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Revision as of 07:42, 6 May 2007

Jimmy Donal "Jimbo" Wales
Jimmy Wales (August 2006)[1]
Born (1966-08-07) August 7, 1966 (age 58)[2]
Huntsville, Alabama, USA
SpouseChristine[3]
ChildrenKira[4]
WebsiteUser:Jimbo Wales

Jimmy Donal "Jimbo" Wales, (born August 7, 1966)[2] is an American Internet entrepreneur best known for his role in founding Wikipedia, as well as other wiki-related projects, including the charitable organization Wikimedia Foundation, and the for-profit company Wikia, Inc.[5][6][7][8]

Personal life

Wales' father worked as a grocery store manager while his mother, Doris, and his grandmother, Erma, ran a small private school "in the tradition of the one-room schoolhouse" where Wales received his education. Most of the time there were four children in his grade so the school grouped the first through fourth grade students together and the fifth through eighth grade students together.[9] In his adult life, Wales is quick to speak of his sailing triumphs.[10]

Education

After eighth grade, Wales attended Randolph School, a university-preparatory school in Huntsville, Alabama, which was an early supporter of computer labs and other technology for student use. Wales has said that the school was expensive for his family, but that education was regarded as important. "Education was always a passion in my household … you know, the very traditional approach to knowledge and learning and establishing that as a base for a good life."[9] He received his Bachelor's degree in finance from Auburn University and started with the Ph.D. finance program at the University of Alabama, where he left with a Master's in finance.[9] After that, he took courses offered in the Ph.D. finance program at Indiana University. He taught at both universities during his postgraduate studies, but did not write the doctoral dissertation required to earn a Ph.D.[9]

Career

Jimmy Wales speaking at FOSDEM 2005.

From 1994-2000, Wales served as research director at Chicago Options Associates, a futures and options trader in Chicago.[9] By "speculating on interest rate and foreign-currency fluctuations" he had soon earned enough to "support himself and his wife for the rest of their lives", according to Daniel Pink of Wired Magazine.[11] During this time one of the projects Wales undertook was the creation of a dot-com erotic search engine, Bomis, that later helped in the initial funding for Wikipedia. The nature of Bomis is disputed — Wales describes Bomis as a "guy-oriented search engine" that often sold erotic materials similar in nature to "Maxim" magazine's sometimes scantily clad women. Wales disputes the opinion that Bomis dealt in "soft-core pornography," preferring the term "adult content."[12]

In a 2007 interview Wales said that in 1999 he had a student design software for a top-down design multilingual encyclopedia website, however it was too slow to be usable.[13]

In March 2000, he started a peer-reviewed, open-content encyclopedia, Nupedia ("the free encyclopedia"), and hired Larry Sanger to be its editor-in-chief.[9]

Wikipedia and Wikimedia Foundation

Jimmy Wales (far left) at a session on Open Source, Open Access, at the Owning the Future conference held in New Delhi, India, August 24 2006.
Main article: History of Wikipedia

After Larry Sanger publicly proposed on January 10, 2001 the idea of using a wiki to create an encyclopedia, Wales installed wiki software on a server and authorized Sanger to pursue the project under his supervision. Sanger dubbed the project "Wikipedia" and, with Wales, laid down the founding principles, content and established an Internet-based community of contributors during that year. Wikipedia was initially intended to be a wiki-based site for collaboration on early encyclopedic content for submission to Nupedia, but Wikipedia's rapid growth soon outstripped Nupedia's process capacity to review new content.[citation needed] Sanger was laid off in early 2002 and he then resigned from the leadership of Wikipedia.[14][15] Wales has said that he initially was so worried with the concept that he would wake up in the middle of the night, wanting to check the site for vandalism.[13]

Jimmy Wales on the Holbeinsteg bridge in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, during a shooting break of a documentary film on Wikipedia created by French-German TV station arte.

In mid-2003, Wales set up the Wikimedia Foundation,[16] a non-profit organization based in St. Petersburg, Florida, to support Wikipedia and its younger sibling projects.[citation needed] He appointed himself and two business partners who are not active Wikipedians to the five-member board; the remaining two members are elected community representatives.[citation needed]

Wales has explained his motivations about Wikipedia. In an interview with Slashdot, he said, "Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing."[17]

Wikia

Main article: Wikia

He also later went on to co-found, along with Angela Beesley, the for-profit company Wikia, Inc. in 2004.[citation needed] One of the proposed services of Wikia is Wikia Search, with which Wales means to upset Google, a service he says produces excessive "spam and useless crap."[10] Wales emphasizes the inner workings of the search engine will be "transparent." He went on to say, "This is fundamental, basic information about the world. It needs to be neutral, and there needs to be an accountable, transparent, public dialogue about how it's created." He further stated, "I trust Google reasonably well, but that's like saying you have a favorite politician. I trust this politician, but I still want the city council to meet publicly. I still want a certain transparency in how government is run, even if you trust the person who's in charge now."[10]

Media appearances and honors

Wales being interviewed on the red carpet of the 2006 Time 100, by Amanda Congdon for Rocketboom, a daily Internet vidcast.

Wales was appointed a fellow of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School in 2005. On October 3 2005, according to a press release,[18] Wales joined the Board of Directors of Socialtext, a provider of wiki technology to businesses. In 2006, he joined the Board of Directors of the non-profit organization Creative Commons.[19]

Wales was the first person listed in the "Scientists & Thinkers" section of the May 8 2006 special edition of Time ("The lives and ideas of the world's most influential people"), listing 100 influential people.[20]

Wales received an honorary degree from Knox College on June 3 2006. The Electronic Frontier Foundation awarded him a Pioneer Award on May 3, 2006.[21]

Wales appeared on PBS' Charlie Rose on October 6 2006[22] and was nominated for Beard of the Year 2006.[23]

On November 4, 2006, Wales appeared in the "Not My Job" segment of Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!, a humorous news-quiz show on National Public Radio. The topic was "It must be True, I read it on Wikipedia". The three questions posed, drawn from obscure content on Wikipedia, were answered incorrectly.[24]

Forbes magazine ranked him twelfth in its first annual "The Web Celebs 25".[25]

Wales was featured in the April 2 2007 issue of Time magazine in the article "10 Questions: Jimmy Wales." He answered ten questions culled from Time's readership. He was the second to be interviewed in this fashion, after Chris Rock, as previously the questions were composed by a Time staff member. In his replies, he acknowledged the limitations of Wikipedia, while defending its usefulness.[26]

On April 10, 2007 the Annual Meeting of the Friends of the Spartanburg County Public Libraries (in South Carolina and hosted by Converse College) had Jimmy Wales as a special guest speaker.[27] A humorous event occurred when an introductory speaker (Dr. Mark Monson) misspoke while presenting an award and said “gynecological” rather than “genealogical”. Later, during a question and answer period Wales was asked by a school aged child what Wales’s favorite article was that a third grader could read. Wales (after some consideration) said that Inherently funny word would probably be the case.[27] He later cautioned that a parent may want to check on this before sending their child to the site. However, perhaps a new word will be added to this article because the questioner after a few attempts at pronunciation asked if “genie-whatever that was” was one of those words, and if it was the study of genies. Wales advised that this question be answered by his parents and continued with the forum.[27]

On April 26 2007 Wales had a run-in with The Chaser, an Australian satire group. He was used in the first occurrence of the "Mr. Ten Questions" segment in Season 2 of The Chaser's War on Everything, in which a "reporter" asks the victim ten questions of variable relevance without pausing for a response until all questions are asked. Wales managed to score a 4 out of 10, however some of the answers did not seem to match the questions being asked.[28]

Controversy

Bomis

Main article: Bomis

In 1996, Wales founded a search portal called Bomis, which also sold erotic materials until mid-2005. He was asked in a September 2005 C-SPAN interview about his previous involvement with what the interviewer, Brian Lamb, called "dirty pictures." In response, Wales described Bomis as a "guy-oriented search engine", with a market similar to that of Maxim magazine.[9] In an interview with Wired News, he also explained that he disputed the categorization of Bomis content as "soft-core pornography": "If R-rated movies are porn, it was porn. In other words, no, it was not."[12]

Wikipedia biography

Main article: Authorship of Wikipedia

In late 2005, Wales was criticized for editing his own biography page on Wikipedia. Larry Sanger commented that "it seemed Wales was trying to rewrite history".[12][29][30] In particular, Rogers Cadenhead drew attention to logs showing that Wales had removed references to Sanger as the co-founder of Wikipedia.[30][31] He was also observed to have modified references to Bomis in a way that was characterized as downplaying the sexual nature of some of his former company's products.[12] An article in the July 31 2006 issue of the New Yorker magazine[32] expanded on this topic:

Even Wales has been caught airbrushing his Wikipedia entry—eighteen times in the past year. He is particularly sensitive about references to the porn traffic on his Web portal. "Adult content" or "glamour photography" are the terms that he prefers, though, as one user pointed out on the site, they are perhaps not the most precise way to describe lesbian strip-poker threesomes. (In January, Wales agreed to a compromise: "erotic photography.")

In both cases, Wales argued that his modifications were solely intended to improve the accuracy of the content.[12] He apologized for editing his own biography, which is a practice generally frowned upon at Wikipedia. Wales said in the Wired interview, "People shouldn't do it, including me. I wish I hadn't done it."[12]

He continues to assert that he is the sole founder of Wikipedia,[33] which he bases on the (never disputed) fact that Sanger had been his employee.[34] In 2006, Wales told the Boston Globe that "it's preposterous" to call Sanger the co-founder;[33] however, Sanger was identified as a co-founder of Wikipedia at least as early as September 2001[35] and referred to himself that way as early as January 2002.[36] In addition to developing Wikipedia in its early phase, Sanger claims he is also responsible for the idea of applying the wiki concept to the building of a free encyclopedia. It is undisputed that he also coined the name of the project. He nevertheless ascribed the broader idea to Wales: "To be clear, the idea of an open source, collaborative encyclopedia, open to contribution by ordinary people, was entirely Jimmy's, not mine, and the funding was entirely by Bomis. (…) The actual development of this encyclopedia was the task he gave me to work on."[37] In response to Wales' revisionism,[5] Sanger posted on his personal webpage a collection of evidence about his role in founding Wikipedia by referencing earlier versions of Wikipedia pages, citing press releases from Wikipedia in the years of 2002-2004, and linking to early media coverage, all of which described Wales and Sanger as the co-founders.[38] In a lengthy discussion with Brian Bergstein of the Associated Press, Wales said: "When you write this up please do not uncritically repeat Sanger's absurd claim to be the co-founder of Wikipedia." He added: "I am not bent out of shape about it. The facts are on my side, which is why I bother so little about it."[7]

Personal philosophy

Wales is a self-avowed "Objectivist to the core," to the extent of having named his daughter Kira after the heroine in Ayn Rand's We the Living,[10] although he says, "I think I do a better job — than a lot of people who self-identify as Objectivists — of not pushing my point of view on other people."[39] When asked by Brian Lamb in his appearance on C-SPAN's Q&A about Rand, Wales cited "the virtue of independence" as important to him personally. When asked if he could trace "the Ayn Rand connection" to having a political philosophy at the time of the interview, Wales reluctantly labeled himself a libertarian, qualifying his remark by referring to the Libertarian Party as "lunatics" and citing "freedom, liberty, basically individual rights, that idea of dealing with other people in a matter that is not initiating force against them" as his guiding principles.[9] From 1992 to 1996, he ran the electronic mailing list "Moderated Discussion of Objectivist Philosophy".[40] A photo of Wales is featured on the cover of the June 2007 issue of the libertarian magazine Reason.

Published works by Wales

Sources and notes

  1. ^ "Founder of Wikipedia plans search engine to rival Google". Times Online. 2006-12-23. Retrieved 2006-12-23. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  2. ^ a b "Wales, Jimmy", Britannica Book of the Year, 2007
  3. ^ ""Board of Trustees" at Wikimedia Foundation". Retrieved 2007-01-12.
  4. ^ Times Online Article about Jimmy Wales
  5. ^ a b Mitchell, Dan (2005-12-24). "Insider Editing at Wikipedia". New York Times. Retrieved 2007-03-26. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  6. ^ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Press_releases/January_2002 Wikipedia press release 01/15/2002
  7. ^ a b Bergstein, Brian (2007-03-25). "Sanger says he co-started Wikipedia". ABC News. Associated Press. Retrieved 2007-03-26. The nascent Web encyclopedia Citizendium springs from Larry Sanger, a philosophy Ph.D. who counts himself as a co-founder of Wikipedia, the site he now hopes to usurp. The claim doesn't seem particularly controversial - Sanger has long been cited as a co-founder. Yet the other founder, Jimmy Wales, isn't happy about it. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help) — Brian Bergstein.
  8. ^ McNichol, Tom (2007-03-01). "Wikipedia founder hunts for gold". Business 2.0. CNN. Retrieved 2007-03-10. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  9. ^ a b c d e f g h Lamb, Brian (2005-09-25). "Q&A: Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia founder". C-SPAN. Retrieved 2006-07-11. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  10. ^ a b c d ""Why Is This Man Smiling?"". Fast Company. March 2007. Retrieved 2007-05-02. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)"Wales revealed that Wikia, his for-profit Silicon Valley startup, was working on Search Wikia, which he touted as "the search engine that changes everything.... Just as Wikipedia revolutionized how we think about knowledge and the encyclopedia, we have a chance now to revolutionize how we think about search."
  11. ^ Pink, Daniel H. (2005-03-13). "The Book Stops Here". Wired. Retrieved 2006-10-09. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  12. ^ a b c d e f Hansen, Evan. "Wikipedia Founder Edits Own Bio". Wired News. Wired. Retrieved 2006-02-14.
  13. ^ a b In Search of an Online Utopia 2007-02-01.
  14. ^ My resignation--Larry Sanger 2002-03-01. Retrieved on 2006-10-19.
  15. ^ Wikipedia's co-founder eyes a Digital Universe 2006-01-06.
  16. ^ Wikimedia foundation bylaws.
  17. ^ Wales, Jimmy (2004-07-28). ""Wikipedia Founder Jimmy Wales Replies"". Slashdot. Retrieved 2006-06-07. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  18. ^ "Wikipedia Founder Joins Socialtext Board". Socialtext. 2005-10-03. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  19. ^ "Creative Commons Adds Two New Board Members". Creative Commons. 2006-03-30. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  20. ^ Anderson, Chris (2006-05-08). "Jimmy Wales: The (Proud) Amateur Who Created Wikipedia". Time. Retrieved 2006-04-30. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  21. ^ "EFF Honors Craigslist, Gigi Sohn, and Jimmy Wales with Pioneer Awards". Kansas City infoZine News. 2006-04-28. Retrieved 2006-06-05. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  22. ^ http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5184822358876183858&#2310s video
  23. ^ http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/tms/2006/12/beard_of_the_year.shtml
  24. ^ ""This Week's Show 4 November 2006"". 2006-11-04. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Unknown parameter |Accessdate= ignored (|accessdate= suggested) (help)
  25. ^ Ewalt, David M. (2007-01-23). "The Web Celeb 25". Retrieved 2007-04-23.
  26. ^ "10 Questions: Jimmy Wales". Time Magazine. March 21, 2007. Retrieved 2007-03-24. The key is to look at the quality of articles. The quality of Wikipedia today compared with three years ago is a dramatic improvement. But people do need to be aware of how it is created and edited so they can treat it with the appropriate caution. — Jimmy Wales.
  27. ^ a b c Wales, Jimmy (April 10, 2007). (Speech). Converse College, Spartanburg, South Carolina. {{cite speech}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Missing or empty |title= (help)
  28. ^ Moses, Asher (April 26, 2007). "Chaser's war on Wikipedia founder". Brisbanetimes.com.au. Retrieved 2007-04-29. Given Wales's widely publicised goal of giving "every single person on the planet free access to the sum of all human knowledge", Hansen evidently thought Wales would be a prime candidate for The Chaser's "Mr Ten Questions" segment.
  29. ^ Rhys Blakely. "Wikipedia founder edits himself". Times Online. Retrieved 2006-10-15.
  30. ^ a b Rogers Cadenhead. "Wikipedia Founder Looks Out for Number 1". Retrieved 2006-10-15.
  31. ^ "Wikipedia diff showing modification by Mr. Wales". Retrieved 2006-10-15.
  32. ^ http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060731fa_fact
  33. ^ a b Knott, Janet (2006-02-12). "Bias, sabotage haunt Wikipedia's free world". The Boston Globe. Retrieved 2006-04-12. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  34. ^ Jonathan Sidener. "Everyone's Encyclopedia". San Diego Union Tribune. Retrieved 2006-10-15.
  35. ^ Peter Meyers (2001-09-20). "Fact-Driven? Collegial? This Site Wants You". New York Times. Retrieved 2006-10-15. It's kind of surprising that you could just open up a site and let people work," said Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia's co-founder and the chief executive of Bomis, a San Diego search engine company that donates the computer resources for the project. "There's kind of this real social pressure to not argue about things." Instead, he said, "there's a general consensus among all of the really busy volunteers about what an encyclopedia article needs to be like. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  36. ^ Sanger, Larry. "What Wikipedia is and why it matters". Retrieved 2006-04-12.
  37. ^ Sanger, Larry (2005-04-18). "The Early History of Nupedia and Wikipedia: A Memoir". Slashdot. Retrieved 2005-04-18. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  38. ^ http://www.10zenmonkeys.com/2007/01/29/wikipedia-jimmy-wales-rusirius-google-objectivism/
  39. ^ Wales, Jimmy (1992-09-23). "Re: Objectivism of Ayn Rand". Newsgroup: talk.philosophy.misc. Bv1u8x.Bnv@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu. {{cite newsgroup}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)

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