On 16 November 1994, we first made public the prototype version of the Tree of Life Web Project. At that time, it was a series of static web pages, with trees made out of text characters, created by a special version of MacClade.
This was more than three years before Google existed, and more than a year before the research project that led to Google began. In November 1994, Wikipedia was still more than six years away, Facebook was nine years in the future, and YouTube more than 10 years away.
In the years that followed, the Tree of Life Web Project was nurtured by a host of people on the home team (both deeper in the past and more recent), along with hundreds of biologists from around the world who contributed content.
Although the project is still alive (it still gets over a million separate visitors a year, from many countries), it has been relatively dormant, awaiting someone with a passion to take it over and reinvigorate it.
It’s been a good 25 years; it’s hard to believe it’s been that long.
David Maddison
The Subulate Palpomere 
Has it been 25 years already? Wow! ToL is such a great resource, I hope that it continues. I use it each year in my first year undergraduate classes in which I ask the students to research a plant family: https://jeffollerton.wordpress.com/2016/11/22/engaging-students-with-the-fundamentals-of-biodiversity-2-an-assessed-plant-taxonomy-questionnaire/
Dr. Maddison,
Some of the low-hanging fruit I would like to address are broken links.
Also, several pages are blank.
Did you approach other experts in their respective fields to consider contributing or ask permission to use their published findings?
Or is it recommended to just use publicly available information and include all other information as citations?
My concern is that rare entities may not have any publicly available facts.
Thank you,
Mike Loutris
Hi Mike, Yes, the core plan of the project was for content to be contributed by experts in particular groups. The main reason it has not grown, and many potential lineages are blank, is that I no longer have the time to administrate the project, but have not found someone willing to take it over. Best wishes, David
Do you require the new administrator to be a subject matter expert in biology?
If that is not a requirement, I would like to volunteer.
Thank you,
-Mike