Jimmy Wales

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Jimmy Wales

Jimmy Wales in December 2008
Born Jimmy Donal Wales
August 7, 1966 (1966-08-07) (age 42)
Huntsville, Alabama, U.S.A.
Nationality American
Other names Jimbo
Alma mater Auburn University
University of Alabama
Indiana University Bloomington
Occupation President of Wikia, Inc.; Board member and Chair Emeritus of the Wikimedia Foundation
Website
Personal weblog
English Wikipedia userpage

Jimmy Donal "Jimbo" Wales (born August 7, 1966)[1] is an American Internet entrepreneur known for his role in the creation of Wikipedia, a free, open-content encyclopedia launched in 2001.[2][3] He serves on the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation, holding the board-appointed "community founder" seat.[4] In 2004, he co-founded Wikia, a privately owned, free Web-hosting service, along with Angela Beesley.

Together with Larry Sanger and others, Wales helped lay the foundation for Wikipedia, which subsequently enjoyed rapid growth and popularity.[5][6] As Wikipedia expanded and its public profile grew, Wales took on the role of the project's spokesman and promoter through speaking engagements and media appearances. Wales has been historically cited as the co-founder of Wikipedia but he disputes the "co-" designation,[7] asserting that he is the sole founder of Wikipedia.[8]

Wales' work developing Wikipedia, which has become the world's largest encyclopedia, prompted Time magazine to name him in its 2006 list of the world's most influential people.[9] Wales is the de facto leader of Wikipedia;[2][10] his position on the project has gained broad media attention and has led to controversy.[9][11]

Contents

Early life and education

Wales was born in Huntsville, Alabama, United States.[12] According to his 1997 marriage certificate (to Christine Rohan) and a number of other sources, he was born on August 7, 1966,[1] although there is some uncertainty about his birth date, which is given as August 8, 1966 on his driver's license.[13] His father, Jimmy,[14] 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 early education.[12] He and only four other children were placed in the same grade, so the school grouped together the first through fourth grade students and the fifth through eighth grade students.[15]

After eighth grade, Wales attended Randolph School,[16] a university-preparatory school in Huntsville. Wales has said that the school was expensive for his family, but that "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."[15] He received his bachelor's degree in finance from Auburn University and entered the Ph.D. finance program at the University of Alabama before leaving with a Master's degree.[12][15] He then 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 for a Ph.D., something which he has ascribed to boredom.[12][15]

Career

Chicago Options Associates and Bomis

From 1994 to 2000, Wales was the research director at Chicago Options Associates,[17] a futures and options trading firm in Chicago.[15] 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.[18] During this time, one of the projects Wales undertook was the creation of the web portal Bomis[18] which featured user-generated webrings and that, according to The Atlantic Monthly, "found itself positioned as the Playboy of the Internet."[19] For a time the company sold erotic photographs,[20] and Wales described the site as a "guy-oriented search engine" with a similar market to Maxim.[15] Questions have arisen about the nature of its content.[12][21] Bomis did not become successful, but in March 2000 hosted and provided the initial funding for the Nupedia project.[12][18]

Nupedia and Wikipedia

Wikisource
Wikisource has original text related to this article:

In March 2000, Wales started a peer-reviewed, open-content encyclopedia, Nupedia ("the free encyclopedia"), and hired Larry Sanger to be its editor-in-chief.[15] Nupedia was characterized by an extensive peer-review process designed to make its articles of a quality comparable to that of professional encyclopedias.[22] After 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 and content, establishing 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 quickly overshadowed Nupedia's development.[17] Sanger worked on and promoted both the Nupedia and Wikipedia projects until Bomis discontinued funding for his position in February 2002[23]; Sanger resigned as editor-in-chief of Nupedia and as "chief organizer" of Wikipedia on March 1.[24][25] 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.[26] In the early years, Wales supplied the financial backing for the project.[5] In a 2004 interview with Slashdot, Wales explained his motivations about Wikipedia, "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."[27]

Wikimedia Foundation

In mid-2003, Wales set up the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF), a non-profit organization founded in St. Petersburg, Florida, and now based in San Francisco, California.[28][29] Originally chairman of the foundation, Wales has held the honorary title of Chairman Emeritus since 2006. He is now one of eight directors who make up its Board of Trustees.[30] The work he carries out for the foundation has always been unpaid, including his appearances to promote the organization at computer and educational conferences.[20] In a 2007 interview, Wales said that he thought that "donating" Wikipedia to the foundation was both the "dumbest and the smartest" thing he'd done. On the one hand, he noted, Wikipedia was worth US$3 billion (by his estimation); on the other, donating it made possible the success he achieved.[31]

In March 2008, Wales was accused by former Wikimedia Foundation employee Danny Wool of subsidizing personal expenditures with foundation funds. Wool also stated that Wales had his Wikimedia credit card taken away in part because of his spending habits, though Wales denied this claim.[32] Foundation Chair Florence Devouard and former foundation interim Executive Director Brad Patrick denied any wrongdoing by Wales or the foundation, saying that Wales accounted for every expense and that, for items for which he lacked receipts, he paid out of his own pocket.[33] Later in March 2008, it was alleged by Jeffrey Vernon Merkey that Wales had edited Merkey's Wikipedia entry to make it more favorable in return for donations to the Wikimedia Foundation, an allegation Wales dismissed as "nonsense."[34][35]

Wikia

In 2004, Wales and then-fellow member of the WMF Board of Trustees Angela Beesley founded the for-profit company Wikia, Inc.[17] Wikia is a wiki farm—a collection of individual wikis on different subjects, all hosted on the same website.[36] Its most popular wikis include Memory Alpha (devoted to Star Trek), WoWWiki (World of Warcraft) and Wookieepedia (Star Wars).[37] Another service offered by Wikia is an open source web search engine named Wikia Search, intended to challenge Google and introduce transparency and public dialogue about how it's created into the search engine's operations.[38] Wales stepped down as Wikia CEO to be replaced by angel investor Gil Penchina, a former vice president and general manager at eBay, on June 5, 2006.[39]

Biographical and Wikipedia issues

Philosopher Larry Sanger, whom Wales hired as editor-in-chief of Nupedia

Roles of Wikipedia creators

Wales has asserted that he is the sole founder of Wikipedia[8] and has publicly disputed Larry Sanger's designation as a co-founder of Wikipedia, describing the claim as "preposterous" to The Boston Globe in 2006.[40] However, Sanger was identified as co-founder at least as early as September 2001 by The New York Times[41] and was referred to as a founder alongside Wales in Wikipedia's first press release in 2002.[42] In addition to developing Wikipedia in its early phase and guiding the project,[5][7] Sanger was responsible for the idea of applying the wiki concept to the building of a free encyclopedia, and for the name "Wikipedia".[7][43] In a 2005 memoir for Slashdot, Sanger 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."[44] In response to Wales' statement,[specify][45] Sanger posted on his personal webpage a collection of statements confirming his role in founding Wikipedia, by referencing earlier versions of Wikipedia pages, citing Wikipedia press releases, and linking to early media coverage, all of which described Wales and Sanger as the co-founders.[46] In a discussion in March 2007 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] Wales' role in the Wikipedia community has been described as benevolent dictator, constitutional monarch, digital evangelist and spiritual leader.[47]

Wikipedia biography

In late 2005, Wales edited his own biographical entry on the English Wikipedia. Writer Rogers Cadenhead drew attention to logs showing that in his edits to the page, Wales had removed references to Sanger as the co-founder of Wikipedia.[48] Sanger commented that "having seen edits like this, it does seem that Jimmy is attempting to rewrite history. But this is a futile process because in our brave new world of transparent activity and maximum communication, the truth will out."[21][49] Wales 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.[21] In an article in the July 31, 2006, issue of The New Yorker magazine, Stacy Schiff expanded on this topic, stating that Wales was "caught airbrushing his Wikipedia entry—eighteen times in the past year" and that he was "sensitive about references to the porn traffic on his Web portal".[43] In both cases, Wales argued that his modifications were solely intended to improve the accuracy of the content.[21] He apologized for editing his own biography, a practice generally frowned upon at Wikipedia. Wales said in the Wired interview, "People should not do it, including me. I wish I had not done it."[21]

Personal life

Jimmy Wales with his second wife Christine

His first wife, Pam, was quoted in a September 2008 W magazine article as saying that Wales, because he believed altruism was evil, discouraged her from pursuing a nursing degree when they were married: "His whole 'Mr. Save the World' is so contrary to what he said every day for seven years."[50] Late in March 1997, Wales married his second wife, Christine, in Monroe County, Florida.[51] They have a daughter named Kira and are separated.[33] As of 2007, Wales resided in the St. Petersburg, Florida, area.[52]

Wales had a brief relationship with Canadian journalist Rachel Marsden in 2008 that began after Marsden contacted Wales about her Wikipedia biography.[53] After accusations that Wales' relationship constituted a conflict of interest, Wales announced in March 2008 on his Wikipedia user page (and later on his personal blog) that there had been a relationship but that it was over and that it had not influenced any matters on Wikipedia.[54][55] Marsden claimed to have learned about the breakup by reading about it on Wikipedia.[54][56]

Philosophy

Wales is a self-avowed "Objectivist to the core", and named his daughter Kira after the heroine in Ayn Rand's debut novel We the Living,[38] although he has said "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."[57] He ran an electronic mailing list on "Moderated Discussion of Objectivist Philosophy".[58] When asked about Rand by Brian Lamb in his appearance on C-SPAN's Q&A in September 2005, 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 United States 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.[15] An interview with Wales served as the cover feature of the June 2007 issue of the libertarian magazine Reason, in which Wales cited Austrian School economist Friedrich von Hayek's work on price theory and decentralised information The Use of Knowledge in Society as "central" to his thinking about "how to manage the Wikipedia project".[12]

Honors, awards and positions

Jimmy Wales receiving the Quadriga award on October 3, 2008

Published work

Notes

  1. ^ a b "Jimmy Wales". Britannica Book of the Year. 2007. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1192821/Jimmy-Wales. Retrieved on 2007-07-25. . In support of this date, the Britannica article cites:
  2. ^ a b "Brain scan: The free-knowledge fundamentalist". Technology Quarterly (The Economist). 2008-06-05. http://www.economist.com/science/tq/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11484062. Retrieved on 2008-06-09. 
  3. ^ Keen, Andrew (2008-06-02). "Andrew Keen on New Media". The Independent. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/online/andrew-keen-on-new-media-837997.html. Retrieved on 2008-06-08. 
  4. ^ "Board of Trustees/Restructure Announcement". Wikimedia Foundation website. April 26, 2008. http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Board_of_Trustees/Restructure_Announcement. Retrieved on 2008-04-27. 
  5. ^ a b c Singer, Michael (January 16, 2002). "Free Encyclopedia Project Celebrates Year One". Jupitermedia. Archived from the original on 2003-03-16. http://web.archive.org/web/20030316/siliconvalley.internet.com/news/article.php/3531_956641. Retrieved on 2008-02-27. 
  6. ^ Poe, Marshall (September 2006). "The Hive". The Atlantic Monthly. http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200609/wikipedia. Retrieved on February 29, 2008. "Wales, though, was a businessman. He wanted to build a free encyclopedia, and Wikipedia offered a very rapid and economically efficient means to that end. The articles flooded in, many were good, and they cost him almost nothing... Wales’s benign rule has allowed Wikipedia to do what it does best: grow. The numbers are staggering.". 
  7. ^ a b c d Bergstein, Brian (March 25, 2007). "Sanger says he co-started Wikipedia". MSNBC. Associated Press. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17798723/. Retrieved on 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 does not seem particularly controversial—Sanger has long been cited as a co-founder. Yet the other founder, Jimmy Wales, is not happy about it." 
  8. ^ a b Olson, Parmy (October 18, 2006). "A New Kid On The Wiki Block". Forbes. http://www.forbes.com/2006/10/18/sanger-wikipedia-citizendium-face-cx_po_1018autofacescan02.html. Retrieved on 2009-03-28. 
  9. ^ a b c Anderson, Chris (April 30, 2006). "Jimmy Wales: The (Proud) Amateur Who Created Wikipedia". Time. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1187286,00.html. Retrieved on February 17, 2008. 
  10. ^ Frith, Holden (March 26, 2007). "Wikipedia founder launches rival online encyclopaedia". The Times. http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/the_web/article1571519.ece. Retrieved on 2008-03-07. 
  11. ^
  12. ^ a b c d e f g Mangu-Ward, Katherine (June 2007). "Wikipedia and beyond: Jimmy Wales' sprawling vision". Reason (Reason Foundation) 39 (2): p. 21. http://www.reason.com/news/show/119689.html. Retrieved on 2008-10-31. 
  13. ^ Rogoway, Mike (July 27, 2007). "Wikipedia & its founder disagree on his birth date". Silicon Forest. The Oregonian. http://blog.oregonlive.com/siliconforest/2007/07/on_wikipedia_and_its_founders.html. Retrieved on October 31, 2008.. 
  14. ^ Kazek, Kelly (August 11, 2006). "Geek to chic: Wikipedia founder a celebrity". The News Courier. http://valdostadailytimes.com/entertainment/cnhinspopculture_story_223174601.html. "Doris Wales’ husband, Jimmy, wasn’t sure what she was thinking when she bought a World Book Encyclopedia set from a traveling salesman in 1968." [dead link]
  15. ^ a b c d e f g h i Lamb, Brian (September 25, 2005). "Q&A: Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia founder". C-SPAN. http://www.q-and-a.org/Transcript/?ProgramID=1042. Retrieved on 2006-10-31. 
  16. ^ Brown, David (2007-12-11). "Jimmy Wales '83". Alumni Profiles (Randolph School). http://www.randolphschool.net/alumni/welcome/profiles.asp?newsid=432566. Retrieved on 2008-10-31. 
  17. ^ a b c McNichol, Tom (May 1, 2007). "Building a Wiki World". Business 2.0 (CNN). http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/business2_archive/2007/03/01/8401010/. Retrieved on 2007-10-31. 
  18. ^ a b c Pink, Daniel H. (March 13, 2005). "The Book Stops Here". Wired. http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.03/wiki.html?pg=3. Retrieved on 2008-10-31. 
  19. ^ Poe, Marshall (September 1, 2006). "The Hive". The Atlantic Monthly. Retrieved on 2008-10-31.
  20. ^ a b Brennen, Jensen (2006-06-29). "Access for All". Chronicle of Philanthropy (USA: Chronicle of Higher Education, Inc.) 18 (18). 
  21. ^ a b c d e Hansen, Evan. "Wikipedia Founder Edits Own Bio". Wired. http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2005/12/69880. Retrieved on 2008-10-31. 
  22. ^ Gouthro, Liane (March 14, 2000). "Building the world's biggest encyclopedia". PCWorld (CNN). http://archives.cnn.com/2000/TECH/computing/03/14/nupedia.idg/. Retrieved on 2008-10-31. 
  23. ^ Sanger, Larry (January 18, 2002). "What Wikipedia is and why it matters". meta.wikimedia.org. Wikimedia Foundation. http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_and_why_it_matters&oldid=149626. Retrieved on 2008-10-31. 
  24. ^ Sanger Larry (March 5, 2007). "My resignation--Larry Sanger". meta.wikimedia.org. Retrieved on 2008-10-31.
  25. ^ Terdiman, Daniel (January 6, 2006). "Wikipedia's co-founder eyes a Digital Universe". CNET News. Retrieved on October 31, 2008.
  26. ^ "In Search of an Online Utopia". msnbc.msn. February 1, 2007. Archived from the original on 2007-04-18. http://web.archive.org/web/20070418204627/http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16926950/site/newsweek/. Retrieved on 2008-10-31. 
  27. ^ Miller, Rob "Roblimo" (July 28, 2004). "Wikipedia Founder Jimmy Wales Responds". Slashdot. http://interviews.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/07/28/1351230. Retrieved on 2008-10-31. 
  28. ^ Twist, Jo (November 5, 2005). "Open media to connect communities", BBC News. Retrieved on 2008-10-31.
  29. ^ Wikimedia foundation bylaws. Wikimedia. Retrieved on 2008-10-31.
  30. ^ Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees. Wikimedia. Retrieved on 2008-10-31.
  31. ^ Marks, Paul (February 3, 2007). "Interview with Jimmy Wales: Knowledge to the people" (Video). New Scientist (Reed Business Information Ltd.) 193 (2589): 44. http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19325896.300-interview-knowledge-to-the-people.html. Retrieved on 2008-10-31. 
  32. ^ Moses, Asher (March 5, 2008). "Wikipedia's Jimmy Wales accused of expenses rort", Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved on 2008-10-31.
  33. ^ a b Kim, Ryan (March 5, 2007). "Allegations swirl around Wikipedia's Wales". San Francisco Chronicle. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/03/05/BUVFVDM3H.DTL. Retrieved on 2008-10-31. 
  34. ^ Moses, Asher (March 11, 2008). "More woes for Wikipedia's Jimmy Wales". Sydney Morning Herald. http://www.smh.com.au/news/web/more-woes-for-wikipedias-jimmy-wales/2008/03/11/1205125874243.html. Retrieved on 2008-03-11. 
  35. ^ "Wiki boss 'edited for donation'". BBC News. March 12, 2008. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7291382.stm. Retrieved on 2008-10-31. 
  36. ^ Wikia homepage. Retrieved on 2008-10-31.
  37. ^ wikia.com - Traffic Details from Alexa
  38. ^ a b Deutschman, Alan (March 2007). "Why Is This Man Smiling?". Fast Company. http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/114/features-why-is-this-man-smiling.html. Retrieved on 2008-10-31. ""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."" 
  39. ^ "Wikia taps eBay exec as CEO". San Francisco Business Times. http://sanfrancisco.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/stories/2006/06/05/daily9.html. Retrieved on 2006-06-05. 
  40. ^ Mehegan, David (February 12, 2006). "Bias, sabotage haunt Wikipedia's free world". The Boston Globe (The New York Times Company): p. 4. http://boston.com/business/technology/articles/2006/02/12/bias_sabotage_haunt_wikipedias_free_world/?page=4. Retrieved on 2008-10-31. 
  41. ^ Meyers, Peter (September 20, 2001). "Fact-Driven? Collegial? This Site Wants You". The New York Times (The New York Times Company). http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9800E5D6123BF933A1575AC0A9679C8B63. Retrieved on 2008-10-31. "I can start an article that will consist of one paragraph, and then a real expert will come along and add three paragraphs and clean up my one paragraph."  —Larry Sanger.
  42. ^ "Free Encyclopedia Project, Wikipedia, Creates 20,000 Articles in a Year (Wikipedia 2002 Press release)". Wikipedia. January 15, 2002. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Press_releases/January_2002. Retrieved on 2009-04-04. 
  43. ^ a b Schiff, Stacy (2006-07-31). "Know It All". The New Yorker. http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/07/31/060731fa_fact. Retrieved on 2008-10-31. 
    b "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')."
  44. ^ Sanger, Larry (April 18, 2005). "The Early History of Nupedia and Wikipedia: A Memoir". Slashdot. http://features.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/04/18/164213. Retrieved on 2005-10-31. 
  45. ^ Mitchell, Dan (December 24, 2005). "Insider Editing at Wikipedia". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/24/technology/24online.ready.html?ex=1293080400&en=431aff478b00239e&ei=5090. Retrieved on 2007-10-31. 
  46. ^ Cohen, Noam (2008-03-17). "Open-Source Troubles in Wiki World". The New York Times: p. 1C. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/17/technology/17wikipedia.html. Retrieved on 2009-04-03. 
  47. ^ Cadenhead, Rogers (December 19, 2005). "Wikipedia Founder Looks Out for Number 1". cadenhead.org. http://workbench.cadenhead.org/news/2828/wikipedia-founder-looks-out-number-1. Retrieved on 2008-10-31. 
  48. ^ Blakely, Rhys (December 20, 2007). "Wikipedia founder edits himself". Times Online. http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/media/article774973.ece. Retrieved on 2008-10-31. 
  49. ^ Lipsky-Karasz, Alisa (September 2008). "Mr. Know-It-All". W magazine. http://www.wmagazine.com/celebrities/2008/09/jimmy_wales. Retrieved on 2008-10-31. 
  50. ^ Florida Marriage Collection, 1822-1875 and 1927-2001 (Requires paid membership to view). Ancestry.com. Retrieved on 2008-10-31.
  51. ^ Lewine, Edward (November 18, 2007). "The Encyclopedist’s Lair". New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/18/magazine/18wwln-domains-t.html?_r=1&oref=slogin. Retrieved on 2008-03-07. 
    C "Greatest misconception about Wikipedia: We aren’t democratic. Our readers edit the entries, but we’re actually quite snobby. The core community appreciates when someone is knowledgeable, and thinks some people are idiots and shouldn’t be writing."
  52. ^ The Canadian Press (March 2, 2008). "Canadian pundit, Wikipedia founder in messy breakup". Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2008/03/02/marsden-breakup.html. Retrieved on 2008-10-31. 
  53. ^ a b Moses, Asher (March 4, 2008). "Ex takes her revenge on Mr Wikipedia". The Sydney Morning Herald. http://www.smh.com.au/news/web/ex-takes-her-revenge-on-mr-wiki/2008/03/04/1204402405901.html. Retrieved on 2008-10-31. 
  54. ^ Bergstein, Brian (March 5, 2008). "Wikipedia's Wales defends breakup, expenses". USA Today. http://www.usatoday.com/tech/webguide/internetlife/2008-03-04-wikipedia-wales_N.htm?csp=34. Retrieved on 2008-10-31. 
  55. ^
  56. ^ Sirius, R.U. (July 29, 2007). "Jimmy Wales Will Destroy Google". 10 Zen Monkeys. http://www.10zenmonkeys.com/2007/01/29/wikipedia-jimmy-wales-rusirius-google-objectivism/. Retrieved on 2008-10-31. 
  57. ^ Wales, Jimmy (September 23, 1992). "Re: Objectivism of Ayn Rand". talk.philosophy.misc. (Web link). Retrieved on 2008-10-31.
  58. ^ SocialText (October 3, 2005). Jimmy Wales Joins Socialtext Board of Directors; Wikipedia Founder to Advise Leader in Enterprise Wiki Solutions. Press release. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_-142005_Oct_3/ai_n15657890. Retrieved on 2008-10-31. 
  59. ^ Garlick, Mia (March 30, 2006). "Creative Commons Adds Two New Board Members". Creative Commons. http://creativecommons.org/press-releases/entry/5840. Retrieved on 2008-10-31. 
  60. ^ "Knox College Honorary Degrees", knox.edu. Retrieved on 2008-10-31.
  61. ^ "EFF Honors Craigslist, Gigi Sohn, and Jimmy Wales with Pioneer Awards". Kansas City infoZine News. April 28, 2006. http://www.infozine.com/news/stories/op/storiesView/sid/14632. Retrieved on 2008-10-31. 
  62. ^ "People: Advisory board", cci.mit.edu. Retrieved on 2008-10-31.
  63. ^ Ewalt, David M. (January 23, 2007). "The Web Celeb 25". http://www.forbes.com/2007/01/23/internet-fame-celebrity-tech-media-cx_de_06webceleb_0123intro.html. Retrieved on 2008-10-31. 
  64. ^ "Participants > Speakers > Jimmy Wales". iCommonsSummit.org. 2008. http://icommonssummit.org/speakers/2008/04/jimmy-wales.html. Retrieved on 2008-10-31. 
  65. ^ "Corum announces Jimmy Wales as The Global Brand Icon of the Year Award". MattBaily.ca. September 14, 2008. http://www.mattbaily.ca/news/2008/09/14/corum-jimmy-wales-global-brand-icon-of-the-year-award/. Retrieved on 2008-10-31. 
  66. ^ "Die Quadriga Award for 'A Mission of Enlightenment' – 2008", loomarea.com. Retrieved on 2008-10-31.
  67. ^ "The Economist Innovation Awards and Summit". economist.com. October 30, 2008. http://www.economist.com/science/tq/displayStory.cfm?source=hptextfeature&story_id=10676339. Retrieved on 2008-11-08. 

External links

Wikipedia fundraising 2008: "Truth in Numbers" with subtitles at YouTube. Wales talks about the importance of supporting Wikipedia (2008).


Persondata
NAME Wales, Jimmy
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Wales, Jimbo
SHORT DESCRIPTION American Internet entrepreneur, co-founder of Wikipedia
DATE OF BIRTH August 7, 1966
PLACE OF BIRTH Huntsville, Alabama, United States
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH

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