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Jimmy Wales

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Jimmy Donal "Jimbo" Wales
Jimmy Wales (August 2006)
Born
Huntsville, Alabama, USA
Occupation(s)President of Wikia, Inc.; Chairman of the Wikimedia Foundation
WebsiteUser page on Wikipedia

Jimmy Donal "Jimbo" Wales is the founder and Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation,[1] a non-profit corporation that operates the Wikipedia project, and several other wiki projects, including Wiktionary and Wikinews. He is also founder of the for-profit company Wikia, Inc.

Personal life

Wales was born in Huntsville, Alabama. His father was a grocery store manager, while his mother, Doris, and grandmother, Erma, ran a small private school, "in the tradition of the one-room schoolhouse,"[2] where Wales was educated. There were four children in his grade most of the time, so the school grouped together first through fourth grades, and fifth through eighth grades.

A 2005 Time magazine article incorrectly reported that Wales was homeschooled.[2][3] Strictly speaking he was not, but he did note that his schooling experience was "in a sense similar",[2] since his mother and grandmother were his primary teachers. The school's philosophy of education was significantly influenced by the Montessori method, and students had a fair amount of freedom to study whatever they liked. Wales has said that he spent many hours poring over the World Book Encyclopedia during this time.[4]

From 1992 to 1996, he ran the electronic mailing list "Moderated Discussion of Objectivist Philosophy".[5]

Currently, Wales works and lives in St. Petersburg, Florida.[6]

Education

After eighth grade, Wales attended Randolph School, a college prep school, 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."[2] He received his Bachelor's degree in finance from Auburn University and started with the Ph.D. finance programs at the University of Alabama that he left with a Master's in finance.[2] 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.[2]

Career

Jimmy Wales speaking at FOSDEM 2005

In 1994, Wales became the Research Director at Chicago Options Associates, a futures and options trader in Chicago which he did until 2000.[2] By "betting 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.[7]

Bomis and Nupedia

In 1996, he founded a search portal called Bomis, which also sold adult content 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 Maxim magazine.[2] 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."[8] Wales is no longer actively involved in the company.

In March 2000, he started a peer-reviewed, open-content encyclopedia, Nupedia.com ("the free encyclopedia"), and hired Larry Sanger to be its editor-in-chief.[2]

Wikipedia

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

Using a wiki to create an encyclopedia was publicly proposed by Larry Sanger on January 10, 2001,[citation needed] and Wales worked on setting one up, starting it on January 15, 2001.[citation needed] Wikipedia was at that point a wiki-based site intended for collaboration on early encyclopedic content for submission to Nupedia for peer review, but Wikipedia's rapid growth soon made it the dominant project and Nupedia was mothballed.[citation needed] Sanger was laid off from the project in 2002.[citation needed]

In mid-2003, Wales set up the Wikimedia Foundation, a St. Petersburg-based non-profit organization, 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]

According to Daniel H. Pink from Wired magazine, by 2004, Wales had spent around US$500,000 on the establishment and operation of his Wiki projects, most of it his own funds.[7] By the end of its February 2005 fund drive, the Wikimedia Foundation was supported entirely by grants and donations.[citation needed] Wales has become increasingly involved with promoting and speaking about its projects, and to this end, he travels to conferences and Wikimedia functions, such as "Wikimeets" and Wikimania.

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."[9]

In late 2005, Wales was criticised for editing his own biography in a way some characterized as "revisionist history".[8][10][11] In particular, Rogers Cadenhead drew attention to logs showing that Mr. Wales had removed references to Sanger as the co-founder of Wikipedia.[11][12] 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.[8]

In both cases, Wales argued that his modifications were solely intended to improve the accuracy of the content.[8] Wales explained that Sanger had been his employee[13], and that he had always considered himself to be the sole founder of Wikipedia. In 2006, Wales told the Boston Globe that "it's preposterous" to call Sanger the co-founder.[14] However, Sanger strongly contests that description. He was identified as a co-founder of Wikipedia at least as early as September 2001[15] and referred to himself that way as early as January 2002.[16] [17] [18]

Following this incident, Wales apologized for editing his own biography (a practice generally frowned on at Wikipedia). Wales said in the Wired interview, "People shouldn't do it, including me. I wish I hadn't done it."[8] However, he continues to assert that he is the sole founder of Wikipedia.[14]

Wikia

Main article: Wikia

Wikia (formerly known as Wikicities) is a wiki hosting service created in October 2004 by Jimmy Wales and Angela Beesley, according to a Wikia press release.[19] It is a collection of wikis running on MediaWiki software and operated by Wikia, Inc. that target different communities. It is free of charge for readers and editors, and gets its income from advertisements. Following the change in name, Wikia announced that it had received US$4 million in venture capital from a group of investors. "'We've had a lot of interest from investors, and it was really a matter of sorting through the investors to be sure that people who are investing were people who were believers in our mission,' said Wales, who operates Wikipedia and Wikia separately from his St. Petersburg offices" reports the Tampa Bay Business Journal.[20]

Honors

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

He was appointed a fellow of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School in 2005. On October 3, 2005, according to a press release,[21] 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.[22]

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.[23]

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.[24]

Published works by Wales

Further reading

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Sources and notes

  1. ^ Wikimedia Foundation Inc. "Bylaws" (PDF). wikimediafoundation.org. Retrieved 2006-05-21.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Lamb, Brian (September 25, 2005). "Q&A: Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia founder". C-SPAN. Retrieved 2006-07-11.
  3. ^ Taylor, Chris. "It's a Wiki, Wiki World". Time. Retrieved 2005-05-29.
  4. ^ Stone, Brad (2004-11-01). "It's Like a Blog, But It's a Wiki". Newsweek. Retrieved 2006-05-20. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  5. ^ Wales, Jimmy (23 September 1992). "Re: Objectivism of Ayn Rand". Newsgroup: talk.philosophy.misc. Bv1u8x.Bnv@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu. {{cite newsgroup}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  6. ^ LaMonica, Martin. "Newsmaker:Open-Sourcing the News." CNET.com News January 7, 2005. Retrieved August 21, 2006 from http://news.com.com/Open-sourcing+the+news/2008-1025_3-5515166.html.
  7. ^ a b Pink, Daniel H. (2005-03-13). "The Book Stops Here". Wired. Retrieved 2006-10-09. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  8. ^ a b c d e Hansen, Evan. "Wikipedia Founder Edits Own Bio". Wired News. Wired. Retrieved 2006-02-14.
  9. ^ Wales, Jimmy (2004-07-28). ""Wikipedia Founder Jimmy Wales Replies"". Slashdot. Retrieved 2006-06-07. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  10. ^ Rhys Blakely. "Wikipedia founder edits himself". Times Online. Retrieved 2006-10-15.
  11. ^ a b Rogers Cadenhead. "Wikipedia Founder Looks Out for Number 1". Retrieved 2006-10-15.
  12. ^ "Wikipedia diff showing modification by Mr. Wales". Retrieved 2006-10-15.
  13. ^ Jonathan Sidener. "Everyone's Encyclopedia". San Diego Union Tribune. Retrieved 2006-10-15.
  14. ^ 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)
  15. ^ Peter Meyers (2001-09-20). "Fact-Driven? Collegial? This Site Wants You". New York Times. Retrieved 2006-10-15.
  16. ^ Sanger, Larry. "What Wikipedia is and why it matters". Retrieved 2006-04-12.
  17. ^ 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."
  18. ^ 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)
  19. ^ Beesley, Angela; et al. (February 3, 2005). "100 Wikicities". Retrieved October 15. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Explicit use of et al. in: |author= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  20. ^ Hinman, Michael. "Venture capitalists invest wiki-millions". Tampa Bay Business Journal.
  21. ^ "Wikipedia Founder Joins Socialtext Board". Socialtext. 3 October 2005. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  22. ^ "Creative Commons Adds Two New Board Members". Creative Commons. 30 March 2006. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  23. ^ "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)
  24. ^ 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)


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