--- title: Wikipedia History: How Early Articles Described the Web Encyclopedia description: The web behemoth went live on Jan. 15, 2001 canonical: https://time.com/3667915/wikipedia-anniversary/ author: Lily Rothman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-01-15T14:00:57.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T08:04:10.371Z article:section: History og:title: Wikipedia History: How Early Articles Described the Web Encyclopedia og:description: The web behemoth went live on Jan. 15, 2001 og:url: https://time.com/3667915/wikipedia-anniversary/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3718311d2af3f0e0/698779e92dce0168409dcf58/wiki.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: FRANCE-LOGO-WIKIPEDIA og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Wikipedia History: How Early Articles Described the Web Encyclopedia twitter:description: The web behemoth went live on Jan. 15, 2001 twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3718311d2af3f0e0/698779e92dce0168409dcf58/wiki.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # What Wikipedia's First Users Got Wrong  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Jan 15, 2015 2:00 PM UTC  The "Wikipedia" logo is seen on a tablet screen on Dec. 4, 2012 in Paris The "Wikipedia" logo is seen on a tablet screen on Dec. 4, 2012 in ParisLionel Bonaventure—AFP/Getty Images  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Jan 15, 2015 2:00 PM UTC These days the real challenge would be finding someone who doesn’t use Wikipedia all the time. But, back in 2003, when TIME first mentioned the word in its pages, the challenge in writing about Wikipedia was explaining what it was. Wikipedia had launched on Jan. 15, 2001 — that’s 14 years ago Thursday — and contained a mere 150,000 entries when TIME [explained](http://time.com/vault/issue/2003-08-18/page/67/) that “To contribute to wikipedia.org, an online encyclopedia, all you need is Web access.” The 113-word blurb continued: --- > “” --- Still, even two years later, in 2005, it was obvious that not everybody got the point. That was when [TIME profiled Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales ](http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,1066904,00.html)and discovered that many potential users, misunderstanding his product and his role, made a major mistake: they thought that he had written every page. As TIME reported: --- > “” --- At that point, Wikipedia’s 1.5 million entries included 500,000 in English. Today’s article count? On its birthday, the encyclopedia boasts about 4.7 million entries in English alone — and that’s perhaps the only statistic in the world for which [citing Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Size%5Fof%5FWikipedia) isn’t, as TIME once put it, a recipe for chaos. **_Read more:_** [A Brief History of Wikipedia](http://content.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1917002,00.html) Wikipedia History: How Early Articles Described the Web Encyclopedia ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3667915/wikipedia-anniversary/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3667915/wikipedia-anniversary/"},"headline":"What Wikipedia's First Users Got Wrong","datePublished":"2015-01-15T14:00:57.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T08:04:10.371Z","description":"The web behemoth went live on Jan. 15, 2001","url":"https://time.com/3667915/wikipedia-anniversary/","keywords":["Technology","Tech","Media","Wikipedia"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3718311d2af3f0e0/698779e92dce0168409dcf58/wiki.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Lily Rothman","jobTitle":"Rothman is managing editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/"}],"articleSection":"History","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3718311d2af3f0e0/698779e92dce0168409dcf58/wiki.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"FRANCE-LOGO-WIKIPEDIA","caption":"FRANCE-LOGO-WIKIPEDIA","creditText":"Lionel Bonaventure—AFP/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/history/","name":"History"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/technology/","name":"Technology"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3667915/wikipedia-anniversary/","name":"What Wikipedia's First Users Got Wrong"}}]}] ```