Jimmy Wales

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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.

Jimmy Donal "Jimbo" Wales (born 8 August 1966) is a U.S. Internet entrepreneur and wiki pioneer who is best known as the founder of Wikipedia, an international collaborative free content encyclopedia on the Internet, and Wikimedia Foundation.

Sourced

• 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.
• I frequently counsel people who are getting frustrated about an edit war to think about someone who lives without clean drinking water, without any proper means of education, and how our work might someday help that person. It puts flamewars into some perspective, I think.
  • Slashdot Interview (28 July 2004)

• [Wikipedia is] like a sausage: you might like the taste of it, but you don't necessarily want to see how it's made.
  • Alluding to a famous quote "Laws are like sausages — it is better not to see them being made.", generally attributed to Otto von Bismarck.
  • "Who knows?". The Guardian. October 26, 2004. Retrieved on 2007-02-09. 

• It is pretty weird. A few years ago, I was just some guy sitting in front of the internet. Now I send an e-mail or edit an article and it makes headlines around the world ... I used to be just a guy — now I'm Jimmy Wales.
  • "Identity question for world's encyclopaedia", The Times Dec 30, 2005. [1]

• When someone just writes 'f**k, f**k, f**k', we just fix it, laugh and move on. But the difficult social issues are the borderline cases — people who do some good work, but who are also a pain in the neck.
  • "Who knows?", The Guardian (26 October 2004)

• Wikipedia is first and foremost an effort to create and distribute a free encyclopedia of the highest possible quality to every single person on the planet in their own language. Asking whether the community comes before or after this goal is really asking the wrong question: the entire purpose of the community is precisely this goal.
  • Wikipedia-l mailing list (8 March 2005)

• We are growing from a cheerful small town where everyone waves off their front porch to the subway of New York City where everyone rushes by. How do you preserve the culture that has worked so well?
  • As quoted in ExpressIndia (7 September 2005)

• If I see [a contributor] is publishing shit, maybe by swearing or not making sense, I warn him ...the second time he turns on, I block him.
  • As quoted in "Life, the universe and Wiki", The Sydney Morning Herald (20 September 2005)

• Frankly, and let me be blunt, Wikipedia as a readable product is not for us. It's for them. It's for that girl in Africa who can save the lives of hundreds of thousands of people around her, but only if she's empowered with the knowledge to do so.
  • Wikipedia-l mailing list (23 October 2005)

• We are Wikipedians. This means that we should be: kind, thoughtful, passionate about getting it right, open, tolerant of different viewpoints, open to criticism, bold about changing our policies and also cautious about changing our policies. We are not vindictive, childish, and we don't stoop to the level of our worst critics, no matter how much we may find them to be annoying.
  • Wikipedia-l mailing list (18 December 2005, 15:39 UTC)

• You'd be able to... pull Wikipedia articles, and be pretty sure you're not going to get a giant penis picture.
  • Wales to c|net, (23 August 2006)

• We come from geek culture, we come from the free software movement, we have a lot of technologists involved. If we had done the same sort of comparison on poets or artists, I think that we would not have fared nearly as well.
  • Wales to the Miami Herald, "Will Wikipedia change history?"

• It turns out a lot of people don’t get it. Wikipedia is like rock’n’roll; it’s a cultural shift.
  • Wales to Computerworld, "Wikipedia founder gazes into site's future" (18 August 2006), based on an earlier interview at Wikimania

• We've always had a love/hate relationship with numbers.
  • Wales to Computerworld, "Wikipedia founder gazes into site's future" (18 August 2006), based on an earlier interview at Wikimania

• Quite frankly, several of the people who contributed to the article should be banned from coming near a keyboard until they have learned to engage in proper encyclopedia writing.
  • In a discussion about Wikipedia article (07 September 2006)

• I think that argument is completely morally bankrupt, and I think people know that when they make it. There's a very big difference between having a sincere, passionate interest in a topic and being a paid shill ... Particularly for PR firms, it's something they should really very strongly avoid: ever touching an article.
  • PRWeek (30 Jan 2007) In response to suggestions Wikipedia might change policies to allow PR firms to edit the site without breaking a rule called "WP:AUTO".

• I regard it as a pseudonym and I don’t really have a problem with it.
  • On controversy regarding fraudulent claims of credentials by the user Essjay, in an e-mail to editors of The New Yorker, as quoted in The New York Times (5 March 2007)

• I don't see any particular problem with that.
  • Responding to the deletion of a Wikipedia article from non-administrator view, while the article's deletion was being reviewed by the community. (27 March 2007)

• Myspace hurts my eyes.
  • Interview with news24.com (April 2007)

• Wikipedia is a non-profit. It was either the dumbest thing I ever did or the smartest thing I ever did.
  • Keynote Speech, SXSW 2006;
  • "The wisdom of one" (25 April 2007)

• Simply having rules does not change the things that people want to do. You have to change incentives.
  • Interview with Reason magazine (June 2007)

• I think a fair number of people need to be kicked out of the project just for being lousy writers.
  • WebCite (16 May 2006)

• EssJay was appointed at the request of and unanimous support of the ArbCom.
  • Wikipedia-l mailing list (17 October 2007)

• 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.
  • "The Encyclopedist’s Lair". The New York Times. November 18, 2007. Retrieved on 2007-11-19. 

• There’s plenty of rude stuff online. People say things online that they would be ashamed to say face to face. If people could treat others as though they were speaking face to face, that would be huge.
  • As quoted in "The Encyclopedist’s Lair" in The New York Times (19 November 2007)

• I have said this many times in the past and will say it many times in the future I am sure: some people need to find a different hobby, because whatever they are here for, it is not to help build an encyclopedia.
  • Comment about "drama mongers" on the Wikipedia Administrator's noticeboard, (23 November 2007)

• Let's actually do this right now because the last thing I want to do is take a break from fucking your brains out all night to work on your Wikipedia entry :)
  • On making changes to Rachel Marsden's Wikipedia entry.

• You have caused too much harm to justify us putting up with this kind of behavior much longer.
  • On the User talk page for Giano II, regarding his public disclosure of the inflammatory contents of a private e-mail distribution list (25 November 2007)

• We are going to change the Free Documentation License in such a way that Wikipedia will be able to become licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike License. And so this is not, as some people speculated on Facebook my 50th birthday party. This is a party to celebrate the liberation of Wikipedia.
  • Announcing that the Wikimedia Foundation Board has voted to enable Wikipedia to be licensed under a Creative Commons license. "Wikipedia to be Licensed Under Creative Commons" (30 November 2007)

• The real struggle is not between the right and the left but between the party of the thoughtful and the party of the jerks.
  • "How a ragtag band created Wikipedia" - TED Talk (July 2005)

• I like and admire Larry very much. I actually think his role in the early days of Wikipedia is under-appreciated.
  • On his Wikipedia talk page. [2]

• I don't really agree that most academics frown when they hear Wikipedia. Most academics I find quite passionate about the concept of Wikipedia and like it quite a bit. [...] The number of academics who really really don't like Wikipedia is really quite small and we find that they get reported on in the media far out of proportion to the amount they actually exist.
  • Wikimania 2008 Alexandria, press conference, 0'14 (August 2008)

• We are a passionate community of volunteers who are trying to create a free encyclopedia for every single person on the planet. So we don't often think in terms of competition. We are going to do what we do and we hope Google does wonderful things as well. [...] If we were approaching this as a business we would think always: Oh, how can we position ourselves on the market... We just don't do any of that stuff.
  • Wikimania 2008 Alexandria, press conference, 0'20 (August 2008), asked about Google Knol

C-SPAN interview (2005)

Interview with Brian Lamb (25 September 2005) Transcript and Realplayer video

Wales: We help the internet not suck.

---

Wales: Our goal has always been Britannica or better quality. We don't always achieve that.

Lamb: Would you put them out of business?

Wales: You know, I don't know. I used to think so but I just was in Germany where Wikipedia is really big in Germany[..]. And Brockhaus is the — is the publisher of the Britannica style traditional encyclopedia. And their sales are up 30 percent in the last year even though Wikipedia is going through the roof. And I think there's a certain maybe there ends up being some complementarity to it that people[..]. So Wikipedia helps people to remember that hey, there is actually something to having a group of people edit, monitor, and put a level of trust to information. And so that makes Brockhaus more appealing, makes Wikipedia more appealing. So it's hard to say.

---

Lamb: Another thing I read about you is that you are a follower or have been at some point a follower of Ayn Rand?

Wales: That's right, yes.

Lamb: Who was she and do you still follow her and what is it about it that you like?

Wales: Yes. So Ayn Rand is the — she wrote Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead, as is viewed by many as, you know, something of the founder of the libertarian strain of thought in the U.S. She would have rejected quite rightly, I think, the libertarian label. But I think for me one of the core things that is very applicable to my life today is the virtue of independence — is the vision, you know, if you know the idea of Howard Roark who is the architect in The Fountainhead who has a vision for what he wants to accomplish and, you know, there's some time in the book when he is frustrated in his career because people don't want to build the type of buildings he wants to build. And he's given a choice, a difficult choice, to compromise his integrity or to essentially go out of business. And he has to go and take a job working in a quarry. And for me that model has a lot of — a lot of resonance for me. You know when I think about what I'm doing — what I'm doing and the way I'm doing it is more important to me than any amount of money or anything like that because it's my artistic work.

Lamb: What year did you read Atlas Shrugged or Fountainhead?

Wales: I guess I was around 20 when I — when I read The Fountainhead.

Citation of undated articles

• It's a very simple and pure goal. It's something that's good for the world. We're still not there by a long shot.
  • Comment to the Birmingham News, "Alabamian is brain behind Wikipedia"

• "It's been an ongoing process of figuring out how the social model actually should work, how can you control the site to generate quality," Wales said. "It's an ongoing series of modifications."
  • Comment to the Birmingham News, "Alabamian is brain behind Wikipedia"

• It's very exciting to all of us. I travel all over the world. I think that worries my mom some, (but) it's nice.
  • Comment to the Birmingham News, "Alabamian is brain behind Wikipedia"

• Like the great artists Jerry Lewis and David Hasselhoff. I'm only appreciated overseas.
  • Regarding a cancelled event in St. Petersburg, as quoted in TechNewsWorld (dead link)

• I'm more like the Queen of England — my power is decreasing over time. Soon, I'll just wave at parades.
  • As quoted in TechNewsWorld (dead link)

Unsourced

• And so, we don't need a business model, we're just doing it. ~ 200?

• Most people are good. They may not be saints, but they are good.

• Stop the huns by showing them neighborly love!

About Jimmy Wales

• The more time I spent on the site the more I came to think of Wales as some kind of Queen Ant, letting the vast colony go about its work, at the centre of a system where the knowledge of the community is infinitely larger than the sum of experience of all its individuals.
  • Adams, Tim (July 1, 2007). "For your information". The Observer. 

See also

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