User:RenamedUser jaskldjslak904/Wikipedia's first IRC chat

On 1 April 2006, the log for the first ever chat session on #wikipedia was painstakingly recovered from a corrupt hard disk. Starting mere seconds before Wikipedia went online, it shows us a fascinating glimpse at the early days of the site.

Session Start: Mon Jan 15 00:00:34 2001
* Now talking in #wikipedia
* jwales has joined #wikipedia
* Larry_Sanger has joined #wikipedia
<Larry_Sanger> Do we really need an IRC channel? I mean, we don't even have any articles yet.
<jwales> Suppose so, but it'll get pretty busy when we do.
<jwales> We might even have over 100 people in here, you know, in a decade's time.
<Larry_Sanger> I dunno. I think that's a tad optimistic.
<jwales> Probably.
<jwales> Ok, Wikipedia's up.
<Larry_Sanger> Great. Who's gonna write the first article?
<jwales> Me, me!
<Larry_Sanger> Fine, fine.
<Larry_Sanger> Hey, I've got some philosophy lectures that I wrote a few years back...think
they'll be good for Wikipedia?
<jwales> Sure, whatever. The bigger the better.
<jwales> Right, Wikipedia has it's first article!
<Larry_Sanger> Lemme see.
<Larry_Sanger> What the hell? "0MG YOU SUCK"?
<jwales> Huh? I didn't write that.
<Larry_Sanger> That's what it says.
<jwales> Someone must have vandalized it.
<Larry_Sanger> What?
<jwales> Vandalized. It's the word I use to describe someone editing a page for malicious
purposes.
<Larry_Sanger> This is great.
<Larry_Sanger> Perfect. We're online for, what, 3 minutes? And already it's messed up.
<jwales> Wait, wait, we can revert, remember?
<Larry_Sanger> Oh, right...
<jwales> There, done.
<Larry_Sanger> "This is a test.". Catchy.
<jwales> What I want to know is, who the hell was the vandalizer? We don't even have a main
page yet.
<Larry_Sanger> Someone from Britannica, or Encarta?
<jwales> Maybe.
<Larry_Sanger> We should ban the user.
<jwales> Are you kidding? We can't ban our first outside user. We'll be the laughing stock of
all the other wikis.
<Larry_Sanger> Guess so. Who was the user, by the way?
<jwales> Just an IP address. 127.0.0.1.
<Larry_Sanger> Ok.
<Larry_Sanger> Do we have a logo yet?
<jwales> Not really. I put up an American flag, though, as a temporary measure.
<Larry_Sanger> Hmm, a little ethnocentric. I had this idea of this 3D jigsaw ball like thing,
with individual characters on each piece.
<jwales> We're Wikipedia, not Pixar. KISS.
<Larry_Sanger> Suppose so.
<Larry_Sanger> No topic?
<jwales> ?
<Larry_Sanger> This IRC room doesn't have a topic. Put the status in or something.
* jwales changes topic to 'Status: Up'
<jwales> How's that?
<Larry_Sanger> Looks ok to me.
<jwales> Don't really see what the point is, though. Why would Wikipedia ever be down?
<jwales> Anyway, just written a HomePage.
<Larry_Sanger> "Welcome to WikiPedia! We're writing a complete encyclopedia from scratch,
collaboratively. We started work TODAY. We want to make over 100,000 pages. So, let's get to
work! Write a little (or a lot) about what you know!"
<Larry_Sanger> You're crazy, Jimbo.
<jwales> I don't see why 100,000 isn't a reasonable target. Granted, it'll take us 8 years at
the least to do it, but that's still an incredibly fast amount of progress.
<Larry_Sanger> Will Wikipedia even be around in 2009?
<jwales> Of course. And if it gets REALLY popular, we might even reach a million!
<Larry_Sanger> ...
<Larry_Sanger> So...
<Larry_Sanger> ...if the first 100,000 takes 8 years, multiply that by 10, and that gives us a
millionth article date of....
<Larry_Sanger> ...2081.
<jwales> I'll be 115.
<Larry_Sanger> Hah! I'll be 113.
<jwales> Rats.
<Larry_Sanger> Heh, what would the millionth article be?
<jwales> Probably something like FirstCityOnTheMoon.
<Larry_Sanger> Or an article about a railroad station in, I dunno, Scotland.
<jwales> Railroads will be long gone by then. We'll be riding around in hovercars.
<jwales> WOO!
<Larry_Sanger> Woo?
<jwales> First outside article!
<Larry_Sanger> Woo! What is it?
<jwales> AprilFoolsDay
<Larry_Sanger> What does it say?
<jwales> "Held on FirstOfApril."
<Larry_Sanger> Wow, that's great!
<jwales> Yeah, really informative!
<Larry_Sanger> And brilliant prose, too.
<jwales> That's actually a great idea for a page. Stick all the best articles on it, you know,
to show how great Wikipedia can be.
<Larry_Sanger> Great idea. I'm creating it now, and sticking that on.
<jwales> Wow, we're growing so fast. The TestPage, the HomePage, AprilFoolsDay,
BrilliantProse...that's four articles already!
<Larry_Sanger> In a month or so, we might even have more articles than NuPedia!
<jwales> Yeah!
<Larry_Sanger> Boy, the fun never stops with Wikipedia.
<jwales> You got that right. Tomorrow, I'm gonna start writing an article on GdansK.
<Larry_Sanger> Don't you mean DanZig?
<jwales> Hmm. Didnt think of that.
<Larry_Sanger> Who cares, anyway? It's just a stupid city.
<jwales> Good point.
<Larry_Sanger> I'm gonna get going. Got a busy day ahead of me.
<jwales> But we were making such good progress!
<Larry_Sanger> Yeah...same time tomorrow?
<jwales> Sure.
<Larry_Sanger> Bye for now!
<jwales> Bye!
* Larry_Sanger has left #wikipedia
* Disconnected