Nupedia

Nupedia was an English-language online encyclopedia whose articles were written by volunteer contributors with appropriate subject matter expertise, reviewed by expert editors before publication, and licensed as free content. Founded by Jimmy Wales and underwritten by Bomis, with Larry Sanger as editor-in-chief, Nupedia operated from October 1999 to September 2003. Although 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 committee, with experts to predefine the rules, and it approved only 21 articles in its first year, compared to Wikipedia posting 200 articles in the first month, and 18,000 in the first year.