmy Wales recalls how he assembled "a ragtag band of volunteers," gave them tools for collaborating and created Wikipedia, the self-organizing, self-correcting, never-finished online encyclopedia.

Wikipedia set out to give everyone on the planet free access to all human knowledge, defying the cautious tradition of encyclopedias. Built by a global band of volunteers, it exploded to over two million articles in dozens of languages, surpassing the New York Times in web traffic while running on a shoestring budget. Its thriving community relies on a core principle of neutrality, flexible governance, and real-time peer review to maintain quality. What looks chaotic from the outside is actually a self-correcting engine for sharing and improving knowledge.