#385 – Jimmy Wales: Wikipedia
Lex Fridman Podcast
Early Technical Debt in Wikipedia
The early version of the Usmod wiki software lacked scalability and security features such as logins and passwords. However, these issues were quickly addressed by implementing a login system to ensure unique user identities. In terms of creating links in Wikipedia, the initial method of using camel case was deemed unappealing, leading to the adoption of square brackets. While this solution worked well for most users, it created an inconvenience for German Wikipedia contributors who had to learn alt codes or copy and paste square brackets due to the absence of square brackets on the German language keyboard. Nevertheless, German Wikipedia managed to achieve significant success despite this obstacle.
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