Talk:Jimmy Wales

If you need to contact Jimbo about something, please do so at User talk:Jimbo Wales, not here. As Jimbo explains... "People who are trying to leave messages for me will likely be more satisfied if they leave messages on my user talk page than if they leave them here. This is the talk page for the article about me, not a place to talk to me. I rarely read this. --Jimbo Wales 06:05, 23 August 2005 (UTC)"

Relevance of certain topics

I'm having a hard time understanding both the meaning of the following paragraph as well as the relevance of its topic:

"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.[30] 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 said that this question should be answered by his parents and continued with the forum.[30]"

This seems to be an anecdote, but nothing more. I do not feel that it should be included in the article. It is also difficult to comprehend without careful examination. What does everyone think?

Also, the "Personal Philosophy" section does not seem relevant to me. Everyone has a personal philosophy, and usually it is not notable unless this philosophy was a major cultural influence (such as in the case of Adam Smith or Ayn Rand). Furthermore, the philosophy of "freedom, liberty, basically individual rights, that idea of dealing with other people in a matter that is not initiating force against them", seems basically the same as what we in America know as "progressivism", so I would not say it is even a notable philosophy.

Feedback, anyone? BrickMcLargeHuge 03:20, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree. Both segements should be deleted - it would improve the article greatly if they were removed. 67.184.29.7 00:42, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Only the first should be deleted. The personal philosophy is inherently notable for (someone claiming to be) a founder of an encyclopedia. And Objectivism is not progressivism. Bramlet Abercrombie 01:35, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

I would nuke them both, but thats me :) --Tom (talk) 01:00, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

That's not progressivism; communitarianism, perhaps. (like most of Wikipedia's editors; or perhaps you'd prefer "socialism". "Eight Ways to Run the Country" is a good source.)

What a clever guy

This guy made Wikipedia. He must have 10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000IQ

Hey, it's not like he didn't have help. 68.117.211.187 (talk) 06:58, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Nah, he decided to purge that help, along with the rest of the truth on Wikipedia.

Speaking of Sanger, there's been a little edit war over the controversy section, with two editors undoing User:Jhurlburt's edit to change "Wikipedia co-founder** Larry Sanger" (where *s are citations) to just "Sanger". I'm going to repeat the same edit, but I'm going to explain my reasons here so I don't end up as a candidate for WP:LAME. The preceding sentence already mentions Sanger, and the fact that there is controversy over Jimmy editing this article to remove references to Sanger as co-founder. Thus, it is a simple matter of style to say that (1) you don't need to mention the full name, and (2) you don't have to call him a co-founder. It's not like the citations are lost, either, because they're both repeated from elsewhere. Confusing Manifestation(Say hi!) 21:53, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

It seems that it would be clunky to mention Sanger as co-founder in the previous sentence. The next sentence introduces Sanger's comments so its appropriate and in context to call him co-founder there. I am not sure if as much space is given to flesh this point out is really needed. It seems like it rambles abit at the end of that section and we have multiple quotes of Wales calling it preposterous and absurd?? The whole thing could be shortened. Anyways, --Tom (talk) 00:58, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

The way I see it, I'm not sure it has to be mentioned at all. The first time Sanger's name is mentioned is in a description of his role in creating Wikipedia, so obviously calling him a co-founder there isn't really necessary. Then, in this section, the previous sentence refers to Jimmy removing references to Sanger as co-founder, thus at the very least establishing the fact that there is a claim of Sanger being a co-founder. Then, in the "Development of Wikipedia" section, we apparently have more of the "Jimmy says he isn't, but these sources say he is" (which incidentally isn't about the "Development of Wikipedia" at all anyway - may as well call it the "Co-founder controversy"), and finally, in Sanger's article, all the evidence is presented again.

I certainly don't dispute the claims that Sanger is a co-founder, but I agree with Jhurlburt's edit summary that suggests that the "Wikipedia co-founder Sanger" bit is "shoehorning" the fact in. Confusing Manifestation(Say hi!) 04:57, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Hang on, I notice that was actually just split off from the "Wikipedia biography" section by User:QuackGuru. Like I just said, at the very least I'm not sure it's the right title for the section. Confusing Manifestation(Say hi!) 05:06, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

You don't like my edit. Therefore, I reverted it. Happy?  Mr.Guru  talk  05:10, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

redirected from fatass

just thought you should know. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.169.225.199 (talk) 22:51, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Early roles of creators

What's the point of this section in a biography? Seems like it would be more relevant in an article about the early history of Wikipedia. It should be deleted. 68.117.211.187 (talk) 17:38, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Additionally, it contains several classic errors, such as that Sanger was responsible for the idea of applying the wiki concept to the encyclopedia project. The first person to propose it to me was a different employ, Jeremy. And even in Sanger's telling of the history, the idea was given to him by a friend of his, Ben Kovitz. I do not think Sanger has ever claimed to have had the idea.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 01:15, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Wow, that was quick

Are you sure that reads better than my version? SamEV (talk) 23:13, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

I preferred your edit. The concept of good grammar escapes some people. Jhurlburt (talk) 02:18, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. The version they prefer is every bit of an eyesore. SamEV (talk) 23:24, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Why was this erased (was it good faith vandalism)

Can someone explain this edit?

According to Wales this is true.

 Mr.Guru  talk  02:30, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Did you even read the reference you posted? The information in Wales' bio is wrong according to the reference. This is what you restored:

"In 1999 Wales had a student design software for a top-down design multilingual encyclopedia website; however, it proved to be too slow to be usable."

And this is what the reference says:

"Jimmy Wales: I had the idea for a freely licensed [online] encyclopedia written by people in various languages in 1999, and I had a philosophy student design it. The problem was that it had a top-down design and was way too slow."

The philosophy student Wales refers to was Sanger and the encyclopedia was Nupedia. Sanger didn't design the software for the Nupedia, he just setup the framework for the encyclopedia. The sentence you keep on reinserting makes it sound like he hired some student to build a program to run an online encyclopedia but it was too slow and buggy to work. This is not the case.

Your addition to the section "Early life" is also quite poor:

"...Doris, and his grandmother, Erma, ran a small private school, in the tradition of the one-room schoolhouse, where Wales received his education. Wales' early education took place in a one-room schoolhouse.".

Sounds a bit redundant to my ears. Almost as redundant as the line you keep adding to the section "Wikipedia biography":

"...Wales had removed references to Sanger as the co-founder of Wikipedia.[32][33] Wikipedia co-founder[7][34] Sanger commented that..."

Literally three words separate the two co-founder statements. Jhurlburt (talk) 04:37, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Is this guy even of note?

Why is there an artical on this guy, I thought it was against the wikipedia rules to make personal articles about non-public figures. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.237.141.203 (talk) 03:20, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I was also under the impression vanity pages were against the rules Schnauzerhead (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 03:24, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

This should be at the bottom of the page, but anyway ... First, it's not a vanity page - that assumes it's written by the person who it's about, or someone closely related to them, and while Jimbo has edited the article at times, most of the text is definitely not his. Second, the threshold for deletion is WP:BIO, which requires multiple non-trivial references to the article's subject in reliable secondary sources to determine notability, and if you take a look at the number of references in the article you will see that there is no problem with that. Confusing Manifestation(Say hi!) 04:05, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

NPOV problems, as usual

"During this time one of the projects Wales undertook was the creation of a dot-com erotic soft-core pornography search engine, Bomis, that later helped in the initial funding for Wikipedia.[11]"

Bomis was not an "erotic soft-core pornography serach engine". It was a general interest search engine, which covered the whole of the Internet. It is absurd to repeat this lie yet again, even when later in the article there is the very clear section about me disputing this nonsense.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 01:19, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

I removed the interesting part of that sentence, which Jossi had altered. The reference given plainly doesn't support any characterization of Bomis, except as a search engine. It further doesn't purport the characterization of the site to be at all significant to jimbo, except insofar as he opposed calling it porn. Someguy1221 (talk) 07:04, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Bomis

Could somebody please tell me what is supposed to be controversial about Bomis? Guy (Help!) 16:21, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Its very nature. Wales describes it as a search engine, whereas others seem to remember it essentially as a porn portal. The matter wouldn't be controversial, of course, if Wales hadn't removed it from the Internet Archive, in which case anyone could see what it was... Bramlet Abercrombie 16:32, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

So that gets discussed on Bomis. Oh, hey, look, it is discussed on Bomis! There is nothing especially controversial about that, though, is there? I mean, it's not like he's Larry Flynt or anything. Guy (Help!) 16:35, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Then you might as well remove the Wikipedia-related information, because it's discussed on Wikipedia, and cut the article down to a stub. Bramlet Abercrombie 16:49, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

• Also it would be good to have some indication that "Wales edits own biography shock" has made the front page of Time or something; I feel it's distinctly self-referential and not actually of that much interest to anyone else. Guy (Help!) 16:28, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Things don't have to make the front page of Time to be notable. This was widely reported. Bramlet Abercrombie 16:32, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

It was dfiscussed a bit, a while back. are we sure it's one of the most notable events in Wales' life? That's what we're saying here. Looks like WP:UNDUE to me. Guy (Help!) 16:35, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, his obsession with his own image and his attempt to write Sanger out of history is very telling about his character. Bramlet Abercrombie 16:49, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Hey.... keep your personal opinions about people treated in Wikipedia articles, out of talk pages. Discuss the article, not the subject. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 16:58, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

It's good that he's up front in this way. Having openly admitted that he has an agenda against the subject of this article, it is plain that Bramlet Abercrombie has no business editing the article directly; it's always good to know when people have these strong biases against the subjects of biographies so we can watch and restrict them from damaging the articles. Guy (Help!) 19:01, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Guy and Jimbo on this one, and re our living people's bio policy we need to respect the subject of this article and his observations about the article. Thanks, SqueakBox 19:21, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

DOB controversy

Keep - The DOB controversy is notable for several reasons.... various reliable sources disagree about the date, it plays to the debate about the accuracy of Wikipedia (i.e. if we can't even provide the correct DOB for Wikipedia's founder how can any of the info be trusted) and it ties in with the greater controversy about Wales' editing of his own bio. Plus, from a pragmatic standpoint, it provides an easy reference point for Wikipedia editors for when someone decides to change Wales' birthday, which happens every few months. Jhurlburt 18:37, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

We need refs about the dob controversy, refs indicating different dobs will not do. Thanks, SqueakBox 19:19, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

See WP:NOR ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 19:50, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

They are there.... I see Wales' blog (normally blogs don't count but if they are maintained by the subject of the bio Wikipedia allows it), the article where Wales says nobody knows when his birthdate is and the EB researcher's footnote. 67.91.170.251 20:46, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Please can you give me some refs here on this page to have a look at. Thanks, SqueakBox 20:51, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Can someone explain why that is a "controversy" and why it is notable for inclusion? ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 21:07, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Jhurlburt: the vast majority of your last 500 edits are exclusively to this article, most of which could be considered tendentious. May you consider stopping this for a while? ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 21:34, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

The vast majority of my edits are listed to whatever IP I'm assigned when logging on. I only log in when I feel the desire to edit a protected entry. I'll probably stop paying attention to Wales' bio once editors start respecting the concept of NPOV (e.g. stop referring to Wales as the sole founder or shoehorning Sanger in as co-founder every chance they get). Jhurlburt 22:16, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

I am referring to this. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 23:59, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, you've already stated that. But do you have anything to say about the article or any particular edits? Personally, I think that the mention in EB and the article by Rogoway provide enough of a bases that a controversy exists. Plus, primary sources can be used in a BLP if the primary source is the person themselves (e.g. Wales' blog and his statements in his Wikipedia Talk page). Since some jokers keep on inserting Aug 8th as Wales' birthday every few months having a section that addresses the birthday issue along with all relevant sources seems pretty useful to me. Jhurlburt 00:39, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

== Re: Rfc: Can statements challanged for a long time and not cited be removed on a biography? ==

You might want to take a look at D. James Kennedy regarding a group of editors who are insisting on keeping unverified (and challanged for a few months via the {{fact}} tag) in the article in contradiction to WP:Verifiability. Thanks for your time and interest. Swarm Internationale (talk) 14:42, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Citing WikiPedia

I added the BBC News which I read here in our Philippine Daily Inquirer which stressed the importance of WikiPedia for students:

On December 6, 2007, Wales stated at the Online Information conference in London's Olympia that teachers who prohibit students from citing Wikipedia are "bad educators". Wales reasoned that new editing and checking procedures make Wikipedia more reliable. Florentino floro (talk) 10:37, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Personally, I don't think we should be including every news article that turns up the pike about Wales. We recently deleted a whole section that was nothing but a huge list of such articles and I think the bio is he better for it. I really don't see how this statement by Wales adds to his bio..... it would be a good addition to an article about Wikipedia, which this is not. 68.117.211.187 (talk) 17:10, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Repeated text in the article:

During this time one of the projects Wales undertook was the creation of the web portal Bomis, a website featuring user generated content that linked to adult content on the Internet and which The Atlantic Monthly called the "Playboy of the Internet." Bomis also provided the initial funding for the Nupedia project.[11][12] During this time one of the projects Wales undertook was the creation of the web portal Bomis, a website featuring user generated content that linked to adult content on the Internet and which The Atlantic Monthly called the "Playboy of the Internet." Bomis also provided the initial funding for the Nupedia project.[13][14][15] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 200.116.31.46 (talk) 17:08, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Fixed. Nufy8 (talk) 17:14, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Bomis paragraph in Career subsection

What's the point in having this paragraph in the Career subsection?

Bomis sold erotic materials until mid-2005. Wales 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's scantily clad women.[9] In a phone interview with Wired News, he also explained that he disputed the categorization of Bomis content as "soft-core pornography" saying, "If R-rated movies are soft porn, it was porn. In other words, no, it was not. That description is inaccurate."[13]

Wouldn't this be better utilized under the Wikipedia biography subsection or in the article for Bomis itself? 68.117.211.187 (talk) 18:27, 8 December 2007 (UTC)