Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Websites/Early web history task force

message: The obvious starting point is TimBL's first CERN pages, but I think it makes sense to at least recognize precursor technologies like Gopher, Archie and WAIS. Here's a way cool page (with a modified date of Thu, Nov 26, 1992 7:06:21 AM!). And a URL which, alas, has not been kept alive: http://archive.ncsa.uiuc.edu/SDG/Software/Mosaic/Docs/whats-new.html 
:hey, it seems like "the wayback machine" has some old versions of this very page!  i remember this resource well.  if you look at this link: wayback of whats-new, then click on the very old stuff, archived pages come up!  (june 1993!) could be pretty useful, no? Jon Lon Sito 22:01, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Cool, thanks.  I added some info from the archives to List of websites founded before 1995 and to my list of firsts.  Someone else should go through them and add their own highlights... Zompist 04:17, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

text: I've mentioned this elsewhere here, but I'd like to repeat that even though there has been an Internet culture before the web, this project should stick with the web because otherwise it would get to large and out-of-control.  A History of Internet Culture would be a great separate project, though. Stev0 21:59, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Scope 

message: * Propose standards for notability for defunct or early websites.   Ideally this would be heavily time-weighted: e.g. maybe everything from August 1991 is inherently notable, which only a fraction of things from December 1995.  This may end up being more like detective work than like comparing to a nice easy benchmark.  Some possible clues to notability:
** MSM references
** Prominent placement in early web sites already established as notable guides, e.g. the NCSA Mosaic What's New page
** Firsts (and maybe seconds and thirds) of any kind: first comedy site, first "X of the Day" site, first personal web page, first e-commerce app...
** Traffic per day reports, compared to some baseline of web traffic over time.  That is, it's pretty easy to find someone saying "I get 6000 unique page hits a day now!" We look it up in our timeline and see if that's a lot for its day, or a little.
*** Factoid from a 1995 book I've got on web design: the number of Web servers increased 10,000% between June 1993 and Dec. 1994.  In mid-1995, there were two to five million websites.  (Edit: rather, web documents.)
*** More from this book here: User:Zompist/Early Web Info Zompist 04:49, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I still have my lynx bookmarks file, last modified 1 April 1995. Any interest in that? (I know, it's probably unacceptible as proof of anything, but it's chief importance would be to remind folks what was around back then.) -- llywrch 00:05, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Sure, you could mail it to me (see my user page).  Zompist 00:58, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

text: Zompist - that statistic on 2-5 million websites in mid-1995 is interesting... I was reading some contemporaneous statistics the other day which seemed to say that there were about 25,000 sites online in mid-1995, and only about 1 million hosts (connected computers). I'll have to go back and find my source - does the book say how it derived that statistic? KWH 04:57, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

text: Aha, found it pretty quickly: 1 million hosts 23,500 web sites KWH 05:00, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Heh, their stat comes right after a mention of Matthew Gray's statistics— which I couldn’t find because the URL they gave was long gone.  Great to see it.  As for the estimate, all they say is “The estimates of individual documents on the Web range from two million to five million; URLs are constantly being created, removed, and changed.  As a result, it’s difficult to judge how accurate any estimate of Web files might be.”  I think the key here is that they’re counting documents— presumably, individual pages and images— while Gray is counting websites, which he defines as anything with the same subdomain and domain (e.g. en.wikipedia.org). Zompist 05:37, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tasks 

message: I tried to just throw in some colored tables and such to give this page a little bit more of a "permanent" feel to it, but I still think it sucks. Anyone have any skills at layout/design on these sorts of pages? Do you know anyone? I think it might be a neat idea if we could somehow have the design evoke bits and pieces of the early web (e.g. big 3d borders on table cells, perhaps some of the classic bitmaps which were used on just about every website for bullet points). Any other ideas? KWH 08:08, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Project page - have some fun with it 

message: How about rooting through old versions of the Jargon File?  I bet one could dredge a few relevant goodies out of there.  I also pulled the following out of an old edition of John Baez's "This Week's Finds in Mathematical Physics":
:There are many ways to access these preprint archives, since Ginsparg has kept up very well with the times - indeed, so much better than I that I'm afraid to go into any details for fear of making a fool of myself. The dernier cri, I suppose, is to access the archives using the World-Wide Web, which is conveniently done by opening the document
:http://xxx.lanl.gov
:If this makes no sense to you, my first and very urgent piece of advice is to learn about the World-Wide Web (WWW), Mosaic, and the like, since they are wonderful and very simple to use!
Originally distributed via Usenet in December 1994, this document is now available (of course) on the Web.  I don't know how to verify this, but the article on Baez claims that "This Week's Finds" is one of the key ancestors of the blog.  Anville 10:13, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Suggestion 

message: I took a stab at some fancy formatting... PLEASE give me positive or negative feedback, hopefully some ideas because I am not a great web designer. Thanks, KWH 06:07, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  project page 

message: I'm starting a list here of people who were significant to the early development of the web--this might be a category down the road but for now it's just a scratchpad.
# Tim Berners-Lee
# Marc Andreessen
# Lou Montulli
# Eric Bina
# Jon Mittelhauser  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.249.200.231 (talk) 21:21, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: It's not "my" list--feel free to add to it. · rodii · 16:35, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I add two more... mabdul 23:28, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  People 

message: Something to keep in mind is that the Web formed out of a set of competing technologies, including Gopher, WAIS, Archie, and Veronica (computer).  The web came to dominate the field after the NCSA Mosaic GUI browser came out, but the richness of the various competing technologies from the timeframe should be noted.  Georgewilliamherbert 21:16, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Other Technologies 

message: So, what's the status of this project? Stev0 18:29, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Someone forgot to list it on the WikiProjects page. I'll do that now. Ashibaka tock 03:54, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hello? 

message: Hi folks! As I was a witness of the early Web years, I just joined your project and added a few "firsts" from the top of my memory. You may be interested in contributing to my recent major rewrite proposal for the World Wide Web article which is currently a shameful mess. This article needs some love: come and submit your ideas! -- JFG 23:01, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rewriting [[World Wide Web]] 

message: i apologize -- i am not sure how to put up sites for consideration.  so i am doing it here.  i suggest "The OTIS Project" (presently known as SITO).  it is possibly the first online gallery, especially open to the public for free submission of artwork to be posted. i am one of the original founders.  it started in january 1993, and soonafter moved to SunSITE where it became available on the web.  (i am still researching an exact date, but i know it was before november 1993.)  we have been on the web solid ever since, plugging away. Jon Lon Sito 21:57, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Suggestion: SITO.org 

message: This is maybe encyclopedia quality:
User:Ashibaka/Websites Ashibaka tock 03:53, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: For the Early Web History project we've been focussing on sites that date before 1995— after that there start to be millions of sites, and we need a higher standard of notability.  One suggestion for your list: dates should be documented.  The Wikipedia article may provide a date, or the website itself if it's still current.  For the QQ in your list, for instance, the Wikipedia article suggests a starting date of 1999, not 1995, and CNET offers no date at all. Zompist 04:29, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm using the whois data when it's not easy to find the information. Your point about QQ.com is good, the domain might have been purchased from some other company. Ashibaka tock 05:04, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Active websites by founding date

message: I added wikilinks above for Ed Krol, The Whole Internet Guide (in Web firsts), and ViolaWWW (in People) - Classicfilms 17:14, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Also slightly modified the note about Ted Nelson with wikilink -Classicfilms 17:22, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wikilinks

message: Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory.  This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope that all the changes to the directory can be finished by the first of next month. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you.  B2T2 00:03, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Project directory 

message: Hi everyone,
we are preparing an interview at Wikinews with Robert Cailliau, all insightful questions are most welcome here: Wikinews:Story preparation/Interview with Robert Cailliau.
--Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 15:32, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Interview with Robert Cailliau