Wikipedia was never the whale, just a fish. The original was Nupedia, an online encyclopedia written by subject-matter experts & Ph.D. holders and extensively reviewed by its publishing team. This was the initial vision for the online encyclopedia by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger.

They only created Wikipedia as a streamline articles to Nupedia. “Wiki” meaning quick in Hawaii, experts can write draft articles on Wikipedia and the publishing team will review and when meeting Nupedia rigiorous criteria it will be published to Nupedia. As traffic of experts on Wikipedia was slow, it was open to public. Soon the popularity of Wikipedia exploded and became one of the most visited website in the world.

This is a beautiful story on how sometimes quality isn’t always the answer. The rigorous quality standards at Nupedia became a barrier to entry for every day writer and even for academia the time required to post an article took to long. After it was open to public, unaccreditied however enthusiastic writers flood the scene building something beautiful. Soon this became of the five pillars of Wikipedia “Be bold in updating articles and do not worry about making mistakes. Your efforts do not need to be perfect.” 

When building something we often get stuck on delivering the best quality. However sometimes it is just better to build and publish, and slowly work on quality.

This tee celebrates Wikipedia’s 25th anniversary collaboration with Online Ceramics. The back design has collection of potential logo for Wikipedia from the 2003 community contest where the now famous puzzle-globe logo came. The puzzle logo are missing on purpose, a reminder that the encyclopedia is never finished. The tee captures the heart of Wikipedia very well, a website built by community, other potential Wikipedia logo showing the artistic range of the community that built the website today. Additionally a perfect tee for vintage tee collector as it encapsulates early 2000 art very well.