Wikipedia closes its twentieth anniversary year by auctioning the beginning of its history at Christie’s with the Birth of Wikipedia initiative, in which you can win two items that belonged to Jimmy Wales, the co-founder: the iMac through which the site was created and put online on January 15, 2001 (photo below) and an Nft of the first entry of the online encyclopedia, ie the greeting “Hello World!”.
The non fungible token (what’s this?) retains the original homepage layout, whose code has never been touched so far, but there is also a dynamic element that will allow the buyer to modify the page and then also bring it back as it was: “Making it editable is the right way to artistically express that moment of potential and excitement, when you knew you could create something extraordinary or make a total flop – Wales said – I hope the public will understand and react: that wasn’t today’s Wikipedia, it was Jimmy’s crazy idea on a funny morning of January”. Wales, a former stock trader converted to the Enlightenment cause of knowledge for all, personally monitored the encyclopedia from home, watching for potential disturbances and when his strawberry-colored iMac became obsolete, he packed it back into its original box, which is included in the sale: “It’s been nearly 20 years since I wrote that greeting for the first time, and even today I am amazed at the size and breath of what we have created.”
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Wales now hopes to raise enough funds for one of his own new project: it’s called WT.Social and it is an attempt to create a “healthier and non-toxic alternative” to existing social platforms through a decentralized and non-commercial network, without advertising, tracking, information gathering and disinformation.
When Wikipedia saw the light of day on January 15, 2011, no one knew (probably not even Wales) whether the mechanism of contributions, inspired by the software created by programmer Ward Cunningham, it would work and if the content would be reliable. Today the online encyclopedia is the largest source on the Internet of free information, published in over 300 languages, patrolled by thousands of volunteers who check its contents, and read for free by billions of people looking for information. To further ensure the reliability of the site, the Wikimedia Foundation published a global code of conduct against abuse, disinformation and manipulation of news.
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