Talk:Jimmy Wales

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Former good articleJimmy Wales was one of the Engineering and technology good articles, but it has been removed from the list. There are suggestions below for improving the article to meet the good article criteria. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.
Article milestones
DateProcessResult
October 14, 2005Articles for deletionKept
June 15, 2006Peer reviewReviewed
July 5, 2006Good article nomineeListed
October 10, 2006Featured article candidateNot promoted
October 17, 2006Good article reassessmentKept
June 13, 2007Peer reviewReviewed
August 14, 2007Articles for deletionSpeedily kept
August 31, 2007Articles for deletionSpeedily kept
December 20, 2007Good article reassessmentDelisted
September 16, 2008Good article nomineeListed
March 16, 2009Good article reassessmentDelisted
Current status: Delisted good article

This might be helpful

Two things that might be helpful:

  1. Jimmy Wales UES21
  2. "Neither Sanger nor Wales expected very much from the Nupedia wiki initiative." This is false.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 07:11, 8 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
With respect to point #2, two sources are cited. I can't see the Atlantic Monthly cite because it doesn't have an online link - the quote in the reference is unhelpful to this point. The New Yorker cite says the following after wiki was added to Nupedia: "Wales braced himself for “complete rubbish.” He figured that if he and Sanger were lucky the wiki would generate a few rough drafts for Nupedia." (The article states all this right after the opening sentence.) We could replace the opening sentence to say "Wales did not expect very much from the Nupedia wiki initiative" - mainly because the New Yorker quote doesn't say anything about Sanger's expectations. Or we could eliminate the topical sentence completely, but it does flow a bit better with an intro sentence.--Bbb23 (talk) 14:21, 8 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The claims in the New Yorker article are false. I have said in many interviews over the years that I was always very optimistic about Wikipedia. Larry was, too. It's just false to say that we didn't expect much from it. That's just not true. What has happened here is a cherry-picking of sources. Of course it is true, as it is true of anything, that we were unsure what would come of it in the early days. It isn't at all correct - and a total synthesis on the part of Wikipedia - to claim that we never expected much of it. Of course we braced ourselves for the possibility of complete rubbish - any sane person would. That didn't mean that we didn't expect much of it - expectations of the future are more complex than that.
This entire section of the article is wrong and should be replaced.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:01, 10 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
1 is done. Two quick points - 1. Couldn't find a secondary source. 2. Not 100% on the translation of "21st Century Enterprise University". NickCT (talk) 15:22, 10 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure a translation is necessary, since it is a proper name.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 07:50, 11 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Reverted to Spanish. I was trying to follow suit with the only other mention of this place on en.wikipedia that I could find. NickCT (talk) 13:49, 11 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Again, like the last two times the second issue has been raised, no-one, Mr. Wales included, has been able to come up with a reliable source which contradicts Marshall Poe's The Atlantic article. I for one am all ears. Skomorokh 12:34, 13 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

@Skomor - see BB's comment re "I can't see the Atlantic Monthly cite because it doesn't have an online link - the quote in the reference is unhelpful to this point." - Can you give us the passage from Alantic that is relevant? NickCT (talk) 13:23, 13 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The link is in the references section: this is direct link to the relevant page, start of last paragraph quoted below:

Wales and Sanger created the first Nupedia wiki on January 10, 2001. The initial purpose was to get the public to add entries that would then be “fed into the Nupedia process” of authorization. Most of Nupedia’s expert volunteers, however, wanted nothing to do with this, so Sanger decided to launch a separate site called “Wikipedia.” Neither Sanger nor Wales looked on Wikipedia as anything more than a lark. This is evident in Sanger’s flip announcement of Wikipedia to the Nupedia discussion list. “Humor me,” he wrote. “Go there and add a little article. It will take all of five or ten minutes.” And, to Sanger’s surprise, go they did. Within a few days, Wikipedia outstripped Nupedia in terms of quantity, if not quality, and a small community developed.

The New Yorker:

After a year, Nupedia had only twenty-one articles, on such topics as atonality and Herodotus. In January, 2001, Sanger had dinner with a friend, who told him about the wiki, a simple software tool that allows for collaborative writing and editing. Sanger thought that a wiki might attract new contributors to Nupedia. (Wales says that using a wiki was his idea.) Wales agreed to try it, more or less as a lark. Under the wiki model that Sanger and Wales adopted, each entry included a history page, which preserves a record of all editing changes. They added a talk page, to allow for discussion of the editorial process—an idea Bayle would have appreciated. Sanger coined the term Wikipedia, and the site went live on January 15, 2001. Two days later, he sent an e-mail to the Nupedia mailing list—about two thousand people. “Wikipedia is up!” he wrote. “Humor me. Go there and add a little article. It will take all of five or ten minutes.”

Wales braced himself for “complete rubbish.” He figured that if he and Sanger were lucky the wiki would generate a few rough drafts for Nupedia. Within a month, Wikipedia had six hundred articles. After a year, there were twenty thousand.

We have yet to see a credible refutation of these accounts. Skomorokh 13:40, 13 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I have explained this, up above. In any event, it is not appropriate to place your interpretation - which I have declared to be flatly wrong - on these articles - particularly not when I am telling you that it is flatly wrong.
You are cherry picking sources, I'm afraid. There are hundreds of interviews in which I have described my optimism at the start of the project.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:12, 15 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I can scarcely believe this. An editor who champions a strict application of the biographiy of living persons policy, who has a deep and manifested conflict of interest with this article, is sincerely urging that his – entirely unsupported – personal sentiments should be deferred to over the flat contradiction of two of the most respected journalistic publications in the English-speaking world, and furthermore has the temerity to lay bad faith accusations at those who merely ask him to substantiate his claims. The editors of this article have been patient in indulging your wish to express your feelings on our biography, but this really is ludicrous. Skomorokh 18:54, 15 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Oh come on. That's a lot of dancing to avoid saying that I am the subject of this BLP and therefore hardly likely to be about to victimize myself with some violation of WP:BLP. We are talking about a portion of the article that claims to describe my own state of mind, and you are defending your interpretation of two cherry-picked sources that I am telling you are wrong. There are hundreds of interviews in which I have described my optimism at the start of the project. Ludicrous is right, my friend.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:43, 15 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
@Skomorokh - The issue I take with those two articles is that both of them suggest Sanger and Wales didn't expect v. much in a "commentative/narrative" fashion. Neither really explains how the author arrived at the conclusion that Wales/Sanger had low expections outside pointing to Sanger's "Humor me" e-mail. But thier interpretation of Sanger's e-mail seems to be just that. An interpretation. After reading what they offer of the e-mail I don't think it is 100% certain that Sanger was inferring he didn't expect much from WP.
The only objective evidence for Sanger/Wales having low expectations would be if they were quoted as saying, "We have low expectations". Any other evidence pointed to would be subjective interpretation, and as such might fall foul of WP:NOTOPINION.
The one thing I do find a little disconcerting though is the "complete rubbish" bit. It sounds like they are actually directly quoting Wales as saying "I expected complete rubbish". I wonder if the quote is taken out of context. I'd be curious to know if Mr. Wales could even recollect saying it after all these years..... NickCT (talk) 22:43, 17 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, the quote is taken out of context and the use in this article is itself complete rubbish. I did not expect complete rubbish. What we were, was sane people testing a new concept. I can't speak directly for Larry, of course. But I was excited and optimistic and we didn't know for sure how it would work, and we weren't ideologically committed to any particular view on how we might have to adapt the software to adjust for problems that might arise. That's just sensible. To say that neither of us expected much from it is just - flatly - false.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 21:47, 3 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have been searching for some details about this as Jimmy seems to be contenting the present content and has been rejecting the newyorker interview as incorrect. Here is some results that I feel clear up this issue. I will post them here for interested users to peruse and I would be grateful for any ideas for content additions to include something from them. The Sanger quote (number3) I am intending to add as is presented..as a quote, Sanger said.."..." Off2riorob (talk) 15:22, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Charles Leadbeater is a respected author/writer..

1. "Sanger wanted to revitalise Nupedia, but Wales saw a more radical possibility: to create an entirely open, highly collaborative approach to knowledge.*"

URL: http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ipHhSn00OeQC&pg=PA14&dq=sanger+wanted+to+revitalise+nupedia,+but+Wales+saw%22&hl=en&ei=eo7pTcGHBs-j-gaTmtDFDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCsQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=sanger%20wanted%20to%20revitalise%20nupedia%2C%20but%20Wales%20saw%22&f=false > <http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ipHhSn00OeQC&pg=PA14&dq=sanger+wanted+to+revitalise+nupedia,+but+Wales+saw%22&hl=en&ei=eo7pTcGHBs-j-gaTmtDFDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCsQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=sanger%20wanted%20to%20revitalise%20nupedia%2C%20but%20Wales%20saw%22&f=false

Ref template: <ref name="Leadbeater2009">{{cite book|author=Charles Leadbeater|title=We-Think: Mass Innovation, Not Mass Production|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=ipHhSn00OeQC&pg=PA14|accessdate=4 June 2011|date=1 July 2009|publisher=Profile Books|isbn=9781861978370|page=14}}</ref>


2. "Wikis would speed up Nupedia's development /whilst transforming it into the true collaborative effort Wales dreamed of/. As a result of this new technology, Wikipedia was born in earnest on 15 January 2001."

URL: http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=lOr8ic7WVMEC&pg=PA84&dq=%22whilst+transforming+it+into+the+true+collaborative+effort+Wales+dreamed+of%22&hl=en&ei=PpbpTdKvC87OsgbopsDnCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCsQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22whilst%20transforming%20it%20into%20the%20true%20collaborative%20effort%20Wales%20dreamed%20of%22&f=false > <http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=lOr8ic7WVMEC&pg=PA84&dq=%22whilst+transforming+it+into+the+true+collaborative+effort+Wales+dreamed+of%22&hl=en&ei=PpbpTdKvC87OsgbopsDnCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCsQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22whilst%20transforming%20it%20into%20the%20true%20collaborative%20effort%20Wales%20dreamed%20of%22&f=false>

Ref template: <ref name="Gobillot2011">{{cite book|author=Emmanuel Gobillot|title=Leadershift: Reinventing Leadership for the Age of Mass Collaboration|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=lOr8ic7WVMEC&pg=PA84|accessdate=4 June 2011|date=28 June 2011|publisher=Kogan Page Publishers|isbn=9780749463038|pages=84–}}</ref>


3.(This is by Sanger himself.) 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. I was merely a grateful employee ..

URL: http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=q9GnNrq3e5EC&pg=PA312&dq=%22to+be+clear,+the+idea+of+an+open+source,+collaborative%22&hl=en&ei=OpfpTdv2DcPLsgaC1uHnCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCsQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22to%20be%20clear%2C%20the%20idea%20of%20an%20open%20source%2C%20collaborative%22&f=false http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=q9GnNrq3e5EC&pg=PA312&dq=%22to+be+clear,+the+idea+of+an+open+source,+collaborative%22&hl=en&ei=OpfpTdv2DcPLsgaC1uHnCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCsQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22to%20be%20clear%2C%20the%20idea%20of%20an%20open%20source%2C%20collaborative%22&f=false>

Ref template:<ref name="DiBonaCooper2005">{{cite book|author1=Chris DiBona|author2=Danese Cooper|author3=Mark Stone|title=Open sources 2.0: the continuing evolution|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=q9GnNrq3e5EC&pg=PA312|accessdate=4 June 2011|date=1 November 2005|publisher=O'Reilly Media, Inc.|isbn=9780596008024|pages=312–}}</ref>


I can't help being pointing out how amused I am by this discussion. I already anticipated where this would end up, I already saw it coming, quite at the beginning of the section (well, it has happened before) ... Jimbo as primary source for his own thoughts vs. reliable (well, "reliable") secondary (journalistic) sources on what he said. This may seem silly, but to be fair, all kinds of sources are fallible, and while journalists are known to frequently misquote people (or quote them in misleading ways; not necessarily always intentionally, or with malicious intent; also, misunderstandings may arise), even Jimbo himself is in principle not immune to misremembering things, painting the past overly rosy and other such human, all too human fallacies, even when it comes to his own past, and in principle – i. e., if we could take the accuracy of journalistic sources, such as transcripts and interviews, for granted –, funny enough, these journalistic sources could even be more reliable than Jimbo's own memories, as we know how memories are reconstructed rather than simply recalled perfectly. So it turns out that the seemingly silly obsession with reliable sources on Wikipedia is an actually quite sensible principle, even if it leads to Jimbo having to dispute sources, and thus, struggle with the principle he has established himself: Citations from secondary sources reign supreme and trump (almost?) everything else. (I've seen E-mail from scholars on a relevant point rejected as not really useable sources to justify modifications in articles or clarify points, which I do understand, but on the face of it it sounds truly bizarre.)
That said, even in scientific works you can occasionally see attributions such as "pers. comm.", or in German "mündlich" or "Unterricht", which isn't exactly up to the best standards of scientific practice, but as long as personal communication isn't used to support any major points or only to indicate where an idea comes from, I suppose there's nothing wrong with it. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 03:54, 28 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think that there are a couple of articles in the Wikipedia that make sense to overview / manage separately. One of them is the Silicon Valley. If you will have a chance to take a look to the current discussion you will definitely have fun and perhaps some insight as well. --PrqStar (talk) 05:39, 19 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding style of quotes

I recently took the trouble to convert all the straight quotation marks to curly ones. I expected to be reverted, and indeed it was, but now the article has a combination of curly and straight quotes (inconsistent).

I just want to remember that MoS is just a guideline and not policy. This encyclopedia is not just online, its articles also end up printed in books.

I know that " is easier for type, but you are not encouraged to use “ and ”. If someone took the time to change those little signs, do not undo that just for following the manual of style. In that case, don’t you think that this article also should follow strictly MoS? —Fitoschido [shout] \\ 19 July, 2011 [02:10]

External link

The "External links" section doesn't seem the right place for a wikipedia article - Wikipedia:Role of Jimmy Wales - what do others think? Totorotroll (talk) 12:52, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It is, as far as this article is concerned, an external link. It would go against a neutral point of view to put it anywhere else, in my opinion. Remember, Wikipedia articles are commonly hosted elsewhere. Wikipedia is merely the framework that supports the development of these articles. Jujutacular talk 02:41, 27 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Also note, it (Wikipedia:Role of Jimmy Wales) is not a "Wikipedia article", (i.e. it is not in the article namespace) it is in the project namespace. Jujutacular talk 02:44, 27 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Jimmy Wales

Hey. It's RJennings07. I was wondering about how I can chat with other Wikipedia members.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by RJennings07 (talk • contribs) 00:17, 28 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Laws: (WIKITICS) Displaying, Creating, User Modification through process of elimination. Every modification has to meet curtain criteria to advance...

I think WIKIMEDIA needs to come up with a website where people, if given the chance, could ultimately create, modify and advance laws, to be voted on through popular public participation. Pros and cons grouped to eliminate redundancy and listed so people are fully aware of the argument. Most popular laws move to the front for easy access. This will alow math, instead of prejudice, to shape our lopsided, outdated and corrupt laws. I think a website like this could ultimately replace congress, saving the country headaches and trillions of dollars. If you eliminate congress... you minimize secret government activities. John Kelsch, Fairbanks, Alaska — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jvkfai (talk • contribs) 20:32, 19 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think this should be on User:Jimbo Wales is an article about Jimmy Wales not his user page.--70.24.211.105 (talk) 01:27, 26 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
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