Wikipedia’s first-year contributor community
App & software · 2001 · Niche
An editable encyclopedia drew contributors from existing communities and new languages.
Spread Score
How it worksNumbers
- Articles across language editions
- ~20K
- By end of 2001 · Retrospective total · Open web · Self-reported · Wikimedia Foundation
- Milestone date
- By end of 2001
- Jan 15 ’01 to By end of 2001
- Platforms
- 1
- Started on Open web
- Origin
- Seeded
- Education
Mechanics
How it spread
Trace the originWikipedia began with contributors from Nupedia and a permissive editing model. Founder promotion reached Slashdot, while volunteers expanded to additional languages. Article output grew, although the recovered figures do not count individual contributors.
Documented milestone; not a measured attention peak. Dates use the stated precision; chart positions are date anchors.
3 more events on this chart
Join free to see themTimeline (6)
Spread the same way
New cases, every week
How the next thing spread, the week it does.



