Tools of investigation were Usenet, Telnet, FTP, and, Archie, Jughead, Veronica, and Gopher.
On October 22, 1993, Gates proposed in the Usenet newsgroup alt.internet.services to collaboratively create an encyclopaedia on the Internet.
The original proposal was made by Rick Gates in the posting Internet AS Encyclopedia on October 31, 1993, of Douglas P. Wilson in alt.bbs.internet.
[1] In 1995, Rick Gates moved to Oregon, where he worked on developing a Web-based software and an Internet training company, Net Assets.
[2][3][4][5] Rick was also employed as an adjunct professor, teaching at a distance for the University of Arizona School of Information Resources & Library Science and the Rochester Institute of Technology through the late 1990s.